Sitting of 3 November 1975

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRADE

    Concorde
    Mr. Adleyasked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will make a statement about Concorde's noise levels, in view of the conflict of evidence produced by different reports from his Department and elsewhere.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will make a statement about the reported noise levels of Concorde during its take off and landings at Heathrow Airport during the summer.
    The Secretary of State for Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Shore): The Concorde noise monitoring results which I gave to the House on 13th October are now being studied by the manufacturers to see whether there is any possibility of further reductions in noise levels being achieved by modifications to operational procedures. The Department's results are broadly comparable with data so far published by the Greater London Council.
    Mr. Adley: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why in that answer on 13th October he gave only the maximum readings, and why the readings were shown in a unit of measurement not commonly used internationally for measuring aircraft noise? Will he see that the professional Concorde-knockers do not get assistance from his Department in the production of one-sided figures? Will he give an undertaking to call a meeting with the manufacturers and trade unions in Britain and France to see what action they could or should take in the event of the Port of New York Authority using distorted or incorrect figures to prevent Concorde from landing at Kennedy Airport?
    Mr. Shore: I do not accept that the unit of measurement employed at Heathrow is in any sense unconventional. It is a recognised unit of measurement and indeed tests were carried out, particularly as to siting of noise checkpoints, mobile as well as fixed, in association with a number of interested bodies, including

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    environmental groups and local authorities. Of course there is a distinction between the measurements at Heathrow and generally agreed international measurements as set out in Annex 16 of the Chicago Convention. It is an internationally agreed level which is taken into account by the manufacturers in planning engine performance in relation to noise, and in my view it will be closely studied by the United States and other authorities.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that publication of these figures was ill timed at a moment when people are trying to sell the aircraft around the world? Was the British Aircraft Corporation right to say that strict noise procedures were not being carried out? Does he agree that inexperienced pilots have been flying the aircraft? What discussions has the right hon. Gentleman had with the British Airports Authority about new take-off and landing procedures for supersonic aircraft in view of the problems they face?
    Mr. Shore: The hon. Gentleman has asked a number of questions. He said that publication of results was ill timed. I can only answer by saying that the procedures in a democracy often result in matters being published at moments which various interests may consider to be ill timed. Nevertheless, there has been a proper public interest among hon. Members on both sides of the House in demanding that noise measurements of Concorde's proving flights should be monitored and made known. I take it as my duty not to suppress information but to make information available to the House and to the public.
    As for the pilots being inexperienced, naturally we have not yet had a great deal of experience of flying this aircraft, and part of the testing programme was aimed at developing the experience of pilots. However, I do not accept that they were inexperienced in any other sense, but clearly their familiarity with the handling of Concorde will have been greatly enhanced by the proving flights that took place in the summer.
    Mr. MacFarquhar: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that current investigations into Concorde noise levels will not hold up the first commercial flights of Concorde out of Heathrow?
    Mr. Shore: I think that I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. He will understand that the certification of Concorde has to be decided by the CAA, an independent authority.
    Mr. Jessel: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the recommendation by the Noise Advisory Council that Concorde should not be allowed to take off and land at night? Will he confirm and enforce the strict ban on Concorde being allowed to manoeuvre at night over residential areas?
    Mr. Shore: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, and I appreciate that he lives in an area greatly affected by aircraft movements. I assure him that there will be no taking off or landing in any normal circumstances of Concorde after the appropriate night-time period begins.
    Mr. Tebbit: Does the Secretary of State not agree that, had the figures that were released after the tests at Casablanca been available at the same time, they would have put a rather different picture on these alarmist figures? Therefore, will he have a word with his colleague, the Secretary of State for Industry, to see why the copy of the report on the Casablanca tests, which is stated to have been placed in the Library, is still not available?
    Mr. Shore: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman—whose presence on the Opposition Front Bench I note with interest and pleasure—for his, as usual, well-informed intervention on this important question. It is true that a separate set of tests has been conducted under Annex 16 to the Chicago Convention and that those tests were conducted at Casablanca. Those tests, which are internationally accepted tests, produced the general conclusion that we had ourselves previously affirmed—the expectation that Concorde's noise would be broadly comparable not with the most modern of subsonic jets but with the Boeing 707–320C and so on, and those results have been confirmed.
    I note what the hon. Gentleman said about the timing of the later publication of the Casablanca results, in relation to which there were certain problems. We should have liked to have them as nearly as possible published with our own figures. I shall certainly pass on to my

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    right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry what the hon. Gentleman has said about copies being available in the Library.
    Mr. Terry Walkerasked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will make a statement on the endurance flights of Concorde; and if he will state when he expects the British Government to grant the aircraft its certificate of airworthiness.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Clinton Davis): My noble Friend the Minister of State for Industry expressed on 13th September his appreciation of the hard work done by all concerned in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion an intensive programme of endurance flying. The issue of a United Kingdom type certificate is a matter for the Civil Aviation Authority. The Chairman has told me that, subject to the demonstration of a revised cruise technique satisfactory for all expected atmospheric conditions, the issue of this certificate will be possible in ample time to avoid any delay in introducing the aircraft into airline service.
    Mr. Walker: Does not my hon. Friend agree that it is vital for the success of this project that the certificate should be issued as soon as possible, especially as the French already have their certificate? Is he aware that there will be a delay between the operations of Air France and British Airways unless this certificate is issued quickly? Will he use his good offices to make sure that the Government urge the Civil Aviation Authority to issue the certificate as soon as possible?
    Mr. Davis: This is a matter for the Civil Aviation Authority. The concept of type certification is a little different in each of the two countries. In Britain it covers certain aspects that the French cover in operational control rather than by a certificate. I have no doubt that the Authority will note my hon. Friend's observations.
    Mr. Warren: May I press the hon. Gentleman to make sure that the certificate is granted without any further delay? The French are operating the same aircraft by the same methods. Does he not recognise that there is a danger that we shall be in a comic opera situation—not able to operate an aircraft that the French have already certificated?
    Mr. Davis: The Authority is an independent organisation and the matters raised by the hon. Member are entirely its responsibility. I am sure that the CAA will have noted the views expressed today.

    Import Controls
    Mr. Blakerasked the Secretary of State for Trade what representations he has received from the TUC and the CBI regarding import controls; and what response he has made.
    Mr. Shore: Like other Ministers, I have recently received papers on this subject from both the TUC and the CBI. The Government will obviously give them careful consideration.
    Mr. Blaker: Although there would be a general welcome for a tightening up of the procedures against dumping, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a number of his right hon. Friends, including the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, have spoken out against the imposition of import controls in other circumstances? Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that in Tokyo on 18th September he himself said that the British Government saw no attraction in the imposition of import controls? Will he confirm that that is still his view?
    Mr. Shore: We are very willing indeed, as I have previously indicated, to use our powers whenever serious prima facie evidence of dumping is made available. I am perfectly willing to look more widely at the general question of anti-dumping measures, in so far as any suggestions are compatible with the agreed GATT arrangements.
    Various statements have been made about imports. I think that the hon. Gentleman can certainly take it for granted that the view of the British Government is that the major purpose is to avoid trade restrictions, by promoting the expansion of the world economy and international trade. However, we cannot rule out circumstances in which it may be inevitable and in the national interest for us to proceed in a different way.
    Several Hon. Members—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. There are a great many Questions about import controls.

