Sitting of 10 July 1974

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS

    MERSEYSIDE METROPOLITAN RAILWAY BILL (By Order)
    Order for consideration, as amended, read.
    To be considered tomorrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  SCOTLAND

    Economic Planning Department
    Mr. Alexander Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the scope of work undertaken by the Scottish Economic Planning Department.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): The Scottish Economic Planning Department advises me on matters relating to industrial and economic development in Scotland, including the Scottish aspects of regional policies and the development of North Sea oil resources.
    Mr. Fletcher: I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. Is he aware that in a letter dated 5th July to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor), the Chairman of the Scottish National Party said that it was the policy of that party that the land of Scotland should be held only by Scottish citizens or by companies registered in Scotland with majority control by people of Scottish citizenship? Will he ask the SEPD to investigate what effect this would have on the Scottish economy if it ever happened, and what would happen to companies like IBM, Timex, NCR and
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    Burroughs and Honeywell, which contribute tremendously to the Scottish economy?
    Mr. Ross: I have not seen that letter, of course, but it must have considerable implications for the Scottish economy, especially in relation to oil developments. Many of the companies creating growth are not Scottish-based or made up of majority holdings by Scottish citizens. This shows the introverted nonsense of the Nationalists, which leads them into this kind of irresponsibility. I do not know how Sir Hugh Fraser can live with this when he was prepared to sell all his Scottish interests to Boots of England.
    Mr. MacArthur: Will the right hon. Gentleman address himself to this question even further? What proportion of Scottish employment is provided by companies which do not meet the narrow racialist requirements land down in this latest statement by the Scottish National Party? How would this proposal affect the House of Fraser and what would happen to the many American companies which provide so much employment in Scotland? Will he consult his colleagues in order to present to Scotland the effect of this monstrous and narrow notice to quit which has been given to so much of Scottish industry by the Scottish National Party?
    Mr. Ross: Now that this policy has been proclaimed, there is certainly fertile ground for research for us all. When the question is widened to the growth, and the change in the pattern, of the Scottish economy because it has attracted firms from outside Scotland and outside the United Kingdom—into Lanarkshire and Fife, for example, and other areas of heavy unemployment, where we appreciate what they have done—one sees how out of touch with reality the SNP has become.

    Power Station Sites (Planning Inquiries)
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the total estimated expense of the planning inquiries held at Bo'ness in relation to the proposed Carriden power station site and in East Lothian in relation to the proposed Towers site; and whether he is satisfied with the current system of determining

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    sites for potential power stations, and in related developments.
    The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Bruce Millan): Details of the costs incurred by all the parties concerned in the inquiries into the proposed power stations at Carriden and Torness are not available to me.
    I am satisfied that the procedure for considering sites for potential power stations and related developments meets the requirements of statute and balances the interests of the parties. I do not however rule out the possibility of further improvement.
    Mr. Dalyell: When we meet the requirements of statutes, are we sure that this kind of decision is best made by opposing batteries of lawyers?
    Mr. Millan: Unless we have an acceptable substitute for the present planning procedures, the public inquiry is an essential part of that process. However, as I have made clear before, the actual decision about the power station itself—and authority for that—is taken as a separate decision by the Secretary of State, so that the wider matters of energy policy and the rest can be considered then.
    Mr. Ancram: On the second part of that question, will the Secretary of State confirm that in coming to a decision on the present application for the Torness site his right hon. Friend will have regard not just to the physical suitability of the site but also to the damage and dangers which the power station could cause to the environment, to housing and to employment in the area?
    Mr. Millan: All these matters are absolutely intrinsic to planning decisions of this kind. In this case, as in others, my right hon. Friend will keep these matters in mind.

    US Navy Personnel (Children's Education)
    Mr. MacCormickasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many children of United States Navy personnel stationed at the Polaris base on the Holy Loch are receiving their primary education in Scotland.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Robert Hughes): This information is not available centrally.
    Mr. MacCormick: In view of the widespread misgivings of parents in the area—[Interruption.] I am in a position to know about this—does the hon. Gentleman not agree that as children of United States personnel are there for such a short time; as they, therefore, disrupt the work of the school, and as the United States Navy provides petrol stations and shops, there is no reason why the United States should not also provide such facilities as schools, especially as at one school in the area 200 American children will be attending on a short-term basis?
    Mr. Hughes: We have absolutely no evidence that the number of children of American Service personnel is causing the kind of difficulty suggested by the hon. Gentleman. People who live in this country are subject to the laws of this country, and they are entitled to send their children to local schools. I hope that we shall not have children of foreign residents in Britain singled out in this way as being the cause of any difficulties in schools.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: As a Member representing a constituency which also has within it an American air base, may I completely dissociate myself from the remarks of the hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. MacCormick) and say how much we welcome the presence of the Americans in Scotland? Will the hon. Gentleman please deny the talk of segregation of a friendly Power, put forward by the Scottish National Party?
    Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. I reject segregation on any basis of nationality, religion or race. It does the people of Scotland no good to suggest that in some way these children are unwelcome. The views of the people of Scotland about the Polaris base are a different matter; but the children should not be castigated in this way.
    Mr. Barry Henderson: Can the hon. Gentleman give any information about the number of Scots living and working in the United States, temporarily or permanently, whose children are educated

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    there, and whether this kind of reciprocal arrangement is healthy both in the understanding of the internationalism of Scotsmen and the way in which this can also work out in terms of international economic arguments?
    Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman will understand that I have no such figures about the number of Scots in the United States or anywhere else. One would hope that children of different cultures and backgrounds mixing together could do much to foster international understanding. The kind of thoughts behind the original Question add nothing to that, or to the traditional Scottish cultural and friendly relations with people throughout the world.
    Mr. Baxter: I think that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is being a bit unfair. With due respect, a simple enough question was put to him, asking whether this has dislocated the school activities in that area. If it has, steps should be taken to see that the local inhabitants' children are given a full and adequate education. That is the purpose behind the Question, and I would not want it to go forth from the House that hon. Members are so hidebound as to be prejudiced, either on one side or the other.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has not asked a question, which he should have done.
    Mr. Hughes: Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, I think that the implied question requires an answer. We have absolutely no evidence that the education of children in the area to which the hon. Member for Argyll referred is being disrupted by the children of the United States Navy personnel. But if there were at any time to be identified signs of stress in Scottish education in any area, the answer would be not to segregate them off but to see that a full education was provided for all the children in the area.

    Devolution
    Mr. David Steelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish the views he has received on the discussion document on devolution.
    Mr. William Ross: No, Sir. It is for the bodies and individuals putting forward views to decide whether they wish to make them public.
    Mr. Steel: Will the Secretary of State repudiate the widely-published views of the Executive of the Scottish Labour Party on this subject and reaffirm that it is the policy of the Government to proceed to honour the pledge given in the Queen's Speech and to produce proposals later this year for devolution to Scotland?
    Mr. Ross: As far as that is concerned everyone is entitled to his views, even the Labour Party. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) seems to give the impression that, strangely enough, the Liberal Party, whose views in respect of devolution were turned down by Kilbrandon, is united—all three members of it. What we are concerned about is to ensure that all views are received and heard, and that, where necessary and desired, there shall be oral discussions in relation to all points concerning Kilbrandon.
    Mr. George Lawson: Will my right hon. Friend explain to the Liberal Chief Whip that if Scotland insists upon a Stormont-type administraion, Scotland will have no complaints if it is left with a Northern Irish basis of representation in this House?
    Mr. Ross: The whole purpose of what we have done and the discussions into which we are entering—and our hope for debate on this matter—is eventually to have something that is acceptable to the people of Scotland, and in relation to which they know the limitations and the consequences of what is being done. All these matters are important.
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will now state his plans for devolution in the government of Scotland.
    Mr. William Ross: As already announced, the Government intend, after completing consultations with interested organisations, to publish a White Paper setting out their proposals for Scotland and Wales.
    Mr. Hamilton: Has my right hon. Friend any overwhelming evidence of a

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    desire in Scotland for a separate elected Assembly? Will he take steps to re-read the pamphlet called "Don't Butcher Scotland's Future", or something like that, and bring it up to date, because it is just as relevant today as it was when it was issued?
    Mr. Ross: As my hon. Friend knows, a considerabe amount of evidence was given in the Kilbrandon Report. One of the things that was absolutely clear was that many people have differing views on the meaning of devolution. Not many of them knew what devolution had already taken place, and they had not given adequate thought, if any thought at all, to the consequences of various schemes. Kilbrandon produced schemes and we put them down for debate and discussion. We have had a good response from organisations to the invitation to send in written evidence, and many of the people concerned will be discussing this in the near future. During next week and the week after, I and my hon. Friend the Minister of State in the Commons will be meeting many of these people to go into points raised in the letters. As for the public, the number of letters I have received so far is 132, of which 65 came via one newspaper.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that the convolutions within the Labour Party in Scotland will not hold back the Government's proposals?
    Mr. Ross: We in the Labour Party do not disguise that this is a very important issue, in respect of which there are differing points of view. This was brought out by Kilbrandon. What troubles me is the monolithic nonsense we hear from the party calling itself the Scottish National Party, which does not believe in devolution and wants only separation.
    Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison: Is the Secretary of State aware that what we want is not necessarily devolution but less legislation, and that that will solve most of the difficulties?
    Mr. Ross: We can have devolution without legislation.

    List D School Places
    Mr. Harry Ewingasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make
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    a statement on the shortage of List D school places.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: I have recently had discussions with the local authority associations and other interests concerned. All are aware of the present difficulties and there is general agreement on the need for a wider range of facilities, including intermediate treatment facilities, to meet the needs of children coming before the hearings. Some additional facilities are being provided or are being planned, and any further proposals will be given every possible encouragement within the resources available.
    Mr. Ewing: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. May I point out to him that the children's hearings system in Scotland is now in very serious danger of breaking down completely, not because the people working the system do not want to make it work but because the facilities are not available to enable them to give the prescribed treatment to the children? My hon. Friend talks about intermediate forms of treatment; will he expand on that matter?
    Mr. Hughes: First, I do not go as far as my hon. Friend and say that the system is in danger of breaking down. One understands that there are difficulties. For example, in 1972—the latest year for which figures have been published—children's hearings dealt with 23,144 reports submitted to them. They have, therefore, a tremendous job to do. But all the people to whom I have spoken about this have said that the additional provision of List D places was not the answer. By intermediate treatment I mean something between simple supervision by a social worker and people being taken out of the community into a special residential establishment. This can be done in a number of ways. Experiments are taking place in Edinburgh, Clackmannan and elsewhere. The idea is that the children will get the care and attention they need without necessarily being removed from the home environment.
    Mr. Monro: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that the Labour Party, when in opposition, criticised the lack of List D places? In the four months since the General Election, has the hon. Gentleman formulated any policies to provide

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    more places? How many more are in the pipeline now than were in it in February?
    Mr. Hughes: Certainly we criticised the lack of places. During the hon. Gentleman's term of office the number of places went down, and in the three years that he was in office the waiting list grew from virtually nil to 607, which was the count at 31st March. We cannot provide additional places overnight. The hon. Gentleman knows of the 80 additional places which are planned—certainly planned by the administration of which he was a member—and the 150 assessment centres. We cannot start erecting more buildings for List D places overnight. This is a process which must be considered. We are not satisfied that List D placing is necessarily the whole answer.
    Mr. Robertson: Will my hon. Friend, nevertheless, not be complacent about this problem, which is very serious and pressing? The information that I have from the Paisley local authority is that more than one-third of the time of the social work department is taken up in trying to deal with this problem. Unless there is some other provision, either of intermediate treatment or List D places, the system is in danger of breaking down, with very severe consequences.
    Mr. Hughes: I am far from complacent on this issue. From the discussions I have had I am aware of the problem and the fact that we need to provide proper care for the children who land in trouble. Those children are our primary concern, which is why we shall be coming forward with proposals following the wide-ranging discussions I had on how we can help the situation. For example, among the suggestions put forward is that instead of the children going into residential care they can attend List D schools on a day-to-day basis. There are a number of different ways constantly under discussion, and we are far from complacent.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We must speed up a little.

    Aberdeen (Road Communications)
    Mr. Fairgrieveasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects
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    work to start on making the road to Aberdeen and the north dual carriageway.
    Mr. Millan: Substantial lengths of dual carriageway already exist or are under construction between Perth and Dundee and between Stonehaven and Aberdeen. My right hon. Friend has also recently agreed in principle that dual carriageways north of Aberdeen should be extended as far as Balmedie. However, forward estimates of traffic do not at present justify such provision over the entire length.
    Mr. Fairgrieve: I thank the Minister for that partial reply, but does he realise that Aberdeen, which is the oil capital of Europe and is fast becoming the production centre of what will be Britain's biggest single industry, in financial terms, is still joined to the rest of the United Kingdom by what is more or less a cart track?
    Mr. Millan: I do not think that I would accept that, but considerable improvements are going on.
    Mr. Douglas Henderson: Will the Minister look particularly at the case of the road north of Balmedie, to Ellon and Peterhead, where the construction traffic and traffic to the power stations and the gas terminal are putting an enormous strain on local road resources? Will he ask the Secretary of State to have a special look at this road and drive on it when he visits the area on Friday?
    Mr. Millan: I have already travelled on that road recently and I appreciate that it is by no means adequate. We are providing dual carriageways as far as Balmedie and there are other improvements north of that with, perhaps, a bypass of Ellon. There will be other improvements, and I agree that they are needed.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Will the Minister look specifically at the question of the Montrose relief road—a town which has experienced tremendous and very fast oil development and where a great deal of congestion is building up? I hope that it has a high degree of urgency in his programme.
    Mr. Millan: I shall look at these specific matters. If any hon. Member has a particular question I hope that he will put it down so that I can deal with it.

    Western Isles (Sea Services)
    Mr. Donald Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has for assisting sea services to the Western Isles with a view to reducing the cost of living in that area.
    Mr. Millan: During the current financial year, Government support for the sea services to the Western islands of Scotland will amount to about £800,000. Of this about £540,000 will be operating subsidy and about £250,000 grants and loans towards the modernisation of piers and harbours.
    Mr. Stewart: I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he accept that in the Western Isles wages are lower than the national average and that the cost of living, mainly because of freight charges, is considerably higher than almost anywhere else in the United Kingdom? Since the Government have announced a massive subsidy for the railways throughout the mainland system, does the Minister not feel that the previous Government's withdrawal of subsidies on certain sections of the sea links to the Western Isles was a retrograde and callous step, and will he seek to put that right?
    Mr. Millan: I am not responsible for anything done by the previous Government. The subsidies are still substantial. Of course, there is also the opportunity for local authorities now to make their own payments under the 1968 Act, and those payments are in turn heavily subsidised by the Government.
    Mr. Grimond: Is the Minister aware that due the effect of freight charges, the cost of living in the islands of Scotland is considerably higher than in London? If London requires special treatment, why is that treatment not also given to these parts of Scotland?
    Mr. Millan: There are special considerations in the case of London. Transport charges for the Scottish islands already receive considerable financial assistance. I shall be meeting the local authorities—if they are willing to meet me—next week to talk about these matters.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Since millions of workers now have threshold agreements under which their wages go up according
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    to the cost of living index, would it not be sensible at this stage to have regional cost-of-living indices, so that people's wages keep pace with the real costs which they have to face?
    Mr. Millan: I am not sure that every region would welcome that. Threshold agreements are nothing to do with regional differentials in the cost of living and, anyway, they were introduced by the Conservatives and not by us.

    Oakley, Fife (Health Centre)
    Mr. Adam Hunterasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made with the provision of a health centre in Oakley, Fife.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Tenders were invited on 4th May for return by 7th June 1974. The latest date for acceptance is 7th August, and the results of the invitation are at present being examined.
    Mr. Hunter: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Hunterston saga mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) yesterday is not the only one to crop up this week? The Oakley centre is another one. This centre was fourth on Fife County Council's lists of priorities 12 years ago, and I raised the matter several times with Ministers, in and out of Parliament, for two years. Is my hon. Friend further aware that the people in Oakley and district have to suffer an inadequate chiropody service, by mobile van, and the old people particularly are suffering? Will he inject some urgency into the matter?
    Mr. Hughes: I am aware of the saga to which my hon. Friend referred. The previous tenders in 1973 were too high and fresh tenders had to be sought. We simply must keep some control over costs in relation to estimates. The tenders are now in and we are examining them, and if it is possible to accept one of them we shall do so.
    Mr. Gray: Will the Minister bear in mind that his Department has been pursued about this matter in respect of Tain, Dingwall and Alness, in my constituency, for a considerable time? Will he do everything in his power to make sure that these are proceeded with without delay?
    Mr. Hughes: The hon. Member had better put down a Question about that, since Oakley is in Fife and is not in the hon. Member's constituency. I take his point, but I would not be surprised to find that they were held back because of the expenditure cuts of 17th December.
    Mr. Monro: No, no, no.

    Sewage and Sludge (Dumping at Sea)
    Sir John Gilmourasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what information is available on the amount of sewage and sludge being dumped at sea round the coasts of Scotland at the present time; what increased amounts are likely to be dumped in the future; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Millan: About 1½, million tons of sewage sludge from 18 local authorities are dumped annually by Glasgow Corporation in the Fifth of Clyde. Dundee may also be dumping sewage sludge in the North Sea by the end of this decade. Edinburgh Corporation proposes to dump annually about half a million tons of sludge off the east coast from 1976. Monitoring has not shown that dumping has any serious effects.
    Sir J. Gilmour: Does the Minister agree that the Firth of Forth fishermen suffer a great deal from dumping? For instance, surplus ammunition has been dumped in the Firth, and now they have to contend with sewage sludge. Will the Minister make certain that assurances are given to the industry that no harm will come to fish as a result of these operations?
    Mr. Millan: I believe that there have been discussions and representations about getting an appropriate site, but I have no evidence that the dumping affects fishing or anything else. Any difficulties arising there would be a good deal fewer than those arising at present as a result of raw sewage being pumped into the Forth.
    Mr. MacCormick: Is the Minister aware that one of the most important growth industries on the west coast of Scotland is fish farming, which faces particular problems as a result of this activity?
    Mr. Millan: I shall certainly keep that in mind. This is Scottish sludge we are talking about.

    Service Men (Special Marriage Licences)
    Mr. Dempseyasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will introduce legislation to abolish the necessity for Service men, intending to marry girls living in Scotland, having to obtain a special licence at a cost, because they cannot fulfil the residential qualification due to service with Her Majesty's Forces; and if he will make a statement.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Hugh D. Brown): I notice that in the Order Paper my hon. Friend is styled "Sir". I am sorry that I have been denied the privilege of congratulating my hon. Friend upon a knighthood.
    Special arrangements can be made for Service men whose homes are in Scotland, but legislation would be required to remove the residential qualification for those whose homes are elsewhere. Abolition of the residential qualification and of sheriff's licences was among the recommendations of the committee under the chairmanship of Lord Kilbrandon, which made a comprehensive review of the marriage law of Scotland and reported in 1969. I cannot say when it will be possible to introduce legislation based on the committee's recommendations.
    Mr. Dempsey: May I reciprocate by congratulating my hon. Friend on his appointment? I am sorry, however, that he spoiled my elevation.
    Does my hon. Friend not think it unfair that a non-Scot, because he is in the service of Her Majesty's Forces abroad and is anxious to marry a Scottish lassie, should be compelled to have to apply for a special licence which, with solicitors' fees, can cost between £15 and £20? Is this not unfair and unjustifiable? The girl might be worth it, but I do not think the licence is. Will my hon. Friend take immediate measures to alleviate this charge to soldiers who are defending this country's interests abroad?
    Mr. Brown: Many hon. Members would think it a reasonable price to pay for marriage. However, there is a practical problem here, which springs from the fact that the law in Scotland

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    is different, and so different regulations apply. If my hon. Friend has any specific cases I should be glad to look at them—
    Mr. Dempsey: I have three.
    Mr. Brown: I shall be glad to see whether I can help in those cases. The rules for Scottish Service men are quite explicit and not unduly burdensome, but this matter raises a problem of legislation. We have this matter on board and we shall give it early attention, consistent with fitting it into the parliamentary time table.

    Sports Council
    Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the work of the Scottish Sports Council.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: The Council published a report on its work in November 1973 and I understand that it expects to publish a further report later this year.
    Mr. Taylor: To what extent is the council involved in the discussions on the improvement and modernisation of Hampden Park, and when do the Government expect to be in a position to make a statement on this matter?
    Mr. Hughes: There is a separate working party looking at the future of Hampden Park and it is expected to report towards the end of the autumn. The chairman of the Scottish Sports Council, Mr. Laurie Liddell, also happens to be chairman of the working party. We shall await the report of the working party.
    Mr. Alexander Wilson: Will my hon. Friend suggest to the working party that some of us on the Government side of the House are a little fed up with public money being poured into private enterprises? If the Government are foolish enough to do this in relation to Hampden Park, will they also consider Lanark football grounds, such as Shawfield Stadium, Fir Park, Broomfield Park and Douglas Park, which need money injected into them?
    Mr. Hughes: I would not like to comment on the latter part of my hon. Friend's question. With regard to Hampden Park, it must be recognised that that is a Scottish national stadium and we
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    want to see the best facilities provided for international events. We must await the report of the working party and see what transpires. If my hon. Friend cares to talk over these matters with me later I shall be glad to go into them.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: Is my hon. Friend aware that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) appears to want Hampden Park nationalised? Will my hon. Friend see that this is arranged and, in doing so, arrange for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry to kick off in the first match, which would probably be between the Younger Generation and the Taylor Maids?

    Secondary School Teachers
    Mr. Monroasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many secondary school teachers qualified at the colleges of education this session and how many have accepted employment, respectively, in Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Glasgow and Dumfriesshire.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: About 3,000 secondary teachers will qualify this session. Of this number, 265 have so far accepted employment in Lanarkshire, 341 in Glasgow. 207 in Renfrewshire and 20 in Dumfriesshire.
    Mr. Monro: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we are glad that there has been such a large number of successful candidates from colleges of education? Will he do everything possible to see that education authorities fulfil their promise to recruit only to those areas which are seriously short-staffed, so as to help the pupil-teacher ratio in the next session?
    Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman knows that an appeal was sent to those education authorities outside areas of stress asking them to restrain recruitment, but I am afraid that the replies have been generally disappointing. Only eight authorities have given a commitment to restrain their recruitment without further action. I can only express the hope that education authorities will accept that there are serious problems in the west of Scotland and will limit their own recruitment.

    Council Houses (Sales to Tenants)
    Mr. Barry Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether it is his policy to restrict the freedom of

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    local authorities and new town development corporations to sell houses to sitting tenants who want to buy their own houses.
    Mr. Millan: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend's reply on 9th July to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Queens Park (Mr. McElhone).
    Mr. Henderson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this decision to make further restrictions by stealth on the sale of council houses to sitting tenants will strike dismay in the hearts of many people who believe that it is an extremely valuable way to help tenants and those who wish to buy houses, as well as all the ratepayers?
    Is he aware that, in the new town of Cumbernauld, of 10,000 houses put up by the development corporation over 1,000 have already been sold to sitting tenants, and there is a large waiting list? This action has produced a universal welcome in the new town.
    Will the hon. Gentleman undertake, if he brings in restrictions on new towns as he has done on local authority housing, that those who already have applications in when the guillotine comes down will still be allowed to buy their own homes?
    Mr. Millan: I do not see how a circular to local authorities can be interpreted as acting by stealth. The policy on new towns is rather different, and always has been, and it is under consideration at the moment, as an answer given yesterday shows. Any commitments that have been entered into with sitting tenants will be honoured, and will not be affected by the circular.
    Dr. M. S. Miller: Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not a restriction of freedom, and that it is the realisation of local authorities, and, I hope, of his Department, that most people in Scotland want houses at reasonable rents? We are not opposed in principle to the selling of houses, but selling houses of this kind does not add a single house to the pool. Will my hon. Friend resist any attempts with regard to selling houses while people still want houses to rent?
    Mr. Millan: I am already resisting that. The change is one to greater restriction. There is still much unsatis
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    fled demand for houses to rent in Scotland and the primary responsibility of local authorities should be to meet that demand. We are not willing to see houses sold in areas where there are still demands for houses to rent.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the people of Scotland know better what they want than does the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller)? Is it not an outrageous and spiteful policy? Is it true that the Government are preventing local authorities from offering these houses at a discount, as they were previously entitled to do? Is he aware that, bearing in mind that our previous policy was frustrated by some foolish local authorities, the Conservative Party is fully committed to ensure that every council tenant in Scotland who wants to buy his home can do so from the moment that we have another Conservative Government?
    Mr. Millan: That sounds rather like the traditional Conservative Party way of dictating to local authorities in regard to their housing policies. I do not accept anything that the hon. Gentleman has said.
    There are certain conditions involved in these cases where authority to sell is to be granted in future, and these conditions will affect valuation. It is all laid out in the circular. I shall have great pleasure in sending a copy of the circular to the hon. Gentleman.

    Local Government Staff (Recruitment)
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions he has had with the new local authorities regarding the need for economies in staff recruitment.
    Mr. Millan: My noble Friend the Minister of State discussed this matter with local government representatives earlier this week.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am glad to hear that. Will the Minister assure the House that his noble Friend impressed upon the new regional and district authorities that the purpose of the reform of local government is not the aggrandisement of the staffs of local government, and that at a time like this what we should be hoping and expecting to see is not an increase

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    but a diminution in bureaucracy for the benefit of all the ratepayers?
    Mr. Millan: I do not think that any local authorities are under the impression that local government reorganisation is for the aggrandisement of the staff. All of them are aware of the need for economy in these matters.

    Grant-aided Schools
    Mr. Rifkindasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will make a statement on his policy towards grant-aided schools.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: As already announced, the grant payable for 1974–75 will be held at the same level as for 1973–74. Otherwise, I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Gentleman on 10th April.—[Vol. 872, c. 414–5.]
    Mr. Rifkind: I am not surprised that the Minister has nothing to add. Is he aware that the Government's statement to which he has just referred has been seen in Scotland as a spiteful and vindictive act, pursued for purely ideological purposes? Is he aware that the only practical effect of the statement has been to drive parents of very modest means to withdraw their children from grant-aided schools? Was that the Government's objective?
    Mr. Hughes: The Government's objective in holding the grant is consistent with their policy and the Labour Party policy stated over many years, namely, to see that eventually we have the integration of grant-aided schools into the normal State system.
    Mr. MacArthur: How does the Minister justify restricting freedom of choice in education to the very rich?
    Mr. Hughes: I do not justify it at all. It is Conservative Members who justify freedom of education for the very rich.
    Mr. Monro: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall ask leave to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Public Correspondence
    Mr. Ancramasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many letters he has received from the general public since assuming office.
    Mr. William Ross: This information could not be obtained without disproportionate effort.
    Mr. Ancram: I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman may not be prepared to make a disproportionate effort to find the answer. Is he aware, from the correspondence he has received since the election, of the growing concern among low-paid workers in Scotland—who do not have large unions to pressurise the Government—that the only effect of the social compact so far is to drive their wages further and further down compared with those of other people, and that they are now looking for some form of relativities policy to stop them becoming the new poor of the 1970s?
    Mr. Ross: We receive about 8,000 items of mail a day at St. Andrew's House, and I reckon that today we have not received a single one on the subject the hon. Gentleman raises. The number of letters we receive on any subject is usually in inverse proportion to the din created by Opposition Members.

    Aerosol Paint Sprays (Vandalism)
    Mr. Galbraithasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, in the interests of curbing vandalism, he will consider seeking powers to prohibit the sale of paint spray guns to teenagers.
    Mr. Hugh D. Brown: I am concerned about the extent of the damage to property caused by the use of aerosol paint sprays. But I do not think it would be right to prohibit the sale of articles which have many legitimate uses.
    Mr. Galbraith: I was not suggesting that their sale should be restricted outright. Would it not be possible to impose restrictions on sales to young people, in the same way as restrictions are imposed on buying drink, fireworks and similar goods?
    Mr. Brown: That is not a very practical or constructive suggestion. In 1970 there were 12 million aerosol paint sprays sold in the country. It would be very difficult to enforce the hon. Gentleman's suggestion.
    Mr. David Steel: Will the Minister advise local authorities to learn some of the lessons of the success of East Kilbride in dealing with the matter? First, the

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    local authority there attempts to remove the effects of paint spraying as soon as it occurs. Secondly, it provides enough community facilities to make sure that people have better things to do.
    Mr. Brown: Many hon. Members will be aware of the imaginative approach to the problem. We have the Scottish Council on Crime, and a committee is in the process of being set up to deal with truancy and indiscipline in primary and secondary schools. I believe that along with the efforts of social work departments, this kind of imaginative treatment will make a big contribution to minimising the problem.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Does the Minister agree that it is a desperately serious problem? We read in the papers this morning that one local authority is employing private security firms to try to control vandalism in some areas. Would not it be a simple remedy if those who defaced public buildings with aerosol cans were forced to clean up the buildings?
    Mr. Brown: Yes, Sir, but I think that it must be done in co-operation with the authorities. I am not suggesting that the hon. Member has ever sprayed a building—I know that he is a vandal in other matters—but if he had done so he would know that there are problems in getting the paint off certain surfaces. That is why I say that it must be done in cooperation with the authorities, while involving the culprits.

    Education
    Mr. MacArthurasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about the future development of education in Scotland.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: There is too much happening in Scottish education to encompass within a short reply. If the hon. Gentleman has any specific point in mind I shall be happy to deal with it.
    Mr. MacArthur: I have a specific point. Will the hon. Gentleman devote less time to hounding grant-aided and independent schools and spend more time trying to ease the scandalous conditions that exist in many local authority schools in Scotland?
    Mr. Hughes: I spend no time at all hounding the grant-aided schools. Most
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    of the time that I devote to dealing with education is spent in trying to deal with the inheritance the hon. Gentleman's Government left, and the scandalous situation in education.
    Mr. Monro: Does the Minister realise that he has made a monstrous statement about grant-aided schools today? Why has he not given the normal increase in grant to cover increased costs and salaries for the grant-aided schools this year? Does he appreciate that he has effectively put up the fees by 25 per cent. for many parents who cannot afford them, and that he has had no consultation with the grant-aided schools? That is no way for an Under-Secretary in charge of education to behave.
    Mr. Hughes: I shall be happy to deal with many of those points if the hon. Gentleman is lucky enough to have the opportunity to raise the matter on the Adjournment. The fees charged in grant-aided schools would have had to be increased irrespective of our decision. What we have done will cost the average parent of a pupil at a grant-aided school £10 per annum. In any event the parents would probably have had to find an additional £40 because of increased costs.
    Mr. MacCormack: Does the Minister agree apart from the matter of making a survey of education that it is rather silly to have Scottish schools administered through the Scottish Education Department while Scottish universities are run by the University Grants Committee? Does he agree that we should have our own separate organisation for university education in Scotland?
    Mr. Hughes: I am not prepared to comment on that. If the hon. Gentleman cares to put down a Question on the Order Paper he shall have an answer.

    Drinking Convictions (Young Persons)
    Mr. Grayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish the figures for under-age drinking convictions in Scotland for the years 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973.
    Mr. Hugh D. Brown: The number of young people under 18 convicted in 1973 of buying excisable liquor or consuming it in a bar was 1,216. Because of a

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    change in the method of collecting statistics, exactly comparable figures for earlier years are not available. In 1970 the number convicted of buying liquor was 719, in 1971 it was 766, and in 1972 it was 688.
    Mr. Gray: The Minister will appreciate that these figures are most alarming. As a matter of urgency will he take steps to arrange for consultation between the Scottish Health Education Unit, the Scottish Education Department and local authorities throughout Scotland so that young people may be made fully aware of the dangers of this habit?
    Mr. Brown: I do not think that it is wise to use exaggerated phrases about alarm. It is certainly a subject that gives great cause for concern, particularly for those who are working with young people. Some of the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised are my hon. Friend's responsibility. Those matters are on board, and there is a pretty substantial programme of health education, which includes the dangers of drinking and alcoholism.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Will the Minister say how the Government's consideration of the Clayson Report is progressing, and what progress is being made on consultation about the report? Will he say when the Government will be able to make a statement on Clayson and to bring forward proposals to the House?
    Mr. Brown: It is probably making as much progress as it was under the hon. Gentleman's régime. There has been no great public pressure for reform. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are considering all the specific recomendations in the Clayson Report, and we hope to make an announcement as soon as possible.

  CROWN OFFICE
  Mr. Ancramasked the Lord Advocate whether he is satisfied with the present relationship between the Crown Office and the general public.
  The Lord Advocate (Mr. Ronald King Murray): The Crown Office is not an office which normally has direct contact with the general public. Most of its functions are carried out by the procurator
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  fiscal who, of course, operate in all areas of Scotland. Such outside relations as it has are with the legal profession and the courts.
  Mr. Ancram: I appreciate the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point about the Crown Office having contact with other members of the legal profession. Is he aware that sometimes in Scotland a decision is taken by the Crown Office not to prosecute prima facie cases without the people of Scotland being told why? Does he think that it would be a good idea, when that sort of thing happens, to alleviate suspicion about what goes on in the Crown Office by the Crown Office's explaining why no proceedings were taken?
  The Lord Advocate: If the hon. Gentleman has any case in mind, no doubt he will write to me about it or table a specific Question. Most Crown Office decisions are taken on evidence that is supplied by the police and by the procurators fiscal. That information obviously must be treated as confidential by the Crown, otherwise the investigation of crime would be hopelessly impeded. It is normally not possible to give reasons, but reasons are not refused by the Crown Office if it is felt that they can properly be given.
  Mrs. Winifred Ewing: May I put a _general proposition to the Lord Advocate? There is no definition of the powers of the Lord Advocate. Too often in the recent past Lord Advocates have been too keen to say "This is not my responsibility" or "I do not have power over this." Would not it be a good proposition, in the interests of justice generally in Scotland, if the Lord Advocate were a bit more of an empire builder, and if he were inclined to say, "This may well be within my powers, because my powers are not too well defined"?
  The Lord Advocate: I think that the hon. Lady is trying to encourage me in imperialist tendencies, which I must repudiate. The office of Lord Advocate is, as the hon. Lady knows, an ancient one, and its powers have been developed through the ages in a pragmatic and empirical way. The result is a flexible and useful office, which would be greatly reduced in value if we tried to define and outline any specific function.

  SCOTTISH LAW COMMISSION
  Mr. MacArthurasked the Lord Advocate when he will next meet the Scottish Law Commission.
  The Lord Advocate: The date of my next formal meeting with the Scottish Law Commission has not yet been fixed. The exchange of views and information, however, does not depend solely upon such meetings, and less formal exchanges take place as circumstances may require.
  Mr. MacArthur: During the Lord Advocate's formal or informal exchanges with the Law Commission will he seek its views on the present powers of the children's panels? Is he aware of the feeling that the panels' powers are often thought to be over-adequate, or inadequate, and that some middle sanction is now required to combat growing vandalism in Scotland?
  The Lord Advocate: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes)—in reply to Question No. 5, dealt specifically with the administrative arrangements which are available under existing legislation. The hon. Gentleman asked me about future legislation. He should give attention to the existing provisions in the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. For example, in Section 43(4) of that Act there is a provision, which he has not mentioned, for intermediate attendance or residence for 21 days for investigation. There is also provision in Section 44(1) for supervision. They are flexible intermediate methods of treatment, which the hon. Gentleman seems to ignore.
  Mr. Barry Henderson: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman expect to hear from the Scottish Law Commission when he next meets it that it is downright disappointed with the extremely complacent attitude shown by his right hon. and hon. Friends following the answers given earlier this afternoon about List D schools? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider the problems of law which arise as a consequence of matrimonial disputes, particularly when there has been a history of violence?
  The Lord Advocate: I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends will take note of the hon. Gentleman's first point. That is a matter which does not fall directly within my sphere of jurisdiction or within the jurisdiction of the Scottish Law Commission.
  I am hoping to meet the Chairman of the Scottish Law Commission towards the end of this month, and among the matters that will be discussed is an active programme of law reform, which is already under way with this Government.
  Mr. David Steel: When the right hon. and learned Gentleman meets the Chairman of the Scottish Law Commission will he be able to give the commission any assurance, with his helpful nature, about the reform of divorce law in Scotland, for which the commission has been pressing and which, I believe, has growing public support?
  The Lord Advocate: Of course, matters of matrimonial law reform cover a very wide range. The hon. Gentleman may have in mind divorce law reform. The hon. Gentleman referred to matrimonial law generally, and that includes divorce. With regard to divorce, I refer the hon. Gentleman to answers given on that subject in recent weeks. I have nothing to add to those answers. Matrimonial law reform generally, and not merely divorce, is a matter under consideration by the Scottish Law Society in a remit covering not only matrimonial law in the wider sense, but family law generally.
  Mr. Buchanan-Smith: In view of concern in Scotland about crimes of violence—concern that is shared on both sides of the House—when the right hon. and learned Gentleman next meets the Scottish Law Commission or any of its committees will he ascertain when the Thomson Committee is likely to bring forward its recommendations relating to the powers of search for offensive weapons?
  The Lord Advocate: The hon. Gentleman has raised an important matter in which I have a deep interest. I was fortunate enough to attend a meeting of the Scottish Council on Crime this summer. The council is concerned with this matter. A report is expected or hoped for from the Thomson Committee

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  before the end of the year. I have no doubt that this is one of the many matters that it will take up.

  EEC SOCIAL FUND GRANTS
  Mr. Blaker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Under-Secretary of State for Employment answered a Question from me yesterday about the amount allocated to the United Kingdom in the year 1973 by the European Social Fund. The figure he gave in that answer conflicted with the figure that had been given in an earlier answer. I wonder whether it would be suitable for the hon. Gentleman to put the record straight.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Fraser): The figure I gave, of £19·8 million, was the figure for Great Britain. I may have given the impression that it was the United Kingdom figure. The figure for the United Kingdom is £4 million greater, in respect of Northern Ireland allocations.

NUCLEAR REACTOR POLICY
The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Eric G. Varley): With permission, Mr. Speaker I wish to make a statement.
The Government have decided that the electricity boards should adopt the steam generating heavy water reactor for their next nuclear power station orders.
In the Government's judgment the SGHWR will provide power reliably and we can proceed to order it quickly. The Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations advises that there should be no fundamental difficulties in giving SGHWR safety clearance. SGHWR offers particular scope for British nuclear technology and we should exploit it. The 100 megawatt prototype at Winfrith has now been operating successfully for six years and is designed to reproduce the operating conditions of a commercial unit.
It is for these reasons that the Government believe SGHWR is the right system for the United Kingdom to pursue. Since we shall be moving forward from a prototype to a commercial size and design, it seems sensible to start with reactor units of 600–660 MW rather than
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a larger size so as to reduce the problems of scaling-up, and also for the initial programme to be relatively modest—not more than 4,000 MW over the next four years. We are asking the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Scottish boards to set preparatory work in hand jointly. A first order will be placed as soon as possible.
After the initial programme the aim should be to build up orders as rapidly as progress allows. The initial orders will provide a sound base for industrial development for the future.
Both the British and Canadian Governments see great advantage in full cooperation on heavy water pressure tube systems. United Kingdom nuclear organisations and the electricity boards will start discussing co-operation, with their Canadian counterparts immediately.
Our first commitment to the future must be the success of SGHWR. As to other systems, the Government have accepted that a major new programme of Magnox, depite its generally good operation. would not be sensible. While it is essential to complete the advanced gas-cooled reactor programme satisfactorily, it would be unwise to place further AGR orders until we have successful operating experience.
The high temperature reactor has considerable potential and I am asking the nuclear organisations to pursue further the propects of participating in its international development, in which our experience of gas-cooled technology will be of great value. But HTR is not suitable for the electricity board's main programmes at this time, nor do we have the resources for an immediate demonstration order while we are launching SGHWR.
The Government have decided against any commitment to the light water reactor but have asked the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to carry through to conclusions its examination of the generic safety issues.
The Government will maintain our effort on the fast reactor on which we are in the forefront of technology. I am asking the nuclear organisations to urgently pursue the prospects for further international co-operation, covering development and the start of commercial ordering.

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The present programme of SGHWR will dictate the pattern of nuclear and fossil plant ordering over the next three to four years. We shall take decisions on the capital investment for new fossil stations progressively, depending on load growth. We are fortunately placed with major fossil reserves.
In the later 1970s our nuclear options should widen. We should in particular be able to step up the SGHWR programme, given satisfactory initial experience of construction. We shall keep a close watch on the environmental implications of nuclear power, on siting and on the management of radioactive waste.
Owing to the printing dispute. I am making available a limited number of typed copies of the Government's Paper. I shall shortly publish the advice of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board. I am most grateful to the members for the time and effort they have given.
Discussions on reactor policy have been prolonged, but the period of uncertainty is now over. The Government's decision offers the prospect of a further—publicly acceptable—development of nuclear power in the United Kingdom, and I shall now discuss its detailed implementation with the electricity boards and the nuclear industry. It is important that all concerned should work together to make a success of our nuclear programme. They have assured me that they will do so.
Mr. Patrick Jenkin: This announcement must be one of the most crucial Government decisions about advanced technology which the House has heard for a good many years. I sincerely hope that the decision which the Secretary of State has announced today will prove to be successful and that it will not run into the kind of difficulties which beset the advanced gas-cooled reactor programme launched nine years ago. As it is an extremely crucial decision, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bear with me while I put a number of questions to him.
I am sure the House would be wise to await the report of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board before coming to any final conclusions. Will copies of the report be made available in typescript
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at as early an opportunity as possible so that hon. Members may see what advice the right hon. Gentleman has had? He has announced a programme for 4,000 MW over four years. Is he aware that this is very different from the 3,000 MW a year which he indicated in the debate on 2nd May would be the minimum programme of nuclear ordering over the next two years? Does not this amount to little more than a pilot programme? How long will it be before we can embark on a large-scale series—[Interruption.] The Prime Minister may say "Oh!", but it is one-third of the size of the programme which the right hon. Gentleman said would be appropriate as recently as May.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): How long has the right hon. Gentleman taken?
Mr. Jenkin: Does that mean that while other countries are going right ahead to reduce their dependence on coal and oil we will have to continue for some years more with a fossil fuel programme? If so, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what will be the cost to the British electricity consumer and what will be the cost to the balance of payments of such a policy during the 1980s?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that nuclear power is now nearly 50 per cent. cheaper than power produced by fossil fuel? Is he further aware that for every 3,000 MW of demand met by nuclear rather than fossil fuel the consumer will be saved about £100 million a year throughout the 1980s? Does his decision mean that during the 1980s consumers will have electricity bills that are 20 per cent. or even 25 per cent. higher than they would have been if he had been able to go for a programme of the size which he indicated was the minimum when he addressed the House on 2nd May?
We are going for a programme of heavy water reactors. What proposals do the Government have for the installation of capacity to produce heavy water? It may be that this pilot programme can be supplied from Canadian heavy water plants, but sooner or later we will have to meet capacity ourselves. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us something about that?

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There has been some suggestion in the Press that there might be a reconstruction of the National Nuclear Corporation. Will the right hon. Gentleman explore with the industry which other companies might like to participate in the NNC before he decides to expand the public sector?
I am sure that the House will want to debate this important decision. Is the Secretary of State aware that I hope it will be regarded as being of sufficient importance not to be relegated to a 90-minute debate on the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) Order which is at present before the House?
Mr. Varley: I am not sure whether the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) welcomes our decision. The fact is that the Government to which he belonged postponed making a decision for more than two years. The present Government have come to a decision within four months of taking office. I believe that it is a decision broadly acceptable to the House and to the country.
As to the right hon. Gentleman's detailed questions, the report of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board is practically complete. During the debate on nuclear reactor choice I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) whether the report would be made public. It will be made public and I hope that it will be published within the next few days, certainly before the end of the month.
On the question of the size of the programme. we think that 4,000 MW of SGHWR capacity is about right, but I hope that by 1977–78 it will be possible to take stock of the situation to see how the ordering and the design are coming along and to consider the matter in that light.
The decision I have announced has implications for our fossil fuel power station programme, but to have gone to the sort of figures I indicated in the debate—not my figures but those of the Central Electricity Generating Board—would have meant that the Government were committed in advance on the safety clearance of pressure water reactors, and I do not think that that would have been acceptable. There are cost implications, but these are highly speculative and they
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are meaningless because neither an SGHWR nor a PWR has been built in Britain.
On the question of heavy water, in the early stages we shall have to collaborate with the Canadians. We shall enter into negotiations with the Canadian Atomic Energy Authority about securing the heavy water that we require, but eventually—with the success of SGHWR—I hope that we shall have our own heavy water plant.
We shall consider further the structure of the National Nuclear Corporation. I am not giving away secrets when I tell the House that the Chairman of the National Nuclear Corporation was not in favour of SGHWR, but he has put out a statement in which he says:
"The National Nuclear Corporation, including myself, will now turn their full energies to the design and production of SGHWR."
That is a realistic and constructive attitude for Lord Aldington to take.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The House will realise the difficulty of the Chair. We have a great deal of business to do today. We cannot debate the statement now, but for a limited time I will allow short and sharp questions.
Mr. Palmer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many hon. Members on both sides of the House will congratulate him on his courage in making this difficult but sound decision against much opposition and on his wisdom in adopting the views of the Select Committee? Is there hope of a sound and comprehensive agreement with the Canadians fairly soon, since this would give great confidence all round and be of tremendous assistance in world markets?
Mr. Varley: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. We believe that realistic co-operation with the Canadians is possible. Informal talks have already taken place and we hope to firm them up in the weeks ahead.
Mr. Neave: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a great many people in industry will applaud him for having the courage of his convictions and for giving British heavy engineering the opportunity that it has been waiting for to get on with the nuclear job? Will he hold talks

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with the Canadians at ministerial level as soon as possible?
Mr. Varley: Certainly I want to talk to my Canadian opposite number, but a good deal of the detailed discussions will take place, and have already taken place, with officials. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this announcement should be regarded as a great boost for British technology and British engineering, and I am sure that the opportunity will be seized.
Mr. Grimond: Is the Secretary of State aware that at first sight it might seem sensible to embark upon a fairly moderate programme at this stage? What is the estimated capital cost of the programme, and what is the estimated cost of the electricity generated?
Mr. Varley: The actual cost is highly speculative, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to wait until the publication of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board's report which I hope will come out within the next few days. The cost is speculative in the sense that neither the SGHWR nor the system preferred by the CEGB has been built in Britain. I do not think that there is a great cost difference, but there are cost differences when one compares nuclear reactors with fossil fuel reactors. If we can move quickly to series ordering for SGHW—I said that we hope to take stock of the situation by 1977–78—there could be real savings.
Dr. John A. Cunningham: Is my right hon. Friend aware that most people will recognise that he has been faced with a difficult decision? He has decided to stay with British technology, and this will be a boost to the morale of British scientists and technologists. It is most important that my right hon. Friend should have decided upon a limited programme—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Member coming to a question?
Dr. Cunningham: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Is the Secretary of State aware that there are two question marks about his decision? One is that we have not yet built a commercial-scale SGHWR—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Question marks are not enough. The hon. Member must
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put what he wants to say in interrogative form.
Dr. Cunningham: I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. Is my right hon. Friend aware that we have not yet built a commercial-scale SGHWR in this country and that our dependence upon Canadian supplies of heavy water may turn out to be a disadvantage?
Mr. Varley: I am not sure that I wholly accept what my hon. Friend said about the Canadian situation and the supply of heavy water. I am confident that we can come to firm arrangements with the Canadians about heavy water. We do not have a commercial SGHWR operating in Britain but, as my hon. Friend knows, Winfrith has a 100-MW prototype that has operated successfully for six years, and I am confident that it can be scaled up to the size I outlined in my statement.
Mr. Skeet: Is the Secretary of State aware that the CEGB may require six major modifications of the SGHWR? In that case, shall we not be faced with all the teething problems that we experienced with the AGR? Bearing in mind that France, Western Germany, the rest of Western Europe, Japan and the United States have all gone down the road of light water reactors, how has the hon. Gentleman come to the conclusion that he has reached and remained unconvinced by world experience?
Mr. Varley: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman cannot back British technology, which is what he is implying. We came to our conclusion on SGHWR on the basis of reliability. We think that we can have a reliable system with SGHWR. One of our other conditions was public acceptability, and I think that SGHWR will be publicly acceptable to Britain. There is also the question of giving a boost to British technology. As to PWR, I know that the hon. Gentleman would have preferred that choice.
Mr. Skeet: Light water.
Mr. Varley: There are two versions of the light water reactor. The hon. Gentleman is assuming that the light water reactor would have received immediate safety clearance, but the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate said that it needed two

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years to consider the matter before coming to a conclusion.
Mr. Hardy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement deserves to be greeted with considerable satisfaction, not least because he has maintained British nuclear technology despite the considerable and often ill-based pressure which appears to have half-persuaded the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin)? Will my right hon. Friend make clear that there is no ground for concern about the adequacy of the supply of heavy water? Will he also say a word about his idea of the future composition of the National Nuclear Corporation.
Mr. Varley: I do not doubt that we shall have the ability to get a firm arrangement with the Canadians in the initial stages on heavy water. As the programme builds up, I hope that we can have our own heavy water plant. As for the National Nuclear Corporation, we shall be looking at this matter carefully. It is clear that Sir Arnold Weinstock of the GEC would like to reduce its shareholding, but there might be others who will want to take it up. We shall consider the matter further.
Mr. Hannam: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the programme represents a sharp reduction in our nuclear power programme and will lead to extra costs of electricity in the years to come? Has he considered a mixed programme including the SGHWR and light water reactors?
Mr. Varley: No. So far as the Government are concerned it is a firm commitment and a straight commitment to go for the SGHWR. The hon. Gentleman will see that in paragraph 14 of our report we say that we have asked the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to carry through to conclusions the assessment of the generic safety of the PWR. This it will do.
Mr. Fernyhough: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the British public, as distinct from some Members of the House, will welcome the high priority he has given to safety as against price? Is he further aware that because this field is still so uncharted, this modest beginning is sensible? When he has discussions with the CEGB about the placing of the
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contract for four or five heavy water nuclear stations, will he bear in mind the problems of the heavy electrical engineering industry, particularly in development areas, and see whether any orders can go to those areas?
Mr. Varley: Certainly the decision we have announced will be welcomed by some engineering interests associated with power station development. I am sure that there are some within my right hon. Friend's constituency or region who will welcome the decision, even the modest start to this programme—a programme which, as I have already indicated, I hope can be built up later.
Mr. Nigel Lawson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his decision will cause considerable dismay in an important sector of the British nuclear power industry, including British Nuclear Design and Construction and the GEC Reactor Corporation in my constituency? Does he know whether the hyper-cautious Swiss have given the light water reactor and the PWR safety clearance? Will he confirm that he is throwing away great export opportunities in respect of the light water reactor, particularly in conjunction with the French, and is saddling us with a large import burden in obtaining heavy water from the Canadians? Will he confirm that he has thrown over the advice not merely of the CEGB and the Chairman of the National Nuclear Corporation but also of Lord Rothschild's "think-tank" after an objective study of the problem?
Mr. Varley: It is not customary for Government spokesmen to comment on the advice that Governments receive from the Central Policy Review Staff. I do not think I can go any further than that. The hon. Gentleman knows that there are many people who are just as passionate in their advocacy of the SGHWR as he is in favour of the LWR. That goes for the Scottish Board, Lord Hinton. the Select Committee, the Institution of Professional Civil Servants and many other who have a great deal of knowledge of these matters.
Mr. David Stoddart: May I join in congratulations to my right hon. Friend since he has made an eminently sensible decision that will be welcomed by all the people in industry, including working people? May I ask him two questions?

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First, will he make sure that the export potential of the SGHWR will not be ignored? Second, does the decision to have a slower programme reflect an investigation into the absurd projections of demand made by the CEGB?
Mr. Varley: On the question of demand by those in the electricity industry, my hon. Friend will see that our forecasts and estimates are set out in the Nuclear Power Advisory Board's report. As for the question of exports, the primary consideration in coming to this decision was to have a reactor which would provide power reliably for Britain. I believe that as the SGHWR is built up there will be an export potential.
Mr. Tom Boardman: Will the Secretary of State recognise that until we see the report of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board it will be difficult for hon. Members to form an opinion? Will he confirm that his decision was contrary to the choice of both the CEGB and the National Nuclear Corporation? Will he also undertake to make a further statement on the supply of heavy water, which is a matter of concern on both sides of the House?
Mr. Varley: If a statement is necessary on that aspect of heavy water supply, I shall come to the House and make it. But, as I have already said on two or three occasions, we are satisfied that we can have an arrangement for this programme which will be satisfactory. In respect of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board, it was clear that they, the CEGB and the National Nuclear Corporation would have preferred to go for the LWR. To that extent their advice has been rejected, but I have been told by Lord Aldington and by the chairman of the CEGB that now that the Government have made up their minds on reactor choice, they will back us and make a success of it. I certainly hope that this will happen. I have by no means rejected the unanimous advice of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board because it was impossible to get a unanimous decision out of it. As a result of my meeting yesterday, I think the balance of opinion from the NPAB is in favour of the Government's decision.
Mr. Dalyell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us are pleased at the decision and also at the rational and convincing methods used by my right hon. Friend in arriving at the decision over the past few months—which is a change from the sort of situation we have had in the past 10 years in terms of technological decision-making? Apart from the heavy water aspect, what else is included in the co-operation package with the Canadians? Some of us think it wise that we are going first for 660 megawatts and not into the uncharted territory of bigger stations.
Mr. Varley: Certainly it is prudent at this stage not to go straight from a 100 megawatt prototype at Winfrith up to 1300 megawatts. We should make a success of the 600–660 megawatt-type first. As for further industrial collaboration with the Canadians, I think that there is scope in this direction and it is a matter which we shall be discussing.
Mr. Churchill: Is the Secretary of State aware of the disappointment among those who work in heavy electrical industry at Trafford Park in the Greater Manchester area at the Government's decision to proceed with a programme only one-third of the size which the CEGB thought desirable? Will he confirm that the full programme suggested by the CEGB was unacceptable to the National Union of Mineworkers?
Mr. Varley: I do not know what connection that supplementary question has with the matter under discussion. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will take me to one side and explain precisely what he means. As for Trafford Park and the GEC, I have already said that Sir Arnold Weinstock said that he wants to back the decision and make a success of it now. I am confident that he means what he says.
Mr. Swain: Is my right hon. Friend aware that since the Labour Government came into office we have had statements about the mining industry, the oil industry and now about the nuclear industry? When will he, in the interest of hon. Members and the general public produce a White Paper setting out where each of the main energy-producing industries will fit into the energy needs of the nation by 1980?
Mr. Varley: I want in the years ahead to produce as much information as possible for the House about energy and energy policy. I believe that the 1980 perspective is still a good one. By 1980 in terms of value Britain should be self-sufficient in energy. We have to make the most of it and make sure that we use that opportunity in general economic terms
Mr. John Davies: Although I congratulate the Secretary of State on an act of courage which I am sure he realises is also an act of faith, may I ask him for one assurance? He said that he intended to proceed to a measure of international collaboration in terms of the high temperature reactor. Does he intend to do the same in terms of the fast breeder reactor, where there are great rewards available to us from international cooperation, especially in Europe?
Mr. Varley: Yes, Sir. It will certainly be possible to look for further collaborative efforts with the fast breeder reactor and the HTR. As to the right hon. Gentleman's first comment about my decision being an act of faith, there was of course a risk involved, no matter what course the Government had taken. But I am sure that the SGHWR is the right system for Britain. I know that the majority of British industry will welcome it and will want to back it.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have allowed more than half an hour for questions on the right hon. Gentleman's statement. I am afraid that we must move on now. However, I assure hon. Members who have not had an opportunity to put questions to the Minister that, if there is a debate in due course, it may be that they will have preferential treatment.
Mr. Evelyn King: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw attention to the fact that the whole of the research for this project has been developed in my constituency by a devoted team over the past 10 years? Might not the House spare one moment to pay tribute to the immense value of their work?
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member of Dorset, South (Mr. King), in an irregular manner, has made his point.
Mr. Patrick Jenkin: On a further point of order, Mr. Speaker. You suggested that a number of hon. Members had not had a chance to catch your eye in this exchange on the ground that there would be a debate. We have not been given any undertaking that there will be a debate.
Mr. Speaker: I said "If".

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS (PRINTING)
The Minister of State, Civil Service Department (Mr. Robert Sheldon): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement.
The supply of Government papers to Parliament and members of the public is still being affected by the industrial action of members of the National Graphical Association in Her Majesty's Stationery Office's printing works in support of a claim for improved pay and conditions.
HMSO has sought the assistance of the conciliation services of the Department of Employment to try to resolve the issue, but despite meetings with the officials of the National Graphical Association no settlement has been reached. The NGA members, who represent about 40 per cent. of the staff of the Parliamentary Press, have now imposed a stoppage until midnight tomorrow.
Copies of the documents essential to the business of the House will continue to be made available, in limited quantities, in one form or another.
Members may also wish to note that, to assist those outside the House specially interested in the Finance Bill, a limited number of copies will be available at the Treasury on the basis of one or two copies per caller.
Mr. Prior: Is the Minister aware that I have only just received a copy of his statement? I do not know whether that is due to the printing dispute. What is the reason for this industrial action? Can the hon. Gentleman say what is the cause of it? Can he also say what extra efforts can be made to ensure that copies of the documents which are available, as he says, in one form or another are improved? If the hon. Gentleman cares to look, for example, at the copy of the Rent Bill which is now available, he will see the reason for my question. It is in a

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form which is fairly impossible to decipher.
This is a great inconvenience to the House. It is the kind of inconvenience to which industry and commerce have been subjected for a long time, and this House is now having to put up with it as well. Month after month and year after year, we as a nation are getting these problems. It is time that the nation as a whole took a grip on itself and surmounted them.
Mr. Sheldon: I must apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for the lateness of his receipt of the statement. It was due to an effort to give to the House the latest information available and an attempt to give the fullest possible details that were available to me personally.
The right hon. Gentleman asks whether the form in which papers are being produced can be improved. Some improvement has taken place. The right hon. Gentleman will recognise some of the improvements which have been made in the production of the Order Paper as well as in producing the Finance Bill which came subsequent to some of the other Bills that were produced in this way.
I regret as much as anyone the inconvenience to the House. This is a matter which we have to deal with, as it had to be dealt with by the previous Government. We have tried to produce papers in the way best suited to hon. Members.
As for the cause of the dispute, as I said in my statement this is a dispute over the terms and conditions of the National Graphical Association by comparison with those alleged to have been received by members of the NGA in other parts of the London area in particular. It must be seen against the background of recent disputes in the printing industry generally, and especially in the area of London itself.
Mr. David Steel: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that this House has been very tolerant over these matters, both currently and in the past? Will he see whether an attempt can be made to improve the flow of certain documents which are not available at all? I understand that there are no reports available of meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee—even for the limited number of Scottish Members who would want them, assuming that they are not generally
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required by the House. Are there individual matters in which limited quantities of documents might be made available?
Mr. Sheldon: In fact a wide range of documents is available. Concerning the specific items to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, the Housing (Scotland) Bill comes to mind a number of copies are available. If there are particular shortages that we have not been able to identify, we shall do our best to make sure that copies are available.
I want to pay tribute to the work both of the House and of those concerned in making sure that every arrangement which can be made is being made for the convenience of the House. There is a large amount of work involved. The process of getting documents right to the counter in the Members' Lobby is an immense task, and we should be grateful for the way it has been performed.
Mr. Cryer: Does not this dispute show that no government is possible without the consent and co-operation of working people? Will my hon. Friend comment on whether the situation is made better or worse by the fact that apparently this House is surviving on blackleg labour? Is he quite sure that this is not making the dispute worse?
Mr. Sheldon: All these essential papers to enable us to continue the business of the House from day to day are produced under the aegis of the House. This has been the practice in the past. We are not taking this work out of the control of the House, and this enables the work to proceed.
As for my hon. Friend's other comment, he is quite right. The dispute shows how democracy in this country works by consent. One of the problems which have arisen would have been much more readily solved if we were not living under the shadow of the pay policy of the previous administration.
Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman said that we had to look at this dispute in the context of the London decisions on pay. Ought we not also to look at it in the context of the survival of parliamentary democracy? Should not this House recognise that whereas the Nazis were never able to stop the publication of parliamentary papers we are experiencing such a stoppage now and that it is not

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possible for Parliament to continue for very long in these circumstances?
Mr. Sheldon: Naturally I regret as much as anyone in the House the interruption to the normal flow of papers. But it is not true to say that parliamentary democracy is being brought to a halt. The right hon. Gentleman exaggerates the position. We have available in one form or another all the essential papers required for our business from day to day. I think that that will continue to be the case.
Dr. M. S. Miller: In that connection, accepting that the House is under strain and that difficulties are involved, may I ask my hon. Friend to convey to the people engaged in producing those papers that they have our congratulations and thanks for the way in which they are producing them? We are not anything like as badly off as Opposition Members suggest.
Mr. Sheldon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for an opportunity to offer my congratulations to those people, some of whom are working as much as an 18-hour day, who have been responsible for the efforts to produce the papers of the House.
Mr. Michael Hamilton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Ministers of whichever Government are in power make identical statements with depressing regularity about the printing situation, and that in all parts of the House we are getting rather tired of that situation? When will the hon. Gentleman tell us that he has plans for installing a printing works in our own premises?
Mr. Sheldon: It is a matter for the House and for you, Mr. Speaker, to make provisions of an alternative kind if necessary.
Mr. Rossi: The Minister has referred to the inconvenience to which Members are put. We are reaching the point at which it will be impossible for Members to do their work. I draw the Minister's attention particularly to the Bills with which I am concerned. The first is the Control of Pollution Bill [Lords] which has been out of Committee for almost two weeks. We have not seen one printed report of that Committee, but we shall
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have reached the Report stage within a week. How can hon. Members possibly prepare for the Report stage without seeing the report of the Committee to ascertain the Minister's assurances and undertakings?
The Rent Bill [Lords] has reached us as a photostat copy with clauses marked and struck out, other clauses inserted, whole pages inserted but not numbered, and with lines unnumbered. How can hon. Members possibly find their way through a document of that kind in order to deal with the Bill at the Committee stage, which I understand the Government are anxious to bring on as quickly as possible? How can hon. Members consider that Bill in detail when they have had no opportunity of studying what the other place did with it during the Committee and Report stages, because the copies of those reports, too, are not generally available?
Mr. Sheldon: The reports of the second and third sittings of the Standing Committee on the Control of Pollution Bill are now available in the Vote Office. The third sitting was completed only last week and the report will shortly be available. I shall go into the question how soon this can be made available in the Vote Office for the use of Members.
Regarding the form in which some of the Bills have been presented, I regret as much as anyone else that documents have not appeared in the normal printed form to which we are accustomed. But hon. Members will see that the documents are perfectly legible. This matter can, of course, be debated.
I am grateful to those people who have made it possible for us to discuss these Bills.
Mr. Skinner: Would my hon. Friend agree that this is another example of the cant and hypocrisy of Members opposite, many of whom do not turn up for work half the week any way? Does the inconvenience suffered not pale into in significance in comparison with the inconvenience caused to millions of working people throughout this country a few months ago when the then Government put those people on a three-day working week?
Mr. Sheldon: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend concerning the relative scale of the inconvenience suffered by Parliament and the people of this country.
The other thing that might be said with some value is that the pay policy which produced the three-day week has also been a contributory factor to this debate.
Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Could we have an assurance that when the problem is over we shall receive printed copies quickly? There seems to be some doubt about that at the Vote Office. We shall all be patient if we know that we shall receive our copies eventually.
Would the Minister ask his ministerial colleagues, when replying to points and referring to dated copies, to give us some guidance? When one receives an enormous document one finds it very difficult to discover the answer.
Lastly, is this not perhaps an example of the over-centralisation of printing? Would the Minister consider that a solution might be to spread the work around so that we are never dependent on one industrial area?
Mr. Sheldon: If the hon. Lady is concerned that work should be done out of London, then she has a great supporter in the present Government who are anxiously pursuing this aim in the more general sense.
I am happy to give an assurance that the OFFICIAL REPORT and other essential Parliamentary papers will be printed when the dispute ends.
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The hon. Lady asked for further details to be given so that Members could find their way about the documents and some of the papers being produced. I will go into that suggestion and consider what might be done.
Mr. Goodhew: When the Minister of State, Civil Service Department, spoke just now he suggested that it was a question for you, Mr. Speaker, whether there should be any change in the arrangements for the printing of our papers such as the installation of a printing press here. Could you enlighten hon. Members whether they have the power to ask you to do that or whether it is the responsibility of the Government?
Mr. Speaker: I think hon. Members have the power to ask me to do anything. Whether I would answer the question is another matter. I am, of course, prepared to take advice from the usual channels and the Services Committee, on the work of the House. But I would take no action such as proposed unless it had the authority of the House.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS (PRINTING)

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Statutory Instruments).
  That the draft Agricultural Lime Scheme (Extension of Period) Order 1974 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Pendry.]
  That the Hop Gardens (Replanting and Restructuring) Scheme 1974 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Pendry.]
  Question agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS BILL
    New Clause 1

      RIGHTS OF WORKERS AGAINST ARBITRARY EXCLUSION FROM TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP.
      (1) Subject to the provisions of the Section every worker shall have the right not to be—

      (a) excluded from membership;

      (b) expelled from membership

      of a trade union or a branch or section of a trade union by way of arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination.
      (2) The exclusion or explusion of a worker from membership of a union, branch or section shall not be deemed to be arbitrary or unreasonable if the worker is of a description different from that or those of the majority of the members of that union, branch or section (as the case may be) or does not possess the appropriate qualifications for such membership.
      (3) A worker aggrieved by his exclusion or expulsion from any trade union, branch or section may apply to an industrial tribunal in accordance with industrial tribunal regulations for a declaration that he is entitled to be a member of that union, branch or section.
      (4) Where any such declaration has been made and has not been implemented by the union, branch or section concerned within any period specified in the declaration or if no such period is specified within a reasonable period, the worker may apply to the High Court or in Scotland the Court of Session for an injunction, interdict or such other relief (including compensation) as the Court may think just and expedient in all the circumstances of the case.—[Mr. Hayhoe.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      4.17 p.m.
      Mr. Barney Hayhoe: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Speaker: It would be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time new Clause 5—[Rights of workers in respect of trade union membership.]
      Mr. Hayhoe: I am grateful for your guidance on that point, Mr. Speaker.
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      Apart from the broader comments made about the availability of the various papers and the efforts made to produce the papers we require for this Report stage, may I say how grateful we are for the very considerable efforts made on Thursday and Friday of last week to have these documents available.
      The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Foot): I thank the hon. Gentleman for the statement he has made and express to him and his colleagues, and indeed to Mr. Speaker and the servants of the House, our deep regret about what has occurred. We think it constitutes a very serious difficulty for the House of Commons if papers are delayed in this manner and if special arrangements have to be made for their production. I apologise to everyone that that has occurred. We have done everything we can to deal with the situation.
      I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. The Civil Service Department has worked very hard to overcome the difficulties. We do not regard the present situation as one that is satisfactory in any sense.
      Mr. Hayhoe: One can but hope that this harmonious beginning to the debate will be carried through the whole of the Report stage. I suspect that it might not go quite that way.
      The purpose of the new clause and of the other changes and amendments we hope to propose to the Bill is straightforward. Our intentions are to improve the Bill, to change it from something which was apparently drafted by the TUC for the TUC, in the interests of the TUC, into legislation which would be broadly acceptable to this House and to modern Labour, Liberal and Conservative opinion, and members and' nonmembers of unions.
      There is a possibility open to us in Parliament during the next two days to put this legislation into a form which would be broadly acceptable to moderate opinion and which I hope the House will think it worth while attempting to achieve.
      We made some progress in Committee. It would be wrong for me to go into detail about the changes that have already been made in the Bill. The form in which we have it demonstrates where the changes have occurred because they

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      are marked on our copies. By retaining the Code of Practice and by other changes the Bill has been improved. I hope that new clause 1 will commend itself to the House and will in its way improve the Bill still further.
      The clause is concerned with safeguards for the individual against arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination involving either exclusion or expulsion from membership of a trade union. It would establish rights at law and provide a civil, not criminal, remedy if the decisions of industrial tribunals on questions of this kind were not carried through. Only if a decision or a declaration which an industrial tribunal made on a matter referred to it as a result of the provisions of the clause was ignored by the trade union concerned could an application be made to the High Court.
      The importance of these safeguards is underlined and increased in the context of the closed shop. It is important in an absolute sense, but particularly when we consider it in the context of closed shops or, as a result of the Bill, where union membership agreements apply.
      There is a great deal of common ground here. It is common ground between both sides of the House, I think, that such arbitrary action by trade unions is rare. It happens very seldom. Nevertheless, some safeguards are desirable.
      The Secretary of State, in his statement on 22nd March when he outlined his proposals for the Bill, made it clear that he felt that in either this or a later Bill consideration was being given to providing safeguards against arbitrary exclusion or expulsion from union membership. Therefore, from the first moment the right hon. Gentleman at least referred to the need for or the importance of safeguards against such arbitrary action, even though I feel sure that at that time he recognised that it was rare for such action to have taken place in the past.
      On Second Reading the Secretary of State again referred to this matter. On 7th May, referring to this as a matter of controversy which he thought was important, he said:
      "We thought that probably the best way to approach the matter was along the lines of the Donovan Report, which laid down a procedure for dealing with these questions which is perfectly feasible.
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      On the other hand, the General Council of the TUC takes the view strongly that other developments have taken place since the publication of the Donovan Report which have assisted the situation, and it has good arguments in support of that view. The TUC has taken steps to try to ensure that proper procedures are available to trade unionists and people generally who may be affected."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th May 1974; Vol. 873, c. 231–2.]
      The right hon. Gentleman gave a balanced statement at that time indicating that it was an important matter and that Donovan had suggested one way in which it might be dealt with, but that the TUC took a slightly different view and he was still considering the matter.
      The Secretary of State's intentions on this matter seemed good. Therefore, it is surprising how bad has been the specific performance that flows from those good intentions.
      When we debated the matter in Committee we had an indication by the Minister of State that the Government would consider the debate carefully and perhaps bring forward on Report some form of words to meet this point. However, we have had nothing on this matter. I suppose there is still hope that redemption may yet come to the Secretary of State and that in reply he, or his hon. Friend the Minister of State, will indicate that the clause is acceptable. I hope that he will, because that would be the best way to proceed.
      The clause is not all that far away from what the Secretary of State was talking about on Second Reading when he referred to the Donovan approach to these matters which is set out at paragraph 612 of the report where the suggestion is made that an individual should have a
      "right of complaint to a new and independent review body. He should be entitled to ask that body for a declaration that, upon his undertaking to abide by the rules of the union affecting existing members, he should, notwithstanding any absolute discretion vested in the union or in any committee of the union, become and remain a member."
      There was the idea of the matter being reviewed by some impartial body, that body being asked to give a declaration and, if that declaration was not followed by the union concerned, there being a civil remedy before the courts. Again, that is common ground as to what Donovan was recommending.

