Sitting of 31 October 1974

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

  MEMBERS SWORN
  The following Members took and subscribed the Oath or made and subscribed the Affirmation required by law:
  Sir Alfred Davies Devonsher Broughton, Batley and Morley.
  Sir Frederic Mackarness Bennett, Torbay.
  Meredith Francis Maguire, esquire, Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

  MEMBERS SWORN

    PRIVATE BILLS (PROCEDURE)
    The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. George Thomas): I beg to move,
    That

    (1) the Promoters of every Private Bill which originated in this House in the last Parliament and which is listed in Schedule A to this Order, or which originated in the House of Lords in the last Parliament and which is listed in Schedule B to this Order may, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House, proceed with the Bill in the present session and the Petition for the Bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable thereto shall be deemed to have been complied with;

    (2) every such Bill which originated in this House shall be presented to the House not later than the seventh day after this day;

    (3) there shall be deposited with every Bill so presented a declaration signed by the Agent for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill with the same title in the last Parliament as it stood when Parliament was dissolved;

    (4) every Bill so presented shall be laid by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office upon the Table of the House on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill was presented;

    (5) every Bill so laid on the Table shall be deemed to have been read the first and second time and reported from Committee and ordered to lie upon the Table, unless the Bill was considered as amended in the last Parliament, in which case the Bill shall be ordered to be read the third time;

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    (6) when any Bill which was brought from the House of Lords in the last Parliament and to which this Order relates, is brought from the House of Lords in the present Session, the Agent for the Bill shall deposit in the Private Bill Office a declaration, signed by him, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill which was brought from the House of Lords in the last Parliament, and, as soon as a certificate by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office that such a declaration has been so deposited has been laid upon the Table of the House the Bill shall be deemed to have been read the first and second time and committed;

    (7) only such Petitions as were presented against any Bill brought from the Lords in the last Parliament which stood referred to the Committee on the Bill and which have not been withdrawn shall stand referred to the Committee on the Bill with the same title in the present Session;

    (8) in relation to any Bill to which this Order applies Standing Order 127 relating to Private Business (Right of audience before Committees on opposed Bills) shall have effect as if the words "under Standing Order 126 (Reference to Committee of Petitions against Bill) were omitted;

    (9) in respect of any Bill originating in the House of Lords to which this Order relates and upon which the Examiners reported in the last Parliament that no Standing Order not previously inquired into was applicable thereto, the Examiner shall, if the Bill is brought from the Lords in the present Session, be deemed to have made the same report in the present Session;

    (10) in respect of any Bill to which this Order relates, no Fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings thereon which, by the provisions of this Order, are deemed to have taken place in the present Session:

    Schedule A

    1. British Railways Bill.

    2. Merseyside Metropolitan Railway Bill.

    Schedule B

    1. Crouch Harbour Bill [Lords].

    2. Eastbourne Harbour Bill [Lords].

    3. Port of Tyne (North Shields Fish Harbour) Bill [Lords].

    4. River Wear Barrage Bill [Lords].

    5. Torquay Market Bill [Lords].

    The House will be familiar with the effect of the motion. All Private Bills pending before the election may be taken up again this Session as if the Dissolution had not occurred. The form of the motion is, however, unusual. Normally the House is asked to agree to carry Private Bills over from a Session just about to end to the next one. In July, however, no one could tell whether the Session begun in February would be brought to an end or not, so it was not possible then to make provision to carry

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    over Private Bills in the event of a Dissolution.
    This motion revives the Bills in a new Parliament rather than carrying them over to a new Session. The substance is familiar; only the form is altered.
    Sir Bernard Braine: Before the motion is put, may I seek clarification of the position in regard to one of the Bills concerned, the British Railways Bill? I am in the difficulty that I have no wish to object to any of the other Bills covered by the motion but my constituents recently reaffirmed the strong objections I had made to certain provisions of the British Railways Bill. It would be helpful, therefore, if the Chairman of Ways and Means could confirm that if the motion is passed today it will not debar me or other hon. Members from opposing the British Railways Bill at a later stage.
    The Chairman of Ways and Means: Under paragraph (5) of the motion the Bill will be ordered to be read the Third time. At that stage the Bill can, of course, be debated, and the House can then have the privilege of hearing the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) again.
    Question put and agreed to.

    BILL PRESENTED
      ROAD TRAFFIC (SEAT BELTS)
      Mr. Frederick Mulley, supported by Mr. Secretary Jenkins, Mr. Secretary Ross, and Mr. Secretary John Morris, presented a Bill to confer power to make regulations requiring the wearing of seat belts in motor vehicles: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time to-morrow and to be printed. [Bill 5.]

    DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS (PROCEDURE)
    Mr. Speaker: I will now indicate my selection for Monday and Tuesday. I have selected for Monday's debate the amendment standing in the names of the Leader of the Opposition and his right hon. Friends dealing with nationalisation, and for Tuesday's debate I have selected the amendment which also stands in the names of the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends but is in rather wider terms.
    Mr. Thorpe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Of course, your ruling is totally unchallenged and totally accepted. Indeed, it will be within your recollection that a few days ago I suggested that we were in a position in which you were bound by precedent and Standing Orders whatever wishes you might or might not have to the contrary.
    We are in the position that, even with a six-day debate on the Gracious Speech, the only amendments which ever have the opportunity of being called are those which are tabled by the Front Bench of the official Opposition party. That means that no group of Government back benchers, and, indeed, no other group of Members, who may be back benchers, in their own party or may be minority Members, ever have an opportunity, even in six days of debate, of putting forward different points of view than those of the official Opposition.
    In the interests of all back benches, and in the interests of protecting you, Mr. Speaker, and to give you wider discretion, it would be helpful at this stage to ask, through you, whether the Leader of the House has given this matter some thought and whether he can give any indication of what his intentions might be to protect you and others in the future.
    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): This is a matter which the Procedure Committee, when we set it up, may well look into in view of the rather changed position of the Opposition.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: I accept that your ruling is absolutely in accordance with precedent, Mr. Speaker, but may I respectfully suggest that this is a matter that requires urgent consideration either by

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    the Select Committee on Procedure or by the Leader of the House? My colleagues and I represent 850,000 voters in Scotland. We could have a situation in which we represented the majority of Scottish seats in Parliament and yet still be debarred by the rules of procedure from moving an amendment to the Address. May I suggest, as the Government dragged their feet over this matter during the last Parliament, that the Leader of the House now gives it urgent consideration?
    Mr. Hooson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not the position amply illustrated by today's proceedings? I understand that it has been arranged through the usual channels that the debate today will concentrate largely on agriculture. However, the official Opposition have not chosen to suggest an amendment to the Address concerned with agriculture. There is an amendment in the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself and hon. Members from the Scottish National Party and the Welsh National Party, but that amendment has not been selected and the debate will therefore continue without an amendment on that subject.
    Mr. Heath: In case any wrong conclusions are drawn from these exchanges, Mr. Speaker, let me say that it is customary for only two amendments to be selected and for the other days to be left without amendments, but any right hon. or hon. Gentleman who catches your eye is able to raise any subject. That gives the debate today far more range than would have been possible had an amendment been selected.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We on the Welsh National Party bench naturally accept your ruling, but may I ask the Leader of the House for an assurance that a Procedure Committee will be set up this Session as none was set up during the previous Session?
    Mr. Short: The last Session was very short. We hope to set up a Procedure Committee very shortly, and a number of urgent matters have to be considered. If you agree, Mr. Speaker, this matter too could be put to the Committee for it to tender what advice it thought fit.
    Mr. Speaker: In view of what has transpired, I think that it would be wise for
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    me not to say anything. I have certain views, however.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Mr. Heath: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will kindly state the business for next week?
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): Yes, Sir.
  The debate on the Address in reply to the Queen's Speech will be continued tomorrow and on Monday, and be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 5th November.
  At the end on Monday, motion on the Local Loans (Increase of Limit) (No. 2) Order.
  WEDNESDAY, 6th November—Proceedings on the Pensioners' Payments Bill.
  Second Reading of the Social Security Amendment Bill.
  THURSDAY, 7th November—Second Reading of the General Rate Bill, and of the National Theatre Bill.
  FRIDAY, 8th November—Motion on the Southern Rhodesia Act 1965 (Continuation) Order 1974.
  MONDAY, 11 th November—Motion on the Channel Tunnel Bill.
  Second Reading of the Road Traffic (Seat Belts) Bill.
  Mr. Heath: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Opposition are grateful to him and his colleagues for acceding to our representations that the two measures for Wednesday should be dealt with in two separate Bills? The first is concerned very largely with the £10 Christmas bonus for pensioners. We shall, of course, give a favourable wind to that, as we ourselves introduced the £10 bonus. We shall not regard the Second Bill favourably, because, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, it imposes a particular burden on the self-employed. However, we are grateful to him for separating the two matters into two different Bills.
  There is one other matter that I should like to put to the Leader of the House. It would seem to be unusual to take the Rhodesia Act (Continuation) Order on

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  a Friday. Is there any precedent for doing so?
  Mr. Short: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for promising to expedite all stages of the Pensioners' Payments Bill. No doubt a longer time will be spent on the second Bill, but the rule will be suspended for that.
  The right hon. Gentleman was right in what he said about the Rhodesia order. Since 1966 the order has not been debated on a Friday, but on this occasion we have a special problem. We are to have a Budget very shortly and the order must be made by the Privy Council, I understand, by 16th November. Before then it has to be approved by resolution in both Houses. There is thus a rather tight timetable this time. I am sorry for this. However, I have looked up the times taken with this matter and the average has been three to three and a half hours throughout all the years that we have debated these orders.
  Mr. John Mendelson: Would my right hon. Friend find time for an early debate on Early-Day Motion No. 2, which concerns military co-operation with South Africa and is supported by 82 Members, so that hon. Members may bring to bear their opinions on this issue while the Government are considering it, as was announced by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in his speech yesterday? Would my right hon. Friend also accept that it is most important in the absence of a day specifically allocated to foreign affairs during the debate on the Address for such a debate to take place at the earliest date?
  [That this House is profoundly opposed to military co-operation in any form with the oppressive and racialist regime governing South Africa; and fully supports the policy of the Labour Party. namely, that the Labour Government will withdraw from all relationships resulting from the Simonstown Agreement and that all military exchange visits and technical arrangements will be terminated.]
  Mr. Short: As the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said a moment ago, any hon. Members who catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, may raise any subject he wishes during the debate on the Queen's Speech, but certainly I
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  will bear in mind what my hon. Friend has said.
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: In the absence of a day of this debate devoted to housing, and in advance of Supply Days, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Government intend to take an early opportunity to deploy to the House with more precision their proposals for the housing sector with regard to mortgage interest matters and the construction industry, about which the Secretary of State has had interesting things to say outside the House?
  Mr. Short: The Government will have some interesting legislation to introduce in the near future. A measure on housing will shortly be put before the House, so there will then be an opportunity to debate these matters.
  Mr. Lipton: May we have an early statement from the Government about whether it is proposed to extend the rent freeze beyond 31st December?
  Mr. Short: My hon. Friend had better await the legislation that will shortly be introduced.
  Mr. Hooson: The Leader of the House will bear in mind that there is a total ban on the export of live animals from this country, following a free vote in the House. Since that time we have had the O'Brien Report, which has proved that much of the propaganda to which hon. Members were subjected was unfounded. Would the right hon. Gentleman afford the House an early opportunity for a debate on that report, so that the House may again have a free vote about whether the ban is to continue, in view of its devastating effects on British agriculture?
  Mr. Short: I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman feels strongly about this subject and I know that a lot of other hon. Members feel equally strongly the other way. I can assure the House that the ban will remain until the House has had an opportunity to debate it, but I will bear in mind the request for a debate.
  Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that in the Channel Tunnel motion he is asking the House to give a First and Second Reading to that Bill and to deal with its Committee stage all in less than half a day?

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  If he maintains that intention, could we not have at least one day, if not even more?
  Mr. Short: In the previous Parliament, only a short time ago, the House got as far as completing the Committee stage of the Channel Tunnel Bill. It seems sensible if the Bill is to be proceeded with that we should reinstate it to the point it had reached. The Government's case for doing so will be set out in the debate that I have just announced.
  Mr. Powell: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been drawn to the Third Report of the Committee on European Secondary Legislation? Will he provide early time to enable the House to debate and decide, as it has indicated it was determined to do, the matters brought to its attention by the Committee?
  Mr. Short: The right hon. Gentleman has raised a major problem facing us, and I have to be frank with the House. It really is a major problem. I am sure that we have to get some new device for debating at least some of these orders. I have looked at the list and we are to make a start on it very shortly. At the same time I shall be bringing proposals, at any rate to the Procedure Committee which we hope to set up, which I hope will expedite the matter. Clearly, if the House were to debate all the orders being selected by the Committee we should have no time for anything else.
  Mr. Skinner: That is what we said.
  Mr. Short: I have told the right hon. Gentleman that this presents the House with a major problem.
  Mr. William Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend indicate when the White Paper on Public Expenditure will be produced and how soon we can expect the setting up of the Select Committee on Public Expenditure?
  Mr. Short: The Committee will be set up very quickly, and I hope that the White Paper will be produced towards the end of the year.
  Mr. Teddy Taylor: Would the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to make a statement early next week on the crisis in Scottish education, which has led to
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  our schools being closed today, and the threat that other militant action could disrupt the education and career prospects of the children? In particular, will he ask his right hon. Friend to see whether the Houghton Committee's Report can be expedited?
  Mr. Short: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is present in the Chamber, will have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said. I do not think that the Houghton Committee's Report can be expedited. It is going on very quickly, and the Government have given an assurance that they will implement the report and back-date any pay award under the report to the date of the setting up of the committee.
  Mr. Henderson: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that it had been intended to have a debate on Scottish affairs in the first week of the Session? Events have prevented this from taking place. Is he in a position to tell us when this debate will take place? Further, will he indicate when we are to have a full debate on the Government's White Paper on devolution, since many of us find the reasons advanced in the White Paper somewhat extraordinary?
  Mr. Short: The White Paper on devolution was simply a discussion document. It really summarised the—
  Mr. Henderson: What! The second one?
  Mr. Short: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. The second one set out a number of major decisions by the Government. I would like to discuss it with the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends. I feel that it will be worth while perhaps waiting until shortly after Christmas.
  Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Oh, no! We have waited for years.
  Mr. Short: Then we could have a longer debate, when the Government would be in a position to announce a great many more decisions. However, I am ready to discuss this with the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends.
  Mr. Cryer: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that he will examine the order of Questions, which at the

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  moment places the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster behind Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, including European Economic Community Questions? We all know that the EEC Questions effectively fill out Question Time. Does it not make a farce of Question Time if a Minister with important responsibilities and some strange ideas about investment banks is, in effect, ruled out of Question Time? Can my right hon. Friend give us an assurance that he will use his best endeavours to make sure that the Chancellor of the Duchy is answerable to back benchers of this House at Question Time?
  Mr. Short: I will certainly look at the point my hon. Friend raises. We have carried the old roster forward with one exception. We have not included the Second Church Commissioner because we have not yet got one.
  Mr. Burden: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us some idea of when the defence White Paper can be expected since its absence is causing concern among some of our allies who are curious about its contents? Is he aware that it is also causing concern among members of the forces and also those who are engaged in the armaments industry?
  Mr. Short: I understand the hon. Gentleman's anxiety. The General Election has delayed this matter to some extent, and the White Paper will not now be published until early next year. But the Government will make a statement in the House before the end of November.
  Mr. Lee: Further to the point made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), may I ask whether we can have an assurance that all the orders that have not yet been debated will be given time? Can my right hon. Friend tell us how many orders are in the pipeline?
  Mr. Short: There are a number, a very large number, to be debated, and we intend to make a start on them with short debates. I am afraid that they have to be short debates. If we gave them a lot of time they would swamp the business of the House. These are matters of very great importance, and the House must devise some kind of machinery for dealing with the orders, at any rate the
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  ones of less importance, and must be prepared to debate the major ones.
  Mr. Costain: In view of the unusual nature of the debate on the Channel Tunnel motion, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he agrees with his hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) that the Second Reading procedure should be followed? Can we have some indication that those who have constituency questions can deal with them?
  Mr. Short: We had better wait for the debate and see how it goes. The effect of the motion would be to reinstate the Bill at the point at which we left it before the General Election.
  Mr. Peyton rose—
  Hon. Members: Hear hear.
  Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Member will not be altogether surprised if I say that his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) was not received with any enthusiasm. Is he aware that an early statement dealing with defence is essential? Further, may I ask whether he will make an early and clear statement to the House about the availability of the Acts of Parliament which we churned through in the last Parliament? While I would not like anything I say to be taken as an indication that those measures contain any merit, it is desirable that the public should know what it is up against.
  Mr. Short: I must first of all congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his devolution from the back benches to the Front Bench. I understand his anxiety and that of his hon. Friends to read some of the amendments which they wrote into our legislation in the last Parliament. I will certainly look into that point and discuss it with the right hon. Gentleman and, if necessary, make a statement to the House. As to defence, I gave a specific promise that there will be a statement in the House, I think in the third week of November, dealing with this subject.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: In view of the pressure for proper time to debate European legislation and the possibility that if such time is given it might clash with available parliamentary time for the introduction of Socialist legislation, may

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  I ask the Lord President of the Council to consider drastically shortening the recesses that Parliament might otherwise have so that those who wish to debate European secondary legislation will have the opportunity?
  Mr. Short: I will not comment on that suggestion but I repeat that these orders change the law of the land and there ought to be some device by which this House can debate them or at any rate be made aware of them.
  Sir David Renton: When will the Government introduce proposals for us to examine the electoral system?
  Mr. Short: The Government have no intention of introducing such proposals. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to discuss this with me, I shall be happy to talk to him about it.
  Mr. Cyril Smith: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the serious situation facing the textile industry of Lancashire as a consequence of increased imports of yarn from Greece and Turkey? Is he further aware that countries like Japan, Singapore and France have already taken measures to ensure that their own domestic consumption of textiles is protected against this? Can the right hon. Gentleman arrange for an early debate on this matter since thousands of textile workers in Lancashire are now on short-time working?
  Mr. Short: The hon. Gentleman raised this with the Prime Minister on Tuesday and, if he catches your eye, Mr.
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  Speaker, he can make a speech on it in this debate. I will pass on his remarks to the Secretary of State for Trade.
  Mr. Marten: As the right hon. Gentleman appears to be giving the impression that there will be a cut in the time given to European secondary legislation debates, will he take no decision on that matter until the whole question of secondary legislation debating has been discussed in the House? Secondly, when shall we have statements by Ministers who have been to Brussels on the negotiations which have taken place at the Common Market ministerial meetings?
  Mr. Short: We do not intend to cut the time. The time which we thought would be adequate is proving to be quite inadequate, and we must find some other way of debating the large mass of material issuing from Brussels.
  Mr. Michael Latham: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Secretary of State for the Environment to make an early and detailed statement on the Government's proposals for land nationalisation, the absence of which statement is having a very bad effect on the confidence of the housebuilding industry?
  Mr. Short: The Government's legislative proposals on that matter were announced in the Gracious Speech. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman must await the legislation. We have published a White Paper which sets out the principles, but the legislation will be published towards the end of the year

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  DEBATE ON ADDRESS
  [THIRD DAY]
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [29th October]:
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:—
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.—[Mr. Weitzman.]
  Question again proposed.

  AGRICULTURE
  Mr. Speaker: More than 40 right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak. I hope that the House will take note of that fact. particularly hon. Members who catch my eye.
  3.3 p.m.
  Mr. Francis Pym: Traditionally, this is the earliest day in the debate on the Gracious Speech when a particular topic is singled out for debate, and the Opposition have decided to take this first opportunity to raise the whole question of our future food supplies and the profound problems of the agriculture industry. In fact, this is no less than the fourth parliamentary day this year which we in opposition have used for discussing agriculture and horticulture, and I think that that must be something of a parliamentary record. It indicates the high degree of priority which the Conservative Party attaches to this subject. We have treated it in this way all through the year and throughout the election, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition referred specifically to agriculture on Tuesday.
  The single sentence in the Gracious Speech dealing with agriculture indicates with awful clarity the Government's complacency and their failure to take action to deal with the reality of the crisis. If Minister's have "recognised the value of expansion"—the words in the Gracious Speech—they have turned their backs upon it. I am all in favour of discussion,
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  but the need is for action, and immediate action. There is no hint of it in the Gracious Speech, and that is a matter for regret.
  It is not altogether surprising, though a tragedy, that the right hon. Gentleman became Minister of Agriculture in March without having thought about how he would approach his responsibilities or what his policy would be. The measure of his failure, which every hon. Member hopes will be rectified today, is best demonstrated by comparing the realities of livestock farming today with his words in the House on 14th March. He said in the debate on the Gracious Speech:
  "The purpose of that policy"—
  that is, the policy to encourage the maximum economic production of food—
  "is to create the conditions in which British agriculture can thrive, in which farmers obtain a fair return for their produce and in which consumers pay a fair price for their food."
  Later he said:
  "… it is overwhelminly in the national interest to reduce our dependence on imported food by the encouragement of an expansion of British agriculture —".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th March 1974; Vol. 870, c. 384-5.]
  I quite agree with the intentions expressed in those words.
  Since that date, the Minister has taken part in at least four sets of negotiations within the European Community. Each time he has returned in triumphant mood, believing that he had achieved a valuable arrangement, but each time his hopes have proved false. On 25th March, when he returned on the first occasion, he said:
  "I have now given a direct injection to that industry"—
  namely, the pig industry—
  "and this will give confidence to pig producers."
  I said in response to his statement on that day that we were glad that he believed that he had achieved his objective, but he had not, and the plight of the pig producers since that statement has been agonising.
  The real disaster of these negotiations in March was the complete removal of the floor in the beef market. Unilaterally the right hon. Gentleman opted out of intervention. That is what caused the collapse. Whatever criticisms can fairly be laid against the intervention system, it worked in other countries and was relied

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  on by British producers, who were entitled to rely upon it.
  In the debate on 8th May, the Minister said:
  "… it is no part of the Government's intention to let market prices for beef fall to unrealistic levels. We shall be watchng developments very closely to see what, if any, temporary measures may become necessary to prevent this. We shall want all the beef we can get from our farms in the future and we must be prepared to pay reasonable prices for it".
  At the bottom of the column the right hon. Gentleman referred to prices which appertained in the last month of the Conservative administration—£18.25 per cwt—and to
  "a return which, given reasonable prices for store cattle, must surely give confidence for the future".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th May 1974; Vol. 873, c. 420.]
  It did not give confidence for the future, and the depression in the beef market has increased ever since.
  The right hon. Gentleman's assurance on that day that market prices would not be allowed to fall to unrealistic levels was repeated the next month at a Farmers' Club meeting on 26th June, and he added:
  "We want all the beef we can get from our farms in the future and I accept that we must be prepared to pay reasonable prices for it".
  Later he said:
  "Beef is produced for people to eat, and it must be sold at prices they can afford. This does not mean that the beef producers' returns have necessarily to be squeezed to fit the consumer's purse."
  That was said on the day that we had a Supply debate on a motion calling on the Government
  "to take immediate steps, especially in the livestock sector, to safeguard the future supplies of home grown food for the consumer".
  On the basis of what he had done and what he announced in that debate he would do, the Minister advised the House to accept the motion. One of his announcements related to beef. He said:
  "We need to be in a position to give producers the assurance over a period that their returns will not drop below about £18 per live cwt. for clean quality cattle".
  In the next column he said:
  "I shall give farmers the support for which they are asking".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th June 1974; Vol. 875, c. 1593-4.]
  Does the right hon. Gentleman think that there is a beef farmer who believes that he
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  has received either the support that was asked for or what was taken to be an £18 per cwt guaranteed minimum price?
  Finally, when the Minister made the statement introducing his slaughter premium, he said:
  "The effect of these premia will be to assure beef producers of a reasonable return, and to offer a real incentive to phase marketings in such a way as to maintain stable market conditions. They amply fulfil the intention I announced to the House on 26th June of giving our beef producers an assurance that, over a period, their returns would not fall below about £18 per live cwt for clean cattle".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th July 1974; Vol. 877, c. 456.]
  However good the right hon. Gentleman's intentions, he can only be acutely embarrassed by the way in which things worked out so differently and at such cost to thousands of farmers.
  Indeed, the farmers' bitter experience has been a continuing plunge in prices while costs continue to rise, despite the slaughter premium which was intended to help, but in some weeks regrettably the prices have fallen more than the premium has increased. At present it stands at £29·24 per head and will rise through the winter. But it is already clear that with fodder as expensive as it is scarce, the heavy interest payments due, and with all costs generally rising, fewer farmers are retaining their animals.
  Mr. Thomas Torney: I should like to take up the right hon. Gentleman's point about the British Government not accepting the intervention system. Is he aware that there has been widespread discontent within the EEC countries and widespread militant action by farmers in France, Germany and Holland against the system of intervention and the deal that they are getting from the Common Market countries? If intervention is successful, what about that point?
  Mr. Pym: If the hon. Gentleman will bear himself with patience, I shall come to that in due course.
  The slaughter figures speak for themselves. The Meat and Livestock Commission's October report has this to say:
  "… in September, the average weekly slaughter rate … reached a level of 42 per cent. higher than a year earlier. Steer and heifer slaughtering rose by 18 per cent. between August and September … and were 32 per cent. higher than in September last year. The

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  number of cows and bulls slaughtered also increased in September by 19 per cent. to reach a level of 32 per cent. higher than in the same month of 1973. Calf slaughtering showed a seasonal rise in September and remained almost four times as high as a year earlier."
  Last week there was a 15 per cent. increase in the number of animals being offered at market, but I have heard of cases where there were no bids, so a market does not always exist. In those regions where livestock is the only livelihood a farmer can have, with heavy dependence on autumn sales, the outlook is at best bleak and in some cases ruin. These regions include Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
  If we were still operating the intervention system, the intervention price today would be a little more than £20 per live cwt. As it is, prices today are not much more than £12—nowhere near even the right hon. Gentleman's own figure of £18 which he has signally failed to provide.
  We have been pressing the Minister to restore a guarantee for beef. I see trailed in the Press the outline of a scheme to pay a premium for beef held in store. That does not seem to be very different from intervention. I do not know whether the Minister will announce this, or anything like it today, but I do know that he should never have removed the intervention support. If its continuation had led to too many problems he could have adjusted it within the Community.
  What proposals has the Minister put before the Commission to replace the intervention system? What plans or propositions has he left with the Commission for a new beef régime? What is lying on the Commission's table from him on this matter? After all that has happened, a new régime is needed now.
  My view has been that a combination of intervention and a system of monetary payment would provide the right sort of floor for the market. The right hon. Gentleman should certainly have had something settled before now. I only hope that whatever new plan he announces today will this time be adequate and be applicable immediately, today, if not retrospectively.
  I am sure that the whole House is disturbed by the spectacle of demonstrations by Welsh and other farmers against
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  the import of Irish cattle. No one can blame the farmers for their anger. They see excessive supplies on the United Kingdom market depressing the price of beef further and further, and beef is often their only source of income. Indeed, in some cases, it is their actual capital. It is only natural that they should be enraged as they see shipload after shipload arriving here for slaughter.
  It is true that this is no new trade but, unfortunately, there is a financial incentive for Irish producers to sell here at present. The subsidy that they receive, of 7·8 per cent. of the United Kingdom intervention price, is greater than the Irish export tax of 4·7 per cent. of the Irish intervention price. The net effect is a subsidy of about 60p per cwt. on imports from Ireland. In present circumstances that is a thoroughly unsatisfactory and unfair situation.
  I ask the Minister to tell the House today what can be done. Has he considered the possibility of bringing back the 60-day waiting period that used to apply to Irish imports? Something should be negotiated to relieve this pressure on the market.
  I also hope that the Government will soon announce their conclusions on the O'Brien Report. This is an important matter, of direct relevance to our situation. I heard the exchange between the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) and the Leader of the House, who said that he would bear this request in mind. I hope that we shall have an earlier debate than that reply would imply.
  It is extraordinary that this House took a decision to ban the export of live animals, yet no one seems to have raised a whisper of protest—except for those of us on both sides of the House who are interested in agriculture—at the import of live animals, which is having a devastating effect on the markets.
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): Perhaps I can settle that immediately. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman heard the Leader of the House say that the matter will be debated. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?".] He said that it would be debated. There was a decision on this and hon. Members on both sides of the House expressed differing opinions. The

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  report has been considered, but we have had to have discussions with our people and our friends in Europe. These have been long discussions, and as soon as possible we shall announce our conclusions.
  Mr. Pym: I do not object to that. I said that the Leader of the House said that he would bear this in mind, and I thought that a slightly greater degree of urgency might be desirable.
  There will be concern on both sides of the House about the animal welfare aspect of livestock. There are about 1 million more head of livestock in the United Kingdom now than there were last year, but supplies of fodder are lower and of poorer quality. I have ascertained that the view of the Veterinary Association of Great Britain is that at least on the hill and marginal land the stock is in general in a poorer condition and less healthy than normally, and that some people fear for the consequences in terms of malnutrition this winter. That would concern the House deeply.
  We also know that the National Farmers' Union is anxious about fodder supplies, and I hope that contingency plans are being worked out with the industry to cope with such emergencies that seem all too likely to arise. With slaughterhouses working to capacity there must be a real danger.
  Throughout the last 12 months the pig industry has faced its greatest difficulties ever. It is true that today the level of slaughtering is no higher than it was a year ago, but the slaughtering figure today represents a much higher proportion than it did 12 months ago, simply because the nation's pig herd is significantly smaller than it was then. Our pig herd is now back to the level of 40 years ago. Prices to producers are beginning to rise at last, though they fell again last week, but the prices at present prevailing are hardly more than the break-even point.
  The Minister's recent announcement that the special subsidy which he introduced is to be phased out will not help pig producers through another hard winter. I fear that the Minister has acted prematurely in removing the subsidy at this stage. We look for clarification of the new guarantee system which he promised two weeks ago.
  During the summer the Minister introduced a series of subsidies and made
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  financial help available to the industry. It is unfortunate that, with the exception of milk, he produced the money a little at a time, so that it has not had the desired effect. It has been paid in such an indirect way that not only have market prices dropped in sympathy with the payments but in many cases the money payment does not seem to have been received by the farmers for whose benefit it was intended.
  Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House why the low prices for beef received by farmers do not seem to have been passed on to the consumer? The total amount of money made available by the Government is, on my calculations, considerably over £200 million, but since the industry is still in a plight I am convinced that that large sum could have been used to better advantage. To have spent that amount of money and not solved the problem must worry the Government greatly, but they have no strategy and without a long-term strategy the agriculture industry cannot work effectively. A piecemeal approach will always be ineffectual.
  Mr. Hamish Watt: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that such a long-term strategy could have been worked out by a Conservative administration? Does he not agree that the figures for 1970–72 showed an 82 per cent. degree of self-sufficiency and that the Conservative Government should have been able to foresee the trouble coming? They should have done something to discourage the production of meat, instead of still further encouraging production. The ridiculous position of vast over-supply could thereby have been avoided.
  Mr. Pym: The last Conservative Government had a long-term strategy—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] We certainly did. The record between 1970 and 1974 shows the most staggering increase of production and productivity which the country has ever seen. It is fair to say that the process was interrupted by the oil and grain price explosion, but that was being dealt with last winter. There is no question about the strategy we were pursuing, and the industry had confidence in it—[Interruption.] It is all very well for Labour Members to shout about past records. I have gone through the record

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  since March, involving the actions of the Minister of Agriculture, and it is sorry reading.
  For months now we Conservatives have been clamouring for an immediate review followed by a cash injection. The Minister's series of minor injections has not begun to revive the patient. I acknowledge the Minister's review of milk and his increased award, which will be helpful, although the beef market must also be put right before the milk industry can again function effectively and economically. The general position of the whole industry is now so grave and the threat to future supplies of food so alarming that nothing less than an emergency review should now take place. I want the Government to take over the effective and constructive proposals which we Conservatives have been advocating for some months.
  These proposals involve a short-term immediate operation such as I have already spoken about, as well as a total reappraisal and reassessment with the industry of every sector. It is the astronomical rise in feeding stuff costs that is the main cause of trouble. In each case the price has gone up tenfold, and every conceivable way of easing the impact of this increase must be urgently examined. Indeed, such a process should have taken place throughout the summer. A different method of assistance will be needed for each sector, but I am convinced that it is right to try to help on the input side as well as to secure fair market prices for efficient production.
  My hon. Friends and I believe that there is plenty of scope for improving marketing arrangements and giving further encouragement to agricultural co-operatives. We know the views expressed in the industry in recent years, but after the traumatic experience of 1974 I believe that in some sectors farmers will take a different view. I hope that the Minister will institute immediate consultations with the industry on this aspect and bring forward proposals as soon as possible.
  On a wider front, I welcome the general review of agriculture which is now in progress in the Community. I have been asking for this since July. It has been obvious that such a review is essential because every member of the Com-
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  munity, and, indeed, every other country, is affected by the oil and grain price explosion. Therefore, I am glad that the review is now in hand. However, it is not necessary to wait for the conclusion of the review to make an adjustment to the United Kingdom transitional period. The Minister will recall that in the June debate I suggested that we should jump the period in respect of sugar in one go. This he has done, and it has been helpful. I believe that at least an acceleration of the period would be helpful in terms of other commodities. From the farmers' point of view, the sooner the transitional period is over the better, but the consumers' interest must be protected. This is why we believe that the transitional arrangements should be adjusted on a commodity basis, and I hope that the Minister will say something on this topic today.
  I should be trespassing on the time of the House if I went into the problems of each sector of the industry. All sectors are interdependent and none escapes the ramifications of today's crisis or the danger of being affected in the future. Many of my colleagues will be dealing with these other sectors in the debate.
  I want to mention the obvious importance of seeing that the maximum acreage of sugar beet is grown next year. The Minister has shown a willingness to act, but in the context of a world shortage that grows worse it would make good sense to give a genuine and generous incentive for profit to beet growers, so that we may obtain the largest possible increase in home supplies next year. I am delighted that the Minister negotiated an increased acreage quota, but the problem is to get it planted. The way to achieve this aim is to give financial incentives.
  I do not wish to raise any scare about a possible sugar shortage or what supplies may be next year, but it is clear that the position will be serious and I presume that in his speech the right hon. Gentleman will say something on this topic.
  On the subject of horticulture, I hope and expect the Minister to announce today what is to happen after the subsidy ends. The uncertainty has gone on for too long already, and we need to know what the situation is to be.

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  The only other matter I wish to raise relates to the potential damage to our food production posed by the new capital taxes referred to in the Gracious Speech. I asked the Minister in the debate last March to watch his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer over any such proposals because the Chancellor does not know very much about land. I asked the Minister to keep his eye on the situation from the point of view of the needs of farming being fully taken into account. We are convinced that the preservation of the family farm is every bit as important economically as socially. These new taxes are nothing less than a direct threat to the capital of the industry. No industry has a better record of improved production and productivity than agriculture. This has been achieved in part by large-scale capital investment, which ought to continue in the national interest at a high level but which now, I fear, will slow down and conceivably stop altogether unless the proposals are altered in a radical way.
  I ask the Government to give full weight to the effect of their proposals in respect of food supplies and not impose any additional burdens, let alone crippling ones, on our farming at present. With agriculture now plunged into the deepest crisis for a decade this is no time even to talk of impositions which will be disruptive and disastrous. I cannot believe that this plan has the Minister's approval, and a heavy responsibility rests on him and his colleagues to see that these impositions are altered, if for no more compelling argument than the safeguarding of our food supplies.
  Let me try to sum up—and, in view of Mr. Speaker's remarks, I have tried not to talk at too great a length. In this speech I have tried to set out the real nature of the problems facing agriculture. I have thought it right to explain frankly how and why the bit-by-bit approach made by the Minister in the summer was unfortunately doomed to failure, and I have reiterated some of the constructive proposals which we have been putting forward from these benches for some months. I notice that the Liberal Party is now in support, and I welcome that. I hope that the Minister will take a similar line today.
  There is only one matter that really worries me, and that is the safeguarding
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  of our home-grown food supplies and the well-being of our farming industry. The position is now so serious that I want to see everybody who is concerned with and involved in agriculture meet together and act together to set the industry forward again on a path that will lead to higher production. Since the election, though not before, I think, the Prime Minister has himself spoken of the need for national unity. The agriculture industry needs a united approach, and any knowledge or ideas that I and any of my right hon. and hon. Friends may have will of course be at the disposal of the Minister.
  I invite the right hon. Gentleman now to rise to the occasion and to match the needs of this hour in agriculture with decisions and action—not just the words and discussions referred to in the Gracious Speech—which can command universal support and which will restore prosperity to this, the oldest and greatest of all our industries.
  3.30 p.m.
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): I believe that the latter remarks of the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) about a national approach and his demand for me to examine carefully the implications of the capital transfer tax and the wealth tax on agriculture and farm structure are extremely constructive. Nevertheless, I intend to deploy arguments against some of his assertions in the earlier part of his speech which were similar to those which he made when we previously debated agriculture.
  I welcome the opportunity to set before the House our record and our intentions on agriculture. There is no question of more direct concern to each one of us than the supply of food. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this is the central concern of my Department. If we are to get the food that we need, producers must have a reasonable return for their labour and investment. If the producer does not get a reasonable return over time production falls and the consumer suffers. In government the Conservative Party presided over a massive increase in beef prices in the shops. There was consumer resistance. Thus the producer and consumer share a common interest in getting the right balance, and this should be the aim of any Government's policy. The British housewife has

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  not forgotten the high rises in food prices, especially in beef prices. But when the balance began to swing so obviously the other way the then Government did nothing to stop it. I need say no more to bring out their total failure to achieve a meaningful policy of food production and food supply.
  The Government recognise also that the cost of the food and feed which we import from abroad can have a substantial bearing on the course of our economy. This cost has increased substantially in the past two years. The volume of imports of food, feed and beverages will probably be down about 4 per cent. between 1972 and 1974, but higher world prices are likely to increase our food trade deficit over this period by about £1,500 million.
  There are very strong reasons, therefore, why we have made clear in the Gracious Speech that we attach importance to the expansion of domestic food production in an economic and efficient manner. Even more than in the past, we need to make good use of our own resources of land and labour. For the longer term, we have already set in train discussions with the farmers' unions and other interests. In our election manifesto we said that we intended to continue these talks
  "with the dual objective of drawing up a meaningful longer term expansion and of determining the means whereby this can be achieved".
  That was the promise that we made, and it will be carried out. [Interruption.] We are having these discussions now with the unions. They should enable us—[Interruption] I ask the Opposition to do me the courtesy of listening to my speech. I listened carefully to the Minister deploying the Opposition's argument—[Laughter.] I apologise for that Freudian slip. The right hon. Gentleman was a very good Minister in Northern Ireland, and I wish he were still there—[Laughter]—if ever he had to be in a position of responsibility.
  I hope that these discusions will prove to be fruitful and constructive. We are also determined that the farm workers' unions should contribute fully to the development of our longer-term policy. There is a tendency in some quarters to under-estimate the tremendous contribu-
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  tion made to our economy by the agricultural labour force. I met representatives of the National Union of Agricultural Workers and of the Transport and General Workers' Union last week.
  I deal now with the short-term issues. In the short term we shall be pursuing our objective, with due regard for the interests of the consumer, in the discussions on the fixing of Community prices for the next agricultural year. These discusions will begin soon. The Council of Ministers has agreed to take decisions by 1st February next. The right hon. Gentleman knows the timetable. We shall also pursue this objective in the wider stocktaking of the common agricultural policy which is now under way. This stocktaking is to be presented to the Council of Ministers early next year. We expect that the Council will be dealing with this important subject at its February meeting.
  I want to stress to the House the very substantial action which we have taken on behalf of British agriculture in the short period in which we have formed the Government. I can quite appreciate that interest tends to be centred on sectors in temporary difficulty at any one time. It is understandable that attention is focused mainly on the beef sector today. But beef represents only 15 per cent. of our agricultural output, and it is important to look at the total picture. Very many United Kingdom farms are mixed farms. When cereal feed prices are high to the livestock producer, farmers will be earning high prices for their cereal production. Of course, the high cost of feeding stuffs, which continues to benefit certain producers, is a cause of concern now to livestock farmers in many countries. However, I intend to make clear to the House what we have done in the face of such large cost increases not of our making.
  I take milk first. Within the area of livestock production, milk is the most important sector. At the meeting of the Council of Ministers in September I negotiated an arrangement by which returns to United Kingdom milk producers over the six winter months would be raised by the very substantial figure of 8p a gallon. This is worth more than £100 million to dairy farmers over this six-month period. How can Opposition

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  spokesmen say that we have been tinkering with this problem? It is worth more than £100 million to our dairy farmers. Its real value was perhaps best illustrated by the widespread fear amongst producers that it would be lost, along with other elements of the package, when Germany had second thoughts after that meeting.
  In the course of his adoption speech, reported in the local Conservative Press, the right hon. Member for Penrith and the Border (Mr. Whitelaw) said that he "welcomed the proposals for farming released by Labour yesterday". He welcomed the Brussels package. He made no criticism, and I believe that responsible opinion in the farming industry welcomes our approach and what we have achieved. Dairy farmers had been pointing out that they would be bearing substantial increases in costs over the winter months. But there has been a general recognition that the action which we have taken will enable the dairy industry to go forward with confidence.
  At its meeting this month the Milk Marketing Board gave careful consideration to the difficulties which milk producers face over the calf prices and the availability of fodder. Nevertheless it concluded that there were very sound reasons for farmers to aim at an increase in production over the winter months. Its chairman said:
  "We believe it would be profitable for them to do so"
  and that
  "conditions in the months immediately ahead do provide a firm enough basis for raising production targets."
  That is the board's advice. It is entirely consistent with the objective of Government policy to see an expansion in domestic milk production, and I remind the House that we are speaking here of the largest section of our livestock production.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: The point that the right hon. Gentleman was making about offsetting costs by growing one's own cereals surely loses sight of the fact that the real pinch is being felt by the small farmers, the smallholders, and the pig, poultry and egg producers. They cannot stand this any longer.
  Mr. Peart: I believe that one sector has suffered because of that. I accept the point about high feed costs and the difficulties that have been caused. That is why I shall be dealing next with pigs, poultry and eggs. I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will consider some of the arguments.
  Before turning to the beef situation, I should point out that, notwithstanding the increases in costs, producers of pigs, poultry and eggs, which together represent a substantially bigger area of livestock production than cattle, are also in an improving situation. We certainly had a fall in our pig herd during the summer as supply and demand came into balance, but producers are now getting a good price from the market—about £4·90 per score—which is one of the highest in Europe. Earlier this year I introduced the special pig subsidy of 50p per score which will have put between £20 million and £30 million into the pig industry. Now, as market prices have improved, we are phasing out this subsidy.
  Egg producers, who were also receiving low prices earlier this year, can now see a recovery to more reasonable levels. In all these sectors of livestock production there is a benefit to our producers from the extension to cereals of the Community-financed import subsidies. I negotiated this extension of the coverage of monetary compensatory amounts at the meeting of the Council of Ministers in September. This has now begun to reduce the feed costs of our livestock producers below what they would otherwise have been.
  I turn now to the beef situation. Let me say straight away that I fully understand the industry's anxieties in this sector. I have continually met the National Farmers' Union on this matter. The sharp fall in returns to the beef fattener has been allowed to create an atmosphere of gloom that has been spread to sectors where it is in no sense justified. I think that is a great pity and against the interests of the industry itself. But I fully understand the difficulties of the beef fattener. The fall in his returns is all the more marked because it follows the boom conditions of last year when prices and profits were very high. The low prices now are the direct result of very heavy marketings. Many of the cattle now coming on to the market are

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  of poor quality, which depresses the average price to the beef fattener. I hope to see market prices firming up again over the coming months.
  Fluctuations of this kind are especially bad for a sector of industry which requires a measure of long-term stability in the interests of producer and consumer alike. That stability used to be provided in this country by our Fatstock Guarantee Scheme for beef with its deficiency payments. I believe that when right hon. Gentlemen opposite abolished the scheme last year they acted prematurely, and I think that events have proved me right. I hope that they will not try to evade their responsibility for the present situation. The leaders of the Conservative Party destroyed the real guarantees for the producers. Under the arrangements that they negotiated, the only form that additional support could take at present would be permanent intervention. That has been tried in other countries and, as I have said again and again, it has proved incapable of providing the producer with the security that it was supposed to bring. Indeed, it has kept fresh beef at reasonable prices away from consumers. I believe that it is a bad system.
  The leading article in a recent edition of the Meat Trades' Journal carried a major heading
  "Intervention system has failed, admits the European Economic Community."
  Only today in The Times editorial there is mention of the EEC system of intervention buying:
  "There is no doubt that it has proved unsatisfactory for the purpose that it set out to achieve."
  Intervention has not worked, and I do not believe that it has worked in Europe.
  Mr. Pym: Whatever weaknesses it may have had, there was absolutely no reason for the right hon. Gentleman to opt out of it. He could have stayed in until he had something better to put in its place. There was no reason to leave no floor in the market in the meanwhile. That is why we criticise him.
  Mr. Peart: The system in Europe provided no guarantee for European farmers. They are facing extreme difficulties. Protests are growing every day against the intervention system in Europe. It has
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  not worked, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it.
  I cannot change the system overnight. I have already made clear to the Community that changes are needed. We shall be starting discussions next month to establish new arrangements from the beginning of the new beef year on 1st March. [Interruption.] Will right hon. and hon. Gentlemen defy the Community unilaterally? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] A Liberal spokesman, with whom I debated this matter recently during the election campaign, had to admit when questioned that the Liberal Party would not defy the Community. A Conservative spokesman, sitting near the Shadow Minister, on that very programme also took the same attitude. They would not defy the Community, and they know it.
  Mr. Emlyn Hooson: rose—
  Mr. Peart: In the meantime, let me recapitulate what we have done to bridge the gap—
  Mr. Hooson: The right hon. Gentleman will remember the debate in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), sitting by my side—I am the spokesman on this matter —agreed that we should break it, if necessary. Is not the real problem that the right hon. Gentleman has tied his hands absolutely? On 2nd October he agreed with the German Minister of Agriculture that this country would knock it unilaterally in return for Germany not using the veto. The right hon. Gentleman has put it beyond the power of the Government to act to help beef producers until 1st March.
  Mr. Peart: I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman has different views from his Leader about entry into the Common Market. I see that he has been demoted. The Leader of the Liberal Party was more enthusiastic about going into Europe than some Conservatives who destroyed the guarantees. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I am right.
  In the meantime, let me recapitulate what we have done to bridge the gap and describe in more detail how we propose to put a greater measure of stability in the beef fatteners' returns for the future.