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    I propose to move on to Question No. 10 as quickly as I can and not now to allow many supplementary questions.
    Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will make a statement on his policy regarding import controls.
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he will now introduce selective import controls.
    Mr. Peter Morrisonasked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he plans to introduce import controls.
    Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he is prepared to institute selective import controls in such areas as the field of textiles, footwear and motor cars at an early date.
    Mr. Shore: My prime objective is the early revival and expansion of world trade. But I do not rule out protective measures for particular industries suffering or threatened with serious injury as a result of increased imports. In any particular case we would have to consider all the relevant factors, including the fact that other countries can also use protective measures, before deciding where the balance of advantage lay.
    Mr. Rooker: Does my right hon. Friend accept that he has been looking at this matter for far too long to please workers in this country? While we are in a situation in which the multinational companies in Britain are in effect controlling our exports, we have the right to demand control of imports.
    Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend will accept that the trading relations between countries are, perhaps, somewhat more complex than the policies, although they are relevant to the trading relationships, of particular multinational companies. Although I understand the position of and sympathise with all my hon. Friends who, naturally, have pressure upon them from constituents who are worried about the future, and who indeed are perhaps already affected by the present, we must face the fact that we are in the middle of a world trade recession. We have to consider how we can best handle this situation and overcome it in the interests of our own people as well as of others.
    Mr. Canavan: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the imposition of selective import controls is the policy of the Labour Party and of the TUC? Will he also bear in mind that, particularly in the textile industry, cheap imports not only threaten the jobs of our own workers, including textile workers in my constituency and in other parts of Scotland and the North of England in particular, but are often the direct result of multinational companies exploiting cheap labour in other countries?
    Mr. Shore: The problem of cheap imports is important, but we have to remember that cheap imports are not by any means the same as dumped imports. We have long understood in the Labour movement in this country that countries that have formerly lagged well behind us in terms of industrial development will inevitably turn to certain ranges of industries where their skills and natural advantages can be used, and will develop them first.
    In the case of textiles there is the new multi-fibre arrangement, which has only recently been concluded, and which broadly will be of benefit to Britain, because it not only limits the increases available to other countries, particularly developing countries which have this advantage, but limits them in an orderly way, and, in terms of the EEC, has within it a burden-sharing formula un doubtedly beneficial to Britain.
    Mr. Morrison: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that in the event of the Government imposing import controls some retaliatory measures are bound to be taken, which will lead to greater unemployment?
    Mr. Shore: There is here a question of the possible international repercussions of particular measures that may be taken by the British Government. Obviously, that is something that any responsible Government must consider and weigh before deciding on any particular action about imports. If I may express my view in these words, I shall at least, I hope, command considerable support on both sides of the House. I would not expect any of my hon. Friends, or any hon. Members opposite, to urge upon me a course of action that, after serious examination and with the best possible information available, would lead to

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    results the very opposite of the results they want. That will not necessarily always be the case, but it is a serious factor that we must weigh in the interests of our own people.
    Mr. Hoyle: Will not my right hon. Friend accept that it is not sympathy but action that the workers are demanding? Does he not also accept that the threat of reprisals has been overstated too often? Will he not take action before it is too late with imports of textiles, footwear and glass? Will he bear in mind that only last week we have seen Chrysler threatening to withdraw from this country, while a British designed car is to be produced in France and imported here, with the loss of British jobs? We are demanding action.
    Mr. Shore: The question of Chrysler is now being considered, as my hon. Friend knows, and important consultations are being held in a few days' time. Therefore, I should not like to comment separately on that case at the moment. However, it may be that some have overstated the dangers of retaliation, but I equally put to some of my hon. Friends that there is a danger in understating that probability.
    Mr. Higgins: Will not the right hon. Gentleman accept that there is a great deal of dangerous double talk about import controls? The true distinction is the one he makes—whether goods are dumped. The term "selective import controls" totally fudges that vital distinction. Will the right hon. Gentleman reject the protectionist appeals of Ron Hayward and others, which would be likely to create retaliation and which could create not a world depression but a world slump, with beggar-my-neighbour policies and a reversion to the situation of the 1930s and higher, not lower, unemployment?
    Mr. Shore: I accept one point that the hon. Gentleman made—that the phrase "selective controls" in a rather blanket way covers different situations—one in which one is faced with genuine dumping and the situation I sometimes describe as over-competitiveness. There is a distinction.
    What the hon. Member has to realise—and I hope that others outside the House realise this—is that the commitment of
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    the major industrial countries to an increasingly free international trading order is a commitment that, on the whole, has been of benefit to this country, and it can be sustained in future only if we are able to resume the growth of international trade. If international trade fails to grow, we shall all be turned, whether we like it or not and however much we try, into enemies rather than rivals in international trade. That is a situation that I desperately want to avoid. Those who understand the history of the 1920s and 1930s will know very well why.
    Mr. Atkinson: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the argument about import controls is about world growth and the recovery of our economy? Does he agree that import controls are not temporary expedients to effect protection? They are essentially instruments of planning. If the whole of the Socialist case is about planning the economy, how can we plan it in the absence of controls on our external trade? The introduction of import controls would mean that we could expand the economy, raise production and lift world trade. It is not the other way about.
    Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend has an argument, but it is not the argument about selective import controls. It is the argument about controls more generally as a means of protecting the balance of payments, or whatever it may be.
    Mr. Atkinson: That is right.
    Mr. Shore: That is a matter which does not immediately concern us. We have been talking about selective controls. I wish to add only this point to what I have said on that subject. We must do our best—I have said this before—to do what we can to sustain world trade, but we cannot stand idly by in a situation that would result in the destruction of a major British industrial capacity that we shall need in the future. That is my viewpoint.
    Mr. Biffen: In view of the substantial and dangerous dependence of the Government's finances on overseas borrowing, would it not be realistic for the hon. Gentleman to point out to his hon. Friends below the Gangway that the International Monetary Fund would take a very poor view of any Government who, in seeking further credit, had a

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    record of trade discrimination at a time when all its policies are designed to expand world trade rather than restrict it?
    Mr. Shore: The important international obligation in this case is not the obligation that the hon. Gentleman has cited. It is Article 19 of the GATT. Article 19 of the GATT gives a nation the right to impose restrictions if increased imports are causing or threatening serious injury to domestic industry. That is the right under Article 19 of the GATT. What my hon. Friends have also to recognise is that the same article also gives the rest of the international community the right to have compensation in respect of the exports of the country taking that action. That is why, amongst other things, one has to think very carefully about particular cases.
    Mr. Maddenasked the Secretary of State for Trade how many representations have been made to his Department, by individuals and organisations, since March 1974, urging import controls on textiles.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Eric Deakins): About 260. We already have restrictions on a wide range of textile items. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on 23 May, the Government do not consider that an across-the-board cut in textile imports would be justified. But I am ready to consider the case for further restrictions on individual items on their merits in the light of our international obligations.
    Mr. Madden: Will my hon. Friend take it that the number of representations from all sides of the textile industry shows that the majority of the industry recognises that the only way to safeguard the British textile industry and relieve the misery in which it now finds itself is to impose selective import controls? Further, will he agree that import controls would not create retaliation, nor export unemployment? If the Department tells me that import controls are imposed on textiles by Australia, Canada, Norway, South Korea and Taiwan, why is it right for them to exercise such controls and not right for this country?
    Mr. Deakins: First, I should remind my hon. Friend that there are already
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    a considerable number of restrictions on textile exports from other countries to Britain. Under the terms of the multi-fibre arrangement, we have agreements in operation with Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Macao and Singapore, and one will shortly come into effect in respect of Pakistan. Further agreements are to be negotiated by the end of this year with Mexico, Latin America and the East European countries. Thus, virtually the whole of the developing world will be covered by these agreements in the next six months. Moreover, we do not wish to take selective action on textiles that is not justified under the terms of the multi-fibre arrangement, which represents for the first time ever an international agreement between the developed and the developing countries to control international trade in this important commodity—important for us and important for many developing countries. Finally, we do not, at least on this side of the House, wish to export unemployment—certainly not to very poor countries. We must take all the steps we can to protect employment in this country without harming the interests of people who are at present unemployed or in work in other and poorer countries.
    Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: May I revert to the question of dumping strictly so-called, not selective import controls? Do I understand from the answers to previous Questions that it is the Government's view that our anti-dumping machinery is the strongest we are entitled to adopt under the GATT? If that is so, why is it that Canada adopts much stronger anti-dumping machinery and yet is apparently able to keep within the GATT?
    Mr. Deakins: I am satisfied that the measures we have taken under the GATT anti-dumping code—rather than our own legislation of 1969—represent or contain the strongest possible measures we can use to restrain dumped imports from other countries. If the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying that the GATT rules could be tightened up or be made more stringent, that is an entirely different matter. I am not aware that Canada has any approach to anti-dumping basically different from that adopted by Britain. There is a difference in respect of the United

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    States, but it arises because of something known as the "grandfather" clause, since United States domestic legislation existed on this issue before the GATT anti-dumping code was drawn up.
    Mr. James Lamond: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that some of those who are calling for import restrictions are employed by our own companies, which invest in mills abroad which provide the cheap imports coming to this country, and that the British Government have themselves financed a number of projects in developing countries, which will add to the difficulties of our textile industry? Will my hon. Friend, therefore, have urgent talks with his colleagues to see whether any strategy can be developed by the Government at least to provide alternative employment for the many textile workers who are being thrown out of work because of the present policy?
    Mr. Deakins: My hon. Friend's last point is certainly important. Obviously, as my right hon. Friend has already said, no Government can stand by and see whole sectors of British industry decimated by competition from cheaper imports from overseas. But imposing selective import controls is not necessarily the only or the best means of safeguarding employment in our industries. If my hon. Friend will watch in the next few weeks for announcements about the Government's developing industrial strategy, he will, I think, find that measures will be taken that will in the longer term look after the interests of these domestic industries.