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      The clause suggests that we make use of the industrial tribunals which, under the unfair dismissal provisions of the 1971 Act and in this legislation, if it goes through in its present form, have to look at similar questions. We believe that the machinery of the industrial tribunals would be a good way of handling the matter.
      I do not want to make too much of the reference to "In Place of Strife", but I am sure that the Secretary of State knows that we could find there the appropriate comment in favour of following the suggestion by Donovan of having safeguards for the individual against arbitrary action of this kind.
      Having, I hope, carried the House with me so far on this point, may I now attempt to deal with the two major arguments that seem to be put forward against such action being taken in the Bill.
      The first argument is that, because examples of arbitrary action are rare, there is no need to hurry to do anything about it or to delve into the matter at all. To some extent that was the argument adduced by the Minister of State in Committee when we talked about these matters. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) argued that if there were only one example there ought to be legislation to defend the rights of the individual. That argument seemed to commend itself to a substantial number of hon. Members in Committee. As I said, the first argument was that as it did not happen often there was no need to deal with it.
      The second argument was that we should not worry about it in this Bill but should wait for the employment protection Bill as that would be the right place to deal with it.
      On the first point, I should like to call in aid Professor Kahn-Freund who is a considerable expert on these matters. He was quoted as such by the Minister of State in Committee. I should like to refer to what Professor Kahn-Freund said in the Gaitskell Memorial Lecture of 1970. I am not sure whether, being the Gaitskell Memorial Lecture, it would altogether commend itself to the Secretary of State, but perhaps it would be a commendation to some of his hon. Friends.
      4.30 p.m.
      At any rate, I think that what he said at that time was important. He said—
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      and I am quoting from the Modern Law Review of May 1970 which gives the text of the lecture:
      "Misuse of trade union power is a rare phenomenon in this country, but it can occur and it does. The law, however, is concerned with the marginal cases. This is where empirical social scientists and lawyers so often fail to understand each other. The lawyer looks at the marginal case, and the empirical social scientist treats with contempt proposals to deal with anything which according to the statistics happens only rarely. But how often does it happen? 'But suppose it does happen!'—how often have I heard this dialogue and taken part in it? It is the possibility of a misuse of union power that is on my mind far more than its actuality—though, as I shall have to mention, actual cases are not missing. Most employers are conscientious in the treatment of employees with long employment records. This is no answer to a demand for legislation on unfair dismissals. Unions do not normally abuse their powers to refuse admission or to expel members. This is no answer to a plea for legislation on this matter either."
      I believe Kahn-Freund makes the case as strongly as it needs to be made on the requirement that legislation there must be.
      Turning now to the last leg of the argument—why do not we wait until the Employment Protection Bill?—the answer was provided by the Secretary of State himself because when he was asked why he had not introduced a one- or two-clause Bill to repeal the 1971 Act, his reply was that it would have meant that had he done so all the immunities and protections for the trade unions would have been removed and that, therefore, it would have been wrong for him to have a short trade union repeal Bill if it would have removed the immunities and protections from the unions as a result of its passage.
      Surely, if that is borne in mind, we are entitled to ask the Secretary of State why he does not apply the same standards to the safeguards and protection of the individual? Why is he so concerned to protect the strong and so unwilling to protect the weak? Is this his kind of social justice—increasing the privileges, rights and immunities for the strong unions and the elimination of present safeguards for the individual in this context? That may be his concept of social justice. It certainly is not ours, and that is why we want this new clause.
      Sir Raymond Gower: I hope the Secretary of State will look at this clause with a view to accepting it. The

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      case has been stated in very moderate terms by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe). I believe the Secretary of State will recognise that it is basically a very moderate proposal. I should like to describe it as one based on natural justice.
      My hon. Friend has quite rightly stressed that the cases which occur may be relatively few, but I would plead with the Secretary of State and his colleagues that whenever there is an organisation of human beings there is likely to be the occasional case. I imagine few of us in our experience as constituency representatives have not come across a single case. Certainly, I have in my own experience. Whereas such cases may be relatively few, I would emphasise to the Secretary of State that if by some ill-fortune a person is wrongly expelled from, or wrongly refused inclusion in, the membership of a trade union which is appropriate to his employment, the consequences to that individual can be very serious.
      In most cases of this kind exclusion of people from the appropriate union means exclusion from the only kind of employment for which they have had any training, or the only kind of employment for which they have acquired any skill. So if by any chance this kind of thing happens, even in occasional cases, any individual affected is virtually excluded from the only place in which he can make a reasonable living commensurate with his skill and training. It is in that respect that I plead with the right hon. Gentleman to include this very reasonable, restrained and moderate proposal in this Bill.
      The objectives of the Liberal new clause which is being taken with this new clause are roughly the same although their approach is rather different. They, too, have the same basic objective, and I would plead that it is one of natural justice. I fear that some of the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues sometimes treat with tremendous suspicion anything relating to trade union legislation which does not come from their own proposals. But by no stretch of the imagination can anybody on the other side interpret this proposal as having been designed to inflict any ill on trade unionism.
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      My hon. Friend quite rightly contrasted the strength of some of the larger unions with the weakness of the individual. I recognise that many who have grown up on the labour side in industry, in the Labour Party and the trade union movement have, perhaps quite understandably, always thought of the importance of combination and have sometimes set that above the right of the individual. I understand the reasons.
      The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Eric Heffer): Otherwise there would be no rights of the individual.
      Sir Raymond Gower: The hon. Gentleman says there would be no rights of the individual if there were no rights of combination. But I would say that the right of combination if totally unfettered can destroy the right of the individual. We are seeking nothing to harm the right of combination, nothing to damage the right of trade unions to do the job for which they were designed. We are seeking merely to ensure that when there appears to be a case of perhaps irresponsible or unreasonable exclusion or expulsion, members of each trade union should have this right of an independent examination of the case.
      Surely the hon. Gentleman is always pleading for justice for those who are wronged; and the right hon. Gentleman has had a very honourable career, in this respect, pleading the cases of individuals who have been wronged by authority, by the State or by big organisations. I should have thought that this would particularly appeal to him in that context, and it is in that spirit that I hope the Minister will accept this new clause.
      Mr. Leon Brittan: The 1971 Industrial Relations Act sought to provide certain remedies for certain industrial ills. Unfortunately, the institutions created by that Act proved to be unacceptable to large sections of the community and in particular the trade union movement. But the fact that those provisions proved unacceptable does not mean that the ills have ceased to exist nor does it absolve us from providing alternative methods of dealing with those ills. This clause simply seeks to provide an alternative way of dealing with an ill which it is accepted is limited in extent but is none the less real, and it is important and necessary that we solve

      1385
      it if we are to have fairness as well as order in our industrial relations today. Indeed, if the trade union movement is to have the increasing importance in our national life that Labour Members would wish, it is all the more important to protect individuals from arbitrary and un fair exclusions and expulsions. If the closed shop which the Labour Party and the Bill support is to grow, even more does it become important to have such protection.
      Many of us will have had representations from people in the newspaper industry about aspects of the Bill. The way in which unfairness can operate is illustrated by the case of the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, on which the editor, who was a member of the National Union of Journalists, was fined £50 and four senior executives were expelled from membership of the unions because they sought to bring out the paper during an official strike. Everyone concerned with that industry knows that all editors and executives regard it as their over-riding professional requirement—a matter Of professional etiquette almost—to bring the paper out. The case is under review by the internal procedures of the NUJ, but the fact that it could occur shows how desperately individuals need to be protected when the closed shop may become increasingly possible and how necessary it is to preserve not only individual rights but the freedom of the Press.
      No one is exaggerating the extent of the problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth certainly did not. But it does exist. It has been recognised by Donovan and by the Secretary of State. The Minister of State recognised it in Committee when he said:
      "We are, therefore, already looking into this problem with a view to dealing with it in the Employment Protection Bill. If we can find the right form of words for the Employment Protection Bill before we get to the end of this one, it would only be proper, in the light of the assurances I have already given, that we should try to bring them forward on Report."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E; 23rd May 1974, c. 212.]
      So far, there has been no sign of anything coming forward. It is unacceptable that the Bill should leave this House without this kind of protection for the individual, so it is incumbent on the Opposition to
      1386
      bring forward a reasonable solution to a problem which even the Government admit to exist. It simply will not do to ask us to wait for the next Bill if only because in the interim some people may be unfairly excluded or expelled. They would have no redress unless provision were made in this Bill.
      If the principle is accepted, the question then arises—is the solution in the new clause reasonable? I think it is. Labour Members who will be familiar with some alternative proposals made in Committee will know that these proposals involve the minimum control of the conduct of unions compatible with the protection which we say is necessary. Labour Members and unionists abhor above all else detailed intervention in the affairs of unions and detailed instructions on how those affairs should be conducted.
      4.45 p.m.
      It will be observed that no such intervention is proposed in the new clause, which is phrased entirely negatively. Unions can organise their own business in their own way and there will be intervention only if their procedures, which can be as varied as they are today, amount in a particular case to arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination.
      It will be the industrial tribunal which decides whether there has been arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination. I hope that with the passage of this Bill the discrimination against such tribunals by the trade union movement will cease and that once again unionists will be members of them. They will be familiar and sympathetic with the practices of trade unions and will not rush to the conclusion that there has been unfairness or arbitrary behaviour. They will recognise that the first task of an aggrieved individual is to exhaust the procedures provided by the union movement itself. If the TUC succeeds in its efforts to revise the rules of unions to make it less likely that there will be such discrimination—efforts to which the Minister referred in Committee—the scope for applications to the tribunals will be few and anyone who makes one without exhausting the prescribed procedures will fail in his application.
      The determining body will be a tribunal which should be sympathetic to the

      1387
      genuine aspirations and legitimate procedures of the movement. What is proposed is in line with Donovan, with common sense and with reason. It is a rational and moderate solution to a limited but real problem and should have the assent of the House.
      Mr. Cyril Smith: I am sure that we accept that no hon. Member and no party has all the answers to the problems of industrial relations or union legislation. I have therefore tried to meet the spirit of the Bill by agreeing entirely that the 1971 Act should be repealed, while trying to ensure that this Bill contained adequate safeguards for the individual. That was my whole approach in Committee—that the spirit of the Bill is right but some parts of it may require tidying and trimming to do the job that little bit better.
      This provision falls into that category. I am advised that it will be possible to have a separate Division on new Clause 5 if the Chair agrees. I understand that if I smile kindly at the occupant of the Chair, he may so agree. The difference between new Clause 5 and new Clause 1 is simple but important. New Clause 5 is an attempt to deal with criticisms that the Minister of State made of my amendment in Committee. One was as follows:
      "Therefore, my first argument against these amendments is a general one, namely, that they attempt to impose over the generality of organised working conditions a situation which is based heavily upon the closed shop."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E;23rd May 1974, c. 195–6.]
      I have attempted, therefore, to devise a new clause that deals only with the closed shop situation. I very much hope that in those circumstances the Government will find it possible to accept new Clause 5, about which I and my colleagues feel extremely strongly. It is not sufficient for the Minister to say that the cases are few and are declining in number. If one case exists the law ought to be capable of protecting that individual.
      The House will understand that it is a major concession on the part of the Liberal Party that it will accept the closed shop principle. It is something foreign to the basic philosophy of Liberalism. But we are prepared to accept that situation in order to get agreement on legis
      1388
      lation required in relation to trade unions and industry.
      It is surely not unreasonable, however, to ask the Government to accept equally that there must be some concession from their side within that sort of situation. The concession that I ask them to make—which may be truly a concession in view of their party dogma; I say that kindly—is simply that if we accept the closed shop situation, which we shall, in return they should say that in that situation they will protect the individual to the extent that he has a legal right to belong to a trade union, provided that he complies with the rules of the union and the necessities required by the union in regard to basic membership.
      That is all that new Clause 5 is saying as I interpret it and intended it. I hope that the Government will accept it.
      New Clause 1 goes much further than new Clause 5, because new Clause 1 applies the situation to everyone. Clearly, as a Liberal, for me that is the ideal situation, which I should like. But if the Government will concede and accept new Clause 5, I would take that as evidence of a spirit of compromise, accept the situation, and say that we are happy to have gone at least some way along the road. But if the Government are unable to concede new Clause 5, the logic of the situation leads me to conclude that if we cannot have half the cake we might as well go for all of it. In that case, I would find myself, with my colleagues, voting for new Clause 1. If that were carried, we could withdraw new Clause 5. If it failed, we could still, with the permission of the Chair, press a vote on new Clause 5.
      I hope that the Minister will find it possible to accept new Clause 5 in the spirit of compromise which is so desperately necessary in industrial relations.
      Mr. Foot: The hon. Member for Brent-ford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe) struck an extremely harmonious note at the beginning of the debate. He knows that it would be against my nature and interest to reply in anything other than that tone and, of course, I intend to observe that rule throughout all our proceedings. It comes quite naturally to me. Therefore, I am very glad to approach the whole question in the same constructive spirit that has been suggested, partly by

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      the hon. Gentleman and partly by the spokesman for the Liberal Party, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cyril Smith). It may be that, as I proceed on these new clauses and other amendments, the keener Members of the House will be able to detect a difference in the ways that I suggest we should deal with our problems, but that does not make the slightest difference to the emollient spirit in which I approach the whole matter.
      The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth referred to our references to the employment protection Bill. I shall say something further about that shortly, because it touches upon our argument on the whole of this matter. It certainly touches upon the new clauses. It also touches upon later amendments and discussions. I assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that the decision to divide the way in which we had to deal with these industrial relations problems into two Bills was an important decision that we had to make.
      Partly because of the parliamentary exigencies in this Parliament, we had to produce a much shorter Bill than might otherwise have been the case. Indeed, it had been part of our original intention, before the General Election, that we would have had a Bill which repealed the 1971 Act and carried through the purposes that we wished to achieve in that sense and, at the same time, proceed to establish the Conciliation and Arbitration Service, which we believe will play an extremely important part in the whole of our industrial relations and is part of our constructive approach to the whole problem. Therefore, one of the main features in the employment protection Bill will be the measures that are required to give statutory form to that service.
      I hope, therefore, that hon. Members, whatever they may think about this Bill or the way in which we are proceeding with this matter, will not imagine that there is anything false or misleading in our suggestion that we regard the employment protection Bill as a proper place to deal with many of the problems that we think are left over from this Bill. That applies not only to problems which we have left over and have not dealt with in this Bill, which may be regarded as concessions to the trade unions—if that is the way to put it—but also to prob
      1390
      lems which others have asked us not to proceed with in this Bill and which we have agreed should be left to the subsequent Bill, for which we shall have, perhaps, a longer time in the House to discuss matters.
      Therefore, when I refer later to the employment protection Bill, in this or later debates, I hope that hon. Members will not think that it is any method of trying to pass the buck, to conceal the facts, or to escape from problems. This is a perfectly reputable procedure that we have followed because of the requirements of the case, and we believe that it is a sensible arrangement.
      I say particularly to the hon. Member for Rochdale, who is interested in establishing a constructive approach to industrial relations, that we do not regard this Bill as one which deals with the whole range of these matters. That would have been impossible. We shall be here for a little while tonight. We may finish the whole Bill tonight or in a little more time this week. But if we attempted to deal with all these problems at once in this Parliament, in the time available, we could have been confronted with insoluble parliamentary problems.
      Mr. Hayhoe: Will the Secretary of State address his mind to the particular point that he has framed this Bill in such a way that there is no break in the immunities and safeguards for the strong unions whereas there is a break in the protection and safeguards for weak individuals?
      Mr. Foot: I do not think that is so. In any case, that would raise very controversial matters, which I am seeking to avoid. The hon. Gentleman talks of immunities and protections. It is not a question of immunities and protections only for the strong. It is immunities and protections in many cases for the weak, who have protections only because they are able to organise in trade unions. Whether they are big or small trade unions, they are the best protections for the weak in many circumstances. Whatever may be the differences between us on various aspects of the matter, everyone will agree that it would have been a complete nonsense for us to introduce a Bill which merely repealed the 1971 Act without dealing with the question of immunities and protections for the trade

      1391
      unions generally. That would have made nonsense of the whole process, so that was not an option that was available to US.
      I come to the new clauses. Certainly I do not deny that this question is important. I did not have to put it in perspective in that sense. The hon. Member for Brent-ford and Isleworth did so when he said that this matter applies only to a very small number of cases and that it is very rare that events occur which would invoke this kind of clause if it were to become law. That is perfectly true, but that does not mean that it is not important, and therefore, right from the beginning, as he correctly recited, the Government have said that they wish to deal with this problem and would deal with it either in this Bill or in the later Bill. I am not seeking to deny that this is a matter to which the House should apply its mind. That is what we are doing here on Report.
      There are, however, deficiencies in the clause moved by the official Opposition and I shall briefly state what I think those deficiencies to be, not in order to exacerbate the argument, but just to ensure that it is understood what we feel about it. I do not need to recite the list of deficiencies fully because we went into these matters in detail in Committee
      5.0 p.m.
      First, we do not think that the clause is justified by the arguments of Donovan, because the clause covers a good deal more than Donovan was seeking to deal with by his remedy in such cases Donovan was dealing overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, with the closed-shop situation and he was seeking what he considered might be a remedy for this difficulty in such a situation. The Opposition clause goes further than that, however.
      The second reason for not liking the clause is that it does not take full account of the procedures of the trade unions. I am not saying that it would be impossible for the clause to be operated at the same time that the trade unions operate their procedures for dealing with these matters, but the clause does not take proper account of the trade union procedures which deal exactly with this problem. We believe that to be an essential part of trying to secure a solution.
      1392
      The clause also does not take proper account of the developments since Donovan and of the efforts which the trade unions have made to take account of the kind of criticisms or discussions that took place in Donovan on this subject. It was partly as a response to Donovan that the General Council of the TUC had discussions with the various member unions. There was a considerable exchange of opinion on the subject and, of course, many of the matters dealt with in the Liberal clause are covered by the procedures which the trade unions laid down for preserving the rights of members and for appeals.
      Our principal objection, however, is that the remedy which is provided is unsatisfactory and could lead to difficulties. The whole idea of introducing the operation of injunctions could well exacerbate a situation which need not be exacerbated. It is therefore unwise to try to solve the problem by resorting to the same tribunals that deal with these other matters, and by the invocation of injunctions and the possibility of clashes of that nature. We do not believe that is the best way of dealing with it.
      Sir Raymond Gower: The Secretary of State has made a fair point in saying that many unions try to do this in their general practice and therefore that the proposals put forward by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) are not necessary. Does he take the same view about company law, that because most companies behave reasonably and try to do the right thing there is therefore no need for any company legislation?
      Mr. Foot: I do not argue that my point is the complete answer to the question, but one of the three or four reasons why the clause is unsatisfactory is that it does not take sufficient account of the remedies which the unions operate and which they have been seeking to improve. My argument does not involve the implication the hon. Member is trying to place upon it. For those reasons, therefore, the clause moved by the official Opposition is deficient for dealing with what we have all agreed is a problem.
      I agree that the clause in the name of the hon. Member for Rochdale is an improvement on that proposed by the official Opposition, if I may say that without offence in these coalition days. Not only

      1393
      is the hon. Member's clause an improvement in that respect, but it is an improvement on what he proposed in Committee. I acknowledge that he has certainly sought to take account of the discussions we had then and to make two alterations. One of the alterations is to seek to make the clause apply only to a closed shop operation, although I do not think he has quite succeeded in that respect because parts of the clause apply while other parts do not. That is a minor deficiency.
      There is another change, however, perhaps resulting from the criticisms which he encountered in Committee. Originally he proposed that any breach of the rules he was laying down should be dealt with by resort to the criminal court. I do not think that was what he intended. He has therefore removed from his clause the remedy or sanction of a reference to the criminal courts, but in so doing he has removed any sanction at all. He has emasculated the clause to such a degree that it has become almost entirely sexless. Now it would have no binding effect in any way whatever. He might suggest that in that case we should just let it go into the Bill. Of course, we could elaborate the Bill with a whole series of general declarations of biased aspirations. That is a possibility. That would fill out the Bill considerably, but that is clearly not the way to legislate.
      I hope the hon. Member will take my reply as the response he was hoping for, and I agree that perhaps the best way of dealing with the matter would be to omit from the Bill completely any provisions to cover the point, and instead to incorporate some form of code of practice in the subsequent employment protection Bill. The hon. Member is in effect proposing that there should be a general statement of the ways in which certain matters should be dealt with without there being any legal sanction attached, and that is certainly one of the propositions that the Government will be glad to consider in seeking a remedy.
      So, it would be a mistake for the House to incorporate the hon. Member's clause for the reasons I have stated, and the answer may well lie in a code of practice embodied in the later Bill.
      Now I come to the way in which the Government have always—
      Mr. Brittan: Would the Secretary of State accept that there is at least a possibility that the Liberal Party's clause in its statutory form, as opposed to any code of practice in which it might be incorporated, might be thought to provide some remedy in that if there is a clear statement in a statute that a member of a union shall be given this or shall not be given that, the courts might be prepared to intervene by giving injunctive relief if there has been a breach of statute?
      Mr. Foot: If that were true it would be open to some of the objections I have stated, but it is not the case. If it were the case it would be an added reason not to include the clause and a reason why the Liberals should not press the matter.
      We believe that the problem involved here is a genuine one. At one stage, and it is still not excluded, we thought that the best way to deal with it would be to devise a clause roughly on the basis of the Donovan recommendation—that is a clause dealing exclusively with the closed shop situation, to provide not an appeal to the courts in the normal manner, or an appeal to a tribunal, as recommended in the clause, or indeed any appeal as implied in the Liberal's remedy, but rather the establishment of a special review body for the purpose, At one time we thought that that might be the most feasible way to deal with the matter.
      However, the General Council of the TUC has put forward objections which derive partly from its general objection to surveillance over its rules, which is a natural feeling. On the other hand, the General Council wishes to bring its rules as much as possible into conformity with the general recommendations in Donovan for dealing with this and many other matters. The General Council has taken a whole series of steps to try to achieve this.
      I believe that a remedy for dealing with this situation which has general accord with the TUC is a much better remedy than one imposed upon it, even by Parliament, and that is what I have been seeking. If we had secured a remedy which the TUC believed was a satisfactory way to deal with it, we would have done our best to bring it forward

      1395
      in the Bill, but we have not yet secured that remedy.
      One way to achieve the objective might be not the remedy which I have mentioned of the adaptation of the Donovan recommendation, but a form of code of practice related to it which could be included in the employment protection Bill, particularly if such an arrangement were to be secured by understanding and agreement rather than by imposing a solution which the unions, or some of them, might not regard as the best way to go about it. This is not a question of refusing to take any course which the General Council of the TUC may not wish to take, but rather of seeking to provide the best remedy for the situation, and a remedy which will work. That is what we have been trying to secure. We have spent many hours in discussions with people concerned, including other Ministers, and I hope the House will think that we are making a sensible approach.
      Hon. Members may ask what happens in the meantime, between now and the passage of the employment protection Bill, when we may have the conclusion of the kind of arrangement about which I have talked, whether in legislative form as suggested by Donovan, or in a code of practice, as suggested by the Liberal Party. It is conceivable that there may be some cases in which injustice is done and in which there would not be a remedy. I do not deny that, although it is not the case that there is no remedy available. Indeed, the remedy which is available, which has been available before and which trade unions and their members have used persistently over the years, is that of an appeal to the High Court against a breach of natural justice.
      5.15 p.m.
      Anyone who reads the history of trade unions, not just over recent years but over a longer period, cannot fail to be struck by the fact that the High Court has, quite properly in my humble judgment. a high reputation with the trade unions. Trade unions have fully accepted judgments of the High Court and indeed some of their problems have been solved there. Trade unions have taken the view that they do not want to interfere with that process, whereas the Donovan proposal, to some extent, would interfere
      1396
      with it. That is one difficulty which must be considered if the Donovan proposal, in its present form, is to go ahead. It would in certain circumstances interfere with the appeal by certain members of trade unions to the High Court, and with the way that appeal may have been exercised in the past.
      I do not want to say anything controversial, but one difficulty of the Industrial Relations Act 1971 is that we feel that the kind of court which it set up injured the reputation of the law among many trade unionists. I think I have put that as moderately as possible. However, the High Court would be there to deal with some of these cases with which we are concerned if they arose. That would be one protection not for the whole position, but a protection which prevailed previously, which was frequently used when there were injustices and which, as the history of trade unions has shown, helped to remedy those injustices.
      I hope that the House will be prepared to accept what we have proposed as being a sensible way of proceeding. I hope it will be convenient and indeed attractive to hon. Gentlemen opposite to withdraw their clause so that we can proceed in the way I have suggested. [Interruption.] I do not know why that should not be regarded as agreeable. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) is laughing at the prospect of our agreeing on these matters so speedily. I am happy to keep the hon. and learned Gentleman in his usual buoyant mood.
      I suggest that we could go ahead and have discussions and deal with the matter in the employment protection Bill as I have described.
      I hope that the Liberal Party spokesman, whatever the official Opposition may decide, will understand that I have made a constructive response to his suggestion. I hope that he will not be tempted into voting for the Opposition's clause if they are so unwise as to press it to a Division. He would not be achieving what he wishes to secure—that is, an agreed understanding as to how we can deal with this problem in the best interests of the trade union movement generally and in the best interests of those rare individuals who may find themselves

      1397
      clashing with the ways in which trade unions operate in this country.
      I believe that what the Government are proposing is best not only in the interests of trade unionism but also in protecting individual liberty in this country.
      Mr. Ray Mawby: The Secretary of State has again beguiled us, as he did so often in Committee with promises of what might appear in the employment protection Bill. When that Bill comes before the House it may well contain everything that he and the Minister of State have spoken about. The difficulty is that we have before us a Bill which is said to repeal the 1971 Act when it does nothing of the sort, because it immediately re-enacts about 26 of the sections of that Act. But, then, that is for Mr. Scanlon's information only.
      The important point is that the Bill takes away any possibility of independent control of the rules of trade unions. When the Bill becomes an Act, therefore, we immediately return to a situation in which any trade union decides what its rules will be without any control or intervention by any other body. Right hon. and hon. Members on the Government benches may say "This is a perfect situation. Let us leave it to the trade unions to decide for themselves."
      The right hon. Gentleman referred to the TUC's attitude. We all know that the TUC is a very responsible body that seeks to make certain that the trade unions are governed by the best possible conventions that can be found by agreement. The difficulty is that there are gaps, so that, with the best will in the world, the TUC does not have the necessary amount of control to make certain that the interests of the individual are properly looked after. That is the important matter with which we must be concerned.
      Both the new clauses are concerned with the rights of the individual, and they are both reasonably worded. Under the controls of the 1971 Act there is an independent person who can at least make certain that a trade union conducts itself properly. Now he will go. All that is said in both clauses is that individual workers will be treated reasonably on the question whether they will be accepted as members, and on the method by which they may be expelled from membership.
      1398
      The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) made it clear that as a result of the reply he received from the Secretary of State in Committee his clause confines itself to a closed shop situation. Therefore, he narrows the field in that he accepts, and I think the whole House will accept, that to be expelled from membership of a union can be much more damaging where there is a closed shop. In certain industries expulsion from a union means that a man may just as well throw away his tools and find another job in a different craft. Therefore, I can see the point the hon. Gentleman makes, that in the closed shop situation it is important that there should be some protection for the individual who seeks membership of a union and also a provision to prevent his being unfairly expelled.
      In his intervention in this debate the Secretary of State said that the hon. Gentleman had proved that the clause would be impotent in its operation, that it only mouths a number of phrases with which most people would agree, but gets one nowhere. But, then, is not that Liberal policy generally? Therefore, we cannot complain about that.
      Our clause is concerned with a new situation in which the Bill takes away any control by any outside body of a trade union in deciding what its rules shall be. Once that is done, it is important to have proper protection for the individual union member to make certain that only where he is properly found guilty of a breach of union rules may he be in danger of expulsion as a result of which he might even lose his livelihood.
      In these matters one obviously cannot continue to talk just about cases that have happened. All that I have to do is to repeat my experiences in my union before 1971. In the pre-1971 situation a trade union could register with the Registrar of Friendly Societies purely by handing over a copy of its rules and from time to time notifying changes in those rules.
      My union announced in public that it would make a big contribution to support those in Cyprus who were operating against our troops. I made a statement to the Daily Mail that I thought that was damaging to members of the unions whose sons were doing National Service in Cyprus. I was told that my case would be taken before the executive committee.

      1399
      I could put forward my written defence, but I could not appear. I did not know who was charging me, and I could not cross-question those charging me. At the end of the day I was notified that the committee had heard my case in my absence, which was, apparently, quite normal under the union's rules. The committee had taken into consideration my written points and made a decision, and that was it. I was a Member of Parliament at the time, and I should not have been worried very much if I had been expelled rather than admonished, but many other union members could have been considerably damaged by expulsion and could have lost their livelihood.
      That is a personal example of what can happen. It can happen now when by this Bill we are repealing the parts of the 1971 Act that at least made certain that an independent registrar could require that the rules of each union conformed to proper standards. We are repealing all that, and, therefore, I believe that the House would be failing the nation and every individual member of every trade union in the land if it did not pass new Clause 1.
      5.30 p.m.
      Mr. Hugh Rossi: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am interrupting the business of the House so that the record may be corrected. You will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that earlier when the House was discussing the availability of papers for various Committees I asked the Minister of State, Civil Service Department about the availability of Standing Committee reports for the Control of Pollution Bill, making the point that it was impossible for Members interested in that Bill to prepare for Report.
      The Minister informed the House that two reports of that Committee's proceedings had been published and were available for hon. Members. I found that statement rather strange because I, as a member of the Committee, had not up to that moment received the customary copies that members of Standing Committees receive. I did not wish to contradict the Minister, but I subsequently checked and found that there were no copies immediately available in the Vote Office.
      1400
      I now find that two of the reports appeared in the Vote Office for the first time at five o'clock. Therefore, the statement which was made by the Minister earlier this afternoon was not correct. Further, the Bill as amended by the Committee, has not yet been printed and is not yet available so hon. Members do not know how the Bill has been amended by the Committee.
      Mr. Foot: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it proper that we should have the proceedings of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill interrupted on a point of order that is concerned with another Bill? Of course, we appreciate the difficulties that have arisen for the hon. Gentleman and for other hon. Members, but there are times made available to the House when these matters should be raised. If a point of order of this nature is to be accepted it seems that a lot of our proceedings will become very disorderly.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Before the debate continues I shall reply to the two points of order that have been raised. This is a rather irregular procedure but I allowed it because of the general difficulty which has arisen about the printing of papers. I do not wish this practice to become a general rule.
      The Minister of State, Civil Service Department (Mr. Robert Sheldon): The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) points out that he understood that copies of the proceedings in Committee of the Control of Pollution Bill were available for the House. It is true that they were available for the House but when I made my earlier statement they were not actually in the House. I regret that I was under the impression that transport would be more rapid than it was. The hon. Member for Hornsey must realise that the Vote Office cannot as easily cope with the large bulk of the present arrangements as it could if our papers were printed. Copies of the Committee proceedings of the Control of Pollution Bill were available for the House and they are now available in the Vote Office. I must apologise for any inconvenience that has been caused.
      Mr. John Stanley: I shall comment on the three principal points of difficulty that the

      1401
      Secretary of State has found with new Clause 1. I shall leave the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) to deal with the right hon. Gentleman's comments on new Clause 5.
      First, the Secretary of State said that he finds difficulty with new Clause I because it is drawn wider than the recommendations in the Donovan Report. I draw his attention to the considerable section in the Donovan Report from paragraph 619 onwards which devotes a considerable amount of the report to the consideration of safeguards which are necessary for the individuals outside a closed shop situation. Donovan does not recognise that injustices to the individual can take place only within a closed shop.
      The right hon. Gentleman said that the significance of the new clause is in a closed shop situation. There is no great danger to a person's livelihood—for example, the threat of arbitrary dismissal—except in a closed shop situation. Therefore, the main burden of the new clause relates to a closed shop situation. It is somewhat flimsy to say that there can be significant objection to the new clause because it does not relate only to a closed shop situation. As I have said, that must be the burden of the new clause.
      Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman has said that the new clause does not take sufficient account of existing procdures to deal with unfair practice against individuals that trade unions already possess. It is fairly evident—and completely evident from the new clause—that the existing procedures of trade unions are in no way precluded from operating by the adoption of the new clause. There would be no incompatibility with the existing procedures of trade unions arising from the adoption of new Clause 1 or new Clause 5. The main point that I put to the right hon. Gentleman is that as long as individuals rest solely and totally on the protection offered by procedures already adopted by trade unions, we are continuing a situation in which ultimately the trade unions themselves are judge and jury in their own case. That is a matter of principle that is undesirable and it is that point of principle that we are seeking to correct.
      Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman said that it was undesirable in principle that there should be a reference in the new
      1402
      clause to resort having to be made to injunctions. That is a fairly technical objection, not least because there can be recourse to an injunction only once it is clear that a trade union, within a given time, has not implemented a decision that has been made by an industrial tribunal. Effectively there is recourse to an injunction only when it is clear that a trade union will not abide by the resolution of the body set up by statute to arbitrate.
      I suggest on all three counts that the right hon. Gentleman's objections to new Clause 1 and new Clause 5 seem to be flimsy. On the basic point of principle, we agreed in Standing Committee to enshrine in legislation the principle of the closed shop. By doing that we conferred on trade unions a major degree of authority and power over individuals where their livelihood is most acutely affected. By accepting the principle of the closed shop we give the trade unions the right to deny employment in a particular place of work to an individual and the right to deny continued employment in a particular place of work.
      The right hon. Gentleman has already conceded that there could be circumstances—it is accepted that such circumstances would rarely arise—in which trade unions could operate unfairly, arbitrarily and unjustly. I put to the right hon. Gentleman that as long as he refuses to accept the new clause and as long as he concedes that injustice can occur, he is creating a situation in legislation in which somebody can be arbitrarily denied the right to gain admission to his place of work. That is a matter that this House cannot allow to continue to take place—even though it may take place in a minority of situations and even though it is highly improbable that such an event will take place.
      Mr. John Peyton: I have long wondered about the magical powers possessed by the Dispatch Box. It does the most remarkable things for all kinds of people.
      Mr. Dennis Skinner: And for you.
      Mr. Peyton: I am so much obliged to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) for his applause.
      The Secretary of State is no exception. This afternoon we listened to him in a

      1403
      strangely honeyed mood. Normally we are accustomed to listening to the right hon. Gentleman with some pleasure, but he usually employs more rasping tones than he saw fit to use this afternoon. However the change was welcome. I particularly welcomed the gracious and honeyed comments he made about our difficulties with parliamentary papers.
      I never thought I would see the day when I complained about a shortage of paper in this place. I do so now only with the feeling that there is a slight element of hypocrisy in such protests. We must, at least, be partially grateful that the tide of paper by which we are normally inundated is slightly checked, even though it he the result of unwelcome circumstances. One Labour Member went a little far when he said that Parliament depended upon the consent of the ordinary working man. That is true, but Parliament depends upon the consent of all the people, not just one or two. It is a pity that our procedures should be upset.
      I welcomed the gentle and gracious approach of the right hon. Gentleman who, uncharacteristically, avoided controversy and recognised that we are still dwelling in coalition days. The one thing on which he and I would agree most cordially—[Interruption.]—is that a coalition seems to be highly unlikely because there is very little to agree about. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman referred—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr) wishes to interrupt me I hope that he will do so. His constant groaning from a sedentary position does him little credit and will only prolong any pain I may currently be causing him.
      Mr. Russell Kerr: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman. I was directing a sedentary remark to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith).
      Mr. Peyton: I am certain that the hon. Member for Rochdale would be the last to feel himself in any way inconvenienced if the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston were to suggest that such communications were to go on outside the Chamber.
      I was surprised and interested by the right hon. Gentleman's reference to the possibility of using the code of practice
      1404
      device. If Parliament is to pass laws it had better do so quite clearly instead of casting a rather bogus fly over the water to see what happens. We should be capable of making up our minds without distributing codes of practice which simply add to the modern tide of advice which is already wide enough. I would have thought that by this time the House was sharply aware of the prospects which such advice could normally be expected to enjoy.
      5.45 p.m.
      The right hon. Gentleman's main point was that the TUC objected to any surveillance of its affairs. That seems to be in strange contrast to the kind of treatment meted out to every other section of the community. One of the questions which bedevils—[Interruption.]—industrial relations is just what power the TUC has. Does it have the power to deliver things, to carry out promises—I am sorry. If the Secretary of State wishes to address his hon. Friend I am prepared to pause until the conversation has finished.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Get on with it."] I assure the hon. Gentleman that if he goes on like this he will not hurry me one bit. All he will do is to prolong my remarks.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. I would be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would perhaps stick to the main theme of his speech. I am sure that the House will listen to it.
      Mr. Peyton: I hope that you were able to hear what the hon. Gentleman was contributing just now.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I express the hope that the right hon. Gentleman will he heard in silence.
      Mr. Peyton: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was endeavouring to look after myself without worrying the Chair by any requests for protection.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I will protect the right hon. Gentleman when necessary.
      Mr. Peyton: Perhaps I could have the Secretary of State's attention. The second point which worries me about the whole question of industrial relations is the lack of power which the TUC has over the trade unions. The third point is that we must find something which will work. There is a great danger in

      1405
      this complex area in our looking for something which will satisfy appearances but which will do nothing useful in practice.
      As I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman in his thoughtful remarks raised no objection in detail to the clause. In the absence of such objection I cannot see why the Government find the clause deeply objectionable. It seems that the one thing we particularly require is some clear provision governing trade union elections. There has been a great deal of unease on this subject and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, either now or later, will be able to reassure us that he will not allow his attention to be diverted from this important point. It is not an adequate answer to say that the trade union movement objects to surveillance.
      Mr. Ian Percival: I know that there are other hon. and right hon. Members who want to speak on the principle of the clause. I hope it will be convenient if I make one or two observations now on the technical points made by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) and the Secretary of State. The hon. Member said that his purpose was to ensure adequate safeguards for the individual. He will know that this is precisely the line we have adopted in Committee.
      The more we accept that, as a question of fact and/or law, the closed shop, particularly the post-entry closed shop, is a reality, the more important it becomes to take every available step to safeguard the rights of the individual. It is necessary to do something, not just to talk about it. The hon. Member has been wholly consistent in supporting anything of ours which was right in this context although he did not support us in other things when he felt that they would not achieve their objective. I was glad to hear him say that in pursuance of that consistent policy he and his colleagues will vote with us.
      He is right to say that there is a difference between this clause and new clause 5. What we are talking about happens almost naturally in the context of the closed shop. That is no reason for limiting what we have in the clause to the closed shop. Occasions when injustices cannot happen outside the closed
      1406
      shop may be very few but it is desirable that they should be covered too. The hon. Member appreciates that our clause has that effect and, I hope he will think on reflection, that merit.
      The hon. Gentleman said that new Clause 5 has no remedies built into it, and that is undeniable, but I hope that he will not feel in that respect that it is unworthy of the support which he promised.
      The Secretary of State is probably right in saying that not every word of the clause is justified by Donovan. So what? It is in the spirit of Donovan. The right hon. Gentleman has made many pronouncements much more recently than Donovan to the effect that he wants to provide a remedy for the person, rare as he may be, who suffers by arbitrary exclusion or expulsion. He has spoken in terms which seemed to hold out a promise of doing that by legislation. The House will be disappointed to learn that the Secretary of State appears to have given up the attempt to legislate and proposes instead a code of practice.
      Mr. Foot: I am not necessarily saying that. I am suggesting that the best way to deal with it may be through legislation. That is what I meant when I said on previous occasions and repeated today that the most feasible way might be on the basis of the Donovan recommendation. That would involve legislation.
      Another possibility, suggested by the Liberal Party spokesman, is that it could be dealt with by a code of practice. The code of practice could be included in legislation even if it did not contain any sanctions. It would be a good idea—and is consistent with what I have said all along—to have discussions with the TUC General Council to see which is the best remedy and the best way to solve this problem. That does not exclude legislation. If we could not arrive at a better solution by another method, we should have to do it by legislation.
      Mr. Percival: If I misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman, I apologise. I am not sure from his intervention whether I did misunderstand him. He seemed to be accepting the possibility that there might be provisions in the nature of a code of practice with no sanctions attached. That suggestion does not satisfy us. We are concerned not just about

      1407
      picketing, because in certain circumstances it is right. Whatever form this takes it is essential that there should be some sanctions or, more particularly, some remedies. We are seeking remedies rather than sanctions. We seek sanctions to the extent that we want to protect the individual, but we also seek remedies for him
      The Secretary of State said that the clause did not take fully into account trade union procedures. That suggests that he has not quite understood the format of the sanctions or remedies. This is a three-stage remedy. First, the question whether the exclusion or expulsion was arbitrary goes to an industrial tribunal. All the expertise of the members of the tribunal is brought to bear on that difficult question. I think the right hon. Gentleman will probably agree that the right approach is to make the provisions of the clause general and to leave it to the expertise of the industrial tribunal.
      What the right hon. Gentleman probably has in mind about trade union procedures is that some unions provide for an appeal to the executive or governing body of the union if a branch turns down an application. That must be what he means when he says that the clause does not allow for trade union procedures. But it does. The industrial tribunal will be composed of people who know all about those procedures. If certain internal procedures were available to the individual the tribunal would tell him to go away and to pursue that appeal. The tribunal might even say something that would be useful in producing a satisfactory outcome. The tribunal would tell the individual to exhaust his remedies and then come back. That is stage one.
      The second stage is that the application is either dismissed or declared. That allows for a period for the union to reconsider its position in the light of everything that has been said at the hearing and to decide what course to take. It gives another opportunity to both parties to consider what has been said and to arrive at an agreed solution.
      The third stage of this three-part remedy is, if all else fails, for the person who has suffered to go to the High Court. The right hon. Gentleman referred to
      1408
      injunctive remedies. Courts do not lightly grant injunctions. An injunction might be the only remedy, but courts regard injunctions as the last step, as a remedy to be used when there is no other that will meet the case.
      The clause gives the court the widest discretion so that it may do what is just and equitable. It is not a valid criticism to say that we have not allowed for existing trade union procedures or that the remedies are of the wrong kind.
      The right hon. Gentleman said that we have not taken sufficient account of what has happened since Donovan. Nothing has happened. We have had six years of discussion. The TUC published a pamphlet called "Action on Donovan" in which it was said that the Donovan proposals in this respect were acceptable to the TUC. I do not mean to imply that nothing has been done by the TUC. There have been discussions amongst members of the TUC and its constituent bodies and between the TUC and the Secretary of State, but nothing has emerged from them. Nothing has been done in the sense that the position in law is exactly as it then was. If someone suffers injustice, he still has no remedy. We feel that the time has come to do something and to provide a remedy.
      The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the common law remedies based on natural justice were adequate. That is contrary to what he and his hon. Friend said in Committee, which was that there were some rights but they were rather limited.
      I ask the Secretary of State to remember the Faramus case in which a man was thrown out of a closed shop industry because of two minor convictions years before when he was under 20 and in enemy-occupied territory. The common law rights are so limited that the common law could not protect him, and most people would agree that the man suffered injustice. The case went to the House of Lords and it was decided that the common law powers of the judges were not wide enough to give a remedy—a remedy which the courts, and I am sure most hon. Members, would like to have. I am limiting myself to the technical reason but I hope this meets some of the points made by the Secretary of State for Employment.
      6.0 p.m.
      Mr. David Mitchell: Perhaps I may reinforce my hon. and learned Friend's point by mentioning a constituent who found himself in a somewhat similar position necessitating an application to the High Court. It was an expensive matter and it was only because of the generosity of Daily Telegraph readers that he was enabled to go to the High Court to get justice. There are many such cases, and it should surely not be left to the generosity of newspaper readers for a man to be able to take the case to appeal.
      Mr. Percival: My hon. Friend raises a practical point, and it is another respect in which the remedies that we are seeking to provide are likely to be so much more practical and more readily available, since the industrial tribunal procedure is so well known to millions of trade unionists and others. The first step will be easy and cheap and may well resolve the matter. After that the steps are equally simple. My hon. Friend's intervention strengthens the argument and I hope that it will help to persuade the Secretary of State to come to the view that our case is a very strong one.
      Mr. John Farr: The majority of hon. Members will be disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Employment was so firm in rejecting our new Clause 1 and new Clause 5 put forward by the Liberal Party. The right hon. Gentleman took a record amount of time, some 20 to 25 minutes, to say "No", although he did so in a nice but firm way. At the beginning of the Report stage of the Bill it is not a very promising start or a very good augury for what may lie ahead in the next two days.
      Conservatives fully supported the Conservative Government two or three years ago when we introduced the Industrial Relations Bill. We now recognise, after a trial of time, that a few amendments and sensible alterations are needed to the Act. The new clause, which makes minor alterations to the Bill, but which is a matter of great importance to workers, has met with a complete refusal and stonewalling on the part of the Secretary of State. I cannot understand why
      1410
      the Secretary of State is being so stubborn on this simple clause.
      The effect of the clause is to ease the lot of employees in the closed shop industry who will be in a difficult situation. If the worker is not in a closed shop industry, then the failure by the Government to accept the clause will not matter so much, but if he is in such an industry then exclusion from his union virtually will mean exclusion from his job. There are a number of closed shop industries and companies in the United Kingdom, and I doubt whether anybody in the House thinks it right that a trade union official should have the power to make a life or death decision in respect of a closed shop industry. If the clause is not accepted, a number of employees in closed shop industries will be placed in grave difficulties.
      At present many public utilities, such as the railways, have a closed shop situation. If the clause is not accepted by the Government, then a worker who loses his job in such an industry will have to leave that industry completely and perhaps accept a lesser job for which he has not been trained. He will have to face a reduction in his standard of living, and of course it will affect his family. We regard this state of affairs as very wrong.
      I was concerned to hear the Secretary of State say that probably one of the best ways to deal with this question was not by legislation but by leaving matters to the TUC. I do not think the nation as a whole wants to see any more sharing of Government by the TUC than is the situation at present. I think that an early election will indicate that most people in the country already believe that the TUC has far too big a say in the running of the nation. As for asking the TUC for its advice on the clause, I believe that would be unwise since it is hardly likely that the TUC would recommend a provision which seeks to curb and restrain the already overwhelming power and strong position of many trade unionists.
      I wish to support new Clause 1 since it involves an important point of principle. It would not mean much to the Government if they were to give way on this matter, but it would certainly mean that a large number of trade unionists

      1411
      who find themselves in grave jeopardy would be assisted.
      Mr. David Madel: I should like to ask a question on subsection (4) of new Clause 1, and I hope that it will be answered either by my own Front Bench or by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Employment. This relates to the sort of tragedy which could happen when workers try to take these important matters to a court of law.
      Subsection (4) deals with what a worker may do if a declaration by an industrial tribunal allowing him to become a member of a union is ignored. It assumes that once the worker has received the declaration from the industrial tribunal he will be a member of the union and, if no action is taken by the union, the worker can apply for an injunction to the High Court or to the Court of Sesison in Scotland. It may be that a worker who receives a declaration from an industrial tribunal may not bother to pursue the matter further. I am talking of a particular case in the past where a man was excluded from a union, went to a different job and in the end threw in the towel.
      I am wondering whether, under the new clause, it will be open to the trade union to make application to the High Court to set aside the declaration of the industrial tribunal if the individual worker does not contest it in the High Court. Obviously, it should be open to the trade union to apply for the declaration to be set aside in those circumstances. I do not think that it would do industrial relations any good in any area of the country if a trade union had such a declaration hanging over its head and no further action was taken by the worker under subsection (4). My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) may be able to clear up this matter.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittany said that he hoped trade unionists would play an active part in the industrial tribunals. I see certain difficulties here. The clause refers to "appropriate qualifications" for membership of a particular union. In this connection, we shall be imposing great responsibilities on the industrial tri
      1412
      bunals as new processes come about and when mergers take place between unions. There may be strong arguments about whether a newly-created union should take into its ranks people whom, before the merger, it would not have considered qualified for membership. That point, too, can be answered if the hope of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby is realised and trade unionists play an active part in industrial tribunals.
      The Secretary of State said that he wanted to avoid a situation where individual workers went to the courts so that injunctions were flying round and a great many strikes and stoppages resulted. I hope that there is the closest contact between the conciliation and arbitration service and the industrial tribunals and that, if an industrial tribunal makes a declaration under the clause and it looks as if there will be trouble, automatically the conciliation and arbitration service will intervene to see that the individual worker is encouraged to carry out the provisions of subsection (4). If the conciliation and arbitration service does that, it will meet the point made by toe Secretary of State. It will avoid the necessity of going to the High Court, and the matter will be able to be solved by the new service, which we all wish well, since we all want to see an improvement in industrial relations.
      Mr. David Waddington: I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that we who served on the Standing Committee tried to approach the Bill in a constructive spirit, and that our proceedings in Committee were remarkably free of acrimony. However, it was my hope that the Secretary of State would start this Report stage by being a little more conciliatory and by admitting that it is very important for hon. Members to pay regard not only to the rights of the trade unions but to those of individuals.
      The Secretary of State conceded in Committee, and he has conceded it again today, that there should be some protection against arbitrary exclusion from a union of which a man has to be a member if he wishes to follow his occupation. All that we have been arguing about is how that protection can best be achieved.
      I was astonished by some of the arguments advanced by the Secretary of State.

      1413
      First, he said that the employment protection Bill that he proposed to bring forward in due course might well be the best vehicle to provide this protection, since that would give the House more time to discuss this vital matter. In Committee, although the right hon. Gentleman was always very polite, he did not hesitate to make it plain that he thought that we had all had more than enough time to discuss these matters.
      The right hon. Gentleman then said that the High Court could provide a remedy in many cases. It is very strange to hear the right hon. Gentleman saying that in view of his strictures and abuse of Sir John Donaldson, a most eminent High Court judge—strictures of which I hope he is now somewhat ashamed.
      6.15 p.m.
      I do not refer just to the case of Faramus, mentioned by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival). I remind hon. Members of the case of Rookes v. Barnard. That was not a case of wrongful exclusion, but it involved the rights of the individual. The plaintiff had to fight through the court of first instance, through the Court of Appeal and right to the House of Lords at enormous expense in order to get his rights. It is no credit to Government supporters that, as soon as they got hack to power in 1965, they decided to deny those rights to anyone else.
      That is not an example of how the ordinary man can use the courts to get a remedy. It is very expensive to go through all these procedures. In view of the right hon. Gentleman's apparent dislike of the law and lawyers, I was surprised to hear him say that the individual who was wrongfully excluded from a union could always use the ordinary machinery of the courts.
      The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that sufficient account had not been taken of the remedies already provided by unions and of the action taken by the TUC to see that unions provided these remedies. I should be happier with his argument if he had said that all unions provided a proper appeal procedure when a man was wrongfully excluded. The right hon. Gentleman knows that he cannot say that. Since he cannot say it, we must look for some other way of providing that protection for the individual.
      1414
      Finally, the right hon. Gentleman said that hon. Members must be aware of the natural objection of the TUC and of unions to the surveillance of their rules. That was one of the most depressing remarks that I have heard for a long time. It shows that the right hon. Gentleman still has no real understanding of the great damage which can be done to individuals and the real abuse of human rights which can be involved in unions not having rules which allow proper appeal procedures. It is very disappointing, if not shocking, that after all this time the right hon. Gentleman should say that it is not all that important to provide a proper framework of procedures whereby a man can get a remedy if he is wrongfully excluded from a union which he needs to join if he is to follow his occupation because the TUC has a natural objection to anyone surveying trade union rules. This cannot be right, and I hope even at this late stage that the right hon. Gentleman will think about it again.
      The clause is a modest proposal which should be acceptable to any right thinking person.
      Mr. James Prior: I hope that the Secretary of State will now respond to the plea made by the Opposition to think again about this matter and to accept our new clause. After all, it is a very reasonable clause. The right hon. Gentleman has approached this debate so far in a conciliatory and quiet manner. It is unusual for him to do so, but he has done so on this occasion, and we wish to respond in a similar manner.
      By this new clause, we seek to write into the Bill certain amendments which will enable this measure to become the foundation of the law on industrial relations. We think that it should be as satisfactory as possible in its principles and complete in its details, leaving as little as possible to be settled in future legislation that the Government propose. It is in that spirit that the Opposition approach these two days on Report.
      The new clause seeks to provide safeguards for the individual against arbitrary or unreasonable exclusion or expulsion from a union. Where a worker is aggrieved by his expulsion or exclusion, he may apply to an industrial tribunal for a remedy.

      1415
      Although the clause can stand by itself as a protection of the rights of individuals, the House will know that the definition of arbitrariness and unreasonableness is spelt out in subsections (10) to (13) of new Clause 2, to which we shall proceed in a few moments.
      There is a wide area of common ground between all parties in the House on the principle which underlies this clause. There are three stages in the remedy. There is, first, the application to the industrial tribunal. We would hope to have at least one member of a trade union siting as part of the industrial tribunal. Cases would be heard in front of knowledgeable people who know the procedures of trade unions and who would take that into account.
      There would then be a chance of further conciliation and, after that, consideration. Then there is the last stage of the remedy, which is the application to the High Court. No one can object to that sort of framework.
      The right hon. Gentleman says that our remedy is wrong, that it would be much better if this could be done outside the law. I think that if there were an effective way of doing it outside the law, we would much prefer to see that happen. I sometimes wonder why it is that there should be an objection to cases, which are not very frequent, being heard within the law. The rest of us have to abide by the law. I would have thought in this case that it was not asking a great deal for the trade unions also to have to abide by a framework of law.
      The right hon. Gentleman said that he would like further time to consider this and perhaps to include the provision in a code of practice, or perhaps in a code of practice of a later Bill. If he finds that there is a satisfactory way of doing this at a later stage within another Bill, then let him put it in that Bill. Let him then move to amend this Bill accordingly.
      I do not think we should pass to a situation in which the closed shop provisions operate in this Bill but in which there is a period before anything comes into operation to help the individual. If we do not protect the rights of the individual in this House there is no one else to protect them.
      1416
      There is a logical interdependence between the two principles of the institution of the closed shop and the protection of individuals from unreasonable treatment by unions in closed shop situations. There can be no logical reason for legitimising the closed shop in one piece of legislation and then leaving a gap of at least some months, or perhaps a year, before providing in another Bill for safeguards against unreasonable treatment of individuals in a closed shop situation. The two principles should stand side by side. Either both of them or neither of them should appear in the present Bill. Since the Standing Committee has already accepted the provisions of the Bill to legitimise the closed shop we feel it right to press for the second principle to be placed within the Bill.
      This clause would have the effect of giving protection to the individual. It is no more than is demanded by natural justice. It is something on which the House should be able to agree. It is not a matter of great issue of principle between us, because the right hon. Gentle man has already accepted that something along the lines of this principle must be right. We say that it should be included in the Bill now so that it can stand in the Bill alongside the closed shop provisions. If the right hon. Gentleman does that then, at a later stage—if he should be there to bring in a later Bill—he could remove the provision from this Bill and put something else to take its place into the later Bill.
      Hon. Members on this side of the House feel strongly that it is not right for the House to pass this legislation and to leave it to a later stage to introduce a provision to protect the individual on exclusion or expulsion grounds.
      I hope the right hon. Gentleman will now feel able to respond. We are not seeking to delay the House in this issue. We are not trying to say that everything we have done in the past has been perfect. Everyone in the House will want to see the best possible Bill go on to the statute book. It is not as if anybody in this House could put his hand on his heart and say that he has the answer to all the problems of industrial relations. We have a duty to try to provide the best possible framework within this Bill. Our new Clause 1 will help towards that end.
      Mr. Foot: With the leave of the House I should like to reply.
      I do not wish to upset the reasonable tone in which the whole debate has been conducted. I do not complain that we have spent a considerable chunk of our time debating this matter. As I have acknowledged through all the discussions, that raises an important question. I am not persuaded by the arguments presented by hon. Gentlemen, just as apparently they have not been persuaded by mine, although one always lives in hope.
      The hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) made a point about Donovan. He said that we do not think that his clause is justified by Donovan. In a lapse into legal language he asked, "So what?". The answer is that I am quoting Donovan in order to indicate that he is apparently regarded as the authority. But we have been through that during the Committee stage. Nobody who survived the Committee stage would quote Donovan as the absolute authority. I refer to it because I thought that it was suggested that the hon. Gentleman's clause was justified by the arguments contained in Donovan. I was suggesting in the most modest way that I did not think that argument could be properly sustained.
      Mr. Percival: The right hon. Gentleman makes the observation that this was not entirely supported by Donovan. It derives a lot of support from Donovan. A great deal in Donovan suggests that something along these lines must be done. The right hon. Gentleman is right: it is not entirely supported by Donovan. That is why I asked "So what?".
      Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman is with me on the matter. He concurs in what f have said. I am gratified at that measure of support.
      The Opposition seek to provide a remedy. We do not think the new clause will work. This is one of the reasons why we oppose that clause. We do not think the Opposition has taken sufficient account of what Donovan suggested as the way to deal with this problem. Donovan said that in the last resort only there should be an appeal to an independent review body that was set up. Donovan provided a remedy to deal with something that this clause does not deal with properly.
      1418
      Our second objection is that this clause does not properly recognise the procedures of the unions for dealing with this matter. Donovan understood that better. He said the appeal to the outside tribunal should take place only in the last resort. The hon. Gentleman's clause does not say that. It introduces the industrial tribunal at an earlier stage, with the kind of danger I have described, particularly when there is the possibility of an injuncton.
      We think that the clause would remedy injustices for some individuals but it could inflict injustices on some others. That is why we do not believe that it provides the right balance for dealing with the problem. We wish to get the balance right if we are to solve this problem. We do not think that the right balance has been achieved in Section 65 of the 1971 Act. We do not think the balance in this clause is right. We ask the House to assist us in our search for the way in -which we can get it right. That was what I was seeking to say in my earlier remarks.
      6.30 p.m.
      In my opinion—I trust that this will be the last comment that I make on the subject in this Bill—it would be more sensible for the House, if we genuinely want to secure a remedy which protects the unions from the dangers that they foresee in this kind of clause and protects the individual from the injustices against which we wish to protect him, to try to get a properly agreed solution to the problem. That is what we are asking for. The suggestion made by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) might assist in that process, and I hope that he will take that into account.
      However, if the House has a difference of opinion on the matter, we had better settle it by the old-fashioned method.
      Sir Harmar Nicholls rose—
      Mr. Cyril Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When I spoke in the debate earlier I addressed my remarks to new Clause 5, though I accept that the debate was on new Clause 1.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman had been in his place at the time, he would have heard me announce that new Clauses 1 and 5 could be discussed together.
      Mr. Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When I rose to speak a second time on new Clause 1 to reply to points made by the Minister, I received a message from the Chair advising me that on Report I was not allowed to speak a second time. May I ask you to advise me why a Minister is afforded that privilege but it is denied to a back-bench Member?
      Mr. Speaker: I am advised that if the hon. Gentleman will study Standing Order No. 55 he will find the answer to his question. To put it in simpler terms, a Minister or Member in charge of a Bill
      or the mover of an amendment or new clause has the right to speak more than once. Another hon. Member can speak more than once only by leave of the House.
      Sir Harmar Nicholls: I only wanted to say that if the right hon. Gentleman could not conciliate by accepting the clause, he has positively ruled himself out of being a member of our coalition.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 301, Noes 302.

      Division No. 71.]

      AYES

      [6.33 p.m.

      Adley, Robert

      Crouch, David

      Hannam, John

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Crowder, F. P.

      Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

      Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

      Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

      Harvie Anderson, Rt. Hn. Miss

      Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

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

      Hastings, Stephen

      Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

      Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)

      Havers, Sir Michael

      Ancram, M.

      Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

      Hawkins, Paul

      Archer, Jeffrey

      Dixon, Piers

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Atkins, Rt. Hn. Humphrey (Spelthorne)

      Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas

      Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

      Awdry, Daniel

      Dodsworth, Geoffrey

      Henderson, J. S.B. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

      Baker, Kenneth

      Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

      Heseltine, Michael

      Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

      Drayson, Burnaby

      Higgins, Terence

      Banks, Robert

      du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

      Hill, James A.

      Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Durant, Tony

      Holland, Philip

      Beith, A. J.

      Dykes, Hugh

      Hordern, Peter

      Bell, Ronald

      Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

      Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Surrey, E.)

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

      Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Fareham)

      Elliott, Sir William

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, North)

      Benyon, W.

      Emery, Peter

      Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

      Berry, Hon. Anthony

      Eyre, Reginald

      Hunt, John

      Biffen, John

      Fairgrieve, Russell

      Hurd, Douglas

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Farr, John

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Blaker, Peter

      Fell, Anthony

      Iremonger, T. L.

      Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.)

      Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

      Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

      Body, Richard

      Fidler, Michael

      James, David

      Boscswen, Hon. Robert

      Finsberg, Geoffrey

      Jenkin. Rt. Hn. P. (R'dgeW' std & W'fd)

      Bowden, Andrew (Brighton, Kemptown)

      Fisher, Sir Nigel

      Jessel, Toby

      Boyson, Dr. Rhodes (Brent. N.)

      Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh, N.)

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Braine, Sir Bernard

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

      Bray, Ronald

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

      Brewis, John

      Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'field)

      Jopling, Michael

      Brittan, Leon

      Fox, Marcus

      Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

      Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

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

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Freud, Clement

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

      Bruce-Gardyne, J.

      Fry, Peter

      Kershaw, Anthony

      Kimball, Marcus

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

      King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick

      Gardiner, George (Reigate & Banstead)

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Buck, Antony

      Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)

      Kirk, Peter

      Budgen, Nick

      Gibson-Watt, Rt. Hn. David

      Kitson, Sir Timothy

      Bulmer, Esmond

      Gilmour, Rt. Hn. Ian (Ch'sh'&Amsh'm)

      Knight, Mrs. Jill

      Burden, F. A.

      Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

      Knox, David

      Carlisle, Mark

      Glyn, Dr. Alan

      Lamont Norman

      Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Goodhart, Philip

      Lane, David

      Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

      Goodhew, Victor

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Channon, Paul

      Goodlad, A.

      Latham, Michael (Melton)

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Gorst, John

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Churchill, W. S.

      Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

      Lawson, Nigel (Blaby)

      Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

      Lester, Jim (Beeston)

      Clark, William (Croydon, S.)

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rtland & Stmford)

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Gray, Hamish

      Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

      Clegg, Walter

      Grieve, Percy

      Loveridge, John

      Cockcroft, John

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

      Luce, Richard

      Cooke, Robert (Bristol, W.)

      Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

      MacArthur, Ian

      Cope, John

      Grist, Ian

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Cordie, John

      Grylls, Michael

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Cormack, Patrick

      Gurden, Harold

      MacGregor, John

      Corrie, John

      Hall, Sir John

      McLaren, Martin

      Costain, A. P.

      Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

      Macmillan, Rt. Hn. M. (Farnham)

      Craig, Rt. Hn. William (Belfast, W.)

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

      Critchley, Julian

      Hampson, Dr. Keith

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

      Madel, David

      Quennell, Miss J. M

      Stodart, Rt. Hn. A. (Edinburgh, W.)

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Raison, Timothy

      Stokes, John

      Mather, Carol

      Rathbone, Tim

      Stradling Thomas, John

      Maude, Angus

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

      Tapsell, Peter

      Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

      Redmond, Robert

      Taverne, Dick

      Mawby, Ray

      Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

      Taylor, Edward M. (Glgow, C'cart)

      Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      Mayhew, Patrick (Royal T' bridge Wells)

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David(H't'gd'ns're)

      Tebbit, Norman

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Renton, R. T. (Mid-Sussex)

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Miller, Hal (B'grove & R'ditch)

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Margaret

      Mills, Peter

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. P. (B'net, H'dn S.)

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Rifkind, Malcolm

      Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

      Townsend, C. D.

      Moate, Roger

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.-W.)

      Trotter, Neville

      Molyneaux, James

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Monoy, Ernle

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Tyler, Paul

      Monro, Hector

      Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Moore, J. E. M. (Croydon, C.)

      Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)

      Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

      Morgan, Geraint

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      Viggers, Peter

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Rost, Peter (Derbyshire, S.-E.)

      Waddington, David

      Morris, Michael (Northampton S.)

      Royle, Sir Anthony

      Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

      Morrison Charles (Devizes)

      Sainsbury, Tim

      Wakeham, John

      Morrison, Peter (City of Chester)

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Mudd, David

      Scott-Hopkins, James

      Wall, Patrick

      Neave, Airey

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Walters, Dennis

      Neubert, Michael

      Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

      Warren, Kenneth

      Newton, Tony (Braintree)

      Shelton, William (L'mb'th, Streath'm)

      Weatherill, Bernard

      Nicholls, Sir Harmar

      Shersby, Michael

      Wells, John

      Normanton, Tom

      Silvester, Fred

      Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

      Nott, John

      Sinclair, Sir George

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Onslow, Cranley

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Winstanley, Dr. Michael

      Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

      Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Osborn, John

      Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'm'ngton)

      Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

      Spence, John

      Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

      Page, John (Harrow, W.)

      Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)

      Worsley, Sir Marcus

      Pardoe, John

      Spicer, Michael (Worcestershire, S.)

      Young, Sir George (Ealing, Acton)

      Parkinson, Cecil (Hertfordshire, S.)

      Sproat, Iain

      Younger, Hn. George

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Stainton, Keith

      Percival, Ian

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES

      Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

      Stanley, John

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Steel, David

      Mr. Adam Butler and

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Steen, Anthony (L'pool, Wavertree)

      Mr. Spencer Le Marchant

      Prior, Rt. Hn. James

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      NOES

      Abse, Leo

      Clemitson, Ivor

      Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

      Allaun, Frank

      Cocks, Michael

      English, Michael

      Archer, Peter

      Cohen, Stanley

      Ennals, David

      Armstrong, Ernest

      Coleman, Donald

      Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

      Ashley, Jack

      Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N.

      Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

      Ashton, Joe

      Concannon, J. D.

      Evans, John (Newton)

      Atkins, Ronald

      Conlan, Bernard

      Ewing, Harry (St'ling, F'kirk & G'm'th)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Cook, Robert F. (Edinburgh, C.)

      Faulds, Andrew

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Craigen, J. M. (G'gow, Maryhill)

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      Barnett, Joel (Heywood & Royton)

      Cronin, John

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

      Bates, Alf

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Flannery, Martin

      Baxter, William

      Cryer, G. R.

      Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Cunningham, G.(lsl'ngt'n, S & F'sb'ry)

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Bennett, Andrew F. (Stockport, N.)

      Cunningham, Dr. John A.(Whiteh'v'n)

      Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael

      Ford, Ben

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Dalyell, Tam

      Forrester, John

      Bishop, E. S.

      Davidson, Arthur

      Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

      Boardman, H.

      Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

      Freeson, Reginald

      Booth, Albert

      Davies, Ifor (Gower)

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

      Garrett, John (Norwich, S.)

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Deakins, Eric

      Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

      Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

      Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)

      George, Bruce

      Bradley, Tom

      de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Broughton, Sir Alfred

      Delargy, Hugh

      Ginsburg, David

      Brown, Bob(Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Golding, John

      Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)

      Dempsey, James

      Gourlay, Harry

      Brown, Ronald (H'kney, S. & Sh'ditch)

      Doig, Peter

      Graham, Ted

      Buchan, Norman

      Dormand, J. D.

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

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

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Grant, John (Islington, C.)

      Butler, Mrs. Joyce (H'gey, WoodGreen)

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Griffiths, Eddie (Sheffield, Brightside)

      Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James (Cardiff, S.E.)

      Dunn, James A.

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Callaghan, Jim (M'dd'ton & Pr'wich)

      Dunnett, Jack

      Hamilton, William (Fife, C.)

      Campbell, Ian

      Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth

      Hamling, William

      Cant, R. B.

      Eadie, Alex

      Hardy, Peter

      Carmichael, Neil

      Edelman, Maurice

      Harper, Joseph

      Carter, Ray

      Edge, Geoff

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S.E.)

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      Ellis, John (Brigg & Scunthorpe)

      Hattersley, Roy

      Hatton, Frank

      Mallalieu, J. P. W.

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (S'pney&P'plar)

      Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

      Marks, Kenneth

      Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'ctle-u-Tyne)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Marquand, David

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hamp'n, N.E.)

      Henderson, Douglas (Ab'rd'nsh're, E)

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)

      Hooley, Frank

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. S.C. (S'hwark, Dulwich)

      Horam, John

      Meacher, Michael

      Sillars, James

      Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Silverman, Julius

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Mendelson, John

      Skinner, Dennis

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Mikardo, Ian

      Small, William

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Millan, Bruce

      Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)

      Miller, Dr. M. S. (E. Kilbride)

      Snape, Peter

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Milne, Edward

      Spearing, Nigel

      Hunter, Adam

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

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (L'p'I, EdgeHI)

      Molloy, William

      Stallard, A. W.

      Irving, Rt. Hn. Sydney (Dartford)

      Moonman, Eric

      Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

      Jackson, Colin

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'sth, Fulh'm)

      Janner, Greville

      Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Stoddart, David (Swindon)

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Morris Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Jeger, Mrs. Lena

      Moyle, Roland

      Stott, Roger

      Jenkins, Hugh (W'worth, Putney)

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Strang, Gavin

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (B'ham, St'fd)

      Murray, Ronald King

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      John, Brynmor

      Newens, Stanley (Harlow)

      Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

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

      Oakes, Gordon

      Swain, Thomas

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Ogden, Eric

      Thomas, D. E. (Merioneth)

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      O'Malley, Brian

      Thorne, Stan (Preston, S.)

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Orbach, Maurice

      Tierney, Sydney

      Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

      Orme, Rt. Hn. Stanley

      Tinn, James

      Judd, Frank

      Ovenden, John

      Tomlinson, John

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Owen, Dr. David

      Tomney, Frank

      Kelley, Richard

      Padley, Walter

      Torney, Tom

      Kerr, Russell

      Palmer, Arthur

      Urwin, T. W.