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  First, we have secured, on a Community basis, the system of marketing premiums to supplement the return from the market on a rising scale throughout the winter. By February these premiums will be £36·65 per head, giving the fattener an increasing incentive to orderly marketing.
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman rose—
  Mr. Peart: This is already a radical new departure for the EEC's beef policy and a good omen for the introduction of a new beef regime on 1st March.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Peart: No.
  Added to that is the social beef subsidy. Next, we shall introduce a Community arrangement worth 20p a week to all old-age pensioners on their beef purchases from 2nd December. This must serve to strengthen effective demand and so sustain the market prices.
  I have been asked about private storage. We have just agreed in Brussels to the introduction of large subsidies—£262 a tonne—to cover the costs of the private storage of beef. This should also help to produce a better phasing of supplies on to the market and reduce the pressures of the present surplus. But the most important step that we can take over the coming weeks is to ensure—[Interruption.]—this is not the intervention system that operates in Europe; hon. Gentleman must listen carefully to what I say—in the discussion which will soon be starting in the Community that the new beef regime will be sound, providing genuine security and an adequate return.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: When?
  Mr. Peart: This will call for substantial changes and is a central part of our renegotiations. The changes should take the following form.
  First, we must establish an effective alternative to permanent intervention as the main instrument of support in Europe. An improved system of variable marketing premiums should be introduced which will give producers an assurance of a fair return. That would be a real improvement; but, of course, this is not to rule out the alternative of intervention in countries of the Community which still prefer
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  to operate in that way. It is true that I have an option, but if some in the Community still prefer intervention they should have that right.
  Secondly, I want to see the continuation, on a Community basis, of production grants designed to safeguard the supply of good quality calves and store cattle for the fattener to buy. Our own calf and beef cow subsidies could well serve as a model.
  Thirdly, I want to see a better and simpler import régime. This should give reasonable access to third countries, particularly for specialised types of beef required by food manufacturers, and for developing countries with a traditional trade. But it must also afford adequate safeguards to producers against the undermining of their own market.
  These are the main elements in the new régime which I want to secure in negotiation in the Council of Ministers. Pending the introduction of a new beef régime, I have regarded the Government's prime task in this sector as being to safeguard the future supply of beef. To this end we have increased the calf subsidy by £10 a head from last July. We have brought forward the beef cow and hill cow subsidies for 1975, so that producers can get the money when they need it to help with the winter feed bills. This will be particularly helpful to the hill farmers: it will put an extra £35 million in their hands. Further, the award of more than £100 million to the dairy sector will, by maintaining the profitability of dairy production, help to ensure a continuing supply of calves from the dairy herd.
  These measures, with the beef marketing premiums, will have the effect of raising actual payments of subsidies to the beef industry for the year ending in March 1975 from under £65 million to over £150 million. That is the measure of our determination to ensure a continued and adequate supply for consumers. I hope that what I have said will assure all our beef producers that when the present short-term difficulties are overcome they can look forward with confidence to conditions of prosperity and stability. It is my aim and determination to ensure that this will be so.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Peart: I will not give way. I have already given way three times.
  Before I leave the beef sector I should like to refer briefly to the action that some farmers have taken in the last few days to try to exclude Irish cattle from this country. I can understand their feelings in the current state of the beef market. But I cannot condone, and I hope that no one in the House would wish to condone, any action which means taking the law into one's own hands. [Interruption.] The Tory Party always talks about law and order. I am just saying that this is not the way we do things in this country, and it would be fatal to our way of life if it became so. I hope that those who have been tempted to take this sort of action will think better of it.
  Some of the problems of the beef sector affect the sheep industry also. But we do not have a common price régime in operation for sheep within the Community. It was, therefore, open to us to take our own action to protect our breeding stock in the United Kingdom at a time of higher feed costs.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
  Mr. Peart: Recently I announced a substantial increase in the hill sheep subsidy. This increase is worth about £9 million in a full year, and complements the measures I have just outlined for beef to improve the prospects for the hill sector.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: There will not be people here in March to benefit.
  Mr. Peart: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will listen instead of shouting.
  Cattle and sheep producers in some parts of the country are facing difficulties over the supply of forage, especially hay and straw. We have been in touch with the unions on this. The first step here is to establish the full facts about the quantities available nationally, not only of hay and straw, but of silage and other feeds such as root crops. We are doing this urgently. Immediately thereafter we shall decide, in consultation again with the farmers' unions and others concerned, what action the industry or the Government may be able to take. Already our
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  advisory efforts have been directed to the most efficient use of the fodder which is available. I believe that we must regard this as an urgent matter, and we are doing so.
  Outside the particular sectors of livestock production most affected by the feed cost increases, we have not hesitated to take special measures where they have been needed. Producers of horticultural crops under glass have received a special subsidy to alleviate the impact of the sharp increase in oil prices. This was worth £7 million. We have also reinstated the lime subsidy, costing £5 million. Right hon. Members opposite took it off. The sugar beet price to our producers is being increased to the Community level, and we have achieved—I am glad that the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire paid tribute to this—a large increase in the "A" quota from 900,000 tons to 1,040,000 tons. There is also a very large increase in the "B" quota, and next year the full EEC price will apply to no less than 1·5 million tons of home-produced sugar—far more than the most we have ever produced. I hope that this will encourage the expansion we all want to see.
  In my speech I have recognised the concern of certain livestock producers, particularly beef fatteners, at their present returns from the market. But let me finally put the situation in perspective.
  Sir Derek Walker-Smith: The right hon. Gentleman made a short reference to the horticulture industry. I do not know whether it was the only reference he intends to make. Will he inform the House what the future of the protection against oil price increases is likely to be for that important industry?
  Mr. Peart: I obtained this subsidy for the year. We took quick action. Naturally, I placed it before the Community, and it was accepted. It is in existence. Before I phase it out I will carefully consider the industry's needs. I give the right hon. and learned Gentleman that assurance.
  I have not dealt with cane sugar, because it was home production that I was concentrating on. I believe that the deal which we achieved in Brussels recently was satisfactory. The deal was linked

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  with Protocol 22 countries and, I believe, will be of great help to the Caribbean, Swaziland, India, Fiji and Mauritius.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the proposals are guaranteed financially for only one-third of the officially estimated shortfall next year? As we have not got 1 ton of cane sugar guaranteed for next year towards the 1·4 million tons which some people agreed we would get, the future of cane producers and of sugar refineries in this country is particularly critical.
  Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend has been to see me. The assurances I have received are particularly satisfactory. The Lardinois proposals go beyond the figure that he mentioned, and he knows it.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Peart: I have already answered several people in interruptions. I do not want to monopolise the time of the House because back benchers will want to make speeches.
  We took over from the Conservative Government—
  Mrs. Winifred Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Am I not right in thinking that it is a tradition of this House, which is responsible for so many important sections of the British Isles, that when a whole section is in dangerous jeopardy and the Minister is specifically dealing with it in his speech, if he gives way to others, he should in courtesy give way to those who represent that section?
  Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter of order for the Chair.
  Mr. William Clark: The right hon. Gentleman said that the deal that he did over cane sugar was satisfactory. Would he not agree that if we pay £140 per ton to the EEC, the EEC will have to buy that sugar on the world market, where the price is currently running at about £420 per ton, which means that there will have to be a subsidy of £280, of which this country will pay 25 per cent.? If one adds to the £140 per ton the £70 which is 25 per cent. of the £280, that gives a figure of £210 per ton. If we could have got a deal with Australia at £180 per ton, surely the consumer in
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  the shops or the taxpayer is paying far too much for sugar.
  Mr. Peart: I know that the hon. Member has a deep interest in the industry. I would only say that it was not possible to get an Australian deal on this. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I did the negotiations. I believe that, through the Community, unless it was agreed by the Community—[Interruption.] I did the negotiations. All I am saying at this stage is that I believe that the deal was a very good one.
  I should like to conclude by examining the situation broadly. First, we took over from the Conservative Government a situation in which they had abandoned the beef guarantee and dismantled a number of important subsidies, such as the fertiliser and lime subsidies. It would appear that they were putting their faith in intervention in order to deal with the surplus of beef which was in prospect. Certainly they should have anticipated such a surplus: in the 1972 Annual Review White Paper, for example, they made it clear that they had
  "decided to put the chief emphasis on the livestock sector and particularly on cattle".
  We decided not to operate intervention. Experience in other countries during this summer and autumn has shown that the Conservative Government would have been putting their faith in a quite unreliable method of assuring producers' returns.
  In the space of a few short months, the Labour Government have taken substantial action. We came to office finding ourselves a member of the Community on terms which, as is well known, we do not regard as satisfactory. Nevertheless, we have not allowed this to prejudice United Kingdom interests. Accordingly, with the aim of securing the best possible deal for our consumers and producers we have participated fully in the business of the Community. Indeed, I even broke off during my own election campaigning in order to attend the whole of a vital meeting of the Council of Ministers in Luxembourg. We pressed for a stocktaking of the common agricultural policy. This is now under way in Brussels. We have negotiated a £100 million increase in milk producers' returns. We are paying £80 million into the beef industry directly through the premia, partly

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  financed by FEOGA, and through the higher calf subsidy.
  We have increased the cash flow of beef producers and rearers by bringing forward the 1975 payments of the beef and hill cow subsidies. We have made a large increase in the hill sheep subsidy. We have also paid a special subsidy to pig producers. We have negotiated a higher price and substantial quota increases for United Kingdom sugar beet producers. We have paid a special oil subsidy for glasshouse producers. We have reintroduced the lime subsidy. We have negotiated an extension of Community-financed import subsidies on cereals to the benefit of all forms of our livestock production. All this represents a massive injection of nearly £300 million into the industry. We have also set out today our intentions on a new and better Community régime for beef. All this has been achieved without imposing any resulting substantial increase on our consumers' food bills.
  Our agricultural policy, unlike—
  Mr. Wigley rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not remain on his feet unless the Minister gives way.
  Mr. Pearl: Our agricultural policy, unlike that of hon. Members opposite, is linked with a care for the consumer and strikes a proper balance between the different interests.
  4.6 p.m.
  Mr. Hamish Gray (Ross and Crommarty): It is amazing that we should have had to listen to a Minister expressing sentiments of such complacency as we have just heard when hundreds and perhaps thousands of farmers face bankruptcy. I wonder whether he ever goes out to the farms to meet them—
  Mr. Peart: Yes, I do.
  Mr. Gray: If so, he does not listen to what they say. It is absolutely fantastic that we should have heard a speech like that from a Minister at this time. He is facing an industry crumbling around his feet and all he can do is say, "We have done this; we have done that." What he has done so far amounts to practically nothing. Unless he does something
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  quickly, there will be no farmers next years to produce the food.
  We on the Opposition side have been accused at times of being alarmist. Of course we are alarmist at present. Many of us represent constituencies with many farmers. We do not look for much sympathy from the Labour Party. We know only too well that unless one goes down a mine or works in a steel works, one will not get much sympathy from it. That is the sort of situation that this country faces.
  It cannot be said that the Government have not been given warnings. In May of this year, farmers' unions from all the home counties gave severe warnings to the Government about what we were likely to face. Also in May, the Scottish NFU warned about poultry, pigs and beef, and also said that egg producers' losses were running at £500,000 a week. It warned that the poultrymeat industry was running a loss of £750,00 per week.
  In these conditions, why are we faced with the Minister's complacency? We were told that the number of breeding herds of pigs was likely to fall by up to 20 per cent. Food costs in this part of the industry amount to 80 per cent. of production costs. In May 1973, one ton of compound feed cost £48. By May 1974, the price had risen to £86. The market price, despite what the Minister has said, did not keep up with production costs.
  The Minister referred to the £4·60 per score for pigs, but in May of this year, the price was around £3·77. This is simply not good enough. Sow slaughterings since the beginning of this year have doubled over any previous similar period. The result must be shortages and higher prices, which will affect the consumer.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) said that when prices drop on the market it still does not seem to affect the cost of the end product. Perhaps the Minister could suggest to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection that this would be a suitable exercise for her Department. Why is it that when prices drop in the market there still appears to be no similar drop in the shops?
  Mr. Peart: The Price Commission is looking into that.
  Mr. Gray: I am glad to hear that; it is a source of great concern to farmers throughout the country.
  I want to talk about the beef industry particularly as it affects Scotland. No doubt right hon. and hon. Members will be making points about the industry as it affects the rest of the United Kingdom, but whatever hardship is being experienced by the agriculture industry in other parts of the United Kingdom, that which is being experienced in Scotland is made that much worse because of transportation costs. The present strikes that we have in Scotland, which it is estimated will put 25 per cent. on to costs of haulage, will affect the agriculture industry to an even greater degree.
  The beef industry in Scotland is a major one. It accounts for 30 per cent. of the total output of Scottish agriculture. It is valued at about £100 million a year. In May of this year, again, the Scottish NFU gave a warning. It pointed out that production of beef was a long-term investment and that beef producers must be given some assurance that their investment would be worth while and would be safeguarded if they were to undertake the kind of investment necessary to bring the beef industry up to standard.
  I want to mention some of the other warnings which have been given from Scottish sources. We believe that there must be an immediate return to a policy of expansion. We are supported in this view by the Scottish NFU, which, in May of this year, in its hand-out brief, stated:
  "We believe that a vigorous, progressive and expanding beef industry is important for Scottish agriculture and for the country as a whole. It is an industry which has a striking record of efficiency based on skills, technique and knowledge which have put Scotland in the forefront of developments in livestock."
  That is the situation in regard to Scottish livestock. Unless action is taken, and taken quickly, the whole country will suffer as a result of the damage to the livestock industry.
  The Black Isle and Mid-Ross Branch of the Scottish NFU, in my constituency, sent a telegram to the Prime Minister in March of this year drawing his attention to the serious state of the industry. On 6th May the president of that branch, who himself has a medium-to-small interest in livestock, sent the Prime Minister details of just how serious the situation was. He illustrated that cattle
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  which he had bought in October 1973 and had kept during the winter and sold in April 1974 had, for him, realised a loss per beast of £40·11. At the same time, he submitted details from two other members of that branch of the Scottish NFU who had suffered similar losses. This can be reflected all over Scotland.
  Today, however, I should like to turn to the very small men in agriculture, because it is they who are least able to withstand the conditions prevailing—the small group of people, in mostly single-person units, who farm in the western highlands of Scotland. I should like to give one or two figures which have been passed to me by these people. I received a letter only this morning from the Loch Duich Branch of the Scottish NFU. This branch, by normal standards, has relatively few members, but it is a branch which must be considered—[Interruption.] Hon. Members on the Government benches may laugh at this sort of thing, but those of us who represent rural constituencies, in which the population is spread over a considerable area, represent parts of the country in which, we believe, people count—each and every individual. We may not represent the hordes of the industrial areas, but we represent areas in which people matter. We shall make quite sure that they get a hearing in this House that is just the same as the hearings obtained in this House by the big unions.
  The figures submitted to me are based on a unit of 500 ewes and 20 cows, and have been presented to me by the combined group I have mentioned. In 1973 their costs amounted to £1,365. That was until October of that year. The similar costs today are £1,957—an increase of about £600. The sales of their livestock in 1973 amounted to £4,440, but this year their livestock was sold for £2,660. That is a drop of £1,800. That means a drop of £2,400 in gross income. To the tiny unit that is a drop of astronomic proportions, which simply cannot be maintained or absorbed. When one considers that these people have to put up with the 20 per cent. inflationary rise which we all face, one can really appreciate the gravity of the situation in which they find themselves.
  There is a strange paradox in many parts of Scotland where, because of oil-related developments, companies moving

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  into areas are able to claim substantial Government grants in order to help them with their operations, while only a few miles away sections of the agriculture industry are virtually dying on their feet.
  The question of who is to blame for this is not a matter of immediate issue today. The present Government are the Government of the land. It is up to them to act, and to act quickly, for if they do not the country will suffer as a result, because there simply will not be farmers to produce the livestock that we shall need for the consumer market in the years ahead.
  On behalf of the small men in agriculture as well as the larger farmers, I plead with the Minister to act, and to act quickly—and to get rid of his complacency.
  4.17 p.m.
  Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I thought that the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) was rather less than objective when he launched his intemperate attack upon my right hon. Friend the Minister at the commencement of his speech. In this House we should try to look at the whole picture and be as objective as we can. The hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends were not so excited in February when the cost of feeding stuffs soared. Indeed, that cost doubled during the three years in which the Conservatives were in office. Therefore, the difficulties that exist are not, in all fairness, attributable to the present Government. They are a cumulative problem and have been developing over a period of years. It is our job to see whether we can suggest ways and means of solving it.
  I should have thought that the reference in the Queen's Speech to
  "the value to the nation of expanding domestic food production"
  would have received general support on all sides of the House. The expansion of agricultural production is, without question, essential for simple economic reasons. To achieve it, all of us know, farmers must be enabled to plan for some years ahead. We import about one-third of the temperate foodstuffs that we eat. If we can grow more at home, we shall be saving money and eating better at the same time. The era of cheap food, as
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  we knew it some years ago, is over. There are no "bargain basements" for food overseas any more. I think that everyone realises that today.
  In a comparatively short space of time during the previous Parliament, my right hon Friend the Minister and the Government had some substantial achievements, for which they must be given credit. By way of the calf subsidy, to which my right hon. Friend has referred, the pig subsidy, the horticultural oil subsidy and the lime subsidy, some £77 million was injected into the industry in a short space of time. In addition, as my right hon. Friend said, more than £100 million has gone into the dairy industry. Negotiations have been started to bring about some radical and necessary changes in the common agricultural policy. I have no doubt that these will be pressed forward with determination.
  At present, the cereal farmer is doing well, and the problems of the dairy farmer have been alleviated as a result of the recent award. But, as we have already heard, there is an acute problem in the beef sector, and I shall now address myself to that.
  The crisis is significant in the Welsh context because of the dependence of Welsh agriculture on the livestock sector. My right hon. Friend said that beef represented 15 per cent. of the total agricultural production of the United Kingdom. Cattle account for more than 62 per cent. of total Welsh agricultural production, and the proportion for beef alone is 26·5 per cent. Obviously, therefore, today's problem is far more acute in Wales.
  The production of cereals, which is so important in eastern England, is very limited in Wales. We do not benefit to anything like the same extent. A crisis on the livestock side, therefore, hits the Principality very hard.
  There has been a downward trend in the price paid to the farmer for beef since the beginning of 1973. Beef farmers have been losing money because the prices they receive have not risen in line with the costs of production. The danger here is a decline in the breeding herd and an inevitable shortfall in production, with the economic consequences which I have mentioned—a beef shortage, and high-cost imports later on.

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  We realise—this has been pointed out on several occasions, but it is worth repeating—that when my right hon. Friend took over in March costs in the agriculture industry had reached the astronomical sum of £720 million in 1973–74, and it is against that background that one has to view the industry's problems at this time.
  During the past few weeks I have had several meetings with farmers in my constituency. It would be an understatement if I were to say that they are deeply worried men. The prices which they have been receiving in the market in Llangefni in Anglesey—I choose my word with care—have been derisory, and that is for good quality cattle, too. I could give many examples, but here is one, though not the worst. I know of one farmer who sold 28 beef cows at prices ranging from £26 to £42 a head, with strong Buckler calves born in the early spring being sold at £30 each. That is the sort of return which farmers are receiving —far below production costs.
  It would help if farmers could hold on to the animals for a further period, but the truth is that most of them are forced to sell at great losses in order to meet their obligations in terms of rent, bank interest and overdrafts, feed costs and other bills, and, of course, to live as well.
  The fodder situation in Wales is critical because of the prolonged wet weather. I do not know what figures other hon. Members may have, but I understand that at present a ton of hay costs between £80 and £95, the figure varying in different parts of North Wales, mid-Wales and South Wales.
  It is a depressing story. Urgent action is essential if the rot is to be stopped and confidence restored to this sector. As the House knows—my right hon. Friend referred to this—a number of farmers have made protest demonstrations at the port of Holyhead in my constituency and at other ports which receive cattle from Ireland. I have been deeply anxious about the possible consequences of these protests. We read in The Times yesterday that the Chief Constable of North Wales, speaking to the farmers at Holyhead, said:
  "We are on the verge of tragedy here, and there is no doubt of the danger to life and limb."
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  He went on:
  "I am prepared to go to London personally to explain to the Minister of Agriculture the dangers we are in. I ask you to bear in mind the consequences of staying here."
  As the House knows, there were further disturbances at Holyhead last night. I spoke to the chief constable on the telephone from London in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and also to the farmers' leaders, whom I had asked to come to the telephone. I urged them to leave the port, and said that I would convey their views to my right hon. Friend as soon as possible, which I did on Tuesday morning.
  I add only that, while I understand the acute worries which prompt farmers to protest, I cannot defend the invasion of the port or any confrontation with the police and with the workers at Holyhead, who have no responsibility in this matter and have their own livelihood to consider. The time will come when the farmers will need the port of Holyhead again. It is a very short-sighted policy which they are pursuing, and one which causes great distress.
  It is my duty, however, in line with the undertaking which I gave to the farmers, to read out the urgent request which they are making to my right hon. Friend. I hope, however, that, as a result of this debate and the representations which hon. Members on both sides are making, the farmers will reconsider their decision to continue these demonstrations. This is what the farmers ask. First, they ask the Government
  "to put into effect the floor of £18·25 per live cwt. …back-dated to 5th August."
  Their request goes on:
  "2. That the recommendations of the O'Brien Committee be implemented, thereby lifting the ban placed on the live export of stock. It is known that there is a considerable demand for young calves in the European countries and also for the heavy type of beef animals.
  "3. That there should be a domiciliary period of three months for live cattle imported from the Irish Republic before they become eligible for the beef slaughter premium.
  "4. That a country-wide investigation be undertaken by the Minister of Agriculture to ascertain where fodder is available and to make the same available to farmers in those parts of the country where there is a desperate shortage, and to take immediate steps to prevent the export of fodder from the United Kingdom."
  Mr. Peart: My right hon. Friend is making a constructive and powerful speech. On the question of fodder, we are doing precisely that.
  Mr. Hughes: I am very much obliged to my right hon. Friend. I am sure that that assurance will encourage all farmers who are currently in such desperate difficulty.
  Mr. Michael Jopling: It would be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman would himself comment on one of the matters which he has just read out from the farmers' document. I refer to the possibility of a waiting period of perhaps 60 days for Irish cattle coming into this country before they qualify for the slaughter premium. We have had this sort of arrangement before, and the right hon. Gentleman has wide experience of these matters. He will recall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) made the same suggestion in his opening speech. Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that this matter warrants careful and sympathetic consideration?
  Mr. Hughes: As I have said, this is a strong recommendation from the farmers of North Wales, and it has also been represented to my right hon. Friend the Minister by the farming unions. The hon. Gentleman will recognise that before my right hon. Friend can make a statement on a matter of this kind he must engage in discussions with other Governments. As I see it, this is one of the questions which my right hon. Friend should take carefully into account.
  I believe that my right hon. Friend made his July statement in the utmost good faith. There is no doubt that his record in relation to the farming industry is a good one, and farmers know that he is a good friend of the industry. But the truth is that the money which has been paid out and which was intended to give the farmer a reasonable minimum price has not gone to the farmer—or, indeed, to the housewife in proportionately cheaper meat over the counter. I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement about the proposed new beef regime. These are sensible proposals, and I am certain that when March comes, if this scheme is put into operation, the beef sector will be able to look forward to a
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  satisfactory future. But the need is to deal with the immediate problem. The administrative machinery operating the beef slaughter premium has not been effective, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will comment on that. Market prices have dropped with each increase in the premium.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Exactly.
  Mr. Hughes: Urgent action is necessary to ensure that the money goes where my right hon. Friend intended it to go—to the producer. Again, without fodder, which is both scarce and very expensive, farmers will either dispose of their stocks at low prices or keep them and be unable to feed them. The problem is a short-term one, but it is urgent if we are to save the beef herd from a disastrous decline. If the only solution is a temporary floor to the market until March, and I appreciate the difficulties that that involves, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will consider taking the necessary action. I do not think we can afford to wait until March, as I am sure my right hon. Friend concedes. I am deeply worried about this position, and I am sure that the Government, in order to help the farmers, will wish to take action as soon as possible.
  Exaggeration does not help to solve any problem, but I am bound to say that I have not met a group of men as frustrated and desperate as the livestock farmers in Wales now are. They borrowed and invested for expansion, as they were advised to do. I have urged them in this debate to avoid violence, because that is not in their nature and it will not help their case. I also plead with my right hon. Friends, however, to take immediate action to help them over these few short critical months.
  4.31 p.m.
  Mr. Geraint Howells: My colleagues and I are deeply disappointed that very little reference was contained in the Gracious Speech to the plight of the farmers. We are all aware that the Liberal Party and the Nationals have tabled an appropriate amendment to the motion for the Address. Why, I wonder, have the Conservatives not tabled such an amendment? Is it because they were responsible for abolishing the guaranteed price system for the British farmer?

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  We have today met dozens of farmers from Wales, and they are keen that we should reintroduce the guaranteed price system for beef as soon as possible. The greatest dissatisfaction has been felt throughout the farming industry at the lack of concern, urgency and determination by the Government to solve the crisis the industry now faces—the worst, I believe, since the 1930s.
  On 6th May this year the Secretary of State for Wales told me in reply to a Question that the agriculture industry should not talk itself into a crisis. I wonder whether he still holds that view. We are in a major crisis, but it is not because we have talked ourselves into it. It was a great pity that because of the heavy burden of work he carries in the Welsh Office the right hon. and learned Gentleman was unable to attend the meeting this morning which was so ably chaired by Cledwyn Hughes, the right hon. Member for Anglesey.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. I do not like to interrupt the hon. Member, but he must not refer to another hon. Member by name. We prefer that the reference should be to constituency alone.
  Mr. Howells: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  The farmers were in a militant mood this morning. They said that they would not leave London until they were given the assurance that the guaranteed price system would be restored within the next few days. Is there any just reason why the Minister will not reintroduce the guaranteed price system for beef within the next few days? If he cannot do that, what are his alternative proposals? The farmers cannot wait.
  Mr. Watt: Is there any real reason why the Minister will not give us the guarantee that he will reintroduce the deficiency payments scheme within the next few days, or at least within the next few weeks?
  Mr. Howells: I take it that the Minister does not intend to reply to that point.
  Mr. Peart: I am not speaking. The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) is.
  Mr. Howells: I know of no good reason why the Minister should not reintroduce the system.
  Mr. William Molloy: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you help us? We have one hon. Member whispering the speech which we are listening to and the mouthpiece behind him repeating it. It is most disconcerting.
  Hon. Members: Cheap.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Any new experience is welcome in this House.
  Mr. Howells: I am not worried by that intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am quite used to that sort of thing, especially in my constituency.
  We have discussed inflation for a long time but another word is now coming into use these days, and that word is "starvation". Many farmers in Wales and throughout Britain are worried that much of their stock will starve during the winter months. Cannot the Minister do anything to help? He has just given an assurance that he will look into the question of fodder. I have here a copy of a letter which Mr. Geoffrey Finch, who is one of the largest agricultural merchants in England, sent to the Prime Minister. He says:
  Dear Mr. Wilson,
  I should think by now it is time something was done regarding the feeding stuffs position in this country, mainly regarding supplies to the hard hit farmers of Wales who, over the last few years, have become one of our main stock rearing areas. We are fodder merchants ourselves and farmers and realise the seriousness of the situation at the present moment.
  I am informed by my salesmen in Wales that unless something is done very very quickly there will be thousands of stock which will starve to death in this coming winter.
  We are facing a grave situation. I will not argue the Minister's proposals which are to be introduced on 1st March. But the farmers are worried at what will happen during the next six months. Many of them are facing bankruptcy. Many of them are selling stock that they should retain for breeding. The right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) gave figures showing that calf slaughterings increased by 400 per cent. in September this year compared with the previous September. There will

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  be a shortage in the near future if slaughterings continue at that very high rate. We were told this morning that cows were being sold in Welshpool Market for £1. They were given away. Barley and straw were costing farmers in the region of £35 to £40 a ton.
  I hope that the Minister will have another look at his proposals and do something in the near future to help the farmers. If he does not, when history is written I am afraid that the name of Fred Peart will go down as the Minister who forgot the farmers in Wales and the rest of the country.
  4.39 p.m.
  Mr. Ken Weetch: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye so that I may make my maiden speech at an early opportunity and participate in the debate on matters that are far removed from the substance of the discussion in hand.
  I hope that my contribution will accord with the best practices of the House. I represent the constituency of Ipswich. With due deference to my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) and my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett), it is the most important manufacturing and commercial town in East Anglia.
  Before I say anything about my constituency in any detail I should like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Ernie Money, who before the 10th of this month was the hon. Member for Ipswich. I do so without reluctance, because of his diligence in the constituency for the causes which he embraced and the work which he did while he was a Member of this House. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] I should also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the right hon. and learned Sir Dingle Foot, who represented Ipswich from 1957 till 1970. He has had a very distinguished career in public life. He is a very senior member of the legal profession and currently enjoys a formidable international reputation. In all that he has done and in all that he did he upheld the very best qualities of democracy and humanitarian concern.
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  The town of Ipswich has a very long history. It owes its importance to its position at the head of the River Orwell. It was a flourishing settlement in Saxon times, but its commerce and peace were interrupted when it was sacked by the Danes in 991. It was a thriving town in mediaeval times, and in 1200, in the reign of King John, it received the first charter of its liberties. The last of the great mediaeval statesmen, Cardinal Wolsey, was born in Ipswich, in a house near St. Nicholas Church. My researches reveal that his father was described as either a tavern keeper or a butcher. He was a man of humble birth but high ambition, and he has given us one of the best historical examples, I am told, of what the political pundits call vertical political mobility—both up and down. I am very pleased to say that he was unashamed of his humble birth, but I am rather disturbed to have to relate that his fall in 1529 indicated the eternal truism that politics is very often a hazardous and an ungrateful trade.
  The picture of Ipswich through the years, both in words and in paint on the canvas, has been one of gable-roofed houses huddled close to the estuary of the Orwell. In reality, perhaps, the true picture was always more prosaic, but I must tell hon. Members that one of the greatest writers on British agriculture—Thomas Tusser—in the latter part of the sixteenth century, described Ipswich as
  "a town of price, like paradise."
  Whether he meant that even paradise has its price is lost to us, but the general picture is very clear, because some time later Daniel Defoe described Ipswich as "gay and attractive", and he described the Presbyterian chapel as
  "the gayest Church in Town."
  I would remind hon. Members that he was describing the architecture and not the diversions of the congregation.
  Today, Ipswich is a thriving manufacturing and commercial town. It has a population of 123,000. It has a work force of 68,000, 40 per cent. of whom are in manufacturing industry while the rest are in rapidly expanding service trades. The trade of the port of Ipswich reflects its economic and commercial structure, and it has a very vigorous trade with Europe which is rapidly expanding. At this moment the port of Ipswich is

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  expanding through it west bank terminal and container depot. The port has an established future which will be based on channelling an expanding manufacturing industry through a framework of efficient modern port facilities.
  I cannot leave this section of my speech without mentioning the pride of place in my community—the Ipswich Town Football Club. Currently, it lies third in the First Division. I am sorry to say that since I became the borough Member the team has dropped two places in the league, but I can assure the House that this is a pure coincidence and it is certain to be temporary. I give all hon. Members due warning if they have First Division football teams in their constituencies, and I say to them, "When you come to Portman Road you will indeed be put to it."
  The problems of Ipswich are those of a growing town whose physical resources and environment are coming under very great pressure. It is a pressure coming from, amongst other things, our increased trade with Europe and the quickening pace of economic life in East Anglia. We are in urgent need, among other things, of a bypass to relieve the borough of the very heavy road traffic coming from the Midlands. I shall campaign for this very strongly, as a Member of this House, as indeed, did my predecessor.
  The most serious problem in the borough of Ipswich is, without question, housing. As in all urban areas, the housing statistics have to be looked at with increasing concern. There is a very large and unfulfilled demand for housing for rent, and for many people of modest means facing the private market is becoming more and more difficult week by week. This is why I am greatly encouraged by the paragraphs in the Gracious Speech which concern the provision of more houses to rent and the improvement of the quality of the stock of existing property.
  I also welcome the proposals to secure an adequate flow of mortgages, because the fluctuations in building society finance have had a serious effect on lender and borrower, and stabilisation is greatly to be welcomed. Although it is to be welcomed, however, I fear that it is not the main problem. Many families who come to see me in my surgeries could service
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  a loan. What they lack is the deposit in order to get started. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, when he deliberates on these matters, to consider some sort of a scheme which incorporates a mortgage advance. This would provide many ordinary people of modest means who want to buy a house of their own with the opportunity of getting started.
  I also welcome—because I have seen some constructive examples of them in my constituency—houses built to rent by housing associations. I do so for two reasons. First, it mobilises the resources for house building to a much greater extent than if these associations did not exist. More important, we are rapidly moving towards a situation in which overwhelmingly predominant institutions in the housing market are building societies and local authorities. This is a trend about which I have reservations. In many cases it means not only institutional polarisation but social polarisation as well. Although I do not regret the passing of the private landlord—because I do not believe in the letting of houses for profit—I deprecate the fact that there is a narrow range of institutions providing finance and expertise for increasing the supply of houses.
  I shall make one more point which I hope will not be too controversial for a maiden speech. If Ipswich, as well as other towns, is to house its expanding population it must search for land outside its boundaries. If houses are to be built at reasonable prices, land must be acquired at prices which are not unreasonably inflated by pressures created by market prices. I strongly support the view, because much depends on it, that land for development should be acquired for community ownership at reasonable prices so that poor people can be adequately housed.
  In the cold print of housing statistics—including figures on starts and completions—the fact that there is a human story behind each statistic is sometimes lost sight of. In Ipswich, as elsewhere, many ordinary families face the threat of breakdown because of inadequate housing. There is enormous pressure on family life. This is a substantial factor in bad physical and mental health, and, no matter how good schools and other educational facilities may be, we shall never

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  educate young children to appreciate a slum.
  Real human issues are associated with the question of roofs over heads. Therefore, I welcome the reference to housing in the Gracious Speech, and I am confident that in the months ahead those hopeful paragraphs in the Gracious Speech will be translated into reality for hundreds and, indeed, thousands of ordinary people.
  4.53 p.m.
  Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: I had been in the House a number of years before I had the privilege of congratulating a maiden speaker on his address. This lot first fell to me at the beginning of the last Session when I had the privilege of congratulating my own new Member of Parliament on his first speech in the House. It is now my lot to congratulate the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) on the observations he has addressed to us.
  I do not immediately think of Ipswich as an agricultural area, but I could follow the references which the hon. Member made regarding football. Other parts of his speech contained a few controversial matters, but perhaps I should pay no attention to those. What the hon. Gentleman has said was put in an attractive way and we greatly look forward to hearing him on many future occasions.
  I am sorry that the Minister of Agriculture has left the Chamber because I particulary wanted to remind him about a letter which was sent to him on 21st October, not many days ago. It was from the chairman of the livestock and wool committee of the East Sussex branch of the NFU. The chairman of the committee urged the resignation of the Minister. I am not sure whether the letter ever reached its target, because the reply was a brief message, signed by an assistant private secretary, saying that the matter had been noted.
  The letter was sent to the Minister after he announced increased payments for milk producers. I would have liked to tell him directly that he has said nothing today that would lead the chairman of the livestock and wool committee of the East Sussex NFU to change his mind.
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  I did not come here in a very hopeful frame of mind because I had seen the Gracious Speech and noted that agriculture rated only the twentieth of the 29 paragraphs of the Speech, and what was stated in the Speech was not a very clear indication of what is to happen to the industry. I had hoped that when the Prime Minister spoke at the start of this debate he might at least have said something about agriculture, but the only reference remotely relating to agriculture that I could detect was a proposal for the abolition of hare coursing.
  I want the Minister to know that nothing he has said today will affect the agricultural position in East Sussex. I was interested to note that the confidence which the Minister urges the agriculture industry to have is apparently not shared by people residing in Anglesey. My constituency is a long way from Anglesey, but I assure the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) that similar views to those held there are held by farmers in East Sussex.
  In the past there has been a period of expansion in agriculture and it is only in the past six or eight months that that confidence has disappeared. We should recall the expansion that took place over seven years up until 1973. If we also consider current cattle and sheep numbers as against those of some years ago, we can see that they have increased by 2·7 million and 2 million respectively.
  When I was fighting the February General Election the main thing urged upon me by farmers was that we should see that the transitional period towards Community arrangements was telescoped so that we would be on a full Community basis as soon as possible. The factors which today are weighing on the minds of farmers in my constituency are those which my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) has brought to the attention of the House.
  I therefore wish to refer briefly to the promise given on 8th May by the Minister of Agriculture that it was no part of the Government's intention to let beef prices fall to unrealistic levels. On 19th June the Minister was asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire what he was going to do about beef. He replied with the nebulous phrase
  "That is for me to decide."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th June 1974; Vol. 875, c. 487.]

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  The farmers of East Sussex have been waiting over four months to hear what the Minister is to decide.
  When asked on 4th July when his proposals to increase end prices would become available, the Minister's answer was that it would be within the next three or four months. He was asked when profitability would be achieved and he said that that would be when the scheme was working. Here we are at the end of October, and all he can say to us today is that discussions are going on and that he hopes that on 1st March there will be a wonderful new scheme.
  I join the right hon. Member for Anglesey in saying to the Minister qu0ite frankly that it is no good waiting until 1st March, because the problems which the farming industry is now facing mean that 1st March will be too late to put the industry back into a position of being able to expand in the way which the Minister indicates he may wish.
  Anyone who has been interested in farming this year knows that it is perhaps the most difficult year in memory. The harvest has been very difficult and the hay crop has been very small. I have been talking to somebody who has visited a number of farms in the south-east of England in recent weeks. He tells me that in that area he found only one farm that has adequate fodder for the whole of the forthcoming winter. That illustrates the dangerous situation farmers are now facing.
  It is all very well for the Minister to say that it was the Conservatives who destroyed confidence, but if farmers were today, this October, receiving intervention price of £20·01, they would be in a very much better position than prevails in markets of which I am aware in the southeast where a figure of £12 per cwt. is by no means an unusual price for fat cattle, while the top price for sheep recently was £9. Only a day or two ago Sir Henry Plumb said that a calf was being sold in the market at a lower price than a rabbit. That is an indication of the way in which the industry's confidence has evaporated.
  In my area slaughterhouses are rationing the number of animals they can put through for the butchers. The animals going through the slaughterhouses are those that should be retained because they are not finished. The people are not
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  being provided with the meat they should be getting. The wrong cattle are being slaughtered. By 1st March they will not be there to go on providing the meat that we shall require. It is not much use the Minister talking about 1st March if he will not have a viable beef industry then.
  The Minister referred to the pig position. The price that has been paid, £4·85 per score, has only just been covering the pig producers' costs. We all know that pig producers have had a very difficult time for many months. Those in my area tell me that, although they are receiving £4·85 now, they know that on 3rd November the 50p per score will be removed. They are very apprehensive about what the future holds for their industry.
  I have written to the Ministry over recent months about most commodities. The only other one I should like to mention is eggs. I corresponded with both the previous Minister of State, the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan), and the present Minister of State, the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop), on the subject. They said that the imports from France were of no significance because they were only 2½ per cent. of the total. In fact, just after I heard from the present Minister of State, who was then Parliamentary Secretary, that those 2½ per cent. were of little significance, the arrangements in the Common Market were such that French eggs were taken off the English market and exported to various places in North Africa. During that period eggs went up from 19.4p a dozen to 26½p a dozen. That is an indication of the attention the Ministry pays to the problems of the egg industry. The matter caused the greatest dissatisfaction when I circulated those two letters from the then Minister of State and the then Parliamentary Secretary.
  It would not be proper to leave the question of agriculture without referring to taxation. The whole strength of English agriculture is based on its structure. The Government's present proposals as we understand them must mean that the fundamental structure of agriculture will be destroyed. The agricultural side has already been dealt with, so I shall say just a word about woodlands, to which it appears that no consideration is being given. Our woodlands produce about 8 per cent. of the country's net requirements.

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  Last year we imported £1,300 million worth of timber and timber products, and the figure may be as much as £2,000 million this year.
  Mr. Peter Hardy: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that the Conservative Government's scrapping of existing forestry policy caused a great deal of anger to many people interested in forestry, so much so that in a debate in the other place 22 out of 24 speakers attacked the then Government? The Government who took office on 4th March have given a great deal of consideration to forestry, and a policy has emerged that is much better than that set out in the previous Government's White Paper of July 1972.
  Mr. Irvine: I cannot see how that intervention in any way affects the point I was about to make, which is that an oak tree takes about 100 years to mature; and if the proposed taxation policy is proceeded with the tree may well be subjected to tax on five or more occasions during its lifetime. Therefore, surely no one will be planting oak trees or making any effort to see that the forests are replanted. Under the present taxation system substantial farmers are already subjected to the highest rate of tax of any country in Europe. I hope that the Government will reconsider these proposals in relation to agriculture and forestry before they are put to the House.
  The industry has a productivity record of a 6 per cent. increase per year, which is as good as that of any industry in the country. Therefore, it seems sensible that it should receive more incentives than any other industry. If it were encouraged, it would certainly be able to reduce our expenditure on imported food. Food from abroad is no longer cheap and no longer plentiful. There are no longer large stocks of cereals available in various parts of the world. Even if there were, we should still be subjected to the oil price increases, as a result of which we should not be able to bring stocks here cheaply.
  The Minister should be condemned for his complacent attitude to agriculture. I wish to put to him three concrete suggestions from the Rye Branch of the NFU, one of the most important branches in the country. The first is that the right hon. Gentleman must see
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  that a realistic price is provided for beef, not on 1st March but now. Secondly, there should be a more regular review of agricultural prices. The Rye branch suggests that it should be done at six-monthly intervals. Thirdly, as there is such a shortage of slaughterhouse capacity, everything must be done to see that that capacity is in no way reduced and that the animals that should go to slaughter can do so.
  The message I want to leave with the Minister is that, just as in Anglesey, we in East Sussex are not satisfied with the way in which he is running his Ministry.
  5.9 p.m.
  Mr. James Johnson: Few Labour representatives won seats in the county council areas a few days ago. Although he is not a sponsored member of the National Farmers' Union, the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Irvine), like many of his colleagues, speaks for the NFU. He may be a farmer himself. I think that he has never been to Hull in his life.
  Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine indicated assent.
  Mr. Johnson: There are no farmers in my constituency, but we have some pig-keepers and keepers of homing pigeons. There are thousands of fishermen in the constituency, and I wish to speak about the fishing industry and the difficult—
  Mr. Irvine: The hon. Gentleman has suggested that I am a sponsored member of the National Farmers' Union.
  Mr. Johnson: I said that the hon. Gentleman was not a sponsored member. I said that although he was not a sponsored member he spoke awfully well for that body.
  There are many thousands of fishermen in my constituency, and I shall refer to the condition of the fishing industry. Before doing so I must tell the hon. Member for Rye that fishing vessel owners and farmers have something in common. They are both gloomy about the future, despite all the money they have received from Labour Governments in the form of subsidies. However, as soon as they experience 48 hours of difficulty they are at once calling wolf in loud voices. If the fishing owners and the farmers are now calling for help

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  because of the cost of fuel, all I can say is that we would like to see their accounts for the past two, five or seven years.
  No one can deny that both the farmers and the fishing vessel owners have done well during the past few years. No one wishes to deny them the opportunity to do well. All I am saying is that we should examine their books. If they now make claims for help, their case must not be merely validated but must be seen to be absolutely copper-bottomed before the House decides to give them any more money.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is not now present, but before he left he was chided by the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym), the Opposition spokesman on agriculture, because there was only one sentence in the Queen's Speech about farming. In addition, there is not a word about fishing. I wish to refer to some matters that my right hon. Friend's capable deputies who now occupy the Government Front Bench can convey to him.
  Like the farmers, the fishing vessel owners are shouting loudly for money. At the moment it is a large SOS. That is the call from all sections of the fishing industry—namely, inshore fishing, middle water fishing and deep-water fishing. In addition there are one or two Opposition Members who may echo that call. I see the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) nodding his head in unison.
  Further, I refer to limits because whether they are off Iceland, Norway or in the Channel they are heavily bound up with the profit-making capacity of our fishing boats. Of course the fishing vessel owners and the farmers have had good years, and we shall want to know where all the money has gone that has been made in those years. Any business organisation is expected to put away some proportion of the money that it makes and to make certain plans for what must inevitably be a more difficult future. That applies to Hawker Siddeley and the HS146 and to all other firms. Such conduct was to be expected of Ferranti, Upper Clyde, Court Line, Alfred Herbert or any other firm.
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  If the farmers and the fishermen come to us, they must justify their claims. The behaviour of the fishing vessel owners and the farmers dismays many people who are well-wishers of both industries. Many of my hon. Friends and I believe that they come sometimes just a bit too quickly. They have friends on the Government benches. Let us not have them calling wolf too often. That is the sort of language that we are now hearing.
  The British Tourist Federation is now saying:
  "The situation in the ports is approaching desperation level."
  Austin Laing, who is the Director-General of the BTF, has said:
  "Whilst an application has been made no amount has been defined. The amount is something that needs to be discussed after we have persuaded the Government"—
  note this—
  "that assistance for the industry is needed."
  If such applications are to be made, not merely the Government but hon. Members must know, as well as trade union workers throughout the industry, why and how they are being made.
  We are now hearing language that is a little too high-flown. It is said:
  "Failure by the Government to grant a subsidy would bring about a sharp and severe contraction of fishing and could well lead to a situation from which the industry might never recover."
  That is the present mood of the fishing vessel owners. I have listened to speeches from Opposition Members about the farming industry and it seems that that is also the mood of the farming leaders. Further, it is the mood of some Opposition back benchers.
  It is difficult to make any forecasts about the next 12 months or two years beyond saying that costs in farming and in fishing will obviously be higher. In the New Year fuel costs will be three or four times what they have been for the past few years. Unless we can settle our limits, it will be difficult to say what will happen. For example, the Iceland agreement will continue for two years. We thought that we would catch 130,000 tons of fish. That was the target. In fact the deep-sea fleet from Hull and Grimsby, Fleetwood and Aberdeen caught 154,000 tons of fish. We have not done too badly in that region. In

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  Hull we are having a magnificent new dock conversion at the Albert Dock, next door to the old St. Andrew's Dock. As a result of higher fuel costs, there will be a smaller fishing fleet. It is estimated that a middle-water or distant-water vessel on putting to sea will cost £200 more per day to operate. That is a lot of money. If the vessel is out for 27 days, the extra cost will be substantial on top of the escalating overheads and the many inflationary factors that now exist.
  There are possible alternatives. A good and efficient farmer, like a good and efficient fishing vessel owner, can obviously cut back and economise. In fact, the fleet is now cutting back. There are firms like Alfred Bannister on the South Bank in Grimsby which are selling vessels to Australia. There has just been a £300,000 deal as a result of selling boats to the Southern Ocean Company which fishes off Perth and Albany in South-West Australia.
  If difficulties lie ahead—I am sure that they do—we shall have to do the best we can in Icelandic and Norwegian waters to get the best possible terms. Even allowing for that, there is no doubt that the deep-sea fleet is cutting back in the sense of no longer building large vessels to go, for example, to Labrador and Spitzbergen. It is going to use the stock that it now has. Vessels are now being built by people such as Newington, Marr and Boston Deep Sea to the highest degree of efficiency. They are middle-water vessels and they will ensure that, as we economise greater efficiency can be achieved.
  Our fishing fleets have made some magnificent catches off Iceland, but the opportunities for this will run out within two years. Everything depends on the setting of limits, and I hope that I can carry hon. Members with me when I say that following Caracas we shall have to extend our fishing limits to safeguard our fishermen. Conservative Members support the farmers, and I want to support my people, the fishermen.
  I repeat that we shall have to extend the fishing limits around our shores. This is inevitable, and it is the honest and decent thing to do. It was in this spirit that the debate on the Law of the Sea took place in Caracas, and I have no doubt that the matter will be debated again at Geneva or Vienna when there
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  is the third session of international discussions on this subject.
  I am expressing the feeling of many people when I say that a change in limits must come about. I am convinced that that will happen, just as Charles Meek, the head of the White Fish Authority, which has moved to Edinburgh, is convinced that it will. The change is inevitable, and the sooner it comes the better.
  The Minister should adopt a policy of making what is commonly termed a swop. We must ask the Norwegians and Icelanders for licences to fish in their waters to catch 50,000 or 80,000 tons at given times of the year. In return we must allow the Dutch, the Belgians, the Danes and the Poles, who have fished off Scotland for perhaps 80 years, to fish in our waters. We must come to a decent, civilised deal on this matter. I may shock some people by saying that we must deal with this matter in the way that international companies get permission to mine in Africa, but that is the kind of arrangement that will have to be made.
  Last Thursday afternoon I attended the saddest occasion of my life, although I have seen miners carried out of a pit and the window blinds going down in the village. I was at the Royal Deep Sea Fishermen's Mission in my constituency to attend a ceremony for the 36 men who went down with the "Gaul". The Lord Mayor unveiled a memorial plaque. It was a most moving occasion, at which one saw a number of women weeping. The occasion emphasised the price we have to pay for the fish that comes to our tables. Nye Bevan once said that there was blood on coal. I remind the House that the Arctic is an extremely dangerous area for our fishermen.
  The Minister should go full speed ahead with the introduction of safety measures at sea. The Holland-Martin Commission, which followed the disaster in 1968 when 59 men were lost at sea, recommended what should be done. I know that Ministers of both parties have worked hard on this issue, but I beg my right hon. Friend to pay particular attention to what has been proposed.
  The other matter to which attention must be paid is that of decasualisation. Some of my constituents after completing a 21- or 27-day voyage to Iceland or elsewhere are paid off and find themselves

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  on the dole until they get their next ship. We must attempt to decasualise as we have done with dockers on shore.
  I hope that when the Minister returns to the Chamber he will be told what has been said. I hope, too, that he will listen to the views put forward on behalf of Hull, Fleetwood, Grimsby and Aberdeen. I know that he will visit us in Hull as soon as he can. I assure him that he will be most welcome in any fishing port and particularly in Hull.
  The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): Perhaps I may intervene before my hon. Friend finally sits down. He said that the Gracious Speech made no reference to fishing, but it says that
  "My Ministers recognise the value to the nation of expanding domestic food production economically and efficiently",
  and one can take that to include fishing.
  I recall my hon. Friend's comments during the fishing debate in July, even though it was held late at night, at about 11 o'clock. I pay tribute to his knowledge of and concern for the fishing industry, and I assure him that his comments today will be noted.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson) is lucky to get an immediate ministerial reply, but I hope he will not reopen his speech because he had really completed it before the Minister intervened.
  5.27 p.m.
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: I hope that in this my maiden speech the House will bear with me if I look not only at agriculture but at other aspects of the Queen's speech.
  These are exciting times in Scottish politics. We have witnessed a remarkable and fundamental change over the past few years. I and my colleagues on this bench are physical manifestations of this change, and I am proud to be here as a representative of the Scottish people.
  From my point of view, it is interesting to notice that during the past two days—today is a notable and sad exception—time and again reference has been made to Scotland and the Scots. We have received a great deal of attention, and there has been a great deal of talk about
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  us. It is interesting to notice that everyone is a devolutionist now.
  One does not have to be the world's greatest political scientist to figure out why that is happening. At the last election we achieved a great breakthrough as Scotland's National Party, and what we are seeing in Scotland is a reawakening of Scottish political consciousness. We are no longer prepared to accept second best. We are no longer prepared to accept blindly whatever London cares to hand out. This is something that is happening outwith the bounds of this House. It is happening in the hearts and minds of the Scottish people. Ultimately it will be their decision that will count about the future Government of Scotland, and that is as it should be.
  In Scotland, thanks to the rise of the Scottish National Party, we have an alternative. What I am talking about is not separatism in the sense of isolationism, of cutting Scotland off from the world. In fact it is the very opposite, because we want Scotland to join the world. Surely a nation with our history and culture has something meaningful to contribute to the councils of the world, and we believe that we have.
  The real separatists are those who see Scotland as some kind of region of the United Kingdom—a neglected, depressed region, permanently outnumbered by about eight to one in this establishment. If every man, woman and child in Scotland wanted something, and if every Scottish Member of Parliament wanted something, they could still be swept aside in this House. I find that situation insulting. The real separatists are those who are trying to separate Scotland from her wealth.
  A self-governing Scotland would automatically co-operate with her nearest neighbours. After all, we have many common historical, linguistic, cultural, economic and defence ties. It is in both our interests to have such co-operation, but it would be co-operation on a basis of equality. Anything less than that would be totally unacceptable and no amount of patching up with assemblies can hide this fact.
  I am honoured to represent the South Angus constituency. It is a constituency of small towns surrounded by some of the

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  most beautiful and the richest and best farming land in the whole of Europe. The people of South Angus are a hardworking, independent community with a definite identity of their own, and if I can bring even an indication of this individuality to the House I shall be happy to do so.
  As a new Member I follow in the footsteps of Mr. Bruce-Gardyne, who represented South Angus to the best of his abilities, and his good work for the constituency should be remembered by this House.
  To my mind, the election was about the kind of future that we want to see for ourselves, for our children and for the generations to follow. There is little or nothing in the Gracious Speech to show that the Government have any sort of blueprint for Scotland's future. It is, therefore, simply not good enough.
  Let us consider the sort of Scotland that a Scots child is born into. A United Kingdom organisation, the National Children's Bureau, has pointed out that one Scots child in 10 is doomed to fail from birth, through no fault of its own but because of the social and economic environment into which it is born. The Scots child will be born into a land which bears the economic and social scars of previous generations. We have in our major cities some of the worst slums in Europe. The Scots child will have more than an average chance of ending up in slum property. We have slums which are a disgrace to any civilised modern community.
  When a Scots child goes to school, what happens then? The once-proud Scottish education system is tottering on its heels. Today our teachers are on strike. They are not normally strike-prone people but are a dedicated, hardworking group of professionals. It is important for us to know what they are trying to say to us. They are trying to say that they do not want to educate our children in school cloakrooms and store rooms, which is what is happening in some schools now, although, I am thankful to say, not in South Angus. The teachers are trying to say to us that they do not want to teach our children in overcrowded classes or overcrowded classrooms. The latest name for a school seems to be a "mobile hut". Teachers
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  are saying that all this is not good enough and they are right.
  Our society is being asked to state the value it places on education and educators. A 10 per cent. award is certainly due but I hope that the Houghton Committee will give a proper monetary award to the teachers for the work they are doing. I can assure the Scottish teachers that no Scottish Government would have allowed our education system to reach so low an ebb.
  Because Scotland has always had a situation of relatively high unemployment, when a Scots child leaves school he has all too great a chance of being unemployed. Even if he finds work, reports tell us that Scottish wages are below the United Kingdom average, and he may well end up with lower wages than his counterparts elsewhere in the United Kingdom. In addition to these lower wages, we are told that the Scottish cost of living is the second highest in the United Kingdom.
  As well as unemployment, low wages and a high cost of living, the Scots child of ability ultimately faces the final indignity, the scourge of emigration. Since the Second World War, over a million Scots have had to leave their country because it could not offer its people what Denmark offers to the Danes and Norway offers to the Norwegians. This is the proven record of both Tory and Labour London Governments, and they should never be allowed to forget it.
  The Gracious Speech does little or nothing to get to the roots of these problems. Nor does it offer the people of Scotland any real long-term solutions to these outstanding problems. The situation is clear. If the United Kingdom cannot offer the Scottish people long-term economic and political security, then the people of Scotland will take the obvious democratic action required. We have an alternative now.
  In my constituency agriculture is of major importance. Yet the Gracious Speech has little of significance to say to our farmers. The crofters and farmers are involved in livestock and livestock products, yet these are the very areas which are now in serious trouble. The beef, dairy, pig and sheep sectors are all in a difficult situation now. The Gracious Speech only offers "continued

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  discussions". The farmers are fed up with "discussions". They want action, and they want it quickly. No business man and no business can continue to suffer the heavy losses which farmers are incurring now. I can assure the Scottish farmers that no Scottish Government would allow our oldest and most basic industry to be hammered in this fashion. The Government must act now to help the farmers and give them decent guaranteed prices and, for example, a solid floor to the beef market.
  In any extension of the sugar beet industry, the Government should bear in mind that Scotland's only sugar beet factory was closed down three years ago and that Scotland must be brought back into any such plans.
  The message is clear. The measures announced in the Gracious Speech are simply not good enough to meet the needs of Scotland. If the United Kingdom continues to fail the people of Scotland, they will draw the appropriate and logical conclusion. Devolution is no real substitute for self-government. We in Scotland have talent and the ability and we certainly have the wealth. What we have lacked up till now has been the political will. Thanks to the rise and progress of the Scottish National Party the people of Scotland now have a genuine alternative.
  5.35 p.m.
  Mr. Nicholas Edwards: It is always a pleasure to follow a maiden speaker, and it is very pleasant to follow so eloquent a contribution as we have just heard from the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Welsh). He said that Scotland would have something meaningful to contribute. I am sure we all agree, after listening to him, that he will have something meaningful to contribute to this House. His predecessor made a peculiarly individual contribution to our proceedings. He always had something worth while to say, and if the hon. Gentleman can follow in Mr. Bruce-Gardyne's footsteps in that respect he will be serving his constituents well.
  There are many aspects of the Gracious Speech on which I would have liked to comment—for example, the consequences of the nationalisation proposals, the offshore oil plans, the programme for devolution and the fishing industry. Like
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  the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson), I have spoken before of the plight of the fishing industry in my constituency. On this occasion, however, I wish to concentrate on the state of the agriculture industry in Wales and will content myself with just one comment about what the Prime Minister said on Tuesday about the Welsh Grand Committee.
  We on these benches would have preferred to see the Welsh Grand Committee become a Select Committee, with power to call Ministers and civil servants before it. Few people will be impressed by a proposal that the Welsh Grand Committee will be able to examine.
  "the principle of Bills relating exclusively to Wales."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th October, 1974; Vol. 880, c. 72.]
  During my time in this House there have been no such Bills. In the previous decade there were no more than three or four. I hope that the Government will reconsider the suggestion that the Committee should be given the worthwhile task of monitoring the performance of the Welsh Office.
  During the summer I visited marts in Cowbridge, Cardigan, Haverfordwest and Kilgetty, and talked to farmers in Monmouthshire and Breconshire as well as in my own constituency. I received in Cardiff a National Farmers' Union deputation representing all the Welsh counties. I was present at a meeting in Barry in October attended by representatives of the NFU and of the Farmers' Union of Wales from all over the Principality.
  I wrote a letter to the Minister at the end of October pointing out the level of prices then reached in the marts, which at that time was about £15 or £16 per live cwt. I asked what he was going to do about the situation in the light of his pledge that we would achieve a figure of £18 per live cwt. I had a reply on his behalf from the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, who told me that the Miinster of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Wales
  "share your concern about the downward trend; but we do feel that the beef premium scheme ought to be allowed a fair run before judging what its effect will be on producers' returns during the next few months … However, if the industry responds to the beef premium scheme, producers should be assured of reasonable prices this autumn and winter."