    "Buy British"
    Mr. Dykesasked the Secretary of State for Trade what response he has been able to gauge from consumers in the United Kingdom to his recent "Buy British" exhortation.
    Mr. Shore: I have found considerable willingness to support British suppliers in the interests of helping the country overcome its current economic crisis. This support could be far greater if some suppliers improved their performance.
    Mr. Dykes: Does the exhortation apply with equal force to the other countries in the European Community?
    Mr. Shore: If I may say so to the hon. Gentleman, this is—[An Hon. Member: "Answer."] Of course I shall answer. The hon. Gentleman's remark is slightly frivolous. Encouraging people to buy British is not at all frivolous. My view is that it is sensible, common sense and wholly beneficial to our own people who want to help their own country at a time of difficulty. But the great difference between Britain and the other countries of the EEC is that we alone at present have a major and substantial balance of payments deficit.
    Mr. Corbett: Will my right hon. Friend consider having further talks with the CBI and other bodies to try to put some renewed steam behind this call for people to "Buy British"? Further, will he have renewed consultations with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry so that we can get the National Enterprise Board into business as quickly as possible to ensure that there are actually enough British manufactured goods for people to buy?
    Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend has mentioned two important matters. I shall certainly look forward to opportunities of discussing this whole subject with the CBI and the TUC. It may well be that in the context of meetings of the NEDC we shall find an early opportunity of doing that.
    Concerning the National Enterprise Board, the answer is "Yes". If we are anxious to supply, as we must be at present, more of our needs from home production, whether we have the manufacturing capacity to meet our needs in a number of sectors where we should satisfactorily supply is extremely relevant. Therefore, we must do our best to see that questions of supply and efficiency in supply are dealt with, as well as directing ourselves to getting our own people to buy more of their own home products.

    Dumping
    Mr. Shersbyasked the Secretary of State for Trade what criteria the Government are using in deciding whether imports from Communist non-market economies are being dumped.
    Mr. Deakins: The Government regard imports from non-market economy countries as dumped if their price to the

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    United Kingdom is lower than that of comparable goods imported from market economy countries.
    Mr. Shersby: Is the Under-Secretary satisfied that the criteria being applied are sufficiently precise to prevent the dumping of men's leatherwear and made-up clothing? Is he absolutely satisfied that the criteria applied to measuring the true costs of production in the COMECON countries are as precise as they need to be to deal with this very difficult question?
    Mr. Deakins: There is no way in which we can possibly measure the cost of production in a non-market economy country. We do not apply that criterion because we could not follow it. Tightening up the GATT is obviously a matter not merely for Britain but for other GATT countries. However, I should like to point out to the hon. Gentleman and all others interested that it is in their own interests as a major trading nation to ensure that, although there are rules and that they are stringent and widely observed, they are not made so stringent that they could be used against us and our own exports.
    Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Does my hon. Friend agree that, whatever difficulties there may be about the preciseness of the definition, we have recently moved into a surplus in trading with many of the countries described in the Question and that most of the economic forecasters predict that we shall move into substantial surpluses with many of these countries in the years to come?
    Mr. Deakins: We have surpluses with a number of East European countries at present, largely as a result of their exports to Britain falling off because of the recession in Britain and in other industrial countries. When, as we all hope, the recession ends next year and world trade takes an upturn, their exports to Britain, France and Germany and other industrial countries should automatically increase.
    Mr. McCrindleasked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he is satisfied with the present GATT rules against dumping and their implementation by members of the GATT.
    Mr. Shore: The basic GATT provisions on anti-dumping, supported by the detailed rules in the 1967 anti-dumping
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    code, should be adequate. The major trading nations have signed the code, but the United States has not fully aligned its domestic law and practice.
    Mr. McCrindle: Is not the present GATT meeting in Geneva a splendid opportunity for the Government to take an initiative in attempting to have "dumping" redefined, as widespread violation of the dumping provisions of GATT appears manifest in many countries? Is the Secretary of State satisfied that the Government are showing sufficient initiative? Would it not be in their interests to take a greater interest and thereby take some of the steam out of the pressure coming from behind them to introduce selective import controls?
    Mr. Shore: I am anxious, as the House will know, to ensure that there are not breaches of the anti-dumping code and law of the GATT. I should be interested to receive any evidence that the hon. Gentleman wishes to offer of widespread breaches. An important factor as regards large trading countries is that the United States has not fully aligned itself with the GATT antidumping code. So far this has not had a major effect, but there are a number of inquiries taking place in the United States now in which dumping is being alleged against British and other European goods but in which those making the allegations do not have to show material injury. That is a very important and adverse fact from our point of view.
    Mr. Higgins: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Opposition are not satisfied that the present measures against dumping are adequate? Nor are we satisfied that his Department is giving as much help as it might to those who have great difficulty in establishing what the price is in the domestic market of the goods being shipped to this country. This is particularly so in the context of the comparisons with the non-market countries. What initiative is the Secretary of State taking in the EEC to show that its views expressed in the negotiations reflect these fears?
    Mr. Shore: A number of discussions are taking place, but in the context of the multilateral trade negotiations let us be realistic. The multilateral negotiations offer us a major opportunity to look again in a searching way at the

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    GATT anti-dumping code. Again being realistic, the timetable for reaching agreement in the MTNs is one which must look more to 1977 than to 1976. In the meantime, if the hon. Gentleman has any specific proposals that he wants to put to me with a view to making this more effective, he will find me entirely willing to consider them, because I have no doubt that both sides of the House have a united interest in this matter.
    Mr. Carter: What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to promote the export of British cars to Japan? How optimistic is he about the likely outcome of the voluntary agreement that he reached in Japan this year on the subject of the import of Japanese cars into the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Shore: That is a somewhat different question. I am expecting further talks between the representatives of the British car industry and the Japanese car industry to take place in December. When those talks have taken place, I shall be able to give a much firmer reply to my hon. Friend's important question.
    Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Trade how many complaints against imports being dumped, his Department has received in the last six months; how many have now been investigated; and with what results.
    Mr. Deakins: My Department has received ten formal applications for antidumping action since 1st May. Of these cases, one has been withdrawn and one completed to the satisfaction of the British industry. Five are under urgent investigation and three are awaiting further evidence from the applicants.
    Mr. Morris: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his answer again demonstrates the slowness of his Department in dealing with what is, on the basis of evidence from both sides of the House, a very serious problem? Is he aware that if his Department had taken action about shoe imports from COMECON countries three years ago, we should have had some satisfaction? As it is, we have a mild abatement from that source, but now the whole industry is concerned about the possibility of across-the-board import controls, which it does not want.
    Mr. Deakins: We are considering urgently and sympathetically whether to introduce surveillance licensing. We had a voluntary agreement with COMECON countries to restrict imports of men's leather footwear, but complaints from the footwear industry come right across the board. There are, for instance, complaints about imports of ladies' leather footwear from Italy and other areas, and of cheap footwear being imported from Brazil. The complaints are not confined to COMECON countries. When the hon. Member criticises the slowness of my Department, he should realise that, although there are many complaints against dumping, it is easy to bandy accusations but less easy to get an industry-wide case supported by the whole industry and based on serious evidence that can be investigated.
    Mr. Heffer: Is my hon. Friend aware that the answers we have had from the Front Bench today have been very disappointing? The introduction of selective import controls is not part of an academic exercise. If my hon. Friends had been out of work for three or four months, they might take a different view of this issue. Does my hon. Friend recall that the document "Labour and Industry", passed by the Labour Party conference, called for selective import controls, as did the general secretary on behalf of the party as a whole? Is it not lime that my hon. Friends listened to what the party said on this issue instead of listening to hon. Members opposite?
    Mr. Deakins: We are ready to listen to people throughout industry, let alone to hon. Members on both sides of the House, about the problem of selective import controls. I am sorry that my hon. Friend has found our replies disappointing, but Government policy on this matter is evolving.
    Mr. Heffer: It is a pity that it does not evolve a bit more quickly.
    Mr. Deakins: We have to take account of our international obligations, but we shall do what we can to protect the legitimate needs of British industry. My hon. Friend may not realise it, but, although I have had no personal experience of unemployment, I need no lessons from the Labour Benches about unemployment. My father's life was