      Kilroy-Silk, Robert

      Park, George (Coventry, N.E.)

      Varley, Rt. Hn. Eric G.

      Kinnock, Neil

      Parker, John (Dagenham)

      Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

      Lambie, David

      Parry, Robert

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, Ladywood)

      Lamborn, Harry

      Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Lamond, James

      Pendry, Tom

      Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

      Latham, Arthur (City of W' minster P'ton)

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Watkins, David

      Lawson, George(Motherwell & Wishaw)

      Phipps, Dr. Colin

      Watt, Hamish

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg

      Weitzman, David

      Lee, John

      Prescott, John

      Wellbeloved, James

      Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

      Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)

      White, James

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Price, William (Rugby)

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Lewis, Arthur (Newham, N.)

      Radice, Giles

      Whitlock, William

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Rees, Rt. Hn. Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Wigley, Dafydd(Caernarvon)

      Lipton, Marcus

      Reid, George

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Richardson, Miss Jo

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Loughlin, Charles

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Williams, Alan Lee (Hvrng, Hchurch)

      Loyden, Eddie

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Williams, Rt.Hn.Shirley(H'f'd&St'ge)

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)

      Roderick, Caerwyn E.

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      McCartney, Hugh

      Rodgers, George (Chorley)

      Wilson, Gordon(Dundee, E.)

      MacCormack, Iain

      Rodgers, William (Teesside, St'ckton)

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.E.)

      McElhone, Frank

      Rooker, J. W.

      Wise, Mrs. Audrey

      MacFarquhar, Roderick

      Roper, John

      Woodall, Alec

      McGuire, Michael

      Rose, Paul B.

      Woof, Robert

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Wrigglesworth, Ian

      Maclennan, Robert

      Rowlands, Edward

      Young, David (Bolton, E.)

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Sandelson, Neville

      McNamara, Kevin

      Sedgemore, Bryan

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Madden, M. O. F.

      Selby, Harry

      Mr. Thomas Cox and

      Magee, Bryan

      Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilford, S.)

      Mr. Laurie Pavitt.

      Mahon, Simon

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 2

      RULES OF TRADE UNIONS AND EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS
      (1) The rules of every trade union and employers' association shall contain provisions in respect of the matters mentioned in the following subsections of this section.
      (2) The rules must specify the name of the trade union or employers' association, the address of its principal office and the objects for which it was established.
      (3) The rules must make provision as to the purposes for which, and the manner in which, any property or funds of the trade union or employers' association are authorised to be applied or invested.
      (4) If any financial benefits are to be available for members of the trade union or employers' association out of its property or funds, the rules must make provision as to the amounts of those benefits and the circum stances in which they are to be available to members.
      (5) The rules must specify the manner in which any rules of the trade unions or employers' association can be made, altered or revoked.
      (6) The rules must make provision for the election or appointment of officers and for the manner in which officers can be removed from office.
      (7) The rules must make provision:—

      (a) for the election of a governing body and for its re-election at reasonable intervals;

      (b) for the manner in which members of the governing body can be removed from office.

      (8) If the trade union or employers' association has officials (whether they are shop stewards, workplace representatives or other officials) who are not officers of the trade union or employers' association, the rules must make provision for their election or appointment and for the manner in which they can be removed from office.
      (9) The rules must make provision as to the manner in which, for any purposes of the trade union or employers' association elections are to be held or ballots taken, including the following:—

      (a) notification of vacancies and qualification of candidates;

      (b) making of nominations;

      (c) canvassing or content of election addresses, where these are permitted;

      (d) eligibility for voting in any such election or ballot;

      (e) procedure preparatory to any election or ballot;

      (f) the procedure for counting and scrutiny of the votes and ballot papers; and

      (g) the procedure for the declaration or notification of the result of any such election or ballot.

      (10) The rules must specify the descriptions of persons who are eligible for membership of the trade union or employers' association or a branch or section of the trade union or employers' association and the procedure for dealing with applications for membership, including provision for appeals against decisions of the committee or other body responsible for determining such applications.
      (11) The rules must specify:—

      (a) the offences for which the trade union or employers' asociation is entitled under the rules to expel a member or take other disciplinary action, and the penalties applicable for each of those offences;

      (b) the procedure for the hearing of cases in which offences against the rules are alleged; and

      (c) the procedure with respect to appeals against any decision on any such hearing.

      (12) The rules must prescribe a procedure for settling disputes between a member and the trade union or employers' association or an officer of the trade union or employers' association.
      (13) In making provision for any hearing or a determination of any question, whether in relation to an alleged offence, an appeal or a
      1426
      dispute, the rules shall be so framed as not to depart from, or permit any departure from, the rules of natural justice '.—[Mr. Percival.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      6.45 p.m.
      Mr. Percival: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Speaker: I understand that it will be for the convenience of the House if we discuss with the new clause Amendment No. 60, in Clause 5, page 5, line 13 after 'below', insert:
      and section of this Act (Rules of Trade Unions and Employers' Associations)'.
      Mr. Percival: If I heard you aright through the hubbub, Mr. Speaker, Amendment No. 60 can conveniently be discussed with new Clause 2. I agree, but Amendment No. 60 does not necessarily follow on from the new clause. I assume that there will be a separate Division on it if necessary.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members will withdraw as quietly as they can. In reply to the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival), we will deal with that situation when we come to it.
      Mr. Percival: Yes indeed, Mr. Speaker I hope that we will be able to open up the margin a little more in this case and put it the other way round. I should have thought that the arguments in favour of what I now have the honour to move are so strong that there is every hope that that result will be achieved.
      If the Bill becomes law in its present form, the Government will have brought about a situation in which, for the first time since 1871, there are no statutory requirements about the rules of a trade union. That would be a remarkable result, the more so because, as has been pointed out by Ministers in Committee in some respects the Bill is imposing new and more substantial obligations on some unions which did not have obligations before. I am thinking of obligations in respect of accounts and returns which apply not only to registered unions but to all unions. It would be even more remarkable in view of the numerous statements by high authority to the effect that all is not well in this part of trade union affairs.

      1427
      "In Place of Strife", referring to the state of union rule books, said:
      "The Government considers that the present legal requirements relating to the rules of trade unions are inadequate and should be extended in the interests both of the unions and of their members."
      It specified the areas in which unions would be required to have rules, including admission, discipline, disputes between a union and its members, elections, strike ballots and the appointment and functions of shop stewards. Most hon. Members would agree that it is as much in the interests of the members of the unions as it is of the public that rule books should cover a wide variety of important matters in clear terms.
      I am aware of the importance attached to these requirements by the TUC. I know the time that it has spent considering what form rule books should take, but having seen some rule books which featured in cases in the last four years I know that not all rule books have reached the standard we would all like.
      I had intended to say here that the Donovan Report does not support all that I will say, but in fact I think that it supports every word. The requirements about rules in the new clause are simply a revamping of the 1871 requirements to bring them up to date, plus the Donovan recommendations. They fall far short of the detailed requirements in the Industrial Relations Act and I hope that no one will suggest that the clause is affected one way or another by that Act. We are not seeking its re-enactment.
      Paragraph 648 of the Donovan Report states:
      "We have said that it is very desirable that trade union rule-books should be clear and unambiguous, but that they generally fall far short of a satisfactory standard in these respects."
      I know that the TUC has had regard to that and has done a great deal of work to improve on the situation, but its labours are not complete. We are concerned not with those who have brought their rule books up to date—congratulations to them; the new clause will not bother them—but with the number, great or small, which have not yet done so and with future bodies which may seek to bring themselves within the definition of "trade union" in the Bill.
      1428
      In Committee, Ministers suggested that the word "organisation" connoted a tighter sort of body than the previous description and postulated a body which at least had some rules. If so, one is now thinking of new bodies which will want to take advantage of the Bill. Surely it is plain common sense to provide as a matter of law for the minimum requirements to be covered by the rules of those bodies.
      The Donovan Report went on to say:
      "The current requirements as to the rules of a registered trade union are that they should ' contain provisions in respect of ' certain matters ".
      Those current requirements were the 1871 requirements. Subsections (2) to (7) inclusive of the new clause can be identified by reference to that paragraph of the Donovan Report, so it is not necessary to go back to the old-fashioned language of the 1871 Act. But any hon. Member who thinks we have gone beyond those provisions should compare these subsections with Donovan.
      Subsection (8) is based on paragraph 654 of Donovan:
      "The requirements as to rules in relation to elections should include the rules for the election of shop stewards (or other workplace representatives), if the union has them."
      We would all regard that as good practical common sense. All that some hon. Members seem to object to is that it should be required as a matter of law. I hope that the Minister will address his mind to that. Why should people mind good plain common sense being enshrined in the law?
      7.0 p.m.
      Subsection (9) is based on paragraph 653 of the Donovan Report. The subsection states that
      "The rules must make provision as to the manner in which, for any purposes of the trade union or employers' association elections are to be held or ballots taken, including the following: "
      Right hon. and hon. Members will notice that this is not an attempt to interfere with unions and say whether or in what circumstances they shall have ballots. Whether or not they shall have ballots, and whether they shall be postal ballots or ballots in person, is left—as was recommended by Donovan, which we accept—properly to the discretion of the union. It is free to comply with these rules in

      1429
      whatever way it thinks best and whatever way best suits its particular working basis. All that the subsection does in connection with these very important events—we recognise that they are very important in the life of a union, just as they are in any other kind of organisation—is to make provision for the voluntary matters, such as notification of vacancies and qualification of candidates. Is it not absolutely elementary that they should make provision? Therefore, who can object to having a requirement to make that provision?
      The making of nominations is the next requirement, followed by
      "canvassing or content of election addresses, where these are permitted; eligibility for voting in any such election or ballot".
      If one casts prejudice aside, is this not a very desirable guide and could it not make a very useful check list when drawing up one's rules? One might forget some of these matters quite unintentionally. One could check with this and say "Yes, I forgot that." It is a matter of common sense and not a matter of law. Who would not do it voluntarily? Those who would not do it voluntarily would be omitting to do it for some ulterior motive, because they did not want this or because they were idle or did not have the necessary skill or organisation.
      It is quite a business drawing up a set of rules for a union. I should have thought that anything like this, simply giving guidance—although I am wrong here because it would not be guidance; it would be the law—would give very useful practical guidance to someone drawing up a set of rules. I should have thought that it would be acceptable to all who took the view that every such organisation should be properly run and should cover all these matters.
      Subsection (10) is from paragraph 650 of the Donovan Report. It is linked with a point raised by the Secretary of State in the previous debate. The Donovan Commission said:
      "The rules should also state who has the power to consider and decide applications for admission; that applicants refused admission should have a right of appeal to the executive committee of the union and should be so informed at the time of refusal of admission; and that the executive committee has the power to admit applicants where an appeal is upheld."
      1430
      In subsection (10) we make just such provisions—not necessarily word for word, because when one is translating a recommendation into statutory phraseology which has to stand the test of litigation it is not only permissible but desirable to draw it a little tighter. But I defy any hon. Member to find anything in subsection (10) which is in any way out of tune with what Donovan said, either generally in the whole of this part of the report or more particularly in paragraph 650, upon which subsection (10) is based.
      Subsection (11) can be directly related to paragraph 651. The subsection states:
      "The rules must specify:—
      (a) the offences for which the trade union or employers' association is entitled under the rules to expel a member or take other disciplinary action, and the penalties applicable for each of those offences."
      That must be a "must". No one could suggest otherwise. I should have thought everyone would agree that every set of union rules should provide for these matters. I therefore say again, why not let us here say so and make that the law? For those few, however small in number they are, and even if it is only one body, who will not do it without its being made law, it is worth having these provisions.
      The second provision is that the rules must specify
      "the procedure for the hearing of cases in which offences against the rules are alleged."
      Again, it is quite incontrovertible to insist on that. Subsection (11)(c) states:
      "the procedure with respect to appeals against any decision on any such hearing."
      Subsection (12) is based on paragraph 652 of the Donovan Report. It states:
      "The rules must prescribe a procedure for settling disputes between a member and the trade union or employers' association or an officer of the trade union or employers' association."
      Here again, this demonstrates the point I was making. This cannot be said to be detailed interference. What this says is that
      "The rules must prescribe a procedure for settling disputes."
      What that procedure is, subject to subsection (13) to which I shall refer shortly, is entirely up to the union, and the union may make it whatever it thinks best in general terms or what it thinks best and necessary in regard to its particular setup and organisation. I appreciate that this may vary enormously. It depends

      1431
      on whether one is dealing with groups of people working in small areas or people who do shift-and-shift about. There may be all sorts of different practical reasons for having different ways of settling these matters. Furthermore, the procedure for settling them may depend on the constitution of the union.
      Therefore, in subsection (12) we have set out to give the union the widest possible discretion in drawing up its own procedures. It cannot be criticised as being interference in the domestic affairs of a union or an employers' association. Although for the sake of brevity I have referred to trade unions, nothing that I have said is aimed against anyone. It is aimed at both trade unions and employers' associations. I referred only to the one because that makes my speech at least that much shorter.
      Subsection (13) brings in the other factor referred to by the Donovan Commission. It is to be observed that in this part of the report the commission was unanimous. It is not a question, as in so many other matters, that some members say one thing and some say another. Here we can talk about the view of the Donovan Commission, of all its members. In dealing with the matters in subsection (11) of the new clause, the commission said that the rules there referred to must be such as to ensure that the rules of natural justice were observed. In subsection (13) we have done justice to that part of Donovan as well by saying:
      "In making provision for any hearing or a determination of any question, whether in relation to an alleged offence, an appeal or a dispute, the rules shall be so framed as not to depart from, or permit any departure from, the rules of natural justice."
      That is the only fetter that is placed on the discretion for each union to choose its own way of carrying out those requirements. It is not a fetter to which any right hon. or hon. Member would object. All that it is saying is "When you draw these rules, draw them so as to ensure that they are themselves within the rules of natural justice"—I am sure we all want that—"and have in mind also that you should draw them so that nothing would represent a departure from natural justice".
      1432
      That is the substance of it. I am sure that the best unions would do this automatically without thinking about it. What we are getting at are the unions that do not.
      Mr. Walter Johnson: Which ones?
      Mr. Percival: It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to say "Which ones?" If he says that every rule book is perfect, I must simply say that I do not think he is right. I have seen some rule books referred to in the courts and heard some of the arguments based on them. Furthermore, even if the hon. Gentleman were right he would remember the kind of case to which I referred in Committee when we were discussing the common law remedy for someone who suffered injustice as a result of a breach of natural justice. The hon. Gentleman will remember that the rules of at least two unions were referred to and that they certainly did not comply with the requirements of this new clause.
      I shall be delighted if the Minister tells us that all this is unnecessary, but even if he were right it would do no harm to include it. It will not impose extra work on anybody, so surely he will accept the clause. All the decent unions have complied with the requirements. They have been working hard in the last six years and have reached a suitable standard, but if we include the clause in the Bill it will require new people coming along to observe those standards. It will mean that any new bodies will have to observe them in the same way as existing bodies.
      I hope I have satisfied the House that what we are recommending goes no further than reintroducing the 1871 rules and implementing the Donovan recommendations. If the Government doubt this, they can check for themselves whether I am right. What we find difficult to understand is the resistance to our proposal. It has been argued that we should not interfere in the detailed running of an organisation, and we accept that proposition. If we are to expect a big organisation to act responsibly we must give it the opportunity to do so, and we must not try to run every detail of its affairs. We are sure to get it wrong if we try. It is a totally different thing, however, to lay down in general terms

      1433
      requirements with which the rules as devised by the unions must comply. That was recommended by Donovan and it is fully recognised in the clause.
      The only other argument I have heard so far—perhaps others will be put forward in the course of the debate—is that our proposal is not necessary. I hope that the Secretary of State will not make that suggestion. We have grown to admire the frankness with which he faced up to issues in Committee. If he were to put that argument forward, it would be a step backwards for him. Even supposing that the clause is unnecessary at this moment, is any of us so naive as to imagine that even if we pass this law every organisation, present and future, will do all these things? Of course they will not. But if we pass the law we have a much better chance on the one hand of assisting bodies to get their rules into better shape and on the other hand of saying that they have an obligation to comply with these requirements.
      7.15 p.m.
      That leads me directly to Amendment No. 60. It is not a necessary consequence of the clause. The House will appreciate that when the clause has been added to the Bill, as I hope it will be, Clause 5 (3) will read
      "(3) Any organisation of workers or of employers, whenever formed, whose name is not entered in the relevant list may apply to the Registrar to have its name so entered and, subject to subsection (5) below, the Registrar shall, if satisfied that the organisation is a trade union or employers' association and that subsection (4) below and section "—
      here we have left a space because we do not know what the section number will be, but it refers to the new clause—
      "of this Act … has been complied with, enter the name of that organisation in the relevant list."
      Under subsection (2) all the major unions will have been automatically registered. Subsection (3) relates only to those which are not automatically registered and which come later and say to the registrar that they are trade unions as defined and they want to be entered in the relevant list. As the Bill stands, when they do that they have to satisfy him that they have complied with subsections (5) and (4). The amendment would simply mean that they would also have to satisfy him that they had complied with the provisions of the Act.
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      I ask the rhetorical question, is it not also plain common sense that that should be necessary? Is it not common sense that the registrar should compare the organisation's rules with the requirements of the Act to see that they comply? Those organisations would make doubly certain that their rules complied. Organisations newly starting up and wanting to register would start out with a model set of rules. Is that not wholly to be desired? The manner of achieving that is so simple. We merely add the new clause to the Bill and then we agree to Amendment No. 60
      Mr. David Mitchell: The House is discussing a clause which lays down certain minimum standards to which all trade union rules must conform. It means that the rules must confirm to natural justice and the like. The House must realise that we are not dealing with a bowling club, a bingo club or something someone can join if he likes. We are dealing here with a wholly exceptional body in that because of the closed shop there is a compulsion to join on anyone wishing to work in his skill and career in many jobs, and also because of the decision of the Government on the previous new clause.
      Therefore, it seems to me absolutely right—and I hope it will seem so to the Secretary of State—that there should be certain minimum standards laid down regarding the rules of trade unions. I hope we shall not have to force this matter to a vote and possibly find that some Members of the Liberal Party are not able to make it for a Division, which we would then lose. I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to accept this clause and indeed welcome it, because it would go a long way towards demonstrating a consensus in the House as to the changes which are needed.
      A trade union is a vast organisation and it is impossible to keep every shop steward sufficiently in touch with what is or is not acceptable. It is possible for a shop steward to indulge in petty tyranny and, possibly, he may be insensitive and wholly unaware of the effect on someone who is shy or gentle. The effect and the injustice in such circumstances would be no different from what would arise if there were an intention to bully, browbeat and frighten. It does not matter if a shop steward believes passionately that what he is doing is for a good cause—which it may

      1435
      or may not be; for him to use unacceptable means does not justify the end.
      It may be felt that this is airy fairy and that shop stewards do not try to coerce or bully people. I put before the House an example, and I hope that the Minister of State joins me in condemning what it involves. The example refers to a circular sent to members of the AUEW in Basingstoke last week. The circular stated:
      "Because you remained at work after being informed and requested to attend a mass meeting of all ALLEW members, it is recommended that you pay as a fine 39·5 pence into a charity of your choice and to agree to attend future meetings and to accept the majority decisions.
      If you do not comply with the above request this matter will be taken through Trade Union procedure by informing your Branch Secretary and requesting that you be brought before the Branch Committee."
      A gentle, older man would be terrified as a result of receiving that, and he would be frightened that he would be "branched" and worried about what might follow in regard to whether he would be allowed to continue to work in a closed shop area. I am sure that the Minister agrees that this is not the sort of procedure the British trade union movement would be proud of, or would wish to have—
      The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Albert Booth): The hon. Gentleman has referred to a circular relating to ALLEW rules. Will he therefore quote the rules of that union in relation to fines imposed by branches, so as to show if that matter is in any way appropriate to what we are now discussing?
      Mr. Mitchell: I do not have the union rule book with me, but I am sure that the Minister will agree that if the action mentioned in the circular was within the rules of the union it would be wholly undesirable. I am pleased to see his concurrence in that.
      If it is not within the rules of the union, it is right that there should be a means of appeal, such as suggested in the clause, for the unfortunate man who feels that he is the recipient of petty and unpleasant bullying. I say this to illustrate that it is not a matter of Westminster theory or of what we think are the niceties of life, but rather the reality of what happens on
      1436
      the workshop floor. It is not a pleasant reality—
      Mr. Booth: The hon. Gentleman has demonstrated that he has not read the rule book of the union he has mentioned and that he does not know the appeals procedure. If he had read the rule book and knew the appeals procedure he would not say what he has been saying.
      Mr. Mitchell: It is all very well for the Minister to take that view, but I am talking about the reality of human life and about the unfortunate chap who is frightened by what he faces. We are concerned here with human nature. We must have a system in which rules are clear and are in conformity with natural justice; in which the individual knows that he has protection against bullying, and in which it is clear to the shop steward or convener concerned that the individual has a right of protection against being bullied—
      Mr. Ronald Brown: The hon. Gentleman has taken a point in time after the event, whereas the man he has referred to would have known when he took the decision what would be the consequencies if he refused to go along with his colleagues. He would know that he would have to appear before his branch. The man would have taken his decision in the full knowledge of what he was doing
      Mr. Mitchell: A democratically arrived at decision is one thing, but being told to do something by an official is totally different. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman accepts that.
      The clause is important because if the Government are to carry a consensus of the House with them in what they are seeking to do they have a choice. That choice, which relates to reform of trade union and industrial relations in this country, is that we say either there is to be no compulsory membership and no closed shop, or there is to be a closed shop and compulsory membership of a trade union, in which case we must ensure that there is no petty tryranny and that the unions are run in conformity with the laws of natural justice. If the Government are to carry the House and the country with them they must ensure

      1437
      that a trade union is fair and above board in what it does.
      It is important that this clause should be passed. I hope it will be passed not so much through the strength of the vote on this side, but because the Secretary of State accepts it, in which case it will not be necessary to have a Division. This is a matter of simple natural justice.
      Mr. Richard Wainwright: At the time of the publication of the Donovan Report the Liberal Party warmly endorsed virtually all its recommendations, including those referred to from the Opposition Front Bench in this debate. In debates such as these we reflect unhappily on the sad consequences of the rejection of the Donovan Report by the Conservatives at a time when their views were important, and on their arrogant assessment that they knew better than Donovan. We welcome the changed attitude shown from the Opposition Front Bench, an attitude in which all is now right with Donovan.
      Although, as always on this bench, the words of the Secretary of State will be heard with care and interest, unless he can reveal some wisdom which was concealed from Donovan our present inclination is to support the new clause, recognising that for the vast majority of trade unions and their branches these provisions will not be required, because they are already observed by the overwhelming majority of trade unionists.
      I should like to draw a parallel here with the limited liability company. That sort of company, like trade unions, enjoys fully justifiable privileges legally enacted. It seems to us reasonable that although the vast majority of limited liability companies would carry on business in a proper way and account satisfactorily to their shareholders for their stewardship. the law is required to deal with a small minority of limited liability companies which might through thoughtlessness, fecklessness—or even occasionally deliberately—try to dodge natural justice.
      Therefore, I wish to face head on the argument that a clause of this sort is a reflection on the vast majority of trade unions. Small businessmen who carry on their concern with a limited liability do not regard the Companies Acts as a reflection on their integrity. They take it in
      1438
      their stride, and regard it as a natural requirement to prevent the occasional black sheep from creating abuse.
      7.30 p.m.
      The case is strengthened by the changing pattern of employment. Many of us know from our constituency experience—I certainly know it from mine—that three-shift working and the arrival of large numbers of immigrants, not only coloured immigrants but people coming to us from other parts of these islands to work, mean that the union is not now the cosy assembly of familiar faces that it used to be in the West Riding of Yorkshire. There are many people who need the protection of things in writing and of a certain formality which is no reflection on the movement but simply caters for a new, more complicated and more difficult pattern of work.
      The clause is of a minimal nature. It does not try to interfere in a bureaucratic, officious or rigid way with the conduct of trade unions. It is a simple statement of the obvious, for I should have thought that the vast majority of unions would welcome the enshrinement of these provisions in the law.
      Therefore, unless some new wisdom is revealed to us at the end of the debate, it is the intention of the Liberals to support the clause.
      Mr. Booth: I welcome the tone in which the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) addressed the House. Having listened to the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival), one might have been forgiven for an impression that he thought that rule books were drawn up by unskilled people who did so very carelessly. On the basis of the speech of the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell) one would think that union rule books were what enabled petty tyrants to terrorise old men.
      Mr. Percival: The Minister is less than his usual generous self. I said nothing of the sort. I recognised that most unions go to a great deal of trouble to get their rule book right. I said it at least three times, but I am glad to say it again so that there is no doubt about it.
      The hon. Gentleman has misquoted me, I am sure inadvertently. I said that there might be quite small new bodies which would not be very well equipped to

      1439
      carry out the exercise of drawing up rules, which requires skill and experience, and that they would probably find such a guide as is proposed very useful.
      Mr. Booth: I welcome that intervention, but the hon. and learned Gentleman did refer to the need for skill and care in the drawing up of union rule books. Therefore, I welcome the fact that he acknowledges openly, not for the first time, that the majority of union rule books are drawn up with a great deal of skill and care. In fact, unions lay down careful rules for the holding of rules conferences and normally make provision for every one of their branches to submit amendments to rules at regular intervals. Those amendments are debated at union conferences, somewhat better attended than this debate, by people who are very concerned about the degree to which their union affairs are controlled by their rule books.
      Therefore, when we talk about union rule books we must be conscious that we are talking about documents which have been drawn up on the basis of a considerable amount of experience. They have been drawn up by people who are concerned about their unions and who, through their unions, have sought to achieve a considerable degree of natural justice for their membership and justice in the regulation of the affairs between men in the work place and in the service of this country.
      The effect of the clause is to make a highly detailed statutory provision for employers' associations' and trade unions' rules. It is interesting to note, first, that the clause does not cover rules relating to strikes and lock-outs. With all this length of detailed provision on union and employers' associations' rules in the clause, why was no attention given to the question of lock-outs and strikes? Certainly, Opposition Members would not tell the House that strikes and lockouts were unimportant matters, that they were occasions when considerations of natural justice should be set aside, or even occasions when the regulation of appeals by union membership against decisions of elected bodies or officers of the union should be set aside.
      One of the reasons may be that in the framing of the new clause it was recog-
      1440
      nised that there are certain matters at least which are far better left to the experience of those who have for years run employers' associations and trade unions and devised their rule books.
      Sir Raymond Gower: Could not it be that this provision basically affects the relationship between the unions in making their rules so as to protect the separate members of those unions? It is true that lock-outs and strikes also impinge on the individual, but there the major conflict is often between unions and employers or nationalised industries and so on. Any impingement upon the individual would probably be covered by subsection (12), which refers to the procedure for settling disputes between a member and the trade union or employers' association. If that dispute arose from a strike or lock-out, it would probably be covered by that provision.
      Mr. Booth: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. It may be that that subsection is intended to be so wide as to cover all these matters, but, if it is, the rest of the clause is possibly unnecessary, provided the rules prescribe a procedure for settling disputes between member and trade union or employers' association or officer of the union or employers' association. If it has that width of meaning, it will cover many other matters which are subject to separate provisions of the clause.
      The hon. and learned Gentleman has very fairly pointed out that the clause was largely inspired by Donovan. In fact, it sets Donovan in a form which could be placed on the statute book and modernises part of the 1871 Act requirements. 'I here-fore, it is appropriate to examine the effect of Donovan on union rules.
      As I have already pointed out, unions are not insensitive to their rule books or crticisms of them. In 1968 the TUC published "Action on Donovan", in which it undertook to consider the case for formulating certain basic principles for the rule books of unions. I do not know whether employers' associations responded in the same way, but, as the hon. and learned Gentleman's criticisms fell equally, in so far as they are applicable, between employers' associations and unions, the same sort of considerations should apply.

      1441
      By June 1969 the TUC had organised a special meeting at which it presented the document "Programme for Action". That was endorsed by the conference, which recorded the intention of the General Council of the TUC to draw up a list of basic principles governing admission, discipline, expulsion and election procedure.
      Between December 1969 and June 1970 a number of circulars were issued by the TUC which dealt with not only admission and discipline but strike procedures—a matter not covered by the clause—duties and responsibilities of shop stewards, and exclusion of members for arrears. Therefore, in that relatively short time, in response to the Donovan inquiry the British trade union movement had sought to deal with the Donovan criticisms.
      I am not saying that that is the finish of that procedure. Of course, the Trades Union Congress must continue to be sensitive to any proper criticism. Let no one imagine that I or any of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have served the trade unions would accept the proposition that because Donovan made some criticism of trade union rules, every rule hook in the country needs drastic overhaul or severe modernisation. In fact, when the unions came to examine the TUC circular against their own rule books, many of them found that there was no need to amend their rule books to meet the requirements of the TUC circular. Some rule books did require minor modification. In some instances that modification could be quite properly described as the modernising of the rule book.
      Many of the first rules that trade unions laid down have stood the test of time and many of the laws which have been made in this House have also stood the test of time. Of course, there is a difference between making laws for the country and making rules for trade unions. In one case there is a responsibility to the community as a whole. Trade unions have to demonstrate a responsibility to the community in terms of regulating their members within a movement which has been designed primarily to regulate the conditions of work of its members.
      I was interested to note the point that the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) made on Amendment
      1442
      No. 60. It is clear that the amendment would have a narrow effect. I take it that it would apply only to those who applied to the Registrar of Friendly Societies to be placed upon the list. If that is the sanction by which we should think of the new clause, I must say that it is rather a weak sanction. Under the construction of the Bill it is not necessary for a union to be on the list to nave immunities and protection, it is merely necessary to comply with the definition of a trade union. Of course, that makes the body which complies—
      Mr. Percival: I am sure that the Minister will recollect that I did not advocate the effect of the amendment as a sanction but as something that was plain, practical, good common sense. If an organisation says, "We want to register" the registrar should say, "Let me look at your rule book to see whether it complies with the section." That is the spirit in which I advance the amendment, a spirit of plain common sense and not the advancement of a sanction.
      Mr. Booth: I am happy to examine the proposition in exactly the same spirit of good plain common sense. By applying that common sense there would be a situation in which the Registrar of Friendly Societies could turn down a trade union on the ground that its rule book did not comply with the requirements of new Clause 2. The effect would be that the trade union would be ineligible for tax relief on its provident income. The registrar could turn down employers' associations, but the effect would not be the same. New Clause 2 affects one body differently from another. That might not have been the intention of those who tabled the clause, but that is most certainly the effect. But I would not ask the House only on the strength of that objection to Amendment No. 60 to reject New Clause 2.
      In this country the trade union movement, having suffered some rather peculiar experiences—I shall not put it any higher than that so as to keep the tone of the debate reasonably amicable—over the past three years is possibly extremely sensitive to the passing of legislation in this House that has the effect of controlling its affairs. The British trade union movement has a proper concern that in the operation of

      1443
      its rule books and in the regulation of its membership it should be continually revising its rules, seeking to improve them and adapting them to the requirements of its membership within a changing society. I believe that it will be able to do so much better if it is left to carry out that task without having to operate within the statutory framework of various requirements. For that reason I hope that the House will reject the amendment if it is put to a Division. I invite hon. Members to withdraw it. I do not suggest that they do so because I believe that it was drafted with evil intent. I do not believe that for one moment. I accept that the hon. and learned Member for Southport is completely sincere in believing that it would have some beneficial effect on the rules of trade unions. I and many of my—
      7.45 p.m.
      Mr. Peter Rees: I have followed the Minister's speech with great care and interest. Will he indicate which provisions the trade unions will find particularly onerous? Or is it that they will not accept any legal supervision of their rules?
      Mr. Booth: It is not that certain provisions are onerous and it is not that unions will not accept any supervision of their rules. Under the Bill not only do their rules have to be made available but also their accounts. The unions make no objection to that. What the trade union movement prefers as a matter of common sense is to have its rules subject to examination by the Trades Union Congress and to discuss through congress the principles that should apply in making their rule books.
      I have the TUC circular if any hon. Member wishes to study its terms. It will be found by those who examine the circular that its terms not only go as far as the requirements of new Clause 2 but in some cases go much further in laying down principles which will guide the unions in the making of their rules. I think that that process, having been started, should be allowed to continue. It will be beneficial for the trade union movement and for employers' associations who are bracketed in the same cause. I
      1444
      hope that in that spirit the House will be—
      Mr. Richard Wainwright: I go along entirely with the Minister on the desirability of the TUC continuing its vigilance in these matters. I hope and believe that it will do so. If the new clause were to become part of the statute, will the Minister explain what ultimate sanction the TUC would have if it found itself in conflict with a union?
      Mr. Booth: I am happy to answer the hon. Gentleman's question. The ultimate sanction of the TUC depends upon the way in which the TUC frames its own rules. The ultimate sanction which the TUC has applied in recent years for breaches of the decisions of Congress has been the expulsion of trade unions. I hope that we shall not consider it a practical possibility in the near future that any unions will be so opposed not only to the principles but to the structure laid down in the TUC circular as to defy the TUC to the point of being expelled. I believe that the unions will amend their rule books to meet the high and stringent standards of the TUC circular. I believe that they will co-operate in the process of expanding their co-operation in so far as it is possible.
      Sir Raymond Gower: The Minister has made a powerful plea in putting forward the advantages for bodies such as the trade unions to self-govern, as it were, rather than to have any kind of direction or guidance from the State. Of course many bodies would prefer that situation. It can be imagined that joint stock companies would prefer to have the happy position of making their own rules under the benign guidance of some body which they would set up themselves. Similarly, unit trust organisers might feel that they could do far better if the Board of Trade did not interfere and lay down certain minimum requirements. This can be extended a great deal.
      The Minister's argument in no way answered the case put forward. All that is being asked for here, by the Liberal Party as well as by the Conservatives, is the prescription of some minimum standards to be written into the Bill. We do not say that they should deal with the detailed requirements of the rules—merely that they should ensure that all rule books

      1445
      come up to a minimum standard. The Minister explained that this was not necessary, because Donovan had come along and most of the unions had improved the quality of their rule books in accordance with his guidance.
      If that is so, we might ask what objection can there be to the inclusion of this suggestion in the Bill. What possible objection can there be to the prescription of minimum standards when practically all unions observe these now? If these rule books are so excellent, why hesitate to incorporate these modest minimum requirements, which might catch the occasional new organisation which applies for registration? The post-Donovan picture according to the Minister indicates that some improvements were made by some unions. That suggests that there was room for improvement. It would be a bold man who said now that there was no room for further improvement.
      I could understand the Minister's objection if these requirements were detailed matters, if they constituted pettifogging interference by the legislature. The Minister says that there is a big difference between legislating and the formation of rules. Of course there is. There is also a big difference between legislating in this House and the governing of any profession. The Law Society makes regulations, but this House has the final say. The House would interfere if it felt that such regulations were inadequate. Similarly, the House enacts broad legislation and lays down minimum standards which every company must meet. These are repeatedly being altered and improved, as they have been for most of this century.
      Our predecessors here drew up what they thought was a perfect Companies Act in 1908. Succeeding Parliament have improved it. Nevertheless some future Parliament will seek to improve the Companies Acts. Yet apparently there is this one area where no improvement is required—an area peculiar to this country it seems. No minimum standards are required here. That is an extraordinary philosophy.
      The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) made one error when he condemned our attitude to Donovan during the years 1970–1973. We did not reject Donovan. We read Donovan carefully and we took action on many of his
      1446
      suggestions. We also read "In Place of Strife." We applied many of its provisions. We studied the procedure and the legislation all over the world. We do not regard this country as an oasis. We never imagined that we would get a perfect legislative solution at the first attempt. This is not an area in which we can live without legislation.
      Labour Members are wrong to imply that this is something so special that it is different from anything else in this country and, conceivably, in the world. Surely the same principles apply here as elsewhere. We want minimum standards. We want to spell out these standards in broad terms, without any pettifogging. The Minister knows that there are differences and inconsistences which are not in accord with such basic requirements. I would have thought that he would be delighted to accept the clause because the requirements are reasonable, they demand so little and are so much in accord with natural justice.
      Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I hope that the House will give a Second Reading to this clause which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) moved with such moderation. I regard the rules set out in the clause as the bare minimum required to be inserted in the Bill to justify the second part of its title—that part which refers to labour relations. Without some such rules the Secretary of State would be more accurate and more honourable if he were to describe the Bill as the Trade Union and Political Power Bill.
      The Minister of State said nothing to reassure this side of the House. I know only too well the great care which unions take in forming their rules. I know of the great care which the TUC and its officials take when dealing with these matters. I am, even now, hoping to meet—socially I hasten to add—a trade union leader busy with a rules conference.
      Nothing that has been said provides any reason for setting the trade unions apart from other organisations, for putting them outside the rules of law which govern such organisations. The Minister sought to do this simply on the grounds that unions are different. He said that they took great care. So do other organisations. He said that unions imposed a sense of discipline upon themselves. So

      1447
      do others. No one argues that such other people or organisations should be outside the rule of law.
      In referring to employers' associations, the Minister entirely ignored the difference in the trade union situation where there is the closed shop. Membership of a union is virtually compulsory for any one wishing to earn his living as an employee. When the hon. Gentleman defined the responsibility of the trade unions to the community he made it clear that he was claiming for them a degree of privilege which has not been matched except perhaps by the mediaeval Church or the modern Jockey Club. And what are the sanctions? Excommunication from the Church, a warning-off from the Jockey Club and expulsion from a union. That is not a legal action.
      As it stands this Bill not only wipes out most of the 1971 Act, and destroys the central principle that underlay the whole thinking of "In Place of Strife" but it also weakens the concept of the rule of law on which both were founded, thus leaving a state of confusion. It is not much to ask that, in return, the Bill should contain, by statute under the authority of Parliament, the general rules which are set out in the clause.
      8.0 p.m.
      There is no doubt that the Bill as a whole represents a transfer of power from Government and Parliament to the TUC and the unions. It weakens Parliament but does nothing to strengthen the unions—either the union leadership or the TUC. In an earlier debate my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) said that the TUC could not deliver. He did not say that in any sense of criticism. He stated it as a fact, and the unions have confirmed that it is a fact, in discussions with successive Governments and successive Ministers. The unions are negotiating bodies and not initiating bodies. They respond to a Government initiative but do not start an initiative of their own. How often, when asking the unions what positive contribution they can make to a given situation have I heard the answer "nothing. You put something forward and we will respond". I am not blaming the unions; I simply say that trade unions are organisations of that type.
      1448
      The unions, rightly, are responsible to their members, and to their members alone. The way they are constituted, the way in which elections are held and the way in which officials are elected all too often mean that the voice of their most vocal and violent minority is the voice that has to be heard. In pretending otherwise, the right hon. Gentleman is producing a Bill that he knows cannot work.
      I am not seeking to attack the unions or their leadership. I have said often enough in public and in private that I should like to increase their power provided that they would, or could, accept the responsibility that must go with power. I welcome the unions' conversion to the concept of employee participation, which I have advocated for many years, provided that it includes all employees as persons and not simply unions as organisations. I am attacking the concentration of power in the hands of people who are elected, sometimes irrationally, sometimes ineffectively and sometimes by a tiny proportion of the total union membership.
      For those reasons I hope that the House will give a Second Reading to the clause containing this bare minimum of rules to deal with the situation with which we are all too familiar. I am seeking, too, to defend Parliament and the people we represent, and I include the rights of unions and their members. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State was right when he said that industrial relations legislation requires the consent of the unions. But it requires the consent not of the unions alone, still less of a mere powerful minority among them. It requires the consent of all the work people, management and the great mass of our people inside and outside trade unions whom we represent in Parliament.
      There should be no conflict, provided that the Secretary of State and the Government regard themselves as accountable first to Parliament and only secondly to the unions and the trade union movement. Their rejection of the clause raises in all our minds and hearts the question, "Who do they regard as their masters—the unions or the people, the TUC or Parliament?"
      The rules, contained in the clause, modest as they are, are a defence. They give guidance with the sanction of being

      1449
      embodied in a statute. The only objection that has been made to them is that no one, not even the House, has the right to interfere and the right to set rules on how unions and employers' associations should conduct their affairs. They alone must have the right to make their own rules, however much their activities may affect the lives of others and, indeed, of the whole nation. If Parliament accepts that principle, we shall have surrendered our claim to represent the people.
      An article in the Sun newspaper two days ago referred to this transfer of power from Parliament to the unions in these words:
      "Rarely, if ever, has Parliament offered so unconditional a surrender".
      That surrender is echoed in the words of the Minister of State and in the whole attitude of the Secretary of State. I hope that in the vote we shall prove that correspondent of the Sun newspaper wrong. In this instance at least I hope that the will of Parliament will prevail and that we shall give a Second Reading to the clause.
      Mr. Brittan: If debates on industrial relations have sometimes been characterised by exaggeration, this debate has been characterised by one extraordinary under-statement which fell from the lips of the Minister of State when he said that trade unions were extremely sensitive to interference or regulation. It was an under-statement because, to get something approaching the true attitude of trade unions to such regulations and control, one would have to substitute for the words "extremely sensitive" the word "paranoic". The degree of objection to any kind of control or regulation that has been shown by the Minister of State and his hon. Friends is out of all proportion to the extent of regulation proposed in the clause.
      I have listened with great care to every word uttered by the Minister of State, but I have been unable to find in his speech a single reason why the new clause is objectionable. Reference was made to the existing rules of unions, and it was said that they were for the most part adequate. No one is disputing that the rules of many unions are now adequate, and if most of the rules are adequate very few unions will have anything to fear from the clause.
      1450
      Reference was also made to the history of events since the Donovan Report. We heard of the 1968 document "Action on Donovan", the June 1969 TUC "Programme for Action" and the issue of circulars by the TUC to the unions. There was a significant omission. We were not told what proportion of trade unions have complied with the directives issued by the TUC. In the absence of that information, we have no basis for knowing how many trade unions have rules which would satisfy the requirements of the TUC, let alone how many trade unions have rules which would satisfy the requirements of the clause.
      The proposition that it is all unnecessary is unsustainable and empirical on the evidence that has been presented and, even if it were right, would be no reason for failing to make sure by in nocuous regulation that the standards of existing unions were maintained and the standards of future unions attained.
      The second proposition put forward by the Minister of State in answer to the new clause was that it contained highly detailed statutory requirements. Nothing could be further from the case. The last thing it seeks to do is to intervene in how a union operates its policy. All it seeks to do is to provide certain minimum procedural requirements. It is in that area that the answer can be found to the remark by the Minister that it was strange that the clause did not cover strikes and lock-outs, and that it was recognised by the clause that there were certain matters which should be left to the people most directly concerned—that is to say, to trade union members. There is nothing in the least paradoxical about the fact that strikes and lock-outs are not dealt with by the clause. The clause seeks to deal with procedural matters; it does not seek to interfere with policy matters. That is why it is inherently unobjectionable.
      The clause will not prevent any trade union, if it so wishes, holding a strike, or any employers' associations organising a lock-out. It is not designed to do that. It is designed to provide the minimum procedural safeguards necessary for the protection of trade unions if the unions are to have the rôle in our society which they already have, or an increased rôle, which I am sure Labour Members would want them to have.

      1451
      Finally, it was said by the Minister that the sanctions provided by the clause are weak. If that were true, it should be cause for rejoicing for Labour Members rather than cause for criticism and it should mitigate their fears about the consequences of the clause. I suggest that the sanctions are not spelled out, but that the requirements of the clause in peremptory terms—namely, that the unions must have rules relating to certain matters—are such that if those requirements were not complied with, it would not be a difficult matter to persuade the courts to take action in support of an individual who suffered as a result of the absence of rules dealing with the matters prescribed in the clause. It would not take legal ingenuity to frame a cause of action which would have the effect of ensuring that the union complied with the wording of the statute.
      The arguments against the clause are not weak; they are simply non-existent. They are based on needless fear, on paranoia and on disregard for the obligations of trade unions to comply with the minimum standards required by the rest of the community if trade unions are to have, and to deserve, the elevated rôle that is sought for them by Labour Members.
      8.15 p.m.
      Mr. John Page: All my hon. Friends who have spoken this afternoon, and particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan), have demolished the case advanced by the Minister of State against the new clause. In saying that the trade unions were in a particularly nervous condition, the Minister was suggesting that the confidence they have gained during the term of office of the Labour Government—the present Government being, of course, the political wing of the TUC—was so fragile that it might in some way be stunted or hurt by the new clause.
      In appreciating the Minister's sensitivity, I should like to put a different argument to him, to call for his magnanimity and to ask him to put his amour propre back in his pocket. I ask him, on behalf of the trade union movement, to accept the clause to help the small, the very small and the medium-
      1452
      size firms in their relationships with employers' associations. The Minister may feel that the trade union movement and its rules are faultless. In view of the fairness with which he dealt with hon. Members in the Committee stage, does he not agree that if new rules and controls are imposed on employers' associations, they should likewise be imposed on the trade union movement?
      I and many other business men have been worried for a long time about the representation of the business community through employers' associations and ultimately through the TUC. I should have said through the CBI, but it is easy to make a mistake since the relationship between the two is so close that it is difficult to distinguish between them. Most small firms find the availability of their executives insufficient to enable them to spend time in committees with employers' associations. Even the medium-size firms find themselves overawed by the voices of the big companies which carry so much sway in employers' associations. In a plea to the Government for creative magnanimity, I ask them to accept the clause to help employers' associations, through their rule books, to improve the service they give to those they represent.
      Subsection (2) of the clause provides that the rules must specify the objects for which an employers' association is established. Under the Bill any group of three or four employers could form themselves overnight into an unincorporated employers' association. They could call themselves the City of Westminster Employers' Association. That association might consist of a few small builders who wanted to have a row with some of the plumbers they employed, and it could then be protected by the umbrella of this great Bill. Would it not be a safeguard to the employees of firms, as well as to the small firms themselves, to stipulate that on the formation of an employers' association the kind of check list of rules shown in the clause should operate? It is important that even the principal office of the employers' association should be specified.
      In paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (9) we cover the notification of vacancies, the qualification of candidates for membership of employers' associations and

      1453
      the making of nominations. Some employers' associations are what might be called a magic circle, and I feel that there is insufficient advertising to enable member firms or potential member firms properly to nominate candidates for election to their governing bodies. Therefore, in humility, on behalf of the small employer and his employees, I ask the Government to accept the new clause.
      Mr. Mawby: I have looked through the clause very carefully, and I cannot see how the Government can oppose it, especially in view of the fact, as I said in an earlier speech, that the Bill seeks to demolish parts of the 1971 Act which at least made certain that there would be overall supervision of the rules of trade unions and employers' associations.
      With the repeal of those parts of the 1971 Act, we are left in a situation where both trade unions and employers' associations are completely free to decide what their rules are to be and completely free to have no regard to the general public interest.
      The clause lays down only reasonable requirements. A cursory look at the clause reveals that that is all that it seeks to do. Subsection (9), for example, requires that both trade unions and employers' associations shall provide in their rules the procedures for the notification of vacancies and qualification of candidates, the making of nominations, canvassing and the content of election addresses, where these are permitted, eligibility for voting in any election or ballot, and the procedure preparatory to any election or ballot. All of them are reasonable requirements. Taking into account the fact that the requirements of the 1971 Act are thrown out completely, I believe that reasonable procedures should be laid down whereby both trade unions and employers' associations are required by law to observe what most people would expect to be the normal procedures.
      It will probably be said in reply, with complete honesty, that in the majority of cases these are the normal procedures adopted by both employers' associations and trade unions. The difficulty is that, in making laws in this House, we are concerned in the main with the scrimshanker—the person who does not recognise normal rules. We have to concern ourselves with the minority of people who consider themselves outside the
      1454
      normal rules. Most people will try to carry out normal standard procedures regardless of whether they are required to by law.
      Most trade unions—certainly the TUC—recognise that they have to apply the standard rules of behaviour accepted by normal society. But there is always the odd person or group of persons who will not be bothered with normal standards and who will seek to break the law. We have to deal with such persons, and I believe that the clause does so in a perfectly reasonable manner. It does not ask them to do anything unreasonable.
      For those reasons I ask the Secretary of State to consider very carefully the possibility of accepting the clause.
      Mr. Prior: I have not previously listened to a debate in which the arguments have been so one-sided as those that we have heard today. I have a certain sense of despair and dismay when I listen to a speech of the kind that we heard in reply to the debate. I should have thought that, in itself, the attitude of a minority Government to a clause which obviously has massive support both in this House and outside it was a matter on which some concession could be made with a great deal of ease.
      We are told that the reason why the clause cannot be accepted is that the trade unions do not want it. An argument of that kind does not reflect the sovereignty of Parliament about which the Secretary of State has lectured us from time to time. This is not the exercise of the sovereignty of Parliament as we wish to see it.
      If I am to believe that the TUC is telling the Government that a simple set of rules such as we suggest cannot be put in the Bill simply because the unions do not want it, it really seems that power has passed from Parliament, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan) suggested.
      In effect, we are saying here what Donovan said, that the rules need bringing up to date in many respects. The same was said in "In Place of Strife":
      "For this reason the Government considers that the present legal requirements relating to the rules of trade unions are inadequate, and should be extended in the interests both of the unions and of their members."
      Now we are told by the Secretary of State that, following a TUC Conference,

      1455
      the unions themselves have been bringing their rules up to date. He did not say that all unions had done so, but I take it that the majority have done so. So we have the fact that Donovan said that they needed bringing up to date, we have "In Place of Strife" confirming it, and we have the unions themselves thinking that it is right.
      Everyone says that there should be a proper set of rules. My right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham thinks that the provisions in the new clause are the very minimum, and I agree with him. But it is a reasonable set of rules, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) pointed out.
      The chief objection to incorporating this set of rules in legislation is that it is being done already. If it is being done already, there is no harm in having it in legislation because it is merely putting into legislative form what the unions are already doing. If the objection is that we cannot have it because the trade unions do not want it, that is not a reason which is acceptable to the House. We cannot allow ourselves to get to the stage of being so feeble that we cannot write into an Act of Parliament a simple set of rules about which 99 people out of 100 would say "This is common sense; we should have had them a long time ago." If Parliament cannot even do that, what can it do?
      This is a perfectly reasonable new clause. It is moved in a spirit which wants to see the trade unions accepting the responsibility that comes from their special position. That is an important fact.
      For all those reasons I hope that even at this late stage the Government will not oblige us to troop through the Division lobbies again and that the hon. Gentleman will say, "We will write these provisions in; we will accept this new clause. It only confirms what is good union practice already. It is right that Parliament should take this action. Let us move on to the next clause."
      8.30 p.m.
      Mr. Booth: It is most interesting to note the way in which reasons are adduced for one thing in one set of circumstances and for something different in another set. We have been told about
      1456
      the special position of the trade unions in very much the same terms as we were told about them with regard to the 1971 Act. It was then used to justify rules and legal requirements, which went very much further than this, the controlling of strike procedures, and a number of other matters. Tonight we are told that it justifies only a much more modest proposition which should apply to trade unions and employers' associations alike.
      In moving the new clause no reference was made to the defects in the rules of employers' associations which required this provision to be applied to them. We waited with bated breath until the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) made a plea that we introduce this clause to deal with his fears concerning employers' associations. It comes a little late. Nevertheless it is welcome. I considered very carefully how I might deal with employers' associations. My first thoughts were that there may be a very special case for dealing with this aspect. Employers' associations are possibly not subject to the same scrutiny as are trade union bodies. I have seen the proceedings of the TUC annual conference on television. I have never seen the procedings of the CBI televised.
      Mr. Prior: The hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that I made no mention of employers' associations when moving this new clause. The reason is simple. No employers' association objects to these provisions being written into the Bill.
      Mr. Booth: It is not because of submissions by employers' associations or the TUC that we ask the House to reject the new clause. It comes from a careful examination of the criticisms which Donovan made and the extent to which they have been met by a voluntary system. Is the hon. and learned Gentleman's proposition that those things which can be done effectively by voluntary methods should therefore be reinforced by this House? That is a different proposition from that on which this House has proceeded for a very long time.
      It is proper that the TUC should be subject to more stringent requirements than are laid down in this new clause. I give one example. I will read what the TUC said when it considered the question of discipline and such criticisms as Donovan made of union rules in this

      1457
      respect. It was enclosed in its circular sent to all member unions. The TUC said that the rules should specify all the offences and corresponding penalties; that the rules should prescribe the procedure for hearing cases, such procedure to comply with rules of natural justice. That provision will appeal to hon. Gentlemen.
      The TUC spelt out what was meant by "rules of natural justice." It said the rules must provide for the right of appeal. Additionally, the TUC General Council went on to specify that the right of appeal should be to a body of higher authority; that wherever possible an expelled member should retain his membership pending an appeal; and that powers of appeal bodies to reinstate and reimburse or to make fines should be set down.
      It is right and proper that the TUC should go to that length. Hon. Gentlemen did not go to that length. I commend them. They recognised that what the TUC can do in relation to its membership—and what the CBI can do in relation to its membership who have joined it in voluntary association—is different from what we propose to do in this House in making rules for those bodies.
      Therefore, we are not acting at the behest tonight of employers' associations
      although I admit my sympathy with the point made by the hon. Member for Harrow, West. We are not acting at the behest of the TUC in this matter. We seek to urge upon the House that the TUC and the trade unions in general are sensitive to the requirement to maintain their rule books not only in a condition which accords with natural justice for their members but one which makes for the proper regulation of their members' actions in the workplace, and in relation to advancing and defending the conditions of those members at their places of work. That is a condition which we recognise. It is one which we welcome. It is one which we think will develop. The carrying of this new clause would do nothing to forward and would do much to hinder that development.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. I wish to inform the House that there has been a dispute between the Tellers as regards the numbers. I shall, therefore, have to call the Division again.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 303, Noes 304.

      Division No. 72.]

      AYES

      [8.51 p.m.

      Adley, Robert

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Drayson, Burnaby

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick

      du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

      Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

      Buck, Antony

      Durant, Tony

      Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

      Budgen, Nick

      Dykes, Hugh

      Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

      Bulmer, Esmond

      Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

      Ancram, M.

      Burden, F. A.

      Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Archer, Jeffrey

      Carlisle, Mark

      Elliott, Sir William

      Atkins, Rt.Hn.Humphrey (Spelthorne)

      Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Emery, Peter

      Awdry, Daniel

      Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

      Eyre, Reginald

      Baker, Kenneth

      Channon, Paul

      Fairgrieve, Russell

      Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Farr, John

      Banks, Robert

      Churchill, W. S.

      Fell, Anthony

      Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

      Beith, A. J.

      Clark, William (Croydon, S.)

      Fidler, Michael

      Bell, Ronald

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Finsberg, Geoffrey

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

      Clegg, Walter

      Fisher, Sir Nigel

      Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Fareham)

      Cockcroft, John

      Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh, N.)

      Benyon, W.

      Cooke, Robert (Bristol, W.)

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Berry, Hon. Anthony

      Cope, John

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Biffen, John

      Cordie, John

      Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'field)

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Cormack, Patrick

      Fox, Marcus

      Blaker, Peter

      Corrie, John

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

      Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.)

      Costain, A. P.

      Freud, Clement

      Body, Richard

      Critchley, Julian

      Fry, Peter

      Boscawen, Hon. Robert

      Crouch, David

      Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

      Bowden, Andrew (Brighton, Kemptown)

      Crowder, F. P.

      Gardiner, George (Reigate & Banstead)

      Boyson, Dr. Rhodes (Brent, N.)

      Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

      Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)

      Braine, Sir Bernard

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

      Gibson-Watt, Rt. Hn. David

      Bray, Ronald

      Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)

      Gilmour, Rt.Hn. Ian (Ch'sh'&Amsh'm)

      Brewis, John

      Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

      Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

      Brittan, Leon

      Dixon, Piers

      Glyn, Dr. Alan

      Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

      Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas

      Goodhart, Philip

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Dodsworth, Geoffrey

      Goodhew, Victor

      Bruce-Gardyne, J.

      Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

      Goodlad, A.

      Gorst, John

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Rost, Peter (Derbyshire, S.-E.)

      Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Royle, Sir Anthony

      Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

      MacGregor, John

      Sainsbury, Tim

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

      McLaren, Martin

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Gray, Hamish

      Macmillan, Rt. Hn. M. (Farnham)

      Scott-Hopkins, James

      Grieve, Percy

      McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

      Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

      Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

      Madel, David

      Shelton, William (L'mb'th, Streath'm)

      Grist, Ian

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Shersby, Michael

      Grylls, Michael

      Mather, Carol

      Silvester, Fred

      Gurden, Harold

      Maude, Angus

      Sims, Roger

      Hall, Sir John

      Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

      Sinclair, Sir George

      Hall-Davis, A. G. P.

      Mawby, Ray

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

      Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

      Hampson, Dr. Keith

      Mayhew, Christopher(G'wh, W'wch, E)

      Smith, Dudley (W'wick&L'm'ngton)

      Hannam, John

      Mayhew, Piitrick(Royal T' bridgeWells)

      Spence, John

      Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)

      Harvie Anderson, Rt. Hn. Miss

      Miller, Hal (B'grove & R'ditch)

      Spicer, Michael (Worcestershire, S.)

      Hastings, Stephen

      Mills, Peter

      Sproat, Iain

      Havers, Sir Michael

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Stainton, Keith

      Hawkins, Paul

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Moate, Roger

      Stanley, John

      Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

      Molyneaux, James

      Steel, David

      Henderson, J.S.B. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

      Money, Ernle

      Steen, Anthony (L'pool, Wavertree)

      Heseltine, Michael

      Monro, Hector

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      Higgins, Terence

      Moore, J. E. M. (Croydon, C.)

      Stodart, Rt. Hn. A. (Edinburgh, W.)

      Hill, James A.

      Morgan, Geraint

      Stokes, John

      Holland, Philip

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Stradling Thomas, John

      Hooson, Emlyn

      Morris, Michael (Northampton, S.)

      Tapsell, Peter

      Hordern, Peter

      Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

      Taverne, Dick

      Howe, Rt.Hn. Sir Geoffrey(Surrey, E.)

      Morrison, Peter (City of Chester)

      Taylor, Edward M. (Glgow, C'cart)

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Mudd, David

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, North)

      Neave, Airey

      Tebbit, Norman

      Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

      Neubert, Michael

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Hunt, John

      Newton, Tony (Braintree)

      Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Margaret

      Hurd, Douglas

      Nicholls, Sir Harmar

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. P. (B'net, H'dn S.)

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Normanton, Tom

      Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

      Iremonger, T. L.

      Nott, John

      Townsend, C. D.

      Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

      Onslow, Cranley

      Trotter, Neville

      James, David

      Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Jenkin, Rt.Hn.P. (R'dgeW'std&W'fd)

      Osborn, John

      Tyler, Paul

      Jessel, Toby

      Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Page, John (Harrow, W.)

      Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

      Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

      Pardoe, John

      Viggers, Peter

      Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

      Parkinson, Cecil (Hertfordshire. S.)

      Waddington, David

      Jopling, Michael

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

      Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

      Percival, Ian

      Wakeham, John

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

      Kershaw, Anthony

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Wall, Patrick

      Kimball, Marcus

      Prior, Rt. Hn. James

      King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

      Quennell, Miss J. M.

      Walters, Dennis

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Raison, Timothy

      Warren, Kenneth

      Kirk, Peter

      Rathbone, Tim

      Weatherill, Bernard

      Kitson, Sir Timothy

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

      Wells, John

      Knight, Mrs. Jill

      Redmond, Robert

      Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

      Knox, David

      Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Lamont, Norman

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Winstanley, Dr. Michael

      Lane, David

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David (H't' gd' ns' re)

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Renton, R. T. (Mid-Sussex)

      Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Latham, Michael (Melton)

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Worsley, Sir Marcus

      Lawson, Nigel (Blaby)

      Rifkind, Malcolm

      Young, Sir George (Ealing, Acton)

      Lester, Jim (Beeston)

      Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

      Younger, Hn. George

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rtland & Stmford)

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.-W.)

      Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Loveridge, John

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Mr. Adam Butler and

      Luce, Richard

      Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

      Mr. Spencer Le Marchant.

      MacArthur, Ian

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      NOES

      Abse, Leo

      Bennett, Andrew F. (Stockport, N.)

      Buchan, Norman

      Allaun, Frank

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Springb'rn

      Archer, Peter

      Bishop, E. S.

      Butler, Mrs.Joyce (H'gey, WoodGreen)

      Armstrong, Ernest

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Callaghan, Rt.Hn. James (Cardiff, S.E.)

      Ashley, Jack

      Boardman, H.

      Callaghan, Jim (M'dd'ton & Pr'wich)

      Ashton, Joe

      Booth, Albert

      Campbell, Ian

      Atkins, Ronald

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

      Cant, R. B.

      Atkinson, Norman

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Carmichael, Neil

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

      Carter, Ray

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Bradley, Tom

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Barnett, Joel (Heywood & Royton)

      Broughton, Sir Alfred

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      Bates, Alf

      Brown, Bob(Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)

      Clemitson, Ivor

      Baxter, William

      Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)

      Cocks, Michael

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Brown, Ronald (H'kney, S.&Sh'dltch)

      Cohen, Stanley

      Coleman, Donald

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Padley, Walter

      Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N.

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Palmer, Arthur

      Concannon, J. D.

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)

      Park, George (Coventry, N.E.)

      Conlan, Bernard

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Parker, John (Dagenham)

      Cook, Robert F. (Edinburgh, C.)

      Hunter, Adam

      Parry, Robert

      Cox, Thomas

      Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (L'p'I, EdgeHI)

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Craigen, J. M. (G'gow, Maryhill)

      Irving, Rt. Hn. Sydney (Dartford)

      Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Jackson, Colin

      Pendry, Tom

      Cronin, John

      Janner, Greville

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Phipps, Dr. Colin

      Cryer, G. R.

      Jeger, Mrs. Lena

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg

      Cunningham, G.(Isl'ngt'n, S & F'sb'ry)

      Jenkins, Hugh (W'worth, Putney)

      Prescott, John

      Cunningham, Dr. John A.(Whiteh'v'n)

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (B'ham, St'fd)

      Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)

      Dalyell, Tam

      John, Brynmor

      Price, William (Rugby)

      Davidson, Arthur

      Johnson, James (K'ston uponHull, W)

      Radice, Giles

      Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Rees, Rt. Hn. Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Davies, Denzil (Lianelli)

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      Reid, George

      Davies, Ifor (Gower)

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Richardson, Miss Jo

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Deakins, Eric

      Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)

      Judd, Frank

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Roderick, Caerwyn E.

      Delargy, Hugh

      Kelley, Richard

      Rodgers, George (Chorley)

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Kerr, Russell

      Rodgers, William (Teesside, St'ckton)

      Dempsey, James

      Kilroy-Silk, Robert

      Rooker, J. W.

      Doig, Peter

      Kinnock, Neil

      Roper, John

      Dormand, J. D.

      Lambie, David

      Rose, Paul B.

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Lamborn, Harry

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Lamond, James

      Rowlands, Edward

      Dunnett, Jack

      Latham, Arthur(CityofW'minsterP'ton)

      Sandelson, Neville

      Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth

      Lawson, George (Motherwell&Wishaw)

      Sedgemore, Bryan

      Eadie, Alex

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Selby, Harry

      Lee, John

      Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilford, S.)

      Edelman, Maurice

      Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

      Edge, Geoff

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (S'pney&P'plar)

      Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S.E.)

      Lewis, Arthur (Newham, N.)

      Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'ctle-u-Tyne)

      Ellis, John (Brigg & Scunthorpe)

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hamp'n, N.E.)

      Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

      Lipton, Marcus

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham.D'ford)

      English, Michael

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. S.C. (S'hwark, Dulwich)

      Ennals, David

      Loughlin, Charles

      Sillars, James

      Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

      Loyden, Eddie

      Silverman, Julius

      Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Evans, John (Newton)

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)

      Small, William

      Ewing, Harry (St'ling.F'kirk&G'm'th)

      McCartney, Hugh

      Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

      Ewing, Mrs. Winifred (Moray&Nairn)

      MacCormack, Iain

      Snape, Peter

      Faulds, Andrew

      McElhone, Frank

      Spearing, Nigel

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      MacFarquhar, Roderick

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      McGuire, Michael

      Stallard, A. W.

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

      Flannery, Martin

      Maclennan, Robert

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'sth.Fulh'm)

      Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Stoddart, David (Swindon)

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      McNamara, Kevin

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael

      Madden, M. O. F.

      Stott, Roger

      Ford, Ben

      Magee, Bryan

      Strang, Gavin

      Forrester, John

      Mahon, Simon

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)

      Mallalieu, J. P. W.

      Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

      Marks, Kenneth

      Swain, Thomas

      Freeson, Reginald

      Marquand, David

      Thomas, D. E. (Merioneth)

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Garrett, John (Norwich. S.)

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Thorne, Stan (Preston, S.)

      Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

      Meacher, Michael

      Tierney, Sydney

      George, Bruce

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Tinn, James

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Mendelson, John

      Tomlinson, John

      Ginsburg, David

      Mikardo, Ian

      Tomney, Frank

      Gourlay, Harry

      Millan, Bruce

      Torney, Tom

      Graham, Ted

      Miller, Dr. M. S. (E. Kilbride)

      Urwin, T. W.

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Milne, Edward

      Varley, Rt. Hn. Eric G.

      Grant, John (Islington, C.)

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

      Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

      Griffiths, Eddie (Sheffield, Brightside)

      Molloy, William

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, Ladywood)

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Moonman, Eric

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Hamilton, William (Fife, C.)

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

      Hamling, William

      Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Watkins, David

      Hardy, Peter

      Morris, Rt Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Watt, Hamish

      Harper, Joseph

      Moyle, Roland

      Weitzman, David

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Wellbeloved, James

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      Murray, Ronald King

      White, James

      Hattersley, Roy

      Newens, Stanley (Harlow)

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Hatton, Frank

      Oakes, Gordon

      Whitlock, William

      Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

      Ogden, Eric

      Wigley, Dafydd (Caernarvon)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Henderson, Douglas (Ab'rd'nsh're, E)

      O'Malley, Brian

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Hooley, Frank

      Orbach, Maurice

      Williams, Alan Lee (Hvrng, Hchurch)

      Horam, John

      Orme, Rt. Hn. Stanley

      Williams, Rt.Hn.Shirley(H'f'd&St'ge)

      Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)

      Ovenden, John

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Owen, Dr. David

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      Wilson, Gordon (Dundee, E.)

      Woodall, Alec

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

      Woof, Robert

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.E.)

      Wrigglesworth, Ian

      Mr. John Golding and

      Wise, Mrs. Audrey

      Young, David (Bolton, E.)

      Mr. James A. Dunn.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 3

      APPLICATION TO HIGH COURT WITH A VIEW TO DISCONTINUING OR DEFER RING INDUSTRIAL ACTION WHICH EN DANGERS LIVES, IMPERILS NATIONAL SECURITY, ETC.
      '(1) Where it appears to the Secretary of State—

      (a) that, in contemplation or furtherance of an industrial dispute, industrial action, consisting of a strike, any irregular industrial action short of a strike, or a lock-out, has begun or is likely to begin;

      (b) that the condition specified in the next following subsection is fulfilled; and

      (c) that, having regard to all the circumstances of the industrial dispute, it would be conducive to a settlement of it by negotiation, conciliation or arbitration if the industrial action were discontinued or deferred,

      the Secretary of State may apply to the High Court for an order under subsection (4) below.
      (2) The condition referred to in paragraph (b) of the preceding subsection is that the industrial action in question has caused, or (as the case may be) would cause, an interruption in the supply of goods or in the provision of services of such a nature, or on such a scale, as to be likely—

      (a) to be gravely injurious to the national economy, to imperil national security or to create a serious risk of public disorder, or

      (b) to endanger the lives of a substantial number of persons, or expose a substantial number of persons to serious risk of disease or personal injury.

      (3) Any application made by the Secretary of State under this section—

      (a) where it relates to a strike, or to irregular industrial action short of a strike, shall specify the persons (whether they are organisations of workers, officials of such organisations or other persons) appearing to the Secretary of State to be responsible for calling, organising, procuring or financing the strike or other action in question, or for a threat to do so, and

      (b) where it relates to a lock-out, shall specify the persons (whether they are employers, organisations of employers or other persons) appearing to the Secretary of State to be responsible for instituting, carrying on, organising, procuring or financing the lockout, or for a threat to do so;

      and the persons so specified shall, together with the Secretary of State, be the parties to any proceedings on that application.
      (4)—(a) Where an application is made to the High Court under subsections (1) to (3) above, the Court, subject to its being satisfied on the evidence that there are sufficient grounds
      1464
      for believing that the condition specified in paragraph (b) of this subsection is fulfilled, shall make an order under this subsection.
      (b) Any such order shall specify—

      (i) the area of employment in respect of which the order is to have effect, that area being defined in the order by reference to (or to any combination of) any of the following, that is to say, one or more industries specified in the order, one or more undertakings or parts of undertakings so specified, and one or more descriptions of workers so specified;

      (ii) the persons are to be bound by the order, who (subject to paragraph (a) below) shall be the persons specified in the application in accordance with subsection 3 of this section.

      (iii) the date on which the order is to take effect and the period, not exceeding thirty days, for which the order is to remain in force.

      (c) The persons specified in pursuance of subsection (4)(b)(ii) of this section in an order relating to a strike, or to any irregular industrial action short of a strike, shall not include any person who in the opinion of the High Court (nothwithstanding that he is specified in the application for the order)—

      (i) has, or (as the case may be) would have, no responsibility for the strike or other action in question beyond that of being included among the persons taking part in it, or

      (ii) has no responsibility for calling, organising, procuring or financing the strike or other action in question, or for threatening to do so, except in his capacity as an official of a trade union acting within the scope of his authority on behalf of the trade union.

