Sitting of 16 October 1973

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
DEATHS OF MEMBERS
Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the deaths of Martin Maddan, Esquire, Member for Hove, and John Rankin, Esquire, Member for Glasgow, Govan, and I desire on behalf of the House to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. Members.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  DEFENCE

    Gibraltar
    Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Minister of State for Defence whether he proposes to take any additional measures for the defence of Gibraltar.
    The Minister of State for Defence (Mr. Ian Gilmour): No, Sir.
    Mr. Janner: Can the Minister assure the House that, in spite of the United Nations resolutions calling on us to leave Gibraltar, there is no intention of doing so and that proper provision will be made for the defence of Gibraltar, if necessary?
    Mr. Gilmour: The first part of the question is primarily addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that the answer is "Yes". The answer to the second part of the question is also "Yes".
    Mr. Peart: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, in respect of the defence of Gibraltar, that it was very foolish of the Government to send arms to Spain or to acquiesce in the selling of an important aircraft. Spain still threatens this area. More than that, she is not a member of NATO but is a Fascist country—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Even right hon. Members must ask a question.
    Mr. Gilmour: Strictly speaking, Spain is not a Fascist country. She may be an authoritarian country, but if we are to use words correctly she is not a Fascist country. I do not think that the sale referred to by the right hon. Gentleman was a foolish one. It was a good sale, for the sake of British industry and those working in it.

    Northern Ireland
    Mr. Hardyasked the Minister of State for Defence how many men serving in Her Majesty's Forces have completed three tours or over one and a half years' service in Northern Ireland during the last five years.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Peter Blaker): It would require disproportionate effort to provide this information on an individual basis. However, 48 units and sub-units have completed either three tours or more or 12 months or more in Northern Ireland. Emergency tours are normally of four months' duration, although they may be much shorter.
    Mr. Hardy: Will the hon. Gentleman consider establishing the period referred to in the Question, or a similar period, as the maximum length of service to be expected from any soldier in Northern Ireland? Does he not agree that if a maximum period were established it would bring great relief to the families of soldiers, particularly in those regiments and units upon which we rely most heavily?
    Mr. Blaker: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want to pay tribute to the work that our soldiers have done in Northern Ireland, as he did in a letter to my predecessor a year ago after he visited that country.
    Mr. Hardy
    Mr. Blaker: I cannot lay down a maximum time which any soldier will serve in Northern Ireland because we have undertaken that our troops will remain there as long as necessary. We try to be fair as between one unit and another and I think that we have achieved a great deal of fairness.
    Mr. Concannon: What connection does the hon. Gentleman see between such factors as Northern Ireland, the satisfaction of soldiers' families and the alarmingly low recruiting figures for the Army?
    Mr. Blaker: The morale of the soldiers has always been extremely high and continues to be so. As for the recruiting situation, the best assessment we can
    4
    Make—we cannot be exact about these matters—is that the Northern Ireland situation is having some indirect effect on recruiting because of anxieties on the part of wives and mothers. It is not the principal reason for the low recruiting figures in recent months.
    Dame Joan Vickers: How many tours have been made by the Royal Marines?
    Mr. Blaker: I cannot answer that without notice.
    Mr. Duffyasked the Minister of State for Defence whether he will make a statement on the operations of the British Army in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: The Army is continuing to assist the civil authorities in the maintenance of law and order. During the past three months the security forces have made further progress against the terrorists and have helped to bring about a welcome decline in the level of violence.
    Mr. Duffy: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen today's horrific Press reports about the trial of the Army deserter turned assassin? Is he aware that assassinations and the placing of bombs without warning now constitute perhaps the greatest threat to peace and reconciliation in the community? Will he see that the Army continues to give its present urgent attention to these two matters?
    Mr. Gilmour: The problem of sectarian murders exercises the mind of everybody very much. I am not sure that it is the greatest problem but it is a problem to which we attach great importance.
    Mr. Kilfedder: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the border with Eire is still wide open and that with few exceptions cars which might be carrying bombs, guns and terrorists from the Irish Free State are not checked on the border? Instead of the security forces in Northern Ireland being reduced, their numbers should be augmented, especially along the border, equivalent to the West German German border guard. In order to translate the casualties and the horror in Northern Ireland into an English dimension, we need to multiply by 40 the number of people killed in Northern Ireland and the 10,000 injured, some of them seriously.
    Mr. Gilmour: The whole House accepts what my hon. Friend says about the appalling level of casualties that there has been in Northern Ireland. But I am sure he realises that it would be virtually impossible to close the border, which is over 300 miles long and which is crossed each day by some 50,000 vehicles. To search every one of those vehicles would disrupt economic life on both sides of the border. I cannot agree with my hon. Friend that it is wrong to lower our force levels. We keep the matter under continuous review. It is not right to keep more units in Northern Ireland than is absolutely necessary.
    Mr. Peart: I accept that it is right to keep the matter continually under review, but there have been reports that withdrawals are imminent. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm those reports?
    Mr. Gilmour: One unit will be withdrawn this month, and one next month. They will not be replaced.

    Western Europe
    Mr. Croninasked the Minister of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the progress of the Eurogroup of Defence Ministers in strengthening and co-ordinating the defence of Western Europe and the extent to which the French Government are taking part in the group.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: We are much encouraged by the success of the European defence improvement programme in improving European force capabilities and by efforts in the group to develop practical collaboration between the European countries particularly in the equipment field. There is still much to be done, and Her Majesty's Government will continue to take part in and encourage these efforts.
    France does not at present take part in the work of the group.
    Mr. Cronin: What steps is the Minister taking through the Eurogroup of Defence Ministers to resolve the present unsatisfactory situation whereby Britain spends a much higher proportion of her gross national product on defence for Western Europe than any other country in Western Europe except Portugal?
    Mr. Gilmour: We discussed these matters in the defence debate. The pro-
    6
    portion of GNP devoted to defence is not the only criterion by which to judge these matters. Germany spends far more on the defence of Europe than we do, and France spends about the same. This is not a matter suitable for the Eurogroup.
    Mr. Hooson: Does the Minister agree that there is a deep underlying fear in this country of excessive integration with the Europeans on a defence level, and that there is a fear that that might lead to a Europe that might embark on military adventures of her own? Is it the aim of the Government to have an integrated European defence community?
    Mr. Gilmour: I do not accept that there is any such fear, either widespread or otherwise. It is the belief of most hon. Members that as European integration proceeds there will be increasing unification of the European defence effort.

    V/STOL Aircraft (Royal Navy)
    Mr. Wilkinsonasked the Minister of State for Defence whether he is now able to announce a decision on the development of a naval version of the Harrier aircraft.
    Mr. Warrenasked the Minister of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the funding of Harrier aircraft for the Royal Navy.
    Mr. Wallasked the Minister of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the future employment of V/STOL aircraft in the Royal Navy.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: I have nothing to add to the statement which I made on 23rd July.—[Vol. 860, c. 1171–5.]
    Mr. Wilkinson: Is this deeply disappointing delay due to pressures from the Treasury to cut public expenditure or to influences within my right hon. Friend's own Department which seek to get funding of a more advanced version of the aeroplane on a joint basis with the Americans? Is my right hon. Friend aware that unless the through-deck cruisers are equipped with fixed-wing V/STOL aircraft they will look singularly un-cost-effective?
    Mr. Gilmour: I accept that the delay to which my hon. Friend refers is disappointing. The reason is, as I said in

    7
    July, that the usual annual review of the forward defence programme is in progress and has not yet been completed. I do not accept that the efficacy of the through-deck cruiser depends upon the maritime Harrier. We always made it clear that we wished to go ahead with the through-deck cruiser irrespective of the maritime Harrier.
    Mr. Warren: Can my right hon. Friend enlighten me on two specific points arising from his answer and previous answers on the subject? Does the delay arise at the request of the Treasury or at the request of his Department? Secondly, what is the sum of money involved in the programme at present?
    Mr. Gilmour: My hon. Friend will appreciate that the state of the forward defence programme and Government expenditure in general is not a matter which is confined to any one Department. He will not expect me to answer the second part of his question.

    British Army of the Rhine
    Sir John Tilneyasked the Minister of State for Defence what action he proposes to take, either through a change in NAAFI prices or through adjustment of allowances, to mitigate the effects of the revaluation of the mark on British troops in Germany.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: No such action is needed. British troops in Germany continue to receive their pay and allowances at an exchange rate fixed prior to the last revaluation of the mark on 29th June 1973.
    Sir John Tilney: Has not the mark since then been revalued and the pound devalued, to the detriment of Service families?
    Mr. Gilmour: No, Sir. The mark was revalued on 29th June 1973, and the fixed exchange rate is the same as it was on 1st May.
    Mr. Wiggin: Is it not a fact that the changes in various valuations affect the purchasing power of the British soldier's family in BAOR and that the revision which will take them into account will not be made until January at the earliest? Ts not this basically dishonest?
    Mr. Gilmour: I have just told my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Sir John Tilney) that this is not so. When the mark was revalued the forces went on getting their pay in Germany at the previous rate. There is nothing dishonest about it.
    Mr. Kilfedderasked the Minister of State for Defence if he will seek to provide British television for Service men and their families in BAOR.
    Mr. Blaker: A feasibility study has been carried out and the results of this are now being considered.
    Mr. Kilfedder: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend has said, but when considering the results of the studies will he bear in mind that the wives and families of British Service men and British Service men themselves in West Germany are away from their relatives and friends and most of them do not understand the German language? It would therefore be a useful amenity for them if they were supplied with British television, and I think that it would be money well spent, especially for wives whose husbands are serving in Northern Ireland. We should remember that the American Army is provided with American television.
    Mr. Blaker: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. This is a desirable project, and that is the reason for the feasibility study.

    Robbery Suspects
    Mr. Kaufmanasked the Minister of State for Defence on how many occasions since June 1970 Ministers in his Department have taken part in meetings concerning matters within their departmental responsibilities with persons who are suspects in robbery cases.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: I am aware of only one such occasion.
    Mr. Kaufman: Am I right in believing that the case to which the right hon. Gentleman draws attention is that in which the then Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army met Mr. Kenneth Littlejohn at a time when there was a Police Gazette "wanted" notice out for Littlejohn in connection with the Smethwick robbery? If the Secretary of

    9
    State knew about that and yet sanctioned the meeting, ought he not to resign? If he did not know about it, should he not be sacked?
    Mr. Gilmour: I have not drawn attention to the case—the hon. Gentleman has—but it is not a sensible question because when my hon. Friend the then Under-Secretary of State went to see Littlejohn, for reasons which the hon. Member well knows—concern to reduce casualties in Northern Ireland, which I am sure every hon. Member would want to do—the identity of Mr. Littlejohn was not known and nobody could conceivably have known that he was wanted by the police.
    Mr. Lipton: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why in this case his Ministry did not consult the Special Branch through the Home Office or M16 through the Foreign Office before entering into these dubious negotiations?
    Mr. Gilmour: There was nothing dubious about them. There was nothing about which to consult the Metropolitan Police. All we knew was that a man said that he had information about the IRA; he gave a false name and we did not know who he was. It would have been irresponsible and careless of British Army and civilian Irish lives not to take advantage of that opportunity.
    Mr. Kilfedder: I think my right hon. Friend has agreed that it is important to get all possible information about the terrorists operating from the Free State. Does he not agree that it seems strange to extradite to Dublin a man who apparently had offered to give information about the IRA? It seems to be abandoning people who try to make a contribution to safeguarding lives in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Gilmour: I do not accept the premise on which my hon. Friend's question is based. At no stage was it suggested that any immunity from prosecution would be granted to this man. Questions of extradition are not matters for me.

    Icelandic Fisheries
    Mr. James Johnsonasked the Minister of State for Defence if he will make a statement regarding the latest situation in naval support of the deep-sea trawling fleet off Iceland, and in par-
    10
    ticular regarding arrangements made with the British Trawler Federation and the Hull Skippers Guild at the meeting in Hull on 23rd August regarding closer liaison between the trawler skippers and the Royal Navy frigates.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy (Mr. Antony Buck): Her Majesty's ships have not operated within the disputed area off Iceland since 3rd October.
    The meeting with the industry on 23rd August reviewed the general conduct of the support operation and agreed some detailed measures to improve the practical arrangements on the fishing grounds.
    Mr. Johnson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the meeting in Hull was a huge success and led to an excellent understanding between the fishing skippers and their opposite numbers, the naval commanders, but that since then events have overtaken us? I imagine that, like myself, all my colleagues on both sides of the House and people in Iceland will be glad that it now looks as if there will be an end to this unhappy affair. We wish all success to the coming talks in the Icelandic Cabinet between Mr. Johannesson and his own people.
    I know that these are not matters for the hon. Gentleman, but will he convey two things to the Leader of the House or to the Prime Minister? First, I regret that no statement is to be made in the House today on this very important matter, although we have seen references to it on the tape. Secondly, I imagine that, like myself, most Members representing fishing ports are deeply disappointed that no statement has been made by the Prime Minister today about his talks with Mr. Johannesson, the leader of the Iceland Government.
    Mr. Buck: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said about the meeting on 23rd August. It corresponds with the information in my possession, namely, that it was very successful. As to the other matters, the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that they are not for me. He will have seen the statement which has been issued. It is known that the Prime Minister of Iceland is consulting his Government and no doubt in due course the result will be put before the House.

    Royal Yacht
    Mr. Dormandasked the Minister of State for Defence what was the cost of the refit recently completed on the Royal Yacht "Britannia", and the time taken for the work involved.
    Mr. Buck: The refit of the Royal Yacht "Britannia" began on 2nd October 1972 and was completed, as planned, on 6th July 1973. The cost was £1,767,000. This is, of course, within the estimate of £1·8 million which I gave the House last December.—[Vol. 848, c. 212.]
    Mr. Dormand: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the widespread concern about the amount of the expenditure on the Royal Yacht? Is he further aware of the resentment about such expenditure at a time of severe curtailment of expenditure on such matters as schools and hospitals? Is it too much to ask that the Royal couple who are to spend their honeymoon on board and the hangers-on who use this luxury liner should occasionally make a contribution to the cost of this very expensive face-lift?
    Mr. Buck: I do not agree with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Gentleman, nor do I find the resentment of which he speaks. A contribution to the cost is made by the young Royal couple who are to spend part of their honeymoon on the Royal Yacht. It is anticipated that the ship will not have to be rerouted or its programming altered in any way because of their spending some weeks of their honeymoon on it. I think that the House will unite with me in wishing them a very happy time free from publicity.

    Littlejohn Case
    Mr. Barnesasked the Minister of State for Defence if he will clarify what is meant by the words "appropriate authorities" in the statement issued by his Department on 6th August about the Littlejohn case.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: No, Sir. It is not the normal practice to elaborate on matters of this kind.
    Mr. Barnes: Does the Minister think that the kind of "dirty tricks department" stuff in which these authorities tend to indulge contributes to our
    12
    security? Is it not the case that much of the time they are so ham-fisted and living so much in a kind of James Bond world that almost any enterprise they launch is likely to land us in the kind of highly embarrassing situation in which we landed on this occasion?
    Mr. Gilmour: It is the hon. Gentleman who is living in a James Bond world, evidently believing all the stories he has read about these activities. My hon. Friend attended the meeting because he was told that he might learn something of interest about the supply of arms to the IRA.
    Mr. Peart: I hope the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that Ministers were involved in these extraordinary activities and that Ministers should never be involved in security matters of that kind. That was why Her Majesty's Opposition, through myself, were right to demand a special inquiry at Privy Council level to investigate the matter.
    Mr. Gilmour: It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to go on repeating that Ministers should not be involved in these matters, but the fact is that the gentleman concerned said that he would talk only if he met someone whose face he knew from the television. [Laughter.] If the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) thinks that the business of trying to save lives in Northern Ireland is funny, he should tell us. The right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) will freely agree that this was a genuine attempt to see whether this man had information which should be gained. It could not be gained in any other way, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that if he had been in the same position as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State he would have behaved in exactly the same way.
    Mr. Peart: But the right hon. Gentleman must appreciate that we on this side of the House are anxious about security and to save lives. Is he not aware that independent inquiries have always argued that politicians should not be involved in these matters?
    Mr. Gilmour: I agree that that is so in many cases, but in this particular case—and no one has been able to dispute this—there was no alternative.

    Cadet Forces (Vehicle Supply)
    Mr. Fortescueasked the Minister of State for Defence what arrangements are made to supply surplus or used vehicles from the armed services to the cadet forces; how these arrangements differ as between the three Services; and if he will investigate the possibility of improving the arrangements in the near future.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: The arrangements for the supply of surplus or used Service vehicles to the three cadet forces differ and I am writing to my hon. Friend explaining in detail the differences. I am examining the possibility of improving these arrangements, within the constraints imposed by the defence budget and the availability of suitable surplus vehicles.
    Mr. Fortescue: In view of the paltriness of the receipts for the sale of these vehicles, would not the cause of defence be better served by making them available to the cadet forces either free or at a very reduced rate, so that youngsters can see more of the Services to which they are attached and so that, in particular, those based in our big cities may have the chance of seeing something of the countryside rather than staying on the streets?
    Mr. Gilmour: The practice in the Services differs on this matter and I am looking into it to see whether it is right to unify the practice and to help the cadet forces in that way. However, my hon. Friend will agree that we give considerable help to the cadet forces, to the extent of about £10 million a year.
    Mr. Loveridge: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when members of the cadet forces are killed in civilian accidents in such used vehicles their next of kin are unfairly denied rights which they would have had if the accident had occurred to a member of the civil services? That is due to the provisions of Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947. Will my right hon. Friend amend it to ensure equity?
    Mr. Gilmour: That is an interesting and important question on which my hon. Friend and I have had a certain amount of correspondence; but it does not strictly arise on this Question.

    Low-Flying Exercises
    Mr. David Steelasked the Minister of State for Defence how long any particular town is used continuously by the RAF for low-flying exercises.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force (Mr. Anthony Kershaw): Low-flying training is not undertaken over urban areas.
    Mr. Steel: I am grateful to the Minister for the lengthy letter he wrote to me on this subject. While my constituents fully accept the need for low-flying operational exercises, there is a feeling in the town of Hawick that the people there have been taking more than their fair share in the last few months. Will the Minister consider shifting some exercises elsewhere after a suitable period?
    Mr. Kershaw: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for explaining to his constituents how necessary this nuisance is. If deliberate low flying over Hawick or any other of the nine towns in the hon. Gentleman's constituency is proved, that is a matter for disciplinary action. If he will let me have specific details I will have the matter investigated.
    Mr. Marten: How big does a town have to be before it qualifies as an urban area?
    Mr. Kershaw: It has to be as big as Hawick.
    Mr. John: Although I cannot use that as a convenient measuring stick, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to reconsider his decision? Low flying occurs in South Wales in the constituency of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. John Morris). Will the hon. Gentleman reconsider these extremely inconveniencing flights, which cause dislocation to civilian life in those parts?
    Mr. Kershaw: I appreciate the discomfort which is caused. As far as possible we fly over areas which are less populated than others. That means that Wales and parts of Scotland are suitable for low-flying activities, and I am sorry for the inconvenience caused.
    Sir G. de Freitas: In my constituency there are 69 villages, and the hon. Gentleman has written to me pointing out that

    15
    it is a low-flying area. We object to that area constantly being used as a low-flying area. Why cannot we take it in turn with other areas?
    Mr. Kershaw: If we always had to allocate low flying to a particular area, the people living in the area would be driven half out of their minds. Spreading the butter evenly makes it more palatable.

    Photic Drive Equipment
    Dr. David Owenasked the Minister of State for Defence what discussions have taken place between his Department and Allen International on the "photic drive" equipment capable of inducing an epileptic fit and other side effects; whether any testing of such equipment has been undertaken for his Department; and whether any purchase or commitment to purchase such equipment has been made by his Department.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: Staff from the Ministry of Defence have had brief exploratory discussions with Allen International to ascertain the nature of the equipment and its mode of operation. No testing of the equipment has been undertaken by my Department, and no purchase or commitment to purchase has been made.
    Dr. Owen: Is the Minister aware that it is a serious matter to induce an epileptic fit and that such a method should certainly not be used for crowd control? Will he undertake to see that such equipment will not be further developed or used without the House first being informed?
    Mr. Gilmour: It is not for me to decide whether equipment is developed. It is a matter for the firm. We are concerned to have methods of crowd control other than the use of live bullets. We are nowhere near that yet. The safety aspects to which the hon. Gentleman refers would be taken into account before we considered such development. The hon. Gentleman is miles ahead of events.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Industrial Noise
    Mr. Torneyasked the Secretary of State for Employment if his Department
    16
    will undertake research into the connection between continuous industrial noise and the desire of those affected to make love, and into the amount of impotence caused by such noise.
    The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. R. Chichester-Clark): No, Sir.
    Mr. Torney: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that full answer. Is he aware that a recent report by German doctors stated that industrial noise can take away the desire for love-making and cause impotence? Does he realise the effect of this on family life? [Laughter.] Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides might well laugh, but does the Minister agree that factory noise is a serious matter and that insufficient research has been done on the general effect of noise on factory workers—not only on this point? Will he ensure that research is done into this matter and report back to the House?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: The answer to that comprehensive supplementary question is that I have seen the report to which the hon. Gentleman refers. We have been unable to trace the source of the report, either officially or through the Press, but it is believed to be West Germany. I have no information to offer the hon. Gentleman on that. Certainly, noise in factories is a matter which my Department takes seriously. Last year we published a code of practice in this matter, and consultations about possible legislation are continuing. The matter raised in the Question is somewhat emotive. If such an investigation were to be carried out—and we have no evidence that it is necessary—it would probably be best done by an independent body.
    Sir John Hall: Is my hon. Friend aware that the volume of noise measured in decibels experienced in a discotheque is far greater than that which would be allowed by a factory inspector? So far as can be discovered, this has had no effect on the sexual virility of the young people taking part.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: I have no doubt that my hon. Friend is right. I have on occasion noticed some noise after dinner in this Chamber.

  SOCIAL SERVICES

    Audley Health Centre
    Mr. Goldingasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will approve the loan sanction for the Audley Health Centre.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Alison): I regret that loan sanction could not be given in this financial year. Depending upon the degree of priority given to it by the Staffordshire County Council, in consultation with the executive council, the scheme will be considered for a possible start during 1974–75.
    Mr. Golding: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this health centre is one of the first victims of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's axe? The £300 million tax handout to the rich has resulted in the deferment of such schemes within the National Health Service. Will the Minister fight within the Government for improvements in the National Health Service and in particular for increased expenditure on health centres?
    Mr. Alison: The hon. Gentleman's comments are wide of the mark. Capital expenditure on health centres has now reached an unprecedented level approaching £12 million a year. That is about one-third as much again as in the last financial year. It is simply a question of sharing out resources between health centres and a number of other important causes within the National Health Service.
    Dr. Summerskill: Will the Minister bear in mind that local authorities throughout the country cannot understand why, on the one hand, they are encouraged to develop health centres and, on the other hand, when they draw up plans they are told that the Government cannot afford them?
    Mr. Alison: The hon. Lady will be only too glad, after many years of active persuasion both by the Labour Party when in power and by the present Government to encourage doctors to move towards health centre practices, that at last there has been almost an avalanche of response.

    Broadmoor Hospital (Suicides)
    Mr. Dribergasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many suicides there have been in Broadmoor Hospital during each of the past five years; what means of suicide were used; and what precautions against further suicides are being taken.
    Mr. Alison: In the five years ended December 1972 there were 11 cases. I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a breakdown of this figure and the means adopted.
    In general, prevention lies in skilled observation by staff, but in appropriate cases patients are secluded and deprived of material which might be used to harm themselves.
    Mr. Driberg: Especially in view of what the hon. Gentleman has just said about skilled observation, is he aware of the recent case of a young girl patient in Broadmoor who slashed her wrists, recovered, but was put into a single cell, apparently without observation, and managed to hang herself? Has there been an inquiry into that case?
    Mr. Alison: I would rather not comment at the Dispatch Box on that particular case, but I will look into it and write to the hon. Gentleman.
    Following are the details:

    Year

    Number of suicides

    1968

    1

    1969

    1

    1970

    2

    1971

    4

    1972

    3

    The means adopted in six cases was strangulation using clothing or bedding, in three cases suffocation with plastic bags and in two cases hanging.

    Scientology
    Sir John Hallasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has now completed his consultations following the Foster Committee's Report on Scientology; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Alison: My right hon. Friend is still in consultation with my colleagues about this report and is not yet able to make a statement.
    Sir John Hall: Is my hon. Friend aware that it is nearly five years since the inquiry was first initiated and 10 months since the report was laid before the House? Even criminals are entitled to expect sentence to be passed with less delay than that. Cannot my hon. Friend expedite the decision and remove the uncertainty from which these people are suffering?
    Mr. Alison: My hon. Friend will be aware of the complex aspects and issues raised by the report, particularly the recommendation that psychotherapy for reward should be statutorily controlled. A great many interests, professional and extra-governmental, are involved. We are pressing ahead with consultations and will bring them to a conclusion as soon as we practicably can.
    Dame Joan Vickers: In view of the serious allegations made against the Moorhaven Hospital concerning which I have written to my hon. Friend, will he please give an adequate reply in the near future?
    Mr. Alison: That is another question. My hon. Friend, as she says, has written to me about this case, which concerns me greatly, and I shall be in touch with her about it.

    Supplementary Professions
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the average earnings of qualified physiotherapists, radiographers and speech therapists, and the approximate shortages of these National Health Service workers nationally.
    Mr. Alison: Information on earnings as distinct from rates is not available centrally and would require a special survey. I am well aware that many authorities would wish to employ more of these professions but, in the absence of any generally accepted yardstick for measuring the need, it is not possible to make a meaningful estimate of national shortages.
    Mr. Allaun: Surely the Minister is aware that after three years' training without pay these people have a starting wage of £24 a week. Will he undertake to raise these disgracefully low wages without delay? Is he aware that because of these low wages many patients in hospitals are waiting unnecessarily, and in
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    pain, for treatment because the hospitals are only 50 per cent. staffed in these departments?
    Mr. Alison: The Whitley Council has agreed to revised salaries effective from 1st April 1973 for basic grade physiotherapists, radiographers and others, details of which I can send to the hon. Member. The agreement has received Pay Board approval and the new scales were promulgated in September. Additional payments are made for emergency work outside normal working hours.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Is the Minister aware that these people are grossly inadequately paid? Hon. Members on both sides of the House are receiving correspondence to this effect. Can the Minister give an assurance that, if the wages proposed fall outside the scope of phase 3 of the prices and incomes policy, they will still be made effective?
    Mr. Alison: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman any such assurance. He will recall that, in a debate which we had before the Summer Recess, which dealt at least with speech therapists, it was pointed out that the level of pay was only one of the factors which contribute to the shortage of staff in this field.
    Mr. Thorpe: Will the Minister bear in mind that, in the quest for these low-paid workers to be given substantially more, he will receive very little assistance from Her Majesty's Opposition which at its recent annual conference defeated the idea of guaranteed minimum earnings?
    Mr. Alison: I note that helpful intervention. The right lion. Gentleman will recall that the Whitley Council is involved in these negotiations.

    Medical and Dental Services (Schoolchildren)
    Mr. Jesselasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will arrange under the National Health Service Reorganisation Act for regular medical and dental provision for children in both local authority and private schools.
    Mr. Alison: Yes, Sir. I shall ask the new area health authorities to continue to provide medical and dental inspection and treatment services for children in schools maintained by local education authorities and, so far as resources permit, in other schools when the proprietors

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    or governing bodies wish to use those services.
    Mr. Jessel: Will my hon. Friend say a little more about what he means by "so far as resources permit"? Does he not agree that it would be equitable for children of both private and State schools to receive equivalent treatment and facilities?
    Mr. Alison: The provision of medical and dental inspection and treatment services in private schools is, in the first place, a matter for the proprietors or governors of those schools. Some have arranged with local education authorities to provide such services and the new area health authorities will continue these arrangements. In the last analysis the health authorities must have regard to the staff at their disposal and the first priority must obviously go to the State sector.

    Speech Therapists
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Secretary for Social Services if he will give an assurance that the speech therapists will obtain their grading structure before the area health authorities have made their staffing arrangements.
    Mr. Alison: I am sure that the Whitley council will wish to reconsider grading structure proposals as soon as management arrangements for speech therapy services in the reorganised National Health Service can be made known.
    Dame Irene Ward: Is my hon. Friend aware that speech therapists have been waiting for four years to obtain their grading structure? This is far too long and I protest against the delay. Can my hon. Friend give a better reply?
    Mr. Alison: I tremble at any protest which arises from that quarter, but my hon. Friend will know that very complicated professional factors are involved in this matter. There is a proper and established forum for conducting these negotiations and there is good will on both sides and a desire to reach a satisfactory conclusion. The fact that this takes time only demonstrates the real professional and practical difficulties involved.
    Mr. Pavitt: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this announcement is too little and comes too late? Does he not
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    agree that, unless he takes immediate and urgent action, there will be no such thing as a speech therapy service in this country? Will he do something about it immediately?
    Mr. Alison: I cannot accept that. Speech therapy services in this country have been increasing and the numbers in post are rising, although not as rapidly as we would wish. The Quirk Committee recommendations have been noted and accepted by the Government. I believe that we shall reach the targets of the increased numbers in post which the Quirk Committee projects for the next decade. I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's strictures.

  LEICESTER
  Mr. Greville Dannerasked the Prime Minister whether he will pay an official visit to the city of Leicester.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I visited Leicester last September but I have at present no plans to make a further visit.
  Mr. Janner: By how much has the cost of living risen since the Prime Minister assured the citizens of Leicester during the General Election that, if his party was elected, the cost of living would be held down? Does he appreciate the grave hardship being caused by the increase in the cost of living and especially by the increase in the cost of food?
  The Prime Minister: If the hon. and learned Member wishes to put down a Question on the cost of living, he had better do so.

  COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' CONFERENCE
  Mr. Barnesasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.
  The Prime Minister: The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting was held in Ottawa from 2nd to 10th August. I know that I speak for all Heads of Government when I say how pleased everyone was that Her Majesty the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth and Queen of Canada was able to be

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  present for the first four days of the conference.
  Under the skilful chairmanship of Mr. Trudeau, the atmosphere at this conference was one of direct and informal discussion and as such it provided a valuable opportunity for the leaders of a quarter of the world's population to exchange ideas, to influence each other's policies and to understand each other's point of view on a wide range of subjects.
  A copy of the communiqué issued at the end of the meeting has been placed in the Library.
  Mr. Barnes: Would not the Prime Minister agree that the area in which the Commonwealth probably has most to contribute, if the will is there, concerns the gap between the rich and the poor nations? With regard to the trap in which some developing nations find themselves being caught—of being permanent producers of primary agricultural products—can the Prime Minister say whether the reference in the communiqué to the need to study the means for getting a proper relationship between industrial goods and agricultural products is really meant and that something will be done about it?
  The Prime Minister: This was one of the most important subjects discussed during the conference. It was recognised at the time by the developing members of the Commonwealth that as a result of of high raw material prices they were in a stronger position than previously. The point of discussion was to find a permanent means of dealing with the problem which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. There was a variety of proposals put forward by the Heads of Governments of the Commonwealth and it was agreed that this should be examined further. But in particular I explained the one which we ourselves put forward to UNCTAD in 1964 and on which a great deal of work has now been done.
  Mr. Edward Taylor: As one of the key paragraphs in the communiqué referred specifically to the need to promote international commodity agreements, may I ask what progress has been made in this regard towards agreements which are fair to the producer and consumer, in particular on tea, which is a special problem?
  The Prime Minister: As regards general commodity agreements, this is a matter for the GATT negotiations which have recently begun in Tokyo and for the European Economic Community in the discussions which we have begun with countries which wish to enter into particular trading arrangements with us. At the moment I cannot offer my hon. Friend any further proposals on commodities.
  Mr. Hooson: Can the Prime Minister say what discussions took place at the conference on possible changes in the common agricultural policy of the EEC and in particular whether there was any agreement about trying to amend it to enable more sugar from the developing countries to be imported into the Community?
  The Prime Minister: The question of the common agricultural policy did not feature in the discussions with the Heads of the Commonwealth countries. Sugar was not an issue. They all accepted the situation of 1·4 million tons coming into the Community every year.

  CBI AND TUC (TALKS)
  Mr. Skinnerasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his latest talks with the CBI and TUC.
  The Prime Minister: During the recess I held three meetings with the CBI and four meetings with the TUC in preparation for the Government's proposals for stage 3 of the counter-inflation programme, which were published on 8th October. We have now invited the views of the CBI and the TUC, and of other interested bodies, on these proposals. I am meeting the CBI this afternoon and the TUC next Monday.
  Mr. Skinner: When the Prime Minister next meets the TUC, will he confirm or deny the report in today's Daily Telegraph which suggests that he is to put a curb on the Price Commission in regard to notification of price increases caused by his Government? Will he also tell the TUC why, in these "phoney" package deals, Sir John Stratton, the chairman of one of the biggest meat marketing groups in this country, should have a pay increase of £300 a week and

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  more during the so-called freeze and phases 1 and 2? Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that these packages are simply a bumper bundle for the bosses and a penny rattle for the workers?
  The Prime Minister: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's last statement. Concerning the case which I have seen reported in the Guardian today, I obviously have no specific knowledge of this, but I am having the details obtained. Concerning the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I am prepared to discuss any of these matters with the TUC. The point to which the hon. Gentleman referred is one which has been raised by the Price Commission itself in its report. It is, therefore, a point to which the Government must give consideration and on which the Government will in due course make a statement.
  Sir Gilbert Longden: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind throughout these conversations that the CBI does not by any means represent all employers in this country and that the TUC does not by any means represent all the employees?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, that fact is absolutely true. Our consultations are not limited to those two bodies. We have had discussions in the preliminary stage with the retailers and with others, and all organisations have been asked to send their views on the consultative document if they so wish. Concerning those who are not members of any organisation, it remains the responsibility of the Government and of Parliament to look after their welfare.
  Mr. Grimond: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a very serious situation is arising in those areas of Scotland which are affected by oil, where the local authorities and established industries cannot raise their wages sufficiently and are therefore losing their labour to new jobs at much higher rates? At his next meeting with the CBI and the TUC, will the right hon. Gentleman discuss how exceptions can be made in those areas, similar to those which I understand have been agreed for London?
  The Prime Minister: Exceptions have not been agreed for London. What is provided for in the code, which we shall
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  be discussing tomorrow, is arrangements about the London allowance which respond to the difference in the cost of living in the metropolis as compared with the cost of living in other parts of the country. The right hon. Gentleman put his finger on the danger point. In any situation where industries are paying higher wages than some of the older industries, people may move to better wage rates. But surely one does not solve the problem by counter-bidding for people, in order to move them from one factory to another and then back again. In Scotland there are still, alas, over 80,000 unemployed people, and surely we ought to concentrate our efforts and thought on enabling them to take up the jobs which are available in the East of Scotland and provide the necessary training for them.
  Mr. Kinsey: My right hon. Friend will be aware that pensioners were not at the meeting with the CBI, but they are grateful to him for protecting them and giving them the £10 bonus. What they are asking, however, is whether it will be tax-free this year?
  The Prime Minister: The answer to that is "Yes, Sir".
  Mr. Atkinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what is the difference between his statement on phase 3 and an autumn Budget? Secondly, what were the benefits of doing it in the way that he chose to make the announcements? Thirdly, does he not recall that throughout the four meetings he has had with the TUC representatives, they failed to agree on about nine of the ten basic proposals contained in the phase 3 White Paper? Why is the right hon. Gentleman so surprised that the TUC has now rejected the proposals, having failed to agree on four occasions?
  The Prime Minister: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman's analysis of the area of agreement. The TUC has asked to see me further to discuss the matter. As I have announced, we are meeting again on Monday and we can then carry the discussions further.
  Concerning the announcement, that was made because stage 3 is to come into force a year after the standstill began to operate, and if the proper consultations were to be carried through it had to be

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  announced at that time. Had it not been announced, Parliament could not be debating it tomorrow.

  DEFENCE LAND
  Mr. Sydney Chapmanasked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Ministry of Defence and the Department of the Environment with reference to the release of defence lands following the recommendations of the Nugent Report.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The Departments are in close touch about the implications of the report. We are considering carefully public comment on it before making our decisions.
  Mr. Chapman: Will my right hon. Friend indicate when a statement will be made? Will he confirm that among the matters that will be dealt with are the 31,000 acres recommended for release outside the national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty which should be made available for housing and, more specifically, that the 16 miles of coastline recommended for release will be released and that the public will have permanent and complete access to those parts of the coastline?
  The Prime Minister: I would hope that we can reach decisions before the end of the year. Obviously I could not make a promise that we shall be able to announce them before Parliament rises, but I hope to be able to announce them early in the New Year. We shall certainly consider my hon. Friend's second point. On the third point, action is already in hand to dispose of the properties covering the 16 miles of coastline to which he has referred, which involves about 1,700 acres and the whole or parts of some 18 defence establishments, because we felt that we could already get on the way with those.
  Mr. Blenkinsop: While welcoming the announcement of the potential release of some of the areas recommended in the report may I ask the Prime Minister to give an assurance that there will be a continuing review of some of the other areas still being retained?
  The Prime Minister: We have not made any provision for that at present,
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  but after we have reached decisions on the specific proposals of the Nugent Committee I am perfectly prepared to consider that suggestion.
  Mr. Evelyn King: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the village of Lulworth, which is nearest to the range concerned, in a recent poll over 90 per cent. of the people wished the Army to stay? Is he further aware that Dorset County Council planning committee, the local urban district council, the rural district council, the trade unions concerned and every other democratically elected body also wish the Army to stay and wish me to represent that view? In any decision that may be taken, will my right hon. Friend have regard to the fact that those who are chiefly concerned are those who live in the area?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I am fully aware of this position. Although at times it may seem rather obvious that people wish the Services to leave the land and areas that they occupy, now that these proposals have been made and published there is a considerable body of opinion which expresses the view that the Services should not give up a particular area of land with which they are concerned. We shall have to consider all the observations made to us before we reach decisions and put them forward.

  COUNTER-INFLATION POLICIES
  Mr. Kaufmanasked the Prime Minister whether he feels that any changes require to be made in the coordination of the Treasury, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Employment to further the counter-inflation policies of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Prime Minister: Not at present.
  Mr. Kaufman: Having sought to devalue Parliament by making his statement on counter-inflation to a presidential Press conference rather than to the House, is the Prime Minister now affirming in his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that he is about to attempt to bamboozle the country over inflation by gagging the Price Commission? Is this open government?
  The Prime Minister: What I told the hon. Gentleman was that the Price Commission's suggestion will be examined.
  Mr. Redmond: Will my right hon. Friend say what proportion of the applications for price increases put to the commission was approved?
  The Prime Minister: The Price Commission has set out in its report all the details of those it rejected or got altered and the minority which it approved.
  Mr. Healey: Does the Prime Minister agree that one does not have to be either frustrated or a fanatic to think, like the Daily Telegraph, that it is the unprecedented profligacy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that is primarily responsible for the inflation from which the country is now suffering?
  The Prime Minister: There is no truth in that allegation, from whichever source it comes.

  SOCIAL POLICIES (PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  Mr. Meacherasked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech to the Buckinghamshire Conservative Associations at Aylesbury on 13th July on his social policies.
  The Prime Minister: I did so on 16th July, Sir.
  Mr. Meacher: As in that speech, the Prime Minister made claims about increasing national wealth, may I ask whether he is aware that he deceived the House in July by claiming that real incomes rose in the first quarter of this year when, in fact, they fell? Is he also aware that he is now deceiving the country by claiming that real earnings have risen under phase 1 and phase 2 when the retail price index which he uses omits mortgage repayments, which have risen by 40 per cent. over the last six months, which has made the country not richer but poorer?
  The Prime Minister: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman's conclusion. If he wishes to argue statistics, perhaps he will let me have them.

MIDDLE EAST
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will make a statement on the situation in the Middle East.
The whole House will share the Government's profound anxiety and disquiet that the long dispute between the Arab countries and Israel should once more have flared into a further round of bitter warfare. The fighting which began on Saturday afternoon, 6th October, is still continuing and there have been many hard battles and a high rate of casualties. The Government especially deplore the loss of innocent civilian life which has occurred and we call upon all the Governments engaged in the war to do everything within their power to avoid civilian casualties.
I regret to have to inform the House that one British citizen, Mrs. Burak, is believed to have died in the bombing of Damascus. We know of no other British casualties. Her Majesty's Ambasador at Damascus advised members of the small British community there to leave on 12th October. Our Ambasasdors in the other countries involved in the conflict are in close touch with the British communities. We have not so far thought it necessary to advise further evacuation. But we have advised all British subjects to keep clear of the war zone.
When the hostilities broke out, Her Majesty's Government called for an immediate cease-fire, and suspended all shipments of arms to the battlefield. We did this because we considered it inconsistent to call for an immediate end to the fighting and yet to continue to send arms to the conflict. This seems to me to be the best posture from which to make an effective contribution to a constructive settlement. As regards the effect of the embargo we have supplied a limited number of arms to both sides in recent years. Whereas in 1967 an embargo would have discriminated against Israel it is now even-handed. I would like to add here that British military facilities overseas have not been and are not being used for the transit of military supplies to the battlefield.

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We also sought to bring the Security Council into action at once but neither side was willing to contemplate a ceasefire, except on terms totally unacceptable to the other. The Security Council has met several times but has been unable to find a consensus on any action.
Her Majesty's Government have therefore been engaged in consultation with other Governments with the twin objectives of bringing about an end to the fighting and ensuring that urgent steps are at last taken to implement in full Security Council Resolution 242. The nine countries of the European Community joined in issuing an appeal to this effect on 13th October. Resolution 242 still offers the best chance of a settlement because to it and it alone both Arabs and Israelis subscribe.
Three years ago at Harrogate I put forward our suggestions about how Resolution 242 might be put into effect. I outlined how a permanent settlement of the boundary question might be reached which could satisfy both the demand of the Arab States for Israeli withdrawal and the equally legitimate demand of Israel, which we all support, for recognition within secure boundaries.
Clearly no settlement can be imposed. But unless the future is merely to be a repetition of the futile and dangerous confrontation of the past a new effort at conciliation must be made.
I feel that the ingredients of a settlement will have to include action by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the introduction of an international force first to police a cease-fire and then to guarantee the terms of a settlement. It will be necessary too, I believe, to establish demilitarised zones.
The success of any initiative must depend on the state of the battle. Timing will therefore be all important. We are ready to play our part in the making of peace and the keeping of it, so vital is it to the whole world that peace should be re-established in this area.
We will do our best to turn what appears to be a disaster now into an opportunity for securing a permanent settlement in the Middle East. I will of course keep the House regularly informed of developments.
Mr. Callaghan: While joining the Foreign Secretary in expressing regret
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about the death of Mrs. Burak and being relieved that no other British citizens have been involved or killed, may we express our regret about the deaths and casualties on both sides in a conflict which has such potential dangers for the rest of the world?
I think that the major criticism being made of Her Majesty's Government at the moment concerns this question of the arms embargo and whether it is evenhanded. The Government say that their intention is that it should be. But will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this question of the supply of arms? I think that it is basically a matter of ammunition for the Centurion tanks, and it may be spare parts as well, although my information is that basically it is ammunition. Is it the case that the Israelis had a shipment ready to go before the battle broke out, that it was delayed purely on the technical ground that another consignment would be ready within a few days and that the battle started between those two dates? If that is so and if the Government wish to be even-handed, ought not they to allow this consignment of ammunition, and possibly the spare parts as well, to go to Israel in order to preserve the neutral position which they say they intend to adopt?
As for the ingredients of a settlement, I agree with those that the Foreign Secretary put forward. But may I add two others? Is not it also necessary for the ingredients to include direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Arabs and, secondly, provision for a settlement, as a result of discussions, between Israel and representatives of the Palestinian Arabs who are refugees if we are to get a permanent settlement in the Middle East? Does not the present conflict show that boundaries are perhaps less important than confidence and trust in this matter and that that is the only way, together with international boundaries, in which we shall get a settlement?
Fourthly, we shall certainly support the Foreign Secretary if he continues to use the United Nations, however unpromising the Security Council may appear at the moment, in an attempt to get a settlement. We are also very happy if the right hon. Gentleman continues direct discussions with other countries to make sure, if possible, that a cease-fire is

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brought about. I understand from a report which I heard on the wireless that there is to be a debate on this subject. In that debate I hope that the Foreign Secretary will tell us more about the attitudes of the United States and the USSR to the supply of arms. As I understand it, both appear reluctant to be dragged into the conflict. But if it escalates it will represent the most serious danger of world conflict that we have had for many years.
The right hon. Gentleman did not refer to the problem of oil supplies. I hope that he will make it clear to anyone who is using such threats that we are not likely to be intimidated by threats of dislocation to our oil supplies and that such threats will not cause us to change a policy which we believe to be right. That would be monstrous. If we were to pay such a price now we would merely find that the price escalated on a second occasion. If that suggestion is ever put forward, I hope that the Foreign Secretary will deal with it summarily despite the dislocation that it might cause.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has one advantage over me in that I did not hear on the wireless that there was to be a debate. I shall be very happy to take part in one whenever it is arranged.
On the right hon. Gentleman's point about the arms embargo and whether it is even-handed, I agree that this is what is causing quite a lot of anxiety. The right hon. Gentleman knows that no Government ever disclose what the sales of arms are. I have gone into this matter with meticulous care. It can be fairly described as "even-handed". There were items, for example, for which both Israel and Egypt had already paid, but they had not been shipped, and a difference was made between those on the sea and those which had not left these shores. That seemed to be the only line that we could draw. It is a difficult problem, as the House will understand.
I am not giving away any secrets when I say that we supply Centurion tanks and ammunition to Jordan as well as to Israel. Does it make sense, when a war has broken out, to go on supplying both countries so that the war will escalate? I will, of course, keep this whole matter
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under review as the war proceeds. However, I am sure that the embargo provides us with the best posture for a peacemaking effort. That is what matters. The war should be stopped. There should be a cease-fire and we should get down to negotiations about a settlement.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether there must not be direct contacts. This has been the weakness in the situation all the time. There have been no direct talks between Israel and Egypt, except under the chairmanship of Dr. Jarring, but those talks broke down, as the right hon. Gentleman will remember very well. They may get back into direct talks, but I do not think that they will be able to come to an agreement without assistance. We must therefore stand by to give assistance.
As to the Soviet Union and the United States, there is a massive airlift operation on both sides.
Finally, I hope that there will be no threats of the kind that the right hon. Gentleman suggested might be made about oil. There have been no threats so far, and I hope that they will not be made. I endorse what the right hon. Gentleman said about them.
Mr. Walters: While entirely accepting what my right hon. Friend said about the timing of any United Nations intervention being absolutely crucial—and he alone can decide it—may I ask whether he agrees that it is a manifest British and Western interest at the present time not to allow the Arab countries to feel that they have only the Soviet Union to which to turn for either military or political help?
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: This was one of the reasons why we have taken so much trouble in recent years to get closer to Egypt and other Arab countries. We have succeeded in doing this by not taking sides—I emphasise "not taking sides"—and assuring them that there is some alternative to total reliance on the Soviet Union.
Mr. Thorpe: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that for any lasting settlement we must at least establish the facts? Does his information confirm that of United Nations' observers that this war was unleashed by two Arab States against the State of Israel?

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Secondly, if that be the case, does it not underscore the point he made that any settlement must ensure that Israel has frontiers which will secure her as far as possible against further attack?
Thirdly, on the question of arms—this is perhaps a matter that we can go into in greater detail in the debate, and since I have an efficient Whip I, at least, knew that the debate was to be on Thursday next—may I ask whether, when our salesmen—after all, we had a Government super-salesman appointed by the last Government—sold arms to Israel for her self-defence, it was made perfectly clear that if she ever had to use those weapons for her own self-defence she would be denied the spare parts to make them effective? Since we are talking about even-handed shipments to the battlefield, is it not a fact that we are currently training helicopter pilots for the Egyptians, that we are about to send tanks to Dubai, which has not disclaimed an interest in the war, and are agreeing that we shall continue with shipments, albeit in the future, of planes to Saudi Arabia? What sort of neutrality is that?
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I will begin with the right hon. Gentleman's last two questions because I think that I can satisfy the House on those matters.
It is true that we are training certain Egyptian helicopter pilots. They are already qualified pilots who are being trained in the use of a new helicopter. But nobody need be afraid that they will use that new helicopter in the war because it would not be exported under the embargo. Therefore, the question is whether the pilots return to Egypt now or in six or seven weeks when their course is completed.
Regarding the tanks being supplied to Dubai, I must invite the right hon. Gentleman to bear in mind another problem, namely, the security of the Gulf in which there is a vital British interest. These tanks are being sent to Dubai to be integrated into the defence force of the United Arab Emirates to deal with security in the Gulf. They are light reconnaissance tanks with light armour. They would have no significance in the battle even if they were to go there.
I was asked why we do not denounce this Arab aggression. I take exactly the
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same view as Lord George-Brown, when he was Foreign Secretary in the last war—that there is no profit in denouncing aggression. We must try to get a ceasefire and a settlement. If I have to go into this in the debate, I will. However, I think it is well known that in 1971 President Sadat said that Egypt no longer observed the cease-fire. He gave notice of that. This is a factor of which we have to take account.
Shall we be able to give Israel frontiers which will ensure her security? I hope that the need for secure frontiers will be universally accepted. That is the second part of the deal. It is a matter of the restoration of Arab territories in return for secure frontiers. There is no doubt that Israel must have her independent life. We are all in strong support of that.
Why did we sell arms to Israel or, for that matter, to Jordan or to Egypt? The idea—I think this policy was followed by the last Government—was to allow moderate rearmament to try to give these countries sufficient security in defence so that they did not have to resort to attack one upon the other. It may be said that that policy has failed, but that was the origin of it.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: Will my right hon. Friend now confirm that there is to be an urgent debate on this matter? The whole House wants to know as soon as possible when this debate is to take place. The situation is surely considerably graver than has so far been suggested by either Front Bench.
Regarding the quality of even-handedness and the embargo, I hope that when my right hon. Friend speaks in the debate, whenever it is, he will make clear to the House how the denial to about a quarter of the whole Israeli tank force of both ammunition and supplies can be equal-handed when Israel is being attacked by overwhelming masses of equipment imported from the Soviet Union. This should be made clear by the Government to the House and to the country. If not, they will go down in history as a bad Government showing a dishonest policy of not fulfilling contractual obligations.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I have made no secret of the fact that there were contracts. We have not broken the contracts. We have suspended them—[Interruption.] I think the laughter is

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a bit too soon. We have suspended the contracts because in our view the overriding need for getting a cease-fire and a peace demands this. I will certainly make a full statement in the debate on what my right hon. Friend said is a fair balance.
Mr. Mayhew: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Jordanians, unlike the Israelis, are wholly dependent on Britain for their arms supplies, including Centurions? Since Jordan has entered the war, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that Arab opinion is rapidly coming round to joining Israeli opinion in opposition to the British arms embargo? Will he nevertheless resist pressure from both the Arabs and the Israelis to abandon this embargo so that we can maintain a position, which we had in 1967, of finding some honourable way of reaching a cease-fire and a peaceful settlement?
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I think that is right. The right hon. Gentleman has expressed more adequately what I tried to say. I understand the difficulties, but I think the policy is right. It does not make sense in present circumstances to send spare parts and ammunition to both Jordan and Israel to reinforce their tank arm. I do not think that either the United States or the Soviet Union will be in a position to take a peace initiative. All the countries of Western Europe are observing the embargo or are putting it on. This may give Europeans a chance not only to initiate a peace settlement but also to take part in a peace-keeping exercise.
Sir J. Rodgers: I appreciate my right hon. Friend's efforts to bring about an end to the fighting and to implement United Nations Resolution 242, but may I ask whether he is aware that there is considerable perturbation about the so-called even-handed embargo? Was it made clear to the Israelis when they bought the tanks that the contract would be suspended if hostilities broke out? Does my right hon. Friend think if that is allowed to become British policy throughout the world, that anybody will ever again buy British arms?
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: It was not plain to the Israelis or to the Jordanians, but this is a situation in which, in order to get a peace of any kind in the Middle
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East, it does not help for Britain to supply arms to both sides—and largely the same kind of arms. American and Soviet reinforcements will decide this situation. Ours are marginal, but I do not think that it makes sense to supply arms to both sides.
Mr. Clinton Davis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a large number of people in this country regard his so-called impartiality in this matter as just about as bogus as the impartiality of the National Government in 1936 in relation to Spain? Why did not the right hon. Gentleman's Government denounce that act of perfidy on the Day of Atonement, on 6th October, when the right hon. Gentleman has rushed into a condemnation of Israel on so many other occasions?
Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a great deal of uncertainty about his assertion that he will desist from supplying arms to those countries in the arena or battleground? Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to desist from supplying arms to all countries in the Middle East? The Foreign Secretary must be frank about that.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I thought I had indicated that there must be one exception to this, although it will not, in terms of arms, affect this battle at all. There must be an exception for Gulf security. We have too big a stake there to take risks in this respect, and therefore we must export some arms to countries in the Gulf area.
I hope that instead of trying to suggest that the balance between the Arabs and Israelis in relation to arms supplies is unfair the hon. Gentleman will convince himself that we are being fair. I have given this matter the most meticulous attention, and that is my view.
Mr. Crouch: I thank my right hon. Friend for his wisdom this afternoon in not indulging in a "holy war", which is so easy in this House when we consider the Middle East. Is my right hon. Friend aware that opinion in the country and in the House recognises the right of Israel to exist and of the Arabs to their own territory, but, above all, recognises that there must be justice, as expressed in Resolution 242? My right hon. Friend has done well by the House to keep the matter on this level in his statement and

39
answers today. I hope that he will not leave it to the super-Powers alone to bring pressure to bear to end the war but will, rather, seek to show that Europe is united in seeing that the rights of both sides are respected in an honourable and peaceful settlement?
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for what he said. This is an intensely difficult situation in which to know whether one is doing right or wrong. I concede that at once to the House, but, having given the matter the most careful consideration that I could with my colleagues in the Government, I think that it is right to maintain the embargo.
The embargo will act fairly. I shall keep the whole matter under review as the war proceeds to see whether any change is necessary, but at present I think that it is right to concentrate on a settlement under Resolution 242.
Mr. Faulds: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is utterly nonsensical to talk about aggression or perfidy when what has happened here is that two Arab countries, Egypt and Syria, have taken steps that have been forced on them in order to reoccupy their own territory?
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Over the years one has been very much afraid that the situation would develop in this way—that if no settlement was provided by anybody, and if there was no hope of a settlement, an explosion would take place on either side. That situation was inescapable.
Mr. Gorst: I recognise my right hon. Friend's great dilemma, but may I say frankly, candidly and bluntly to him that for this country to creep off the pages of history into frightened neutrality will do no good for our reputation for honest and honourable dealing, and that to bow down to the oily blackmail of the Arab States will make our position even worse in the ensuing years? This is the reverse of statesmanship. May I ask my right hon. Friend to confirm or deny that the events of the last 10 days have left United Nations Resolution 242 in torn and shattered shreds?
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I could not accept that the policy of this Government
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or that of the Government which preceded ours could truly be described as frightened neutrality. I reject that absolutely. We have tried to be as even handed as we could in the Middle East.
We all know that Resolution 242 has its ambiguities, but we all know, too, that it is the only resolution supported by the Israelis and Arabs and by a vast majority of the United Nations. It is within that framework, recognising the ambiguity of it, that a settlement must be found.
Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman has just said that in this situation—and we all accept this—it is difficult to know whether any course is right or wrong. In that spirit, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look again at the arms embargo? Is he not aware that this must mean that one side has its hands tied by the immobilisation of tanks, which it bought for its own defence, by the failure to send ammunition for guns supplied by this country, attached to tanks supplied by this country?
Secondly, when the right hon. Gentleman refers to the 1967 embargo—and I should not want to contradict anything that he said—may I ask whether he is not aware that that was announced by the then Government on the basis that we were trying to give a lead and we would have to end the embargo if the lead were not followed? That lead was not followed, and we ended the embargo.
Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that there is a difference on this occasion—namely, that even before Her Majesty's Government applied the embargo, and before Russia came into the picture, certain countries in North Africa—Libya, Algeria and others—made clear that they would supply arms and would not honour any embargo, and have now started supplying them? Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the present basis is different from that on which we announced an embargo?
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Yes, Sir. The arms embargo applied in 1967 was one which, if I remember rightly, the Government of the day were willing to continue had the Soviet Union responded. At that time, if the embargo had continued Israel would have been penalised. In the last few years the supply of arms has been fairly equal to Egypt, to Jordan

41
and to Israel. I do not think that one side will come off better than the other if we resume the supply of arms.
Mr. Harold Wilson Mr. Harold Wilson indicated dissent.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I have looked at this matter with the greatest care and that is my view. I do not think that the Israelis would be penalised vis-à-vis the Arabs, or vice versa. I shall keep the matter under review, as I have told the House and the right hon. Gentleman, but at the moment I am pretty sure that it is right to maintain our present position.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We should now move on to our other debates. Business Statement, Mr. Prior.
Mr. Iremonger: On a point of order. May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, how I, as the Member elected to represent the largest Jewish community in the country, can possibly express to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary the deep anxiety—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member had better try to catch my eye in the debate.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): Mr. Speaker, with permission, I should like to make a business statement.
The business for this week will be as follows:
WEDNESDAY, 17TH OCTOBER—Motion to take note of the Consultative Document on the Price and Pay Code for Stage 3 (Command No. 5444).
Motion on the Southern Rhodesia (Distribution to Creditors) Order.
THURSDAY, 18TH OCTOBER—Second Reading of the Pensioners Payments and National Insurance Bill.
A debate on the Middle East, which will arise on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
FRIDAY, 19TH OCTOBER—Remaining stages of the Pensioners Payments and National Insurance Bill.
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Motion to take note of the Erroll Report on Liquor Licensing Laws (Command No. 5154).
MONDAY, 22ND OCTOBER—Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Local Government (Scotland) Bill.
Mr. Harold Wilson: I should like to assure the Leader of the House that we shall do everything in our power to get the Second Reading debate through as quickly as possibly on Thursday so that the House will have the fullest time possible for the Middle East debate. We should like to thank the Government for acceding to our request for an early debate on the Middle East. The House has shown its concern over the issue in the exchanges which have just taken place. Will the right hon. Gentleman, however, confirm that in order to make this possible we agreed to postpone the Supply Day on the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement and related questions? Will he also confirm that time will be found for the debate next week before the Session ends.
Mr. Prior: On the second point, I confirm that we shall be finding time next week for a debate on the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. On the first question I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that we shall get the Pensions Bill through quickly as the House will want to get on with the debate on the Middle East.
Mr. Cyril Smith: Has the Leader of the House any information concerning the order of business as to when we may expect the writ to be moved for the Berwick-upon-Tweed by-election? Whilst we have no objection to the right hon. Gentleman manipulating the business of the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party has a little unfinished business in that constituency.
Mr. Prior: I am to have consultations with the hon. Member in whose name the writ at the moment stands on the Order Paper. Following that I am certain that we can come to an arrangement agreeable to all the House.