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  During the election campaign, while I was at the mart, prices fell in Cardigan and Haverfordwest to £13 per live cwt. A week later they were down to £9 in Kilgetty. On 17th October the Western Mail reported that since the start of the election campaign the range of fatstock prices for Welsh markets had fallen from between £12·65 and £16 to between £9 and £14·64. The Farmers' Union of Wales tells me that the average price received in the last week of October was £12·94, or £15·27 with the premium included.
  We must contrast those figures with the promise of £18 and surely contrast it, too, with the needs of the industry at the present time, for they can hardly be less than about £21 or £22 per live cwt. A Government supporter earlier in the debate shouted that the farmers in Europe were not complaining, but we could contrast those prices with the prices being obtained by the farmers in Europe, who are getting nearer £28 per live cwt.
  To respond to the Under-Secretary's letter that I have quoted, I must bluntly say that there has not been the response for which he hoped from the beef premium scheme and, as has already been observed, as the premium has gone up, so the prices in the marts have gone down. We warned at the time that that would happen, but our warnings were dismissed. In a debate on agriculture early in the summer I was told by the Secretary of State for Scotland that I was exaggerating; I only wish that I had been.
  We were told today that after all it was not all that important and that beef represented only about 15 per cent. of agricultural production. But in Wales it represents well over 25 per cent. and in some counties very much more. The time for talk is long past. We must have action.
  I must particularly draw the attention of the House to the position of the hill farmers, who, as the Secretary of State for Wales well knows, at this time of the year have to sell their stock. Certainly at this particular time there is the more reason for their doing so because of the condition of the harvest during the summer. Yet I know from my experience in the marts in recent weeks that there is hardly a market at all for cattle, that
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  cattle are simply not being sold and are having to be taken home back to the fields. Many of the cattle that ought to be sold are back on the farms and we may well need an emergency exercise to get fodder to them.
  The Farmers' Union of Wales reported to me this morning that we can expect many thousands of cattle to die of starvation this winter, and their condition is already poor. I wonder whether the organisations that have complained about the export of live animals have considered with the same urgency the condition of cattle on the hills of the Principality today.
  The fact is that the fields are like billiard tables. The weather has produced a lean crop of hay and the cattle that should have been sold have been put back into the fields that should have been kept for hay or the after-hay cut. Fodder supplies in my constituency are desperate. I am told that we are 10,000 tons of hay short in the county. Straw and hay prices are rising steeply. In other parts of Wales the situation is even more serious.
  Even among the milk men the situation is not satisfactory, although the Minister tried to tell the House earlier this afternoon that it was. There is no market for cull cows and I know that five barren cows were sold in Carmarthen mart this week for £30. Nor is there a market for calves. Repeatedly I have watched calves being sold for less than £1, good quality calves at that, which is less than the insemination charge. If one takes account of the cost of the sale commission, toll, VAT, transport and feed charges, the amount lost in each case must amount to at least £3 or £4, and the farmer is in business not to make a loss but to make a profit. Top class suckling calves that were fetching up to £120 last year are down to half that figure now.
  Another problem is that the pressure on the abbatoirs is tremendous and slaughtering facilities are now stretched beyond capacity.
  So this dismal account can go on. The prices of sheep are half what they were a year ago and there is a serious danger that, because of the lack of winter feed, farmers will be selling ewe lambs that ought to be kept for breeding, and that will take the sheep off the upland farms next year.

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  What action is needed? Certainly it is not just, as the Gracious Speech suggests, continued discussions with the farming industry, but action now. It is not enough to wait until March. This week, or next at the latest, action is needed if the plight of the hill farmer is to be tackled. The Minister sought to blame the EEC and the intervention system, but in a document sent to Welsh Members of Parliament today the National Farmers' Union of Wales says:
  "It would be quite wrong of the British Government to wash their hands of the beef problem by laying the blame at the door of the EEC Commission. The EEC system of Intervention Buying is being operated for the benefit of farmers in all member-states except Britain, where the Minister adamantly refuses to have anything to do with it. The Rules of the EEC contain provision for individual member-states to act unilaterally in times of crisis. The British agricultural industry is in such a crisis."
  What we need as a first stage is minimum prices, at least for an emergency period. We need emergency action now, before long-term solutions are found. The Minister acted unilaterally when he opted out of intervention; he must act unilaterally now, if that is necessary.
  There is also a need for urgent consideration of the ban on the export of live animals, as is recommended in the O'Brien Report. The Minister heard from his right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) a vivid account of the situation at Holyhead and the violent feelings among farmers, particularly in Wales, about the import position. I was informed by a representative of the NFU for North Wales about half an hour ago that he was at Holyhead all night earlier this week and was desperately worried that the situation might get out of hand. He said that, frankly, it was becoming difficult for responsible officials to hold in check particularly the younger farmers. We must share the concern of the right hon. Member for Anglesey about this matter and endorse his remarks about this aspect of the problem.
  However, I am anxious that we should not destroy long established and valuable aspects of the Irish trade. There are those, particularly in the eastern counties, who have traditionally kept Irish stores, but the Irish should not be able to send cattle for immediate slaughter and benefit at the expense of the British producer. The Minister should urgently consider a
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  system by which cattle did not qualify for the slaughter premium until the animals had been in this country for, say, a 60-day waiting period. This is not a novel suggestion. Indeed, it has already been made in this debate, and I support those who have made it.
  I say very seriously that never, certainly not since the war, has there been such bitterness in the industry. Representatives of the industry tell me that they have never known feelings run so high, particularly among the younger farmers. When the British public as a whole realise what the Government have done to the long-term prospects for food production in this country, that bitterness will be be shared by the whole nation.
  Faced by a desperate crisis, this afternoon the Minister produced a personal apologia to which the facts give the lie. I beg him even at this late stage to reconsider his attitude and perhaps to allow the Secretary of State for Wales this evening to announce something positive, because it is desperately needed.
  5.50 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Ward: I hope that the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards) will forgive me if I do not follow him into the details of the case concerning fodder and the problems of the price of cattle, although I must say that in my constituency of Peterborough the farmers with whom I have had discussions have expressed views very similar to those expressed by hon. Members today. I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to offer them encouragement and help through what is undoubtedly a difficult period. I hope that he will hold discussions with the NFU and other bodies.
  There is also possibly an exacerbation of the fodder shortage being experienced at present because some members of the farming community are holding back stocks of fodder which ought to be brought on to the market in a more orderly way. It is for the NFU and the farmers to discuss how best they can respond to the requirement for a degree of national unity in the months ahead.
  I was indebted to the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Irvine), who has unfortunately left the Chamber, for raising the question of woodlands and forests, because it was on this topic that my

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  predecessor for the Peterborough constituency, elected in 1929—Mr. Frank Horrabin, who was the first Labour Member for Peterborough—decided to make his maiden speech. Mr. Horrabin championed in that speech the cause of the workers on the lands occupied by the Forestry Commission and other land workers in the constituency. In the latter part of my speech I shall have some observations to make on a matter touching upon them which is relevant to the debate.
  Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook), who asked for deliverance from the Boundaries Commission, it would be churlish of me to deny that one man's misfortune is another man's gain. My immediate predecessor, Sir Harmar Nicholls, owes his present freedom to look back over 24 years as a Member—a Member who gave active service to this House—partly to an accident of demography and only partly to the workings of democracy.
  I used the phrase "active service". I think that that sums up Sir Harmar's contribution over these 24 years. He was certainly a Member who, when he rose, gave the smack of alarums and excursions. He certainly contributed to many active and lively debates. I had the pleasure of listening to him on occasions from other parts of the Chamber over the eight years that I was pleased to be his main competitor.
  The tensions and switchbacks of fortune which dogged our contests in the Peterborough constituency over a number of years taught me and my opponent, Sir Harmar, more than most, that a majority, however small, is a majority. It was a far more distinguished Member of this House than I who said "One is enough". I can assure my right hon. and hon. Friends that three is certainly more than enough. They are right to put forward to this House a strong and confident programme such as has been set out in the Gracious Speech.
  I was interested to hear earlier a lapse by an hon. Member in which he referred to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State as the right hon. Member for "Worthington." That brought to my mind the fact that the famous Soke of Peterborough, which I understand has
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  given rise to many jokes in the House in the past, is the area which now represents the Peterborough constituency, and within that area the ancient cathedral city of Peterborough is dominant.
  It is a city that is changing rapidly, thanks to the intervention of the New Towns Commission. We have an active and lively development corporation. The city is rapidly expanding its population and its industrial base, I believe to the advantage both of newcomers and of residents of the city who have been there some years.
  Like my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central, I particularly welcome the penultimate words of the Gracious Speech, that:
  "Other measures will be laid before you."
  I am mindful of the burden of work which the House will have to shoulder if there are to be, as is reported, 26 or so Bills in the coming Session. I express the hope that there may be among those "other measures" a concise and practical Bill to restore to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 the provisions relating to agriculture which were deleted in another place and never restored by this House.
  I appreciate that these are really matters for the Secretary of State for Employment. However, I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has a considerable interest in the question of safety in agriculture and that he supported the provisions which were unfortunately deleted. I understand there was an occasion in this House in July when "the Noes had it", which I believe is not a terribly frequent occurrence. The principle that was contained in the Act of dealing with people's health and safety directly through them rather than their place of work and the processes at work is particularly important for the agricultural worker. He often works alone in exposed and weatherbeaten locations without the support and advice of fellow workers, trade unions or others to whom he might turn.
  The agricultural worker is often at a disadvantage through the friendliness of the relationship which can exist between employer and employee in agriculture, because the matters of safety which ought to require a slightly sterner and more responsible approach are the ones sometimes overlooked in such a relationship.

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  The farm worker today, as hon. Members associated with the industry will know well, has to handle materials and machinery which are similar to those found by workers in industry. There has been a great revolution in the nature of the equipment of the farm worker.
  I know that many of my hon. Friends believe with me that we must have the benefit of the full force of the Health and Safety Commission's work and of its executive. It is just starting operations. We believe it should be brought into play for the benefit of farm workers. In earlier debates hon. Members have suggested that this issue is really a dispute between officials of the two main Departments of State concerned.
  Those of us who have stood outside this Chamber and talked with farm workers during the election campaign and before about this issue can say with confidence that these workers are looking to the Health and Safety Commission to bring in a new approach to farm safety, based on an undoubted need which has come about in recent years in the industry's development.
  More than 90 fatalities a year take place in agriculture, and that is 90 too many. Sadly, the rate has been constant for too many years, and, sadly, out of that 90 deaths one quarter are of children. Although farm workers make up only 7 per cent. of the labour force in my constituency, I know that I speak for them and their colleagues in the city's industry, commerce and the public services when I seek from my right hon. Friends a commitment to amend the 1974 Act.
  I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to make an early intervention in this debate. I am glad to accept the challenge of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) and say that the Peterborough Football Club, although, sadly, only in the Third Division, will before long accept his invitation to meet Ipswich in Ipswich—in the First Division.
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. Jasper More: It is a great pleasure for me to follow in debate the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Ward). I congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. It must have been a dramatic and traumatic moment in the history of Peterborough when the slender majority in the constituency which had
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  endured for so long was finally overturned. The hon. Gentleman can at least claim to have made a small piece of political history. We shall look forward to seeing Sir Harmar Nicholls back in the next Parliament, but I hope that in this Parliament we shall frequently have the pleasure of hearing the present hon. Member for Peterborough.
  I was particularly interested in and sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman said about the agricultural worker, who is the salt of the earth. Nothing is more important than that he should be looked after in every respect, not least in respect of his health and safety, which, as the hon. Gentleman said, are a critical element in his employment. I hope that the Labour Party will study seriously the question of the tied cottage and that it will not be resolved by the doctrinaire view that tied cottages must be abolished. I see the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Torney) in his place. Coming from Shropshire, I should like to say how much we appreciated his visit to our farms. I hope that he will persuade other members of his party, though they may represent industrial constituencies, to pay visits to agricultural districts so that they may realise the problems in them. One problem—this applies particularly to the livestock farmer—is that of having workers close to the steading.
  I hope that the Government will not form the idea that there must be a root-and-branch abolition of the tied cottage system. If the position must be altered, there are other ways of doing it—for example, by individual arbitration in the small number of cases in which difficulties arise.
  The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook), who seconded the motion in such felicitous phrases, referred to that pregnant sentence in the Gracious Speech which we know so well,
  "Other measures will be laid before you."
  It has always seemed to me regrettable that Her Majesty is not accessible to advice from back-bench Members about other sentences which might be included in the Gracious Speech. I should like to add the phrase "Other crises will soon burst upon you."
  I wish to refer to two crises which affect rural areas like mine. The first concerns the question of rates. I am

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  delighted to see in the Press today that the National Union of Ratepayers has gone into action on this front. The ratepayer has been the long-suffering milch cow of national and local policies. Over the years local expenditure has increased at an even faster rate than national expenditure. Before the election the Labour Government inflicted a great injustice on the country areas by altering the rate support grant in a disgraceful way.
  I raise the subject of rates now because of reports of a prospect of a further increase of 50 per cent. in the rates. This means—the county council associations have pointed this out—that the Government must choose quickly between three possibilities: massive cuts in services and new projects; a massive increase in Government rate support grants; or a massive increase in the rates. If there are to be cuts in services, policy decisions must be made and the local authorities must know in what directions those cuts are to be made.
  The other crisis concerns the livestock industry. The case has been so devastatingly and clearly put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) that I shall not again go over the general issue. I should like to quote a few figures supplied to me by the National Farmers' Union to illustrate the position in my constituency. They relate to the Bridgnorth Market, in what might be called a mixed farming area. In the last October sale, heavy fat stock steers were under £14 compared with £18 in 1973. Medium heifers were just over £13 compared with £19 in 1973. With regard to stores, medium steers were just under £13 compared with well over £19 in 1973. Light heifers were under £9 compared with £19.
  Similar figures have been supplied to me by the Cleobury Mortimer and Ludlow farmers relating to the markets at Ludlow and Craven Arms, where overwhelmingly the livestock comes from the hill farms. Here breeding ewes are down £5 to £6 a head compared with 1973. Fat cattle are making £11 to £12 per hundredweight compared with £16 to £18 in 1973. Store cattle are between £7 and £17 compared with £17 to £22 in 1973. The price of breeding cows is more than
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  50 per cent. down on the 1973 price. Calves are not being sold, or are being given away, or taken back to farms where, alas, in some areas the fodder to feed them through the winter will not exist.
  I speak particularly of the hill farming areas, of which there are many in my constituency, because until recently they at least had the hope of being upheld by the sheep trade. Alas, the sheep trade is also on the downgrade. There has been a drop to two-thirds of last year's prices. The latest figures show that the price of store lambs has come down to £10 compared with £12 last year. Fat lambs are 20p a lb. compared with 30p a lb. last year.
  Thanks to the Minister's decision, there is no guarantee for beef. There is, I understand, a guarantee for sheep, but it lasts only till next March. In view of the critical situation and prospect for hill farmers, it is of great importance that the Minister should focus on the sheep situation and ensure that something is done to keep it on a profitable plane.
  We have heard many arguments about the EEC common agricultural policy. I was not one of those who wished this country to join the EEC. I know all the arguments for not joining, and I can see powerful arguments for joining, but I cannot understand the argument for being neither in nor out, and that is the position now. We are in the EEC, but are opting out of measures which might help us. I hope that the Minister, who was as much against this country going into the EEC as I was, will take a robust view of the problem and will say that if the EEC cannot cure our problems by its methods we must cure them ourselves.
  I understand that in the last few months French, Belgian and Italian farmers have had their rules for the beef trade made for them by their respective countries, in each case contrary to the Rome Treaty. Why do we not do the same? Only recently there was an Italian ban on beef imports from West Germany, which was entirely contrary to the Rome Treaty. Why do we not do the same?
  The question of imports from Ireland has already been well ventilated. This is a source of grievance, and it is absolutely essential that it should be tackled. If Irish imports cannot be stopped, may we have back the 13-week domiciliary period?

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  The fodder situation is as critical in some areas in my constituency as it is in the areas of other hon. Members who have spoken. Hay is said to be £75 or more a ton. Barley straw is £50 or more. In many areas the barley straw crop will not be gathered at all. There are strong rumours in my constituency that fodder is being exported to Europe from such areas as Kent. Is there confirmation of that? If so, may it be stopped? Farmers in my area say that it was easy enough last year to stop the export of potatoes. If so, why cannot we stop the export of hay?
  The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Morris): The hon. Gentleman raises a matter which should be dealt with here and now. I have seen, as he has, references in the farming Press to the export of fodder. Efforts have been made to trace these references but no evidence has been produced. If any hon. Member has evidence, my right hon. Friend and I will be very interested to see it, but so far there is no evidence. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter so that I can dispose of it.
  Mr. More: I am grateful to the Minister and I shall see that that information is passed on.
  May I make an appeal—which has been made before—for a price review every six months rather than every 12 months so long as inflation proceeds at its present rate? I second the appeals which have been made for action on the O'Brien Report.
  Finally, there is a strong feeling among the farmers in my part of the world, who are suffering so much over the sale of their cattle, that it is scandalous that the price of beef in the shops has not come down. I am no enemy of the butchers. I have discussed this matter with many retail butchers in my constituency, and I believe them when they tell me that they are not making excessive profits. There may be many stages between the livestock market and the retail butchers. I am told that an inquiry into this has been carried out and it is reported that no undue profits have been made. I find this difficult to believe. I hope that the Government will not allow this matter to drop. If something could be done on that front, it
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  would at least relieve some of the grievance felt in the agricultural industry about the desperate position of farmers.
  6.12 p.m.
  Mr. Thomas Torney: I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Ward) on his excellent maiden speech. I am sure that we shall be hearing more from him in future, and I look forward to that.
  There is no monopoly of concern about the plight of the farmers, particularly beef farmers, on either side of the House or in any group. The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) supported this view when he told the House of my interesting visit to Shropshire. I looked at the farms and heard the concern which was expressed by farmers at first hand, and also lived with them for a few days.
  Hon. Members who represent urban constituencies—of which I am one, although there is a farm or two at the perimeter of my constituency—should take a greater interest in farming. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Shropshire. The country is lovely to look at. I hope to persuade some of my hon. Friends, particularly those representing urban constituencies, to follow up the invitation given by the hon. Member for Ludlow to go to Shropshire to see the problems with which the farmers have to struggle.
  I was impressed by the excellent contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes), who pinpointed my views. I am mindful of the beef problem, as he is. We must try to understand the background, and I should like to pass on, through the Secretary of State for Wales, one or two suggestions I have to make to the Minister.
  In fairness, the Government have been in office for only a few weeks and the previous Government were in office for just a few months. When I listened to the speech of the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) I felt that, with his great preoccupation with Ireland during the Conservative administration, he may not have been fully aware of what his right hon. Friends were doing—or not doing—during that time. One cannot have a long-term policy for farming beginning in March 1974 and coming to fruition in October 1974. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members who spoke

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  of the need for a long-term strategy for farming and a great deal more organisation, but it is impossible to contemplate such a strategy starting in March 1974 coming to fruition by October 1974.
  The basis of the present grim situation is to be found in the years 1972 and 1973. Having talked to so many farmers, I know that one evil was the great rise in price of everything that the farmer touched. Probably the worst of the evils was the tremendous rise in price of animal feeding stuffs. That was apparent not in March 1974 or October 1974 but during the summer of 1973. Even earlier than that it was forecast that the Russian harvest would fail and that there would be a tremendous demand on American feeding stuffs, with a consequent increase in price.
  At that time my right hon. Friend was not the Minister of Agriculture. The Minister was either the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) or the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) —I am not sure when the change occurred. A Tory Minister of Agriculture was in charge at that time, and little if anything was done to relieve that situation, and it is from that evil that the farmer is suffering today.
  The right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire should be extremely careful—I am sorry that he is not present to hear me say this—when he talks about the great priority given to farming by the Conservative Party. I appreciate that because of the right hon. Gentleman's preoccupation with Ireland in the last Conservative Government he can to some extent be excused, but certainly his party should have given priority to farmers who faced such high costs in feeding stuffs. Had the then Government taken action, we should not now be facing the present difficult farming situation.
  Furthermore, for the right hon. Gentleman to talk about complacency when directing his remarks to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture—indeed, for the word "complacency" to be bandied so freely around the Chamber this afternoon—is a travesty of truth. I was not fortunate enough to be a Member of the House at the time, but one Minister in past years referred to his office as a bed of nails. I believe that the present Minister inherited a consider-
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  able bed of nails from the Conservative administration. Therefore, I am appalled at the rough treatment meted out to him by Conservatives this afternoon, although I do not doubt my right hon. Friend's capacity to deal with those comments.
  Many Conservatives seem to forget that agriculture involves a longer-term view than, for example, that taken in manufacturing industries. One cannot speed up the process of calving a cow in the same way as one might speed up a manufacturing process by the addition of some new piece of modern machinery in a factory.
  A further aspect which we must not forget is that during the tour of office of the right hon. Member for Grantham as the Tory Minister of Agriculture the price of beef in butchers' shops rose excessively. The price put beef right out of the reach of many housewives—and this certainly applied to my wife. The then Minister told us to eat chicken. I also remember him saying in those days that breeding cattle was a long-term business and, in view of the natural process involved, more beef cattle could not be produced overnight. He asked farmers to rear more beef cattle. The advice he then gave to beef farmers has led to the present tremendous glut of beef. Therefore, Conservatives must be extremely careful that the charges which they seek to lay at the door of my right hon. Friend the present Minister do not rebound on their own heads.
  I should like to say a few words about the Common Market. Let us not forget that it was not my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture or my right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister who took us into the Common Market. It was the Conservative Government. Whether one agrees or disagrees with entry into the EEC, one must surely ask the question: is the CAP an effective policy for Britain? Many of the original Six in the Common Market are self-supporting in food terms, but we all know that Britain is not in that category and it is doubtful whether we ever shall be. Therefore, it was an absolute travesty for the then Conservative Government to enter the Common Market and agree to a common agricultural policy designed to protect the interests of countries capable of producing nearly all their own food, knowing full

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  well that Britain could not possibly produce more than half its own food.
  I do not see how anybody can suggest that intervention as a policy is either fair or right. We have only to remember in the last few months the large number of demonstrations by European farmers against the policy. I was in Holland after the demonstrations that took place there and talked to Dutch people about the many tractors that were lined up on the Dutch motorways, driven there by farmers who were protesting at the prices they were receiving for their cattle. Similar protests took place in France and Germany. Does this not prove that the farmer is not getting a fair crack of the whip from the Common Market? Does it not also prove that an intervention policy is not a fair way to treat the housewife? I cannot see the logic of storing massive amounts of food just to keep up the price.
  I want to see the farmer get a better deal for his beef and urgent action taken to assist the beef farmer rather than that he should have to wait until March. But I do not want to see it done by the Government being forced to go to the expense of hiring ships, as the Common Market has been, because Europe's storage facilities are full, in order to store the surpluses of beef. Certainly I do not want to see us, if we cannot store any more butter, selling it to a foreign Power at a giveaway price in order to maintain tip-top prices in our shops, which in effect means that the taxpayers of the Common Market countries, including ourselves, not only pay high prices in the shops but pay considerable sums in taxation to meet the difference between the price that the farmer gets and the massive loss which the EEC sustains when it sells its butter or beef to non-member countries.
  That brings me to another aspect of the problem about beef. I would not dare to suggest that my right hon. Friend is complacent. The poor chap has had a tough time. However, I ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales to speak to him on my behalf and plead with him to do some-think about the present beef situation. I believe that the slaughter premium was introduced in the best of good faith. I do not criticise my right hon. Friend for it. He faced a tough and difficult situation. He had been left in an almost im-
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  possible mess by the previous administration, and probably did not know which way to turn. He introduced the slaughter premium as a desperate effort to improve the situation. So I accuse no one of complacency. But I am trying to put the blame where it squarely belongs—that is, on the previous Conservative administration.
  Something is wrong with the slaughter premium. As the hon. Member for Ludlow said just now, and as I saw for myself in some Shropshire markets, when the slaughter premium was introduced the price offered in the market for cattle dropped by just about the amount of the slaughter premium. Like the hon. Member for Ludlow, I do not suggest that that represented profit going to the little butcher's shop round the corner. But I cannot discover where it is going. Bearing in mind the route of beef from the market to the butcher's shop and the housewife's shopping basket, it is strange that when the price in the market has fallen so very low the price of a joint of beef to the housewife has fallen only a few pence in the past 12 months. I cannot understand why.
  I do not expect an explanation tonight. I understand the difficulties, because I have considerable experience of the distributive side of the meat business, though not of the production side. But I understand something of the slaughtering and the abattoir side of meat and the wholesale marketing side. It is a devious setup, and I can well understand my right hon. Friend wanting to investigate the position. However, I should like him to consider the price that the farmer gets, to compare it with the price that the housewife has to pay and to appreciate that there is a strange difference between the two. It might be a good idea to get an independent committee of inquiry to look into the situation. If the farmer is not to get a reasonable price when he sells his cattle in the market, the housewife should enjoy the benefit at the other end. The cream should not be taken by the middlemen.
  I, too, make a plea for our farmers. Sympathy for them is not a monopoly of the Conservative Party. We all understand the problems of our beef farmers. My right hon. Friend ought to look again at the slaughter premium to see whether there is not some more effective way of

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  ensuring that the benefit of the subsidy which was meant to go to the farmer is properly distributed to the farmer. That should be done as a short-term measure, because action is needed urgently to save the future of beef production next year and the year afterwards. If a solution along these lines is not found, following these awful gluts we shall face awful shortages which will result not just in farmers going bankrupt, bad though that is, but in a serious effect on housewives purchasing their goods. We need a short-term solution different from the slaughter premium. Some form of help or subsidy is required urgently.
  Then the whole situation must be looked at in the longer term to see whether we cannot review domestic beef production. In this connection, let me reiterate something that I said in this Chamber in the course of the previous Parliament. It might be worth my right hon. Friend's time to look at marketing in the longer term with a view to setting up some form of marketing arrangements for beef similar to those of the Milk Marketing Board. Incidentally, let us hope that this ludicrous Common Market will not oblige us to dismantle our Milk Marketing Board. I hope that we shall consider a marketing arrangement whereby the beef producer can be assured of a base giving him confidence to produce for the future and whereby the housewife at the other end can be assured of a fair deal, stopping some of the creaming off which occurs at present in the middle.
  We have heard a number of comments about the activities of other EEC countries in taking unilateral action. I do not think that this Government should run away from the possibility of acting unilaterally if the situation demands. After all, it was not the Labour Party which rushed the country into the Common Market. That was done by those who now call us complacent. Therefore, we should not hesitate to act unilaterally if it is in the interests of the nation to do so. In view of the present beef situation and the farming situation generally, in my view it is necessary to act unilaterally. We should not continue to go cap in hand to the bureaucrats in Brussels and Luxembourg begging for permission to do this
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  or that. We should act now to help our farmers.
  I want now to make one brief comment on a different aspect of agriculture. I was appalled to see that we did not take the opportunity of concluding a three-year deal for sugar with our Commonwealth partners, the Australians. I believe that this would have assured supplies of sugar for the future far more effectively than what has been done by the Common Market. No supplies are assured. The Common Market has said that it will buy sugar from the world markets and sell it to member States at a subsidised price. It has not yet got the sugar, so we do not know whether there will be any at any price.
  Our Caribbean agreements end this year. We had a choice of acquiring 350,000 tons of sugar per annum, starting immediately with 200,000 tons, and we have turned it down. We have turned down what we knew could have for something that is vague and only may be in the bag. We do not know.
  I realise that other hon. Members wish to speak. I may have gone on a bit, but I am concerned about this situation and I want to get that concern honestly across to the Minister. I hope that on beef, sugar and all the other important agricultural aspects he will consider carefully what I have said. I hope that for the future of farming and the food of the British people the Minister will act on some of my suggestions.
  6.40 p.m.
  Mr. William Ross: I have noted with some amusement that hon. Members representing English constituencies have spoken about their parts of England, that those who represent Wales have spoken for Wales and that those who represent Scotland have spoken for the Scottish farmers. It is my privilege and great responsibility to speak for the farming community of Northern Ireland.
  That farming community is different in structure from most of the United Kingdom. It came about in the latter years of the last century and the early years of this century through the Land Acts which made the farmers of Ireland owner-occupiers. It is with rather grim amusement that we realise that the real reason

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  for bringing this farming structure into existence was not for the social consequences that inevitably flowed from it but to get rid of Republicanism. However, Republicanism is still with us in its most violent and virulent form, as the present situation in Ulster daily records.
  Out of those Land Acts and the farming structure which arose from them, I believe that Northern Ireland has one of the most progressive farming communities in the world with sturdy, independent people who believe in their own ability to meet in fair competition anyone anywhere. Yet we have the present situation in farming, which I believe is moving towards total disaster.
  It is well to recall that when we came here in March the great cry was the situation prevailing in the pig industry. It may be of interest to this House to learn what the present situation is in that industry in Northern Ireland. In September 1973 the total number of sows and gilts in pig was 107,000. In August 1974 the figure was 67,000. The pig market has firmed up. It is no wonder when there is a drop of 30 per cent. in the total number of sows and gilts in pig. The most unfortunate aspect is that in September 1973 there were 15,000 gilts in pig whereas in August this year there were only 3,800. This bodes ill for the future of the pig industry in Northern Ireland. I have no doubt that that picture will be repeated throughout the United Kingdom with similar grim results for the future of pig farmers here.
  Last year at this time the average price for lamb in the markets of Northern Ireland was 31½p per pound. In October 1974 the price was 21·7p per pound, although to that must be added approximately 6p for the guarantee. It is clear that the sheep meat industry is suffering from the side effects of the depressed beef market. That is an indication of what can happen whenever disaster hits one section of the farming industry. The effect is of a stone thrown into a pond: the ripples steadily widen. Every aspect of farming life is affected.
  This is a long-term problem, and a long-term strategy must be prepared. The first steps in that long-term strategy have not yet been taken. It is about time that those first steps were taken. We must have some indication of what the future
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  holds for our farming people and our food.
  It may come as a surprise to some hon. Gentlemen opposite, especially the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson), who spoke about the fishing industry, that Northern Ireland also has a fishing industry. Part of it is situated on the north coast of my constituency. I should like the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to pay close attention to the problems of the inshore salmon fishers who are plagued every year by boats from Donegal, Eire. They come across and fish close inshore. No attempt is made to apprehend them or, indeed, to chase them off. It is a serious matter for those of my constituents who are engaged in that important industry.
  It may be of interest to hon. Members to realise that, grim as the beef position in other parts of the United Kingdom may be, it is worse in Northern Ireland. We share a common land frontier with a large exporter of beef and store cattle which flow across our border into the United Kingdom. Some go out through our ports into Scotland and England, but by no means all. Many of them stay there. In the past few months a great number have been choking our slaughterhouses to such an extent that it has been impossible for Northern Ireland farmers to get their beef cattle in. This situation has eased in the last fortnight. I hope that that state of affairs will long continue. However, it is vital that some period should elapse between the cattle being imported and being put in for slaughter. I suggest that the minimum period should be 90 days. I understand that at Belcoo last weekend 588 cattle were punched through into Northern Ireland. That is three or four times the normal number for this time of the year. I think that will give hon. Members some indication of the seriousness of the situation for us.
  Early in August this year the average price for beef in the beef markets in Northern Ireland was £16 per cwt. In the third week of October it was down to £10·25. Yesterday in Strabane the average price of steers and heifers was £9·60. That is about £7 per cwt. below the price paid last year. On a 9 cwt. beast, which can be taken as average, it is a loss of £63 on the price paid last year. The EEC subsidy of £20·94 being paid now

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  will not go far towards offsetting the increased costs and total losses being incurred by farmers in Northern Ireland.
  Fat cows in the last month in Northern Ireland have fallen in price from £8 per cwt. to £5·95. These prices are nothing short of disastrous for those who are unfortunate enough to be left with them.
  The fodder situation in Northern Ireland is no better than in other parts of this country. I fear for the small farmer, especially on the hills, for it has rained in Northern Ireland since the middle of August. The last of the corn crop is only now being cut. Some of the upland hay has not yet been gathered. Indeed, that which has not been gathered will be fit only for the dung heap.
  Throughout my experience there has always been a differential in beef prices between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland of at least £1 per cwt. At present the differential is between £2·50 and £3 per cwt. The meat plants in Northern Ireland are currently paying 20p per pound plus 3½p out of the EEC guarantee. In Eire the October price is 27p per pound, in November it will be 29p per pound, and in January it will be 31p per pound. That is in a country that practises intervention. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there.
  When there is no floor, prices will fall fast to below where the floor should be and then there comes into that community and that industry a very great loss of confidence. That loss of confidence feeds on the disaster that already exists and magnifies it. So at the end of the day it is much worse than it would otherwise have been. Had we some guarantee in our beef market, confidence would swiftly return. It is a guarantee which must be given within the next week or two. The time for talking is long past. There were seven months when the present Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food knew what the situation was. The first steps should have been taken during those seven months to meet the crisis and disaster that have now come upon the farming community.
  Another matter that affects the people of Northern Ireland who live by the farm is the rate of exchange for the so-called green pound. This gives an advantage of about 3 per cent. to the Eire producer —that is, £5 per head of cattle. The
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  Minister should give serious attention to this matter.
  Last year suckling calves—a major industry with us—averaged £80 per head in October. In October this year suckling calves have averaged £40. This applies across all farmers whose cattle are sold.
  A drop of a half on last years' price cannot be tolerated. It saps what little remaining confidence there is in the beef producers. Many of them are now talking about getting rid of their herds. The farming Press is full of advertisements for sales of cattle from the beef herds of Northern Ireland.
  Last year dropped calves averaged roughly £40 per head. This year they are averaging £10. This applies only to those that are sold. There is a story in widespread circulation in Northern Ireland—I believe it to be true—of a farmer who went to a market to sell three calves. He did not sell them. He put them in his trailer and took them home. When he arrived home, lo and behold he had six calves: somebody else had not been able to sell his calves and did not want to feed them either. I know of one farmer who is prominent and well known in farming circles in Northern Ireland; he has a dairy herd, and at present he shoots his calves as they are born and sends them to the greyhound kennels.
  All these things have a cumulative effect that will in the long run do most serious damage to the farming community and to the nation's food situation. It is a food situation that every hon. Member should regard as of extreme seriousness, for no cheap food is left on the face of the earth. We must produce every pound of food that we can from our own land, from our own fields, from our own resources.
  I wish to remind the House of something which I believe is often lost sight of. In the production of food we cannot aim at exactly what is needed. We must always aim for a surplus if the community and the nation are to have bargaining power in the world markets. We have not been doing that. It must also be appreciated that when we are aiming for a slight surplus we may not achieve what we are aiming for. We may get less than we need or much more than we need of a particular foodstuff. When that happens it is up to the community

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  as a whole to foot the bill to keep alive the confidence of the farming community in the industry.
  It is necessary to consider carefully what the trend has been in the beef herd in Northern Ireland. This is a closed community, a small community, a community that can be clearly seen to be moving quickly in one direction or another. From June 1972 the beef herd rose from 324,000 to 376,000. Here I should declare an interest, for I own a few beef cattle. I as a farmer am aware that many of my friends in the farming community have simply held on to their cattle long enough to get the beef cow subsidy or the hill cow subsidy. Next year, unless there is a change in policy, those cattle will go and the cows will not be there next year to produce calves for the following year's meat. Then we shall have to go out into the world market and pay through the nose for it.
  We should not forget the high cereal and fodder prices that farmers are faced with. We should not forget the grave difficulties that farmers have faced about oil and fertiliser prices over the last few years, prices that show no signs of steadying and have an important bearing not on this year's production but on next years' production and prices. Farmers need to look at least two years ahead. Already they are deciding how much barley, wheat and oats they will plant next year. Already decisions have been taken in regard to pigs, cattle and milk next year. All these things are interrelated. We are not one industry. We are many industries within the framework of one. We have varying ideas of what prices should be. What pleases the milk man may not necessarily please the beef man. Certainly what pleases the cereal grower will not please those who have to pay for his products later. All these things must be considered and a policy worked out so that everyone has a reasonable level of income.
  It has been said today that beef accounts for only 15 per cent. of the total output of farming. I remind hon. Members that for the beef man it is 100 per cent. of his output. When 100 per cent. of one's output is conducted at a great loss to oneself, where are the profits of previous years? Those engaged in farming know that there are rarely great profits in beef, that for every man who has
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  made a killing there are 100 men who have broken even and several men who have suffered a loss. Consider how many people leave the farming industry to go into other industries and how few leave other industries to enter farming. That comparison is the clearest condemnation of the level of income in farming.
  Another condemnation is the level of wages paid to farm workers. It is a tragedy that good, loyal, hard-working and intelligent men work on farms for so little money. This is a matter that is tied in with the total income of the farming community. The total income of the farming community, both farmers and farm workers, should be raised to a realistic level. We were told by the Minister earlier this year that the realistic level for beef should be £18 per cwt. As I said earlier, in Strabane yesterday it was £9·60 per cwt. That is not a realistic price by the standards set by the present Government, and the matter is, therefore, serious.
  Because the matter is so serious, it is vitally necessary that corrective steps be taken. Not only should there be a 90-day period of keep for imported cattle, but intervention or some such system should be introduced in the short term. Intervention is probably the easiest system to introduce now, and so it should be introduced.
  We are looking to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to produce a long-term plan for farming that will guarantee the country's food supplies not just during the life of this Parliament but far beyond the life of the present Parliament—indeed, for the rest of our lives.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I was worried when I saw the scant attention which was paid to agriculture in the Queen's Speech. I was even more worried when I heard the Minister speak. He seemed to have no conception whatsoever of the seriousness of the farming crisis. He came to my constituency during the General Election and many of the farmers in my constituency spoke to him and pointed out the ruin facing them, but, from the speech which he made today, that does not seem to have penetrated a fraction of an inch into his head. He promised us virtually

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  nothing till March. By then it will be too late for many of the farmers in my constituency and their families whose livelihoods and homes will have been destroyed.
  I am now even more worried than I was two hours ago because I have attended a meeting in the Grand Committee Room of farmers from the length and breadth of the land, and I have seen how desperately worried they all are at the situation which is facing every farmer in the land. The President of the National Farmers' Union, Sir Henry Plumb, said that he had never seen farmers in the mood that they are in today. Certainly I have not in 30 years of farming.
  The Minister, who seems to have been absent from his place for a very long time, criticised farmers in Holyhead for trying to stop cattle coming in. Yet those farmers, unlike some industrial workers, withdrew at the request of the police. As a farmer from Worcestershire pointed out at the meeting which I have just attended, many farmers are connected with the law in their capacity of justices of the peace, and they are desperately worried that if farmers do not get rapid and direct help now it will be very difficult indeed to keep the situation under control, as they can see Irish cattle receiving a subsidy to come in and flood still further an already hopelessly overloaded market.
  The Minister referred to the poor quality of cattle keeping down the price. I attend my auction mart in Lancaster fairly frequently. I was there 10 days ago, and the cattle on offer were pretty good, yet they were fetching only £12 per cwt.—little more than half what they were fetching last year. Many of the farmers in my constituency have one crop a year; that is their Buckler calves. Charollais/Friesian suckled calves of 6 to 6½ cwt. were fetching £50. Every time the premium goes up, the price in the auction mart goes down. The right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes), by no means a man to exaggerate, described the market price in his constituency as derisory and his farmers as desperate men. My farmers are desperate men too, and they have desperate wives.,
  At the end of September hay was on offer in my market at £50 a ton delivered, with no takers. On Friday bedding straw was £30 and feeding straw was up to
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  £35 and more if one could get it, with very ordinary hay at £60 a ton and meadow hay at £90 a ton. If I were paying £90 a ton for meadow hay I would want to be feeding a first-class racehorse, but that is the price paid by people to feed their cattle. Who can afford that price, in view of the end price obtained for beef
  I have seen some of my farmers' books and I have heard from many bank managers. There are no two ways about it; the situation is utterly desperate. It is not just the future of agriculture which is at stake. As one hon. Member on the Government side said, the situation for every housewife is now critical. The dinner table of every family in the land is at risk, and for the first time in my lifetime, apart from war, town dwellers are realising that this is the case.
  The sugar shortage may have been in a sense a blessing in disguise because it brought home to the people, as no words could ever have done, the fact that there will be massive shortages right across the larder if farmers are driven our of business. They, like every other worker in the land, are entitled to the rate for the job. We must have action now—not in March.
  We must have three things at least: first the reimposition of a 60-day waiting period for Irish cattle coming here, subsidised against us as they are; secondly a guaranteed bottom to the market to bring it up to the cost of production; and thirdly, just as important, there must be a retrospective payment to those farmers who have been obliged to sell since certification came in in August so that they can pay their proven bills, their rents and the interest due on their overdrafts in December. The bankers in my area have been very patient. They have not pressed the farmers beyond their limit. But they will not go on lending for ever if they can see no future for their farming customers.
  Those three measures would stop the rot. Having stopped the rot, we have got to start to rebuild the industry. Here there is no room for party politics. We must all get together, whatever our politics may be, with the leaders of the farming industry and thrash out a policy on which farmers can rely, whichever party may be in government and irrespective of

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  elections. They must be able to plan their production ahead if they are to play their full part in feeding this nation in the years to come. We must have action, and we must have it now.
  7.6 p.m.
  Mr. Mark Hughes: May I follow exactly the point on which the hon. Lady the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) concluded. It is with some sorrow that I quote from a speech made by the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) to the Kent branch of the National Farmers' Union in January 1971:
  "…in 1964 and 1965 after the General Election‖Mr. Heath"—
  the then Leader of the Opposition—
  "instructed a group of us to look at our agricultural policy and to suggest what changes could be made in it…the main principle which we came up with was that it was quite impossible for the farming industry to think that year after year they could get their returns from the Government or a proportion of their returns from the Government and that it would be much better if over a period of years we could shift that portion which the industry obtained from the Government, so that it came from the consumer, because we know what happens and I have already had a little experience of this."
  Let us be quite clear. Whatever responsibility may lie on my right hon. Friend's shoulders—I would not hesitate to suggest that as Her Majesty's Minister of Agriculture he bears a responsibility for the present situation, but there are other shoulders as well—in analysing the present situation we should not pretend that the cause of the situation is exclusive to one side of this House or the other, to the farmers themselves or their leaders, to the consumer or to those who would protect them.
  In the late 1960s and the first years of this decade a policy which, with all its shortcomings, had served the farming interest and the consumer for 25 years was wantonly abandoned, entirely independently of our possible entry into the European Community. The import levy structure which still obtains for sheep—there is still an import levy on mutton and lamb—was imposed totally without reference to our possible entry into the Common Market. The deficiency payments procedure was removed. Notice was given of its removal not because we were entering the Common Market but because it was held not to be in the
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  interests of the farming community or of the consumer.
  If one produces a massive increase in the available supply of a product without any countervailing increase in demand, ordinary economic laws suggest that there will be certain difficulties. If we take the five months April to August inclusive in 1973 as compared with the same period in 1974, we find that home-produced beef and veal supplies increased by 17½ per cent. There is no comparable increase in imported supplies—in fact, they went down. At no stage was there a realistic possibility of consumption expanding by anything like that percentage.
  At present we have a classic situation of over-supply on the market in which the supply coming from indigenous United Kingdom farms is the overwhelming bulk. We delude ourselves if we pretend that the glut is being created by imported supplies.
  Mr. Jopling: The hon. Gentleman has referred to a committee of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) was chairman in 1964–65. I was a member of that committee and so was my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins). The hon. Gentleman would be only fair if he pointed out to the House that apart from the support through import levies there was provision for a residual guarantee backed by Government cash.
  Mr. Hughes: I accept that. The destruction of the 1947 Act procedure was an integral part of the restructuring of Government support for agriculture in the post-1970 situation, totally independent of the Common Market. That is the only point I wish to make in that respect.
  We have an over-supply of beef of about 17½ per cent. I suggest that the farming community and we in the House would delude ourselves if we assumed that this was because of excessive imports, apart from the possible problem of Irish imports. Here I echo what has been said by representatives of many parties. There is need for a 60-day moratorium before the imports are eligible for a grant head-age payment. This is the very least that is required to remove this obnoxious trade involving switching between Southern Ireland and Ulster and other parts of the United Kingdom.