      (d) An order under this subsection made on an application relating to a strike, or to irregular industrial action short of a strike, shall be an order directing that, during the period for which the order remains in force, no person specified in the order in accordance with subsection (4)(b)(ii) of this section shall—

      (i) call, organise, procure, or finance a strike, or threaten to do so, or

      (ii) organise, procure or finance any irregular industrial action short of a strike, or threaten to do so,

      within the area of employment specified in the order in accordance with paragraph (b)(i) of that subsection or any part of that area.
      (e) An order under this subsection made on an application relating to a lock-out shall be an order directing that, during the period which the order remains in force, no person specified in the order in accordace with subsection (4)(d)(ii) of this section shall institute, carry on, authorise, organise or finance a lock-out, or threaten to do so, within the area of employment specified in the order

      1465
      in accordance with paragraph (b)(i) of that subsection or any part of that area.
      (f) An order under this subsection may also require any one or more of the persons specified in the order, before the end of such period as may be specified in the order for the purposes of this subsection, to take such steps (whether by way of withdrawing or securing the withdrawal of any instructions issued by or on behalf of that person or those persons or otherwise) as may be so specified for the purpose of securing that the industrial action to which the application for the order related is discontinued or (as the case may be) deferred during the period for which the order remains in force.
      (g) Any order under this subsection shall indicate the scope of the industrial dispute in consequence of which the order is made, in such manner as may appear to the High Court to be sufficient to indicate the area of employment affected by the dispute and the extent of the matters to which the dispute relates.
      (5)—(a) The provisions of this subsection shall have effect where an order (in this subsection referred to as "the principal order") has been made under subsection (4) of this section.
      (b) If the period specified in the principal order in accordance with subsection (4)(b)(iii) above (or that period as previously extended under this subsection) is less than thirty days then at any time before the end of that period the High Court, on the application of the Secretary of State, may by order extend that period, but not so as to exceed thirty days in all.
      (c) Where at a time within the period for which the principal order is in force it appears to the Secretary of State, that persons other than those specified in the principal order in accordance with subsection (4)(b)(ii) of this section—

      (i) are at that time responsible as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of this section but

      (ii) are not then persons required to be excluded from the order in accordance with subsection (4)(c) of this section,

      the Secretary of State may make an application to the High Court, specifying those persons and applying for the principal order to be extended to them; and the persons so specified shall, together with the Secretary of State, be the parties to any proceedings on that application.
      (d) Subject to the next following paragraph on any application made by the Secretary of State under paragraph (c) of this subsection the High Court shall make an order specifying the persons who were specified in the application and directing that, in relation to any time after the order under this paragraph takes effect, the principal order, while it remains in force, shall have effect as if those persons had been included among the persons specified in the principal order in accordance with subsection (4)(b)(ii) of this section of this Act.
      (e) The High Court shall not make an order under paragraph (d) of this subsection after the end of the period specified in the principal order, and, where it makes an order under that paragraph shall not include in it any person required to be excluded in accordance with subsection (4)(c) of this section.
      (f) In relation to any person to whom the principal order applies by virtue of an order made under paragraph (d) of this section (in this paragraph referred to as "the supplementary order") the supplementary order may impose any requirement which, in pursuance of subsection (4)(f) of this section; could have been imposed on him by the principal order if—

      (i) the principal order had been made at the time when, and in the circumstances in which, the supplementary order is made, and

      (ii) he were one of the persons specified in the principal order.

      (g) After the period specified in the principal order has begun, the High Court shall not, either during that period or at any time thereafter, entertain any application under subsections (1) to (3) of this section in respect of the same industrial dispute, or in respect of any other industrial dispute in so far as it appears to the Court that its scope falls within the scope (as indicated in the principal order in accordance with subsection (4)(g) of this section) of the industrial dispute in consequence of which the principal order was made '.
      (6)—In the application of this section to Scotland, for references to the High Court there shall be substituted references to the Court of Session.—[Mr. David Mitchell.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      9.0 p.m.
      Mr. David Mitchell: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
      This is the longest new clause on the Paper, but happily I am in a position to explain its purpose and meaning in a few words. Those words are to be found in subsection (1) of the clause which states:
      "Where it appears to the Secretary of State … that … a strike … has begun or is likely to begin … it would be conducive to a settlement of it"—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I appeal to hon. Members who do not wish to hear the hon. Gentleman speaking on the new clause to withdraw quietly.
      Mr. Mitchell: The clause says that where it appears to the Secretary of State that
      "it would be conducive to a settlement of it by negotiation, conciliation or arbitration if the industrial action were discontinued or deferred,

      1467
      the Secretary of State may apply to the High Court for an order "
      for up to 30 days.
      There are only certain narrowly drawn circumstances in which the Secretary of State can obtain such an order. They are that the continuance of the strike would
      "be gravely injurious to the national economy … imperil national security"—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I must appeal to hon. Members to listen to him in silence. I find it difficult to hear the hon. Gentleman, and I am sure that many hon. Members also find it difficult.
      Mr. Mitchell: Another of the circumstances in which the Secretary of State may obtain such an order securing a 30-day deferment of the strike is that it would
      "create a serious risk of public disorder, of
      (b) … endanger the lives of a substantial number of persons, or expose a substantial number of persons to serious risk of disease or personal injury."
      The whole House will agree that those are circumstances of the utmost seriousness to the nation and that it is right and proper that the Secretary of State should have such a power if, and only if, he believes that in going to the High Court he can help to bring about a settlement. It would be a useful addition to the Secretary of State's armoury in seeking to protect the public. With respect to hon. Members who may be strongly involved in the interests of trade unions or employers, the essence of the clause is to seek to protect the public.
      We suggest only 30 days instead of the 60 days which was provided in some former legislation and which is the practice in other countries. That suggestion is made because it is felt that 30 days is long enough to enable an urgent public inquiry to be carried out, should such be the wish of the Secretary of State. That would generally be enough time to enable any substantial change in the stance of the disputants in a strike to take place, if it is going to take place, and the dispute can be settled by negotiation or public inquiry.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) and I have deliberately not allied the clause to a ballot on the
      1468
      employer's last offer. That is because I for one have always doubted the value of such ballots. Almost invariably the members of the union will not vote on the issue but will treat it as a vote of confidence in the union leadership. Secondly, they see it as a situation in which they cannot lose, because if the ballot goes in favour of the union's rejection there is a possibility that a greater offer will come from the employer and there is no likelihood of a smaller offer.
      There is useful experience in the United Kingdom as well as elsewhere of the operation of such a provision, because the 60-day cooling-off period in the 1971 Act was used on one occasion in a railway dispute, when the union and its members adhered to the order of the then Industrial Court. Some Labour Members have made it clear that they do not like the Industrial Court and that they would have much greater respect for the High Court. Therefore, we have included in the new clause the requirement of a High Court order. That is designed deliberately to meet the arguments that were advanced by some Labour Members.
      It is true that when the cooling-off period was used it did not lead to an immediate settlement, but only one trial is a poor guide. The certainty is that in other countries it has been highly successful. If we look at experience in the United States, from which the Secretary of State is now borrowing ideas such as the independent arbitration and conciliation service, and if we look at the history of the cooling-off period we find that it operates successfully. The ballot may not work but the cooling-off period does work.
      I remember vividly talking to the President of the longshoremen's union at the time of a strike in the United States. He was the trade union president who was involved in the dispute. He said of the use of the cooling-off period that it was a useful crutch for negotiators to have on which to fall back.
      My final point in moving the new clause—if I might have the attention of the House—is that it could not be used arbitrarily at the capricious whim of the Secretary of State. I am not suggesting that the whims of the Secretary of State are frequently capricious. Nevertheless,

      1469
      the clause could not be used in such circumstances. The Secretary of State would have to go to the High Court and convince it that the continuation of the dispute would injure the national economy, imperil national security, cause serious risk of disease or endanger life.
      I cannot think of any part of the Bill which could not be improved upon by the insertion of the clause if we are to look after the national interest, people's lives, national security and the national economy. It is only in those circumstances that the Secretary of State should have the power to use the clause, and even then only if he considers that its use would be conducive to a settlement.
      I commend the clause to the House as a useful additional armoury for the Secretary of State in dealing with industrial problems.
      Mr. Tom King: I rise briefly to support my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell). I am sorry that he did not receive more attention from some of the less serious hon. Members in moving what I regard as an important new clause. My hon. Friend set out the arguments clearly for what is by any standards an ample new clause. It can be seen that it provides a power that is properly circumscribed and subject to proper constraints and that it would be foolish of the House not to provide such power for the Secretary of State.
      There are occasions of which we are all aware when the settlement of a dispute runs up against the clock and only in the latter stages of the dispute do the two sides get down to serious negotiation. If there were the risk of a dispute, a stoppage or an interruption of the seriousness that my hon. Friend has described, and which is well described in the clause, which could imperil life and present a threat to national security—such circumstances could involve the whole nation and our responsibility as a Parliament—we would wish to see negotiators provided with extra time in which to continue their work and hopefully arrive at a solution. In the new clause we have changed the length of time. We think there is a strong argument for saying that the original provision of 60 days was too long.
      1470
      9.15 p.m.
      There is a problem of acceptance by union negotiators and members in the type of situation we are dealing with. Thirty days may seem a more acceptable interruption than 60 days. It is not unreasonable to expect industrial action to be suspended for that period. It is not linked to a ballot. I share the reservations of my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke about the disadvantages of a ballot. This is not a substantial change or a radical alteration. It is merely a useful additional power which could be held by the Secretary of State in the national interest. He could use it only if it was conductive to the settlement of a dispute.
      Obviously, many hon. Members will say that there will be many occasions when such a provision will not help. In that event it would not apply. There are, however, occasions when a little extra time could help to prevent a damaging dispute. The proposal is properly circumscribed in that not only does the Secretary of State have to be satisfied that it would be helpful but he has to persuade an independent High Court judge.
      It would represent no fundamental change of ground for the Government to accept the new clause. It is a useful additional power which could be of real benefit to the nation in certain circumstances when there could otherwise be extremely damaging, dangerous and disruptive disputes.
      The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Fraser): Except for the substitution of 30 days for 60 days and the mention of the High Court, the new clause is virtually a re-enactment of Sections 138 and 140 of the ill-fated Industrial Relations Act 1971. I shall try to give the House some other reasons for rejecting it.
      First, the clause proceeds on the erroneous assumption that at the point when a great deal of tact, patience and ability is required to choose the right moment for the Secretary of State or his conciliation officers to intervene in a highly-charged industrial relations situation, the issue should be transferred from the unpretentious premises and conciliatory atmosphere of 8 St. James's Square to the High Court. That is not the right approach. We do not believe that we can solve such things

      1471
      by mock Taft-Hartley in a mock-Gothic courtroom. The way to do this is by conciliation using well-tried methods.
      Secondly, the clause assumes that the courts can intervene to improve industrial relations. This is not the case. The clause refers to industrial action short of a strike. Can it be seriously suggested that a court will be able to supervise whether a rule book is being operated properly by putting people in lorry or locomotive cabs? This is not so.
      Thirdly, the provisions of the clause are unnecessary. We have adequate legislation for dealing with emergency situations. We have the Emergency Powers Act, which was frequently used by the last Government and Governments before them. We have the ability to set up courts of inquiry. We have the facilities of the conciliation service. These are things which in the past have been used.
      Mr. David Mitchell: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Government already have power to order a strike to cease during a period of further negotiation?
      Mr. Fraser: I did not say that. I said that the Government already have adequate powers to deal with emergency situations.
      The method proposed in the new clause has never worked. If it was thought to be workable, why was it not used during the 1972 and 1973 coal strikes? Why did not armies of tipstaffs, bailiffs, sheriffs and process servers go round the pit villages to try to bring about a settlement? The previous Government recognised that situations like that seldom arise. I suggest that it is an appropriate weapon only for the purpose of committing hara-kiri.
      Mr. Robert Redmond: The hon. Gentleman is saying that he must not have these powers in case the use of them makes the situation worse. No one is suggesting that the Secretary of State must use the powers unless certain conditions are fulfilled. If the Minister suggests that it is a bad thing to give the Secretary of State powers that he does not have to use, he is defeating his own argument.
      Mr. Fraser: The argument that the clause is likely to be redundant is not a good reason for inserting it in the Bill. The procedure is alien to British and European industrial relations. It is copied from the United States. We have our own better, well-tried methods, and we do not need to import that procedure from the United States. There is no evidence that the procedure has been notably successful in the United States. The ability to hold up a strike merely resets the timetable for industrial action. The procedure is best left on the other side of the Atlantic.
      In addition, the clause is badly phrased. It puts upon the Secretary of State a judge's function, namely, to decide whether there is an industrial dispute. It puts on the court a function which should belong to the Secretary of State, namely, whether there is an emergency. The procedure has been used on one occasion, during the railway dispute which was concluded by a ballot, and on that occasion the right hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan) got a lot of egg on his face. All that happened during the cooling-off period was four hours of negotiation. Other methods of trying to deal with that dispute might have been better.
      It is noticeable that the clause, which is a re-enactment of the 1971 Act, is not put forward by the official Opposition. I do not suggest that the Opposition are infallible in these matters or that they have an exclusive pool of knowledge, but it is significant that, having experienced the possibility of using these powers, they do not suggest that they should be re-enacted.
      The Clause has been put forward by the hon. Members for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell) and Bridgwater (Mr. King), whom I like to think of as Burke and Hare resurrecting a corpse in the morbid pathology of this debate. It is a corpse that stinks and would be better buried, and I hope that the Opposition will bury it by withdrawing the clause.
      Sir Raymond Gower: That reply is an extremely frivolous one and unworthy of the Minister. My hon. Friend put forward the clause for the purpose of providing a useful power which could be used occasionally. The Minister pulled the clause to pieces in a silly way, using phrases about Burke and Hare which I

      1473
      could hardly believe that I heard correctly.
      The Minister has much experience in these matters and he knows that once a dispute starts, attitudes tend to harden and there may be circumstances in which a cooling off period would be useful.
      The Minister's comment that this procedure may be used in other parts of the world but is not consistent with our methods was a "little England" remark. Does the Minister suggest that our industrial history is so perfect that we cannot look at the methods used elsewhere? Is he suggesting that everything we have done in this country has been so successful that we cannot benefit from the experience of others?
      Finally, the Minister said that the clause had not been introduced by the Opposition Front Bench. But a clause can be put forward effectively from any part of the House. I thought that the argument was put extremely clearly and effectively from the Opposition back benches and I hope that it will receive overwhelming support.
      Mr. Cranley Onslow: I am sorry that the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, who replied to the debate on the clause, was not a member of the Standing Committee. If he had been a member, he would have had the opportunity to learn that it pays not to try to be clever, or frivolous, or to coin phrases, or to quote from the "bumper fun book" of Transport House.
      Mr. Arthur Lewis: The hon. Gentleman speaks from experience.
      Onslow: Yes, I do speak from experience, unlike certain Labour Members.
      Mr. John Ellis: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?
      Mr. Onslow: No. I learned from experience in watching the Secretary of State for Employment in action in the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman to some extent mellowed and matured when he was confronted with what happens when a Minister wants to get his legislation through. Eventually we managed to persuade the Secretary of
      1474
      State of that fact. The right hon. Gentleman's attitude to the Committee was constructive and understanding.
      Mr. John Ellis: Rubbish.
      Mr. Onslow: I cannot help it if the hon. Gentleman will not take it from me that the Secretary of State was sympathetic and understanding.
      Mr. John Ellis: Rubbish.
      Mr. Onslow: I wish the hon. Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis) would stop touting his wares.
      Mr. John Ellis rose—
      Mr. Onslow: No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman can make his speech when he gets his chance.
      The point I want to make to the Under-Secretary of State for Employment is that if he wants to make progress in the Report stage he should seek to reply to debates in the same spirit in which clauses are moved and to show an understanding of the seriousness of the subject. Those who took part in the Committee stage showed that they were capable of this sort of understanding. If the Under-Secretary of State cannot learn that lesson, then it is a pity. If that sort of attitude had not been adopted in Committee, we would not now be considering; this Bill on Report.
      Mr. David Mitchell: Despite the wholly unsatisfactory reply made by the Government spokesman, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) does not wish to move new Clause 4.
      We come to new Clause 5 which perhaps the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) will move formally.
      Mr. Cyril Smith rose—
      Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I gave you notice a little earlier that I wished to raise a point of order and it was suggested that I should leave the matter until after the vote.

      1475
      A short while ago there was a disturbance in which there was a dispute over the vote. You, Sir, said that you would call the vote again because of the dispute. I believe that when in the past this has happened there has been some announcement or explanation of the reason why the vote has been called again. In this case I understand that the Tory Opposition disputed what had happened, thinking that they had a majority of five and, because they could not agree the situation with the Tellers, we had a re-called vote and it resulted in a majority of one. I should like to know what happened. May we be told the reason for taking the Division again?
      9.30 p.m.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that I can help the hon. Gentleman. I know nothing of the reasons for what happened, but my information is that there was a disagreement between the Tellers. In view of that, I followed the procedure laid down in Erskine May, which says:
      "If two tellers differ as to the numbers on the side told by them, or if a mistake regarding the numbers be discovered, unless the tellers agree thereon, a second division must take place."
      That is what I did, and I ruled that a second Division must take place.
      Mr. Lewis: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

    New Clause 5

      RIGHTS OF WORKERS IN RESPECT OF TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP
      '(1) Any person who applies for membership of a trade union, or of a branch or section of a trade union, which is a party to a union membership agreement whereby it is the practice for all the employees, or all of the employees of the same class as the applicant, at a place of employment where the applicant is employed or has secured an offer of employment upon the condition that he becomes a member of an appropriate trade union to belong to one or one of a number of specified independent trade unions, and who—
      (a) is a worker of the description or one of the descriptions of which, in accordance with the rules of the trade union, the trade union or that branch, as the case may be, is intended wholly or mainly to consist, or of which it wholly or mainly consists, and
      (b) is appropriately qualified as a worker of that description, shall not, by way of any arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination, be excluded from membership of the organisation or that branch or section of it.
      (2) No member of a trade union shall be subjected by or on behalf of the trade union to any unfair or unreasonable disciplinary action.
      (3) Except in respect of non-payment of any contribution which under the rules of a trade union he is required to pay, no member of the trade union shall be subjected to any disciplinary action by or on behalf of the trade union unless—

      (a) he has had written notice of the charges brought against him and has been given a reasonable time to prepare his defence;

      (b) he is afforded a full and fair hearing;

      (c) a written statement of the findings resulting from the hearing is given to him.

      (4) No member of a trade union, or of any branch or section of a trade union shall, by way of any arbitrary or unreasonable rule or action of such organisation, be excluded from—

      (a) being a candidate for or holding any office in the trade union or in a branch or section of it;

      (b) nominating candidates for any such office;

      (c) voting in any election for any such office in any ballot of members of the trade union or of any branch or section of the trade union;

      (d) having a fair and reasonable opportunity of voting without interference or constraint in any ballot, or upon any motion, or in any election, in respect of which he is entitled to vote.

      (5) The voting in any ballot of members of the trade union or of a branch or section of the trade union shall be kept secret '.—[Mr. Cyril Smith.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Motion made, and Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 117, Noes. 305.

      Division No. 73.]

      AYES

      [9.31 p.m.

      Adley, Robert

      Buck, Antony

      Costain, A. P

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Budgen, Nick

      Critchley, Julian

      Ancram, M.

      Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

      Crowder, F. P.

      Archer, Jeffrey

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      d'Avigdor-GoIdsmid.Maj. -Gen. James

      Awdry, Daniel

      Churchill, W. S.

      Dixon, Piers

      Beith, A. J.

      Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Drayson, Burnaby

      Blaker, Peter

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Fairgrieve, Russell

      Boscawen, Hon. Robert

      Cockcroft, John

      Fell, Anthony

      Brewis, John

      Cordie, John

      Fidler, Michael

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Cormack, Patrick

      Fisher, Sir Nigel

      Bruce-Gardyne, J.

      Corrie, John

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      MacGregor, John

      Rifkind, Malcolm

      Fox, Marcus

      McLaren, Martin

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Freud, Clement

      McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Gardiner, George (Reigate & Banstead)

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

      Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)

      Mawby, Ray

      Rost, Peter (Derbyshire, S.-E.)

      Glyn. Dr. Alan

      Mayhew, Christopher (G'wh, W'wch.E)

      Silvester, Fred

      Goodhart, Philip

      Mayhew, Patrick (Royal T' bridgeWells)

      Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

      Goodhew, Victor

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Smith, Dudley (W' wick & L'm'ngton)

      Gorst, John

      Miller, Hal (B'grove & R'ditch)

      Spicer, Michael (Worcestershire, S.)

      Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

      Moate, Roger

      Stanley, John

      Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

      Molyneaux, James

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      Gurden, Harold

      Money, Ernle

      Taverne, Dick

      Hall, Sir John

      Morgan, Geraint

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      Hampson, Dr. Keith

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Hannam, John

      Morris, Michael (Northampton, S.)

      Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

      Hooson, Emlyn

      Morrison, Peter (City of Chester)

      Trotter, Neville

      Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

      Mudd, David

      Tyler, Paul

      Hunt, John

      Neubert, Michael

      Viggers, Peter

      Hurd, Douglas

      Newton, Tony (Braintree)

      Waddington, David

      James, David

      Normanton, Tom

      Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Pardoe, John

      Wakeham, John

      Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

      Quenneil, Miss J. M.

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

      Redmond, Robert

      Winterton, Nicholas

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

      Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

      Lament, Norman

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Young, Sir George (Ealing, Acton)

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David (H't'gd'ns're)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Loveridge, John

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Mr. David Steel and

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Dr. Michael Winstanley.

      NOES

      Abse, Leo

      Cunningham, G.(Isl'ngt'n, S F'sb'ry)

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Allaun, Frank

      Cunningham, Dr. John A.(Whiteh'v'n)

      Ginsburg, David

      Archer, Peter

      Dalyell, Tam

      Gourlay, Harry

      Armstrong, Ernest

      Davidson, Arthur

      Graham, Ted

      Ashley, Jack

      Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Ashton, Joe

      Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

      Grant, John (Islington, C.)

      Atkins, Ronald

      Davies, Ifor (Gower)

      Griffiths, Eddie (Sheffield, Brightside)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Deakins, Eric

      Hamilton, William (Fife, C.)

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)

      Hamling, William

      Barnett, Joel (Heywood & Royton)

      de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

      Hardy, Peter

      Bates, Alf

      Delargy, Hugh

      Harper, Joseph

      Baxter, William

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Dempsey, James

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      Bennett, Andrew F. (Stockport, N.)

      Doig, Peter

      Hattersley, Roy

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Dormand, J. D.

      Hatton, Frank

      Bishop, E. S.

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Boardman, H.

      Dunn, James A.

      Henderson, Douglas (Ab'rd'nsh're, E)

      Booth, Albert

      Dunnett, Jack

      Hooley, Frank

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

      Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth

      Horam, John

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Eadie, Alex

      Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)

      Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

      Edelman, Maurice

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Bradley, Tom

      Edge, Geoff

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Broughton, Sir Alfred

      Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S.E.)

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Brown, Bob(Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)

      Ellis, John (Brigg & Scunthorpe)

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)

      Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)

      Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Brown, Ronald (H'kney, S.&Sh'ditch)

      English, Michael

      Hunter, Adam

      Buchan, Norman

      Ennals, David

      Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (L'p'I, EdgeHI)

      Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Springb'rn

      Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

      Irving, Rt. Hn. Sydney (Dartford)

      Butler, Mrs. Joyce (H'gey, WoodGreen)

      Evans, loan (Aberdare)

      Jackson, Colin

      Callaghan.Rt.Hn. James (Cardiff, S.E.)

      Evans, John (Newton)

      Janner, Greville

      Callaghan, Jim (M'dd'ton & Pr'wlch)

      Ewing, Harry (St'ling, F'kirk & G'm'th)

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Campbell, Ian

      Ewing, Mrs. Winifred (Moray & Nairn)

      Jeger, Mrs. Lena

      Cant, R. B.

      Farr, John

      Jenkins, Hugh (W'worth, Putney)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Faulds, Andrew

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (B'ham, St'fd)

      Carter, Ray

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      John, Brynmor

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      Johnson, James (K'ston uponHull, W)

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Clemitson, Ivor

      Flannery, Martin

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      Cocks, Michael

      Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Cohen, Stanley

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N.

      Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael

      Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

      Concannon, J. D.

      Ford, Ben

      Judd, Frank

      Conlan, Bernard

      Forrester, John

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Cook, Robert F. (Edinburgh, C.)

      Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)

      Kelley, Richard

      Cox, Thomas

      Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

      Kerr, Russell

      Craigen, J. M. (G'gow, Maryhill)

      Freeson, Reginald

      Kilroy-Silk, Robert

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Kinnock, Neil

      Cronin, John

      Garrett, John (Norwich, S.)

      Lambie, David

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

      Lamborn, Harry

      Cryer, G. R.

      George, Bruce

      Lamond, James

      Latham, Arthur(City of W' minsterP'ton)

      O'Malley, Brian

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Lawson, George (Motherwell & Wishaw)

      Orbach, Maurice

      Stallard, A. W.

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Orme, Rt. Hn. Stanley

      Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

      Lee, John

      Ovenden, John

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'sth, Fulh'm)

      Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

      Owen, Dr. David

      Stoddart, David (Swindon)

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Padley, Walter

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Lewis, Arthur (Newham, N.)

      Palmer, Arthur

      Stott, Roger

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Park, George (Coventry, N.E.)

      Strang, Gavin

      Lipton, Marcus

      Parker, John (Dagenham)

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Parry, Robert

      Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

      Loughlin, Charles

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Swain, Thomas

      Loyden, Eddie

      Pearl, Rt. Hn. Fred

      Thomas, D. E. (Merioneth)

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Pendry, Tom

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Thome, Stan (Preston, S.)

      McCartney, Hugh

      Phipps, Dr. Colin

      Tierney, Sydney

      MacCormack, Iain

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg

      Tinn, James

      McElhone, Frank

      Prescott, John

      Tomlinson, John

      MacFarquhar, Roderick

      Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)

      Tomney, Frank

      McGuire, Michael

      Price, William (Rugby)

      Torney, Tom

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Radice, Giles

      Urwin, T. W.

      Maclennan, Robert

      Rees, Rt. Hn. Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Varley, Rt. Hn. Eric G.

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Reid, George

      Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

      McNamara, Kevin

      Richardson, Miss Jo

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, Ladywood)

      Madden, M. O. F.

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Magee, Bryan

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

      Mahon, Simon

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      Watkins, David

      Mallalieu, J. P. W.

      Roderick, Caerwyn E.

      Watt, Hamish

      Marks, Kenneth

      Rodgers, George (Chorley)

      Weitzman, David

      Marquand, David

      Rodgers, William (Teesside, St'ckton)

      Wellbeloved, James

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)

      Rooker, J. W.

      White, James

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Roper, John

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Meacher, Michael

      Rose, Paul B.

      Whitlock, William

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Wigley, Dafydd (Caernarvon)

      Mendelson, John

      Rowlands, Edward

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Mikardo, Ian

      Sandelson, Neville

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Millan, Bruce

      Sedgemore, Bryan

      Williams, Alan Lee (Hvrng, Hchurch)

      Miller, Dr. M. S. (E. Kilbride)

      Selby, Harry

      Williams, Rt. Hn. Shirley (H'f'd & St'ge)

      Milne, Edward

      Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilford, S.)

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

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

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      Molloy, William

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (S'pney & P'plar)

      Wilson, Gordon (Dundee, E.)

      Moonman, Eric

      Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'ctle-u-Tyne)

      Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hamp'n, N.E.)

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.E.)

      Morris. Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham.D'ford)

      Wise, Mrs. Audrey

      Morris, Rt Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Silkin, Rt.Hn.S.C.(S'hwark, Dulwich)

      Woodall, Alec

      Moyle, Roland

      Sillars, James

      Woof, Robert

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Silverman, Julius

      Wrigglesworth, Ian

      Murray, Ronald King

      Skinner, Dennis

      Young, David (Bolton, E.)

      Newens, Stanley (Harlow)

      Small, William

      Oakes, Gordon

      Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Ogden, Eric

      Snape, Peter

      Mr. Donald Coleman and

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Spearing, Nigel

      Mr. John Golding

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 6

      RESTRICTION OF RIGHT OF TRADE UNIONS TO PERSUADE PERSONS TO ENGAGE IN STRIKE
      (1) It shall be unlawful for any trade union official of any trade union to attempt to persuade any person whether a member of the union or not to engage in a strike or other industrial action—

      (a) not being in contemplation or further ante of a trade dispute but having the objective of applying pressure upon Parliament or one or more Ministers of the Crown or any Court of Law in Great Britain; or

      (b) same as referred to in subsection (2) of this section whether or not in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute if the strike or other action would be likely to bring about a serious hazard to the health or safety of any person or persons.

      (2) No action shall be unlawful by reason of subsection 1(b) of this section if it arises out
      1480
      of a trade dispute and not less than two weeks prior notice has been given in writing to the Secretary of State for Employment by or on behalf of the trade union concerned of the intention to take the action in question.
      (3) Any person suffering loss or damage by reason of any act or action rendered unlawful by this section shall be entitled to take civil proceedings for damages in respect thereof.—[Mr. Onslow.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Onslow: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. [Interruption.]
      Perhaps I may allow a minute or two for Liberal Members to leave the Chamber as noisily as they like. I hope to persuade the House that in moving the clause my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) and myself are reluctant to detain the House long in speaking to it. It is true—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. May we have silence, except for the hon. Member who is addressing the House.
      Mr. Onslow: Even I will try to heed your injunction, Mr. Speaker.
      The clause would make slightly better sense if the first word in paragraph (b) were "Save" instead of "Same". There seems to have been a touch of the Alf Garnett about the printing of the wording. It is a charming innovation but unfortunately it is destructive of the sense. Otherwise the clause is fairly clear and I hope that I need not spend a great deal of time going over what is states.
      I should like to explain briefly why my hon. and learned Friend and I are putting forward the clause. We were members of the Committee. We agree that, having sat through most, if not all, of the Committee's sittings, we were left at the end with no clear idea how the Secretary of State was empowered and how he would be minded to discharge the duty, which falls to the holder in his office in every Government of this country, of protecting the public interest against whatever threats might be levelled against it.
      9.45 p.m.
      I remember asking the Secretary of State at one point, though not on this specific matter, where he was prepared to draw the balance of interest as between the trade unions on the one side and the public at large on the other side. Even when reading what passes for the OFFICIAL REPORT of our debates I can find no answer attributed to the Secretary of State on that point. We now have another opportunity, therefore, for him to tell us where he sees the balance lying and at what point he is prepared to say that a Socialist Government—he himself is a Secretary of State—would stand and seek to defend the public interest.
      The Under-Secretary, who has just replied less than adequately to the debate, said in his opinion the Government had adequate emergency powers. I am as unconvinced of that, having heard them recited, as I was unconvinced that the Government of which the Secretary of State is a member see the need to have the powers which the new clause would give them. I hope I am wrong. I hope that at least the Secretary of State or
      1482
      whoever replies from the Government Front Bench will be able to tell us that he not only condemns the political strike but sees a real defence of the public against the political strike, whether that strike takes place in what are admittedly the peculiar conditions of Northern Ireland or whether it takes place, as we must conceive to be possible, in what we are pleased to regard as the more normal conditions of the rest of the United Kingdom, whether it takes place in an area where the stakes that are being played for, if that is not too frivolous a way of putting it, are those of human health and even human life, as we have unhappily seen in the case of the health service, or whether it is simply in an area where the losses that members of the public stand to find inflicted upon them as third parties are a massive loss of food in ships which cannot be refrigerated or some other considerable loss or disadvantage which is likely to be inflicted upon the long-suffering British public and which by that very fact exercise a political influence against the Government of the day to adopt a course of compromise if not of surrender.
      I hope, therefore, that the Secretary of State will be able to give us a convincing answer to the questions cast within the framework of the new clause. If he does that, I shall be content. I do not make this argument in any spirit of mockery or refusal to be convinced. I put my inquiry to the Secretary of State perfectly genuinely. I am as anxious now to hear him say "Here we will stand. This defence we will provide. The public can rely upon us to give them protection in this deal and to this degree" as when this matter first came up in Committee. I hope very much that without further ado he will now be able to satisfy me.
      Mr. Waddington: The Bill provides new legal immunities for trade unions. It legalises many practices which apart from this Bill would not be legal—and yet most people, while perhaps very sceptical as to the benefits which resulted from the Industrial Relations Act of 1971, I am sure take the view that there is no reason to think that today trade unions are weak and oppressed. Most of them would agree, if it were put to them, that the trade unions are strong and capable of doing considerable damage to the community. Most people, if asked whether

      1483
      they believed in political strikes, would say that they certainly did not.
      The attitude of hon. Members opposite has at the very least been somewhat ambivalent. One has seen a marked contrast between the attitude of right hon. Members opposite on political strikes in Ireland and their attitude towards political strikes in this country when a Conservative Government were in office prior to February. One has also been a little alarmed at the attitude of some right hon. Gentlemen and Ladies opposite towards the industrial dispute involving the nurses, when the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Social Services were not forthcoming in saying that Mrs. Brookstone was not entitled to usurp the power of Parliament and to tell Parliament how to behave.
      My hon. Friends and I are concerned to have a clear statement from the Government on these all important matters. I do not suppose that we shall press the new clause to a Division, but we find it peculiar that the Government have ducked this issue time and again.
      Everybody knows that some unions are now so powerful that they can do untold damage to the community and are prepared to use their industrial power to topple Governments. Everyone knows from the antics of Mr. Scanlon that some unions are even prepared to use industrial power to reverse the decisions of a court. In those circumstances, when a Government introduce a Bill to extend the legal immunities of unions and to grant them immunity such as they have never had before, they must tell the people how they will be protected against abuse of industrial power—whether it be a union deliberately setting out to get Parliament to reverse a democratically-made decision, an attempt to get a court of law to reverse a decision or an attempt, which would fall under subsection (2), to use industrial power regardless of the safety of other citizens.
      I earnestly beg the Secretary of State to recognise that the time has come for him to make a sensible statement about the Government's attitude. So far, we have heard cant about the wickedness of the Industrial Relations Act, about how the TUC will set everything right and about how Hughie Scanlon is a very
      1484
      good boy after all and does not wean half of what he says. At the end of the day the public know that although the Industrial Relations Act can be faulted, unions are now more powerful than ever before, that the Bill will make them still more powerful, and they are surely entitled to a definitive statement about where the Government stand.
      Do the Government believe that Mrs. Brookstone can decide whether there should be pay beds, or should Parliament decide? Does Parliament decide that a judge should apply the law or, if Mr. Scanlon feels like it, should be decide the law? The new clause gives the Government an opportunity to say for the first time where they stand on these issues.
      Sir Raymond Gower: The Minister may find it easy to reject the clause for technical reasons but I should like to add to the arguments in its favour. My worry about political strikes is that they fall equally on good employers and bad. One can understand the strike directed against a bad employer—a firm, an individual or a large limited company that maintains bad conditions or pays unsatisfactory wages. But what one cannot understand is the general, blanket form of industrial dispute, the ill effects of which fall on firms which have good industrial relations and firms which have bad industrial relations, firms which pay good wages and firms 'which pay had wages, firms which go out of their way to be good employers and equally firms which have neglected their duty as employers.
      This disturbs many of us. It is something comparatively recent in our industrial history. In the years before the last war one could understand the reason for so many of the strikes. Conditions were bad. One could understand why people were ready to take that kind of action. But what is much more difficult to understand is this sort of strike, the effects of which seem to be applied indiscriminately against good employers and bad. It is in that context that we should like to hear the Secretary of State's views about these matters, although I appreciate that the new clause can be rejected for many reasons.
      Mr. Foot: The three hon. Gentlemen who have spoken on the new clause have raised a whole variety of major questions. If I were tempted to answer them

      1485
      completely, perhaps we should injure that happy atmosphere of speedy progress which we are all so eager to cultivate. Therefore, I hope the hon. Gentlemen will excuse me if I do not deal with all the particular personal matters that they raised. But they must not assume that because I have not replied about Mr. Hugh Scanlon I accept what they said about him. Some of their descriptions of these matters were grotesque. But, as I say, that is a temptation I should reject.
      We on the Government side of the House do not believe that there is anything in the Bill which injures the supremacy of Parliament. I say that not only in reply to the hon. Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower) but also to the right hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan). So far from the Bill injuring Parliament, we think that its passage will greatly assist the reputation of Parliament. It will do so because the best thing that Parliament can do on this subject is to pass workable Bills, and not Bills which are incapable of being operated. Therefore, that is what we are doing.
      However, this is an important question. In some respects it could be said that this new clause is more important than the previous new clauses, because its passage would certainly cause grave injury to industrial relations in Britain, not merely for technical reasons and technical deficiencies in the clause but for other reasons which I shall seek to describe. Therefore, we hope very much that, after I have discussed these matters, hon. Members of the Opposition will be prepared to withdraw the new clause.
      The clause provides for two different types of limitation on industrial action, and it is necessary to distinguish them. The limitation in sub-paragraph (a) on action having as its objective the application of pressure upon Parliament or one or more Ministers of the Crown or any court of law in Great Britain would apply only if such action is not in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. The limitation in sub-paragraph (b) applies to all industrial action likely to bring about a serious hazard to the health and safety of persons, but if such action arises out of a trade dispute the action would not be unlawful provided that two weeks' prior notice had been given to the Secretary of State. Therefore, there
      1486
      is a conglomeration of two different ideas in the same clause.
      The approach, we believe, suffers from a number of defects and disadvantages and may in part rest upon a misunderstanding of the position which will prevail under the Bill when it is law. The limitation in sub-paragraph (a) singles out particular types of industrial action for political purposes which are not in con, templation or furtherance of a trade dispute. It does not cover all such action. But the present Bill does not give persons, including union officials, immunity from action for breach of contract unless the acts inducing the breach are in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute.
      Legal action has rarely been taken in the past to restrain strikes carried out other than in the contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute and action under this clause would be similarly unlikely. It is difficult in practice to distinguish strikes called for political purposes from those which are in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. There are normally elements of a trade—
      It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
      Ordered,
      That the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—(Mr. Coleman.)
      Question again proposed, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Foot: There are normally elements of a trade dispute in such disputes which have political purposes. In case hon. Members might wish to intervene to suggest that that doctrine does not win their immediate approval, perhaps I may refer them to the case last year in which this was demonstrated, the case of Sherard v. ALLEW, which turned on the definition of "industrial dispute" under the 1971 Act; but the points apply to a trade dispute too.
      Lord Denning made it clear that a dispute between the TUC and the Government was not an industrial dispute and he implied that political strikes as such would not fall within the definition of "industrial dispute" because they were not in contemplation or furtherance of

      1487
      a trade dispute. Nevertheless he held that the dispute in question might be an industrial dispute and he refused the interlocutary relief sought on that account.
      Lord Justice Roskill, agreeing with Lord Denning's conclusion, said that the phrase "political strike" should be used, at any rate in a court of law, with caution because it did not readily lend itself to precise or accurate definition. It is all too easy for someone to talk of a strike as being a political strike when what that person really means is that the object of the strike was something of which he as an individual subjectively disapproved.
      Professor Kahn-Freund, whose authority has been quoted earlier but in less good cause than I am now quoting him, has commented that the line between political and industrial action is far from clear. He asked
      "How can it be clear in a world in which the political and economic spheres of life are indistinguishable … Where is the line between a strike to induce an employer to raise, or not to reduce wages, and a strike to press the Government for measures which would enable the employer to do so?"
      He concluded that the problem was insoluble. Therefore, if Professor Kahn-Freund regards it as insoluble, it shows great temerity on the part of Conservative Members to think that they can succeed where he was likely to fail.
      Mr. Onslow: I would not dream of rushing in where Professor whatever his name is fears to tread, but there is a limit to the extent to which the Secretary of State should feel obliged to blind me with science. Getting back to the words-of-one-syllable department, may I ask him to rehearse what he is saying more briefly by agreeing with the proposition that there is nothing in the Bill which fundamentally alters the position of strikes which are, by the admission of those engaged in them, primarily political in their purpose? That is to say, they are not necessarily to be treated as trade disputes because of anything in the Bill and there are other remedies which apply to strikes which fall outside the category of trade disputes in the first instance and, what is perhaps more to the point, the remedies of the third party, who may find himself crushed between the millstones of such a situation, are still as they were
      1488
      before this legislation was brought before the House.
      Mr. Foot: There is nothing in this legislation that would alter the position on these matters compared with pre-1971, but the hon. Member has not fully understood what I was saying. Not merely was I refuting what he said, but Professor Kahn-Freund was refuting him more effectively; he was showing that if one tries to describe political strikes in this way one will get into difficulties which one should seek to avoid. The suggestion that people should be encouraged to take action all over the country to recover the damage they might have suffered from such action is a recipe for universal chaos. It is encouraging litigation affecting industrial disputes on a scale which I would have thought even the most eager supporter of such intervention by law in industrial affairs would have been keen to avoid. I hope that what I have said on the question of political strikes is sufficient to remove any such suggestions from the minds of members of the Opposition.
      Although that part of the clause relating to health or safety does not involve exactly the same issues, it does cover some of them. However, I shall not go into this matter in detail because when I went into subsection 1(a) in detail the hon. Member for Woking was not entirely satisfied, and therefore I shall abbreviate my remarks on subsection 1(b) in order to accommodate him.
      I assure the hon. Gentleman that if the clause were pushed into the Bill it would do great injury to our industrial relations. I am not saying that the hon. Gentlemen who put forward the clause had that as their intention. It is clear that they did not fully realise, as others may not have realised, what would be the consequences of the clause if passed. There is not the slightest doubt that if the clause were passed it would overturn the definitions which Lord Denning, Professor Kahn-Freund and others have sought to understand, and therefore would run the risk that strike action could lead to much greater difficulties than anything the hon. Gentlemen had contemplated.
      Sir Raymond Gower: I do not dissent from much of what the right hon. Genleman has said, but would he accept that great hardship and damage could

      1489
      ensue—perhaps great national views-papers could be destroyed—through strikes caused by nothing to do with bad industrial relations, such as a strike based on the policy of a Government to carry on trade with a foreign government of either the extreme right or the extreme left? Clearly such a strike would have nothing to do with bad accommodation or bad wages, and yet some newspapers in this country could be brought to their knees in such a strike. Is that not a matter of great concern?
      Mr. Foot: It is certainly a matter of great concern. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friend the Minister of State and myself have spent much time in the past three months at the Department of Employment doing our best to try to assist in preventing strikes in the newspaper industry. It is of the highest importance in terms of free discussion throughout the country that we should try to get a situation in the newspaper industry which would avoid such strikes, but circumstances such as the hon. Gentleman mentioned would not be avoided by action as suggested in the clause;
      1490
      indeed such circumstances would be greatly multiplied.
      I do not wish to be provocative, but the clause could do grave injury to industrial relations in this country. I appreciate that that is not the intention of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but it would be the result.
      I hope I can summarise the matter without being offensive by saying that the clause amounts to the 1971 Act with knobs on and I hope that it will not be passed through the House at this late stage.
      Mr. Onslow: I hesitate to disagree with the Secretary of State, although he must not take my silence for consent, any more than we necessarily take his silence for acquiescence.
      The right hon. Gentleman has replied constructively. At least, he has made his position clear. Whether he has made the position satisfactory for the general public, I rather doubt, but I see no purpose in prolonging the debate. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    Clause 1

      REPEAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT 1971 AND RE-ENACTMENT OF CERTAIN PROVISIONS
      Mr. Speaker: We now come to Government Amendment No. 1. I gather that it will be for the convenience of the House to take it formally now, and pass it, because it is a paving amendment for Government Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 and it will be more convenient to have the debate on them.
      Amendments made: No. 1, in page 1, subsection (2)(a), leave out 1 to 4 (general principles and ' and insert ` sections 2 to 4 '.
      No. 2, in page 1, line 21, after 7' insert (2) and '.—[Mr. Booth.]

    Clause 2

      STATUS OF TRADE UNIONS
      Mr. Percival: I beg to move Amendment No. 44, in page 2, leave out lines 1 to 3 and insert:
      (1) A trade union may be either a body corporate or an unincorporated association.
      (2) Where a trade union is unincorporated.
      Mr. Speaker: I understand it is suggested that with this amendment we take the following amendments:
      No. 45, in page 2, leave out subsection (2).
      No. 46, in page 2, leave out subsection (3).
      No. 47, in page 2, leave out subsection (4) and insert:
      (4) A trade union which before the commencement of this section was a body corporate by virtue of Section 74 of the 1971 Act shall cease to be a body corporate by virtue of that section at the expiration of the period of three months beginning with the commencement of this section and the provisions of section 15 below (as well as this section) shall apply to it on and after the expiration of that period unless before the expiration of that period it has again become a body corporate'.
      No. 48, page 2, subsection (4), after first corporate ' insert:
      ' by virtue of section 74 of the 1971 Act '.
      No. 49, in page 3, subsection (5), line 1, leave out from union ' to ' shall ' in line 6.
      No. 52, in Clause 3, page 4, subsection (5), line 1, leave out unincorporated '.
      No. 53, in page 4, subsection (5), line 2, leave out ' and '.
      No. 54, in page 4, subsection (5), line 4, leave out from unions ' to ` shall ' in line 5.
      No. 57, in Clause 5, page 5, line 2, after (68(4)) ', insert or 85(3))'.
      No. 58, in page 5, line 4, at end insert:
      (e) was immediately before the commencement entered in the Special Register under the Industrial Relations Act, 1971'.
      No. 59, in page 5, line 4, at end insert:
      (e) is a special register body as defined in this Act '.
      Mr. Percival: I think that it would want only three more amendments for a full house, Mr. Speaker.
      The amendments fall into their own categories. There is a series of points that we must take separately, but all are quite brief. As the Bill was drafted, it would have excluded what are now called the special register bodies, because it provided that a trade union must be an unincorporated association. A union did not even have the choice of being a corporate body. The effect would have been to exclude such bodies as the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and the United Kingdom Commercial Travellers Association. Much pressure was brought to bear on the Government to remedy that situation, both from those bodies and from the Conservative benches.
      I am happy to acknowledge that the Government saw the wisdom of those representations and took steps to ensure that those bodies should not be excluded, at least, not by the clause, which deals with the question whether a union should be a body corporate or unincorporate. There is still a doubt whether some bodies may have been excluded by the new definition. I hope that in replying to the debate the Minister can say something about that.
      I should like to illustrate my point by reference to the United Kingdom Commercial Travellers Association. Under the clause as originally drafted, it would have been excluded because, being a body corporate, it would have been precluded from continuing as a trade

      1493
      union and continuing to enjoy its status as a body corporate. That part of its possible difficulties has been resolved by the Government's amendments to the clause in Committee, but I should like to be assured that the Government are satisfied that, while they have removed that possible difficulty, there is not another difficulty that might face such bodies in getting themselves within the definition of trade union.
      I thought that the understanding in Committee was that the Government had come to the conclusion that all those bodies which qualified as special register bodies should continue to be treated as trade unions and enjoy the benefits of the Bill and come under its obligations. I should like the Minister's assurance on that, if he can give it, in particular with reference to the example I have given, although I do not say that it is the only body that might face that difficulty. There may be others. I should like him to give a categorical answer if he can, because one can work from that answer to make comparisons with other bodies if they are in any doubt.
      10.15 p.m.
      I think that the Minister will feel that this is an area in which the bodies concerned are entitled to have their doubt firmly resolved, if doubt there be, before the matter goes to another place. The difficulties that I am talking about, if they exist, cannot be put right here, but they could and should be put right in another place.
      I hope that it is apparent from what I have said that I want to make it clear that we appreciate that the Government saw the wisdom of the representations that we made about special register bodies. However, we are not so happy about the way they did it. One simple way of doing it would have been to accept the amendment that we put forward in Committee, which is now Amendment No. 44, which provides that a trade union may be either a body corporate or an unincorporated association. It then goes on to deal with the position of an unincorporated trade union. If that amendment had been accepted, that of itself would have cured all the difficulties of the special register body and we should not have been compelled to have all these amendments and a reference to
      1494
      special register bodies in line 1 of Clause 2. That would have been unnecessary because by saying that a union may be either a corporate body or an unincorporated association we should get rid of the obstable which Clause 2 presents.
      We still maintain the view that we advanced in Committee and that we are putting forward now because again, to give credit where credit is due, the Minister was good enough in Committee to say that he would consider this matter again and come to the House on Report to tell us his conclusions. We still think that the method which we advanced in the first place is far and away the better method because not only does it resolve the situation of the special register bodies but it does so in a much simpler way than that adopted by the Government. In addition, it has the great merit that all future organisations or persons who wish to make themselves into a body would have the option of being either bodies corporate or unincorporated.
      The Minister knows perfectly well, like my right hon. and hon. Friends, that many unions have no desire to be corporate bodies. We would not dream, in the context of the Bill, of trying to introduce provisions to say that they must be corporate bodies. We accept that if they want to be unincorporated associations, then through the provisions of the Bill that should be allowed to happen. The provisions of subsection (1) ensure that the public is protected against any possible adverse consequence of a union being unincorporated. Provided that we have that safeguard we have no objection to a union being an unincorporated association, if that is what it wants.
      However, we do not understand why a union should not be allowed to be a corporate body if that is what it wishes. There is no question of our wishing to interfere with the unions and to decide whether they should be corporate or unincorporated. The sole effect of the amendment is to give an organisation which wants to bring itself within the definition of a trade union and then to act as such the option of being either corporate or unincorporated.
      Having carefully considered what was said in Committee and paying full attention to the argument that most unions might not wish to be corporate bodies,

      1495
      we just do not understand why it should be said that these large and responsible bodies—it does not matter whether they are large and we are presupposing that they are responsible—which we want to see acting responsibly should not have the choice. That is the argument. If it prevailed, subsection (2) would be unnecessary. Subsection (4) would likewise be unnecessary. Amendment No. 46 is directed to that point. It is clear that subsection (2) would not be needed if that amendment were carried.
      Amendment No. 47 is in a slightly different category. It is important. In Committee we put it to the Minister that here was a danger that subsection (4) might have unintended consequences. We understand that it is the Government's desire to get rid of the 1971 Act—and I say that without going into whether the reasons for that are justified. It follows they would say that bodies which were incorporated under Section 74 should cease to be corporate and should become unincorporated. That is what subsection (4) is intended to do.
      Unhappily, the subsection is not limited to those bodies which were incorporated under Section 74 of the 1971 Act. It appears that, as the subsection stands, it might, by sheer inadvertence, catch some corporate body which none of us had thought about. We might find a body which, because it came within the definition of trade union, would lose its corporate status. I do not believe that the Government want to do this. Amendments Nos. 47 or 48 would remove any danger of that happening. They would not strike at anything which the Government are seeking to achieve. Either one of those amendments would ensure that we do not do something which we do not intend.
      Amendments Nos. 49, 52, 53, 54 and 55 are all linked with the point I have made. If Amendment No. 44 were accepted, all those amendments would follow. I will not take further time by saying anything more about them.
      But I wish to speak about Amendments Nos. 57, 58 and 59. The purpose of those is simple. All other unions and bodies which are listed in Clause 5(2) will automatically go on the list to be kept by the Registrar of Friendly
      1496
      Societies. We feel that the special register bodies which in the first instance were being excluded but which are now to be included should also have the right to go onto that list automatically if they so wish.
      The reason why we did not press his in Committee was that there was some question about whether the bodies concerned wanted that to happen. We felt that we should not push something which was intended to be for the benefit of a particular group of people unless they wanted it. No doubt the Minister has had the same notes from the British Medical Association, speaking for itself and the other bodies with which it has jointly made representations, saying that it would like to go on automatically. Any of the amendments Nos. 57, 58 or 59 would produce that effect. The neatest one is Amendment No. 57 but I do not mind in the least which of the methods is employed. I hope that the Minister will find it possible to accept one of them. If we do not do that, while professing to have amended the Bill so as to include these organisations, we shall nevertheless be treating them differently from anyone else.
      The Minister was good enough to say to me that a reason for not making this change was that some bodies may not come within the definition of a trade union and may not be entitled to be registered. For bodies wanting to register in the future that must be a relevant consideration, but it would be contrary to the spirit of the amendments already made to Clause 2 to decline to accept one of the amendments.
      The reasoning behind rejection of the amendment is the expectation that an organisation which applied to be on the list might not be able to satisfy the requirement that it was a trade union. I hope that the Government do not wish to exclude from the list the special registered bodies on the ground that new bodies must satisfy all the requirements. A large number of people will automatically go on the list, and the special bodies should be treated in the same way. That can be done by accepting Amendment No. 57, Amendment No. 58 or Amendment No. 59.
      These are practical considerations which are of importance to a substantial

      1497
      number of respectable bodies. I hope that the Government will go a little further in assisting them by accepting one of the amendments, even if they cannot go so far as to accept Amendment No. 44. I invite the Minister to reconsider the major point which arises on Amendment No. 44. Why should not we give these bodies the same choice that we are giving to the employers' associations? Amendment No. 44 would allow these bodies to be either corporate bodies or unincorporated associations, whichever they please.
      Mr. Booth: The hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) has been kind enough to acknowledge that the Government have gone a considerable way to meet criticisms which were levelled at the Bill in respect of special registered bodies during the Second Reading debate and subsequently. This series of amendments is designed to persuade the Government to go a little further along that road.
      In Committee I undertook to reexamine the position, and I have done so. I will explain why I feel that it would not be appropriate at this juncture to try to alter the situation still further by the proposed amendments.
      The effect of Amendments Nos. 44, 45, 46, 47 and 48 would be to enable trade unions to choose whether they would become corporate bodies. It is generally acknowledged that unions do not want to be corporate bodies. Unions are representative, democratic organisations in which frequently authority is not centralised. Incorporation is not totally appropriate to bodies which are organised in that way.
      10.30 p.m.
      The purpose of incorporation for most companies is associated with the limitation of liability. In the Government's view trade unions do not seek or require this, and it would be fair and proper for those who criticise our stand to say that we are in some senses denying trade unions a right which would be open to them if this amendment were carried. However, it is not a right which trade unions have sought. I have sought the views of a number of trade unions, and the only trade union which found difficulty on this point eventually raised no objection when it saw the terms of the Bill.
      Mr. Percival: The hon. Gentleman says that it is not a right which the trade unions have sought, but that is surely not right. The bodies for whose benefit provision has already been made in regard to special register are surely the trade unions. It was they who sought amendment, the purpose being to enable them to remain both trade unions and corporate bodies.
      Mr. Booth: It is a difficult point because they are special register bodies, and whether they are trade unions depends on the definition one attaches to "trade unions". The fact that provision was made in the 1971 Act for special register bodies recognised that there was something special about them.
      When we originally considered this matter, one factor that engaged our minds was whether unregistered unions would be immune from suit. In Clause 2 provision is made for a union to sue or to be sued in its own name. That does not deal entirely with the point in the amendment, but it indicates the way in which the provision came to be framed.
      The Bill gives all employers' associations a choice whether to be incorporated or unincorporated bodies. We believe that this is necessary since a large number of employers' associations carry out functions in addition to that of regulating relations between employers and workers. Even if only a few employers' associations came into this category, it would still be appropriate for them to have this power. So far as there is any indication of a trend in these matters, it leads us to believe that such associations will be engaged in other activities, such as trade promotion activities, and would welcome provision in the Bill which would give them an option.
      The effect of Amendment No. 49 would be to give special register bodies who are trade unions the same protection in respect of restraint of trade as that given to trade unions which are not special register bodies. Special register bodies which are trade unions have protection under Clause 2(5) only in respect of Industrial Relations Act activities. This does not put them at a disadvantage in relation to other trade unions in an area where they have a common interest, namely an area of related industrial relations activities. It recognises, however, that there is a difference and that special

      1499
      register bodies may be engaged in activities other than those of industrial relations.
      The effect of Amendments Nos. 52, 53 and 54 would be to put incorporated and unincorporated employers' associations in the same position—that is to say, that they would both have a protection only in respect of restraint on trade. This would therefore limit—
      Mr. Percival: The intention is that the protection would relate only to that part of their activities concerning the regulation of relations between workers and employers. I am sure that the Minister would agree with that limitation.
      Mr. Booth: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. The protection would apply only in the case of the regulation of industrial relations activities.
      Again, we take the view that there is a distinction to be drawn between the incorporated and the unincorporated and that the incorporated employers' association should have protections which go beyond activities in respect of industrial relations because it is quite proper for the incorporated employers' association to engage in those other activities.
      The original Bill did what these amendments seek to do. It put all employers' associations on the same footing. It was represented to the Government by the CBI that this was unfair as between the unincorporated employers' association and the unincorporated trade union and that, in order to make the situation equitable as between these two types of bodies, we should give this wider protection to the unincorporated employers' association.
      We responded to the CBI view on this in Committee with Government amendments to Clauses 3 and 10. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not think me unkind if I say that Amendments Nos. 52, 53 and 54 are anti-CBI amendments and that I stand here to defend the CBI, which is not my normal function in life.
      Mr. Richard Wainwright: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he could scarcely pay a greater compliment than to say that these clauses are anti-CBI?
      Mr. Booth: I thought that I said that the amendments were anti-CBI. But if
      1500
      what I said was a compliment to the amendments, I was ill-advised to say it. If I said that, there is no withdrawing it and it is on the record for all time. However, there has been no complaint made by employers about it.
      We have created a position of equity as between the unincorporated employers' association and unincorporated trade union, and we feel that that is proper since they are both engaged solely in activities as between employers and workers.
      The effect of Amendments Nos. 57, 58 and 59 would be to add special register bodies to those in Clause 5(2) which are placed on the lists of trade unions and employers' associations kept by the Registrar of Friendly Societies without their having to make an application.
      The position at present is that any special register organisation can make an application. In Committee, by an amendment to Clause 2, the Government eased the position of the special register organisations by allowing them to retain corporate status. If they meet the definition of a trade union in Clause 25, they will be entered on the list by the Registrar of Friendly Societies on making application.
      The hon. and learned Member for Southport made special reference to the United Kingdom Commercial Travellers' Association. As always in these matters, he was courteous enough to inform me of his intention of doing so. As a result, I have been able to look at the position of this organisation. It is by no means a typical one, but, since the question has been asked, I am obliged to address myself to it.
      I understand that within the provisions of the memorandum of the association, which is an incorporated body, there are statements as to the aims and purposes which indicate that the association exists to improve the status and qualification of commercial travellers, to regulate relations between commercial travellers and their employers, to promote professional standards among commercial travellers, to arrange the provision of insurance benefits for its members, and to arrange the provision of legal assistance for its members. It is not stated that the association exists to carry out collective bargaining. The question of whether it fell within the definition would be for the

      1501
      Registrar of Friendly Societies to decide, presumably on the basis of its aims in stating that it exists to regulate relations between commercial travellers and employers. I cannot give a guarantee on this. It would be a matter for the Registrar of Friendly Societies to decide. Presumably it is open to the association between now and the passing of the Bill to take legal advice and act accordingly, as can any other organisation which feels that it could qualify as a special register body, and apply for transfer afterwards.
      In amending the Bill in this way it is not our intention to exclude any particular bodies. The amendment is not aimed at affecting any special register organisation. It is our intention that any special register body, whether incorporated or not, providing it falls within the definition of a trade union contained in Clause 25 of the Bill, shall be able to make an application and succeed in that application. Special register organisations are not in the same category as those covered by Clause 5(2). If they had met the definition of a trade union under the 1971 Act there might have been no need for a special register.
      We have gone a long way since the Second Reading of this Bill to meet the very proper concern of the overwhelming majority, if not all, of the special register bodies. We have dealt with the question of their corporate status. We hope that there will be no difficulties in the application of the clause as it now stands amended. We hope that the clause will commend itself to the House and that the hon. and learned Gentleman, in view of this explanation, will consider withdrawing the amendment.
      Mr. Percival: This debate will have served a very useful purpose. It has brought out a consideration to which the special register bodies may not have directed their attention. All special register bodies have assumed they will now be registered and will not meet with any difficulty. This debate will have drawn their attention to the fact that all the hurdles may not have been removed. This is good. They can now turn their attention to that point. I hope the Minister will ensure through his Department that special register bodies who have made representations have their attention drawn to this fact so that if
      1502
      they want to make any further representations in another place they can do so.
      The Minister has introduced parity between the unions and the employers' associations in relation to the protections to which he referred but at the expense of preferring unincorporated to incorporated bodies in both cases, a distinction which we find hard to understand. We could understand it if the employers' associations were to enjoy protection in respect of all their activities. We have in our amendment limited the protection given to employers' associations to protection in connection with the regulation of relations between workers and employers. That seems to us to meet the case.
      The Minister has dealt with Amendment No. 44, but not with Amendments Nos. 47 and 48, including the question whether the Government may inadvertently unincorporate a body. Those points may best be pursued in another place. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      10.45 p.m.
      Mr. Christopher Tugendhat: I beg to move Amendment No. 50, in page 3, subsection (5), paragraph (b), leave out from 'voidable' to end of clause.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
      No. 51, in page 3, paragraph (b), leave out 'voidable' to end of clause and add—
      "Provided always that nothing in this subsection or otherwise in this Act contained shall prejudice or in any way reduce the Common Law rights of a person who has applied to join but not been given membership of or who claims to be and to remain a member of or who has been expelled from a trade union or render valid or enforceable any rule or decision relied upon by the trade union which in the circumstances of the case would be held to be void or unenforceable under and according to the Common Law."
      No. 55, in page 4, clause 3, subsection (5), paragraph (b), leave out from ' voidable ' to end of clause.
      No. 56, in page 4, subsection (5), paragraph (b), leave out from ' voidable ' to end of clause and insert—
      "Provided always that nothing in this subsection or otherwise in this Act contained shall prejudice or in any way reduce the Common

      1503
      Law rights of a person who has applied to join but not been given membership of or who claims to be and to remain a member of or who has been expelled from an employers association or render valid or enforceable any rule or decision relied upon by the employers association which in the circumstances of the case would be held to be void or unenforceable under and according to the Common Law."
      Mr. Tugendhat: On Report of a major Bill the strategy of the Opposition Front Bench, of which I have little experience, is somewhat difficult. We have gone over the arguments on many of the clauses at length and in great detail in Committee and the House is anxious to make progress. I think that nine-tenths of hon. Members present in the House now served in Committee, so they are reasonably familiar with the points at issue. Therefore, we are paying no disrespect to the Bill, and certainly no disrespect to the changes that the Opposition would like to bring about, if we take as read many of the arguments and do not go over too much old ground to show our dedication either to changing or to supporting the Bill. In that sense I offer the Minister of State a non-aggression pact which I feel sure he will be happy to take up.
      When my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) suggested that I should move this amendment, which he dealt with in Committee, I faced the prospect with some trepidation, because I draw a clear distinction in my mind between legal and non-legal amendments, and I think of myself as a distinctly non-legal person. However, my hon. and learned Friend said that common law was common sense. Though I rather doubted that proposition when he made it, I have decided, since studying the issue, that on this occasion he is right.
      The key point in the amendment is our view of the Bill as it stands. This is the point of difference between the two sides of the House.
      Our view is that the Bill limits the rights of courts to provide common law remedies in favour of individuals who are arbitrarily excluded or expelled from trade unions. The position is not clear. Indeed, if it had been clear there would have been no need to raise it on Report. But our position is clear. It is that when there is any doubt in a matter of this
      1504
      kind that doubt should be resolved in favour of the individual.
      We accept that trade unions rarely misuse their powers against individuals. Clearly an organisation that exists to support the interests of its members is hardly likely to make a practice of trampling on their rights. We are not suggesting anything of that kind. However, we feel that in any human organisation fallibility and error can occur and that the Bill provides a loophole for abuse. Therefore, we believe that any loophole should be stopped up.
      We recognise the point made by the Minister of State in Committee that individuals can be unreasonable, can have unreasonable recourse to law, and involve organisations in tedious and expensive litigation. We accept that that certainly can happen. But the Minister of State also said—perhaps this is more important—that the Bill does not and is not intended to reduce common law rights.
      That is a fine statement of intent but it was not backed by legal opinion. The Law Officers of the previous Government regularly attended the debates on the Industrial Relations Bill, and if the present Law Officers had been given a run over the course, we might have been clearer on this point. But it was not to be, and we had to rely on the Minister's interesting but necessarily less than authoritative summary.
      The problem is that the 1871 Act limits the common law rights of individuals in favour of unions. We accept that, as we made clear in Committee, if we had not made it clear before. But the limitation under Section 3 of that Act applies to purposes and not to rules. The Bill explicitly extends that protection to rules—a vital difference. Not all rules are necessarily covered by the word "purposes". There is a distinct extension of the principle in the Bill.
      We believe that legislation should as clearly as possible enshrine the principles on which society—not just a sectional interest, however important and wideranging—is based. If the Government altered the Bill along these lines, an important principle would be strengthened. When in doubt, we should err on the side of the individual.
      Mr. Booth: I appreciate the terms in which the hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Tugendhat) moved the amendment. He need not express his trepidation when addressing himself to these complex matters. I had far greater trepidation when I first faced them in Committee. If I have a little less now it is only because I have been able to restudy the issue. I am a student who learns a little more each time he studies a subject. My job is to me an open university. I am learning all the time, and nowhere more than in the area covered by the amendments.
      Amendments Nos. 50 and 55 would remove the provision that the rule of a union or employers' association shall not be unlawful or unenforceable by reason only that it is in restraint of trade. Amendments Nos. 51 and 56 would provide that the common law rights of would-be members of those bodies to bring cases against them are preserved notwithstanding the organisations' protection from action on grounds of restraint of trade.
      Clause 2(5) and Clause 3(5) maintain the protection afforded by Section 135 of the Industrial Relations Act 1971, which is the basic protection of Sections 2 and 3 of the 1871 Act. So the point at issue has presumably been enshrined in the law of the land for over a century. In the first challenge to it of significance in recent times, namely, Faramus v. Film Artists' Association in 1963, the House of Lords upheld a majority decision by the Court of Appeal that Section 3 of the 1871 Act protected the rules as well as the purposes of a trade union. There was no doubt at that stage that the House of Lords took the view which I am arguing tonight—that the rules and the purposes of a trade union are protected by Section 3 of the 1871 Act. They are protected now by Section 135 of the Industrial Relations Act 1971. However, Lord Denning had proffered the minority view that Section 3 did not leave unions free to make any rule, however unreasonable it was, in restraint of trade.
      There was also, in the case of Edwards v. SOGAT in 1971, in the obiter dicta of Lords Denning and Sachs, an implication, at least, that the protection of Section 3 might be set aside in determining that
      1506
      certain "purposes" in the rules were not proper to a trade union.
      Those are the only two instances that I can find, with the benefit of many legal advisers in the Department, where there has been any doubt thrown upon the basic proposition that the rules and purposes of the trade unions are covered by Section 3 of the 1871 Act. The clause in its present form removes that doubt. Therefore, it may be held—and it has been alleged—that we are removing a doubt which may have benefited an individual in bringing an action. There has been no proof or demonstration of that. The fact that the reference to this matter in Edwards v. SOGAT was in an obiter dicta shows that it was not crucial to Mr. Edwards winning his case in any way.
      Mr. Percival: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the effect of what he has said is that the Government are here removing a doubt by knocking on the head an argument which was advanced in those two cases and was accepted in one of those cases, Edwards v. SOGAT? What the Government are doing is making quite clear that the argument which was advanced in those two cases and succeeded in one of them cannot in future be advanced.
      Mr. Booth: Let me make the position clear on my understanding. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that the argument was advanced in both cases. In one of the cases, Edwards v. SOGAT, it was contained in an obiter dicta. There was not an argument of the case as such which had a bearing on the outcome. The outcome was favourable to Mr. Edwards without this doubt.
      Mr. Percival: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is right about that. In the judgment of Lord Justice Sachs, he considered whether Section 3 was effective in that case to preclude the plaintiff from succeeding, and decided that it was not. I do not know why the hon. Gentleman says that that was obiter.
      Mr. Booth: My understanding was that the obiter dicta of Lords Denning and Sachs were obiter dicta precisely because they were not absolutely relevant to the judgment in the particular case. In that case the union was not seeking to argue that it did not have a liability but merely to limit the compensation. In the case of Faramus v. Film Artists' Association it

      1507
      was a minority view which was being expressed, and the majority view was upheld by the House of Lords in their decision.
      Therefore, I contend that what we are doing in presenting the clause in this way, and what the amendment would undo, is merely an affirmation of what the common law rights are at present of people who would seek to bring an action against a trade union in this particular case. But it is not our intention that anyone's rights should be limited or that his protection should be removed. It is our belief that we are doing in the Bill is dealing with a limited part of the total area which is appropriate for law in regard to industrial relations.
      11.0 p.m.
      The House will in the very near future have to turn its attention to the question of trade unions and labour relations and consider how far it is appropriate to extend our law into the protection of employment. I hope that we shall be proposing such a Bill shortly, and in preparing for such a Bill we shall certainly have to bear in mind the questions which arise.
      The House should therefore be grateful to the hon. Members who tabled these amendments in Committee and on Report. They raise issues which may lead us to disagree about how the question should be tackled or whether it is appropriate that it should be considered, but there is unanimity in this House that in making law we must protect individuals' common law rights in so far as that is compatible. It is still my intention that tonight we should freeze or enshrine the common law position until the House comes to consider the question of employment protection.
      Mr. Tugendhat: The Minister of State said that his job had been an Open University, and it certainly seems to yield impressive results when he sets out to tackle these complex legal issues. I shall not disguise the fact that we are not entirely happy with his interpretation of it. We accept the good faith in which he puts forward his proposals. Of course, we accept the intentions he says underlie this part of the Bill. We feel that there is an unfortunate wording and we should place that on the record, but we will not
      1508
      press the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    Clause 4

      SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS ABOUT PRO PERTY OF TRADE UNIONS AND UNINCORPORATED EMPLOYERS' ASSOCI ATIONS
      Amendment made: No. 3, in page 4A, at end insert:
      '(8) In relation to a trade union or an employers' association whose principal office is situated in Scotland, references in this section to the appointment and to the discharge of a trustee shall be construed as including respectively references to the assumption and to the resignation of a trustee, and references to an instrument appointing, and to an instrument discharging, a trustee shall be construed accordingly '.—[Mr. John Fraser.]