NEW MEMBERS
The following Members took and subscribed the Oath.

David Austick, Esq., for Ripon.

Clement Raphael Freud, Esq., for Isle of Ely.

MINISTER FOR AEROSPACE AND SHIPPING
The Minister for Aerospace and Shipping (Mr. Michael Heseltine): With the permission of the House I should like to make a personal statement.
I very much regret that an Answer I gave on 12th February should have led to the view of the Select Committee on Science and Technology that it was untrue. I ask the House to accept that I had no intention of misleading it on 12th February, and to recall that I made a full statement on the matter at issue two days later on 14th February. However, I realise on reflection that the wording of my Answer on 12th February was capable of more than one interpretation and led to misunderstanding. I apologise most sincerely to the House for the misunderstanding which arose.

MIDDLE EAST (ADJOURNMENT MOTION)
Mr. Gorst: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I gave you notice before lunch that I intended to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9. I realise that you may feel that because of the reorganisation of business it is not appropriate now so to do. Nevertheless, I should like to deploy my arguments if that is permissible.
Mr. Speaker: I believe I had notice on this matter from three hon. Members, two of whom withdrew their notice in view of the statement. Perhaps I was at fault in assuming that the hon. Member had done so as well. Therefore I will give him a short opportunity of making his submission, although he must realise that it has very little chance of success.
Mr. Gorst: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have the urgent consideration, namely,
"the concerted attempt by 10 Arab countries to annihilate the Israeli nation, the selective refusal of Her Majesty's Government to fulfil Britain's obligations in the area and the"—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must assist the hon. Member. He may want to take part in the debate on Thursday and he
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will prejudice his chances very much indeed if he makes the speech now which he could make then. The only point which is relevant is that the debate should take place before Thursday.
Mr. Gorst: I take note of your point, Mr. Speaker, about catching your eye later this week and I curtail my remarks simply to say that in modern warfare not only days but hours are of the very essence. For us to wait until the day after tomorrow before considering all the circumstances would be, in the view of many of my constituents and, I believe, of many hon. Members, to delay matters so that we shall be considering the history of the holy war rather than the future action which should be taken by Her Majesty's Government. In view of your advice I shall leave the matter there for the moment.
Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member for putting his argument as briefly as he did. He is on a genuine point. Had the business statement not provided for a debate this week I might have taken a very different view, but I cannot now accept his application.

GOVERNMENT WORK (DISPERSAL)
4.8 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department (Mr. Kenneth Baker): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the report by Sir Henry Hardman on the dispersal of Government work from London (Cmnd. 5322.)
The report was published on 13th June. It is a short report of some 15 pages with highly detailed appendices. In the report Sir Henry recommends the dispersal of some 31,500 Civil Service posts. He sets out in the early pages three possible solutions. One he calls his "recommended" solution, which is on page 12. Then there is what he calls the "efficient" solution and lastly the "regional" solution on pages 14 and 15. When the report was published the Government made clear that it regarded the report as a consultative document. We consider that the Hardman Report is a good starting point, but we are not committed either to the scale or to the pattern of the recommendations of Sir Henry Hardman.

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I said in June that I would be willing to receive representations and delegations. My door was open and many people have crossed the threshold. I have received many delegations, and have made many visits myself to the parts of the country mentioned in Hardman. I am very glad that in what must be one of the most arcane areas of government—namely, changes within the Civil Service—the Government have decided to treat this subject in a consultative document way. The process is indeed continuing, and I look upon this debate very much as part of that consultative process. Indeed, it would have been quite wrong fur the Government to come to decisions on the major aspects of Hardman, without first hearing the views of Members expressed in the House. So I shall not today be announcing any major decisions resulting from Hardman. I shall have one relatively minor decision to announce today arising from Hardman and another decision which does not, but those in no way compromise the main recommendations of Hardman.
I think I should very briefly bring the House up to date as to what has happened during the recess, particularly concerning one major recommendation of Hardman. Hon. Members who take an interest in this subject will know that one of Hardman's main recommendations was the dispersal of 11,000 Ministry of Defence jobs to Milton Keynes, which, as one hon. Member from the North-East told me, is just up the Edgware Road. Hardman himself had reservations about Milton Keynes and in his "regional" solution he suggested that the 11,000 should be split between Cardiff and Milton Keynes. The Government had misgivings about this recommendation from the start, and those misgivings were well founded. When my officials met during the summer officers from the New Town Corporation of Milton Keynes, we were informed that the maximum that Milton Keynes would want over the next ten years from one employer was 4,000. I am not necessarily saying that 4,000 will go, or that any will go, to Milton Keynes. But what I set in hand after that was a further examination of six specific areas to take at least 6,000 jobs, and those areas were Glasgow, Merseyside, Plymouth, Swindon, Tees-side and Cardiff.
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I should like to deal with four aspects of Hardman this afternoon—first, the historical context—and I shall be very brief on that; secondly, the advantages of dispersal; thirdly, the choice of receiving locations; and, fourthly, the staff side. As to the background, dispersal of central Government work is a uniquely 20th century concept. The whole thinking right up through the great Victorian administrative reforms was essentially based upon the centralist philosophy, and the first time that dispersal was even considered was in 1938 and 1939 when plans were laid with the possible invasion of Britain in mind. One of the senior representatives on the committee, defending the staff side's interests at that time, was one Douglas Houghton, and I am very glad today to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place on the Front Bench opposite, and am glad to know that he will be speaking later. He brings to Civil Service matters great knowledge and great sympathy. I believe that during the recess he announced his intention of not standing again. I know that many hon. Members on both sides of the House will regret that and, may I also say, so will many civil servants.
Anyway, the plans that he laid together with his colleagues in 1938 and 1939 were so effective that on 4th September 1939, the day after war broke out, three trains left Paddington with 600 civil servants on each, to Bath. Harrogate and Southport. The dispersal this time will not be quite so sudden and dramatic. But that, in effect, was the first dispersal of Government work in our administrative history. As the House will know, several of those Departments stayed out of London—but not many. In 1945, one of the signs of the return to normality was civil servants coming back to London, and relatively small elements stayed out. During the 'forties and 'fifties there was little interest in dispersal, apart from one or two fairly sporadic decisions. There was one by Sir Stafford Cripps to base the Customs and Excise at Southend, and there it has been ever since.
But apart from one or two minor decisions, the next initiative was taken by the previous Conservative Government in 1962, when it asked Hemming to report on the possibility of dispersing Government work. He recommended the dispersal of 18,000 jobs, and the largest

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of these was the National Savings Bank, which went eventually to Glasgow. There were others as well. There was the dispersal of the Mint to Llantrisant, of the Savings Certificates Division to Durham and of part of the Department of Education and Science—basically, the Superannuation Division—to Darlington. That initiative was reinforced in 1963 by the establishment of the Location of Offices Bureau, and since that time a large number of clerical and administrative jobs in both the public and private sectors have been dispersed. This is a record of which both Governments can be proud.
The latest figures for the Civil Service show that 54,000 Civil Service posts have either been dispersed or are just about to be dispersed, and 70 per cent. of them are in areas assisted under the regional policy. If one also looks at the broader picture of the private sector for just the last ten years, the figures are Civil Service, 54,000; Location of Offices Bureau, 120,000; and nationalised industries, 13,000, making a total of 187,000, which simply means that if the initiatives had not been taken there would be 187,000 more clerical posts in London at the moment. That figure represents a town the size of Portsmouth, but if one also takes into account the wives and children who go with these jobs it amounts to 500,000 or 600,000, which means a city the size of Leeds.
That brings me to the initiative which we started on coming into office for the reform of central government, part of which was the Hardman review. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking Sir Henry Hardman for the work that he has done. I know that the report has been subject to a great deal of criticism, but it is a substantial piece of work—to some extent pioneering—and it was a very difficult task in that he had to examine some 50 organisations of government. I should like to thank him on behalf of the Government for the work that he did. It was a formidable task, because we are almost alone in the world of central governments in thinking of dispersing our staff. Sweden has done some, but the general pattern around the world is to concentrate central administration into administrative capitals—the Bonns, the Washingtons, the Canberras and the Ottawas of this world. But we have turned our face away from that pattern,
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because we think there are great advantages in dispersal, and Hardman looked at the remaining Civil Service work in London.
There is a general impression that most civil servants work in London and that they wear bowler hats, striped trousers and black jackets. That is not at all true. Seven out of ten civil servants work outside London and they do not dress like that—anyway, not those I have met—and they work in local offices providing services to the public, in the Department of Health and Social Security, in local labour exchanges, in our training centres and in our tax offices. So that the three out of ten who remain in London represent about 145,000 civil servants. Of these, very roughly—and precise figures are in the report—65,000 are in local and regional offices helping to meet the needs of Londoners in one way or another, and in that number I would also include the staffs of museums, such as the Victoria and Albert and the Science Museum. Hardman did not look at that sort of work but he did look at the remaining 86,000 jobs in central London which, as I said, are spread over 50 organisations. Of those 86,000 he recommends the dispersal of 31,500 or nearly 40 per cent., which is a very high percentage.
There have been some critics. Lord Provost Gray presented an "Unanswerable Case" to me last week, which I shall be answering, and there is "The Great Divide" from the North of England Development Council. They both made the point that they did not think it was a high enough number, which I think is unfair when one considers that on policy work in central London there are only 86,000 civil servants, of whom nearly 40 per cent. might be dispersed.
I should like to turn to where Hardman has advanced upon Flemming. These civil servants, engaged in policy matters, work right in the centre of the capital because they respond to the needs of Parliament, they work in support of Ministers and they have regular contact with other bodies which have their headquarters in London, like the TUC, the CBI trade associations, the media, Fleet Street, the City and pressure groups of one sort or another.
What Hardman has tried to do in the report—and I agree that there is a great

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deal of area for discussion—is to balance the effectiveness of this network, which has been built up in some cases over decades and in some cases over centuries, against the gains to the regions—the loss in effectiveness of the central policy-making machine balanced against the gains to the regions which dispersal would bring. He has tried to do this by introducing the concept of communications damage.
I was glad to see that some of the delegations who came to see me—I remember this point being made by the delegations from Coventry and from Teesside—recognised that there would be some communications damage. Later I want to explain how we shall try to overcome some of that communications damage.
Mr. Robert Sheldon: When the hon. Gentleman discusses the question of communications damage I hope he will also discuss the lack of understanding of the effects of dispersal which operate throughout the Hardman Report. The report says:
"…the dominant feature of the net benefits of dispersal is differentials in the market value of office space."
Anybody who has gone into that subject cannot accept that as a statement of what the benefits are. When regional policy is estimated to cost £6,000 to £8,000 per job provided, how can it be said that the greatest benefit lies in the matter of office space?
Mr. Baker: I appreciate that. The hon. Member anticipates a point that I hope to reach in a few moments.
I should like to deal briefly with this concept of policy work. The essential problem is not so much the distance which policy work goes from London as the frequency which people need to travel over that distance for meetings and contacts, for which telephone communications, however efficiently used, are no effective substitute. There is a universal need for regular contact between people, and this is what distinguished Hardman from Flemming. Flemming was looking at executive types of work which can be done anywhere in the country and probably more efficiently outside London, such as the Post Office and the Department of Education and Science. Hardman has been looking at the central fabric of Whitehall, where there is a constant
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need for face-to-face contacts. There is a magisterial letter on the files from Lord Beveridge, who opposed wartime dispersal, stating that "no system of telephones gets over the difficulties of non-intercourse". Only somebody as holy as Lord Beveridge could get away with no double entendre being read into a statement of that kind. It will be acknowledged how useful face-to-face contacts are to us as Members of Parliament. Could any of us, even in Cardiff, conduct a surgery other than face to face?
The other advance which Hardman made is that he looked at some offices which Flemming did not look at—offices of public access, such as for example the Passport Office which is in Petty France. Hardman recommendts that it should go to Central Lancashire New Town. We have had several complaints from members of the public about that move. He recommends that the Immigration Department of the Home Office, to which the public have frequent access, should go to Plymouth. This was only recently dispersed from Whitehall to Croydon. I know that some Members would not call that dispersal, but there has been sharp criticism of the Immigration Department moving the comparatively short distance from Whitehall to Croydon. I only mention these points to show that there are various interested parties when one discusses dispersal.
Hardman recommends that the Manpower Services Commission, which is going to deal with the training programmes in industry—job matching and employment exchanges—should be based in Liverpool. We have already had strong objections from the TUC and the CBI to this proposal to base it in Liverpool.
Sir John Tilney: Could my hon. Friend say why these two august bodies object to such an office being on Merseyside, where we have first-class civil servants out of work and where the communications are very good indeed? It is two and a half hours by train, and even faster by air, from London. Do they think that we live in outer darkness on Merseyside?
Mr. Baker: The CBI and the TUC want the Manpower Services Commission to be based in a place which is only 90

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minutes by train from London. I very much hope that my hon. Friend will make the views that he has just expressed very well known to the chairmen of the TUC and the CBI.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I will make a statement now, which the Chairman of the TUC will probably read tomorrow morning. I do not agree with him. I think Liverpool is the ideal place. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the proposals for Merseyside are inadequate because we have—and I say this without any question of contradiction—the highest level of unemployment in any one city in the country? Therefore we need all the jobs we can get.
Mr. Baker: I do not know what influence the hon. Gentleman has with the Chairman of the TUC, but I hope he will express his views as forcefully to him as he has just expressed them here.
The third advance on Flemming was that Hardman was looking at senior managerial work. One of the most depressing things that I see when I go round the country visiting dispersed civil servants is that there has been a dispersal of a great deal of clerical work which does not provide a sufficient career base for civil servants. It narrows quickly to a pyramid and almost to a needle. As a result of the Hardman recommendations there will be a very substantial proportion of senior jobs dispersed.
I should like to deal specifically with the point raised by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon). The main advantage, the main gain, in dispersal is undoubtedly to the regions outside London. As the Government consume resources, so it is right for Government work to be spread around the country to give something back in terms of employment opportunities. The dispersal of Civil Service work brings white collar jobs to our older cities and to our newer towns where all too often such jobs are very scarce. It can bring a choice where there is a lack of variety of opportunities. It can create opportunities where they do not exist. It is not so much the overall reduction in the level of total unemployment that dispersal can help. After all, 31,500 jobs spread around the country will not have a major impact on
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reducing the overall level of unemployment. It must essentially depend upon our economic and regional policies, and there is no doubt that these have been strikingly successful in reducing unemployment in the regions where over the last 12 months alone it has been reduced by 250,000 people.
Dispersal in the Civil Service improves the balance of work available in the regions. The deepest impression that I have had from the many delegations which I have seen—and I remember in particular the representations from Councillor Park of Coventry, Councillor Mrs. Taylor of Teesside, Lord Provost Gray of Glasgow and Alderman Pattinson of Plymouth—was their concern at seeing the schools turn out good, well-qualified youngsters who could not get suitable work in the areas where they had been educated and brought up. This intensifies the drift down to the "golden triangle" of the South-East.
One of the major advantages of the exercise, which I put at the top of my list, are the new employment opportunities which we shall be able to create for young people around the country. A further advantage is that there will be a cash saving to the Government which will emerge after approximately 10 years. That is set out in page 42 of the Report. Another gain is in resources. Sir Henry has estimated that there will be a gain of £5,500 for each post dispersed. That means a saving of approximately £170 million. That is due mainly to office rent differential.
The rent bill in London for the Government estate is £38 million a year. That bill is rising fast as old leases fall in. There is a strong financial argument for dispersing Civil Service positions. A further advantage concerns recruitment to the Civil Service. The House will be aware that the Civil Service is under-recruited in London. That applies to clerical officers, clerical assistants and executive officers. There is no doubt that outside London there are many qualified and in some instances, overqualified people who cannot get jobs.
Mr. Sheldon: The hon. Gentleman has dealt well with the benefits of dispersal in the reduction of office rents. However, Hardman left out and the hon. Gentleman has left out the benefits that

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come from producing jobs which cost money to create. The Government spend £6,000 to £8,000, on the best available estimates, in producing each job in the regions. The Government are now able to do that directly themselves. That cost is not entered into by the Hardman Report.
Mr. Baker: I think that Sir Henry would say that that factor has reasonably been taken into account in his calculations. That factor is quantified in the chapter on the resource gains of bringing into employment those who would not otherwise be employed. The emphasis which I have given to the advantages as I see them indicates that the great gain is to regional employment and to variety of employment.
There are four criteria for location. First, there must be good communication centres not only with London but with other parts of the country. Many areas selected themselves—namely, Glasgow, the North-East coast, Cardiff, Manchester and Leeds.
Sir John Tilney: And Merseyside.
Mr. Baker: The House will appreciate that I must be even-handed. I must listen to representations. I hope that hon. Members will not feel, if I do not mention their areas in any of the examples which I give, that I do not mention them because I do not believe that they qualify under the criteria.
The second criterion was to consider dispersal and regional administration centres—namely, places like Manchester and Cardiff and areas which have received Civil Service work. There was, for example, the Cripps decision in 1947 to take Customs and Excise to Southend. Once having taken that decision, and once the major part of Customs and Excise policy staff and its executives is at Southend, it is difficult to think of creating another dispersal centre.
The case is more dramatic for the Stationery Office. One thousand members of the staff of the Stationery Office have gone to Norwich and there are about 500 still in London. It would make no sense to consider further dividing that office. That would lead to diseconomy and disefficiency.
The third criterion is that the Government thought it fair to choose a few
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locations where they could concentrate relatively large numbers of civil servants rather than many locations capable of taking smaller numbers. The Government took that view not only from the point of view of efficiency but largely from the point of view of a career base. It is unfair to ask civil servants, who joined the Civil Service with a reasonable expectation of a fairly stable and steady career—maybe of staying in one location for most of their careers—to move around constantly as career prospects open up. I believe that the Government took the right decision.
Mr. Dan Jones: Is not the Minister overstating the case? Are civil servants asked constantly to move about? Is there any evidence to prove that point?
Mr. Baker: Yes. There are in the Civil Service 10,000 movements a year involving the sale of houses. That is a large figure. I shall return to that matter when I refer to staff anxiety and the point of view of civil servants.
The next criterion is one of the most subjective areas. It is clear that every delegation which I have seen believes that its needs are paramount. That I can understand. That is why delegations come to plead their case. Hardman tried to produce an objective analysis. He tried to assess the capacity of the receiving locations and the availability of trained staff. Further, he tried to assess the pattern of home ownership. Approximately 86 per cent. of civil servants own their own homes.
Sir Henry recognised and I recognise that the report can take us only part of the way. The report can produce the figures but we must make a political judgment. The last words of the report are as follows:
"But it is essentially for Ministers to decide."
I appreciate that selection of receiving locations means exclusion as well as inclusion. I am sure that the House will agree that the principle of few not many is sound. I can assure hon. Members who represent places not in the list that we neither regard their constituencies as unsuitable for dispersal nor have we made final decisions on locations.
Mrs. Barbara Castle: The Minister said that there was a certain amount of natural law and that when

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there had been some dispersal to an area other dispersal followed naturally because it was associated with the first dispersal. I know that the hon. Gentleman gives an assurance that there will be no duplication of dispersal in areas which have already had some dispersal. Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there will be no duplication until areas such as North East Lancashire, which is out on a limb, and the North Western region, which has not had any injection of professional Civil Service life, have been considered? Will the Minister ensure that there is no duplication in areas which have already received attention?
Mr. Baker: I take the right hon. Lady's point. I cannot give her that undertaking off the cuff but I shall consider the point which she has raised.
I have had representations made to me that we should not take into account the views of civil servants and that we should make our decisions and then produce the marching orders. That is unacceptable to the Government. The Civil Service has a system of consultations between civil servants and Department heads—namely, Whitley. During the last two years I have seen it working, and it works well. Such consultation is effective and it sets an example, in many respects, to the rest of British industry. It involves constant consultation at all levels.
I can assure civil servants that there will be real consultation. We must remember that we are talking about people. Civil servants accept their responsibility as public servants. Many have a duty to serve anywhere as a condition of their employment. That duty has produced, as I said to the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Dan Jones), some 10,000 moves a year. While the public interest must be overriding, let us remember that civil servants and their families are members of the public and not employment units to be shunted recardless around the country. That is why the Government commissioned the Tavistock Institute to do a report, which I put into the Library over a year ago and which was summarised in the report on the human aspects of dispersal. This was of considerable value to us. From it we have deduced certain principles.
First, there will be consultation. This is now taking place and has been taking
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place during the summer and autumn. Secondly, dispersal will be phased, probably over a period of some 10 years. There are still parts of Flemming to be dispersed. It is during this period that the local authorities in the receiving locations will, I hope, be as helpful and as forthcoming as they have promised to be when they have come to me as suitors.
Thirdly, we have undertaken to deal with the transfer terms and allowances—that is to say, the anxieties that civil servants feel that, if they have to move, they may be out of pocket—through the usual sort of allowances, legal costs, removal expenses and so on. We are also looking at possible house assistance. The problem is that if a civil servant living in Croydon has to move to Merseyside, for example—this must not be taken to imply that Merseyside will have any civil servants and I emphasise that it is just an example—he will sell his house in London and probably make a substantial capital gain. Or, of course, he might get a better house. But if later in his career he has to come back to London for promotion he is reluctant to do so. We are finding that many of the middle management ranks are measuring their future purely on the cash cost of coming back. We are looking into this and I hope to be able to make an announcement within the next few weeks.
Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier: Is not what the hon. Gentleman has just told us a case for ensuring that any dispersal that does take place into the regions does so at the highest possible level in providing a career structure in the regions to minimise the amount of movement back to the metropolis which ultimately takes place?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point, which concerns the build-up of the career structure in the regions, which is what we would like to do as far as is possible. It will mean a lot of discussion with the Civil Service unions and I hope that we shall be able to move towards a really good viable career structure in many of the regions outside London.
The fifth principle is that we hope to use volunteers as far as possible in the mobile grades. I have already given an undertaking that there will be no redundancies in the non-mobile grades.
Mr. Frank Marsden: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a civil servant moving from London could sell his house and refurnish his new house in Liverpool and buy a new car at no cost to himself?
Mr. Baker: I am sure he could do just as well by going to Glasgow or North-East Lanacashire, to Cardiff or the North-East. But I take the point.
One thing which has encouraged me is the previous experience we have had in the dispersal exercise. In the various visits I have made to dispersed work around the country, I have found very few people who have returned. By and large they like where they are, wherever that may be. They prefer the rhythm and tempo of the life outside London. They like the lack of commuting an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. I suppose that I have met some rather hand-picked people to tell me this around the country, but I think in general that those who go like where they go to. There is no doubt that they lead a much more relaxed and better life. We shall do our best to co-operate with the staff, while recognising that in some issues the needs of the service must have priority.
As I have said, with one exception, I have not come to announce decisions on the report. Those will come later. But I can inform the House that the Companies Registration Office of the Department of Trade and Industry will be removed from London to Cardiff, as Sir Henry recommended. It will be accommodated in the Maindy Building, which we have already undertaken to fill in the light of the current review. About one thousand jobs are involved. This is rather more than was mentioned in the Hardman Report. The move is necessary to enable the CRO to complete its programme of making its work fully efficient and up-to-date.
My right hon. Friend has considered very carefully the interests of users and the sort of issue put to him by the Law Society and the article in The Guardian today. He and the Government felt that the balance of advantage lay with dispersal. It will be accompanied by the creation of a London reading room for the benefit of those users who cannot arrange to consult the full company files in Cardiff.
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The move will be carried out as soon as possible because of the pressures on existing accommodation and recruitment in London. In the meantime, within the Department of Trade and Industry, discussions are continuing between management and the departmental staff side on a number of issues involved in the move.
Mr. James Callaghan: This news will be well received in Cardiff and I have no doubt that all will do their best to make the incomers welcome. But why the difference between the 500 mentioned by Hardman and the 1,000 which the hon. Gentleman now mentions?
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman will recall that there was a proposal for the Ministry of Defence to send 1,500 people to Cardiff but that this was set aside pending the Hardman Report. May I take it that, as a result of this decision, consideration will still be given to sending people from the Ministry of Defence to Cardiff, as was also proposed in the Hardman Report?
Mr. Baker: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the decision to send the Companies Registration Office does not preclude any other consideration of the location of Government work, in Hardman or outside Hardman. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the figure of 500. Sir Henry Hardman worked on 1971 figures, when the establishment of the office was lower. It has been substantially recruited since. It is a part of Government which is growing rapidly—the investigation of company files and things of that sort—and the increase in its establishment is due very much to the natural expansion of its work.
I know that my announcement may be some disappointment to hon. Members from the North-East, since Sir Henry recommended in his regional recommendations the dispersal of the CRO to Newcastle. However, I can also inform the House that the Government propose to locate a substantial block of new work, not covered by Hardman, in Washington New Town.
We envisage that this will be for the payment of child credits under the proposed tax credit scheme. The House will recall the Report of the Select Committee on Tax Credits, which recommended that, generally, child credits

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should be cash payments to mothers, and that the Government have accepted this view. The introduction of such credits will be subject to parliamentary approval of the tax credit legislation, but it is necessary for arrangements to be made to ensure that accommodation would be available as required.
I cannot be precise about the size of the block at this early stage but it will probably amount to about 2,000 posts. This is, of course, additional to the Government computer centre already under construction at Washington, which will provide several hundred posts. If Parliament did not approve the child credit scheme, the accommodation would be used to house Government work already in the Tyne-Wear area, notably in the Department of Health and Social Security in Newcastle, which is likely to increase substantially over the next few years.
I hope both these announcements will be welcome to the House. They are, needless to say, as I must emphasise to hon. Members from other areas, without prejudice to decisions which the Government will be taking later on the Hardman Report.
Mr. J. D. Dormand: The hon. Gentleman has given at least two assurances in his speech that decisions have not yet been taken. Yet we have just heard of two which have been taken and he kindly wrote to me some time ago to tell me of another two which had been taken, one of which involved the research councils. I think that I am correct in saying that, in all, five decisions have been taken. I am sure that many of us particularly from the Northern Region, are a little concerned that there is going to be nibbling of this kind so that, at the end of the day, there will not be the kind of exercise which many of us expected from the debate.
Mr. Baker: The two decisions to which the hon. Gentleman refers were decisions taken at the time of the publication of the Hardman Report. At the end of the report we see:
"In the meantime, however, it has already given its approval to the dispersal of the Science Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council to Swindon, following consultations between the Management and Staff Sides of these bodies."
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Those were the two decisions I was referring to, announced when Hardman was published. The only decision we have taken on Hardman is that which we have announced for the CRO. I can give the House the clear, categoric undertaking—
Mr. Dormand rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. I must draw the attention of the House to the number of hon. Members who are hoping to take part in the debate.
Mr. Baker: I think I ought to move on; otherwise the consultative process will be rather one-sided. Hardman has tried to measure the communications damage which could arise from dispersal. Some critics have said that he is exaggerating this, but it is equally exaggerated to say that no damage arises.
But I want to make clear to the House that the spirit in which we shall approach dispersal is a positive one. We shall make the dispersal which we decide upon work. We shall make the best use we can of developments in telecommunications, especially the one which has been pioneered for us as described in the Hardman Report.
I am sure that the Civil Service, with its long experience of dispersal, will respond imaginatively and efficiently to the new problems raised by dispersal. The Civil Service is one of the great assets of our country, and I know from the pride that it has in its work that it will want to carry out its responsibilities after dispersal just as effectively as now. We shall, therefore, be positive in overcoming these difficulties, because dispersal brings advantages to the regions.
Regional policy is about people, and the Government believe that there is a good deal of sense of taking jobs to people. In dispersing Government work, we can set an example and give a lead to organisations in the public and private sector. If the Government can do this, then so can they.
This is why we welcome the Hardman Report. I now look forward to hearing the views of hon. Members upon it.
4.54 p.m.
Mr. Edward Short: May I say how much we welcome the two announcements made by

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the Minister about Cardiff and Washington. We are glad that this study has been made, but only because it has initiated a national debate on dispersal. Few reports in recent years have attracted so much detailed and informed criticism.
This report contains the most astonishing omissions, illogicalities and examples of faulty reasoning. To say the least, these create grave doubts about its value. The hon. Gentleman referred to two documents, one produced in Glasgow by a high-powered ad hoc committee set up by the Lord Provost and the other produced in the North-East of England, called "The Great Divide".
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has read what these two documents say about Hardman. The Glasgow document says:
"…these doubts are such as to totally discredit the report as the basis on which decisions should be taken."
Let me select a very mild quotation from the North-East report:
"The Hardman Report fails to assess correctly the social values and economic assets of re-location in the assisted areas."
On reading Hardman, one becomes more and more amazed at the inherent bias in the document against the dispersal of jobs to some of the more distant parts of the country, if "distant" be the right word. Glasgow is 400 miles distant, one hour away by air. Newcastle is 300 miles away and can be reached in 40 minutes by air. Cardiff, at 150 miles distance, is two hours seven minutes by train.
The overwhelming impression left by reading the Hardman Report is that the Civil Service has been the instigator, the witness and the advocate, and now we in this House must see to it that it is not the judge too. This report states the case of the Civil Service. Hardman should have stated much more than he has done the case of the regions. He really has not done that.
The report contains the most amazing inaccuracies about the regions. Let me give some examples. It says:
"…Teeside, where male unemployment is normally quite low…".
In June 1972 it was 9 per cent., in June 1973 it was 6·1 per cent., against a national average of 3·3 per cent. Again, Hardman claims that Scotland received 1,540 new jobs in the Inland Revenue at
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East Kilbride when this was merely centralising the work formerly done in 65 separate offices. There was not a single new job there. At paragraph 31 on page 13 he says that:
"Glasgow has done well out of dispersal"
He does not mention that out of the 25,000-plus jobs which were dispersed before 1963 not one went to the West of Scotland. There are these inaccuracies in the report, which does not state the case of the regions.
We all understand, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman, that dispersal is a human and intensely personal problem for civil servants. As a Minister, I had a fair amount of experience of it. I dispersed a great many civil servants from the DES and the Post Office. We understand their problems. We have also to understand and appreciate the problems of the regions. We must understand the problems of the miners whose pits have closed, who are made redundant, and who must pull up their roots and look for work elsewhere.
We must also remember the congestion in London. I travel to the House on a No. 24 bus in the morning. This morning I had to wait in the rain for 30 minutes while bus after bus went past me full. This has to be considered, too.
Above all, the regions are areas with twice the national level of unemployment. They are areas with declining, older industries, with an acute imbalance between clerical and non-clerical jobs. For example, Greater London has 25·4 per cent. of the employed population in clerical jobs. Wales has 13·1 per cent., the North 13·4 per cent., Yorkshire and Humberside 14·2 per cent. and Scotland 14·4 per cent.
The Government have said that Hardman had to have regard to two main factors. First was the efficiency of government, and second the needs of regional policy. I do not complain about those. However, Hardman has grossly overstated the efficiency criterion and grossly understated the needs of regional policy. If hon. Members doubt this, let them look at pages 6 and 7 of the report under the heading, "The economics of dispersal." They will see that virtually nothing is said about the effects of dispersal on the economies of the regions.

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It is concerned almost entirely with the question of efficiency.
I turn to the report itself. In assessing the numbers to be dispersed, Hardman estimates that there are 17,900 persons who are irremovable and could not be considered for dispersal. I hope that we can be told by the Government tonight why the staff of the National Savings Committee—400—are irremovable. Why cannot they be dispersed? For that matter, why cannot the headquarters of the National Savings Bank, with 150 employees, be dispersed? I seem to remember that, when I was Postmaster-General, I took the decision that they should be dispersed. I do not know what has happened to that decision, but they have never been dispersed.
Among the dispersible groups, I read with amazement that my old Department, the Department of Education and Science, has no further civil servants who can be dispersed. This astounds me. Here we have the myth perpetuated by civil servants, that there are thousands of them sitting in a building, all advising one poor little Minister sitting in an upper room somewhere. It is part of the mythology of the Civil Service. By far the greater number of these people are administrators. It is astonishing that out of 86,000 posts reviewed as being dispersible Hardman could find only 31,000 to be dispersed. The starting point is for the Government to look at that figure in a much tougher way.
Hardman arrived at the numbers to be dispersed, and their locations, by two means: first, by prolonged discussions with the Departments concerned—I can well imagine what that meant—and second, by a cost-benefit analysis.
I want to say something about the cost-benefit analysis because it is here that the major flaws in Hardman's reasoning appear. The cost-benefit analysis is identifying and quantifying the benefits and costs and weighing one against the other. Hardman measured the benefits in terms of resources and social gain. He stated that the principal benefits were the savings in office costs, the reduction in unemployment in the regions, and the savings in salary costs for the Civil Service.
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On the other side of the equation he measured costs in terms of loss in efficiency. This was mainly in terms of additional cost of travelling to meetings. On both benefits and costs, great doubts arise as to the validity of his findings. The so-called resource gain is the net addition to the national wealth by using resources previously unused. There is nothing wrong with that concept. It is the limited way in which Hardman used it with which I find fault.
He argues, for example, that if a new Civil Service job in a region is filled by somebody who is in another job there is no resource gain. That is nonsense. Somebody will have to fill that man's job, and at the end of the line there is a new job created. That is as much a resource gain as a brand new job created by employing someone who was unemployed.
Equally nonsensical is the small weighting Hardman gives to women who are not registered taking Civil Service jobs. Clearly, whether she is registered or not, if a woman starts to do a job there is a gain in the national productive labour force. Therefore, there is a resource gain. Hardman does not take these two factors into account.
Perhaps more serious still is the increase in the general income of an area when new jobs are injected into it. Here again Hardman underestimates the multiplier of new jobs introduced into the regions. Every hon. Member from one of the older industrial areas knows what effect a prosperous shipyard or a prosperous pit has on the whole economy. It makes the whole area prosperous, down to the corner shop.
There has been a study recently in Reading and Hemel Hempstead on the effect of office dispersal. Multipliers of 1·40 and 1·35 were found. This means that for every £100 paid in wages to office workers there is generated another £40 or £35 in other earnings, because the office workers spend some of their wages on local goods and services. Therefore, there is additional employment in the areas. The multiplier depends upon the size of the local economy. As Clyde-side, Tyneside, Teesside, Cardiff, Newport, Liverpool or Manchester are much bigger economies than Reading or Hemel

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Hempstead, the multipliers there would be much bigger.
This brings me to my third criticism of this side of the equation. It is the biggest error of all in the report. Hardman makes an astonishing claim that the resource gain does not vary much from one area to another, that it is the same in Milton Keynes as it is in Glasgow. [Interruption.] I would describe it, rather more elegantly, as arrant nonsense.
If it is not nonsense, the regional policy followed by both this Government and the previous Labour Government is nonsense. That policy has as its basis that a job created in a development area is worth more than one created elsewhere. Hardman does not take that view. He takes the view that resource gain is the same wherever the jobs are created. Perhaps this more than anything else casts doubt upon the objectivity of the report. We can be forgiven for regarding it as a report by civil servants on behalf of the Civil Service.
Fourth, the report fails entirely to recognise the resource gain in the reduction of congestion in London or the cost imposed on the community in London by an over-concentration of civil servants. The hon. Gentleman confirmed that those factors are not quantified; they are not taken into the equation in any way.
Fifth, the report makes no estimate of the effect on social planning of migration from the development areas into the South-East and the nonsense this makes of our social planning both in the development areas and in the South-East.
Sixth, I come to office costs. Here we have the major resource gain, according to Hardman. He regarded this as the dominant feature in the net benefits of dispersal. Imagine that! The reduction in office rents is the net benefit, says Hardman But his figures are out of date. One would expect that, because they are based on rents of two years ago. The figure for London is £5–£7 a square foot, and for the regions £1 a square foot. In the past two years office rents have increased by 100 per cent. in London and by 30 per cent. in the provinces. Hardman assumes the reverse, and by doing so he makes the regions look much more unattractive. He has grossly underestimated the gain from dispersal because of the narrow accountancy insis-
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tence on office rents being the major factor.
Let us look at the other side of the cost-benefit analysis equation—the efficiency loss. Here again, the story is equally astonishing. The efficiency loss of moving a Government Department to the provinces can be assessed in one of two ways. One is to look at the experience of decision-making civil servants who have been moved—there are many of them—to see what their experience has been and how much their efficiency has been reduced. On the other hand, one could attempt to quantify the anticipated efficiency loss if departments which are now in London were moved to the provinces.
Not a single hon. Member would not go for the first of those two methods. Hon. Members would look at the experience of people who have moved. Hardman does not do this. He chooses the second method, and tries to anticipate the loss which will occur when departments are moved to the regions. This deliberate choice of one method instead of the other or, better still, both is another factor which makes the report suspect.
Why did not Hardman look at the experience of people who have gone to the provinces? He gives three reasons why. First, he says that it is too soon. Let us take his own figures. A total of 25,000 civil servants were dispersed before 1963. I lived in Newcastle in the same house since I left the army in 1946. From my house I could see the Ministry of Social Security office which was built in 1946 and has been there ever since. Why could not the experience of the civil servants there have been taken into account?
Second, Hardman says that no records have been kept. That is patently ridiculous. Of course, the decision-making civil servants who have been dispersed could make an estimate of the journeys to London that they have had to make which they would not have had to make if the office were in London. They could make an estimate of the additional time they are spending on Parliamentary Questions over and above what they would have spent if they had been in London.
Third, Hardman says that mainly non-policy-making Government Departments have been dispersed in the past. Again,

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we get the old Civil Service myth of thousands of civil servants busily engaged in making policy and advising Ministers. What about the Scottish Office, the Welsh Office or the regional offices of the Department of the Environment? What about the DTI, which is making quite important decisions nowadays to dispense large sums of money on local matters? Could not the experience of those Departments have been taken into account? Could not they have been asked about the matter?
It is curious, to say the least, that the experience of the decision-making officers who have been dispersed could not have been studied for these rather laboured reasons. It is all the more curious because of the Tavistock Institute Study. When dealing with the human problems of dispersal, and when it suited it, the Hardman Committee considered the experience of the people who had been dispersed. When it did not suit it, it did not do that. This is preposterous. Hardman, when assessing the question of efficiency loss, took the opinions of people with no experience in the matter and rejected those of people with experience.
Mr. Kenneth Baker: The right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood this part of the Hardman Report. On page 43 it discusses the consequences of dispersal for Civil Service manpower. In the previous paragraph it estimates an increase in Civil Service manpower in dispersed units. Hardman said that he did not consider the manpower effects within Departments resulting from dispersal but it looked deeply at the experience and discussed with senior officials in each Department, including the Department in which the right hon. Gentleman served, how dispersal had worked so far. The right hon. Gentleman's point is not a fair one.
Mr. Short: In assessing efficiency loss, Hardman looked, by means of a questionnaire, only at the opinions of civil servants who had not been dispersed. He deliberately rejected the technique of considering the experience of civil servants who had been dispersed. If the Parliamentary Secretary reads the report more carefully, he will see that.
The Hardman Report said that the main factor in assessing the effect on efficiency was the cost of travelling time—not the fares but the time spent from
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the office in travelling by senior executives to meetings in London. Here again, there are some very dubious propositions and reasoning.
First, the report states that because the telephone is used in London to avoid meetings its further use cannot be pleaded to justify further dispersals. Anybody who knows how the Civil Service works realises that that is completely untrue. A Civil Service man in London will often walk to the next block or take a taxi from the City to perhaps Whitehall for a meeting to discuss something which could well be dealt with on the telephone. I do not complain about that everybody likes to walk out and get a cup of coffee in somebody else's office. But it is not good enough to assume that the telephone cannot be a substitute for face-to-face contact because it is already available and is not used sometimes in undispersed situations.
Second, Hardman will have none of technology. He discounts the use of narrow-band telecommunications systems, and yet the evidence submitted to him showed that up to 49 per cent. of meetings could be dispensed with if such systems were used. But he doggedly insists that the loss of efficiency can be measured only by the number of meetings which have to be abandoned and by calculating the cost of travel. He obtained his data by means of a questionnaire sent to senior civil servants. He takes no account of the fact that up to 49 per cent. of matters dealt with at meetings could be dealt with by narrow-band systems, and probably 20 per cent. more on the telephone and by wide-band visual systems. Hardman has no truck with the modern technology of communications. Nor does he make any attempt to relate the cost of such technological aids to communication to Government expenditure in other fields of job dispersal—for example, incentives to industry to go to the regions.
Third, on this side of the equation, Hardman takes no account of the acute problem of recruiting in London. The 1972 report of the Civil Service Commission commented that there were 400 vacancies for executive officers, practically all in the London area. It went on to state:
"The reluctance of successful candidates who cannot be offered a local post to accept an

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appointment in London was largely responsible for the short-fall."
Hardman takes no account of that. He gets his facts about travelling time wrong in the most infantile way. For instance, he says that the train travelling time to Newcastle is 4·8 hours. In fact, it is about four hours, and in some cases less—3 hours 20 minutes. He also has the road travelling time wrong. He adopts a formula for calculating the road travel time which takes no account of the quality of the roads. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary is noting all these points. Hardman gives the road travelling time from Newcastle to London as 6·8 hours. In fact, the time is an hour less. I do it in 5½ hours. He gives the travelling time to Teesside as 6 hours, whereas it is 4·5 hours.
The whole cost-benefit analysis is so open to doubt as to make Hardman's recommendations virtually worthless. I do not think that any businessman would base his investment programme on such a demonstrably unsound analysis as this.
The Government chose not the specific locations but the areas. I do not complain about that except in the case of one area which is not included and which has one of the most acute problems in the regions, West Cumberland, because it is an isolated area and there is very little hope for it. I am deeply sorry that the Government did not include it among the areas to be considered. I hope that the Minister for Local Government and Development will take this point on board and will deal with it.
We have very little information about how the capacities of the various locations were decided. To take the city about which I know most, Newcastle has 200,000 square feet of office space vacant and a further 383,000 square feet will be available shortly. Planning permission has been given for another 170,000 square feet. We have 19 per cent. clerical workers as against the national average of 25·4 per cent.
The Hardman Report gives the whole of Tyneside—not just Newcastle—a capacity of 2,000 and assigns 500. Glasgow probably has a greater capacity than any other location in the country, yet Hardman states that its capacity is 5,000 and assigns 1,177. Teesside has 231,000 square feet of office space under construction. It has only 15·8 per cent.
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clerical workers. It is said to have a capacity of 5,000—this magic figure which bears no relation to the recommendations—and is assigned 1,610. Cardiff-Newport has an enormous catchment area. Again, the capacity figure is given as 5,000 and it is assigned something like that figure.
Having underestimated the capacity of the assisted areas, what does Hardman then do? He goes on to assign 10,890 places to Milton Keynes. One-third of all the proposed moves go 51 miles up the Edgware Road to Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes cannot take them and does not want them. Milton Keynes has a great many things. The Labour Government put the Open University there, which brought 1,000 jobs to the area, and it will get many other things as well.
Mr. Harry Gourlay: My right hon. Friend mentioned various parts of the country that had accommodation available. I hope that he has not made the mistake that most persons south of the border make in thinking that Glasgow comprises the whole of Scotland. A number of other parts of Scotland are just as entitled to get a share.
Mr. Short: I agree with my hon. Friend, but at the moment I am talking about this staggering proposal to move one-third of all the jobs 51 miles up the Edgware Road.
Even in the regional solution Milton Keynes is to get 4,672 posts. Imagine that as a regional solution! Basingstoke is to get 300, Southend 500, and Teddington 350 for the Government chemist. Why cannot the Government chemist go to West Cumberland? Why cannot he go to Carlisle, or to the Science Centre at Peterlee which is rapidly developing? This is an ideal small department for sending there.
Merseyside has a capacity of 3,000 and it is assigned 2,000. Manchester has a capacity of 3,000 and it is assigned 1,390. This will not do. We reject this recommended solution, which is an insult to our intelligence and to the people in the regions. Even the regional solution, as I have shown in the last few figures, is not regional enough.
Hardman said:
"…although dispersal has a real contribution to make, it is clearly not tailored to the

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needs of many areas in the way which, say, companies needing male manual workers tend to be. It is probably much better geared to the correction of an imbalance of employment (where office jobs are seriously lacking) than to the raising of a generally low level of activity."
I do not agree with this playing down of the general benefit to the regional economies, but even taking that narrow objective the report fails to recommend an acceptable solution. The imbalance in the old development areas is not caused simply by the decline of old heavy industries. It is aggravated by the severe lack of opportunities in the service sector generally, and specifically in office employment.
I was glad to hear the Minister say that this report is only a starting point recommend the Government to go right back to square one and look again at the whole question. This dispersal exercise is an opportunity for the Government to make, perhaps, the biggest single contribution to correcting the imbalance in development areas. If it is frittered away by adopting these ill-considered proposals, the opportunity will not recur for very many years.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must draw the attention of the House to the fact that more than 30 hon. Members hope to take part in the debate. I hope, therefore that all hon. Members will make their speeches as brief as possible.
5.24 p.m.
Dame Joan Vickers: I am pleased to have the opportunity of thanking my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for receiving a deputation from the West Country particularly from Plymouth.
I agree with some of the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short). The Hardman Committee reviewed only 86,000 civil servants. There are more than 500,000 of whom 300,000 are located outside London and only 43,000 are eligible for dispersal.
The motion to take note of the report is in the usual form. I regret that only too often we are asked to take note of a report. I hope that this time the Minister, who I am sure is sympathetic
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to what we say, will take notice of what hon. Members say about their constituencies and not just take notice of the report.
I was interested to read the statistics recently released by the EEC Regional Commission to the effect that 36 per cent. of Britain's population lives in regions that need help and qualify for EEC regional aid. In these statistics Devonport and Plymouth are mentioned separately, which I am glad to see.
The Hardman Report recommends that the Home Office, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and the Department of Employment should come to Plymouth, bringing 1,660 jobs in all. Under the heading "Regional solution" on pages 14 and 15 the report suggests that the Board of Inland Revenue might come to Plymouth, bringing 1,610 jobs. I understand that four members of the board have already visited Plymouth and have had discussions with the local officials.
One advantage of dispersal to Plymouth is that there is sufficient land available to enable the erection of purpose-built buildings. From many documents I have received from other areas it appears that there are premises which could be allocated for this use but they are scattered. Plymouth could provide buildings which would not be scattered and which would be available as required by the Civil Service.
For example, if it were decided to move these civil servants to Plymouth about 800 would come in one year, 90 per cent. of whom would prefer to buy their own houses. This would not interfere with the local residents and their need for council houses.
There is tremendous unemployment in the area among women and girls. Girls with five, six or seven 0-levels or with A-levels have little opportunity to earn their living unless they leave the city. The Plymouth and Exeter region has the lowest activity rate for females—only 27·9 per cent.
Many people like to retire to the South-West but when they get there many of them are lonely because they have come to a new area in which they have not worked all their lives. If they were to come to work in the area they would make friends and find life in retirement much easier.