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  What has caused this glut, this excess production? Successive Ministers of Agriculture urged farmers to increase production. Farmers saw that the prices obtaining 18 months ago for fatstock gave every encouragement to retain calves and to increase the number of calves put to beef bulls. Therefore, there is a massive increase caused by both exhortation and economic expectations.
  It is easy for those outside the House to put the blame entirely on politicians for exhorting farmers to produce more beef, whereas any Minister knows that the farmers produce more beef out of expectations of high profits. When those expectations are not realised, it is easy to blame politicians of any party, whereas what the producers did was to look at the market at a time when a heifer was due to go to a bull, and they made decisions on current market prices. If we assume that farmers increased the number of Charollais Jersey calves on the exhortation of successive Ministers of Agriculture rather than put a Jersey bull to a Jersey cow, we delude ourselves; they did it because they thought there was money in it.
  I have recently visited markets in Darlington, Hexham and Sedgefield and I have found that there is stuff coming on to the markets which would have been far better culled at birth. It would take a long time to produce high-quality cattle from what I have seen, and even if money is spent the quality will not be high.
  What were the alternatives facing my right hon. Friend over the past six months? There is among many of us on this side of the House, and among people in the country at large, an abhorrence of intervention buying. This abhorrence is not of a doctrinaire nature. The tradition of intervention buying in order to raise the price to the consumer finds little which we can support not, curiously, on economic grounds but rather on quasi-moralistic grounds. Therefore, the continuation of intervention buying was not a direct blow against the farming industry because we did not like the farming industry; it was essential.
  Throughout our debates on our accession to the European Community we on these benches have consistently said that intervention buying to restrict the supply
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  to the consumer and raise the price to the supplier was not the way to tackle the matter. Therefore, in July my right hon. Friend came up with the headage payment. It is fair to say that hon. Members on both sides of the House, as well as people in farming, not merely hoped that it would work but for some weeks genuinely believed that it would do the job. Expectation of a floor of £18 was not confined to my right hon. Friend the Minister, or to these benches Equally, however, we must now accept that it has been a total failure and that every penny of public money spent on the headage payment has been public money ill spent, for which there is no justification. The sooner it is scrapped and finished with and replaced by an effective form of Government money, the better.
  Therefore one asks what can be done, given that a crucial sector of British farming interests is at risk—indeed, at the moment, at very great risk. I would first diffentiate between the problems facing those involved in stock rearing and those involved in the fattening trade. There is particular concern for stock rearing people, especially those on the hills. The fattening people have had a temporary mischief done to them if they chose to buy store beasts at £130 or £140 a head 12 months ago only to find that stores are now being bought at £50, £60 and £70. Even at the present low level of return their plight, though one hesitates to say so, is tolerable by comparison with hill farmers. Their plight is tolerable though not ideal by a long way.
  We must see what we can do about producers of stock from the hills. One suggestion would be to subsidise their feedstuffs. I am on record in the House and elsewhere as being an advocate of feedstuff subsidy. Unfortunately, while I would urge upon my right hon. Friend that this should be examined, if—as the figures suggest, between the June 1970 census and the June 1974 census—there is an increase of 25 to 28 per cent. in the number of store beasts on the hills and the availability of fodder is down by 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. this winter as compared with the winter of 1970–71, to increase the cash to hill farmers to help to buy fodder would benefit not the hill farmers but rather the producers of fodder. It would simply increase the price

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  of fodder without benefiting the hill farmers as such.
  Therefore, however attractive a feedstuff subsidy might be on the surface, I have grave reservations. Although I hope that the Ministry will examine its feasibility, I have reservations about how it would work. With great deference to the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym), I must say that not many hills would benefit from a hill fodder subsidy in Cambridgeshire. I do not want to see the benefits that I wish to have paid in Merioneth, Caernarvon or Durham ending up in the Fenlands. That is not the object of the exercise. That sort of subsidy has limitations.
  There is the 60-day problem of imported Irish beef. Hon. Members who have spoken have been virtually uninimous in saying that that needs urgent attention.
  I again draw to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends the question of the timing of income tax payments by farmers. Those who were fortunate enough to make a high taxable income during the fiscal year ending April 1974 are having to pay the tax on it in the bad year that they are now going through. They are almost alone among businesses of similar turnover and capital value in having no means of carrying their tax over a three-year period. It would not be a major change to allow the farming community an income tax roll-over of about three years. However, that would not provide an immediate benefit.
  What can be done? The need is to put the aid on the hills, to give it to the hill farmers. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House can isolate the hills as the area of the problem. That can be done by a headage payment to the hill farmer for stock held now. That would give some assistance, but there is the risk of its being transferred elsewhere. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will consider the possibility of a headage payment, based upon returns in the December census or some other predetermined date, to see whether a cash injection by means of a hill farm headage payment can be made, so that the stock on these reservoir farms is maintained.
  The other possibility is brought to mind by the remarks of Herr Ertl in the German Bundestag between the German
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  veto and the next round of the discussions. If the translation I received is accurate, he made the interesting statement that experience in the Community had shown that end price support served the interests of neither the farmer nor the consumer. Given that statement made unequivocally by one of our European partners, I think that we have the right to exercise a derogation from the Treaty of Accession, under the pressing national need to introduce a straight guaranteed price with deficiency payments, as a temporary measure until the February discussions on the restructuring of the common agricultural policy's support price for beef are concluded.
  That would not be a permanent situation; it would come within the ambit of a temporary derogation. We should lay before Brussels our intention, given the extreme urgency and pressing nature of the problem, to reintroduce guaranteed prices, deficiency payments and the whole panoply of the 1947 Act. Unless my memory deceives me, we have never repealed that Act. It would require no more than a statutory instrument once more to activate the legislative facilities that are available. It would not require a great deal of parliamentary time. The means are at our disposal. We can isolate and determine the nature of the problem. Unless we make it clear that we are prepared to do this urgently, I fear that we shall fail the British farming community.
  However, that should merely be the precursor to the resurrection of a five-year rolling guaranteed programme, somewhat akin to that which occasionally works in the quinquennial estimates of universities. The farming community would then know for at least five years ahead what the minimum and maximum real-term returns were likely to be.
  The calves that are not to be born next spring or summer are the beef that will not be on the table in 1977 and 1978. To reverse that long cycle of beef production requires not only an immediate injection of short-term confidence but a return to confidence based on guarantees, of a period longer than that of the cycle of production.
  In the pig industry it is possible to increase productive capacity very quickly. In the cattle industry the cycle is four to five years. I entirely agree with Herr

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  Ertl that the system of intervention prices and the end price has been tried and found wanting.
  We should unilaterally reintroduce guaranteed prices at the earliest opportunity, using our powers of derogation from the Treaty of Accession, and then see that at the ministerial discussions in February we press for a five-year guaranteed price for the farmers. It is of no benefit to the miners or their wives in my constituency that the livestock producers on the hills should be forced into bankruptcy. There is no benefit to any part of this community in seeing the hill farmers reduced to penury.
  7.30 p.m.
  Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I find myself in agreement with many of the constructive suggestions made by the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes). I found myself thinking that what he was saying in the whole centre portion of his speech was correct. Many of the suggestions that he was making were sensible and constructive. However. I found that he contradicted himself in the last part of his speech when he said that he wished to introduce the deficiency payments system. He said a little earlier that he wanted to divide beef producers into two categories—namely, the fatteners and those who are rearing store cattle on the hills. He said that he accepted that for the fatteners these were difficult times but their situation was not disastrous. He said that they would be all right given the present price for buying stock. He then said that he wanted to bring in a wholesale deficiency payments system for those fatteners.
  I do not think that such a system is necessary. The hon. Gentleman is right when he says that under the derogation provisions in the treaty it is possible for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to take unilateral action for a minimum period or for a short period given a national emergency.
  I have never known a time when everything has been as depressing as it now is. I have been in agriculture for a long time and I have not been as depressed before. Hon. Member after hon. Member has reiterated the problems and difficulties which exist in their con-
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  stituencies. I attended a meeting outside the House earlier this evening, and I heard farmer after farmer saying that they were desperate. They pointed out that there was little time left. In my constituency before and during the election and over the past two weeks livestock farmers have been telephoning me and telling me how desperate their position is.
  When I came into the Chamber this afternoon I heard the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, for whom I have had a high regard in the past, making a speech the like of which I thought he would never have the nerve to make. It seems that he does not understand the exact position. The other possibility is that he is being deliberately misled. I do not know which it is. I do not believe that he is a fool; I have never thought that. Therefore, the position must be that he has not grasped the situation which has been put in front of him by his officials.
  This afternoon the right hon. Gentleman said that he appreciated that there are difficulties in the livestock section but that the rest of the industry was all right. He said that by his recent actions he had managed to ensure that dairying which, as he said, is one of the biggest sections of the livestock industry, will be all right. He said that he hoped that dairying would expand. I wish that that were the position. Even in the dairy sector there is no great joy and no great profit. The recent 7·7p per gallon increase which came out of the 5 per cent. overall increase following the Luxembourg negotiations which the right hon. Gentleman conducted will apply for the six winter months. It is an increase that is made up of various elements to compensate for the huge increase in costs and losses from which the dairying sector has been suffering.
  Does any occupant of the Government Front Bench really think that there will be enough milk come January and February for any butter to be made? No butter is being made now. Do the occupants of the Government Front Bench think that any cheese will be made in this country come January and February? There is little being made now. I doubt whether any will be made in January and February. I only hope that some of the gloomier forecasts that we hear about a milk shortage which will make imports of liquid milk necessary will be proved

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  wrong. If such imports are necessary it will be the first occasion in all the time that I have been in politics and in farming that they will have proved necessary. Because of the rundown and lack of confidence there is a great deal of despondency. Many dairy heifers in calf are being sent to the abattoirs. That has happened throughout the summer months. At the moment supply and demand is right on the balance. I hope that the Minister will not continue to be complacent about dairying.
  I now turn to the beef section of the livestock industry. Here we have a disastrous situation. We have heard of the prices in the various markets. I have exactly the same figures that I could quote from the markets in Derbyshire. I shall not weary the House with the figures. The Derbyshire figures are just as bad for the past week or so as any throughout the country.
  Prices are absolutely rock-bottom. There is no doubt that farmers are losing a great deal of money. What appals me is that the right hon. Gentleman has done nothing about it. What he has done is to talk about the situation in March. He set out the three matters that he wants to see in the new overall beef policy brought in by the Community. He referred to the intervention system, marketing premiums, production grants and a different import regime. We have been talking about such matters in the European Parliament and in committees of that Parliament for the past six or seven months. We have been examining them in detail. Various proposals have emerged from the Commission and through the parliamentary machinery in Europe. However, the situation will not be improved by talking about the introduction of such matters in March next year.
  One of the things that I have learned from the past 48 hours is that little time is left. That is the point that we must get over to the Minister. That applies not only to the livestock section of the industry but to other sections. There is little time left. That is why I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider what he has said today and whether the various steps that he has taken have been adequate.
  The right hon. Gentleman has said that he will bring in a new premium or sub-
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  sidy for butchers' wholesalers and private cold storage. He has said that he will give them a subsidy for such storage. That is moving to a certain extent on the lines of intervention. It is paying a subsidy for the storing of beef in private stores. He has said that the butchers will get £262 per ton for doing so. By so doing he is encouraging the wholesale trade to take up cold storage. That could be described as intervention. Naturally, an increasing amount of beef which is on the market will be put into storage. That will not raise the price in the markets. I accept what the hon. Member for Durham said about the quality of some of the cattle coming through from the farmers who decided 18 months ago, or less than that, to keep the cattle rather than put them straight down or to cull them out. I accept that the quality has gone down. But this subsidy will not do anything to improve the price structure immediately.
  At the moment there is a blockage at the slaughterhouse end. I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman intends to do about that. It is my firm belief that if we go on in the direction that we are now taking many of the small farmers and the hill farmers that the hon. Member for Durham talked about will go out of farming and we shall have the most enormous difficulties in the spring and summer next year. I do not believe that in the autumn the base stock will be available to restart the cycle about which we have been talking. That is what is worrying me. I do not believe that we can allow the present situation to continue for very much longer.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) said that an immediate cash injection into the livestock section of the industry is essential. Indeed, he said that it is essential for the whole industry but particularly for livestock. I could not agree more. The hon. Member for Durham said exactly the same. He reiterated the same plea for an immediate cash injection. It is vital that that should be done. The consequences of not doing so will be dreadful not only in terms of human misery now for many farmers and their families but for consumers in 12 or 18 months' time, when the real pinch will come.
  I was particularly attracted to and support what was said by the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) about

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  the import of Irish cattle. It seems extraordinary that we should allow in the amount of Irish beef that is coming here. I know that this is a traditional trade and that the amount being brought in now is probably the same as last year, but conditions this year are very different from what they were. We are now in a surplus situation. The bottom of the market has been torn away. We cannot afford to allow these cattle to come into this country in the quantities in which they are arriving here. I go along with the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, that there should be a minimum period of 60 days—if not 90 days, as suggested by one hon. Member—before there is a headage payment on slaughter.
  There has been a traditional trade in store cattle from Ireland. I do not know the figures, but I have put down a Question for the Minister to answer next week and I hope that I shall then get a definitive reply. One has to combine the fact of the import of these cattle with the fact that there is a shortage of fodder—whether the figure is 5 per cent., 10 per cent. or 15 per cent. I do not know.
  I was glad to hear the Minister say that he was conducting a nation-wide survey into the matter. If there is a shortage of about 10 per cent., it is important to consider whether, even if the size of the herds at home is reduced, there will be sufficient fodder to enable us to cope with these Irish store cattle. It seems stupid to encourage the import of store cattle at the same level as last year, bearing in mind that the situation has changed.
  I am not suggesting that the trade should be banned completely, because that would be against the terms of the EEC treaty and against the terms of the agreement between our two countries, but I suggest that the Minister should meet his counterpart in Southern Ireland and have talks with him to see what can be done to halve the level of imports into the United Kingdom.
  On the question of the beef fattener, I am attracted to the way in which the hon. Member for Durham divided up the problem. The fattener, the person who finishes off the cattle, is often a small farmer. In many instances he is also the breeder. He, too, must be helped, and, as my right hon. Friend suggested, some-
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  thing must be done quickly to provide the necessary assistance. The idea of a headage payment for farmers in the hills —most of my constituency is in the hills of Derbyshire—attracts me considerably, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider this proposal as a matter of urgency. This problem cannot wait to be dealt with in January, February or March. Farmers have to pay for their winter feed, and if something is not done within the next 10 days to help them many of the young store cattle will go to the slaughterhouse, and that will be a tragedy.
  The sugar beet question is a worrying one. I agree with what was said by my right hon. Friend and by other hon. Members about the need to increase our sugar beet crop. I was pleased that the Minister was able to get a large increase in the amount allowed under Quotas "A", "B" and "C", but these quotas will not be filled unless the Minister does something to increase the price level. I am sure the Minister realises that farmers are now deciding whether to put in winter wheat, barley or oats, or to put in a break crop such as sugar beet.
  If the right hon. Gentleman wants to see an increase in sugar beet acreage he must do something within the next two weeks to help those who are engaged in this business. New contracts have to be drawn up, and unless the new price level is attractive—£16 per ton plus—there will not be any increase in acreage for the 1975–76 crop year. It is essential to get the maximum acreage planted, and thus get the maximum amount of sugar beet in 1975–76.
  I do not think that I need reiterate all the arguments that have been put forward by my hon. Friends and, in particular, by my right hon. Friend. Everything that has been said today emphasises the despair and cynicism that one finds throughout the farming industry. There is cynicism about broken promises made by both the right hon. Gentleman and the Conservative Government. When we were in power, we asked for increased production in almost every sector. That started to happen, and things were going well. Having said that we wanted an increase, we said that we would ensure that farmers received a fair return for what they were doing. From 1973 onwards, by using the machinery of the

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  CAP, farmers were being given a reasonable return for what they were doing.
  The present Minister, however, ripped all that away in March 1974—hence the despair in the livestock sector—by stopping the intervention system and putting nothing in its place. Time is not on the right hon. Gentleman's side, nor on ours. I want something positive to be done soon. I want to see money put into the livestock sector. If that is not done there will be disaster this winter for farmers and in 1975 for consumers. I repeat that the Minister does not have very much time in which to take the necessary action.
  7.48 p.m.
  Mr. D. E. Thomas: I am glad to follow the speeches of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins), with whom I find myself in almost complete agreement, and the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes), who is a constituent of mine and who tonight ably stated the needs of hill farmers.
  In three debates I have spoken about the situation facing hill farmers and it is sad, representing, as I do, a hill farming area, to realise that my points still have not got across to the Minister for Agriculture or the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales. I do not want to adopt the bad habit of quoting from former speeches, but in the debate on 8th May many of us said that the crisis now facing hill farmers would occur this October. The difficulty has worked its way through the cycle, and the drop in price for fatteners has hit store producers and the people in my constituency who rely so heavily on store cattle for their livelihood.
  We heard from the Minister what I can only describe as a speech that was the height of complacency. He said that beef accounted for only 15 per cent. of the agricultural production of Great Britain. In Merioneth, the value of agricultural production derived from cattle is 57 per cent. These figures show the extent of the crisis there. Only last year Ministry officials declared Merioneth a hill project area. The local farmers cooperated all the way. They took the statements and guarantees by Ministry officials about the project at their face value. There has been a threefold increase in stock. The increase has been
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  going on, not only during the past year but over the last 15 years.
  However, the area is now facing a crisis of fodder deficiency which is worse than in any other part of the United Kingdom. I look for confirmation from the Secretary of State for Wales of the figures I have had for fodder deficiency in Wales. They indicate that it is over 20 per cent. and that in our hill area it is over 60 per cent. The suppliers of hay, when they are able to supply it, are charging up to £100 per ton to some of my hill farmers in Merioneth. Over the very hard winter before us, lack of fodder and lack of finance to buy what there is will hit the uplands in a way which I can only compare to an outbreak of disease. Farmers are already talking, in my area, about the need for a programme of slaughter as though we had been hit by a foot-and-mouth outbreak.
  What action did we expect from the Government today? The House has had a succession of agricultural debates in the last seven months. Honourable Members in all parties have called for the restoration of a form of guaranteed price system. I am glad to see that some hon. Members on both sides who voted, prior to our entry into the EEC, in favour of destroying our previous system have now been converted, but I am concerned about what seems to be the conversion of the Minister of Agriculture himself the other way. It is clear that he has been spending far too much time in Brussels being converted to tacit acceptance of Community regulations.
  If I read correctly between the lines of what the Foreign Secretary said yesterday he, too, has surrendered to a renegotiation of the common agricultural policy which is far from fundamental. The right hon. Gentleman referred to it yesterday, comparing it to the walls of Jericho. He said that he had begun the long march round it. While he is marching round the walls of Jericho, followed by the Minister of Agriculture and his trumpets, the cattle of Israel are dying of starvation in the wilderness. This is why I welcome the words and actions of the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan). Last night he said:
  "In terms of agriculture we have not even started renegotiating yet—we have been trying to take ameliorative steps in a difficult

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  situation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th October 1974; Vol. 880, c. 326.]
  The Minister of Agriculture has been clutching at straws for the last six months—a calf subsidy, then a headage payment. Today he said that he will introduce his own Mark II version of intervention, which is what it is in effect. It is the level of payment he is planning to give for storage. All the right hon. Gentleman's schemes have failed to restore a realistic level of income of £22 per cwt. to the beef producer.
  What the right hon. Gentleman must do is not catch the next plane to Brussels to ask EEC officials what he can do. The right hon. Gentleman must reintroduce the fatstock guarantee price system in the United Kingdom as a matter of urgency in the period up to next March. It is no use the right hon. Gentleman saying that in March there will be a new beef regime which will be according to the principles he has discussed today. Those principles have already been enunciated in the European Parliament. What we must have is the urgent introduction of a fatstock guaranteed price as it operated prior to British entry into the EEC. It must be restored, and an announcement of its restoration must be made within the next week if we are to avert the total collapse of our hill farming.
  The attitude of the Minister of Agriculture is complacent. So was the attitude of the Leader of the House when the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) asked today about the possibility of a debate about the export of live animals. The Leader of the House said that there might well be a debate at some stage. Perhaps it will be after Christmas, after we have had a devolution debate. It is clear that the Government must ensure an immediate debate to enable the House to take a vote on the O'Brien Report. Here, the kind old ladies of the animal cruelty pressure groups have a lot to answer for. They conducted very successfully their campaign to halt this trade. I hope that they will be equally strong in demanding that the trade should be resumed, subject to the O'Brien safeguards. I hope that they will also be as forthright in their pressure for animal welfare at home. There is no difference between animals dying of thirst—as the accusations suggested—in
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  ships going to France and animals dying of starvation on the hills of Merioneth.
  I ask the Secretary of State for Wales to state clearly what action the Government plan to take about the fodder question. A survey of the fodder position, which is all we have been promised so far by the Minister of Agriculture, does not go far enough. There is obvious need for low interest loans to be made available immediately to farmers through clearing banks to enable them to buy fodder available at home or abroad, or, as I advocated some months ago, for a direct price supplement on feeding stuffs to match the massive escalation of fodder and feed costs. The credit squeeze which is now on so many family farms and so many young farmers presents a desperate situation.
  I myself encouraged many young farmers in my area to go into the agricultural industry. I have seen recently the accounts of some of these boys. No wonder they are in Holyhead stirring up trouble when they see the way they have been losing money over the last two years. The credit facilities available to farmers must be reviewed urgently, not only on a short-term basis to meet the immediate crisis, but on a long-term basis to ensure that we in the United Kingdom have similar institutions for treating the cash flow problems of farmers as already exist in most other agricultural economies.
  To meet the immediate crisis in the uplands there must a cash injection of this kind. I was attracted by the proposal of a special headage premium for hill areas, put forward by the hon. Member for Durham, as a way to bring immediate relief to hill areas.
  I am also concerned about the store cattle producers in my area who have sold their cattle at disgustingly low prices recently and have to face the winter with the possibility of a slightly increased hill cow and hill sheep deficiency payment being paid at the end of the year. These people are in urgent need now to be able to meet their feed bills over the next two months. This is why I should like to see the winter keep supplement increased immediately for the hill areas.
  I have tried to make some constructive suggestions on which I hope for the Secretary of State's comments tonight and when we meet him next week. The hill

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  farmers I represent are not militant men and women. They are not the sort of people who resort to industrial action. They are people who have always lived on a relatively low income, preferring the life style of the uplands to any alternative form of employment in the lowlands.
  Assurances have been given to them by successive Ministers of Agriculture about the importance of store cattle production, sheep production and small dairy herd production in the overall livestock and dairy industries of these islands. They are now in a position where they cannot tighten their belts further. They do not have the financial resources to feed their calves and they have an income of nothing more than the average £25 a week that they are now getting for their families. It is no wonder that the agricultural workers' union is concerned about the level of remuneration for agricultural workers in my area, because, clearly, the total income position of agriculture substantially affects any possibility of their being able to have an adequate living standard.
  That is why these people have been taking direct industrial action at Holyhead and other ports. I am very worried about what is going on, and I endorse what was said on the subject by the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes). The Minister of Agriculture should be intensely worried about what is going on, because the people who are blockading the ports are desperate men and are acting in desperate need. They are hitting out at the nearest pressure point that they can find. That is what the North Wales farmers have done. They are seeing a totally depressed market being over-flooded, and they are acting accordingly.
  I certainly endorse what has been said about the need to restore a 60-day delay period before payment of the headage premium, but I do not want to see things getting worse at Holyhead, where the situation is becoming a confrontation between NUR members, the police and the farmers. I am worried about a possible escalation and I want the Secretary of State for Wales and the Minister of Agriculture to take these warnings seriously. I endorse the view of the Minister of Agriculture that we all have a responsibility to protest within the law and to resist violence, but the Government
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  too, have a responsibility to protect the livelihoods of the 30,000 people in Wales who are directly or indirectly concerned with the beef sector.
  The Government have a social contract with industrial employees, pensioners and the disabled, the people to whom the Prime Minister referred as the useful people in our society. Does this contract also extend to the hill farmers of Wales and of the other areas in Britain under pressure? I can see no distinction between the average workers in manufacturing industry in my constituency so far getting less than the TUC basic minimum of £30 a week, and the small or medium-scale family farmer trying to exist and to reduce and service his increasingly crippling debts on less than £25 a week while keeping his family.
  This is my appeal. We have heard clearly from both sides of the House today a measure of strong agreement about the depth of the crisis and the type of measures that must be introduced. I appeal to the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Wales to respond to the rational case that has been put by a united House, because if they will not respond, none of us can bear responsibility for the consequences for agriculture, for our whole social being, and for our rural areas.
  8.3 p.m.
  Mr. John Tomlinson: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) is no longer in his place, because I want briefly to refer to the point he was making. He was something less than fair to my right hon. Friend in his criticism of the special arrangements that were made in Brussels for milk, because although he went to great lengths to criticise my right hon. Friend he did not make it clear that he did not reflect the views that the National Farmers' Union has circulated to all hon. Members today. If the NFU can welcome the arrangement in fairly wide, sweeping and glowing terms, it was rather less than charitable of the hon. Gentleman to refer to the arrangements as being inadequate.
  I do not want to go over the problems again, because the House is fairly united about the problems facing agriculture and it does not serve much purpose to

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  spend time discussing where the problem began. What is certain is that it did not begin with the election of a Labour Government on 28th February. It began when arrangements that had served the country well for the best part of a quarter of a century were scrapped by the Conservative Government in 1970.
  Perhaps we should note that at the time those arrangements were scrapped there was no outcry about guaranteed prices as there is today. It would be fair to say that a large number of farmers welcomed the scrapping of the arrangements because they felt that a free market would produce greater returns for them than they were getting under the system of deficiency payments. The present outcry that now rightly exists is an admission that a large number of people in the farming fraternity were wrong in their evaluation of the situation then. I welcome their conversion back to recognising the need for guaranteed prices.
  What needs to be done? The case has been made very well, and I would merely urge on my right hon. Friend the need for immediate action to provide a guaranteed floor in the beef market, not in March but now as a matter of the utmost urgency, certainly until we can get some clarification about the arrangements that will exist in the Community next March. We cannot wait through this long winter of six months with the present uncertainity in the industry, uncertainty that has already existed for far too long.
  The second factor that I urge on my right hon. Friend is the need to use his influence to ensure that we have an opportunity in the House as quickly as possible to express our views on the O'Brien Report. It is nonsensical that we should have suspended the export of live animals while awaiting the O'Brien Report, and now that report has now been hanging around for months. This, too is a matter of the utmost urgency.
  I should like to mention one or two problems that I found when I recently toured various farms in my constituency. It is a constituency with a great diversity of agriculture. It has one very prominent farmer in that Sir Henry Plumb himself farms in the centre. I spent a day with representatives of the NFU and found a diversity of problems, as well
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  as those concerned with beef. For instance, there are problems facing poultry producers. In my constituency egg production costs are about 24·5p per dozen. There are substantial dumped imports from France coming on to the market at prices below production costs at a time when there is no reciprocity. Apparently our market is their market but their market is theirs. This matter needs urgent attention in the interests of poultry producers.
  The next problem is the vexed question of tied cottages. I am an unapologetic supporter of the abolition of tied cottages, but it is far too little merely to support their abolition. I urge my right hon. Friend to use his influence to ensure that, coincidental with their abolition, which I believe must come, sufficient resources are directed to the building of municipal accommodation in rural areas so that agricultural tenancies may quickly become available to new farm labour. It would be nonsense to have agricultural cottages occupied by people not connected with the land, so depriving the farmer of an opportunity to get, for instance, a herdsman in his employ.
  I unreservedly support the abolition of tied cottages, but it must coincide with the direction of resources to the building of municipal accommodation in rural areas, so that farmers may have an opportunity to resecure the tenancy of a cottage that would otherwise be occupied by a former employee.
  Mr. Jerry Wiggin: Does the hon. Gentleman believe that a similar principle should be applied to policemen's houses, nurses' houses and all other tied houses?
  Mr. Tomlinson: I do not want to extend that principle too far without further detailed consideration of it. There is no doubt a degree of validity in that comparison. I would want to look at it in detail before saying whether I thought it was an exact comparison.
  The statement in the Gracious Speech dealing with agriculture is brief. It says:
  "My Ministers recognise the value to the nation of expanding domestic food production."
  We are in a rather peculiar situation in my part of the country. We apparently have this commitment to expanding domestic food production and yet we

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  find another Government Department going through the expensive exercise of ripping up large areas of rural countryside to put down motorways of dubious value. I am not sure whether there are people who want to use them. In my constituency we have the proposed M6 and M42 link and the M42 link between the M6 and the M1. But it will go only half-way because the programme is not completed beyond 1990. It will go from the M6 to the middle of nowhere. This continues a process of ripping up valuable agricultural land.
  As was rightly pointed out by the document from the National Farmers' Union, which we received during the election, the entire urban motorway programme over the past decade has been responsible for ripping up an amount of farmland equivalent to the county of Oxfordshire. It is nonsense that we should be talking about expanding domestic food production and yet in the period of a decade allow that amount of land to go under. If this process continues it will inevitably lead to much greater dependence on food imports. We must place the same degree of priority on import-saving industries, such as agriculture, as we have always placed on export—promoting industries.
  There is a need for much greater clarity of thought about how we use valuable land resources before allowing the interurban motorway programme to proceed. I know, from the public meetings I had with farmers and with NFU officials during the election that there is concern about the implications of the proposed wealth tax upon many people in agriculture. I suggest that one of the reasons why this is so has to do with the degree of speculation that has gone on in agricultural land. Agricultural land values have soared. It is that process which has made many farmers concerned about the effects of the wealth tax. If the escalation in land values had not taken place, many of them would not be worried about this tax.
  This is a sector in which a couple of specific things ought to be looked at. In many parts of the country, certainly in my constituency, there are areas of interim green belt which lead to speculation. Farmers are deciding to leave some of their fields fallow in the hope that they will obtain planning consents. Much of
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  the doubt about interim green belt areas has to be cleared up. We must have decisions about the exact perimeters of these areas and clear knowledge of what will happen. This will enable us to stop the speculative non-use of agricultural land.
  My main point concerns the beef producers. There must be the introduction of a floor in the market. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) has suggested in admirable detail just what needs to be done about our Common Market commitments. There is far too great a problem to allow us to sit back and wait, hoping that negotiations in Brussels will produce something meaningful next March. Something needs to be done now. It can be done now. I am not so critical as many Conservative Members of the Minister of Agriculture. Nor would I describe him as complacent. I am confident that he is clearly aware of the problems of British agriculture and actively concerned to find a solution.
  I hope that at the end of this debate my right hon. Friend takes careful note of the almost unanimous view of the House that we should return to the kind of agricultural support system which had served the nation well for the best part of a quarter of a century and which was capriciously scrapped by the Conservative Government and should now be replaced.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. John Farr: I want to follow the line taken by nearly all speakers from both sides of the House. It is a pity that senior Ministers do not wind up every evening during the Gracious Speech. If the Minister of Agriculture had had the opportunity of sitting throughout this debate he would have been far more impressed than he will be by a report from a junior Minister or from a reading of HANSARD. He would have heard the depth of feeling expressed by hon. Members and would have realised that it is a matter of life and death—something which the HANSARD writers, however able they may be, can never properly convey in the printed word.
  I represent a constituency in the Midlands which specialises in the finishing of beef cattle. I can only reiterate some of the facts presented to the House. My

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  constituents who are finishing cattle are now selling those cattle at £15 a cwt., including the £2 or so slaughter premium which they are receiving. Those cattle are passing out of their hands at a loss to them of £50 a head. Without taking into account the new increased fodder prices, my constituents are already standing a loss of about £5 a cwt. When the Minister spoke at the beginning of the debate, before he had the opportunity of hearing the views of hon. Members, he gave me the impression of not being aware that this time Members of Parliament are not crying wolf. I like the right hon. Gentleman and admire him very much but he must realise that everyone is in deadly earnest.
  If the right hon. Gentleman could have listened to some of the hundreds of farmers who have come here today as I did this afternoon he would realise that it is a matter of life and death. He said that it might be a little difficult until the new measures came in in March. That is not good enough. That is totally inadequate for livestock producers in my constituency and other parts of the country who have to face what could be a disastrous situation.
  What is to be done? We have all said this situation cannot continue. The first of three immediate actions I would like to see taken would be to increase the slaughter premium. At the moment it runs at £20 to £30 a head. It should be increased, and I would like to see it doubled to help finishers of fat beef achieve some solvency.
  We have talked about the O'Brien Report. Earlier this afternoon the Leader of the House, in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), said that he was still thinking about when we were to have a debate on that report. We were asking the right hon. Gentleman in June about a debate. I have a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary written in August saying that we were to have the debate. When the Leader of the House was asked today not only did he not know when the debate would be but he gave the impression that it is not likely to be in the foreseeable future and not even before Christmas.
  I hope that right hon. Members and hon. Members on the Government Front
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  Bench will convey to the Leader of the House the fact that next Thursday when we ask him about this we would like him to be a little more sympathetic. Can he not give us at least the impression that such a debate is somewhere near the top of the list, because many hon. Members think that the O'Brien Report should have been implemented months ago?
  We cannot understand how Irish live cattle on the hoof are allowed to come into Britain and take our markets, preventing our own fat cattle producers from getting a fair return, when at the same time other live fat cattle from Ireland are shipped down the Irish Sea through the English Channel to take over the former export markets which we once enjoyed on the Continent and which we have now abandoned because we cannot make up our minds about the O'Brien Report. It does not help the animals. The length of the journey is doubled and their condition deteriorates. They have to go all the way from Dublin or Cork and undertake a stormy voyage across the Irish Sea compared with the short trip across the English Channel.
  I hope that the Leader of the House will give us a fixed date for a debate on the O'Brien Report—we are tired of waiting—so that the House may be allowed to make a decision on this urgent matter.
  The third matter on which I should like urgent action relates to fat cattle coming into the country from Ireland. The Times leader is often accurate. Today it was hopelessly inaccurate and inadequate on the subject. It did not define the difference between store cattle and beef cattle. In normal times we are glad to have Irish store cattle. Farmers in my constituency demand them in normal times. What they will not tolerate is Irish finished cattle coming to this country in limitless quantities and spoiling the limited market for our fat cattle producers. This must be stopped.
  The recommendation made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) and Members on both sides of the House must be put into effect. A minimum period of 60 days before producers qualify for the slaughter premium must be introduced this week.
  I hope that there will be an opportunity soon to discuss the dangerous

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  effects which the Government's proposals for a wealth tax will have on the family farm and the continuance of the practice of handing down a farm from father to son. I hope that if the Government decide to introduce legislation on tied cottages they will bear in mind that the agricultural tied cottage is but a small element of the total number of tied cottages. Only one in six of the tied cottages is owned by farmers. The others are owned by large nationalised corporations such as the National Coal Board. We shall be bringing such points as this to the attention of the House if the Government illogically and unfairly threaten the existence of many small farmers who rely upon the tied cottage system.
  8.23 p.m.
  Mr. Jerry Wiggin: One of the gravest responsibilities of the Minister is the supply of food to our people, and it is on one aspect of the supply of a vital foodstuff that I wish to speak.
  I am curious, and perhaps disappointed, that the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) did not speak yesterday about his resignation from the important position of Minister of State at the Ministry of Agriculture. I think that the country is owed an explanation on what clearly must have been a difference of opinion. I can only assume that it was because the way in which the Minister treated his juniors could be compared with the way in which he treated the House today, ignoring every problem put to him and failing to deal with any of the vital, crucial issues facing the nation. I imagine that the farming community will be disturbed to read about the appalling way in which the Minister spoke today.
  I wish to deal with two items of production. First, dairy farmers in my constituency are pleased with the amount of help that they have received in connection with milk production, but it simply makes up for the difficulties which they experienced in selling their cull cows and calves. I am reminded of a letter which the Minister wrote to my colleagues in Somerset and myself in July in which he dealt with this matter. He said:
  "An improvement in the beef sector should have its effect for milk producers, who, you anticipated, would face problems later in the year. I will of course be keeping a close
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  watch on developments in what I know is one of the most important sections of the industry in the area which you represent".
  To some extent, he has done that. While the increase has taken account of difficulties to date, what will happen if foodstuff prices rise again this autumn?
  I acknowledge that the Government have done something about the matter in that they have dealt with the levy, but what I have not heard mentioned so far is the mutterings of the European Economic Commission that there will be restrictions on imported foodstuffs, particularly soya and other proteins, in the forthcoming winter to save currency and restrict the Community's deficiency payment. I appreciate that this is a minor point, but perhaps it will receive the Minister's attention.
  The second matter I wish to mention is the question of glasshouse oil. The Minister was extremely offhand when other hon. Members and myself tried to ask him a question about this during his speech. The purpose of the glasshouse oil subsidy is to enable our producers to compete fairly with producers on the Continent. It is no good the Minister saying how he won this in the face of great hostility, knowing that it is coming to an end in December, when most producers will be planting crops which will be produced early in the new year. In an industry which requires immense capital investment, is highly labour-intensive and is important for the production of fresh domestic produce, it is unfair to leave people so long in the dark.
  I wish to direct my main remarks to the question of sugar supplies. I must declare a personal financial interest in that I work for Manbre and Garton the smallest of the three sugar refiners in the country. No one argues about the basic sugar requirements of this country. They are estimated at 2·62 million tons in the forthcoming year. That is the amount which was used last year, and it is reasonable to assume that the amount used in the forthcoming year will be roughly the same. Of that 2·62 million tons, 620,000 tons will be provided by the British sugar beet growers and the British Sugar Corporation. Therefore, the Government must secure for the nation 2 million tons of sugar for the forthcoming 12 months.
  The Government are hoping that 1·4 million tons of sugar will come from the

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  developing Commonwealth. But will they? There is no indication that a price or a delivery date has been agreed. There is no assurance under Protocol 22 that the developing Commonwealth will deliver the 1·4 million tons, and there is substantial evidence that, even if we can pay an attractive enough price, the figure will fall short by 300,000 tons or more.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that it was not possible to obtain the sugar from Australia. I admit that during the last few weeks there have been special difficulties, but those difficulties did not exist in the early part of this year. It the right hon. Gentleman had moved at the time when everyone in the industry was telling him to get on with it, that supply from Australia—assured and consistently supplied over the years at a reasonable price—could have come to this country.
  Let us assume that the whole 1·4 million tons comes from the developing countries. We are still left with a deficit of 600,000 tons. The Minister says that he has secured our sugar supplies when he knows full well that the Lardinois proposals covered only 200,000 tons. That 200,000 tons does not necessarily have to come to Britain. It is 200,000 tons for the whole of the EEC. Our refineries are not tendering for sugar; they are tendering for subsidy. That has escaped the notice of many people. There seems to be substantial evidence that Italy will be better placed to tender for subsidy. Therefore, it is quite likely that we shall not get all that 200,000 tons. I should be grateful to know where the funding for this operation will come from.
  Of the 2 million ton deficit in supplies of sugar for next year not one ounce is assured to any refinery in the United Kingdom. Here we are at 31st October, with two months to run before the end of the calendar year, and no assurances of supplies for next year. The consequence of this are far-reaching, not just to the housewife who is already finding it difficult to obtain packet sugar. She is by no means the major consumer of sugar. It is the food industry that we have to worry about in this context. I am not talking simply about jam, biscuits, ice cream and soft drinks. Sugar goes into almost every food and, for that matter, every
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  drink, beer being a big consumer of sugar. The nation's shopping basket will be affected and many thousands of people will be thrown out of work if a proper supply of sugar cannot be assured for the months to come. I am talking not only about the food industry but also about the cane refineries, which employ about 9,000 people, all of whose jobs can be affected by the shortage of cane raws in the coming year. I am not speaking for the cane industry or for my company. I speak in the House only for my constituents and myself and therefore I should like also to comment on the sugar beet side, which plays an important part. The right hon. Gentleman went to Europe to try to obtain 1¼ million tons, and he came back with 1,040,000 tons, slapping himself hard on the back for this achievement and yet in 1971–72 our farmers produced 1,070,000 tons. It is true that he came back with 45 per cent. "B" quota and that the farmer will be paid the same amount for that "B" quota, but he has only one year's guarantee. It is like the 200,000 tons in the Lardinois proposals—only 12-months' supply. So the farmers will not go over board in welcoming these proposals.
  It is common knowledge that the contracts are going out to beet growers within the next week or 10 days, and there are good reasons—which have to do with the allocation of quotas internally within the United Kingdom—why they will sign their contracts. There is also reason to believe that they will abrogate those contracts next spring if they do not receive a substantial increase in the price of beet.
  I am talking not only about the EEC transition plus the 5 per cent. which will apply from 1st January but also about the increase in cost which sugar beet growers have to bear. They are thinking in terms of an increase of 40 or 50 per cent. in prices.
  Perhaps one of the Ministers will explain how the British Sugar Corporation will cope both physically and financially with the extra beet tonnage involved. It is well known that the capacity is not available and that the cost of increasing capacity is huge. The capacity is not available to slice the beet even if 1,500 tons were to be grown next year by our growers.

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  The paramount item the Minister should consider is the strategic future of the supply of sugar to the nation. If the policy is to be that the sugar comes only from beet growers in the United Kingdom and Europe it would be a good thing if he were to say so. That would mean the destruction of the cane industry. What about the developing countries and their absolutely staple livelihood in cane production? The destruction of our cane refineries would make life very difficult for them.
  There is plenty of evidence that we may be running into a world sugar shortage. I quote from an article by David Richardson, an expert on sugar beet published in the Financial Times on 10th October:
  "There is a growing realisation that the shortage could be more serious and long-term than present problems of grain supplies. Recent German estimates put world requirement of sugar by 1985 at 110 million tons—30 million tons more than at present—to maintain present levels of consumption. This implies sustained expansion of both cane and beet sugar production as well as massive investment in processing capacity in all the sugar-growing areas of the world."
  Therefore the present is not a good time to begin to put out of business the quite substantial cane-refining industry in Britain.
  Although I look forward to hearing the Secretary of State for Wales replying to the debate I believe that it is a bad habit—a habit which has been developed by both Labour and Conservative administrations—that in agricultural debates the Secretaries of State for Scotland or Wales are asked to carry out the task of winding up. Many of the speeches in this debate have dealt with highly specialised agricultural matters. I am certain that the Minister of State, who is sitting on the Government Front Bench, and whom I welcome in his new appointment, is well able to answer some of the detailed points which have been raised today, whereas the Secretary of State for Wales has so many responsibilities that inevitably he can deal with only some of these problems. This is no reflection on the right hon. and learned Gentleman because it also applies to his predecessors who have found themselves in a similar position.
  However, I would ask the Secretary of State for Wales to answer three simple questions. Where is next year's sugar
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  for the United Kingdom coming from? When will the refineries be guaranteed any supplies? Lastly, what do the Government intend to do about the inevitable and worsening shortage of sugar to all forms of consumers in the coming year?
  8.38 p.m.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I apologise to the House for being absent for part of this long and interesting debate, but Parliament has soon got very much under way with visits to the House today from two large delegations, from Hawker-Siddeley Aviation and the other from the farmers. Since I have a constituency interest, I felt that it was my duty to meet both delegations. Unfortunately, that duty took me out of the Chamber for part of the debate.
  I managed to be present for the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym), and particularly noted his remarks about the present situation in farming. I also heard the ideas of the Minister of Agriculture on what should be done to put the situation right. I was interested a little later to hear the contribution made by the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes). I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to that speech, and, indeed, will consider drafting the hon. Gentleman into the Ministry of Agriculture, since he offered some positive solutions to the dire situation facing the livestock sector. I hope that the Government Front Bench will pay attention to the remarks of one of their own kind who showed that, although he represents a mining constituency, he has considerable understanding in depth of the problems facing livestock farmers.
  In my brief contribution I wish to make it clear that I do not believe that the problems in agriculture began in February. They did not. They have been with us for many years and are the responsibility of successive Governments. I am pleased to say that a number of my Conservative colleagues have expressed the view that the last Conservative Government acted far too late in tackling the problems of the milk and livestock sectors. I share that view. I believe that we should have acted to deal with the situation which we saw developing and of which the farmers, in their wisdom, warned us.

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  I met the NFU delegation when they visited the House today and, among them, the chairman of the Macclesfield NFU branch. He described the situation in the livestock sector as a national disaster, and I agree with him. The Labour Government showed that they could act quickly when in March they made a substantial offer to the mineworkers because they considered them to be essential to our economy and its future. I believe that the Government should act again now to assist another section of the community, the farmers, who are just as vital to our welfare as are the miners.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) represented extremely accurately the dire situation facing our hill farmers. The chairman of the Macclesfield branch of the NFU said recently that they
  "are not just dazed by what is happening to their livelihood, they are absolutely shell-shocked."
  "Shell-shocked" is the right expression. He went on:
  "The feed situation is desperate. Few of those who make hay have managed to get in more than half a normal crop this year—and some have harvested none at all."
  I will not dwell on the fodder problem. That has been dealt with adequately by hon. Members on both sides of the House. But what this House has said to the Government today is that action is needed if agriculture, especially the livestock sector, is to play any part in the future of the country. Sir Henry Plumb, the president of the NFU, has said that by 1980, given the right climate, farming can make an additional contribution of £750 million to our balance of payments. Surely that is a contribution which is worth while. Surely, therefore, the Government should enable our farmers to make this contribution to the country.
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire said, we must put a floor back into the market immediately. We must have a special autumn price review in order to inject cash and confidence back into the industry. If the present Government can squander up to £600 million to date on indiscriminate food subsidies, cannot they halve that and put £300 million into British agriculture, where the effect will be very substantial?
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  In this direction, too, we should enter into negotiations with the farmers' unions and their other representatives product by product in order to decide where subsidies on feeding stuffs are necessary to see our farmers through this winter.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) spoke about the export of live animals and the O'Brien Report. As hon. Members will know, I have taken a considerable interest in the subject. More than a year ago I went to Europe with a consignment of cattle from my constituency to see the conditions that they experienced right from the auction to the slaughterhouse in The Hague. I found the conditions excellent in every way, and that finding has been upheld on a much wider plane by the O'Brien Committee's Report.
  In my view this House acted in ignorance when it took the decision to ban the export of live animals. It should recognise today that it is a mistake not to resume the trade immediately in line with the O'Brien Committee's Report.
  As a number of hon. Members have said in the course of the debate, we must also look again at imports of cattle from the Irish Free State. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West said that we could not cut them off immediately. But, as well as our responsibility to the Irish Free State, I believe that we have a responsibility to our United Kingdom farmers. Finished cattle from Ireland are flooding the British market, choking our abattoirs and reducing the price that our own farmers can get. The Government can take arbitrary action in this respect and immediately terminate for a period the import of finished cattle from the Irish Free State.
  Within the European concept, I believe that we have an opportunity to take unilateral action as and when necessary in order to safeguard our farming industry. We can do it. I am well aware that a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House are opposed to the European Economic Community. However, I believe that there is sufficient flexibility within the EEC to enable a Government of this country to take unilateral action to safeguard a particular sector of British agriculture in a crisis situation.

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  Finally, I want to refer briefly to the Government's proposals relating to a wealth tax, because I think that it has an important bearing on British agriculture. The small family farm is still a vital part of our agriculture industry. I make a particular plea to Ministers on the Treasury Bench to make representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that any wealth tax that he proposes to bring in should be carefully considered in its effect on agricultural holdings. We do not want the small family farm to be broken up. We want the son to inherit from his father. That creates tremendous stability and keeps within the industry many of those who know how it should be run, and it has contributed to a large extent to the success of British agriculture in the past.
  We face a serious situation. As I said, the chairman of the Macclesfield branch of the National Farmers' Union has described it as a national disaster. It is wrong that the Minister should come to the Dispatch Box today and state that he does not feel that he can take any positive action until March. That is not good enough. This opinion is shared by many hon. Gentlemen opposite. The farmers demand action, and action now.
  8.46 p.m.
  Mr. John Spence: I should like to apologise for a short absence from the Chamber during the debate. Certain points arise from the Minister's opening speech on which I know that the farmers to whom I have been speaking this afternoon will want some clarification.
  The first point to come out of the debate was an allegation that in exchange for the October package it was agreed that we as a nation would not act unilaterally regarding agriculture prices in this country. I should like to know whether that is true or false.
  The second point, which arises directly from the Minister's speech, was that there had been a to-ing and fro-ing on whether we should have a guarantee or intervention; whether we on this side were to blame for not having a guarantee or the Government are to blame regarding intervention.
  Our farmers can live outside or within the EEC. They cannot live mid-channel neither in nor outside the European Com-
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  munity. I therefore ask, are we to have membership of the European Community and its system, or our own system of guarantee which implies non-membership?
  Thirdly, will the Minister distinguish as clearly as possible the difference between the intervention that he now proposes of taking beef into storage and the proposed intervention system of the European Community? Will he also indicate why the cost of the intervention storage that he now proposes is about 50 per cent. more than we are paying for winter keep to our farmers?
  It is heartbreaking and certainly distressing to attend the markets at Borough-bridge, Thirsk, Malton and Bedale and to see the effects of the low prices that farmers are getting for their produce. The low price of beef is now working its way back through the various strata of the industry.
  I shall confine my remarks to one area, in which I have a special interest and which often goes unnoticed. Cattle rearers on hill and marginal farms are suffering considerably. The Minister has sufficient knowledge of the facts to agree that this is true. He said earlier that by next March his new proposals for a beef regime in the Community might bear fruit. He will find from his statistics and other information available to him that next March will be far too late for a whole range of marginal and hill farmers. Consequently, something must be done now. There cannot be any intellectual disagreement between us on that.
  What is required now in that stratum of the industry is an announcement of the price we are likely to be paid for our produce in the fatstock market next February or March so that the full transmission chain of store animals can take place and the interruption to it is stopped as soon as possible. Many hill men who are now keeping cattle which would otherwise have gone as stores are keeping their cattle over the winter and, because they have no alternative, are knowingly converting their business enterprise into a gamble. We should not place such valuable members of the community in such a position.
  I will state what action is needed in the form of questions. First, why cannot we have a minimum price for beef determined now, or at least a guide price

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  determined now, so that the transmission chain can take place and we can see our hill and marginal men out of their problems? Secondly, why cannot we have a review of the export of live animals now in view of the O'Brien Report rather than be faced with the delay and hedging, as I suggest it was, to which we were treated at Business Question Time earlier today? Thirdly, why cannot we insist upon a two or three-month waiting period for imported Irish animals? I was present this afternoon at the meeting of the representatives from my constituency who attended the House. They are extremely worried and frustrated and are determined to bring their frustration to the Govrnment's notice at the highest level.
  As regards agriculture generally, what has been voiced to me constantly throughout my constituency, which is a major agricultural constituency, is lack of confidence in the future. This lack of confidence is a result of the absence of any recognisable medium-term policy on which people can rely. We have had the worst of both worlds. We have had ad hoc and piecemeal measures which have only added to the lack of confidence and achieved the very opposite of the result the Minister hoped to achieve.
  I call for a firm decision on where the farmer is to look for his income and how much he can expect by way of income from selling his output. The farmer wants to know the source of his income. Is it to come from the market backed by intervention, where appropriate, or is it to come from the guaranteed price system? Which is it to be? That decision is all the farmer is asking for. The decision is within the Minister's competence to make. It is urgently necessary that a decision be taken, and I ask the Minister to take it now and to announce it in this debate.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mr. Evelyn King: Out of deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), I do not wish to speak for more than two or three minutes, and in that time it would be foolish to develop any kind of agricultural policy; therefore I shall not attempt to do so.
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  I have been the owner of agricultural land for some 25 years and associated with the ownership of it long before that. I have represented an agricultural constituency for 10 years. I have never at any time known a situation in which Dorset farmers are more desperate or more depressed or more genuinely anxious about the future than they are at this moment. If I make that point alone, it is worth making. Indeed, in the time available there is not much more that I can say.
  I do not think Her Majesty's Government are sufficiently aware of that single fact, and in the two or three minutes at my disposal that is the major point that I want to make. The situation is desperate. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for Wales is in contact with farmers almost daily, as no doubt he is, and as I am, he must be aware of the measure of their anxiety for themselves and their families. That is the first and most important point.
  My second point is that we are spending some £700 million a year on food subsidies. Some of that goes to subsidising food for cats and those who eat at the Savoy Hotel. That money would be better spent in the interests not merely of the farmer but of the poorest section of the community if it were spent in ensuring that beef and other food products would come on to the market in two or three years' time. Under the present arrangements they will not do so. However much they may be temporarily popular, in two or three years' time disaster will be here if greater encouragement is not given to those who produce beef and other animal products.
  Finally, one word on the wealth tax. I do not wish to get involved in Socialist and Conservative arguments. I am concerned with this matter only in the context of agriculture. It has been the opinion of every agricultural expert, and shared by the Ministry, for many years that it is desirable to have large units and that large agricultural units are economic. In Europe, and France in particular, many agricultural troubles stem from the uneconomic 20-acre or 30-acre holding. Whatever other argument there may be for or against a wealth tax, that tax applied to farmers must break up the large

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  farm and tend to create the small and uneconomic farm. Forget all party politics. Within the context of the Ministry of Agriculture and in no other context it must be the Government's duty to represent to the Treasury the harm that this potential tax will do.
  I am glad that the Minister has entered the Chamber to hear my concluding words. For many years we have had a Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and for many years it has worked well, but I have increasing doubts whether it is working now and whether it call work in the future. There is a Minister who has an influence in the matter of consumer prices and must be keenly interested in food prices. There is a natural and inevitable conflict between the Minister whose main function is to represent farmers and any other Minister who must be concerned with food prices. At this time more than any other we want a Minister with undivided allegiance to represent within the Cabinet an industry which is more depressed, more in danger and more vital than any other in this country. I suggest to the Minister of Agriculture, and perhaps through him to the Prime Minister, who decides these things, that there should be no conflict between the Minister who is responsible for food prices and the Minister who strives—I know how difficult it is—to keep the farming industry alive.
  It has not been often in the past decade that one has been able to use the sort of terminology now used in discussing agriculture: Dorset farmers are desperate; English farmers in general are desperate. As the clock strikes nine I beg the Minister to have regard to that fact.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Jopling: It has been very helpful for the House to have had this first opportunity of this Parliament to discuss agriculture. This was the first possible day that the Conservative Party was able to nominate a subject for discussion. Judging by the strength of feeling demonstrated in the debate, it is clear that the subject of agriculture has been badly in need of discussion.
  Tonight we shall not be voting on this subject which we have been debating all day. However, bearing in mind the speech that we heard from the Minister today, I think we shall probably wish to
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  return to this subject before long so that we may demonstrate in the Division Lobby our strong feeling about the emerging situation.
  Before I enlarge on the matters we have debated, I must refer to the three maiden speeches made during the debate. All three hon. Members concerned have succeeded figures whom many of us knew very well for many years—Mr. Ernie Money, Mr. Jock Bruce-Gardyne and Sir Harmar Nicholls. We miss them, but we welcome the new Members who have taken their places and we congratulate the new Members on their maiden speeches.
  We heard from the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) a good deal about his knowledge of football. I do not know whether he has as much knowledge about this as his predecessor, whose knowledge was immense, or whether his knowledge is as scant as the Prime Ministers, but no doubt we shall soon find out.
  I was greatly surprised by the Minister's speech earlier today. I would have expected him to have been well warned about the strength of feeling regarding the acute agricultural situation. On the first day of the debate, on Tuesday, which was a day of general debate, no fewer than 10 speeches referred to agriculture.
  I was astonished that the Minister's speech showed so little sympathy and so little apparent understanding of the great crisis facing the nation. It was an unworthy speech. [Interruption.] I do not like to attack the Minister—he is an agreeable fellow—but I must draw attention to the fact that he left the Chamber very early in the debate and was not back until about five minutes ago. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not true."] I appreciate that the job of the Minister is arduous, but I hope that the next time we debate agriculture he will spend a great deal more time in the Chamber and not treat the House with the contempt he has treated it with today. [HON. MEMBERS: "Unworthy."] His speech showed a quite disgraceful complacency. It was full of watery phrases such as "recognising the anxiety which exists" while farmers throughout the country are going bankrupt and facing ruin.
  The Minister's performance today reminded me of the report that a boy I remember going to school with once

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  received. The report said that he set himself a lamentably low standard and usually failed to attain it.
  One wonders whether the Minister understands the industry for which he is responsible. My hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray), who spoke immediately after the Minister, asked what on earth the Minister did when he went into the markets in this country. Does the right hon. Gentleman take any notice of what people say?
  Since the right hon. Gentleman returned to the Ministry of Agriculture he has tried to lead the industry in a series of hand-to-mouth, short-term measures and palliatives—
  Mr. Peart rose—
  Mr. Jopling: The right hon. Gentleman has been muttering from his seat for the past five minutes. I shall give way in a few minutes, but he must learn to contain himself. He is also relying on his PPS, the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Grant), to make noises for him. I should have thought him capable of doing it for himself.
  The Miinster has three times renewed the pig subsidy, each time for a few more weeks. He is bringing the hill cow and beef cow subsidies forward to the early part of next year, but his slaughter premiums provide no long-term provision for the industry. They continue only until February. Who in the industry can plan in the long term with policies from the Minister that cover such a short period?
  The horticultural oil subsidy is to run out very shortly. How can growers plan when they do not know whether it will continue? The right hon. Gentleman does not seem to understand that it is impossible for farmers to make long-term planning decisions when he produces short-term planning policies.
  Mr. Peart: Does the hon. Gentleman believe that what I have done for the dairy industry, involving £102 million, is only a short-term palliative? What his Government did was to nothing like the same extent.
  Mr. Jopling: I cannot allow the right hon. Gentleman to get away with that. The award at the beginning of the year
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  by my right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) was worth more than what the Minister has done, and he knows it, though we welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has done. I have talked about other short-term palliatives.
  One of the glaring omissions from the Minister's speech, was his failure to answer so many of the questions my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) put to him. I was particularly disappointed that he did not reply to the suggestion that this might be the moment to try to take agriculture out of politics. My right hon. Friend made an offer with the very best will, and the right hon. Gentleman cavalierly thrust it aside. If he chooses to ignore what my right hon. Friend said, will the Minister consider, in the interests of trying to take the industry and its problems out of politics, setting up once more the Select Committee on Agriculture, which was so valuable a few years ago? I do not ask for a decision tonight, but I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give an assurance that he will discuss the matter with the Leader of the House at an early date.
  The right hon. Gentleman also failed to refer to the threat of capital taxation which hangs over the industry. No hon. Member on either side who fought a rural constituency at the recent election can be in any doubt that it has caused a great deal of alarm throughout the industry.
  I turn to another unanswered question, that of sugar. One of the few things the right hon. Gentleman told us was that next season the industry will be able to receive full EEC prices for 11 million tons of beet sugar. My right hon. Friend posed the question that unless farmers are given an idea fairly soon of how much they will get for their sugar, it will be difficult to fulfil the acreage contracts that will be necessary to meet the quantity of supply.
  I am much concerned about the way in which the Minister has dealt with sugar. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) spent a good deal of time talking about it this evening. I am surprised that the Minister has not taken more action more quickly to ensure the continued domestic supply of sugar. We did not hear very much from him about his actions until August or September. The fact is that he was