    Clause 5

      LISTS OF TRADE UNIONS AND EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS
      Amendment made: No. 4, in page 5, line 29, leave out ' or ' and insert:
      ' on 30th September 1971 or was registered at any time '.—[Mr. John Fraser.]
      Mr. Tugendhat: I beg to move Amendment No. 61, in page 5, line 33, at end insert:
      '(5A) The Registrar shall not under subsection (3) above enter the name of any organisation in the relevant list unless he is satisfied that the organisation applying to have its name entered in the relevant list has made adequate provisions for complying with the requirements of sections 7 and 8 of this Act '.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With it we may also take Amendment No. 62, in page 5, line 37, after association ', insert:
      'or that it is not complying with a requirement imposed upon it by this or any other Act'.
      Mr. Tugendhat: We do not propose to press these amendments. We had a very thorough discussion on these matters in Committee and I think that each side made its views clear to the other. The only reason we are raising the matter at this late hour is that the Minister of State, as reported in column 407 of the Standing Committee report, gave the undertaking that he would look into the question of union records. He suggested

      1509
      he was not entirely happy with the situation as it was. He said he would come back to the House on Report, and these amendments would appear to give him the opportunity to do exactly that.
      Mr. John Fraser: As the House knows I was not a member of the Committee, but I have read the reports of the debates which took place. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) will subsequently be moving an amendment which will be accepted by the Government.
      It is a matter of judgment whether the amendment is necessary. We have had another look at the matter. Only a tiny handful of trade unions would be denied access to the register because most of them would go on to it automatically, and an even smaller, possibly infinitesimal number of trade unions might find their way off the register if the amendment were accepted and if they did not observe the provisions of Clauses 7 and 8 as now drafted.
      We believe that it is probably better for the registrar to be able to identify trade unions which may be in breach of the obligations under Clauses 7 and 8. We believe that these duties are absolute. We believe that that ought to apply to trade unions and that penalties ought to follow.
      We think that on balance it is better that they are not denied registration because the chances of identifying something going wrong on the register are probably higher than if they are not identifiable at all. I hope that the Opposition accept our judgment on this. We have examined the matter carefully. There will be a minor change proposed later, which can be accepted. I hope, therefore, that the amendment can be withdrawn.
      Mr. Tugendhat: On that basis we are prepared to withdraw the amendment. Clearly the Government agree with us in the nature of our concern. They have a different view as to how that concern can be tackled and only time will tell whether they or we are right. In the light of what the Under-Secretary has said about this amendment, and about the acceptance of a later amendment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    Clause 8

      DUTIES AS TO ANNUAL RETURNS, AUDITORS AND MEMBERS' SUPERANNUATION SCHEMES.
      Mr. Onslow: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 7, line 41, at end insert—
      '(5) The Registrar shall at all reasonable hours keep available for public inspection, either free of charge or on payment of a reasonable charge, copies of all annual returns sent to him under this section.'
      It is only right that I should express thanks to the Minister of State for his assistance in ensuring that we got the right words in the right place in relation to this matter. I hope that he did not find it necessary to call in the services of any of those intellectual gentlemen with far-away-sounding names upon whom the Government Front Bench seems to rely so heavily at times. On this occasion Anglo-Saxon logic and a good bit of common sense has enabled us to attempt to improve the Bill.
      If the amendment is accepted, as I have every reason to hope it will be, we shall provide in future that back numbers of reports sent to the registrar by trade unions or employers' associations shall be available for inspection in the same way as was pointed out in Committee, as Companies House already makes back numbers of company reports available to anyone with a legitimate interest in them.
      The Government accepted the argument which I advanced in Committee that it was desirable that this should apply just as much to trade unions and employers' associations as it does to companies. No doubt the Government, in coming to that conclusion, were much impressed by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr), who volunteered support for my proposition—which is something neither I nor the Minister of State normally expects.
      I will not push my luck any further now. I hope no one says that I have got the matter wrong, and I hope that there will be no difficulty in persuading the House to accept the amendment.
      Mr. Ronald Brown: I am not quite sure as to the appropriate way in which I should intervene in this matter, but in

      1511
      the Standing Committee an attack was made by the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) relating to the Furniture, Timber and Allied Trades Union. The hon. Member quoted a case which was grossly untrue, and he has since been informed about this. I understand that the hon. Member was written to and was given an absolute assurance on the circumstances of the case. The situation is entirely contrary to what he stated.
      Mr. Hayhoe: If the hon. Gentleman looks at reports of the subsequent proceedings of the Committee he will see that my hon. Friend withdrew and made a personal statement to that effect, and that a personal statement was also made by the Minister concerned. As is the normal form on such occasions, those matters were not debateable, but I think that the Committee fully understood and accepted the personal explanations given.
      Mr. Brown: I can only say that I have searched through the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee proceedings. Presumably it was caught up in the printing problem. I am satisfied that the House has the true facts.
      Mr. Booth: The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) deserves all the credit for the improvement in the Bill that is being made by the amendment. All that has been done by my Department is to bring to his objective a form of words totally compatible with it. We did not have to go to any legal luminaries, professors of any particular persuasion or outside bodies. It was done by the good sense of those within the Department.
      I join the hon. Gentleman in commending the amendment to the House.
      Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 9

      OFFENCES
      Mr. Hayhoe: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 9, line 7, leave out £200 ' and insert '£400'.
      We debated this matter in Committee, where I proposed an amendment that the figure should be £500. The Minister of State produced very convincing arguments that £500 was inappropriate, but
      1512
      he gave an undertaking to consider £400. I understand that the amendment may well be acceptable to the Government.
      We started today's proceedings on an immensely harmonious note. If the Secretary of State moved the appropriate motion after two amendments from the Opposition side of the House had been accepted by the Government, we might end the proceedings on an equally harmonious note.
      Mr. Booth: I join the hon. Gentleman in commending the amendment to the House. He will have achieved a considerable improvement in the Bill by it.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Mr. Foot: We certainly have made good progress, and I trust that we shall make equally good progress tomorrow.
      Therefore, I beg to move, That further consideration of the Bill, as amended, be now adjourned.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered tomorrow.

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

RATING AND DEVELOPMENT (BEDFORDSHIRE)
11.12 p.m.
Mr. David Model: The title I have chosen for this short debate is "Rating and development problems in South Bedfordshire". I assume that fairly soon the Minister will be present to reply.
There have been a number of debates on rating and development problems throughout the country. Bedfordshire is no different from any other county in having experienced in the past two years considerable increases in its rating bill. That is why, in view of the present situation and the burden the county is carrying, I have sought to raise the matter.
In the past year the rates have gone up in Bedfordshire by more than 50 per cent. In these inflationary times a great

1513
worry is expressed by many people about how they will meet the bill.
I see that the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) is now in his seat on the Government Front Bench. I should like to thank him for seeing a delegation from Bedfordshire 10 days ago. He is having a double dose, because I am now raising the question of our rates and development problems. I should like to thank the Minister and his staff for seeing us 10 days ago. I thank him for the answers that he gave then and I hope that he will be able to answer some of my points this evening.
The biggest item making up the 50 per cent. increase in the Bedfordshire rates bill is the education budget. In 1973–74 it cost the county £30,326,000. That is adding together the old County Borough of Luton and the old Bedfordshire County Council. This year, local reorganisation having put the authorities together, the estimated expenditure on education is £35,842,000—in other words, an increase of over £5 million. In addition, 1974–75 has seen Luton County Borough and the old county council merge into the new county, bringing about an increase of approximately 3,600 pupils, an increase of practically double the national average. From what I gather the number of pupils has increased by 8 per cent., thereby adding heavily to the county's education bill. Teachers' salaries this year will cost the county £18 million.
If we take what I call the middle-way argument and we transfer part of the education budget to Whitehall—for example, a proportion which would cover teachers' salaries—the domestic ratepayer would be saved £18 million this year.
Since I last saw the Minister a further crisis in the county has arisen over its reserve fund. I quote from the Luton Evening Post of last Friday, which says:
"Local councils in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire are heading into desperate financial trouble. In just three months some have already spent or earmarked the whole of their reserve budgets for the current financial year … Bedfordshire County Council, for instance, is already committed to spending £1·7 million of its £2·2 million reserve fund for the year."
There is gloomy talk about "retrenchment" and "cut-backs". The article continues:
1514
"There has even been one suggestion, rejected for the time being, that another rate will have to be levied if things get really desperate."
The crisis has deepened since we saw the Minister some 10 days ago. The reserve fund crisis has basically been brought about, so the county treasurer tells us, by the threshold agreement that the county is obliged to pay. He indicated that threshold agreements and increases in student grants have brought about the reserve fund crisis.
I briefly bracket together three topics—namely, overspill, the general growth of the county and the green belt. In South Bedfordshire the main overspill area is Houghton Regis. A point that is often put to me is that basic facilities are then required such as shops, pubs, phone kiosks, playing areas and community halls. It is argued correctly that those are the facilities that should be provided, given the increased housing development.
In Bedfordshire, though housing is still short, community facilities have not kept pace with housing development. If I may use a rather ugly metaphor, the housing horse is racing away from the community development cart.
I now turn to the growth of the county. I hope that it will be remembered that on our doorstep is Milton Keynes. That is an area that is also growing rapidly. We have special development problems in Houghton Regis. A major worry for me as the constituency Member is that community facilities are not keeping pace with the rapid housing development. Further housing development is bound up with the proposed green belt in South Bedfordshire. This was first proposed in 1960 and has never been confirmed.
What causes anguish to many people is the fact that sometimes there is development into the proposed green belt while on other occasions a person cannot get permission to build a bungalow in his garden or to build a couple of houses because he is told that they would come within the proposed green belt. There is this inconsistency which causes great upset. I hope the Minister can tell us whether we will be getting our proposed green belt confirmed. The present situation is unsatisfactory because it is half a green belt and half not a green belt for planning decision purposes.

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We have recently had the report of the Luton, Dunstable and Houghton Regis Transportation Study Group. I cannot go into the whole report now, but there are three recommendations which stand out. The first is the commitment to build the north-south A5 bypass in Dunstable, which is welcome news. That would take a lot of traffic out of the centre of Dunstable.
Equally welcome news is the abandonment of the proposed Dunstable inner ring road. Thirdly, there is the proposal for a super bus service, with a bus running every seven and a half minutes during the working day, providing a greatly improved public bus service. Given the present rating system it simply is not possible to run this expensive bus service. If we are to have such a service—and it would be welcome—it would have to be tide in with a reform of the rating system.
Earlier this year I was told that the Government were reviewing the criteria for imposing 30-mph speed limits in villages. That was welcome news because we need such limits in every village in South Bedfordshire. The villages there are not built for fast traffic flows. How far have the Government got with 30-mph limit review and how soon will they be able to publish proposals?
The subject of bypasses is very much tied in with speed limits. We need more bypasses in South Bedfordshire. I think particularly of the villages of Barton, Toddington and Leighton Buzzard, all of which are groaning under the weight of heavy traffic going through them. Leighton Buzzard in particular needs the southern access road. Road use is rising rapidly all the time in South Bedfordshire and I hope that we shall soon be moving towards a date for the construction of bypasses in these villages.
The Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act 1973—a thoroughly welcome reform—needs to be implemented as quickly as possible in South Bedfordshire. As the onus is on the county council to provide alternative routes for heavy traffic, will there be a feasibility study of the disused railway line between Dunstable and Leyton Buzzard with a view to converting that into a route for heavy lorries only? It may or may not be possible. If it were, it would get rid of heavy traffic from
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the villages between Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard.
I come now to the subject of the local ombudsman. The Minister for Planning and Local Government wrote to me on 27th June saying that the Government were considering how the work load of the local ombudsmen was developing. He said:
"It may eventually be necessary to build up to seven or eight Local Commissioners for the whole of England, but I should judge it most unlikely that a Commissioner will ever be needed for every county."
I hope that the Government can get some publicity across to the people in my constituency and in the country generally about the work of the local ombudsmen. Three have been appointed. It is important that ratepayers should know more about them. I am not necessarily committed to one per county but we shall need more than three if local grievances are to be remedied, as is hoped for and laid down in the Local Government Act 1972.
I hope that we can have regional ombudsmen. We could certainly do with one in the Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire area. In South Bedfordshire we are being asked to do a great deal for ourselves and for London—for ourselves in improving our schools, roads and community facilities and for London by taking overspill. In view of the rating increases we need more central Government help and a changed rating system.
On the question of the future development of South Bedfordshire, there are four golden rules which I hope planners and developers and central and local government will always remember. First, let us not allow complete building up between South Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes. We are in danger of building up from central London a long way towards Birmingham. I hope that the planners will remember that Milton Keynes, with its rapid development, is on our doorstep.
Secondly, will planners please remember the need for a balance between cars and buses. There is a great need for improved public transport in South Bedfordshire. Many of the inhabitants are car owners and many workers earn their daily bread by manufacturing cars. We could almost be regarded as a pilot area for the striking of a proper balance between the

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use of cars and buses. There is a vital need for improved bus services, bearing in mind that we are used to full employment and not everyone can get to work by car. I mentioned the super bus service and the problems of Houghton Regis. That area is particularly in need of improved bus services.
The third golden rule concerns the balance between village and town. So far there is a reasonable balance, but there are fears that many villages might be joined up to Dunstable or Leighton Buzzard and that the whole area will be built up. A proper balance between village and town enriches the community.
Fourthly, let the planners always remember that as the number of working hours per week drops greater onus is put on local authorities for the improvement of leisure facilities. There are few leisure facilities in South Bedfordshire and we need many more. We are used to full employment, a high level of exports, a high level of training and, on the whole, a high standard of living. We have never suffered from unemployment as have many other parts of the country. With rapid development comes the desire for improved community facilities. We are not keeping pace with the essentials that make for a more civilised life. People work long hours in arduous conditions in the engineering manufacturing industry, and when they come home after a hard day's work—or a hard night's work—they desperately want better leisure facilities. They also want their journey to work to be easier.
In helping ourselves and in helping London with its problems we need not only more Government assistance, but a changed rating system which will ease the burden on the Bedfordshire ratepayer.
11.27 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Gordon Oakes): I apologise to the House and to the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Madel) for missing the first minute of the debate. I am glad, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman is, that we are able to have the debate before midnight and not at 3 o'clock in the morning. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks about the delegation which he brought to see me. My officials and I learnt a great deal
1518
from that delegation which will be of assistance to us.
The hon. Gentleman spoke first of the rate increase in South Bedfordshire. I accept that the domestic rate bill in South Bedfordshire has this year gone up by 40·44 per cent., as against an average for the country as a whole of 30 per cent., although by alteration of the variable domestic element to a fixed element the district gained by 1½p—from 11½p to 13p.
Although there have been slight variations in the amount of domestic relief, there is still basic objection to the vast increase in rates this year. We are the first Government in history to put the whole matter of rates to a completely independent inquiry which is to report next year. The job of the inquiry is to find a better alternative rating system, if one can be found.
I accept the point made by the hon. Gentleman and by his delegation that the existing rate system is becoming burdensome on many people, and we have set up this independent inquiry to see whether better methods of raising local finance can be found.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the education budget. One problem arises from the formula that was adopted by our predecessors in the needs element. The key difficulty that I have found is that the formula is based on 1971–72 figures. That is all right if the authority is static, but if an authority is growing at the rate at which the hon. Gentleman's constituency is growing, working on figures that are nearly four years old results in an adverse effect on the district concerned. I hope that this year, in the work that we are doing with the local authority associations and in the sample dips with authorities, we shall consider whether we can work on this year's estimates, rather than on figures from the old, dead authorities, in fixing the rate support grant. That would clearly take away many of the difficulties that are being experienced in expanding areas such as South Bedfordshire.
The hon. Gentleman went on to discuss the question of a supplementary rate support increase order. I appreciate the difficulties facing the hon. Gentleman's district and the county. We are discussing with the Treasury the possibility—I do

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not hold out a lot of hope on this—of making advances of the rate support grant early because of the cash flow and critical problems of local authority finance in this unusual year.
I understand that it is never done to say that this Dispatch Box that an increase order will be brought in, but I have never known a year when such an order was more likely to come. Having said that and thereby squared myself with the Treasury, I have to go on to say that it will meet only a proportion of the cost of the threshold agreement and the results of inflation. I advise the hon. Gentleman's authority to exercise a little patience and wait to see what we do in this direction. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are aware of the cash flow and the critical problems of the local authorities.
The hon. Gentleman went on to mention student grants. Here I give credit to our predecessors, because 90 per cent. of student grants are met from national resources. The figure used to be 75 per cent. There may still be a problem, but it is not as great as it used to be when a greater proportion had to be met locally. The hon. Gentleman is lucky in having within his area a greater proportion of students than one finds in many areas, and therefore this may be a particular problem in Bedfordshire in general. I now propose to say something about development within the hon. Gentleman's area. When he was dealing with Houghton Regis, the hon. Gentleman said that "the housing horse was racing away". I cannot accept that with regard to Houghton Regis. The first stage of the scheme was for 1,430 houses, and that was completed. The second stage, which began in 1970—four years ago—was for 2,500 houses, of which 430 have been completed and about 160 are under construction.
That represents little more than 100 houses a year in the Houghton Regis scheme, and neither the South Bedfordshire District Council nor the Bedfordshire County Council has complained about the rate of development of the infrastructure. It is understood that there is no problem over the provision of junior schools, although the provision of middle schools may be delayed as a result of
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the changes announced last December by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer. In other respects, social provision is keeping pace with the expansion. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that an all-weather sports pitch should be available by September and there is a plan for a swimming pool. It is hoped that social provisions will keep pace with what is at present not a rapid expansion of Houghton Regis at the rate of just over 100 houses a year.
The hon. Gentleman went on to deal with a subject which I know is dear to his heart, because he has regularly raised in the House, both with the previous Government and with this Government—matters affecting the green belt and developments within it. He asked me whether South Bedfordshire would be getting its green belt, and getting it quickly.
This matter started as long ago as 1960, when the proposed green belt was first envisaged. In view of the planning changes introduced by the Tory Government in the Local Government Act in 1972, we think that the strategic plan to be issued by the Bedfordshire County Council, which may well contain many of the proposals at present in existence in the half and half world of the green belt the hon. Gentleman referred to, should be a definitive document. This is a local matter for Bedfordshire to decide. As soon as the difficulties are resolved, I hope that Bedfordshire will issue the strategic plan and then the problem of what is green belt and what is not will be firm for all to see—the House, the Department, the county council, and—most important of all—the developers and the hon. Gentleman's constituents.
The hon. Gentleman went on to raise the question of roads and the bypass to the A5. The report of the Luton and Dunstable Transportation Study has only recently been received in the Department and its detailed recommendations are still under examination, so I cannot comment in detail. The hon. Gentleman said that he was delighted that there would be a plan for an A5 bypass. I understand that there are no plans to build a wholly A5 bypass, although the study recognised the limited north-south bypass for Dunstable.
There are, however, two schemes in the preparation list to provide a relief road

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to A505, running east-west in Luton and Dunstable. Similarly, there is a scheme in the preparation list to bypass Toddington on A5120. Under the new system of transport supplementary grant being introduced on 1st April 1975, it will be for Bedfordshire County Council to decide on the priorities and timing of these schemes.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned speed limits in villages. I am aware of the problems, both generally and in my constituency. I am aware, too, that in the hon. Gentleman's constituency there is the problem of lorries carrying bricks that go on some village roads. I know that the county council and district council are well aware of this and will be taking account of the hon. Gentleman's point as to the 30 mph limit. I regret to say that at present I cannot take the matter further than did my hon. Frend the Under-Secretary in reply to the hon. Gentleman's question.
The hon. Gentleman then mentioned Barton. I am not a Bedfordshire man, and I must ask the hon Gentleman whether I am right in assuming that he was referring to Barton-in-the-Clay, on the A6.
Mr. Madel: Yes.
Mr. Oakes: There is a scheme to bypass the village in the preparation pool, but again this would be a matter for the county council to resolve. It does not form part of the proposed first stage of the lorry route network, which has not yet been published, and there is little likelihood that work will start on the Barton-in-the-Clay bypass before 1980 because of the difficulties of the availability of finance for roads. I repeat that this will be a matter for the Bedfordshire County Council to consider in its transportation study.
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The suggestion was made by the hon. Gentleman that there should be seven or eight ombudsmen. We have decided to follow the decision of the Conservative Government and to appoint initially three Commissioners for Local Government. If the need arises for further commissioners, more could be appointed. What is envisaged is that the three commissioners will each have responsibility for a specific region. If more commissioners are needed then they could be appointed for other regions, but it would be wasteful if it were decided to appoint seven or eight commissioners, with the necessary staff and all the rest of it, and it were then discovered that we did not need as many as seven or eight. It is better to proceed slowly and to appoint three to begin with. I would not go along with the hon. Gentleman in thinking that there would be sufficient work for county commissioners, but if there is need for regional commissioners additional people could be brought in subsequently.
I appreciate that the area in question is an intake area from London, but the hon. Gentleman's concluding remarks pose a dilemma which any Government, be it Labour or Conservative, would face at present in terms of local government. This relates to the demand for better local services and on the other hand for a reduction in rates. I can well understand the hon. Gentleman seeking to ask for better 'bus services and other services in the area—
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at eighteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.

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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Manchester.

LORD HOUGHTON OF SOWERBY
The Right Honourable Arthur Leslie Noel Douglas Houghton, C.H., having been created Baron Houghton of Sowerby of Sowerby in the County of West Yorkshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Crook and the Lord Geddes of Epsom, and made the solemn Affirmation.
LORD PANNELL
The Right Honourable Thomas Charles Pannell, having been created Baron Pannell, of the City of Leeds, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Gaitskell and the Baroness Bacon, and made the solemn Affirmation.

NATIONAL COAL BOARD: CAPITAL EXPENDITURE
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what sums of money are approved for capital expenditure by the National Coal Board in the coal mines for 1975 and 1974, and how these figures compare with sums similarly approved in 1972 and 1973.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (LORD BALOGH): My Lords, capital expenditure by the National Coal Board is related to financial years. The amounts approved for expenditure on coal mining (including opencast) in the financial years 1971/72, 1972/73 and 1973/74 were £86 million, £81 million and £81 million respectively, all at 1974 prices. The amount approved for 1974/75 is £95
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million. The Board's expenditure in 1975/76 will not be settled until the completion of the current Public Expenditure Survey.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, thank the noble Lord for that reply. May I draw his attention to the fact that the coal industry's interim report made by the Department of Energy forecasts that with this injection of capital our target! for the production of coal can be achieved only if there is an increase in productivity of about 4 per cent? Have the Government realised that as between May last year and May this year the production per man has not increased by 4 per cent., as is essential, but has actually decreased by 6 per cent? Does this not mean that we may not be able to achieve the results which will justify such capital expenditure?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, without trying to make debating and political points, may I remind the noble Lord that there were certain unfortunate happenings in the coal industry during the past year which he quoted? May I assure him, however, that the beginnings of the £600 million programme are included and that the trade unions and the Coal Board are in negotiation about a productivity deal. Therefore, we all hope, without any Party difference, that the revivified coal industry will meet with success.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that the loss of productivity is due to two factors? The first is the deliberate confrontation by the Tory Party against the miners in creating an Election earlier this year, and the second is lack of manpower. Is my noble friend further aware that we would rather see capital put into the mining industry, where there is public accountability, than millions of pounds given to private industry where there is no public accountability?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I share entirely my noble friend's attitude.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, when does my noble friend think we shall be able to get over to noble Lords, who ask Questions regarding productivity in the mining industry, that it is based on two factors: first, machine mining; and, secondly, hand production? This is not like

547
working on the surface operating machinery in a factory.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I would not venture to teach my noble friend about the coal industry, because that would be inappropriate.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is it not the case that the very large sum which was mentioned—I think it was £600 million—for capital development includes the capital cost of proceeding with the Selby development in Yorkshire?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend will put clown a Question on that point, but I think he is right.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, may I finally put this point? I was not seek ing to make political points, as the noble Lord did, but was trying to compare May of last year with May of this year. I had hoped that the consequences of the winter were out of the way by May. I was com paring the productivity of May, 1973, with that of May, 1974. I am sure every noble Lord in this House—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Question!
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, is it right that most noble Lords in this House would wish to see any further wage award linked to productivity? This is the outcome of the vast capital expenditure now planned, and which was also planned by the previous Government, in our coal mines for the future. Up to date our productivity does not match that of Western Germany or the U.S.A. One must hope that the production—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Speech!
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, would noble Lords not agree—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No!
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, noble Lords may not agree but I can still ask the question. Is it not desirable that production should be as high as possible in the summer months, so that no Government
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in the autumn are confronted with no stocks in hand for power supplies, which would be disastrous for the future of our nation?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, this is much the longest question ever addressed to me. It had certain contradictory elements in it. As I have said, everybody is very much aware of the problems which the noble Lord quoted. We are trying to do our best to come to a solution, especially in a productivity agreement, and I hope we may leave it at that.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, will my noble friend agree that many of us feel nauseated at the constant pinpricks about the productivity of the miners, when there is a lack of productivity in many big businesses which have to come to the Government, like lame ducks, to be baled out? There are serious consequences involved in their industries.
LORD TAYLOR OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, can the noble Lord give the figures of increased productivity for the five years previous to the years mentioned in the Question?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, my noble friend ought to put down that Question, because it goes far from the original one.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend, in order to remove any misunderstanding from what appears to me to be implied criticism by the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, about the development costs that are likely to be entailed, whether it is possible to include information in the OFFICIAL REPORT—whenever we get an OFFICIAL REPORT, which is another question to be dealt with at some other time—so that we can understand what the development costs of proceeding with this huge Selby development affair are likely to be?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, my noble friend will understand that the Selby project will begin, perhaps, at some time after planning permission, et cetera, has been dealt with. Thus to include it in this year's programme or next year's programme in a meaningful way would be going too far.

GREATER LONDON DEVELOPMENT PLAN
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that sufficient progress is being made on the Report of the Public Inquiry into the Greater London Development Plan, and in particular on the proposals for speeding up overspill programmes.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has all the recommendations of the Layfield Panel of Inquiry into the Greater London Development Plan under active consideration, and he will be making a Statement as soon as possible. This will include overspill programmes.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his reply, may I ask whether he would help us by indicating the size of the problem? I believe that in 1972 there were 190,000 applicants on the list. Is the noble Lord able to indicate the approximate number at this time, and to say whether it is more or less than that figure?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I think the approximate number of families on London waiting lists amounts to something like 200,000.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that information, which suggests that the problem is more serious than it was two years ago. Would he agree that, in addition to considering the overspill programmes, there should be an urgent inquiry into the relationships between the outer boroughs and the inner boroughs in London, in view of the fact that there seems to be a reluctance on the part of the outer boroughs to receive people from the inner boroughs?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the point the right reverend Prelate makes in the latter part of his supplementary question is well appreciated, but I will draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what he has said.

LONDON DOCKLAND REDEVELOPMENT
3.5 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTH WARK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the arrangements now emerging between the Greater London Council and the relevant London boroughs with regard to the redevelopment of London's Dockland will be a satisfactory way of dealing with this area.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the Greater London Council and relevant borough councils have formed a Statutory Joint Committee to co-ordinate the redevelopment of London's Docklands. The Committee have made an encouraging start on producing a strategy for the area and should have positive plans ready by the end of the year. In the meantime, three sites comprising a total of 177 acres have already been released from the redevelopment area for early housing development. As the Committee are in existence it is only right that they ought to be given the opportunity to show that they arc capable of carrying out their task. In the meantime, a close watch is being kept on progress.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTH WARK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I ask him when he thinks there may be some evidence of measurable progress with regard to both house building and, alongside house building, the creation of opportunities for jobs in the areas?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, generally I would express agreement with what the right reverend Prelate has said.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT RULES OF CONDUCT
LORD WINDLESHAM: 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 when it is proposed to act on the

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recommendations of the Report of the Prime Minister's Committee on Local Government Rules of Conduct (Cmnd. 5636).
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I am sure it would be the wish of this House if I were to express our appreciation and that of the Government to the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, and his colleagues for their very valuable work and Report. Consultation with local authorities, associations and the interested bodies is being pursued urgently.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I should like to join with what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said in his tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, and his colleagues. But is the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, aware that there is real urgency in this matter? The Report was produced at short notice without delay. It makes specific recommendations, in particular for the adoption of a National Code of Local Government Conduct. In view of the continuing concern in this matter, will he try to ensure that these recommendations can be implemented without any further delay?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I recognise the urgency of this matter, but as I am sure the noble Lord would agree, this is a complex subject. It is a matter which goes to the very heart of local government work and responsibility. Therefore, it is right that there should be full and comprehensive consultation. That we are doing. We recently sent out a questionnaire to the various authorities and have asked for answers to be returned by September 30, and after that we should be in a position to be able to make definite proposals in this field. Of course, there are some aspects of the Report which could well be implemented by local authorities without any form of legislation.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, would implementation of the recommendations be by Act of Parliament or in some other way?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, some parts of the Report could be immediately implemented by local authorities themselves. A circular will be sent out, I
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think in the next few days, making particular recommendations to local authorities. Some aspects of the Report will require legislation, and that is the matter about which we are now wishing to consult with the local authorities and other associations.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, since the recent court cases relating to local authorities many local authorities are now taking action themselves by making councillors declare their interest. While we are awaiting implementation of this Report, we ought to give credit to the Councils which are now applying rigid rules in relation to their councillors in view of the recent unhappy events which have taken place.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, one of the matters of regret in public life is that where one unfortunate case occurs, serious though it may be, it tends to reflect upon the majority who give public service. I do not think there is any question about the outstanding integrity of not only those who serve as councillors but also the officials. If there is one bad case, nobody would wish to believe that this one bad case should reflect upon the body as a whole.
LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the kind remarks which have been made by the Leader of the House and the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition will give great pleasure to members of the Committee? Could he assure the House that in any circular which Ministers of Her Majesty's Government may send to local authorities in the near future there will be endorsement of the suggestion made in the Committee's Report, that without waiting for general endorsement by central and local government of a code of conduct, local authorities should be encouraged, if they approve it, to endorse as an interim measure the code of conduct which was drafted and presented in the Report?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord that clear assurance. Certainly there is much that the local authorities themselves could do in this matter without awaiting legislation.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord the Leader of

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the House has taken the spirit of this discussion: that in all quarters of the House there is real concern that this matter should be pursued without delay. Some aspects of it are complex. I agree with the noble Lord the Leader of the House in that respect. Some aspects may require legislation. However, on the central issue I hope that the noble Lord will agree that the draft code of conduct for local government councillors is something which the new local authorities could be urged now to adopt on a voluntary basis. I hope that the noble Lord will pursue this with his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: My Lords, may I take it from my noble friend that in spite of what he has said to the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, nevertheless he will have preliminary discussions with the local authority associations before making direct approaches to the local authorities?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if my noble friend will refer to my original Answer he will observe that I mentioned specifically the associations. I think that it is right that in this particular area there should be the fullest possible consultation. While I recognise the point which has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, concerning the need for urgency and for implementation of the recommendations, in my view and also in the view of the Government and of the House it should follow only as a consequence of the fullest possible consultation.

BUSINESS
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 my noble friend Lord Balogh will be making a Statement on nuclear reactor policy. Perhaps I should take this opportunity also to inform the House that we shall not be sitting next Friday, July 12.
TORQUAY MARKET BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

EDUCATION AND PARENTAL RIGHTS
3.15 p.m.
LORD BLAKE LORD BLAKE rose to draw the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the need to attain the highest standards throughout the educational system and to the importance of strengthening parental rights in education; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. It may not seem controversial to draw attention to the need for the highest standards in education or even to draw attention to the importance of strengthening parental rights. Perhaps it is a little like saying that one is against sin or in favour of virtue. Who is not—or, at any rate, who would say that he is not? But the matter is not quite as simple as it seems. The highest standards are not necessarily the only objective which an educational system might pursue. I mean by the attainment of the highest standards the objective of realising the full potential achievement of which every boy or girl is capable, not only in terms of acquiring knowledge and learning but also, and no less important, the desire to go on acquiring knowledge and to go on learning. That is not, however, the only objective which an educational system might have. Education could be conceived as a means of inculcating a particular ideology and there are many countries and many times, including the present, which have done just this. It could be used also to create a particular form of society—" social engineering" is the expression which is sometimes used. It can have the conscious purpose of creating a greater degree of equality between classes and individuals. Alternatively, it can be used to produce a greater degree of separation—a conscious class or racial hierarchy. And it has been used for that purpose,
My Lords, I should make it clear where I stand in this matter and where I think most noble Lords stand on this side of the House. We do not believe in the inculcation of an ideology; nor do we believe in social engineering. We do not consider that education should be consciously and deliberately aimed at producing a hierarchical élitist society, nor

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should it be aimed at producing an egalitarian society. To vary the famous Marxist phrase, my belief is that the purpose of education and one of the objects of education is" to each according to his ability". Let me emphasise that this does not mean giving to the cleverest child the most attention and the maximum share of resources. I am strongly in favour of devoting resources to disadvantaged areas and, in any area, to backward and disadvantaged children. Indeed, my right honourable friend Mrs. Thatcher did just this when she was in Office, particularly in the field of nursery schools. But a desire to help the handicapped and the disadvantaged should not mean neglecting the special needs of those who are very clever, very talented or otherwise abnormally bright. A system of education which in the name of equality allows that category, upon whom so much of the future of our country depends, to become bored, listless and fed up is one that I think should be strongly opposed.
My Lords, I suspect that there is a difference of emphasis between the outlook of noble Lords on this side of the House and the outlook of noble Lords who support the Government. I think that noble Lords opposite give priority to equality. At least, that is one of the principal arguments in favour of a universal pattern of non-selective schools. I think I am right in saying that on this side of the House we do not regard equality as the sole or overriding objective of education. If we had one, our slogan would be "quality rather than equality". We should not be prepared under any circumstances to sacrifice the promotion and preservation of the very highest educational values.
It is this difference of emphasis which makes it impossible to take education out of politics. Many people sigh nostalgically for an era when education was non-political. No such golden age has ever existed. The noble Lord, Lord Annan, who knows much more about the history of education than I do, would, I think, agree that, from at least 1870 when compulsory universal education was first enacted, education has always been a matter of political controversy—often virulent and very highly charged, just as religion had been two centuries earlier,
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and, I think, rather for the same reason. In a religious age, religion of the right kind was the path to salvation. In a secular age, education often seems to be considered in the same light.
Holding as we do, then, a different view of the function of education from those noble Lords who support the Government, we cannot accept—at least, I certainly cannot accept—the wisdom of Circular No. 4 of 1974. It seeks to impose a system which must be regarded as non-proven. Conservatives are not "anti-comprehensive". If proof of this were needed, look at the number of Conservative local education authorities which have adopted the system. What we are against is the imposition from the centre upon local education authorities all over the country of a system which has never been subjected to the kind of inquiry which is normally made when great changes are in contemplation. It may be that the elimination of selection, the creation of very large school units and the consequential absence of parental choice are the right answers, but it may also be that they are not. We believe that local education authorities should be free to choose their own system and that it is wrong to use the financial weapon to coerce them. Education is one of the most important functions devolved upon local government. At a time when the whole local government system has been recast in order to strengthen local autonomy, it seems ironical to assert central authority in this way in such an important area.
I welcome the announcement by my honourable friend Mr. St. John Stevas that the next Conservative Government will withdraw Circular 4/74. I also welcome the announcement made in to-day's Press that they will set up a high level committee of inquiry under an impartial chairman to investigate the achievements of the comprehensive schools. Of course I am aware of the argument that a comprehensive system can be proved to work only if it is universal, and that the very existence of selective schools does not give it a fair chance. An experiment which can be proved only by such a drastic and irreversible process requires an act of faith which I personally would not be prepared to make, particularly at the cost, as it may be, of educational values over the short to medium-term, whatever the long-term consequences might be.
In any case, even if selective schools disappear entirely from the State system, there remain the independent schools, including the direct grant schools. Apart from such considerations as liberty and parental rights in a free society, I assume that expense alone would inhibit any move to abolish these. It has been reckoned that the abolition of the private sector of education would cost the Government, in terms of replacing it from the public sector, the order of £125 million a year at 1973 prices—a figure which any educational budget might jib at.
But of course the case for preserving the private sector is not financial alone. I regard its existence as an essential part of the attainment of high academic standards. I know the argument of social justice, and I do not deny that the option to use private education is limited by the purse. I should prefer to see parental choice more widely extended over the whole maintained system, than to see what little choice there is at present whittled away further. Social justice is not the sole criterion of policy. When it conflicts with diversity, variety, academic excellence and, above all, with liberty, I do not think social justice should necessarily prevail.
The independent schools are not just a matter of a few famous establishments that are well-known, such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester but a large number of small schools, also, which serve all sorts of purposes. Something like one million parents are reckoned to make use of them; an ever-changing minority—a minority, it is true, but a not unimportant one. I strongly support the continued existence of the independent and direct grant schools, and I think it is reasonable to ask the Government where they stand on this question. The attitude of Labour spokesmen on this subject in the past has too often been characterised by a line from Alexander Pope:
"Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike."
I would strongly deprecate any attempt to alter the charitable status of the independent schools. I would be no less opposed to any move to "comprehen-sivise"—if I may use that expression—the direct grant schools. These provide a valuable "social mix", quite apart from their high academic standards, for they enable intelligent children from any
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class in the community to obtain a place at a low cost, or no cost at all, to their parents. If the direct grant were removed the majority of those schools would almost certainly go independent. They would do so reluctantly and they would regret it, but they would do it. This would have the effect of widening even further the gap between the maintained and the private sectors of education. I would far rather see the direct grant list extended, and the obvious candidates if this were done would be some of the voluntary aided schools.
There is much evidence of a rising ground-swell of parental discontent within the maintained sector. An inquiry undertaken last year by the organ called Social Trends—a sort of Gallup Poll—found that families were in general surprisingly contented with their lives and prospects, with one notable exception—their children's education. On this subject there was widespread anxiety and dissatisfaction. One has only to read some of the accounts of violence, increasing truancy and indiscipline in certain schools and certain areas to feel that this acute anxiety has at least some basis, even though one should of course beware of exaggerating or assuming that the episodes which are concentrated upon by the mass media are necessarily typical of the system as a whole. Of course they are not.
It is not only discipline that is worrying a great many parents. There is also the content of what is being taught. A disturbing amount of virtual illiteracy and innumeracy must cause one to wonder whether children are everywhere being grounded as one always assumes they should be, in those simple subjects that we tend to take for granted—"the three Rs". I am not so naïve as to imagine that these problems will be solved by withdrawing Circular 4/74. They pre-date the arrival of comprehensive schools, though it is perhaps fair to add that the arrival of non-selective schools has not in any way diminished them—or not so far.
Some of these disciplinary problems may be connected with the raising of the school leaving age to 16, and a good many people think that this is so. This whole subject was ventilated two days ago in another place and I do not want to go over it again. The raising of the

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school leaving age was done in the name of egalitarianism. If—and I emphasise the word "if"—the effect of a minority who bitterly resent being at school at all is to disrupt the studies of those who want to stay on and profit by their extra year or years, this will turn out to be a very bad and expensive form of egalitarianism. But the experience of one year is too short a time to judge the question of the raising of the school leaving age. I would not advocate a reversal of that policy.
What I would hope for is, perhaps, a greater flexibility over the actual dates at which children leave school. For example, is there anything to be said for their remaining at school for a month or two after they have taken the G.C.E. or C.S.E.? I should have thought there was a lot to be said for their leaving then. I should also like to see certain types of apprenticeship and, certainly, recruitment to the Armed Services, which surely involve continued education counting for this purpose. I believe that the Secretary of State is looking into these aspects.
There are two important ways in which I believe the situation can be improved and some of the current parental discontent removed. First, I should like to see parental choice enlarged and parental participation increased. It must surely be common ground among all political Parties that the right to educate their children belongs to parents and that they only delegate that right to local educational authorities, headmasters and education officers. Too often in the past there have been officers at any rate of local education authorities, who have tended to brush aside parents as irrelevant nuisances—and, of course, from the point of view of a hard-working official, they very often are just that. However, from their own point of view parents are concerning themselves with one of the most important and vital areas of their family lives.
I should like to see parental choice defended; not merely choice, which is often unreal, between comprehensive and selective schools, but between different types of comprehensive schools—streamed or unstreamed, single sex or coeducational, religious or non-denominational. I realise that the system of large comprehensives combined with rigid zoning makes such a choice an
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impossibility. It is for that reason as well as for others, that I should like to see these vast factory-like schools broken down into smaller units. There are many reasons for such a policy, but to make parental choice something of a reality would be wonderful. Perhaps more important in practice is the matter of parental choice and involvement over the various options that arise for a child within a school. This point is often forgotten.
The parental home is still the most important formative influence on children, and so parental knowledge of what a school is doing, and what choices are open, is vital. It is most important that parents should have this necessary information. I believe that one way of involving parents would be for them to participate in the actual governing of the school. I should like to see a system in which a proportion of governors—it is arguable what proportion—are elected by all parents of children currently at the school from parents of children at the school. I believe that this would not only allay much anxiety but would also be good for the schools themselves and for the pupils.
My second point is the need for a suitable advance in the status and pay of the teaching profession. The great majority of teachers do a splendid job, often in difficult conditions, but they will not continue doing so if they become a financially depressed class. There is ample evidence that the relative position of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, with regard to the rate of earnings of manual workers and to other non-manual workers, has markedly deteriorated. I do not want to bore your Lordships with statistics, but may I give one group? From September, 1968, to April, 1973, the average earnings of teachers rose, for men by 44 per cent., for women by 38 per cent. The figures for non-manual workers were 54 per cent. and 58 per cent. respectively, and for manual workers 63 per cent. and 75 per cent. It is not surprising that the dropout rate is high. I have read—and I have written in advance to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, to ask whether or not she can confirm this—that one in three men and one in five women leave the profession within five years, having been trained at a cost, in 1973 prices, of the order of £3,000 to £4,000. I have also read that the shortage in certain subjects is so

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acute that, to take an example, half the teaching in mathematics of the 11 to 16 year olds is done by people who are not really qualified for that purpose.
My Lords, it is good to know that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, who has taken his seat to-day, and whose presence in your Lordships' House will be welcomed on all sides, is to undertake an inquiry into teachers' pay. Whatever he recommends will cost money. I hope that the opportunity will be taken to consider two possibilities: the re-structuring of salaries so as to give a proper career pattern, and—a rather heretical suggestion—a smaller but much better paid profession, with special inducements for specialists in the subjects in which there is a shortage. I am not myself convinced that smaller classes are the panacea they are sometimes said to be. I think this is at least an arguable point and one which might be looked into.
My Lords, along with these improvements I suggest that close attention should be paid to what is actually being taught in teacher training colleges. For example, discipline is becoming a really difficult problem. How much guidance do teachers get, and to what extent are the techniques of teaching the elementary arts of reading and writing imparted to all teachers. Finally, there were some valuable suggestions in the James Report on teacher training. Perhaps I can ask the noble Baroness when she replies to say what is happening about the implementation of that Report. It may be inattention on my part, but I have not heard or seen anything about it for a long time.
My Lords, I have deliberately concentrated on schools. Before I sit down I should like to say something very briefly about higher education. My view is that there should be no major expansion in this field for the time being. In a world of limited resources there are matters which take priority. Having said that, I consider, of course, that universities should remain centres of academic excellence. I am certainly against comprehensive universities, or "polyversities", or whatever the expression is. If they are to remain centres of academic excellence there must be some limit to the financial cuts which they can be expected to sustain. I am quite sure that these have gone too far, and further than was really intended.
This is not a Party point at all; my criticism, in fact, is directed at the previous Government not at this Government. What happened was that supplementation for inflation during 1973, as regards all expenditure other than academically related salaries, was cut out altogether. This was drastic enough, but it appears—I say that it appears—from the figures that the Government assumed, when this was announced just before Christmas, that inflation during 1973 had been running at 7 per cent. whereas, in fact, it has been running at over 10 per cent. This has meant much more drastic cuts than the Government of the day expected. I have not given the noble Baroness notice of this question, but I would ask her to look into that matter if! she could, and perhaps I might write to her about it. It is a complicated and technical question which it is difficult to expound here.
My Lords, there is a gratifyingly large number of speakers on the list to-day—far more distinguished people than myself. I make no apology for having raised the matter. I am not an alarmist, I do not think education is on the point of collapse, and I recognise that highly publicised incidents are not necessarily typical. However, education is immensely important, even if its problems do not have the immediacy of some others such as inflation. There is certainly no cause for complacency. Perhaps I could end with two quotations from Disraeli: He said:
"The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity."
Again on another occasion he said:
"Upon the education of this country the fate of this country depends."
My Lords, it is because I believe that both of these sayings are profoundly true that I beg to move for Papers.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, before the noble Lord finishes his interesting speech, with much of which I agree (he was blaming the teachers about discipline) may I ask whether he would look into that matter in a little more depth? Magistrates' courts and others deal with truancy as though they were dealing with blackberry gathering rather than the reality of truancy. Teachers need the support both of parents and the magistrates' courts if there is to be proper teaching.
LORD BLAKE: My Lords, I have finished my speech, but I agree with what the noble Lord has said. I think there is much truth in that.

NUCLEAR REACTOR POLICY
3.40 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (LORD BALOGH): My Lords, I will repeat the Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy. It is somewhat lengthy. We tried to cut it down, but the complexity of the problem precludes that. The Statement as as follows:
"The Government have decided that the electricity boards should adopt the Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor (S.G.H.W.R.) for their next nuclear power station orders.
"In the Government's judgment the S.G.H.W.R. will provide power reliably and we can proceed to order it quickly. The Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations advises that there should be no fundamental difficulties in giving S.G.H.W.R. safety clearance. S.G.H.W.R. offers particular scope for British nuclear technology and we should exploit it. The 100 megawatt prototype at Winfrith has now been operating successfully for six years and is designed to reproduce the operating conditions of a commercial unit.
"It is for these reasons that the Government believe S.G.H.W.R. is the right system for the United Kingdom to pursue. Since we shall be moving forward from a prototype to a commercial size and design, it seems sensible to start with reactor units of 600–660MW rather than a larger size so as to reduce the problems of scaling-up; also for the initial programme to be relatively modest—not more than 4,000 MW over the next four years. We are asking the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Scottish Boards to set preparatory work in hand jointly. A first order will be placed as soon as possible.
"After the initial programme the aim should be to build up orders as rapidly as progress allows. The initial orders will provide a sound base for industrial development for the future.
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"Both the British and Canadian Governments see great advantage in full co-operation on heavy water pressure tube systems. United Kingdom nuclear organisations and the electricity boards will start discussing co-operation with their Canadian counterparts immediately.
"Our first commitment to the future must be the success of S.G.H.W.R. As to other systems, the Government have accepted that a major new programme of Magnox, despite its generally good operation, would not be sensible. And that whilst it is essential to complete the advanced gas cooled programme satisfactorily, it would be unwise to place further AGR orders until we have successful operating experience.
"The H.T.R. has considerable potential and I am asking the nuclear organisations to pursue further the prospects of participating in its international development, in which our experience of gas-cooled technology will be of great value. But H.T.R. is not suitable for the electricity boards' main programme at this time, nor do we have the resources for an immediate demonstration order while we are launching S.G.H.W.R.
"The Government have decided against any commitment to the light water reactor, but have asked the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to carry through to conclusions their examination of the generic safety issues of that system.
"The Government will maintain our effort on the fast reactor on which we are in the forefront of technology. I am asking the nuclear organisations to pursue urgently the prospects for further international co-operation, covering development and the start of commercial ordering.
"The present programme of S.G.H.W.R. will dictate the pattern of nuclear and fossil plant ordering over the next three to four years. We will take decisions on the capital investment for new fossil stations progressively, depending on load growth. We are fortunately placed with major fossil reserves.
"In the later 1970s our nuclear options should widen. We should in particular be able to step up the

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S.G.H.W.R. programme given satisfactory initial experience of construction.
"We will keep a close watch on the environmental implications of nuclear power; on siting; and on the management of radioactive waste.
"Owing to the printing dispute, I am making available a limited number of typed copies of the Government's Paper. I shall shortly publish the advice of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board. I am most grateful to the members for the time and effort they have given.
"Discussions on reactor policy have been prolonged. But the period of uncertainty is now over. The Government's decision offers the prospect of a further—publicly acceptable—development of nuclear power in the United Kingdom, and I shall now discuss its detailed implementation with the electricity boards and the nuclear industry. It is important that all concerned should work together to make a success of our nuclear programme. They have assured me they will do so."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.45 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, we must thank the Government for informing the House of a decision which has been common knowledge for a number of weeks. We have all read it in the newspapers, but now we have caught up, and we are grateful.
In the very short time that I was at the Ministry of Energy, I realised what a difficult problem this was. I do not in any way underestimate the difficulties faced by the Secretary of State in coming to this decision, not least because of the contradictory advice, both technical and commercial, which he received, if he was anything like myself. He has come to a decision. I think it right that there should be a decision and an end to uncertainty. I welcome that. Of course, as they would be the first to admit, that decision is the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, a number of questions. First, are there any financial arrangements with the Canadians? Are we going
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to buy anything from them, either know-how or equipment? Secondly, I noticed in the Statement that the Government said that they
"will maintain our effort on the fast reactor on which we are in the forefront of technology."
Some of us have had the impression over the past year or eighteen months—and I am not making a Party political point—that perhaps we have fallen behind a little in our lead (if we still have a lead) in fast reactor technology. The French perhaps have overtaken us. Is the noble Lord satisfied that we really are putting enough effort into this? Is he satisfied that we shall get the results of our initial work on this in a proper fashion? Thirdly, have the Government changed the assessment of the number of reactors and generating stations which will be needed in these next few years, which the Central Electricity Generating Board announced about six months ago? Does the decision announced here about the limit to the number of nuclear power stations ordered mean that there will be ordering of new fossil-fuelled power stations? Although it is true that we have a good reserve of fossil fuels, they are finite, and many of us in this House would feel perhaps that that was not a right decision at this moment.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his very objective comments on this Statement, and more especially for his acknowledgement that it is a very difficult question for laymen like us to handle—one where experts ought to tread very warily. Unfortunately, the experts also disagree, so one is left rather in a suspended situation like Mohammed's coffin. As to the specific questions raised by the noble Lord, in principle there have been agreements with the Canadians, but I do not think those agreements have been refined. They will supply us with the heavy water required, at any rate in the first instance, although later on we ought to have our own capacity. So far as fast reactors are concerned, it is extremely difficult to give an assurance because of the difficulty of ascertaining the situation in other countries. I think we can still say that we are not falling behind—at any rate, not absolutely.
So far as the ordering is concerned, my right honourable friend's Statement

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said that there would be some fossil ordering, and we are fortunately in a position, both as regards coal and oil, to sustain research ordering. It seems to me that it is much more important that we should get the nuclear programme right, rather than go helter-skelter for saving on the balance of payments though that is a very important and essential object, and obviously we shall be in a much better position 4 or 5 years hence than we are in at the moment.
With regard to estimates of demand, as an economist I must confess to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that forecasts of energy demand are probably the cemetery of more reputations than anything else. Therefore, the C.E.G.B. must obviously estimate conservatively; that is to say, they must estimate high requirements. In my right honourable friend's opinion however, we have sufficient time before the critical point is reached to make any alterations, and of course we shall keep this very important question in the forefront of our consideration and make any changes that are necessary.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we warmly welcome the Statement made by the Secretary of State, and we only regret that it did not receive a warmer welcome from the Conservative Front Bench. Some of us believe that if the Conservatives had been in power they would have opted for the American pressurised water system, which we believe would have been disastrous for this country. May I ask the noble Lord whether he thinks that it would be a good idea to keep work going on the high temperature reactor and to finance the construction of a demonstration plant, even though it would be an enormous additional burden on public funds, in order to widen the options in the late 1970s and so that, if necessary, we could embark on a commercial programme of H.T.R.s by that time? Is it not true that having embarked en the 4.000 megawatt system—that is the S.G.H.W.R.—we should then still be in the position of having to construct a demonstration plant for the high temperature reactor before proceeding with the commercial programme?
May I further ask the noble Lord whether he considers that it would be
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appropriate for the shareholding of the G.E.C. in the national Nuclear Corporation to be reduced in view of this decision, and particularly in view of the fact that G.E.C. have been such strong protagonists of the American pressurised water reactor that some of us believe it might be difficult for them to put their backs into making a success of the programme which is announced? Also can the noble Lord say in what form the Government intend to pursue these proposals with Canada? Should we purchase the whole of the initial charge of heavy water for the 4,000 megawatts from the Canadians? Have they the spare capacity to do that, and will they assist us in constructing a heavy water plant in the United Kingdom? Will there be joint marketing arrangements between us and the Canadians for selling S.G.H.W.R.s and Candu in third countries, and will the noble Lord consider a co-operative programme on fast reactors with the Canadians? Finally, does he think that the N.I.I.S continuing work on pressurised water reactor safety is really necessary, in view of the fact that it is as dead as a doornail?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his very encouraging and supporting remarks. He fired a lot of questions at me and I shall try my best to answer them. So far as G.E.C. is concerned, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, is issuing a statement on this question, in which he assures us—as one would have expected from a man of his standing—that he will put his best effort into this subject, without any sort of hesitation or condition. We accept that assurance, and I am sure that both he and Sir Arnold Weinstock will do their best to make this a success.
So far as the Canadians are concerned, they are exploring and, certainly, the export point on which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, touched has not escaped the attention of my right honourable friend. So far as the light water system is concerned, as my right honourable friend said, we are pursuing very actively the primary safety examination of that system through the Nuclear Inspectorate. It will take some time—18 months to two years—but at this stage we do not believe it would be right not to proceed with that investigation, which should not

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conflict with our endeavour to put our best effort into the steam generating heavy water system. It seems to me that this is a precautionary move which is right and proper.
LORD DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that while I welcome wholeheartedly the decision of the Government not to be pressurised into the P.W.R., I am nevertheless concerned about the leakages that have taken place and which should be tracked down. On this question, the Government are not entirely master in their own house. In view of the technical problems in this subject—and some of us have tried to follow it for over 20 years—is it possible, instead of asking a number of questions, some relevant and others irrelevant, for this House, in which many people are well informed on this subject, to have a short debate on this subject before the Recess?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I think that the last point will have to be discussed through the usual channels. So far as the leakages are concerned, I think the experience of all Governments is not dissimilar, especially in cases where very important business interests are concerned. Consultations have to take place and, obviously, leakages cannot be avoided. Though this statement may be very much disapproved of by others, I sometimes think that these leakages have some point.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, may I congratulate the Government on having reached such a rational decision, which I am sure will be appreciated by the whole country? I should like to ask my noble friend one or two questions. He has referred to the consortium being prepared to go ahead and build these S.G.H.W.R.s. Have we any sort of assurance that they will build them within the timetable which they lay down? I ask this specifically because it is known that not one of the 26 reactors which have been built in America has been commissioned within 2 or 3 years of the originally promised date. That is, incidentally, one of the reasons why we are glad that we are not having the P.W.R. It is important to know whether the industry in this country believes that it will be capable of building these stations to time, because time is very important. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has referred
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to work on the H.T.R. May I ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will continue to put effort into this, as well as into the development of the steam generating heavy water reactor and also the fast breeder reactor?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, my noble friend has raised very important questions. I should hope that we shall be able to hold to the timetable but, on the whole, experience has shown that one ought to be very conservative in estimating that timetable because there has been no system which really matured on time. One of the problems of the nuclear programme in this country has been that we have always had too many prototypes. We have not merely had Magnox and the advanced reactor, the steam generating reactor and the fast reactor, but we have had, within the advanced gas-cooled reactors, several types which were not interchangeable. On the whole, in all the circumstances that my noble friend pointed out, we ought to keep up our effort; we also ought to say that we must be very careful lest the scattering of our effort should lead to stultification of that effort. I would beg my noble friend to think of this very important point.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I have declared an interest in this matter on earlier occasions and I do not think that it is necessary to repeat the details now. I intervened in a Question on this matter a couple of weeks ago when the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, was answering for the Government, with the comment that this was a most embarrassing moment to be pressed to a decision of this kind, but that nevertheless we had to make it. I said then that every possible solution open was at worst an obvious mistake and at best pis aller.
I believe that the Government have chosen the least embarrassing solution in this matter on a long term basis. The shadow of danger is set against the high pressure water reactor in America, and it will take years and years to lift it. The bugs are not out of the high temperature reactor, and no one knows how long it will take to make it a viable proposition. I believe that we shall get more power stations for less development expenditure with the choice the Government have taken than with any other

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choice that was open to them. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that our task is to press ahead with the fast reactor. Admittedly fast reactors need slow reactors in support. It would be very nice to have the fast reactor working before we had to make the kind of choice as to what future slow reactors were going to be used in support, but we have not the time to do it. I believe that this is the best choice that could be made.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, may I thank the noble Earl for his very constructive remarks.

EDUCATION AND PARENTAL RIGHTS
Debate resumed.
4.3 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, while there are some important matters upon which I find myself in disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Blake, I am sure that the House will be grateful to him for introducing a Motion which will enable your Lordships to review our educational system and to have the review discussed by the several distinguished experts whose names appear in the list of speakers, for education, after all, is a very large national enterprise. There are 35,000 schools and 800 institutions of further and higher education, including 44 universities and 30 polytechnics. Nearly 7 per cent. of our gross national product goes to the educational service, and in Great Britain we spend on education over £4,000 million a year—indeed, more than we spend on Defence. We employ at all stages nearly half a million teachers.
The Motion before the House is in two parts. It refers first to the need to attain the highest standards in education, and secondly to parental rights. On standards, the Government's position is quite clear. It is that the need to attain the highest standards is indeed accepted, and not only for the ablest children but in order that all children should be able to realise their full potential—and I emphasise "all children", for this seems to us to be a crucial part of social justice. If to seek to achieve it is to be condemned as social engineering, we will bear the charge with such equanimity as
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we can command. We have a special obligation to our children and, if I may say so, to our grandchildren, which is perhaps a more appropriate target for those of my generation to be thinking of in the immediate term. We do not accept, however, that standards in education have been falling. On the contrary, all the measurements of achievement that are usually applied confirm that the trend has been upwards—and in some ways quite remarkably so.
However, there is no room for complacency for, as we all know, there is another side to the picture. The Government are well aware of the public anxiety that exists about indiscipline in schools and about truancy, on which the noble Lord, Lord Blake, spoke in suitably restrained terms. Over the past year or so information about this also has been drawn from various sources. Some of it has been analysed and some is still being investigated. The previous Government gave figures from the schools about violence. This was reported to be neither as frequent nor as widespread as had been thought. But problems of indiscipline undoubtedly do exist, often—and I think this must be faced—reflecting attitudes and behaviour that may, unhappily, be found in society outside the schools. As to truancy, it is hoped soon to publish the results of a Government investigation.
In the schools where these problems exist they add greatly to the professional cares of the hard-working professional staff, and it is right that, for this reason, attention should be drawn to them. But I venture to submit that they should not blind us to the very real, the very substantial and steadily improving standards which we believe are being achieved year by year over the school system as a whole, reflecting the greatest credit both on the pupils and on their teachers. It is the Government's policy that more and more children should be enabled to achieve their best.
As to standards achieved, perhaps we may first look at examinations. Not all children take them, but more do so than only a few years ago. The number of entries at G.C.E. level in 1972 from schools and colleges was 705,000 compared with 434,000 ten years before. At advanced level the increase was from 119,000 to 222,000—almost twice as

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many. There were also in 1972 over 311,000 entries for the Certificate of Secondary Education. This has extended to many more children the opportunity, when they leave school, of having helpful and recognised national qualifications.
Those are entry figures. If we look at G.C.E. successes we find that the percentage of the age group gaining two or more "A" levels went up in ten years from 7½ per cent. to 14 per cent. School leavers with five or more "O" levels rose from 15½ per cent. to 22½ per cent. One reason for this improved performance is that the transition from selective secondary education to comprehensive education had the excellent result of giving more children the chance to follow examination courses. The development in comprehensive schools is this: in 1963 there were 175, in 1973 there were 1,835. I shall say something about the value that the Government attach to them in a moment.
It is also significant that more young people stay on voluntarily beyond the minimum school leaving age which the law allows. That is a matter for gratification. There is a tendency to condemn this young generation as hopeless and lost; it is a gross defamation. If, for example, we take 17 year-olds we find that 26,000 were still in school in 1953, 57,000 in 1963, 110,000 in 1973—not bad. We hear a good deal about the small number of 15-year-olds who may not have welcomed the raising of the school leaving age to 16. It is sad that in the educational field there is a curious Gresham's Law operating which drives out the good news about our schools and highlights the bad. Noble Lords will see the subject in better perspective against the figures which I have given. Another reason for the improved performance of pupils was that there were more and better qualified teachers. The first point is a simple one of fact: there were 277,000 full-time teachers in the maintained schools in 1963, and 106,000 more than that ten years later, so that despite the large school population there is a much more favourable teacher/pupil ratio, and this again is an important improvement.
As the noble Lord said small classes are not a panacea—and, of course, we do not claim it to be—but excessively large classes are an intolerable burden on teacher and pupil alike, and it is right that we should have taken steps to reduce
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their number. The graduate proportion of the teaching force has been rising and there has also been a steady building up in the number of teachers taking in-service training courses—14,000 in 1972 compared with 6,000 ten years earlier. During the ten years of its life, the Schools Council has involved over 7,700 schools in all parts of England and Wales in work directed to the improvement of teaching, and 91 projects have been completed over a wide curricular field.
There have been remarkable achievements also in the colleges of further education. Between 1962 and 1972 the number of full-time students in England and Wales (including students spending part of their time in college and part in related employment) increased from 157,000 to 304,000 (nearly twice as much), the increase being mostly in advanced level courses. All told, there were 474,000 students in higher education in Great Britain in 1972 compared with 216,000 ten years before—more than twice as many. I am sorry to inflict so many statistics on the House, but I hope your Lordships may think it useful to have them as a basis for informed debate.
It is only fair to say that teachers, to whom great credit belongs for all these improvements, are themselves concerned to raise standards still further. Many have a particular concern for the children who, for various reasons, are achieving less than they might, and in devising courses adapted to the needs of those at all ages who find schoolwork difficult and, therefore, not entirely to their liking. The Government accept that the first year of the higher school-leaving age raised some special problems. That was to be expected and preparations were made for it. But taking the schools as a whole the change was brought about smoothly. In the Government's view, it would now be a wholly retrograde step to lower the school-leaving age to 15. There seems to be some support for the idea that pupils might leave school in June of their last year once the examination period is over. That would need legislation, but the Government have consulted the local authorities and the teachers' associations and their replies are being considered.
As to achieving higher standards, the Government accept, as a first responsibility of the education service, that we must continue to aim at higher standards,

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not indeed just for the few but for the many, whatever their background and whatever may be the experience of their early years. For despite the much increased resources which have been put into the education service, the average and less able children have received less benefit than the abler children, and those from better off or more caring homes. It is Government policy to try to rectify this imbalance, and we propose to progress along three lines. The first relates to the teaching force itself, the second to changes in the structure of the system, and the third to overcoming the disabilities from which some children unjustly suffer.
First, there is the need to increase the numbers and improve the professional competence of the teachers. Implicit in this is the belief that teachers, as the noble Lord who introduced the Motion said, must be fairly paid in relation to other income groups. We look forward to having 510,000 teachers by 1981, and we will vary the intake to the training colleges from year to year in the light of the net recruitment to the profession from all sources. During the years when the Labour Government will be in Office that will be carefully done, and that progress will, we trust, take place. This will enable us to reduce class sizes still further and enable more serving teachers to go on courses to raise their professional standards.
My Lords, as far as salaries are concerned, there have been three developments. First, following an initiative by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science the Burnham Committee has reached provisional agreement on the allocation of £10·8 million a year to teachers in areas of social deprivation. Secondly, the Pay Board has recommended substantial increases in London Weighting. These recommendations are being considered by the Burnham Committee.
Finally, and perhaps most important, because this will affect all teachers in Great Britain, we have set up a distinguished Committee, as the noble Lord, Lord Blake, mentioned, under Lord Houghton of Sowerby to examine the pay of teachers outside universities and to make recommendations. We are well aware of the depth of feeling among teachers about the fact that the relative position
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of their pay in recent years has suffered a serious decline, and we consider it right that their case should be independently assessed now. The Houghton Committee have been asked to look at pay structure as well as the levels of remuneration. It is the Government's wish that as a result of these various measures the salaries of teachers will in the future correspond more closely to the service which they render to the community.
The second line of advance is to reform the structure of the service, beginning at the beginning. By this I mean that because the early years are so crucially important for a child's subsequent education, particularly if his own background is impoverished, we must give high priority to establishing a national system of nursery education. Resources have already been allocated for the first stage of building programmes, and these, I am pleased to say, are going ahead. It is the basis of the Government's educational philosophy that all children should have the fullest opportunity that we can devise for discovering what kinds of schooling are most likely to give them what they need. We believe we shall enlarge this opportunity by early beginnings in nursery education, particularly in deprived areas, and later on by a full five-year course of secondary education for all.
But this in itself is not enough. Within the years of required schooling, children should have a range of alternative opportunities available to them. This, we think, they are most likely to get at comprehensive schools; and, by and large, these are proving their worth abundantly. They need not be of massive size to offer a full range of course. Neither need they be what the noble Lord, Lord Blake, described as "vast or factory-like". Some of them may be vast, but I do not accept the description that any of them are factory-like. However, it is clear that they must be large enough to cater for the full ability range and to offer more than a narrowly conceived academic curriculum. The commonest size proposed for new secondary schools is to accommodate between 750 and 900 pupils. This, it is thought, is not so large as to create insuperable tasks of organisation but it is large enough to provide for a variety of educational experience.
The third line of advance is to do more educationally for those who are

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most in need, and to do this we must be both more systematic and perhaps more sophisticated in our attempts to measure children's attainment. There is clearly much to learn about the techniques for doing this. Every good teacher, of course, has an idea what he should expect, or be able to expect, from his pupils at various stages, and he will measure their progress against those expectations. But as soon as we try to make comparisons between children in different circumstances so that judgments can be made about the allocation of educational resources, we find the need to have some substitute for, or a better guide than, teachers' impressions. The formal examinations tend to come too late for this, and in any event they are not taken by all children. Some work has already been done—for example, on reading ability—and the Education Department is exploring what scope there may be for further developments.
My Lords, so much for standards. I now turn (and briefly, as I have already taken a good deal of your Lordships' time) to the subject of parental rights, with which my noble friend Lady Birk will be dealing at the end of the debate in the light of the matters which will be raised during the course of it. First, may I remind noble Lords of what the law says on this subject, since the position appears sometimes to be misunderstood. Section 76 of the Education Act of 1944 reads as follows:
"In the exercise and performance of all powers and duties conferred and imposed on them by this Act the Secretary of State and local education authorities shall have regard to the general principle that, so far as is compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure, pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents."
The courts have established that Section 76 does not confer any rights on parents, or impose any specific duties on the Secretary of State or the local education authorities. It merely lays down a general principle to which he and they must have regard along with other relevant considerations in each particular case. It will be obvious what some of the other relevant considerations will be. Local authorities cannot over-provide school buildings and teachers in order to provide a wider choice for parents. Choices must be made, and can only reasonably
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be made, within what it is economical and practicable for the authorities to offer from public funds.
Under a selective system, many parents find their choice confined to secondary modern schools, whose educational aims and resources are limited. We firmly reject the notion that a child should be selected at the age of eleven for a role in his later life, and that he should receive a narrow education to fit him for this. In a comprehensive system there is a genuine range of options, not only for the local education authorities, as the Government's circular made plain, but also for the, pupils themselves. Circular 4/74, which has been criticised, clearly stated some of the forms of organisation of secondary schools that might be chosen, but specifically left the choice to the local authorities in the light of conditions and resources in each area. The Secretary of State, the circular said,
"regards these considerations as a proper matter for individual local education authorities, after due consultation with local interests, always subject to the overriding need to eliminate all forms of selection".
So far as the pupils are concerned, it is now usual to have a largely common curriculum in the first two years, followed by choices in the third year for the main secondary course, developed further in the fourth and fifth years, and culminating in the sixth form on the basis of results achieved and preferences more clearly realised. There is also opportunity, while still at school, to link up with vocational courses at colleges of further education, and also to have experience of actual working conditions in various types of employment. In all this there is genuine and open-ended choice, for the student rather than for the parents, who are nevertheless brought into consultation at each stage.
My Lords, there are parental obligations as well as parental rights, and one of the more important of these is to encourage their children through the years of education. Section 36 of the 1944 Act states in terms:
"It shall be the duty of the parent of every child of compulsory school age to cause him to receive full-time education."
It is important, perhaps, that that should be more widely known and promulgated; and the following section spells out the consequences of a failure to do so. But, important as legal conformity is in the

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face of truancy, more than that is needed if we arc to succeed in raising educational standards still higher and across the board. It is the right of all children, clearly intended by the legislation of thirty years ago—and it is reassuring to see that the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, is to enlighten us upon some of these matters in the course of the day—to progress as far as their talents will take them. The changes now being brought about in the schools will, we believe, bring that reality closer, and they ought for that reason to secure the sympathetic support of all parents. I strongly applaud the notion, which has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Blake, that parents should identify closely with the work of the schools, and there are many ways in which this can be done in consultation with the teachers.
My Lords, a plea has been entered on behalf of the independent schools. They cater for a few hunderd thousand children, whose interests must of course be considered; and at the end of the debate my noble friend Lady Birk will be dealing with this aspect of the matter with her usual competence and cheerfulness, if she will permit me to say so. My principal concern, however, has been with the millions who attend the maintained schools, and I make no apology for having devoted most of my speech up to this point to them; and the schools and the teachers who are educating them deserve commendation for continuing their efforts so well in the face of difficulties, which include the severe economies which were imposed by the previous Administration. The noble Lord touched upon the financial problems of the universities. I accept that they, too, have suffered severe cuts at the hands of our predecessors, and I regret that because of the economic situation we have had to reaffirm them.
As was said at the opening of the debate, there is no room for alarm in surveying the educational scene. Despite the restrictions on what we should like to do, our educational system offers unprecedented opportunities for the young, whose formal education may now cover 20 years out of a lifetime. It offers variety and, I submit, rising standards, and we must not fall victim to those who undervalue and disparage it. Instead we must
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proclaim the achievement of our educators and we must all—Government, Parliament, local authorities, parents themselves—help them as much as we possibly can.
4.31 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, your Lordships will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blake, on at least two counts—first, for raising this subject in your Lordships' House to-day and for thus encouraging the long and notable list of speakers whom we are to hear. I should like to say a particular word of welcome to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who is to make his maiden speech. We look forward very much to hearing him and, as one who was associated in some way with the World Council of Churches during the period when he did such very good work there, I particularly look forward to his speech. Secondly, we must be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blake, for an opening speech of great wisdom and moderation. I hope that the noble Lord will not take it amiss if I do not follow him on many of the points which he is putting forward, because somewhere quite a distance behind the charming and wise facade of the ex-student of Christchurch I detect the shadowy figure of the ex-graduate of Christchurch, Mr. Norman St. John Stevas, and the possibility that at the next Election the question not so much of parents' rights but of parents' choice may become a Conservative battle cry.
My Lords, I should like today, shortly but I hope quite collectedly, to examine what the various choices which we are invited to consider and to battle for really amount to and what are the real choices which we can give to parents and how we should concentrate on them. The first freedom of choice in a non-selective system—and it is going to be one of the planks in the Conservative platform that they will offer us an alternative to the all-through comprehensive system—is the freedom not to send a child to a grammar school if he or she qualifies for one. That is not a very great freedom. If a child does not pass the 11-plus, he cannot be sent to a grammar school anyway, so there is no choice. If he does pass the 11-plus, the child can go to a grammar school, and probably will do so. So the real choice which is being offered is the

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freedom not to go to a grammar school if one passes the 11-plus.
Secondly, there is the freedom to choose between a single-sex or a coeducational school. I think that this is a valuable freedom in its way, but the number of people who have this opportunity is not very great since the number of schools which are within reach of most parents is very limited indeed and the areas where there is a choice of this kind are few.
Thirdly, there is the freedom to choose a denominational school. Personally, as a firmly believing Christian, I am not very much in favour of denominational schools. I rather go along with Dean Inge who said that we treat Christianity in education as inoculation—we give people a small dose of it in youth so that they shall never catch it seriously when they are grown up. However, that is a personal opinion and I think that parents should have as much right as possible to send their children to denominational schools if they wish to do so. But here again, the freedom does not extend in practice to all that many people because of the limitation of the number of schools of this type.
Of course, there is also the situation that the building of comprehensive schools and the production of the comprehensive system, as long as it does not lead to the building of enormous schools, thus very seriously restricting the number of schools, does not in any way restrict the choice in either the field of co-educational or single-sex schools or of denominational or non-demoninational schools. It is true that, when everybody believed that comprehensive schools had to be enormous in order to succeed, that was the case because of the narrowing of the number of schools, but I was delighted to hear what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor had to say about the present feeling about the building of comprehensive schools. It is also true that the adaptation of old schools and old systems can frequently produce units which are even smaller and which are viable with the help of the higher school-leaving age and of sixth form colleges and arrangements with colleges of further education and so on.
As I say, these freedoms are all basically governed by circumstances which
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can be more or less manipulated, but usually less. In a remote country area there is often no choice at all between schools, and that applies to a large number of children. The resources available—or any resources conceivably available in a sane society—could only produce one school. In a city area parental choice between five or six schools, if well administered, can end up with over 70 per cent. of parents getting their first choice school and over 90 per cent. getting their first or second choice. Anything more ambitious than this is prob-bably totally impracticable, not just within our present system of education, but in any conceivable system of education this side of Utopia.
There will be talk about voucher systems. I sincerely hope that some noble Lords will speak to-day about voucher systems. I think they can possibly work. There was at least one interesting experiment in the United States along these lines. However, I speak only of voucher systems which work without supplementary payment. Voucher systems which work with supplementary payment seem to me to be an absolute guarantee of a system which would more firmly stratify society than anything we have at present.
The fourth freedom which at present either exists or can exist in an open society is the freedom for the parents to opt out of the State system. This can take one of two different forms: First, there are the genuinely charitable schools like Christ's Hospital, for which we must all have an immense admiration, and, secondly, there are the schools in the independent sector which, although they may have been founded as charitable foundations, no longer perform that function at all. I believe that these schools should be made to look at the purposes for which they were originally founded and to do something about the matter.
This second option—the main independent system—is of course the more normal. It is an option which is open to the small minority who can afford to opt out of the State system into the fee-paying schools. I and my Party believe that they have a right to do so. I do so myself and I admit it. I believe that they and I should have that right. But that right is only important as a matter of principle. As the noble and learned

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Lord the Lord Chancellor pointed out, it is very marginal to the whole question of education in this country. It is a marginal right that we are talking about, another, a fourth, marginal parents' choice. We are told that more children than ever are going to these schools. But, looking around the economic scene, I do not believe that that will last for very long.
These then are the freedoms: the freedom of the parents of a clever child not to send their child to a grammar school; the freedom to choose a single-sex or denominational school in such areas as that freedom exists because there is choice; and the freedom to choose independent schools. All, I firmly believe, to be defended so far as possible, but all absolutely marginal to the real educational problem in this country. What about the real freedoms? What about the real parental rights as opposed to parental choice? I am delighted that the Motion refers to parental rights and not to parental choice—which is what we are hearing more of.
I should like to digress here if I may for a moment from the broad argument that I am deploying to remind your Lordships of the necessity of bearing in our minds the difficulty of keeping the appropriate balance between parents' rights and children's rights. The general principle in a free democratic society is that we allow people to decide for themselves most things in life—including, thanks to your Lordships, whether or not to wear seat belts. However, we make exceptions in the case of people who we regard as being incapable of making a meaningful choice, such as people in mental hospitals or people under a certain age—and that covers most children. The age, incidentally, is entirely arbitrary as everyone knows, and is merely a method to average out children's abilities to make decisions for themselves. Under that age society normally gives power to the parents or, if you like, parents retain the power and do not give it to society. But even here in many cases—and it is important that we remember this fact—the State claims power to protect children from the parents.
There are plenty of examples of this practice, the most obvious one is to do
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with the child's safety—such as putting children into care or ordering blood transfusions against a parent's religious beliefs. We also care for morals. It is a criminal offence knowingly to allow your child under 16 to have sexual intercourse even if your cultural or religious background should contain no objection. We also interfere with parents' rights in the education of children in the broad and the narrow sense. In the broad sense, for instance, if I see a good film which I think my children ought to see and it has an "X" certificate, I am not allowed by the law to take them to it—something which, incidentally, I bitterly resent. In the narrow sense of education, we interfere all the time with parents' rights. Children have to go to school, and in very few cases have children's parents been able to persuade the courts that they can educate their children at home. Basically, we say that they have to go to school. Secondly, for economic reasons most of them have to go to one of two or three schools. In many cases, they have no choice at all because there is only one school to go to. Thirdly, parents have no choice in what is learned except the power of withdrawal from religious classes.
I am not saying that all these things are bad or that they are good, but I am merely trying to puncture the myth which is prevalent in some quarters that society as a whole allows or grants to parents very wide-ranging rights over their children. In case after case and over a great deal of a child's life it enforces the rights of society over the parents for better or worse, for good or evil. That is a fact under Conservative Governments or under Labour Governments, as indeed it was under Liberal Governments and will be so again. We are doing nothing new if as a society, through our elected representatives at local or national level, we decide that one form of education, however uniform it may appear, gives more diversity of education to children than any other form. That is the freedom which so many of us believe that comprehensive education gives; the freedom to study at the same time Latin and cooking, or what have you, and not to be classed as academic or non-academic. It is this freedom which my Party has firmly supported and it has (if I may say so) supported it before the Labour Party did.