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    destroyed in the 1920s and 1930s by unemployment, which left a scar on him and bitter memories for me.
    Mr. Fry: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the voluntary agreement with COMECON countries is useless for the shoe industry, because, although the imports of men's shoes have been reduced, imports of women's and children's shoes have been increased? As this voluntary agreement has obviously failed, what proposals have the Government for helping the industry?
    Mr. Deakins: I do not accept that the scheme has failed. It covers a particular category—men's leather footwear—and it is being observed. We shall be keeping a close watch on it both this year and next. The fact that countries choose to increase imports of other commodities is a different situation which can be looked at afresh.

    Tourist Industry
    Mr. Hicksasked the Secretary of State for Trade if he is satisfied that there is sufficient liaison with, and understanding of his policy by, the tourist industry and the various organisations representing the private sector of this industry.
    Mr. Deakins: The Government, with the support of the tourist boards, have sought to ensure that Government tourism policies are as widely known as possible. The British Tourist Authority and the national tourist boards are regularly in touch with the industry.
    Mr. Hicks: Does not the Minister agree, however, that tourism has been one of our more successful economic activities in recent years? It is a highly fragmented industry. Therefore, if we are to prevent contact between the Government and statutory boards from becoming meaningless generalities, are not the Government obliged to keep in close contact with the various private sectors of the industry?
    Mr. Deakins: I take the hon. Gentleman's first point about the success of tourism. It is one of our major earners of foreign exchange net and one which we obviously want to foster and encourage in every possible way. As regards contact between the Government and
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    the private sector of the industry, three organisations in the private sector have recently been in touch with me. One of them has had a meeting with my officials, and I understand that another is producing a report. I reiterate that I and my right hon. Friend and other Ministers are ready whenever possible to listen directly to the industry.
    Sir George Young: In the light of what the Minister has just said, does he agree that it was perhaps a mistake to confine his consultations on tourist policy earlier this year to the statutory tourist boards?
    Mr. Deakins: No, I do not accept that it was a mistake. These boards were set up by an Act of Parliament in 1969 to be the statutory advisory bodies to the Government. They represent all the interests in tourism. Private tourist organisations which may have had some comments to make would have been perfectly justified in approaching the Authority and the tourist boards direct, as well as in making representations to the Government. However, we are perfectly prepared to listen to any such representations.

    Shirt Imports
    Mr. Moateasked the Secretary of State for Trade what recent representations he has received about the level of shirt imports; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Deakins: Both my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have received a letter from the Shirt Collar and Tie Manufacturers' Federation. The Government are ready to have an early meeting with representatives of the shirt industry to discuss the situation if they wish.
    Mr. Moate: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the British shirt industry fears that 1975 will be the blackest year in the history of the industry and that there could be many factory closures, such as that which occurred in my constituency recently, caused primarily by a flood of cheap imports?
    Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied with a situation in which, for example, the new Hong Kong agreement could permit 27 million shirts to be imported into Britain next year—an increase of 10 million on

    21
    last year—together with cheap imports from Korea, Taiwan and from the Communist countries? Is the hon. Gentleman aware also that there was one instance of shirts being imported at a price of 21p per shirt from Poland and Romania? If he is not satisfied with this situation, will he state what steps the Government intend to take to protect the British industry?
    Mr. Deakins: The hon. Gentleman has asked four or five questions. I shall try to answer them all as quickly as possible.
    First, any further unemployment in the shirt industry would be serious. Recent trends in the industry suggest no major departure from the national pattern of unemployment. The position in the shirt industry is in fact no worse than it is in British industry on average.
    Secondly, there is a misunderstanding about the position as regards Hong Kong. Previously we had two separate quotas for shirts coming from Hong Kong. They have now been combined on an all-fibre basis. There were no objections from the industry to the combining of the two sectors on an all-fibre basis. There is an advantage to British manufacturers, and indeed to the British industry generally, in having an all-fibre basis for Hong Kong shirts so that they cannot be switched from one sector to the other when restrictions have been put on one sector but not on the other. There have been increases in imports of Hong Kong shirts in the past year, mainly in the cotton sector. This is a sector that would have expanded if we had not combined the two sectors. Restrictions on South Korean knitted and woven shirts were imposed on 22nd August.

    Books (Exports)
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Secretary of State for Trade what further action he will take in 1976 to promote the export of British books.
    Mr. Deakins: My Department's export services will be available in 1976 as they have been in earlier years to assist the industry to promote exports of British books.
    Mr. Goodhart: As British book exporters have to meet postal rates which are far higher than those now paid by their American rivals, and as British book
    22
    exporters will have to pay yet further increased postal charges in January, what encouragement will the Minister give to the various export schemes for books that avoid the use of our postal services?
    Mr. Deakins: I have yet to receive any evidence that overseas sales have been affected by the first slice of the increased postal charges this year. Obviously, there are many considerations involved in the purchase of books. However, I take the hon. Gentleman's point, and I know that the Book Development Council has investigated and is applying at least one method of sending books overseas without the use of overseas postal services, and I understand that it is doing so at a substantial saving. As regards our general support, I remind the hon. Gentleman that for the next year we have offered support at nine trade fairs and at least five outward missions to promote book exports.
    Mr. Christopher Price: But will not my hon. Friend realise that his reply is a little complacent? Can he give no hope on the heavy imbalance charges—heavier than in almost any other country of the world—which are having a serious effect because we are the centre of the English-speaking world and send out so many books and periodicals? If help with this burden could be met by some subsidy for the Post Office by my hon. Friend's Department, we could build on the tremendous potential for increasing both categories of exports in this area, so that many periodicals now in danger of having to close down for good could be saved.
    Mr. Deakins: I take my hon. Friend's point about the imbalance charges. This is a technical matter and not one for which my Department is responsible, but I shall ensure that my hon. Friend's remarks are brought to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Industry who has special responsibility for these Post Office matters.

    Textile Imports (Taiwan and Korea)
    Sir George Youngasked the Secretary of State for Trade why it was necessary to issue notice to importers No. 1513.
    Mr. Deakins: This notice was necessary to inform traders that applications

    23
    would be considered for licences to import newly restricted textiles from Taiwan and the Republic of Korea which were in transit on or before 30th September and had been paid for under the terms of irrevocable letters of credit, opened before 8th August in the case of Taiwan or 22nd August in the case of Korea.
    Sir George Young: Is it not a fact that the Minister's hasty action in August, threatening with bankruptcy importers in this country who had bought goods for which they had actually paid, action that he was then forced to unscramble, showed serious errors of judgment, as revealed by the issue of the apologetic notice to which reference has been made?
    Mr. Deakins: There was no error of judgment. The restrictions imposed on Taiwan and Korea were emergency restrictions imposed at the behest of the British textile industry generally, which had suffered a lot from competition by imports from those countries. They were originally imposed because we had made no progress with Korea on the GATT multi-fibre arrangement; the Koreans had taken a tough line, and it was not possible to reach agreement. Moreover, the imposition of import restrictions, which these were, inevitably causes disruption to trade and traders.