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  warned by the trade as far back as 5th April 1973—
  Mr. Peart rose—
  Mr. Jopling: I do not know whether the Minister says that is not true. The Multiple Food Retailers' Association wrote to him on 5th April and warned him of the situation. The first thing he did was to lose the letter and there was no reply, as I understand it, until June.
  Mr. Peart: Not at all.
  Mr. Jopling: I am sorry that the Minister says "Not at all". I have copies of the letters. If he did not know he had lost the letter, that compounds the problem.
  The Minister should have taken action very much earlier in the summer to try to ensure supplies of sugar from Australia, for example, rather than waiting until the autumn before he did anything about it. There is immense cause for worry about that.
  I now turn to the problem of Irish imports that is causing immense concern to so many hon. Members and to farmers throughout the country. The Minister knows that his constituents and my constituents have been picketing the Port of Silloth, which is close to his constituency. I agree that it would be wrong for any any hon. Member to condone illegal actions. I accept that straight away. The right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) also made that point. We cannot possibly condemn Clay Cross but condone illegal actions around our ports. However, we cannot help but understand the strong feelings of the farmers. The Minister referred to that.
  It would also be wrong for us to take action or to recommend the taking of action which would disrupt the traditional trade in store cattle which has gone on for many years between Ireland and the fattening areas of Great Britain. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire suggested a 60-day waiting period. The right hon. Member for Anglesey said that that suggestion was worth considering carefully. My hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (.Mr. Edwards) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), who know so much about the Irish cattle trade, also said that it was essential to bring in such a waiting period.
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  The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes), in an interesting and remarkable speech, referred to the trade in fat cattle as obnoxious. He also said that he wanted a 60-day waiting period to be introduced. There has been a great increase in recent months in the numbers of fat cattle being imported from Ireland. This morning I received some up-to-date figures from York where many store cattle from Ireland are sold. I find that over the past three weeks the number of store cattle has dropped from 948 last year to only 585 this year. The overall figures are more or less static—in fact, they have risen slightly. However, the figures show that many more fat cattle are coming in from Ireland. If the Minister would not mind listening to me for a moment—
  Mr. Peart: Perhaps I should tell the House that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will be replying to the debate.
  Mr. Jopling: The Minister did not refer to the importation of Irish fat cattle. I understand from the Irish Embassy this morning that the Prime Minister will be having conversations tomorrow with the Taoiseach. I hope that the Minister will try to ensure that this problem is discussed at the highest possible level. I hope he will try to get the matter put on the agenda.
  Another matter that is causing concern is the effect of the Government's policies on upland areas. It is here that one finds the greatest failure in the Government's agricultural policy during the past few months. This matter was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke. I find myself more in sorrow than in anger at the Minister's personal failure to look after these upland areas.
  The right hon. Gentleman's constituency adjoins mine. He knows the people there as well as I do, and I wish that through his policies he had shown as much sympathy for the people in the upland areas as was shown by the hon. Member for Durham in his speech today. The right hon. Gentleman was not present to hear that speech. I hope that tomorrow morning, as a penance for not being here more often, he will set himself the duty of reading his hon. Friend's excellent speech.
  Mr. Mark Hughes: I trust that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the word "penance".
  Mr. Jopling: I mean as a penance for not being here. The right hon. Gentleman would be rewarded by reading his hon. Friend's speech.
  Store animals come from the hills and upland areas. The Minister said that only 15 per cent. of agricultural production in this country was represented by beef, but to the people who farm in the hills and uplands it represents more than that. The Minister referred to his award for milk. I welcomed that provision—it was helpful and necessary—but the people about whom I am talking do not produce milk. Their land is not good enough to allow them to be in milk production, and these are the people who are facing ruin.
  I shall not say much more about this. The matter was dealt with by my hon. Friends the Members for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Spence). I repeat that it is the farmers in the hills and uplands who are facing ruin. They have received poor prices at the annual store sales. The suckler sales are on now, and we have been given figures during the debate about how prices have dropped. What the Minister does not seem to appreciate is that these farmers have money coming in during only two months of the year. They spend the rest of the year rearing and breeding the stock so that they can sell it in the autumn months My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) was right to make that point.
  Lack of fodder is a serious problem, and I hope that the Minister will study what was said by the hon. Member for Durham, who put forward a most interesting scheme to deal with the situation.
  We have seen tragedy follow tragedy. Sheep prices have followed the fall in cattle prices, and in the upland areas sheep production is the other half of the enterprise.
  The Minister has brought forward the subsidy to be paid on hill and beef cows. He has hailed this as a great cash injection, but he is merely borrowing money intended for use next year to pay out this year.
  Mr. Peart: No.
  Mr. Jopling: If the Minister disputes what I am saying, perhaps he will tell us where the money is coming from and what will be done next year.
  I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow said about the future of the sheep guarantees. I hope that when the Minister replies he will tell us what is to happen when these guarantees run out later in the year.
  During the debate some Government Members attacked the policy of intervention. The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Torney)—he is not here now but he has been present for most of the time—interrupted my right hon. Friend to ask whether he was aware that there was widespread discontent in the Common Market about the effects of intervention. It may be that there is discontent in Europe about these schemes, but I invite the House to look at the prices which beef farmers in the European countries are getting, having obtained the benefits of intervention.
  The House should know what prices those farmers in Europe are getting and what beef prices are averaging with the benefit or otherwise of intervention. In Belgium they are getting £22·12, in France £23·18, in Italy £23·61, in Luxembourg £21·98, in the Netherlands £19·31, in West Germany £21·26 and in Denmark £19·29. In the United Kingdom, without any intervention, they are getting £12·16.
  Some Members on the Government side have spoken today of their abhorrence of the intervention system. If the sort of prices I have quoted are causing discontent on the Continent, as the hon. Member for Bradford, South suggested, I do not know what sort of effect the very low prices of beef in this country without intervention should have, because it is clear that intervention is doing a good job and is supporting the market in Europe.
  I come now to another matter which the right hon. Gentleman did not talk about as fully as I had hoped. One of the schemes I thought he announced was that it is the intention of the Government to introduce a private beef storage scheme. He did not make clear whether it is the Government's intention to introduce a beef storage scheme on the lines which have been outlined in the last two

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  days in the Financial Times and in The Times. I can well understand his reticence about explaining in detail exactly what his scheme means. He quoted the figure of £262 a ton being spent on encouraging local proprietors of freezing units to store beef for periods of between four and six months.
  As I understand it from the Press, the Government are to introduce a scheme whereby proprietors of cold storage facilities in this country will be paid 15p a pound for putting beef into cold storage and taking it off the market for a period of four to six months. I must therefore ask the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Wales whether it is not true to say that with such a scheme we are back to intervention. Is it that we should not use the word "intervention"? Is it a word that the Minister does not want to use? Does he intend to find another word to try to cover it up?
  I was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman refused to give way during his speech on this matter so that he could explain it more fully, but as he announced the scheme I recalled some of the things he has said in the past about intervention. On 1st May he made a speech to the Farmers' Club.
  Mr. Peart: It was a good speech.
  Mr. Jopling: The right hon. Gentleman said then:
  "I do not see how I could explain to the British housewife that the Government was taking good beef off the market so as to force up the price she would have to pay for what was left."
  In the House on 26th June the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "All that intervention has done is to fill the stores of the Community with a degraded product, whose value has been much reduced by the very process of intervention.
  Even if permanent intervention had been successful in pushing up the market price, I would still regard it as a fundamentally wrong approach. Beef is for people to eat, not to pile up in stores. One does not cure an oversupply by choking off demand."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th June 1974; Vol. 875, c. 1592.]
  [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members opposite say, "Hear, hear". It seems to me, however, that with the scheme the Government are now producing they are going to do exactly what the right hon. Gentleman criticised—take beef off the market, put it into cold
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  store and try to increase the price on the domestic market.
  I cannot understand why, if the Minister is prepared to accept this Community scheme, as I understand he is going to, he will not take up intervention too. Why is he so proud that, having made all those rude remarks about intervention in the past, he is prepared to adopt a scheme that will do exactly the same thing but will be called by another name?
  There can be no doubt that intervention would help us in our markets today. I notice that the Irish Minister of Agriculture is quoted in the Irish Press of yesterday. It reported:
  "Whilst he sympathised with the position of Welsh farmers and indeed with British farmers, the whole trouble was due to the failure of the British Government to operate intervention."
  I have recalled the right hon. Gentleman's repudiations of intervention in past months and I have drawn the attention of the House to them. He damned intervention then. Why is it that he is now adopting the full brother of intervention? Can it be, as it clearly is, that the election is over and he believes that he can now do just those things that he knows should have been done many months ago?
  So I believe that this is another typical example of the policy that the present Government and this Minister have pursued in these few months. I remember when the right hon. Gentleman came back in March saying that he was not prepared to accept the full 17 per cent. increase in the guide price and was prepared to accept only a 6·3 per cent. rise in the guide price. A few weeks later he was scuttling back to Brussels and agreeing to the full increase. Here he is again, having spent the whole of the past six months saying that he would have nothing to do with intervention, bringing in a scheme that is intervention by another name.
  We have had no replies today about the problem of beef prices. The Minister made no reference to his previous promises to support the beef industry or his determination to support the price of beef at about £18 a cwt. I am surprised that he does not even have the grace to apologise to the House and tell us that things have been more difficult than he expected and that he has not been able to fulfil his clear promise about supporting the beef industry over the course of the past few months.

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  Does the right hon. Gentleman intend just to brazen out his failures over these months? Is he determined to go on treating the House with the contempt with which he has treated it today? He has not said what proposals he is to put to the Commission, although my right hon. Friend specifically asked.
  We must know what is in the Government's mind. Are we to have the advantage of a guarantee, perhaps backed by deficiency payments? Are we to be able to jump to the end of the transitional period, which would be so helpful to farmers? We must know and the industry must know what the Government have in mind and what is going on.
  Will the Minister press in the Commission for a scheme to put a bottom in the beef market? My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) made the point that we had to have a bottom in the beef market. If the Minister is prepared to arrange it, will it be retrospective? We must know these things now.
  I hope that the Minister and the Secretary of State now understand that there is deep and widespread concern both in the House and outside about the great crisis in our food-producing industry. What is essential above all is immediate action. It is no good the Minister's talking about going on until March next year.
  The great theme of this debate has been the demand from all sides of the House for immediate action. My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Irvine) drew attention to this in a firm way. I was even more interested in the way that Labour Members also pressed strongly for immediate action. The right hon. Member for Anglesey, the hon. Member for Bradford, South and the hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Tomlinson) all asked for immediate action. I was interested in the speech made on Tuesday by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars), who said:
  "I concur with what he said about the nature of the crisis we face. That crisis will be solved only by a massive injection of cash well before the winter is out. I hope the Government will understand that that point of view does not emanate only from the Opposition. Everyone who knows something about agriculture is aware of the present state
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  of the livestock sector."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1974; Vol. 880, c. 131.]
  The Minister retailed his achievements, telling us what he had done for the industry. He does this whenever he gets up to speak. Will he not understand that he has not done enough and that more must be done immediately? Farmers must know where they are going. If this is a task beond his capacity and ability, he must stand down and let the Prime Minister find someone else who is able to do this.
  9.32 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Morris): This has been a sombre, earnest debate, and we have had in the course of the day a series of careful speeches which have been on a par with the many agricultural debates that we have had over the years.
  I thought that the last speech from the Opposition Dispatch Box by the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) contained from time to time a tone of flippancy. I reject completely any suggestion that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture was in any way neglecting his duties to this House by way of attendance in the course of debate.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Time him!
  Mr. Morris: Perhaps the hon. Lady will contain herself. The hon. Member for Westmorland knows that my right hon. Friend, like any other Minister taking part in a debate, has a whole host of other duties to carry out. He will also know that I was present for the greater part of the debate. I am the joint Minister of Agriculture in the Principality. Anyone who suggests that there is any complacency on the part of my right hon. Friend is wholly ignorant of my right hon. Friend's record over the years and his enormous interest in this vital area.
  The words of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Torney) have been the basis of this debate. He remarked that there was no monopoly of concern for farming in any part of the House or in any sector of the community. Some of us have seen this great industry in periods of confidence, great hopes and expectations. We have also seen it in periods of acute depression—sometimes over the whole of the industry, sometimes over parts of it. I was born and bred in

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  the industry, and I have seen these periods affecting many parts of it.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Bloody shame, isn't it?
  Mr. Morris: The hon. Member says "Bloody shame!" He will recall from some of the debates we have had that there has been depression in many parts of the industry. I can recall two occasions when the milk industry was in a state of acute depression and there was a complete lack of activity on the part of the Treasury Bench which the hon. Member was then gracing. He may well say "Bloody shame" if that is the best contribution he can make.
  There is nothing new in a feeling of depression in parts of the industry. This is where the debate has somehow got out of perspective. Over the greater part of the industry there is not the crisis atmosphere which has been put before the House. It would be in the interests of the industry as a whole to concentrate on those parts of it where there is great anxiety. This is true of the livestock sector, particularly so of the fodder situation in Wales. The position varies in parts of the country.
  I will deal with the dairy industry, which has welcomed with open arms the package which my right hon. Friend brought back from Brussels. Therefore, it is of no service to the industry to catalogue a host of grievances, real and imaginery, and put out of perspective that part of the industry in which there is genuine anxiety. I yield to no one in my concern for the industry. I have more family members in the industry than perhaps any other Member, and I am deeply aware of the concern in one part of it. But many other parts of the industry have accepted and welcomed the decisions which have been brought back from Brussels and have no atmosphere of crisis such as that which has been paraded today.
  The one theme which we have heard from the Opposition throughout the debate has been the call for unilateral action. This comes very odd from a party pledged to law and order and to condemning illegal activities in the docks. Yet it is crying out for unilateral action, presumably in defiance of the Treaty of Accession and the Community regulations. The party which took us into
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  Europe with the so-called full-hearted consent of the British people has today time after time called for unilateral action. It may well be that that is the right thing to do, but I find it odd coming from right hon. and hon. Members opposite who wrecked the whole system carefully built up by both Conservative and Labour Governments, which carried out the 1947 Act year in, year out, with amendments, which spelt out in great detail the way in which the margins could be affected and the degree of change which could be effected on an individual product—
  Mr. Winterton: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that the deficiency payments system, which merely operated from one year to another, was the way in which the British agriculture industry could prosper and play its part in the economy?
  Mr. Morris: The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He must consult the members of his Front Bench and find out exactly what they want. The Opposition's underlying theme throughout the debate has been the advocacy of a floor in the market. That system operated not for one year only but for a whole series of years, from the conception of the change in the 1947 Act when deficiency payments were introduced, with the building up of stability over the years.
  Mr. Pym: It is true that the system which operated in the industry for years was replaced in 1972 by the European intervention system. The cause of the trouble has been the Government's unilateral opting out of the system of support. They put nothing in its place.
  Mr. Peart: The Conservatives destroyed the guarantee.
  Mr. Pym: We did not destroy the guarantee. We replaced one guarantee with another. The Government did not replace the guarantee, and that is what is wrong.
  Mr. Morris: The right hon. Gentleman cannot say that with truth. He and his party destroyed the guarantee system which had been built up over the years —[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is getting very excited. Much help is being

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  given. The Minister can manage without it.
  Mr. Morris: The right hon. Gentleman, having shouted epithets from a sedentary position, is getting very excited. He must contain himself.
  Mr. Pym: I am muttering the truth.
  Mr. Morris: In the interests of the industry, I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to calm himself. He knows the warnings about what would happen which were issued, not since 28th February but long before that, by the National Farmers' Union. The NFU has been warning for more than a year of the crisis which has been paraded in the debate, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that.
  Mr. Pym: The Labour Party, of which the right hon. Gentleman is a member, did not warn when it was in Opposition. What I am saying is that the warnings existed since 28th February. The intervention system applied from the moment we joined the Common Market, and it was effective. It was the Labour Government which took us out on 23rd March. That is what is wrong.
  Mr. Morris: The right hon. Gentleman knows, as does the whole House, that when we debated the Treaty of Accession, in the limited time we had, our criticism was that this great industry was losing the security which it had enjoyed for so many years. We said so at the time.
  Mr. Hooson indicated assent.
  Mr. Morris: I see the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), who has a clear view of this problem, nodding in agreement.
  Mr. Hooson: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the whole crux of the matter is not that the Minister of Agriculture refused to have the intervention system—I rather agree with him about that—but that he did not have in its place a temporary guarantee system? Whatever the semantics of the arguments, the farmers have been left without a guarantee and what the farmers, as opposed to the Opposition and everyone else, want to know is what the Government will do about that.
  Mr. Morris: The hon. and learned Gentleman has been consistent in his attitude. He has been against the Common Market right from the start.
  My right hon. Friend set out what he is aiming to achieve in the discussions which will take place before March of next year. I will repeat some of the salient points he made.
  The President of the National Farmers' Union said today that for over a year the NFU has been warning Whitehall day after day that this disastrous situation would arise unless effective action was taken by the Government. This situation did not arise on 28th February but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South said, the seeds were sown long before then. On reading the analysis in today's Times one can see that the problem arose from the encouragement that was given by our Conservative predecessors to the livestock sector. Official encouragement was given to build up a far larger livestock sector for rearing and fattening than could be channelled in the ordinary way on to our markets at reasonable prices.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: What about the Irish horses?
  Mr. Morris: If the hon. Lady will be patient I will deal with that. I make a second appeal to her. She keeps on shouting. If she waits she will hear in due course what I have to say.
  The heart of the matter is the encouragement that was given to the livestock sector. The strategy of the Opposition when in Government was to encourage the livestock sector, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. There is a glut coming on to the market, and that is why we have price problems. The analysis in today's Times concludes —there is other evidence of the position in Ireland—that the EEC system of intervention buying has been unsatisfactory.
  We know that throughout Europe there is a great concern among farmers about the operation of the system there. The prices which are being achieved in Southern Ireland are regarded as unsatisfactory. The system has not worked. Hence the need for the vital stocktaking which will undoubtedly take place in the Common Market and in which my right

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  hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture will play a leading part.
  Before I return to the subject of beef, let me deal quickly with some of the other sectors. In fairness to the industry, I believe that we should examine the whole problem in its proper perspective. What my right hon. Friend the Minister has done for the milk industry seemed to be dismissed in cavalier fashion by some Conservatives as a mere nothing. That is not the attitude of the industry or of the Milk Marketing Board. Indeed, the chairman of the board made a statement only a few days ago in an effort to encourage the industry to aim at an increase. He said:
  "First we believe that it would be profitable for them to do so. Despite the shortage of fodder, the recent increase in produced prices has restored the comparison of concentrate price and milk price to the more favourable level of two years ago so that it should now be profitable to feed cows well, particularly in early lactation."
  That was the message from the board.
  There was some anxiety in the industry about the spreading of the 7.7p per gallon and the question of the 3p. Those concerned in these matters will have read the letter in the Farmers' Weekly from the board's publicity officer explaining exactly how the increases will be spread over the months to give some encouragement to those with high yield in October as well as in March.
  The situation in the milk industry can be summed up in the following way. The prices on average are 7·7p per gallon more than they would have been before settlement on 17th and 20th September. In 1974–75 the average pool price for the first six summer months was 23·6p per gallon; for the six winter months it would be 35p. That is an encouragement to the industry and is endorsed by the board's chairman.
  Mr. Robert Boscawen: It sounds a favourable picture, and we welcome the increase in the price of milk, but it does not cover the losses made by farmers in the past six months. The dairy farmers in my constituency are talking not of an increase over the next few months but of the figure being cut by a third.
  Mr. Morris: In my experience, the high costs occur substantially in the winter months, when there is a high feeding of
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  concentrates. There is no need for feeding on the same scale in the summer months. The hon. Gentleman will recollect that there was great anxiety last winter when the price of feeding stuffs went up month after month. Despite the anxieties of the industry the Conservative Government then did nothing to alleviate the situation. They had only a belated death-bed conversion a few weeks before the election.
  Mr. Gwynfor Evans rose—
  Mr. Morris: I am sorry, but I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have given way a number of times. There are many hon. Members who, unlike the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Evans), have been here throughout the debate. I must seek to reply to as many points as I can.
  Several hon. Members raised the problem of imports of cattle from the Irish Republic. We cannot impose a ban or restriction consistently with the Treaty of Accession, which I remind the House was negotiated by the Opposition. Farmers are concerned about what they see to be a flood of cattle ruining our markets. But this is a traditional trade. It has stood the industry in good stead in the past as regards the bringing in of stores. Sendings in recent months have not been much higher than in past years, although they were very much higher than in 1973 when sendings were exceptionally low. There has been some slackening in Irish imports this month.
  There is not time to go through the whole issue, but the feelings expressed concern whether we should do something about the domiciliary period of waiting before these cattle benefited from whatever grants were available. The waiting period before Irish cattle could qualify for the fatstock guarantee was laid down in different circumstances earlier. The circumstances are now changed. There has been for many years a traditional trade in Irish stores which has benefited farmers in both countries. I am sure that no one would want to jeopardise the mutual advantage which has benefited both countries.
  I undertake that my right hon. Friend, my colleagues and I will consider carefully what has been said in this debate

  531
  about the waiting period. I hope that that will meet the observations made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) in his very distinguished speech and by a number of right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition side. That puts the matter in its proper perspective.
  I am glad that the right note has been struck in this House. I understand the strength of feeling among farmers, but they should not be encouraged to take the law into their own hands. They have friends on both sides of the House. Everyone wants to see a prosperous industry. The activities which have been threatened would be of no benefit to the industry in any shape or form. I hope that this message goes out to the industry.
  The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) and other hon. Members asked why the Government did not introduce a beef guarantee scheme again at once. If that were practicable and feasible it would be a very attractive solution. However, it would not be possible without renegotiation and without the consent of our partners in the Common Market. I find the hon. Gentleman's suggestion very odd coming from a member of the party which was keener on entry into the Common Market than any other in the House. Perhaps that is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.
  Mr. Pym: But the Government opted out of the system which existed. The intervention system existed, and it should have been left until something better was put in its place.
  Mr. Morris: It was my hope that in the detailed speech which the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) made he would spell out exactly what he wanted. Does he really want permanent intervention? Is that the policy of his party? Is that what he advocates? Does he think that it would solve the country's problems when we know that it has not solved them in Europe, in Southern Ireland or anywhere else?
  Mr. Pym: In this or any other aspect of Common Market policy it is possible and within the responsibility of this Government to change any system which does not work properly by introducing a better one. It is not reasonable to take away a
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  practicable scheme until a better one is found to put in its place.
  Mr. Morris: The right hon. Gentleman has not grasped the problem. I understand why, despite the opportunity I have given him, he is evading that question. He will not come clean and tell us whether he wants permanent intervention. He knows that it is not the answer elsewhere. He knows that it will not meet the position.
  Several hon. Members have referred to the O'Brien Report. The House will recall that the present policy of granting export licences only for breeding or exhibition animals arose from a motion carried in this House on 12th July 1973. A committee was set up and its report was published. All interested parties were given the opportunity to comment on that report. We have undertaken that the present policy will not be altered until the report has been debated in this House. We are in touch with the European Economic Community on certain aspects of the report which affect the Community as a whole. My right hon. Friend regards this as an urgent matter. I hope that that approach will commend itself to hon. Members.
  Reference has been made to retail prices. The situation did not seem to be fully understood. I draw attention to the fact that the Price Commission has been asked to investigate fully meat distributors' margins. The commission will establish the facts and, under the Price Code, action can be taken if it is justified. This problem did not seem to be fully understood. I therefore felt it right to draw it to the attention of the House.
  The difficulties of the livestock sector have been aggravated by the fodder situation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey referred to the situation in Wales and other hon. Members have referred to the situation elsewhere. This has been a difficult year for fodder growing. It has been worse, certainly in my experience, on the western side of the country than in other parts. I concede that the situation is bad elsewhere, but I think it is much worse in many parts of the Principality and also in Northern Ireland.
  We are aware that in some areas fodder supplies may be insufficient to maintain breeding herds and followers over the

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  coming winter. We are, therefore, examining the situation with some urgency, in consultation with farming organisations, to see what can be done to alleviate the problem. I emphasise the approach that we are making. We hope that this examination, which has been started, will be completed as a matter of urgency so that we can examine the whole situation and ascertain what needs to be done.
  We have heard stories about large exports of fodder, but we have not found any evidence of this. I have seen the reports in the farming Press, but they have failed to reach any conclusion as regards evidence of fodder being exported. If hon. Members can provide details of any shipments my right hon. Friend and I will be glad to look into them. My right hon. Friend has dealt with the proposals that he is hoping will be acceptable when he returns to discuss the matter with his colleagues in the Common Market.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Morris: No. The time is now exceedingly short. I have given way on a whole host of occasions to hon. Members on both sides.
  My right hon. Friend yields to no one in his concern for the industry. We have set out our position in the Queen's Speech. We will certainly do our utmost to ensure that the arrangements are right and proper to ensure the prosperity of the agriculture industry.
  Mr. Jopling: Before the Minister sits down, may I ask him to tell us about the cold storage scheme to which he said he would refer? This is the Government's new intervention scheme. Are they so ashamed of it that they cannot say anything about it?
  Debate adjourned.—[Mr. Walter Johnson.]
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

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

  PNEUMOCONIOSIS PANELS
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. Max Madden: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for this opportunity to suggest reforms in the composition and procedures of pneumoconiosis panels. The pressing need for such reforms can be witnessed in my constituency, where more than 30 of my constituents have died from asbestosis, another 150 to 200 are currently suffering from this disease and fresh cases are coming to our notice almost daily. All these people are former employees of Cape Asbestos Limited, a firm which closed four years ago after operating in Hebden Bridge for some 30 years.
  There is strong local concern about this tragic situation and the circumstances which have led to it and there is pressure for an independent inquiry, which I support but on which I will not dwell this evening.
  The number of my constituents suffering from asbestosis has revealed serious shortcomings and injustices in the composition of pneumoconiosis panels. The function of these panels is twofold—first to decide on the diagnosis, and secondly to decide on the degree of disablement from which any claimant is suffering. The board's decision on whether a claimant is suffering from the disease is final, although a claimant can make a fresh claim at a later date.
  I argue this evening that there is urgent need for four major reforms of the procedures. First, I should like the pneumoconiosis panels to explain in detail their reasons for rejecting any claim. One of my constituents who has received more than £10,000 in compensation from Cape Asbestos Limited has been before pneumoconiosis panels on five occasions and each time his claim has been rejected, yet two of the most eminent consultants in the country in this sphere confirm that this man has asbestosis. Despite this overwhelming evidence, my constituent is still denied a disability pension. There are others of my constituents who find themselves in the same extraordinary and unfortunate situation.
  Secondly, I urge that, as panels frequently disagree with the views of consultants, however eminent, there is a great need for claimants to have an automatic

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  and immediate right of appeal on the question of diagnosis and also on the degree of disablement from which they are suffering. At present, a claimant who is dissatisfied with an assessment has a right of appeal. If the assessment is provisional, the claimant can appeal after two years have elapsed from the original hearing at the medical board. Decisions may be reviewed at any time by a medical board, but this is allowed only—I quote from the regulations of the Department of Health and Social Security—
  "if they are satisfied by fresh evidence that the decision was given in consequence of the nondisclosure or misrepresentation of a material fact."
  A decision on diagnosis may be reviewed—I again quote from the regulations—
  "if the medical board is satisfied by fresh evidence that the original decision was given in ignorance or was based on a mistake as to some material fact."
  I believe that the very firm parameters within which an appeal can be lodged deny claimants who are suffering from this disease a proper opportunity to appeal. I believe that such appeals should be built into the procedures from the local panels right up to the central pneumoconiosis panel so that a claimant has an early and very clear opportunity to appeal against the decisions which are taken by the panels.
  Thirdly, I believe that the local panels and the central panel should consist of independent consultants as opposed to the appointed full-time members who now occupy these positions. There is a suspicion—and from what I have told the House I am sure hon. Members appreciate why suspicion exists—that the present composition of the panels leads to fixed and arbitrary attitudes being struck by those who adjudicate on claims under the present arrangement. The suspicions and criticisms which are made of these panels and the way in which they operate are not confined to claimants. There are serious reservations about the whole procedures by medical people who come into contact professionally with these panels and by solicitors who act for complainants.
  Typical of these criticisms is one which was recently given to the Yorkshire Post by a leading medical consultant in the
  536
  West Yorkshire region who said he thought it was wrong that there should be decisions of the pneumoconiosis panel which were incomprehensible because they were at variance with the findings of two or three consultant physicians acting as independent assessors. The doctors on the panel are employed by the Department of Health and Social Security. I take the view that it is imperative that there should be an independent medical assessor on the panel in order to ensure that justice is done and that it should be seen to be done.
  Not only should these panels be composed solely of independent assessors. If this is not accepted by the Department, I hope that it will at least consider that doctors serving on these panels should not serve on them for very long periods. It would be helpful if there were rota systems operating so that the doctors could be switched to alternative occupations after a period of two years to avoid the sort of criticisms which I have been talking about. They can he satisfactorily overcome only if the whole system is changed completely and independent consultants are used by the Department in this area of work.
  Fourthly, I should like to refer to the question of medical representation for claimants appearing before these panels. I was recently told by the Department that claimants could be medically represented before these panels by qualified medical consultants. This was a major advance which was welcomed in my area and by those who appeared before the panels. I believe, and those whom I represent also believe, that this concession is absolutely futile unless there are means by which the claimants can be financially enabled to have this medical representation.
  I believe that a form of medical aid is needed to enable claimants going before pneumoconiosis panels to be medically represented by qualified people, because this is the very nub of the matter. They can be represented by trade union officials. Very rarely are these men or women medically qualified. The arguments which go on at these panels are obviously essentially medical arguments, and the claimants are at a serious disadvantage if they are not medically represented. I believe this is an aspect which is of paramount importance and I hope

  537
  that the Department will seriously consider this matter, because if it overlooks the matter much longer the whole scheme will be brought into serious disrepute.
  The reforms which I have suggested are long overdue. They are possible, they are inexpensive and I believe that they would do much to help people suffering from asbestosis and also from the range of diseases which are considered by pneumoconiosis panels.
  People who go before the panels are ill and are often most distressed. They are in no physical or mental condition to undertake the long and arduous battle that is often necessary to obtain justice and a disability pension.
  A willingness by the Government to act in the way I suggest would be welcomed by my constituents and by many other people throughout the country. I speak for a West Yorkshire constituency, which has not come up against the difficulties of the pneumoconiosis panels in the past. I know from many colleagues who represent mining constituencies that the sort of criticisms I have made tonight have been aired by them for long periods in the past.
  I hope that tonight we can have an indication that the Department is willing seriously to consider my suggestions. I believe that these suggestions are possible of implementation, and I am sure that there is no disagreement that they are desirable.
  10.11 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Alec Jones): I am sure that people of Hebden Bridge who suffer from asbestosis at present, as well as those who may suffer from it in future, are indebted for the keen interest shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) in this subject. His interest has been shown not only in initiating this debate this evening but since he first came to the House.
  I have read, for instance, the contributions he made in the debate on the Health and Safety at Work etc. Bill on 18th June. He has also tabled Parliamentary Questions seeking information on this subject.
  I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that while I appreciate his
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  interest in the need for improving safety regulations—which is not the main feature of tonight's debate—this is a matter for the Department of Employment.
  My hon. Friend is aware that the regulations dealing with the safe handling of asbestos were extended and brought up to date by the Department of Employment in 1969. I understand that my hon. Friend is somewhat critical of the way that these regulations have been interpreted. I appreciate this point, but I wish to assure him that research is continuing into the health problems of asbestosis, including a prospective study of the health of workers in the industry which is now being undertaken by the employment medical advisory service.
  I appreciate that asbestosis is a serious issue in Hebden Bridge. A local consultant, Dr. Mann, has taken a great interest in the matter, and I am pleased to hear of the activities of members of a group of general practitioners in the area who are now discussing with the Department of Employment the question of financial assistance for research into the disease. By way of background, I should explain that claims for disablement benefit for pneumoconiosis, including asbestosis, and for a rarer disease, diffuse mesothelioma, under the Industrial Injuries Act are dealt with by pneumoconiosis medical panels composed of doctors who specialise in this work. They have the duty of diagnosing the disease and assessing the degree of disablement. They also undertake the medical surveillance of certain workers in dusty industries, including the asbestos industry. Their opinoin as to the cause of death is sought by the statutory authorities—insurance officers, local tribunals and commissioners—when there is an industrial death benefit claim in respect of one of the diseases they deal with, and this range of work gives them the opportunity of obtaining a complete history of many cases of pneumoconiosis.
  A claimant working in one of the prescribed occupations is X-rayed and the X-ray is scrutinised by a member of one of the pneumoconiosis panels. Automatically the case of asbestos workers, and in other industries if there are any signs of disease, or if the claimant does not accept that there is no such sign, he is clinically

  539
  examined by a pneumonconiosis medical board, normally by two doctors. In the case of asbestosis, the examination includes comprehensive lung function tests.
  On the basis of its tests and examination and any other medical information, the board has to decide whether to diagnose pneumoconiosis or diffuse mesothelioma. If it diagnoses one of these diseases, it then has to make an assessment of the degree of disablement the disease causes. It does this by comparing the claimant with a normal person of the same age and sex. The board normally makes an assessment for a limited period so that the claimant is examined regularly, and, if necessary, the assessment can be increased if the disability caused by the disease becomes worse. In 1973 the latest date for which figures are available 824 new cases were diagnosed by the Pneumoconiosis Medical Board and 1,917 cases not diagnosed. About 38,000 sufferers from diseases were dealt with by pneumoconiosis boards and are now receiving benefit.
  I turn to the specific points raised by my hon. Friend. First, he asked that in advising claimants of their decisions pneumoconiosis medical boards should give detailed reasons. I am advised that, although it is not normally automatically undertaken, a claimant may on request be supplied with a copy of the board's report, which gives a summary of the board's findings. If the claimant is still dissatisfied, the panel members are willing to discuss the clinical details of the case with the claimant's medical advisers.
  My hon. Friend referred to the right of appeal, which is one of the most difficult aspects. As with other industrial diseases, a claimant who is dissatisfied with his assessment may appeal to an independent medical appeal tribunal, and in the case of a death benefit claim there is a right of appeal from the insurance officer's decision to a local tribunal and from there to the commissioner. However, because the members of the panels specialise in these chest diseases they gain considerable experience in recognising them, and because it would be difficult to find a more expert body there is no right of appeal from their diagnosis decisions. It is open to a man to make a fresh claim.
  540
  This situation obviously does not meet with the satisfaction of my hon. Friend. It was not felt to be entirely satisfactory, and in 1967, following consultation with the TUC, a Central Pneumoconiosis Medical Panel was established to deal with claims of particular doubt or difficulty. Boards drawn from this panel consist of a chairman, who normally takes no active part in the question of diagnosis and assessment, people from headquarters staff of the Department, a senior medical officer and a consultant chest physican.
  To give some idea of the working of the Central Pneumoconiosis Medical Panel, I would add that cases are submitted to it where there is reasonable ground for doubt or dissatisfaction. Normally this covers claimants with serious respiratory disabilities whose claims have been rejected twice by the Pneumoconiosis Medical Board or those whose claims have been rejected five times by the board, and with a medical opinion from a chest physician that they are suffering from pneumoconiosis. A further category are those who suffer from diffuse mesothelioma. Where these claims are rejected they should also be seen by the central panel on the second claim, as this is a particularly difficult disease to diagnose.
  In 1973, of 45 cases boarded nine were diagnosed. My Department is considering the possibility of extending these criteria to enable a greater number of cases to be reviewed by the central panel.
  My hon. Friend expressed the fear that full-time members of the pneumoconiosis medical boards employed by my Department or those who have served for too long on them can develop—I think these were his words—a fixed and arbitrary attitude. As the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council made clear in its 1973 report, Command 5443, it is important to maintain the calibre and standing of panels at a high level. For that reason it is desirable that each panel should continue to include at least a nucleus of experienced full-time members. In addition, however, panels contain part-time members who have outside hospital appointments and experience. I stress that these panels take active steps to maintain good and close liaison with all interested bodies and other medical

  541
  authorities concerned with matters relating to occupational chest diseases both in this country and overseas.
  For example, the panels have local contacts with National Coal Board doctors, the Employment Medical Advisory Service of the Department of Employment, university medical departments and the Medical Research Council. They are also closely in touch with local pathologists and general practitioners and with employers.
  My hon. Friend referred to representation. He will know that doctors may attend medical boards if the boards feel that their presence is likely to be helpful. At central panel level trade union representatives frequently provide aid which often takes the form of medical advice. Although there is currently no provision for financial assistance, my hon. Friend will be aware that the whole question of representation before tribunals is now being considered by the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Aid. I am sure that when the report becomes available it will be studied not only by my Department but by my hon. Friend and all who share concern in these matters.
  The working of the pneumoconiosis medical panel system—I have in the past been one who has been somewhat critical —was examined closely by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. Its report, which I mentioned earlier, makes no major recommendation to change the system. I do not want to bother the House with quotations but it was said in the report that the council was generally satisfied with the proceedings of the panels. Despite the findings of the council, there
  542
  must inevitably be people who think that they suffer from a disease when, in fact, they do not. It is only to be expected that in dealing with these complicated and difficult diseases to diagnose medical opinions will differ from time to time.
  I have considerable sympathy with people who think that they suffer from one of the serious diseases with which the pneumoconiosis medical panels deal. Despite deep and careful thought, it has not proved possible to devise a better system. I have not closed my mind to changes. When I use that phrase I do so sincerely and genuinely. However, I am afraid that I can see no early prospect of developing beneficial changes. It is not a question of my Department or anyone being unwilling to act. We must be sure that if there are changes they will bring about the improvements which we all desire.
  In my constituency, the Rhondda, pneumoconiosis is a disease with which I am only too familiar. I would naturally have complete sympathy and understanding with my hon. Friend. I am sorry that in this debate I cannot immediately accept the recommendations that he has put forward. I am sorry if he feels that I am not being helpful enough. This is an important issue, and we are indebted to him for raising it. If he would like to discuss the matter further with some of the officials of my Department and myself I shall be only too delighted to meet him at any time he cares to suggest.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes past Ten o'clock.

DEFENCE
  Aircraft (Over-flying Rights)
  Aircraft (Over-flying Rights)
  Royal Navy (Treaty Facilities)
  Royal Navy (Treaty Facilities)
  North Weald (Accommodation)
  North Weald (Accommodation)
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  National Theatre
  National Theatre
ENERGY
  Oil Conservation
  Oil Conservation
ENVIRONMENT
  Oxford (Green Belt)
  Oxford (Green Belt)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Arabian Loans (EEC Countries)
  Arabian Loans (EEC Countries)
  Oil Costs (EEC Loan Scheme)
  Oil Costs (EEC Loan Scheme)
PRICES AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
  Sugar
  Sugar
  SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND
  SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.
Several Lords—Took the Oath or Affirmed.
The Earl of Kintore—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his mother.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN: CLERK OF THE PARLIAMENTS
LORD MACLEAN: My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a Message from Her Majesty the Queen signed by Her own hand. The Message is as follows:
"I have received your Address recommending Sir David Stephens, K.C.B., C.V.O., late Clerk of the Parliaments, to my Royal Grace and Bounty, and I will give directions accordingly."

LORD SPENS
THELORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, I have to acquaint the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments has received a letter from Mr. Leslie Boyd, Courts Administrator, Central Criminal Court, informing him that Lord Spens was on the fourth day of October, 1974, convicted at that Court of one offence of fraudulent conversion of property and five offences of theft, and was sentenced to a term of two years and six months' imprisonment on each offence, concurrent sentences.

WILD PLANTS PROTECTION BILL [H.L.]
LORD BEAUMONT FO WHITLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to provide for the protection of plants growing wild. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Beaumont of Whitley.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
THE CHAIRMAN FO COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I think I should say a few words in explanation of this long Motion. Its purpose is to enable Private Bills which did not complete their progress through Parliament in the last short Session to be reintroduced this Session, and to be passed pro forma through all the stages which they had already reached. This will relieve Promoters and, and in some cases, Petitioners of the expenses and fees which they would otherwise have to meet.
The House will remember that I norm-! ally move an appropriate Motion before the Summer Recess. I was unable to do so this year, owing to the uncertainty which existed at that time about the duration of the last Parliament. A similar Motion has been agreed to this afternoon in another place. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Promoters of the following Private Bills, namely:
Crouch Harbour Bill,
Eastbourne Harbour Bill,
Port of Tyne (North Shields Fish Harbour) Bill,
Torquay Market Bill,
River Wear Barrage Bill,
which originated in this House in the last Parliament but had not received the Royal Assent shall notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House have leave to introduce the said Bills in the present Session and the Petitions for the Bills shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable thereto shall be deemed to have been complied with.
Every such Bill shall be deposited in the office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than 5 o'clock on the 5th November next with a declaration annexed thereto signed by the Agent concerned stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill at the last stage of the proceedings thereon in this House in the last Parliament.
That the proceedings on such Bills shall in the present Session be pro forma only, in regard to every stage through which

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the same shall have passed in the last Parliament, and that no new fees be charged to such stages.
That all Standing Orders complied with in respect of any Bill which originated in the House of Commons in the last Parliament shall be held to have been complied with in respect of any Bill presented in that House in the present Session provided that the Bill is the same in every respect as that which was presented in the last Session and where the Examiner has already reported that the Standing Orders have been complied with in respect of any such Bill, he shall report only whether any further Standing Orders are applicable.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and a Message ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

ADDRESS IN REPLY TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH
3.14 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved on Tuesday last by Lord Shinwell—namely, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
THEMINISTER FO STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH): My Lords, I should like, if I may, to begin my speech with a reference to two noble Lords: first, my noble friend Lord Crowther-Hunt. I am sure I speak on behalf of the whole House when I welcome him warmly to his new place on the Government Front Bench. Quite apart from his personal qualities, I think the House is particularly fortunate, at a time when a great deal of Parliamentary time is going to be devoted to discussing the Government's proposals on legislative devolution to Scotland and Wales, in having on the Front Bench one of the principal authorities on this crucial issue, For that reason alone I think my noble friend is particularly welcome.
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However, he is not only a constitutional authority of very considerable note but he has been one of our leading political analysts on radio and television. Indeed, I might at one stage have said that he was a psephologist were it not for the unhappy fact that a few weeks ago one of them on the night of the General Election said that the Labour majority would be between 100 and 150. So a compliment of that sort might be misunderstood by him. Therefore, I will content myself with one other particular reference to him. The last occasion that I had the pleasure of being in a radio studio with him was one of those unfortunate moments in the political history of our Party when we were going through one of those brief and, happily, rare interludes when there was a slight difference of opinion between members of our Party. News of this had, unhappily, crept into some of the newspapers. The House will be relieved to know that my noble friend and I discussed this problem with our customary moderation and restraint. It was, as I recall, a programme for the Overseas Service of the B.B.C. I understand on very good authority that there are many inhabitants of Malawi and Zaire who still recall our discussion with pleasure!
I turn now to the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham. I should like to associate myself with what my noble friend the Leader of the House said about him. His departure from a particularly active role in politics is a severe loss to the House. As the Minister responsible to the Home Secretary for broadcasting policy, I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, is returning to the television industry, where he has a large number of friends, as indeed he has on both sides of this House. This is the moment to recall one considerable accomplishment of the noble Lord which has received far too little attention: that is the creation of the Voluntary Service Unit, which is now in the Home Office, and for which he was personally responsible. This Unit exists in order to give advice and encouragement, and indeed, a fair amount of financial support to many voluntary organisations. As someone who for at least a short period in my life worked in the Treasury, I realise what a formidable struggle the noble Lord must have had in securing

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Treasury approval for that Unit. I know how much the existence of this Unit is greatly valued by voluntary organisations in this country, and I know that they would wish to be associated with the few words that I have said about the noble Lord.
I propose to-day to discuss two major areas of Home Office policy. By far the lengthiest section of my speech will deal with the increasingly serious crime situation in this country. But first I think I should refer to what is going to be the principal piece of Home Office legislation in this Session—the Bill aimed at ending discrimination based on sex. The provisions of the Bill were outlined in our White Paper Equality for Women which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary published early in September. They will reflect the Government's resolve to introduce effective measures to discourage discriminatory conduct and to promote genuine equality of opportunity for both sexes. I should tell your Lordships that in preparing their proposals, the Government have tried to avoid a number of weaknesses which experience has revealed in the enforcement provisions of our race relations legislation.
As to the scope of the Bill, in employment it will reinforce the Equal Pay Act which we passed in 1970, by covering non-contractual terms and conditions of employment, as well as job opportunities. When the Bill is enacted it will be unlawful for employers to discriminate in opportunities for recruitment, training and promotion either on grounds of sex or, equally important, on grounds of marriage. We also propose to cover access to partnerships in large professional organisations and to licensing authorities.
The Government's proposals also bring education within the scope of the Bill. Subject to a saving for single sex institutions, the Bill will place a duty on all educational establishments, in both the public and private sectors, to provide facilities for education to either sex
"of the like quality, in the like manner and on the like terms in and on which they are provided for members of the other sex".
Our proposals will also apply to the provision of goods, facilities and services to the public, including such critical areas
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as housing accommodation, banking, loans, credit and mortgages.
The Government have adopted a new and radical approach to enforcement machinery. This combines the right of individual access to legal remedies, which many organisations wanted, with the positive and strategic functions of a powerful Equal Opportunities Commission, responsible for enforcing the law in the public interest on behalf of the community as a whole. On the question of individual access to legal remedies, the Bill will provide individual civil remedies for victims of unlawful discrimination, who will have direct access to the industrial tribunals on employment matters, and to the courts on other complaints. The Bill will also make provision for dealing with general practices of discrimination.
While the proposed Equal Opportunities Commission has the same name as the body proposed by our predecessors, it will in fact have substantially different functions. It will, for instance, be able to represent individuals in suitable and significant cases. The Commission will be empowered to conduct investigations on its own initiative whether or not it has received an individual complaint. It will be able to issue non-discrimination notices, which could if breached be enforced through the civil courts, as well as to follow up court and tribunal proceedings. It will also be able to conduct general inquiries and research into areas not covered by the Bill; to advise the Government, and to take action to educate and persuade public opinion. In order to ensure its effectiveness the Commission will have adequate powers to require the production of relevant information and to summon witnesses to give evidence.
I regard this Bill as one of the most important listed in the gracious Speech. I would not argue for a moment that even after the passage of this Bill all discrimination against women will suddenly cease. It will not. Even after the enactment of two Race Relations Acts there is still, unhappily, a great deal of discrimination against both men and women solely on the grounds of their colour. We have seen evidence of that to-day in the Report of PEP, an exceptionally disturbing document it seemed to me. In these circumstances it will clearly be some time before we rid our society of the curse

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of this deeply unjust and demeaning treatment of many women simply on the grounds of their sex. But this Bill will at least make a start towards creating a society where the majority of our fellow citizens—because that in fact is what women are—receive some guarantee of equal treatment under the law.
I should like to turn now to a totally different problem. This is the extremely disturbing increase in crime which is causing serious and entirely justifiable anxiety among the public. We have experienced a rise of 20 per cent, in recorded crime in the first half of this year compared with the same period of last year. It was already apparent from about the middle of last year that the decrease shown in the early months of 1973 was not being maintained. In fact, the last quarter of 1973 taken in isolation showed an increase of 11 per cent. in recorded crime over the same period in 1972. This was an ominous forerunner of the larger increases which we have witnessed this year. We do not yet have any comprehensive information about the period after the end of June, but such figures as we have suggest that the present trend is continuing. By comparison with the first eight months of last year, offences recorded as known to the police have increased by 17 per cent. in the Metropolitan Police District. To take only one example concerning a provincial force, in the area of the Kent police there has been an increase in the first eight months of this year of no less than 27 per cent. over the same period last year. It is important to recognise that many other advanced industrial countries are experiencing precisely the same problem. In the United States, for example, they have had a remarkably similar trend: a promising decrease in recorded crime followed by a resumption of a sharp upward movement in the crime statistics.
In this situation I think it is right this afternoon, as the Minister responsible to the Home Secretary for the police, to discuss some of the more serious problems now facing the Service. First of all, I must mention recruitment. At the end of September the total strength of the police service was 100,822 men. This is an increase, albeit a very small one, over the comparable period of last year. There was an increase of 257 men, and that I
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suppose is a trend at least pointing in the right direction. Recruitment had totalled 4,880 this year, a slightly lower rate of intake than in 1973. Wastage rose in 1973 by 26 per cent. But perhaps we may take comfort from the fact that the total wastage for the first nine months of this year, 4,580, is also around the 1973 level and has not increased still further. Moreover—and this is an encouraging and important fact—the cadet intake this year is up by over 300 compared to last year, and given the fact that a substantial number of recruits to the police service come through the cadet scheme, this at least is a statistic which provides some slight encouragement. Nevertheless, the growth of the service as a whole so far this year has been disappointing and the manpower situation in a number of forces, including the Metropolitan Police, remains highly unsatisfactory.
However, I should make it clear that these figures do not include any marked effect from the changes in police pay which operated from September 1, New pay scales were agreed for all ranks from that date, and agreement has now been reached in the Police Council that the London allowance should be raised to £275. In addition, the Police Council have in hand a review of the structure of police pay. These substantial increases in pay will, we hope, do something to reduce the present high wastage of trained police officers and provide further incentive to young men and women to join the police service.
Next, I turn to the various scientific aids available to the police. Some measure of our recent progress can be gauged from these figures. At the end of 1965, when my right honourable friend the present Home Secretary first took up that Office, the police had a total of 1,450 personal radios. Now there are 26,500. In the same period the number of radios in police cars has more than doubled. A large technical and scientific staff are employed by the Home Office on research and development, and about £2 million is being expended this year in this particular area of police activity. A recent example, which I have had the opportunity of visiting myself, was the setting up at the Durham County police headquarters of an experimental unit, staffed by scientific and technical officers together with police officers. for the purpose of making

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advanced technical equipment and a technical service available to groups of police forces. The experiment has been a success and we arc now having discussions with the Association of Chief Police Officers to see whether we can create further units on the same lines. Another example has been the establishment of an operational computerised control system in Birmingham. It is now proposed to extend this to the whole of the new West Midlands Metropolitan Area. Work is in progress on installing a still more advanced and highly developed system in Glasgow. Further studies are m progress both in Dorset and in Staffordshire.
Another important recent development is the police national computer. This began to provide an operational service for the police on April 1 when the national file of stolen vehicles was transferred to it. Your Lordships will gain an impression of the value and the significance of this development to the police by this fact. In the past it took around ten days to secure detailed information about the ownership of a suspected stolen car. This matter can now be determined by a police wireless operator checking through his head-quarters about the registration number of a particular vehicle, and he can get the answer not in ten days but in a matter of a few seconds. This obviously has a profoundly significant effect upon the operational efficiency of the police force.
However, inevitably there are some anxieties about the general question of the possible misuse of personal information held on computers, be it by the police or by other Government Departments. The police are highly sensitive to this, I know, and considerable steps have been taken by the police service to make quite sure that unauthorised hands cannot get access to the kind of information held on the police national computer. As we said in our Election Manifesto, we want to protect the citizen from unwarranted and mischievous intrusion into his private affairs. In considering what measures should be taken, the Government are able to draw upon the valuable studies of the Younger Committee, which examined the need for further measures to protect privacy in the private sector, and of the committee of officials which reviewed the
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processing and storage of personal information on Government computers. In this field—as in any field in which the needs of the individual have to be balanced against the needs of society as a whole—many difficult issues are involved; but one aspect which has, perhaps, caused more concern than any is the one to which I have just referred—the possible abuse of personal information held on computers. This question was raised with me in the last Parliament by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner. The Government have, therefore, decided that it would be right to publish in advance of our overall conclusions on privacy our views on the specific questions arising from the increasing use of computers in both the public and private sectors. We hope to do this by Christmas and we shall aim to present our overall conclusions as soon as possible thereafter.
I now turn to relations between the police and the public. Only a few weeks ago, I visited the United States in order to discuss a number of issues of common interest in the general area of law enforcement with a number of officials in the police service in the United States. I am bound to say, as I suppose many people have realised on previous visits of this kind, that one is struck by the degree of envy that there is in the United States about the quality of the relationship that exists between members of the public and the police service in this country. However, nobody—least of all anybody in our police service—is at all complacent about the current situation here. Sometimes, one is bound to say, and the police service would be the first to admit it, there are lapses of judgment—occasionally serious ones. But of course there are some lapses of judgment by politicians, and some by businessmen and even some by civil servants from time to time.
One of the questions which was awaiting our attention in this area when we came into Office was the general one of what steps should be taken to introduce an independent element into the procedure for dealing with complaints against the police. The previous Government had accepted the need for an independent element to play a role in this procedure, and on that point of principle I am glad to say there now appears to be general agreement. Last year, my