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I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blake, when he says that we are taking a gamble with an educational system and with the lives of children if we enforce this altogether. I believe that the case for comprehensive education is proven and I welcome the independent survey which will be undertaken under the aegis of Mr. Stevas, because I believe it will come out with answers that I will welcome. That is the first freedom, the freedom to give children the maximum choice of their education.
The second important freedom which we can expand and are expanding, is the freedom for all parents to influence their children's education. We want parent power. I was delighted to hear the suggestions made by the noble Lord. Lord Blake, about the far greater representation of parents on governing bodies and managing bodies. Over the last two years, my Party has been conducting a local campaign in this matter in many parts of the country and it has borne much fruit. I was slightly disappointed that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor took that point up with some slight delicacy and appeared actually not to promise us much in real encouragement of parental power. A rather vague kind of reference to identification was all that we had. This is important and much more important than the power to choose between schools or the power to opt out of the system. Incidentally, that gives no parental power at all. The independent sector will be the last home of the autocratic headmaster for a very long time. The power to influence schools and the place where your children are brought up, the power of a community over its schools working through parents and teachers, and indeed through the students themselves, is very important, and I hope that the moves towards it in society to-day will rapidly become stronger.
The cause of education is not advanced by shouting slogans. The cause of education is not even much advanced by legislation. We have not had a serious piece of educational legislation since the Act of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden. Yet, in that time, education has changed out of all recognition throughout the country. It is a question less of what we do in these Houses as of what society and teachers learn to believe. These are the important changes. I think
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that it is important that we should examine the areas where we can expand freedom; although a case can be made out with a catchword of more parental choice, it, in fact, conceals something rather empty underneath.
The views of my Party on educational legislation are possibly of more than academic interest these days, and I have tried to outline the way in which my Party as a whole has approached this problem: why we are in favour of comprehensive education and will do our best to support it in all circumstances; why we will not vote in favour of the abolition of the independent sector, or of anybody's right in the last resort, if they can exercise it, to choose more diversity than the State system as such can offer them.
I think this is a very important question that we are discussing this afternoon, and it is very important that we should not tie ourselves down too much to the battle cries of Parliamentary and Party warfare. We should instead work out a system of diversity which will permit the maximum freedom of choice for children and the maximum exercise of parental and society's influence on the schools of this country. If we do that, we shall not be doing badly.
4.50 p.m.
LORD BUTLER OF SAFFRON WALDEN: My Lords, I am sure we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Blake. The quotation he made from Disraeli was put by myself at the top of the White Paper on educational reform 31 years ago, in 1943. Therefore, my noble friend is at last catching up, and we are all agreed that it was quite a good and sensible, although perhaps rather trite, quotation. I have had a lifetime's interest in education, which I am afraid latterly has kept me away from this House—at any rate, it has prevented my speaking very often in it, because I am really very busy where I am, still sticking to education at a somewhat advanced age! I must explain to the noble Baroness that those duties may take me away before the end of the debate, which of course is very rude. If that is so, I hope she will excuse me. It will depend upon the time factor, and so I shall not delay your Lordships too long now. I was very impressed by what I might describe as the treatise of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I am very

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glad that under previous Governments there has, as he showed in his dated figures, been a considerable improvement in standards, in G.C.E.'s and in other ways. The noble and learned Lord also mentioned the staggering figure of £4,000 million expenditure and 7 per cent. of the gross national product which is being spent on education.
The first question I want to ask the Minister, through the noble Baroness, is this: is there really enough money to do everything that is necessary in education? When I was at the Ministry, that was my main problem and I believe it has been the main problem for every Education Minister since. What, in fact, are the priorities and what is to suffer?—because I do not believe that the Minister has the money to put through in toto the State comprehensive scheme which he has advertised to be his intention. If he has the money, perhaps the noble Baroness will reassure us.
I was pleased about the point raised by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor himself, when he declared from the side of the Woolsack, where he so tactfully stood, that we have enough money to fulfil the nursery school programme. I hope that that will also be confirmed at the end of the debate, because I was obliged to tell my right honourable friend, Mrs. Thatcher, that every detail and every comma of her Statement on nursery, schools is included verbatim in the Education Act 1944. There is not a word that is new; everything is laid down in that Act for the development of nursery education, and I personally think it is a shame that so many Governments since 1944–30 years now—have not so far carried out the programme. I was thankful to hear the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor say to-day on behalf of the Government that the programme will be carried through, because I believe that nursery education is of particular importance in our national life, including as it does the care of the young and the beginning of life for the young person. If the nursery education scheme is to go through. I for one shall be very gratified by the result of this debate.
What is happening, of course, is that another reform which H. A. L. Fisher, who was by no means a second-class sort
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of fellow, brought in in 1918 and which I repeated in the Act of 1944—namely, continued education for adolescents on leaving school—has never been carried out by any Government; nor has any attempt been made to carry out the Rugby experiment, which is really the only one ever made under the Fisher Act or under my Act. I re-enacted the Fisher proposals and I am relieved to hear from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor certain better figures concerning further education. If I were to say that a new Act was in any way necessary, it would be to deal with the adolescents. Personally, I do not believe that a new Education Act is necessary. I believe that this Act, as drafted—not by myself but by Sir Granville Ram, the famous lawyer—can do anything. I therefore believe that a little more attention should be paid to adolescents on leaving school and on release from industry, because it seems to me there is a gap there in the educational system.
I have not very much to say about higher education, except that I am not quite as complacement as my noble friend, Lord Blake. I do not believe that the University of Cambridge has ever been shorter of funds or in bigger financial straits than it is at the present time. It is quite impossible to do any new development, and it is also impossible to carry out a good many programmes. I will not delay your Lordships on that point, however, because the situation is not entirely due to this present Government but has been building up. This shortage of money for the universities is very serious.
I am rather distressed about one point. I am grateful to the Government for improving the student grants—that was absolutely vital—but I cannot understand why the Government and the University Grants Committee have decided to abolish the Oxford and Cambridge differential. The original grants were as follows: London University—which is always very well treated—£520 a year per undergraduate; Oxford and Cambridge, £520 a year; and elsewhere £485. The new grants are as follows: London gets a large advance to £665, and Cambridge is reduced to the level of all the other universities.
I am not talking here as a snob who happens to be at Oxford or Cambridge,

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nor am I talking about an archaic vestige arising from more elaborate arrangements made previously. What I am saying is that the local authority rates paid by the colleges in respect of their student accommodation are met at Oxford and Cambridge out of accommodation charges paid by the students from their maintenance grants, whereas in other universities—and I am Chancellor of two of them (Sheffield and Essex) so I can speak from knowledge of other universities—the entire rate burden for the halls of residence is met by the U.G.C. grant. In the same way the kitchen and accommodation arrangements in other universities are met by a U.G.C. grant and at Oxford and Cambridge by the students themselves. So I really fail to see why the differential should be taken away from Oxford and Cambridge, when there are such good reasons for its being kept because of the completely different payments which the students have to make.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me for interrupting? The point is a very interesting one. Is it not within the power of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge to remedy this themselves?
LORD BUTLER OF SAFFRON WALDEN: No, my Lords, I am afraid it is entirely within the power of the University Grants Committee under moneys provided by the Government.
LORD ANNAN: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that it would be possible at Oxford and Cambridge to use the money endowed for scholarships and exhibitions, which was originally given by pious benefactors to help poor students, to supplement the means of those students who are now in need for one reason or another, instead of giving this money, as is done at present, for a splendid prize for those who do well in examinations?
LORD BUTLER of SAFFRON WALDEN: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, who has spent a lot of his time in Cambridge, knows perfectly well that both his late College where he was Provost and my own College where I am Master, and any other college, would look after poorer students. I can give him an assurance on that point. I think he shows
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a little audacity in rising from his place when it has been decided that the London students shall get £665 and Cambridge students will get only £605. I consider that the expenses at Oxford and Cambridge are greater than those in London. I hope that is a sufficient answer to the noble Lord. I do not want to delay the House further on that point, because I want to get on to some of the points which were raised by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and by others in the debate.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor referred to Section 76. I drafted that section myself and, if I may say so, the Lord Chancellor read it out correctly, without any mistakes. Section 76 of the Education Act is much quoted to-day. It is perfectly true that it was very carefully drafted, because in my opinion it must be said, if one speaks honestly on this matter, that you cannot absolutely assure to every parent in the country exactly the education he wants for his child owing very often to circumstances of where the parents live, which authority they may be in, to what school they may have proximity and so forth. Therefore the words were brought out, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor quoted so carefully, that we had to have regard to the parent's wishes. That is as far as any legislation can possibly go.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was also perfectly right to say that the parents have an obligation; namely, to send their children to school, and that they will get into trouble if they do not do so. The origin of Section 76 was rather different from what some people imagine. It originated in the first place out of what was known as the religious settlement of the Act of 1944, which took me three years to negotiate. The object of that settlement and of Section 76 was to give to Roman Catholic and Anglican parents a choice of school. This was done by providing aided schools and special Roman Catholic schools where the tenets of the particular faith could be taught, and where the parents would therefore not be offended. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, on the subject of religious education. It is of the utmost importance for young children to be taught the tenets of the faith when they are young. They can then make up their

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minds later what their decision about their own lives is going to be.
I have heard from many parents how grateful they are for the religious provisions of the 1944 Act. I do not believe that there is any strong movement in the country to overturn them—at least, I hope not. At any rate, that part of Section 76 is being made more complicated by the introduction of comprehensive schools. On the lay side, the non-religious side, of Section 76, it will be much more difficult to give parents a real freedom of choice if a State system of comprehensive education is introduced. It will be easier if the matter is left to local education authorities. It will be easier for parents to move nearer a school which suits them, and if the noble Baroness could give me any assurance that her words in regard to local authorities have any meaning in that respect it will help me in interpreting that Act and Section 76 of it.
I attach the greatest importance to preserving the independence of our schools and the right of parents to choose the education for the children that they desire. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights pledged its signatories (which includes this country) to undertake to have respect for the liberty of the parents to choose for their children schools other than those established by the public authorities, and to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions. Recently, figures have been given by the UNESCO World Survey of Education, volume 5, 1971, which shows the enormous degree of independent schools there are in other countries. It is said that some 20 per cent. of children in France have that advantage. In Denmark, the figure is 6 per cent. In Norway, the figure is 3·8 per cent. which is about the same as ours; that is, between 2 per cent. and 3 per cent. If you take countries such as Australia, 22 per cent. of children are in independent fee-paying secondary schools. In Canada, it is about 3 per cent.; in New Zealand, some 15 per cent.; and in the United States of America, some 11 per cent. So we are in good company, although the proportion of our children in independent schools is usually grossly exaggerated in comparison to the vast number in the
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State system. Therefore, it is in the State system that one should particularly take an interest.
In the White Paper of 1943 (which introduced the Education Act of 1944) I purposely included a sentence which foresaw,
"that three types of education, grammar, modern and technical, could be established under one roof."
That did not happen when the Act was first brought in, but although the Act does not specify these different types of education, owing to the Norwood and Spens Reports, for some years education was divided up into these different sections. This has proved unpopular and parents object to the examination at 11 years of age. Therefore I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that the comprehensive system has come to stay. I was very relieved by the Lord Chancellor's mention of size. I have been round many comprehensive schools to keep myself in training for education, because I like to feel I am athletic and up to date. I regard the Holland Park School as far too big; I regard the Wandsworth School as one of the best in the country. It is a comprehensive school with a fine sixth form. I know of many others which are excellent. What the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said this afternoon is most important: if the number of pupils could be kept to between 700 and 800 it would make a great deal of difference to the attitude of people to comprehensive schools.
I have been to comprehensive schools where the clattering down the passage of the children, the rushing out of the classrooms of the teachers, the con-cidence of these two streams—like the Rhone and the Saone quoted by the Earl of Chatham in this House—have made such a terrific rush and noise that it is impossible to think of education at all. Therefore, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has done us a great service in saying that there is a belief that in the new development the schools will be smaller. Fortunately the State system is producing better education as we go on. It should be this competition which the public schools should face rather than their own destruction.

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I do not want to keep your Lordships too long, but we must not forget the direct grant schools. The withdrawal of the grant will not mean the abolition of these schools. If the Government think so they are making a mistake. The majority of the direct grant schools will reluctantly be forced to become fully independent and thus the gap between independent and maintained schools will be widened. That is not a great reform. If the grant goes, an important area of parental choice goes, because with a system of graded tuition fees no parent with a moderately able child is prevented from choosing a direct grant school. Thirdly, in many areas comprehensive schools exist happily alongside direct grant schools. I am thinking particularly of the Bristol area which I have visited. In the Bristol area the schools are altogether different and varied in type and work very happily together. For example, if a comprehensive child does not find the sixth form sufficient to get "A" Levels to go to university, he can be moved over to a sixth form college. The Bristol experiment is working extremely happily. I do not want the direct grant side of it reduced or destroyed.
The direct grant schools play an important part in meeting the problem of boarding education. This was brought out in The limes on March 5 and 13 which claimed that one Serviceman's child in three at the boarding schools that they provide is the son or daughter of a non-commissioned officer. I believe that boarding education must not be forgotten in a debate on education. When I read the report in The Times of the education debate in another place on July 3, I noted that the sub-editor put the following heading: "Improvement in academic standards linked to comprehensive organisation". That is precisely what we want to see.
I must give an example from my own college, which is the largest in either Oxford or Cambridge, in which we have about a thousand people. We are entirely open to merit; there is no "old boy" network left, which is very sad. The boat on the river suffers enormously from this. We no longer choose scholars who are necessarily good "oars"; and we disappoint many parents who are not of the highest intellectual ability by not
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taking their sons. We are now beginning, I am glad to say, to get scholars from comprehensive schools. I only wish we could get more. What I want to stress is that if you are going to have a comprehensive education, as I mentioned, like Wandsworth, you must have the academic background given by the grammar school which was previously amalgamated with it. Then you will have a chance of a sixth form which can really do some good and which will bring a good result in the final examinations.
I will conclude by wishing the Minister well. I do not entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Blake, that education need always be controversial. When I brought my proposals to Winston Churchill, he reminded me of the Act of 1902. He said he had never enjoyed a controversy more. It was the most controversial Bill and Lord Balfour had to take charge of the Bill himself. The Minister was not regarded as competent to do it, so the Prime Minister came in and took over the Bill. In my case, and Fisher's case, we were luckier. I was helped by a very strong Labour assistant, Chuter Ede—whose Memoirs I hope we may shortly be able to read, when they are released, because they will be very revealing about that period. I still hope and think that we can make a lot of co-operation in education, and I hope this debate will help to do so. But we shall certainly not do so, if I may say so quite bluntly, if speeches are made like Mr. Hattersley's to the Preparatory Schools Association, a poor and rather small body, about the complete destruction of independent schools. I am glad to say that the present Minister appears to have avoided that rather stupid mistake, because I do not think that independent schools will be destroyed. There are 3,500 more boys in public schools this year than last, and 5,900 more boys in preparatory schools. I do not want them to go on for ever without merging in some way with the public system. I did my best with the Report which I published during my period as Minister to bring them together with the public system. I was trying to do that as a governor at Felstead, and succeeded fairly well in bringing in people from the Essex education authority. I believe in all these things myself, but they will take time to come, and they must be looked forward to.

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What I should like to conclude by saying is that if education can be made a great national issue it will be something like the words Thomas Carlyle said in Sartor Resort us about the object of education. It is not something to make a social society; it is to bring out the best in a child. He said:
"To each is given a certain inward talent, a certain outward environment of fortune. To each by wisest combination of these two, a certain maximum of capability. But the hardest problem were ever the first, to find by study of yourself and what ground you stand on, what your combined inward and outward capability is. For also each young soul is all budding with capabilities and we see not yet which is the true and main one."
That, my Lords, is the object of education.
5.4 p.m.
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, as he was kind enough to tell me he probably would not be here later to hear the reply, I wonder whether I might put just one point to him on one of the many valuable points he made. He was on a crucial point when he put the straight question: Are there enough money and resources to put through the comprehensive and nursery schools programmes? May I say to him that of course in the situation in which we are at the moment it would be quite wrong for me to say—and certainly my right honourable friend has never said so—that there are enough resources. There are never enough resources for education. But in the circular my right honourable friend quite clearly spells out that, in spite of lack of resources, he is convinced that authorities and voluntary school governors can expedite the transformation of many existing schools. Thus, one does not need to wait on new buildings. I hope the noble Lord will also agree how important it is to embark on the nursery school programme, starting right at the bottom. Moreover, as a great educational reformer himself I am sure he will agree with me that you do not wait until you have every penny or new penny needed in your purse before you start on educational reform.
5.16
THE LORD BISHOP OF MANCHESTER: My Lords, I am grateful for the kind words of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and I ask the indulgence of
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your Lordships for a maiden speech in which the fallibility both of the speaker and of the parent is likely to be evident. "Parental choice in education" is a phrase likely to provoke some cynicism in a society where such choice has so often been determined by sheer financial capacity. Nevertheless, recent events have shown that parents who have no such financial options before them are no less concerned for the standards of their children's education. This is surely a healthy sign and one which demands the encouraging attention of Her Majesty's Government.
Briefly, it seems that the main causes of discontent are three: first, that the place of residence should matter so greatly so far as variation in quality of education is concerned even within the comprehensive system; secondly, that conditions within the teaching profession seem to necessitate the frequent removal of teachers from one school and from one area to another, so that the continuity and stability required by children for their proper education has become hard to find; thirdly, and most important of all, that education has become so much of a political, not to say an ideological, issue that its actual content often seems to have fallen into the background as a rather minor consideration. Of any such debasement of the intellectual and spiritual currency ordinary people and their children sooner or later become aware. There used to be an adage: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Perhaps this should now be further developed to read:" Those who can, teach: those who can't, administer."
It may be said that for a representative of the Church to criticise ideological influences in education is a case of "the pot calling the kettle black", for it is commonly assumed that the chief interest of each Church is to protect its own corner of the field, so to speak. It cannot of course be denied that in a situation where religious education often goes by default or is even dismissed in advance as unworthy of serious attention, the Churches are bound to declare a strong position to the contrary. In this respect and in the accompanying effort to improve their own training facilities, they are, I believe, upholding the cause of all parents and children who hold to the importance of the religious dimension in life—and I speak as Bishop of a diocese in which

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at least one Church school has a high proportion of Moslem children on its roll.
Nevertheless, the concern of the Churches in general, and of the Church of England in particular, goes far beyond the sectional one to which popular imagination would sometimes reduce it. What is needed is a resentment of the fact that Christianity and humanism—two words so often falsely disjoined—belong together. Christian humanism at its best has spelt rationality, freedom, tolerance and a respect for human dignity. It is bound to set itself in opposition to slogans as a substitute of Truth. Its concern is with the destiny of each human being and it must therefore resist any tendency to reduce education to a "battery hen" system for producing certain immediate results. In this endeavour it is bound to take with great seriousness the influences of home and family which, as every teacher is aware, so often prove determinative in the development of the child, whether for good or ill.
In my judgment, it would be a great misfortune if the present campaign for parental rights in education were turned merely to Party advantage—if parents as a class were to be pitted against teachers, local authorities or Government. What is needed is maximum co-operation for the improvement and the stabilisation of our national education, because education is far more than a technical process, a career structure or a political issue. As various noble Lords have reminded us in this debate, it is concerned with excellence in every aspect of human life.
5.21 p.m.
LORD FISKE: My Lords, the pleasure falls to me of congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester on his maiden speech. I suppose that a maiden speech comes more easily to a Prelate than to more ordinary mortals who have to face this hurdle; there was no suggestion in the way in which he addressed your Lordships this afternoon that he found it anything of a hurdle and I know that your Lordships' House wishes me to thank the right reverend Prelate for his maiden speech. We hope that we shall hear him putting expositions before us again in his clear and witty way.
Our thanks are due also to the noble Lord, Lord Blake, for bringing this Motion before the House this afternoon.
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It is the widest ranging debate on education that I have ever had the pleasure of listening to in your Lordships' House. So often we seem to discuss the minutiae—the milk, the meals, the corporal punishment and the bus journeys et cetera, but never the central thesis which underlies the present administration of education. There is little that I can add to those arguments, especially after the wonderful exposition by the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack. Beyond that, it seems to me that there is little to be said. Therefore I can reduce the length of my remarks and concentrate upon only one aspect: the effect of local government administration as more money is spent upon education in the future, because this is of great concern to me.
To-day we see education as the last important power which is administered by local government, ably assisted by the Treasury. Moves are afoot, which we hear about frequently, to take the entire cost of educational administration off the backs of the ratepayers and put it on to the backs of the taxpayers. It seems to me that a large expansion of that expediture is likely to come about in the next year or two because we shall be faced with nursery schools and with a far-ranging inquiry into the professional status and pay of teachers which is bound to result in extra expenditure on education. We shall be faced also with new school building, by an enlarged higher education quota, and so on. If local authorities are to retain their responsibility for education, this expenditure will increase, and it will increase at precisely that point in time when the reorganised local authorities are facing a rates revolt all over the country. In other words, the limits of local expenditure, or the limits of tolerance to which ratepayers are prepared to go, has, in my view, been reached. Any further great strain will be reflected upon a service which becomes a major spender. Nobody says that this problem cannot be solved. Of course it can be solved. However, we need to be aware of it as a problem and as a problem which may face us in the very near future.
There is a small contributory way in which I should like the problem to be considered, but perhaps it is not so small when it is assessed. In spite of the massive work on charities which was carried

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out by the Nathan Commission 15 or 16 years ago, it is time that we investigated the use of charitable money in education. I say this for a good reason and I should like to take a moment or two of your Lordships' time in order to explain a case which I have met. A voluntary aided grammar school accumulated sufficient funds to buy its own playing field and set about doing so, only to be pulled up in the middle of the proceedings by the Charity Commission who said:
"You cannot use any of your money for buying a playing field, even though it will be your own property, because that is the responsibility of the local education authority."
The school in question was, therefore, denied its own playing field and had to continue the unsatisfactory sharing arrangements which it had with two other schools. In my view, that was not a proper use but a misuse of charitable funds. If there are many millions of pounds which are tied up all over the country in that way, I hope that they will be released for the purpose of assisting education to turn what might be an extremely difficult corner.
I agree with what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said about the expansion of the comprehensive service. I served on the London County Council from 1946 until its demise in 1965. Therefore I saw to quite a large degree the inauguration, the growth and the expansion of the comprehensive system in London, and I know what it can achieve. We made many mistakes. The biggest mistake, which the successor to the London County Council has not yet managed to remedy, is that it built schools which were too large. That mistake has been mentioned this afternoon. Now the policy is to build schools which are much smaller and I am sure that that is right. However, to have seen the growing and flowering of this campaign and to have seen the opportunities which it has given to children who would never have had much of an opportunity, whatever the parental choice might have been, has indeed been heartening. I have served as a Governor in several of these schools. Therefore, I know about many of their problems and how they overcome them, and I think that the comprehensive system is a success.
While it may need legislation, I think that there ought to be flexibility about
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the school-leaving age of 16. I remember that before the school-leaving age was raised to 15 a well-known London head-master said:
"70 per cent. of my children stay until they are over 16. If there are any who do not want to stay until they are over 16, then it is best that they should leave school and find the kind of job which they will have to do in the world at large."
My Lords, there is much to be said for this other point of view: that we keep children who cannot benefit from further education tied to school when they could be contributing usefully to the work of the world. But in regard to the system and the child of to-day I do not think we need have any fear. They are doing all right.
5.30 p.m.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRAD-FELLTE: My Lords, this is a debate about high standards in education and about parents' choice. I want to speak about high standards in secondary education, for that is something I am deeply involved in. I have had the privilege of serving for many years on the governing body of a girls' voluntary-aided grammar school, the Godolphin and Latymer in Hammersmith, and for the past ten years I have been chairman. Indeed, until this year I represented the local education authority as one of its governors, but this year they saw fit to reduce the number to none at all of the minority Party on the local education authority and our clerk received the notice that "Lady Brooke is to continue to serve on the governing body until she is either replaced or reappointed". A month later I was replaced. Fortunately, there was a foundation governor's vacancy, and I understand the governors were very pleased to bring me back in that capacity, so I am still chairman.
This school is maintained by the Inner London Education Authority and the governors have no reason to believe that ILEA is disappointed with the high standard of education and social development to be found there. We have no problems of discipline or truancy among the 660 girls who come to us. We admit from eleven years of age and we have a sixth form of 200 girls who can choose between 21 different "A" level subjects. They are preparing for the universities and the professions, and a considerable number

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opt for teaching. Our girls come from a wide range of home backgrounds and all of them have something of value to contribute to each other and to the whole. The one common denominator is academic ability, and this is recognised by those who select the children whose parents put our school as their number one choice.
At the end of the report on the last inspection made by Her Majesty's Inspectors for secondary education, two years ago, came the words
"By any computation this is a very good school".
And so would we keep it, but alas! to ILEA the selection of able children for grammar schools, attaining a high standard of academic distinction, is an offence to Ilea's avowed policy of comprehensive education. And so for some years now we have been threatened with extinction unless we conform to ILEA's plan for changing the character of our school.
Recently we have been presented with two plans designed to turn us into a form of comprehensive school. The first envisaged our amalgamating with St. Clement Dane's, a boys' grammar school, and Burlington, a girls' grammar school on the White City site, thereby losing our identity, our school and our playing fields, to become a large, coeducational, Church of England comprehensive school. It was of little importance that we happen to be a non-denominational school. This plan was rejected by all three schools involved and it came to nothing when St. Clement Dane's decided to move out of Ilea's area into Hertfordshire.
The next attempt to end selection came with the proposal that we should amalgamate with Mary Boon School for Girls—a school nearly a mile away from ourselves and involving highly dangerous crossings for both staff and girls. Mary Boon had a great tradition as an excellent school for the teaching of practical crafts until ILEA started to change its composition. It has no academic tradition. The new Ilea scheme envisaged a junior school at Mary Boon and a senior school at Godolphin and Latymer, until such time as it would be possible to create a five-form entry girls' comprehensive school in the present Godolphin and Latymer buildings—any additional classrooms to be built on our playing fields.
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The disadvantages of this scheme were overwhelming and a meeting of 1,000 parents and teaching staff, held some three weeks ago, voted by a very large majority (there were only eight dissentents) to turn it down. This was also subseqently the decision of the governors. These decisions, with all the highly cogent arguments that led up to them, were sent to the chief education officer, Dr. Briault, together with an assurance that the governors were anxious to continue to play their part in the education of ILEA'S children, and consequently they had set up a working party to try to find a possible alternative which might be acceptable to the local education authority. We are now waiting for ILEA's reply.
At this stage in the negotiations there are some unsolved problems which I should like to present to the noble Baroness who is to wind up this debate for the Government, and I am delighted that we are going to have at least one other woman's voice in this very important debate. I welcome her at the Dispatch Box on a subject which I know she is well qualified to deal with, and I would also like to say that she is really a jewel in the crown of the direct grant schools because I believe she is the product of one of our London direct grant schools and I am sure they are very proud of her.
In the event of a five-form entry comprehensive school being established on the Godolphin and Latymer site, using part of the playing fields, is ILEA allowed to buy the area needed for the additional buildings from the governors, who at present own the freehold? Secondly, in the event of a Section 13 notice being served on the school, to whom do the books, furniture and equipment belong—to Ilea or to the governors? Of those two questions I have given the Minister forward notice; of the third one I am afraid I have not given such notice and I shall be only too happy if she feels inclined to write to me about it afterwards and does not want to deal with it this evening. My third question is this: is ILEA expected to carry out its part of the contract to educate those girls who already have been accepted for education in the school, as the parents are expected to carry out their contract to keep their daughter in the school until her secondary education is completed?

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My Lords, to attain the highest standard throughout the educational system our approach must be free of political cant. At the moment, in the Government's overriding desire to use education for social engineering, emphasis is laid, not on how the highest standards can be achieved but on how quickly children can be given equal opportunity by putting them all into comprehensive schools and by teaching them, for at least three years and in many cases throughout the whole of their secondary schooling, in mixed ability classes. Excessive concentration is given to the under-endowed, and it is hoped and sometimes believed that if they are educated with the above average and the average, they will mysteriously gain the power to reach heights at present denied them.
This practice of putting all kinds of children together is in its infancy in this country, and it should surely be given a much longer trial in much better conditions (particularly smaller classes) before other and more tried methods are abandoned in its favour. Do these much less gifted children thrive in the all-ability range schools? Surely their discontent is evident in increased truancy, in violence resulting from frustration and boredom; in shoplifting and housebreaking and the senseless destruction of property. We know the whole of that list.
In present planning the gifted children seem to be forgotten. It is thought that they will prosper in any circumstances. In the words of the Plowden Report
"It is assumed that gifted children will be able to do the same things as the others, but better. It is probably true that they could, but they do not. They tend to be less conforming, they may suffer from boredom and set up a habit of daydreaming and escaping."
And so they fail to realise their rich potential. Sometimes the gifted child must find herself explaining, like Alice: "I can't help it. I am growing"; and the Secretary of State, like the door-mouse, says: "You have no right to grow here—or at any rate not faster than the others". And as the child looks around her and sees so many who do not want to grow, she becomes frustrated and finally the desire for growth is killed.
If the highest standards are to be achieved by all—and this must manifestly include the gifted children, those gifted in all sorts of ways—then the educational
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structure must be diversified. The same plan or mould will not be adequate for all. The nation needs high standards and skills of all types; it needs people with discriminating minds, able to argue, to imagine, to think scientifically and to think creatively, to form independent judgments, to be sceptical of fashions in thought, to be wary of propaganda. The nation also needs people who are practical and creative in a non-academic way, who can also form independent judgments and stand up to the mass media, and who have not been bored or discouraged by an over-academic emphasis in their school education. Such different kinds of minds need to be allowed to develop differently if they want to. The very able need the stimulus of other very able people around them to sharpen their wits and to excite their curiosity. Those with less intellectual interests should neither be made to feel inferior because their minds do not work in the same manner as academics, nor should they be (as they very often are in many of the big city schools) in a position to stop the more academic from getting on with what they want to do.
Asking for more time to experiment before sweeping away the remaining schools may seem like asking for a socially unjust system to continue. But surely it is better to allow a measure of injustice (if it is unjust when all children have at least a chance of applying to be educated in a grammar school—or had until many of them were submerged or abolished) than to sweep into a uniform system about the merits of which many people have serious doubts. The word "selection", for different types of schools, has become such a bogey that society has become almost incapable of looking at the problem objectively. But in actuality, in the cases of maintained, voluntary aided and direct grant grammar schools academic selection has meant, and still means, that children of widely different home backgrounds are educated together in an intellectual environment and a reasonably sized community with which they can cope and in which mutual interests and aspirations cut across all so-called class frontiers. Often it is the socially deprived child who benefits most because he or she receives at school the stimulus which is lacking at home, and his or her morale and curiosity are

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boosted by companions in an atmosphere of mutual discovery.
So grammar schools have been for vast numbers of children of all classes the open door to opportunity of all kinds. They have been effective social mixers, entry to them has not depended on the ability to pay fees. The only way to avoid selection is to make strictly neighbourhood schools and to give no choice to parents. Unless this is done there will always be schools which are more popular than others, and the minute a school is over-subscribed someone has to select entry. Through no fault of the originators of the comprehensive system life in big cities has become so insecure that very big schools are the worst sort of environment for the majority of adolescents. Proof of this is found in the fact that smaller schools are receiving an alarmingly increasing stream of applications for transfer of children who simply cannot cope with life in very large schools. Such applications are nearly always backed by medical or psychiatric reports. While good, secure, established smaller schools, both grammar and modern, still exist it would surely be folly to abolish or greatly enlarge any more of them.
5.45 p.m.
LORD ANNAN: My Lords, we are very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Blake. I am sure that one of the things for which we are most indebted to him is that a motion of this kind brings the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden down from Cambridge to speak on his famous Act. I do not know whether the right reverend Prelate would agree that when the noble Lord, Lord Butler, does this it is rather like listening to Moses 30 years after he brought the Tablets down from Mount Sinai. It is agreeable indeed to hear some of the comments he makes on those Commandments which he delivered in 1944. Indeed, some of the Commandments are rather like those on which one of the sons of George III had the habit of commenting as they were read out during service. When he came to the Sixth he always said, "Very true, very true, but terribly difficult". This difficulty is also true about education.
One has principles like those the noble Lord, Lord Blake, enunciated in his speech. But the principles depend on
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money and the noble Lord, Lord Butler, emphasised how much one always has to think of priorities. The question is: how do we spend our money? Do we spend it (which we do not incidentally) on disadvantaged, handicapped children, on nursery schools, on buildings for primary schools many of which are so badly in need of total replacement, or do we spend it as the noble Lord, Lord Blake suggested, on teachers' pay? When it comes to teachers' pay, I wonder whether, in fact, money is the only thing that matters. The noble Lord, Lord Blake, and I know very well that one of the reasons why we do not have teachers in science and mathematics is because so many have been eaten by the expansion of higher education. Indeed, this is one of the troubles, in the expansion of higher education: it has a ripple effect on all the other sectors. Of course, scientists and mathematicians in universities have been eating the seed corn over these many years, and the result is that now you cannot get children to take science and mathematics through to "A" levels because they recognise that the good teachers are not in those fields.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? I wonder why he confines it to science and mathematics. It also applies to a good many other subjects.
LORD ANNAN: If I may say so, I think it applies less to other subjects in that the opportunities for research in the Humanities are very much less than they have been in science. May I say that money has also another effect. I believe that the fact which has been alluded to in your Lordships' House this afternoon—namely, the large size of comprehensive schools, the large 2,000 all through comprehensive schools—was very much the product of an attempt to economise on rare resources, the rare resources in this case being sixth form teachers.
A limited number of teachers can do sixth form work and it was in order to concentrate sixth form studies in schools that the large comprehensive came into being. I entirely agree with the points which have been made. Education is always best in small units, whether in colleges within universities or in small departments. Whatever it may be, the smaller the unit, on the whole, the better because you get more individual attention. It is much better, in my view, to

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have fewer facilities in the sixth form, that is to say, a limited range of subjects rather than have a full menu and the disadvantages that go with great size.
Another point from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blake, which I want to take up is the great division in education. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that I am by nature a Butskellite. I share his wish that the two sides in education should be brought closer together. Indeed, I spent some years sitting on the ill-fated Public Schools Commission which was meant to try to find a bridge between the independent sector and the State sector, and which later went on to consider the whole question of direct grant schools. It seemed to me perfectly clear at the end of the day that—I do not say we wasted our time—not one single recommendation made by that Commision was acceptable to either side. It was a total disaster if the object was to get something on which one might build.
We have to face the fact there is this great division between those who put at the forefront of their minds the need to postpone irrevocable choices about children for as long as possible, and those who want to preserve the direct grant and grammar schools. This afternoon I have formed in your Lordships' House a somewhat unfortunate impression of what noble Lords believe a comprehensive school to be. A comprehensive school is an attempt not to make irrevocable choices about children until one definitely must do so.
An irrevocable choice used to be made at the age of 11. The revolt against the 11-plus came not merely in Labour-dominated councils in local government; it came in councils which had a Conservative majority. I should have thought there is very strong agreement between both sides that the age of 11 is too early to determine a child's ability. So what does one do? One tries to move the barrier forward to the point when one has to make irrevocable choices. This is so in every country. In the U.S.S.R., for instance, every child goes to a neighbourhood school until the age of 15, but at 15 there is a wide choice of schools that child may go to. Some are highly specialised schools, for instance, for mathematics or for music. These are the
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specialist schools for which the U.S.S.R. is famous. In the United States there is a break between one grade and the High School grade from which one goes forward to College board.
When talking about comprehensive schools, we have to bear in mind that it is really a question of trying to postpone the irrevocable choice of when one says a child is able or is not able to benefit from higher education. As I shall point out in a moment, there are quite a number of choices open to schools when they join the comprehensive system. I wondered whether the noble Lord, Lord Blake, was trying fortune too high when he said he was sad that the Labour Party adopted the principle in regard to the public schools, in Pope's line:
"being willing to wound and yet afraid to strike".
If I were him, I would rejoice that that is so, and that something much more serious was not in the mind of the Labour Party. The Public Schools Commission considered this matter of what principle one could adopt on independent schools. The Commission came firmly to the conclusion that it would be wrong to abolish them, because we could find no principle on which one could abolish a famous public school but not abolish a school for mentally handicapped children. They are both independent schools. Therefore, I do not think that there is an obligation on those who are not disposed to view favourably the independent sector to do anything they can to help it. It is doing very well by itself. It is enormously supported, as I shall point out in a moment. It seems to me the most their advocates can expect is not to be subjected to direct interference.
My Lords, on the direct grant and the whole question of what should happen to direct grant or local maintained grammar schools, here there were a variety of choices which the Direct Grant Commission put forward. One was that the school could become a Sixth Form college, or a junior college; another was that you could become what was called a "mushroom" school, taking into the Sixth Form far more children from other schools, so that here again you had an enlarged Sixth Form over and above your ordinary entry coming up in the normal way on comprehensive principles.

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A third choice is to become a comprehensive school for the second tier, from 11 to 16, and another was to meet boarding need. Or one could become a school (or special aptitudes, such as music or, indeed, ballet. There are many options open, It would not be fair to say that schools are having a pistol put at their heads, and that there is no choice open to them except the most odious.
We are bound to face the fact that one of the difficulties when talking about ability is how to judge who are the gifted children. Research on this matter produces a stalemate in the end. I have examined a great deal of material, and there is no satisfactory argument at all on the question of the determination of the gifted child. If you do it on Intelligence Quotients of 125 to 140, one finds, of course, in the end that some of these children do exceptionally well in life after school, and some of them do perfectly ordinarily, just like any other child of much less intelligence, because there are things other than what psychologists call Intelligence Quotients. There is such a thing as character. In fact, character determines whether or not children make the most of their aptitudes. If you then ask, "What do you mean by character? Why use this Aristotlean term?", I can give no answer, except to say that it does correspond to something which I believe most people acknowledge exists in life, and in describing people's personalities. So I am neither much enamoured of studies which try to prove that all gifted people will naturally occupy the very best positions in life after school, nor do I believe studies when they try to prove that if children have been to some of the élite schools and then pass into the élite, then that is an automatic example of a corrupt society. Such studies defeat themselves. I will say only that if one tries to formulate arguments on that basis, one ends in confusion.
My Lords, I am in sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Blake, when he said that he doubted whether social engineering was one of the factors which we ought to take into account when we design our school system. On the whole, research is moving against any belief that this is so. This is the work by certain Americans like Christopher Jencks and others, who are studying how far alterations in the educational system of a
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country in fact affect social deprivation. The answers coming out are extremely unsatisfactory from those who believe one should change the school system in order to change the social system.
On these matters, it seems to me, one has a systole and diastole. It was inevitable there should have been a strong reaction against the palpable injustice of the 11-plus. It is part of our whole way of looking at society at present to emphasise that differences between different children should be ironed out rather than supinely accepted. However, the pendulum is swinging more these days towards the direction of the noble Lord, Lord Blake, because we are beginning to ask ourselves whether, in fact, we are losing something extremely valuable by the changes that are being made. If I may say so, I think the Conservatives did their cause no good by the bitter defence they made in the 1950s of the 11-plus in its full rigour. But, equally, I think that some Labour councillors in local government do their cause no good in the name of anti-élitism, by associating themselves with anti-intellectualist traditions in the schools. For instance, being opposed to streaming; or, being opposed to examinations; or saying that if there must be examinations they must be examined only within the school, and indeed that there should never be anything but a simple, not even pass or fail, but a universal" and undifferentiated pass.
Let there be no misunderstanding about this. I think every child who goes to school has a major experience, because he immediately comes up against conceptions which in his home he will not have met, conceptions about the world and academic study, though it is academic study in a very simple form. And even if he comes from an academic family, if he comes from a highly intellectual family, he will come up against something which is no less an experience, the experience of mixing with anti-intellectual children. Both these things, it seems to me, are extremely good, are part of a school system. But I think I ought to draw attention to the anti-intellectualist stream of thought which is emerging in some quarters in our schools, and which worries me, because I think this may well be one of the reasons why the independent sector in education is so strong to-day; it is strong because people know

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very well what they are buying. There was the headmaster of Charterhouse in the 19th century, Mr. Haig-Brown, who was asked by an extremely pompous parent. "Does your school only admit the sons of gentlemen?" The headmaster said, "I do not know about that, but they usually end as gentlemen."
This business of conduct and a mode of behaviour, which is one of the things you learn in school—that is to say, a way of behaving acceptable to society; sometimes a rather stuffy form, sometimes rather a depreciated form of what society at any given time thinks is good conduct—is certainly something which parents hope to buy. The other thing they hope to buy is general competence in, as the noble Lord, Lord Blake, said, numeracy and literacy. So these, it seems to me, are the things we ought to watch.
I myself believe that the neighbourhood school is certainly the mode of the future. I do not believe you should change neighbourhood schools, even though some are bound to be superior to others if you are thinking in terms of academic standards and conduct. I do not believe in bussing from one neighbourhood school to another, as has been done in the United States. It has ended in dire distress and failure. You cannot iron out all social differences from your educational system. But let us, if we can, reduce them; let us, if we can, get the two sides moving gradually nearer to each other rather than have a confrontation between the two.
6.3 p.m.
LORD SNOW: My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Blake, for introducing this debate, which, rather unusually for this House, may have some actual positive value. We are also delighted to have heard the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate, and we have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, which we do far too seldom; that has been a pleasure. For myself, my temperament is not as sunny as most noble Lords; I do not really think that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. So I find myself very much more in sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, and with the last part, but not I think the first part, of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Annan.
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I sometimes get the impression that no one in this country has ever heard of another society or has ever been anywhere else. Comprehensive education is nothing new. It has been done in America for generations; they know all about it. Noble Lords who are passionately addicted to it as the bringer of a new heaven and a new earth really ought to hear American intellectuals, American academics in particular, on that. They would say that we are probably with enormous enthusiasm going to commit all the mistakes they have made and get none of their advantages. This would be a typical American statement in high academic society. They cannot understand our extreme intemperance about the entire subject.
Have you ever thought, my Lords, what would happen to you if you had a son or daughter who was as gifted at tennis as Mr. Connors or Miss Evert or, alternatively, a musician who was likely to become a kind of Ashkenazy. I am sure if that good fortune had happened to any of us we should all have felt it a matter of duty, parental and social and everything else, to spend every penny we had in getting them the maximum opportunities to cultivate this great talent. We should certainly do it without the slightest thought. I would have ruined myself for any such talent, and no one in the country would have objected. They would have' thought it was perfectly natural, perfectly right and perfectly human. On the other hand, if one has an exceptionally clever son or daughter, to a large number of people it is entirely monstrous to take special action on his or her part. That seems to me a corruption of values which is very dangerous to us. There is this use of the word "élitism" which even the noble Lord, Lord Annan, used. What does it mean? All countries have élites. All countries must have élites, not only to make the country run, which is quite important, but also to give it a flavour, a sparkle, a distinction without which our common humanity becomes remarkably porage-like.
We must get rid of some of this modish cant. We want an élite. We used to have, and probably still have, the best education in the world for producing an élite. Unless we keep our heads we can lose that within 10 or 15 years, quite easily.

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It could go with the wind and it would never be recovered in a society like ours. So just for once we have to think. The only other education I know of which was remotely as good as ours used to be for producing an élite was the French. They do it rather differently and much more practically. The grandes ecoles were really designed to run France, and they have done it remarkably well. Those are the only two that have really been successful.
As regards selection, that other dirty word, that is a method by which you obtain that élite. There is nothing particularly sinister about it. The present Secretary of State for Education and Science is someone for whom I have great affection and respect. I had some common purpose with him in the 1964–66 Government, and I am very fond of him. But even he has fallen into this sort of collective hypnosis which means that selection must not even be mentioned, let alone done. I did not see the full text of the whole speech, so I may quite easily be misquoting him, but he appeared to say that selection must not happen at any time or at any stage. What can that possibly mean? Does it mean that everyone born is immediately made a Fellow of the Royal Society? Where does selection come in? Is there no selection for going to university, no selection in taking university examinations?
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, if my noble friend will allow me to interrupt, I do not have the text of the speech with me but I have read it. My right honourable friend was referring to selection in school. In fact the Amendment which he was moving was very much more restrictive than what we are discussing this afternoon.
LORD SNOW: My Lords, that is reassuring, and I am not surprised because the Secretary of State is too sensible to have made the statement attributed to him. I am going to confine myself almost entirely to intellectual education, partly because it is something I know slightly more about than other things, and also because no one in this House, or in this country, ought to have the effrontery to talk about moral education, because children's behaviour, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, is learned from the people you see, from the kind
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of people who teach you, and the other persons around you. When children see their teachers going on strike, waving banners and shouting, who in the world could expect them to behave well? I know all the arguments. I am very sorry that teachers are not paid better; but it is utterly intolerable that people in responsible positions should behave in such a way, and we really must occasionally speak our minds; it just will not do. I think I would rather abandon the education system for a while and recruit decent priests, or members of the Communist Party, who could be trusted to be dutiful, than suffer this sort of nonsense.
The educational process is not easy. Some parts of it are if you are talented. Curiously, mathematicians usually do not have to work very hard. Most education, however, is quite difficult. It needs work, just work. However clever you are, if you try to learn a language without work you will not get very far. I have a young friend who has a gift which I passionately envy, of picking up languages "out of the air". He needs to be in a country for only three days to be prattling. However, even he would have to work for many months to learn a difficult language, because you actually have to memorise it.
So we have to assume that there will be two components to anything we say about education: that is, some sort of talent, and some sort of obsessive quality, determination, energy, and what the noble Lord, Lord Annan, called character. We know something about this. It is not quite so mysterious as he made out, if you have ever been concerned with personnel, and if you know that selection, though not easy, is certainly not impossible. We did it fairly successfully 30 years ago. So, in fact, the 11-plus could, curiously enough, be carried on. It would be extremely unpopular and very painful, but it could be done. It consists of two things. One is I.Q. I.Q.'s mean something; not very much, but they mean something. It is usually wise to be suspicious of people with a very low I.Q. Whatever their charms and apparent efficacy and sometimes their articulateness, they cannot be entrusted with serious intellectual life. But there is something else that is absolutely necessary, and that is this kind of ability to

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apply your I.Q., often for a long time, to the operations which are necessary. That is at least as important, and often more important, than the sheer intelligence itself.
Almost all successful people have an element of this high obsessiveness. That of course comes very markedly possibly from innate qualities, but almost certainly much more from the environment; but almost certainly much more from parents or the family background. Therefore, if you are seriously applying the 11-plus aspect you would have to consider both those things. I doubt whether any society would really allow a method of investigation which consists of examining children and their parents at the same time. Yet we have to remember the importance of this particular kind of environment, as well as the solitary child himself, before we understand what is likely to happen in certain kinds of comprehensive school.
We all accept that there are about as many people at least outside higher education who are, in intelligence terms, I.Q. terms, as able as those in higher education. That is granted. That has been admitted all along. That is why many of us, myself included, for a long time thought, whatever our doubts about comprehensive education, that we should probably have to become fairly strong supporters. I now have many more reservations, partly because the boys and girls we are thinking of, who in fact have all the intellectual equipment, but often do not possess the kind of environment or background which makes it easy for them to apply themselves to academic work. I think that there is no question of this. They have not, in the harsh, true terms by which all academics judge things, been particularly successful. One has to say this to what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, said: Yes, in Oxford and Cambridge scholarships there are occasional winners from comprehensive schools, but very few, and very few in any university I know of. If you ever read through the list of scholarship winners, or the list of first class honours degrees at any university in England, you will get occasional winners from the comprehensive schools, but nothing like as many as there should be statistically. This is a fact. It is no use saying that this is because although the
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comprehensive schools are there the grammar schools cream them off. There are quite enough in comprehensive schools to make a substantial number of able and gifted children if they had the particular components of energy, devotion, that are necessary to do what is fairly difficult in England, these rather difficult academic exercises.
The objective tests here tell their own story. I think that the answer is rather simple. Put down a clever child, who has not been trained by ordinary background in academic disciplines, with people who are striving and have been trained in academic disciplines, then of course he will profit. Put down a clever child trained in academic disciplines in a large group who are not, who despite him and have no use for him, then, far from profiting, he will go backwards. It is the particular naivety that the mix is a good thing and must work for the academic good of all, that I find the most intellectually indefensible part of the whole business. For instance, grammar schools on the whole have a fairly wide spread of intelligence; but a large number of the people in grammar schools come from homes where the parents are serious in the sense that I have just been trying to define: they believe that the working life, the academic life, is, in itself, a thing on the whole to be admired, and their children ought to be encouraged to do their homework, take their examinations, and be pleased if they succeed in them.
I saw the other day one of the most astonishing slogans I have ever seen in the course of a life which seems to have been spent largely in seeing astonishing slogans. It read:
"Grammar schools, the bastions of privilege."
Well, I then looked through the papers of an old friend of mine who taught for 40 years at a very humble grammar school, but that produced some able people. He was a man with a taste for collecting facts. He died in the middle 'sixties. In these papers he recorded the incomes of the parents of the grammar school children whom he taught. When he first went to the school no parent had an income above £450 a year. When he died in the 1960s none had an income above about £1,000 a year. Of course, the value of money has fallen and it can be taken that during those 40 years no parent had an income of £2,000 a year. That is less than the

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income of most factory workers in Coventry and now a large section of the mining population.
Bastions of privilege! How fatuous can this sort of warfare become? Grammar schools have had a great deal to recommend them and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, said, they have produced more social mobility than any other form of English education simply because, as again she commented, nearly everyone there had the same kind of interest and it was therefore relatively easy to forget class and get on with some sort of work. I confess that I shall be surprised if they survive very long. I shall be very sad if they do not. But some things can go, and this debate is an indication of places where people of reasonable good will, who are not easily swept over by camp phrases or nonsense, can perhaps throw in a little weight.
The noble Lord, Lord Blake, remarked on the conception of an inquiry. That I personally should welcome, but I think that it should be extended not only to comprehensive schools but to all forms of secondary education. It is very important to get a real systematic survey of I.Q.s, incomes, family backgrounds, right the way through. Also, it should be done over a period from now to the end of the 1970s, with probably a report every two years. I believe that it will be very interesting. It would give results which would be extremely surprising and disconcerting and, I am afraid to many people, extremely disheartening. But it is worth doing because although the facts may be harsh, in the long run they give one strength.
The second message, and my last—I have talked for much too long, and not obeying my maximum that no Back-Bencher should ever talk for more than 10 minutes—is that I believe much lies in the hands of the universities. That is why it is admirable to have the head of a great college introducing the debate this afternoon. The universities are autonomous. If they do not lose their nerve—and there are occasions in the last few years when they have badly lost their nerve—they can automatically keep up some of the standards which we cherish. They can keep up their own entrance requirements and entrance scholarships —not an examination I have ever been
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enamoured of, but at this stage I should be sorry to see it go. They can certainly keep up the standard of their own degrees; otherwise we shall find, in the name of all happiness for all people, that examinations will have to be swept away or that students will take control of the university buildings for 17 weeks. Universities can do all this. As the repository of some sort of academic seriousness, and in some ways of intellectual seriousness, too—they are slightly different—I think now they have a function which is perhaps one of the most valuable they have performed for this country.
6.23 p.m.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, I ought perhaps at the outset explain that I address your Lordshps' House from this Bench not because of any difference of opinion between myself and those who sit immediately in front of me, but because I am speaking from a small experience of the teaching world, rather than any other capacity. I do so with enormous deference. How could it be otherwise when one looks at the list of speakers? The debate has been introduced, to our great benefit, by a noble Lord who was a respected, popular and, I am happy to say, sporting member of the academic staff when I was a mere callow undergraduate, and is now head of the college of which my father was once Dean. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, is the architect of everything that I have worked within. It would be an impertinence for me to make any attempt to congratulate those of much wider experience than I who have preceded me, although I must add my comment to those already on the Record in admiration of the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester.
My Lords, we have already seen and are all aware of the fact that the children of this country are the seedcorn of our future, and that the responsibility of those into whose hands they are entrusted is absolutely enormous. Yet they are at present in a certain uncertainty. Ever since the inquiry by the A.T.O's was instituted in 1970, followed and overlapped indeed by the James Committee, and in turn pursued by the White Paper, there have been areas of change suggested, new structures alluded to but never precisely delineated. This is a point which I do not wish to pass over

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lightly but upon which I do not think it is necessary to dwell at length. What I think is necessary to reinforce—and it has been said on both sides of the Chamber already—is that those who are entrusted with such responsibilities for the future of this nation must be rewarded adequately, because since the inquiry started they have seen their financial reward diminish in actual terms and their standing in the public regard also decline, not only as a result of their own conduct. The result of this and other things has been an acute shortage of staff in certain areas which has resulted in a greater load resting upon those who have soldiered on.
The first point I wish to make is that it is important not to underestimate the weight of that extra load. Preparation periods swallowed up in extra teaching periods, in supervision periods, in extra duties on the sports field and in administrative tasks, build rapidly into something that is unacceptable if efficient teaching is to continue. Teaching is not done off the cuff. Preparation is essential and so is the reflection on what has gone before and its digestion. And, of course, to that is added in the areas of greatest shortage the real extra load reflected in disorder, the impatience and the frustration of children or young adults who have not had adequate supervision, leadership or encouragement as the result of this shortage. That greater load is in itself a further incentive to leave the distressed areas.
There comes a critical point, which daunts even the most stout-hearted of teachers, and at which there is a real danger that they become not the guardians but the gaolers of those over whom they are expected to exert a wise and bene-violent authority. This is bad, it is dangerous and it is going on now. My first proposition is the elementary one that we need more teachers proportionately to the number of children taught. There may be two halves to the equation of course and one answer, I suppose, would be to reduce the number of children taught.
There has been a certain amount said about the effects of raising the school leaving age and ways in which this could be reduced by selected release. The ground has been covered. I wish
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only to add this to your Lordships' reflections on the matter, if such schemes should be introduced—there is much to recommend them and I should certainly support them—they should be backed up by something which was, I believe, introduced under the 1902 Act and which later lapsed; that is, that those released would require not merely to go into activities approved by the local education authority or the Secretary of State but should go accompanied by a certificate of satisfactory attendance at school during the preceding two years.
The other end of the equation is of course, the teachers. Here it is necessary to attract into the profession not only those whose vocations are so robust as not to be daunted by the prospect of 35 R.O.S.L.A. remedials in a room with equipment which they started to regard as outgrown the year before, but also those with gentler but not less genuine gifts—and those gifts, my Lords, are precious. I have served as a private soldier and as a commissioned officer; as a farm labourer, a shepherd and a farmer; and also as a publisher. Indeed, I spent a short time in a City office. But I have also for ten years of my life taught, and I can say without hesitation that of all those occupations that I have pursued the most exacting, the most demanding and the most exhausting profession was that of teacher. All those jobs required physical or mental energy in one degree or another, but teaching demands, as well as agility of mind and a diligence in performance, an expenditure of the spirit which leaves one at the end of a good term exhausted, and a sort of shell. I speak, of course, of those who teach with dedication, but those are the people we want; and we want them, my Lords, because what we are entrusting to them is something which is infinitely precious—the future happiness and security of the children of the whole British nation; that is, our children, my Lords, and the children who are the stake in the future of our country.
So how are we to attract these people with the gentler but no less genuine gifts into the profession? I think there are three considerations: status, conditions of service and, not surprisingly in this or indeed in any other age, cash. The latter is that which is politically the most contentious, and yet I think I detect an

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agreement in this House that the risk must be taken. It is always dangerous to argue a special case at a particular time, because one special case instantly promotes twelve more. But, here, what is entrusted to these people is so precious, the pressures upon them are so great and their need for relief is so urgent, that a special case surely does exist.
My second proposition, my Lords—to strike out, as it were, on a different tack, but again relevant to the main aim of this debate—is this. It is so elementary and almost banal that it might not be worth staling except that it is from time to time, in surprising places, ignored. It is that in any system of education and at any stage of education the prime and overriding concern must be with the children. This is particularly the case when it comes to the training of teachers. Obviously, an institution designed to train teachers has a responsibility to the students who embark upon its courses, but that responsibility is subordinate to the responsibility to those upon whom the training colleges and the Department of Education finally let loose their products. It is subordinate to the responsibility to generations of children as yet unborn, for whom all those institutions exist. In the James Report this principle was early enunciated, but let it be remembered that when a policy is embarked upon in individual colleges or in the Department, as to, for instance, the proportion of permissible failures, and the standards of permissible admission to colleges of education, it is not the proportion of those who pass the courses that matters; it is the standards of those who pass the courses that matter, and they are what must be defended. A margin in recruitment must therefore be allowed over that required at the end of the course. This does not commit the Department or anybody else to a fixed percentage of failures.
I think it necessary to mention this, because there are the current fears of over-recruitment to the profession, and I think these are invalid for a number of reasons. The first is that the motive of parsimony is not relevant, because if a potential student does not embark upon a course which leads to a teacher qualification, he will almost certainly embark upon some other course of higher education which will be just as costly to
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the State. The second is that there is, of course, an existing shortage in our own area here. In the Inner and Outer London and Surrey waiting areas there is a shortage of 1,600-odd teachers now, so there is a good gap to fill. And even when the teaching profession is recruited to its full establishment, there is still a very important area to be filled; that is, the area of supply teachers—those people who come in when somebody goes down with flu or appendicitis, suffers a bereavement or has a baby. If those people are not available, then, again, you have a strain on the surviving staff of the school and the standard of the education there goes down. The demands on the supply teachers are, in a way, more exhausting than those on others, because they are always by definition operating in an unfamiliar surrounding.
Then, again, I feel that to maintain standards the local education authorities must be able to be both selective in appointment and more rigorous than at the moment either the law or the supply of teachers permits them to be in dismissals of proven incompetent teachers. Here we must see some movement towards reinstating Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools, who have lost so much force of late and who were the only instrument, the only rumbling from the clouds, that senior teachers used to fear. A full-scale inspection is a very terrible thing on the receiving end of it, I assure your Lordships, and it does a great deal to make all teachers attend to their standards. Another, though less pressing, reason for not being too cautious—does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: If I may, my Lords, very briefly, on the inspectorate. As one who has also had experience in all branches of teaching, what is of as much importance is that the old-fashioned way of appointing inspectorates should be abolished, in so far as it is as absolutely necessary for an inspector to have done some real teaching before he is promoted as it is for a good collier to work on the coal-face before he becomes a manager.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, I entirely agree with everything the noble Lord has said. It is no good telling somebody how to do something if you have not done it yourself, and cannot, in fact, do it better than him; or, at least, see how he can

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do it better than he is doing it now. I entirely agree with the noble Lord. The other point to which I wish to allude briefly is the notorious, if surprising, unreliability of the birthrate statistics. It is important to have some extra trained teachers around for when the Central Office of Statistics, or whoever it is, does not count the storks right.
Then, there is a further and final reason, which is the reduction of the present class sizes. The largest class that I taught was 42 children. I became increasingly depressed as I went on to discover that I would know those who were brilliant, I would know those who were hopelessly stupid, I would know those who were immensely naughty, and the rest would be a grey, indifferent mass because I had a heavy teaching load elsewhere in the school. I still look back in horror at the dilution of pastoral care which that must have forced me to give those children. If your Lordships find this particular allusion difficult to follow, then may I reduce it to arithmetic and say that if you set a piece of marked written work; if it takes you five minutes conscientiously to appraise it, to assess it, to mark it and to put a comment on it; and if you have a class of 42, as I did, then, every time I set a piece of marked work I was committing myself to 60 minutes more work than those who were taking a class of 30—one hour extra. You do not do that many times in a week without burning the midnight oil, and you do not burn the midnight oil for many weeks without getting irascible and short-tempered, and then the band of grey people in the middle of the class that I referred to earlier gets bigger, the number of neglected gets larger and your teaching gets worse.
My Lords, there are two further points that I wish to make, and I shall make them briefly. The first is this. I have spoken earlier of the uncertainty that hangs over the future of the institutions which train teachers. There is a feeling about—it may not be justified, but it exists—that there is a sort of numbers game going on and that, whereas originally the intention was to make useful marriages between institutions which were compatible, it is now a question of getting the right number of bodies under the right roof, and, as long as there are
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enough rooms, windows, chairs, desks and possibly beds and table lamps, that is good enough. It is not good enough, my Lords, and I think that it is axiomatic—and this I say with as much force as I can command—that the only proper institution with which a training college or college of education can be amalgamated is one which pursues advanced education.
It is no good having a sixth form college in the same building as a college of education, because that would be to pin upon the shoulders of the apprentice teacher the trappings of youth and adolescence which he will carry with him and he will be looking backwards rather than forwards to his career. I am convinced that this is wrong. There is only one exception to this rule, and that is where it is convenient to attach a college of education to some primary school where the age gap is so wide that this confusion of identity cannot occur, and where the teaching staff of the college and its students can have adequate opportunity for practice and observation. That can and does work, but the other method is a great mistake and dilutes the effort.
My Lords, there is a great deal that I have not said. I have omitted all reference to the direct grant schools—something very dear to my heart—because hey have been so forcefully defended already. In summary, all I have said is this. The teacher holds our childrens' future in his hands. He should be adequately prepared and generously rewarded for a task which is infinitely demanding and of an importance which it is difficult to exaggerate. We must devote to the recovery of our national educational standards—and I have to use the word "recovery" because I am not as sanguine as some of the speakers this afternoon—such resources as we can spare. I think that 7 per cent. of the budget was mentioned earlier—and I am told by the Belgians that it is 11 per cent. in Belgium, which is worth remembering. If we starve the schools of resources, and, more especially, if we starve the colleges of education whose product will be responsible for those schools in the future, then we starve the minds of the generations to come and we mortgage the future of our children. At a time when resources are scarce they ought to be put into people and not into things and places. A

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good teacher can teach inspiringly in an uncomfortable room, and a bad teacher will ruin a lesson wherever he takes it.
6.42 p.m.
LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD: My Lords, I think we are the more grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blake, for having started this debate in the light of the very high quality of the speeches which have been made on both sides of the House. At this hour, it is perhaps better that one should be brief rather than long, and I shall try to be brief. There has not been much discussion this afternoon of the starting point of the whole debate—that is, the purpose of education.
If I may, and if I can remember it, I will quote the words which a great schoolmaster at my old school wrote in 1861 and which are now out of print, so your Lordships will not be able to check his words if I misquote them. He said: "You go to school at 12 or 13 and for the next five years you are not so much engaged in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can, with average faculties, acquire so as to retain. Nor need you regret the hours that you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least saves you from many illusions. But you go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits: for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of entering quickly into another person's thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage and mental sobernes. Above all, you go to a great school for self knowledge. "I would myself add to what William Johnson Cory said in 1861 that one goes most of all to learn self-forgetfulness, to learn to become so absorbed in what one is doing that one stops being passionately interested in the world simply from the point of view of oneself.
That seems to me to be a definition of the purpose of education which I do not think anybody who has spoken in this debate would be ready to refute. I think that there is a basic agreement on all sides of the House and in the country as
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a whole that what we want more than any of the particular bits of education—intellectual, artistic, character-building or the rest—is for each child to have the chance of starting out to realise his or her potential in such a way that he or she will go straight on till death increasing his or her knowledge and value to society and enjoyment of life. At least, that is what I think is the basic agreement that there is between us.
However, if we are frank we must admit that there is great difference of opinion about how to get there and about what pattern of schools we ought to set ourselves to recreate over the next 5, 10 or 20 years. Here, I think first that we should admit that each side—and I shall over-simplify in speaking about the "comprehensive" side and the "selective" school side—has an honourable position to maintain. The people who are particularly concerned with comprehensive education are anxious that there should be something done to lessen the divisiveness and the differences with which we are born and go on according to the circumstances in which we live.
It is a generous instinct which makes people want to do something better than the traditional system of education under which we are selected at whatever age it may be, particularly now that we have rejected the idea that the selection is to be by the amount one can spend on education and have preferred to rest on the public requirement that education shall be available. On the other side, let us recognise that those who defend, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, so eloquently did, a particular and splendid school—and we all know that Godolphin and Latymer is a first-rate school—are not simply defending their own and wanting to disagree with the generous people who believe in comprehensives. They wish that people, without respect to their income or background, should be able to have the chance of rigorous intellectual development and general education of the sort which I think is designed to achieve the purpose which Cory defined and which is found in the first-rate grammar schools.
In my experience, there is no type of school in which one cannot find examples of good and bad schools according to one's taste—and I do not mean that one is dishonest in looking for them. The