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The Hardman Report assessed Plymouth as having a capacity to receive 5,000 posts. As Milton Keynes does not wish to have the number of posts allocated to it by the Hardman Report, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Defence suggesting that more civil servants from the Ministry might be allocated to Devonport which already has many contacts with the Ministry. I understand that Milton Keynes is willing to take only about 4,000. In reply, the Secretary of State said that he had doubts of the adequacy of road and rail communications. He added that three of his senior civil servants would be coming to Plymouth to discuss the opportunities with the city. This letter was dated 16th August. I should like to know whether there has been any decision to send more civil servants to Plymouth and whether any action has been taken.
With local government reorganisation the opportunities in local government jobs have diminished because most offices will not be situated in Exeter.
As the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central said, the question of travelling time has not been adequately assessed by the Hardman Committee. There is, for instance, a train from London at 7 a.m. arriving at Plymouth at 10.40 a.m. There are trains back at 4.30 p.m., 5.30 p.m., 6.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. Civil servants could be in the head offices by 11 a.m. and be available for at least six hours' work, which is more than is suggested in the report. If they care to travel, as I do, on the night train, they can be in London by 7.30 a.m., do a whole day's work, and return.
What has not yet been mentioned are adequate facilities in regard to education. There are many grammar schools in Plymouth, although this may not be appreciated by Members of the Opposition. There are also Roman Catholic schools and a college, for those who wish to have their children educated in that faith. There is also a College of Further Education, a Polytechnic and a school of navigation, so there are excellent opportunities for the education of children.
Leisure time activities have also not been mentioned. The West Country excels in leisure activities. One can go rambling on Dartmoor, play golf, or go sailing or fishing. Whatever type of
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human leisure activity is named, it can be found in the West Country. I was interested to see, from page 86 of the report, that, although it discussed the question of environment for work, neither the Tavistock section nor any other mentioned the question of what people would do with their leisure time.
Regarding choice of area of dispersal, the Report shows that 31·6 per cent. of civil servants opted for the South-West, when asked which area they would prefer. That is a very high average. To date there are 100 civil servants in Plymouth and there are possibly 775 in the pipeline. However, Plymouth has the capacity to take 5,000 civil servants.
The report states in paragraph 9, page 50, that Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester already have substantial concentrations of office workers and this affects the ability of those cities to take more. The only type of civil servants in our area are those employed in the dockyard, where there are over 3,000 non-industrials and over 14,000 industrials. In the first category 613 are women and in the second category only 362. In view of the recent pronouncements by Members of the Opposition regarding dockyards, we are worried that these numbers may be cut.
The report refers, on page 14, to the "efficient" solution. Now that Milton Keynes is not agreeable to taking the number specified, Plymouth would be a very adequate place.
I wish to conclude by mentioning the reference on page 46 of the report, to the loss of wives' income which is assessed at £27,000, and I do not understand this I presume that wives of civil servants are earning money in their present areas. I can assure these wives that there is plenty of work for them in the South-West, if they wish to take up employment there.
With regard to the postal service and travel, I find that when I am unable to travel to Plymouth to appear on BBC or Westward Television I can take part in a programme from London. Why, therefore, cannot there be a television service linking offices in outlying regions with London? This would provide civil servants with a means of having a direct conversation with their opposite numbers in other areas. Distances should not be regarded as a handicap in considering

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the areas to which civil servants should be dispersed. The only consideration should be the happiness and working efficiency of those concerned.
5.34 p.m.
Mr. Arthur Bottomley: This debate deals basically with the policy followed by successive Governments to ensure that the living conditions and standard of life for people in Britain are reasonably uniform. It has long been recognised that the North-East, the North-West, South Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been less favoured areas than others. Regardless of whether they have been called depressed areas, special areas, development areas or special development areas, circumstances in these areas have changed very little. Indeed, the comparison with the South-East is now little better than it was in the 'fifties, or possibly even in the 'thirties.
Many of us regarded the Hardman Inquiry into the dispersal of civil servants as a realistic attempt to improve conditions in the development areas. In this respect we are disappointed. The Hardman Report appears to concentrate upon so-called strategic and communication problems caused by the dispersal of civil servants from London. The social and economic needs of regions get little consideration. It cannot be justified that the South-East region, with 32 per cent. of the population, should have 46 per cent. of the employees of Government Departments. It is estimated that, in the South-East, there are clerical jobs for 8 per cent. of the male population, compared with 5 per cent. in the North-East, while the corresponding figures for women are put at 14 per cent. and 8 per cent. respectively.
The employment of white collar workers provides a better social balance for a region. The Hardman Report illustrates this by saying that the provision of clerical jobs provides better opportunities for school leavers. One of the major problems in Teesside has for a long time been the lack of employment for school leavers.
The long-term economic viability of the North-East depends upon securing clerical employment and service industries to combine with the concentration of heavy industry. Those who know the
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North-East are aware that it is a pleasant place, with a very attractive environment. It provides ready access to the countryside, and to national parks, and has a beautiful coastline and historic towns. It is a place in which one could work and live very comfortably. Travel facilities are excellent.
The report shows a lack of understanding of the transport services for Teesside. It quotes the train journey from London to Teesside as taking 3·9 hours, whereas it is 2·52 hours. The report states that the journey by road takes six hours, whereas 4½ hours is nearer the mark. There are three air services weekly—four in summer—and soon there will be six. Teesside is linked by air with Europe. The number of passengers carried by air in the first nine months of 1973 was as many as the total for the whole of 1972. Cargo carried was up by 200 per cent. in September this year compared with September of 1972.
I gather that the Minister, during a trip to the region, let it be known that there were a number of points which would be considered when a decision was made. There have been visits to Teesside by the Inspector of Establishments of the Ministry of Defence and officers from the Civil Service Department and the Property Services Agency. Senior civil servants representing the Board of Inland Revenue have also visited Teesside. I am confident that they will have reported faithfully to the Minister and that he is aware of the position on Teesside as a result of the information they have given him.
I am told that the Minister wishes to know whether there is enough office accommodation or land available for office building in Teesside. The answer to this is, "Certainly, yes". His colleagues in the Civil Service have looked at Coulby Newham, where it is possible to have a purpose-built centre for a branch of the Civil Service. The Minister also wishes to know if the area can supply the necessary workers. I do not think there is any doubt about this. In September the Barclay Card regional centre was opened in Middlesbrough and there were 400 applicants for 140 jobs. There are adequate houses, schools and social services. There are good quality houses in the area and the education services are good and

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are continually improving. There is also a wide range of recreational and social facilities. Indeed, anyone who has been to the Billingham Forum will know that it is one of the best social and cultural centres in the country. There are very few difficulties in respect of transport concerning Teesside.
The Hardman Report suggested that the Ministry of Defence might be dispersed to Milton Keynes. We are delighted to hear from the Minister today that that is unlikely. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Defence still insists upon having a site on the London-Bath axis. In this connection it looks as though Swindon is the selected town. One can imagine the arguments that could have been used when the Admiralty had to move to Bath, under the wartime emergency regulations. It was compelled to go there because there was no alternative. But I see no good reason why all kinds of employees, from the naval personnel to the Directorate General of Defence Accounts, should continue to be based at Bath. That applies also to many other civil servants whom it is not necessary to locate on the London-Bath axis.
There are other places, and Teesside is an admirable place to which they could be sent. Indeed, if they were sent to Teesside it is estimated that Teesside would be asked to provide about 5,000 locally recruited employees. As a result of the development of the Ministry of Defence at Teesside, these jobs would be mainly clerical and routine jobs. Many of them would be for the employment of women.
The dispersal of a substantial part of the Ministry of Defence could give a completely new role to Teesside. There would be wider job opportunities for local people, and the existence of many higher paid office and managerial personnel would help to produce a better balanced social structure. It would provide a stimulus to improvements in local education, cultural facilities, shopping and so on. Teesside's "efficiency" is underrated in the Hardman Report. Communications, especially with London, are much better than has been suggested. Teesside has the capacity, in terms of staff and potential accommodation, for a larger complex than that which is recommended in the report.
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Most civil servants in the South-East are not aware of the facilities that Teesside offers. I know many civil servants who have been moved to Teesside, and people who work for some of the larger business organisations such as Imperial Chemical Industries. Once they have been stationed on Teesside they do not like the idea, even for a promotion, of returning to London or the South-East. The advantages of improved living conditions and access to the sea and the countryside would be a very welcome contrast to the quality of life in London.
The civil servants and the Ministers have had a chance of visiting Teesside, and Coulby Newham is being looked at as a possible site, along with sites in many parts of the country. But has consideration been given to the Crown land available at Eaglescliffe? The use of this land would avoid paying a high price for land which these days is at a premium. It would also have the advantage of joining an existing Ministry of Defence establishment.
I am particularly glad to take part in this debate. We on Teesside have missed out on every occasion in the past. We thought that we would get the Post Office Savings Bank. We thought that we would get the Royal Mint and the Government Computer Centre. We got none of them. We cannot afford to lose out this time. It appears that Teesside is to get the Board of Inland Revenue and the Property Services Agency of the Department of the Environment. I hope that the Government will support that recommendation. Consideration ought to be given, too, to the transfer of Ministry of Defence personnel either to the establishment which is already there or to Coulby Newham.
The Prime Minister has very often said that he believes in one nation and hopes to bring this about. It can be brought about if a beginning can be made by the Government agreeing to dispersals from London and the South-East to the regions. There must be an endeavour to do away with the inequality of the opportunities which exist in Britain today. I hope that the Minister will be very positive and strong, as he has shown himself today, in encouraging civil servants to move from London and the South East to other parts of the country, particularly Teesside.
5.45 p.m.
Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: There can be no doubt that the Hardman Report is a most interesting document. It has been compiled with a great deal of care and makes fascinating reading. Apart from that, however, I feel that it is rather useless. It does not attack the problem from the right angle. It does not start with the conviction that there should be a dispersal of the Civil Service but, rather, it seems from reading between the lines, from a belief that dispersal is a bad thing—necessary, perhaps, for political reasons but to be limited as far as possible.
Starting from that attitude, it is not surprising that Sir Henry Hardman reaches the conclusions that he does and finds facts to support his conclusions. That is why this sort of report is often very largely a waste of time and energy. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that nine times out of ten we start with a feeling of what we want and, having decided what we want, we very soon find the facts to support our point of view. It is not logic that guides us, but emotion as to what we feel to be the right thing to do. The Civil Service establishment naturally thinks one thing. Those of us like myself, who come from one of the regions naturally think another and a different thing. It is to the basic matter of principle, whether there should be dispersal and the extent of it—not the detail and the largely irrelevant arguments in the Hardman Report—that I hope that the Government will direct their thinking.
Sir Henry says that dispersal means a lack of efficiency. But he is looking at efficiency in a very narrow light. He is merely, and perhaps inevitably, concerned with the efficiency of the Government machine. But here in the House of Commons it is not merely the efficiency of the Government machine with which we should be concerned but the efficiency of the nation as a whole. Unless the spirit of the nation is high, no amount of efficiency at the centre will do any good, because that efficiency at the centre is obtained at the expense of the rest of the country. Instead of nurturing our national well-being it has the effect of bleeding white the peripheral areas and so reducing the effectiveness of the whole
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nation, however efficient the machine at the centre may be.
There is nothing new in what I am saying. The thought behind it is accepted by the Government, otherwise they would have no regional policy at all. If industrially stark naked efficiency were to be the order of the day there would be, taking an example from my area, no steel strip mill at Ravenscraig and no motor manufacturers at Linwood and Bathgate.
One school of thought is that to spread the jam in this way over the whole country reduces efficiency and means less jam in total, so that the right thing is to let industry develop as and where it wants to develop in a natural way, and that if it is allowed to do this it will produce the greatest return. That is the doctrine of laissez-faire, but that does not form the doctrine or philosophy of Conservatives generally or of the present Government in particular.
It was a Conservative Government in the 1960s who sent the motor industry to Scotland. That was a remarkable breakthrough. If in the interests of having a balanced industrial community it was right for that Conservative Government to take a hand in the dispersal of industrial jobs it must surely be right, on the same principle, for the present Government to disperse office jobs, too, and not only any kind of dull, routine office jobs, but also the important decision-making office jobs. This must be done if the country is to have any kind of balance in its leadership and opportunities and in the quality of life which having such a mixed community creates.
In the old days the centralisation of government in Whitehall did not perhaps matter much. It did not have the dampening and demoralising effect on the regions that it has today. It administered so little and there were plenty of important decision-making jobs in the regions. In my area, for example, there was coal, iron, steel and shipping.
Now almost all of them are gone. Nationalisation has been part of the trouble but another contributory cause has been the ever-increasing interference in industry of the Government machine, irrespective of party. Hence the need felt by industry now which was unknown before the First World War to have its headquarters on top of Whitehall. No

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amount of preaching by the Government of the merits of office dispersal will by itself do any good. But move the Department of Trade and Industry, for example, to Liverpool or move the Ministry of Defence to Scotland and in an instant there would be a dispersal of other decision makers and an entirely new spirit in the regions.
It cannot be done, Sir Henry says. What nonsense that is. We are living in a tiny island, not a vast continent and it is at least as quick to get from Glasgow by air to Whitehall as to get from Bath to Whitehall by train.
We are no longer living in an era when business can be done only when the parties are physically face to face. Developments of closed circuit television are making all that a thing of the past. As for those cosy chance meetings between civil servants that we are told do so much to fertilise ideas, do not the Government see that it is precisely the absence of this cross-fertilisation which is so damaging to the whole spirit of the regions and why we simply must have these top jobs, as well as the ordinary sort of jobs, in the regions.
Obviously the Government are faced with a choice and not a particularly easy one for them since they are the employers of the civil servants and they feel an obligation to have regard to their employees' wishes. Those wishes are to stay put and not to move to those dreadfully remote parts of the country more than 50 miles from London. I spend half my time in London and half in the regions and I have no hesitation in saying that the physical conditions for a good life exist much more in the regions than they do in London.
The Government are faced with the choice of doing something unpopular to their employees and perhaps causing a slight reduction in efficiency in their machine, but I urge them seriously to put their responsibility to the whole nation in front of the convenience to themselves and their employees. I urge them to take a large draught of the medicine they have doled out to industry and in the interests of welfare, social cohesion, the spirit and efficiency of the nation as a whole to drop the report quietly into the nearest wastepaper basket and to issue instructions that
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Departments should move from Whitehall to the regions. In no other way will the Government live up to our Conservative claim of being one nation.
5.55 p.m.
Mr. Frank McElhone: I speak for West Central Scotland but my argument will not be directed against any other region. That would be the wrong approach and I am glad that it has not been adopted so far.
I come from an area of high unemployment and I am deeply concerned about people who are unemployed in Liverpool, the North East and Wales, and therefore I welcome the announcement by the Minister of the jobs going to Cardiff and Washington New Town. Nor is it right for the argument to be advanced on parochial grounds or for us to appeal to the compassion or charity of the Government. We make our case in West Central Scotland purely on economic and good industrial grounds. We believe we have strong social factors to add to that argument.
The report is a challenge to the regions which have been sorely affected by vast levels of unemployment for far too long. It is a challenge to the Government to be honest about their regional policy. It is a challenge to them to show confidence in West Central Scotland where the figures of unemployment are double the national average in spite of the improvement of the last few months.
If the Government do not show confidence how can they expect confidence to be shown by private industry? For too long my part of the world has been the industrial dormitory of the south. We have enjoyed full employment when the situation was good but we have always been the first to suffer in any recession. We can no longer expect the highly skilled young people of the area who are better educated than my generation was to accept the long periods of unemployment suffered by many of my contemporaries. That is why mass migration of the best skilled personnel from my area continues.
The Minister referred to the excellent report produced by Lord Provost Gray and his committee. It was a non-partisan exercise which had the support of every sector of the community—politics, industry and commerce in the

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West of Scotland. We reject the insult of Hardman to the people in my part of the world. He makes many false assumptions and time does not permit me to deal with each of them. But we must heed the warning given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short) concerning the efficiency of the Civil Service in the coming years. The number of advertisements in the London newspapers for Civil Service jobs is galling in view of the number of highly skilled people who are unemployed in Central Scotland and the surrounding area.
The other insult of Hardman and perhaps the worst of all, is that he reckons the city of Glasgow and the surrounding area is capable of taking only 5,000 jobs. He does not give figures on which he bases that assumption. How did he arrive at it? It is so easy to pronounce on the efficiency of a city or a regional area from the comfort of a London office. For too long we have suffered that type of decision-making. In London, there is one civil servant for every 49 persons. In the West of Scotland the ratio is only one civil servant for every 216 persons.
The other mistake made by the Hardman Report concerned the dispersal of jobs to Scotland between 1963 and 1972. He mentioned the figure of 6,481. Again that figure is misleading. Take for example the position of the Inland Revenue office in East Kilbride. We were told that we were given 1,540 jobs there. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, the work was formerly done by 65 local offices. This to me is a poor example of resource gain, if resource gain is to be the criterion of this report.
The figure of 7,000 jobs, which is mentioned for the Post Office Savings Bank, is again a dubious one, because all the expert opinion in the area tells us that the maximum figure is to be 6,000 jobs, and possibly 1,000 less. Even at this early stage of that excellent and exciting industry, in that office complex in a part of Glasgow not far from that which I represent, there is a possibility of redundancies because of computerisation.
Those of us who represent Glasgow can state that the figures which the Lord Provost recently gave out about school leavers should be a lesson to the Minister
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and should show him the need for putting a major Department in that part of the world. At the last examination, Glasgow Corporation could offer only one clerical job to every four young people who applied.
I should also like to state that in the local authorities in and around Glasgow we had 13,989 pupils with SCE passes, and 1,500 of them applied for 300 Civil Service posts. Is that not a shocking waste of real potential? This leads to frustration in these highly skilled young people, which is one of the reasons why so many of them leave for Canada, America and Australia, and the country is all the poorer at losing people of that kind.
This is not a partisan argument, and no one underestimates the difficulties of this Government, or of any other Government, in doing a dispersal exercise. Anyone who talks to the civil servants and their families appreciates their apprehension and fear about the change of school and of environment, and we accept that they feel like that. Nevertheless, Mr. James Jack went to see the Scottish Secretary of State only last week and he had to tell him, after a very careful analysis, that there is a possibility of a rundown of 400,000 jobs in Scotland over the next few years, due to industrial and technological change. But the few jobs offered by Hardman appears to us to show a sense of complacency and to be a patronising gesture.
In conclusion, I should like to say that the whole of the West of Scotland without exception rejects the validity of the Hardman Report. We think that it is very wrong, it is prejudiced in regard to the regions, it is certainly based on the assumptions of civil servants and it looks only towards the needs of civil servants. I am sorry to have to say to the Minister that unless West Central Scotland can capture a major Government Department, and unless the Government give confidence to private industry to invest there, we shall have a continuance of high unemployment in the part of the world which I represent.
6.3 p.m.
Mr. R. W. Elliott: I, too, will attempt to be brief, not least because I feel that in a debate of this nature we are all rather

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bound to make certain points. This debate is bound to take on a regional flavour. But I would agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) that whether we come from Central Scotland, from the North-East of England, from Merseyside or from anywhere else, we have a fellow-feeling for the unemployed and we wish to see the problem of unemployment cured, wherever it is. Automatically, one is bound to feel most strongly about one's own region.
A great deal of this debate must revolve around the civil servants who will be involved in this redistribution. Whatever may be said about the Hardman Report—and some very hard things have been said about it in this debate—if we accept as correct the number of those who can be considered for redistribution, we should recognise that the figure of 40 per cent., stated by my hon. Friend in his opening speech is a remarkably high percentage. So it is surely an exaggeration when the Deputy Leader of the Opposition suggests that this is the opportunity for a major break-through in redistributing workers in this country, if we consider the total figure of civil servants who can be considered for redistribution.
The right hon. Gentleman was very critical indeed of the report, but he made a number of points with which I agreed. Modern methods of transmission—television, modern telephone systems and so on—seem to be underestimated in the general assessments made in the report. I was interested in the right hon. Gentleman's suggestions about timing of travel. I travel a great deal from Newcastle, as he does, and the fact that the Hardman Committee has been sitting for two-and-a-half years indicates that there has been a lack of consideration of progress. It does not take quite so long now to get here by train but it still takes quite a long time, and the difference between 4·8 hours and four hours is not so great. If the right hon. Gentleman's assessment of how long it takes him to get from Newcastle to Westminster in a motor car is correct, then all I can say is that either I must be a very had driver or he must have a much more powerful car than I have.
All I should like to suggest is that, as my hon. Friend said, the Hardman Report is not the end of the consideration
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of the problem and it will be part of the continuing discussion. However much of the Hardman Report may be accepted or rejected by the Government, my hon. Friend has been most willing to receive many of us in his Department with representatives from the regions, and has been most willing to listen to what we had to say. I was part of a delegation which he received during the summer, and the patience with which he listened to the claims of the North-East of England for some of he dispersed civil servants was highly commendable. On that occasion he made the point, to which I return, that the number of civil servants who can be redistributed is small in number.
The right hon. Gentleman the Deputy Leader of the Opposition mentioned the Department which he can see from the windows of the house in which he has lived since 1946. We are all very pleased indeed to have that enormous department of the DHSS in Newcastle, but I would point out that it is not a policy-making department; it is wholly administrative. It is being forgotten by the people who have taken part in this debate that it is the policy makers that we are asking should be redistributed, and it is not so easy to do that.
It is worth putting on record that during that summer meeting in which I took part my hon. Friend emphasised his enormous concern for the civil servants who will be involved in this dispersal. It is not very easy to be uprooted and sent into the regions. One takes the point that it is easier to buy a house in Liverpool or in Glasgow, and that one can have a motor car or a new suit or whatever it is thrown in as well. But unless there is a substantial career structure following the Hardman Report, and following the Government decisions arising from it, I am quite sure that civil servants will greatly fear being moved out to the regions. My main plea this afternoon is that if we are to have action subsequent to the Hardman Report—and I sincerely hope that we are—a substantial career structure should be established in each of the regions to which these civil servants will go.
May I say to any civil servants who are to come to the North-East of England that we shall be very delighted to have

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them there. May I also express, as did the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, my extreme pleasure at the announcement made this afternoon of 2,000 new white collar jobs in Washington New Town. This is splendid news and will be very well received in the North-East.
Mr. Sheldon: The point that the hon. Gentleman is making about a career structure in the regions is important, but equally important is the need to recognise that any permanent secretary or anybody who aspires to the highest offices in the State should have behind him some service in the regions. The sooner this is accepted, perhaps the greater acceptance will the report receive in principle.
Mr. Elliott: I wholly accept that. I know that my hon. Friend and his colleagues in the Government are taking civil servants fully into consideration. In our demands to have civil servants sent to us, we must give them some form of security of tenure in the shape of a career structure, and I agree about the desirability of junior civil servants being relatively permanent as well.
I say again to the civil servants who are to come to Washington New Town, or anywhere else in the North-East of England, that they will be most welcome. My own region will welcome them and will be delighted to have them there. This is a region which has had an enormous amount of redevelopment recently. We have had the great problem of declining industry, and the change has been progressive.
Let no civil servant imagine that this is a backward or dull area. Those civil servants who have come to us have liked it enormously and they would not like to be returned to London. The quality of life in the region is so much better than in London. We all know that when we go back there at weekends. We very much hope that civil servants will agree that the quality of life is better. My own region has improved greatly, particularly in the last year. The Director of the North-East Development Council, in his annual report, said "Who a year ago would believe that there could have been as much progress in a year?"
We have got our unemployment down by 30,000 in a year; 10,000 jobs have
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been brought in and there are current proposals for another 9,000 jobs. We have 19 advance factories, the biggest advance factory programme that this country has ever known. A new centre for advice to small businesses recently opened in the City of Newcastle. Above all else, the quality of life has been greatly improved. No civil servant should imagine that we have not got considerable cultural activity. We have a beautiful countryside and excellent communications.
However, we also have a remarkable amount of unemployment and, although reference has been made to the enormous complex at Long Benton, it is only fair to say that there is a staff recruitment problem there and we should bear this in mind when suggesting that Departments should move out. We still have an enormous training problem. If we are to have new establishments of any kind—Civil Service or otherwise—in our region, we must consider more urgently, even though we have done a great amount in recent years, more training and retraining in the regions.
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition said that the Hardman Committee—and it sat for quite a while—had listened only to civil servants. I cannot believe that this is so, but I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will take up this point when he replies to the debate. I agree with one or two things which the right hon. Gentleman said. The original suggestion for Milton Keynes in terms of numbers has been somewhat irritating to us all.
I should like to make a firm plea for my region. We would be delighted to have a substantial defence personnel establishment in the North-East. I agree also with the right hon. Gentleman that there is in the northern half of the country an area which distinctly needs assistance, and that is West Cumberland. Could more consideration be given to the Government Chemist being placed there, bearing in mind all that it would mean for that part of the country?
This debate is very useful and I am sure the Government will take full note of what has been said. There has been considerable criticism of the report, but I thank Sir Henry Hardman and those who sat with him for having produced it, for it has produced the basis for an excellent debate.
Mr. Speaker: The last five speakers spoke on average for about 10 minutes each. If hon. Members keep that up, it should be possible to call all those who wish to speak.
6.18 p.m.
Mr. Edmund Dell: I will not take up the time of the House in describing the beauties of my constituency. I did that in my maiden speech and I believe it was acceptable to the whole House. Merseyside does very badly out of this report. We do not even get the number of jobs that we would do under what is described as the efficient solution. We do much worse than that in the recommendations in the report.
This seems to me to be typical of an attitude, which the Government share, which is found not merely in this report, that Merseyside needs less help than other development areas—that it does not need, for example, to have a special development area in its industrial centre. All the facts of the situation are proving that the Government are wrong in this respect. Ministers will be asked to receive a delegation from Merseyside and I hope to be on that delegation. We shall present the argument in detail.
In consideration of the time, I want to make only one point, which is this—and I hope the Government will take it: there has been a grave deterioration, relatively speaking, in the situation on Merseyside, and I should like to illustrate that statement by a few simple figures. In September 1973 unemployment in the Liverpool travel-to-work area, which includes my constituency of Birkenhead, was 6·5 per cent. The United Kingdom level of unemployment was 2·4 per cent. Hon. Friends of mine have spoken of unemployment in their areas being double the national average. In my area it is three times the national average.
So far as I can ascertain, the last September when the national rate of unemployment was 2·4 per cent. was in September 1969. At that time unemployment in the Liverpool travel-to-work area was 4·1 per cent.—one third less than it is today. In September 1968 when the United Kingdom level of unemployment was 2·4 per cent. in the Liverpool travel-to-work area it was 3·7 per cent. There has been this grave deterioration as compared with the national average.
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Let us see what the situation is in other development areas—and I say this in no competitive spirit because I do not deny their need for jobs. Looking at the September 1973 figures given on page 25 of the Monthly Digest of Statistics, one finds that the unemployment rate in Scotland is 4·1 per cent., in Wales 3·5 per cent. and in the North 4·5 per cent. In the Liverpool travel-to-work area the figure is 6·5 per cent. Merseyside now has a more serious unemployment problem than any other development area.
I was sent by Mr. William S. Gray, Lord Provost of Glasgow, a copy of Glasgow's "Unanswerable Case". In page 30 he lists unemployment rates in July 1973. The Liverpool travel-to-work area comes off worst amongst the cities which are listed. The rate of unemployment in Glasgow was 5·9 per cent. and in Liverpool it was 6·6 per cent. That is a deterioration because only a few years ago the rate of unemployment in Merseyside was relatively better than in other development areas. It is now relatively the worst.
In the reconsideration which the Government are now giving to the report and to the dispersal of civil servants, they must take account of the changed position of Merseyside. It is no longer possible to brush Merseyside aside as the easier development area. It is now a much more serious situation. I hope that the Government will think again about Merseyside in the reconsideration of the report to which the Minister referred.
6.21 p.m.
Mr. W. Benyon: I think that I am the first hon. Member to speak in this debate who comes from the South-East of England. I represent that attractive place 50 miles up the Edgware Road about which we have heard so much this afternoon, the new city of Milton Keynes.
I was considerably relieved to hear my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department announce that the large influx of civil servants which is postulated in the Hardman Report will not now take place. It was regarded as a compliment to the new city that this proposal should be made and that Milton Keynes should be considered as a suitable location for the Ministry of Defence. However, the Corporation has

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taken the view, and I am sure that it is right, that the number proposed is far too large and that even if it were spread over a lengthy period it would create a dominant industry position which we are most anxious to avoid. We have far too many disastrous examples from Dagenham to Glenrothes to welcome such a situation.
The new city would welcome a lesser number of civil servants from the Ministry of Defence along the lines of Hardman's second alternative. From the national standpoint, however, I am sure that other considerations should apply.
There are two aspects of the report to which I shall refer briefly. I am sure that it is wrong to put too much emphasis on the problems of communications. Communications must be made to meet the demands of dispersal and not the other way about. The pace of advance in this medium is great. Obviously it was not part of Sir Henry's brief to peer into the future technology of communications, but it can be said with safety that communications will get easier and will get more efficient. Thus the problems of expense and distance will be greatly reduced as time goes on. Therefore it seems wrong to make this an excuse for not moving the headquarter staffs, the policy-making personnel. I do not accept that such a contention is valid.
I now turn to London and the South East. Hardman's terms of reference did not include the social problems of the metropolis and the surrounding area. However, we have discussed the problems of the South East in other debates before the recess. We all know about the imbalance which exists in London and the pressures which are involved. The office rent situation is part of the cost benefit analysis in the Hardman Report. A rent of £5 to £6 a square foot is quoted. Of course, that was two years ago and we know that it is now approximately £10 to £12 a square foot. Therefore, the savings here are a great deal more now.
Far more important is that London and the South East comprises a housing stress area. If only 15,000 people out of the total of 30,000 move from the metropolis or the South East to a development area, that means that 15,000 fewer houses will be needed in the area and this should be
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represented in the cost-benefit analysis. Thus we have a marvellous opportunity to diminish, albeit marginally, the pressures which now exist in the South East. That is a matter which is completely under Government control and on which the Government can take the decision.
However this presupposes that the movement will take place out of the South East as a whole. It is no good trying to relieve the pressure by moving people from London to another part of the South East. It is necessary to move people out of the South East completely because the pressures are the same throughout the area. There will not be a net advantage unless we do that. The Government will be fully justified if they decide that dispersal can go only to those areas outside the South East where unemployment exists.
Those who approach the problem as laymen, without specialist knowledge, know firstly that planning and growth is entirely related to employment possibilities. Secondly, no one wants to move. That is a fact of life. As far as the former is concerned, the job opportunities in the South East both now and in years to come will ensure prosperity to a large degree. The task of creating a reasonable environment will not be affected by the removal of 30,000 potential jobs from the South East.
The objection to moving is another matter. It is so very understandable. I do not want to hurt the feelings of hon. Members who come from the areas concerned, but they must accept that some of these areas do not have the best of images. If I were a civil servant I confess that my heart would sink if I were asked to move to Glasgow, or Cardiff or indeed to the Central Lancashire new town.
Miss Mary Holt: It is quite obvious that my hon. Friend has no acquaintance with the beauties of the Central Lancashire New Town and the surrounding country.
Mr. Benyon: I expected that reply. Nobody who has discussed the matter with the people who are established in London and the South East, will be unaware of the fears engendered by such a move. That is a matter which must he understood.

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The Government must back their words with deeds. They and their predecessors have encouraged industry to move to the development areas. They must take the same decision with their own employees.
6.28 p.m.
Mr. Ted Fletcher: There are many reasons why the Hardman Report should not be accepted by the Government. I do not intend to go into all those reasons except to express the hope that they follow the advice which has been given of consigning it to the wastepaper basket. The inadequacy of the report has been brilliantly highlighted by my right lion. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short).
I wish to focus attention on only one aspect of the report—namely, the imbalance of clerical employment between London and the South East and the North East Regions. I do not wish to weary the House with statistics but it is important to note that for every 49 people employed in London one is a civil servant whereas in the North East only one out of every 300 people employed is a civil servant. That ratio is reflected in industry generally. In the 1966 census we find that 8·7 per cent. of males employed are in clerical jobs and that in the Northern Region the figure is only 5·1 per cent. In London and the South East, 14·5 per cent. of employed females are in clerical occupations whereas in the Northern Region the figure is only 8·3 per cent.
According to the figures issued by the Department of Employment the number of school leavers entering clerical employment per thousand of the working population is 153 boys in London and the South East as against only 71 in the northern area. The number of girls entering clerical employment per thousand of the working population in London and the South East is 432 compared with only 336 in the Northern Region. It is because of lack of job opportunities that thousands of our best and most brilliant youngsters have to migrate to the Midlands and the South in order to net clerical employment and other job opportunities which do not exist in the regions.
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The Prime Minister claimed that the Government's regional policies are now bearing fruit, but unemployment is still greater than it was in 1970, when the Government were elected. In spite of frequent statements that the number of unemployed is being reduced, it has not yet been reduced to the figure which existed in 1970.
It is interesting to note that job opportunities are being further restricted because the number of jobs is decreasing in the Northern Region. In reply to a parliamentary Question on 4th July, the hon. Gentleman said that seven years ago, in 1967, there were 891,000 male jobs in the Northern Region and that this figure had been reduced by 1972 to 841,000—that is to say, there had been a loss of 50,000 jobs for men in the region. So the dispersal of Civil Service clerical jobs is important because it could act as a pump priming operation. It could induce private industry to set up offices in the regions and additionally the Government could put some pressure on the nationalised industries to transfer their offices into the regions.
So we have to consider this question not only as a regional problem but as a national problem because the Hardman Report could act to attract industry to the regions and take away some of the serious problems of congestion in the London region. It could make some contribution to solving London's problems as well as our regional problems.
London has now become the largest and most expensive office centre in the world. Altogether, 300 million square feet of offices are occupied in London. I do not know how many are unoccupied but, as we know, their value continues to increase although they are unoccupied. New York has only 200 million square feet of offices. But the rent per square foot in London averages £14 to £16, whereas in New York new office buildings can be rented for £4 a square foot and in the Northern Region for £1·25 per square foot.
In London it often costs more to pay for the accommodation of a clerical worker than it does to pay his wages. The hon. Gentleman mentioned £38 million as office rents—a lot of it going into the pockets of property developers in

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London. I should like to see an analysis done—perhaps I will put down a parliamentary Question—of the proportion of costs of office space per clerical worker in London compared with office space in the provinces.
Mr. Kenneth Baker: If he does so, I hope the hon. Gentleman will not restrict his question to what it costs the central Government but will extend it to cover what it costs to have offices generally sited in London. I was staggered to find that the new, Socialist-controlled Greater London Council has taken offices in my constituency at a cost of £12 per square foot.
Mr. Fletcher: No doubt that is true, but one can hardly expect the GLC to set up its offices in Newcastle, where it would cost £1·25 per square foot. Obviously the Greater London Council has to site its offices in London. But that does not apply to the Government. Office building in London is increasing at the staggering rate of 7 million square feet a year, and yet we find that there is great difficulty in recruiting clerical staff, not only into the Civil Service but generally. We have reached the situation where employment agencies are getting people from South Africa, Canada and elsewhere and are even advertising in Hong Kong for secretaries to work in London, whereas a clerical vacancy in Sunderland will attract over 100 applicants.
London is paying a heavy price in pollution, traffic congestion, high price housing and so on because of the concentration of clerical employment. It is not often realised that in the centre of London—the tiny area bounded by the main line termini of the railways—1½ million people work, although only 300,000 people live there. They face all the problems of commuters in congestion, high fares and other expenses, yet Hardman talks about operational efficiency. Where is the operational efficiency in having to travel an hour or two hours to get to one's job?
Have statistics ever been taken as to how many civil servants get to work on time? There must be many occasions when they are half an hour or an hour late in reaching the office because of the travel situation. There is not much operational efficiency in a situation of congestion. Thus, Hardman could have
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made some contribution to solving the problems of London as well as of the regions.
I urge the hon. Gentleman to have another look at the situation and not to talk in terms of the dispersal of the quite inadequate number of 31,000 jobs. If this matter is to be dealt with adequately we need twice as many jobs, not in ten years' time but within the next two or three years, in the regions, and if the Government had the will and put in the effort it could be done.
We believe that the regions have an unanswerable case for the widespread diversion of clerical employment. It has not been dealt with adequately by the Hardman Report and therefore, if the Government intend to take the problem seriously and if they have any sense—which I doubt from some of their recent policies—they will decisively reject the Hardman Report as totally inadequate.
6.37 p.m.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Before entering this House, I spent some 16 years as a civil servant, some of the time under your wise guidance, Mr. Speaker. I learned one thing above all—that, when a Minister calls for a report to conduct a fundamental reappraisal of Government policy in any particular sector, what he is asking for and what he will receive is a completely new set of reasons why the Government should go on doing what they have been doing all the time. The Hardman Report is no exception to that rule, scrupulously as Sir Henry carried out his task within the terms of reference he was given.
The trouble is that the question he was asked to answer was the wrong question. He was asked, in effect, "How much dispersal of Government offices is consistent with the retention of efficiency?" The answer to that must be, "Very little"—particularly since the review was sponsored by the Civil Service Department. But the present Government are equipped to take a more global view. They have given themselves organisations such as the Central Policy Review Staff to enable them to rise to higher viewpoints.
The Government could have asked the question instead, "What is the minimum degree of dispersal of Civil Service offices

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which is required as an essential ingredient in an effective regional policy?" An effective regional policy, as the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out—deeply as it grieves me to have to agree with him—is one which will produce a better balance between blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Such a policy, which is desirable at all times, is indispensable once the decision is taken, as it has been taken by the Government, to go for growth as the top priority, for otherwise growth will be environmentally intolerable in its consequences and very probably impossible to achieve because of bottlenecks, congestion and shortages.
The normal methods of regional policy are fairly effective in dispersing industry. But regional incentives on the whole have not proved so effective in improving the unsatisfactory balance prevailing in nearly all regions between blue and white collar workers. This is a matter in which the only fully satisfactory form of incentive is direct Government action. Dispersal of offices is direct Government action. The effectiveness of such action should not be measured solely by the impact on the unemployment level. It is not just because of their high unemployment rates that many of the regions have a disproportionate need of Government jobs or that they will derive disproportionate benefit from them.
The characteristic in many of these areas is not just high unemployment, it is a low level of economic activity, which is not the same thing. This is particularly true of the one region not so far mentioned, North Wales. I remind hon. Members that Wales does not necessarily mean South Wales. There is also North Wales. While other regions are complaining, often with justice, that they have received too little from the Hardman recommendations, North Wales has received nothing at all. It is, however, a region which has suffered particularly badly from direct Government action. It was direct action by the nationalised British Steel Corporation which phased out steel making at Shotton, costing many thousands of job opportunities in North Wales. It was the decision of the National Coal Board to stop operations at Gresford Colliery which is again losing many thousands of jobs in the Wrexham area.
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Moreover, North Wales has suffered over the years from the culpable neglect, by successive Governments, of its urgent transport needs. It has a road system which is totally unacceptable by modern standards. It has a system of rail communications which is gradually deteriorating. It has no air transport facilities. Yet it is a region particularly suitable to receive Government Departments, many of which found a satisfactory home there during the last war. There is a pool of available labour there not just among the unemployed but among those, largely women, who do not register for work because there is no prospect of them getting it.
To bring Government work to North Wales would produce a valuable net addition to the country's labour force. This is an immense benefit not even considered by Hardman. North Wales is an attractive area. It is a pity that when people likely to be affected by the move were questioned about whether they fancied the idea of moving they were not given the opportunity to specify North Wales, which clearly has a more attractive image from the point of view of dispersal than that of Wales generally, conjuring up, as it does, visions of the industrialised South and West. A more fundamental review is needed, sponsored or conducted by the Central Policy Review Staff.
Even within the unduly narrow terms of reference of the Hardman Report, North Wales has powerful claims which it should be possible to satisfy. There are 4,000 jobs available because of the understandable unwillingness of Milton Keynes to accept them. I hereby put in the claim for North Wales to receive its fair share of those jobs.
6.44 p.m.
Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I will not follow the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) in his special pleading for North Wales. I could equally well do the same in respect of Mid-Wales. He should have addressed his mind to the question, should the dispersal be to few centres, as adumbrated in the report or to many centres? There could then have been an interesting debate. I accept the principle that dispersal should be to many centres. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the wrong question was asked of Hardman.

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The right question to ask was this: what degree of dispersal is desirable in the present state of development of our country without an adverse risk to efficiency? It was difficult to discern from the Minister's opening speech what the Government's attitude was towards this report. He firmly refused to hang his hat on the Hardman peg just in case it gave way. After the extremely effective demolition job by the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short) it very nearly did give way. In the earlier part of his speech, dwelling on this historical background, the Minister referred to a letter written by Sir William Beveridge, as presumably he then was, which suggested that there should be no kind of dispersal. That language sounds rather quaint these days, talking about the importance of direct intercourse. That was presumably 30 years ago, some time during the war.
An enormous revolution in communications has taken place in the 30 years that have passed since that letter was written. Not only that, but an enormous change has taken place in our country. From Tudor times at least until the last war all paths led to London to reach the outside world. Everything tended to centralise in London and the brightest talent in all our regions was creamed off. If they did not stay in London they went to our colonies. What we do not fully appreciate now—and this debate is part of the process—is that for the first time for centuries this country is being driven back on to its regions.
Much has been said about the quality of life in different regions. It is natural that any hon. Member should emphasise the high quality of life in his or her area. In considering the dispersal of the Civil Service we ought to have two things in mind. When a man truly concerned with regionalism is speaking it is not a question of the regions in relation to London but of the regions in relation to the South-East region of which London is an essential part. In considering life in the South-East of England and particularly in London it is true that many of the attributes of a high quality of life are more evident in London than almost anywhere else. But the quality of life in London has been greatly reduced by the excessive pressure on its resources.
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In my area of Mid-Wales I can point out a high quality of life but in quite a different way from that which exists in London. One thing that the dispersal of civil servants could do is not just to help preserve the high quality of life in the South-East of England but also to improve the high quality of life in the regions. Our civil servants are recruited from among the brightest intelligences of our young people. The Civil Service examinations set a high standard and we cream off the people from the regions, into the professions and into the Civil Service.
What we have done for centuries is to bring such people to the South East and to London. Now we want to reverse that process, not only because of the overburden in London but because we want to improve our country as a whole. The Minister was right to say that this was an early part of the debate on this great issue. I largely subscribe to the attack made by the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central upon the Hardman Report. That does not detract from its value but it shows its limitations. The right hon. Gentleman made a valuable contribution to the debate, setting Hardman in a correct context.
The report suffers in particular from two drawbacks. First, it deals with London, an area within a radius of 16 miles of Charing Cross, when it should be dealing with the South-East region in relation to the other regions of the country. That is what we should be concerned about.
Secondly, this debate is academic in a way because the Kilbrandon Commission is about to report, and it may have most revolutionary proposals about the future organisation of government in this country. For example, if the Commission comes out in favour of much greater devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and the regions of England, there will be a completely different attitude towards the Civil Service.
We do not know which Civil Service Departments the Kilbrandon Report will recommend should move to the provinces. Therefore, this debate is only the beginning of a process that will reverse a historical process that has taken centuries. Everything has moved to London, the fulcrum. Gradually we shall move people

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back, because there is nowhere else that the people of this country can go. The South East is bunged up with people. They cannot go to the colonies as they used to, so they are driven back to their regions. Our attitude towards government and Civil Service is governed by this historical process.
When the Deputy Leader of the Opposition referred to the Civil Service approach of the Hardman Report he was right. But 20 years ago it would have been inconceivable for a senior civil servant to write such a report. The Civil Service approach has changed.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the importance of communications—as it were, a face-to-face meeting between thousands of civil servants and the Minister—but that theory has been exploded by a number of hon. Members today.
There is a precedent in our experience. The bulk of civil servants in the Scottish Office are in Edinburgh and the bulk of those in the Welsh Office are in Cardiff. There is a small nucleus of civil servants of both the Scottish Office and the Welsh Office in London.
Often I travel by train from Cardiff and meet some of the senior civil servants coming up in the morning for consultations. This is good for them. They have cross-fertilisation between the provinces and London which can be a precedent for other Departments. Big Departments can be moved out of London and have key civil servants kept here and others coming up for consultations with Ministers. There is no difficulty about that.
We shall see willy-nilly in the next 25 years far greater dispersal than has been contemplated by the report. Events will thrust it upon us. Our historical evolution has reached its apex. When we understand that the wheel has gone full circle and that we are now driven back to development of our own regions, it will be seen that that necessarily involves a great dispersal of civil servants in the next two decades.
6.55 p.m.
Mrs. Connie Monks: A sentence taken from the Government's statement on the Hardman Report says that
"one of the main criteria which has guided the Government is the desirability of improv-
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ing the opportunity for office employment outside London, especially so far as is possible in cities within the assisted areas and in new and expanding towns."
The central Lancashire new town area consists of three such expanding towns. As the Member for two of them—Chorley and Leyland—I view the report not only as it affects Lancashire as a whole but as it affects the area of the new town in particular. It is a growth area, so decided by both the present Government and the previous Government.
We who live there want to know where this growth is coming from. Growth of population must be accompanied by a growth of varying types of job. An increase of Civil Service jobs would help tremendously in that area, which up to now has been mostly connected with industry. Indeed, the local authorities have been told that new jobs will be created, and nothing could be more suitable than a dispersal into our area of people who work for the Government.
The area is planning various kinds of houses at various prices for sale or to rent, new schools and amenities, sports areas and even golf courses.
The new town is a fresh concept, for it consists of grafting new communities on to three existing ones, all of which have a well-established history. The new communities which will come to form the new town area will be all the more welcome if they bring some of their jobs with them. There have been problems, and there still are, but up to now there has been no real conflict between the people who were already there and the plans that are being made for the people that we hope will come to live in that area.
We were promised by the Government that this massive area, covering three towns and the country surrounding them, would not become merely a dormitory area. We have accepted that assurance in good faith. Some tension is created, understandably, by the promised use of compulsory purchase orders which make it all the more important that any further ill-feeling caused by competition for jobs should be avoided. We must have more jobs in the area. Much of our present employment has an industrial bias. To achieve the balance required we need more white-collar jobs.

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In his report Sir Henry Hardman says
"Although dispersal has a real contribution to make, it is clearly not tailored to the needs of many areas in the way in which, say, companies needing male manual workers tend to be."
That may be so, but I submit that it is tailored to fit into the development of the central Lancashire new town, for it has a complete infrastructure, the M6 and M61 motorways, which are well used for travelling to work and for pleasure to the Lake District, Blackpool, Scotland, North Wales and the beautiful moorland and hilly area to the east which is designated as a country park. Fast communication links with London already exist by road, rail and air. Hardman makes an assumption which I am not sure is correct—that dispersal means a loss of efficiency. I do not agree. The absence in our part of the country of a great deal of the physical stress endured in London—and I speak feelingly—caused by overcrowded streets and packed buses and trains would result in greater efficiency and less strain.
I welcome the fact that visits for civil servants to our area have been arranged because many people—even in this place, where we all believe we know a great deal about other people's areas—have a wrong impression of the North. I can assure them that we are quite civilised. We no longer run about in skins and woad, and we would make newcomers, even civil servants, very welcome indeed.
7.1 p.m.
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: The problem of economic imbalance between different parts of the country, but especially between the South-East and the northern countryside, remains stubborn. Its origin lies in the steady decline of our basic industries, such as coal mining, steel and wool textiles. Its more obvious features include high unemployment, especially among the young, low wages and a drab environment. Its less well known features include the deterioration of amenities, a relatively small service sector and, ultimately, a loss of population.
All those unattractive features are present in Yorkshire and Humberside. Returns from the Department of Employment consistently show average weekly earnings for men of 21 years of age and
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over in Yorkshire and Humberside lagging behind all the other regions with the exception, on the latest returns, of the South-West. A year or two ago the average in East Anglia was lower, but never in any other region and certainly in none of the other assisted areas. Yorkshire continues to lag behind them. Thus, low wages as well as relatively poor job opportunities explain Yorkshire's failure to attract newer growth industries to take the place of the jobs lost as the old basic industries of steel, coal and wool textiles continue to contract.
The failure to attract new jobs is especially notable in respect of finance and banking, professional and scientific services, and public administration. Of all the regions, Yorkshire has the lowest relative proportion of civil servants and almost the lowest relative concentration of Crown property by rateable value. New industries would seem to be necessary and not just a better mix of the old. A superficial study reveals the poor representation in the region of those industries which are the main financiers of research expenditure, such as aircraft, electronics and other electrical concerns.
One of the most striking features of Yorkshire is the high proportion of operatives to non-operatives in the labour force. There is no evidence of any lack of talent or of local educational facilities. But there is evidence of a yawning gap between educational achievement and job opportunity, particularly in South Yorkshire and on Humberside, and especially in the coalfield. This is not confined to Yorkshire.
With ever-accelerating technical change a decline in jobs in the extractive and manufacturing industries is taking place throughout Britain. The inevitable job loss must call for a corresponding increase in job opportunities in service industries. This can be brought about through the maintenance and then the increase in the number of mobile decision-taking centres, whether they be company headquarters or Government offices in the region. Such company headquarters or Government offices would provide an increasingly high level of well-paid employment of a service type such as management, finance, design, research, marketing, administration and welfare. These decision-taking centres and the more prosperous workers, in their turn,

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generate increased demand on service industry of a non-autonomous type.
The Government, by dispersing work from London, and the Hardman Committee, by virtue of its findings, are both well placed to provide precisely this stimulus to the Yorkshire economy. Yet in its recommended and "regional" solutions the Hardman Report proposes that no jobs should go to Yorkshire and Humberside. In its "efficient" solution, 1,600 Board of Inland Revenue jobs are suggested for the region—at Leeds—although I recognise that the committee's terms of reference were confined to the list of 21 locations drawn up by the Government.
Given Yorkshire and Humberside's population and economy, and its intermediate status, the outstanding feature of the report is its neglect of the regions. Appendix 1, Table 1(4), highlights this by relating the percentage of the national population within each region with the percentage of the non-industrial Civil Service within each region. Not unexpectedly, the South-East has the most favourable ratio. Consequently, one would expect all other regions to have less favourable ratios. But the South-West and Northern regions score favourably and Scotland's ratio is close to what one would expect for the non-metropolitan regions. Yorkshire and Humberside's ratio is poor, as is that of the North-West, East Anglia and the East and West Midlands. Appendix 1, Table 1(6), compares the proportion of dispersal work during the period May 1963 to 1st October 1972, including newly established offices, with the proportion of work awaiting dispersal or establishment since 1st October 1972.
Three regions show a rise in their shares of such dispersed or newly-established work—Wales, the South-West, and Scotland. Three regions show a decline in their shares of such work—the North-West, the Northern Region and the South-East. Three more regions show a decline to zero or thereabouts, of which only Yorkshire and Humberside is an assisted area; the others—East Anglia, and the East Midlands—are not assisted. The Yorkshire and Humberside Region has therefore been neglected both before and since 1st October 1972, and the neglect seems certain to continue. By contrast, all other regions which include important tracts
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of assisted areas have benefited in the past, including Scotland and Wales.
In the debate I have heard my hon. Friends and some hon. Members opposite plead, quite rightly, on behalf of their regions—but for what? Have they pleaded for something? No; they have pleaded for more. There is not a region with intermediate or development status which does not have something. I need not cite the prizes which have been given in the last 10 years. My region is the only assisted region which has no prize to show.
Doctor John A. Cunningham: And West Cumberland.
Mr. Duffy: I take my hon. Friend's point, and I sympathise.
My reference to the weaknesses in the economy of Yorkshire and Humberside is confirmed in Appendix 5. Employment opportunities for women is a case in point. Paragraph 6 includes a table which shows that such opportunities for women in office work are poorest in Yorkshire and Humberside. The situation is slightly better in Wales and Northern England, and it is interesting to note that the positions of Clydeside, Tyneside, Merseyside and Greater Manchester are as good as or better than the national average. Office employment generally is another case in point. Paragraph 8 firmly places Yorkshire and Humberside among the less fortunate regions, along with Scotland, Wales, Northern England and the South-West. Hardman claims that these proposals will give—
"a reasonable spread of work between regions",
although his recommended solution provides nothing for Yorkshire and Humberside. He claims that since 1963
"One significant point is that the bulk of the work is not going to locations in the south."
An even more significant point is that since 1963 and, apparently, after 1973, practically no dispersed Government work is going to Yorkshire and Humberside. It is incredible that, following Sir Henry's analysis of the distribution of the non-industrial Civil Service, dispersed work and the receiving locations, the report almost ignores Yorkshire and Humberside—the region with, arguably, the greatest claim for dispersed work on

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account of its economic condition, and therefore its development status—why, otherwise, does it have it?—and, incidentally, its geographical location.
The Hardman Reports concept of the "region" as a suitable unit of survey is also absurd. Thus, in the report's "efficient" solution it is proposed to locate a number of jobs in Leeds. This has brought the comment that Sir Henry would regard the creation of new work in Leeds as a good contribution to the needs of the Yorkshire and Humberside region for varied employment. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson) wonders what good that will do Hull. I ask what good will it do to Sheffield, the coal fields and the whole of South Yorkshire? It might be Leeds's gain but it is certainly not the Bain of South Yorkshire or Humberside. An analysis of some regions would have been far more valuable.
That is why the West Yorkshire County Council has already noted the intention of a delegation from the Ministry to visit it as it is listed as a possible recipient of a share of these jobs. The council intends to invite that delegation. So does the new South Yorkshire County Council, which also intends to send a delegation to London.
At the core of the report's reasoning lies the importance which is attached to the idea that whatever locations for dispersed Government work might eventually be selected they should be few. The report repeatedly makes clear that it is the quality of communications that is of paramount importance.
There must then be an optimum zone for dispersal. I suggest that it is a zone lying roughly 150 to 200 miles from London and including Humberside, South and West Yorkshire, South Lancashire and South-East Wales. I repeat for the benefit of my hon. Friends that I am referring here not necessarily to a desirable or deserving zone but rather to an optimum zone on the basis of Sir Henry's analysis and reasoning. Largely, this is based on two criteria. While fairly distant from London, day return visits to the capital are possible. Moreover, it should preferably be an assisted
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area. Both those criteria apply to the zone that I have mentioned.
It is clear that South Yorkshire has qualified personnel but lacks the opportunities. It is also clear that the problem will be worse in the future, especially with the rise in the school leaving age and increasing numbers staying on into sixth forms. If South Yorkshire does not get office employment there will be a steady migration of young people out of the country, as has already taken place in Humberside. Although parts of South Yorkshire, from Sheffield right through to Humberside—notably Doncaster—will soon represent the hub of road and rail communications in England and be less than two hours by rail from London, seemingly there is nothing for them at all from Hardman.
Finally, the towns in South Yorkshire—Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster and Goole—and beyond to Humberside all have low cost office developments in the pipeline which can accommodate a relocated Government Department or one or more of its parts.
7.14 p.m.
Mr. Robert Hicks: It is not often that the Government have the opportunity to lead by example in furthering regional development policies. Normally in the House we are concerned in this context with discussing techniques by which the regions themselves can make themselves more attractive or, alternatively, discussing the various methods of inducement to encourage industries and other employers of labour to move into the regions. This occasion is a unique opportunity for the Government to seize to prove to the country and all sections of economic activity that they are repeatedly trying to coerce to go into the regions that the Government mean business.
Ministers have recognised that the regional aspect is one of the two main criteria forming the basis of the report, the other one being the efficiency of the operation of the Government Department. I acknowledge that balancing these two considerations will not be an easy exercise, as the Hardman analysis shows and subsequent comment has confirmed. I, too, was disappointed by the absolute number of civil servants recommended for dispersal and by the suggested

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geographical distribution of those who are recommended for dispersal. It is on this latter facet that I wish to concentrate.
I readily appreciate that however desirable it might be from the regional point of view to have a large number of local concentrations it probably is not practical, nor does it make for efficient administration, to have hived-off sections of Government Departments just to meet the regional requirement. This inherent problem is particularly pertinent in the region I represent. Apart from Plymouth the far South-West contains no large centres of population. It thus follows that if the south-west development area is to benefit from Government office dispersal a candidate would have to be found that was mobile, self-contained and of modest dimensions.
My researches into the Hardman Report show that there is possibly one candidate, namely, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, which could be located in a typical Cornish Market town environment within the south-west development area. The Minister is aware that I have two specific locations in mind, namely, Bodmin and Liskeard. He is receiving a delegation from these two towns, which will put individual and local claims, so I take this opportunity to concentrate my remarks on the more general arguments why I think it desirable that the Government should take the bold decision to establish this specific section of the Home Office in the south-west development area and in South-East Cornwall in particular. There are six reasons.
First, the south-west development area in which my constituency falls is the only development area which would not receive any Government offices if the Hardman recommendations were implemented. The south-west development area does not contain any major centres of population, as I have already said. If the recommended concept of Hardman is accepted, the basis of dispersal will be confined to a limited number of locations throughout the United Kingdom, which would seem to rule out the possibility of any town in the far South-West—in Cornwall—being considered.
Although the south-west development area is largely rural, with only scattered industrial development, it does not follow that the area's problems and difficulties
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are any less than those of other assisted areas whose problems tend to be associated with their urban and industrial heritages. When the regional problem in this country was at its height 12 to 18 months ago the south-west development area had the second highest unemployment percentage figure of all the United Kingdom development areas.
Mr. J. D. Dormand: What about now?
Mr. Hicks: I will come to that in a moment.
In addition, according to the Inland Revenue statistics, the south-west development area has at present the second lowest average in income levels of all development areas. This latter aspect forms my second reason for advocating Government office dispersal to the South-West, namely, the need to improve job quality opportunities in Cornwall. I mentioned earlier the high level of unemployment which was prevalent in 1972. Fortunately this has improved significantly owing to the upturn in the economy nationally, the effectiveness of regional development policies and overall improvements in communications, linking our area with the rest of the country. In other words, we have gone a long way towards solving the job quantity problem but the lack of job quality opportunities remains.
I wish to emphasise to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench that this facet can only be remedied, or can be most easily remedied, when the economy is expanding and buoyant. It is unlikely to be solved when the economy is sluggish or stagnating, when one tends to concentrate on the number of people without work rather than on the quality of the jobs to be provided. The job opportunities which would be introduced as a consequence of bringing a small section of a Government Department to Cornwall would be very real in local terms and would play a significant part in enhancing the local economy through an increase in the amount of money which would be in circulation.
The staff of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board contains approximately 45 persons of executive grade or above. In the context of south-East Cornwall their presence would have a most desirable social and economic effect.