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right honourable friend's predecessor as Home Secretary appointed a working group representing the police service and police authorities in England and Wales, to consider what would be the best method of achieving that aim. It fell to my right honourable friend to publish the working group's report and to set about forming his own conclusions on what, as the substantial difference of opinion that emerged on the working group has shown, is a particularly difficult question.
The basic choice which has to be made, as I see it, is between what the working group called an ex post facto scheme—one where the independent element can be called in only after a complaint has been dealt with to pronounce on whether it was dealt with properly—and a scheme under which the independent element intervenes in the handling of a complaint at a much earlier stage. The first alternative involves the minimum of interference with the existing system, but its great disadvantage from the point of view of the dissatisfied complainant would be that, even if the independent element found that he had good cause for dissatisfaction, no action to satisfy the complainant would follow from its finding.
In our view, an arrangement under which the opinion of an independent reviewing authority could have no effect on the outcome of the case it was reviewing would be far too weak to command that degree of public confidence in the system which the injection of an independent element is designed to secure. For this reason, my right honourable friend has come to the conclusion that it is essential for the independent element to be able to intervene early enough to make its intervention effective.
In July, my right honourable friend put forward an outline scheme, of which the main features were that the investigation of a complaint would remain in the hands of the police; but thereafter, unless the complainant did not want to press the matter, it must come immediately under the scrutiny of an independent authority. I will not trouble the House with the full. details of the scheme. All I would say for the moment is that we are now involved in detailed discussions with the various representative bodies in the police
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service and that we shall attempt to make progress on this important issue as rapidly as we can.
However, I should like, while talking about this general question of relations between the police and the public, to come to another matter. It is one which was touched on at the annual conference of the Police Federation last week. Quite apart from the Government's own proposals for a major restructuring of the complaints procedure, there are strong feelings among policemen that the existing complaints procedure can be most unfair to them; that they arc insufficiently protected against malicious and ill-founded complaints; and that the complaints and discipline procedure can extend into areas which people in other occupations and professions regard as their own private business. We have some sympathy with the feelings of police-men on this point and, in considering amendment of the existing law and regulations, we shall certainly consider, when trying to give effect to our proposals on this question of the independent element, modifications which would make the present system a great deal fairer from the point of view of the police just as much as from the point of view of the public.
I do not think that I could appropriately, at a time like this, address your Lordships on this particular area of policy without discussing the problem of terrorism. We are being constantly reminded by a series of outrages throughout the world that terrorism is now a serious threat to the maintenance of stable and rational societies. In Great Britain, as in Northern Ireland, we have seen the killing and maiming of innocent people—men, women and children—who have been wantonly sacrificed in the pursuit of a political campaign, the logic as well as the morality of which passes all understanding.
First of all, let me deal with one problem arising in particular from the question of international terrorism. Largely as a result of the risk of terrorist attacks, the last Parliament was asked to approve the Policing of Airports Act. Using his powers under this Act, the Home Secretary has made an order transferring the policing at Heathrow Airport from the British Airports Authority Constabulary

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to the Metropolitan Police. The change-over will take place at midnight to-night. Terrorists may, of course, strike at other airports and it has become clear, having taken the decision over Heathrow, that the British Airports Authority Constabulary itself is no longer a viable force. We are, therefore, holding urgent consultations with the British Airports Authority and the police authorities and chief constables concerned about the possible designation of the British Airports Authority airports other than Heathrow; that is, Gatwick, Stansted, Prestwick and Edinburgh. I very much hope that these discussions will be successful and will lead to the laying of orders under the Act at an early date.
I turn now to the domestic problem of terrorism. Destroying terrorism means catching those who perpetrate terrorist acts or, better still, forestalling them before they can carry them out. This task falls primarily to the police, often in areas like London and the West Midlands where the manpower situation is at its worst. I should like to say—and I am sure that I say this on behalf of the entire House— that we owe an immense debt to the police for the way in which they have responded in the last few years to the great additional burden which bomb attacks have placed upon them. To all ranks of the police service, upon whom the extra heavy hours of duty fall and who often have to risk their own personal safety in dealing with bomb outrages, we must express our admiration. It may be invidious to single out individual sections of the police for special praise, but I think that I ought to mention in particular the invaluable work of the bomb squad in London and of their colleagues in the provinces who have had to deal with no less than 200 bomb attacks carried out in Britain in the last couple of years. And I should like in this context to pay specific tribute to the work of the Special Branch. By its very nature, the work which they carry out cannot be fully publicised. Nevertheless, they have played a crucial role in dealing with this problem of terrorism and I am quite sure that the whole House would like to take this opportunity of expressing its gratitude to them.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear !
LORD HARRIS FO GREENWICH: I am well aware that the situation which I have reported to your Lordships to-day is a pretty sombre one. The crime situation is disturbing and although, as I have tried to indicate, we are making some progress in improving recruitment for the police, the fact is that forces in many of our most densely populated urban areas are still significantly below establishment. As recent events have demonstrated, it is just in some of these areas that we have been confronted with a campaign of terrorist violence. We have also had to recognise that with all other advanced industrial countries we face constant risk of attacks by international terrorists; yet, despite the serious difficulties of the present situation, I do not consider that there is any justification for despair. Notwithstanding the growth of criminal activity, the police have succeeded in maintaining remarkably high detection figures. New technical aids to assist the police are being brought into service at a rapid rate; and although it would be remarkably foolish to make any positive statement about the likely level of terrorist activities in our cities, thanks to the devoted work of the specialist units involved, and many other police officers as well, some of the most dangerous terrorists have now been convicted.
In these circumstances it would be foolish to exaggerate our present difficulties, which are certainly formidable. No one in the Home Office or the police service would for a moment underestimate them, but I believe if we face up to our problems in a mood of calm determination we can overcome them.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down would he feel that this is a suitable occasion, or would he prefer some other occasion, to say just a word about Government policy as regards the housing of married police officers? This is a matter which very considerably affects wastage.
LORD HARRIS FO GREENWICH: My Lords, if the House will permit me I should be delighted to inform the noble Lord about the existing situation, perhaps by correspondence, as I am aware that I have spoken for nearly half an hour.
BARONESS EMMET FO AMBERLEY: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord one question before he sits down. He gave us most welcome figures with regard to the police cadets. Do those figures apply to girl cadets as well as boy cadets?
LORD HARRIS FO GREENWICH: My Lords, if the House will forgive me once again, the noble Baroness should be aware that in fact when I am visiting police forces throughout the country I always make a particular point of discussing with the chief officers concerned the recruitment of girl police cadets as well as boys. Quite apart from the fact that it is desirable to have them in the police service, it is a way of dealing with our current manpower problems.
3.43 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I should like to join with others of your Lordships who have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, on their admirable proposing and seconding of this humble Address. Also, I should like to thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House and others among my colleagues who have been kind enough to say nice things about me, which I much appreciate. This makes me all the more ashamed of the fact that I have to ask your Lordships' indulgence if I am unable to stay until the end of this debate as I have a longstanding engagement that I have not been able to avoid. However, my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross will be speaking at the end of the day and I am sure he is far more able than I am to tackle any questions that may arise.
We are speaking this afternoon about the home affairs part of the most gracious Speech, and it is a very formidable legislative programme. I will leave the questions that have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, on the Home Office front—crime and sex discrimination—to my noble friend, but quite apart from those matters there is a long list of proposals which will involve a great deal of legislation. Some speculation in the Press has put the number at over 40 Bills, and certainly at a rough run through there are 30 Bills there, many of them major Bills. Therefore I join with my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition in begging the Government to ensure that we start some
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of these Bills in this House and thus get a better balance of legislation. We set an admirable example when we introduced the National Health Service Reorganisation Bill in your Lordships' House. That was a major Bill which was taken first in this House and I hope the Government will follow that example.
It seems to me that there is a tendency for us now to undertake too much legislation in this country. I am sure it is right from time to time to commit ourselves to major constitutional changes, and I think the time was right when we set ourselves the task of reorganising local government, of reorganising the National Health Service, of legislating for our entry into the European Economic Community and indeed for our attempt to set a new standard of legislation and a new form of legislation for industrial relations. But now, faced as we are with a very grave economic crisis and one that the Prime Minister himself has admitted is the most serious economic crisis that we have faced since the war, I believe it is quite wrong to burden Parliament with so much legislation, and especially so much legislation which is quite irrelevant to the demands of the present economic situation.
The Prime Minister has sought—and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has echoed his words—a spirit of national unity. Certainly that is no strange phrase to us, who included it in our General Election campaign. I am delighted that noble Lords opposite are now convinced of the need for this spirit, but, if I may say so, it is a curious contrast with some of the phrases that were used in the course of the General Election. For example, one phrase in the Manifesto of the Labour Party that stuck in my gullet was this:
"There is no meeting point between us and those with quite different philosophies."
That has never been true in my experience in this House, and I hope it never will be true in this House. I certainly would deplore any such event.
At the same time as the Government are calling for equal sacrifices from all, they are proposing massive Government expenditure for reasons that are totally unconnected with the present crisis. It is proposed to spend vast sums on nationalising the shipbuilding and aircraft industries, on nationalising development land, on investment in North Sea oil and on establishing a National Enterprise Board.

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My Lords, what a contrast to the action of the President of the United States of America, who recently put a comprehensive plan for the defeat of inflation to the American people. That is what the people of this country need, and indeed what they expect, and not an expensive ragbag of out-of-date irrelevancies.
One great mercy, at least, is that there is no mention of the nationalisation of our ports in the Queen's Speech, although this was included in the Labour Party's Manifesto. However the fact is, alas!, that we know from the Minister of Transport that the Government do intend to nationalise all commercial ports and cargo-handling activities along the whole coastline, including estuaries. This goes far further than that Ports Bill which your Lordships may remember fell at the General Election of 1970, and would include such efficient privately-owned small ports as Felixstowe. It would mean the destruction of free enterprise in Britain's ports, at vast cost to the taxpayer and at extra cost to the country's import bill. This is a surprising omission, but let us be thankful for small mercies.
Speaking of omissions from the gracious Speech, what about a subject which has interested your Lordships greatly over the last Session, that of public transport in rural areas? This has had a very curious history in this House. Your Lord-ships may remember that when the Bill came back here in the last Parliament, we on this side proposed three Amendments which were designed to make rural transport easier and more flexible. These Amendments were readily accepted from the Government Front Bench. In fact they spurred the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, to remark on the contrast between a Conservative Government who would not accept any Amendments and a Labour Government who accepted them with readiness. But what happened, my Lords? When the Bill got back to the Commons they took the Amendments out. The result is that in the Road Traffic Act passed in the last Session there is no provision for help for transport in rural areas and there is no proposal to help in the Queen's Speech.
May I turn now to the social services? Before I do so, may I associate myself with what was said by the noble Lord the Leader of the House in paying tribute
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to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy. He and I had many dealings over the question of social services and I deeply respected his sincerity and his ability. He always took a particular interest in matters that concerned the staff in any piece of legislation. Within the National Health Service I regret that there is a considerable loss of confidence. I was glad that, as a result of his Report, the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, achieved some measure of justice for nurses and for other health professions, but I think we must find some way of providing a satisfactory career structure for National Health Service staff without the need for that militancy which is so alien to their nature.
I think that fundamentally there has to be a system of wage and salary determination by real negotiation between employers and employees, and these the Whitley system provides. I personally do not believe that there is a need to alter the basic principles of the Whitley system, but it seems to me that the machinery is slow and cumbersome and it should be possible to improve it, to cut out unnecessary delays and make negotiations more realistic. In our Manifesto we proposed to set up an independent inquiry into the workings of the Whitley system. The Government may have pinched some of our clothes in the past few weeks—perhaps they would not mind pinching this. I should be delighted if they would set up such an inquiry.
The Queen's Speech goes on to speak of proposals to introduce democracy into the National Health Service. I cannot understand exactly what this means, but in my opinion the National Health Service needs a period of stability in which to settle down and develop its new organisation, and I see no merit in further change. Already Area Health Authorities have local authority members nominated to them. Already community health councils are established to bring local opinion to bear on management decisions. To go further than this, as has been suggested, and allow each community health council to nominate two members to the area health authority, would confuse their role and make the area health authority into an unwieldy and indecisive body. A normal area health authority with some 15 to 18 members, with, say,

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six health districts, would find its membership increased by some 27 to 30—far too large for effective management.
Certainly when the National Health Service is facing financial difficulties is not the time to abolish Health Service charges or private beds, and I am delighted that neither proposal appears in the Queen's Speech. We had a most excellent debate in this House just before the end of the last Parliament, in which the unanimous advice to the Government from a number of experienced and highly distinguished Members of this House was that to abolish pay beds in National Health Service hospitals would result in a two-standard Health Service and would be to the detriment of medical education; and I hope that that debate had a part in persuading the Government to hold back on that proposal.
So far as pensions are concerned, no one suffers more from inflation than the pensioner, and it was with their interest in mind that we proposed in our Manifesto to have a six-monthly review of pensions. If inflation continues at the rate it is at the moment, many of the social security increases granted last July will be more than wiped out by next July. If inflation increases in pace, pensioners will find that their living standards have fallen. The second pension promised by the Government will not start until April, 1978, three years later than our original scheme which they repealed, and a full second pension will be payable only in 1998. Admittedly this is a few years earlier than would have been the case under our scheme, but the real difference between these two schemes, as it was with the Crossman plan, is that the second pension proposed by the present Government will not be funded. We shall have to rely on the working population of the future to pay increased contributions to meet the full extra cost, and that cost is estimated at some £2,000 million when it is in full payment.
Yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Byers, in a most interesting speech on this subject, spoke of the experts not being too despondent at this prospect of having to find extra money from the contributions. I should very much like to see the evidence on which he was speaking. I certainly welcome the proposals that he made for a joint approach to an agreed
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scheme. My right honourable friend Sir Geoffrey Howe has already made an offer on these lines, that the provisions of the Social Security Act of 1973 should be implemented in April, 1976, which is the first date on which they are now able to be implemented, so that a second pension is got under way as soon as possible, and that an all-Party Select Committee should study the position and agree any necessary changes that should be made in that scheme.
However, I think the saddest aspect of all is the Government's complete rejection of the tax credit scheme. This would have had several major advantages. In the first place, it would have taken the majority of pensioners, who are now dependent on supplementary benefit, out of the net by providing them with an income as of right. In the second place, it would have paid child credits at a rate higher than the present rate of family allowances and including the first child. In the third place, it would have provided a basis for a gradual reduction in means-tested benefit—for example, the family income supplement which would have disappeared. Lastly, it would have provided an income for those who were in need much more efficiently, much more cost-effectively, than food subsidies which help the rich and poor alike. I must welcome the modest improvements that have been announced by the Government for the disabled. We are all conscious of the needs of the disabled and within the limits of our national income I am sure that all of us would like to do more to help. The proposals arc modest and in many cases will serve only to make savings in supplementary benefits. They are none the less welcome for that, although there is one omission in the case of the disabled housewife, in which your Lordships have taken an interest in the past, and whom we proposed to help in our Manifesto proposals.
My Lords, I so much agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, when he said that the underlying strength of our society is the family. The increase in juvenile crime, hooliganism and vandalism of which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, spoke, in my opinion results from the breakdown of family life. Social agencies, including the schools, can try to improve matters, but it is ultimately on the parents that the

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responsibility rests. It is only too obvious to social workers, teachers, magistrates and others that there is a close correlation between juvenile delinquency and bad homes. Recently, there has been one example, a horrifying report by a research team of the Oxford Regional Health Authority on severely ill-treated young children in North-East Wiltshire. Their research into the background of parents who ill-treated these young children showed that—and I quote from their report:
"The most impressive feature of the parents and parent substitutes was the constellation of pathologies and of their own unsatisfactory childhoods which they exhibited."
This is just another link in the chain of deprivation mentioned by my right honourable friend Sir Keith Joseph.
These are questions of enormous social significance to the country. I must say I found it deplorable that so many responsible people—politicians, journalists and trade union leaders—responded with so much instant abuse to the recent speech of my right honourable friend. They responded with such speed that it was quite obvious that most of them had not taken the trouble to read the full text of the speech which, as those who know my right honourable friend or have read his speech will know, was a very statesman-like effort to get at the basis of some of these major problems.
My Lords, there are many other major policy matters included in the Home Affairs section of the gracious Speech. I have no time to deal with more of them. My noble friend Lord Colville of Culross will certainly be dealing with some at the end of this debate. For example, the grammar schools, which have contributed so much to our educational system, are once more threatened by a full comprehensive system which is far from having proved itself satisfactory. Preparations are to be made for directly elected assemblies in Scotland and Wales; these are simply sops to the nationalist Cerberus. Over the whole of the Home Affairs section of the gracious Speech there hangs the spectre of inflation. Until that spectre is exorcised by firm Government action, the social services and moral strength of this nation will be weakened. Our fundamental criticism, then, of the gracious Speech is that it fails to single out this overriding priority and shows insufficient resolution in tackling it.
4.4 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT FO WHITLEY: My Lords, we are lucky to have a large number of distinguished speakers to-day, as we had yesterday, and we very much look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman. I only wish I could make my speech alter hers, so as to be able to appreciate it more fully. Yesterday we listened to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn. I cannot say I heard it because unfortunately, no sooner had she "popped" up and I started racing up from my subterranean office to hear her speak, than she had "popped" down. But I did read her speech in Hansard to-day and although extremely short, it was obviously a speech of great importance. Certainly for me, mention of the noble Baroness and her late husband fits in very well with the sadness that I feel that we are to lose the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, from his active role on the Front Bench. During the time I have been in your Lordships' House—and I hope other Ministers and ex-Ministers will not take this amiss—no one has excelled the noble Lords, Lord Windlesham and Lord Delacourt-Smith, in the great courtesy they have always shown to everyone who was debating with them, and the great intellectual capacity they exhibited for reaching the heart of an argument however badly one might have expressed it oneself. We very much welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Delacourt-Smith, to this House, and deplore the temporary loss of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, from the Front Bench.
My Lords, I take it that my duty on this occasion is to give some indication of the attitude of my noble friends on these Benches to the proposals on Home Affairs in the gracious Speech. The noble Lord, Lord Byers, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, dealt with the economic matters yesterday, and I will not touch on them. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, later in to-day's debate will be talking about devolution, and possibly also about proportional representation and agriculture. If the noble Viscount will be talking about devolution, he might, incidentally, see whether he can extract from the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, a little more by way of explanation of the reference to the sops thrown to the nationalist Cerberus, because I thought the

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Conservative Party had been in the business of throwing a few sops themselves recently. I am not entirely certain of the distinction the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is making, but no doubt we can hear about that later, or hear from the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross.
My Lords, I think it is important that we in this House should pay particular attention to the proposals in this forthcoming Session for Parliament because once again, although there is an overall majority for the Government in another place, there is far from an overall majority of votes. Although I take the point made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that a Government is elected to govern, and that very often there is not a majority of votes, nevertheless something like 60 per cent. of the people of this country who actually bothered to vote, voted against the Government. It is up to the Opposition Parties in your Lordships' House to keep an eye open to see there is not an arrogance of the elected majority, which can be just as harmful as any arrogance of a minority.
I see particular reason to cast a slightly jaundiced eye over the political programme of a Party which, on the one hand, appears to be in favour of a referendum as a method of deciding things in this country, and, on the other hand, has put forward nationalisation proposals, when the most recent National Opinion Poll on this subject in July showed only 17 per cent. of the electorate of this country were in favour of any extension of nationalisation. This question of the attitude we should take on various parts of the programme of the Government will arise possibly most acutely when the amendments come to the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act. Noble Lords in this House passed several Amendments to the original Bill in the last Session, protecting the rights of the individual in various ways. I think we would be failing in our duty if we did not say that we have no reason at the moment to abandon our stand on those points.
We welcome a number of measures which are being taken under social security, although, together with the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, we also deprecate the fact that no progress is to be made with the whole conception of credits or negative income tax. It is, of
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course, extremely important, if this nebulous thing called the social contract is to have any chance of working at all, that we look after the poorest in our community. I think it is, therefore, a great pity that, as I understand it—and I am open to correction—the Government have not been able to see their way to make payments for the first child on family allowances. We have been told in the past that this would take a long time and is very difficult to administer. I find this difficult to understand, because we have already, presumably, in the files of the social security in this country the records of all first children who are first children followed by second and third children, if your Lordships follow me, and to obtain the additional information and documentation of first children who are only children surely is not so great a task. Along with this situation goes the unfortunate decision of the Government not to proceed any further with the recommendations on single parent families for the time being. It is at this moment of really bad inflation that we have to look after the really badly-off in the community.
With regard to the proposals for the National Health Service, again like the noble Lord. Lord Aberdare, we will look at them with interest. There is absolutely no doubt that we do need more resources for the National Health Service. On the question of more democracy in the National Health Service, it ill becomes anyone from these Benches to deprecate the introduction of more democracy into anything. But my noble friend Lady Robson has pointed out—and she, as your Lordships know, is the chairman of a Regional Health Authority—that they have just obtained their Regional Health Authority. It is a manageable body. They have been told that they have to organise it as a unit and not break it down into committees, and now they are suddenly told that it has to be doubled in size and to become something which appears on the face of it to be rather unworkable. We would like to introduce as much democracy as possible into the National Health Service, but perhaps it could be given a little additional breathing-space after the great reorganisation which has happened in the immediate past.
We welcome the emphasis, in line with what we have been saying, about the

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necessity in these hard times of looking after the worst-off. We welcome the emphasis in education on looking after the disadvantaged children. Again progress on this is very long overdue. The land proposals of the Government we treat with mixed feelings. Liberals have always firmly believed that the accretion of value to land should go to the community and not to the individual, but these present proposals seem expressly designed to drive land off the market; to keep land off the market rather than to bring it on to the market. We ourselves still say that it would be far better to adopt the Liberal policy of site value rating.
With regard to housing, we must build more houses, and although I do not speak as a housing expert and I am subject to correction, I do welcome most warmly Mr. Crosland's initiative yesterday when he mentioned the need for building, if necessary, temporary houses and mobile homes, anything to relieve the immense pressures that are on people at the moment. The Parker-Morris standards were very good in their way, but they were not designed to deal with the present situation that we have. In dealing with rates I detect a symptom of something which I regard as very disquieting in our present legislation and in our present taxation system. At the moment the tendency appears to be—and the Government appear to be reinforcing this—to take more and more money into the central taxation system and to dole it out from this great pool. I think we need to get back to more local control of expenditure. At this moment, when we are all feeling the pinch, there is a very great deal to be said for increasing the impact of the relationship between what we pay for and what we get, instead of putting everything into a big coffer and taking it out again; to have a relationship between television licences and what it costs to run a television service instead of abolishing licences as has been talked about, to relate what people pay, admittedly on a fairer system than our present rate system, to what they actually get back in services. I have long thought that the basic Treasury rule that you should never apportion taxation from a particular source to a particular project was in fact a rather bad one and that people would place much more value on
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what they were receiving and be able to estimate it if there were some relationship which they could observe between the taxes they pay in different ways and the benefits they receive in different ways.
Finally I come to civil rights. I think it is terribly important that we look after civil rights and keep a severe watching brief on what is happening. I very much welcome the remarks which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich made about the investigation of complaints against the police and about the whole question of computer security. At the same time we very much welcome the suggestions of the Government on sex discrimination. I regret that there appears to be no mention in the gracious Speech of enforcing and tightening up the procedure with regard to race discrimination which has recently had one or two rather bad setbacks. May I finally express the hope that we pay considerable attention to conservation in the course of the coming year, and that the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook (who is introducing a Bill for the preservation of rare animals), and myself, in introducing a Bill for the protection of wild flowers, may receive a helpful hand from the Government in these matters which I know the majority of your Lordships think are extremely worth while.
My Lords, that is somewhat of a rag-bag, but then legislative proposals are themselves, when listed, somewhat of a ragbag. But there has been one theme which has run through practically everything that I have been saying; that theme is that we must look after the individual and particularly those individuals who are the worst-off in our community; that we must make certain that at a time when inflation is rampant it is not the weakest who go to the wall; that we must make certain, at a time when Governments may have to pass extremely tough and far-reaching measures, that we look after the liberty of the individual. These two matters, the liberty of the individual and the protection of the underdog, are matters of principle with which my Party, I am proud and glad to say, has always been associated, and it is our intention to follow that through in this coming Parliament.
4.20 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, in rising to make my maiden speech, I am deeply conscious of the fact that my

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subject should be non-controversial. Therefore, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, for having at least trailed his coat and given me an opportunity of referring to the question of local government finance, which is one of the most important matters we have to face to-day. It is one of the fields which are suffering from the high inflation and the economic plight in which we find ourselves. The local authority associations are now assuming that we have to face something like a 25 per cent. rate of inflation next year. I think that is, perhaps, a little pessimistic, because my county treasurer tells me that at the moment the rate of inflation is running at 18 per cent. and is beginning to steady. But, even so, if the grant that we get from the Government purse remains the same there will be another massive increase in rates in the coming year. Therefore, I think the time has come for your Lordships to press the Government to consider giving a higher proportion of grant to local government.
Some of your Lordships who are members of the executive committee of the Association of County Councils will know that they have estimated that at the end of this financial year county councils will have a deficit of something like £250 million. That is something like 10 per cent. of the rate-borne expenditure of the authorities, and it will mean an increase of something like 4p overall before we start levying rates next year. This reckoning does not take into account the teachers' pay award which the Government have already accepted and have said they will back-date to May. Rumour has it that this could very well amount to some £250 million, which means that something like £100 million of the cost will fall on the rates, and might do so in the year 1975–76.
I think all of us accept that any planned rate of growth in public expenditure cannot exceed the resources that we have available, and that in a time of high inflation and economic difficulties most of those resources must be concentrated on getting right the public and private sectors of investment in industry. In the public sector, we also accept that we have a responsibility towards the lower paid and the less well-off to see that they have better pensions, that their rents are
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stabilised, that they have better housing, and that, if necessary, food subsidies are paid to them. All this has inevitably put a very real constraint on the growth of local authority expenditure in the past years. Those of us who are working in local government accept that we shall all suffer unless our economic problems are solved, and solved fairly quickly, but what we ask is for a modest sustainable growth over the years that lie ahead.
I suggest that there are three things which your Lordships should be asking the Government to do. First, the Government should tell the local authorities what is to be the level of local government services; secondly, they should tell us what is to be the level of Government grant towards those services; and, thirdly, and perhaps most important of all, they should state how that grant is to be distributed. The associations have been discussing with the Government the various options that might be open to them in deciding what shall be the rate support grant this year. One option is that there should be no real growth over the current year's levels of expenditure as determined by the last rate support grant settlement. This would allow for built-in commitments, but it would mean an overall cutback in the present level of services which we supply.
The second option is that there should still be no real growth in our 1974/75 level, but that the basis should be the best estimate of the 1974/75 actual expenditure. This would mean no improvement in the present actual level of services, but, equally, there would be no major cutbacks. Or, thirdly, we could take the traditional forecasts of trends on the basis of existing policies of local authorities, which would allow for a very small area of growth. But it is imperative that local authorities should know which option is likely to be accepted and the size of the grant. Otherwise, authorities will become committed to additional schemes and we may find ourselves in one week in the position of opening a new school or a new old people's home, and going back a week later to turn the key on it because we cannot afford to equip it, to staff it, or to furnish and maintain it.
Local authorities do not yet know the size of the increase order for this year, or the size of next year's grant. I urge

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your Lordships to ask that that information should be given urgently to local authorities, so that they know where they are going and what they can do. Local authorities are also arguing very strenuously against the multiple analysis regression system at present used to calculate the rate support grant and the needs element. This is proving totally unacceptable, because the figures on which it is based are completely out of date before they are used. There should also be more regard for areas which have a lower than average income, and those of us working in counties which include new and expanding towns would hope that for once this factor of high expansion might be taken into account when the needs element is being sorted out, because the services have to be provided in advance of the population moving in.
Local rates, as all your Lordships will know, have been a very live issue at both county and district level, and something more must be done to help local government to provide the services which we, as government, statutorily place upon it. The rates rocketed in many areas last year, partly to meet the cost of local government reorganisation—although this was only a very minute part of the increased expenditure in my County of Cambridgeshire. Some further relief was given to some domestic ratepayers by the previous Government, but many of them faced such high increases in rates that the "rough justice" meted out at that time by the Minister did not give anything like the help that many of us would have hoped they would receive.
In my county we are now preparing our budget for next year and are faced with a rate increase of about 40 per cent. just to maintain our existing services and to provide the basic needs for our new and expanding population. Because we have the new town of Greater Peterborough within our county area, our population expansion is now running at eight times the national average and is increasing annually. We have already been warned by our advisers that in fairness to the rest of the county outside the Greater Peterborough area, we may have to consider a slowing down of our commitment to the expansion of Greater Peterborough unless more money is forthcoming for that specific project. That
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would be a great mistake, my Lords, because the scheme is well under way and is well worth while, and we do not want to see any hold-ups at this stage.
In education, our capitation allowances had to be reduced last year, and they are quite inadequate to keep pace with inflation. The cumulative effect of continuing these cuts for another year would be extremely damaging to the fabric of education. Our councillors, teachers and parents all accepted, at the start of the new authority covering a completely new area, that there would be some unequal standards. However, all of them would expect after 12 months to be able to see some common level of service emerging over the whole of our county. There will inevitably have to be a further deferment over a wide field, including pupil-teacher ratios, ancillary staffs in schools, maintenance allowances and so on. Authorities ought at least to have the opportunity of introducing a phased programme of levelling out, starting in the current year.
Our domestic ratepayers are already beginning to tell us in no uncertain terms that they bear equal rate burdens and that they expect to enjoy equal standards of service. Our cutback also means non-participation in what is approved Government policy of nursery education, with, as a consequence, even more startling effects in the provision of this education in areas where it is most required, in the Greater Peterborough area and the urban towns of our county. Our education funds this year have proved quite inadequate for the in-service training of our teachers, and they have thus left us a backlog to deal with next year. I believe that your Lord-ships would share my view that quality is the essence of a good education service, and increased rather than decreased provision for teacher training is absolutely vital.
In consumer protection, the amount of new legislation that has been passed is vast, and includes such things as the Fair Trading Act, the Hallmarking Act, consumer credit, and a great deal of EEC legislation on standards. In my own county these duties will increase the workload by 35 per cent. in the enforcement field, with the inevitable higher costs for staff and equipment. The new legislation on a consumer complaints service will

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cost us a further sum, and neither help with consumer complaints nor new enforcement duties will be possible if we are facing a nil growth situation. In social services our departmental forecast of the minimum needs for 1975–76 is an additional net expenditure of 24·5 per cent. in real terms, so you can imagine the frustration there will be in that department if we find ourselves in a nil growth era.
Changes in the rate support grant which were made last year hit counties like Cambridgeshire very hard, and many of us feel that the change was far too much for anyone to take in any one year. The Local Authority Associations are anxious that the Government should recognise this. While perhaps many of us accept that there should be more help given to the urban areas, we hope that if a swing away from rural areas is necessary it will be taken at a much slower pace and that we shall not face the massive swings that we had last year.
I ask your Lordships to exert what pressure you can in all directions to see that local government does not bear more than its fair share in the cutback because of high inflation and our economic position. I believe it is essential that we safeguard our personal services, and maintain the very high standards of local government in this country. The Layfield Committee is now meeting, and we hope 'that there may be some possible alternatives and some restructuring of the rate support grant as a result of their findings. In the meantime, I would be bold enough to offer a suggestion to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he might consider writing off a proportion of local government loan debts in order to enable more of their income to go to revenue, or the Department might perhaps as a last straw consider it better to defer capital projects for at least a year and to grant more money on to the revenue side of local government.
One might ask, if the present formula for the rate support grant is to go on, whether it can be updated and realistic, because the historical data on which the figures are based so adversely affects counties like mine which have rapid expansion. My authority has already advised Government Departments that we are
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quite unable to carry out any further statutory duties without the necessary financial help. I believe that many more counties are reaching the same position.
I am proud to have been associated with local government for over 25 years, and it is because I want to ensure that our local government maintains its high standards that I have chosen this subject for my maiden speech to your Lordships. All of us accept that public services have to be paid for by the public, and the real argument ought to be about how to share the costs and not how to avoid payment. Therefore, with this in mind, I seek your Lordships' support to ensure that local government gets its fair share of however small a cake we are all going to have.
4.36 p.m.
Viscount BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be the first to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, on her maiden speech. It is a particular pleasure for me because, although I can score only 23 years in local government, I have been there long enough to appreciate the depth and soundness of the knowledge of local government matters which the noble Baroness has displayed in her speech. I believe, too, that her services in the local government world are well known outside her own county, and as one who has worked on county council matters under the leadership of my noble friend Lord Amory on this side of the House, I think I can say that he would agree with me that the noble Baroness's arrival in this House will be a welcome reinforcement to the not very large band of people who understand local government sufficiently well to argue with their Front Benchers.
I am not going to be tempted into following the noble Baroness on matters such as writing off rate debt, and I shall talk about something rather different. In fact, as one who has spent 23 years on a police authority, I would associate myself very much with some of the tributes that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, paid to the police. I would add—and I shall have something more to say about this in a moment—that the corollary of those remarks is to make sure that if we are short of police we should not use them on anything except duties which can be performed only by policemen.

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During the Recess. General Sir Walter Walker and Colonel David Stirling came into the news with proposals for volunteer forces to be used in maintaining the essential services of this country in a national emergency. I do not myself know the details of the organisations they propose, and if I did I should almost certainly have reservations about them; but I think that these two gentlemen have performed a service to their country in drawing attention to the present serious lack of manpower available at short notice to deal with contingencies and to ensure the continuance of essential services.
I am also glad to think that what they said, and what they were reported to have been doing, attracted considerable public support. I am more and more glad of this because on at least two occasions I have attempted to draw attention to the same thing in this House. I did it first when Mr. Healey was Secretary of State for Defence, and again in the time of Mr. Heath's Government, as my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross knows quite well. What is more, my noble friend Lord Chelwood, when he was in another place as Sir Tufton Beamish, did a good deal of work on this and wrote a number of papers, all of which must be well known to the Home Office. I shall now try again, and if I oversimplify some of the things I have to say it is because I do not want to spend too long on my feet when other people are waiting to speak.
After the last war the Attlee Government reorganised civil defence and the other emergency arrangements on the basis that the prime need in those days was defence against the nuclear threat. I am certain that at that period that decision was absolutely right. But over the years the nuclear threat has receded so much that I noticed the other day that the North Atlantic Council in their Declaration at Ottawa last June, said:
"The circumstances affecting the common defence have profoundly changed during the last ten years".
I wish they had gone on to say why they thought so. Instead of that, unfortunately, the Declaration lapses into double talk. So we shall never know.
The point I wish to make now is that because the nuclear threat had receded it did not mean all threats had disappeared. But apparently this is how it was taken
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by Mr. Wilson's last Government and how they interpreted the position when they disbanded TAVR HI and the Civil Defence Corps. That, I think, will turn out to have been an act of great unwisdom. I had hoped that Mr. Heath's Government would have moved faster in another direction, but although we got some fair words no action was taken. No doubt it would have been taken had his Government remained in Office. The opportunity still exists for the present Government.
To me all the indications seem to show that the nuclear threat to the institutions of this country—that is to say, a threat from outside—has been replaced by threats of disruption from the inside. This must be highly inconvenient to any Government and any Government Department because anti-nuclear bomb precautions are administratively easier to handle and to circumscribe, and are politically more or less harmless, because they relate to an aggressor from outside and not from inside. But in my view we are now faced with a threat which is much harder to counter, both administratively and politically.
This story goes back a long way. You can take it back to 1921, which was the first instance in modern times, at least since the Chartist rebellion, of the Government of the day—the Government of Mr. Lloyd George—taking the view that a force had to be raised to maintain national services. I saw a little of that at the time. There is a pattern. Then my interest started again. The reason I raised the matter first was because, when Mr. Healey was Secretary of State for Defence, a group of young men thought they would advance the cause of nationalism in Wales by blowing up certain parts of the aqueduct which takes water from the Elan Valley to the city of Birmingham. That in its turn created the need for the police to guard the exposed parts of the aqueduct. In its turn, that resulted in every single policeman being taken from his job and remaining at hand until the culprits were brought to book. So, my Lords, if another emergency had arisen in the same police area there would have been no one available to deal with it. Multiply that situation by any figure you like and imagine what the condition of this country would have been if similar groups had blown up all the exposed

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water pipes and left the country with a choice of no water or no policemen.
Since those days, four or five years ago, it seems that the danger has increased, partly because the administrative arrangements for organising protests and demonstrations have been improved considerably. These activities take different forms but the pattern of organisation is basically the same. So it does not matter whether they are ostensibly students expressing their views about how Chile is governed or whether South Africans should play rugby at Twickenham: whether they are demonstrating against the dictatorship of vice-chancellors; whether they are ostensibly trade unionists forcing a rise in pay or on unofficial strike; or whether they are Manchester United fans out for whatever trouble they can see. The pattern is the same.
The recent events in Glasgow seem to me to give rise to a need for the Government to clarify their position. Either they approve of what has happened and how it has happened, in which case no doubt they will say so; but if they do not approve and were to say so they would have to add that they had no means of dealing with the matter, which is a bad position for any Government to be in, whoever they are. So I was very glad to hear some references by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, to the question of terrorism, although I thought they might have been made in a wider context. However, what he said dealt with one aspect of the problem which I am trying to deal with in more general terms.
Sir Walter Walker and Colonel David Stirling were right in one sense; that any organisation to deal with this kind of thing—as I myself knew because of my association with the Home Guard in the war and indirectly with Civil Defence—needs to be manpower intensive. There is no substitute for having many people turn out at short notice to do tiresome jobs. Again none of these people is of the slightest good unless the plan for making use of them has been made in advance. Unless they are told what to do. unless the key men are trained, unless there are arrangements for communication and transport and all those matters, any clarion call made at the last moment simply brings in an
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assorted number of people, a great number of whom are not ready for the long haul and are too old or not fit for the tasks they have to do.
That is why it was a pity that one of the daily newspapers created the response by inserting a picture of a Chelsea pensioner shaking his fist, I imagine, at President Kruger. But after listening to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, I am sure that I am right in saying that the Government are correct in recognising the responsibility, although I am also sure that they fully realise, like everybody else with any experience in this field, what are the political difficulties in dealing with a hot potato like this.
Therefore, I can see why successive Home Secretaries kept the nuclear threat going as long as it was credible. I hope that I am not one of those people who see Communists and terrorists under every bush. Equally, I am not one of those people who say there are no Communists and no bushes. Therefore I should be very sorry if anybody asked a question in this House and received the answer that there was no evidence. That, I believe, is one of the worst clichés that any Minister can be given when answering questions. It does not answer the question as to whether those who wrote the answer would not have run for miles rather than accept the evidence which was unwelcomed. That very often happens.
However, the political difficulties of dealing with a matter like this do not really relate directly to the actual establishment of the necessary forces. They relate much more directly to the decision as to when to operate them, and that is a totally different matter. Equally, I think there might well be considerable political difficulties in recognising the forces which the two gentleman I have mentioned propose to raise. But these difficulties. I am sure, ought not to deter the Government from dealing realistically with the problem. I do not see how they can shirk the issue if they really mean what is said in the gracious Speech, that they intend to see
"a modern and effective defence system"
because in these days, when the borderline between peace and war is so hard to see, defence is something going much wider than the Ministry of Defence or the Defence Vote.

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On the other hand, I feel that the right way to solve this problem is not to raise new volunteer forces, but to expand and reorganise the existing agencies which stood the test of time during the war. A great deal of what can be done can be achieved by a revived Civil Defence Corps and the Women's Voluntary Service—and here I would add that the revival of the warden service would produce sources of intelligence which would be most valuable to anybody who was trying to govern the country in these bad times. An expanded Red Cross and St. John's could do a lot that was necessary; an expanded TAVR III would provide the men under arms which, I would put to the House, are necessary even if only to deal with looting, as they were in the war. Some of the youth organisations which are ready to undertake the task and have members of the right age can also be used. Then, again, any organisation of people who are used to these tasks must work under a Government plan and under Government control. There is no other way of doing it.
Having said all this, I realise—and I say this again—that it will need a great deal of courage and determination by any Government, whoever they are, to deal with this problem effectively. I am not thinking just of the task of introducing measures of this kind, because I think that those would command a very great measure of national approval. I am not thinking of all the demonstrations and the sort of things that are said by people who want to have a free hand to make themselves a national nuisance. Of course we shall be told that any of these things would interfere with the democratic expression of views; or we shall get the other line—"How foolish and tactless you are ! These charming and sensitive people were just going to feed out of your hand and then you were so beastly to them that they all went away and cried." No Government which is any good should take any notice of that sort of thing.
My Lords, there are two forces, two undercurrents, which are at work all the time and are not nearly so well known. One of them is that any measures of this sort overlap the normal boundaries of Government Departments. Once you get that state of affairs, you get the stage set for discussions instead of action. It has been seen so many times in recent years.
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It was seen in the time of the Macmillan Government, when they were trying to deal with immigration; it was seen in the early stages of trying to deal with the Rhodesian problem; it was seen in the Heath Government, when they were trying to deal with the picketing incidents in Birmingham. All this is because, after the war, the Attlee Government flew in the face of the practices used in the war, when there existed a body called the Home Defence Executive which was put there just for the purpose of teaming the Government Departments up for any particular problem. It was, I think, the brainchild of the late Lord Waverley, and it was run by a man called Sir Find later Stewart. In my personal experience it was a most invaluable organisation, and one which no one will be able to do without if they want to deal with this problem.
The second point is even less obvious. It is the inbuilt dislike of the amateur and part-timer by the professional and full-timer. This arises quite regularly. In the first war, my father was chairman of a committee to encourage the nursing services to make proper use of the VADs, and he was very badly scratched by matrons. The decision to abolish National Service and the decision to abolish the Territorial Army were of course political decisions, but they were very much supported by certain strands of professional opinion. You get the same thing with the police. You constantly see tributes paid to special constables and attempts to recruit them, but there must be some reason—which I am sure is the dislike by the professional of the amateur—why the number of special constables does not go up very much faster when there is a crying need, as I was saying just now, to confine the activities of the regular police to things which can be done only by policemen.
My Lords, I have come to the end of my argument, and I know that I have left some gaps in it. I am going to finish by reminding myself and the House that in the war a great friend of my father's, Frederick Scott Oliver, who was one of the finest Tory thinkers of his time, wrote a book on war aims Ordeal by Battle to encourage the people in 1915 to take the first war seriously. On the title page he put an extract from Pilgrim's Progress, when Christian, on his way to the promised land, met three characters called

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Simple, Sloth and Presumption. Simple said, "I see no danger"; Sloth said, "Yet a little more sleep"; and Presumption said, "Every vat must stand upon its own bottom", which I take to mean, "I know my business better than yours". I always thought that was a wonderful text to put on the book, and I commend it to anyone who is concerned with this problem.
4.48 p.m.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, may I join with the noble Viscount in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, on her brilliant maiden speech? This is the first time that I have had the honour to speak after a maiden speaker, and I have certainly been given a very good opportunity most sincerely to congratulate the noble Baroness on her clarity and delivery. Certainly she has not been intimidated by sex discrimination or anything else in this noble House, and I congratulate her very much. She has been speaking on a subject about which I know, too—not as well or as clearly as she does, but I was in local government for some 27 years, and I appreciate very much what she has said.
I should like to refer shortly to what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said when he was discussing the question of terrorism, because, with him, I believe that this will be one of the major problems which we shall have to deal with in the future. He has spoken very much about the use of terrorism in this country. What worries me is the vast amount of money—for instance, 156 million dollars—which has gone from Libya to the P.L.F.P. for distribution to other terrorist organisations, and other oil-producing countries which are contributing vast sums in order for terrorism not to exist in their own country, so that it can be exported. I am afraid that we shall catch quite a proportion of that terrorism. If, as looks very likely from the history of the last few years, terrorism will become much more international, with Red Japanese Armies combining with the P.L.F.P. or other terrorist organisations and committing terrorist acts in this country, and if, for instance, they capture in this country a number of diplomats involving two or more other
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countries, we shall be faced with a very difficult situation, unless, in advance, we get together with those countries who see eye to eye with us in dealing with terrorists.
There are a number of such countries. The United States of America deal with the capture of diplomats by terrorists in the same way as we have done, by being absolutely tough and not negotiating. The Israelis are another people who have shown tremendous courage in standing eyeball to eyeball when they are dealing with terrorists. I am worried that if we find a terrorist act involving children, or women and children, we may fail, unless we get together with other countries to decide how to deal with these terrorist acts which are committed on our own soil but which involve other nationals. We must have a simple set of rules, easily understandable and totally consistent and predictable, so that if a terrorist carries out an attack in this country he will know exactly the inevitable reaction, no matter what nationals are involved. I feel that this is a most important matter to be dealt with in this country.
My Lords, I should like to come to two references to Northern Ireland in the gracious Speech. The first is the undertaking to pursue relentlessly the terrorists in Northern Ireland. I read with interest the Secretary of State's speech and the comments in the other House, as well as the Statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, on the Maze Prison riot, in which damage amounting to £l½ million was done. I should like to join with others in paying tribute to the troops in restoring order. I cannot speak too highly of the way their task was carried out. It was a very good example of the use of large numbers which ended with the use of minimum force. The total number of people injured was really very small indeed, considering that there were some 300 convicted villains—for that is what they were—fighting tooth and nail with spears, mallets, sharpened bed ends and every other form of weapon that they could lay their hands on.
LORD DONALDSON FO KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, it was considerably more than 300.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I am sorry. I understood that

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there were only 300 convicted villains in the attack. I understood that the detainees did not take part in the battle. The Secretary of State was criticised in Northern Ireland—I do not know whether the criticism got back to this country—by members of the SDLP. I say this to try to illustrate the difficulties which the Secretary of State and his team have in dealing with the problems of Northern Ireland. He was criticised because in a news broadcast in the evening he was reported to have been inaccurate on the figure of casualties. In fact, the film in question was taken and recorded fairly early in the afternoon, just after the battle had taken place. The Secretary of State was totally accurate at that time, but he was accused of being dishonest, of being a man of no integrity, by men who were quite happy to sup at his table.
Whatever one may feel—and there are times when I disagree with the Secretary of State—nobody can doubt his absolute honesty and integrity, and I feel personally that there should have been more defence of him upon this count. Further to that, these people who have managed to convey to people in this country that they are moderate, intelligent and forward-looking politicians, never once condemned what was a major IRA attack. After all, it destroyed £1½ million worth of Government property and it was a major attack for propaganda purposes.
My Lords, I feel that the media also aided and abetted the IRA, by failing to tell the world that the figure for casualties given by the Secretary of State was arrived at immediately after the riot had finished and that the position was at that moment fluid. The media must be very careful before they contribute towards what is a propaganda victory. Terrorism depends enormously upon propaganda. Its support comes and goes depending on such victories. Also, may I appeal to the Government not to send the Price sisters back at this particular time. Nothing could be worse than their return as heroines at a time like this.
I should like to direct a slight criticism at the Secretary of State in that I feel that there was a section of the prisoners in the Maze who did not take part in the riot. The Secretary of State has said earlier that he will try to speed up releases, dependent upon the security situation. There was a very clear case
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of better behaviour by what is called the "loyalist section" in that prison, and I believe that he should have made a token release on the basis of good behaviour. There is a very difficult balance to keep and I know the problems which are facing him. There are two security problems: the first is the danger of letting out dangerous men; and the second is the support that is given to retaining these men in prison. However, I believe that at this time the Secretary of State could have improved the security situation by a token release, making it absolutely clear that it was because the behaviour of the prisoners in question had been better than that of the others. Whatever one might say about their behaviour, it was a great deal better than that of those who took part in the riot.
The next question I should like to raise is that of special category prisoners. This House may not know that there is a person called a special category prisoner. Usually such a man is convicted of a foul crime and he can elect to be a political prisoner. He then goes into a compound where he is not made to work, where there is no discipline and where he plans to be a better terrorist, and has, I think, a fairly free time. I feel that the creation of this category was the most indefensible decision that any Government ever made—and it was unfortunately taken by my own Party. It elevates the terrorist—a person who has attacked the State—above the level of the thief and the prostitute. Unfortunately, in Northern Ireland we have more experience of the terrorist than we have of the others.
The security situation is a good deal better at the moment, as I think anybody who lives in Northern Ireland would agree. However, I should like an assurance from the Government that there will be no let-up and, above all, no drop in the force level. If the force level is lowered, we shall be in trouble. The linch-pin of the whole security situation in Northern Ireland depends on the prisons and on the operation of detention. I notice that the Secretary of State has said that he awaits the report of the Gardiner Commission. He has been under very strong pressure to abolish detention at once, and I congratulate him on withstanding that pressure.