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noble Lord, Lord Butler, mentioned a first-rate comprehensive. On the whole, one would say that it is in big towns like London where it is most difficult to solve the problem of the pattern of education simply through comprehensives because of the neighbourhood and the difficulty to which Lord Annan has referred. Yet, in Sheffield, no one can say that a child of working class background cannot get a first-rate education through a fully comprehensivised system because there the local education authority has been wise enough to learn from experience and has agreed, in spite of what the National Union of Teachers is inclined to say, that sixth form resources must be concentrated if children of real ability are to be given the chance of fulfilling their potential—in so far as they can at school—in a comprehensive school. Similarly, in other parts of the country there are places—Pershore in Worcestershire is one example—where a first-class secondary modern school, as it was, has been built up into a general comprehensive school to the point where its "O" and "A" Levels and its sixth form work make it quite reasonable for the education authority to feel that it need not take up places in the local grammar school.
I give you those simply as two examples out of many. But wherever you go it seems to me that you need to accept the fact that for us to do the improvement, to raise the standards, with the quite inadequate money that we are going to have available and the existing equipment of buildings and teachers that we have, over the next few years we must have a mix, and it is no good either side saying that in no circumstances should any direct grant school cease to have children sent from the local authority. It is no use the other side saying, "I am sorry, but it is incompatible with the ideal of comprehensives that we should allow any selection or have anything to do with either independent schools or direct grant schools". I believe that in the country as a whole, if you think of the parents whose choice we are particularly concerned with in this debate, there would be a general demand for "a curse on both your Houses", in so far as there are Houses which say "nothing but comprehensives" on the one hand, or "nothing but continuing with direct
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grant schools, grammar schools and independent schools" on the other.
That is why I plead for the local education authority, as reconstituted, to be given the chance of sorting out the incredibly difficult problem of harmonising the inheritance of its predecessor authorities which, in most cases, local authorities have to do. Let them work out what is the best way to get from where they are to where they believe it will be better for our children and grandchildren if they can adapt the system. Neither let there be in the local authority a determination to confront people who believe in this ideology with people who believe in that ideology, but let there be a readiness in the local authority to have respect for parents, not only when individual parents claim under Section 76 what they can try to claim—and we all of us in this House know that it is very little—but when they are deciding what is the pattern of education wanted in the light of those who elected them. Let them have respect for those who did not vote for them, whose parents want to have something different from what the majority party view in the authority may be.
Most of all, let there not be dictation from the centre—either from the Government and the Department on the one hand, or from the Party political headquarters on the other—because I believe myself that there is just as much danger of us not working out a sensible compromise solution place by place, adapted to the conditions of the various areas; there is as much a danger of dictation from slogan-making Party headquarters, as there is from a Government, whatever that Government may be, and the officials who will loyally carry out the Government's instructions.
I think that this debate has demonstrated that those of us who have thought about this matter realise that there is no simple answer to this problem of what in a particular area you should do about the inheritance of the schools you have. I go back to 1945, when I had the privilege of being a super-hack in the Department of Education with a great Minister, Ellen Wilkinson, who disastrously died before she had completed two years in office. I remember how she and her successor George Tomlinson, and Florence Horsbrugh after

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that, over the whole of those first seven years after the war, never issued a circular about which the Opposition side had to say, "We will withdraw that circular when we regain office". Because there was respect for something, not a consensus, because you cannot have consensus in these highly disputable and controversial matters, but a respect and a desire that there should be nothing done that had to be, as it were, undone if that Government lost office.
For the first twenty years—long after I left the Department—there was something that Britain could be very proud of in the way we made progress without allowing these great debates to be polarised in simple slogan-shouting terms—particularly we avoided having them attached to one Party or another. Frankly, over the last ten years this has not been so, and it has been no doubt for entirely honourable reasons on both sides. I am not asking us to pretend that we agree about things we do not, but I appeal for an effort on both sides, and in particular in the local authority areas, for an effort to see how far we can use the existing traditions of good schools, wherever they are, and not mess them up in some botched-up scheme which will ask them to be something different, but will nevertheless move towards something which will be better than the old selective system and which is in no sense a going back to eleven plus.
Finally, I mut warn your Lordships that there is a danger that we deceive ourselves. Most people applauded when it was said that the Government accepted now that the big comprehensive school of 2,000 was too big and that now somewhere in the neighbourhood of 700, 800, or 900 was about the maximum. How wonderful if that were really easily realised. I must remind your Lordships that in the old days of 1945 and Ellen Wilkinson, everybody realised the immense advantage of a small school. Of course, everybody would have liked to say that a comprehensive school does not have to be more than 700. But they did in fact honestly believe that unless you went to something like 2,000 you would not be able to do what the advocates of such a school were determined that it should do, which was to give as good a chance to the bright
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boys and girls as if they had gone to a selective school.
We must not deceive ourselves into thinking that sixth forms can be formed which will give as good a service, as it were, to the boys and girls who need that kind of sixth form education in a school that has only 700 or 750 if it is in an area like, shall I say, East Ham or West Ham, and not in an area where perhaps, if you like, there is a middle class spread and most of them would have passed the eleven plus. By all means let us learn from our experience and say that we are not going to have too big schools because we find that the disadvantages are too great. But if we are to have smaller schools, do not let us go on claiming for them what before we could only justly have claimed if it was going to be very much bigger.
So, my Lords, I end where I began with a general recognition of the value of this debate, and in particular the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I end with what I think he was particularly concerned with, which was the need not to have confrontation. I do not believe that the people of the country want educational confrontation any more than they wanted it in other spheres of economic and political life. I think our great chance is to give the local education authorities a chance. Let us speak up without any equivocation for what we think is right whether in the local authority or in Parliament and in national debate, but let us bend over backwards to be generous and to believe that the people who disagree with us on educational theory are also generous.
6.59 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, as I have listened to one noble Lord after another speak in this debate I have become overwhelmed with a feeling of my own inability to contribute anything effective. The noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, who has just spoken, has given one of the most fascinating surveys of education and we are all very grateful to him. There are, however, one or two points which perhaps I can make, and one of them refers to the point which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Blake, in his introductory speech, when he seemed to indicate that the school leaving age should not have been raised, that it was

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done, I think he said, for egalitarian rather than educational reasons. I hope I am right in saying that—
LORD BLAKE: My Lords, may I interrupt for one moment? I used the expression "egalitarian reasons"—I believe I said "primarily for egalitarian reasons"—but I did not say that the school-leaving age should not have been raised. Indeed, I definitely said that I would not wish at this moment to reverse that decision.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I should be very sorry if the idea got about that this had been done for purely egalitarian reasons, although I must admit I see nothing wrong in egalitarianism. I well remember that when we were discussing the matter in your Lordships' House the then Leader of the House resigned his leadership over this very issue, because he was not prepared to continue to serve in the then Labour Government, when the decision was made to postpone the raising of the school-leaving age; and he certainly did not do that for any reasons other than those concerning higher education. I think that it would be unfortunate if it were to be felt that the raising of the school-leaving age was something that had been done hastily or without true thought and consideration for the interests of the children. I am quite sure it is one of the most important things which we have done in the last ten years or so in the educational field.
There have also been, necessarily, references to comprehensive schools. Obviously, one can make this an issue of principle. Personally, I do not think that principle comes so very much into these educational matters, but I believe it is wrong to assume that education cannot be used at all for what the noble Lord, Lord Blake, referred to as "social engineering". This is rather a harsh term to use. It suggests that one is doing things in a very mechanical way. Nevertheless, if one looks at educational systems throughout the world, it will be found that they have all been used for forming the electorate and for educating the mass of people in the country in such a way as to serve the ends of the community. There is no question about it. If one looks at the United States of America
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and its educational system, it will be found that whereas American schools have not often succeeded in educating children to a very high educational level, they have deliberately aimed at making them good citizens; inside the schools of America they have put citizenship first. They may in consequence have suffered to some extent from not having a high intellectual level but they have shown that this can be overcome later, and they have in fact created junior colleges and so on, where the intellectual failures of the earlier system may be remedied.
If we look to-day at big cities in this country—for instance, at our own City of London—we see that the problems of any education authority are often really immense. I have here one of the publications of the Inner London Education Authority which gives a Table showing the percentages of population in the various boroughs forming Inner London born outside this country. The figures are amazing. In Westminster, 34·8 per cent. of the resident population were born outside the United Kingdom. Admittedly, about 6 per cent. were born in Ireland, but leaving that aside, the rest were born outside the British Isles. Practically the same figure holds for Kensington and Chelsea. The overall figure for the Inner London Education Authority boroughs is 19·95 per cent.
This raises an enormous problem for an educational authority to deal with. If you have children born outside the country whose native language is not English (or if it is, it is English which has been somewhat poorly acquired), when they come into primary school they may find it very difficult to learn effectively. Then, when they go on to secondary school, they are still suffering from their failure to understand the concepts, because their knowledge of the language is not adequate. I was struck by this point some years ago when I was examining at the college in Sierra Leone, which was, at that time, part of the University of Durham. This college started originally as a Church of England school and even when it became a college it was of rather a low grade, and it went up at best only to first year university standard, and most of the time it did not get as far as that. I spoke to a number of people in Sierra Leone, including some Americans who were teaching in a school there. One of them said to me: "The real problem

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here is not the quality of the education, but the fact that the children do not know English, and it is vital for them to know English in order to understand the ideas with which they are faced when they go on to higher education." I believe that the same problem can arise within this country and that it is one of the major problems inside our big cities. Indeed, the figures which I have quoted relating to the City of London show what a substantial problem this presents. Therefore, I would say that it is essential for any educational authority to look at this problem of social engineering, because without it I do not believe they can tackle the problem at all.
It is quite another matter to say that you cannot or should not use an educational system to reform society. There, I would agree entirely. It is not only a misuse of the educational system but I believe it has an exactly opposite effect from the one intended. I rather agree with what George Bernard Shaw wrote when he said:
"all education is really homeopathic"—
and certainly it is so far as ideas are concerned. You can try out one idea and you often find that a totally different idea is being generated. So I do not believe that people can use an educational system in that way, but I am sure that any educational authority would be failing in its duty if it did not pay attention to this problem of the social structure of the community with which it is dealing, and did not attempt to do something about it.
I do not want to detain your Lordships for very much longer, but I should like to refer to one other point concerning higher education and the university scene. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Blake, will forgive me for continuing to refer to his speech—which I enjoyed and which I am sure all your Lordships found most interesting and stimulating.
LORD BLAKE: My Lords, I am flattered!
LORD WYNNE-JONES: But he said that he thought there ought perhaps to be a halt to the expansion of higher education. This has been said for years: it has always been said. If the noble Lord looks back at the figures for this country of those undertaking higher education, he will find that the total of such students at
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the beginning of the last century was about 2,000 students. It expanded during the whole of the last century at an average rate of 2½ per cent. It has gone on expanding in this century at about the same rate, and even in the period between the two wars when most people imagined that there was no expansion it was still going on at a rate of 2½ per cent. There was a big increase at the time of the Robbins Report, and this was because we in this country realised that we were falling behind in the number of students who received higher education. It jumped up to a figure of something like 7 per cent. It has flattened out since, but do not let us imagine the pressure is not there. If you look at the number of applicants for admission to the Open University—those are the ones who cannot or have not been able to get into other places—this year it is 50,000. The University is able to take only 14,000 because of lack of money.
The real crunch to-day is that this country is not prepared to pay for education. If we are not prepared to pay for education, we shall have all the troubles and difficulties; we shall get all the tensions which make people curse the educational system and say that it has failed. It has not failed. It has weaknesses; it may do things badly, but the failure is in our resolution as a people. It is our resolution which is important. If we can have that resolution then I have no fear that, provided we give the money for it, we will have a continually improving educational system.
My Lords, I hope that as a result of this debate, which has been an extremely interesting one, the message will go out clearly, not only to the Government but to the people of this country, that education is something about which we care deeply.
7.11 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I thought at first this was my unlucky day, speakng at No. 13 on the list. I thought perhaps this was the right place to put the only Earl speaking on education! I have enjoyed this debate and have been much stimulated listening to noble Lords, most of whom are a great deal more intellectually and academically equipped than I am to speak on this subject. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Blake, for introducing this topical and interesting subject to-day. It is

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especially topical for me because since local government reorganisation I have been Vice-Chairman of the North Yorkshire Education Committee and Chairman of its schools sub-committee which is responsible for some 70 secondary and 500 primary schools in the largest geographical county in England and Wales, over some 200 million acres.
Parents have many parts to play in education, and one which I should like to congratulate them on is that which they play in managing and governing bodies of schools. It is more necessary now than ever that schools and parents should act together for the welfare of children. We have heard a lot to-day about truanting, bullying and vandalism. Parents are much more likely to be reasonable and helpful if there is a choice available to them. It is not practicable for the majority in my area to have a choice of schools. Distances are so great, communties are scattered, and it is only possible to have one secondary school in one area. Even primary schools are many miles apart, and transport costs are so colossal that, on the whole, we cannot offer parents a choice of schools. Therefore we feel that we must offer a choice of courses of study. If that is to mean something, each school must have adequate resources and staff. Unfortunately, in recent years local education authorities have been unable to provide schools with absolutely all the necessary support and facilities. Successive Governments have acknowledged the need to tackle oversized classes. There always seems to be a shortage of cash.
I was interested to hear the speech of my noble friend Lord Elton, and I agree wholeheartedly with what he said about the importance of having more teachers. Nowhere is this more the case than in our old, overcrowded primary schools. Some noble Lords may feel that I have a bee in my bonnet about this. Before local government reorganisation I was Vice-Chairman of the old North Riding Education Committee and Chairman of its primary schools sub-committee, and year after year I came to London to see various people to try to get more money for replacement of old primary schools. I remember several years ago seeing the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, when she was in another place, and also on more than one occasion my noble friend Lord
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Belstead. The importance of replacing overcrowded and old primary schools cannot be stated too strongly. If a child starts off in the brighter, happier conditions of a new, modern primary school, he is much less likely to drop out during the course of later education, to say nothing of producing sufficient remedial teachers to cope with children who in different forms have problems of learning.
Successive Governments have pledged their support to the replacement of old primary schools, and a certain amount has been done. But I feel that more can be done and, once agan, we are feeling the economic pinch. At the present time the situation is bad; not only is the replacement of old schools at a standstill, but we seem to be having difficulty in even getting schools to cover the heads of "roofless" children. The Secretary of State's attention was drawn to this quite forcibly at a recent conference of the Associaton of Education Committees.
I was very interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, said, and I especially enjoyed his speech, which was full of good common sense and was most excellently delivered. He said something about the difficulties of local education authorities at the moment. We in North Yorkshire have our own particular problem in so far as we have inherited parts of areas previously administered by four different local education authorities. They all seem to have had different ways of doing things. Now we are all one authority we have to try to bring the general standards up to the level of the highest. No one wants to be worse off than they were before, and it is very difficult to have one lot of rules for a school a mile away from another when they are in the same authority. Of course money is desperately short; inflation goes on. People quite rightly protest like mad if you put the rates up, and we have our difficulties.
It is most important that the Secretary of State, when considering proposals for reorganisation, must place emphasis on maintenance and improvement of standards. I am a supporter of comprehensive education when it is done properly. As the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud said, it must not be a hotch-potch on a shoestring. We have tried to do it without spending money and to make do with existing buildings. I welcome what was

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said about reducing the size of comprehensive schools to-day, but I wonder just how practical this is. I am thinking of my area. Around the fringes of the largest cities we have fairly fast growing communities. If you have one comprehensive school and you build it ideally for a thousand pupils, if it has to take 1,100 and then 1,200 pupils, when physically can you say, "Stop this is enough We will cut down to 600 pupils and build another school"? You cannot afford to do it. It is a problem to know where to draw the line.
We do not have too much of a problem with really larger comprehensive schools, but it might interest your Lordships to hear that we have the longest comprehensive school in the country. It is 13 miles long. This came about when we did our plan in the old North Riding comprehensive reorganisation. We published a draft plan which was to shut down a tiny grammar school at end of the dale and enlarge a secondary modern school in the local market town. Partly because of the trouble we had over getting accommodation—and I must also admit because of the furore this aroused among the parents and public up the dale that we were going to close their secondary school—we decided to keep open the school and run the two schools as one. I must admit that hard though the staff have worked over the years, the head teacher and all under him, the scheme is not working terribly well. Staff and pupils spend so much time travelling between the two schools that there is now pressure upon us to close the old grammar school buildings and to have the school on one large campus. How on earth we are going to do this in the present economic climate, I do not know. It is interesting that the very people who shouted loudest at us to keep the school open are now shouting at us to close it down. So perhaps the public and the parents do not always know best.
I should like to say something about two forms of education which have not been mentioned to-day. I am delighted to hear that nursery education is going to go on. I support this. I should also like to pay tribute to play groups. This is something in which parents not only actively take an interest but also participate in running. Over the years they have done an immense service not only to their
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own but to other people's children. Not much has been said about special schools. They certainly have their problems, for both the physically and the mentally handicapped. I do not think there can be anything so comprehensive as a boarding school for physically handicapped children. Not only do they have the whole range of abilities, but they have children from 5 to over 16 years of age. My goodness me! they have their problems.
I was interested in what the noble Lord. Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, said about adolescent children. If you get problems with adolescent children anyway, how much more do you get them with the mentally and physically handicapped who have other problems to add to those of the normal teenager in growing up? I would ask the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, a question—I am afraid I must apologise for not having given her prior warning of this. I wonder what has happened to the Warnock Committee on Education and Further Education for the Handicapped. I believe that this Committee was set up by the last Administration. So far as I know, the Government had nothing to do with closing it down, and I should like to know when members will be appointed and when work will start on this most important subject. It is specially important because it is concerned largely with what happens to handicapped children when they go out to work, at the most critical stage of their lives. Can the noble Baroness help me on that point?
I have been fairly gloomy about the financial situation this afternoon—it is gloomy—but there may be just one tiny advantage coming from it, which is this. There have been so many changes in schools in recent years, in both organisation and curriculum. Of course it is right to examine existing practices and to consider new ways, but for many schools a period of steadiness and stability is needed to enable them to reach their peak—and, thanks to the present situation, we just might find that being the case.
7.21 p.m.
LORD HUNT: My Lords, no one who forms his views about secondary education or education in general from a reading of the daily Press, and notes the more familiar headlines—under-staffing with the effect that it has had in reducing to part-time the schooling of significant numbers of children for fairly long

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periods; school-leaver illiteracy and truancy; I would pick out truancy in particular for its link with juvenile crime: we learnt earlier this week from a report in The Times that one-third of juvenile crimes committed in the Metropolis are done during school time—can fail to acknowledge the importance of the subject that the noble Lord, Lord Blake, has drawn to our attention this afternoon. One of the troubles about these facts taken out of the full context is that they add fuel to the fire of the educational controversies and tend to detract from the intrinsic merits of the objects of those controversies: comprehensive education, the future of the grammar and independent schools, private and direct grant, and this more recent controversy about ROSLA, the raising of the school-leaving age.
It is all the more important—and I was grateful to the noble Lord who led us off this afternoon for giving us this sense of balance—to look at the full context. It is understandable that one cannot get a full picture from the national dailies; and it is important that people who are actually involved in education—and, goodness knows!, we have had a fair and remarkable sample of these this afternoon, but I am also thinking of educational administrators, of head teachers and junior teachers—should be heard. I count myself fortunate in having retained a number of contacts with secondary comprehensive schools from an earlier time, and in anticipation of this debate I have been in touch with quite a number of head teachers in those schools, both in and out of London.
It has been said earlier in this debate—and I think Lord Blake himself made the point at the beginning—that complacency is the last attitude to adopt, I would say particularly in view of the serious situation in London. What is more, I would not presume to claim that my small sample has any particular validity in regard to the whole picture. But I should like to say here—and I am speaking not of a particular school as the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, was—that I have been immensely impressed when I have visited these comprehensive schools. And they are a fairly varied sample in location and type. I will not take up the time of your Lordships
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by retailing details in a debate which must be about broad issues, but I believe that other noble Lords who have spoken or who may speak will be aware that a great deal is going on in our comprehensive schools which is good, which is encouraging, and which is indeed exciting. I have here a magazine from one of these schools, edited by the pupils. I cannot pass it around the House. There are not many of your Lordships to see even the title. But if I were able to retail some excerpts from these magazines, it would make my own speech very much more exciting than it is.
In saying that, I have particularly in mind those aspects of education which are generically known as social education and outdoor education, with the definite connection that this has with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, when he spoke about character. It is particularly in those fields that one can catch a glimpse of what young people who are socially disadvantaged can achieve and can aspire to, and can have some idea of what many more young people in a similar situation could achieve and aspire to if they had more opportunity. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack made the point that, where there have been and are troubles and difficulties, many of them are a reflection of the wider malaise in our society as a whole; and the cures for the troubles in our schools must be considered as part and parcel of resolving those greater problems in the country as a whole.
I would revert briefly to the big questions of education, although they have been so well covered by people more expert than I am. It is good to know from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that there can be no question of any national policy to abandon the comprehensive principle (I think we shall hear more about this from my noble friend Lady Birk when she comes to wind up the debate) despite the disadvantages under which that principle and system has been operated. I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, if she were here in her seat (she will not be able to read what I say, because it will not be printed to-night in Hansard), that comprehensive education has gone way beyond the point of a general experiment. It is well and truly proven. The real questions are those

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of making comprehension more comprehensive, or the other way round, and thus of realising the full potential of that principle. This, in turn, of course relates to the question of the freedom and discretion of local authorities and schools to provide alternatives in the form of grammar and direct grant schools, and it relates, too, to the question of the future of the private schools—all of which, in my contention, and I think I am not alone in this, detracts from the development of full comprehension. When I say "the full development" I have in mind the flexibility of, the variety of choice in, and the quality of the staffing of, those schools, indeed the progress of young people under the umbrella of the comprehensive school.
I was particularly interested in what was said about the maximum numbers that can be beneficial and acceptable to the comprehensive principle. I would say it is my belief that, inasmuch as the best teachers and the more able children tend to be creamed off into the grammar and independent schools, this runs counter to and is detrimental to the comprehensive principle. I would exempt from this criticism, if it is to be seen as criticism, the sixth form colleges. I am one of those who believe in sixth form colleges. They tend to keep the comprehensive schools within reasonable numbers—this is why I was interested in the figure given by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor—and, because at a certain stage those who are emerging from the fifth forms are growing out of the secondary school environment; they are beginning to need a more adult environment in which they can specialise and pursue a wider range of studies.
I will turn away from the big questions which are controversial, and which have been so well covered, to two personal questions, in the interrogative, of my own. I sometimes wonder—and here I shall perhaps be seen as heretical—whether our tradition of freedom to interpret and experiment with education with the maximum degree of devolution has not gone too far for too long. I wonder whether there has not been enough, if not too much, experiment and too little consolidation; and whether the young are not sometimes unfairly treated as guinea-pigs to satisfy the curiosity and the convictions of adult experts.
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Here I am running completely counter to the speech made by my noble friend Lord Redcliffe-Maud, whom I greatly admire and respect, but I wonder whether firmer guidelines should not on that account be given by central Government in the interests of providing equal opportunities for all young people. Surely that is the essence of our debate to-day. I question how far any society, especially one which has the limited resources which we have in this country to-day, can afford to proliferate the variety of its educational practices to the extent that we do in this country. I understand that this contrasts with the pattern of education in a number of other countries which have a more uniform, established or stable pattern of education. The right reverend Prelate referred to the need for this. It appears to produce not unsatisfactory results.
The noble Lord, Lord Blake, and other Members of your Lordships' House have spoken about the wrongness of being complacent. May I speak about the wrongness of being arrogant in contending that we have a better system of education and a better tradition of education in this country than anywhere else? I regard that as arrogant. Above all, I wonder, as other noble Lords have wondered without the doubts which have been expressed, whether it might be possible to take education out of politics and prevent it becoming, as it has done during the last ten years, the plaything of Party politics. To-day there is a great deal of support for the need to make common cause between the political Parties in order to tackle our most urgent problems. Surely this is one problem where an effort should be made to reach a consensus on broad aims and strategy.
My Lords, like so much else these days, policies tend to become polarised at two extremes. There is the one pole of cultivating excellence—of concentrating resources to provide the highest order of leadership and expertise so as to produce an "élite" in all areas of our public life from among the young people who are being educated. Who would quarrel with that as a proposition? Pushed too far, however, this inevitably means disadvantaging the slow learners and the less able; and therein lies danger. The other pole is that of aiming to reduce the divisions in our society—aiming for

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the ideal of "one nation" through young people of all ages, of all shades of social background, of all grades of ability, sharing one broad form of primary and secondary education. Having said that, I should qualify it by remarking that this by no means implies the same thing as producing an egalitarian or uniform society. Surely there is merit in that but, pushed too far, the elimination of streaming from all types of subject and learning is bound to hold back the best intrinsic talent. And there is danger in this.
My Lords, both of these policies have been dubbed, criticised and condemned as "social engineering". The noble Lord, Lord Butler, quoted Thomas Carlyle on the aims of education. We have also heard an inspired and remark-able quotation—a feat of memory—from Lord Redcliffe-Maud. The noble Lord quoted what the headmaster of his school said in 1861. However, we are living in 1974 and the realities of the world that we live in are that education is involved in the community. And so it should be. Schools should not be insulated and isolated from life as it is lived. So far as schools are concerned, may I say that the school of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, would have been one of them and that that is how private schools still tend to be.
The realities demand that education should be concerned with the community as well as with the individual. This is just as true in a free society as it is in a dictatorship, and it is sheer humbug to take either of those poles—the élite and the "one nation", or whatever you like to call it—and say that the one is "social engineering" and the other is not. They both are. However, in seeking to compromise between these two poles, surely in the conditions in which we are living today there should be room for agreement which will serve the best interests of parents, of children and of our democracy as a whole.
My Lords, as regards R.O.S.L.A., enough has been said. I was thankful to hear that the Government propose to proceed with it. Those headmasters whom I have consulted are unanimous in wishing that it should be proceeded with. One headmaster said that he was confident that his fourth-termers, after all the initial
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difficulties, would be taking the additional year in their stride. One of the troubles has been that too many authorities, too many schools, have not prepared for it sufficiently. A survey which was undertaken by the N.U.T. implies that as many as 33 per cent. of authorities or schools may not have worked out in time the necessary curricula and courses. Looking at the matter realistically, I suppose that the problems had to arise before the "bugs" could be ironed out.
I now come to the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Blake, for strengthening the rights of parents. We have heard a lot about that this afternoon, including the right to choose the preferred school which the parent wishes, including private education. Again, I am prepared to be accused of uttering a heresy when I say that I have reservations about the rights of parents to choose, without let or hindrance, the education which they prefer for their children. I doubt it, because I think that too many parents have insufficient wisdom, or knowledge, or even the proper motives to make decisions in the best interests of their children, which is what this debate is about.
My Lords, having said that, may I revert briefly to the question of private education? I was gratified to hear the noble Lord, Lord Butler, say that we must look forward to the day when private and public education come together. May I put it another way by saying that I hope the day will come, without undue haste, without resort to sudden draconian measures and recourse to the process of law, when the option of a private, fee-paying education is no longer available. I say this because so long as one can buy something which is recognised as being better and which a great many other people cannot buy—it is all very well to do this for oneself but to do if for oncoming generations is quite a different thing—one negates the principle of equal opportunity for all children. Thereby one tends to project into the future, from one generation to another, a certain established social structure. It is divisive and it is manifestly unfair. I reckon, also, that it is socially damaging.
That is not to deny parental rights. I would far rather interpret those rights in the terms in which the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and others have done—the right of parents, where the area in which they

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are living permits it, to ask for a place in a certain school which should be granted if it is seen to be in the best interests of that child, if it is without detriment to the interests of other children and if there is such a place. I should like to interpret parental rights in the ways which have been mentioned: by involving parents through parent/teacher associations, through places on school boards, and, most interestingly, in London through the formation of consultative committees of parents who are consulted by the education authorities. These are some of the ways in which parents may influence, in consultation with the professions, both the education of their own children and the education of other children in the community. Surely this is the way to ensure that schools and education as a whole become part of the whole community. These are not only the rights but also the duties of parents.
7.40 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I have been fascinated listening to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, speaking, because I know the contribution he has made to outdoor work with children and also some of the underprivileged, and also (although he may not know this) having heard his praises sung among the snow and ice and eidelweiss in Switzerland only about three weeks ago. I reiterate the point he made because we have figures to substantiate this. Reference has been made to the underprivileged, and the figures given by the Minister of Education and Science in another place the other day were to the effect that there are about 1 in 10 of the child population underprivileged. Some 900,000 childen are in that position.
One asks oneself: what were the motives that brought me into politics? I ask that as one coming from a Welsh farming and mining background, who received a university scholarship after a great deal of effort—a scholarship which one did not take up for a while and then took up again. One of my first loves was that like the Scots I wanted to see equality of opportunity in education. I accept that people cannot be equal; I accept the differences in mental ability and stature, but somehow a civilised State ought to be able to give equality of opportunity. Consequently, the noble Lord, Lord Blake, who is so knowledgeable in this field, has indeed
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given us a great opportunity and I, too, should like to thank him for it. He has given us this opportunity in drawing attention to the need to attain the highest standards and in drawing attention in the educational system to the importance of parental rights. There are obligations on parents as well, and I should like to see throughout the country, even at the primary school level, the obligation laid on parents in the Parent Teacher Associations to take a greater interest in maintaining discipline at primary school level.
When the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack gave us figures which showed that he was spending somewhere in the neighbourhood of £4,000 million on education—which for the first time in the history of Britain demonstrates that we are spending more to-day on education than on defence—this should not be a blot on the escutcheon of the British Government, whatever their politics. There should be a gasp of pleasure and one should say, "Thank God! At last people are becoming civilised". As Dr. Kissinger said the other day, "What and where is our speaking from strength"; and as Nye Bevan said, "You cannot be deader than dead" when you are speaking in terms of massive nucleonic defence. Consequently, in the educational system we may be creating wiser people who will find answers to these great problems.
As one who has had experience in all branches of teaching, right up to adult education, I was glad to hear those with practical experience speaking of the burden and the pressure on the school teacher at primary level. Unless we get that level right the pyramid of education will not be on firm foundations. When I was thrust into a classroom, green as grass, but arrogant because I knew everything in the world at that age (like everybody else) it was in front of a class of 80 kids in one room, in an old church school where there were three other classrooms. I was glad of the job because in those hungry 'thirties it was almost impossible to get a job anywhere. A pal of mine wheeled a fish cart round the streets selling fish, and he had a marine engineering degree. We were glad of the jobs, but the kind of schooling that we had and the opportunities for the underprivileged were terrible. God knows! how some of them even got to learn to read and write, let alone anything else. But there

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was a drill, there was a discipline; there was a thirst for knowledge.
Something has happened since 1861 and that beautiful description that we had a little while ago, and this is the 64,000-dollar question: we have men and women in this House with vast experience in the whole gamut of civilisation and yet we are not certain of what we are trying to achieve in the educational world. Print technology began at Wurtemberg and man was able to accumulate his knowledge between the covers of books and pass it on. Printing released men but it broke down the old guild system: it broke down the arrogant assumption of the time, when the mind of mediaeval man was locked and the key was on the girdle of a priest. It broke it down as books gave instruction and man began to think. Mind you, much of the thinking, as to-day, may have been warped. But to-day there are new technologies.
I am cutting out about 90 per cent. of my speech, because most of it has been said already, but one finds that when a child comes before one the little brat has had about 5,000 hours of television before he can read and write. He knows more about the world at five years of age-having watched the "telly" with his mummy or with his old man, who will show him anything sometimes, especially if it is football—than I did when I was 15 or 18. He has seen the world in colour, he has seen the activities of human beings; he has seen killing, he has seen shooting, he has seen the Vietnamese war and death on the battlefield. His imagination does not act like mine. I read in books about death on the battlefield or climbing. My imagination built castles and massacres and holocausts, but the child of to-day sees it and he comes to school and there is a teacher with 45 babies, trying to teach them the alphabet because the parents are both working and they are too busy to start.
My daughter, who had an honours degree in economics, wanted to earn some money, so she did some teaching for a while, but she was shocked to find that so many of the kids said, "damn" and even worse. One kid said to her, "I can't learn this damn thing". You have a child of five or six, sophisticated in the visual world, not prepared to use his mind to get to grips. There are more
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illiterates to-day, but do not make the mistake of thinking that illiteracy means lack of wisdom. I have said before that many a peasant who could not read or write had masses of wisdom, and consequently literacy and numeracy are not the open gates to wisdom. When the gift was thrust upon him—"What gift do you want, lad?"—Solomon said, "I want the gift of wisdom". Not cleverness, not literacy, not numeracy. Our educational system must unlock this door: how do you give to the modern child and to the modern university student the gift of wisdom? I do not know the answer. This is how the modern education system strikes me. We have a lonely crowd of 1,000 million watching a ball being kicked about. I have played rugby and soccer most of my life. I expect my noble friend has forgotten it, but we once played rugby together years ago. I wonder whether he still remembers it?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, since that recollection has been introduced, no doubt the noble Lord remembers that, in those days, those who were then the elementary schoolteachers were not allowed to play rugger against the secondary schoolteachers in the world of Stoke-on-Trent.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, there was aristocratic dichotomy, but it went off my back like water off a duck. It is quite true. To-day, a lonely crowd who have not participated in any games at all tell you how to referee a match, how to play football. We have become sponges, and this in itself is not creating the balanced, wise outlook of modern man. The changes in the content of human communication at a multi-level of the interplay of different types of communication processes which are now beginning throughout the world are part of our new educational system. Television, tape recorders, transistor radios, record players, records, language laboratories—we have not yet learned how to use these.
In millions of homes we have this wonderful machine that could be the Open Sesame to a wiser world and—without being snobbish or foolish—the trivialisation that appears upon it sometimes is deteriorating man's thinking apparatus and making it more spongy

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to-day than it has been in the past. Possibly somebody will correct me about that and say that I am exaggerating. And so eternal vigilance is creating the very opposite of what is wanted. It is creating indifference; the eternal watching of the passing shadows which occur on a television box has created indifference in the child and something is happening to the pattern of human awareness. And although he said a lot of things I do not agree with, Marshall McLuhan is right.
The scientists of our time are just as confused as the philosophers. The amount of progress in the field of biology is frightening. There is more progress the field of biology than in space research and yet we do not know quite where we are going. I am only on the fringe of it. I was not trained for it; I have only picked it up in threads and patches as I have been wheeled along in it. Our teachers still have the illusion that new developments can be fitted into the old space environment. Faced with our own electronic and laser-beam technology, we are as primitive and helpless to-day as any man facing the first mechanised tools in the 1830s.
How do you get all this into the world and how do you use it to free man from his slavery and yet not clutter him up and make him arrogant and greedy? I played about with maths, and my wife was a first-class mathematician, and yet I have gone into schools where children in the third year are doing work in mathematics by hand and with models equal to work that I was doing in the sixth form when I was a youngster at school very many years ago. So there is still the talent, there is still the opportunity, and I will finish with this. I should like to say more, but so much has been said. I hope people will not criticise me too much. I think the search for wisdom is one of the great things to-day. I do not know how you get it. Can anybody explain why in 1968 from America to Paris—I was in Paris at the time—to England there was a revolt among university students? I could never understand it. My thirst for knowledge, the joy of listening to lectures, the joy of reading books, was absolutely thrilling. Suddenly all this becomes dead. I meet scientists and others who say tid appa—what does it matter? The world is going
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the wrong way, and I believe that the time has come for deeper research into education in relation to the machines that we have. That is why the Open University, founded by the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, is a step in the right direction.
Your Lordships have listened to me now for 14 minutes and I am sorry, but my last point is this. One asks why do people get education? It was not a gift from the Gods; it was the necessity of the tool age in which we live. "Technology" is only the Greek word for "tools". If I were your boss owning a steam engine in the 1830s and 40s and you were such a clot that you could not read and write you would burst my boilers. So I had to have "Put oil in here every three hours and fill this boiler with water every two days", so the boy or the man had to learn to read and write, and reading and writing protected a system of society that taught man to produce. The early capitalist system did a service to mankind. It taught man how to produce. Now we have to find a system of society that teaches man how to discriminate. It must be a wise society and we need the education to do it without killing each other.
7.56 p.m.
LORD DERAMORE: My Lords, I should declare an interest in that I am a governor of a girls' independent boarding school and also the manager of a county primary school which is curiously known as a controlled voluntary school, because it was built by an ancestor of mine and a kinsman of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. However, my main interest in education stems from the fact that for many years I was associated with the schools building programme from 1949 to 1969. For the first four years of that period, I had the honour to serve in the Hertfordshire County Council Architects Department under the late C. H. Aslin, whose opposite number in the Education Department was no less than Sir John Newsom who later made the famous, formidable and controversial Report. It is fair to say, however, that the schools built by Hertfordshire County Council in those years under their leadership led the world and set the standard for all schools that have followed. I say this in no boasting spirit, but to make it clear that I do not speak from ignorance

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of the very real contribution which the State system has made to educational standards.
The noble Lord, Lord Blake, and noble Lords who have spoken, have dealt with the subject with an erudition to which I cannot aspire, but I hope that my modest experience at Hertford will enable me to make some small but useful contribution to this debate. It seems to me, my Lords, that the important point about education is that the quality of life depends on our extracting every possible talent from every child in a country. My dictionary says that a talent is a special aptitude, faculty or gift. It does not just include a mental acuity, and as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has said, character is more important than anything.
In deciding on the best educational system for this country it seems to me that we must avoid at all costs falling into the trap, as the Japanese have done, of having a system for producing human cogwheels to mesh into a vast industrial machine dedicated purely to growth—however much that may appeal to some economists. On the other side, I think we must avoid producing too many intellectuals without a proper sense of reality. Your Lordships may remember a rather cynical definition of an "intellectual" as being someone who has been educated above the level of his intelligence. It seems to me that no two children are the same, and there is such a wide range of aptitude and ability among them that no single system, however benevolent or efficiently administered, can hope to cope with all requirements. There are bound to be an appreciable minority of children who do not fit into any slot in the neighbourhood school which is available at that moment. If only a handful of these children have the capacity to make a significant contribution to our civilisation, it would be criminal that they should be denied the opportunity for the sake of dogma or administrative convenience.
In my view, political and religious doctrine should have no part in any monopolistic national system. I think there is a very real danger to democracy in any system in which politically motivated men in high places can influence the education of the whole nation. The memory of the Hitler Youth movement is too recent in our minds to be ignored, and
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your Lordships do not need me to remind you that intolerance and thuggery are not confined to any one colour or political spectrum. In my view, there is an irrefutable case for continuing a system of independent and direct grant schools alongside the State system. I appreciate the sincerity of those people who think that such a suggestion is divisive and against their egalitarian principles. I suggest that the answer is not to remove the choice of schools, but to abolish, so far as possible, the divisiveness wherever it exists.
As the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, these schools provide special opportunities for people who have special aptitudes such as musical ability or, perhaps, ballet dancing, and boarding education for those children who will benefit more from that than from day schooling.
It is noteworthy that the late Kurt Hahn and T. F. Coade, who pioneered so much of modern eductional theory, did so in independent schools. Had their theories been misconceived, a few hundred children might have been disadvantaged, but it is more likely that their parents would have taken them away and sent them to some less adventurous establishment. In the other sector, some theory cooked up by an enthusiast in the Department of Education and Science may well affect tens of thousands of children whose parents have no effective sanction available to them.
Some noble Lords may feel that I am advocating one form of education for the poor and another for the not-so-poor. This surely is the crux of the argument for a State monopoly which is paid for by all taxpayers and ratepayers, regardless of their marital or parental status. However, if my contention is true that the independent and direct grant schools have a role to play, surely the answer is to find some way of providing this education for those who cannot afford to pay the fees. As the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, mentioned, there is the suggestion that educational vouchers might be provided. It seems to me that an educational voucher available to all parents and viable at all schools would widen parental opportunity and lessen the heavy burden of education on local authority.
My Lords, in conclusion I have heard it suggested that the cost of educating a

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boy at a certain comprehensive school is more than the cost of educating a boarder at a well-known independent school just South of the M.4 and near Slough. I have no means of verifying this, but if there is any truth in it the voucher system might well provide useful economies in our overall educational budget.
8.2 p.m.
LORD CACCIA: My Lords, I came here because of a sense of some obligation to add whatever small obol I could as a result of the privilege which has been mine and the absorbing interest of being Provost of Eton, that is, the chairman of an ancient foundation which includes a school. So many wise words have been said that I think the time may have come when your Lordships would prefer to hear the speeches from the Front Benches rather than from the Cross-Benches or Back-Benches. So without in any way wishing to suggest that the experience of the last nine years has not left me with some strongly held and clear views on the matters which your Lordships have been debating this afternoon, may I say that I would prefer at this time of night to address your Lordships as the President of the M.C.C., and declare the innings closed from the Back-Benches and the Cross-Benches, and leave the field for those on the Front Benches.
8.5 p.m.
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, we are very grateful to my noble friend, Lord Blake for the very clear reasons he has given for this debate. I think the House is very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Caccia, for allowing me to say this at this hour, and not several minutes later, although it is a very great pity that he felt he did not want to speak this evening about any sector of education which he could have chosen, because the batting list has been so long. Not only is my noble friend Lord Blake eminently well qualified to speak about educational standards, but as the governor of a school he understands the hopes and aspirations of parents, and has undoubtedly introduced a debate which will give the Government plenty to consider. The House was also delighted to hear the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I am intrigued to see that he was at one time the editor of the religious literature of Penguin Books, so no doubt the right reverend
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Prelate knows all about the art of communication. On this, of all subjects we were particularly glad to have such an interesting maiden speech from the Bishops' Bench, and I know that your Lordships hope that it will not be too long before he returns to take part again in our debates.
My Lords, what do we mean by "the highest educational standards"?—a question answered better by my noble friend than I am able to do. Is it not in suiting methods of leaching to the personality of the individual that the fascination and sheer hard work of education lies? If one is talking about very young children, then the influence of the parents is an absolutely vital ingredient. In the White Paper published by my right honourable friend the former Secretary of State in 1972, your Lordships may remember it was clearly affirmed that nursery education ought to build on and never supplant the efforts of the parents. I remember that in 1973 the Architects and Buildings Branch of the Department of Education and Science lent weight to this view by publishing an ingenious design for an infants and nursery school to be built in Derbyshire, which included a reception area to which parents were welcomed and from which they could be drawn, naturally and automatically, into the life and work of the school.
In this context, I believe that the play group movement will be of considerable importance in the future. The only one of your Lordships who mentioned this was my noble friend Lord Swinton. I should like to ask the Government whether the Department has collected any information about the policy of the authorities towards play groups. As your Lordships will know, assistance can be given to voluntary organisations in a variety of ways, but I believe that assistance to play groups will be effective only if it is accepted by all concerned that the involvement of mothers in such units is really of mutual benefit.
I venture to include a word or two about the participation of parents because, as many of your Lordships have pointed out (and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Snow), the value of a good start for any child is fundamental not just to the young, but to all who are involved in education, and perhaps at this hour your Lordships will accept this

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without further debate. Is this not especially so for the children who are deprived of the encouragement of parents, for those who perhaps have handicaps or specific difficulties, and not least for the bright child, ready and eager to get on? I think it was right for my right honourable friend to start her White Paper with the under-fives. I believe I am right in saying that the first allocations became operative from July 1. Perhaps in reply the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, might tell the House how the Government see the programme for the first year unfolding.
In one way or another, I think all noble Lords have referred to the quality of teaching. My noble friend Lord Blake and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, both referred directly to teacher training. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, made several suggestions for improving the content of initial training. If the immediately financial future really is bleak, then the recommendations of the Committee which sat under Lord James of Rusholme on the quality of teacher training assume increased significance. For although the greatest need of all children is possibly to gain a sense of stability and security from those who teach, none the less the demands on the teaching profession are constantly changing. It is not always possible for the initial training completely to prepare someone for their first, or possibly their subsequent, job. Still less without in-service training can teachers gain experience, hope to renew ideas or have a "breather". This is not to decry the valuable work being done by the members of Her Majesty's Inspectorate or those in the teachers' centres, but this is spasmodic and not on a regularly planned basis.
There was an exchange about the Inspectorate, and as I understood it I agree with my noble friend Lord Elton about full H.M.I. inspections, and with my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, about the ability to teach being a qualification for the Inspectorate. But if my memory serves me right, I would be very surprised, at any rate, if almost all the Inspectorate have not done some training before becoming an H.M.I. I believe I am right in thinking that the Senior Chief Inspector, Mr. Harry French, who has done so much for the Inspectorate in the two or
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three years that he has been S.C.I., and is due to retire I think this month, has in fact returned to having some full inspections, as many as he is able to accomplish with a force of H.M.I.s at a rather lower establishment than perhaps he would wish.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way for one moment. To get the Record straight, my criticism was not of present H.M.I.s. My knowledge goes back a long time. There was a tendency in the old days to appoint people straight from the universities without this prior knowledge, but not to-day.
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, having said that, although I think the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor gave some very welcome and interesting information about teacher supply, the debate affords the Government an opportunity to answer two questions. The first was put by my noble friend Lord Blake; namely, do the Government agree with the 1972 White Paper policy for teacher training, and, if so, is it possible now to proceed with any of the recommendations of the White Paper? Secondly, will the Government be able to reveal with rather greater clarity their plans for the colleges of education? I regret that I have not given notice of this question to the noble Baroness, and I shall more than understand if she does not wish to reply this evening. I accept that it is an inevitable consequence of the 1972 White Paper that the remarkable expansion of the colleges really must be curtailed, an expansion which owed so much to my noble friend Lord Boyle, and to the Labour Government of the 1960s. But undoubtedly the colleges are going through a worrying time. Senior people find their careers at risk. Colleges of old foundation feel threatened. This may be necessary, but if it is, I hope that the Government will find an opportunity to state their case, to defend their methods and to indicate the results they now hope to achieve.
There are just two more aspects of what I might call national policy to which noble Lords have referred and to which I would briefly refer. The first is the concept of educational priority areas as it relates to my noble friend's debate. It was, of course, Lady Plowden's Committee which coined the phrase "positive

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discrimination", and this, I am sure, is the thinking behind the Government's recent allocation of £10·8 million to teachers in schools of "special stress", as they are now being called, a salary increase which is undoubtedly needed and deserved, though whether it will encourage staff to stay in the schools remains to be seen. But I think that an E.P.A. policy is an aid to education, not an end in itself. I remember a junior and infant school in a difficult area of Manchester which had received a visit from an educationist who did not believe perhaps too much in high academic standards and in particular not in standards for this school at all. The staff were outraged. They said "Our children need the best. They need the best facilities that additional resources can give them and they need the best teaching we can possibly provide."
Only a small fraction of pupils in need of extra help attend E.P.A. schools. That is why resources for the fundamentals of education are so terribly important, and that is why I stand staunchly by the raising of the school leaving age. May I remind your Lordships of two points. First, when the noble Lord, Lord Boyle, announced in 1964 that as a matter of policy the age would be raised, he affirmed his belief that this would be a levelling up of educational opportunity, and who can doubt it when one considers the lost opportunities of boys and girls who have lived in places where, usually for understandable economic reasons, early leaving has been a tradition. Secondly, when the age was raised to 15 in 1947, so formidable were the post-war problems faced by the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud and his Minister that it was described as an act of faith, which really was not the case in 1973. The distinguishing feature of the raising of the school-leaving age is that it involves young persons to-day who mature earlier, and I believe that this may be one of the causes of the violence and truancy to which so many of your Lordships, notably, the noble Lord, Lord Blake, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, have referred. Without deviating from the principle of a school-leaving age of 16, I would urge the Government to take account of what the teachers concerned have to say and not to rule out any arrangements which
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may be desirable as the practical considerations become clearer.
May I add a word on the individual school? How does one pursue higher standards there? However good are the arrangements for local devolution, it is undeniable that local government reorganisation has accentuated the need for an effective local voice in the running of the actual school. This is by no means easy. It requires effort and it needs encouragement. No parent teacher association can hope to get started unless the Head supports it. None can succeed without the enthusiasm of the parents. Ideally schools need people locally on whom they can rely as governors and managers. I believe it was Sir John Newsom who once said to a young education officer who was serving with him, "Democracy works best if properly imposed". I really do think that the majority of councillors on governing bodies could sometimes be modified in favour of parents, representation of the staff and more local residents. But, of course, busy people need to be involved if they are really to be interested. With the severe capital restrictions now facing us all, I believe that the real challenge for the next few years will be the management of resources and the deployment of staff. If only authorities can offer as much discretion as possible to Heads within the capitation allowances, one silver lining which we may see in education in the next few years is a good opportunity for governors and managers to gain a real insight into the running of their schools.
May I turn finally to the question of reorganisation of secondary education. Many noble Lords' speeches have concentrated around this and around the terms of Circular 474. I think that I am right in saying it is Section 13 of the 1944 Education Act, as amended, which alone provides the legal base on which the organisation of the schools can be changed, requiring formal proposals to the Secretary of State, publication, and the two-month period for objection for local government electors and Governors of voluntary schools. That is, I think, the statutory procedure, and Circular 474 very properly makes it clear that there is an overriding criterion, and the overriding criterion the Government have chosen is elimination of selection at any age. Yet those who propose to make changes in

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the education system bear a responsibility to show that they will be to the pupils' advantage.
In paragraph 4 the Circular mentions two-tier schools, just in passing, but such schools really do pose some educational problems. The upper schools can find themselves short of well qualified teachers for the less able pupils, whereas the lower schools may find it difficult to attract staff for the more able, and certainly teachers for some shortage subjects. But between the two tiers there does lie unpalatable choice. Although 11 to 13 represents a very restricted age range, transfer at the age of 14 is even less attractive, for this is precisely the moment when pupils embark on courses for examinations. If the Government will forgive me for saying so, I think they may be deluding themselves, and worse still, they may be deluding others, if they do not take sufficient account of the implications of some of the forms of reorganisation. Let us take one more example, the familiar problem of size. Here again there is dilemma in creative all-ability schools large enough to support healthy sixth forms without creating huge institutions.
In 1972 in a speech to the National Union of Teachers, my right honourable friend the former Secretary of State explained her preference for smaller schools, and undoubtedly many smaller comprehensives have been something of an unsung success story, with staying-on rates well above the national average. However, it is a fact that the five form comprehensive schools which have been pioneered by Hertfordshire, and which have always been thought of as being at about the reasonable end for comprehensive schools, are still day schools of 800 pupils or more; and though schools of four and three forms of entry flourish, generally they do so with very favourable staffing ratios and in favourable surroundings.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that it had been recommended that the size for comprehensive schools should, if possible, be between 750 and 900 pupils. I am most grateful to him for saying that. I am not aware that it has been said before. As the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, said, we could be in danger of deceiving ourselves
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if we disregard the facts of that statement. Therefore, may I ask two questions, of which I regret I have not given notice? In fact, whose recommendation is that? Is it a recommendation supported educationally by the inspectorate? Many people would be interested to know that. I wonder whether perhaps at a later time the noble Baroness could tell us in writing what percentage of comprehensive schools, at present, fall outside the recommended bracket.
Of course, one solution to this dilemma is to concentrate sixth form work. It is done admirably in Oxfordshire where they use a ring of schools where they can do so, and use certain schools for the different sixth form subjects. It can be done in a college or in further education; but here again there are problems. We do not yet know what effect the decapitation of schools will have. All we do know is that sixth form teachers, who habitually teach down the school, are removed and that new staff are left with no sixth form to teach.
I concede that I have given a brief catalogue of difficulties with comprehensive reorganisation, but they are difficulties which suggest that we need further research beyond that which was undertaken in a rather leisurely time span by the N.F.E.R. Let no one conclude that, in the right conditions, comprehensive schools are not successful. As my noble friend Lord Swinton said in some areas they have jolly well got to be successful. It can be most impressive to see the care with which some authorities consult, to ensure that a new sysetem gets off the ground to the best start and with the utmost goodwill. For instance, a middle-school system, which must incorporate elements of primary and secondary teaching in the middle schools, makes immense demands in terms of planning and consultation, but well-planned it is one of the systems which demonstrates clearly the gulf between a well-prepared scheme and a plan where schools are just thrown together.
Your Lordships are familiar with Section 76 of the 1944 Act. It is because of that that on this side of the House we believe in a diversity of schools. Parents want, we believe, to have the opportunity to choose between large and small, mixed

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or single-sex, schools which stream and those which do not, schools, arising from the speech of noble Lord, Lord Snow, which concentrate on certain subjects, and many parents continue to seek a school of religious foundation. I do not discern encouragement of diversity in the Circular. Indeed, a new element has appeared; a direct threat to the voluntary aided schools. It is sad that the Circular makes no attempt to discuss the value of these schools, but simply lays down that what has to happen is that they will conform to the local authority system. We already have a grandstand view of what this would imply for the voluntary aid schools of Inner London. Invariably these schools are popuar because they are not large. But, as my noble friend Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte has told us, apparently the Authority is bent on destroying this advantage, artificially to join together schools which are often separated by considerable distances.
Finally, may I say a word about direct grant and independent schools? I must declare an interest as chairman of the Governing Bodies' Association whose member schools are representative of independent education and of the direct grant schools. In recent years the pressure for places in these schools has enormously increased, and I make no secret of the fact that I should like to see this demand satisfied whenever possible. So far as the direct grant schools are concerned, with 25 per cent. of the places having to be offered free to pupils who have come from a primary school and 25 per cent. of the places offered to local authorities, for the parents as free places, for them a wide intake could be effected by local education authorities claiming their places, and by improving the remission scale for fee-paying parents, which was last done three years ago.
One remembers the first question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden in his speech; is there going to be enough money to do everything? I think that these schools provide a good bargain when you consider that during last year alone direct grant schools carried out nearly £6 million of school buildings with money which they themselves had raised. So far as the independent schools are concerned, historically many of these schools have had scholarships and funds precisely to enable a variety of pupils to enter. There are many independent
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schools where both the school and the local authority value their connection, and I am doing no more in this context than advocate an extension of this kind of co-operation.
May I conclude by just asking one question? Why is it that in increasing numbers parents are prepared, in a sense, to pay twice for education? What is it in independent and direct grant schools which has an increasing appeal? First, I believe it is a fact that the governing bodies are free to run their schools as they believe, and in response to the wishes of the parents. I believe that there is also a desire for small units—not just in the classroom, but from a pastoral point of view—and this is something which boarding schools can provide better than any others. Parents also look for a reasonably stable staff, for how can children properly be cared for if the staff are only birds of passage? I believe that both parents and pupils subconsciously want to have a loyalty to their schools. I was interested to read recently in the Times Educational Supplement that many sixth formers in a survey felt that they had reached an age when they wanted to get out of school, but they felt that they had an obligation as senior pupils to remain. But you only build up that loyalty if pupils remain in school for a period of years.
I hope that it does not sound pretentious to say that I am sure that parents want a school which has a sense of endeavour and (following the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Annan) one that will help perhaps to form a young person's character, and where it is believed that work is therapeutic and that life will require us to be trained in the habit of work. These characteristics are not the preserve of independent and direct grant schools. There is many a maintained school that can teach its colleagues more than a thing or two, and I am sure that each sector can derive considerable benefit from the other. I think that the distinguishing feature about the schools that I have just mentioned is that parents can choose what school will suit them, and can perhaps make their choices from some of the options which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, listed in his speech. This is why we, on this side of the House, wish to encourage a healthy, independent

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and direct grant sector, working in competition and in co-operation with the maintained schools, as the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, among others, so strongly recommended.
There are many practical ways in which this can be achieved. The sharing of good facilities in schools; the sharing of initial training courses where you have both the students and some of the lecturers attending from different sectors of education, and also the sharing of teachers' centres throughout the land. For Heads who know each other well, the temporary transfer of staff is not a problem, and as I am sure your Lordships know, in cultural or recreational pursuits, for the children concerned the kind of school they represent is not of very much consequence. I believe that this is the path for the future. Where there is a difference of view about the right of parents in a free society to have some choice, surely it is desirable to see both philosophies in competition and in co-operation for the continued advance of education in this country.
8.29 p.m.
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, may I first apologise that because the closed circuit television system was not working I missed the beginning of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. I certainly did not wish to miss one word. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Caccia, made such a short speech that he too was up and down before I could even be summoned.
This has been a fascinating debate, my Lords. One could say that it has been a good crash course in depth in adult education. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blake, for having chosen the subject and for having allowed it to be opened up in this way, although as I continue I shall not find myself able to agree with some of his observations. Nevertheless, it is important that all aspects should be discussed.
I turn now to a couple of points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who was kind enough to inform me that he would have to leave early to get his train. His comments on the linking of truancy with juvenile crime were extremely important and serve to underline the great necessity of making sure that in the last years
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at school we are shaping the curriculum in order to suit the lifestyle and the needs of the young people so that they are not frustrated or bored.
One of the reasons I wanted to concentrate on one of the points of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, before he left was because he spoke to the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, about comprehensive and direct grant schools. When he spoke about comprehensive schools he, along with several other noble Lords, referred to the good things being done by them, saying that they were good and exciting and that they were beyond the experimental stage. He illustrated—it is relevant and I shall return to it later—the arguments of those noble Lords who are in favour of retaining the direct grant and independent schools in their present form. But we have gone beyond the stage of experimentation with the comprehensive schools. The comprehensive system is here to stay. I shall explain why the Government consider that it is not only the right system but the best possible way of organising education in this country, and why the choices must lie within the system.
The noble Lords, Lord Blake and Lord Belstead, and other noble Lords, were kind enough to send me advance notice of their comments. If I should not cover all their questions, I will endeavour to write to them. This has been a long debate, and while I do not usually get tired of hearing my own voice I think that other people may. The noble Lord, Lord Blake, referred to a relatively high proportion of young teachers leaving in the early years of their service. It is true that people leave; people of course leave all types of professions, but I think the most important fact about this is that there is a well-established pattern of reentry, both of men and of women. Some of them leave to study, to travel or to try other work. They come back to teach. Above all, the married women return. It seems to me that we should do more to encourage this trend. The re-entry rate is about 4 per cent. a year. This has the effect of reducing the net loss. One hopes that in the context of what my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said about future planning on teachers' pay and conditions we shall be getting a greater supply of teachers. The Lord

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Chancellor referred also to the pupil-teacher ratio, comparing I.L.E.A. schools with other schools. It is now probably a little better than 16 to I compared with the national average of a little more than 17 to 1. But there is a difficulty in recruiting and in keeping mature teachers. In London, the education authorities have to rely more on young teachers.
We are all aware, I think—and at this point in the debate it is not necessary for me to emphasise it too much—that London is a special case. One of the great problems for teachers in London is not only the question of pay or travel but the enormous problem of housing. All these matters are so interlocked that it is impossible—and I am glad to see the noble Lord is nodding his head—to look at this situation without considering all the other social concomitants that go with it.
The noble Lords, Lord Blake and Lord Belstead, referred to the James Report. The Government are going ahead with this, especially so far as in-service training of teachers is concerned. I will briefly venture on three examples in this regard. From September this year the first of the new three and four-year batch of education degree courses will be introduced in colleges of education. Secondly, with financial assistance from the Government the Liverpool and Northumberland local education authorities are already introducing pilot schemes of induction training for newly-appointed teachers. Thirdly, the Advisory Committee on the Supply and Training of Teachers is currently considering this matter and will be advising my right honourable friend about the question of detailed arrangements for the further expansion of in-service training opportunities for teachers. If either noble Lord requires more detailed information about it, perhaps they would be satisfied if I wrote to them.
The noble Lord, Lord Blake, also raised the subject of the average cost of training a teacher. It is correct that the estimated average cost is between £3,000 and £4,000. The figure includes student grants which covers the average length of course of just under three years. Frankly I would have thought that that was quite a cheap rate, considering what we expect to get from it.
The noble Lords, Lord Blake, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, and other noble
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Lords who have spoken, set the pattern of the debate most admirably, but perhaps I may use the occasion to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester on his maiden speech. He was good enough to let me know that he could not be present until the end of the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, established the whole wide setting in which to discuss the subject of education. I very much enjoyed the way he pushed out the limits and widened our horizons away from the formal structure of our schools, universities and colleges of further education, giving us some respite from the problems with which we are faced so that we could enjoy what I feel is the much more positive side which people are imbibing all their lives. This helped to set the pattern for the course taken by the debate, and to which so many other noble Lords contributed.
Together with a number of other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Snow, the noble Lord, Lord Blake, and my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones referred to universities. It is true that the universities are feeling the strong sting of the economy. This, as I know the noble Lord, Lord Blake, is aware, is the result of the policy which was decided by the last Government. Because of the economic situation which we inherited—I will not underline that point any further now—we have had to reaffirm that policy.
I was very grateful to the noble Lord for putting the blame for something on to the last Government. I understand and sympathise very much with the difficulties with which the universities will be coping in the months immediately ahead, when some of them, probably most of them, will be faced with considerable cash flow problems; and the Government are concerned whether there may be means of alleviating them. I cannot forecast the outcome, and I should not like to raise hopes, but we are looking at them as sympathetically as the severe economic situation allows, while realising the limits of the elasticity of the budget, not only for universities but for education—and in education there are, as has been mentioned on all sides, so many other priorities.
Before leaving the subject of universities, I am happy to be able to announce at least one piece of good news, and to inform the House—and I know that this

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will concern my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones—that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has now agreed to increase the Open University's grant-in-aid in order to allow the University to raise the 1975 intake of undergraduates to 20,000, compared with 14,000 originally contemplated. This is as large an intake as the University can cope with in 1975, and because even then it will mean that may applicants will still be disappointed my right honourable friend has informed the University that the intake in the following year will again be at least 20,000, and that the necessary additional resources will be found.
I think this sets the pattern for what really is the crux of this whole debate. Here we have a situation in which we have to cut down on the universities, much as we dislike doing so, but so far as the extra resources are concerned we are giving them to the Open University in order to bring into the higher education system great numbers of people who would otherwise not have any opportunity at all. What I think is extremely important and so exciting about this, as was mentioned in the debate on May 23, is that it enables many people in different stages of maturity or in middle age, or whatever word one wants to use, to be able to take up their education again at this point.
If I may for a moment go on to the other range of further education, I think it is very often the case—and may be particularly so, my Lords, in this House—that it is the universities and the rest which are concentrated on, and we are apt to forget the very wide range and increasing variety of opportunities in further education which are not contained in the universities. Apart from the educational aspect of this, we need large numbers of men and women—and these are numerically several times the number of graduates—whose academic studies are closely linked with practical application. The role of the technicians and practitioners is of immense importance, and these people deserve a better status than they have received up till now. One way in which I feel that actions are speaking far louder than good intentions is the Government's proposal to introduce legislation before the Summer Recess to make mandatory awards to those who
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are accepted for the Higher National Diploma and the Diploma in Higher Education.
This means that any student who is admitted to a course for a degree—for the Diploma of Higher Education, the Higher National Diploma or teacher training—will be entitled to a mandatory award. It also means that some mature students who are reading for a university-degree and who up till now have received only a discretionary award will henceforward receive awards as a matter of right. This, again, is a very important—and not only for young people. Here, I am particularly thinking of the housewife, who may no have any other financial resources of her own and who has not been able to take up further training. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, asked me about progress made in the reorganisation of higher education in the non-university sector. This. I think, covers one of the points. The planning process initiated by Circular 7/73 is already under way, but so far my right honourable friend has taken final decisions about the future of only 9 out of the 163 colleges. We appreciate the anxiety that the delay is causing, but we are going ahead as far as we can; and, again, if the noble Lord would like further information perhaps he will let me write to him about that, as rather a lot of detail is involved.
Perhaps I may now come on to one of the main points of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Blake—the question of parental choice and the rights of parents. A great deal has been said about this, and I shall try not to reiterate what other noble Lords have said. But it is true, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, pointed out, that when all the pretence is stripped away we have to face the brutal fact that the majority of parents have no real possibility of choice about the school in which their children are to be educated. If they are associated with a particular religious denomination and that denomination has been able to provide a school accessible to them, then that is fine; but even then it is also true that the Church schools cannot always take all those whose parents wish them to go there. Therefore, even that choice is restricted. It has to be by geography, by demography, by economics and in this way as well.

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In densely populated areas it may often be possible for a parent to choose between two or mpre schools, but in sparsely-populated rural areas this cannot really be under almost any system unless we had such an economic Utopia that we had practically one school per family—and then there would be all sorts of social difficulties arising out of that. But one could not envisage a system where you could have this sort of free choice, and in my view this is what the comprehensive system is all about. Most authorities, even those most heavily burdened, have found ways of allocating their school places in a flexible and considerate manner; and here I think it is true—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, will agree with me—that, on the one hand, we are very anxious both to support and encourage the autonomy of the local education authorities whereas, on the other hand, one finds a great deal of apathy in localities unless something arises and people feel strongly about their own child or school. But until then they do not even take sufficient interest in the election of their representatives, or bother to take interest at a point where action could follow. So very much more participation would also have its effect on the education system, as well as direct involvement of parents with their children and with the schools.
I think we should also face the fact (I cannot remember at the moment, but I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who pointed this out) that we do not always know—and I speak as a parent myself—what is best for our own children. What we do know is what we would like for them. I well remember (and though I say so now, she would probably kill me if she heard me) my daughter's struggle to try to pass the 11-plus and of the trauma that the whole family went through—with, at the time she was taking it, no comprehensive in our area. Really, the alternatives then were either to go into one of the local secondary modern schools—and, quite frankly, we are all aware now that a great many of them were certainly not up to any sort of educational scratch—or to go to a private school. This, let us face it, is really the choice that has been available, or not available, for most parents.
When one comes to the question of the independent schools, I think the advice
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given by my noble friend Lord Annan is probably good on this occasion so far as Members opposite are concerned: to leave well alone for the moment. As to the phrase "social engineering", if it is used in the right context I cannot see anything wrong with it; but I do not know how far you can carry social engineering when there is a situation today in which parents are putting the names of their children down for public schools or other independent schools before the age of one, and sometimes even before the child is born. How can one possibly know at that time how the child is going to develop, and what is going to be the right school for that child?
The parental right must surely attach to the choice of the right place for the child. Then we come to a phrase which has only been touched on in this House—"parent power"—but which has not been used as often as it has in another place. It may be an alliterative catchphrase, but I find it contentious, provocative and meaningless except in terms of confrontation. I think that it is a phrase which when it is used must put up the backs of any teacher or head at the idea of two powers confronting each other. What we really want is a greater parental interest, and we must face the fact that this very generalised interest is fairly recent, though it is an extremely good thing. I read a report in The Times yesterday which, it is true, was critical of the schools in London, but one of the mothers said, "A few years ago, none of us would have said anything, but would have just taken the education which was handed out to us. Now we are getting up at public meetings." I think that that is good. I think that parental pressure is very important and should be used.
So far as involvement is concerned, several noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, raised the question of parents on governing bodies of schools. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Blake, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, also raised this point. There is no reason why parents should not be represented and it is up to them and to the local education authority to see that parents are represented as governors of the local schools. There is nothing against this and there is no statutory reason why they should not be.