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The third reason why I am anxious for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board to be moved to Cornwall is that only 14·1 per cent. of the jobs in Cornwall are in office occupations, which compares badly with a national average of 24 or 25 per cent. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board employs 54 persons in clerical, typing or other supporting roles and the introduction of these posts into my area would be valuable in solving a key problem of the loss of our young people through population migration and would also help solve the problem presented by a low proportion of our women and girls being in jobs which offer a career structure. The Government recently introduced a scheme offering financial incentives to office undertakings to move to the assisted areas. Surely this is now an excellent opportunity for the Government to set an example in respect of the south-west development area?
The Hardman Report, by recommending that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board should be moved from London, has accepted in principle the fact that this section of Government can be located in a peripheral region. There seems no reason why the board cannot be moved to East Cornwall; Liskeard and Bodmin are both served by main line railways and are 25 minutes and 35 minutes, respectively, from Plymouth. There are regular through trains and there is now an air service linking the South-West with London. Therefore, I believe that the arguments in the report as to why the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board has to be located with the rest of the Home Office in Plymouth are not valid.
Furthermore, if the Minister thinks that west of Plymouth represents the back of beyond, I remind him that at St. Austell there is sited the administrative headquarters of one of the larger United Kingdom companies—English China Clays. It would follow that if a major company can site its headquarters in a Cornish town a small section of Government can also be located there.
Both the Hardman Report and the Minister have made the point that it is necessary to limit the number of centres for dispersal and that it is not advisable to fragment Departments—hence the
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choice of Plymouth as the Home Office centre. But I do not believe that if the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board were hived off from its parent body and located further west there would be any loss of efficiency, that it would be detrimental to the career structures of the personnel concerned, or that there would be any other disadvantages. If the board were located in Plymouth many of the staff would probably live in South-East Cornwall in any case, and would choose to travel to work in Plymouth. I do not, therefore, see why the staff could not travel from any of those desirable Cornish villages, such as Looe or Polperro, to Bad-min or Liskeard rather than to Plymouth.
My final point concerns staff. I can think of no better part of the United Kingdom than the South-West for this section of the Home Office to be located, for the staff to live in and to bring up and educate their families. I hope that the Government will look very closely at the case for this section of the Home Office being moved to Liskeard or Bodmin because I believe that the resource gain to our area would not only be very significant but would be achieved without loss in administrative efficiency.
7.28 p.m.
Mr. Michael McGuire: I promise to be as brief as most of the other speakers. I greatly welcome today's news from the Minister about Milton Keynes. To have earmarked over one third of the 31,400 or so jobs recommended for dispersal to Milton Keynes would have been complete nonsense and a cruel deception to the people in the regions who built up so much hope of this report.
While listening to the Minister, particularly towards the end of his speech, I became hopeful that, as he had mentioned almost every other new town in the country—
Mr. Dormand: Not Peterlee.
Mr. McGuire: My hon. Friend does not agree with me. I take it that Peter-lee has high unemployment, like my own new town of Skelmersdale. I thought that the Minister was saving the juicy bits for me for the end and was going to announce that the 6,000 or so jobs earmarked for Milton Keynes and which will be reconsidered—10,000 were recommended and then reduced to 4,000—

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would go to Skelmersdale. Skelmersdale has a very great need. The Government cannot plan new towns in isolation. If the Government will the end they must will the means. After all a new town is supposed to be a model, and a Government have to plan for houses, transport, education, recreation, social and medical services, and jobs.
The medical services seem to be treated as badly in regard to this planning as the jobs. The new hospital, which was very much on the cards, has been delayed. We do not know for how long. This is causing bitter resentment in the town and a further loss of job opportunities.
One of the needs of any new town is a balanced work force. Today, too large a proportion of our people are employed in unskilled repetitive jobs. In Skelmersdale the schools are generally very good. We are churning out for the new town boys and girls who are well equipped for the type of work which could have come to them if the report had paid more attention, as it should have done, to the needs of the region.
I am making a case for my region. We need a balanced work force. We were hoping for some comfort from this report. Skelmersdale has the highest level of unemployment of the Lancashire new towns. The level is disguised because for statistical purposes we are linked with the old-established town of Ormskirk, and there is an imbalance. The combined figure reduces the real figure in Skelmersdale. Although the figure has been dropping, it is still far too high.
Some new towns are earmarked in the report for a colossal number of jobs, but Skelmersdale has not been earmarked for one of them.
The report is only a recommendation. The Government ought to have a rethink if they take seriously, as they say that they do, the problems of the regions, particularly Merseyside, of which Skelmersdale is a part. If one creates big job opportunities in Merseyside, Skelmersdale or South-West Lancashire there is an overspill effect, and people can travel what in London would be a relatively small distance. There would be a gain to the region in that way. Speaking for my new town and my constituency, I hope that the Government will rethink the report. I hope that they will not
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only abandon the giving of a colossal number of jobs to Milton Keynes, which the deputation proved that it did not want and could not provide for, but will also consider the needs of South-West Lancashire and Skelmersdale in particular.
The Minister has stated that one should not further sub-divide Departments. He mentioned the department which already exists at Norwich, for which a further number of jobs has been earmarked. The Minister said that sub-division would destroy the efficaciousness of the transfer. He said that one should not transfer bits and bobs but should try to preserve the efficiency of big Departments. The Minister said that if a town had already received 1,000 jobs and if another 700 jobs were earmarked, the logical thing would be to send them to the town which already had the Department. In the report, however, sub-divisions are already recommended. For example, the Department of Health and Social Security is mainly concentrated in Newcastle, yet there is a recommendation that the central Lancashire new town should get almost 1,000 jobs in this branch of Government service. I cannot see the logic of that.
I ask the Minister to have another look at the needs of my new town and of South-West Lancashire in particular. Unless the Government have a serious rethink on this matter they will be mouthing platitudes from the Dispatch Box whenever they speak about the needs of the regions, and this report will have been a waste of time.
7.35 p.m.
Mr. Edward Taylor: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department will be very glad that while the Hardman Report has been greatly criticised today, Sir Henry seems to have restored to the House of Commons not only a sense of national unity but a sense of great optimism and hope. Whereas in the past hon. Members have been complaining about their constituents suffering from inadequate housing, inadequate education, soaring house prices and appalling land values, with speculators forcing up office rents and so on, it seems that Britain consists now of a series of regions where we have

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splendid educational opportunities, cheap housing and, of course, low rents.
This is a very satisfactory situation, for which we should be grateful to Sir Henry Hardman. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, in particular, will have been very interested to read in the splendid document produced by Glasgow and district that among the attributes of Glasgow under education is the fact that there is a substantial number of independent fee-paying schools, including Glasgow Academy and Kelvinside. In that respect Sir Henry has achieved a great deal, if in no other.
The important issue, and the only issue which should be considered by the Government, apart from regional development, is that of efficiency. I have always thought that there was a great argument for a major dispersal of Government jobs and jobs in the nationalised industries for the sake of efficiency. It is a splendid thing that for the first time in years we are facing up to what will be a very major dispersal.
It is generally accepted, particularly on the basis of the speeches which have been made, that efficiency does not exist in many Government Departments in London today simply because there is a desperate shortage of staff, especially in the clerical and administrative grades. There is also the problem of a very high turnover of labour and, apart from that, the problem of travelling to work. Taking all these things into account, and apart from the problem of office accommodation, it must be accepted that we do not have a situation of total efficiency in London headquarters at present.
On the other hand, it would be folly for those who support the regional case to pretend that there will not be major problems if we have a dispersal. The important thing is to identify these problems and to see how they can be overcome.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, and other hon. Members, have had the opportunity for a considerable time of taking part in an Administration in which the Scottish Office is in Edinburgh and the Secretary of State is in London. This brings me directly to the important question which
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is put time and again in the Hardman Report, namely the importance of face-to-face contacts. A closer study of the need for face-to-face contacts would lead to the conclusion that while there is definitely a need for such contact in many situations, there is not a need in the majority of cases for urgent face-to-face contacts.
Most meetings between civil servants and between civil servants and Ministers are not meetings which are called at five or 10 minutes' notice. They are meetings for which preparations are made. So long as the Departments or the decision makers are in a physical situation enabling them to travel to London and back within one day and to do a full day's work in between, the case for most of the regions can be made on the grounds of efficiency and of overcoming the problems of face-to-face contact.
On this basis many areas could qualify for consideration for the major dispersals under the Hardman Report. For example, many areas would benefit from an improvement in the social structure. Many areas of Great Britain have the advantage of office rents which are lower than those of London. However, there are certain special features of the Glasgow situation which I hope the Minister will bear very much in mind when detailed consideration is given to the future of the Ministry of Defence.
Obviously it is important for a major office of this sort to have access to a long-term supply of labour. Scotland is one of the few areas with a high number of successful applicants for Civil Service examinations who cannot obtain a job near the vicinity in which they live. Figures given to me in the House show that in the last examinations in the executive grade there were 800 successful applicants in Scotland of whom only 300 were able to find a post in Scotland. It is obvious that there is a built-in potential of Civil Service manpower.
The general question of education is also important. Figures published by the Department of Education and Science show that whereas in Britain generally about 37 people in every thousand are university graduates, in Scotland the figure is 42 per thousand. The tragedy for Scotland has been that many of these people have had to move elsewhere to get a job appropriate to their qualifications.

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On the available labour supply, an active labour force is also significant. Assuming that the Common Market is here to stay, it is crystal clear that the great danger for the West of Scotland is that it will become the West Virginia of the Common Market, lacking the great attractions of being near the centre of the Market. Anything which can brighten the future for the West of Scotland is for the good of Scotland as a whole
I was most grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for coming to Scotland to meet businessmen whom we gathered together with the Lord Provost so that he could be told personally of the ways in which these men had overcome the problems of dispersal. It is nonsense to pretend that if the offices simply move to Glasgow, Teesside or Merseyside the problems will be solved. But it was helpful for the Minister to have an opportunity of hearing for himself from big international companies such as Weirs, Collins, and Coats Paton how they had overcome the problem of centralising their activities in the West of Scotland and the benefits to be obtained from that.
I hope we can have an assurance from my right hon. Friend who is to wind up the debate that before a firm decision is made on the future of the giant Ministry of Defence office at least one Minister of Defence will take the opportunity of coming to the West of Scotland and of speaking to those who have dealt with the Ministry and with those who have overcome the problems which come with dispersal. From what has been said so far it is clear that the Government have an open mind. I hope that the Government will give careful consideration to Glasgow's problems and the opportunities offered by a move to Glasgow.
7.43 p.m.
Mr. Harry Gourlay: I do not propose to take up the points raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) at this stage but I am sure that we have just heard what must be one of the most moderate speeches he has made in the House.
I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) that in the absence of the Kilbrandon Report the debate is taking place in
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something of a vacuum. However, we must proceed on the basis of the position as we know it. I shall not spend too much time on the Hardman Report, which has been scathingly criticised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne,-Central (Mr. Edward Short). However, I cannot allow the opportunity to pass without expressing the strong resentment felt in Scotland at the statement at the end of paragraph 14 on page 197 that
"The existence of Scotland is … irrelevant in the context of the efficient operation of the national Government".
While no man or part of a nation can be considered indispensable, Scotland makes a considerable contribution to the efficient operation of national Government in Britain and I am pleased to see the Secretary of State for Scotland here because he will substantiate that statement.
I also refer at this point to page 13 of the report where in paragraph 31 it says, referring to Glasgow:
"This is the city in the list approved by Ministers which is most distant from London. This distance does constrain the amount of work which can be dispersed with tolerable loss of efficiency"
Was such a list prepared by the Government and if so was Glasgow the only place in Scotland to appear on the list? If that is the case this debate is a travesty of justice.
I accept that the Government have decided on the dispersal of Civil Service Departments, albeit of an insufficient number. I certainly welcome the Parliamentary Secretary's statement about jobs going to Cardiff and Washington. I only hoped that he would be in a position to announce an equal or an even larger number which were coming to Scotland, particularly to my area. My purpose tonight therefore is to reinforce the claim to a substantial share of the available jobs which I and a deputation from Kirkcaldy made to the Minister some time ago. Tonight, however, I am speaking not for a population of 50,000 but for the population of the county of Fife which numbers over 327,000.
Recently the Minister met a deputation from Dunfermline lead by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Mr. Adam Hunter) Now all the authorities in the country are making a

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special joint plea, recognising that whichever part of the county is allocated a share of the jobs being dispersed, the dispersal will eventually help the prosperity of all. Some of the civil servants visited this area of the county a week or so ago and were most impressed with what they saw, and they saw but a small part of the opportunities available.
It is also necessary to voice the need for Civil Service jobs for Fife in view of the highly publicised efforts and pressure on the Government by the Glasgow Corporation. I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for Cathcart has left the Chamber. I had hoped he would be present when I dealt with the point. I will not enter into the merits of Glasgow's case but the Minister must realise that the city is requesting the Government to disperse jobs from the largest conurbation in England to the largest conurbation in Scotland. Surely that is not in accord with good planning practice.
For many years various Governments have been subsidising housing for overspill population from Glasgow. In view of these facts the case for Fife must receive the most careful appraisal by the Minister in deciding where in Scotland it would be most beneficial to site the dispersed Government Departments. He must also keep in mind the needs and desires of the key civil servants who would be involved in such transfers if the well-being of the Departments and the individuals concerned are to be safeguarded.
The case for Fife is that there is a need to counteract the present as well as the anticipated future imbalance in certain urban areas of the county caused by the shortage of clerical and administrative posts and the present and probable future demand for employment in that category.
Secondly, the capacity and variety of the existing house building programme in Fife and those planned for the future with the county's community and welfare support services is sufficiently flexible to accommodate the needs of incoming personnel on the scale which would be required. Thirdly, with the advantage of a pleasant environment in which to live and work, Fife is an area which
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caters for the widest possible variety of social and recreational interests.
The shortage of clerical and administrative employment is particularly acute in Central and West Fife, where 61 per cent. of school leavers with Scottish Education Certificates are unemployed. In his statement the Minister referred to Glasgow and Plymouth among others, giving me the impression that Glasgow is the only place in Scotland that is worth taking into account. As a result of this high percentage of unemployment in that area of Fife, a significant number of people are compelled to commute daily to Edinburgh.
Mr. Galbraith: Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House how long it takes to commute from Dunfermline to Edinburgh?
Mr. Gourlay: About half-an-hour depending on the services. By train it is probably even longer. But the point which the hon. Gentleman has made brings me back again to page 13 of the report where, at the end of paragraph 31—and if I may underline this, it indicates how Sir Henry Hardman failed to comprehend the difficulties or to understand the position in Scotland—one reads:
"If no work is to go to Glasgow from London, the most sensible course would be to consider the dispersal to Glasgow of parts of the Scottish Office from Edinburgh."
In effect, that would mean taking jobs away from Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline. So I am sure that the Minister, with his knowledge gained from the deputations that he has received, plus what he has learned from the Civil Service, will never contemplate adopting that part of the Hardman Report. The introduction of clerical and administrative employment would help to counteract this weakness.
To train labour, Fife already has six well-equipped technical colleges. Courses are naturally geared to serve the needs of local industry, and new specialist courses are added as the demand arises. We are naturally proud of St. Andrews University—the oldest one in Scotland—and Fife has the added advantage of nearness to the Universities of Edinburgh, Dundee, Stirling and Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh), together with its own technical colleges and schools. In general terms, therefore, the local authorities in

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the county have been most energetic in their post-war building programmes which have virtually cleared Fife of substandard housing.
In response to the demand for private houses, which has escalated considerably in the last few years, the rate of private house-building has substantially increased and in Kirkcaldy alone it has trebled. A new three-apartment semidetached house with central heating costs in the region of £7,500, which is virtually 50 per cent. of the cost of buying a similar house in the South-East of England.
As a place to live, the county offers many attractions with major shopping centres throughout, to say nothing of the wide variety of social interests, sports and recreations which are available. It is possibly overstating the case to mention the "Old Course" at St. Andrews, one of 30 courses in the county, membership of some of which can be as low as £6 per annum. There is also sailing and water skiing, gliding at Portmoak and walking in the Lomond Hills.
With regard to the location of Civil Service establishments, I would say that in the light of the distribution pattern of those areas of the county in which the demand for clerical and administrative employment presents itself, and in view of the potential of the county to support a growth of employment in this category, a number of locations in Fife emerge as being well suited to absorb this type of employment.
Finally, there are good road communications within the county which, with the coming East Fife regional road—and the Under-Secretary is present to hear me refer to that—will provide fast transport facilities between the main towns in the area. The railway system provides a direct link with Edinburgh and London. With regard to air travel, the main centres in Fife are within 30 to 35 minutes of Edinburgh airport from which there are regular flights to all major centres in Britain. Fife is, in fact, within a daily return journey of London, allowing reasonable time for business between the outgoing and return flights.
Contrary to the general belief here in the South, the climate in Fife is more than comparable with that of Kent.—[Laughter.] That is not mere supposition,
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as one might think from the laughter behind me, but is based on a factual survey spread over a number of years of weather statistics. I therefore confidently appeal to the Minister to heed the claims of Fife among the many that he will have to consider. He will never regret a decision to disperse one or more of his Departments to one of the neediest and most beautiful areas of the country. I found the Minister a little disappointing today, but he still has plenty of time to redeem himself.
7.55 p.m.
Sir John Tilney: The speech of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Mr. Gourlay) merely stresses what we have heard from both sides of the House throughout the debate, that we should all like to see more civil servants coming from the South into our constituencies or areas.
I thought that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department made an admirable opening speech, and I wish him luck with the CBI and the TUC over the Manpower Services Commission. I accept that the Government have a very difficult decision to make, but when one considers that there are 143,710 non-industrial civil servants working in London—which is denned as within 16 miles radius of Charing Cross—including Caterham, Dartford, Uxbridge and Watford, and, more especially, that in the whole of the rich South East there are no fewer than 225,400 non-industrial civil servants, it seems that the 31,000-odd who will be dispersed is a very small figure indeed. I only hope that in due course the Government will consider increasing that number well away from the rich South and South East.
I do not believe it is any good sprinkling jobs with a few hundred here and a few hundred there. For there to be the maximum effect, there must be a massive injection in certain areas. I am not making a special claim for Merseyside, although I believe that we have one of the biggest potential claims of any industrial and development area in this country, because the same argument must apply to other development areas. But instead of adding a few hundred what would make an enormous difference to those areas where unemployment is endemic is a really massive influx of the

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Civil Service. I therefore welcome the decision of my hon. Friend to cut down the suggested number of 10,000 going to Milton Keynes to a much more reasonable figure.
Will he also look at the accounts of the Naval section at Bath? So far as I can see, there is really no reason why that section should be there. There is a much smaller section in Liverpool, so why not move them up from the comparatively full employment of Bath? Of course, civil servants would love to live in Bath and have all the civilised amenities of modern life. But we can produce quite a lot of those on Merseyside. We have what is possibly the best picture gallery outside London and Edinburgh, and we have splendid music. I agree that we can improve our amenities, especially if we reclaim the Dee and have all sorts of sailing, boating, and so on. That is why I have always believed that priority in public works should go to development areas and not to the rich South East. We also have very much cheaper houses.
When he winds up the debate, will my right hon. Friend say something about bridging loans on mortgages for civil servants when they buy a house in the North? I may have been misinformed, but I have been told that there is a limit to the mortgage given for industrial cities as against new towns, and this seems to me quite an important matter when civil servants are deciding whether to go North. Speaking for the North West as a whole, one welcomes the fact that 20 per cent. of the 31,000 are coming to the North West, but we now have a lower proportion than Wales, Scotland or the Northern Region of England.
Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that not only should the aim be to reduce unemployment in the older industrial areas but there are five other points which are worth considering—first, the necessity to stem the outflow of well qualified young people from those areas. Secondly, full career opportunities should be provided in all regions, reducing the penalty paid by personnel who must move to the South East later on when they get promotion. Thirdly, we should encourage dispersal from the private sector, including those organisations which feel they have close links with Government Departments. I see no reason why the
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Government should not urge some private offices to follow the example of one of the major banks and move their headquarters, or their rear headquarters, to the North.
Fourth, opportunities should be created for improving investment in commercial buildings and special infrastructure. In Liverpool we have a lot of new vacant office buildings, but this does not apply in all development areas. We have in Liverpool much first-class office accommodation which is vacant at a tenth of the rent in London. Last, we should reduce the pressure on resources in the South East and ensure that resources in other parts of the country are fully utilised to the national advantage. One welcomes the policy of complete change in the history of movement of the Civil Service. Long term, I hope that some of the European Economic Community's offices will be established in this country, and perhaps my hon. Friend will tell us what plans there are for this.
We have on Merseyside first-class white-collar workers, and yet on Merseyside there has been a decline in decision-making, especially in private industry which has moved its headquarters to London or to Germany or even to the United States of America. I do not believe this is good for Merseyside, and as 150 years ago we brought in the new world to put right the troubles of the old, I hope we can now bring in the public sector to bring back some of the decision-making which the private sector of Merseyside has in some measure cut off.
Will my hon. Friend remember that there are 2 million people within 16 miles of Merseyside, and the North Wales problem ties in very much with this, as my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) pointed out. Will my hon. Friend also bear in mind that the eventual decisions have got to be made by the Government? The Government must relate their final choice to their regional policy. One welcomes the historic change, and I only hope that the civil servants do likewise.
8.3 p.m.
Mr. James A. Dunn: I share the anxiety and concern which have been expressed about the Hardman Report. I do not go so far as to condemn what the report intended to

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do, nor do I share in the criticism that has been made of Sir Henry Hardman. He has fulfilled the terms of reference which he was given. Possibly a criticism could be laid against him in that he has not taken the opportunity to uprate and update his report or his recommendations. Perhaps this responsibility should be shared by those who gave him the terms of reference.
I particularly do not agree with the criteria that have been used in the "recommended", "efficient" or "regional" solutions. Under any one of those headings the recommendations would fail. If there were a permutation of any two of the three, the failure, to a degree, would be even greater.
Merseyside has had quite a loud voice in this debate, and I am aware that there are other regions whose representatives wish to express their points of view and, indeed, like many of us, deliver constituency speeches. Nevertheless, I ask hon. Members to bear with me since, being a regional Whip, I do not very often stand on my feet and speak.
A number of factors have already been introduced in the debate by my Mersey-side parliamentary colleagues and there is no need for me to repeat the points that they have made. I should, however, like to raise two matters, referring to what the Parliamentary Secretary said about the Manpower Services Commission being situated on the Merseyside. I hope he will not take too much account of what the organisations have said to him in terms of an hour and a half's journey from London. He ought to tell them that more often than not there is an hour and a half's journey within London for people to get from where they live to a manpower unit. To those who claim to represent the working population as an organisation the Minister may gently point out that they themselves have responsibility for representing the needs of those would-be workers on the Merseyside. I pass no comments about the CBI. I am not knowledgeable of its idiosyncrasies.
With regard to the evidence submitted about the supportive facilities and services, there is one subject which has been raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Sir John Tilney) to which I should like to refer, and that is the ques-
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tion of mortgage bridging loans required by dispersed civil servants. I seem to recall that a ceiling has been fixed on local government mortgage schemes. I believe that that ceiling is unrealistic in terms of present-day prices. If, indeed, there are a number of dispersals into these regions the Government might reconsider uprating the ceiling which is now imposed on local government mortgage schemes. If this is done, some of the regions may be more attractive to civil servants who might otherwise feel reluctant to go there.
I shall mention briefly four headings. Evidence has already been submitted by deputations which have come to Merseyside. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), I hope to participate in a reappraisal of the situation. The location of more Civil Service departments on the Merseyside would have the advantage of revitalising employment opportunities in the office sector in the conurbation. We have from time to time found grave difficulty in retaining employment. The nationalised industries have from time to time inflicted grievous blows on that sector of employment, not least recently the Railways Board. There is this propensity to fix a citadel in a region and to believe that that is the be-all and end-all of all that should be transferred. It is much broader than that, and I hope the Minister will take that fact into account.
The second point is that decentralisation of the Civil Service would, no doubt, help to correct an imbalance in the employment opportunities and in the structure within the region. As Merseyside is a very distinctive and significant part of the country serving the wealth of the hinterland, I believe that we should have the opportunity to recreate that structure. Relocation would also help to compensate for the employment opportunities which we have lost and the many which have been withdrawn from the area.
I say with absolute truth that since I have been a Member of Parliament, which is nine years today—some hon. Members may think that that is too long and others may think it is not long enough—my preoccupation has been fighting to retain the employment which already exists in Merseyside. I admit that on more than one occasion I have

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been unsuccessful. I have been unsuccessful to the degree that the departure of employment opportunities from Merseyside has been significant. That must be taken into account when the Government reappraise the recommendations of the Hardman Report.
Merseyside has considerable advantages to offer to the location of Civil Service employment office opportunities in the area. It is a port and it has been a commercial centre. It has the necessary facilities and amenities. It has a number of educational units which have more than adequately prepared its youngsters to undertake the opportunities that relocation would give.
Merseyside can offer much more than that. I do not intend to open a "Why don't you come for a holiday to Merseyside" brochure. I do not advise anybody to do that. However, if people wish to work with us and to create a better infrastructure for the region, I am sure that they will find us not wanting in the things which they might require as encouragement for them to disperse.
Adequate office accommodation is already available. That accommodation is waiting for tenants. It is up to the Government to consider the matter intently. I reserve the right to go into the matter in more detail when, as I hope, the Minister receives the deputation from Merseyside.
8.13 p.m.
Mr. Michael Roberts: I warmly welcome the two announcements about the dispersal of civil servants made by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department. I particularly welcome the announcement that the company registration office of the DTI is to be located in Maindy Barracks, Cardiff. That is especially welcome, as we were assured that it would not preclude the possibility of further dispersal to the Cardiff area. I was not surprised about that announcement because the Hardman Report discovered, when it considered the most efficient solution to the problem of dispersal that Cardiff was a suitable location. In a table setting out the most efficient solution 6,142 jobs were allocated to the Cardiff area.
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The Hardman Report has been criticised because too much emphasis has been placed on the need for face-to-face contact between the civil servants dispersed to new locations and the civil servants and Ministers in London.
At one stage it appeared that people were arguing that it was a positive advantage to be further away from London, and the further away the better. That impression did not last for long because each person who argued that it did not matter how far he was away from London soon proved that it was possible to drive or fly or travel by rail and to arrive in London in record time.
It is of great importance to be able to have a swift movement of civil servants to London from the locations selected for dispersal. That is a positive advantage which the Cardiff and South Wales area has to a great extent. For example, I left my home in North Cardiff today at five minutes to 12 and after one short stop I drew my car into the House of Commons yard at 2.30 this afternoon. If I had chosen to come by rail I should have completed the journey in two hours 10 minutes. It is true that that would have involved a quick taxi from Paddington, which would take a further ten minutes.
In two years the high-speed train will be running on the Cardiff-Paddington line. That will reduce the Cardiff-to-London journey to 1¾ hours. Communications are not only excellent to the capital city of London; from the capital city of Cardiff there are excellent communications to the Midlands, the North and other regional centres.
I accept, too, the second criterion of the Hardman Report for the selected area, namely, that staff can be recruited locally and that existing and potential office accommodation is available. For many years Cardiff has made preparations for becoming a major office and administrative centre. There are ample facilities for further development. The criterion of the recruitment of suitable staff again puts Cardiff and the whole of South Wales in a strong position. Cardiff has a population of 300,000 people and the area closely connected to it, which has excellent communications, has a population of over one million people.

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One of the characteristics of the area to which I have referred is that a great tradition has been established for education. I need not remind the House that Wales established a system of secondary education several years before it was established in England. Wales has a higher GCE pass rate than practically any area in England and Wales. It is second only to southern England. Therefore, it can provide a background of education and the facilities for education which will be essential for the establishment of the Civil Service Departments which are required in the area.
Cardiff has three university colleges. Only a few miles up the road there is a strong polytechnic. There are colleges of technology, food and commerce, and commercial schools in the city. Another advantage which Cardiff clearly has is that it can provide many of the staff which will obviously be required—namely, women. The average proportion of women in employment is 30·6 per cent. in Wales compared with 43·6 per cent. in London. Therefore, there is a valuable source of potential recruitment and a source which is well endowed with good educational qualifications.
The third Hardman criterion is the attractiveness of the location to the staff. I shall not dwell on the many excellences of the South Wales and Cardiff area. As our communications are so good, the civil servants dispersed to the Cardiff area will have a choice of residence between the beautiful Vale of Glamorgan, the villages of Monmouthshire, the capital city of Cardiff and the many market towns in the area. We can assure those who come that they will be coming to an area with a good environment and good amenities.
It was something of a disappointment to read the Hardman Report and see that although, on the basis of efficiency, the area should have 6,142 jobs, it was recommended that we should have 5,542 jobs. I should have thought that our original case was such that it would have enhanced the argument for jobs rather than detracted from the number of jobs recommended. We do not accept that 5,000 is about the limit with which the South Wales area can cope. That area includes not only Cardiff but the neighbouring towns. The capacity is much greater because of the population in the immediate vicinity of the capital city.
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We have noted with great interest that the original table suggests that part of the Ministry of Defence should be allocated to the Cardiff area. That is interesting in view of the withdrawal of Milton Keynes.
I should like the House to look carefully at the argument put by the Ministry of Defence that so many of its establishments are in the South and South-West that it would prefer a dispersal to take place in that area, which it describes as the London-Bath axis. Cardiff is not directly on that axis, but an hour's car journey—less if I am driving—would bring Bath and Cardiff into close proximity with London. If the Ministry of Defence is to be dispersed, I suggest that if it came to Cardiff it would be adequately placed and very warmly welcomed.
8.20 p.m.
Dr. John A. Cunningham: I hope the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Michael Roberts) will forgive me if I do not follow him but leave the arguments about Wales to my right hon. and hon. Friends from the Principality. I want to speak on two levels—first, about the Hardman Report itself as a document in the context of regional policy and, secondly, to put a specific proposal to the Minister about my constituency.
As a document concerned with regional policy, Hardman is at best disappointing and at worst almost irrelevant and the inadequacies and inaccuracies were highlighted in the excellent speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for New-castle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short). It is odd that Hardman should actually propose in the context of his dispersal argument a regional solution as opposed to some other kind of solution. This immediately highlights his thinking on regional policy. Indeed, the whole attitude, which suggests that there can be a regional solution as opposed to any other kind of solution in a dispersal argument, betrays Hardman's thoughts.
We ought to be saying, if we believe in regionalism, that the regional solution and the national solution are one and the same. Many of us on this side of the House have argued in that way for a number of years and I have been very pleased, not to say surprised, at the number of hon. Members from many areas of

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the United Kingdom who this evening have suddenly recognised the merits of our argument—only many other regions seem to have appeared in the process and, incidentally, a few of British Railway's track records have been broken tonight.
I am most concerned about the argument in regional terms on the ground that it is important to recognise that dispersal to the regions such as the North or Scotland or Wales will not only be of benefit there but would be of great benefit to London and the South East. Although this point has been made, it needs to be re-emphasised. It is not simply a selfish regional attitude on our part to say it. We genuinely believe that dispersal of this kind will make a very definite contribution to ending some of the chaos we are all so familiar with in London, not only in terms of congestion but in terms of too few people chasing far too many jobs. This has a tremendously bad effect on the social structure in the South East itself, let alone by causing drift from the other regions.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, North mentioned face-to-face confrontation. Having heard civil servants often described as faceless men, it would be interesting to observe the face-to-face of the faceless men which seems to be so important in the governing of the country and the decision-making process. I find that this is a complete non-argument. Of all the arguments which have been proposed against a larger dispersal, this one is the worst. To suggest, with the development of modern communications and, indeed, surface transport improvements, that main decisions have to be always taken by people in a face-to-face situation is nonsense.
I turn to the specific proposal which I put to the Minister about my own constituency. I have heard many hon. Members say that their region or county or town has been ignored in the course not only of what Hardman has written but of what the Minister has said. None has been more ignored than West Cumberland in this argument. We do not as a county or as the region of a county merit a single word in the report. We sneak into one or two other documents only in the sense that the North of England Development Council, in mentioning a proposal about West
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Cumberland, actually suggests that if an establishment does not go to West Cumberland it should go to the North East. This is a rather unfortunate way to get into anyone's recommendations.
The Parliamentary Secretary knows that many of us in West Cumberland have put a specific suggestion to him that the office which could be moved would not be an office at all but a laboratory—the laboratory of the Government Chemist. Here I pay tribute to Mr. Albert Taylor, the technical director of the Marchon division of Albright and Wilson in my constituency, who, together with other industrialists and the mayors and chairmen of local authorities, has worked very hard in putting this view to the Minister and his colleagues.
We picked on a specific proposal, unlike many others in the debate, for several reasons. We admit at once that West Cumberland could not begin to accommodate a major Government Department. It would be nonsense to suggest otherwise. In a sense, we are in a good position because to my knowledge, although Hardman recommends that the laboratory should be dispersed to that well-known place up the Edgware Road which has been referred to so often, no one else has yet staked a claim to it. Perhaps Teddington does not want it. I hope that is the case.
We feel that this establishment of about 360 jobs can be accommodated in West Cumberland not only in terms of the social structure of the area but also in industrial and educational terms. Many people do not realise that one of the largest and best-equipped laboratories in the British Isles is sited in the Windscale-Calder Hall atomic power complex. The steel and chemical industries have laboraties in West Cumberland and so there is a really feasible argument for saying that the laboratory of the Government Chemist would be able to exchange ideas and personnel and to co-operate and coexist with existing scientific establishments in the area.
On that basis—on the criteria of size and of being able to accommodate it in the area as a whole—we have a pretty strong case. We also have a strong case in the more general terms of saying that there is not a single Government establishment of any size anywhere, either in

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the existing county of Cumberland or the much larger new county of Cumbria, which comes into administrative control in 1974.
We put this specifically to the Minister. I hope he will receive a deputation. I know he has been asked to do so. I recommend it to him as a genuine proposal which he can readily accept that, given that there seems to be no competition in this area, there seems to be no good reason why the laboratory should not be dispersed beyond the Greater London area. It will not depend on bulk raw materials; it will not depend necessarily on rapid communication. It will depend on the parcel post and the letter post, on samples for analysis. So the remoteness of West Cumberland is not a real drawback.
I would say to those people working in the establishment that they might enjoy, probably would enjoy, living in and around the most beautiful national park in Britain, enjoy living as well as working there. If I can say that, I think I can say as much as many other people who have introduced travelogues and catalogues of the various delights of their constituencies—including the Merseyside sound, which we have heard in this debate.
I confine my remarks to that, with some hope of a positive response from the Government.
8.30 p.m.
Miss Mary Holt: My initial reaction upon reading the Hard-man Report was that it was extremely complicated for a comparatively simple subject; with too many appendices it seemed as though it was designed to clog the mind and prevent anyone from reaching a clear decision. I appreciate that a great deal of work was done upon it, but I hope that when future reports of this kind are prepared every effort will be made to make them simple and easy to read, with as little repetition as possible.
There can be had from this report some interesting statistics about the extent to which the Government are providing job opportunities in office employment in the South-East. It is office jobs that are growing fastest in number, far faster than any other types of employment. Government office jobs are, however, paid for by the taxpayers in all parts of
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the country, and it is surely fair, so far as Government efficiency permits it, that those jobs shall go to all the regions. It used to be said that trade followed the flag, but surely trade also follows the dispersal of Government Departments.
Of the non-industrial Civil Service of 500,000 it appears that about 145,000—according to the corrected figures supplied today by the Minister—are in London, and of these the South-East, including London, has 107,000, or a little more, that is, 73·3 per cent., whereas the North-West, in which my constituency is situated and where I live, has 8,430 or only 5·5 per cent.—5·5 per cent. against 70 per cent. It really is appalling.
The Hardman Report covers only 86,000 headquarters posts, and London is, for the purposes of the report, most generously defined, in my opinion, as being 16 miles either way from Charing Cross. Anyone who has had to drive across London knows that it extends far more than that on each side of Charing Cross.
The two criteria adopted in the report—efficiency of government and the needs of regional policy—appear to me to be correct, but the difficulty is and the disastrous effect is that the former, in the report, is given far more emphasis than the latter. In considering the efficiency of government the report deals with what it calls "resources effects".
I would mention one or two points which have already been covered by some speakers. It is alleged as one argument against dispersal that the overall effect would be very little on the registered unemployment, but I beg my hon. Friend to appreciate that in some areas any effect at all on unemployment is very welcome indeed.
As for unregistered unemployment, many unemployed women never register. A substantial number of jobs which come through dispersal will go to women, and any dispersal must therefore be welcome in areas such as Lancashire, where women traditionally have employment. It raises the standard of living of the whole family when the wife goes out to work, and it is my contention that dispersal to the North-West will have a very substantial effect on some types of unemployment.
The report accepts that it is less costly to find accommodation in the regions

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than in London. Certainly in the North-West, my constituency in particular, we have a surplus of office accommodation and can supply it at a rate per square foot very much less than in London. Further, housing is very much more readily available and far less expensive in the Central Lancashire New Town area. In that area new housing developments are springing up almost daily.
I would have thought that it was a resource gain, although this is not mentioned in the report, if civil servants are not exhausted by their daily journeys in the unpleasant atmosphere of the London tube or on overcrowded London buses, and are not over ennervated by the heat of the "Great Wen" in summer. I never travel to my constituency without feeling the freshness of the air. I cannot resist the conclusion that any civil servants sent to Lancashire will benefit mentally from the freshness of the Lancashire breezes. I would be glad to see sharp-wittedness among civil servants because it is something which I sometimes fail to detect.
The report argues that dispersal would involve an increase, on average, of 30 new posts per thousand jobs dispersed. This seems an excessive concession to Parkinson's Law. The existing staff should surely manage the dispersal themselves, as they would have to if they were in a private firm. I beg the Government not to incur extra expenditure on that account.
The Government have accepted the desirability of helping the less favoured areas. I certainly welcome the proposal to send some staff to the Central Lancashire new town. I regret that the report does not suggest that more civil servants should be sent to Central Lancashire. I regret that more civil servants will not have the opportunity of enjoying the beautiful hills and fells of Lancashire, the easy access to the seaside and Lake District.
The report stresses the need for rapid communications for the dispersed civil servants. As my hon. Friend knows, the Central Lancashire new town has wonderful communications. This is one reason why it was selected as a base for development. It is 2 hours 43 minutes to London by electric train, if the train is
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on time. In Lancashire the motorways enable anyone living there to travel rapidly from Manchester to Liverpool, to Scotland and other areas.
The importance of contact between Government and public is mentioned in the report which says that one of the disadvantages of dispersal would be that civil servants would not have the same contact with institutions representing important features of our national life. It would be nice to see these faceless men from Whitehall in Lancashire. A great deal would be gained if we knew what they were like and appreciated their attitudes.
I beg the Minister to reconsider the figure of 31,000 for dispersal. The figure of 6,300 for Lancashire, considering that we have 9 million people there already, and considering our contribution to the national life is not enough. In the 19th century we were the power house of England. We have the capacity to be so again. The figure of 6,300 is too few. I beg him, in considering the resiting of the Ministry of Defence, to bear in mind the pre-eminent claims of the Central Lancashire new town which are at least as important and powerful as those of Milton Keynes.
8.40 p.m.
Mr. Dan Jones: Having listened to the debate from the beginning I want to make two blunt points straight away.
First, one would imagine that the House today is attempting to elevate the Civil Service into some form of industrial elite. I dissociate myself from that view. I have a number of acquaintances—I almost said friends—in the Civil Service. We forget that many of these ladies and gentlemen came from the regions. They know the regions as well as I do. The truth is that they left the regions only because they had to find jobs in London.
The second thing that annoys me is the number of right hon. and hon. Members who have taken the time of the House to say, "We are much obliged that we have had 1,000 or 5,000 jobs, but we want much more." I talk for North-East Lancashire, which did not have a kind word out of Hardman. It is an area that has contributed to the economic well-being of the country from the turn of the

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century to the present day, paying rates and taxes with the rest of the country. But we did not get a kind word from Hardman, so the people in North-East Lancashire have no time for the man or his report.
It is my privilege tonight to speak for some 450,000 people of all political parties and of none. They feel most indignant that notwithstanding the position they have held for so long they did not get even one mention in the report. It is not good enough.
There are nine hon. Members who in turn are members of the North-East Lancashire Development Committee. I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) here, because she has played a considerable part consistently in the aims and aspirations of the area. We dissociate ourselves entirely from the North West. Ministers will say—I have heard—that so many thousands of jobs have gone to Manchester, Merseyside, and south Manchester. I have come to the conclusion after 15 years of experience that they do not give a damn about North-East Lancashire. It needs to be said and I am going to say it. If other subjects were being discussed tonight I would have no trouble proving the privileges the North West has had for many years compared with North-East Lancashire. The benefits given to that area do not necessarily apply to North-East Lancashire.
I thank the Minister for the courteous way in which he received a deputation from North-East Lancashire led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn. We were listened to patiently, and were given plenty of time. Our case was substantially that our contribution and our potential in terms of the standard of education for young people were undeniable. The Minister will recall that the chairman of the College of Further Education at Nelson said that through the years he had had experience of young people leaving that college, applying for jobs in the area—all of a kind we are discussing tonight—and not being successful. I could give precise figures if I had time. I ask the House to accept that they are substantial.
In North-East Lancashire there is reasonably full employment, about which I openly rejoice. Yet our insured popu-
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lation is going down. It does not need a member of the CID to determine why. The reason is simple: they are qualified for jobs that they cannot obtain. For that reason the drift to the south perpetuates itself. It is a reflection on the standard of the Government's social and industrial morality. I hope that I would speak similarly if my party were in office.
It is no good their saying that it is impossible, by virtue of distance, to do what we want to be done. Anyone would think that the regions were akin to outer Siberia at the turn of the century when in fact they are far more attractive than the capital. I have lived in the capital for upwards of 30 years. If one wants to enjoy the artificialities of life, one should come here. If one wants to enjoy the realities, one should go to the areas mentioned by the hon. Lady the Member for Chorley (Mrs. Monks) and some of my hon. Friends. I am surprised that responsible people like Government officials should want to justify geographic clandestine behaviour on the part of some people when they know perfectly well that the contrary might well be the truth.
Ministers at Brussels are fighting hard and, I believe, sincerely for more aid for the regions. I wonder what Mr. George Thomson would have said if he were present at this debate. I wonder whether he has read the Hardman Report and knows that it is proposed to direct about 50 per cent. of 31,000 dispersals to Milton Keynes. If it was not so confoundedly ironic and unjust, it would make a donkey laugh. It is making a mockery of the regions and I do not propose to be associated with it. I do not give a damn what people think of me as a result.
People were sent to North-East Lancashire to examine the sites which it could offer. They examined 22 sites, all of which had more than fair promise. One would think that that was enough to convince any responsible Government that our needs required attention.
We are not unaware that the Government are proposing the development of Maplin and the Channel Tunnel. If those plans proceed, hundred of millions of pounds of investment will go to the South-East. As I have said many times in fairness, the Government do not have a bottomless purse. Never mind what the

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Liberals say about the Kilbrandon Report; time is not on our side to enable us to wait for that. We are entitled and deserve action now, and we hope that the Government will respond accordingly.
There is a need for brevity and that is why I will not give many of the figures that I should like to give. North-East Lancashire has a large adaptable labour force. Only a few years ago these men worked predominantly in cotton and coal. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn will remember after the war begging the people of North-East Lancashire to stick to textiles because they were so important to the nation's economy. The phrase then used which has since become a cliché was that the nation's bread hangs on Lancashire's thread. There has been a tremendous change. Today, engineering is predominant, with miscellaneous industry. That is not good enough. There is no balanced economic basis. By any conceivable law we are entitled to have a balanced industrial unit in terms of administrative staff and that is what we seek from the Government.
If the nine members of the North-East Lancashire Development Committee find eventually that the half promises do not materialise, I serve notice that so far as lies within my power I shall play hell in this House and outside for the sake of the people without whom I would not be in this House.
Having been a trade union official for some years and very much involved in the industrial economy I know that we also have a good record of labour relations. Money spent in North-East Lancashire is more likely to be an investment than expenditure. We possess intermediate area status, although we have not had a great deal of benefit therefrom.
We have relatively low-priced property, land and buildings; which should make a tremendous appeal to the Government. We have relative freedom from traffic congestion and we are near to large regional centres of population in the North-West and the West Riding. We have ready access to attractive countryside. Some of the Minister's advisers know that as well as I do because they hail from that area. There is no need to convince them. They were convinced before they left the area to come south
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There is readily available and generally low-priced housing and there are several good golf courses. We have in the North-East some exceptionally good soccer and rugby teams. If these civil servants are the responsible people that we are led to believe they are they will like to know that regard for the education of children in North-East Lancashire is second to none. When my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) made his attack on public schools I thought he might have come from the North East because the schools there are so good. The area has every conceivable characteristic to enable responsible people to look at it with approval.
I ask that the half promises made to us at the meeting, for which I am duly thankful and appreciative, be carried out. We have had nothing at all and we are entitled not to privilege, not even to parity, but at least to a recognition that we exist and are entitled to better treat-men than Hardman seems to have dished out to us.
8.55 p.m.
Mr. John Sutcliffe: When one has lived, talked over and worried about a problem for years there comes a time to make a serious effort to deal with it. My area has a problem of a section of the community with worse prospects of employment than the rest, or indeed than communities in most other areas. I refer to school leavers and married women in Teesside. This is the very section of the community to which the Civil Service looks for local recruitment and therefore we expect a Civil Service infusion from the Government.
My hon. Friend the Minister has been patient. More than that, he has been exceedingly good-humoured at all times while under pressure, not just from me but from many hon. Members and many regional lobbies. I was particularly pleased when he today responded by giving a regional emphasis in introducing this debate. He put on one side so many of Sir Henry Hardman's intricate calculations, not least the average level of average trade-off calculation with which I have taxed him in correspondence.
Not long ago the Minister gave a talk to sixth formers in Middlesbrough and

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what matters to me is that in his remarks in this debate he has echoed in so many words what we say on Teesside. How much longer are we to tolerate the forced migration from a regional area of its intelligent school leavers and graduates? Never mind Hardman. The Minister knows, because he has common sense—and I hope he is listening to what I am saying—that the benefits from dispersal must be greatest in areas of high unemployment and where the balance between clerical and non-clerical jobs is utterly lop-sided.
The Minister referred to the document of the North of England Development Council entitled "The Great Divide". I hope he has also seen a copy of the letter from the North Regional Planning Committee to the Prime Minister. He will know that the most unanswerable part of the case argued in these papers was not the need of Washington, in County Durham, which I am glad is to get 2,000 jobs, but the need of Teesside. Although the Teesside case is unanswerable, its need is answerable and it has been amply illustrated in statistics from Members of the Opposition, notably the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Ted Fletcher) as well as in a very effective speech from the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley).
I live not far from the Tees and I would count as lucky any civil servant who was asked to do the same. I realise that in this debate every hon. Member has had some advice as to the glory of the countryside of a particular region in which civil servants can live. A civil servant can live in the best countryside in all England and be only 15 minutes from the centre of Teesside. Those few civil servants who are in the North now are more reluctant to move south than their counterparts may be to move north.
What Teesside civil servants want is a career structure which will remove the threat of their being forced south again. I have had many meetings with their representatives over the last few months. They have no reservations whatever about the superior quality of life in the North-East. Those commercial firms which we have encouraged to move north feel the same.
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The Government have the opportunity now to encourage more firms to move north by giving firms the example of moving Government Departments into the regions. Out of the 60 commercial firms with regional offices which were investigated by Messrs. Rhodes and Kan, who wrote the book "Office Dispersal and Regional Development", it is significant that no fewer than 57 said that the communications damage which they suffered was not serious and less than they had expected.
I have said all that I want to say at the end of this debate. Being the last back-bench speaker on the Government side of the House, I hope that the Minister will be able to bear what I have said longer in mind than some of what has been said by my colleagues. I end with this comment. The bringing of Civil Service departments to the Teesside area would provide one of the vital pieces necessary to complete the complicated jigsaw puzzle of establishing the correct balance between the traditional heavy industries and the service sector, a balance which is essential if this development area is to grow, and to grow not only economically but socially. That is the crux of the matter, and that is how, in regional terms, the North of England Development Council put it in a nutshell.
9.2 p.m.
Mr. J. D. Dormand: Time presses and I, too, shall say much less than I intended to say. I pay tribute to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department for meeting so readily all those organisations which asked to meet him. He was entitled to refer to that in his speech. I attended three of those meetings. The Parliamentary Secretary was a very good listener. But I say to him bluntly, although in a friendly tone, that we in the northern region hope that this has not been just a public relations exercise. We hope that we do not have to use the American phrase "smooth operator" about the Parliamentary Secretary. That phrase can be applied to some of his colleagues on the Government Front Bench, although not those who are on the Front Bench at present.
The most important thing that the Parliamentary Secretary said was that the

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Government are not committed to either the scale or the pattern of the report's recommendations. I welcome that as a Member representing a constituency in the northern region. I support in every syllable the devastating case made by my right hon. friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short) against the Hardman Report, in spite of the announcement about Washington and the promise to look further into Teesside, and I obviously give a full welcome to those, too.
All those who have spoken in the debate today have justified their case. I shall leave mine in one sentence from a member of the Government—the Under-secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He said as recently as 5th October, when speaking to the Teesside and District Productivity Association
"We also need a greater proportion of clerical jobs, where, outside north Tyneside this region has distinctly fewer employment opportunities than in the South-East, and in comparison with the national average."
That speaks for itself. There are two main reasons why we want more clerical Civil Service jobs. One, which has been referred to in the debate, is that it will make the region less dependent on heavy industry with its history of booms and slumps, but there is also the effect that it will have on our young people, who are entitled to the same wide choice of jobs as is available in other parts of the country. Young people and graduates from the northern region are continually migrating to the Midlands and the South. I think I understood the Minister to say that his first reason, or one of his main reasons, for the dispersal of Civil Service jobs was the opportunity it provided for young people.
Mr. Kenneth Baker Mr. Kenneth Baker indicated assent.
Mr. Dormand: Of course, there is the other point that society as a whole is moving away from manual work to service industries and there is no reason why change should not take place evenly throughout the country. There is, in fact, a reason, and it could be the inertia or the misjudgement of the Government. The Government's policy has yet to be proved.
Those of us from the northern region do not come today with begging bowls.
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We question, as did my right hon. Friend, many of the arguments in the Hardman Report. I personally question the very basis and the main theme of the report. I say that the onus is on the Government to prove why any Department should stay in London, for the reasons which have been given many times today. We also question the conclusions drawn from the evidence. I say simply that the best example that can be given from the report is that which has been quoted many times today—Milton Keynes. It is incredible that a recommendation to a Government should involve 10,000 jobs going to a place which does not want them and which says they would be bad for it.
I turn to an aspect which Hardman says is vitally important. I refer to the cost of office accommodation in London. The report says:
"More important is the effect from using less costly provincial accommodation. This is substantial and real …"
I repeat that because I have perhaps the latest figures on costs to be quoted in the debate. I take them from a report published last month by estate agents Richard Lionel and Partners. The report says that in every area of London where there are office blocks there has been at least a 50 per cent. increase since January this year. The report gives three specific examples. In Mayfair the cost is now £13 a square foot, in Knightsbridge £10 a square foot and in Soho £8 a square foot. In Newcastle and Teesside the cost per square foot is £1·30. On the evidence of these figures, who is surprised that the much-vaunted rush of foreign firms to establish offices in London since we joined the EEC has not materialised? We heard a great deal about that in the last couple of years, but now a survey of the 750 top companies in Holland, France, Belgium and Germany shows that none of them has any intention of establishing an office in London.
I conclude by referring to my constituency and I do so because it includes the new town of Peterlee. Hardman draws attention specially to new towns, pointing out their advantages and their needs. I regret to have to tell the House that Peterlee has the highest unemployment rate of all new towns in the country and the lowest number of service jobs, and it must be one of the few new towns,

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if not the only one, which has no Government work.
Against that black picture, I can say that the new town is unique in that it has a proposal—indeed, the basic part of it has already commenced—for a "science city", the details of which I have considerable knowledge. It is only to be compared with that most exciting similar project in North Carolina, in the United States. I have raised the question of Peterlee many times in this House, both in Questions and in debates, and have had many half promises, but nothing at all has materialised.
I conclude by making a very humble specific request to the Minister. Will he at least consider that the laboratory of the Government Chemist, which would produce 350 jobs, be placed in Peterlee? That is surely not very ambitious. I am pleased to see that the Minister is smiling. I ask for that in particular because of the scientific potential which we have in Peterlee and the need for a spark of that kind to give it status and, perhaps, to attract other types of work to the new town.
9.10 p.m.
Mr. Bruce Millan: Every hon. Member who has spoken in this debate has severely criticised the Hardman Report for its inadequacies on regional policy. I simply wish to reiterate the view expressed by many hon. Members that from that point of view it is a profoundly disappointing document. The speech of my right hon. Friend who opened the debate on this side of the House very well demonstrated its inadequacies. The only point that I would make about regional policy is that one of the great disappointments under both Governments in recent years has been that regional policy has had virtually no effect at all on office and services employment.
In opening the debate the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned the considerable number of jobs which had left central London under the stimulus of the Location of Offices Bureau, but the vast majority of those jobs went either to other locations in the South-East or to other favoured areas of the country. Virtually none of them went to development areas. If development areas are to get their fair share of office jobs it is
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essential to have a massive dispersal of Civil Service jobs to these areas. It cannot be done in any other way. I was very glad that my right hon. Friend dealt at such length and so effectively with the efficiency arguments, because I believe that Hardman grossly exaggerated the importance of these in his report. It ought to be remembered that most major Government Departments located in London are already split up and fragmented to a considerable extent. Also, as my right hon. Friend said, it is not true that there are thousands of civil servants personally advising Ministers every day. That is a complete myth. Anyone who has had any kind of experience of government knows that that is so.
But, most important of all, virtually no attention was paid in the Hardman Report to the already dispersed jobs and particularly to the experience of the Scottish Office. I specifically mention the Scottish Office rather than the Welsh Office, because I know it well and because it has been longer established and is a bigger organisation. I know that the Scottish Office is not just a branch of a United Kingdom Department but it has many of the problems of communication and so on, which any Government Department has. Without going into details, I simply say that in my opinion, despite the separation of civil servants from Ministers, the Scottish Office operates just as efficiently as any other Government Department of which I have any knowledge and, in many respects, operates a good deal more efficiently. One of the major deficiencies of the Hardman Report is that the Scottish Office and the Welsh Office were not considered in considerable detail.
Also, from the point of view of efficiency, problems of general recruitment, accommodation and so on, in London, must be taken into account. It seems to me that a prima-facie case for a major dispersal from London is more than made out. I certainly accept the proposition that from the efficiency point of view dispersal should be to a limited number of locations, but all of us in the regions utterly reject the Hardman concept that the greater the distance from London the greater the loss of efficiency, because, apart from anything else, that concept takes absolutely no account of

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the possibilities in regard to communications, transport, and so on. For example, the opportunities for rapid and easy air travel to and from Glasgow are very much better than in virtually any other area of the United Kingdom at the present time.
One proposal which has been severely criticised—and I add my criticism to it—is that a large number of Ministry of Defence jobs should go to Milton Keynes. This is such an absurd proposal that it is worth considering why it was ever made. I can only think that it was made because Hardman was impressed—he was an ex-Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence—with this mystical conception of the London-Bath axis which permeates the whole of the Ministry of Defence thinking. I served for a very short time in the Ministry of Defence and I know what a tremendous influence this has on civil servants and others in that Ministry.
Over the years the Ministry of Defence has managed to get a large number of research and other establishments located in the south and south-west of England, and it uses this as an argument for building up concentrations of civil servants in those areas. If that argument is accepted, one of the major prospects and purposes of this dispersal exercise will not be fulfilled. Indeed, the whole exercise will prove largely futile. This is the absolute test of the Government's sincerity and toughness on the dispersal exercise. Many of us on this side of the House, and I believe many on the opposite side as well, will do everything possible to break this concept of the Ministry of Defence of the London-Bath axis.
Because of the lack of time I shall not plead the special case of Glasgow and the west of Scotland—although I think there is an overwhelming case for a major dispersal of civil service work—and the recommendations of the Hardman Report concerning 1,100 jobs completely derisory. The case for Glasgow and the west of Scotland has been made impeccably and with a great deal of objectivity in the document produced by the team from Glasgow and the west of Scotland under the Lord Provost of Glasgow—"The Unanswerable Case".
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I hope that will have an important influence on Government policy.
I think we all recognise that staff are reluctant to move. Some of them have an exaggerated and unjustified apprehension about moving to certain parts of the country. It does not do to dismiss that, or to pretend that this is an easy problem to overcome, but I want to make two points on that. First, large numbers of civil servants originating in Glasgow and the west of Scotland and other development areas are forced to move to London. That is just as painful as it is for civil servants to move from London to the regions. Secondly, this will in any case be a long-term process, and it seems to me that with proper Government handling the difficulties of staff can be dealt with adequately.
I hope that staff difficulties will not be used as an excuse for not putting into operation a really massive dispersal here because, at the end of the day, although we must take the staff interest fully into account, the decision rests with the Government themselves, and it is on Government shoulders that we place the responsibility.
9.19 p.m.
Mr. Douglas Houghton: I have listened to the whole or part of all the speeches which have been made. On my score card I have the names of 25 hon. Members who have spoken from the back benches. Hon. Members from five regions in England and hon. Members from Scotland and Wales have taken part.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department made kind reference to me and I thank him for that. If I may, I shall return a sympathetic reference to him. He has an awful lot to listen to yet. I am sure that we can sympathise with the complexity and the difficulty of his task when the debate is over. I do not envy him for what he has to do. He has some difficult decisions to make and they will not please everybody.
The regions, lord provosts, lord mayors, hon. Members, Ministers, civil servants and others will all go for him in a way which I can describe only as "pull devil, pull baker". I think that he will be in a pretty ragged condition by the time it is all over. The hon. Member

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for Liverpool, Wavertree (Sir John Tilney) said that we would all like to see more civil servants coming to our regions. It is a surprise to me that civil servants have suddenly become so popular. I lived through the period when they were called limpets, barnacles and parasites. Apparently they are now to be welcomed with open arms. It seems that the chief complaint throughout the debate is that the regions will not get more of them. I hope that it is not just cupboard love on the part of the regions.
I shall not adjudicate on the regional claims which have been made. One reason for not doing so is that I have one of my own. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) for putting the case of Yorkshire and Humberside. If we look at any of the league tables in the Hard-man Report or elsewhere we see that Yorkshire and Humberside come out pretty badly. The difficulty about the area is that it had great expectations in the past which were not fulfilled. I remember that we were going to have the influx of large numbers of Inland Revenue officials at Shipley. There was there to be an Inland Revenue pay-as-you-earn computer centre. The site was designated and an elaborate board was put up announcing the second coming. Strangely enough, nobody threw stones at it.
The Government and the much-hated tax inspectors were going to Shipley to do their pay-as-you-earn more efficiently and to do a great deal more of it. Apparently they were to be welcomed by Shipley. But what has happened? The computer programme has been abandoned. We now have the tax credit system. The Minister held out the hope to the new town of Washington that the child credits under the forthcoming tax credit scheme, if we get it, will be paid out from Washington.
This is the moment to utter a cautionary word—"Do not count your chickens before they are hatched". Shipley counted them and did not get them.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley) referred to the disappointment that Tees-side had when it thought that it was getting the National Savings Bank. I am informed that at the time the staff were
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canvassed for their choice. They were told that it could be Liverpool, Teesside or Glasgow. Elaborate steps were taken to canvass the general opinion of all concerned. By an overwhelming majority they plumped for Teesside; so it went to Glasgow. I am not saying for a moment that they are not happy at Glasgow. Let us not kid the Civil Service. If there is no choice, tell it so. If there is a real choice, let it exercise it. That is the message which I give on that matter.
I think that it would be a mistake to predict more dispersal than is likely to take place in the foreseeable future because, if we do, it will raise false hopes at the receiving end and create uncertainty over a much longer period than is necessary at the dispersal end. Let us bear in mind that some of the Flemming dispersals are not yet complete—and Flemming reported exactly 10 years ago. A great many changes will take place in any scheme of dispersal which lasts a decade.
Another point to remember is that jobs on paper are no good to anybody. Much vehemence and conviction, all justified and appreciated, have been introduced into the speeches today about jobs which are not (here until offices are built or homes provided and many other services are laid on for specific blocks of civil servants who may move from London to other areas. These things take a long time and sometimes they are delayed through causes over which people have no control. Jobs in 10 years' time may be something to look forward to but the pressure, surely, for additional employment in many of the regions is much more urgent than that.
Another point is that the dispersal should not be in penny packets. I cannot agree with the idea that there should be a lot of bits and pieces spread around the country. I think this would be bad for the Civil Service and for efficiency of administration and communications, and it would not do much good to the areas to which they went. I think that there is justification for enough concentration to provide all the requirements of recruitment, training, promotion, efficiency in management and organisation. These are all essential conditions of the efficiency of administration. It would be much better to decide on a comparatively few places and have a reasonable degree of dispersal

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in them than to have dispersal too widely spread.
I think that Sir Henry Hardman has suffered unjustly at the hands of many hon. Members today. He did a thorough job within his terms of reference. I think he must have known that he could not win at the end of the day, and yet, out of a sense of public duty, he undertook the task. He need not have done so. A distinguished civil servant, retired, need not have embarked on a job of this kind. But his terms of reference were cast in the traditional mould—that was his difficulty. They were cast in the mould of Flemming and his predecessors.
Sir Henry was told to raid Whitehall and come away with as much booty for dispersal as he could, and when he got back with the swag there were all the boys from the regions demanding a share. He knew that it was bound to lead to frustration and that he could not hope to satisfy everyone, first, because he could not get enough booty for dispersal and, secondly, because he could could not satisfy the demands waiting for him when he got back. Let us sympathise with Sir Henry even though we may say that his report is inadequate or overlooks many important aspects of this most complex problem.
I wonder sometimes whether we do not attempt on occasion to do things too scientifically. I think sometimes that a few outright judgments might be just as good as the scientific analyses of tradeoff and resources and the rest. Most of the earlier dispersals which have proved highly successful were made by outright judgments at the time and not after a long exercise in the Hardman manner. Sir Henry Hardman had to conform to the traditional approach and that I think was inadequate and accounts for a good deal of the trouble. Truly, his terms of reference were all too naive. They were lacking in imagination. There was no vision in them. Those who set him about this job did not realise the scope and breadth of the problem.
The question is, how is the machinery of Government to be spread among the people in the twentieth century? The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) introduced this new dimension into the debate. I was waiting patiently for the first reference to the
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Kilbrandon Commission. I waited until the eleventh speech before any mention was made of a report which very shortly will throw a lot of cats among the pigeons. There we have a report of a commission dealing with the decentralisation of Government and it is bound to have a profound effect upon the matter we are discussing today. If regions in England are to have some form of regional government, if Scotland and Wales are to have some kind of elected assembly with considerable devolution of legislative and administrative responsibilities, clearly that will alter the whole pattern of the Civil Service. I believe that the next phase in this respect will be the decentralisation of Government rather than the dispersal of Government work. That, I believe, will be the next phase in the distribution of administration.
The Hardman approach and all previous approaches were a form of amputation. Limbs were torn off conglomerate Departments which had hitherto had a degree of cohesion and of centralisation. It may be, as some hon. Members have mentioned, that it is not bits of Departments or limbs of Departments which should go but whole Departments. The whole administration should go, and we then overcome a good deal of the mythology about the need for top civil servants to be in the next room to the Minister. There are many top civil servants today who never see the Minister. I am told, for example, that in the Department of the Environment there are a couple of dozen Under-secretaries who obviously are not in close touch with the Minister. Many senior posts in the Civil Service today are not directly in touch or in constant touch with the Minister. They have their own administrative responsibilities, working within a framework of policy laid down from the top. So I believe that more dispersal of top jobs and not only of the mass of the bottom jobs should be possible when this task of dispersal is undertaken.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) introduced the Common Market, which is something else which cannot be entirely ignored in this connection. That is why I stress the fact that it would be folly, as I believe, to attempt to plan or to predict

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dispersals at this stage when early accomplishment will probably be overtaken by the big changes we may have to make both in the machinery of Government in this country and in our relations with the European Economic Community.
I come, finally, to the staff. As a former Chairman of the Staff Side of the Civil Service National Whitley Council and as a former General Secretary of the Inland Revenue Staff Federation I have been into this problem on earlier occasions. I worked in a Department where there were a thousand removals a year involving changes of residence. These were huge human problems leading frequently to hardship and domestic difficulty and great distress.
There is a human factor here, and I make no apology to the House for saying that dispersal is about people as well as about jobs. It is a great deal to be transferring 15,000 people, in many cases against their will, in many cases possibly to the accompaniment of considerable personal difficulty. Let me give another warning. The last wave of dispersals went through so smoothly because there was a considerable reservoir of willing volunteers and a trawl enabled the Civil Service Department or its predecessor to get people to go on a voluntary basis. Far fewer transfers to London have been made since then. The number of people who want to get out of London, I predict, is not likely to equal the numbers that will have to go.
I doubt whether this can be done wholly by voluntary transfer. Indeed, the warning has already been uttered that it may not be possible to do it that way. I think it will be necessary to widen the trawl. The volunteers will have to come from a wider area of the Civil Service than the Departments concerned if this is to be accomplised as smoothly as before.
This House has a disaffected Civil Service at present. We are the employers of the Civil Service. They are the servants of the Crown and their conditions are determined by the Government and in turn by the House. I have never known the time when there has been more discontent in the Civil Service than now. Yet at this moment uncertainty and unwelcome prospects of movement are thrown upon a large number of people already discontented with the service, their
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conditions and the hold-up of their pay advances.
This has to be borne in mind. If there is a choice let it be exercised properly, fairly and in a democratic way. If there is no choice do not pretend that there is. Let civil servants know. I fear that last time people were led to believe that they had an opportunity of making a choice about the ultimate decision. That proved not to be the case. The staff has a point of view. The Minister sad that there may be a time when the public service and the national need may be paramount and public servants may have to do as they are told. I do not dispute that.
Nevertheless these are trade unionists, many of them affiliated to the TUC. Why should we not respect their position and interests, just as much as we respect the conditions and claims of other trade unionists? White-collar workers are no less trade unionists than blue-collar workers. I enter a strong plea for reasonable support for the position of the staff in this difficult exercise.
I know that the passion and the vehemence we have heard in the debate shows how deeply hon. Members feel about unemployment in the regions, the imbalance of employment, the lack of development, the school leavers they are losing. I am losing them from Sowerby. There is no administration there, yet higher education continues to turn out people year after year. They leave the area. The number on the electoral register is falling. The proportion of old people is rising. It is the classic example of an area in decline because there is nothing to encourage the skill, talents and ambitions of those who have received higher education.
We in the regions know of this problem and we know how strongly people feel about it. I do not underestimate the strength of conviction of the speeches made today. Nevertheless, the staff interest has to be placed alongside this, no more and no less. It should not be paramount If there are considerations which can take into account the human factors affecting those who are going as well as the human factors of those who want the jobs at the other end, then we shall achieve a better balance and complete this ambitious exercise with a minimum degree of hardship and discontent.