    Exports (Guarantee Bonding)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for Trade why he is refusing to make available the guarantees to British firms on export orders of less than £2 million which he provides to similar orders exceeding that amount; and what further steps he will take to help the securing of such orders.
    Mr. Deakins: I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to the ECGD's new scheme for guaranteeing performance bonds. The limit was reduced from £20 million to £2 million in June, and business under negotiation since then is fully engaging the resources which can be made available. I believe that the commercial bonding market can normally deal with bonds required for orders under £2 million; but nevertheless the scheme will be kept under review in the light of growing experience.
    Mr. Allaun: Is it not daft to risk losing orders for exports up to £2 million merely
    24
    because they are under that sum? Would it not be sensible to offer the services of some accountants and thereby save the jobs of thousands of workers? Moreover, would not orders for under £2 million require less investigation and less risk than would orders above that figure?
    Mr. Deakins: If my hon. Friend or any other hon. Member has evidence of the exclusion of orders under £2 million being a serious problem, I am certainly prepared to look at it urgently. I am satisfied that the existing commercial bonding market should normally be able to provide bonds for smaller contracts entered into by exporters without the need for special ECGD support. Where the market will not do this, it is usually because the contract is considered to be beyond the exporter's technical and financial capacity. In that case it is possible that, exercising its normal underwriting judgment, the ECGD would be unable to assist.
    Mr. Hal Miller: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is not a question of orders worth £2 million overall, but of whether it is possible to include components which separately, cost less than £2 million, but which together comprise an order whose total value exceeds £2 million? My constituents have made representations to his Department about the supply of parts to the Ontario hydro scheme. Will he take another look at this matter?
    Mr. Deakins: I shall have a look at the case the hon. Member has raised; it has not yet come to my desk.

    Motor Cars
    Mr. Les Huckfieldasked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he will make a further statement on motor car exports and imports.
    Mr. Shore: In the first nine months of this year, import penetration of the United Kingdom car market was 33 per cent. compared with 26·5 per cent. in the corresponding period in 1974. During January-September 1975 exports of passenger motor cars was £381·1 million compared with imports of £384·2 million. This compared with the corresponding period of 1974 of exports of £317·7 million and imports of £256·4 million.
    During the same period, the positive contribution to the balance of payments

    25
    by the motor vehicle industry as a whole has increased substantially.
    Mr. Huckfield: I welcome that information, but does my right hon. Friend know that some of us recognise that the subject of import controls on cars is complex, especially in view of the application of the United Autoworkers to the American International Trade Commission with allegations of the dumping of British cars? Does he realise that the problems of imports is aggravated by a possible last minute rush by importers who fear that controls will be introduced? Does he not agree that exports would be rather more significant if an improved contribution were made by the American multi-national corporations based in this country?
    Mr. Shore: The situation regarding imports and exports in the British car industry is complex. My hon. Friend is right in recognising that we have a favourable balance in the car trade with the United States of America. We import very little and export about £80 million worth of cars a year. There is a problem and a danger of anti-dumping action being taken by the United States authorities. We certainly do not want that to happen.
    The policies of the international car companies in the United Kingdom are a matter of considerable importance in terms of not only general employment and investment, but any restrictions by the parent companies on the marketing arrangements of their subsidiaries. This is a subject that various Governments have discussed with the major United States motor car manufacturers, and assurances have been given that there would not be objectionable restrictions.
    As I have said on so many other occasions, the degree of penetration achieved by imports this year is too high. It is up to the industry, both employees and management, with, I hope, the help of the British consumer, to see that the balance is changed.
    Mr. Shersby: Is the Secretary of State aware of the serious concern about the
    26
    imports of motor cars from Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia? Does he think his statements on dumping have either increased or diminished the imports of motor cars from those countries?
    Mr. Shore: I do not think that we should dismiss the importance of any particular source of supply, but the hon. Member must see this matter in perspective. I believe that 1·3 per cent of vehicles are coming from Eastern Europe. I am more concerned about the 33 per cent. coming from Western Europe and Japan.
    Mr. Ioan Evans: My right hon. Friend's Department is considering selective import controls for the motor car and other industries. Is he aware, however, that there is a type of import control that the consumer can exercise, and that is to buy British? If we did that for cars and other products, not only should we be helping the balance of payments, but solving the problems of unemployment and inflation. We do not want to export unemployment, but we certainly do not want to import it.
    Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend speaks with great force and relevance on this subject. There is an awful lot that the people of this country can do for themselves if only they have the will and the sense to do it.

    Motor Cars

      STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
      Ordered,
      That the draft Compensation for Limitation of Prices (Scottish Electricity Boards) Order 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]
      Ordered,
      That the draft Compensation for Limitation of Prices (Electricity Boards) Order 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]
      Ordered,
      That the Legal Aid (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]
      Ordered,
      That the legal Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) (No. 4) Regulations 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

  BAHAMAS (GIFT OF A MACE)
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): I beg to move,
  That Mr. Tom Pendry and Mr. William Shelton have leave of absence to present on behalf of this House a Mace to the House of Assembly of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.
  The House will remember that on 18th June this year it approved the presentation of an independence gift to the Bahamas. The motion today, if approved, gives leave of absence to a small delegation to present the gift on our behalf.
  The House may wish to know that the composition of the delegation has been arranged with you, Mr. Speaker, and that it will be accompanied by Mr. Ryle, a Clerk of this House.
  Question put and agreed to.

  EUROPEAN SECONDARY LEGISLATION
  3.35 p.m.
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): I beg to move,
  That this House takes note of the First Report from the Select Committee on Procedure, Session 1974–75, on European Secondary Legislation (House of Commons Paper No. 294).
  Mr. Speaker: I have to inform the House that I have not selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), but I have selected the amendments, in the name of the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) at the bottom of page 12661 of the Order Paper, to the Motion dealing with Standing Orders.
  If it suits the convenience of the House I propose that we should have one debate on all the Standing Orders, which are as follows:
  That Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) be amended as follows:—
  Line 17, after 'provides', insert
  'and proceedings on Commission Documents'.
  Line 43, at end insert
  'In this paragraph, and in Standing Orders No. 60 (Constitution of standing committees), No. 62 (Nomination of standing committees) and No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c), "Commission Documents" means draft proposals by the Commission of the European Economic Community for secondary legislation and other documents published by the Commission for submission to the Council of Ministers'.
  That Standing Order No. 60 (Constitution of standing committees) be amended as follows:—
  Line 8, after 'instruments', insert:
  or Commission Documents as defined in Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business).'.
  That Standing Order No. 62 (Nomination of standing committees) be amended as follows:—
  Line 12, after 'instruments', insert:
  'or Commission Documents as defined in Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business).'.
  That Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments) be amended as follows:—
  Line 3, after 'Instruments', insert 'etc.'.