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We in this country take pride in the fact that the law, and everything to do with it, is biased in favour of the accused. We are very proud of that. But in conditions such as we have in Northern Ireland and may have in this country, where we have intimidation and murder of witnesses, we must have some temporary erosion of our freedoms. Carlos Margella, who is the oracle of terrorists, has said that it is the duty of a terrorist to provoke repression. Under the present conditions in Northern Ireland we have repression, because without it we should have had backlash on a scale so far undreamed of.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, I am most interested in the argument, but I wonder whether the noble Viscount sees where it is leading. I thought he said that no reduction in the British force in Northern Ireland must take place. As I understand it, that force is some 15,000 or 16,000 strong. If we reduce it we shall be in desperate trouble, the noble Viscount suggests, and we depend on the police and the prisons in order to live. I do not think I am misquoting the noble Viscount. But I wonder if he can tell me what is the democratic case for a system which cannot live without 15,000 or 16.000 British troops and a prison system of the kind for which he is asking. What is the democratic case for it?
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, the democratic case is that the majority must have law and order in order to be able to live. At this moment, due to various circumstances, the vast majority of people cannot live without that presence. But the level of violence is, in fact, going down.
To continue with my argument, if the report of the Commission headed by the noble and learned Lord. Lord Gardiner, recommends the abolition of detention, then there must be a substitute for it. I believe it is much more honest to make a clean administrative decision, that the conditions in the country are such that the normal course of law and order cannot be established, and to detain without trial, than to tinker with the law—as, indeed, has been done in our neighbouring country under the Offences against the State Act. We would then be making the law carry out an administrative decision—and I believe that is cowardly and also
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not honest—but we must have some method of putting dangerous men away for a long time. My information from people in the Irish Republic on the present Act operating there is (hat while it puts people away it does not meet the case for a prolonged terrorist campaign, which is what we have at the moment.
I understand there is to be an announcement about prisons fairly soon, and I hope that we shall make up our minds whether we are really having a prisoner of war camp, or a real prison—because that is what caused the break-up of the Maze, where there was the greatest concentration of Irish terrorists that has ever been put in one place. I wonder whether the time has come to re-examine the question of capital punishment for terrorists who attack the forces of the State. I think this is a very complicated and difficult matter, because many a terrorist has already made his commitment to die when he becomes a hardened criminal and the deterrent effect on him would probably be negligible. But there must be a lot of "one-off" people who are involved in terrorism for perhaps just one operation, to whom it might act as a deterrent. We fill some of our prisons with young people, and I wonder whether we should think more about the restoration of capital punishment, to make sure that young offenders do not fill our jails.
On the political front, it looked from the gracious Speech as though Government thinking had become somewhat stagnant, because the phrases "power sharing" and "the Irish dimension" have come to the forefront. The water has gone under the bridge now, and the 1973 Act cannot be revived. The phrase "power sharing". if it envisages a complete repeat of what happened in January, is simply not on and the electorate has said so quite clearly. But some method must be found by which the effect of sharing responsibility in Government is achieved.
Referring to the Convention, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said that I was an odd man out, and certainly I dislike it just as much as I did when I spoke last time. The Convention is to me a very bad thing. Parties are already taking up very intransigent positions. We all hear about Protestant extremists, the UWC and so on, but the SDLP, for electoral purposes (or for what I presume were

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electoral purposes), are carrying on extremism in exactly the same way. They are paying lip service to asking for more policing, while utterly refusing to support the police in recruiting. I am saying this to put the picture right, so that when the time comes for this Convention the people will know the problems facing those who are trying to arrive at a sensible solution.
With reference to power sharing, the Ulster Workers' Council strike may have killed it but it was already dying because Members of different Parties were suspected of using their ministerial positions in the Government to further certain long-term political aims; that is, for a united Ireland. We must make it patently obvious to everybody in Northern Ireland that nobody in a position of power can use that position to further long-term political aims.
Lastly, sooner or later, we must be allowed to have our main civil right, which is Parliamentary democracy residing with proper representation in Westminster. This will have to be dealt with at some time. It may be unpleasant for some people to have to recognise it, but with devolution on the cards for Scotland and Wales it is quite wrong that we should not have fair representation—and I am not asking for unfair representation. I also believe that in this vacuum it is vital for the Government to announce a clear timetable with the administrative problems which face them. Direct rule must last for at least two years, and if that announcement were made absolutely clearly I believe it would give a certain viability to direct rule and make it more credible. In the end. the only form of Government that this Parliament here can enforce on Northern Ireland is direct rule and, much though one may dislike it, I feel we are working that way—not willingly at all. with me. I think circumstances seem to be pushing us that way. In the end, every other form of government depends on all political Parties taking part. Above all, before we can get really good political manoeuvring we must make quite sure that security continues to improve.
5.17 p.m.
LORD MOYOLA: My Lords, coming from Northern Ireland, I should like to make a few remarks about the situation there. I do not want to make much of
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the security situation on this occasion except to say that I agree entirely with the noble Viscount who preceded me that the situation is now considerably better. Of course, there have been some horrifying incidents, but if one regards them as isolated incidents one can say that overall the situation is much happier than when I last spoke in your Lordships' House. That being so, I think we should pay all credit to the untiring work of the Security Forces
Law and order is still the key to the whole Northern Ireland problem. Once law and order is under control I am convinced that many other factors will begin to fit into place, and that includes the political problem. May I say in passing that I am encouraged also by the fact that over the last few months one instinctively feels that the liaison between the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Army has enormously improved, which is, of course, of great value. One is also extremely pleased to see the Royal Ulster Constabulary on the ground now in many places in which for quite a number of years they have scarcely been seen at all. Again, all credit should be paid to the heads of the Security Forces who brought this about.
The only other point I want to make on security is that I still feel—and I have said this in the House before—that greater efforts are needed to involve more of the population, more of the community, in the situation. It is a fact that when people have nothing to do extremism builds up. This comes simply from frustration. They would like to play some part in helping to defeat terrorism, but when they find themselves unable to do it they go off to extremes. Unhappily, the Ulster Defence Regiment or Royal Ulster Constabulary Reserve as a means of serving is open to some people, but it undoubtedly is not open to a great number who, for one reason or another, simply cannot join them. I am absolutely convinced that if those people could be given some organisation, if nothing more than observation to add to the intelligence network, it would do a great deal of good and certainly make a considerable contribution towards reducing the temperature.
Political peace is still the top priority, and a large measure of it is certainly going to make peace much easier to

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achieve. At the moment we are in a political vacuum. It seems—and I emphasise the word "seems", because it would be unfair to presume it was deliberately being done—that the policy being followed in political terms is one of, "Do nothing at all". That is the way it has seemed ever since the Executive fell last May. This must be ended quickly. To my mind, vacuums make extremists. If moderate opinion sees nothing apparently being done, sees nothing apparently being tried, they have nothing whatever to which to hitch their waggon and they go from one extreme to the other for lack of anything else. It has happened already; it is happening day by day. I am afraid that it will go on happening unless something is done quickly. It has probably already gone much further than any of us would wish. If it goes on happening any political solution that is produced is going to start with very heavy odds against it.
If the Convention is to go on—and I am one of those who have supported it in the past—we must be quickly told what the rules of the game are to be, when it is to meet, how it is to work; and let everyone start talking about it. I favoured the Convention much more some months ago than I do now. I do not rule it out yet; anything that keeps people talking is better than that they should be allowed to continue fighting. I am beginning to doubt, because of the polarisation which has taken place over recent months, whether the Convention can produce a satisfactory answer.
However, if it produces the wrong answer, for Heaven's sake do not try to force the issue! This is the one point I should like to get across to-day because I believe all of us lose out, not only over here but those who live in Northern Ireland. They are going to be certain losers if that situation should arise. What I am really saying is that one must have a cover plan if the Convention should fail, a plan which is acceptable to the bulk of the people of Northern Ireland. The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, has already touched on this, but I should like to end by simply reminding your Lord-ships of what is really the simplest solution in the event that the Convention should fail. Frankly, the simplest solution and the one that is going to upset
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the least number of people in Northern Ireland, is to continue the present situation, to continue Direct Rule, as it has been called. It may need refinements; I am told that there is much Northern Ireland legislation which, because of the heavy weight of business over here, cannot be got through. But I feel that the wit of man could devise a means for achieving that which would be acceptable to everyone.
I know that what I am saying in advocating the continuance of Direct Rule is anathema to Parties over here. I am under no illusions about it and, having been a political "animal", I think I probably understand why this is so. It seems if the Convention fails we may well be faced with a situation when we will have to act quickly to save lives, to save further destruction and possibly prevent wholesale fighting. That is the situation in which I envisage that permanent Direct Rule may have to be renounced. That may be unpalatable, but we have now passed our sixth anniversary of the start of violence. I can assure you the violence is a great deal more unpalatable to us who have to live among it. Let me remind you that at least 98 per cent. of the population want no part of it. I make these points not because I want to be a prophet of gloom, but because I believe the Convention is already beginning to run out of time. I want to put across the thought that if it runs out of time and fails there must be something to put in its place immediately, and that must be acceptable to the vast bulk of the population or the whole situation is going to deteriorate further.
5.27 p.m.
THEEARL FO PERTH: My Lords, I am going to speak about Scotland while Scotland still qualifies under the topic of "Home Affairs". I want to welcome the Government's mention in the gracious Speech that they will urgently prepare to set up the Scottish Assembly. This is good news. I want to welcome the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, has been appointed with special responsibilities in this connection—it shows that the Government mean it.
But first I want to congratulate the Scottish Nationalist Party, not because of the Election results, and not because of their first recruit in this House. I must say that I myself might be a recruit but

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for two things: I do not agree with their main theme of independence, nor do I understand why they want to withdraw from the European Community. It is curious when you think how all through history Scotland has had its special relationship with Europe, but there it is. I want to congratulate the Scottish National Party because within the past five years they have succeeded in getting all Parties lined up to have a Scottish Assembly. It is their achievement, and great credit to them for it. The Labour Party had, if I may so term it, a death bed conversion to the Assembly just in time before the Election. The Conservatives were a little bit earlier than that; but they made a stupid mistake in that they said they wanted a nominated Chamber. If it is only a nominated Chamber that is to me an insult to what it is all about. Not that I want it to be entirely elected; it would be good if there were some nominated members from several interests such as, for example, the Church of Scotland; but broadly the majority must be elected.
I shall not go into detail about the Assembly because I am hopeful that shortly we shall have a debate on the whole subject. In the summer we had our annual meeting of the Scottish Peers' Association and I was charged by my colleagues to try to arrange a debate on this subject in the autumn. Well, the Election came in between. But now I ask again and make a specific request. I have written to the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, telling him we want this and I am hopeful that later to-day he will tell us that we are going to have a debate, and soon. It is important that we should have it before Government thinking has crystallised. There is a great wealth of experience in your Lordships' House, particularly among the Scottish Peers who have dealt with not only central Government but also local government. I know that they can make a constructive contribution. So let us have the debate now rather than later.
I said that I was not going into detail now about the Scottish Assembly, but there is one point I want to develop. That is the problem of the Strathclyde Region if we have a Scottish Assembly—a half of Scotland in one region and an Assembly at the same time. Let us think of it in terms of England. Can you
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imagine a situation in which you had a region which stretched roughly from the Wash to Bristol with all North of that line the great industrial centre of the Midlands. Liverpool, Yorkshire, Tyneside and Lancashire all one region, and Parliament having to try to deal with it—the Greater London Council four times its present size? Surely we must change this situation. I ask that we decide to change it now, otherwise the Region will get into its stride, vested interests will grow up, and I can see all sorts of trouble. I feel the more justified in asking for a change because when we were discussing local government the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, pressed very hard that there should not be this mammoth region and asked that there should be four districts or rather four regions in its place. He talked to the people of the area and got their support. He obtained support from many Members of your Lordships' House, particularly I think of all the Scottish Peers. For a reason which I shall never understand, the Conservative Government of the day refused to accept this proposal. The result is that we are faced with this problem now. I only hope that the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, and his colleagues will remember what Lord Hughes suggested and follow it out. I believe it is important if we are to get things right.
Your Lordships know that my constant theme has been that Scotland has been neglected too long. I have instanced the sugar beet factory at Cupar and how that was taken away from us. Now we have a sugar shortage. I do not say that the factory would have cured it, but it would have been a little help. I have instanced the disgrace at Turnhouse, where we have had an airport not worthy of the capital of Scotland. Only now, at last, is something being done there. I have instanced the derisory number of miles of M-road we have had. while hundreds of miles have been built in this country. I had recently a curious confirmation of this belief that we have been neglected too long. I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see an exhibition on "The Destruction of Country Houses". To those of your Lordships who have not been to that exhibition I can only say it is a "must": you must go and see it. I congratulate those who put it. on and I would suggest that in some form or

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another it is shown all through the country. As I say, its theme is the destruction of the country house since 1945. There one sees the horrific example of over 700 houses of great quality and importance which have been destroyed since 1945. Of the 700, 230 have been destroyed in Scotland—nearly a third of the total, far too many. It is not that we have a greater number of houses, it is just the fact that Scotitsh owners, like all others in Scotland, have had too lean a time. My Lords, this position can and will be changed. With our share of the oil, with the character and skill of our people, and with our own Scottish Assembly to run our own affairs, I feel confident that we can build to the advantage of all the United Kingdom. Let us have our Assembly quickly!
5.37 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I hope that the noble Earl. Lord Perth, will forgive me if I do not follow him in detail. I am as enthusiastic as he is about the establishment of a Scottish Assembly. Perhaps it is appropriate that I should follow Lord Perth because my first school was in his county when I was six years of age—in that beautiful place, Pitlochry. He will understand that in a debate of this kind one has to turn from subject to subject and I wish to revert to the issue of Northern Ireland about which the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, have spoken. I cannot claim, as they can, to have come from Northern Ireland, but it has been a problem very near to me over long years. I have been able to have valuable discussions not only with leaders—and to make visits—but, much more important, with the ordinary people of that area.
I cannot begin without expressing sympathy with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr. Merlyn Rees, Mr. Stan Orme and our own Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, in the task with which they are faced. I find the word "sympathy" is weak—it is a depth of feeling of identity with the almost intractable problem with which they have to deal. That goes, if I may say so, for Mr. William Whitelaw who preceded them and our own Lord Windlesham in this House. They made an heroic effort to establish power-sharing in Northern Ireland. It failed,
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but to whatever Party we belong we should pay tribute to that great effort.
My Lords, one has been glad to hear | to-night both from the noble Viscount,; Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, that the security position in Northern Ireland has improved and that violence is less. On the other hand, we have to face the fact that polarisation of opinion has extended and that a solution of the problem of Northern Ireland becomes, apparently, more difficult rather than easier. In recent weeks we have had the disturbances in the prisons, about which we had a report yesterday. We have had the bombing, not only in Northern Ireland but in this country, and we have had the series of sectarian assassinations. One looks at that picture and it is difficult to find hope. Nevertheless, I find hope in three changes which arc now taking place in Northern Ireland.
My Lords, the first is a coming together of the workers, both Catholic and Protestant. This increasing common action by Catholic and Protestant workers is not only a matter of opposition to internment; it is agreement about social and economic demands. I met an important trade union official only last v/eek who had been negotiating with the shop stewards' committees in the large industries—in the shipbuilding industry and others—in Belfast, and he said that as he spoke to them there was no difference between the Catholic worker and the Protestant worker; their demands, not only for their own industry but for Northern Ireland, were the same. In the last few days we have had the resignation of three leaders of the Protestant Ulster Workers Council—Harry Murray, who was so prominent in the strike of May, Robert Pagles and Harry Patterson—and they have resigned in order to initiate a Peace Council for Northern Ireland which will include not only representatives of the Catholic workers but of the Churches, both Protestant and Catholic. Harry Murray has used these words:
"It is time that working class members of both communities sorted out their difficulties."
My Lords, in the long term that growing common action between workers, both Catholic and Protestant, is a sign of hope in Northern Ireland.

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I think the second sign of hope to which I am going to refer may surprise some Members of this House. It is the growth of a sense of loyalty to Ulster among the people of Northern Ireland. On the last occasion when I spoke on this subject I referred to the Protestants' tendency to give priority to loyalty to Ulster—their red and white flags in their processions. The thing which has impressed me, perhaps, more than anything else in recent visits to Northern Ireland, is the growth among the Catholic people of a sense of belonging to Northern Ireland itself and to Ulster. The issue of partition between North and South is now ceasing to be immediately the dominant issue among either Protestants or Catholics in Ulster. The Catholics have accepted the view that there shall be no union of North and South except by the acceptance of the people of the North. They recognise, as I have learned in my discussions with them, that that will be over a long period and that the best way to settle the problems of all Ireland is to give an example by the co-operation of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland itself. And there is the reaction in Southern Ireland of growing doubt about any immediate unity with the North while its conditions remain as they are. My Lords, there is a third ground of hope, but if your Lordships will permit I should like to conclude with that rather than deal with it now.
Internment is now the immediate, decisive issue in Northern Ireland. It was a ground for denunciation by the Catholics. It is now almost equally a ground for denunciation by the Protestants. Nobody can begin to look at the subject of internment without recognising the risks—the risk that if it were ended there would be released men of great danger to Northern Ireland; the risk that if one were to adopt the principle that one should be tried and found guilty before detention, witnesses might be in danger. I will say only that one hopes that the Commission under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, will be able to make proposals which will meet those difficulties. If, however, there are risks in ending internment, in my view the risks of maintaining detention without charge or trial are far
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greater. Internment is now more a cause of violence in Northern Ireland than a safeguard against it, and there is no prospect of ending violence in Ulster as long as internment continues. And phasing it out is not enough. May I strongly urge the Government to reach the decision that detention without charge or trial—a basic civil liberty—shall be ended before the year is out.
In the two previous speeches on the subject of Northern Ireland we have heard references to the Constitutional Convention which is to meet next year. Strangely enough, I believe I was the first Member of this House to make the proposal for a Constitutional Convention. I did so because I believed that it must be the people of Ulster who decide the future of Ulster, but I have to acknowledge to-night that the polarisation of opinion which has taken place gives little promise that the Convention will yield practical results. There is the very great danger that it may just become a propaganda exercise, with 55 per cent. voting in favour of the reappointment and election of the old Stor-mont; 35 per cent. in favour of power sharing and a dimension with Southern Ireland, and perhaps 10 per cent. seeking some way out between those views. There is the danger that it may be used for the mere propaganda of different attitudes with, at the end, no difference from the present inaction, no contribution to a solution.
Ulster is unhappily now becoming accustomed to the shock of bombs and of violence. I am not sure that what is necessary now is a mental shock which will stir the political leaders into positive action. I am not in favour of the immediate withdrawal of British troops, but I believe it would help to make the Constitutional Convention a reality if its members understood that they had to reach conclusions, because the British Government could not continue for ever the maintenance of our troops in Ulster. I should like to see us setting a target date, maybe a year hence; the Convention to be called; the Convention to continue for at least six months according to the Government's intentions; then, if the members of the Convention were faced with the fact that we would withdraw our troops unless they themselves reached a solution to their own problems,

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that might contribute a sense of reality to the Convention instead of the propaganda façade which now threatens to exist.
I want to draw the attention of the Government to another proposal which has been made by Mr. Stratton Mills. I was in another place with him and we often came into contact. I am interested to see that he has now joined the Alliance Party. He wrote a letter to The Times—I regret that I have not the date, but it was a few days ago—in which, despite the fifty years' failure of Stormont and the overthrow of power sharing, he said:
"It is essential that much more effective means be found at Westminster for dealing with Northern Ireland legislation and Parliamentary questions. This is perfectly possible."
He went on to suggest that the day-to-day government should be carried out by a commission presided over by the Secretary of State. He said there were three possible types of commission: the first an appointed advisory commission, which he rejected because it failed in 1972. Second, an appointed commission of non-political experts, which I think everyone will recognise would be unacceptable. It is the third proposal to which I want particularly to draw the attention of the Government, and I quote:
"An elected commission: this would be, say, 15 to 18 members elected on a PR basis, taking Northern Ireland as a single constituency so that it would be truly representative."
He asked:
"Could it have powers to deal with certain devolved legislation?"
My Lords, I see hope in this idea. It would not be power-sharing in the sense that the Ulster Loyalists rejected, but if legislation relating to domestic events—industry, education, social services and police—were devolved to such a representative commission the sense of self-government would be renewed. The Secretary of State, presiding, should have the power to veto religious discrimination and any departure from the Charter of Civil Rights. I urge Her Majesty's Government to look at that proposal very seriously.
I conclude by referring to the third hope that I see in the present situation. Over the years I have made a study of countries which have been under the occupation of more powerful peoples. There has been an evolution of history
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and there has been much good—education, health, industrial development—but there has also been very great oppression. And of all the territories on earth Ireland has suffered that oppression more than any I know. There were the massacres under Cromwell; the starving peasants exploited for the wealth of alien landlords; the discrimination over the centuries of those who held the Catholic religion, and finally, the lost hope by military action just before the first world war.
My Lords, I believe experience passes from generation to generation, not only in knowledge but in character—a spiritual heritage—and the Irish people to-day have a sorrow for that past, a devotion to Ireland in the present, and a desire to serve it in the future. In recent weeks I have met young people, Catholics and Protestants, who have impressed me deeply by their attitude in this crisis—the younger generation, turning their minds from violence to dedicate their lives to the creation of the kind of Ireland they want: an Ireland without violence, without sectarian enmity, without poverty and ill housing, an Ireland of co-operative fulfillment. My Lords, it is the supreme duty of our own Government and of Irish leaders, overcoming their differences in the present, thinking only of the future, to give this new generation the opportunity to realise their ideals.
6.1 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT FO HARWOOD: My Lords, those of us who have been listening to the debate both to-day and yesterday cannot doubt the fact that your Lordships are in every sense well aware of the great importance of this debate on the Queen's Speech and of the many problems that face us all to-day. We had a very remarkable maiden speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, this afternoon. I wish she were here so that I could say to her how extraordinarily impressed I was and how greatly interested in all she was saying about local government. We also heard yesterday two extremely interesting speeches, one from the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, and one from the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. There were also two very interesting speeches from this side, one from my noble friend Lord Molson and the other from my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire. To-day,

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in order to pick up the discussion on devolution which was started yesterday by the noble Duke, I should like to make a few remarks.
My Lords, I am not quite such an enthusiast on devolution as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, appears to be, although this may be because I have perhaps had longer experience of working in local government in Scotland. I have been on the county council at home in Roxburghshire since 1946; I was married for 25 years to a Scottish MP who was for three years Secretary of State for Scotland and I know well the workings of the Scottish administration. I would yield to no one in my enthusiasm for Scotland, but I have never been a Scottish Nationalist in the political sense. I am against the break up of the United Kingdom; I am not in favour of any kind of federation of the Welsh Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament. I think that many of the Scottish Nationalists really do not understand the powers of the Scottish Office as it is to-day.
The footnote on page 2 of the White Paper which the Government have issued gives a list of the matters for which the Secretary of State has responsibility quite independent of the United Kingdom Government—agriculture and fisheries, criminal law, crofting, education, electricity, environmental services, health, highlands and islands development, housing, legal services, local government, police, prison and fire services, roads, certain aspects of shipping and road transport services, social work, recreation and the Arts, tourism, town and country planning, youth and community services. Nobody could say that the Scottish Office and those MPs who represent Scotland do not have a great power in Scotland in connection with all these matters.
The Earl of PERTH: May I interrupt the noble Baroness on one point? It is quite true that the Scottish Office is given all these powers, but what really matters is the power of the purse and that is very far removed from what we have.
Baroness ELLIOT FO HARWOOD: My Lords, I always thought we were very generously treated by the United Kingdom Government in the allocation which they make to us. It may be that we do not make the best of what is allo-
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cated to us by the United Kingdom Government and that things could have been done better. That is probably true but I am a little afraid that simply more government—more bureaucracy, a Parliament with powers which the Scottish Office has already, more civil servants, more money spent on salaries and payments for Scottish MPs—may not be the answer.
I should like to have seen the reorganisation of local government take place first. We are a year behind England, my Lords, and only next May do the new regional and district authorities come into being. I should like them to have been under way before we started to construct a Parliament. However, that has been short-circuited by the Election results. I would support a scheme put forward in the White Paper as Scheme A—the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, knows all the details very well. But before this scheme is produced in a Parliamentary Bill, I believe that much work will have to be done. It is not something which you can take straight off the White Paper, and after all you are taking a step which is of immense importance and all the time it must bear relation to the United Kingdom.
I agree entirely with what the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said to-day about the 2½million people who are now included in the region of Strathclyde. I have always thought that that was a great mistake. It has put into that region half the population of Scotland and any elected assembly which is planned under the Crowther-Hunt Report or the Kilbrandon Report would inevitably find itself dominated by Strathclyde. All the non-industrial areas, the farming centres of the East, the South and the North, will be swallowed up in the interests of the shipbuilding, steel-making, mining and engineering majority and half the population and more than half the land of Scotland would simply be outvoted by the Strathclyde region. I voted, as did many other Scottish Peers in your Lordships' House when we discussed local government reform earlier this year, and I think with great wisdom we carried by a substantial majority the demand that Strathclyde should be divided into four districts.
We were indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for what he did to promote this discussion, and also to the meeting

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which I attended in Glasgow which concerned the fact that the region, with the sole exception of Glasgow itself, did not want to be in one area. They wanted to be in four regions. Whether it is too late now to alter this, I do not know. Every day more people are being appointed to important jobs as directors of all the different services and whether you can, so to speak, now unscramble all this, I do not know; but it will make the question of an assembly extremely difficult and I hope that the Government, despite what the Scottish National Party are asking for, will move slowly in making up their minds as to how to handle this administrative matter.
Above all, I hope that the United Kingdom will remain united, which, in my opinion, is in the best interests of Scotsmen and Scotswomen. Our influence and skills have taken Scotsmen and women all over the world and have provided the United Kingdom with several remarkable Prime Ministers, as have the Welsh. I should not like our contribution to government to be confined to North of the Border only.
My Lords, yesterday in our debate many noble Lords spoke about industry, and made very remarkable speeches on the crisis facing many of the industries of our country. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, raised the question of agriculture. I am deeply involved in agriculture, and cannot stress too highly the terrible predicament in which we farmers are at present. Responsible, as some of us are, for a number of agricultural workers, whom we are all anxious to pay as much as we can afford, there is suddenly a complete collapse in cattle prices and sheep prices, causing very real anxiety. I know that next week we are to have a debate on agriculture in which I hope lo take part, so I will not say more now. I would only emphasise that the present problems facing the nation are not only industrial, but also agricultural.
My Lords, the references in the gracious Speech to the importance of the social services and to their development are to be welcomed. I should like to see a much closer liaison between all the social workers in the various aspects of the social services, from child welfare to geriatric services. Social work cannot be done from inside an office. It must be
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done among the households and among the people. The terrible tragedies connected with children which we have all been reading about in reports, and in inquiries recently Into one or two really ghastly revelations of neglect and cruelty which we are shocked by every day in the newspapers, can be helped and possibly even avoided by social workers; knowing and visiting more and doing less on paper. This is very easy to say, and very hard to do. I am Chairman of the ! Social Work Committee in our county. I know it is very difficult to keep in close; touch with all the problems, but it can be done if there is this close liaison between the close personal contact, the following-up and the decision to be taken. Responsibility must not be passed from one Department to another, or from one person to another.
My Lords, in the care of the old far more should be done to keep them in their own homes, or to build sheltered housing or flats, with a day centre to which old people can go to meet their friends. We should not cope with the problem by building institutions for the aged. There is nothing so expensive as an institution, and nothing is so dreary and unattractive and unsuitable for old people today. I hope that in the plans for the social services put forward by the right honourable Member, Mrs. Castle, we shall take action which will not cost money—because we have the people there—but which will reorganise the service so it is much more effective on the ground than it is to-day.
My Lords, in her excellent speech the noble Baroness. Lady Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, talked about housing. As we all know, at the moment there is a crisis in the "not building" of houses. After the last war, we were helped by new methods. Temporary though they were, buildings such as the Portal House and the other different types of houses erected at that time have filled a gap and have lasted for a great many years. Undoubtedly they were a great success. To-day housing is again in short supply and enormously expensive. New ideas could well provide some more economical way of building, and I hope that the Government will explore the possibilities.
My Lords, I welcome, as I am sure do all the women Peers in this House, the reference in the gracious Speech to

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the forthcoming legislation on non-discrimination against women. This is a subject on which I think a great many men and women are united. I look forward with great interest to what the Government are going to put forward when they produce their Bill. We are living in very difficult times. This has been reiterated throughout this debate. Many of us in this House, myself included, have seen many crises before. I do not despair that we shall get through this one. But I echo the words of many noble Lords in their pleas for unity of purpose, and legislation to unite the nation rather than divide it. If the Government do this, they will have our support.
6.17 p.m.
The Earl of KINTORE: My Lords, there is a very charming custom in your Lordships' House, that when English Peers take part in a Scottish debate they usually apologise for doing so. I feel rather like apologising for taking part in an English debate, although I am not going to talk about Scotland except very indirectly, but in fact my speech applies equally to Scotland. I just want to welcome the Nationalists, not because I believe in their policy but because I think that to have eleven men in Westminster making a Scottish noise is no bad thing. It is no bad thing to get Scottish Nationalists used to operating in Parliament. That goes to credit all round. I will not say very much more.
Temporarily, I must admit that I am a little ashamed of some of my brother Scots at this moment. I do not think a national assembly matters very much. What does matter is what power that assembly will have. Reflecting on power, the atomic bomb is an example of uncontrolled power. The results of an atomic explosion are disastrous. But if the speed of the explosion is slowed down by the use of a moderator, such as carbon or heavy water, this devastating misuse of power can be converted to a use for everyone's benefit. We can draw a moral from that in regard to some of the misuse of power that from time to time goes on; for example; in the political field, the industrial field, and so on.
My Lords, in our relationships with each other we have disputes from time to time. I suppose we always will have, as power groups are set UD and try to force their point of view. Those people who
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say, "Pay up, or else" are just as guilty of using the method of confrontation as the people who say, "There is no money in the kitty. We cannot pay. "It is just as much confrontation, the one and the other. All too often, conciliation can be merely a face-saving device under which you can give way to a sectional demand. You are really not negotiating—merely conceding. I remember that some time ago our county council and town council gave a joint lunch; they called it" joint". When it came to paying for the lunch, it was a joint payment; the county council paid for the lunch and the town council paid for the cigarettes. This is the sort of thing that can happen under an alleged conciliation.
In wartime, it is self-evident that we are in a jam. Many of us have been through a couple of wars, or have experienced them. During those times we have pulled together, and when we have pulled together we have, up to date, been unbeatable. Is it because our politicians are perhaps at an all-time low and so discredited that people do not really believe we are in a crisis at all? I do not know. But it appears, going around the country, that this is the case. They say, "Oh! This is just politicians talking. You cannot believe them". This applies not just to the Tories but to the whole lot of us. I do not suggest this is something we should do, but if Her Majesty's Government rationed petrol, and food, instead of breaking our necks over sugar agreements—it would be a jolly good thing if we did not eat so much sugar, anyway—it would bring it home to the man in the street, the man in the country, that there really was a crisis. People do not believe it yet. If the Government did that, it would be fair to everybody—which is a very important point—and it would do us all good through not eating so much. The most common disease from which the children who are going to school suffer is obesity. They are too fat. We killed far less people on the roads when there were restrictions on speed, and we maimed less. This cannot be a bad thing. So we would have two benefits from that point of view.
Then, again, in our dealings with each other we must always remember that you can lead a horse to the water but you cannot make it drink. Therefore, to try

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to force people to do things they do not want to do, without convincing them of the justice, the necessity or the right, is a bad method of approach. I think we must settle our disputes by common consent. One of the difficulties is that consent by only one section of the community is only a form of concealed confrontation, and that suffers in the same way as all other efforts at confrontation. This seems to me to be a shortcoming of the social contract.
What I should like to see—and I think it is needed—is not a social contract but a national charter embracing everyone, all sections of the community. That should set out guidelines within which various groups should endeavour to operate. I would include in the national charter all interested organisations who could freely consult one another—the Government, the TUC, the CBI, bankers, the City and, in particular, farmers, who have never been consulted about things of this kind but should be. In particular, the Treasury would have to come clean and not live in secrecy, saying only that there is a certain amount of money but never telling you anything else at all, except that they want more money for taxes. I think they ought to become a little more forthcoming.
There are statesmen in nearly all our organisations. There are certainly statesmen in the TUC and the CBI, and there are statesmen in the Farmers' Union. I think a nationally-minded Government, not a National Government but a nation-ally-minded Government, should consult on this wide basis and should back up their decisions with teeth or by the imposition of sanctions or some method whereby the will of the national council—call it what you like—could be more or less enforced. For example, it seems to me pointless increasing a tractor driver's wages to such an extent that his boss cannot afford to buy the tractor for him to drive. This is happening and this is the kind of thing which is silly.
It is surely more important to try to increase the size of the national cake, than to argue over the slice that each section is to get of an ever-diminishing cake. Provided the national cake is big enough the same percentage size of slice would pay even the teachers. But you can have
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a bigger slice of the same cake only by taking it away from somebody else. If there is one cake and there is a bigger slice for one section, the other sections will get a smaller slice. This appears to me to be more or less self-evident. I would give wholehearted support to any Government measure that really buried sectional interests, and set out to enlarge the national cake for the benefit of everyone. We know that there are some brilliant politicians, but these times call for a super-statesman.
6.30 p.m.
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, I hope the noble Earl will forgive me if I do not follow him—I have listened with much interest to what he has said—because I intend to devote my few minutes to following the three noble Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, and my noble friend Lord Brockway, in confining my remarks to the passage in the gracious Speech on Northern Ireland. I was happy to notice that in all three of those speeches there was sounded, almost for the first time, a cautious note of optimism about the situation. I should like to sound a similar note. As usual, I agreed with every word spoken by my noble friend Lord Brockway. He expressed so much better than I could hope to express many of my feelings on this subject. It was less predictable that I should also feel a considerable degree of agreement with what was said by the two noble Lords opposite, but there were certainly particular areas in which I felt I was in agreement with them.
On the question of power-sharing, which is specifically referred to in the gracious Speech, I disagreed very strongly with the opinion expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, that the degree that had existed in Northern Ireland up to the collapse of the Executive was, as he put it, "just not on" in regard to any future similar Assembly. I know that there is much opposition by many in the Loyalist camp to the concept of power-sharing. On the other hand, it is my belief that power-sharing at the level which previously existed is essential if violence is to cease in Northern Ireland, and I believed that it was Government policy that power-sharing of that order should be insisted upon.

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But, my Lords, I am a little disturbed by the way in which it is mentioned in the gracious Speech which talks about
"The proposed Constitutional Convention"
and goes on to say that
"any solution"
proposed by them
"must, if it is to work, provide for some form of genuine power-sharing".
This is phrased in quite a different way from any other statement in the gracious Speech, which says what the Government intend to do—"My Government will" do this and "My Government will do" that. When it comes to the question of power-sharing it is stated only that the solution offered by the Constitutional Convention
"if it is to work, must provide for…power-sharing."
I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Donaldson when he makes his intervention—I wish to say how grateful I am to him for the time he has given me in Belfast and for his correspondence—for a positive assurance from him that unless the Constitutional Convention eventually proposes a degree of power-sharing no less than that which existed in the previous Assembly those proposals will be rejected by the Government. But if he does so, and I should be very greatly disappointed if he does not. we have to ask whether the convening, the voting for the election and deliberations of this Constitutional Convention are any more than a waste of time and also something which, like all the other elections that have taken place in Northern Ireland over the past 12 months—I think this is the sixth—will not lead to a further degree of polarisation such as marked every one of the preceding elections. As soon as you have a vote you get that movement away from the moderate position to the extremist position, which is what we all want to avoid.
Every speaker so far has expressed apprehension about what the Constitutional Convention may be able to achieve. That makes me hope that the election will be delayed as long as possible, perhaps for a year or two, until more stable conditions exist. The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, described it as "a very bad thing" and hoped that there might be Direct Rule—I apologise for quoting him when he is not at the moment in the House—which might have to continue
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for another two years. The noble Lord, Lord Moyola, referred again and again to what might happen if the Constitutional Convention fails, and my noble friend Lord Brockway expressed very grave apprehension about the possibilities of its success.
I personally hope strongly that if it is not going to achieve anything—if it is only to come out in favour, as seems almost certain with an inevitable Loyalist majority, of a proposal which amounts to a return to Stormont and denies the possibility of power-sharing to the extent that the Government want—it will be seen far preferable to wait until somehow a less violent climate obtains. I think the degree of violence is declining. It will be better to have the election then and, in the meantime, for Direct Rule to continue, as the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, suggested.
How is it possible that this better climate, this less violent climate can be achieved? I live in the Republic and recently I have been several times in Belfast and to the most trouble areas. I have stayed with the people of the most deprived Catholic ghettoes in that unhappy city. I have no hesitation in saying that the vast majority of the people, North and South of the Border, Protestant and Catholic, want nothing more than an end to the sickening violence that has plagued their lives now for five years.
I believe that now the Government, if they can show inspired leadership and example and encouragement, can help towards the ending of this violence, first by doing everything they can to help those in the centre—those who want to end violence, those who want a community where all can live together in peace. I mean the moderate Parties, the Social and Democratic Labour Party and the few remaining followers (if they do exist, let them be encouraged) of Mr. Brian Faulkner. Secondly, I hope that the Government, in whatever way possible, can give encouragement to the kind of movement mentioned so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Brockway. I too have been tremendously impressed from my personal experience by the fact that at last there is beginning to be some movement together of the ordinary working class people of both persuasions. That is a movement that has to be encouraged

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in every way that the Government or any individual can help.
My noble friend has already mentioned Mr. Harry Murray. At the time of the Ulster Workers' Council strike we regarded him—that is to say, those who were hoping for power-sharing and the Assembly to continue—as an enemy because he was the leader of the Ulster Workers' Council, which to some extent, but not quite to the extent suggested by the noble Viscount, was responsible for bringing down the Executive. But Mr. Murray has seen the light. He saw it immediately after his victory at the time of the strike when the extreme UUUC politicians came round to try to cash in on his victory, and he gave them very short shrift. Then he began to stretch out the hand of friendship To his Catholic working class friends and colleagues, and that process has continued and he has now formed his organisation. I believe that it is his movement that gives the greatest hope for the future in Northern Ireland to-day. He should be encouraged in every way possible, so that that movement gets a political organisation and becomes politically active. At present it is in-experienced, it has not got leaders; but it can grow into something that can unite the Province and end this sectarianism that has been the bane of life in the Six Counties ever since it was created.
At the same time I hope that instead of what I would consider the negative attitude expressed in the gracious Speech about terrorism—
"My Ministers will continue to act decisively against terrorism and lawlessness"—
perhaps a more positive attitude might be possible, of making an appeal to the extremists of both sides at this time when everyone wants to see terrorism end. At the present lime it is the Protestant extremists who are the more active—I do not want to make too much of a point of that; perhaps next week it will be the other way round—but an appeal should be made to the extremists of both sides to agree to end violent action for a period of time if certain definite assurances were given. I agree with my noble friend Lord Brockway that internment, as he calls it, or detention, as I suppose it should more properly be called, is the main cause of violence to-day. I must add from what I
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have seen that the visible Army presence in the streets also is a contribution.
I do not intend for one moment to criticise the Army in Northern Ireland. I know that the great majority of them are doing a first-class job under extreme difficulties—this is not universal, but it is true of the great majority; yet I know also that their very presence in the streets in the deprived areas, and in the areas where violence might not exist, creates a continual atmosphere of tension and resentment. Is it not worth taking the risk of appealing to the terrorists of both sides, the extremists of both sides, to agree to a cease-fire, an ending of violence, for a period of, let us say, six months, and that there will be a progressive release on a steady monthly basis of all political prisoners, so that one-sixth of them or, if you like, one-tenth of them, or whatever figure on which you strike a bargain, will be released each month provided the cease-fire is respected; and secondly that from the time this has been agreed, there will be an immediate withdrawal of the Army presence from the streets—not from the Province, but from the streets? If it fails, there is a breakdown and the truce is broken, then send the troops to that trouble spot; but so long as that cease-fire continues the troops will stay in their barracks. Just as the prisoners will be progressively released, so the Army will progressively be withdrawn from the Province, again at a steady rate to be continued, and to be seen to be continued, throughout that period. It might not work, but I think that it is worth taking the risk.
I ask the Government to consider if they will make this positive offer. It means making a proposal, entering into a kind of negotiation with the extremists; but I believe that this has to be done, and that if it can be done violence might come to an end, and a climate created in which elections could take place to a Constitutional Convention which could make recommendations to ensure peace and prosperity in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland.
649 p.m.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, will not complain if I, like him, do not follow my immediate predecessor. He

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turned to Ireland; I shall turn back to Scotland. First of all, it is always a pleasure to be able to join in the welcome given in this House to a maiden speaker. We listened to the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, and found them full of earthy local government wisdom. We listened to our benefit. Certainly I did. I wish in advance to thank the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, for his presence. I understand it is his intention to wind up. Those of us who know him even just a little can be well assured of his readiness to harken to ideas no matter how impossibly interrogative or, in my case, superficial.
My Lords, one thing now manifest in Scotland is that the country is in search of new political attitudes on which to pin its faith. The Scottish National Party's campaign is a highly emotional response to that demand. So I address myself to the reference in the gracious Speech to the Government's intention "urgently" to prepare for setting up "directly elected assemblies". I endorse what my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood said when she begged the Government neither to hasten nor to become involved in too rigid attitudes before many points of view had been heard. Indeed, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said—I echo his remarks—"Please do not get committed (even in thought) to the outlines of a scheme until at least there has been a thorough full-dress debate in this House."
What sort of body shall be set up? It surely is common ground that it must be seen to be charged with clear and inescapable responsibilities for Scotland's economy and prosperity. It must be seen to be capable of making industrial policy and must therefore—I believe this too is common ground—control those trade, industry and employment activities now run by the Scottish end of Whitehall Departments. It must surely be able to command and contrive an industrial policy to stimulate the generation of new enterprises, to stimulate the development of those already there but above all to ensure that Scotland is the home of industrial decision-making instead of the branch factory economy under which we suffer and which has been the best product that could be had out of the regional growth policies of the last 35 years.
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My first critical question—I am not expecting the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, to do more to-night than note it—is whether this new body is to have the critical power to refuse to vote supply and therefore be a real legislature with a Cabinet system? The same question was put by my noble friend Lord Perth in an intervention during the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood. Or is this body going to be, in financial terms, simply an extension of local government adjusting United Kingdom policies to a still subordinate region? Above all, will this body raise and be dependent upon raising its own revenues? I beg the Government in their studies and preparations, despite the urgency, to beware of façade, pretence and halfway politics.
The term "directly elected" has been used possibly as a riposte to the Conservative Party's idea not that the interim assembly should be nominated, as my noble friend Lord Perth suggested; no, that it should be quickly elected on a local government base and in that sense indirectly elected. At any rate the term "directly elected" is used now. It could mean anything. It could range from the Westminster model with its freak results. We have a Government backed by no more than 40 per cent. of the active electorate. In the case of my own constituency of Berwick and East Lothian we have a Member of Parliament who has just unseated his splendid—indeed, I think better—sitting Member and done it with 49 fewer votes than he got in February when he was unseated himself. Such are the acknowledged absurdities of the Westminster electoral system. Alternatively, "directly elected" could mean large constituencies returning several Members on the basis of proportional representation. I hope it will be nearer the latter.
The new body, whatever it is called and however constructed, will face problems of tension and balance which have already been referred to. The crux of any plan for the devolution of power in Scotland must be the region of Strath-clyde, whether that remains in being as a local government entity or not. It is, if I may so put it, a geo-political reality. It has natural cohesion. It has nearly half the population, nearly half the rate-able value and three-quarters of Scotland's

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Community tensions. Do not let the Government imagine that, because we in Scotland have habitually made jokes about Celtic and Rangers or Hibs and Hearts, we are not deep down infected by many of the tensions that trouble Ulster. In Strathclyde they could burst out.
My Lords, Strathclyde and Central Scotland are the crucible and it is interesting that it is in Strathclyde that the Scottish National Party have so far proved themselves the weakest. The Highlands, the Borders, the North-East of Scotland, the areas that are underpopulated and even losing population, are exceedingly sensitive about the weight of Glasgow, of Central Scotland and of Strathclyde. These remoter areas cry out for repopulation and development. Yet a Scottish Assembly dominated by Glasgow would care little for them. That is about as certain as any prediction one can make in Scottish affairs. How could the balance be redressed? I put the idea to the Government that here may be the case for a bicamerel system whereby an Upper House would represent either the regions or maybe the district councils and one would have some counter equation to the overweight in Glasgow's voting power in the Lower Chamber based on one-man-one-vote.
Whatever the system it must have power to alter the whole tone of Scottish government. This is where we come to the need of a Scottish Assembly, if that is what it is to be called, literally managing the Scottish end of trade, employment and industry, instead of just being the Scottish administrative end of the same operations originating in Whitehall. It must be conducted with pageantry, panache and perspicacity. Great things can only be done in a great way.
What about the name? Certainly not "Assembly". Scotland has a General Assembly of which it is proud. I do not speak as a member of the Kirk of Scotland. I am a member of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. But I love, admire and honour the Assembly. The Assembly is the "General Assembly". Never let us muddle it up with a legislative body or the recipient of devolved functions from here. So let us drop the word "Assembly". What about Parliament? My Lords, this is Parliament here. You
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cannot have two. May I suggest Convention? That would recall the historic erstwhile Convention of the Burghs. It is a distinctive term. It has Scottish history behind it. I believe it would command assent.
My Lords, it has been said that there are not four freedoms—freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of speech and freedom to worship—but five, and that the fifth freedom is freedom from fact. This is something in which my fellow countrymen have indulged, dredging the bottomless cornucopia of progressive illusions in their thinking about the relevance of oil. This has been emotionally pre-empted, and it really lies at the basis of the separatist argument—the emotion about so-called Scottish oil. There are many cautions. I list four. First, North Sea oil is high-cost oil, and if, as many market experts think, the world oil price slips back to somewhere about 5 or 6 dollars a barrel Britain will need not to raise tax but to cut it to avoid bankrupting every major project after the Forties. Second, the North Sea has but a slender lead in the offshore capital equipment race. If, as is expected, the United States in the next 12 months license some 10 million offshore acres off California, the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Alaska for exploration, and if they couple that with tax incentives to bring the rigs home, there might be few left in the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea and the next United Kingdom licence round might be a complete flop.
How Scottish is this oil? Some 64 per cent. of the reserves so far discovered—that is to say, in the Brent and the Beryl areas—are North-East of the Orkneys and Shetlands. It may come as a revelation to some, but the people of Orkney and the Shetlands feel themselves at least as Norse as they do Scottish, and probably more Norse than Scottish. Only 36 per cent. of the oil reserves so far found are off the Scottish mainland.
Then, my Lords, what about defence? There could well be need of more than 30 fixed production platforms North-East of Orkney and the Shetlands to get the oil ashore. These would straddle an area of high strategic value. They would straddle a potential military operational zone on NATO's northern flank and in the. forward deployment area of Russia's northern fleet. This area adjoins the

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Barents Sea, already tense—tense with Soviet naval manoeuvres off Bear Island; tense with Soviet diplomatic claims to the Norwegian Shelf, and claims that the Shelf should be divided not in accordance with the Geneva Convention but according to the relative power of Russia and Norway; and tense with Soviet claims to joint sovereignty of the Spitsbergen archipelago.
My Lords, if the separatists had their way what would happen? Do noble Lords really believe that Orkney and Shetland would long stay immune to Soviet influence and would long remain in the Scottish orbit, given their underlying Norse affiliation? How could a separated Scotland—and this is what is proposed in the SNP Manifesto—protect the oilfields of Aberdeen, let alone those North-East of Orkney and the Shetlands? My Lords, given separation, the very basis of the separatists' claim to economic-independence based on taxable profits from offshore oil would wither, crumble and disappear. In that struggle of the Titans which the growth and menace of the most potent fleet on the oceans now portends, a separated Scotland would be about as impotent as the Faroes, at best a near client of the USSR.
My Lords, the Scottish umbilical cord is with Britain. Over the length and breadth of Scotland I have found, heard and seen absolutely no taste whatever for separatism. Once the Scottish people grasp that the separatists have fiddled the facts with regard to oil they will want Britain upheld rather than torn apart. They will not want Britain to be reduced to the SNP's proposed Association of States of the British Isles.
My Lords, against that background the Scottish Convention must be designed fairly and fully to express both the ethos and the aspirations of the whole of Scotland, the Borders and Highlands no less than the industrial heart. The issue is not a mean one, nor is it an easy one; but in the Scots phrase we must "set a stout heart to a stey brae".
7.7 p.m.
LORD GATNFORD: My Lords, first of all it is my very great pleasure to add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, on her maiden speech to-day. As a local government officer I may say that her comments about local
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authorities are much appreciated. May I also take this opportunity to congratulate my noble friend Lady Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn on her maiden speech yesterday. As not only a local government officer but also as one interested in housing, I feel I have something in common with our maiden speakers in this debate, both yesterday and to-day. I should also like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt. I look forward to hearing him speak on the many interesting subjects with which he will deal. We shall hear him at the end of this debate, of course.
To refer at once to the beginning of this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, made some very appreciative remarks about the work of (the police. This was most encouraging, and I for one, as I am sure do all your Lord-ships, join in his commendation of the bomb squad. I hope your Lordships never have reason to become involved in such acts of terrorism, but I can give one first-hand account involving the bomb squad. Fortunately, nothing happened, but it was just after I had returned to this country after an interesting period as a delegate to the United Nations. The morning's mail brought a strange and unexpected envelope with a Middle East stamp on it. It looked rather suspicious so, acting on the advice given to the public, we called the police. If the bomb squad did not arrive exactly instantaneously, they arrived with commendable haste. Fortunately, the letter proved to be harmless but profuse apologies for calling them out on what was apparently a wild goose chase resulted only in the very polite commendation that we had acted quite properly.
My Lords, I noted with pleasure the reference in the gracious Speech to the fact that local authorities and housing associations will receive encouragement to develop their programmes for the improvement of existing homes, and to provide more homes to rent. There is no need to stress the importance of the problem as it is already ultra-critical. Hardly any region can be considered as being free from it and London is certainly one of the "areas of greatest stress", to quote the words of the gracious Speech. As an employee at County Hall, I am aware of the efforts of the Greater London Council to meet the present need. Recently, the GLC has released details of

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a strategic housing plan calling for implementation by the GLC itself, together with the London boroughs, the private sector and the housing associations.
There is a shortage of low-priced housing and a dearth of suitably priced accommodation for middle-income families. Privately rented housing is provided mainly in old houses and, whereas some are maintained in a satisfactory condition, there are many which are of poor standard and neglected. This neglect need not be deliberate; it may be due to financial limitations upon the owners. The private owner needs help and encouragement. It is unfortunate that there has been some prominence given to those who seem mean or grasping but there are many who do not deserve such a stigma. I hope I may be included in that category because, to declare an interest, I am a very minor private owner of a house in which there is a furnished flat in the semi-basement. Knowing full well from my own experience in past years the problem of finding a home, it has been my hope to provide decent accommodation for someone else at a fair rent. But the amount that has to be charged for rent to cover expenses for repairs and maintenance is frightening, added to which there are rates and a calculation for taxation which, in spite of available allowances, is quite heavy.
My Lords, turning to the private owner-occupier, his needs are not inconsiderable. Here, again. I refer to the gracious Speech and its mention of action to secure "a stable and adequate flow of mortgages." Loan conditions now favour newly built housing, and in applying for mortgages there is greater favour shown towards those who are under 40. Older potential householders are therefore under a considerable handicap, and it is to be hoped that this difficulty can be reduced if not altogether removed. In London, there has been a sad increase in homeless-ness. One of the factors influencing this position has been the much-maligned private owner evicting tenants from furnished accommodation. But there are other factors and among these is the large transient population of London, particularly students. Let us remember that London is now considered to be one of the very best places in the world as a centre of learning. Art and culture. Large
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numbers of hostels and lodging houses to which the students could have gone have been closed.
In London, the Greater London Council and many boroughs have tried to alleviate the worst aspects of homelessness by handing over short-life properties awaiting demolition to housing associations and organised groups, such as the Family Housing Association and the Family Squatters' Advisory Service. But, in spite of all available action and assistance, the present housing stock is deteriorating at a faster rate than the work of renewal and rehabilitation is progressing.
The first logical and essential requirement for building new homes is land. The building industry tends to attribute shortages of land for housing to lack of planning permission, yet statistics show that between 1966 and 1971 more permissions were granted than dwellings were constructed. The larger firms of developers aim to accumulate a land bank sufficient for, say, three to five years' building at the present rate. Smaller firms manage to survive on smaller stocks of available land. The maintenance of large stocks of land is understandable. Nevertheless, when there is a high demand for housing there may be a shortage of land, because the smaller firms run out of their stocks and the larger firms retain their stock for their own future programmes. Once again, the smaller firm is in a position of worry and anxiety.
In the public sector, projects of housing development have their own special problems. Land and buildings cannot be acquired except at a cost which exceeds the residential value. The other important factor is time. It may take two to three years between the decision to go ahead with a project and confirmation of the order by the Minister to acquire land compulsorily. It may take another three years to clear the site and resolve planning considerations and construction can take another three years. It can be a total of close on ten years for a building programme to go ahead from the original idea to completion.
My Lords, the second essential requirement in providing new homes is men to build them. Here I speak from experience, as at present I have been working on the statistics of the number of men employed on Greater London Council sites.

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There are barely more than one-third of the men required. I can assure those Members of your Lordships' House who are anxious about those self-employed tradesmen on construction sites who are known as the lump, that the GLC is already tackling the problem and I have no doubt that many other local authorities are doing the same. However, more men are urgently needed and they must be encouraged to take up employment in building or return to it. Skilled labour is available, but the uncertainty of the building trade has led great numbers of skilled men to take up other employment. The answer is easy to put into words: the country needs a stable building industry which will encourage skilled labour to return. But, whether skilled or unskilled, the men should be encouraged, rather than allow the situation to become so drastic that direction of labour has to be resorted to.
Yesterday evening, some of your Lord-ships may have seen on television the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for the Environment, suggesting what might be interpreted as a return to prefabricated dwellings; he was referring to the necessity of sacrificing quality to quantity. If it is necessary to build prefabricated housing to speed up the supply, then so be it. Perhaps it will be a lesser evil than having so many of the population living in caravans. Prefabrication for building, large or small, has its advantages. I have some knowledge of one site of a Greater London Council building project, and houses manufactured in Holland are to be sent over here to be erected on the site. This is to be carried out with the knowledge and consent of the Department of the Environment. It is commendable and will create more homes, but I wish that British industry was providing the buildings, since I have mentioned the need for a stable building industry.
Finally, I wish to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, on his beautifully patriotic speech two days ago. The demonstration in the Public Gallery at the end of it was out of order, but the speech deserved it. Like all your Lordships, I join with him in wishing to see Great Britain truly great, but we must achieve "stable" Britain in order to gain "Great" Britain. We need to see stability at the top, and once it is there it will follow down the line
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so that we can economise in industry. It is still my hope that there will be some form of Coalition Government. Each political Party, particularly the three most prominent ones, has men and women who can contribute great things. Can we not, my Lords, even for a short period, put aside our political difficulties which are secondary to the economic issues at stake, and get down to the job? We were ready to do it in time of war. Can we not do it now?
7.22 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY FO STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, will, I hope, forgive me if I do not follow him in detail in what he has been saying but I should like to say that we have one thing in common. I, too, have a basement of which I am a proud landlord and I am not sure that I am charging enough rent. Perhaps if we get together after the debate we might compare notes!
I find myself here trying to catch some of the coconuts which are inevitably shied at my noble friend Lord Crowther-Hunt. I wish to join with my colleagues on this side and also my colleagues opposite in welcoming my noble friend's first speech from the Front Bench. It was thought that as I have a steady triangular discussion with the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord. Lord Moyola, it would be rather hard to make my noble friend go back over all that has been said in the past and that it would probably save time if I dealt with this aspect myself. That is what I shall try to do. I shall not deal in depth with the more serious questions raised because this is not the right moment to do it. I think they are worth a full-dress debate on their own. This week the Prime Minister has said:
"The House will expect, and is entitled to expect, an early debate on the deepening tragedy in Northern Ireland."
That leads me to think that an opportunity will be made through the usual channels for a full debate on this subject. Therefore I am not going to deal now with the really big questions which are troubling us so much.
I should like to add my praise to the encomium of my noble friend Lord Harris on the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham.