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Ministers have the responsibility for decisions. I am sure that the whole House hopes they will bear it patiently and discharge it with sympathy, courage and humanity.
9.40 p.m.
The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): It is always a pleasure to speak following the right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). Although we have heard the sad announcement that he will not stand after this Parliament there is still much time of this one left and I hope I shall have the pleasure of replying to him again. And I must add that I agree thoroughly with many of the points he made tonight.
This has been a peculiar debate, in which civil servants have become terribly popular and the regions have been holding out the prospect of wonderful social services and amenities which is not what we normally hear in debates.
I would like to put the right hon. Member's mind at rest on one point that he raised. I confirm that the Government propose to set up the Inland Revenue Accounts Office at Shipley. We shall go ahead with that, and eventually up to 1,000 staff will be involved. I have taken the matter out of order in my speech so as to give that assurance to the right hon. Member.
Despite the many unkind words that have been said about Sir Henry Hardman and his report, I congratulate and thank his sincerely for the job that he did. It has not been an easy job; as the right hon. Member for Sowerby said, it is a job on which one cannot win.
My hon. Friend for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) pointed out that the motion was to take note of the report. It is also to take note of what right hon. and hon. Members have to say about it. We hope we shall be able to make decisions quickly on the dispersal of civil servants.
It is the first major effort to carry out a dispersal of this kind since 1963. It is all very well to be critical, but there was no initiative in this area between 1964 and 1970, when we asked Sir Henry Hardman to carry out the exercise. Now he has done so and put his report before us.
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Of course, there had been substantial dispersal during that decade. On the first page of the statement by the Government, at the beginning of the report, the figures are set out:
"over a third (some 57,000) of all headquarters staffs already work outside London; some 23,600 posts have moved since 1963 while, under current plans for further dispersal, some 6,800 more are due to leave the capital".
As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department said, there are 10,000 posts which move each year, so the process has been an outgoing one. But this is a particular exercise designed to lead a major dispersal.
We shall make decisions as quickly as possible. It is rather like judging a beauty contest. As a Member of Parliament, I have always insisted that my wife should never judge one, because in doing so one makes more enemies than friends. I am afraid that the decisions we shall take on Hardman will make us more enemies than friends. However, we must make those decisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith) complained that Hardman does not start with the proper degree of conviction that there should be a dispersal.
I give the assurance that the Government do. Whether it is on the basis of emotion or logic, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead said, let me now quote the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks): we mean business, and we will carry out a dispersal of this kind. In the terms the hon. Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) used, the Government accept the challenge. To quote my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North it is a challenge to civil servants and not only to the Government. We must therefore try to make it acceptable to the civil servants whom we shall literally be pushing around and to whom we shall be causing a certain amount of hardship and stress.
Let me deal with the question of the size of the cake. We start with the total number of civil servants in London, 143,000. Of those, 47,000 are involved in essentially regional or local work and must be located in London. Therefore, the figure comes down to 95,000. It has been questioned whether we should have included in that figure the whole of the South-East headquarters staff and

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not just those within a 16-mile radius of London. I am advised that we would add only about 12,000 to the figure if we took the whole of the headquarters staff, including those in the South-East outside that 16-miles radius. However, I give the assurance that we shall consider the point, because it is the South-East as a whole which is overheated and where the pressure arises.
The right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short) raised two questions about the National Savings staff. They were not included because it was thought that they were so closely concerned with the Treasury, the City and investment policy; it seemed appropriate that they should remain in London. I am not sure that I agree with that argument, especially in view of the announcement by my hon. Friend that the Companies Registration Office is to move, and I will therefore consider the matter again.
The right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon Tyne, Central also questioned the lack of movement from his old Department, namely, the Department of Education and Science. I have a note of the answer that he gave on 3rd March 1969 when he was Secretary of State for Education and Science, in which he said:
"The transfer to Darlington of 620 posts concerned with teachers' pensions, teachers' salaries and qualifications, and the Department's new computer, will be completed by May, 1970. I have no proposals for the movement of any other work from the London area within the next five years."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March 1969; Vol. 779, c. 34.]
We are, therefore, only following the right hon. Gentleman's policy.
I come now to the review of the numbers of Civil Service headquarters posts in London, 78,000; the headquarters posts occupied by members of Her Majesty's forces, 3,000; and headquarters posts not part of the Civil Service, 5,000. That makes up the total of 86,000 about which we have been talking.
Mr. Edward Short: Will the right hon. Gentleman say a word or two about the National Savings Committee staff, which numbers about 500?
Mr. Page: It was thought that they were so linked with other headquarters staff that they should remain in London. I have given the assurance that we shall look at this matter again.
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Of that 86,000, 31,000 are possible candidates for removal. Many hon. Members have questioned that figure, and have wondered whether it should be higher than 31,427.
However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) said, this is a substantial figure. Forty per cent. is a remarkably large percentage for a possible movement of staff. Compared with the 18,000 moves which Flemming recommended in 1963, 31,000 is evidently a substantially higher figure. To go further has involved a substantial change in Government policy.
In my Department we have reflected that change of approach over the past few years by moving decision making and policy making into the regions. The right hon. Member for Sowerby mentioned the number of higher civil servants now in the regions. That represented a major change in Government policy. The terms of reference for Hardman did not go as far as that. We presented him with the existing Government policy and said, "What can you do about getting civil servants out of London on the basis of that policy?"
We should not wait for Kilbrandon before getting on with the job. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) first raised this question and one or two other hon. Members have mentioned it. There may be substantial changes and a greater movement of the Civil Service out of London if there are recommendations in the Kilbrandon Report which are accepted by the House for the movement of Government itself rather than Government work—that is the decentralisation of Government, not merely the movement of Government administration.
The two main factors on which Hardman was working were the efficiency of Government operations and the need for regional policy. We cannot disregard efficiency, and Sir Henry Hardman set out certain mathematics by which he calculated it. Not being a mathematician, I am afraid that I have almost completely failed to follow it. However, I base my argument on regional policy and the vital necessity to continue the regional policies which the Government have put into operation during their

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period of office. The Government have pursued policies which have had the double objective of reducing pressures in the congested areas of the country, such as the South-East, and of helping regions elsewhere to cope with the process of radical change in their employment structures. On this basis we shall decide how to carry out the Hardman recommendations.
I will briefly list what I consider to be the needs of the regions. It is on those needs that we shall base our dispersal decisions. First, there is the need to compensate for the continuing decline of employment in traditional industries, particularly by providing for the Civil Service type of work in areas in which, in the past, we have mainly concentrated industrial jobs.
Following from what I have said, there is the need to diversify possible employment and to provide a better range of job opportunities. The movement of a few tens of thousands of civil servants cannot provide all that, but it stimulates the variety of jobs in the area to which they are moved.
Thirdly, there is the need to reduce the rate at which outward migration takes place. Fourthly, there is the need to increase spending power in the regions. This was mentioned by one or two hon. Members as an advantage which will flow from moving this number of civil servants from London into the regions. Finally, there is the need to draw a larger proportion of women into gainful employment and thereby to raise family incomes.
The argument now turns, of course, on where to put those 31,000. Everyone has made claims. No fewer than 14 claims have been made for the Milton Keynes surplus. The Parliamentary Secretary announced that we were thinking again about this area. Incidentally, I deliberately used the pronunciation "Keynes" to rhyme with "beans", whereas everyone except my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon), in whose constituency the town falls, has used the pronunciation which rhymes with "pains". We shall, of course, look at this surplus and try to place it correctly in the other areas.
The right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central agreed with our
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having listed the appropriate areas. This is, and must be, a matter of Government policy, but it does not mean that that list is absolutely firm. Other areas have been mentioned—West Cumberland, for example. We are considering very seriously the possibility of moving the staff of the Government Chemist to West Cumberland. Other cases have been mentioned with which I will not have time to deal, but I will try to let those who have mentioned them know the results of our consideration.
I want to deal quickly with the very important matter of the co-operation of the staff. It is all very well for the Minister to stand at this Box and say, "We will carry out a policy of dispersal." In moving staff out of London, we are dealing with human beings, with families and their lives. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Sowerby was right to say that we do not now have that pool of civil servants who are prepared to move, because we have trawled for them in the past removals. When 10,000 a year have to move, that must mean that we have got nearly to the end of the volunteers. So we must have the cooperation of the staff and we shall do everything we can to make the moves easy for them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Sir John Tilney) mentioned help with mortgages and housing. We are looking into this very earnestly and I hope that we shall be able to help, in this and other ways, to make the move smooth.
The only resource that the Civil Service possesses is the skill and experience of its own staff. The Government intend to manage this dispersal programme in a way which will earn the co-operation of those staff. That is why I particularly welcome the offers of help by local authorities and others at the receiving end and the arrangements which have been made to take civil servants and show them what the areas concerned have to offer.
This is a recognition—we must be conscious of this throughout this exercise—that we are dealing not just with numbers of posts or jobs, or job opportunities, but with people and their families, and we must see that they are properly treated in this move. I hope that when

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we come to take the decisions about where they shall move we shall be able in that way to satisfy the staff.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the report by Sir Henry Hardman on the dispersal of Government work from London (Command Paper No. 5322).

ADJOURNMENT
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kenneth Clarke.]

SCOTTISH AREA HEALTH BOARDS
10.0 p.m.
Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: I want to raise tonight the question of appointments to the Scottish area health boards as they are presently constituted.
I do not do this in any personal sense in the nature of raising the appointment of this or that person. One could argue a case about the Government's behaviour towards, for example, Mr. William Taylor, who was once the chairman of Livingstone Development Corporation and who was treated very shabbily by the Government. There have been complaints, for example, from my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ewing), who has said that there has been a vendetta conducted by the Secretary of State against Sir John McWilliam in relation to appointments on the ports authority. That may be an allegation against the Secretary of State which could be unfair for the allegation should be against the Minister for Transport Industries. There may be complaints, too, about the way in which the Highlands and Islands Development Board appointments have been made over the last three years.
But I am not raising tonight specific names, specific instances and specific boards. Tonight I am raising the question generally of how the 209 appointments to the area health boards under the new Act have been carried out.
I have somewhat serious allegations to make. I should like to justify them. I repeat that I am not talking in terms
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of any particular people. I am talking in terms of the generality of the people who should be appointed.
The first thing that I readily agree with the Secretary of State is that members of health boards or, for that matter, of any other boards, ought to be selected for their individual contribution rather than for the fact that they are representatives of any particular interests or areas. Having been a Minister at the Scottish Office, I know what that means. It means that while Ministers pay attention to that as a principle and accept the fact that there are certain other guiding principles which we have to respect, I have been often enough, as a Labour Minister, criticised at party meetings about appointing Conservatives to these boards. I have defended that on the ground that it is essentially a British system that we appoint people of merit while taking into account the obvious political interests and other interests that they have.
There is nothing wrong with the fact that someone in public life is a Conservative, or a Socialist or a Liberal. It is all to the good that they should be so interested in public life and willing to identify themselves with the interests of the major parties that they are still able and willing to come forward and to serve. These are not arguments against them. On the contrary.
At a given time a Minister, whatever the colour of the party he represents, ought to be able to appoint people fairly from all parts of the political spectrum. I warn the Secretary of State that if he is about to lay down, as I think he is beginning to lay down, the rule which is applied, as I understand it, in some parts of the United States, the rule that it is "all in, all out", he cannot blame us if we adopt the same procedure when we achieve office.
I would deplore that. It is very wrong that a Minister should be obliged not to appoint a Conservative just because he is a Conservative, or should shy away from a Liberal because he is a Liberal, or should have to appoint a Labour man who is available when the Minister knows that he may not be the best man. This is an essential part of British democracy. I hope that I carry all hon. Members with me when I say that it is wrong when we seem to depart from this principle.

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My complaint is not based just on political discrimination but on other facts.
Mr. Ian MacArthur: Based on a lot of baloney.
Dr. Dickson Mabon: No, it is not. I take as an example the nurses. No one could say that nurses are politically biassed, all affiliated to the TUC, paying their dues to the Labour Party, solidly Socialist in their views and, therefore, a suspect body in the eyes of the Conservative Party. All hon. Members have received complaints about the way in which nurses have deliberately not been appointed to the boards of management or, for that matter, to the area health boards. The argument that the Secretary of State has used against them has not been applicable to the situation in England. In England nurses have been or are to be appointed to these bodies, I understand. The same applies in Wales.
But the Secretary of State for Scotland has quite wrongly hidden behind the concept that managerially nurses should not be on these boards or on the boards of management of individual hospitals. Maybe there is force in that argument, but is it not possible for nurses to be appointed who are not in the employment of a particular hospital or area health board and who might serve on the board even though they do not work within that area?
The Royal College of Nursing and all the other health service bodies such as the Confederation of Health Service Employees and others could provide acceptable candidates to serve as nurses interested in the wellbeing of nurses generally and in the health service. Doctors do that and I am not against doctors being appointed in the health service. Naturally I declare my interest in this matter. It would be bad for the health service if doctors did not continue to serve in all the governing bodies as presently constituted.
But it is outrageous that while doctors are given that preference nurses by definition are specifically denied representation on these bodies. Therefore I complain bitterly that it is wrong that one of the finest services, namely nursing, of the health service is denied representation on these governing bodies. For the life of
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me I do not understand how the Conservative Party can possibly resist the appeal that is being made to it by the nursing profession on this issue.
These days we are most anxious to ensure that women are properly represented in these governing bodies. If we understood the Prime Minister and his colleagues correctly at their recent conference, they intend to announce in the Queen's Speech a Bill which deals with unfair discrimination against women. The Government are to make a plea that we should be fair to women and that we should give them the same rights and privileges as men.
Women in Scotland, as in England and Wales, constitute more than half the population yet of the 209 appointments presently made to area health boards, only 45 are women, according to information given in HANSARD. Frankly, I cannot accept the argument that the available quality of personnel is such that only 45 women out of 209 possible appointments are eligible to be appointed in this respect, and that, may I tell the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), is not baloney. The Secretary of State has made a great mistake in appointing this small number of women. They must be entitled to three or four times as many appointments to the area health boards. My comments on nurses and women generally are not political.
I will not go into the matter of representation from industry. The Minister in reply should tell us about that and say how many of the 209 appointments have been made from the CBI and the employers' associations. I do not know the answer but I know the figures for the trade unions. It is often argued that appointments should be made equally from the employers and the employees, but the employees vastly outnumber the employers. The trade union figures are that on the Argyll and Clyde board, with 12 members, there is one trade unionist; in the Ayrshire and Arran board, three trade unionists; in the Borders, one; in Dumfries and Galloway one; in Fife, two; in the Forth, two; in Glasgow, two; in Grampian, one; in the Highlands, one; in Lanarkshire, one; in the Lothians, one; in Orkney, one; in Shetland, one; in Tayside, two and in the Western Isles, one. There is a total of

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21 nominated trade unionists out of 209. It is absolutely unbelievable.
Not all of these trade unionists are necessarily Socialists and at least two of them, to my knowledge, are not in the Labour Party. But in terms of trade unionists we have this tiny number. Is it not terrible that on these public boards we should have such a small number of personnel from the trade union movement? Therefore my allegation is, first, that quite strongly, there is discrimination against nurses; secondly, that there is unfair discrimination against women; and thirdly, that there is wrongful discrimination against trade unionists. I now come to the political content—
Mr. MacArthur: Nonsense!
Mr. James Hamilton: That is not nonsense. It is a fact of life.
Mr. MacArthur: That is chasing shadows.
Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a very exciting Adjournment debate, but hon. Members should not make sedentary interruptions.
Dr. Dickson Mabon: I am very much obliged for your protection, Mr. Speaker, because he is a very rude Member and he ought to be put in his place from time to time. I dare say that he will get more excited by what I shall say now. The Government may protest that they have innocently made errors about the nurses and they might want to recoup themselves about that, but how they will do it I do not know. They may be very sorry for what they have done to women and very sorry, too, for what they have done in discriminating against trade unions. But let us come to the political parties. The Liberal Party in Scotland and other parties are also aggrieved, but naturally we, as the largest party in Scotland, must necessarily feel more aggrieved at the present situation.
It is perfectly true that of the 15 chairmen three are Labour appointments. Incidentally, they are very good appointments. The fact that Mr. Simpson Stevenson has not only been appointed chairman of the Glasgow board but has also just been appointed chairman of the Common Services Agency is a matter of considerable pleasure to many of us. He is a very competent man. He is a
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Socialist and one naturally assumes that he is a competent man, but even in the eyes of the Conservatives he is a competent man.
But the appointment of three out of 15, even when two of them are on the largest boards, is not a sufficient argument to say that therefore the others are necessarily the proper choices.
Let me look at the membership of the boards. I must go through them very carefully, because I want this written into the record. The Argyll and Clyde board has 12 members, of which one is a trade unionist and two are lady members. There are three Labour appointments on that board, which is a very high number compared to the rest. Ayrshire and Arran has four out of 15; in the Borders not a single Labour appointment has been made out of 15; in Dumfries and Galloway there is one out of 15; in Fife there are three out of 15; in Forth—a predominantly Labour area—two have been appointed out of 13; in Glasgow, overwhelmingly Labour, there are about five out of 18; in the Grampians there are three out of 16; in the Highlands there are two out of 15; in Lanarkshire there are four out of 14; in the Lothians there are six out of 18; in Orkney there is one out of nine; in Shetland there are two out of eight; in Tayside there are four out of 16; and in the Western Isles there is none out of 12. That is the position for Labour and those are identified persons. They are not nominated as members of the Labour Party. They are people who have served in local government as Labour councillors. Or there is Mr. Ryan who is in the Argyll area who is also a dentist and a Labour councillor. So that there are all kinds of qualifications even on these boards.
Mr. MacArthur: I must interrupt, and I apologise for speaking earlier from a sedentary position. The hon. Gentleman has identified certain members of area boards as Labour supporters, and he admits to the House that he cannot identify the political affiliations of other members of the boards. Will he not agree with me that political affiliations do not count one whit in this matter? What matters is the ability and experience of people appointed to the boards. They may be Labour or Conservative,

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but that is not what matters. There may be others he has not mentioned, who have Labour affiliations which are not readily identifiable. But in relation to the point before the House, what matters is the ability and experience of these people and the contribution which they can make to the management of the health service in Scotland. That is what matters; not their political interests.
Dr. Dickson Mabon: I know as well as the hon. Gentleman who so far—I emphasise "so far"—has not served in the Government that many nominations are produced by the Scottish Office civil servants who are very fair. They put the nominations before Ministers, and the Minister in the last analysis make the judgment. It has been the custom of Ministers over many years to be fair. When a decision has to be made between X and Y they look at the political balance of the board and, although X may be a very good man, they may decide to nominate Y because otherwise the political balance would be upset. That has always been the case.
If the present Government are now propounding a new theory, that regard should not be had to preserving a political balance, we, too, will observe this new rule and no longer shall we regard political balance as valid. The Cooperative Union in Scotland submitted 42 nominations for 209 places. Not one of those 42 was appointed to any of these boards. I cannot believe that they are all second-rate people none of whom deserves to be appointed. This is a terrible discrimination against many men and women—particularly women—who serve in the Co-operative movement, some of them political and some not political.
Of course, this is not entirely spilt milk. Not all of the appointments have been made. I ask the Under-Secretary of State to tell us how many more appointments are still to be made to the area health boards. I also ask him to take into account the criticisms which we are making about the way the Government have behaved. Will he seek to redress the adverse balance which has arisen from these badly balanced appointments? The Minister has been unfair to nurses, to women, to trade unionists, to co-operators and to the general public
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in the way that this cockeyed balance has been achieved. He has only been over fair and over-generous to the Conservative Party in Scotland, and he ought to be ashamed of himself for what he has done.
10.17 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office (Mr. Hector Monro): I am not in the least bit ashamed of myself. I am only sorry about the most unreasonable speech of the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon). He began with totally outrageous comments on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, implying that he had made appointments which were unfair to boards in Scotland. He spoke about the ideas of the Secretary of State of "all-in, all-out" for appointments. This is absolute rubbish and he knows it. I am sorry that a former Minister of State at the Scottish Office should utter tripe like that to the House.
Then the hon. Member dealt with "Mabon's law" on the theory that everybody who he does not know personally is a Socialist, is automatically a Conservative. I would be delighted if that were so, but he must know that this law of his is inaccurate. Let us be serious about this serious matter.
I very much welcome this opportunity to dispel some of the misconceptions which have arisen in connection with the appointments which my right hon. Friend has made to the health boards in Scotland. These are important appointments because the massive reorganisation of the Health Service to which we are committed will not achieve the results we all hope for, in terms of improved patient care and greater efficiency, unless members of the health boards are properly equipped to discharge the functions laid upon them by the Act.
My right hon. Friend is fully aware of the importance of these appointments and has taken considerable care to select men and women with the appropriate experience and personal qualities. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Act requires that appointments will be made only after consultation with local authorities, universities having an interest in the provision of health services within their area, teaching hospitals' organisations representative of the medical and other health care professions and such other

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organisations as appear to the Secretary of State to be concerned. Invitations to submit names for his consideration were sent to over 200 representative organisations. These consultations resulted in the submission of over 2,500 nominations from which we have so far selected about 200 names and on which—on the total number—my right hon. Friend will draw when he comes to make further appointments later this year. In round figures there will be appointed four or five to each board, depending on various considerations.
Our choice was therefore large and we are greatly indebted to the organisations for the trouble they took to sift out and nominate suitable candidates. I emphasise once again that my right hon. Friend was concerned to find men and women whose personal qualities and experience fitted them to make an effective contribution to the work of the board to which they were appointed, although he has naturally taken account of geographical and other considerations. The start which the boards have made is most promising.
We had to ensure, in order to maintain continuity, that each board contained a nucleus of members with experience of administering the three parts of the health service as it is operating at present, including persons with local government experience. It was clearly desirable to include men and women who had a professional interest in the provision of health care in the community, whilst excluding those who would themselves be employed by the board in a direct management relationship with any of its chief officers. My right hon. Friend has sought to achieve a reasonable balance on the boards between professional and what might be described as lay members.
The hon. Gentleman has quoted a number of figures purporting to demonstrate in his view the unrepresentative character of the appointments. I emphasise again that they are appointed for their personal qualities and experience and not as spokesmen for a particular organisation or professional group.
I shall quickly give one or two figures. It is extremely difficult—and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree with me—to be sure or even to have an idea of the majority of appointments which have a political involvement. However, we can
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take a view about the 60 local authority councillors because many of them stand as representatives of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party. I have been able to discover by looking at the newspaper—I have not made other enquiries—that 19 local authority members are Socialist, three are Conservatives, one is a Liberal and three others are progressive or ratepayers. There are 34 independents. I have no idea to which party they belong.
Mr. James Hamilton: How many are Conservatives?
Mr. Monro: The hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. James Hamilton) seems to be under the same misapprehension as his hon. Friend the Member for Greenock. If everybody who is apparently not a Socialist is a Conservative, I am delighted to be given that information. Hon. Members must not give way to the temptation to talk about something of which they know nothing.
The hon. Member for Greenock wanted to know from what nominations people were appointed. The CBI has had seven members appointed, the STUC has 18, the local authorities 44 and the professions 82. I emphasised how important it was in getting the boards off the ground to have professional advice. There are 14 members from the universities, 38 nominated by the executive councils, 31 from the regional hospital boards, 74 from the boards of management and 52 from all other organisations, including the Red Cross.
Dr. Dickson Mabon: What about nurses?
Mr. Monro: If the hon. Gentleman leaves me enough time I shall get to nurses. That is an important issue. For that reason, I will not go over the occupations of the 210 people appointed, although I can let the hon. Gentleman know them later. I do not think that the figures he gave were in the least bit relevant to the situation. I am sorry that he should have tried to improve his case by quoting completely wrong figures.
I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear in mind that the local health councils will be appointed in due course and the local authorities have a right to appoint members to them. No doubt the affiliations of the authorities will have their effect on their appointments.

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The hon. Gentleman raised the very important issue of the nurses. Like him, I have the highest regard for the nursing profession in Scotland. My right hon. Friend takes the view that a person directly employed by a health board and working in a direct management relationship with a chief officer of that board—or any of the chief officers themselves, for that matter—should not be eligible for appointment as a member of the board.
This, applies not only to nurses although their representations have naturally attracted a great deal of publicity, but also to other professional staff, including, for example, specialists in community medicine, dentists in the school health service and staff of various other categories who are officers of a health board.
Hospital consultants and general practitioners are in an entirely different situation, since they will not be in a line management relationship with any of the chief officers of health boards. Unlike the nurses and other professional staff employed by health boards to whom I have referred, general practioners and consultants are engaged under a contract for their services. They are not professionally or clinically accountable to the chief administrative medical officer. The appointment as health board members of a limited number of consultants and general practitioners is accordingly consistent with our policy.
I want to assure the hon. Gentleman that we have appointed seven nurses to various health boards. They are not, of course, involved in direct line management and we shall bear in mind the representations made in relation to future appointments.
The hon. Gentleman has previously asked me, but did not bring out in his
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speech, about appointments that have to be made. In the majority of cases the chief officials have now been appointed, but a number of appointments, particularly in the dental profession, still have to be made and will no doubt be announced after Christmas. Most of the boards have made their principal appointments.
I want to stress the value of the contributions which the nursing profession can make to the administration of the National Health Service and to bring to the hon. Gentleman's notice another point he did not bring out—the importance that the area nursing and midwivery committees will have in the working of the boards. They will have direct access to the chief area nursing officer and the boards themselves. So there is no question that the voice of the nurses will not be heard in the future development of the health services in Scotland.
Mr. William Hannan: Which boards have the seven nurses been appointed to, and who are they?
Mr. Monro: I will write to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Member for Greenock has not helped his case by chuffing away all evening from a sedentary position when we have been talking about a serious issue. He has completely misjudged the feelings of most people in Scotland about the constructive appointments made to area boards, and I have every confidence that they will fulfil their work in future extremely well indeed.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.

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  Farm Animals
  CBI AND TUC (TALKS)
  CBI AND TUC (TALKS)
  COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' CONFERENCE
  COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' CONFERENCE
  NURSES AND MIDWIVES WHITLEY COUNCIL
  NURSES AND MIDWIVES WHITLEY COUNCIL
  PRESIDENT OF ZAIRE (VISIT)
  PRESIDENT OF ZAIRE (VISIT)
  ECONOMIC MODEL
  ECONOMIC MODEL
  MR. COSGRAVE (TALKS)
  MR. COSGRAVE (TALKS)
  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY
  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY
  ICELANDIC FISHERIES
  ICELANDIC FISHERIES
  OLDHAM
  OLDHAM
  PAKISTAN
  PAKISTAN
  MR. CHOU EN-LAI (TALKS)
  MR. CHOU EN-LAI (TALKS)
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LAW AND PRACTICE)
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LAW AND PRACTICE)
  FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTS
  FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTS
  PHILLIMORE REPORT
  PHILLIMORE REPORT
  HEAVY LORRIES (DRIVING PROSECUTIONS)
  HEAVY LORRIES (DRIVING PROSECUTIONS)
CIVIL SERVICE
  Non-industrial Civil Servants
  Non-industrial Civil Servants
  Pay Board and Price Commission
  Pay Board and Price Commission
  St. Stephen's Parliamentary Press
  St. Stephen's Parliamentary Press
  MR. J. R. DICK (SALE OF PAINTINGS)
  MR. J. R. DICK (SALE OF PAINTINGS)
EMPLOYMENT
  Disabled Persons
  Disabled Persons
  Clothing Factories (Working Conditions)
  Clothing Factories (Working Conditions)
  Vacancies
  Vacancies
  School Leavers (Scotland)
  School Leavers (Scotland)
  Redundancies (Scotland)
  Redundancies (Scotland)
  Robens Report
  Robens Report
  Average Earnings
  Average Earnings
  Unemployment Rates
  Unemployment Rates
  Petersfield
  Petersfield
  Cost of Living (International Statistics)
  Cost of Living (International Statistics)
  Pay Board (Quarterly Report)
  Pay Board (Quarterly Report)
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Food Aid
  Food Aid
  Indian Sub-Continent (Flood Relief)
  Indian Sub-Continent (Flood Relief)
  Latin America
  Latin America
  Law of the Sea Conference
  Law of the Sea Conference
  European Economic Community
  European Economic Community
  Political Co-operation
  Political Co-operation
  Canada (Members' Visit)
  Canada (Members' Visit)
  Commonwealth Policy
  Commonwealth Policy
  Republic of Ireland (Postage Stamps)
  Republic of Ireland (Postage Stamps)
  Books Presentation Programme
  Books Presentation Programme
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Potholing (Accidents)
  Potholing (Accidents)
  Low-Priced Book Scheme
  Low-Priced Book Scheme
  Heavy Lorries (Driving Prosecutions)
  Heavy Lorries (Driving Prosecutions)
  Consumer Protection Act 1961
  Consumer Protection Act 1961
  Mr. Yuato Npalake
  Mr. Yuato Npalake
  South African Security Agents
  South African Security Agents
  Police (Recruitment)
  Police (Recruitment)
  Special Constabulary
  Special Constabulary
  Imprisonment (Non-Payment of Fines)
  Imprisonment (Non-Payment of Fines)
  Fire Calls
  Fire Calls
POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
  First Class Mail
  First Class Mail
  Television Licences
  Television Licences
SCOTLAND
  Children (Fatal Accidents)
  Children (Fatal Accidents)
  Farm Products (Exports)
  Farm Products (Exports)
  Area Health Boards
  Area Health Boards
  Fire Authorities (Community Relations Officers)
  Fire Authorities (Community Relations Officers)
WALES
  Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act
  Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act
  Uskmouth (Port Development)
  Uskmouth (Port Development)
  Welsh Language
  Welsh Language
  Rural Improvement Schemes (Grants)
  Rural Improvement Schemes (Grants)
  Agricultural Land
  Agricultural Land
  Teifi Valley Railway Line
  Teifi Valley Railway Line
  Cardiff—Merthyr Trunk Road
  Cardiff—Merthyr Trunk Road

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.
Earl Cawdor—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

EDINBURGH AIRPORT
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether progress on the expansion of Edinburgh Airport is up to schedule: and whether it is now possible to state target dates for completion of the principal improvements.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (Logo DRUMALBYN): My Lords, I am advised by the British Airports Authority that improvements at Edinburgh Airport are going according to plan. The contract for the new runway has been let and the runway and new terminal complex should be operational in the spring of 1976.
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that the Secretary of State's determination in pushing on with these improvements in spite of opposition from a noisy minority has earned him the gratitude of many people, particularly in the East of Scotland, who depend on Turnhouse Aerodrome for transport about their business occasions?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend.

MR. TARIQ ALI'S BRITISH PASSPORT
2.37 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: 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 why Tariq Ali, a native of a foreign country and a self-confessed worker for the destruction of our system of government, was given a British passport: and what, if any Oath of Allegiance he was required to take.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, Mr. Tariq Ali had an absolute right to registration as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies because he was ordinarily resident here and free of conditions on January 1, 1973, when the Immigration Act 1971 came into force, and satisfied the conditions of Section 6(1) of the British Nationality Act 1948. He was accordingly registered earlier this year. Consequently, he became eligible to hold a United Kingdom passport. Mr. Tariq Ali took the Oath of Allegiance in the form prescribed by the British Nationality Act.
LORD CLIFFORD or CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Viscount for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that the ordinary chap in this country is mystified by the seeming attitude of successive Governments in allowing foreigners, anti-British people, to come and settle here, while our own relations from the Commonwealth, even for a visit, have to fill in a somewhat insulting form? Further, is he aware that after every series of bomb explosions we hear on the news that the police have visited the homes of I.R.A. sympathisers. Why cannot they be returned to their own Republic? Will the Government consider, therefore, introducing identity cards to help the police in tracking down tax dodgers, terrorists and illegal immigrants?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, that is a trio! In the first place, on the question of mystification I think the noble Lord must remember that at the time when Mr. Tariq Ali was

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registered he was not a foreigner. He was a Commonwealth citizen, and Commonwealth citizens were, and still are, treated in what I hope is a fair way, whether they came from Pakistan at that time, or from Australia, or indeed, as the noble Lord knows, from Canada. The situation, of course, is that it is much less mysterious now, because the only people who are registered as of right are those in a transitional phase who have the necessary qualifications which allow them in under the 1971 Act as of right. Increasingly in future it will be a matter of discretion, and I think this will largely meet what the noble Lord has said.
The question of the I.R.A. people being returned to Ireland, and the other questions that the noble Lord asked me, are really matters that he might care to deal with specifically by putting down a Question on the Order Paper rather than dealing with them as supplementaries to this Question.
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, arising out of that reply, has my noble friend read on the front page of to-day's Scotsman a report that Tariq Ali was involved only last night in a rough-house at Edinburgh University, where he was among a crowd which broke the door of the Union and helped to smash up a meeting, and blows were struck? Is this really the kind of man we want to welcome to this country?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am afraid I have not read the Scotsman to-day. If Mr. Tariq Ali, who is now a citizen of this country, has committed a criminal offence of any sort he, in exactly the same way as anybody else, would be liable to prosecution; as it is in Scotland, it would be by the police. The question as to whether or not he is the kind of person we like in this country is something that we can cope with now, but under the situation as it applied at that time we could not deal with it as a matter of discretion. We now have the discretion that we need.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the noble Viscount inform the House whether Mr. Tariq Ali also possesses a Pakistani passport, and whether he could be encouraged to make further use of it?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not know for what
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purpose. He is certainly entitled to a Pakistani passport because the laws of Pakistan allow dual nationality.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, can the noble Viscount tell us whether Mr. Tariq Ali is now a registered postgraduate student of any university and, if so, which?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I have looked at his nationality qualifications, but I am afraid not at his educational qualifications.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, since the noble Viscount did not deal with the third of the trio of supplementaries put by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, may I ask whether we can be quite sure that Her Majesty's Government are not contemplating the introduction of identity cards?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I really think that the question of identity cards is something that ought to be raised specifically as a substantive Question rather than as a supplementary on Mr. Tariq Ali. It is a little far away from the original Question.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government realise that if Mr. Tariq Ali is in fact a registered post-graduate student of any university he is, to some extent, dependent on public funds for the facilities which he receives as a post-graduate student?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE or CULROSS: My Lords, I am sure that that is so. I should think that it would be for the grant-paying authority to consider his activity; but again, this is a little far away from the question of his nationality.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, did the noble Viscount notice the remarks of the New Zealand representative at the C.P.A. Conference here on the question of who and what comes into this country?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I seem to have been very short on my reading during the Recess. If the noble Lord would draw the observation specifically to my attention I will make the greatest effort to read it forthwith.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, since it is apparently possible to ask the Government any question we like on this matter irrespective of what is on the Order Paper, would the noble Viscount agree—and may I say that I agree that he was entirely right not to answer the other questions—that it would be unfortunate if his proper refusal to answer a question on identity cards gave any impression that the Government were contemplating such a matter? I ask this as it has been raised, as I think unfortunately, on the Question.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. My hesitation about answering the question indicates nothing whatever in either direction.

HIJACKING OF AIRCRAFT
2.45 p.m.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement on the present position in respect of measures taken and proposed to be taken nationally and internationally in regard to the hijacking of planes.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, the failure of the recent Conference of the International Civil Aviation Organisation in Rome has been a great disappointment. However, the passing of the Protection of Aircraft Act has enabled us to make arrangements to ratify the Montreal Convention against sabotage.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for the reply and for the action that was taken at the Rome Convention. When the text was originally produced by our delegation there Article 80, which called upon every State to take appropriate measures to ensure the safety of civil aviation, was included. May I ask why, in spite of this, that Article was withdrawn by us? May I ask further why, in the circumstances, we did not support the motion that was put
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forward by the South American delegation in similar terms?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we withdrew our support for Article No. 80, because we believed that if we had not done so the main proposal would have been deferred, and that was very important to us. We voted against the South American proposal because we were quite certain that it would not get the two-thirds majority.
LORD .TANNER: My Lords, surely the noble Baroness realises that on a question of principle of this sort we should have stuck to our guns? Would she say what proposals she is putting forward to the Montreal Convention in relation to the question of refusing air facilities to those nations who harbour the criminals, and who indeed have now shown what they are doing in regard to the attack on Israel?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, as I said, the Montreal Convention we can now ratify, and Orders in Council will shortly come before this House for consideration. We had a proposal, which was co-sponsored with the Swiss, that access to air space should be denied to the aircraft of States which failed to deal with hijackers. I regret to say that this was supported by less than half of those present. The rest of the proposal that we put forward was that ICAO should investigate such matters without imposing sanctions, and this failed by only two votes to get the two-thirds majority which it needed.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that as Governments have failed to reach any measure of agreement for the last two or three years, this matter should be left to the World Federation of Airline Pilots?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I notice that they have mot recently, but I hope that they will not take measures into their own hands, because it is only through international agreement, and through our own Protection of Aircraft Act and by ratifying the Hague and the Montreal

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Conventions, that we can, as an international community, achieve something worth while.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, in view of the fact that the pilots themselves are perhaps the persons most immediately concerned with the matter, if they take it into their own hands to prevent those who are harbouring criminals from doing so by refusing air facilities, is not the noble Baroness prepared to support them in an action of that sort?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, although it is slow, I think that some progress is being made. I think that the recent examples of the unwillingness of many countries to receive the political hijacker, and the fact that our proposals in Rome attracted considerable support from the Arab States, are good things.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, is the noble Baroness implying that the Montreal Convention has now received an adequate number of signatures?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: No, my Lords, it has not. That is really the problem, because of course it is international agreement and acceptance that we are trying to achieve.

BULL BEEF, BOAR PORK AND RAM LAMB
2.50 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: 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 their policy is regarding bull beef, boar pork and ram lamb.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are aware of the increasing interest in meat production from entire male animals. Some aspects of bull beef production are at present being examined by the Advisory Council for Agriculture and Horticulture in England and Wales. Boar pork, has in the past had only limited acceptability in the trade. There is at present little interest in rearing ram lambs for meat on any scale, mainly because of the inherent management difficulties.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, in thanking the noble Earl for his reply, may I ask whether he is aware that in many European countries it is fully accepted that bulls produce beef more economically, more quickly and of better quality than do steers; and can he give information as to the amount of such meat as I have mentioned in my Question that is being imported from these Western European countries into this country, thereby putting our own breeders and feeders of livestock at a disadvantage, especially in a time of high feeding costs?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am aware of the points which my noble friend Lord Balerno made with regard to increased food conversion, and so forth, from this type of animal; but one of the troubles is that there is a resistance both from the trade and from housekeepers to purchasing meat from entire male animals. It is therefore a question of commercial practice whether the public can be persuaded to accept this type of meat. With regard to the second part of my noble friend's question, there are no statistics existing which show imports of meat from uncastrated male animals, but our main overseas suppliers of beef, pork and lamb, which are Australia, New Zealand, the Irish Republic and the Argentine, do not produce significant quantities of meat from entire animals and there is no reason to believe that significant quantities of such meat are sent to us by those countries who do.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, as one who was engaged throughout the war in the grading of food animals, may I ask whether the noble Earl would consider the possibility of reverting to the wartime system whereby entire male animals were used only for manufacture, so that there would be no danger that the housewives would be getting this kind of meat over the counter?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think it is perfectly true that such entire male animals that do go on the market are mostly used for manufacture, but this must necessarily be a commercial decision, and farmers in this country are perfectly entitled to rear animals from this type of uncastrated male animals provided they find it economically worth while.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that those of us who have been brought up in the country are now looking at any kind of meat we can get, and at the price it is to-day old age pensioners will be lucky if they can get an Oxo cube from a male animal?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, could the noble Earl tell me why the Government encourage this form of sex discrimination?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the Government are merely concerned to encourage meat from all sources, whether male or female.
VISCOUNT THURSO: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that it does in fact encourage sex discrimination by not paying a calf subsidy on entire animals and not paying a calf subsidy on animals that are not entirely castrated?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the calf subsidy is in fact payable on whole male animals provided that they come under the Stage B certification and provided they adhere to the appropriate requirements for those animals which are submitted dead weight under the Stage B certification.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, could the Minister confirm that there is any antagonism at all from the wholesaler on the production of boar pork? Secondly, will he agree with me that the castration of porkers when they are young is extremely cruel? I believe he will agree with me that there is absolutely no opposition by wholesalers to boar porkers.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I could not agree with that. The information which I have is that there is a distinct reluctance from the trade to accept this type of animal. Where there is no reluctance and where the economics are correct, of course this kind of animal can be produced.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: It is the retailer as such and not the wholesaler.
EARL FERRERS: The retailer is certainly the obstructionist, but that is passed through to the wholesaler.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether, when the Government consider their policy in regard to meat, they will bear in mind the price to the consumer, having regard to a report in to-day's paper that one of the meat combines in this country has made £3 million profit this year—twice as much as last—and that the head of the firm got a £16,000 increase in salary, bringing his annual salary up to £53,000?
EARL. FERRERS: My Lords, I am bound to say with respect to the noble Lord, that I cannot help feeling that that question has really little relevance to uncastrated male animals.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, does the noble Earl recognise that whereas Ministers, when replying to questions about food and prices, usually use the term "housewives" he used the term "housekeepers"? Has this any sociological significance in the Government's mind?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, only in the noble Lord's mind.

THE MIDDLE EAST
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir will be making a Statement on the Middle East at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m.