  29
  Line 5, after 'instruments', insert:
  'or Commission Documents (as defined in Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business))'.
  Line 23, at end insert:
  'or
  (iii) notice has been given of a motion relating to a Commission Document.'.
  Line 27, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 35, after second 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 37, after 'instrument)', insert '(or Commission Document)'.
  Line 47, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 50, after '3(ii)', insert 'or 3(iii)'.
  Line 52, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 55, after 'thereon;', insert:
  'and, in the case of a motion relating to a Commission Document, where an amendment is offered to that question, the question on that amendment'.
  At the end of the debate I shall allow the hon. Member for Newham, South formally to move his amendments and there can be Divisions if necessary.
  Mr. Short: In asking the House to take note of the First Report of the Select Committee on Procedure on European Secondary Legislation, I must first thank the Chairman and members of the Committee for the work which they put in between November last and March this year on preparing their report. The new Session will be upon us very soon and I have brought forward today proposals to amend Standing Orders in respect of a number of matters discussed by the Procedure Committee.
  Before turning to the Select Committee's report, I should like to make a general comment. In the White Paper "Report on Renegotiation" (Cmnd. 6003) we accepted the need to make the arrangements for scrutiny and debate of proposals for EEC secondary legislation more effective. A great deal has been done already to make these arrangements work—as much as and probably more than in any other member State of the Community. The number of EEC documents deposited in the House since May 1974 when the Scrutiny Committee was set up is well over 900. On each of these, except for a few self-explanatory factual reports, the Government Departments
  30
  concerned have prepared detailed explanatory memoranda which have been approved and, again with a few exceptions, signed by Ministers for the use of hon. Members and the Scrutiny Committee.
  On 16 occasions Ministers have attended the Scrutiny Committee to give evidence on proposals before the Council of Ministers. Every month the House has been given a statement and the opportunity to ask questions on the business going before the Council in the following month. Finally, on 24 occasions Ministers have come to the House to explain the line they are proposing to take on particular proposals in negotiations in the Council and to hear the views of hon. Members in debate. The Government, like the Scrutiny Committee and other hon. Members who take a particular interest in these matters, have put a great deal of effort into making the parliamentary scrutiny arrangements work. However, we are still rather feeling our way and we recognise that there is scope for further improvement. That is why we are proposing these changes today.
  I come now to the recommendations of the Select Committee. One matter to which the Select Committee on Procedure has drawn attention is the arrangements made for the consideration of EEC documents on the Floor of the House. The Select Committee refers in paragraphs 20 to 22 to the limitations on the time made available for EEC debates and in particular the number of these debates which have taken place after 10 o'clock at the end of our normal business. Of course, this applies also to our own United Kingdom secondary legislation. There has also been need this Session to devote a great deal of time to other EEC business more directly related to renegotiation and the referendum.
  It may interest the House to know that this Session some 67 hours have been spent on European affairs, including 11 days when they have been the main business. I recognise the importance of finding a time for these debates commensurate with their importance. I have taken note of the Select Committee's suggestions for the use of the six days per Session which we and the Opposition have undertaken to devote to EEC debates.

  31
  The Procedure Committee has criticised the absence of any provision in the procedure for the consideration of EEC business to ensure that the Question is put at the end of such business so that the House can have the opportunity to embody its views in a resolution. Indeed, on occasion the debate has stood adjourned without the Question being put.
  I recognise that this situation is not an entirely satisfactory one. The Select Committee on Procedure has provided the House with a suggested remedy for this in the extension of Standing Order No. 3, and in particular paragraph 1(b) of that Order, to cover proceedings on Commission documents. The Government agree to this recommendation in the interests of improving the scrutiny arrangements. The necessary amendment to Standing Order No. 3(1)(b) is on the Order Paper for decision today and I commend it to the House. In effect it would give motions on EEC documents the same treatment as is given to affirmative resolutions on domestic statutory instruments.
  I now turn to the recommendation in paragraphs 36 to 43 of the report that Standing Orders should be amended to provide for the appointment of a Standing Committee for the consideration of some EEC documents which have been recommended by the Select Committee for debate in Standing Committee. As the Procedure Committee recognises, I submitted this proposal to it on behalf of the Government and it was supported by a number of other right hon. and hon. Members who gave evidence. The model here as I see it is the procedure which we have evolved for our own statutory instruments which is set out in Standing Order No. 73A.
  I am sure the House will agree that the introduction of that Standing Order, which provides for statutory instruments to be referred to Standing Committees for consideration, has been a very valuable addition to the House's procedures. This Session, for example, about four-fifths of all affirmative resolutions on statutory instruments have been taken upstairs in Committee. The saving of time on the Floor has been the equivalent of about 20 sittings. It seems eminently sensible, and I am glad that the Procedure Committee has endorsed this proposal,
  32
  to make similar provision for discussing some EEC documents.
  As I have said, the Scrutiny Committee may on occasion, in reporting on an EEC proposal, suggest that it would be an appropriate matter for debate in Standing Committee. I want to make it absolutely clear, however, that it would, as in the case of statutory instruments, be for the Government, in consultation through the usual channels, to decide whether to table a motion in Standing Committee or on the Floor of the House.
  In practice, some of the debates recommended by the Scrutiny Committee are bound to be taken on the Floor of the House. Obvious candidates, I should have thought, for committal to Standing Committee would include, first, debates on documents at an early stage which may attract further debate at a later stage; second, debates on proposals having no legislative effect; third, proposals for legislative instruments identified as being of lesser importance but still worthy of debate; and, fourth, Private Members' motions. This would usefully extend the range of procedures open to the House for dealing with these documents and would in particular provide for discussion of EEC proposals of special interest to private Members. Whilst the Standing Committee would be appointed in the normal way, any hon. Member would be able to attend and speak, though not to vote, in the Committee.
  To implement this proposal, I have tabled amendments designed to bring Commission documents within the scope of Standing Order No. 73A. If these proposals are accepted, the procedure for referring Commission documents to a Standing Committee, the scope for hon. Members to object to the reference, by standing in their place, to the composition and procedure of the Standing Committee, the form of their discussion and report and the subsequent decision of the House would all be identical with that for our own statutory instruments, with which hon. Members are familiar.
  I should explain that the inclusion of Commission documents in the scope of Standing Order No. 73A would mean departing in two fairly minor respects from the recommendations of the Select