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It was a great pleasure to harry him from the Back-Benches, and he has left the Front Bench soon enough not to be able to harry me very much: so that is very satisfactory. He formed this Voluntary Service Unit, which is frightfully important and much to be welcomed. I hope very much that we shall start something of the kind in Northern Ireland: at any rate we have it in mind.
The one thing which is relevant to my particular subject which I should like to take out of the speech of my noble friend Lord Harris concerns terrorism. I should like noble Lords to recognise that whatever you have here, we have more of. My noble friend Lord Harris spoke of 200 terrorist offences in two years. We average that number per month, if you include shooting. This is serious and true. We are dealing with a situation which is absolutely different and in every aspect considerably worse than anything you have here. Even agriculture is worse, because beef is £2 per cwt. less than it is here. The situation is a very difficult one and we must be patient with those people who are living through it.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Stedman on a most remarkable maiden speech. I was enormously impressed by her grasp of local government finance, and I am advising my right honourable friend Tony Crosland that if he does not make her a Minister fairly quickly he will be asked a lot of questions that he will not be able to answer: I hope he will take that action quite soon.
I should like now to refer to the interesting point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, during the general debate; namely that nuclear deterrents are appropriate for defence against the enemy outside but are entirely irrelevant to the present enemy we face, which looks increasingly like disruption from inside. This really is what we are faced with in Northern Ireland and we are all afraid to see it developing in this country—as it is already beginning to do. I believe two noble Lords said that things were a little better. I should like to seize on this: they are not tremendously better but they are a little better. For example, comparing the third quarter of 1974 with the last quarter of 1973, we find that there were 257 explosions in 1973 and 122 this year. That is quite
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a big difference, when we think of what an explosion may mean. It may mean anything from three lbs. to 500 lbs. of explosive going off. Therefore, the fact that there has been a falling off during this last quarter is encouraging. The shooting incidents have fallen by a couple of hundred—from 900 in the last quarter of 1973 to 700 in the third quarter of this year. In my opinion, this has happend because many of the people who commit these offences are in detention.
I shall not pursue this point because we shall argue it in depth later on; but I think there is very little doubt that the ability to execute acts of terrorism has been diminshed by what the Security Forces call attrition, whereby gradually with a group of men who are known they are able to arrest first one and then all the others, and finally that little group disappears and the damage stops in that particular area, although it may start somewhere else. This is what the security forces are doing, and I think they are doing it extremely well, in conditions where it is impossible to be totally successful.
Things have changed in the last month. Shooting incidents were diminshing, but since the filthy murder of the two judges—one of the most revolting assassinations in our time, uncalled for and carefully planned—the other side have, possibly, one may say, with some excuse, started to commit very serious murders of their own. Of course, this always happens: one thing leads to another. So we have had some escalation recently and there have been 15 persons murdered since the murder of the two judges on September 16. The Royal Ulster Constabulary are really going hard for the culprits. Five persons have already been charged with murder and 15 have been charged with attempted murder. This shows a strong reaction of a fairly effective kind.
Then, yesterday I read the statement made by my Secretary of State about the Maze revolt. This was a very determined attempt by very determined people, and it is satisfactory that not one prisoner escaped. I think this reflects very great credit on the Security Forces. Over the whole question of detention, which is something which worries us all, I beg your Lordships to wait for the Gardiner Report. The Committee is considering

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exactly this subject: whether that consideration will produce action of a kind people want, or not, I do not know. But it is ridiculous to discuss the matter until we have got the Report so I shall leave that on one side.
The noble Lord, Lord Moyola, referred to something he had said on a previous occasion and which I felt then I was unable to say very much about, but now there is something to speak about. He asked us to try to involve the community more. He said, roughly speaking, that Satan finds a mischief for idle hands to do. A lot of people have not enough to do and would like to help with the security situation. The noble Lord will be interested to know that the initiative taken on September 2 by the Secretary of State for the extension of policing in Northern Ireland has got off to quite a good start. We are putting up local police centres to serve local communities; the staffing mainly by members of the RUC Reserve, which is being expanded. It has been considerably increased to enable local people, especially women, to serve their own communities and contribute to their security. Over 2,000 applications to join were received within six weeks of its announcement, and two centres have already been opened. The noble Lord will be pleased to know this. It is a response of a kind for which he was asking, but it is very important and it is the way we have to go ahead.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, defended my Secretary of State in giving casualty figures. I am grateful to him for that. It so happens I obtained them myself so I feel strongly about that. I was in the Maze Prison and asked the doctor to ring up the Royal Victoria Hospital at midday to find out the figures because it was being rumoured that 20 people were dead. We received the figures, and at that time nine people were in hospital, two of whom had more serious injuries. This was put out on the BBC News. Later various people reported sick with bruises and bumps, which they had earned. The total number kept in hospital was nine, two of whom had suspected fractures. Some of the nine are already out of hospital. The Secretary of State not only spoke the truth but, as the noble Viscount. Lord Brookeborough, was kind enough to say,
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could be expected to speak the truth. The fact that he was accused of lying was offensive. I am grateful to the noble Viscount for that point. I am not going to be grateful to him for very much else, but I am not going to go into much detail.
His suggestion that we should hang young offenders was a Freudian slip. He meant beat them. I am equally against that. As a matter of fact, with young offenders we have some interesting things going on. Some months ago I came before your Lordships with an Order in Council to allow us to keep a certain number of young offenders of a particularly dangerous kind in Crumlin Road prison. This is working extremely well. They are completing their sentences and we released one yesterday to Rathgael training school, which is the other way round. There is a great deal to be done and when we get the new young offenders centre in about two years' time we shall be able to do more. I shall not support the noble Viscount in reintroducing the birch.
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, I understood that the noble Viscount was advocating the return of capital punishment. If this was a lapsus linguae or a slip, Freudian or otherwise, should he not correct it himself?
LORD DONALDSON FO KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, he has corrected it in a note which I have in front of me. The noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, could not know that.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, it was a slip of the tongue. I had been talking about capital punishment for other people, and whether it should be examined. I was told when I sat down that I had recommended capital punishment for young offenders. In fact I meant corporal punishment. It was a straight slip of the tongue.
LORD DONALDSON FO KINGS-BRIDGE: That clears that up, my Lords, I should like to endorse what was said by the noble Lords, Lord Moyola and Lord Kilbracken. Whether the figure is right, I do not know, but the general sense is that 98 per cent. of the population are against violence. I think it might be nearer 90 per cent. You need a little more than 1 per cent. on each side to give

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the support to the men of violence there. It is a small group and the ordinary people in Ulster are just as opposed to violence as most of us.
My noble friend Lord Brockway offered us his sympathy and I shall pass this on to my Secretary of State. We need it in a sense that it is very comforting to know it is there. This is a job which is not going to come off in any spectacular way. One is not going to produce an immediate solution and therefore the sense of disappointment is not as great as if one expected something quickly. The Secretary of State is strong, firm and prepared to plug on. He is unmoved by criticism and his team follow him faithfully and with great satisfaction. My noble friend, who manages to get into a pessimistic situation a sense of optimism, which I admire, pays a good deal of attention to the possibility of the two sectarian sides uniting. I hope he is right; there are some small signs. But I should like to warn him that people in Northern Ireland always have united perfectly easily over common interests. Only the other day I had Mrs. Bernadette McCloskey on one side and the Rev. Ian Paisley on the other, united like a solid block against me over seed potatoes. This is the kind of thing the Irish unite very easily over, a common interest. I hope that there is more to it than this. There may be, but I do not think one wants to build too much on it. Of course we want to support Mr. Harry Murray and his Peace Council. It is a marvellous idea provided it can gather weight to do something constrictive. The question of loyalty to Ulster is extremely interesting and I believe it to be true. I believe there is a change; I believe more and more people who would have called themselves Republicans, and who are Catholics, are now beginning to think they belong in Northern Ireland and are not so frightfully keen to go down. The noble Lord went back to the 16th century which is his traditional right here——
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, 17th century.
LORD DONALDSON FO KINGS-BRIDGE: We will argue that afterwards. My Lords, my noble friend spoke of the desire to serve, and he spoke of various possibilities such as the suggestion of Mr. Stratton Mills. These are matters not for
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discussion but which must come out of the Convention, which is for exactly this purpose.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, asked me to make a categorical statement about power-sharing. I shall do so in a form which may annoy him, but it is the best way. The Government have made clear in the White Paper of July their position on power-sharing. By this they stand. If the noble Lord can find anything wrong in it, please let me know. I do not think that I have very much more to say. There is a sense of vacuum at the moment, which is being filled in various ways with discussions. The Convention will be an opportunity for men of good will to make sense—and sometimes men of good will do make sense, but not always.
My Lords, I have shot back a few of the coconuts. I have not dealt with the deep situation; I hope that we shall have an opportunity to deal with this reasonably soon. Most of us think of very little else and so we have much to say, but I am not going to say any more about it tonight.
7.40 p.m.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, will I know understand if I follow him in time and space but not in argument. Indeed, a curious feature of the most gracious Speech, it always seems to me, is that it is like a menu in a strange restaurant: it is fairly clear what the main ingredient of the dish or dishes is likely to be, but the garnishes and sauces to be used and the quality of the cooking have to be discovered at a later date. Indeed, it seems to me that the noble Lords who occupy the Front Bench opposite are in the role of waiters, and we may very well have to ask them to go back to the kitchen to find out exactly what ingredients are to be put into the various dishes and exactly how it is proposed to cook them. This will come out later when I speak about Scottish affairs where a great deal of questioning must obviously be put to the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt. In that connection, may I say how glad I am, and we on these Benches are, to see him back out of purdah and sitting in your Lordships' House.
One small point in the most gracious Speech upon which I should like to

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touch is this. I am exceedingly pleased to see that there will be an opportunity to consider whether the proceedings of Parliament should be broadcast. I cannot help feeling that this will be a most interesting debate, particularly because of the example at the moving of the humble Address in reply to the gracious Speech. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, made a most witty and most impassioned and most appealing speech which, when reported on "Today in Parliament", arrived as a series of dusty sentences which bore no relationship whatever to either the content or the manner in which he spoke. I hope that the public will have an opportunity to see how they are served as well as by whom they are served.
Three subjects appear in the gracious Speech upon which I should like to touch as briefly as possible at this late hour. The first is agriculture. Although I know there is to be a debate on agriculture next week, unfortunately I myself cannot be here and I feel it is a matter of such great importance. I should like to couple this subject with an earlier pronouncement about the use of subsidies—the intention of Her Majesty's Government to use subsidies in order to keep down the price of foodstuffs. I plead with the Government not to confuse the use of subsidies with the idea that this may provide more of any commodity. The fact is that a subsidy may stop certain types of farming from going totally out of business—although in the case of beef the subsidy is not large enough to do that. It may encourage people for a short length of time to hang on in hope, but it is no substitute whatever in the matter of achieving supplies of any commodity for a fair price in the market, and a market for that commodity.
I have an interest: I am a farmer, and I give it as my first occupation. I went home by air after the humble Address was moved in order to sell some cattle and I returned this morning. I am sorry to tell your Lordships that young cross-Hereford cattle which I bought two years ago as calves for £45, upon which I received a subsidy of £9 a head, I sold in the market for £26 ready to go to the bull to produce more beef for the country. I do not think they will go to the bull but that they will be fed by somebody who has some cheap feedingstuffs
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somewhere and then slaughtered. I cannot believe that this is what was intended two years ago when farmers were pled with to produce more beef and were literally encouraged to do so. If I depended entirely upon that kind of operation I should now be bankrupt and completely out of business. So we on these Benches sincerely hope that much will come out of the debate on November 6 and that Her Majesty's Government will then be able to give much firmer and more explicit pledges about the means they are going to use to keep farmers in business, and not merely say that they will continue discussions with the farming industry. They must come up with some real measures now. One of the facts they must realise is that to have failed to implement any form of support after the original forms of support were removed from agriculture is one of the root causes of the present agricultural crisis.
The main subject, obviously, on which I should like to touch to-night in this debate on the Address is devolution for Scotland. Here again, we have some questions to ask, but luckily we have one of the "cooks" here to answer. We are told that Her Majesty's Government
"will urgently prepare for the implementation of the decision to set up directly elected assemblies in Scotland and Wales."
I should like to know, first of all, who made that decision. Was it the Government as a whole? Was it in debate? Was it the Manifesto of the Labour Party at the Election? Or was it the noble Lord, Lord Crowlher-Hunt, in the solitude of his "think-tank" who decided which of the various alternatives which have been adumbrated should be the one to be implemented? I join with other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate in asking urgently for a very much wider debate on this subject because we want to know what really is proposed and how quickly it is likely to happen, and we want to have an opportunity at this stage to influence Government thinking and the drafting of any legislation that may be necessary.
This is a most important and vital constitutional change that we are contemplating. This is a change of importance not only to Scotland but also to England, Wales and indeed all countries within Great Britain or the United Kingdom.

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We want to clear our minds of much of the misconception which is obviously there. For instance, there is a great deal of misconception about the difference between separatism and federalism. We on these Benches have always supported the idea of a federal approach to devolution.
I have often said on public platforms that I consider that the English need to get home rule; the English may well turn round and divide themselves up, if they wish, and say that they want home rule for the North or for the South-West. This is a most important subject to air at this stage, because if this is to be the ultimate aim of devolution, if we are to create a new, stronger grouping of members within the United Kingdom and within Great Britain, based upon a federal approach, then this should form part of the original discussion. We should not make the mistakes which we have made in discussing local government reorganisation. In fact, in Scotland we have carried out a disaster in local government reorganisation—a disaster to which nearly every other speaker on this subject has referred. We have created a monster in the shape of the Strathclyde Region, and we must dismember this monster before we can create an assembly, or a convention, or a "Scotch House", or whatever you like to call it.
My Lords, in considering the form of any Scottish assembly or, indeed, any Welsh assembly (because that also has to be considered, presumably, in this debate) and their relationship with Parliament here in Westminster, we have to consider how these assemblies are to be elected. I wonder why the unanimous decision of the members of the Kilbrandon Committee to recommend proportional representation has been left out of all mention of devolution by the present Government. From these Benches we shall urge upon them that proportional representation should be an integral part of any form of devolution for Scotland or for Wales.
That allows me at this stage to welcome my kinsman, the noble Lord, Lord Bel-haven and Stenton, dressed in his new tartan, fresh from the blinding light which he saw on the road to Dundee, to a unique position within your Lordships' House. I welcome it, not because I think that he has made the right decision—far from it; I would much rather he had joined our
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Benches—but because he is one brave man better representing the climate of opinion in Scotland within your Lordships' House, and any improvement in the true representation of how people feel and think within our democratic institutions must be welcomed by all people who are interested in democracy.
So, my Lords, I urge that as soon as possible we have a wide-ranging debate on these important subjects not only of Scottish devolution but also Welsh devolution and that we include with it a look at the whole constitutional position which is involved—because, indeed, it is a constitutional position. When this matter is debated (I do not know whether we can debate it in your Lordships' House, but certainly it will be debated in another place) they will even think of proportional representation for the whole country, because the present anomalies are so obvious that nobody needs me to draw their attention to them.
My Lords, there are many subjects on this "menu" which I hope we shall be debating in greater depth at a later time. The hour is late and I will not touch on more of them at this stage. However, I think that this debate has made it clear how important to people in Scotland, and Wales, devolution is. I have been able, I hope, to give your Lordships' House some idea of how we on these Benches react to this important problem.
7.53 p.m.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, first of all may I apologise to your Lordships for not being on the list of speakers. I put my name down three days ago, but even in such an excellent institution as your Lordships' House things sometimes go wrong. My noble kinsman Lord Thurso suggested that I should be dressed in tartan. All I can say to him is that I am a Lowlander and that it would not be entirely appropriate if I were dressed in tartan.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, may I suggest to the noble Lord that he might appear in trews, even if he did not wear a kilt !
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: Yes, my Lords. But if my noble friend will forgive me, trews are also bogus for Lowlanders. We have worn them

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for a while, but I think that all the Low-land tartans were invented in order to open the door for George IV. However, I will not pursue that argument further now, or keep your Lordships any longer than you need to be kept.
I should like to join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell. I do not know whether I can say anything more than that. He is quite marvellous. He comes from a world that has gone and it is possible that we shall never again reproduce anybody as good as him. I have already apologised to the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, who is not in his place, for not having been here when he spoke. I had to go away in rather a hurry. However, I read his speech and I enjoyed it, as I always enjoy his speeches. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, also made a very remarkable speech. I think that we all enjoy listening to him, whether we agree with him or not. I think it is for about 50 per cent. of the time that I agree with him, and yesterday I think that I agreed with about 60 per cent. of what he said. However, I was sorry when he came to the bit about the "Break up Britain Brigade", and I should like to make a few observations on what he said.
A year ago I opposed in this House the idea of a Scottish and Welsh assembly. I thought that we could have gone on as we were. However, since then the Conservative Party and the Labour Party—the present Government—have put forward the idea of this assembly. To their credit, the Liberals have always been in favour of it. In my view, no major British Party (the Scottish Nationalists are a major Scottish Party) can go back on this idea without dishonour. The consequences are that we shall have an elected parliament or assembly. My noble friend the Lord Lauderdale said that it should be called a "convention", but I would call it a parliament—it does not matter what you call it—in Edinburgh. Already we have half of Scotland in the Strathclyde Region and other noble Lords have referred to this problem.
If, however, you are going to give an ancient nation like the Scottish nation—one of the most ancient nations in Europe, if not the most ancient nation, and a civilised nation—a parliament you
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cannot confine it to the drains in Edinburgh. If you give them a parliament it is an insult to them to say, "We are giving you a parliament and you can do this, but you can't do that". I do not think that you can give a nation a parliament with one hand and then tell that parliament what it may or may not do with the other.
My Lords, most of my history was learned from that splendid book 1066 and All That. I do not have a copy with me, but, as I remember it, it said that Henry VII had a splendid idea whereby the Irish should have a parliament and the English should pass all the laws in it. I think there is a certain danger here. If you give the Scottish people a parliament, then, I think, they must be allowed to determine how they are to be governed and what they will do in it, without being told from Westminster, "Oh, no! You have done that, but you must not do it."
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, spoke about Britain being broken up. I am sorry, my Lords, but all the major Parties in this country are now going to break Britain up. There is no question about that. The proposals of Parliament for Scotland and Wales are, to that extent, breaking up Britain. I will not speak for Wales as I know nothing about that country; I have been to Wales and I like the Welsh people but that is as far as it goes. But if you are going to give Scotland a Parliament, then you must give it full self-determination. This may not—and I hope it will not—be the same thing as breaking up Britain into little bits. Of course when it is all over the island will still be here, and we shall still have to live in it and defend it, and, since this revolutionary proposal has been put forward, we shall have to learn to live together in a new way.
I do not think there is any reason at all why we should not learn to live together in a perfectly civilised way. After all, Britain has recently joined the Common Market and now we have problems about that, but there was no question that we could not live in a united Europe in a civilised way. If Scotland has self-determination, it does not necessarily mean that we are going to get rid of the Royal Navy or that we must have Customs posts on the Border. The fact of the matter is

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that Scotland is being given a parliament and, consequently, the Scottish people have a right to have a proper parliament which determines everything they do in their affairs, both internal and external.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I must apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but he said something just now which I did not quite follow. I wonder whether he is fully aware of the terms of the Scottish National Election Manifesto, which spoke of a democratic Scottish parliament within the Commonwealth and went on to say,
"Scotland will have its own diplomatic missions abroad… . Scots will travel with Scottish passports… . Scotland will be represented at the UN and will be a member of the Commonwealth."
Surely that is separatism, no more and no less. I am not quite sure whether or not the noble Lord meant to cover that in the words he used.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, if I may say so, the noble Earl knows that I did not read the Manifesto, because about twenty minutes ago he asked me whether I had done so. I would not myself agree 100 per cent. with the Manifesto, but perhaps I may suggest to the noble Earl that he does not go along 100 per cent. with the Conservative Party's Manifesto. I think any political Party embraces a wide spectrum. One has to get an agreement in a wide way on what is done, particularly if it is going to be a governing Party. One fact that is quite clear is that there is a great wave of support for the Scottish National Party in Scotland and that wave will grow. Therefore a lot of new people will come into it with new ideas, but, as I understand it, the basic idea behind it is the self-determination of the Scottish people. The Scottish National Party seeks only one thing—to give back to the people of Scotland the right to govern their own affairs without interference from outside, and it seeks this through the legitimate means of the ballot box.
A lot of remarks have been made about the Scottish National Party which are not entirely fair. We are not using bombs; we are using arguments. On the other side of the Irish Sea we have seen things being done differently. The Scottish National Party seeks to persuade the people of Scotland, through the ballot
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box, that they should make an effort once more to control their own destiny. We do not seek for wealth which does not belong to us. We are not setting out to damage England or Wales or any other country, and—and if the noble and learned Lord were here I should like him to hear this—the Scottish National Party, even before the time when I belonged to it, was always totally loyal to Her Majesty the Queen. There is no question of cutting off from the Monarchy. So far it has sought and achieved its objectives in a constitutional and democratic way, and I hope that those aims will continue to be achieved not only in loyalty to our ancient Scottish nation, but in loyalty to our long and happy association with our great neighbour, England. Such a name is an honourable name. It is a name which has been supported and applauded by men of honour and integrity since the beginning of civilisation. No matter what your Lordships may think about certain aspects of the Scottish National Party's policy, I would ask you to remember that.
8.7 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE FO CULROSS: My Lords, I am going to take a risk; I am going to congratulate in advance the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, on the speech that he is to make. I have got to do that because nobody will speak after him and I should hate it to be thought that from these Benches we do not join with the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, in welcoming the newcomer to the Front Bench and in looking forward to what he is going to tell us. In fact I have little doubt that I am not taking much of a hazard upon myself because I am sure he will do it quite excellently. He has my sympathy in winding up the debate on Home Affairs, which is a quite disparate subject and covers a great deal.
I shall try to stick to the theme which seems to me to have underlain what has been said so far from this Dispatch Box; namely, that with, I believe, both the mover and the seconder of the humble Address we shall welcome the sensible, constructive and moderate things that would unite this country; but I am afraid that I shall not be hesitant in criticising where I think the Speech is

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extreme, divisive or in some cases irrelevant to the problems that we are facing.
The first matter concerns something that seems to me to be directly within the province of the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, in the Department of Education and Science. It was touched on by my noble friend Lord Aberdare. I hope the commentators are right when they suggest that the paragraph on education foreshadows a less than extreme line on comprehensive schools, and, if that is so, that the noble Lord will lend his weight to that moderate and sensible approach.
I am sure the noble Lord will say something to us on devolution. We have just listened to an interesting speech by the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton. But I would suggest to him that he is wrong in two respects: first, if he thinks that what the Socialist Party, the Conservative Party and, I believe, the Liberal Party too, are proposing for Scotland and Wales involves the breaking up of the United Kingdom, he is very much mistaken. So far as Scotland is concerned, it is the Scottish Nationalists who are on their own in wishing to break up this great nation, and he must not fall into the error of thinking that devolution and a break-up are the same thing. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, will make that plain.
Secondly, he has not perhaps studied the Constitutions of some countries as well as he might have done if he thinks that you cannot have a Parliament if it is not omnipotent. There are many brands of federalism, many schemes which can be devised which have limitations on the subjects that can be discussed and decided. I must say that I should think that far the best thing was to take the line of those like the noble Earl, Lord Perth, my noble friend Lord Lauderdale, and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, who said that we ought to have a full debate upon this subject. There have been innumerable questions asked, some by my noble friend Lord Lauderdale, others yesterday in another place by my honourable friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns. There has not been an opportunity to answer these or many others as yet, and I feel sure that we would do very much better at any rate to listen perhaps to an outline from the
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noble Lord this evening, and to come back to it in full on another occasion.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, will the noble Viscount forgive me? He has criticised my speech, but when he talks about forms of federalism I agree that there is federalism in the United States but in the United Kingdom you have one nation—I cannot quote the numbers—one part with three million people and one with five million. Is the noble Viscount suggesting that there should also be an assembly for England?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE FO CULROSS: My Lords, I am making a speech in it at the moment, and I think we must discuss all this and the implications on England on a separate occasion. I am also delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, that we shall probably have another opportunity to discuss Northern Ireland and its problems in the immediate future and be able to do so in some depth; therefore, perhaps I may be forgiven for leaving those topics for another day and go on to say a word to my noble successor, Lord Harris of Greenwich. I observed in the Queen's Speech that there did not seem to be very much for him except for the important subject of discrimination on grounds of sex and marriage. I listened with interest to what he said was to be in the Bill and I think a great deal of it will be a common ground with what we had proposed ourselves. We shall be looking with some care at the composition and powers of the Equal Opportunities Commission, because we are not entirely convinced that the mixture of education and investigation goes all that well with powers of enforcement. This may need a little further thought and discussion. It is high time that the law on children was simplified and rationalised.
I believe, or rumour has it, that we are to have the Safety of Sports Grounds Bill back, and the Prime Minister has said that the Government are going to promote a Bill to abolish hare coursing. Both these subjects are familiar enough to your Lordships and we can expect happy debates on them yet again.
We were particularly glad that the noble Lord dealt at some length with law and order and the police, because in the

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Queen's Speech there was a notable absence of anything on this subject and it is good that he has hastened to repair that defect. My Lords, it seems that we are also to have national holiday insurance in addition to National Health insurance, perhaps both on a compulsory basis. I am not sure how seriously to take this. How much will the taxpayer have to pay? Is this really a top priority at this moment in our crisis'? Will it encourage the careless, the inept, the incompetent travel agent or tour organiser and merely allow the taxpayer to bail him out? I wonder whether at this juncture we are right to embark on a thing like that. At least I can fall back safely on the subject of law reform and the administration of justice, subjects which traditionally in this House I find non-controversial though somewhat liable to drive noble Lords from their seats into other more entertaining arenas.
I want to say a word this evening about housing and land, first of all on the two Bills that we are promised which are I think re-introductions of Bills which came at the end of the last Parliament. The first is the Housing Bill of which I have managed to obtain at any rate a typed copy. The Party opposite has made life so difficult and unrewarding for landlords, even, perhaps, for the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, with his basement, that realistically we must welcome the encouragement of the provision of rented accommodation by local authorities and housing associations because, quite frankly, nobody else will provide it. Therefore, I am sure that that element will not lead to any dispute.
It is interesting to note in passing that I am told that what we from these Benches said would be the effect in university towns of the Rent Act of last year has already come about. There is a shortage of accommodation for undergraduates and probably for post-graduates as well because of yet another blow against the private landlady who used to put students up. It is not right to deal with these matters on a doctrinaire basis and turn down the brilliantly drafted Amendments put forward by my noble friend Lady Young to cure the defects. We shall have to look most carefully at the financial side of the Housing Bill because although it has so many useful elements in it I am a little concerned to
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find in the last part of the Explanatory Memorandum that, on the prices that were then available when that Explanatory Memorandum was written, in four or five years' time the total cost would be an extra £142 million a year in addition to what we already pay out by way of Exchequer subsidies and grants for this sort of thing.
The third element that perhaps underlies the housing field is that there will be no dispute on the desire to see people properly housed, to get rid of some of the shortages and to proceed rather on the lines suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Delacourt-Smith, in her admirably phrased and concise maiden speech yesterday. The waiting lists, in addition to the points she made, for local authority housing are much too long and they should be reduced.
My Lords. I am not so sure about the other Bill, not least for the reason that I have not been able to get a copy. There is not one in your Lordships' House although it was introduced in the last Parliament. I was told that there might be a method of getting a subterranean copy in another place but I have not succeeded in doing so. I think we should be very careful, if it has in it what I am told it has, to start making a major alteration of the burden of payment for council houses. If the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, is right (in another brilliant maiden speech) that the burden on the ratepayer is to increase to the extent she forecast, that if the concept of a "reasonable rent" means that the ratepayer has to shoulder the burden of paying part of the rent for people living in council houses which they will be perfectly capable of paying for themselves, I believe it will not be acceptable to the people of this country in addition to the other burdens which they may have to undertake. My Lords, that is only a preliminary shot. It is obviously going to be a much disputed area and one where we are going to have long and contentious debate.
As a footnote to it, when my noble friend Lord Kintore talked about some of the aspects of lawlesness I hope that the Government are not going to try to reinstate or rehabilitate, or in some way indemnify, those councillors who defied the 1972 Housing Finance Act. I particularly hope that these councillors will

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not be let off any of the financial penalties that they have had imposed upon them for what they did. If ever there was an inducement to lawlessness by responsible people, I am afraid that to my mind that action was one of them. We shall be very hesitant indeed to do anything other than criticise most strongly proposals of that sort.
My Lords, I come to the question of what the Party opposite proposes to do about land, the subject upon which my noble friend Lord Gainford touched. Yesterday I read that the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for the Environment gave vent to a cry from the heart when he was down at Brighton addressing the National Housing and Town Planning Council. He found the housing situation to be painful and intolerable, and I should think he is perfectly right. I read that there are 735 million bricks stockpiled in the country at present. The builders say there are 30,000 to 40,000 new houses empty and unsold. Certainly one can see for ones-self that there are many unsold second-hand properties waiting for new buyers.
Until T heard the speech of my noble friend, I thought that there was severe unemployment in the building industry, but perhaps he is right, and it is simply that the skilled people are doing something else. At any rate, there is stagnation at the moment and the right honourable gentleman is right to be worried. At the present time, houses are unsold because of the price of mortgages as much as anything else and I rather fear that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, gave us little cause for optimism yesterday when he said on this subject that it was a foremost aim of the Government to ensure that mortgages are held if possible—I noted what he said there—at their present levels. It is their present levels that have caused a great deal of the difficulty, and unless the Government can do better than that, I do not believe they are going to make much impact on their stated desire to see more owner-occupation of houses.
My Lords, I believe that this shortage of money on the part of the buyers is probably also one of the reasons why the Department would tell the Government that there are at the moment quite encouraging reserves of land available for building. Local authorites now have to
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send in from time to time, under a Circular of 1972, estimates of the reserves in their area. I would think they are telling quite a favourable story. At the same time, we are also told that prices are not rising very much. But let the Government beware of this. I hope there will be no false complacency that all is well. As one other noble Lord has said, there is a good deal of pressure underlying the situation, and it is pressure that will grow.
I believe the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, was quite right when he said that it is necessary to plan a long time ahead if one is to ensure a steady supply of housing on land released in the right places and in good order. I would suggest to the House that the present land stocks will certainly be used up because, if for no other reason, in most cases they do not appear to be going to attract any of the new taxes, and therefore there is everything to be gained by them being disposed of by building and by sale. But I do not understand why the Government are confident that any new land will come forward. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, was quite right in what he said on this matter. The Party opposite never seems to learn. They make a great deal of play in their White Paper of what they have learnt from previous occasions, but the 1947 scheme dried up the supply of land, and so did the Land Commission scheme, and so will the development land tax and the proposals in the White Paper which we are promised will be implemented in legislation.
My Lords, I commend to noble Lords opposite the special report in today's Times on this subject, and not least the article by Mr. Maas on the second page. The disincentives are so intense. If you sell land for development, you first of all pay capital gains tax on the inflation-based increase of its value just for its existing use. In addition to that, you are now to be taxed at 80 per cent. or more (because it will rise) on the development value. To most people this just is not worth bothering to contemplate. I am afraid that it is no use saying that this is something the community needs, and that perhaps, on the line that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, was talking about yesterday, people should have a moral obligation to do it. In this case, the

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Community is not visible to the people concerned.
The community, as I read it, is primarily the Exchequer. One noble Lord has already said this afternoon that the hypothecation of tax is anathema to the Treasury. I wonder how we are to see the fruits of this impost going back, as it is indeed promised in a late paragraph in the White Paper, to the local community in any shape or form that people will be able to identify with the development tax that has been exacted on developments in their area. I do not think they will see anything which makes it worth while having a moral obligation at all. But if they will not do it for themselves, I am equally afraid that the local authorities will be able to do little to help, either.
My Lords, what I have seen of local government in fairly extensive tours around the country since I returned to the Bar has led me to think that the quality of staff there is very high, but there is a phenomenal shortage of it. One can go to local authority after local authority, and in the planning departments and in the legal departments there is a dire shortage of trained people. If it is thought that land held back by reluctant citizens can be extracted from them by means, for instance, of compulsory purchase, the Government should bear this in mind: almost all the possible land upon which this could be done is already clogged up with planning refusals. If it had not been, it would have been developed already. Therefore, anyone who wishes to bring it forward will have to convince someone—and someone on a fairly large scale—that all these planning refusals were quite wrongly made in the first place by the local planning authority. There is no help on the positive side of planning because the development plans are becoming pathetically and ludicrously out of date and are of no assistance to anyone; whereas the structure plans, let alone the local plans under the new scheme, are years ahead before they will be visible at all.
Quite apart from that, the compulsory purchase orders will be fought. This is a long process, a contentious process, and one which requires a good deal of competent staff to handle it on the part of the local authority. I believe that this
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is a realistic point which should be borne in mind by the Government, that they will not see any salvation from that quarter.
My Lords, there is something that I believe will come to a complete halt, and it is a great pity. A good deal of the land is in fact released without touching the agricultural and the forestry land of our country at all, by way of redevelopment inside urban areas which already exist. But it is a particularly difficult operation because someone has to assemble the land, and someone has to tempt people to sell off parts of their gardens or, indeed, their houses, or parts of their places of business so that the whole lot can be pulled down, put together in a single site and redeveloped with a planning gain. It is a matter on which the local authorities are very insistent and very keen, and they will allow it to happen if there is a planning gain.
However, there has to be some incentive to the landowners and, indeed, to the assembler to make it worth their while. With the tax now proposed by the Government, I do not think it will be worth anyone's while. Those who will remain in the development business will I am sure do their best to help to build houses even under the scheme proposed by the Socialist Party, but they will do it on the easy land, not on the difficult land. I fear that many opportunities for redevelopment will be lost.
My Lords, on reflection, I am afraid that Mr. Barber overdid his dose of taxation last December. For reasons which I am afraid I think can only be of doctrine, the Party opposite are compounding this error. May I make one point: let us please, if we are to have them at all, have these Bills quickly. The Times of yesterday promised December and March for the introduction of respectively the Taxation and the Land Bills.
LORD HARRIS FO GREENWICH: My Lords, I was just trying to follow the argument about the then Chancellor's measures of last December. The point I was not clear about was whether the noble Viscount was saying that the then Chancellor overdid the cuts in public expenditure he then made. If not, where exactly does he think the then Chancellor made his error of judgment?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I said that in saying what he did about the development gains tax he overdid it. It was not, of course, crystallised into any legislative form until the Finance Act of 1974. I was not talking about public expenditure but about that.
I was diverted for a moment to put in a plea to have this legislation early, because I am equally certain that the period before the full proposals are announced is a period of particular stagnation, with nothing at all getting done, and if the be done, before there is time for a Con-Government are confident that they are doing the right thing they had better cut that period as short as they can. What I am afraid of is that in compounding what I consider to be the error, the Government are laying up a good deal of trouble for the future. The tragedy is, I believe, that we shall not see the full effect of what they are doing for quite some time, because there is this stock of land available and unbuilt on which will keep us going for a little while. Probably, I would venture to think, the full damage will not be done, or at any rate may not servative Administration to unpick the scheme. This has had to be done twice before, and it is for that reason, therefore, that the White Paper so confidently claims, because there has been no opportunity for it to be proved wrong, that if the schemes had been allowed to continue they would have worked. In fact they did not continue and we shall never know whether or not they would have worked.
With such conviction as I can muster I would say to the Government that they ought to make it perfectly clear to themselves, and I think to others, that their schemes are not going to encourage the provision of housing; they are not going to encourage the provision of factories and other places of work. I would really suggest to them that at this juncture this is one of the classic irrelevancies to which my noble friend Lord Gowrie referred last night. This scheme is so penal and so confiscatory that the people who are going to be taxed cannot possibly think it fair; and if they do not think it fair they cannot be expected to co-operate, let alone make the sacrifices that are necessary.
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May I just say in closing that in making criticisms of this sort I find it dreadfully hard in this House to pin the responsibility for what appear to me to be extreme and irrelevant policies on noble Lords sitting on the Benches opposite. They always are so reasonable; they explain matters so sweetly; they are so gentle, and they make everything sound so harmless. But if their colleagues elsewhere prove them to have been perhaps deceptively mild there are two things we shall do. We shall first of all remind them of what they said and urge them to return, so far as they can, to the policies of moderation which they so very much prefer, or so it appears to us. Secondly, we shall have no hesitation at all in pointing out where there is room for a change of heart back to moderation, because for these extreme policies we have no time. We have time for the moderate; we have time for things that unite. But for those that divide we really must at this particular time make ourselves plain: we condemn them and consider that they are counter-productive and will not do a thing to help us out of the difficulties we face in our home affairs.
8.34 p.m.
THEMINISTER FO STATE, DEPARTMENT FO EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD CROWTHER-HUNT): My Lords, it is with enormous trepidation that I rise to reply to this debate. It has been so full and so wide-ranging, and so many excellent points have been made, that even if I were an experienced Member of your Lordships' House I should hardly know where to begin. As a relative newcomer therefore I find the task particularly daunting, the more so since when I had just begun to absorb some of the customs and traditions of your Lordships' House I found myself suddenly cut off from taking part in your debates, since on my appointment as constitutional adviser to the Government last March I became a temporary civil servant and was thus unable to take an active part in the proceedings of this House. And while during all those months I regularly felt inhibited by the necessary restrictions imposed on me, now that I am suddenly unmuzzled, as it were, I feel singularly ill-equipped to enjoy this new-found freedom, particularly since my colleagues have chosen to throw me in at the deep end, as it were.

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The point of this rather tedious introduction is not only to give me a bit more time to screw up my own courage, but also to beg your Lordships' friendly indulgence for any sins of omission or commission which may inadvertently follow. In this connection may I say how much I appreciate and was fortified by the flattering words which my noble friend Lord Harris and other noble Lords, including Lord Colville of Culross, used in welcoming me to my new duties. May I in turn associate myself with the congratulations that have been showered on my noble friend Lady Stedman on her most authoritative maiden speech, an authority born of her long experience in local government. She apologised profusely that she could not be here to take part in the winding-up proceedings. Clearly my noble friend has a major contribution on local government to make to the work of this House.
I should like to start now by taking up some of the points that noble Lords have made about devolution. In this context, I want to emphasise that, as clearly many Members of your Lordships' House are aware, the Government's White Paper on Devolution contains the most radical constitutional proposals which have been made since the Act of Union. As that White Paper made clear, the Government have decided that there should be directly elected Assemblies in Scotland and Wales. Here perhaps I might just pause for a moment to take up the points raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, when he asked, "Who decided?"—Did I decide? I think he ventured to suggest. This was, of course, a collective decision of Her Majesty's Government in Cabinet that they would issue a White Paper which made the proposals I am summarising at the moment, the proposals that there would be, and will be, directly elected Assemblies in Scotland and Wales.
I will not apologise at this moment to the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, for using the word "Assembly"; I know he prefers "convention". No doubt at the end of the day we shall get the phraseology right, whatever the right phraseology may be. The Government decided that there should be directly elected Assemblies in Scotland and Wales. The Scottish Assembly will have legis-
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lative power in fields in which Scottish legislation already exists; for example, housing, health and education. The Welsh Assembly will assume certain of the powers of the Secretary of State for Wales in respect of delegated legislation. Both Assemblies will assume many of the executive functions of the Scottish and Welsh Offices and of the nominated authorities now operating within their boundaries. At the same time the Government have made it quite clear that it is essential that both Scotland and Wales should retain their existing number of Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom Parliament and that there should continue to be Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales to act as full members of the United Kingdom Government in the formation of United Kingdom policies.
In this connection I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, that it is not the Government's intention to break up the political and economic unity of the United Kingdom; in fact, quite the contrary. The Government have emphasised in the White Paper that it is their overriding intention to maintain the political and economic unity of the United Kingdom. They have stressed that they have set their face against separatism and against federalism. But the proposals in the White Paper are very radical proposals indeed. It is the Government's intention, as the gracious Speech makes clear, to prepare urgently for the implementation of these decisions to set up directly elected assemblies. It is because the Government attach so much importance and urgency to this question that a new unit is being set up in the Cabinet Office, under my right honourable friend the Lord President of the Council. The new unit will be in charge of the further work on devolution policy, including the preparation of legislation, and it will also handle other work relating to the development of political institutions in this country.
As a further indication of the importance which the Government attach to this problem, my right honourable friend the Lord President will be assisted in this work by my honourable friend in another place, the Minister of State for the Privy Council Office. In addition, Mr. Harry Ewing has been appointed as an additional Parliamentary Under-Secretary of

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State at the Scottish Office and Mr. Edward Rowlands, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Welsh Office, will work closely with the Lord President and the Minister of State on the Scottish and Welsh aspects of this work. Also, my Lords, I shall continue to be closely associated with the detailed formulation of Government policy on devolution, and on other aspects of the development of political institutions in this country. In this context, I shall be maintaining a base in the Cabinet Office in addition to my own office in the Department of Education and Science. I mention all this, my Lords, to indicate that the Government are most certainly not dragging their feet on the question of devolution. On the contrary, they are moving as fast as is humanly possible. I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, will be satisfied on this point.
As was said by my noble friend the Lord President at the Press Conference which launched the White Paper, the Government's plans seem to envisage that it will take about a year to solve the remaining problems, which are very considerable, and to prepare the necessary legislation. I think it was then envisaged that another year would be needed to get the legislation through Parliament. It is in this context that I found myself in so much sympathy with the noble Earl, Lord Perth, when he asked for an early debate on devolution, as did the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, as well. I find myself in sympathy with the noble Earl, Lord Perth, not just because of his kind words about myself, which I greatly appreciated, but because of the fundamental importance of this subject. I have no doubt that the usual channels will take note of what has been said in this general connection. If I may turn for a moment to the words of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale——
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting, but I gave notice of my question. I asked for a firm reply and all. that the noble Lord has said is that this matter will be considered by the usual channels. I must say that I find that rather unsatisfactory. What is the point of taking the trouble of saying that one is going to raise a matter, if one gets that sort of answer?
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: I am sorry if the noble Earl, Lord Perth, is
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disappointed, but I am advised that there is no other way of arranging this. I am also advised that the most immediate chance of a debate may be on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, calling attention to the nationalist movement in Scotland and Wales. If this subject comes up for a short debate on one of the Wednesday Motions allotted to Back-Benchers, this might be a possibility. But I am sure that the usual channels will take urgent notice of the question that the noble Earl has raised, particularly as it has the support of the other side of the House.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, merely to suggest that this should be the subject of a short debate is an insult.
THELORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, perhaps I may intervene. The usual channels is the mechanism by which this House orders its Business. The noble Earl, Lord Perth, is well aware of that. If the House wishes to have a debate on this matter, then I can say that I have never over 20 years experienced any difficulty about a debate being arranged. If the noble Earl would like to consult with me, I am sure we can overcome this difficulty. But I think it quite wrong to attack my noble friend, who is speaking for the first time as a Minister. However, I give the noble Earl, Lord Perth, that assurance.
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that intervention. I was trying at that point to focus on the fundamental issues which the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, raised, because so often he focuses on the points with such precision that he goes to the heart of the matter. I noticed that he said that any assembly must be seen to be charged with clear responsibilities. He said that it must have responsibility in the trade, employment and industry fields, and must be seen to manage these affairs and not be an appendage of Whitehall.
He asked the crucial questions: is this body to have the political power to refuse to vote Supply? Will it raise its own revenue?—and so on. I was grateful to the noble Earl for not asking for a specific reply to these questions in this debate. I can give him the assurance that these are problems of which we are well aware. On this side of the House we are all well

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aware of them and a great deal of work is going into these matters with a view to producing the right sort of solutions, which I hope will satisfy the noble Earl. I noted, too, what he and other noble Lords said about the problems provoked by the region of Strathclyde. This is another problem of which we are well aware, and is another question which we shall be taking into account.
I think I have already given the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, the assurance about not breaking up the United Kingdom. It certainly is not the Government's intention to do that. I think I have already given the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, all the assurances on timing and other issues which he raised in his speech. So, my Lords, I should like to come now to my new responsibility, education, which is important both for its own sake and in relation to the achievement of the reforms in a number of fields of Home Affairs which have been mentioned this afternoon.
The Government recognise that education cannot by itself compensate for all the handicaps and discouragement which the less fortunate receive from poverty of environment or domestic circumstances. Other measures in the gracious Speech to which noble Lords have referred will bite on this problem at several points. It is in the schools that disadvantaged children can be introduced to the possibility of new goals of achievement, and we must be most careful not to perpetuate, still worse to widen, the gap which separates them from those coming from more fortunate homes. The sooner we can tackle these tasks the better. Hence, the importance which the Government attach to nursery education. The Government's policy is to make provision as soon as possible for more nursery education for children of 3 or 4 years of age, mainly on a part-time basis, with particular urgency to meeting the case of disadvantaged children.
I was glad to note here that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, welcomed these proposals. It has been at the age of five that children first encounter the inequality of opportunity in education based on their previous home and environmental experience. The second stage at which they have encountered inequality has been 11-plus,
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but here great progress has already been made towards a juster system and the Government are determined to complete this process. The development of comprehensive schools started to gain momentum after the issue of Circular 10/75 which asks local education authorities to prepare and submit plans for reorganising secondary education.
Viscount COLVILLE FO CULROSS: My Lords, i do not think the noble Lord is anticipating next year. It cannot be Circular 10/75.
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his correction. I meant to say 10/65, as he so rightly inferred. The gist of what I was saying, apart from that accidental mistake in the number, was correct. Here was a Circular which asked authorities to prepare and submit plans for reorganising secondary education. Then Circular 4/74, issued in April of this year, restated that the intentions were to develop a fully comprehensive system of secondary education and to end selection. The Circular said that authorities and governors would be expected to direct their efforts to planning the organisation of their secondary schools in such a way as to avoid the need for selection. It asked local education authorities to submit by the end of the year information about the successive measures they will take to complete this process of reorganisation in areas where selection still operates. I cannot, therefore, give the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, the comfort for which he was looking in this area.
It is in this context that I want to emphasise that the Government fully intend to carry out the commitment in the Party Manifesto, which said:
"… the next Labour Government will stop the present system of direct grant schools and withdraw tax relief and charitable status from public schools as a first step towards our long-term aim of phasing out fee paying in schools."
It would be wrong to conceal from this House that these are complex and difficult matters, and that there are some formidable technical problems to be solved. It would not be appropriate for me to go into detail about these at this stage. I will say only that the Government will make a further statement on this subject as soon as possible

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I want to turn for a moment to higher education. I wish first to declare here that I have been, and continue to be, an expansionist. I just do not accept the view that is fashionable in some quarters, that more means worse. It is contrary to all my 25 years' experience as a university teacher in this field. In my view, we still do not provide enough opportunities at the higher education level for our abundant national talent to be developed to the full. Here we lag behind so many other countries, so it will be my policy to put great emphasis on the plans for the expansion of higher education.
In this connection, I want to say a special word about our universities, since some people seem to believe that the policy of this Government is anti-university. This is simply not so. Our Manifesto emphasises that we shall continue to support the further development of the Open University founded by a Labour Government, which has enriched the lives of thousands of people of all ages. Equally, I want to emphasise that our other universities generally are a crucial part of our national heritage. They are, for the most part, centres of academic excellence of which we can all be proud, and some have an international reputation which is the envy of the world. Modesty prevents me from drawing attention to Oxford and Cambridge in this context, and of course I hardly need to do so.
I did not accept this new office—and I want to emphasise this—to preside over the decline of our universities. A crucial part of my job is to ensure their continuing and expanding success. It is in this connection, too, that I want to emphasise that, in my view, the overwhelming majority of our students are hard working, decent young people, who have not gone into higher education to disrupt those institutions, or to ferment revolution in society from them. They have gone to our universities to develop their talents in the service of the country and of the community. I do not accept the "bully-boys of the Left" thesis that has been propounded by a right honourable Member of another place. I have to point out that the education service as a whole is, and must continue to be, a large consumer of public resources. When, in times of economic difficulty, local authorities and other bodies are
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asked to limit increases in their expenditure, those concerned with education must accept that it would be unrealistic to expect fully to protect education at the expense of all other services, but it must be given the highest priority.
I know that there are many other specific points that have been raised in this debate which it is really too late to answer now. I refer particularly to those points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Gainford, the points on agriculture raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and the particularly important points on housing and land raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. I shall do my best to make sure that my colleagues' attention is drawn to these points, and they will no doubt take appropriate action.
In conclusion, I want to suggest that the domestic programme outlined in the gracious Speech is one of which we can all be proud. Its essential message is to produce a fairer and more just society. It does this by foreshadowing a new leap forward in social security benefits and a new earnings related pension scheme. It docs it, too, by our determination to ensure that our education policies are given the highest priority. Above all, it recognises that opportunities must be provided for all our people to have a greater share in the decisions which affect our life. This is why there are proposals to democratise the Health Service, and it is also why Scotland and Wales are going to pioneer the way to devolution.
As the White Paper on devolution emphasises, when the detailed scheme of devolution has been worked out, the people of Scotland and Wales will be able to have a decisive voice in the running of their own domestic affairs. At the same time the political and economic unity of the United Kingdom will be preserved, with all the attendant benefits from that unity which accrue to the people of Scotland and Wales no less than to the people in the different parts of England. In addition, it is only by creating this fairer society, and by providing these opportunities for individual fulfilment and initiative, that we can hope to tackle successfully the very grave economic problems we face. In my view, this is not a divisive programme. On the contrary, it is a programme for national

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unity—though not on the terms of one political Party, but on the nation's terms.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, I beg to move that the debate be adjourned until Tuesday.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly until Tuesday, November 5.

PRIVATE BILLS
Message from the Commons, That they have come to the following Resolution:
That:—
(1)the Promoters of every Private Bill which originated in this House in the last Parliament and which is listed in Schedule A to this Order, or which originated in the House of Lords in the last Parliament and which is listed in Schedule B to this Order may, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House, proceed with the Bill in the present Session and the Petition for the Bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable thereto shall be deemed to have been complied with;
(2) every such Bill which originated in this House shall be presented to the House not later than the seventh day after this day;
(3) there shall be deposited with every Bill so presented a declaration signed by the Agent for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill with the same title in the last Parliament as it stood when Parliament was dissolved;
(4) every Bill so presented shall be laid by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office upon the Table of the House on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill was presented;
(5) every Bill so laid on the Table shall be deemed to have been read the first and second time and reported from Committee and ordered to lie upon the Table, unless the Bill was considered as amended in the last Parliament, in which case the Bill shall be ordered to be read the third time;
(6) when any Bill which was brought from the House of Lords in the last Parliament and to which this Order relates, is brought from the House of Lords in the present Session,
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the Agent for the Bill shall deposit in the Private Bill Office a declaration, signed by him, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill which was brought from the House of Lords in the last Parliament, and, as soon as a certificate by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office that such a declaration has been so deposited has been laid upon the Table of the House the Bill shall be deemed to have been read the first and second time and committed;
(7) only such Petitions as were presented against any Bill brought from the Lords in the last Parliament which stood referred to the Committee on the Bill and which have not been withdrawn shall stand referred to the Committee on the Bill with the same title in the present Session;
(8) in relation to any Bill to which this Order applies Standing Order 127 relating to Private Business (Right of audience before Committees on opposed Bills shall have effect as if the words "under Standing Order 126 (Reference to Committee of Petitions against Bill)" were omitted;
(9) in respect of any Bill originating in the House of Lords to which this Order relates and upon which the Examiners reported in the last Parliament that no Standing Order not previously inquired into was applicable thereto, the Examiner shall, if the Bill is brought from the Lords in the present Session, be deemed to have made the same report in the present Session;
(10) in respect of any Bill to which this Order relates, no Fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings thereon which, by the provisions of this Order, are deemed to have taken place in the present Session:
Schedule A

1. British Railways Bill

2. Merseyside Metropolitan Railway Bill

Schedule B

1. Crouch Harbour Bill [Lords]

2. Eastbourne Harbour Bill [Lords]

3. Port of Tyne (North Shields Fish Harbour) Bill [Lords]

4. River Wear Barrage Bill [Lords]

5. Torquay Market Bill [Lords]

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
First Report from the Select Committee made, and to be printed.
House adjourned at three minutes before nine o'clock.