POWERS OF CRIMINAL COURTS BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. As your Lordships will remember it is consolidation.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 3ª, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL
2.56 p.m.
Report received.
LORD BEAUMONT of WHITLEY LORD BEAUMONT of WHITLEY moved the following Amendment:
After Clause 1 insert the following new clause:

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".The Teaching Council (Scotland) Act 1965 shall have effect as if in section 6 subsection (1) after the words "as may be prescribed" there were inserted the words "of all persons who at the date when this part of this Act is brought into force are certificated teachers and thereafter"."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment was tabled in an attempt to avoid the individual injustices caused by this—as I think it is generally agreed to be—lamentable retrospective legislation; but since the Government are determined to extinguish the right to sue on the part of teachers who have been deprived of their livelihood I realise that this Amendment will not do and to press it and take it to a Division would be merely to repeat the debate we had on the Committee stage, which is not the normal custom of your Lordships' House. I am not in fact entirely clear as to the Government's reasons for extinguishing the right to sue, since presumably the damages payable in the courts to those teachers who have been deprived of their livelihood would not exceed the amount which would be paid out in ex-gratia payments. I merely want to take advantage of this particular occasion—although I shall be saying a few words on the Third Reading in a few minutes—to ask the Minister one or two questions about ex-gratia payments to these people, after which, and when I have received what I hope will be a satisfactory reply, I shall be asking your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Amendment.
The question really is a general one on compensation payable to these teachers. In part it has been answered before, but I think this is the right moment for it to be reiterated for the benefit of your Lordships' House and for the benefit also of those teachers. It is: how far will the compensation go? Will it include all the pay which the teachers would have received from the moment they were dismissed? Will it include the restoration of the pension rights which they have forfeited? Thirdly—and this may be a new question—will it include the costs of those teachers who have taken their case to the courts but have not had the opportunity of going as far as judgment and therefore have not yet been awarded costs? Because it seems to me that these people who sued, and sued rightly as the law was at that time, and who would undoubtedly have succeeded
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in the courts, as Mr. Malloch succeeded, are entitled to the money that they have spent on solicitors, on counsel's opinions, et cetera.
The alternative for them, I suppose, if they are not given compensation, would possibly be to pursue their case through the courts, not with any hope of obtaining a judgment which would give them back their livelihood but merely in order that they should get their costs at the end, as I imagine they would. It would obviously be a much more satisfactory situation if the Government were to say that they were quite prepared to meet these costs. It applies to only three people, I think, although there may be one or two more. I do not know exactly what it amounts to, but it cannot be any great sum. I should be most grateful if the noble Lord would give us a general answer on the question of compensation. I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, while not necessarily agreeing—in fact, while definitely not agreeing—with the account given by the noble Lord of the nature and purpose of the Bill, I am nevertheless grateful to him for having given me notice of his intention to move this Amendment and of some of the points which he wished to elicit. I am sure your Lordships will agree with him that we should not spend time going over the reasons for the introduction of this Bill, although I must reiterate that it was introduced simply and solely to remedy a situation and restore a position which was always thought and believed to have existed since the provisions were originally introduced and until an unexpected legal lacuna was found. We are very conscious of the rights of these few individuals. I do not think there are very many of them; we are not as yet aware of more than another one or two besides the gentleman to whom reference was made. They having resisted registering under these provisions, the authorities they were employed by were obliged to dismiss them. On the question of compensation, I can confirm that the payment they will receive, which will be an ex gratia payment from the authority employing them at the time of their dismissal, will amount to the difference be-between the amount of salary that the teacher might have expected to earn if

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he had remained in his teaching post from the date of his dismissal until the date of the enactment of this Bill and, on the other hand, his actual income from any employment that he may have had in that interim period and any public sector benefits he may have received which he is not obliged to refund. I hope your Lordships will agree that that is a fair provision.
The noble Lord also asked about superannuation. The arrangements here are that, where appropriate—and by that I mean where the recipient does not come into the provisions of some other scheme; that will of course be taken into account adjustments will be made to ensure that there will be no loss of entitlement under the teachers' superannuation scheme. I think we can rely on the authorities concerned to carry out these arrangements in the spirit in which they are intended to be carried out; and, as I said to your Lordships at the previous stage, any expenditure incurred by them in doing so will be wholly refundable out of Exchequer grant.
There remains the question of the legal costs of those who have actions before the courts and whose actions, on the passing of this Bill, will automatically fall. As to these costs (or expenses, as we refer to them in Scotland) the intention is that they shall be dealt with in the following manner. When the teachers abandon their actions, as presumably they will on the passing of this Bill, they will be entitled to ask the court for the costs or expenses of those actions up to the time of their dropping them. I understand that when a party seeks authority to abandon an action the court has complete authority to dispose of the matter of expenses, and I think this is the right quarter to deal with it. If it is of any guidance, I would say that in the one case which has been disposed of, and to which the noble Lord made reference, the court awarded the teacher concerned the costs of his action against the Secretary of State. I think this is the right way for the costs issue to be dealt with, and I feel sure it will be settled satisfactorily, particularly in the light of the decision made in this one case.
LORD BEAUMONT or WHITLEY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that satisfactory reply and I ask leave of your
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Lordships' House to withdraw the Amendment standing in my name.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been suspended, pursuant to the Resolution of yesterday:
3.6 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 3ª.— (Lord Polwarth.)
LORD BEAUMONT or WHITLEY: My Lords, I am sorry to spend your Lordships' time raising this major point once more, but I think it would be wrong if we gave this Bill its Third Reading without another very short restatement of the reasons why we are very sad that this Bill should have been necessary. The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, has said that this Bill was brought in to remedy a situation and restore something which was always thought to have been the law and which was proved by a lacuna in the law not to be so. We have had considerable discussion about this matter both here and in another place, and all I can say is that enough evidence has been produced against the noble Lord's view to show that there were certainly other people who thought differently. Indeed, it is quite clear that the unfortunate teachers about whom we are talking to-day thought differently.
This is an instance of retrospective legislation, and some very unkind things, and justifiably unkind things, have been said about it. I quote merely from the supporters of the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, speaking on July 26 (Hansard, column 1974), said that the result of this Bill might well be
"that an individual citizen who takes the trouble to challenge the Government in the courts of this country is embarking, if this principle is allowed to be established, on a rather futile exercise".
Because, of course, if the Government can always write back the law to being what they thought it was when someone brought a case against them it really is an unjustifiable use of Government prerogative. I understand that we shall see another example of this in another place to-morrow, so it is not an isolated instance, as your Lordships who have

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read Bernard Levin in The Times to-day will be well aware. On the same date the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said at column 1977:
"It is a process which has much more in character with totalitarianism than with democracy."
In another place, Mr. Bruce-Gardyne, a Government supporter, said—but I will not trouble your Lordships with what he said.
On the Committee stage we had an interesting debate and a vote. I think there was no doubt in anybody's mind that the majority of those who listened to the debate voted in favour of the Amendment which I put down. I will go further and say that the majority of Conservatives who listened to the debate voted in favour of the Amendment, and it were merely the large number of people who had not listened to the debate but who voted who carried the day for the Government. I do not complain about that; that is our Parliamentary system. I point it out, though, as a fact, and I think it is worth pointing out because it is a bad and dangerous course upon which the Government have embarked. It is bad because it has taken away the rights of individuals, however just the Government may have been in their compensation—and I thank them for that. It is bad because it is indulging basically in deceit. It is in fact totally comparable to the George Orwell-ism that we were all brought up to dislike and to despise. It re-writes history to say that the law is something which for the last few years it has not been and to say that as from a previous date it is different. It is dangerous because I think it strikes at the very root of the rule of law.
Members of other Parties sometimes accuse the Party to which I have the honour to belong on acount of the activities of the young Liberals on Juggernauts and cricket tours. Sometimes their complaints are justified; much more often they are not. I say to this House that one speech like that of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in favour of recompensing the Clay Cross rebels, one Bill like this which rewrites legislation in the Government's favour against the individual, one Order in Council like that which is due to come
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up to-morrow in another place does far more harm than any number of protests by young people. I merely hope that the fact that we have been able—and from all sides of the House, for this is not a Party matter—to make a protest in this particular case will mean that the Government will think twice, three times and a hundred times before they follow this slippery course down the road to retrospective legislation.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the debate on this matter some time ago. I am relying on my memory and I shall be corrected, I am sure, if I am wrong. But in speaking of the voting, of the Contents and the Not-Contents, from this side of the House, the noble Lord overlooked to mention that there were large numbers of abstentions. This was a very complex matter in which the Government found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. So much so that a large number of us—I know; I was one of them—who were in full agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, said, felt that in the circumstances the only thing to do was to abstain. I think I am right in saying that many of us did so.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, on the Committee stage of the Bill I explained shortly why my view about this Bill is substantially that expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. I cannot think that it is right when a small body of men who had done absolutely nothing wrong except to stand up for their legal rights and for what they thought was the law—and they have been held in the courts to have been right all through—that thereupon the law is altered retrospectively to their detriment. I cannot think that that can be right. I understand that they do not have any right to compensation—that is, any legal right—but it is said that compensation will be paid. What then about their jobs? These are teachers. Teaching is their occupation; it is their life's work. What guarantee are they to have that they will get their jobs back? I raised this matter on July 26 on the Committee stage of the Bill when I said:
"Thirdly—and to this point I attach much more importance than to either of the first two: What steps are the Government prepared to take to ensure that these men get their jobs back? If I understand correctly what

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has been said so far, all that is said is, 'Well, if they register they will be entitled to apply for a teaching job again to their education authority' ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26 /7 / 73; col. 1976.]
I pointed out that those are the bodies with whom they had been in conflict in the courts and I asked what action the Government will take to bring pressure to bear on the education authority. In his reply (column 1980) the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, said:
"I am perfectly prepared to consider the noble and learned Lord's suggestion."
He was being very careful not to commit the Government in any way to do anything at all to ensure that these men get their jobs back. As he did say that the Government would consider the matter, and as three months have now gone by, I should like before we give this Bill a Third Reading to ask whether the Government do intend to do anything about it, or not.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, in reply there is one point that I must make perfectly clear. This small handful of individuals have all along had their own remedy to this situation. It was to accept the existence of the General Teaching Council, willed into being by the vast majority of their colleagues, and to register under it. If they had chosen to do so there would have been no problem. As I pointed out at the earlier stage, other professions have their bodies which require formal membership to enable a person to practise. This is very similar indeed to those cases. They have had that remedy all along. One cannot but say that they have brought this difficulty on themselves by their own act.
To the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, I would say that I did undertake to look at the matter and that I have done so during the vacation. But I think he must be the first to recognise that it will be quite impossible for the Government to ensure, or to endeavour to ensure, that those men get back their jobs. To begin with, the extent of the Government's influence on local authorities in their appointments is extremely limited; we do not have the statutory powers, and meanwhile the places will have been filled. Are we to ask the local
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authorities to dismiss the present occupants of those places? Even if enforced reinstatement is open to the Government (which, I submit, it is not) will it not be contrary to what I think is a legal principle that employers cannot be compelled to retain someone in their employment? There are certain things the employer is obliged to consider if he gets rid of them but he cannot be obliged to retain them. I think that enforced reinstatement would conflict with the statutory discretion for the employment of teachers conferred on local authorities by the Education Act. However attractive a solution this may appear. I submit that it is simply not practicable. I do not see much difficulty in these few teachers if they wish to return to teaching—and some have done so already. In every area there are vacancies occurring for one reason or another, whether in the public or the private sector. If the teachers concerned chose to register—a course which is open to them at any time —I am quite sure that they will readily find employment.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I must confess that I agree with the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, that it would be difficult for the Government to compel the local authorities to find places for these men, but I should like to suggest to my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, that while he is completely correct in saying that the application for re-employment would be to the authority with whom they hade been in dispute, I do not think that there has been any problem or difficulty between the authority and these men. The authority did not of their own volition dismiss the men. This course was taken where an Act of Parliament required them to do so in certain circumstances and they undertook those dismissals. We have no means of knowing whether the authority would have dismissed them if they had had a free hand in the matter; but they did not have a free hand. Having regard to the authority concerned in the particular cases, I doubt very much whether there is the slightest chance that there would be any vindictiveness between them and the education authority.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL
3.20 p.m.
Further considered on Report.
Clause 97 [Establishment of Commission for Local Authority Accounts in Scotland]:
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, this Amendment, No. 57, and the one which follows are both consequential on Amendment No. 56 which was accepted by the House last night and is now part of the Bill. In these circumstances, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 52, line 19, leave out ("any other person") and insert ("and Officers of the Commission, being Professional Accountants, and approved Auditors appointed by the Commission for conducting Audits or, as the case may be, a particular audit under this part of the Act. Approved Auditor means an Auditor who is qualified under new subsection (7) below").—(Lord Strathclyde.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 58.
Amendment moved—
Page 52, line 21, insert—
("(7) A person is qualified under subsection (6) above if, and only if, he is a member of a firm, all the persons wherein are members of one or more of the following bodies—that is to say
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
The Association of Certified Accountants.
The Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.
Any other body of Accountants established in the United Kingdom for the time being approved by the Secretary of State.").—(Lord Strathclyde.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 108 [Determination and levy of regional, district and general rates]:
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this and the next Amendment, Nos. 59 and 60, both correct printing errors. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 60, line 25, after ("shall") insert ("be").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 109 [Rating Authorities]:
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 60.
Amendment moved—
Page 61, line 14, leave out ("of") and insert ("to").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 113 [Persons to whom s.112 applies]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 64, line 4, leave out ("the prescribed form") and insert ("such form as the rating authority may require").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 113(1) requires rate rebate applications to be made "in the prescribed form", and because of Clause 112(6) this means prescribed by the regulations made by the Secretary of State. However, it is preferable to leave the form of application to the discretion of the rating authority and wherever possible for them to treat an application for rent rebate or allowance as an application for rate rebate also. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 62:
Page 64, line 26, leave out ("Where") and insert ("Regulations under section 112 above may make provision as respects rate rebates where").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 113(2) provides, as does Section 5(7) of the Rating Act 1966, that where a house is held in joint occupation or jointly tenanted, each joint occupier or tenant (other than a married couple) is to be treated separately for rate rebate. The effect of the 1966 Act provision is that the rates payable are split between the joint occupiers and the entitlement of each to rebate is calculated separately according to his means.
For rent rebates and allowances, paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act provides that a housing authority
"may treat as a sole tenant … one or two or more joint tenants".
It appears that in practice this is what is almost always appropriate; certainly, we have no knowledge of any departure

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from this method in Scotland. If the rates were similarly dealt with the entitlement to rebate on the whole amount would be calculated on the income of one joint occupier, with the other treated as a "non-dependant".
Under the clause as it stands, therefore, joint tenants who were also joint rateable occupiers would be treated differently for the purpose of rent and rate rebates. The effect of the Amendment is to leave the detailed arrangements for rate rebates for joint tenants to be determined by the regulations setting out the standard scheme. What we shall be seeking to put in the regulations is a formula designed to ensure that the joint tenants get a rebate which is fairly adjusted to the income and the needs of the household. An advantage of leaving the treatment of joint occupiers to be dealt with in the regulations is that a comparable rate rebate scheme is to be introduced in England and Wales and that the Amendment would leave scope for further consultation and allow us to ensure that the treatment of joint occupiers in both countries is uniform. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for having put this Amendment down. I was not at all satisfied on this point. I think this has definitely improved the Bill and I should like to support the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 63 is a consequential Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 64, line 29, leave out from ("subsection") to end of line 35.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 114 [Variation of standard scheme by rating authority]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 64:
Page 65, line 39, leave out ("in ") and insert ("for").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 114 enables a rating authority to vary the standard rate rebate scheme within a limit of 10 per cent. extra cost. The Amendments are required because the limit needs to operate on the total of the rate rebates granted in respect of the
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financial year and not in the financial year. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 65:
Amendment moved—
Page 65, line 41, leave out ("in") and insert ("for").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 115 [Grants towards rate rebates]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 66:
Page 67, line 13, after ("period") insert ("or part thereof").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Clause 115(1) provides for grants of 90 per cent. of the cost of rate rebates under the new scheme. This Amendment is required because a rate rebate period could bridge the end of one financial year and the beginning of the next, and it is intended to make the rate rebate period correspond with the rent rebate period. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 9 [Amendments with respect to finance]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 67:
Page 178, line 24, after ("be") insert ("to the councils of all districts within that region").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment fulfils an undertaking given in Committee on an Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Balfour (OFFICIAL REPORT, July 18, col. 1300) that the local assessors would be required to provide estimates of the new rateable valuations of districts following each revaluation, to district councils as well as to regional councils as rating authorities. The Amendment gives effect to this. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 68:
Page 179, line 27, at end insert—
("In section 26(2), in the definition of "local authority", for the words from "county" onwards there shall be substituted the words "regional, islands or district council".")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in Committee my noble friend Lord Balfour

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questioned the aptness of the definition of "local authority" in Section 26 of the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1963. While we have not adopted the Amendment which he proposed, we agree that an Amendment is necessary and are grateful to him for having drawn attention to the need for it. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 69 brings the definition of "local authority" in the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1966 into line with the ones which your Lordships have just agreed to. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 180, line 23, at end insert—
("In section 46(1), in the definition of "local authority", for the words from "county" onwards there shall be substituted the words "regional, islands or district council".")
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 124 [Education Committees]:
3.29 p.m.
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 70:
Page 73, line 5, leave out from ("persons") to ("of") in line 9 and insert ("nominated by a meeting of representatives").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment relates to the appointment of representatives of Churches on local authorities. The Bill provides for a third representative in certain cases, and a second and a third representative in the Highland areas, to be appointed by the local authorities having regard to the denominations and their respective strength and so on in the area. This Amendment was suggested by—and I gather they wrote to a number of your Lordships—a body called the Association of Church Representatives on Education Committees, and the effect of the Amendment would be that the local authority, instead of selecting who the second or third Church representatives would be, would arrange for a meeting of representatives, not of all the congregations, but of all the Churches in the area, who would nominate a member or members who would then be accepted by the authority.
I am not quite certain in my own mind that it is necessary to put an Amendment of this kind in the Bill in order to accomplish this end. If it is in the existing legislation, then obviously there is no reason why it should go in this particular Bill. But if it is not in the legislation, then it is not necessary to legislate in order to have it happen, because I know that this is the procedure which is adopted in quite a number of local authorities. It takes away from them the difficulty of making a choice as to which particular Minister or Church representative is to be chosen, leaving it to the authorities themselves to make the nomination. If the Minister is going to tell me that it is not desirable or necessary to do this in the present Bill, but that in the sort of guidance that is given to local authorities in these matters from time to time this particular way of dealing with the matter is drawn to their attention, that I think would be a satisfactory way of meeting the situation, because I am quite certain that those authorities who have found a successful way of doing it in the past will be delighted to carry it on in the future. I beg to move.
LORD MACLEOD OF FUINARY: My Lords, I do not intend to delay your Lordships for more than two minutes, but as the only perital member of the Church of Scotland in this House, I think I have a peculiar interest in Clause 124(3), and I would of course approve an Amendment in the terms of that moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, if it was accepted. We are grateful for the provision that has been made by the Government for three church representatives, one from the Church of Scotland, one from the Roman Catholic Church, each to be appointed by the decision of the relevant priests of the General Assembly or the heirarchy as to the method of his appointment; and this subsection is simply concerned with how the appointment is made for the third person with religious interests. The effect of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, would leave the selection, as he said, to a meeting of representatives of all the Churches which can be recognised as such. There exists, as he stated, an Association of Church Representatives on Education Committees, and it seems fairly wise that those who are themselves

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already concerned with religious education, rather than the very much larger education authority, should be the deciding factor as to who the third man should be, or if it is a question of the Islands, who their dual persons should be in the matter. I think it is worthwhile, unless we have some assurance on the point, retaining this Amendment at the moment, and I support the noble Lord, Lord Hughes.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, we always listen with attention to the advice of the reverend noble Lord (as I think we should call him), who addresses us all too seldom. The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, asked whether the position was unchanged from that in the existing legislation. That is not quite the case, because at present the Church of Scotland, the national Church, does not enjoy automatic right of representation on these committees. It is only the reserved right of the Roman Catholic Church, for historical reasons which I will not go into now.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, it was in regard to the method of selection that I wanted to know whether there was any change.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I am sorry, but I had not quite understood the point. There is indeed to be a change. We propose a change in the method of selection for this very reason. The meeting of {the Churches in the previous system ensured that on numbers the Church of Scotland would get representation. There were only the two members. Now we come to a third place. We feel that the right thing here is not to saddle the Churches with the making of this decision. I, too, have had this representation from this no doubt worthy body of the Association of Church Representatives on Education Committees. I think the main reason given in their letter for this new proposal suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, was that it would relieve the regional authorities of an invidious procedural task as envisaged in the Government's proposals; namely, of selecting, by whatever means they chose, the third representative.
I think that argument might well be turned round and used with regard to the Churches. When the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church have
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prescribed places here and a meeting is then called to select the third representative it is very likely that in the great majority of cases the decision will be in the hands of the Church of Scotland because of its numerical dominance in most areas. I think it could equally be said that to have that laid down by Statute as the method of selection would be an invidious task for the Churches. There is nothing to prevent the local authority calling a meeting of Churches and denominations to enable them to discharge their task. There may be cases where it will be obvious what the right choice is, and where it is unnecessary to go through all the procedures of calling together all the representatives of all the Churches in the area. I feel that your Lordships would be advised to stick to the procedure in the Bill, because this was debated at great length in the other place and after much to and fro agreement was reached there; and after much discussion with the various Churches on a national level in Scotland, it was agreed with them. I think the overriding reason for sticking to the Bill as we are proposing it is to avoid any further disturbance of an agreement reached after full discussion and consideration by all concerned. Therefore I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, will accept that the purpose of his Amendment will, as I think, often be achieved. I think the Churches will frequently be consulted and the local authorities are aware of the consideration behind the proposal.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend in this matter. I followed the disputation in the matter in the other place, and the concessions that were then made by the Government regarding Church representation eventually received general agreement. I think it would be the greatest pity were we at this stage to disrupt that agreement in any way. It could easily cause further difficulty if it had to be debated and altered at considerable speed when the Bill goes back to the other place. I think, on balance, it will be a healthier way and will lead to less friction to give the local authorities the opportunity either of nominating, or if the local pressure is such of forming a committee such as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, indicates in his Amendment. For that

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reason, I would suggest that your Lordships would be well advised to leave the matter as it stands.
LORD MACLEOD OF FUINARY: My Lords, I hope it is in order for me to rise again on a point of clarification of Lord Polwarth's speech. He seems to convey that one of the main reasons why this matter should go to the education authority and not to the representative association is that mostly those concerned would be members of the Church of Scotland. I have no doubt that the noble Lord is aware that the Association of Church Representatives on Education Committees is composed of all the Churches; that is to say, it is composed not merely of the Roman Catholics and the Church of Scotland but also of all those who will be represented under this third person. In other words, it is not just the Roman Catholics and the Church of Scotland meeting together to decide who is to represent the other denominations. The committees deciding it, if the Amendment is carried, would be not the education authorities but people representing all the different denominations in addition to the Catholic and Church of Scotland denominations. Therefore, the decision would be a total decision, and not one by just the Church of Scotland.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I fully accept the point made by the noble Lord, but I would leave the thought with your Lordships that perhaps there could be an advantage in the final choice not being limited to a body consisting of those already sitting or already involved in the matter.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, very briefly, I do not quite agree with the Minister about the argument that went on in another place or that it had anything to do with the method of selection. So far as I remember reading about it, it referred to the question of whether there ought to be any Church representatives on any of these committees at all and, if so, how many there ought to be. The noble Lord then stated that there was ultimate agreement on an increase from two to three. I should be most unwilling, as a result of this Amendment, to give the opponents of three or the opponents of two the opportunity
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of having another go at the matter in another place. What I should be content to do would be to write back to the Association—I will send them a copy of Hansard—and direct their attention to what the noble Lord has said regarding the possibility of this procedure's being continued in the future. I have no doubt that they will in due course take it up with the education committees to see whether the matter can be dealt with in that way. With these words, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE MIDDLE EAST: THE ARAB/ISRAELI CONFLICT
3.42 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I should like, by leave of the House, to repeat a Statement on the Middle East which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
"The Whole House will share the Government's profound anxiety and disquiet that the long dispute between the Arab countries and Israel should once more have flared into a further round of bitter warfare. The fighting which began on Saturday afternoon, October 6, is still continuing and there have been many hard battles and a high rate of casualties. The Government especially deplore the loss of innocent civilian life which has occurred and we call upon all the Governments engaged in the war to do everything within their power to avoid civilian casualties.
"I regret to have to inform the House that one British citizen, Mrs. Burak, is believed to have died in the bombing of Damascus. We know of no other British casualties. Her Majesty's Ambassador at Damascus advised members of the small British community there to leave on October 12. Our Ambassadors in the other countries involved in the conflict are in close touch with the British communities. We have not so far thought it necessary to advise further evacuation. But we have advised all British subjects to keep clear of the war zone.

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"When the hostilities broke out, Her Majesty's Government called for an immediate cease-fire, and suspended all shipments of arms to the battlefield. We did this because we considered it inconsistent to call for an immediate end to the fighting and yet to continue to send out arms to the conflict. This seems to me to be the best posture from which to make an effective contribution to a constructive settlement. As regards the embargo, we have supplied a limited number of arms to both sides in recent years. Whereas in 1967 an embargo would have discriminated against Israel, it is now even-handed. I should like to add here that British military facilities overseas have not been and are not being used for the transit of military supplies to the battlefield.
"We also sought to bring the Security Council into action at once but neither side was willing to contemplate a cease-fire, except on terms totally unacceptable to the other. The Security Council has met several times but has been unable to find a consensus on any action.
"Her Majesty's Government have therefore been engaged in consultation with other Governments with the twin objectives of bringing about an end to the fighting and ensuring that urgent steps are at last taken to implement in full Security Council Resolution 242. The nine countries of the European Community joined in issuing an appeal to this effect on October 13. Resolution 242 still offers the best chance of a settlement because to it, and it alone, both Arabs and Israelis subscribe.
"Three years ago at Harrogate I put forward our suggestions about how Resolution 242 might be put into effect. I outlined how a permanent settlement of the boundary question might be reached which could satisfy both the demand of the Arab States for Israeli withdrawal and the equally legitimate demand of Israel, which we all support, for recognition within secure boundaries.
"Clearly no settlement can be imposed. But unless the future is merely to be a repetition of the futile and dangerous confrontation of the past
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a new effort at conciliation must be made.
"I feel that the ingredients of a settlement will have to include actions by the Secretary General of the United Nations and the introduction of an international force, first to police a cease-fire and then to guarantee the terms of a settlement. It will be necessary too, I believe, to establish demilitarised zones.
"The success of any initiative must depend on the state of the battle. Timing will therefore be all important. We are ready to play our part in the making of the peace and the keeping of it, so vital is it to the whole world that peace should be re-established in the area.
"We will do our best to turn what appears to be a disaster now into an opportunity for securing a permanent settlement in the Midle East. I will, of course, keep the House regularly informed of developments."
That, my Lords, is the end of the Statement.
3.48 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating this grave Statement, which reflects the increasing gravity of the war in the Middle East—the gravity as a consequence of the fact that the United States and the Soviet Union are pouring in arms supplies to both sides. Now we have the report that has come from Cairo of the long-range missiles which are becoming available to the Egyptian authorities and which now could well be within striking distance of the cities of Israel and dire consequences could arise from this. We on this side of the House will give the fullest possible support to Her Majesty's Government in pursuing the implementation of United Nations Resolution 242, and we share with the Government the hope that out of this tragedy may come a permanent solution to the Middle East problem. We on this side feel, as we did in 1967, that the only solution to the Middle East problem that can come about will be by direct talks between all the parties concerned in the Middle East, together with the achievement of recognised and secure boundaries for all the

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nations concerned. There must also be a solution to the refugee problem, which has been a blot on all our consciences.
We would agree with the noble Baroness that timing is important, but it does mean continual pressure and continual probing to find out whether a peace move is possible. It may be, from the reading of to-day's reports in the Press, that there is perhaps some glimmer of light from both sides that an initiative might be received. Without any possible criticism of Sir Donald Maitland, the British representative at the United Nations, I wonder whether this is not the moment when a senior British Minister ought to be at the United Nations, because one knows from experience that Resolution 242 is one that requires a particular type of negotiation—which permanent officials often find hard to indulge in. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to convey this view to her right honourable friend.
With regard to arms supply, we accept that if you are to be a mediator you should not to be too closely involved. But the Statement says that an embargo would have discriminated against Israel in 1967 but to-day it is even handed. I severely question that statement. I do not believe that an arms embargo by Britain on the Arab countries is of any consequence at all, but it is a different matter in terms of Israel, particularly as its main tank force—and those who fought in the desert know the importance of tanks—are British Centurion tanks. It is not possible to obtain ammunition or spare parts from any other country but the United Kingdom. I believe that there is a special case for the Government to consider supporting Israel in their tank requirements.
Could the noble Baroness confirm that the Israeli Government had placed an order; that a contract had been entered into by the Israeli authorities with either the British Government or the suppliers for Centurion tank ammunition and spare parts; that part of that contract was ready to be fulfilled before the embargo was imposed; that its shipment was not made because it was felt advisable to bring the entire consignment together; and since the embargo fell before this could be completed the Israeli
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authorities did not receive the first portion of their contract? Would not the noble Baroness think, in these circumstances at least, that part of the contract that was ready prior to the embargo could well have been made available to the Israeli authorities, particularly as the noble Baroness felt yesterday that the agreement entered into by the training of Egyptian pilots should continue to be fulfilled?
I understand the position of the Government that they wish to be in a position to negotiate, particularly as the two big Powers are so deeply involved; but Israel is in great danger and tanks are of considerable importance. If there is to be an embargo, I do not believe that it should be an embargo that is unfair to one of the parties. If it is, it reduces one's ability and opportunity to be a negotiator between the parties concerned. I hope that the noble Baroness will keep the House informed of the situation. I am sure that the whole House will be with the Government, whatever may be our views on a number of matters here, in their pursuit for Resolution 242, and we wish them God's speed in bringing that about.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I shall keep my remarks mostly for the debate which I understand we shall have later in the week; but I cannot let this Statement pass without telling the Government, with a great deal of sadness, that their refusal to honour their contracts to Israel is both commercially dishonest and politically reprehensible. Why do they suppose that Israel ordered these tanks from Britain in the first place? They were not for decorative purposes; they were for defence: they were intended to be used. I cannot understand a Government which refuses to service them with spare pants and ammunition at the very moment when Israel require it.
I should like the noble Baroness to explain the mathematics of even-handedness. This is a new Foreign Office phrase which ought to be explained in detail. How can they say that this is "evenhanded" when spare parts are denied to Israel to defend herself against Arab attacks? What is going to happen is not going to help the cease fire but cause more and more casualties and deny Israel the very reply that it will need against these

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long-range missiles which are going to be used. There has been a newsflash which says that Israel has already gone into Egypt in order to try to destroy the bases from which the missiles will be used. In these circumstances, to deny them the ammunition and spare parts which they need for British tanks is totally unethical and completely illogical.
3.56 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I should like first of all to reply to the noble Lords, Lord Shepherd and Lord Byers. First, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for saying that his Party will support Her Majesty's Government at this time in doing their utmost to bring about a cease-fire allied to the full implementation of Resolution 242. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, I am happy to say, referred in generous terms to Sir Donald Maitland; but lie asked whether a senior British Minister should attend the Security Council at this time. I will convey this to my right honourable friend. We think at the moment, in view of the fact that the Security Council have been unable to reach a consensus—and, as he said himself, time is all important—that it is not yet possible to get agreement, but we shall of course persevere. Then he turned to the question of arms supply, and it was this in particular to which the noble Lord, Lord Byers, addressed his attention. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, asked if it is really "even-handed" when the Israelis have Centurion tanks and no other country can supply the ammunition which is required. I should like to inform the House that in fact there is another major Power which manufactures this ammunition under licence from this country and therefore Israel is able to secure it not only from this country.
I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Byers, say in a kind of protest: "Well then, why have an arms embargo at all"—that is if I heard him aright. We do not supply a large amount of arms to either Arabs or Israelis, but we do supply them. As my right honourable friend has said, if we are to be in a strong position to try to initiate a cease-fire and to follow up on that, we are in a better position if we do not supply arms to either side. The noble Lord, Lord Byers, said: surely, these are contracts.
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It is perfectly true, they are contracts, whether they are contracts with the Egyptians or Israelis, and in both cases they have been paid for. These are not cancelled contracts; they are suspended contracts. We supplied arms because at that time we wanted to increase the feeling of security on both sides so that they would have a deterrent. We did not sign contracts with the intention that the other parties should go to war. It is for this reason that we feel we are wiser to withhold arms from both sides. I will certainly keep the House informed.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I elucidate one point from the Baroness's reply? Could she say which country has the licence for building Centurion tanks, and whether that licence permits that country to sell the ammunition and parts to any other country?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I do not know the exact internal arrangements of the contract with the country concerned, but it is the United States of America.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, arising out of the Minister's reply, in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Byers, has said, and in particular to what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has said, does the noble Baroness not feel that a large number on this side of the House agree with the sentiments expressed by both sides opposite? Is the noble Baroness aware that not all on this side of the House are in sympathy—and some indeed are in conflict—with some assumptions she voiced yesterday? May I ask the noble Baroness whether she does not herself feel that to withhold supplies ordered before aggression started is commercial dishonesty, which is not in accordance with normal practice in this country? Further, may I ask her, on the grounds of the crudest self-interest, whether it seems sensible that when we deploy service attaches all over the world to sell armaments to the extent of some hundreds of millions of pounds a year, we should then let it be known to the buyers that in the event of their becoming involved in hostilities, with which we may, without being involved, be in disagreement, we should withhold spare parts? That is a gross obloquy on British salesmanship.

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While thanking the noble Baroness for her longer range of outline of what is to be expected, and her hopes of ultimate peace, which we all share, let us turn to the immediate present, when blood is being shed and men's lives are endangered. I feel that the posture adopted by the Foreign Secretary may be in accord with traditional "ivory tower" diplomacy, but there is no doubt who is the aggressor. In my view, in that case the posture is hypocritical and unrealistic. It is not in tradition with British honesty. I hope the noble Baroness will be able to make some comment on that.
4.2 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I wonder whether it would be convenient to the House if I were to answer each question in turn? I think perhaps it might. My noble friend Lord Barnby speaks with very great feeling, as I think does the whole House on this issue, but if I may, I would remind the House that in 1967 had an embargo been kept on, British supplies would have gone to only one of the two major combatants. In recent years we have always decided to look at the requests for arms on their merits, provided that they did not seem likely to stop or hamper the search for a settlement, or indeed to encourage exactly what is happening at the moment. Therefore I suggest to my noble friend—I have dealt in detail with the contracts before—that on the main question we consider that we are in a better position now to try to work towards a cease-fire and a settlement if we do not continue to supply arms to both sides, because we could not supply arms to one side and not the other.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I ask to what extent—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD WINDLESHAM): My Lords, I know that a number of noble Lords wish to intervene and to question my noble friend and if noble Lords could confine themselves to one intervention each it would be a fairer arrangement.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, with what amounts to an embargo on the
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spare parts from Britain are we not in the process of emulating France and following in the footsteps of General de Gaulle in 1967 when he put an embargo on 50 Mirages which he had sold to Israel and for which they had paid, and which he later sold to the Libyans? I have no doubt that they have found their way back to the Egyptian front at this moment in this war. Is this not a cautionary tale when it comes to standing on neutrality in this kind of conflict?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I have of course seen reports that French Mirages sold to Libya have been involved in the fighting but we have not ourselves had confirmation of those reports. It is just because we want to try to do everything within our power to lessen the possibility of conflict that we are taking this stand.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether she is aware that however this business of the Centurion tanks and the spare parts is dressed up, in the minds of most people in this House and outside it constitutes a breach of faith? And is she not further aware that if there is one danger that Her Majesty's Government must avoid at all costs it is the danger of giving the impression that they are giving way to Arab blackmail over oil supplies? Is she not further aware that the business of the Centurion tanks only encourages that belief, and nothing can bring us closer to the third world war than a persistence in the belief that we are open to blackmail of that kind?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I entirely refute my noble friend's suggestion that Her Majesty's Government are open to blackmail because of the oil situation. Had we been open to blackmail we would have continued to supply arms to the Arab countries on the battlefield, because in fact both Israel and Egypt receive British arms. As I said earlier, it was in order to keep the balance that we decided to suspend both.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, can the noble Baroness give this House an assurance that the Government will not supply any arms or ammunition to any Arab country whatsoever?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: No, my Lords, I cannot

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give that assurance. In fact we are not supplying arms to the battlefield countries, which are Egypt, Israel, Syria and Libya because of her procurement, Iraq and Jordan.
A NOBLE LORD: My Lords, what about Saudi Arabia?
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: My Lords, my noble friend referred to the appeal made by the nine E.E.C. countries on October 17. May we be told what progress has been made by the European Powers in having a unified policy and really making progress in this matter? For example, what is taking place in regard to the French? Are they still sending spares to Libya for the Mirage fighters? And will my noble friend say what use a suspended contract can be if a nation is defeated?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we must hope —and this is what we are working for—that far from having a defeat on either side we shall be able to work for a cease-fire together with a settlement based on Resolution 242. The E.E.C. countries have asked that this is just what all nations concerned should try to do. I am afraid that as yet they have not made much progress, nor have we ourselves; but at any rate it is, as we think, the only possibility of any kind of permanent solution.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, is it not true that Jordan relies far more heavily on British arms imports than does Israel? Is it not true that there is no fighting going on within the internal borders of Israel at all? Is it not true that the Americans and the Russians ought to be leant on very heavily indeed to stop them supplying arms and ammunition to both sides? And is it not true that for the first time the Arabs did the Israeli trick of catching the other side by surprise?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, as I am speaking here I understand it is true that there has not yet been any fighting within the borders of Israel. It is also true that Jordan does rely on British supplies, and if we are to have an even-handed embargo then those who are engaged, or about to be engaged, in the war, should also be subject to the embargo. So far as the
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Americans and Russians are concerned our views are very well-known.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I join with others in thanking the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement which was made in another House. I am in the unusual position of endorsing every statement which has been made by the Secretary of State. I am in favour of our refusing arms to either side. On the other hand, I endorse the protest which has been made against the supply of arms to any country in the Middle East or the training of pilots. But I want to raise the much larger issue of the war itself, which we have been overlooking a little in the questions which have been put. We are now in a terribly ominous situation, with both the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. supplying massive arms, and even with some of their personnel involved in their delivery. This situation may destroy all the hopes of a détente between the two great Powers which we are hoping will bring peace.
Her Majesty's Government now have a unique opportunity; but a very short time—I think it very possible indeed the end of this week—will decide whether there are negotiations for an armistice, for a cease-fire, or the escalation of the war. I want to ask Her Majesty's Government to use their unique position of neutrality to bring pressure both on the U.S.S.R. and on the U.S.A. to agree to stop their arms and to facilitate a ceasefire. I would ask Her Majesty's Government to raise this matter again in the Security Council, and, if there is a veto there, to take it to the General Assembly and to propose that there should be a cease-fire; that there should be discussions with United Nations' representatives led by the General Secretary; that there should be an implementation of Resolution 242, and that there should be an international peace-keeping force, to which we should contribute, to maintain the security of the State of Israel.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I would thank the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, for saying that he endorsed the actions of my right honourable friend and I will certainly convey his support, because it will be a great encouragement in what is an extremely difficult position. I would agree with him that the long struggle over the

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years to get détente is in danger. We hope indeed that we shall be able to see very soon the end of what the noble Lord calls this "ominous situation". He asks us whether we cannot get the Security Council to meet to bring the matter to the General Assembly. As he recognised, and indeed as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, recognised, timing is all important. We do not feel that at this moment there is the atmosphere (shall I put it this way?) in which to get acceptance of a cease-fire and negotiations for a settlement. So far as the United States and the Soviet Union are concerned, they know our position very well, and I think that the most we can do is to go on quietly working to try to achieve what my right honourable friend has described.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, there is a well-known phrase: "They made a desert and they called it peace". Does not the noble Baroness realise that we are looking upon the potentiality of the destruction of the State of Israel, in the creation of which we had a great deal to do; and if we take this impartial attitude, which was mirrored two thousand years ago in Jerusalem by Pontius Pilot, and wash our hands we shall not preside over conciliation but over an autopsy? Is it in the interests of the British nation that we should see the destruction of this State, which we helped to create, and does not the whole House think we ought to express ourselves most forcibly in telling Her Majesty's Government that we will not go along with this attitude?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am afraid I could not have made myself clear in repeating the Statement or in replies to questions. There is no question of our supporting the destruction of the State of Israel. We are unswerving in our support for Israel's right not only to exist but to live in peace with her neighbours, and to do so within secure and recognised boundaries. Our only difference with her concerns the means to that end.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness first of all, in view of the timing of the matter, whether she does not consider that the one-sided action—because it is one-sided action—, relating to the supply of armaments is
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something to be deplored; that the commitment in respect of the accessories, the ammunition required for the Centurion tanks, is essential to the preservation of Israel; that the balance has been upset; that Russia, in conjunction with the Egyptians, to whom armaments are being supplied, has been in the main the cause of this conflagration, and that the aggressors are to-day not condemned either by us or by many others? May I ask one further question? The noble Baroness said in the course of her Statement that Resolution 242 was a basis for a settlement. Why on earth did the Foreign Secretary in the Harrogate speech try to interpret that as being a return to the old borders, which is absolutely impossible for Israel? Where would Israel have been today if the attack had been made on borders which the Foreign Secretary himself suggested? Thirdly, can she possibly rely on the United Nations, on an international force, when blackmail—and I call it "black-moil"—is being used against the nations of the world?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, the noble Lord asked again about the Centurions and the spare parts. I said to him (and perhaps I should have said it more explicitly) that we do in fact supply more arms to Egypt than we do to Israel; and it is indeed an endeavour to have an even-handed embargo. The noble Lord asked about Resolution 242. If he will read the Statement again he will realise that it said that we hope that with a cease-fire there will be negotiation towards achieving Resolution 242 in full. That means not only that part of it which he mentioned, but also the recognition of Israel, the security and guaranteed frontiers and much else, which I do not think it would be suitable to discuss in question and answer. As to the third question about the United Nations, he seemed to think that perhaps it was not the United Nations but it was the fear of a stoppage of oil which was causing an embargo on all arms. We have not as yet, as I speak at this moment, had any representations made to us on oil, but the fact remains that we think it was fair to impose the embargo on both sides.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that those who sympathise with Israel may not necessarily see their aims best

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achieved by supplying further arms to Israel? Is it not obvious that, with the supply of arms coming from the United States and from Soviet Russia, such enormous quantities could come into both sides that the spread of this conflagration would be something which would immeasurably damage Israel and all the surrounding countries? Ts it not obvious, therefore, that the unique role our country can play now is to act as a mediator, and that in doing this we shall be serving the interests of Israel and everybody else far better than by supplying them with further arms?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I should like entirely to endorse what was said by my noble friend Lord Nugent. The whole point of trying to be even-handed in this matter is to bring about a solution which is fair and which will put us in a better position as a mediator.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, while hesitating to continue this debate, because that is what it is coming to, I should like to ask my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir whether she does not realise that the supply of arms by this country is critical at this particular moment, and that the general impression given to the world by our continuing to supply arms to Saudi Arabia and by our refusal to supply spare parts and ammunition for the Centurion tanks which we sold under contract to Israel is an indication that we are at this critical moment discriminating very strongly against the State of Israel which we did so much to create and build up? Would she not reconsider, and give an undertaking that the Government would reconsider, this policy, especially with regard to the Centurion tanks? We are not trying to arm either side. We should cut off supplies of arms of every kind to all Arab countries, and we should continue to give to the Israelis the spare parts and the ammunition for the Centurion tanks. Otherwise, the world will think, as they think today, and as the Daily Telegraph said this morning, that our policy is discriminatory against Israel at a critical moment, that it is misguided and wrong, and that we leave this all to the United States.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I cannot accept what the noble Lord, Lord
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Boothby, says—I really cannot. He suggests we should suspend all arms shipments to the Arab countries and that we should, on the other hand, continue to supply Israel. If I may, I would just repeat what was said in the Statement. We have suspended all shipments of arms to the battlefield because we consider it inconsistent to call for an immediate end to the fighting and yet to continue to send out arms to the conflict.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, are we to understand that the spare parts and other equipment which Israel ordered and has paid for will be provided and that the contract will be fulfilled when the war is over? Could we have that assurance—when it is all over? Do the Government wish that every honourable Member will take credit for having fulfilled a contract which, apart from any diplomatic connotation, is immoral commercially and is perhaps one of the worst actions ever taken by a Foreign Secretary advised by a pro-Arab Foreign Office?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I must defend the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, not just the Foreign Office—
LORD SHINWELL: Defend what you like!
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR or BELHELVIE: —for their excellent advice, and it is my right honourable friend who makes up his mind on any advice tendered to him. As I said to your Lordships' House, these are suspended contracts, and perhaps it would have been wiser if the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, had carefully thought over the point put to the House by my noble friend Lord Nugent, when he pointed out that enormous supplies of arms are pouring into these countries supplied by the Soviet Union and the United States, whereas our supplies would be insignificant by comparison. We think we are in the best position in order to work for very fair settlement.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the proceedings in your Lordships' House are a matter for the House as a whole, not for me as Leader, but we have been interpreting the Companion to the Standing Orders very widely. It is quite

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understandable that we should do so because of the importance of the subject matter referred to in the Statement, but the points that are being made now are, in the main, ones that have already been put in the last 42 minutes. The noble Baroness has given a very full account of the Foreign Secretary's policies as of now, and we will have an opportunity, as I said yesterday, to discuss this crucially important subject again on Thursday; so if your Lordships are willing to await the fuller debate, I think that would be more in accordance with the Rules of Order of the House.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL
4.27 p.m.
Further considered on Report.
Clause 130 [Housing]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 71.
Amendment moved—
Page 77, line 14, leave out ("—1972") and insert ("to 1973").—(Lord Polwarth.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 14 [Amendment of enactments relating to roads]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 72:
Page 200, line 13, leave out paragraph 53.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a purely technical Amendment. It rectifies an error in the Bill relating to the adaptation of part of the Road Traffic Act 1960, which is already correctly dealt with in Schedule 18. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 73:
Page 201, line 27, at end insert—
("In section 24(2) (arrangements for patrolling school crossings), for heads (i) and (ii) there shall be substituted the words "the regional or islands council".").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this again remedies an omission in the Bill. It makes the new regional and island authorities responsible for the appointment of school crossing controls. No
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provision has been previously made for these. They are obviously related to police and road traffic, and I think it appropriate they should go together. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 134 [Building]:
THE EARL OF BALFOUR THE EARL OF BALFOUR moved Amendment No. 74:
Page 78, line 22, leave out from ("districts") to end of line 25.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment to Clause 134 is to make the building regulations and the Building (Scotland) Acts entirely covered at district level. As the Bill stands at the moment, Highland, Borders and the Dumfries and Galloway regions will be the future building authorities for those areas. In speaking to this Amendment, I would ask that your Lordships consider also Amendment No. 76, and Amendments Nos. 136 and 137. They would be all consequential to this Amendment. Except for the large burghs, the Town and Country Planning Acts have always been administered by the counties, but building regulations have always been dealt with at very local level, with the landward area of a county being covered by the building authority and all the burghs by the Dean of Guild Court. The Town and Country Planning Acts cover the external appearance and proposed use of any intended structure or alteration to a building. The building regulations, on the other hand, cover the actual construction or internal alteration to a building. One of the failings of the Town and Country Planning Acts is that there is no provision within those Acts that an adjoining proprietor must be informed of the intention to erect a structure or alter an existing building. But I am glad to say that in Scotland an adjoining proprietor must be informed under the building regulations, and furthermore the adjoining proprietor has the right to lodge an objection.
The Building Standards Explanatory Memorandum, of which there is a copy in your Lordships' Library, shows that the regulations, extending to eleven volumes, are extremely comprehensive, covering the durability and structural strength of materials, fire precautions, means of escape, chimneys, flues and

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installations of heat producing appliances, damp proofing, foundations, roof construction and sound proofing, insulation, ventilation, electrical installation, day-lighting and space about the house, stairways and safety rails, drainage and sanitary appliances. This information requires a very specialised and local knoledge. May I say that I have no longer any connection, but I have had for quite a number of years a very close connection, with the building industry. I have put up buildings in a great many places in the centre of Scotland, and on three different occasions the master of works informed me, in lodging the building application, that the client for whom I was putting up the building did not own all the property upon which he wanted to put the building. This sort of information is obviously valuable; it protects the adjoining proprietors, and it protects also the proprietor.
If your Lordships plan to build in Scotland, the chances are that you will employ an architect, who will certainly design the general appearance of the building, but I doubt whether he will go into exact details of damp proofing, the percentage of daylight you require for the kitchen or whatever it may be. Having drawn up his plans, which need not be terribly exact, the contract is put out to tender and probably the lowest tender will be accepted. Again the building contractor is not going to spend any more on that house than he has to. I should like to emphasise that the one friend you are likely to have is the master of works, as he is known in Scotland, or the building authority officer as he will he known in future. He is the person who will really see that your interests are looked after and that the building is built to a satisfactory standard.
Having explained a little of the history, I shall now come more firmly to the point of this Amendment. I must be fair to both sides. This is what I would like your Lordships to consider. The Government's idea is that there would be too small an opportunity for a suitable career if the building regulations were to be a district function in the Highland, Borders and Dumfries and Galloway regions. But from all the research I have done, I do not think that this will be the case because, one, the new district will take over all the burghs and the Dean of Guild
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Court is being repealed in Clause 228 of the Bill; two, there needs to be a constant supervision of any building being erected; three, I am certain that there will be sufficient buildings being erected to keep a district council department fully occupied; four, a regional headquarters would be far too remote to give a good public service. To have some offices in the Borders, Highland and Dumfries and Galloway regions would, in my opinion, have a far worse effect on the career structure than making this a district function. I feel that this is something that could be managed by the districts, will give the service to the public by the districts, and will create a career structure because there will be sufficient people there to do the job properly. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I would join my Amendment, the following one, to my noble friend Lord Balfour's Amendment, because it is about the same matter. So far as the Highland region is concerned, it is a vital Amendment, and of course I hope that the Government will accept it. If the Minister feels unable to do this, I trust that all your Lordships who know something of the Highland region and the great changes that are taking place there will support me in the Lobby. I must point out that when this Bill was first drafted nobody had ever heard about oil in regard to Scotland, except in your car, or about oil rigs. All these things are now taking place, and I am right in the middle of them. I refer, of course, to what will be the Highland region, which will be Inverness-shire which is on the southern periphery, Ross and Cromarty in the centre, and Sutherland and Caithness where more developments are going to take place. It is therefore absolutely essential that the building authority stays with the districts. We have got the people on the spot who can do it. To move them down further South to a region is quite nonsensical; it would serve no useful purpose. It is no use the Minister saying, "Ah, but you are going to have a marvellous extension to the A9 road". So we are, but it is not there yet, and even when it is there it will not affect the future developments which are inevitable in the North-West of Scotland and the Highlands of Scotland. One of

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the biggest oilfields is probably the one which will be starting shortly South-West of Orkney. This affects Sutherland and Caithness, as it does us. I strongly support, for possibly slightly different reasons, this particular Amendment, and I should like to associate my Amendment with that of my noble friend Lord Balfour.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friends. I think it would be much more sensible if building regulations were administered by the district councils. I think they will be big enough to do this in the vast majority of cases, even in the smaller regions—smaller in population, not geographically —like the Highland region and the Borders. I very much hope that the Government will see their way to agreeing either to the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Balfour, or particularly that which applies to the Highlands in the name of my noble friend Lord Cromartie.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I am not unconnected with building and local government, and, so far as I can see, this is purely a question of what is in a name. If something is going to work at all, the detailed building and so on will have to be administered at a district level, as it is to-day. All that is going to happen is that it is going to be called "regional". That may be a pity, but I do not see chat it is going to make very much difference.
4.40 p.m.
LoRD POLWARTH: My Lords, we went over the same ground at the Committee stage of this Bill. It was at a late hour of the night and the noble Earl, as I recollect it, withdrew his Amendment on an assurance by me that I was very ready to look at the position again, but firmly without any commitment to change our views. Perhaps it was as well that I did that, because if we had had a Division at that hour I do not think that there would have been a House, and that would have been the end of the evening's proceedings. I feel bound to put the other side of the picture. We have had several noble Lords with experience in this field saying that we must have these decisions made locally; that they will be remote if this is a regional responsibility. However, there
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are some definite arguments in the other direction. In the first place, there is a close link between building control and local planning. In the areas affected by the Amendments local planning will be a function of the regional authorities and not of the districts. It is important to bear in mind that there is a close link between these two functions.
There is considerably more than noble Lords have made out in this question of the resources necessary to employ staff of sufficiently professional qualification. My noble friend Lord Cromartie referred to oil rigs and the development of oil in the North-West, and he also brought the A.9 into it, but I do not think that that was relevant to the Amendment. I should have thought that the enormous new developments taking place in the North of Scotland are the strongest arguments for the responsibility being put on a broader basis than the district. They will require skills that are well beyond the capacity—supposing oil developments occur—of districts such as Skye and Lochalsh, with a population of 9,000, and Sutherland with a population of 12,000.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, may I correct the Minister? The Kyle of Loehalsh will be part of the district of Inverness-shire, so you cannot isolate it.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, if I have made a mistake I would certainly admit to it. But take the district of Sutherland, with a population of 12,000, a district that is eagerly seeking oil development. Very professional skills will be needed here. As far back as 1957 the report of the Committee on Building Legislation in Scotland, under Lord Guest, drew attention to the need for better qualified building control staff for the efficient administration of a comprehensive modern building code. I am not casting any slurs on the qualifications or status of officials in this field at the present—indeed, they will be taken over and will play a valuable part—but what we want to see is higher qualifications and a genuine career structure, which in these particular cases of areas of small population could only be provided within a region. Surely this must be our desire.
I always come back again to the fact that the centre of administration being

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the regional headquarters does not mean that the functioning will not be devolved. By the nature of the thing, it will have to be devolved to the different localities. I do not envisage the present arrangements for local applications and objections being significantly changed. I do not think that there will be any problem over this. I submit that your Lordships would do well to think about the question of the resources necessary to employ the kind of professionally qualified staff that we shall need, and nowhere more than in the areas where these new oil developments are bringing new techniques and new problems of every kind. Therefore I would sincerely ask your Lordships to reflect before supporting this Amendment.
4.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, I think I must impress upon my noble friend the Minister that he should not confuse the question of local planning and the building authority. I have never denied, nor have I ever wished to create the impression, that local planning should be at district level. I have always felt that local planning in these areas that I am attempting to alter should be looked at on a very broad line. Roughly as a guide, may I put this: that what has been in the past a county function should be a regional function in the future, but what has been a burgh function in the past (except where there is the enormous expense of something like sewage), should be a district function in future.
The master of works is the one person who really needs to have his ear very close to the ground in order to do his job. I am certain that the regional headquarters will be too remote, and that because of the distances involved the service required will simply not take place. Remember that the master of works, or the buildings authority inspector, is involved in every house, every hotel, every factory, every single building that is being put up, and he is the person who creates the standards. It has often been complained that houses in Scotland cost about 10 per cent. more than they do in England, but the reason behind that is the very high building standards that we have in Scotland. This is something of which Scotland should be immensely proud. The fittings, the standard of building in Scot-
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land, are almost always superb, from whatever standard they may be judged.
Let me give one more illustration. There was unfortunately a very sad loss of life not very long ago in a French school built on the clasp system, a system which has often been used in Scotland but its original plans have had to be drastically amended in order to comply with the Scottish standards in respect of escape from fire. This is something that has again been seen to and inspected by the local master of works in an area. Let us just refer to the Highlands and the Border. To have the headquarters, say, in Inverness, and expect to get service in Fort William, is really asking rather a lot. Equally, to have the headquarters in, say, Galashiels and expect somebody to travel all the way to the coast at Eyemouth, where there is not even a decent bus route between the places, is to create a service that will break down. I ask my noble friend not to confuse planning, which is a once-and-for-all application, and the building regulations, which require a constant inspection and supervision from start to finish. Remember that it is under the building regulations that an adjoining proprietor can lodge objection to a building's erection, and not under the Town and Country Planning Acts.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Does the noble Earl wish to withdraw his Amendment?
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, may I ask for some advice from the Front Bench? There are two Amendments in one here, in fact. They really raise exactly the same point but in regard to different parts of the country.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, the procedure of the House is that each Amendment has to be moved separately —that is, if it is moved and not withdrawn—in the order in which the Amendments stand on the Marshalled List. The noble Earl, Lord Balfour, is first and the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, is next. However, before a decision is made on this matter I would say this. While bowing to the experience of the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, in the operation of these building matters, controls and so on, I would point out to him that he totally ignored what I said about the

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devolution of control and said that everybody would have to travel, I think, to Inverness, or to Galashiels, or wherever it was. I made it very clear in my speech that I am quite convinced that this will not be the case. There will be local offices established, and there will be no need to travel to the centre unless it concerns possibly some major matter.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Earl ignored that factor because it seems to me to concede his case. The job is going to be done in these areas. This is what has been pointed out. It might as well be done, therefore, by the official as an official of the district as be done by that same official as an official of the region, at some distance. Of course, this arises from the very small districts, and I would say in some cases the needlessly small districts, which have been created; but the only point which arises which makes what is in the Bill of value is that there may well be circumstances in which a senior official, of whom there might be only one located in the region, could be of value to a number of these local people, and I am not certain how that could be got over if either of the Amendments is carried.
But I should also like to agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, has said on the question of planning and building authorities. It is desirable that they should he closely linked, and in many cases, while they are separate committees, the membership of them is made up of the same people; but that does not mean that they always arrive at the same decision. You can have a planning committee granting planning permission for something and the building authority refusing it because it does not comply with the regulations. On the other hand, you can have a building committee hav-
ing no option but to agree to something being done because it complies with the building regulations, and then the same people, acting as a planning committee, refusing permission because it is not a good development from a planning point of view. So while on occasion there are advantages in their being combined, it does not alter the fact that they are carrying out completely different functions, and there would be no great difficulty if they were in fact being carried out by different people because they have to be looked at from totally different points of view.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, I think I should like to press this Amendment and to test the feeling of your Lordships' House.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE THE EARL OF CROMARTIE moved Amendment No. 75:
Page 78, line 23, leave out ("Highland").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have spoken quite enough about this matter and, quite obviously, I am going to press it to a Division, as I said I would. I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, before the noble Earl proceeds to put his Amendment to the House, I should like to point out two things to him. He refers to leaving out the word "Highland". Is it really his intention that this should apply only in the Highland Region and not to the Islands areas? I would also point out to him that if he succeeds in carrying this Amendment it will be necessary to make consequential Amendments to the Schedules to the Bill.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 75) shall be agreed to?
4.55 p.m.
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 21; Not-Contents, 77.

CONTENTS

Archibald, L.

Gray, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Atholl, D. [Teller.]

Henderson, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Balerno, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Stocks, B.

Balfour, E.

Laurderdale, E.

Summerskill, B.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Boothby, L.

Margadale, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Cromartie, E. [Teller.]

Moyne, L.

Ferrier, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Elton, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Abinger, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Northchurch, B.

Alport, L.

Ferrers, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Arwyn, L.

Garner, L.

Oakshott, L.

Auckland, L.

Glendevon, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Ballantrae, L.

Gowrie, E.

Perth, E.

Barnby, L.

Grenfell, L.

Polwarth, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gridley; L.

Rowallan, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Hailes, L.

St. Just, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L.Chancellor.)

Sandford, L.

Carrington, L.

Sandys, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Hanworth, V.

Sharpies, B.

Coleraine, L.

Harvey of Prestbury, L.

Stamp, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hawke, L.

Stonehaven, V.

Courtown, E.

Inchyra, L.

Strange, L.

Daventry, V.

Ironside, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Davidson, V.

Killearn, L.

Strathedcn and Campbell, L.

de Clifford, L.

Kilmany, L.

Thomas, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Kindersley, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Limerick, E.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.

Dudley, E.

Long, V.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Mancroft, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Eccles, V.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Windlesham, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Effingham, E.

Mersey, V.

Young, B.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Monck, V.