  33
  Committee on Procedure. First, the Procedure Committee has suggested that there should be unlimited time for discussion of EEC documents in Standing Committee, although there is an hour and a half time limit in our Standing Orders for considering statutory instruments other than those relating exclusively to Northern Ireland, which, I think, have two and a half hours. As the many hon. Members who serve on Standing Committees know, there is considerable pressure on Committee time as well as on hon. Members' time.
  In the Government's view, the time limit of one and a half hours which we apply to statutory instruments would be adequate for the Standing Committee discussion of the kinds of proposal which are likely to be referred upstairs which I have just mentioned. I mean not the ones of first importance but those of secondary importance, because in the main that is what they would be. We have accordingly made no special provision in the proposed amendments to Standing Order No. 73A, and I suggest that we treat these in the same way as our own secondary legislation, particularly as these are of secondary importance.
  Secondly the Select Committee, in paragraph 42(a) of its report, has recommended that, unlike Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, the new Standing Committees should consider EEC documents on a substantive motion—for example, to take note of or approve the documents, which should be amendable in Committee.
  The Government's view, which I am sure will commend itself to the House, is that the statutory instrument model is the right one to follow, and that a formal motion
  "That the Committee has considered the document"
  is the appropriate basis for debate in Standing Committee.
  There is a very important principle involved here. It is the House as a whole to which the Government are responsible for the conduct of affairs, and it is the House as a whole which alone can charge the Government to take one course or another on pain of withdrawing its confidence—not a Committee, but the House as a whole. It would be quite inappropriate, and contrary to the precedents to
  34
  which the House has adhered in establishing other Standing Committees, to delegate the authority which belongs to the whole House to a small and inevitably less than representative number of hon. Members in Committee.
  On the other hand, it is important that the House should be able to express its views on EEC proposals recommended by the Scrutiny Committee for consideration. The amendments to Standing Order No. 73A which have been tabled would accordingly allow for a substantive motion to be tabled here in the House before the documents are referred to Standing Committee, for amendments to be tabled and for this motion to be put to the whole House without further debate when the Standing Committee has reported that it has considered it. Therefore, the Standing Committee could consider a substantive motion and amendments which had been tabled to it and could report back to the House that it had considered it, but the vote on that motion and on the amendments would take place in the House itself without debate.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: Since my right hon. Friend has rightly emphasised the responsibility of Ministers to the whole House, will he also confirm the Government's undertaking that, where the Scrutiny Committee has recommended consideration by the House of a legislative instrument, the Government will not assent to the passage of such an instrument in the EEC until this House has had an opportunity to discuss it?
  Mr. Short: That undertaking has already been given on behalf of the Government. It has been quite firmly given by me and, I think, by a Foreign Office Minister as well. I hope I have made clear that there would be an opportunity to table amendments and to vote on them in the House without Division in the Committee but with a Division, if required, in the House itself.
  We have added a provision to ensure that any amendment to the motion which you, Mr. Speaker, might select would also be put to the House. Although this diverges to some extent from the report, it achieves exactly the same result. The House would be able to make its views known.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify a point in what he has said, which he will agree was rather complicated? I understand him to have said that before an instrument is referred to the Standing Committee there could be tabled a motion—and amendments thereto—which, when it was reported back by the Standing Committee, would then be decided forthwith by the House. Do I take it that those are the only circumstances in which such a motion would be tabled, or would it also be possible, when the Standing Committee had reported in its formal manner, of course, for a motion then to be tabled, with or without amendments? The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is quite possible that after studying the proceedings in the Standing Committee hon. Members might wish to offer for decision amendments which would not necessarily have occurred to them before the instrument was sent to the Standing Committee. I hope that my point is clear.
  Mr. Short: Without notice of that question, I think I am right in saying that it would not be possible to table a motion afterwards, but it would be possible to do it before the instrument was referred to the Standing Committee. [Interruption.] Quite clearly, it would be possible to do it before the debate took place.
  Mr. A. P. Costain: With regard to this unusual procedure of a vote without debate, will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that the House will not be asked to vote until the Official Report of the Committee proceedings is available?
  Mr. Short: I think that that would be reasonable, but I repeat that any hon. Member may attend the Committee.
  Before leaving the subject of the proposed amendments to Standing Orders I should say a brief word about the procedures for the reference to Standing Committee of Private Member's motions on EEC documents—or EEC Prayers, as it were. At present there is no effective provision for a private Member to draw to the House's attention an EEC proposal which is not recommended for debate by the Scrutiny Committee but in which he has a particular interest, other than perhaps a half-hour Adjournment debate.
  The Procedure Committee has recommended that provision should be made
  36
  to enable Private Member's motions on Commission documents to be referred to Standing Committee on the analogy of Prayers against statutory instruments. The amendments tabled to Standing Order No. 73 implement this recommendation. On the analogy of Prayers, however, the Government cannot guarantee that time will always be found for debate of all such motions. Nevertheless, I trust that this new procedure will be of value to hon. Members, and I commend it to the House.
  Mr. Michael English: Although you did not select my amendment on the principle, Mr. Speaker, may I ask my right hon. Friend to comment at some point on the discrepancy between the House of Lords and the House of Commons terms of reference? As I understand it, the Select Committee in this House, and therefore all the rest of us, can consider only Commission documents. My right hon. Friend has spoken of both Commission and EEC documents, and they are not entirely the same. I understand that the House of Lords can consider all EEC documents, including those emanating from the Council. This is a vital matter, as matters emanating from the Council at present are those relating to political union. It would be rather odd if the House of Lords could consider political union while we were restricted to matters of transport and the price of butter.
  Mr. Short: The last thing I would attempt to do at this moment is to interpret the Standing Orders of the Committee of the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies), but I shall consider my hon. Friend's point.
  I turn to the Select Committee's recommendations in paragraphs 17 and 18 concerning the timing of debates and the provision of information to the House on amendments of substance which affect the United Kingdom. The Procedure Committee's recommendation in this area ties up with the suggestions put forward by the Select Committee on European Secondary Legislation in its Second Special Report for the current Session—and the same points have been made by a Select Committee in another place.
  What these various recommendations together amount to is that when EEC proposals have been deposited in the

  37
  House, and recommended for debate by the Scrutiny Committee, the debate should normally take place at a fairly early stage in the discussion of the proposals in the Council of Ministers, so that the House has an opportunity to put its views to the Government while matters are still at a formative stage. Both Committees recommend that thereafter the Government should, before the proposals go forward for final adoption, inform the House of any substantial amendments of interest to the United Kingdom which have been made in the course of discussion so that the proposals as amended can be subjected to a further scrutiny and, if so recommended, a second debate.
  This proposal for two-stage scrutiny and debate would not call for any amendment of the formal procedures of the House. But there are serious practical difficulties to be overcome in providing the House with the sort of information on which second-stage scrutiny would be based. The proceedings of the Council are akin to international negotiations. Bargaining points are often made and withdrawn, and reservations are maintained on particular matters from one side or another, often up to a late stage in the Council's deliberations. It is not therefore always possible to identify amendments which have been agreed.
  Moreover, negotiations in the Council are often confidential between the member States, and must remain so if compromise between purely national interests is to be achieved. Uncertainty about whether parliamentary scrutiny procedures are complete can be an added difficulty in negotiation in the Council. Furthermore, the provision of information on the up-to-date state of proposals which have already been through the scrutiny process will significantly increase the burden of paper work flowing between Government Departments and the House, at a time when we are all looking for economies—in money, time and manpower.
  Notwithstanding all these difficulties, the Government accept that two-stage scrutiny will be justified in respect of those proposals which involve major policy developments. We accept that it would be appropriate to provide the House with the necessary information on amendments to such proposals agreed in the course of Council discussions in such a
  38
  form as the confidentiality of Council proceedings permits. I think the House will recognise that this partial acceptance of the Committee's recommendation represents a major step forward in our scrutiny arrangements.
  I turn briefly to the recommendations which the Procedure Committee has made in paragraphs 8 to 10 of its report about the presentation of documents. The Committee's principal recommendation is that consideration should be given to the practicability of laying Commission documents upon the table as Command Papers. The Committee recognises that the practical difference which this would make over the present arrangements by which documents are deposited informally in the Vole Office is very small. There would appear to be some disadvantages from the House's point of view in extending the concept of Command Papers so widely as to embrace all the documents emanating from the Commission. I am giving the matter consideration in consultation with the House authorities, but I would not hold out much hope of major improvements in the presentation of these documents.
  The Procedure Committee has also recommended the publication of a periodical list, similar to the Public Bill list, showing the progress of each Commission document on its progress from presentation to the House to its approval by the Council. I can see some merit in this suggestion if it would be of real use to hon. Members. If such a list is to be of use, however, it must be kept to manageable proportions. I believe that a list containing 700 items will not be of much help to anyone. We are discussing this proposal with the House authorities. I shall be glad to hear the views of hon. Members as to its likely value.
  Finally, I turn to the question of the budget. The Procedure Committee's recommendations about the way in which the House should consider the Community budget are closely tied up with the problems arising from the Community's own budgetary timetable. In the debate on the 1975 Community budget on 4th July my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury explained that proposals for altering the Community's budgetary timetable were under discussion in the Community. The difficulties we encountered this year, to which the Scrutiny