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I turn now to a point made by several people and put most eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, regarding the voluntary aided schools. She was kind enough to send me the question which she was going to raise about ILEA'S responsibility for the site value. The answer is, No, as long as the school retains aided status. The noble Baroness raised two further questions. As she kindly suggested it, I wonder whether she would mind if I wrote to her about these points because I shall only have to scrabble over the information and not really give the noble Baroness the answer the questions deserve.
The noble Baroness also moved on to the question of direct grant grammar schools and mentioned that I had been a pupil at South Hampstead High School. That is quite true. With great respect, I think that the direct grant schools and grammar schools served their day and their generation and, after all, they did produce the present Prime Minister, many of his colleagues and, right at the end of the line, as the noble Baroness has pointed out, myself. They certainly gave a helping hand to children of the middle class and sometimes of the working class who were able to squeeze themselves through the scholarship net. They gave an education comparable to that received by some of the more privileged and rich in the public schools.
To-day, however, I think we must accept that there has been an enormous change. What we are finding is that in the sixth forms, particularly in comprehensive schools to-day, they find this really rather irrelevant because academic standards depend on the current teaching staff and the head in any school, and gifted children may receive stimulation anywhere and—let us be quite honest—they may also miss out anywhere. There is no way in which one can completely do away with any margin of error and make sure that everything is perfect for every child, but what is absolutely a fact is that, under the other system—and I can quite understand the noble Baroness's feeling about the school and her wish to retain the good—and outside the comprehensive system, we always had a pattern of people who went through into grammar schools and who were not up to the standard and found it very difficult to
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keep up and perhaps dropped out, and, on the other hand, of people who went to a secondary modern because they had just failed to make it but who, given a further chance, and without having to be selected at the age of 11, would have developed and would have had a chance to catch up. I think that this is a point which my noble friend Lord Snow should bear in mind.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRAD-FELLTE: My Lords, before the noble Baroness leaves that point I should just like to ask one question. I do not want to take up the time of the House as it is very late, but is the noble Baroness suggesting that the direct grant schools to-day are not making the same contribution as when they produced the Prime Minister and the noble Baroness?
BARONESS BIRK: No, my Lords. I think that some of them are making the same contribution, but what I am saying is that I am not prepared to accept that they are making a far greater contribution than the comprehensive schools. What is interesting is that the recent figures for people going on to higher education show that 50 per cent. of people who go to grammar schools and who, one would have thought, through the advantages they have had, will therefore go on to higher education, do not in fact do so. With regard to the point which was made by my noble friend Lord Snow about people from comprehensive schools not getting through, I am quite sure he appreciates that it is still really at the stage where people are going through these schools and are gradually reaching the university level, and that we have a far greater range of other further education possibilities. A number of people did go on, and there are some, though certainly not as many as was probably the case in the past, who are at university but who would be better off in other colleges or in other work. This is a point which I think was made most wittily by the noble Lord, Lord Butler.
It is unfair to blame the comprehensive system for this, and what I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, is that what one certainly wants to achieve are the academic standards which have emerged in many of the direct grant and other forms of grammar school, but

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these should be integrated in a comprehensive system which will itself be flexible. There should be no rigidity. I know that at the moment a lot of people do not like it, but there is no other answer if we are to give the best to the greatest number of children in our society. If one creams off 20 or 25 per cent., one does not have a really comprehensive system and there is no chance of equality of opportunity, which is really what we are trying to develop in our educational system.
I shall go very rapidly, taking just one minute to cover the other points which I hope to make. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor referred to the high standards which are being achieved and it is true that, while people often look back on many things nostalgically— it is what I call the "nostalgic syndrome"—they feel that standards to-day are not so high as they were before—
LORD SNOW: My Lords, if my noble friend will forgive my interrupting for one moment, there is nothing whatever nostalgic about this matter. Manchester Grammar School is still one of the really great schools of the world, by any conceivable standard. My noble friend really cannot have it all ways. She said five minutes ago that comprehensive schools are not experimental any longer, but she is now saying that they are. She is also saying that one is being nostalgic about some of the greatest educational institutions on earth.
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, I think that my noble friend has misunderstood me. I said that there was experiment in comprehensive schools. I said that the comprehensive system is no longer an experiment—it has been with us for so long. I am perfectly aware and I accept, as I said to the noble Baroness, and as I say to my noble friend Lord Snow, that there are outstanding grammar schools. Nevertheless, this was at the expense of the majority. Very few people got there and it was not always a question of parents; it was certainly not a question of parents' choice. The question was whether the children were able to get in, whether they were accepted by the head teacher, and what was the demand on the school at that time. In the best of all possible worlds I should like us to have
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it all ways, but we cannot and the best, it seems to me, so far as standards are concerned, so far as opportunity is concerned and—and this is the important thing—so far as developing the potential of the young person is concerned, is within the comprehensive system, which is flexible in terms of numbers, which is always looking ahead and not static in curriculum.
So far as standards are concerned, a special unit of the Department has been established in order to assess achievement and to see what is going on so that one is monitoring what is happening in the comprehensive school. So far as the curriculum is concerned, obviously it is impossible to deal at this time with the whole question, but one thing I personally feel strongly about and what is alarming to me, is that to-day in half the girls' schools—and this applies to the whole range, whether comprehensive or otherwise—the pupils do not appear to be made aware of opportunities in industry and commerce. Going across the whole area the science laboratories in girls' schools are far inferior to those in boys' schools, so it is not surprising that the opportunities for girls later on in work are far fewer. I certainly hope that this matter will be dealt with in the Sex Anti-Discrimination Bill which the Government are bringing forward.
Finally, on the question that we have discussed at great length, the school leaving age, I am very glad that the consensus of opinion in this House has been that it should stay as it is and be given a fair chance. To cover the points raised about young people obtaining apprenticeships or going out to work I would say that much more could be done in linking up work experience locally which, of course, means the co-operation of local industry.
Lastly, of course there is a need for more resources. There is a need for the greater involvement of parents in the running of the schools. There is the greatest need all the time to be looking at standards and trying to improve them. This is absolutely essential and we should not sit back and be complacent about it—and I do not think any of us are. We believe in choice—it is true not to provide privilege and not selection. We welcome constructive criticism concerned with the welfare of the child, and our aim is with the individual. But every

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man, woman and child lives in society, and therefore our aim—and by this I mean the Government's aim—must be social as well. Therefore, in my opinion there is no conflict between this and what I would call in the best sense, social engineering for the proper social aims.
The Earl OF SWINTON: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, may I say that I was very encouraged when I asked the question about the setting up of the Warnock Committee on the Education of Physically and Mentally Handicapped Children. I was greatly stirred by sympathetic noises not only from this side of the House but also from the other. The noble Baroness has not answered me. I do not want to press her because I did not give her formal notice, but could she write to me in the next day or two and tell me what is happening?
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, I have actually got the answer, but I did not see that the noble Earl was present. Mrs. Mary Warnock has been appointed Chairman of the Committee. The remaining membership will be announced very shortly and the Committee will start work in September. It will undertake a very full investigation of the educational needs of handicapped children and young people, taking account of the medical aspects and of preparation for employment.
I know there are a number of other points that have been raised that I have not been able to cover, but I hope that noble Lords will bear with me and will allow me to write to them or perhaps have a word with them.
The Earl OF SWINTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness. I am grateful for that reply.
9.5 p.m.
LORD BLAKE: My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken the trouble to take part in this debate. It has been a very interesting afternoon and evening to me, and I feel that I have learned a great deal which I did not know previously.
I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack, for the courtesy and fullness with which
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they replied to my more partisan points. I did not expect them to agree with everything that I said, and I do not think they will expect me to agree with everything that they have said. But it is too late in the day to raise these matters, and I would conclude by mentioning two things: first—although he is not here I hope he will eventually read this in Hansard—I should like to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester on his maiden speech, which was concise and an example of brevity which some other noble Lords should perhaps imitate more than they do. It was a most able speech and we hope we shall hear him often again.
The other thing I should like to say is that it was well worth having this debate if only to drag the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, from out of his fastness in the Master's Lodge at Trinity College, Cambridge, to come down and speak to us this afternoon. It was a most interesting, witty and amusing contribution to the debate. Having said that, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

CHANNEL TUNNEL RAIL LINK
9.7 p.m.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the grave concern felt by some of the inhabitants of Kent and Surrey whose lives, health, property and amenities will be injuriously affected by the proposed reconstruction of the existing Folkestone to Edenbridge railway line to take super high speed trains to and from the Continent. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. As noble Lords will see, my Question relates to the rail link between the Channel Tunnel entrance at Cheriton and a rail terminal at the White City. As this is planned to pass through Kent and Surrey I must begin by declaring a personal interest. I live in Kent and the work proposed and the consequences must adversely affect my family's property near the village of Leigh between Tonbridge and Edenbridge, though the house in which I live is about a mile

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from the existing railway where British Rail plan to double the permanent way. I hope your Lordships will believe me when I say that my personal interest is not the reason why I am here to-night.
In raising this Question, I feel it is my duty to voice as strongly and urgently as possible the alarm, and indeed consternation, which is now being felt by thousands of families whose lives and wellbeing as well as property will suffer to a degree which is only just beginning to be realised. The disaster impending is now being realised both by those affected and by a wider public whose sense of equity and fair dealing is being grossly offended by the current proposals. Their sense of fairness is even more deeply affronted by the manner in which this vitally important matter is being literally "rail-roaded" through by British Rail. I believe this is the first opportunity given to either House of Parliament to debate this most important aspect of the Channel Tunnel scheme and to view it as a unity.
I shall be as brief as the complexity of the subject allows. In 30 years of Parliamentary life, I have gained some experience of public administration. In particular, I have learned the vocabulary of official circumlocution and evasion, but I am not an engineer, a surveyor or an architect. Doing my best to understand the subject matter of my Question, I have had to rely upon a number of official, semi-official and other expert studies on the British Rail rail-link proposals. I am especially indebted to an independent study made by a committee of the Royal Institute of British Architects. If this evening I am sometimes compelled to quote rather extensively from these sources, I trust I shall have the indulgence of the House.
I want to persuade Her Majesty's Government of two things. First, I want to show to their satisfaction as well as to mine that the present British Rail proposals are, in certain vital particulars, in direct opposition to a settled Government approach to the intitiation and planning of major public works. Secondly, quite apart from the merits or otherwise of the particular objections which I shall advance, I hope to show that the form of the inquiry and the timetable now being proposed for the final consideraton of the scheme must be in conflict with all the wider considerations of public
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and private interest. They must be in conflict, because no firm answers are as yet available to some very fundamental questions. These we must not allow to be begged by hasty, premature and incomplete consideration: and begged they will be for all foreseeable time if we allow matters to proceed as now intended.
I should like now to refer, if I may, to the White Paper, Development and Compensation—Putting People First, which was presented to Parliament in 1972. The Introduction states the principles informing the White Paper. Of these, I quote three, all of which are applicable. First:
"Noisy and unattractive public developments must, by better planning, be separated from people and their homes".
And again:
"Noise, smell and other forms of pollution must be reduced to a minimum at source—if it is practicable, eliminated".
Lastly:
"No time must be lost in carrying through the new approach to design and planning, to remedial works and sound installation, to acquisition and compensation".
There are, so far as I know, no Party differences over these principles. How, then, can these accepted principles be reconciled with the current British Rail proposals to route their super-high-speed rail traffic on the existing route through the very heart of a large number of peaceful, populous and ancient communities in Kent and Surrey? Clearly, the present proposals are in precise opposition to the first principle I have just quoted, that noise must be separated from people and their homes.
We must look ahead not merely to 1980, but to 1990 and beyond. At this later date, the rail link will carry 280 trains within the 24 hours, possibly for 365 days each year, at speeds up to 180 miles an hour for passengers; and, in the case of freight, with trains up to half-a-mile long. The rail link will carry them through the growing Southern outskirts of Ashford, through Pluckley, Mar-den and Paddock Wood, through Five Oak Green, Tonbridge and Leigh, through Chiddingstone Causeway, Bough Beech and Edenbridge. Thereafter they will go on into Surrey by routes which are not yet decided and so through outer suburbs of London to the White City Terminal and across the Thames. I will

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not detain the House by going into the visual aspects of the new line. Metal poles 18 ft, high at 200 ft. intervals, carrying overhead power cables will not exactly enhance the beauty of the Kent and Surrey countryside.
Whatever the route ultimately chosen, we shall suffer deeply by the desecration of a lovely landscape if the rail is to be laid above ground. But in deciding, without publishing supporting facts and figures, that it will follow, with minor deviations, the existing Folkestone-Eden-bridge route, British Rail will ensure that it will pollute with a constant and horrifying din the ears of tens of thousands of people whose homes stand close to the existing line side. More than 20,000 people live within 500 yards of the line between Pluckley and Edenbridge. Of course, noise will not fade to nothing at that distance. Many thousands more will suffer severely.
You might expect that the consideration of noise would be one of the principal factors influencing British Rail in their choice of route. After all, we have had 30 years' experience of airports and realise only too well how inadequate was the attention which the previous generation of planners gave to this over-mastering element in our community life. We have seen how its consideration dominated all the inquiries into the choice of a site for a third London Airport.
The public's only source of knowledge of the project which we are considering, supplied by British Rail itself, is a 6½ page publication Channel Tunnel… A document for Consultation, with a number of out of date maps as a supplement.
There is not one line in it devoted to noise. The word is never mentioned. Instead, we are told that British Rail rejected the three alternative routes suggested by their consulting engineers as long ago as 1970
"as being environmentally unacceptable because they all involved very long lengths of entirely new railway … striking across large tracts of unspoiled countryside in Kent".
One must be grateful for this aesthetic perception.
It should be noted that all the alternative routes have been pronounced as being feasible in railway engineering and operational terms. What about spoiling
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people and their homes? What is environment? Is it only fields and trees and hills, and are people excluded—like Adam and Eve—from the Garden of Eden? By British Rail definition, environment must be "where every prospect pleases and only man is vile"—or should we say "cheap"?
We ought to be told by British Rail, both in Parliament and outside, precisely what were the considerations which led them to reject these alternatives. What, for example, is the length of each route and its estimated cost, including, of course, compensation for all forms of "disbetterment", the cost-benefit figures, the communities affected, the comparative environmental effects, including noise pollution? We ought to know too how the choice of the White City, as opposed to the G.L.C.'s strong preference for the Surrey Docks, would relate to all these other factors. Every schoolboy with a map and a ruler can see that the Surrey Docks, on the East side of London and South of the river, are much closer to Cheriton than to the White City.
It is, indeed, strange that the G.L.C.'s views should have been so summarily dismissed without facts given or arguments adduced, and a much longer route selected to a destination on the West of London, with all the further ill-effects which each additional yard of track brings to the people involved and their environment. Instead of supporting evidence, we are flatly told by Mr. Marsh in his foreword to the Consultation Document:
"As far as possible this new rail link will follow"
—note the future imperative—
"the alignment of existing rail routes".
Surely, my Lords, it must be wrong, and wholly inconsistent, that the choice of a third airport should have been publicly investigated in great detail, and consideration of this vast and complicated matter affecting both London and all South-East England should be confined, as effectively it must be, by Private Bill procedures, to a discussion in Select Committee of British Rail's own chosen route. Practically, it will be impossible under the rules of procedure to introduce considerations wider than those put into the Bill by skilful Parliamentary draftsmen. It is in this context that I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to

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the pre-eminently important factor of noise.
In what is called a "standard letter" written to the residents of Whyteleafe, Surrey, a Dr. Bonavia of British Rail wrote this:
"The problem of noise is a complete one. Only in recent years have standards been established for road and traffic noise and aircraft. Both of these are dissimilar to railway noise. We are therefore carrying out research in two ways—to establish standards and to minimise noise generation. This work is being carried out by our Derby Research Laboratories and the University of Southampton, which social surveys are in hand. An interim report has been made and fuller details will be available at the end of the year."
Dr. Bonavia continued:
"So far as noise generation and vibration are concerned, the trains on this line will be powered by electricity and travel on continuously welded rails, which would have an appreciable effect in reducing the level of noise produced. Once standards have been established in regard to rail noise, which we would expect to be before the British Rail Bill has passed through Parliament, it will be possible, at the subsequent stage of detailed design, to take any measures considered necessary for noise reduction."
My Lords, could anyone, without actually saying so, admit more clearly that British Rail as yet knows little or nothing about the propagation or the effects of noise generated by super high-speed trains? And pray how will they be able to take "any measures necessary"—and British Rail will be the judges of necessity—if they do not yet know the problems to be solved?
Fortunately, the percipience of the Surrey County Council has been equal to the occasion. Reporting in May this year, the County Planning Officer wrote:
"There is a considerable shortage of knowledge"—
on the subject of noise—
"in relation to high-speed trains. British Rail has commissioned a study and social survey by the Southampton Institute of Sound and Vibration Research"—
and mark these words—
"but the full results will not become available for about two years."
In other words, if the present timetable is observed the rail link route is to be incorporated in an Act of Parliament before the most essential information, in a little explored field fundamental to the proper choice of route, is available to either House—surely a Gilbertian situation. The County Planning Officer goes
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on to point out that the situation of people living and working alongside the new route cannot be compared with the situation of those who already live, or who have chosen to live, alongside already very busy main lines.
He properly concludes:
"It is essential that the mistakes of the past in relation to airport siting and motorway building are not repeated in this project, and this can only be ensured if the route and construction is chosen on the basis that the noise effects are likely to be bad, because there is no proof as yet that it will be otherwise."
It would be wiser to accept the County Planning Officer's pessimistic assessment than to be beguiled by British Rail's anodyne statements that the horrifying Japanese experience of high-speed trains is not applicable here. From the figures already available it is fair to deduce that for people with normal hearing, when the British Rail plans are fulfilled, life will become intolerable within a range of 500 yards either side of the line, and very unpleasant up to at least half a mile—and remember, my Lords, 20,000 people live within 500 yards of the track.
The project of the Channel Tunnel and the associated rail link are designed to be of economic benefit to the whole nation. It will, one must also note, be of great benefit to the economy of Northern France whose natural beauties cannot be compared to the landscape of South-East England. It is not an exaggeration to say that, unless exceptional methods and exceptional expenditures are accounted as a proper social cost of the scheme, decent family and community life will be destroyed in all the towns and villages of Kent and Surrey likely to be inundated by noise. So, at the very least, all of us who are aware of the magnitude of the problem and of the certain damage to both persons and to environmental interests under the scheme as envisaged must ask with ever-increasing insistence that the proposed British Rail Private Bill should not be introduced into the 1974–75 legislative programme.
My Lords, I know that the Secretary of State for the Environment now proposes to ask Parliament for special consideration for the introduction of the Private Bill after the normal date for the deposit of such Bills, which should be November of this year. However, this would allow no more than a further two months for

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discussions, and then only with official bodies. In the context, this must still be far too short a period. I believe that I am supported in this opinion by the Greater London Council, the Surrey County Council and the Kent County Council.
On the question of the choice of the best or, rather, the least harmful route, a special responsibility rests upon the Kent County Council. All the alternative routes cited pass through the County of Kent. Therefore I ask Her Majesty's Government what the recent Statement made by the Secretary of State for the Environment means in practical terms? When the Secretary of State says that the Minister of Transport will discuss the possible route with local authorities in the course of the next few months, does he mean that the whole route, plus each of the alternatives mentioned by British Rail, will be reconsidered, or will the discussions be confined to the still undecided sections round Ashford and through East Surrey? In that case, no attention will have been paid to the strong objections made to British Rail for the use of the existing line through Kent to the Surrey border.
My Lords, I want to believe in the fairness and candour of the Secretary of State. I should be happier about his Statement if he had not specifically limited these further discussions to two months or so—a totally inadequate time for a full review. In justice, certainly he must leave room for all popular and unofficial views to be properly heard and represented. So far they have been given only a few weeks to formulate their considered objections. Without adequate time, Mr. Marsh's own statement in the foreword to the document—
"Public opinion … understandably claims the right to participate in the planning decisions"—
does no more than to compose an exercise in farce. Therefore may I ask for an unequivocal reply from Her Majesty's Government to my question about the exact nature of this further examination.
Whatever the route chosen—whether it is to the White City or to the Surrey Docks—the Kent County Council must insist that the scheme provides for the protection of the people of their county from noise pollution in the terms of the
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White Paper which I have quoted already: either by tunnelling or by "cutting and covering" through populated areas. It must not be suborned into accepting a bad deal merely on the question of cost. Indeed, in duty Kent County Council cannot acquiesce to the imposition of an intolerable burden upon the county. For Members tamely and unquestionably to accept that the full weight of this vast national and international project should fall upon the people of Kent, or upon any section of it, would be to betray the trust placed in them by their electors.
My Lords, I am sure that in these circumstances we may rely upon the Kent County Council henceforward to represent forcefully and successfully the requirements of any scheme for a rail link through the county which is to be tolerable to the people and their environment. Manifestly, the present plans are not. Whatever the outcome, the people to be involved in the consequences of the scheme can fairly and rightly ask that there should be time for the full facts to become known, for all the choices available to be measured, and for evidence that county councils, Parliament and Her Majesty's Government alike care about what happens to them. That is why I ask Her Majesty's Government to think again and to proceed in the first instance by means of a planning inquiry Commission.
We are dealing with part of a very large and intricate problem which is far-reaching in terms of the future and on a scale so great that all the conflicting factors must be brought together and resolved in public—not behind closed doors. That is just the kind of problem which the Town and Country Planning Act 1968 gave a planning inquiry Commission power to deal with. Only then, my Lords, can the people whose lives, whose health, whose property and amenities may gravely suffer be assured that they do really matter to authority.
9.30 p.m.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, the noble Viscount does well to ask this Question and I support him in asking it. The question has not been answered—indeed, there has hardly been time to ask it properly—and he has echoed the sentiments of local authorities and amenity societies

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and everybody who cares at all about conservation matters, in declaring that these things have not been properly looked at, that the questions have not been asked, because they cannot yet be asked on the information available, and that they have certainly not been answered.
I do not want to raise the issue of the Channel Tunnel. If we have a Channel Tunnel then of course I accept that there must be a railway, but my concern is the lack of a proper environmental study for the construction of such a railway. The noble Viscount has dealt with the discomfort, the loss of amenity, the loss of property and so on that people living nearby will suffer. I also feel strongly about the visual amenity, rural land use and all the other things connected with land use in what is the most highly populated part of Europe.
This is the first new railway that has been built in this country for 60 years and, indeed, it is the first railway that British Rail has ever built. The staff that they have to evaluate the problems that go with building new railways is pitifully small, and I want to make it quite plain that the criticisms which I shall be making of British Rail are with the full knowledge that the very small staff they have at present have done the best they can. But the staff that they have is infinitely smaller than the corresponding staff of the road construction units, and they obviously have far less expertise than the road construction units. Indeed, insofar as they have never built a new railway, one can say that they have no experience whatever.
They produced a Consultative Document last February, not before they had been chivvied to try to do so earlier. I sympathise because they probably could not do it with the staff they had. The document was produced in February; there was a meeting on February 7, which was almost immediately following the date of the document itself, and the public were told that the views on the Consultative Document must be in before the end of March—although, of course, it was made known that consultations about the document would continue all the time. The document itself is really very slight. The sort of document one would have expected for an evaluation of a new railway
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line of this magnitude, even if it had been done with the greatest lucidity and conciseness, would be quite a big volume, whereas, in fact, it is a very small one.
The noble Viscount suggested that even the maps they used were out of date. I do not know about that; all I know is that the maps were so inadequate that I should not like to say whether or not they were out of date. There was no environmental assessment at all, either by British Rail or by the Department of the Environment. The evaluation was entirely on the short-term transport issue and no more. Indeed, so far as the environmental assessment was concerned, British Rail suggested that this ought to be done by local authorities and amenity societies. I hope the Government will take note that British Rail think that this sort of task ought to be done by amenity societies, and will give those amenity societies of which I have any knowledge some money to do it. In fact, that is a nonsense. This kind of environmental evaluation must go hand in hand with the transport evaluation. You cannot separate the two. You cannot say, "We will evaluate the transport problem and leave the environmental problem to amenity societies or local authorities".
Indeed, when it was suggested that the motorways landscape advisory committee should be used for the evaluation of visual amenities of this new railway line, this was turned down. I do not know whether this was done by the Department of the Environment or by British Rail, but the suggestion was that after the line had been chosen, consultants would afterwards be engaged. This is the wrong approach. This is really dealing with the matter entirely from a cosmetic point of view. When you have done something which possibly you should not have done you can prettify it a bit in a cosmetic kind of way. But when you are building a new railway line of this kind this is not the way you should be doing it. You should be doing the thing as one complete whole, so that you evaluate the two matters together, the environmental aspects and everything which goes with them—everything that comes under the heading of land use, whether it is noise or visual amenity or people's property or whatever.
I feel that the evaluation in this report was done in altogether too narrow a way.

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This is absurd. As the noble Viscount has already said there was no evaluation whatever, no details of noise levels, and I daresay this applies to all aspects of the environmental questions. It looks to me as if the fault lies not with British Rail but with the Department of the Environment who asked the wrong questions of British Rail. They suggested that British Rail should look at it in this narrow context, and that is what British Rail have done.
LORD HOY: My Lords, if the noble Lord will allow me, I should like to follow his argument. Is he arguing that if in fact it was decided first where to put the road or the railway, then this will be the final decision, and everything else must be accommodated within that decision?
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I am afraid I did not understand the noble Lord's question. Would he put it to me again?
LORD HOY: My Lords, the noble Lord is arguing that people who are concerned to establish a railroad or a road and who make a decision on it have the final decision. I think if we make that decision then everything else must be accommodated within the decision where the road or railway line is going to be. I could not understand the argument.
LORD HENLEY: It would seem that neither of us across the Chamber understands the other. I am trying to say that if you are embarking on a scheme of such magnitude as the Channel Tunnel with its link of our railway with railways abroad and with the channelling of traffic into London going across an area of very great visual beauty and high population then in deciding where the line has to be you have to be absolutely certain that you take into consideration all these questions which are embraced by conservation, land-use, environment and so on. You cannot in isolation say, "Commercially this is the right line to take, and having taken that line we will then prettify it as best we can". I am saying that this is the wrong approach. Nowadays, you must take these two things together. In the past, we have very often not taken them together, whether it has been roads or, in the Victorian times, railways, or a
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thousand and one other things across the whole field of industry. Because we failed to take these matters as a whole we have made a mess of it. This is what I am trying to convey to the noble Lord, and I do not believe that we are all that far apart.
The noble Viscount said that the timetable was all wrong, and I think that this is really the key to the whole matter. We have been granted a delay, but for how long? Will it be time for the proper environmental evaluation which, as I was trying to explain to the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, we must have, or will it just be that it is put back from November simply to be a late Bill, as it is technically called, in the Private Bill field? If that is all, the granting of a delay really means nothing, because the time that has been available for the evaluation of this problem is less than that generally given for the preparation of any new motorway. Yet this kind of railway line may well cause a greater disturbance in a highly-populated area where there are already existing railway lines which have to be conformed to than would a new motorway.
My Lords, the noble Lord also raised the question, and was echoing the sentiments of all the local authorities involved, as to whether this should have been allowed to remain within the sphere of the Private Bill at all. A good many people have asked for a planning inquiry permission. That has been refused. I wonder why. I hope the noble Lord will give me, and the noble Viscount who asked the Question, a very satisfactory answer as to why the permission was refused. One of the reasons I object to its not being subject to this kind of inquiry is the expense and difficulty to which environmental bodies are put in trying to oppose such Bills which they feel it is their duty to oppose. Governments recognise this, and ways and means of trying to pay for this have been looked into.
In my opinion and that of the noble Viscount, this just will not do. It is no good just considering the narrow commercial cost, which is what British Rail have been asked to do. We must consider the environmental and social cost. I admit the immediate short-term cost of doing the amount of tunnelling under Surrey, which the noble Viscount and I

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(and many other people) feel ought to be done, is very high indeed. However, in terms of what one is trying to protect for future generations and for ourselves, I wonder whether this is not really a relative cost. In that context, I hope that a good deal of attention will be paid to the time in which capital costs of this kind are written off. Even council houses are written off after about 60 years. My guess is that the calculations have been made on the basis that we write this off in about 70 years. I am not an actuary, but there comes a point at which the figure written off, according to the rate of interest, is tantamount to infinity. Sometimes we have all written these things off at too short a period.
I strongly support the noble Viscount, in that despite what has often been said, possibly jokingly, we have been considering the Channel Tunnel and all its concomitants for 170 years, it is time we got on with it. That may well be so, if we are to get on with it at all, but one cannot dive into this kind of decision as to where to put a railway line in the short time available to us. The people designing the railway line cannot do it properly. The people who have got to criticise it cannot conceivably do it, and if we remain with the kind of timetable that we have given ourselves, we will finish up with a terrible mess.
9.44 p.m.
LORD KINDERSLEY: My Lords, I am glad my noble friend Lord De L'Isle has raised this question of the Channel Tunnel rail link, as it is really a distressing and disturbing feature for all of us who live in that area of Kent. In saying that, I hope your Lordships will accept that I have declared my interest. The noble Viscount has covered the ground most thoroughly and (if I may say so) most forcefully. At this late hour I do not want to be repetitious nor to delay your Lordships unnecessarily. However, I should like to underline certain features to support my view that the present scheme is ill-conceived, and thoroughly lacking in any regard for the human element, and without sufficient time and thought having been given to it.
The so-called Consultation Document to which the noble Viscount referred, which was prepared I think by British Rail, is glaringly inadequate. It smacks of a kind of confidence trick to try to
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lull the fears and suspicions of those directly affected by the rail link scheme into a sense of false security. Some of the maps to which the noble Viscount referred, I am told, are as much as thirty years out of date. No assessment of the noise pollution has even been attempted. It is no wonder that the national Press and the R.I.B.A. Report pour scorn on the use of such a document, which, as they say, makes a mockery of genuine consultation. In my opinion, both the Department of the Environment and British Rail should hide their heads in shame.
I live within the parish of Leigh—spelled Leigh but pronounced "Lye"—and I have done so for the past forty years. The proposed new high-speed rail as at present planned will pass within 50 yards of 87 per cent. of the population of Leigh. Up to date the existing line, to which it is proposed to add the high-speed rails, has been what I would refer to as a delightfully lazy, inoffensive branch line with a few trains a day passing through and providing no real noise pollution to which a reasonable citizen could object. But imagine that situation being stepped up to a traffic of one high-speed train travelling at 125 m.p.h. passing through every 7½ minutes both by day and by night. All peace of mind will be destroyed. The night will become a permanent nightmare, and the area will become an area of desolation. I ask your Lordships to try to visualise one of the most pleasant village greens in the county of Kent, where spectators come from London and from many areas miles away, bringing a picnic luncheon, to relax and watch the weekend cricket matches, being suddenly disturbed every 7½ minutes by the roar of a train travelling within 150 yards of the cricket pitch at 125 m.p.h. I doubt whether the umpire would even be able to hear the appeals, and the villagers would certainly find it impossible—
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me. To a certain extent we are surely discussing, in considering the whole of the Channel Tunnel project, which this debate has now turned into, the economic future of the country. While understanding and appreciating the noble Lord's beautiful description of the

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village cricket match, surely this is not wholly relevant to the future of this country's link with the Continent and our economic viability.
LORD KINDERSLEY: My Lords, I can understand the noble Baroness's view, but I am trying to make a point which covers only 500 people in this little area, whereas I think the noble Viscount referred to something like 20,000 people in more or less the same position. I am going to develop this a little further, if I may.
What I was going to ask is, what is to happen to all those unsuspecting householders whose life savings have gone into buying and building houses close to the planned railway route? Will they be able to sell at a reasonable price? Of course not. Values have already fallen considerably, and will certainly fall further if the present plan is carried through. In that case, what compensation are these unlucky people to get? So far no one has been able to tell them.
It is not surprising that people in places such as Leigh, Bough Beach, Chidding-stone Causeway, and the other villages along the route are seething with discontent and indignation at the cavalier treatment they have received at the hands of British Rail and the Department of the Environment. They have been told that there are alternative routes, but precious little information is available about these alternative routes. In fact, British Rail give the impression that their minds are made up on the existing plan, and at the moment they can give little or no information on the alternatives. I suspect that they have been told to get on with it, and have not been left sufficient time to do their homework properly, and are consequently riding roughshod over everyone.
Why do we have to put up with this indecent haste? I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, will be able to tell us that. Why should we not be given time to understand even the whys and wherefores of what appears to be at present being forced on us? We are not even told what all this is going to cost. When one begins to think about the alteration of bridges and everything that goes with
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building a new line of this dimension, the cost will be fabulous. Maybe the answer is that the cost is going to be less than the alternative routes, but we do not know what the cost of the alternative routes is going to be.
I realise that we have, so to speak, been given a three months' reprieve, conceded by the Minister in his Press release of July 1, but that is not long enough lime in which to get satisfactory answers to all these questions, and the explanations that are required. Incidentally, it is not sufficient time for British Rail to complete their sound pollution studies and tell us what the result of those studies is. A public inquiry would give all sides time and opportunity to examine the problems and the alternatives and to reach a businesslike decision. If the Government are unable to agree, then surely the whole Channel Tunnel scheme is at least becoming suspect, and should be re-examined in the light of our present economic situation as to whether it is a luxury we can no longer afford.
9.54 p.m.
LORD BERNSTEIN: My Lords, I hope that you will accept my apologies if I have to leave. I hope to leave London tonight, a little later than I had anticipated. I may not be able to stay to the end of this debate. I must declare my interest. I live in Kent a long way from where this new line is to be built—a parallel line, a halt line at Leigh. I know something about the Hemsholtz theory of resonance, where you carry sound to the threshold of pain, and I have no doubt that it may be reached eventually. That is not my reason for joining in the debate. I accept that the Government have made a decision, which I shall discuss in a moment, regarding the Channel Tunnel and all that it implies.
My second reason for speaking tonight is that I have limited respect for the British Railways Board. I have no doubt that the management has improved since Mr. Marsh took over, but I think, as the R.I.B.A.'s recent report on the proposals under discussion said, that British Railways have approached the task much as they might have done in the 19th century when the last major railways were built. Why do I limit my respect for British Rail? It is because they have been responsible for poisoning the centres of

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many towns and cities. Railway arches in a city like Manchester, or on the South Bank are dreary, dirty and badly controlled and the railways do nothing to improve them. Arches have a damnable effect on life in the areas where they exist, and practically every big city has more than its share of them.
I called your Lordships' attention two years ago—and the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, confirmed by observation—that nine railway arches over the road in Central Manchester, have not been in use since 1960. They should have been removed by now, but nothing has happened in Manchester since that date. Neither has the British Railways Board dealt with the filthy arches which your Lordships can see if you care to drive along the South Bank of the Thames or at the back of St. Pan-eras and Paddington, which have affected the districts and the people who live in them.
The Railways Board last week announced that they have sold £5 million worth of their properties. Hurrah! But they still control major spaces throughout the country, and local authorities find it practically impossible to deal with its Estates Department. The story of the attempts by Manchester City Corporation to buy the Central Station is something that a Select Committee should investigate. There have been a number of articles published in responsible newspapers suggesting "scandal" in the Estates Department. I learn from underground newspapers that some of the people responsible for the British Railways Estates Department have resigned to get positions—maybe more profitable, maybe less profitable—with property companies and estate agents. I should say, in all fairness to the British Railways Board and to Mr. Marsh, that they announced last week that they are restructuring their Estates Department. All this may appear irrelevant to your Lordships; in my opinion, it is not.
Parliament and people in the areas under discussion are being asked to give a blank cheque to British Rail to present a Private Bill. I, for one, would not trust British Rail with such a blank cheque; I would not trust them to deal with aesthetic things, pollution, sound or anything that goes with it. I have no doubt that my noble friends—I have
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three on the Benches below me, whom I respect for their political judgment and their sense of social justice—will say that the changes can be made after the Bill has been passed. That is what we have been talking about. Can changes be made by local people, modest people, people with limited incomes, parishes with limited rate powers when the Bill has been passed? I doubt whether it is practical. After the Bill has gone through both Houses it is practically impossible to make any serious changes.
I believe that this situation has arisen before and I ask the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworlhy, to say whether it is possible for the British Railways Private Bill to be passed in this House in a few weeks. The Secretary of State for the Environment, the right honourable Anthony Crosland, said in April in the other place that:
"The object of proceeding with Phase 2 is to keep our options open. It does not prejudge any decision on the project beyond the end of the present phase",
which I understand will end in the summer of next year. This means that Parliament and the Government will then have to finally decide whether or not to sign Agreement No. 3 and build the Tunnel.
What are we talking about to-night? We are talking about time for genuine consultation. If Parliament and the Government do so decide, and the British Railways Board Private Bill is passed—which will be within their power—in November this year, there will not be a reasonable chance of success in getting a change made. The proposed timetable is too rigorous. We are now asked to make up our minds whether to allow British Rail to submit a Private Bill in November, 1974, and we know that it will have to be drafted in the next few weeks. Taking into consideration the scale of the project, it seems to me that this cannot be done with any care. In the R.I.B.A. report that the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, mentioned, they said that the maps included in the British Railways Consultation Document (which had only six pages of description) were in some cases thirty years out of date, and it made it impossible to relate the proposal to existing roads, residential and other developments. Why trust the British Railways Board?

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Although the proposed route passes through areas of outstanding natural beauty, so far as the R.I.B.A. could find out—and I made my own inquiries—no landscape architects or planners have been appointed to the team designing the route, and certainly they made no contribution to the British Railways Board's document. The line, as your Lordships have heard, will pass through the centres of villages and hamlets, and through the centre of towns like Tonbridge, and in the document all this is ignored as if it did not exist. The document also does not give proper reporting on the fact that it will be necessary to raise roads and footbridges. In fact, I think the document is rather misleading. It concentrates on those sections of route which are new sections of railway, and not on lines which run parallel with existing railway lines, about which the noble Viscount spoke.
There should be consultations on what is proposed. As Lord Kindersley said, it makes a mockery of genuine consultation when all that has happened is confrontation with engineers. I would not trust engineers to do the landscaping of Kent, Surrey or any other county of this country. There are alternative schemes, which my noble friend and others have spoken about, and I think these should be discussed before the Bill is presented. This cannot be a matter for consideration in isolation by the Railways Board alone. In Kent we have the line which has been spoken about: an existing, unobtrusive railway system, providing a daily service taking children to school, workers to work and shoppers to the market towns. Let us take the analogy of a motorway. We have learned a great deal about motorways in the last ten years, and it is now accepted practice to route them away from villages and towns. Why not the Channel Tunnel railway line?
When the British Railways Bill is ready I understand—and perhaps my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy can confirm this—that the Department of the Environment will then have two weeks in which to determine the possibilities of British Rail's proposal. Could this possibly include the questions raised to-night—noise pollution, the effect on the countryside of overhead electric cables and so on? Is there time for serious consideration and thought, before the Bill goes
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through Parliament, by other than the British Railways Board? I join the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, and the noble Lords, Lord Henley and Lord Kindersley, in hoping that the Government will take note of what has been said to-day, and that the "deadline" of November. 1974, and all that that implies, will be put back to give proper time for consultation. There are too many reminders of too-hasty action based on inadequate research. Do not let us add another mistake to these past errors. A public inquiry would not be under pressure from external sources and vested interests. A public inquiry under the Town and Country Planning Act 1965 would have wider terms of reference and be more flexible, and would make it less expensive for local authorities to fight the Railways Board's Bill. I want to repeat: I do not trust the British Railways Board in this matter to do what is right and proper.
10.4 p.m.
LORD CORNWALLIS: My Lords, first of all I should like to thank the noble Viscount, not only on behalf of myself, since I live in Kent and have lived in Kent the whole of my life, but also on behalf of thousands of others who want their case thoroughly put before the authorities, and not have to live in a complete state of darkness, such as that in which they have lived, about what is going to happen to them. I have not had the noble Viscount's experience in Parliament, but I have been over fifty years in the public life of Kent. In that county I have attended countless meetings of every sort, kind and description; and I have been vice-chairman and chairman of the county council. All I can say is that, of all the meetings that I have been to, I have never seen ordinary, quiet, Kentish folk so angry, so frustrated, so disgusted and so absolutely distrustful of any authority as I have seen them at meetings concerning this Channel Tunnel.
I do not blame the officials who have come down to those meetings to answer questions: they, of course, have had to talk to a brief. British Rail have been told to build a railway, and they have to set about trying to do it. The Minister concerned with environmental noise abatement, or something like that, has to go on figures as he sees them and as the Department sees them, and none of them

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has any knowledge of the locality at all. As to noise, which the noble Viscount emphasised, a gramophone record of the noise of all kinds of trains travelling at different speeds was played at meetings and the decibels involved were explained. Unfortunately, there were three people at one of the meetings who had very accurate and completely modern measurement machines in the audience and they took the decibels too and the official noise abatement decibel figures were completely inaccurate.
I urge the Government to realise, as the noble Viscount has so ably and quietly pointed out, that they are dealing with human beings here. The file which I have here holds about one-tenth of the letters which I have had from individuals whose houses may be knocked down and who have no idea what is going to happen to them. They find railway surveyors in their gardens, yet not one word has been said to them about what is happening. If there had not been a good deal of noise made about this matter, I do not know that these meetings would ever have been held.
The noble Viscount, quite naturally, dealt with the areas which he knows so well. I know the Marden-Staplehurst-Headcorn area. These are possibly smaller villages, but they are extraordinarily difficult ones through which to take a railway line. It will be going right through the middle of the houses. At Marden, the church is on one side of a cutting and the vicarage is on the other. There is a bridge straight after the station. An enormous concrete bridge with double archways will have to be put right in the middle of the village. One could go on giving examples of problems which have never been properly investigated.
I attended one heavily attended meeting in Tonbridge. It has been found that one cannot tunnel right under Tonbridge, as was to have happened. I only hope that the line will not touch the noble Viscount's estate anywhere. No one can really find out. Three routes were put on a map which was not very accurate. We discovered that the Medway will have to be diverted in two places. And so we go on, not knowing what we are up against. Now it has been pointed out that we have a short reprieve. If there had not been that reprieve there would
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have been chaos. One can only hope that something can be done during the period of that reprieve. Unless there is a comprehensive public inquiry into the whole of what is going on and into the whole question of the Channel Tunnel so far as it affects Kent, I cannot see how any satisfaction whatever will be achieved. For some unknown reason, that demand for a public inquiry has been turned down, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley said.
I am not going through all those things that have been said already, because one can talk about this matter for a very long time. The noble Lord, Lord Kindersley, mentioned the cost. I do not believe that anyone has any idea of what the cost will be. We have just heard that last year British Rail lost £51 million and they expect to lose £100 million in the next year. They have just been granted £1,500 million over the next five years—that represents £300 million a year for five years. They have just written off £180 million or more of debts; and so it goes on. I gather that the price of the Channel Tunnel has already gone up from £840 million to about £1,500 million. What will it be later? Will it be £5,000 million? I do not believe that anybody knows.
I have asked people in the Eastern counties and in the North whether they will come to Cheriton to use the Channel Tunnel if it is ever built. They just laugh at the idea. Eastern counties folk say, "We have Harwich, Felixstowe and the Humber: we can go to The Hague, to Rotterdam and Amsterdam. You need another three bridges over the Thames if you want us to come down to Cheriton".
The noble Lord, Lord Mais, wanted to speak on this question tonight but he has had to attend another function. He asked me to say that he would have raised the whole question of the White City which he, with his great experience of London, regards as quite the wrong place for the terminal. The noble Viscount, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, also wanted to speak tonight. The proposed roadway will go right through his farm. I have letters here from the National Trust. The next property is that of the noble Viscount, Lord Chilston, which will be almost obliterated by the proposed road. And so it goes on, and nobody knows what the cost of all this will be.

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People ask what the compensation rates will be; but we have never had any proper answer to that question. As the noble Lord, Lord Kindersley, pointed out, every minute houses in the affected area are losing their value because of this rail link. Exactly the same thing applies to the road. I do not wish to say any more, because it would be merely reiterating a great deal of what has already been said. But I do not think that anybody realises what this business involves and what it will mean to perfectly innocent people who are having the whole of their lives upset and even their homes taken away from them or destroyed.
10.13 p.m.
LORD O'NEILL OF THE MAINE: My Lords, first of all, I shall be brief; and secondly, as is quite obvious, I do not live in Kent. But I frequently visit a close friend of mine who lives near Staplehurst Station and I know what will happen in that area if these plans are proceeded with. I fully support the suggestion which was first made by the noble Viscount who raised this Question, that there should be some kind of public inquiry into the whole project. Mr. Heath has been criticised for taking us into Europe without the full-hearted consent of the British people. I would suggest to-night that if the Government proceed with their present plans they will be guilty of planning this rail link without the full-hearted consent of the people who live in South-East England.
I do not want to burden the House any further, except to suggest that none of us, as we sit in this House, has any idea of what the composition of the Government will be next November. I should have thought that that alone would have given them reason to pause before pursuing the present course. I hope that the noble Lord who will be replying to the debate will give us some hope that further consideration will be given to this matter before the present procedures are continued.
10.15 p.m.
LORD MIDDLETON: My Lords, I too will be very brief. This year my family connections with Kent (which were severed for several centuries) were happily renewed. Before this year (but not now I hasten to assure the noble
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Viscount) I had looked upon Kent as a county you went through fairly rapidly on the way to the Continent and so, apparently, does British Rail at this moment. As the noble Baroness opposite said, there may be strong economic reasons for that. I must remember to ask my Pennsylvanian friends what was the origin of the expression, "On the wrong side of the tracks". I know that it had a social connotation, but undoubtedly there was a noise factor involved; and here I gladly support the noble Viscount, Lord De Lisle, in saying British Rail, and their advisers, should have dealt with the noise problem very much earlier than they have done.
I do not believe that British Rail can fairly be accused of not having made some effort to consult the public. After all, alternative routes have been offered at Edenbridge and Ashford. On the face of it, it seems to be reasonable to put the greater part of this line along an existing track. I wholeheartedly support nearly all noble Lords in agreeing that the Select Committee procedure that gives the public an opportunity to oppose or amend a Private Bill, is expensive and not so simple as the public inquiry procedure. It is surely not too late to hold a public inquiry where the points that have been raised this evening can be looked into. The advantages to be obtained from public participation must outweigh any possible delay and help people to understand what may be a strong British Rail case. As the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said, that case must be looked at in the full environmental context. I am sure that the matter of compensation wants examination. I am very glad that my noble friend raised this matter; this debate can only do good.
10.18 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for intervening at this late stage. On the other hand, I am one of the few Members of your Lordships' House who have sat throughout the whole of this debate; I was interested to hear what was said. When I interrupted the noble Lord, Lord Henley, I was trying to find out what line of action he was taking with regard to lines being promoted. Something which has disturbed me throughout this debate is that one would have thought from what has been

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said that it was this Government who made all these decisions. My understanding is that they were made a very long time ago, not by this Government but by their predecessors. I did not hear the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, explain this when he was introducing his Question. Everyone wants to preserve the environment. Do not let us pretend that none of us is unaffected by it. If developments are taking place one always wants to protect one's own environment and the environment of the neighbourhood. I would not dissent from that opinion, but I think it is difficult when we listen to certain speeches—and I understand the complaint of the noble Lord, Lord Kindersley, who does not want the umpire's decision at a cricket match to be interrupted by a train going by. This I can understand as a good supporter of Surrey—
LORD KINDERSLEY: My Lords, if the noble Lord will excuse me, I did not say that at all. I said that I rather doubted under the circumstances, whether the appeals of the cricketers could be heard by the umpires.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I do not want to take this too far, but the noble Lord will admit that he introduced the village cricket team into the argument on the Channel Tunnel, and, of course, he is perfectly right to do so. All I am saying to him is that I do not think it is a great fortification for the argument that was made by the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle. As was said by my noble friend Lord Hughes yesterday, when he was making a Statement about developments in Scotland, it is amazing the number of people who reach a decision that something will be good for the country provided it does not happen on their doorstep. They all support the fact that it will be very good, provided that it happens in some other place. I think we have to look at this position. I am neither pro nor anti the Channel Tunnel. I do not consider myself so well informed that I can make a decision on it. But your Lordships' House has to reach a decision as a result of argument.
It may well be that, as a result of what the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, has said to-night, an inquiry will find a solution to this problem. I am not so well informed that I would object to it. All I say is that sometimes when we are
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listening to some of the arguments such as have been made to-night in support of the noble Viscount, the case becomes weaker. I am willing to rest on his argument, and not on the weaker side of it. It may well be that a decision will be reached, but do not let us forget that what we are discussing to-night is not something which has arisen in the last two or three weeks. It is something that was decided some time ago and your Lordships may be a little late in complaining. If there is a case, I shall not mind listening to it; indeed I shall be delighted to listen to it, because I am perfectly well aware of the troubles that are caused to people in communities by such decisions.
I always become a little worried when somebody says: "This is a great difficulty. Now what compensation is going to be paid?" That question was raised specifically by three of your Lordships. If there is a complaint and something is bad, one is not compensated simply by having a cash payment. I have never believed that. I think that that is a very weak argument indeed. To think that you can solve this problem simply by having a payment of cash is something I do not agree with at all. When this argument is put to me, I regard it as a great weakening of the whole case. So all I would say is that when we are discussing this matter to-night—and I look forward to what my noble friend Lord Garns-worthy has to say—I hope he will take these views into consideration, and perhaps in his reply will tell us what is the Government's opinion about this suggested inquiry which might take place. I hope that when he is replying he will also consider the economic consequences for the country as a whole.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will enlighten me. When does he think this debate should have taken place?
LORD HOY: My Lords, it is not for me to decide when it should have taken place. If the noble Viscount decides that to-night is the right time, that is good enough for me.
VISCOUNT De L'ISLE: My Lords, I tried to point out that the knowledge of this Consultative Document has been very recent.
LORD HOY: My Lords, it depends on what the noble Viscount means by "very recent". One can continue with this argument all night to find out how one defines "very recent". What I am saying is that the Channel Tunnel is not a new subject.
VISCOUNT De L'ISLE: My Lords, I agree about that.
10.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, had not anticipated that I also was going to interpose. Perhaps I may do so for a moment, not because I want to discuss the merits of any particular railway line or indeed any transportation system or the Channel Tunnel itself—and thereby I may manage to avoid any political controversy. What I am interested in is procedure. In that, I have to declare an interest—it is a rather obscure one but nevertheless it is something I should say. If this matter should come before a Select Committee in this House I am professionally debarred from taking part in it, whereas if it went in front of any other forum of inquiry I am not. The only advantage of the latter course is that I am then debarred from taking any further part in proceedings in your Lordships' House on the subject. Where the interest lies in that, I do not know.
At any rate, I start from a certain length of experience in dealing with major issues of this kind. I am sorry that the noble Baroness has gone; I am sure she will be back in a moment. But I would suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Garns-worthy—the noble Baroness is returning and I would take up her point for one moment. When one is considering an argument between the major national importance of a huge economic subject like this on the one side and a large number of small cricket matches on the other, one enters the realm where public participation in decisions comes to its peak and zenith of enthusiasm and where one has to do one's very best to try to provide people with an opportunity at least to have their say and to be heard.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, may I say in reply that I agree with what the noble Viscount has just said. I think that the "peak and zenith of enthusiasm" has
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risen to a degree which is quite extraordinary at this hour. It has been a remarkable debate. I agree entirely with participation. Indeed, I think that I may say that on this side of the House we are keener on worker participation and "small people" participation than noble Lords on the other side of the House have ever been.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think so. However, I will leave that until we come next week to the debate on the trades union Bill.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I shall look forward very much to that occasion.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, my noble friend will be dealing with that, not me. I was dealing with procedure. May I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, that we take advantage of the lessons which we have learned from what, probably, have been our mistakes in the past on these major projects. As I understand it, the Secretary of State has decided that for the time being it is inappropriate that there should be a planning inquiry commission, on the ground that it would largely duplicate the consideration which Parliament will need to give to the proposals under the Private Bill procedure. According to the Department of the Environment, this is because there is no general legislation which allows railways to be constructed using the short cut of the public inquiry procedure which is available in respect of highways. The full normal Private Bill procedure for major undertakings is to be followed in this case. Also, it enables Parliament to examine the proposal both in principle and in detail. That is a thesis with which I venture to find a certain amount of fault, and I should like to explain to the House and to the Government why I think that is so. What I have to say is entirely non-partisan and is intended to be a constructive comment.
First of all, I do not mind very much what kind of an inquiry we have. I do not mind whether it is a planning inquiry Commission or any other kind of inquiry. However, since the question of the Third London Airport has been discussed, I think it is worth bearing in mind that it began as a very long planning inquiry

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in Bishop's Stortford. It nearly came to a special development order which would have needed a special Statutory Instrument and would have caused virtually a constitutional crisis, because in all probability it would not have got through this House. It ended as a very large and special inquiry which took a great deal too long and cost a great deal too much. I am not suggesting that we should follow that pattern. However, I think that we can learn from the kind of feelings which were stirred by the idea of having the third London airport at Stansted and the somewhat unfortunate chain of events which followed what was nearly a decision to go there. We may never get to the end of this road, but we have passed over a lot of territory in our endeavours.
My Lords, I am not suggesting that we should have any particular form of inquiry but that we should use our ingenuity in order to try to bring about participation so that people can put the local point of view, can bring out the aspect of their locality which they think might be damaged, and can be seen to be heard and know that they have been heard and not be bankrupted in the process. It is important nowadays to realise that people will not sit down quietly under a threat to their prosperity, to the locality in which they live and to the general environment which they like, in which they have bought their house and so on. We have to accommodate our procedures to take this into account. Therefore I take no point about the kind of inquiry which we ought to have. I say simply that we must be prepared to do something which will allow people to be heard on this kind of question.
At the same time, the national interest and the wider economic field should be canvassed as well. This brings in both halves of this debate, and I think they both should be brought in. So let us just look at the reasons why the planning inquiry commission has been turned down. Incidentally it would be very interesting to know whether there ever has been a planning inquiry commission. I do not think there has, and I wonder why it is that this procedure in the 1968 Act has never been adopted.
The letter, incidentally, to the Surrey County Council from which I have been
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quoting, goes on to say that the procedure would largely duplicate the consideration that Parliament would need to give to the proposals. I venture to doubt that because people do not lightly come by way of Petition to either House of Parliament to object further to legislation if they have already had an opportunity to thresh the matter out in some other forum and consider that they have been properly treated, even if they do not agree with the results. The reason why they do not come and why the procedure would not be duplicated is because it is prohibitively expensive; it is surrounded by tremendous restrictions and, moreover, you are liable to have to do it twice in both Houses. So, therefore, if they have had an opportunity to ventilate their feelings beforehand, I think it very unlikely that the whole thing will be duplicated in Parliament.
Secondly, it is perfectly true that there is no short cut whereby railways can be constructed as a result of a simple public inquiry in the way that, for instance, motorways can. On the other hand, we have now got experience of the construction of motorways. This has done a good deal to get rid of what I would have said are quite justifiable complaints which used to appertain to this subject. Nowadays you do not get a single centre line order into which you inquire on a take it or leave it basis: the Department of the Environment says, "There are three or four routes. Here they all are on a plan. Let us have an inquiry to see which of them is the best. They can all be taken into account and looked at and considered on their merits in parallel with each other, and at the end of that time we will decide which one we are going to use, if any."
That has taken a good deal of the heat and a great deal of the technical difficulty out of deciding on centre line orders in the case of major road construction. I know that there is no exact equivalent whereby a centre line for a railway order can instantly be made. Nevertheless, it is a piece of machinery which has worked well and has met, I think, with a good deal of public approval. So do not let us blind ourselves to the advantages of it simply because it does not lead automatically to a statutory result in regard to an approved railway line.

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Then we get to the last part of this letter, that the full normal Private Bill procedure is to be followed, which enables Parliament to examine the proposal both in principle and in detail. Here I am afraid that the writer of the letter may have missed some of the finer points of procedure in your Lordships' House. The writer says that it will be discussed in principle, and this presumably is an invitation to have a debate upon the Second Reading of the Private Bill. All the inquiries and the experience that I have collected over the length of time that I have been in this House suggest that it is very rare indeed—in fact, one has only to mention the name of the late Lord Birkett to find the one occasion on which it happened—for a Private Bill (or in that case a part of a Private Bill) to be thrown out on Second Reading. One discusses it in principle, but almost invariably the result is that the matter is sent to a Select Committee upstairs so that the details may be threshed out. Therefore one does not, on the whole, in this House take a decision on principle on the Second Reading of a Private Bill.
Very well, what happens when it goes upstairs? There are here two problems, and in this I rely first on the Report of the Brooke Committee (if I may abbreviate it) where they spoke about the difficulties where there was no locus standi. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, referred to the position of amenity societies. If I have got this right, briefly, the Petitioners, unless they have a direct interest in the land, can only appear if the Promoters do not object, and on the whole, therefore, amenity socities are very much at risk in trying to petition against a Private Bill because there is a possibility that they will not be allowed to be heard by the Promoters. There are other difficulties in this House—I do not know about another place.
My Lords, the way that has been sought round this is that there should be an instruction given to the Select Committee that they should on their own account consider certain evidence, and if necessary call it for themselves. This gets round the difficulty that broadly-based national Petitioners may not be able to be heard. This was discussed in paragraph 64 of the Brooke Committee's Report, but they refer to the difficulties inherent in this.
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This was a reference to the Select Committee Special Report, where they had an instruction on the Empingham Reservoir Bill. If I may abbreviate this also, they found that the general evidence they had to deal with was difficult to evaluate because there was no cross-examination of the Promoter's witnesses dealing with this general material, since there were no Petitioners there to cross-examine them. Therefore the idea of avoiding the technical difficulty by empowering the Select Committee to call its own witnesses tends to result in the matter not being properly tested at all.
There is a further difficulty which does not really relate to that technicality at all. I think I am right in saying that if a Private Bill seeks to obtain powers to construct a railway line, for the sake of argument, along a certain track which is defined on the plans deposited with the Bill, one may, if one wishes as a Petitioner, suggest that this is a very bad idea on the grounds that there are a number of alternative routes which one then proceeds to discuss, and which one suggests to the Select Committee are as good, if not better, than that in the Bill. However, what you do not achieve is anything other than at the very best to have the Bill thrown out because the line that is in it is not necessarily the best. One gets no really comparative decision about which of the other lines may be as good as or better than the one in the Bill. Therefore you have no procedure under the petition system of a Private Bill for a true comparative study of a number of different routes.
As I believe this is the essence of what this dispute is about, I would suggest to the House that a simple reliance on the Private Bill procedure with the hazard of the Petitioners turning up with the money, the time and the talents to try and test this, is not really going to provide an adequate answer to what appears to be a very deeply felt solution. Therefore, not only do we have the problem of not being able to discuss it in principle, but I doubt also whether we have the possibility under this procedure of discussing alternative routes in detail. If I may say so, and if I am right, that is a very substantial indictment of the reasons put forward by the Department of the Environment why they will not have a planning inquiry commission.

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I have analysed that letter in detail, and may be told I am wrong. But even if I am in part right, I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, to think again whether there may not be, in all the ingenuity and experience of the Department, some other way in which we may explore these rather difficult, very emotive but very important issues.
10.39 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I suppose it was inevitable that we should have a discussion of this nature on this proposal. I have lived long enough to know that when there is any suggestion of intruding on amenities there is an almost immediate and very considerable reaction. In my time, I have played a small part when proposals have been made that would affect what I have always felt was the very attractive, natural beauty of the area in which I live. We have a new roadway being constructed not very far away, which aroused very much the same kind of feeling as that expressed here tonight. I recall that when the local authority sought to purchase compulsorily 60 acres of land to make a controlled tip, I took the lead in opposing it. I think I can say that I understand the depth of feeling that exists. It was inevitable that it would be so.
I think there is nothing that can be said by anybody, by any Government spokesman for any Government, that will set at ease the disquiet and concern that has been expressed here this evening. I think that every Member of your Lordships' House present this evening probably knows that, too. It is unreasonable to expect any project such as the one that we are discussing to be advanced, to be put before the public and put into operation, without all those who feel themselves intimately and closely affected taking much the same stand.
The noble Viscount said that he aimed to speak strongly. He spoke very quietly, but he certainly spoke very strongly. The feeling that he displayed was unmistakable and very profound. I am quite sure that all those who have taken part in the debate will at least have the effect of causing my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to read very carefully what has been said—not that I think he was unaware of the concern; in fact, I am sure that he was, and is, very much
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aware of the concern. I have the feeling that probably the simplest answer I could give to the Question raised by the noble Viscount would be a very short one: Yes, Her Majesty's Government are aware of the concern. To-night I cannot produce answers that will satisfy all those who have spoken, but I will undertake to convey to my right honourable friend what they have said.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not want to make a cheap point on this, but at the moment, as the noble Lord will appreciate, Official Reports are hard to come by and we are talking about something which is rather urgent. He said that his right honourable friend would read the report of the debate. I do not know when he will read it. Therefore, to convey what we have said to-night is more important, and that is what we should like the noble Lord to do.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am quite sure that my right honourable friend will have the opportunity to read what has been said. There is an emergency edition of the Official Report, and I will see to it that to-morrow his attention is drawn urgently to it. I said what I thought would be the simplest way of dealing with the Question, but I have no intention of pursuing that course, and therefore I shall need a little time.
The noble Viscount made it abundantly clear that the proposal to construct this railway arises from the decision to go ahead with the Channel Tunnel; we have to keep that quite clearly in mind. On April 3, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced in another place that the Government had decided that the current preparatory phase of the Tunnel project should continue, but that there should be a full and searching reassessment of the project before any decision was taken to embark on the main works. So, in point of fact, that decision has still to be taken. This reappraisal is now getting under way, and includes an assessment of the scope for orienting the project much more strongly to through-rail services. Meanwhile, the Channel Tunnel Bill has been reintroduced—and I emphasise reintroduced—in another place, and, in due course, it should come before this House.

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If the project eventually goes ahead additional rail tracks for most of the distance between the tunnel portal and London will be necessary to carry the for-seeable increase in rail traffic. Moreover, under the terms of the treaty with the French Government signed by our predecessors last November, the Government are under an obligation to provide an adequate rail link. This requirement was expanded in an exchange of letters between the then Ministers of Transport, and the general specifications of the railway to be provided are set out in the Third Schedule to the Agreement concluded between the Governments and the British and French Channel Tunnel Companies.
Without such a railway it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to accommodate the diversion of traffic to rail which we all wish to see, and to which my right honourable friends attach great importance. Indeed, I scarcely need remind the House that the diversion of traffic from road to rail, and from private to public transport, is a major element in our general transport strategy. There are—and this is taking the broad view—major environmental benefits in all this. For example, it has been estimated that given fast rail services perhaps some 10 million passengers would, by 1990, be using the tunnel each year who would otherwise have travelled by air. I appreciate that the noble Viscount drew attention to the number of trains that would be involved in carrying this traffic. This is an important factor in considering future demand on the London airports as a whole. Likewise for freight there would be opportunities of attracting to the through rail services not only goods now going by rail and sea, but also those now carried by road to the ports for trans-shipment, or onwards movement, by roll-on roll-off ferries.
Many of us are gravely disturbed at what is happening on our roads, even in the South-East of England. I live in the South-East of England and I drive into London every day, and I am very much concerned about what is happening on our roads and the interference that is taking place to a great many people living in lanes and roads such as I live in, where we are getting traffic of a character that we never anticipated when we went to live
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there. It is felt that overall this proposal will provide substantial benefits in relief from heavy road traffic and aircraft noises, as well as other benefits to our transport system and economy. But despite that, I fully accept that these benefits can only be bought at a cost. Bluntly, the property and interests of those living along the route of the link will inevitably be affected. It would be stupid of me, or anyone else, to pretend otherwise. Of course, it is of these people who are going to be so affected by this proposal that the noble Viscount has spoken so strongly, and has advanced so much telling argument.
It is clearly right that if the Government decide in the national interest that the whole project is to go ahead, the individual interests affected should be treated with proper consideration. I can assure the House that my right honourable friend and the British Rail Board, despite anything that has been said by my noble friend behind me, are anxious to ensure that these interests are indeed protected.
As to procedure, first, the Board have been concerned to identify a route which will cause the least difficulty. After ruling out certain routes which would have involved major intrusions into new areas and widespread property severance, the Board last February initiated consultations with the public and with local authorities on a route largely following the existing East-West railway across Kent, to which the noble Viscount referred. My right honourable friend is well aware of the views expressed in those consultations. I have read reports of all the meetings that have taken place, including a number of those attended by several Members of your Lordships' House, not least those attended by the noble Lord, Lord Cornwallis. Due note has been taken of what was said at those meetings. They were not easy meetings and in many cases they reflected the feeling expressed here this evening.
My right honourable friend has also received a tremendous postbag. He has been represented at the public meetings and he too, as have I, has read the reports of the meetings. This is a form of consultation that has already taken place. As a result of the public phase, which has just been completed, the Board is now examining a number of alternatives and

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variations which have been suggested by the public.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, does the noble Lord mean that the Board is examining the alternatives—the other lines—mentioned in the document, or merely variations on that line?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The point I was making was that the alternatives suggested at the meetings are being con sidered. With regard to the consultation document that was presented in January this year, I think the date was in some doubt just now and I am pleased—
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: It mentions but does not specify three routes. Those are the ones I was referring to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I take the noble Viscount's point. He referred just now to the announcement made by my right honourable friend last week about final decisions on the general route. I think we want to get clearly on the Record—although I believe the noble Viscount acknowledged this—that final decisions on the general route have been deferred to the end of the year. That will ensure that the local authorities, the Board and my right honourable friend, will have time to give the proposals the detailed consideration that they require. I appreciate that the noble Viscount said that the time was too short. I will draw my right honourable friend's attention to that feeling, which was shared by several other noble Lords. Secondly when, and only when, the best general route has been selected, those concerned will continue to be consulted about its detailed development, including such matters as protection against noise.
I was very interested to hear from the noble Viscount that the Surrey County Council were consulting with Southampton University.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: No, British Rail. I said I was quoting from a document provided by the Surrey County Council Report of the county planning officer explaining what British Rail were doing.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I would inform the noble Viscount that I was a member of Surrey County Council for many years. The Surrey County Council thought—I forget his exact name, but he
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certainly was at Southampton University—that the planning officer was an outstanding expert in this field. My own feeling is that Surrey feel that the British Railways Board has made a good choice in selecting Southampton University to consider the aspect of noise.
Thirdly, the proposals will then have to be embodied in a Private Bill, and the noble Viscount has spoken to us about Private Bills. I think he will agree, and I think Members of the House generally will appreciate, that Petitions against Private Bills can be heard by Select Committees in both Houses, which, at least, means further opportunities. I appreciate that the question of the cost of undertaking this procedure could be off-putting, and again note will be taken of the concern that has been expressed on that point.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Not just the question of cost, my Lords, but the question of who can be heard and what can be heard if they manage to get themselves in front of the Select Committee. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, is in his place, and I know that this is a matter to which he has devoted a good deal of thought; he is possibly as concerned as any of us about this subject. I know that he did not hear my speech, but I have been criticising the scope of what you can do by way of Petition on Private Bill procedure, and perhaps he will have a chance—
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, may I say that I had intended coming to what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, had to say, and perhaps I may as well deal with that now. First, in this House I have often listened to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. I have admired the lucidity with which he has spoken on legal matters, and the House has, I think, always appreciated his constructive approach and the free dom with which he has given expert advice. To-night, I should like to say to him that I am quite certain that what he has said needs very careful consideration, and I will ensure that the attention of my right honourable friend—and of those within the Department whom he would want to look at this and think about it—is drawn to it. I do not think he would expect me, as a layman, to go any further than that this evening. Indeed, I am—
LORD HOY: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? I do not object to the noble Viscount putting his question, but is my noble friend saying that what the Government propose is less favourable to everyone who wishes to be consulted on this than was the case when the noble Viscount was in charge of the Bill? I do not think this is true at all. All I want is an assurance that whatever is being done by this Government is certainly not less favourable to people who want consultation than was the case when the noble Viscount was in charge.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, this is a debate on an Unstarred Question, and I am not at all sure that we are not in danger of setting some precedents so far as procedure is concerned.
LORD HOY: Why not?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I said what I did as a prelude to saying that I have been advised that, in this case, there arc considerable objections to either a planning inquiry commission or a normal public inquiry. The route of the line is currently the subject of widespread public consultation, and it is hoped that, out of this, agreement will be reached with the planning authorities on the general route to be followed. This will then be incorporated in a Private Bill, which will have to follow the normal procedures of Parliament. The principle of the Bill will be considered by both Houses and the Petitions of those affected will be considered by the two Select Committees. To add a public inquiry between the consultations and the Bill, as it has been put to me, would increase seriously the problems of blight and could add to the costs of Objectors without adding any substance to the protection available to them.
My Lords, as I have said, I will see to it that what the noble Viscount has said is studied, but I have put forward the other side according to the advice I received before the debate. I very much appreciate the fact that the noble Viscount gave me notice that he intended to raise this matter and I really do not think that I can carry it any further.
VISCOUNT BCOLVILLE OF BCULROSS: My Lords, I can do so, however, and I say that the noble Lord could not have been more handsome.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I do not object to the noble Viscount saying that. I come now to the question of compensation. I should make it clear that we expect British Rail to apply the full compensation code in their Bill, even where this does not automatically apply to works by statutory undertakers. This full code, which was reviewed and expanded by Parliament only last year in the Land Compensation Act 1973, means that those whose properties are required for the line will have them bought at full market value disregarding the effect of the scheme. Properties "the enjoyment of which is seriously affected" by either the construction or use of the works may be bought by agreement. Those whose properties lose value because of physical factors (noise, vibration) due to the use of the works may be eligible for compensation. Regulations are also under consideration which will require British Rail to provide soundproofing against noise from the construction and use of the new railway comparable to the provisions recently applied to new highways. I accept that nothing can ultimately compensate people who would simply prefer not to be disturbed in the first place. But all that can properly be done to alleviate hardship arising from a major national development of this kind must and will be done.
I now come to the complaints that have been made about people no knowing. As I understand it, this pamphlet has been made freely available and is freely available. There really is no problem in terms of people being able to discover what their rights of compensation may be.
Let me conclude by assuring the House that both British Rail and the Government are very much aware of the environmental implications of the proposed railway. The general line currently proposed is not the shortest nor the cheapest: it was chosen by British Rail in preference to three others which would have caused far greater environmental damage by cutting through unspoiled countryside in Kent. In planning the line and its detailed alignment British Rail will do all that can reasonably be done to ensure that damage to the environment is kept to a minimum. They are aware of adverse reports about the

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environmental impact of the Shinkansen line in Japan; and without accepting that circumstances in this country are in any way comparable they are carrying out a programme of further research into the noise effects of high speed trains, results of which will become progressively available before the line is built. Although, my Lords, I believe this rail link is currently being planned in a proper and responsible manner. The local planning authorities are playing their full part: and I would simply ask noble Lords to await the outcome of the consultations which are now in progress.
My Lords, the noble Viscount asked a number of questions. I think perhaps that at this time of night he would not wish me to reply to them in detail. I took a note of what the noble Lord, Lord Henley, had to say, and also of what the noble Lord, Lord Kindersley, said. Of course it is distressing to people living in Kent and in the parts of Surrey which are likely to be affected. Wherever we are going to do anything on a big scale in the interests of the national economy, people will be distressed.
I have tried to cover most of the points raised. I think that perhaps in a general way I have replied to various questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, and the noble Lord, Lord Middleton. If there are points which I have failed to cover, and if the noble Lords concerned wish to pursue the matter and will either have a word with me or send me a note, I will follow up what is said.
However, I want to make it clear that this debate has not been a waste of time. I cannot foretell the outcome, but I should like to say that this Government are on a course which they themselves did not set but which was set by their predecessors. I am quite certain that the procedure we are adopting is the one which our predecessors would have followed: I may be wrong, but I believe that to be so. I think that if the previous Government had been in our position to-night it would have fallen to one of their spokesmen to present the defence that I have endeavoured to put forward on behalf of the present Government.
Let me say this. The present Government in this country have done nothing that is "below decks". They have been quite open, and indeed have already
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made concessions. My right honourable friend made a concession last week. I hope it will be appreciated that we are not unmindful of, or deaf to, reasonable appeals.

GREAT NORTHERN LONDON CEMETERY BILL [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the Promoters do not intend to proceed further with the Bill; Ordered, That the Bill be not further proceeded with.
LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills with Amendments and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House; Bill to be printed as amended.
  E.E.C. DRAFT REGULATION COM(71)771
  E.E.C. DRAFT REGULATION COM(71)771
  NORTH SEA OIL RIGS: SOVIET SHIP
  NORTH SEA OIL RIGS: SOVIET SHIP