Younger of Leckie, V.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

5.0 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 207, line 31, leave out ("subsections (1) and (4)") and insert ("subsection (1)").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Schedule 16 [Amendment of Enactments relating to River Purification]:
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is also a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 208, line 44, at end insert—
("3. In section 12(1) (power to appoint agents, etc), after the word "scheme" there shall be inserted the words "prepared in pursuance of an order under section 135(5) and (6)(b) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 ".").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 79 is another drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 209, line 38, leave out ("the") where second occurring, and insert ("this").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
Clause 148 [Water]:
5.5 p.m.
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 79A:
Leave out Clause 148.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment and a number of others would have the effect of continuing the existence of the regional water boards. I know that this matter was very fully discussed in another place, but I think I am right to put this Amendment forward because I, and no doubt others, should like to hear why the Government think it desirable to do away with water boards. Water boards were set up in Scotland some five years ago and I do not think that there is any doubt that in their operation they have been completely successful. If no reform of local government had been taking place, there would certainly have been no demand for the abolition of water boards. I think that, without exception, they have proved that they can do the job in a much better way than it had been done hitherto.
When Her Majesty's Government decided to extend the benefits of the water board system to England and Wales, we in Scotland, in our innocence, thought that this was being done because the Scottish experiment had proved so successful that it was worthy of export South of the Border. But no sooner have the Government done that in England and Wales than they have

203
decided to scrap it in Scotland. The only reason for their doing this that I can think of is that they have accepted the argument that wherever possible these functions should be handed over to elected authorities rather than to appointed authorities. But this was not the only case where this was asked for. There was a demand for health authorities, for hospitals and for medical functions to go back to local authorities; but the Government, when legislating in that field, were not impressed by the argument that it was better that these functions should be carried out by elected authorities. They were much more concerned with the fact that the bulk of the money for hospitals had to be found by the Government, and therefore they wanted to have the control of this firmly in the hands of central Government.
I think that in perhaps conceding that this was a case where they could turn it over to elected control they are in danger of putting at risk the successes which have been achieved by the water boards during these five years—not over the whole of Scotland; but, in some areas, because of the way that things have developed, the water board is covering the same area as the successor regional authority. For instance, the Tayside region covers the area of the East of Scotland water board; the Fife region covers the area of the Fife and Kinross water board; of the new regions created yesterday Lower Clyde water board will take in two; and Lanark, Ayrshire and Arran will function just as the water boards did.
But in another place—and it is on this point that I should like to know the Government thinking—there was a feeling that the one thing, lacking in water legislation was the absence of a single authority for Scotland and that particularly (because things have developed industrially in parts of Scotland in a way which was not dreamt of) the need for a single authority will probably arise much sooner than people might have expected. It is believed that the continued existence of the water boards will make it easier for that development to take place if and when it becomes necessary. Experience has always shown that it may be much easier to give powers to a local authority than to take those powers from
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them. By this Bill the matter is now being made an elected authority function, and if it should be desirable to return either to the present situation or a single water authority in the future—and in another place the Minister did not rule out that possibility—it is going to become a great deal more difficult. My Lords, I beg to move.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I want wholeheartedly to support the noble Lord, Lord Hughes—I nearly said my noble friend; I hope he did not mind.
LORD HUGHES: I believe it is in order if you say "across the way".
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I must declare an interest. I have been a member of the East of Scotland Water Board since its inception. I personally think it is the best Board in Scotland by a long chalk, but perhaps I am prejudiced. Nevertheless, I whole-heartedly support the noble Lord in the idea of a central authority for water in Scotland. Water is not a Government function, it is an engineering function, and it is governed by engineering facts, figures and what have you. What is required on water boards is people who know something about water and if you want to develop good water and a good water industry these are the kind of people you want. You do not want good Tories, or good Socialists or good Liberals. This does not do anything for water at all. Not only that, we have a success story of the Water Boards in Scotland, copied by England, and what do the Government do? Having had everybody in chaos, and disturbed all the labour relations, now that we have at last settled them down and the experiment has been successful the whole darned thing is to be thrown overboard. And in many cases, because we have worked under the water board system, a large amount of expense will be incurred. We have our depots in the wrong places—but in the right places for the water boards. So far as I can see it is pure darned stupid.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I note what my noble friend Lord Stone-haven has said, but I also note, if he feels so strongly about it, that he did not himself put down an Amendment. It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord

205
Hughes, has put down his Amendment as a starred Amendment only to-day. Nevertheless, he has called for reasons and I shall try to give him the reasons why this solution has been adopted.
My Lords, it is of course a fact, as he knows very well, that the water services were reorganised in Scotland in 1968 and there were then about 200 water authorities (town and county councils and joint water boards) and serving, many of them, very small populations. In the Report of 1966, the Scottish Water Advisory Committee concluded that responsibility was distributed among too many authorities without adequate resources to meet modern needs, and that a major overhaul of the structure of the service was necessary. The Committee's recommendation which was embodied in the 1967 Act, was that 13 regional water boards should be established, along with a water development board which would develop major new sources of supply in Central Scotland.
No one would deny for a moment that the outcome of that legislation has been successful. The regional water boards have worked well and they have done a good job, but as was pointed out when the matter was very extensively debated in the Commons, no one knew in 1967 what the pattern of local government would be that would emerge from the Royal Commission. If they had known they might have decided on a different solution. The Royal Commission's recommendations have created a new situation and the future responsibility for water has to be judged against the wider background of local government reform. What Clause 148 does is to give effect to the Royal Commission's recommendation that water (and sewerage and sewage disposal) should be the direct responsibility of local government and should be administered by the same authorities, the reason being that these are essentially main infrastructure services associated with strategic planning, and accordingly they should be assigned to regional authorities. The Report pointed out the inherent disadvantages of ad hoc water boards which are, first of all, that they separate to an unacceptable degree the responsibility for spending money from the responsibility for raising it; and secondly that they are not directly re-
206
sponsible to anyone. Paragraph 272 of the Report said as regards water that:
"The new regional water boards may be a great improvement on what went before: but the case for retaining them must be made in the context not of a past structure of local government but of a new and reformed structure".
My Lords, at the Government's request the Scottish Water Advisory Committee considered what changes should be made in the organisation of the water service in the light of the Royal Commission's Report and of the Government's White Paper. The Advisory Committee found that with very few exceptions the proposed regional and islands areas were suitable for water supply purposes. To meet the practical difficulties in certain areas they put forward two proposals which they considered as practical alternatives. The first one was that the majority favoured the creation of an ad hoc Central Scotland Water Authority which would be responsible for water supply and distribution and would take over the functions of the Central Scotland Water Development Board. The minority (including the chairman) favoured the transfer of water functions to regional and islands authorities throughout the country but with special "added area" arrangements for certain problem areas; and the retention of the Central Scotland Water Development Board. The minority recommendation was fully discussed in the Standing Committee and in another place and they rejected an Amendment to give effect to it by 17 votes to 7. The Committee also debated fully the proposal to transfer the functions of regional water boards to the new water authorities on the Motion, That the Clause stand part and agreed by 16 votes to 7 to keep the Government proposal in the clause.
It would be contrary to the fundamental principles laid down by the Royal Commission to keep regional water boards and there would be no attendant operational advantage. Separate boards would have to be created for Orkney and Shetland where the Government are permitted to hand back the service to local control. In these and other areas where the new regional boundaries would be coterminus with the water board boundaries there is no need for a water board structure. Elsewhere, water boards would have to requisition from the

207
regional councils in their regions. On the other hand, the new regional and islands areas are suitable for water supply purposes, with the exception of a few small areas which can be dealt with by bulk supply or "added area" arrangements. It is on the grounds of principle and practicality that the Government proposal is regarded as the correct solution and I hope it will be accepted by the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, asked why England had gone over to ad hoc water boards just at a time when Scotland is departing from them. It hardly needs stressing that the situation in the two countries is quite different. Most of the new English counties do not cover river basins, so ad hoc arrangements have to be made for them. On the other hand, the Scottish regions cover water areas extremely well—so well in fact that there is no need for the original proposal to be put forward for the central water board.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I do not intend to press this Amendment to a Division. I wanted to hear for myself some of the arguments which had been put in another place. The only comment I would make further at this stage is that I wish that we had taken the reform of the Health Service after the reform of local government, because the wholesale condemnation which the noble Lord has made of ad hoc bodies would have been very useful ammunition against the Government in setting up ad hoc bodies to run the Health Service; and I know that the question of high principle which has been enunciated so well in respect of these bodies is thrown overboard when one comes up against the Treasury's desire to hang on to control of the money. Principle would not matter in that direction. However, that battle has been fought and lost already and no useful purpose would be served by going over it again today. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 17 [Amendment of Enactments relating to Water]:
5.20 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved Amendment No. 80:
Page 210, line 20, at end insert—
("5A. In section 26(1) (power of regional water board to lay mains)—

(a) in place of paragraph (b) there shall be substituted the following paragraph:—

"(b) with the consent of every owner and occupier of any land not forming part of a street, in, on or over that land;"

(b) at the end of the subsection there shall be added the words—

"Provided that a consent required for the purposes of this subsection shall not be unreasonably withheld and any question whether such consent is, or is not, unreasonably withheld shall be referred to and determined by the Secretary of State.".")

The noble Duke said: My Lords, we now enter that part of the Bill that was not discussed at any great length in Committee owing to shortage of time. I would much rather have discussed this Amendment and Amendment No. 81 in Committee as I feel they are much more suitable points for a Committee stage than the Report stage of a Bill. None the less, I think it is worth while giving them an airing. Section 26(1)(b) of the Water (Scotland) Act 1946 gives a water authority a right to lay a water main. Before doing so all they are required to do is to give reasonable notice to the owner or occupier of the land. They are also required to pay compensation for any damage done or for any injurious affection of the land resulting from the water board's activities. I believe that in England the water authority have no right to lay drains over private land without the consent of the owner. This requirement does not apply to mains which are being laid in any street. These statutory provisions are laid down in paragraph 19 of the Third Schedule to the 1945 Water Act. The section further provides that if the consent of an owner or occupier of any land is unreasonably withheld appeal may be made to the Minister, whose decision is final.
My Lords, all I attempt to do by this Amendment is to bring the provisions in Scotland into line with those in England, so that the consent of every owner or occupier of land not forming part of the street must be obtained by the water

209
authority before they have the right to lay a water main. The Amendment also has a similar safeguard in the English Act, in that if consent is unreasonably withheld appeal may be made to the Secretary of State, and his decision is final. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think my noble friend is under some misapprehension as to what the English Act actually does. He is quite right in saying that the wording of the proposed amendment of Section 26(1) of the Act of 1946 does follow closely that of paragraph 19 of the Third Schedule to the English Water Act 1945; but he himself says that this relates to cases where the undertaker is a private undertaker. The paragraph itself is adopted. It has to be applied by Ministerial order to each water undertaking, and English water undertakings, who are local authorities under the Public Health Act 1936, already possess power to lay mains simply on giving reasonable notice. It is accordingly the practice of the English department, so I am informed, in applying paragraph 19 to undertakers who are local authorities, to modify it to bring it into line with the Public Health Act code. In short, then, the English position is at present similar to the Scottish, except in relation to undertakers who are not local authorities; that it to say, the private water companies. So that my noble friend is not quite right in saying that the effect of his Amendment would be to bring the position in Scotland into line with the position in England.
The issues involved in these Amendments have been raised with the British Waterworks Association, who represent water undertakers throughout Britain, and the correct procedure is for discussions with the Association to continue until conclusions can be submitted to the Government for consideration in connection with the first suitable legislation. We hope that such conclusions can be reached with a substantial measure of agreement. The Government in the meantime must keep an open mind as to the merits of amending the law until the views of the body representing water undertakings in Britain are known and discussions are concluded.
I think I should add—because this is the view the Government take—that this Bill is not the appropriate vehicle
210
for alterations to the statutory operational powers of water undertakers, and particularly not for alteration of the provision affecting fundamental relations between them and private interests. I have made it clear that the discussions on such alterations are going on at the present time. I must advise your Lordships to resist the Amendment, and I would simply add that if the results of those discussions were known at the present time, the Government do not think that this is the appropriate Bill in which to incorporate them.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving us so much information. I have elicited what I wanted from him. I am quite happy to leave the position as it is, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved Amendment No. 81:
Page 210, line 20, at end insert—
("5B. In section 26(2) (payment of compensation by regional water boards) after the words "damage done to or injurious affection of that land" there shall be inserted the words "whether resulting from negligence or otherwise".").
The noble Duke said: My Lords, I can move this Amendment quite quickly. I realise that it suffers from the same defect as the last Amendment, in that this Bill would not be a suitable vehicle for it. However, it raises a point of some importance, and I really put down the Amendment to try to impress on my noble friends on the Front Bench that we need some degree of urgency in the negotiations going on between the various bodies and thereby to get a new Water Bill. This Amendment is also slightly more important than the last Amendment in what it sets out to achieve. Its object is to provide that there shall be an obligation on a water authority to pay compensation for damage done whether or not the claimant has been able to establish negligence against the water authority. When a water main bursts it may do a great deal of damage. I think I am right in saying that, as the law stands at present, unless the farmer over whose land the water main has gone—very often, as we have heard on the previous Amendment, without his consent—can establish negligence on the

211
part of the water board, he can get compensation only for the damage done by the vehicle and by the men who come to repair the burst water main, and cannot get compensation for the damage done by the actual flooding.
This Amendment would have the effect of enabling an owner or occupier to obtain damages for the actual flooding caused by a burst water main. A bad burst can be very expensive and possibly ruinous for a small farmer, and I should have thought it only fair that some such provision as this should be adopted. I realise the difficulties of achieving it here and now, but I should like my noble friend to give us some indication that there might be legislation in the fairly near future on this particular point, if not on the previous one. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I have to declare my interest, and I wish to support this Amendment. I also want to say that I did not put down an Amendment because at the time of the Committee stage of the Bill, which I think is the appropriate time to put down Amendments, I was engaged in proceedings on a Provisional Order and could not be in your Lordships' House. Your Lordships can take that excuse or not, as you like. As I say, I support this Amendment. It would not, in my opinion, accomplish what is desired, but I think it is worth stressing. We in the East of Scotland Water Board have taken over a large chunk of Scotland, with a great many points that were laid a hundred years ago. As to whether or not they were properly laid, or as to the state of the pipes and so on, we just find out as we go along. But I can tell your Lordships that we have about one burst a day; so the matter is not trivial. We went to the extent of getting counsel's opinion because we, as a board, consider it grossly unfair not to be able to pay compensation to a small farmer who has had a great deal of damage done by the escape of water from pipes from which we are at least drawing revenue. According to counsel's opinion, there is considerable difficulty in interpreting the law.
One of the two sections which govern compensation is Section 1 of the Water
212
(Scotland) Act 1946. The governing point is that it reads:
"…by reason of the exercise by the authority…".
That, according to the lawyers and according to the insurance companies, is a gorgeous get-out. You can get compensation only for things that are done by the employees. The other one, Section 26(2) of the same Act, reads:
"…by reason of the laying…".
These are the key points and apparently in law are a complete get-out. The only method by which this situation could he overcome would he by including—not touching these two clauses as they are—another clause stating definitely that water boards or the authorities are to he liable for damage done by water escaping. Unless that is in black and white the lawyers and the insurance people will wriggle round it. It is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. I know the answers, because we have written to the S.P.D. and the noble Lord has read out most of the answers they have given to the board, but I should like him to give us an assurance that the Government will not sit on this matter for the next ten or fifteen years while we as water boards are having to do dishonourable things.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am grateful to both my noble friends for the contribution they have made to this debate, particularly, if I may say so, to my noble friend Lord Stonehaven with his particular experience; and to have his appeal made from a member of a water board is particularly cogent. There is no doubt that the law is not clear and its meaning has never actually been tested in the courts so far. I am inclined to agree with my noble friend Lord Stonehaven that it is doubtful whether the Amendment would clarify this situation and he is probably right in saying that other amending legislation is required.
It might be useful if I reminded the House of what we are talking about. Clause 26(2) reads as follows, as amended:
"Where a regional water board and water development board in the exercise of their powers under this section may lay a main in, on or over any land not forming part of a street or inspect, repair, maintain, alter, renew or reform a main laid in, over or

213
on any such land they shall from time to time pay compensation to every person interested in that land for any damage done or injurious affection of that land"—
at which point the words proposed to be added would come in—
"whether resulting from negligence or otherwise…"
I go on now without the words added in—
"by reason of the laying, inspection, repair, maintenance, alteration, renewal or removal of the main and any question as to the amount of compensation to be paid under this subsection shall in occasion of dispute be determined by arbitration."
This is what we are actually talking about at the present time, so the Water (Scotland) Act 1946 as it now stands does provide for compensation for damage done or enjoins protection of the land in these circumstances, and such compensation is payable whether the damage does or does not result from actual negligence. In this respect the Amendment adds nothing to the section.
However, I understand that the Scottish water boards and the British Waterworks Association take the view that statutory water undertakings are not liable for damage caused by a burst water main unless negligence can be proved. Compensation for damage resulting from such a burst may well be payable under Section 12 of the 1946 Act which provides for compensation to be paid, and I quote:
"to any person who has sustained damage by reason of the exercise by the authority of any of their powers"
under that Act; but the legal position is not clear and has never been tested in the courts. The Scottish Development Department has had correspondence with the Scottish Landowners' Federation informally and the Federation are aware of the Department's view. All I can say to my noble friend—I am afraid I cannot give him the assurance that he asks for in this Bill—is that the Department have undertaken to keep in mind the possibility of clarifying the position when the opportunity for amending legislation arises. That is the second time that I have used the words, "when the opportunity for amending legislation arises". I hope it will be well within ten years.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, inspired by the fine phrase of my noble
214
friend, I should expect that it would be well within three years, but on the other hand it may not. I should have been very surprised if no one had said that the Amendment was defective in doing what I hoped it would do. That is the usual way with these Amendments. I am grateful for the support I have received from my noble friend Lord Stonehaven which I greatly appreciated. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 82, with Amendments Nos. 83 and 84, and Amendment No. 170 to Schedule 29, page 306, line 12, are all drafting Amendments made in the interests of clarity and simplicity. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 211, line 33, leave out ("district council") and insert ("water authority, regional council, district council and water development board for every area").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 83.
Amendment moved—
Page 211, line 40, leave out ("district council") and insert ("water authority, regional council, district council and water development board for every area").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 84.
Amendment moved—
Page 212, line 2, leave out ("district council") and insert ("water authority, regional council, district council and water development board for any area").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 85:
Page 218, line 47, at end insert—
("The Water Act 1973
64. In the Water Act 1973 any reference to a regional water board shall be construed as a reference to a water authority.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment goes together with Amendment No. 174. The Amendment to Schedule 17 provides for references in Section 4(5)(d), 4(6), 8(5) and 38(1) of the English Water Act 1973 to regional

215
water boards to be construed as references to the new Scottish water authorities when in 1975 these bodies take over the functions of regional water boards. The Amendment to Clause 239 is consequential.
Clause 150 [Public transport]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 86:
Page 92. line 16, at end insert—
("(4) References in this section to the Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Area and the Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Authority include references to that Area or Authority as varied by an order made under section 9 of the said Act of 1968.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this deals with a rather different subject. We now turn to references to Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Area. The Amendment makes it possible for the Secretary of State, if he so desires, to alter the name of the Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Area and Authority. Without this provision it might be held that the references in Clause 150 would inhibit any change. In any case it would be necessary, after the Bill is enacted, to make some small adjustments to the boundaries of the Passenger Transport Authority as described in the designation to make them coincide with the boundaries of the relevant new districts. I beg to move.
Schedule 18 [Amendment of certain enactments relatint to transport]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 87:
Page 222, line 4, leave out ("North Ayrshire") and insert ("Cunninghame").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I must apologise to the House. There was a slight misunderstanding between myself and my noble friend at this point. This Amendment and the subsequent one (No. 90) set out the name of the new district created at the Report stage in another place. It was previously omitted in error and it is necessary to put this in.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I really ought to have invited the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, to make a manuscript
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Amendment, because "Cuninghame" is now spelt in the Bill and in the district with a single "n" at the beginning and there are several alternative local spellings. This is the one I have always preferred and that is what was put in my Amendment. Therefore if the noble Lord at this stage puts in the word as it is spelt here it will refer to something which does not exist elsewhere in the Bill. I do not know how we get out of this difficulty, but perhaps he might feel able to alter the word—after all, if he wants to alter it back later on, it is just one alteration.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I appreciate the problem, and I suspect that the matter might be dealt with by another place. Would that be the noble Lord's view?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it would probably be better done here. I rather think that we have already given them quite a lot to do.
LORD ROWALLAN: My Lords, "Cunninghame" is the family name and "Cuninehame" is rather the local name.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, could this not be done by means of a printing correction? This may not be quite right, but I am sure that nobody is going to argue about it at this stage.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, may I suggest that we deal with this matter at Third Reading? I do not think there will be any problem about doing so.
LORD HUGHES: It has been suggested that it can be treated as a printing error and in this way it could go into the printed Bill with a single "n" at the beginning. I know that this is one of those matters where one gets information and where the principal local authority say, "This is the way we want it", but somebody else, as has already happened, says that he would like something else. After all, if we are thinking of "Cunningham" most of us spell it without the final "e", so there is yet a further spelling.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will agree that it might be wiser to deal with it at Third Reading. We will then straighten the matter out.
Clause 154 [Piers and Harbours]:
5.45 p.m.
THE DUKE of ATHOLL THE DUKE of ATHOLL moved Amendment No. 88:
Page 94, line 31, at beginning insert ("Subject to subsection (2)below,").
The noble Duke said: My Lords, I think it would be for the convenience of the House if I spoke to Amendments 88 and 89 at the same time as they both deal with the same subject. At the Committee stage of this Bill I put down an Amendment in the names of myself and my noble friend Lord Inchyra that all local authority controlled harbours in Scotland should go under district control and not under regional control. My noble friends on the Front Bench resisted this, I think mainly on the ground that most of these were fishery ports and that some degree of co-ordination within the regions was desirable. Their other ground was that only two ports seemed to have a great objection to going under regional control: one was Perth and there seemed to be some doubt as to whether the other was Buckle or Banff. My noble friend said it was Banff and I said it was Buckie. I think Buckie is correct, though I am not quite sure. At any rate, Buckle is a fishing port.
I then put down an Unstarred Question to try to discover how many of these harbours dealt with cargo to any great extent. My Question read:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government how many of the local authority harbours in Scotland handled over 2,000 tons of cargo in 1972, or some other convenient 12-month period, and how many, and which ones, handled over 20,000 tons of cargo for the same period."
I had a reply, for which I am very grateful, from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on behalf of the Department of the Environment, which stated that she regretted that this information was not available, since the local authorities who operate these very small harbours are not required to make returns of their traffic. So I think this establishes beyond peradventure that Perth is a very small harbour. That is my first reason for suggesting that it should be under district rather than regional control. I should point out that Perth has no fishing traffic at all. It is entirely a transport harbour, and so it would have been covered by that Question. My second point is that
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Perth is unique in two different ways as a harbour. It is the only local authority port in the Tayside Region, and the Tayside Region is the only region—except possibly those which were created with the help of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, yesterday, and I have not been able to check on them—which had only one local authority harbour in it.
One of the arguments my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn put forward at Committee stage was that all other transport functions were dealt with on a regional basis. I do not feel that the ports' transport functions are quite the same as, for instance, roads or public transport. I feel that small ports could be more advantageously dealt with on a district basis because they are where they are and nothing can be done about it. You cannot alter them. You could of course enlarge them, but this is difficult and cannot be done without a great deal of planning which would not be a regional problem but probably done on a national basis. The actual running of the port is very much a day-to-day matter for the local people. I think any noble Lord who knows Perth harbour will be impressed by its operations. It has good labour relations, is efficient and is economically run. It is also a source of local pride and it serves the local community in an area largely covered by the proposed Perth and Kinross district. Another argument that the Government produced at the Committee stage was that it served other areas of the Tayside Region besides the Perth and Kinross district. This is, of course, true to a small extent, but it also serves other regions—for instance, the Fife Region—and I think a certain amount of traffic also goes to what we are now calling the Central Region.
As Perth City Council disappears as a result of this Bill we obviously cannot keep the management exactly as before: but let us keep it as nearly as possible since it has proved itself. What is the point of enacting a provision whereby control is transferred from its doorstep to a place probably 21 miles away? It is not yet certain where the headquarters of the Tayside Region are going to be, but the chances are they will be nearer to Dundee than Perth; and if Dundee has its way they will be within the present boundaries of the city of Dundee, but I would not like to speculate on that.

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Certainly control will be transferred to a place somewhat farther away than it is at the moment, farther away than it would be if it remained in the Perth and Kinross district. This place will have no direct interest in Perth harbour. Although it will not have Dundee harbour under its control the thoughts of the people in the Tayside Region, the regional council officials, are bound to be clouded by the proximity of the somewhat lareer harbour at Dundee. It is also easier to put points to district councillors than to regional councillors. This is a small matter, but as there are more district councillors it will be easier for them to take up matters appertaining to Perth harbour than it would be for regional councillors to do so.
My noble friend pointed out that the regional authority could delegate functions under Clause 56. He seemed confident that the new regional authority would do this so far as Perth harbour was concerned. His honourable friend in the other place, Mr. Buchanan-Smith, went so far as to say that a Circular would be sent to the new regional authorities encouraging them to do this. But if they are going to do this anyway, why do we not write it into the Bill and make sure that the running of Perth harbour remains in more or less the same hands as it is now, and so let us be sure that it will be run as successfully and efficiently as it is at the moment? I beg to move.
LORD INCHYRA: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Duke in this Amendment. He has advanced all the arguments in favour of maintaining Perth harbour as it is at present. I can only add one other argument, and I have some hesitation in saying this as it is a local argument; but, on the other hand, we have been told of the importance of carrying local opinion in all these new arrangements under the Bill, and that the new plans will not work 100 per cent. efficiently unless they have the support of local opinion. This is a case where one can truthfully say that local opinion is definitely against the Government's proposal to transfer the control of Perth harbour to the regions. Perth is in a slightly apprehensive state about the new set-up; it is going to lose its town council, it is going to lose the title of "Lord
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Provost" and does not know what is in store for it in Tayside. The fact that it is going to lose the harbour as well is an additional point of unhappiness.
I am afraid that this is a case where civil servants who have drawn up this sensible plan have not paid enough attention to local opinion. Having been a civil servant myself, I know only too well that public opinion is not always the first thing civil servants take into account. This is a case where the Government ought to go out of their way to pay more attention to local feelings on the subject, and not necessarily to insist on 100 per cent. implementation of what is no doubt the perfect set-up from the purely planning point of view. I should like to support the noble Duke in his Amendment.
5.55 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, my two noble friends could not have moved this Amendment more persuasively, and I suspect that whatever I may say they are not likely to change their views. If I understand their views, in a nutshell they believe small harbours should be district responsibilities, and in any case Perth harbour should be a district responsibility. I think they would wish me, however, to put the case as I see it, and I ask the House to judge then where the greatest advantage lies. I hope that what I am going to say will reassure my noble friends considerably, although I cannot meet the points they have made.
As the House will have gathered by now, Clause 154 of the Bill provides that all harbours, piers, boatslips and jetties presently vested in local authorities are to be transferred to the respective regions and islands areas. This does not affect harbours such as Dundee, Aberdeen. Grangemouth, Leith and the Clyde ports which are vested in the various port authorities. The effect of these Amendments would be to except Perth Harbour alone from the general provision applying to the other 230 or so local authority harbours in Scotland. Plainly that is not impracticable, but the proposal lays a very heavy burden on its sponsors to prove that it is both necessary and desirable.
The Wheatley Commission recommended that local authority harbours should be a regional responsibility chiefly

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because they are an essential element in the exercise of functions related to transport and ferries. There is a subsidiary argument as well. The Government accepted this recommendation, which was fully considered in the other place, and there was no Division against it on the Report stage, though there was in Committee. The case for making Perth an exception was moved in the other place by the Member for East Perth but not pressed to a Division. Although 9 out of the 230 or so local authority harbours in Scotland made representations against the proposals in the first instance, those representations have been sustained by Perth alone.
My noble friend the Duke of Atholl put the grounds for excepting Perth admirably and very succinctly in Committee when he said of local authority harbours in general (and he repeated some of this to-day) that first they have been economically run, secondly they are a source of local pride, and thirdly they have very little regional trade. With the first two propositions I agree. But there is no reason why Perth harbour should not continue to be economically run. It will almost certainly continue to be run under local management. It would be wrong for me to say certainly, but I can say almost certainly. It is already possible under the Bill for any local authority to arrange for any of its functions to be discharged by a committee of the authority or by any other local authority. So it could appoint a harbour committee and ensure that elected members at local level were involved. I suppose it could even arrange for the district authority to run the harbour. I can assure my noble friend that the Government will take steps to encourage regional authorities to devolve harbour administration to a local level, and my noble friend has already referred to the Circular sent out by the Scottish Office. But it will be for the new regional authority to decide for themselves precisely how to secure the best form of local management. In this way they can ensure that the harbour is economically run and that local sensibilities are respected.
I cannot agree with my noble friend that there is very little regional trade. The harbour owes its significance in considerable measure to agricultural traffic
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which comes from and goes to places throughout the Tayside Region, and not only from the new Perth district alone. There really is no logical reason to except Perth harbour from the general principle that transport functions are to be regional responsibilities, nor are there sufficient reasons of a practical nature to warrant creating a single anomaly in this way. And there is surely a fallacy in arguing that, because Perth is the only local authority harbour in the Tayside Region, therefore it should be a district and not a regional responsibility. Would it not be equally valid—or invalid—to contend that, if there were, say, a single further education college in a region, this should be a matter for the district in which it was located and not for the region which is the education authority? After all, education colleges can also be sources of very great pride. The basic reason for Tayside's being responsible for Perth harbour, which is exclusively a transport harbour, is that the Tayside authority is to be the transport authority.
I admit that a matter of sentiment and past associations are involved, though the associations are with the burgh of Perth rather than with the new district of Perth and Kinross. But in the far-reaching reforms which this Bill is to enact there are inevitably a considerable number of cases where sentiment has to give way to practical considerations, and I hope that my noble friend will agree in the end that this is one of them, particularly as one can envisage, I think, that the practical considerations and the sentiment will in the end coincide.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I have listened to my noble friend with great interest. He of course called Wheatley to his aid, quite rightly, but there were very few representations on the subjects of ports and harbours to the Wheatley Commission, and what there were I think were largely, if not entirely, concerned with the fishery ports and harbours. I am prepared to admit that, having thought about it since the Committee stage, I think he had a reasonable case for making the small harbours of the North-East and the Highlands, which deal largely with fishing traffic, a regional function, and not a district function. That is why I changed my Amendment on this occasion.

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I would endorse every word that my noble friend Lord Inchyra said about local opinion. I have had communications from the Town Clerk of Perth City—or the City Clerk; he calls himself the "Town Clerk", actually—on behalf of the council, and I gather that it is the unanimous opinion of the City Council of Perth that the harbour should remain a district function and not be a regional function. I am sure that in saying this they are reflecting the opinion of their constituents. The argument about regional traffic is difficult to resolve. I am quite prepared to agree that Perth harbour is based on the agricultural and timber traffic that it has, although it handles some other things. But, while some of this traffic will obviously go outside the Perth and Kinross district into the Tayside Region, I would suspect as much would go outside the Perth and Kinross district into the Central Region, and possibly rather more into the Fife Region. Dundee, as I have said, is a considerably bigger harbour and I suspect that traffic in any bulk which was being landed for places such as Forfar would come into Dundee or somewhere like that —Montrose, perhaps—rather than Perth. No
shipping line is going to send a ship 21 miles unnecessarily up a river for the privilege of unloading at Perth and then taking it back to Forfar or Montrose—
LORD HUGHES: Especially, my Lords, as it could not get under the bridge.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: Especially as it could not get under the bridge, and there is a limited amount of tonnage that a ship can actually land at Perth harbour. So I am not convinced by this argument at all. Furthermore, I am not convinced by the noble Lord's simile with a further education college. I do not think this holds water. After all, a further education college draws its inmates from a very wide area, and therefore I should have thought that there were much better arguments for that being a regional function than for a port which, on the whole, serves a markedly local area. I am afraid that my noble friend has not convinced me on this subject, and I think it is something the House ought to decide.
6.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 88) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 45; Not-Contents, 59.

CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Inchyra, L. [Teller.]

Seear, B.

Atholl, D. [Teller.]

Killearn, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Ballantrae, L.

Kilmany, L.

Shepherd, L.

Blyton, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Shinwell, L.

Clwyd, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Slater, L.

Dundee, E.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Somers, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Margadale, L.

Strange, L.

Ferrier, L.

Mersey, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Nathan, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Gray, L.

Perth, E.

Thurso, V.

Green way, L.

Popplewell, L.

Wade, L.

Hall, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Hanworth, V.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Willis, L.

Henderson, L.

Royle, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Sandys, L.

Hughes, L.

NOT CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

de Clifford, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Abinger, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Limerick, E.

Auckland, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Long, V.

Balfour, E.

Dudley, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Barnby, L.

Eccles, V.

Northchurch, B.

Berkeley, B.

Elton, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Oakshott, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Ferrers, E.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Glendevon, L.

Onslow, E.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Gowrie, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Grenfell, L.

Polwarth, L.

Colwyn, L.

Hailes, L.

Redesdale, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Harvey of Prestbury, L.

Rowallan, L.

Courtown, E.

Hawke, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Cowley, E.

Kindersley, L.

St. Just, L.

Davidson, V.

Kinloss, Ly.

Sandford, L.

Sharples, B.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Stonehaven, V.

Thomas, L.

Wise, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Young, B.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.

Younger of Leckie, V.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 19 [Amendments of Enactments. Relating to Piers, Harbours, etc.]:
6.12 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is one of the Amendments to leave out "North Ayrshire" and insert "Cunninghame" of uncertain spelling. I beg to move Amendment No. 90.
Amendment moved—
Page 227, line 8, leave out ("North Ayrshire") and insert ("Cunninghame").—(Lord Drurnalbyn.)
Clause 160 [Youth Employment Services]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 91:
Leave out Clause 160.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment removes the clause relating to the Youth Employment Service which was a contingency provision until the enactment of the Employment and Training Act 1973, which itself deals with the arrangements for the provision of the service by the new authorities. This was a contingency in case the other Act was not passed in the course of this Session. I beg to move.
Clause 164 [Public Libraries, Museums and Art Galleries]:
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER (LORD ROYLE): My Lords, I think I owe it to the House to point out that if Amendment No. 92 is carried the next two Amendments, Nos. 93 and 94, cannot be called.
6.12 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD moved Amendment No. 92:
Page 99, line 20, leave out from ("be") to end of line 23 and insert ("a regional or an island Council").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I moved this Amendment at the Committee stage but it was quite inade
226
quately discussed because we deált with it at about half-past one in the morning when there were very few people in the Chamber. I did not feel that I could do justice to the subject, nor was there a sufficient number of people to enter into the discussion. In my opinion it is quite different from the Amendment I spoke about yesterday, which was one to try to make the community councils as small and as local as possible. This refers to the library services for Scotland, and the Library Association, with whom I have had the honour to discuss this matter at great length, has given me a strong reason why the library services for the whole of Scotland should be based on the regions, although of course they will have to be decentralised and the services which will be given by the whole library service will be as personal and as closely associated with all the needs of the different areas, from the large cities down to the small communities, as can possibly be organised. In fact the difference between service to the public in making the regional authority responsible for it will be much greater than it could be if it were only a district function.
A great library must cover all sorts of subjects, technical, medical, historical, general, research and so on. That is what is required in a great library service in order to serve the people who are of the professions, people who are studying at universities and people who want to use books in the widest possible sense and who must have a large choice. There must also be a large amount of money in order to have a really great library service. In my submission, the best way to have a great library service is to have great libraries on which to draw for books. Comprehensive collections are to-day very expensive and require a big "catchment area", as it were, in order to stand up to the demand which will he made on them throughout the country. I do not think that can be done other than by having a regional centre, and a regional centre which can call on considerable finance.
Then there is the question of specialist organisations which require

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separate departments—science, technology, geology, sociology, the humanities, music, drama and so on. Then there are readers' requests for services which, in order to meet them, must be backed by a comprehensive collection of books and of catalogues which can be sent out to people and to localities so that they may be aware of where they can get the books, because clearly they cannot have them all in a small area.
There is also the question of the new techniques for libraries which operate only in the great libraries—the computer techniques and the routine processing and cataloguing of information which has to be known at the time in the area. All these are matters which need the library service to be of enormous importance to the whole of the population living in the region. I think that can best be done by making the regional authority responsible for the library. That would not mean that the regional authority would not spread its work throughout the existing libraries. In many big towns they have very good libraries and a great library service. In the smaller towns they also have libraries but they would be fed into by a bigger authority, commanding more money than could be done by having only a district authority.
It has also been suggested in opposition to my Amendment that one cannot have delivery on the basis on which it is to-day in many areas. In my own very rural area the library service has a delivery by library vans to any tiny hamlet that wants a book, and people can pick up books very successfully indeed. This would still be continued, but the source of the inspiration, the money and the management of the library would be in the region. In my area there will be a regional service; there will be a regional service in the Highlands and Islands and in the other areas, too. My plea to the Government is that they should consider this matter very carefully indeed, because it is something which I am sure would improve the whole library service. It will not divorce it from the people or from the cities that now have libraries, but will simply make it larger, better furnished and better organised on a regional basis.
My Lords, a point which my noble friend, Lord Perth, made to me when I
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moved the Amendment on Committee stage was that he was in favour of it so long as it did not interfere with museum services. I can assure him it does not affect the museum services because Section 164 refers in the first paragraph to
"the Public Libraries (Scotland) Acts, 1887 to 1955, in their application to libraries."
It does not say anything at all about museums. Museums are still local and very often a district responsibility, but in view of the fact that to have a library one must have a tremendous amount of money and expertise to draw on to make them all a regional responsibility—not just the three, namely, the Highland Borders and Dumfries and Galloway authorities—would be in the interests of everybody concerned. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, before my noble friend replies to this Amendment, as I am sure he will, I should like to ask one question. Can we ensure that as the Bill is written there will be a suitable agency arrangement for people to be able to borrow books from outside their district? I feel that this is rather important. On page 99, almost at the bottom of the page, it says that in connection with public libraries and museums.
"each regional council shall have a duty, in consultation with district councils within their region, to ensure that there is an adequate provision of facilities for the purposes of the said Act in that application for the inhabitants of their region."
This I feel is an important point. It is a function that should be handled at district level in order once again to keep close contact with the people who will use the libraries. In this case a regional headquarters can be too remote. I have a fear—and may I put this as a second question—that if this Amendment is accepted libraries might be connected with education in their regional functions. I feel that although people can get the benefit of education through libraries, the two, for once, should not be connected. I should like to preserve the districts a little, but I must ask the question.
6.23 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, told us, we went over this ground on the previous stage, though perhaps not quite so fully. She has tabled what I think is an identical Amendment.

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I do not want to spend too much time going over the ground again, but perhaps I can correct her recollection of the time. I see from the records that she came on to speak at one minute past midnight—I will not draw any comparisons with Cinderella. We must clear our minds on this matter. The noble Baroness made a very impassioned plea, if I may say so, on one particular aspect of this problem. I know that the views she presented to us represent the strongly held views of the Scottish Library Association, but these are not the universal views of those who work in the library profession in Scotland. We have had equally strong representation from members of the Burgh Libraries Association that the library responsibility should remain with the districts. That is the view we have held ever since it was originally put forward by Wheatley. We have listened to the many representations made since and have had many discussions, but remain of the view that the right place for the libraries is with the districts. In addition, we have had strong representations in this respect from the Convention of Royal Burghs who, it seems to me, have a considerable interest in the matter.
My Lords, with great respect I think there is no service more admirably suited for local control than libraries. The noble Baroness argued admirably, I thought, for the cause which I was trying to argue on various occasions yesterday, to the effect that centralisation was needed in order to secure the necessary resources. Nobody would listen to the cases I was putting forward yesterday. However, I was interested to find that this was more or less the argument deployed by the noble Baroness to-day in favour of having libraries away from districts and putting the responsibility with the regions. Of course, we must have some of these large libraries able to cater for the needs of the student, the scientist, the expert, and so on, but those are not all that we need. We want local libraries, and there are admirable ones in our burghs to-day. Libraries bring more homely and perhaps more palatable fare to ordinary people. They are very important.
There was a nice remark in a letter I received from the Town Clerk of East Kilbride pleading for the function to remain with the district. I will not say
230
what he said about the arguments concerning computerisation of stocks, et cetera, which probably is necessary in the central and major libraries, but he said:
"These arguments have no relevance to the situation in the burghs and a few districts where the books are where they should be—on the shelves and not in some vast county stock room from which they are extracted for the reader about a week after ordering."
That may be an exaggeration, but we must in Scotland have access to up-to-date works of all kinds. I submit that that can be achieved by better methods of centralised control within the region.
My Lords, under Clause 56 of the Bill two or more local authorities can combine to discharge their functions jointly. Therefore this could apply to the running of joint library services, and I am sure it will in some areas. There will be collaboration with the School Library Service. I do not see any problem coming from that. There is the interlibrary lending service of the Scottish Central Library. It seems to me that this might be a very economical way of securing the availability of the enormously large number of books, many of them specialised and not needed very frequently, to which we must have access to-day. While I appreciate the noble Baroness's very eloquent plea, I would submit to your Lordships that it is a piece of rather special pleading; it is not the unanimous view of those in the professions or indeed in local authority work. I would ask your Lordships to resist the Amendment.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, may I have permission to speak again to ask whether there can be arrangements to borrow books from other libraries? I did specifically ask that question.
LORD POLWARTH: Yes indeed, my Lords; there are at present and there will continue to be.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I am very disappointed at the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth. I, too, had the same letter from the Librarian of East Kilbride. It is absolute rubbish to say that books are left on library shelves if the libraries are controlled by the region. They will have just as good delivery, just as good contact. The local libraries will be fed by

231
the region, but they will be just as responsible as they would be if the service was directed entirely by the districts. That seems to me to be a very shortsighted view. I am sorry the Government are not prepared to look at this matter again. The whole of the Scottish Library Association, which is the most important body in library service in Scotland, is strongly in favour of having regional libraries. If the Government are not prepared to look at it again—and I have now twice moved it—I will withdraw the Amendment, but with great reluctance, because I think it is a shortsighted view of this particular service.
Amendment by leave, withdrawn.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move Amendment No. 93.
Amendment moved—
Page 99, line 21, leave out ("the regions of").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 94 is also drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 99, line 21, after ("Galloway") insert ("regions").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 170 [Burial grounds]:
6.37 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 96:
Page 101, line 15, at end insert—
("(2) The functions of councils under the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Acts 1925 and 1933 shall be transferred to and vest in islands and district councils in accordance with the amendments to those Acts set out in Part II of Schedule 27 to this Act")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment, and with it hang a number of subsequent Amendments, Nos. 112, 113, 115, 150, 154 and 158. No doubt it will relieve your Lordships to know that I am speaking to six Amendments at once. These Amendments may appear rather a formidable array. The aim is in fact extremely simple. The intention of them is first of all to repeal as much as possible of the Local Government Act 1894, the vast majority of whose provisions are in fact spent. However, in
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that Act parish councils were given powers in relation to property belonging to the Church and in particular to parish burial grounds. Under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929, powers previously relating to parish councils became the powers of county and town councils and Section 22 of the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act 1925, made certain provisions regarding burgh churches.
It is necessary to preserve the position of the Church of Scotland under these provisions in relation to church buildings and burial grounds which have been taken over by local authorities already, and to continue to allow local authorities to have certain functions in relation to burial grounds and other properties. These Amendments are solely to preserve the status quo by giving the powers to the new authorities as necessary. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, here again I am very grateful that this part of the Bill is tidying up the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1894 and also the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, both of which I thought were not very good.
Clause 172 [Miscellaneous functions, etc.]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment fitting the wording in the Bill more exactly to the wording of Section 13 of the Protection of Birds Act 1954. If noble Lords want further explanation I will endeavour to give it. I beg to move Amendment No. 97.
Amendment moved—
Page 102, line 5, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2) For the purposes of section 13 of the Protection of Birds Act 1954 (orders) the administrative area shall be the region, islands area or district.").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 180 [Reference of applications to regional planning authority]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 98 is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 108, line 38, leave out ("177(4)") and insert ("178(4)").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 183 [Miscellaneous planning functions]:
THE EARL OF BALFOUR THE EARL OF BALFOUR moved Amendment No. 99:
Page 109, line 27, leave out ("district planning functions") and insert ("functions of islands and district councils").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, what I am seeking to do by this Amendment is merely to change the word "planning" to the word "council", but unfortunately, because of drafting and to allow for islands councils, I must make the wording a little longer. Caravan sites and control of development is, I admit, a purely planning function, but there is also the question of caravan site licensing, which is an environmental health matter, and these licences concerning the amenities of caravan sites have to be enforced. That is the simple reason for this Amendment, and I hope it will be accepted by your Lordships, changing the words "district planning functions" to "functions of islands and district councils". It is purely to make certain that the environmental side is taken care of. I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, for the thought that he has given to this point. We have considered it since he raised it on a previous occasion and we have come to the conclusion that we would be glad to accept it.
Schedule 23 [Amendment of Enactments relating to Planning]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 100 corrects a drafting error. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 233, line 39, leave out ("1973") and insert ("1972").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD HOY: My Lords, obviously I do not want to delay the House, but perhaps the noble Lord will tell us why the Scottish Office get all their dates wrong.
6.40 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved Amendment No. 101:
Page 234, leave out lines 42 to 44 and insert—
("16. In section 11 (Inquiries, etc. with respect to local plans) the following amendments shall be made—

(a) in subsection (1) for the words "the local planning authority" there shall be substituted the words "the Secretary of State" and the words from "or, in such cases" to "themselves" shall be deleted;

(b) in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) the, words from "but as if in" to "a local authority" shall be deleted;

(c) subsection (2) shall be deleted.

17. In section 12 (Adoption and approval of local plans) the following amendments shall be made—

(a) subsection (3) shall be deleted;

(b) in subsection (4) for the words from "Where the Secretary" to "of this section" there shall be substituted the words "The local planning authority shall not adopt a local plan sinless it has been approved by the Secretary of State and";

(c) in paragraph (a) of subsection (4) there shall be added after the words "structure plan;"the words "and";

(d) in paragraph (b) of subsection (4) the words from "but he shall not" to "of the authority and" shall be deleted;

(e) paragraph (c) of subsection (4) shall be deleted.

18. In section 13(1) (alteration of local plans) the following amendments shall be made—

(a) after the word "authority" there shall be inserted the words "shall keep under review any local plan adopted by them and";

(b) the words from "and may at any time" to "approved by him" shall be deleted.")

The noble Duke said: My Lords, I think I ought first to apologise for the complexity of this Amendment. Secondly, I hope, but I am pretty sure in vain, that my noble friend will accept it with the same alacrity as he accepted the previous Amendment moved by the noble Earl. It would be a great encouragement to me if he did so.
I have been asked to raise this matter by various amenity societies in Scotland who are worried about the provisions of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1969, which has now been consolidated into the Town and Country Planning Act, 1972. Sections 11 to 13 are the parts that worry them. The 1969 Act was never brought into operation, and the relevant sections of the 1972 Act have not been brought into operation

235
either. Therefore, we still go on with an Article 8 direction from the Secretary of State for Scotland. This may not be entirely satisfactory but, in the opinion of the societies for which I am speaking, it is better than the procedure envisaged under the 1969 Act as consolidated into the 1972 Act. Presumably these provisions will not be brought into operation until after the new local government structure has been set up, so I think that it is reasonable to forget the present position and concentrate on the future and what will happen when this Bill comes into force.
The position will then be that planning functions in the Islands areas and in the Highlands, Borders, and Dumfries and Galloway Regions, will be performed by general planning authorities in the Islands or regional councils. In every other region planning functions will be split between regional planning authorities and district planning authorities; the former being the regional council and the latter the district council. The regional planning authority will be responsible for the structure plan, while the district planning authority will be responsible for the local plan and the granting of planning permission within the limit of the structure plan. The validity of the local plan, or of an alteration of it, cannot be questioned in any legal proceedings not brought within six weeks of the adoption or alteration. Thus the general and district planning authorities may produce their local plans, and grant planning permission, which would previously have required the approval of the Secretary of State, without any supervision by a third party, and where there is public inquiry they may appoint the Reporter, lead evidence before him, receive his report, and make the final decision themselves.
Of course there are some safeguards. In the case of a district planning authority the regional planning authority may call in the proposed local plan, or an application for planning permission, or even take over the functions of the district planning authorities, but then the same criticism of the authority acting as judge in its own cause would apply. The Secretary of State still has power to call in any application for planning permission and can exercise control in this way, but this is entirely a matter for him. One
236
can imagine all too easily that he might regard some applications as political "hot potatoes" best left untouched. The worry of the amenity societies is that the regional planning authorities would be judge and jury in their own cause. This procedure is copied from an untried English idea which was recommended in 1965 by the Government-appointed Planning Advisory Group and enacted in the planning Act 1968, which applied only to England and Wales. We all hope for more public participation in planning, and I am not sure that this would be achieved if these sections of the 1972 Act were brought into effect.
I suspect that this Bill is not really a suitable vehicle for this Amendment, but I would ask the Government for the following assurances: that they will not bring the relevant sections of the 1972 Act into operation before regionalisation, to use a perfectly horrible word; that they will see how the situation under the 1968 Act is working out in England and Wales before they take any steps to bring the relevant part of the 1972 Act into operation; that if public participation is reduced, or if planning authorities of whatever sort act as judge and jury in their own causes, they will amend the 1972 Act, as amended by this Act, as speedily as possible. I feel sure that this is not too much to ask, and I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell me that the assurances I want will be met. I beg to move.
6.45 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, the noble Duke has certainly been well and fully briefed on this subject and we have indeed been aware of some concern mainly on the part of certain of the amenity societies. We recognise that anxiety, but the noble Duke put his finger on the nub of it straight away when he suspected that this Bill was not the right place to make amendments to the planning law. Of course that is entirely the case. This is a new development plan system provided for in a very recent planning Act, and it is not yet in operation in Scotland although it is envisaged that it will come into operation very shortly.
In the circumstances, it would be quite wrong for me to give specific assurances regarding our intentions on the planning

237
Acts and their operation in connection with this Bill. We feel that the present planning legislation contains very adequate safeguards as to how far local planning authorities may go and how they should operate. The Secretary of State has adequate powers to intervene even in these local plans if he thinks it necessary, and I do not think that there will be too many political "hot potatoes". He has indicated in another place that he is ready to exercise these powers vigorously if it is clear that that course is desirable. I think that I should go no further to-day than to say that we shall watch the operation of the new system when it comes in, but that it does not seem to me that this Bill is the place to make any changes at the present time.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I must admit that I am a little disappointed by that reply. My noble friend said that this Act had only recently been passed, but it was in fact the 1969 Act, and the 1972 Act was a consolidation Act. If there had been great enthusiasm to bring these provisions into effect in the four years from 1969 that could have been done—although I am not encouraging my noble friend to do this, as he may have gathered from my original remarks. This is a matter of some concern to amenity societies m Scotland. I am grateful to my noble friend for saying that the Scottish Office will keep their eye on it, and I quite agree with him that this Bill is not really a suitable vehicle for amending the 1972 Act. I put down this Amendment purely to bring the disquiet of various bodies to the attention of the Government. With your Lordships' permission, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 187 [Minor and consequential amendments of Licensing (Scotland) Acts]:
6.48 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 102:
Page 113, line 1, at beginning insert—
("(1) The Secretary of State shall not make any order under section 31 of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1959 (supplementary and local provisions) as that section had effect immediately before the passing of this Act; and no alteration shall he made in any licensing court or court of appeal by reason of any increase or decrease of population until those courts
238
are reconstituted in terms of the said Act of 1959 as amended by subsequent enactments (including this Act).")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is to meet a short-term bridging situation until the local government provisions become operative. It is intended to avoid a short-term upset to the system of licensing courts by freezing the present position until the new courts provided for in Clause 186 of the Bill come into being in 1975. The position is that at present whether a small burgh has a county licensing court or not, and also the number of members, are matters governed by their population. All burghs over 7,000 population have separate licensing courts. As a means of establishing the population the Secretary of State is required, under one of the Licensing Acts, whenever the necessary information is available following a Census, to make an Order declaring the population of various areas, and this declaration governs the issue until the next Census comes along.
As it happens, the time is at hand now when normally the Secretary of State would make an Order following the 1971 Census, there being normally a delay of some two years before the figures are available. For two reasons we do not feel that the present circumstances are normal. The first is that any changes in the number of licensing courts would only be of short-term effect. They would probably have only four general half-yearly meetings between now and local government reform, when they would cease to exist as such. The second reason is that the provisional figures that we now have suggest there will be a rather unusually high number of changes resulting from changes in population, and it would involve the creation of quite a number of new licensing courts which would have only a short life of some 18 months or less. In the circumstances, we feel, especially as local government officials will be very busy with reorganisation, that it would be neither reasonable in the public interest nor fair to the officials to give them this further burden of establishing new courts, simply because of these population changes, for this very short period. I therefore hope that your Lordships will agree to this Amendment. I beg to move.
Schedule 25 [Relaxation of Controls]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 103:
Page 245, leave out lines 3 and 4.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment and a subsequent one, No. 148, remove references to the repeal of a section of an Act which has in fact already been repealed by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1973. I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 104:
Page 247, line 34, at end insert—
("The Weights and Measures Act 1963
In section 4(2) (local standards), after the word "kept" there shall be inserted the words "in such manner and under such conditions as the Secretary of State may direct", the words "and approved for the purpose by the Board" shall cease to have effect, and for the words "approved in that behalf by the Board" there shall be substituted the words "which appear to the authority to be appropriate".
in section 5(3) (working standards etc.), the words "and approved for the purpose by the Board" shall cease to have effect.
In section 44(1) (inspector's fees), the words "with the consent of the Board" shall cease to have effect.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a very technical Amendment. With its related ones—Nos. 165, 166 and 167—it concerns the relaxing of a number of further controls over local authorities contained in the Weights and Measures Act 1963 regarding such things as where they keep their working standards, matters of fees and other things. They are all matters in relation to which we feel the local authority does not need to be controlled so closely, and I hope your Lordships will accept that explanation. I beg to move.
LORD HOY: My Lords, may I say just one word on this Amendment? I do not know whether the nomenclature is correct, but my noble friend thinks that instead of their being weights and measures inspectors they are trading standards officers. I do not know whether that is the new nomenclature, but people do change their designations these days. We have no secretaries left: they are all director-generals or secretary-generals. I do not know whether this point has been looked at from that point of view. While that may be a minor point, I
240
should like the noble Lord to give us an assurance (because this particular part of public work is very important to the consuming public) that what we are doing here will in no way diminish the responsibility of the authorities to the customers who are in the shops.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I have no doubt that the noble Baroness is correct about the designation of the officer, but I am assured that the Act to which we are referring and with which we are dealing is the Weights and Measures Act still. I think I can genuinely assure the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, that none of these very minor changes regarding the Secretary of State having to approve the premises in which the local authorities keep their local standards, and this kind of thing, will affect the present position. It seems to me that we are not putting the consumer at risk in giving them these small extra responsibilities.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 105 is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 247, line 40, leave out ("of") and insert ("not exceeding").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 106:
Page 247, leave out lines 42 to 44.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is another correction because it is removing a reference which is duplicated as it at present appears. It appears also in Clause 144, and is not needed twice. I beg to move.
Clause 214 [Tweed Fisheries Commissioners]:
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 107:
Page 128, line 18. leave out ("Merse") and insert ("Berwickshire").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment and the three following ones are to take account of the change of district names made by your Lordships during the Committee stage. I am sure that your Lordships will be glad to heat that no representations have since been

241
received against the alterations to these names. I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 108.
Amendment moved—
Page 128, line 18, leave out ("Forest") and insert ("and Lauderdale").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Schedule 26 [Amendments of Tweed Fisheries Act 1969]:
6.55 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 109.
Amendment moved—
Page 250, line 15, leave out ("Merse") and insert ("Berwickshire").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords. I beg to move Amendment No. 110.
Amendment moved—
Page 250, line 28, leave out ("Forest") and insert ("and Lauderdale").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Schedule 27 [Adaptation and Amendment of Enactments]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 112 is consequential on the previous one on church buildings and burial grounds. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 253, line 45, at end insert—
("The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1894
.Sections 3 to 25 shall cease to have effect.
Sections 42 to 48 shall cease to have effect.
. In section 54, the definitions of "police burgh", "Public Health Acts", "Education Acts", and "burgh" shall cease to have effect.")—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 113.
Amendment moved—
Page 257, line 35, at end insert—
("The Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act 1925
In section 22 (burgh churches)—
(a) after subsection (2), there shall be inserted the following subsection—
"(2A) References in any scheme made under this section of this Act and in subsection (2) above to the magistrates or the town council of a burgh and to the burgh within which a burgh church is situated
242
shall, on and after 16th May 1975, be construed respectively as references to the council of the district and to the district within which that burgh church is situated.";
(b) in subsection (3), for the words "town council of the burgh" there shall be substituted the words "council of the district" and for the words "town council", where second occurring, there shall be substituted the words "district council";
(c) in subsection (4)—

(i) before the word "burgh", where second, third and fourth occurring, there shall be inserted the word "former";

(ii) the words "continue to" shall cease to have effect;

(iii) for the words "town councils of the said burghs" there shall be substituted the words "councils of the districts in which these churchyards are situated".

. In section 26 (transfer of parish churches etc.), for the word "parish" there shall be substituted the word "district".
. In section 28(4) (transfer of rights in parish churches etc.), for the words "town councils in their capacity as town" there shall be substituted the words islands and district".
. In section 32 (transfer of parish church-yards)—

(a) for the words "parish council", wherever occurring, there shall be substituted the words "islands or district council";

(b) subsection (3) shall cease to have effect;

(c) in subsection (4), the words "or other local authority", in each place where they occur, shall cease to have effect.

. In section 33 (preservation of monuments etc.), for the words "parish council", in both places where they occur, there shall be substituted the words "islands or district council".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 114 is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 258, line 16, leave out ("49(4)") and insert ("49(3) and (4)").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 115 also relates to churches and burial grounds. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 258, line 38, at end insert—
("The Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Amendment Act 1933
. In section 2(2) (transfer of certain churchyards)—

(a) for the words "county or burgh" there shall be substituted the words "islands area or district";

243

(b) the words from "or, in the case" onwards shall cease to have effect.").—(Lord Polwarth.)

LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 116:
Page 263, line 44, after ("14(1)") insert("—(a)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this and the subsequent Amendment are drafting Amendments to provide for the responsibilities of the new authorities in relation to the Protection of Birds Act and to the question of who may be authorised to take wild birds. It is purely a continuance of an existing provision. I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this Amendment, No. 117, is on the same subject. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 263, line 46, at end insert—
("(b) in the definition of "authorised person", in paragraph (b), for the words "local authority" there shall be substituted the words "islands or district council";
(c) in the definition of "local authority", for the words "county council and a town" there shall be substituted the words "regional, islands or district".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this again is a drafting Amendment, taking account of the fact that the definition of "crofting counties" in the 1955 Crofters (Scotland) Act relates to areas now being replaced by the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 264, line 17, at end insert—
("The Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955
In section 37(1) (interpretation), in the definition of "crafting counties", after the word "the" there shall he inserted the word "former".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the word "crofting" ceases to exist or whether it is still retained as an area which is regarded as a crofting county?
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I am not absolutely clear on this matter. I think that "crofting counties" as a definition probably ceases to exist. am sure it will continue to be in popular usage; but as we are abolishing counties it is difficult to retain crofting counties.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, none the less the area is important to those concerned.
LORD HOY: My Lords, perhaps I could occupy a few seconds of your Lordships' time, by which time the noble Lord will perhaps have read the note passed to him from the Box—provided they wrote it distinctly. The question raised by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, is of some importance and it may be that before we depart from this matter we may have an answer to the question. After all, there is no question that I can think of—especially in relation the crofting counties—that is unimportant. When making specific reference to it we should like to be assured that those concerned know what it is about as well as we. I have no doubt that the noble Lord will be happy now to get to his feet and give us the answer to the question.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention at that point. I can say to the noble Earl that I understand that the area is being retained and will still be referred to in that manner, nut there may be some redefinition of its boundaries in relation to local government reorganisation.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this Amendment, No. 119, corrects a printing error. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 264, line 25, leave out ("(4)") and insert ("(2)").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this again is a drafting Amendment, and I must express my gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, for spotting the omission that this rectifies. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 267, line 19, at end insert—
("In section 4 (saving for byelaws), for the words "subsection (5) of section 300 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947" there shall be substituted the words "section 202(3) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this Amendment, No. 121, is for the purpose of definition in the Post Office Act 1969

245
with regard to the new authorities. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 273, line 21, at end insert—
("The Post Office Act 1969
. In section 86, in the definition of "local authority", in paragraph (b), for the words "county council or a town" there shall be substituted the words "regional, islands or district".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this again is a drafting Amendment. In the Agricultural Act there is a specific reference to assistance in Orkney, so it is necessary to bring in a reference to "Islands area". I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 273, line 35, at end insert—
("In section 26(b), for the word "County", in both places where it occurs, there shall be substituted the words "Islands Area".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this again is a tidying-up Amendment. It removes a duplication of a reference to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, which appears also in paragraph 81 of Schedule 14 of the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 273, leave out lines 43 to 46.—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this Amendment, No. 124, is to ensure that the islands and district councils who will be responsible for enforcement of milk legislation shall be notified of milk tests. This is a function under the public health powers which is being given to them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved.
Page 274, line 22, at end insert—
(" . In section 4(2) (authority to be informed about milk tests), for the words from "county council" to "situated" there shall be substituted the words "islands or district council in Scotland ".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH LORD POLWARTH moved Amendment No. 125:
Page 274, line 31, at end insert—
("The Employment Agencies Act 1973
. In section 13(1) (interpretation), the following amendments shall be made—
246

(a) in the definition of "licensing authority", in paragraph (f), for the words from "a large burgh" onwards there shall be substituted the words "an islands area, the council of that islands area, and in any other case the council of the district in which the premises are situated";

(b) in the definition of "local authority", for the words from "Scotland" onwards there shall be substituted the words "Scotland, means a regional, islands or district council".").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is necessary because of the passing since this Bill was introduced of the Employment Agencies Act 1973, in which there is a reference to local authorities. This confers on district and islands councils the function of licensing, inspection and control of employment agencies. I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, the same applies to this Amendment, No. 126, except that the reference in this case is to the passage of the Badgers Act 1973. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 274, line 31, at end insert—
("The Badgers Act 1973
. In section 11 (interpretation), in the definition of "local authority", in paragraph (c), for the words "a county or a burgh" there shall be substituted the words "an islands area or district".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD HOY: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Arran, I should like to express his pleasure.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, once more we have new legislation, in this case the Hallmarking Act 1973, where there is provision for local inquiries; and again we have to provide for the relevant local authorities.
Amendment moved—
Page 274, line 31, at end insert—
("The Hallmarking Act 1973
193. In section 20 (local inquiries), in subsection (1)(b), for the words "subsections (2) to (9) of section 355 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947" there shall be substituted the words "subsections (2) to (8) of section 211 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973".").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 217 [Transfer of Officers]:
7.8 p.m.
LORD HOY LORD HOY moved Amendment No. 127A:
Page 131, line 12, at end insert—
("( ) This section shall apply to such persons in the employment of voluntary agencies as the Secretary of State may prescribe.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I move this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Hughes. It raises a very important point. Apparently in the course of a meeting some time ago my honourable friend Mr. Bruce Milian, Member for the Craigton Division of Glasgow, ran into what he regarded as a social problem involving the employment of many men working in Glasgow or Ayr. He felt so strongly about it that he communicated with the Secretary of State for Scotland; so the Scottish Office is aware of the reason for this Amendment. Apparently the provisions of the Social Work (Scotland) Act did not provide protection for welfare workers concerned, since they were employed by a voluntary agency, although in fact they were to work for a local service for which the local authority have a statutory responsibility. It seems that a similar difficulty may arise with local government reorganisation. The new regional authorities may decide at some time that they wish to take over the full responsibility for blind welfare as a direct service. They may also take a similar view about welfare for the deaf as another example.
In those circumstances it seems to us that there ought to be some protection in the Local Government Bill so that the workers concerned and others in a similar position would have some rights against the local authorities. In other words, if in fact these changes have to be made, the penalties ought not to be imposed on the workers alone. If local authorities choose to make these changes with regard to employment, at least the workers should have some entitlement to compensation or other benefits that may ensue. It is because of the case which my honourable friend raised that these Amendments were put down on the Marshalled List, and we shall certainly be interested to see what consideration the Scottish Office has given to this particular problem. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, for bringing this particular case to the attention of the House. We are aware of the case he has mentioned, in connection I think with Ayr County Council, and we are watching it—we have had representations—because in this case the authority dispensed with the arrangement previously in existence with a voluntary society in connection with welfare of the blind. There are of course a number of different arrangements of this kind made by different authorities with voluntary agencies to carry out a function, in part or in whole, for them, and I think we are all agreed that this is a desirable thing in many cases. There are, on the other hand, other authorities which perfectly properly feel that they can provide certain of these services entirely off their own bat, and they are doing so and may in future decide to do so.
We have every sympathy with the intention of the Amendment, but I think it would be a little difficult to write into this Bill specific provisions that would cover any cases of this kind. The form of relationships between local authorities and the voluntary bodies varies very much. As to the degree of financial support, how much of it you can say is really as it were, contract work, and how much of it has a voluntary element involved. The variety of arrangements with the different cases, different authorities and different voluntary agencies would make it very difficult to place a statutory requirement on the local authority to give them the same fairly rigid degree of protection that is afforded to local authority employees—and quite rightly afforded I think. For instance if there were an obligation to compensate them for loss of employment, there could be hesitation by local authorities to take these agencies into their service. There is also the technical difficulty that this is the Bill to deal with reform of local government. The clauses here dealing with staff are all related to local government employees and I think it would be very difficult to bend them far enough to include employees of voluntary organisations. None of that, however, means that we are not very aware of this problem, and we shall watch closely to see whether there are cases needing attention in one way or another. But I would submit to your Lordships

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that it would be wrong to try to do this in a statutory manner in this particular Bill.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I appreciate the points the noble Lord has made and I admit right away that there is always difficulty if you provide for a statutory obligation, even on an organisation that may very well be disappearing in the process of time. On the other hand, I think it is important that Parliament should look after the people who are not going to be provided for, and I am grateful for what the noble Lord said in the concluding sentences of his argument: that in fact we can have an assurance that this matter will be kept closely under review, as indeed I should have expected as a result of the case I have already referred to, it having been drawn to the attention of the Scottish Office. I should have thought that that is the kind of thing that we do not want to happen in Scotland. I am grateful for the assurance and would therefore beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 221 [Provision for early retirement in lieu of compensation for loss of office]:
7.13 p.m.
LORD HOY LORD HOY moved Amendment No. 129:
Page 134, line 14, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
(" (2)(a) Where a person has made an election under subsection (1) above the body under whom he holds office or by whom he is employed may within the period of one month beginning on the day on which the notice of election is given, gives notice to him objecting to the election.
(b) A person to whom notice of objection is so given may within the period of one month beginning on the day on which the notice of objection is given appeal to the staff commission for Scotland established under section 217 of this Act and unless the objection is withdrawn the staff commission for Scotland shall, after giving the parties an opportunity to state their case determine whether or not the appeal against the objection should be allowed.
(c) Where a person has made an election under subsection (1) above to which objection is not taken in accordance with paragraph (a) by the body under whom he holds office or is withdrawn before an appeal is determined or where an appeal made by him against an objection duly made is allowed by the staff commission for Scotland, this section shall and section 218 of this Act shall not apply to him on his retirement within the prescribed period and before attaining normal retiring age.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think this is a matter which has also already been drawn to the attention of the Scottish Office. Here the employee may decide to retire before a particular period. Indeed, while he has not the right, he may well opt to retire earlier than might be normal. Now this course can be approved, provided the employer gives it his stamp of approval; but if the employer decides that the employee ought not to be allowed to retire, then there is no method by which the employee can make an appeal against what would be the decision of the local authority. As I understand it, this Bill provides for a Commission which will look into the matter, and this Amendment suggests that instead of the decision being left with the employer only, the employee should have the right of appeal to the Commission and that its decision would then be final: thus it would be seen to be fair as between the local authority and the employee. I should have thought that this suggestion must have some appeal to your Lordships' House, that in fact we are appointing what might be described as an arbiter, a judge, to judge as to who is right as between the local authority and the employee. I think there is a fair amount of sense in making a provision of this kind, and if it is to be turned down on this occasion I would think the Scottish Office would need to have ready a fairly comprehensive reply, because it seems to me that we are not asking very much with this Amendment, but merely what would be just and fair to the employees in local government service. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, we are indeed aware of this problem and that representations have been made in some quarters. Of course the reason for making a provision for objection to an application for early retirement is to guard against the possibility—admittedly probably not a great one, but nevertheless a probability—that in the course of reorganisation a number of officers might choose early retirement simultaneously, and in such a way as to put in jeopardy the business of the incoming authority. For whatever reason they chose to opt for early retirement, if there was a mass

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exodus at that time there could be problems. The views of the officers concerned as to their future prospects might not be at all correct; they might be a lot better than they might be thought to be.
I do not think that authorities would want to use this veto to any great extent, and it would be very unlikely, except in a most abnormal situation, that a senior officer would be compelled to stay on when he wanted to retire. We felt that in the circumstances it was not necessary to provide a right of appeal against an objection to retire; that this was a matter for management, and management in the form of the new authority administration, and that the decision should be left to them, that they should be trusted to make a proper decision in cases of this kind. I think it is perhaps a slight slur on the reputation of local authorities as employers to suggest that they would not make reasonable and fair decisions.
My Lords, there is another problem over this Amendment; that is the suggestion of the noble Lord—and it sounds a very reasonable suggestion—to bring in the Staff Commission as the arbiter, the court of appeal. The Staff Commission is of course already in existence but it does not, and should not, have any executive function, and as constituted it is an entirely advisory body. Therefore the only way that it could be dealt with would be to have the appeal to the Secretary of State and to use the Staff Commission as his adviser. I am sure that technically that is the only way it could operate. I therefore suggest that, while I think we all have sympathy with people who might be in this position, it might be a mistake at this stage to carry an Amendment which has this fault in it regarding the nature of the Staff Commission and its functions and abilities, and we should leave it to the discretion of local authorities to act as good employers, as we all hope they will be.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I would not disagree that in the main local authorities are good employers, but what the noble Lord is saying is that the decision as to whether a person can or cannot retire is to be left with the local authority. It seems to me that there ought to be a little more than that in it for the employee. I
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would it put it in this way. As some of your Lordships know, I have had a lifelong connection with the Trustee Savings Bank. A few years ago we decided to introduce a whole system of computerisation (if that is the right word), and we had a number of employees who were getting to the age when it was possible for them to retire without going to the maximum. I refer, of course, to the period between 60 and 65. It seemed to many of them that it would a foolish exercise, if they had already reached the age of 60 or over, to go in for this complete training when by the time that they had finished it they would have reached retirement age. They regarded it as a great waste of effort and time. They therefore chose to retire. We did not have the power, nor should we have used it if we had, to say to them: "You cannot go; we need you." This has been the argument of the noble Lord. He said that local authorities will find themselves in difficulty if these people go, and so local authorities will be saying to them: "We will be in difficulty. You are not to go." That seems to me to be taking it a little too far.
I made the suggestion about the Commission, but it may well be that it would have to be done through the Secretary of State or someone else. I do not want to take this to a Division if it can be settled amicably. I should have thought that the Government would do well to have a look at this to see the actual working and what is happening. I should not like the House to let this Bill go without at least being able to give some verbal assurance to the people concerned that we will look after this particular point. I agree with the noble Lord that local authorities, on the whole, behave well to their employees. But we can have difficult local authorities; we can have difficult noble Lords at times, too, and we cannot legislate against them. What I should like is an assurance that if it should arise more particular attention will be paid to this problem. If the noble Lord is able to give me that assurance then I shall seek to withdraw the Amendment.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, would this not be covered by Clause 219(1)(c), where it says:
"…advising the Secretary of State on the steps necessary to safeguard the interests of such staff."
LORD HOY: My Lords, I have had experience of somebody getting up and referring to Clause 219(1)(c), and I know how difficult it is to answer on the spur of the moment. However, there may be something in that point, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Polwartn, will look at it. However, if he can look at that and also give me the assurance I want, we can get on with the business.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I will indeed look at the point raised by my noble friend Lord Selkirk, but I am hound to say that on a quick reading of that provision I should not have thought it applied to individual cases, but to general interests of classes of employees and so on. The noble Lord, Lord Hoy, spoke about the question of retirement at some time between 60 and 65. But we are here considering a rather different case, not of people who have reached the bracket of normal retirement, but of people who want to go early and in the process are entitled to retirement benefits which we think are fairly generous. If it will help the noble Lord and allay his fears, I can say that we will be prepared to recommend to local authorities that they should make use of their powers of objecting only as a last resort. We will certainly bring this to their attention. This is probably the most sensible way to handle this problem.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I may say that I was using the 60 to 65 period because I thought it would be better to use an example that would be understood. I am grateful to the noble Lord for that assurance, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 225 [Property commission for Scotland]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 130 is purely a matter of clarification in relation to the use of the term "water board". I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 139, line 33, at end insert—
("(7) In the foregoing provisions of this Part of this Act "water board" means a regional water board or a water development board, or both, as the context may require."). —(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 226 [Local Acts and instruments]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 131 removes the reference to a local telephone undertaking in Scotland for the simple reason that there are no such undertakings. The Post Office telephone comes under a different category, and while I believe there is one local undertaking South of the Border, there are none North of it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 142, line 16, leave out ("any telephone undertaking").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Schedule 28 [Amendments of Burgh Police (Scotland) Acts 1892 to 1911]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 132, and Amendments Nos. 133, 134, 135, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 151, 152 and 153, I can speak to together. I will simply say that they are a number of small drafting Amendments to the Burgh Police (Scotland) Acts from 1892 to 1911 which have been picked up in the course of consideration of the Bill and which it was considered simpler to lay together as a composite Amendment. If any noble Lord wants to query any particular Amendment, I will do my best to meet his doubts. I beg to move.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I do not want to object, but would it be in order for me to make the suggestion at this stage that if we are going to have all these Amendments together it would save a considerable amount of time if they could be put together? I do not know whether that can be done.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, if that is in order, as I understand it is, I should like to proceed by moving Amendments Nos. 132 to 135 inclusive. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 279, line 26,. at end insert—
(" . In section 330, for the words "burgh general assessment" there shall be substituted the words "general or district rate".").
Page 280, line 1, leave out paragraph 54.
Page 280, line 9, leave out from ("authority") to end of line 12 and insert ("and for paragraph (4) there shall be substituted the words "and the islands or district council

255
may from time to time make byeiaws and issue notices and orders prohibiting or regulating public processions.".").
line 35, after ("from") insert (" "and").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 138 to 145 inclusive are all in connection with the Burgh Police Act. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 281, line 12, leave out ("in both places") and insert ("in each place")
Page 281, line 27, leave out ("islands or district council") and insert ("local highway authority")
Page 281, line 35, after ("court") insert ("as the case may be")
Page 282, line 3, at end insert—
("( ) for the word "town", where first occurring, there shall be substituted the word "district".")
Page 282, line 6, at end insert ("the")
Page 282, line 13, leave out ("(1)") and insert ("(2)").
Page 284, line 17, leave out from ("an") to ("council") in line 18 and insert ("the council of an islands area or district")
Page 284, line 20, leave out ("an islands or district council") and insert ("area of the said council").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 234 [Orders, rules and regulations]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 146 corrects an omission. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 146, line 23, leave out ("or 212") and insert ("212 or 222").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Clause 237 [Savings]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 147 again is drafting due to the passage of Acts. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 149, line 2, leave out ("1972") and insert ("1973 ").—(Lord Polwarth.)
Schedule 29 [Repeals]:
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 148 is consequential on Amendment No. 103 I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 285, leave out lines 25 and 26.—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendment No. 149A replaces a previous Amendment No. 149 which has now been withdrawn. The references in this Amendment repeal provisions of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 which have been overtaken by the provisions of other Acts or by this Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 285, column 3, leave out lines 53 and 54 and insert—
("In section 11, subsections (1), (3) and (5).
Section 14.
Section 16.
Sections 39 to 42.
Section 58.
Section 67.").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 150, and I will speak to Amendments Nos. 154 and 158.
Page 286, column 3, leave out lines 45 and 46 and insert—
("Sections 3 to 25.
Sections 42 to 48.
In section 54, the definitions of "police burgh", "Public Health Acts", "Education Acts" and "burghs".").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, although these Amendments appear to be a formidable array, their aim is in fact very simple. The intention is first of all to repeal as much as possible of the Local Government (Scotland) Act. The vast majority of the provisions are static. In Section 36 of the Act of 1894 parish councils were given powers in relation to property belonging to the church in particular in regard to parish burial grounds. Under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 the powers previously related to parish councils became the powers of the county and town councils. Section 22 of the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act 1925 made certain provisions regarding burgh churches. It is necessary to preserve the position of the Church of Scotland under these provisions in relation to church buildings and burials grounds which have been

257
taken over by local authorities already and to continue to allow local authorities to have certain functions in relation to such burial grounds and other properties. These Amendments to the 1894 Act and to the Church of Scotland Property and Endowments Acts are solely to preserve the status quo by putting the powers presently exercised by county and burgh councils on the new district and island councils. I beg to move.
LORD HOY: My Lords, all I want to say is that having heard that speech for the second time in the last 20 minutes I must say that the clarity with which it was delivered on this occasion made me understand it a little better. We are grateful.
Page 289, line 58, at end insert—

("15 & 16 Geo, 5.

The Church of Scotland (Property c.33.and Endowments) Act 1925.

In section 22(4), the words "continue to".

In section 32, subsection(3), and in subsection (4), the words "or other local authority" in each place where they occur."

—(Lord Drumalbyn.)

LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 155 and the next Amendment are drafting Amendments to correct an error in the order of the Repeal Schedule entry for the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 290, line 5, column 3, at end insert ("and in subsection (7), the words "subject to payment of the prescribed fee".").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 156 repeals the whole of Section 49(c) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act and consequential to the addition to the Bill in Committee of Clause 116(6). I beg to move.
Page 291, line 32, at end insert—

("23 — 24 Geo. 5.

The Church of Scotland (Property c. 44. and Endowments) Amendment Act 1933.

In section 2(2), the words from "or, in the case" onwards."). —(Lord Drumalbyn.)

LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 159 and Amendment No. 160 are drafting Amendments to repeal a Schedule which wrongly contains an entry for Section 18(2) of the
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 151, 152 and 153 are a further series of drafting Amendments to the Burgh Police Act previously referred to. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 288, line 30, column 3, after ("from") insert ("and").
Page 288, line 43, column 3, after ("words") insert ("the").
Page 288, line 50, column 3, after ("court") insert (", as the case may be").—(Lord Polwarth.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 154 is another of the Church Amendments. I beg to move.
Amendment moved —
Amendment moved—
Page 290, column 3, leave out lines 11 to 13.
—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, what I have just said in regard to the last Amendment applies to Amendment No. 157 as well. As I said before, Amendments Nos. 155 and 156 deal with the same point. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 290, leave out lines 51 to 55 and insert—
("Section 49(3) and (4)").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 158 is another Church Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Water (Scotland) Act 1967, rather than Section 18(2) of the Water (Scotland) Act 1946. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 292, line 41, column 3, at end insert —("Section 18(2)").—(Lord Drumalbyn.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 160 follows on paragraph 9 of Schedule 9 as amended in Committee and deals with the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947 and makes minor amendments. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 293, line 57, at end insert ("(f)").— (Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, Amendment No. 161 is a consequential Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 296, line 11, column, 3 before ("Section 30.") insert—
("In section 11(2)(b), the words "or, in Scotland, each electoral division".").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
7.40 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved Amendment No. 162:
Page 297, line 31, column 3, leave out ("subsections (2) to (4),") and insert (" subsection (3)")
The noble Duke said: My Lords, I am afraid that this galloping process may come to a slight halt, though I hope no more than down to a canter. This is a very simple Amendment and I can explain it briefly. The Bill as it stands repeals subsections (2), (3) and (4) of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act 1951. My Amendment would I repeal only Section 10(3) of that Act. Subsection (2) provides that a board must appoint a river inspector. Subsection (4) provides that:
"A person may be appointed a river inspector for two or more Purification Board areas."
but a board must not appoint as river inspector for that area a person who is an official of the council of any county or burgh whose district is comprised wholly or partly in the area. I am not particularly enamoured by the last part of subsection (4) and I see little reason why that should not go, but I should have thought that the provisions that a board should appoint a river inspector and that if convenient two boards may share a river inspector were useful. I am wondering why the Government should wish to repeal these two particular subsections of Section 10 of the 1951 Act. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the point here is quite clear, namely, that in general the power to appoint such officers as they think fit is left to the authorities concerned, and a great many of the mandatory provisions requiring the appointment of special officers are repealed—these are left to the bodies concerned. The new Section 10(1), contained in paragraph 2 of Schedule 16, enables a river purification board to appoint such officers as they think necessary for the proper discharge by the hoard of their functions. This subsection is clearly wide enough to enable a board to make whatever appointments they wish, and there is no sufficient ground for retaining the office of river inspector as a statutory appointment, particularly as at the present time, for example, the Lower Clyde and Forth Boards both call their chief river inspectors by other names. The fact is that the name "river inspector" is now out of date. The inspector now has to deal with many other responsibilities, including managerial ones, and he will be the "proper officer", to use the term of the Bill, so far as the river purification boards are concerned.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I need not say I am not particularly enamoured of the title of river inspector and I am quite prepared to accept what my noble friend says. Before asking leave to withdraw my Amendment, however, I should just like to ask the Minister whether he anticipates that the boards will appoint an inspector or officer, by whatever name he is known—because I do think this is an essential matter.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, my Lords, they are bound to have an executive officer of some kind.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.43 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 163:
Page 300, line 40, column 3, at end insert—("In section 168(1), the words" or other area".").
The noble Lord said: This is a purely technical Amendment which rectifies an omission in Schedule 29 dealing with the keeping by the sheriff's clerk for each county or other area of a register of clubs

261
registered to supply liquor. The omission came to light as a result of an Amendment which was put down at Committee stage by my noble friend Lord Balfour, and we are much indebted to him for his energy and diligence in this matter.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 164:
Page 300, line 43, column 3, at end insert—
("In section 175(1), the words from" or, if the premises "to" to a magistrate "and the words" or magistrate".").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is another purely technical Amendment and rectifies yet another error which was discerned by my my noble friend Lord Balfour. He did not put down an Amendment at that time, on the understanding that an Amendment to this effect would be moved by the Government at Report stage. The effect of it is that references in paragraph 19 of Schedule 24 to a burgh magistrate should cease to have effect. Reference should accordingly be made in Schedule 29 to the repeal of the relevant words, as the Amendment proposes.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for having moved this Amendment. I thought he could move it a good deal more quickly than I could.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendments Nos. 165 to 167:
Page 302, line 42, at end insert—
("In section 4(2), the words" and approved for the purpose by the Board".").
Page 302, line 44, at end insert—
("In section 5(3), the words" and approved for the purpose by the Board".").
Page 302, line 49, at end insert—
("In section 44(1), the words" with the consent of the Board".").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments 165, 166 and 167 together deal with the Weights and Measures Act. They remove the need for the con-
Page 310, line 3, at end insert—

("1969 c. 41.

The National Mod (Scotland) Act 1969.

The whole Act".)

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment repeals the National Mod Act. I may say that it has been done
262
sent of the Board in certain cases. I beg to move these Amendments.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 168:
Page 304, line 13, at end insert—("Section 11(3)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Section 11 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act provides for a grant to local authorities for expenditure due to immigrant population. Subsection (3) defines "local authority" for this purpose. A separate definition from the main definition in Section 46(1) of the Act will not be necessary following local government reorganisation. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move Amendment No. 169.
Amendment moved—
Page 305, leave out line 49.—(Lord Drumalbytz.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is also a drafting Amendment. I beg to move Amendment No. 170.
Amendment moved—
Page 306, line 12, at end insert—("In Schedule 2, paragraph 13").—(Lord Drumalbyrn.)
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 171:
Page 307, column 3, leave out lines 42 to 44.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment consequential upon an Amendment made during the Report stage in another place, the effect of which is to retain the need for the Secretary of State's approval to applications by local authorities or voluntary organisations for the emigration of children under care. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 172:
with the consent of the author of that Act. Also, An Comunn have been informed of the proposal and they agree that the

263
Act no longer seems to be necessary. The present Bill makes two major changes in the position of contributions made by local authorities to entertainment. At the present time Section 132 provides that contributions may be made by a local authority only where the entertainment concerned is either within its own area or in a place convenient for residents of that area. The power is now given, and the present Bill replaces this with the new Regional Highlands area and district councils, and gives these councils the power to incur expenditure for cultural or recreational purposes, whether inside or outside their own area, without further conditions. Therefore, the National Mod Act is no longer necessary.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 173:
Page 312, column 3, leave out lines 17 to 22.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I may inform your Lordships that lines 17 to 22 duplicate lines 10 to 16. I beg to move.
Clause 239 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 174. This is a consequential Amendment to Clause 239.
Amendment moved—
Page 149, line 34, after ("214") insert ("and paragraph 64 of Schedule 17").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SUCCESSOR PARISHES) ORDER 1973
7.49 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Local Government (Successor Parishes) Order 1973, laid before the House on June 29 last (S.T. 1973 No. 1110), be annulled. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The Local Government Act, 1972, reorganised the areas and
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functions of district and county councils and, as a consequence, most towns and cities lose their individual status, being absorbed by amalgamations. Provision has been made in certain instances, however, for the setting up of what are known as successor parish councils, and the Local Government Boundary Commission was required to make proposals accordingly. These successor parishes are intended to be places with a clearly distinguishable community and, in general, they should have a population of up to approximately 20,000 people and a representation on the district council of less than 20 per cent. of the new district of which they form a part. Their councils will have the same powers as existing parish councils will enjoy under the new Act. The Act gives them the right to adopt town status and to continue to have a town mayor.
Borough and urban district councils were invited in January 1973 to consider whether they wished to apply to a parish council for the whole or any part of their area, having regard to guidelines issued to the Local Government Boundary Commission by the Secretary of State for the Environment, as detailed in paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England Report No. 3. May I here pay a tribute to the clarity of that Report and acknowledge the work that the Commission have undertaken, even if I may seem to be rather dissatisfied with the conclusions to which they have come, believing them to be too limited. I believe the total number of authorities which applied for successor parish status was something over 400. The Local Government Boundary Commission reported on May 31, 1973, and recommended that 269 urban districts or boroughs in non-metropolitan and metropolitan counties should be so constituted and this Order is the outcome. This has left a considerable number of dissatisfied applicants. Among them I believe are boroughs like Andover, Barnstaple, Chichester, Darwen and Truro; and urban districts like Wellington (Salop), Newton Abbot, Felixstowe, Denby Dale, Colne Valley, Potters Bar, Winsford, Saddleworth, Holmfirth, Meltham and Westhoughton, to mention a few. Quite a number of them wrote to me before I tabled this Motion and some since I tabled it.
I fully appreciate that the Secretary of State for the Environment has shown an awareness of this dissatisfaction and discontent, and that consequently he requested the Local Government Boundary Commission in August to consider the representations he had received following the publication of their Report No. 3 to which I have referred, and the Order which is the subject of this debate. It may therefore be asked why to-night I am pursuing my Motion since those aggrieved can have their claims further considered, with the possibility of a further Order being laid to give them the advantage they seek of retaining elected parish councils on the changeover to the new local government system next April. The reason is that Orders of this kind cannot be amended, and if there is to be any worthwhile review of what ought to be done, the time is surely now, before any further Order is laid.
I shall content myself with reference to only a few of the authorities who feel strongly that they ought to have the status of successor parish councils. First, may I mention Chichester, a city which has a history which goes back to pre-Roman times. My noble friend Lord Stow Hill will have something further to add on that aspect of the claims of that city. It has that lovely cathedral; and lately the creation of the Chichester Festival Theatre has brought to the city added lustre and interest. I was there recently on a market day, and once again was very impressed that here was a place which very definitely has its own identity. It is not just another commercial sales centre of concrete and glass, it has its own individuality, character and traditions; and on the occasion of which I speak I was impressed by the citizens who were collecting signatures for a petition supporting the application for parish status. It seemed to me they gave meaning to the claim that Chichester "has enjoyed the privilege of self-government" since 1135, when the granting of its Charter is first recorded.
I believe that here is a case where the application for successor parish status should be conceded and ought to have been included in this present Order. Certainly if the guidelines set out in Report No. 3 on pages 1 and 2, paragraph 3, section 2, are to be taken at face value, Chichester's case is indeed a very
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powerful one. It has a population of 20,649. This is certainly slightly in excess of 20,000, but paragraph (a) of Section 2 reads: "no absolute maximum figure is prescribed". And in this very Order parish status is being accorded to Leighton-Linslade with a population of 20,550; Wokingham, with a population of 21,300; Chesham, with a population of 20,480, and at Golborne, the two wards of Culcheth and Newchurch have been granted parish status with a population of 28,290.
True, Chichester will have 11 representatives among the 50 members of the new district council which includes, in addition to Chichester itself, a substantial part of the present Chichester rural district, the Midhurst rural district and Petworth—places where, it should be noted, there are existing parish councils where there is a population of any size at all. Surely, having regard to the architectural riches, the buildings which bear testimony to the part the city has played in the past and present, Chichester is entitled to consultation through an elected local council with a power to consult on planning matters, with the same opportunity as those smaller parishes to which I have referred. Paragraph (b) of Section 2 reads:
"If the town comprised more than one-fifth of the population of the district it would not normally qualify for parish status."
But we are also informed, "no rigid limit is suggested". The position here, so far as Chichester is concerned, is indeed very marginal.
On the other criteria it seems to me there can be no argument. May I just make a further point on the mayoralty. The alternative to having an elected council, which in turn elects its mayor, would be in Chichester for the 11 new district councillors acting as Charter Trustees to choose one of their number to hold that office. That is a procedure that adds nothing to the dignity of the chief citizen of a town. It has been said elsewhere that a mayor without the support of any council with powers, albeit the limited powers of a parish council, could be something of a nonentity. I can recall what nonentities Portreeves became when they had no council to which they were responsible.
The noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, I am very glad to say, will be

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speaking later and adding what I am sure will be a very influential voice, from more local knowledge and experience than I have, to the points that I have tried to make. I know that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester would have spoken had he been present. Indeed, he has written to me and said:
"I would have indeed wished to support your plea, and would be glad if you could quote my advocacy of its case.
"Chichester has strong claims, not only for its antiquity, but because of its strong and varied modern community life … the cathedral, as a centre of the diocese which embraces the whole of Sussex, is approaching its 900th anniversary. It is an educational centre. It is a cultural centre with its own Festival Theatre. It has been the home of the County Regiment throughout its separate existence; and of course it is the administrative centre of the County of West Sussex."
The Bishop goes on at length and I am cutting short what he had to say, but may I quote him just a little further:
"But above all … it is an extremely lively and varied community with its own characteristics, and it could not be merged into a wider area of government without destroying much of its civic life and vitality. … To us in Chichester it seems unthinkable that this City should be deprived of an independent status within the wider framework on what must appear to be purely technical grounds. We have a very strong case for consideration, and I want to add all my support to the plea you are making."
I hope due note will be taken of what the Bishop has had to say.
The noble Viscount, Lord Monck, will I believe be speaking in regard to the particular claims of Andover, so I shall not touch on that. I will turn to a quite different part of the country: Yorkshire. My noble friend Lord Rhodes would certainly have spoken to-day if he could possibly have been present. I am sure he would have urged very strongly that Saddleworth should have parish council status, and if a further Order does not meet that claim I venture to think the House will be hearing something from him. I put it to the Minister that surely the case that the Saddleworth Urban District Council submitted met substantially the whole of the criteria laid down in the Guidelines. Its population of 21,260 is marginally above the 20.000 figure, but it is less than one-tenth of the new Oldham Metropolitan District, and I have already pointed out that others with populations in excess of
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20,000 have been successful. I am sure the Minister knows of the great disappointment felt in this part of the country, and the revival of hope that successor parish status will now be granted to places such as Colne Valley, Denby Dale, Holmsfirth and Meltham, among others. I could detail their claims, but at this stage I will content myself by saying they are places which seek to preserve the identity of local communities and to retain some measure of self-government. One hopes their claims will be given not only a further hearing but a most sympathetic hearing, and that when a further Order is laid their names will be included. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Local Government (Successor Parishes) Order 1973, laid before the House on 29th June last (S.I. 1973 No. 1110), be annulled.—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
8.6 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I should like to say a few words in support of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, especially in the case of Chichester. I know I may be reproached for special pleading, but I think it is the duty of Parliamentary representatives to plead for special cases and for minorities which might otherwise be swallowed up in the quicksands of Civil Service departments and put away in pigeonholes. Chichester is my home town and it really has a very remarkable history and (if one can say this of a town), as a result, a personality particular to itself. If it has a certain civic pride and has applied for parish council status, I think this is justified both on its past history and on how it is moving with the times at present: one can look at the new theatre which has been built, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and its tremendous archælogical interest, discoveries and pursuits.
It may astound the Minister to hear that we believe that the City of Chichester started before St. John wrote the Book of Revelations, so you can go back quite a lone way in its beginnings. It was occupied by the Romans in 43 under Vespasian, and we have a relic of the Roman Wall still there. It then was under the Saxon Kings and obtained its name from one of the Saxon Kings' sons,

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Cissa; hence, Chichester or the Custra Cissa. Then the Danes came, and the legend of King Canute and the waves and his courtiers is supposed to have taken place in Chichester Harbour. Then under the Norman rule it acquired its first Bishop, St. Wilfred, and the cathedral started to be built in 1043. It doubled its numbers and flourished as a trading centre. Its first Charter was given to it in 1135 by King Stephen. The last Charter, interestingly enough, relates to when the Corporation Act was passed in 1835. The first mayor of Chichester dates from 1239. Of course, in all this we must not forget St. Richard of Chichester who was a great saint both of the Roman Calendar and of our own Church. I am rather proud to say that the house I inhabit at one time belonged first to St. Wilfred and then to St. Richard. I feel therefore always very happy when I am at home under their protection. The first mayor of Chichester, who, as I say, was established in 1239, was the senior mayor of the whole of Sussex and has remained so. What is a mayor going to do without a corporation of a council? It is like leaving off his shoes or omitting part of his dress. It is a most hopeless position to put anybody in.
We must also remember that Chichester played a very important part during the war. It was the centre of the A.R.P. control for the whole of that part of the coast—as I know to my cost, because at certain times I spent more nights in county hall than. I did at home. It has throughout always played its part, whether as a cathedral town or as a capital (which it is) of our county. I understand that it has failed in its application, partly on grounds of population census, and I see, to my surprise, that East Grinstead has been granted parish council status. I was a Member for East Grinstead at one time, and anybody who knows that part of the world must know that any figures connected with East Grinstead will be fictitious in another couple of years or three years' time. It is growing at such a progressive rate that I think it will quite easily surpass the 20,600 figure which is the one for Chichester. To my mind, population is a very dangerous thing on which to base approval or otherwise, when we think, for instance, of what has happened to the population of London: when we
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think how high it was and how rapidly it has gone down in recent years. To my mind this is not a real measure to go by in applying this particular Act.
One way and another, I have been in local government for 45 years, and what appealed to me in local government was the word "local". I am afraid I was not an aficionado of the Redcliffe-Maud Report. I am not at all sure that I am very fond of the present new Local Government Act because of its (to my mind) disregard of the word "local". Where we can help and support a real local interest and the importance given to it, such as the application of Chichester for parish standing, it seems to me to be a very little mind that would refuse it on the ground of the population being 100, 200 or 300 above a certain limit. If we are going to keep the spirit of a city like Chichester alive—and it is a very live spirit—and all the interest which is shown in various directions, I appeal to the Minister to put it strongly to the Boundary Commission, which I understand has the last word, that this is a very special case: a case of a cathedral town, of a capital town, of a thriving town, a beautiful town—and a town that deserves its own personality.
BARONESS SEEAR: My Lords, speaking from these Benches I should like to support briefly the Prayer of the noble Lord. Lord Garnsworthy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, has just said, since the passing of the 1972 Local Government Act many of us have been afraid that it might he for administrative reasons that the local character was going out of local government, in the interests of size and efficiency. If this happens, then local democracy, which is, after all, the root from which all democracy, springs, will suffer with it. Moreover, we are told repeatedly that there may be a social disease today: the disease of alienation, of people feeling that they belong nowhere. This is all too true in many parts of this country and in many sections of society. Where we have a community to which people feel that they really belong and of which they are rightly proud, then surely this is a treasure to he preserved, and where this feeling exists surely it is right and proper that it should he reflected in the right of the people of that community to have direct control over their own affairs,

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in so far as it is possible. It would be possible by the simple act of reversing the decision which has been made and restoring to the people of Chichester at least a limited right of control over their own affairs which, as we have already seen and as we surely know, they have managed so excellently in the past.
8.15 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene in this debate to add a point of view in support of the three moving speeches to which we have already listened, in so far as they touched the City of Colchester. If I may, I should like to support those arguments. I have not the advantage that the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, has, of being able to say that Chichester is my home city. Possibly I have a slight qualification as an entrant into this debate in that I may describe myself as having some claim to be a Boshamite. I do not know whether your Lordships know what a "Boshamite" is. A Boshamite is a person who is closely united in sympathy and affection with Bosham, which is a most lovely place close to, and in a sense almost part of, Chichester, four miles away and with a similar history. In the years well before the First World War I often went to Chichester and enjoyed the general feeling, even at that young age, which its great antiquity inspires in a visitor.
One is tempted to seek to conduct your Lordships on an antiquarian tour of Chichester, but I will resist the temptation. But, having studied the 1972 Act, and in particular the lines of guidance laid down by the Secretary of State for the Local Boundary Commission, it seemed to me, when I looked at paragraph 2(c) at any rate, that one could draw the conclusion that the broad purpose envisaged by the registration and its interpretation by the Secretary of State was this: that there are some communities which, as it were, are set aside by their tradition, by their antiquity, by their special characteristics and feelings. It is fair and in the general interests that those particular communities should have their own special elected bodies which can be relied upon to be specially sensitive to the needs and feelings of the denizens of those communities. I
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should have thought that Chichester was eminently such a community.
I have spent hours walking and enjoying the ancient cathedral cities of this country: Chichester is a very special cathedral city. It has been pointed out that so far as population is concerned, broadly speaking it conforms to the "norm" (if I may use that rather inelegant term) laid down in paragraph 2(a) and (b) of the Minister's Lines of Guidance. But when one comes to subparagraph (c) one finds that the historic character of the city is particularly to be taken into account in interpreting those lines of guidance. I should have thought that anybody sensitive to the atmosphere of Chichester, when he treads its pavements feels himself uniquely in the presence of history. It is a city which I think almost more than any other of our ancient cities provides a direct link between our bustling modern age and Roman times. It is laid out as a Roman city; the Roman walls are still there, partially preserved. One feels almost that beneath every yard of it, if one were to dig down and excavate, one might find traces of the Roman civilisation which, after all, was so important in the development of our country.
I think I am right in saying, but historians may correct me, that the Downs to the North were in Roman times thick forests, and therefore the flat land between the sea and the Downs was the area in which the Roman civilisation deployed itself to the uttermost. Therefore it is, I think, that one finds in Chichester such a direct link with the earliest development of civilisation in this country. I promised to be short, but I should like to add my urgent plea to those that have been voiced by the three previous speakers in their very cogent and moving speeches, that Chichester should be given the opportunity of parish status. A representative of a ward thinks of a ward; a representative of a parish thinks of a parish. This is natural. I hope that your Lordships may feel that it is desirable, having regard to the very special characteristics of this ancient and venerable city, that it should enjoy the privilege of having as its governing authority elected members who can be relied on to be peculiarly conscious of its atmosphere, peculiarly sensitive to the special wishes,

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desires, longings and feelings deeply held of those who have lived all their lives, and still live, in Chichester, following in so many cases forebears over so many centuries before them. I beg to support the Motion.
8.21 p.m.
Viscount MONCK: My Lords, I feel certain that the noble Baroness who will reply for the Government will be familiar with that famous work The Anatomy of Melancholy, written by that great man Robert Burton, slightly before my time and considerably before the time of the noble Baroness. He passed away in 1640. He wrote:
"No rule is so general which admits not some exception".
In view of this I have always been very wary of supporting anything which is called a special case, but the case which I wish to mention tonight is so exceptional and outstanding that I make no apology for bringing it up.
My Lords, in Hampshire as from next April one of the new district councils will be the Test Valley District Council; that will cover an area in which 45 parishes will be represented by 45 parish councils, and the Boroughs of Romsey and Andover. The 45 parishes will continue to have their parish councils. The Borough of Romsey has also been granted successor parish council status. This leaves Andover alone, the only one out of the 47 units without any local representation at all, and no local body to speak for the borough. I do not consider that this is either fair, right or sensible, and I most sincerely trust that without any further delay the Borough of Andover may be granted successor parish council status.
8.23 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (BARONESS YOUNG): My Lords, we have all listened to very interesting and at times very moving speeches on the subject of this order, and I should like to say at the beginning that no one appreciates more than I do the strength of local feeling. It is one of the great strengths of British local government that it attracts to it so many who care so
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much about the standard of service that it provides.
Before turning to answer, if I can, some of the points raised, I should like to say something about the background to the successor parish exercise and its purpose, so as to make clear at the beginning that local government reorganisation leaves existing rural parishes untouched. There are about 10,000 of these, and they will remain. The great majority of them have populations under 5,000, although it is true that some range up to and over 20,000. There are many existing small boroughs and urban districts of a similar size and character to these existing parishes. These authorities will cease to exist next year when their areas are absorbed into large districts. When the 1972 Act was being considered, it seemed to us right that these small towns should continue to have a local council and the aim was to achieve continuity at this most local level of representative government. This meant carrying out an exercise limited in scope by the need to fit it into the main local government reorganisation timetable. So we provided for the Local Government Boundary Commission to examine the claims of existing local authority areas to parish status. Had a more complicated process been carried out, which might have involved partitioning of existing areas or the drawing of new boundaries, this could not have been accomplished in time for the Act to come into force, as it does, on April 1, 1974. As a result of this first exercise 269 successor parish councils will be added to the existing rural parish councils. I wish to emphasise this point because the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, spoke about people feeling that local authorities were no longer local —a point which I think was also made by my noble friend Lady Emmet—and that people feel out of touch. It seems to me that what this exercise has done is not only to keep the existing role parishes, but to add to them. What we are discussing is whether in fact that list should be extended further.
My Lords, the powers of those parish authorities have certain new characteristics which should be borne in mind. They are not just informal neighbourhood groups but statutory representative authorities. They have independent functions relating particularly to pathways, open spaces, and provision for

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recreation. They act as a focus for community feeling, but have quite substantial functional and money-spending powers which make them most appropriate in relatively sparsely populated rural areas and in small country towns which form distinct communities.
As a result of the Local Government Act 1972, a parish is entitled to call itself a town and to have a town mayor. The preservation of local civic dignities may well be—and I think the debate this evening has shown this—one of the concerns of successor parish councils. But I should remind the House that in cases where a new district does not seek borough status, the dignities of any former borough in the area will be protected without the need for a parish council. The 1972 Act provides in such circumstances for district councillors for the former borough to be a body corporate, by name the Charter Trustees, with the function the name suggests, of preserving the civic dignity of the former borough. This provision will help to meet the need for local civic leadership, since one of the powers of Charter Trustees is the right to appoint a town mayor. I appreciate that this is not exclusively an argument of Chichester for wanting parish council status, but I have spelt it out because I think it would be helpful for Chichester to know that in any event they can, if they so wish, continue to have a mayor.
Noble Lords have talked about the guidelines laid down for the Boundary Commission. They were to take account of local wishes, of the identity of a town both as a community and as a physically separate unit; they were to take account of its historical background and size. What was said in the guidelines was that acceptable proposals, unless an exceptional case were put forward, should normally involve a town with a population under 20,000 and less than 20 per cent. of the population of the new district. The functions of parishes as third tier authorities and their task in acting as a focus for local views points to a relatively small unit and, of course, most existing parishes have populations far below this upper range of 10,000 to 20,000 as set out in the guidelines.
The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, raised an example of a parish, and I
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think he was mistaken in the figures he gave with regard to Golborne. The wards of Culcheth and Newchurch, have a population of 9,626, not 28,000 which he named.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, if I made an error it was on advice. I accept without hesitation the correction. I did mention a number of other places; I do not know whether the noble Baroness is going to question the accuracy of those.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I wished only to put the Record straight on this matter. This is the advice I have been given, and I think it is rather important to get the figures right. I do not intend to go down the complete list and give the noble Lord all the figures, but of course if there are any figures he would like, or any other noble Lord would like, I should be happy to provide them.
The basic criterion on the proposals for the successor parishes is in fact comparability with existing parishes. As regards the figure of 20 per cent. of the district population, towns with a much greater proportion of the district population than this should have considerable influence on the new district council and therefore less need for a local body of their own. Indeed, local councils for important towns in new districts could be rather a divisive influence, because the new districts will want to administer their district as a coherent unit. Perhaps I may say in passing that an historic place such as Winchester did not apply for parish status since with a population of 30,000, which was nearly one-third of the new district, the city council clearly felt that parish council status would not be appropriate.
The Boundary Commission had a difficult task in considering the many applications for parish status they received. I think their report clearly indicates the care that they have exercised and refutes the charge that they have been either rigid or dogmatic in the interpretation of the guide lines. They have looked basically at the concept of the parish, which is the key to the guidelines, and the members of the Commission have wide experience of local government and for many different areas of the country. However, because of the exigencies of the timetable allotted for the exercise to which

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I have already referred, the Commission were not able to carry out the full procedure which they would expect to carry out after 1974, including the publication of draft proposals for local consideration which will normally take place.
It rapidly became clear from many representations we received after the publication of the Commission's Report that there was very strong local feeling in a number of areas about the Commission's findings and our endorsement of them. Some of the points raised by these representations were new ones, and it seemed to us right that we should give the Commission the chance to give those cases which had been raised with us the sort of further consideration they would have received had the Commission published draft proposals and there then had been further time for local comment to be considered before final recommendations were made. It is for this reason that all the further representations have been passed on to the Boundary Commission, and they will be producing their Report in November.
May I say to noble Lords that I have read with great interest the many letters that I have had about Chichester, from the town clerk, from the Civic Society, from my noble friend Lady Emmet, and that I have listened with very great interest to everything that has been said on this particular case this evening. The Government have decided that the final decision on successor parish council status shall rest with the Boundary Commission. I am quite sure that everything that has been said in the debate this evening will be read with great interest by the Commission when they come to consider this review of Chichester, and, as my noble friend Lord Monck has said, of Andover, and indeed of the other towns that have been mentioned. It is their responsibility. They will have the facts before them.
I would only add in conclusion that I think they are trying to achieve what is always a very difficult balance. Everybody listens with sympathy to the special cases that are put forward, not only because of the cases themselves, but because naturally we should like to do what would please the local people. But we have entered and are entering a new period of local government, on a two-tier system, in which the second tier, the districts,
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should be representative of local opinion, and it is therefore very important that we should not introduce an element which could in fact make that district level less effective, less democratic, and in any way less responsive to local needs than it might have been. I think this is the other side of the argument that must be weighed up.
I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, will not press this Motion this evening, because, of course, should it be carried all those parishes that have successor status would lose it, and I am sure this is not what he would wish to happen. I will give this assurance, that all the representations we have received have been passed to the Boundary Commission. I feel certain that they will read with great interest what has been said, and I think we must await their Report, which will come in November.
8.37 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for the care she has taken in replying to the points raised in the debate. We have listened for two days to our Scottish colleagues debating Scottish matters, and I found it something of a pleasure to turn to English affairs and at this late hour in the evening to be able to put up an all-Party point of view, and it is an all-Party point of view that has been expressed this evening. I hope the Boundary Commission will take note of that fact, because although I shall not press my Motion to a Division this evening I could give no guarantee that if the next list is not more satisfactory I shall not feel on that occasion under an obligation to press matters further.
I take complete responsibilty for the error so far as the Golborne Urban District Council figures are concerned: I ought to have checked the figure that was provided to me. But it does bring out a point. One wonders what on earth the wards of Culcheth and Newchurch have been given parish council status for and the rest of the urban district not. I take issue with the noble Baroness when she suggests that we ought not to introduce a new element in a new district that is going, as I understood her to say, to press a special case for that parish, when we have two very clear instances quoted this evening: Chichester not

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having a voice and the parishes within the new district having a voice, and the opportunity to do the very thing the noble Baroness said she hoped would not take place. Clearly, a place like Chichester will be placed at a disadvantage with its neighbours.
But the case made by the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, seems to me to be even stronger. I suggest that there is need for a little further thinking. Although he spoke with brevity, I thought the case of the noble Viscount was a very strong one indeed. The dignities of a mayor will not benefit from his having no elected council to support him. I do not know what the status of the mayor is likely to be without a council. I should have thought that in those places where it has been demonstrated that they wished to make the election of a mayor a democratic reality consideration would be given to this fact. I hope the Boundary Commission will take note of it.
I do not want to give the impression that I am unappreciative or over-critical of the replies the noble Baroness has given, because she has been extremely considerate and has gone to very great lengths to deal with the points that have been raised. Chichester has been raised as an outstanding example, and so has Andover; but I should like to make the point that there are other areas which feel they have equally serious claims. I hope that the Local Government Boundary Commission, when they next report, will be a little more flexible than they appear to have been. I should have liked to feel that the Government would have widened the guidelines they have given. I suppose that it is too late for that.
One small suggestion. When the Local Government Boundary Commission report and state the places that they propose should be given successor parish status, it would be useful if the population figures for the new parishes that are to be created were printed in the Report. I made one slip this evening, but I think it has been useful in demonstrating that one part of a district is going to benefit and the other parts are not. I have instanced—and I think that I am correct generally in the instances that I have given —that new parishes have been created in excess of the 20,000. I am grateful
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to those Members of the House who have stayed, and I hope that they feel that this debate has been fully justified. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

WRITTEN ANSWERS

  AIRCRAFT ENGINE NOISE RESEARCH
  LORD KENNET LORD KENNET asked Her Majesty's Government:
  What research into the reduction of aircraft engine noise has been carried out in the last two years at the National Gas Turbine Establishment at Pyestock, whether any forecasts of possible reductions have been made, and if made published, and if they have been made but not published, when they will be published.
  LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, research on engine noise at the National Gas Turbine Establishment in the last two years has formed part of a continuing effort sustained over about fifteen years. Work is aimed at improving the appreciation of scientific principles and methods of prediction, and at solving the engineering problems involved. Topics studied in the last two years include all major sources of engine noise, including high speed jet noise and jet noise supressors; co-axial jet noise; compressor and turbine noise; tailpipe noise and appropriate absorbers for both tailpipe and intake noise; improved noise instrumentation. In addition, a new major acoustic test facility is nearing completion and part of it is now in use. The Establishment works in close co-operation with industry. Many people engaged in this and similar work have expressed personal opinions but the establishment has made no official forecasts of aero-engine noise reductions.

  NORTH SEA OIL RIGS
  LORD KENNET LORD KENNET asked Her Majesty's Government:
  If, as appears from the Written Answer of 17th July, the Department of Trade and Industry do not know where the oil-rigs are in sectors of the North Sea other than the British, how they expect mariners to avoid them.
  LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, information promulgated by the Hydro-graphic Offices of the countries concerned, and also by the Hydrographer to the Royal Navy, enables mariners to keep their charts up to date.

  BAIL: HOME OFFICE REPORT
  LORD GARDINER LORD GARDINER asked Her Majesty's Government:
  When they expect to receive the Report of the Home Office Working Party on Bail and whether it will be published.
  VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Within the next few weeks. The question of publication will be considered then.

  EASTER ACT 1928
  LORD GARDINER LORD GARDINER asked Her Majesty's Government:
  What is now holding up their making an Order bringing into force the Easter Act 1928.
  VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This still depends on when agreement can be reached between the main Christian denominations.

  SERVICES CATERING: DONALDSON REPORT
  LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH asked Her Majesty's Government:
  Whether they will make a Statement on the Report of the Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge into the financial control of catering in the Services.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): The Report of the Donaldson Committee was published on August 29. Her Majesty's Government welcome the Report and are most grateful to Lord Donaldson and his colleagues for the careful consideration they gave to it and for their hard work. All the recommendations in the Report
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  have been accepted in principle with the exception of those in paragraphs 121, 123 and 125, whose implementation would require additional manpower and which are still being studied. The main recommendation in the Report that food supplies for the Services should normally be obtained from Service or NAAFI sources has been accepted and will be put into effect. We are examining how to overcome the practical difficulties, which the Committee recognised, in order to adjust the prices of NAAFI messing items on the lines suggested by the Committee. The new system will naturally be kept under review.

  E.E.C. IMPLEMENTATION OF DIRECTIVES
  LORD O'HAGAN LORD O'HAGAN asked Her Majesty's Government:
  To explain in detail how far they have put into effect E.E.C. Directives 72/159, 72/160 and 72/161; and to summarise the object of these directives.
  EARL FERRERS: Directive No. 72/160 has been implemented within the United Kingdom with effect from September 1 last by means of the Farm Structure (Payments to Outgoers) Scheme 1973 and the Agriculture Act 1967 (Amendment) Regulations 1973. The implementation of Directives numbers 72/159 and 72/161 has not yet taken place and is not required until January 1, 1974.
  The stated purposes of the Directives are as follows:
  No. 72/159: the modernisation of farms;
  No. 72/160: to encourage the cessation of farming and the reallocation of utilised agricultural areas for the purposes of structural improvement;
  No. 72/161: the provision of socioeconomic guidance for and the acquisition of occupational skills by persons engaged in agriculture.
  House adjourned at nineteen minutes before nine o'clock.