  39
  Committee rightly drew attention in its Third Special Report, will no doubt strengthen the case for changes in the timetable, and we are pursuing this matter. But it does not seem to us to be sensible to make final decisions on procedure until the timetable question is sorted out. There seems to be little need for any change in the terms of reference of the Scrutiny Committees. The House will debate the 1976 budget on Thursday of this week, when the timetable aspects can be pursued.
  It remains for me once more to thank the Select Committee for the excellent work it has done on the subject of European secondary legislation and to commend to the House the amendments to the Standing Orders which I have tabled so that these necessary improvements in our procedures for considering European Community documents can be made without further delay.
  4.0 p.m.
  Mr. John Davies: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to intervene at this stage. Those on both sides of the House who are interested in this subject will wish to thank the Leader of the House for the careful consideration he has given to the report of the Select Committee on Procedure and will also wish to thank him for coming forward with a series of recommendations to facilitate this work in the House of Commons. On behalf of the Scrutiny Committee I say that we are grateful to him for what he has done. There are, however, certain points which still give cause for concern following the right hon. Gentleman's remarks and the amendments which have been tabled. I will define what these are.
  In answer to business questions last week, when the right hon. Gentleman was asked by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) about the form of the debate today, he said,
  "I made it clear last week that this debate will be based on a number of motions to amend the standing orders in accordance with the recommendations of the Select Committee of which the hon. Member is a member."—[Official Report, 30th Oct., 1975; Vol. 898, c. 1765.]
  The right hon. Gentleman has told us today that in a number of respects he has not been able to do that and that the
  40
  amendments tabled do not reflect the recommendations of the Select Committee on Procedure. To some of these, at least, we shall need to give further attention. In some ways the basis of concern arises from the fact that the Leader of the House, in what he has said today, has continually equated secondary legislation as related to the European Community with statutory instruments as they relate to legislation, when in fact there is no good analogy.
  The fact is that the only primary legislation in the Community sense is legislation referring to the treaties. All the rest is secondary legislation. That embraces an enormously wide range of subjects, including matters of the greatest substance which certainly if treated as domestic matters by the House would be treated to all intents and purposes as primary legislation. There is a danger in using that analogy and drawing from it the inference which the Lord President has drawn from it in bringing forward these amendments. It seems that because of the nature and scope of the legislation involved there is an importance in looking with new eyes at the nature of the legislation going through the Community and at how this House is to deal with it.
  There is the important and difficult problem of reconciling the traditional methods of handling matters in this House with the quite new—to us—system of legislative activity which is prevalent in the Community. It is a new system not only in the sense that the constitutional position is different in that we have groups of Ministers meeting together without having to subject themselves to the duress of parliamentary scrutiny of the details of their legislation and able then to enact legislation without that degree of democratic control, but new also in that the very form of the legislation appears to a layman such as myself to be more intelligible than our legislation, though clearly less precise. It says what it means in terms which are perhaps open to more doubt with the result that there is a need for greater interpretation by the European Court.
  We have, therefore, a basically different form and a different constitutional method. We need, therefore, to replace our own system of meticulous revision and improvement of legislation, to which

  41
  the House is accustomed, by a method of influencing those who will enact without the form of democratic scrutiny to which we are accustomed. It is this reconciliation of the different methods of handling matters that is the all-important issue in this debate since it concerns how we are to cope in the future with a wide range of Community activity.
  I do not resent the difference. I find that the proposition of bringing to bear the force of influence on Ministers at the point when they make decisions, but early enough to influence their minds before they are crystallised and made up, to be perhaps just as useful and ultimately as effective as our system, when we wait until Ministers have got into a deep-rooted frame of mind which nothing will shift and then try to amend details of the legislation. I do not object to the method. I simply say that it needs a new and intensive look at the way in which it is handled.
  The Scrutiny Committees have been formed and the undertakings to which the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) referred have reasonably been re-emphasised by the Lord President. For that I am grateful. After a lot of initial difficulty these Committees are now doing the task intended for them and are, I hope, rendering the right service to the House in bringing before it those matters which seem to be important. As the Lord President has inferred, the deficiency has lain in the methods which the House could bring to bear in looking at these matters and then in seeking to use that influence to impress upon Ministers the anxieties and concerns which were felt. There have been all the objections of timing and form of debates, to which the Select Committee on Procedure has given careful attention.
  The acid test of the Government's proposals will lie in their ability to reconcile the need for careful, ongoing examination and the creation of an ability to influence the minds of Ministers with a totally different form of legislation presented in a different way and subject to different constitutional methods. It is on those scores that the House will wish to judge what the Lord President has put before us today. That is the kernel of the problem—whether we are to have a means whereby we can influence and affect the course of legislation by the proposals that
  42
  the right hon. Gentleman has made rather than the technicalities of the considerations that he has brought to our notice.
  I am bound to say that although the right hon. Gentleman has given us considerable satisfaction through the amendments to the Standing Orders and the subsequent points made in his speech, there are still issues which leave me dissatisfied. I will mention these to him. It seems that the analogy with the statutory instruments consideration has led the right hon. Gentleman into a form of arrangement which still puts the weight entirely on the Government side rather than on the side of the House in trying to deal with these matters. It is the Government who are retaining the initiative in every respect. It is the House which has somehow or other to fit into the rather narrow straitjacket with which we are presented to try to express our opinion effectively.
  I refer particularly to the form of motion and to the question of the duration of debates. The right hon. Gentleman has given us a careful explanation of the reason for the adoption of the form of motion. The truth is that a Standing Committee able only to discuss legislation but unable to express any view except that it has considered that legislation represents an unsatisfactory form of scrutiny. I am bound to tell the right hon. Gentleman that he will find great difficulty in attracting Members of Parliament—who are grossly overworked, as he says—to give attention to such things when they can make no expression of any valid kind. Hon. Members of such a Committee will consider a matter and then hope to goodness that other hon. Members will read what they have considered. It is a highly doubtful procedure.
  In its turn it makes most suspect this method of trying to get the House to use its sole discretion only at a point after that formal report has been made and in respect of amendments which, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has said, must have been tabled previously. I regard the Committee as conceived by the Lord President to be something of an emasculated operation. I doubt whether it will be the effective weapon we all hope it will be.
  Referring to the duration of the debates, the Lord President thought that

  43
  one and a half hours was adequate for debate on matters of secondary importance, and he returned to his analogy of the statutory instrument. Does the Lord President think that the consultative document on the subject of the treatment of multinational companies in the Community, with all the ongoing effects that that may have in terms of the restrictions and stimulations which may be given to such corporations, is a secondary subject? It is a consultative document. It is not a practical piece of legislation. Therefore, in the Lord President's view, it comes in for treatment by the Standing Committee and not on the Floor of the House. The debate will be limited to one and a half hours. Who can discuss the future of an organisation and the legislation related to multinational companies in one and a half hours? That would be inadequate. The Lord President's interpretation of secondary importance is a dangerous misunderstanding more than anything else, and he should reconsider it. Otherwise the Standing Committee will be further emasculated and diminished in its usefulness to the House.
  I make the same expression of concern about the time which seems to be allocated to debates on the Floor of the House under the terms of the amendment. Unless the Standing Order is suspended, debates on the Floor of the House would be limited to one and a half hours after 10 o'clock unless they began before 10 o'clock. In that case matters which form the kernel of the issues, the most important matters, would be limited to one and a half hour's debate at a late hour. We sought to get away from that. I am concerned about that. Perhaps the matter may be explained—I may have misinterpreted the amendments—in which case I shall be greatly relieved.
  I commend the Lord President for what he said about secondary scrutiny and secondary review. His remarks about Private Members' motions removed from my mind an anxiety which I had before this debate started. Some rethinking is necessary on the issues to which I have referred. Otherwise we shall have another valueless organisation in the House not making a valid contribution to its working, and simply offering a
  44
  manoeuvre in dealing with the problems with which we are faced.
  In view of the forthcoming attitude of the Lord President today, I feel sure that he will be prepared to consider my remarks. Otherwise we shall be obliged to complain bitterly about the inadequacy of treatment, which will cause dissatisfaction. The basis of our arrangements is sound and could so easily be brought into a meaningful method of examination and scrutiny of legislation.
  4.14 p.m.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: I am grateful for the opportunity of following the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies). I well remember one of his earliest speeches in the House—of which he has been a Member as long as I—and my attempts to interrupt and disagree with him on that memorable occasion. We are not discussing a party matter. We are discussing a House of Commons matter. I agree with nearly everything that the right hon. Gentleman said, although I should like to emphasise some of his points, especially that of comparability with statutory instruments.
  The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the accountability of Ministers. That is the heart of what we are trying to do. Ministers must account for themselves in Parliament as representatives of the executive to the representatives of the people. That is the heart of parliamentary democracy. Every Standing Order which we pass and operate must help to that end. That helps the Government in the long run, as unless they are in a position to be accountable they will not command the confidence of the people. That matter is equally important.
  The accountability of Ministers is not clear. In paragraph 24 of its report the Select Committee indicated that if Ministers did not take to Brussels and render what the House said, they would act at their peril. That was the only reference to the subject which we could find. That is the way in which the procedure works now. Unfortunately we do not know what Ministers do in Brussels. We do not complain that the Council's proceedings are secret, but that may be part of the matter. The problem is that we do not have a final sanction such as that which is open to the House on domestic legislation.

  45
  The other major problem is the manner in which we are being asked to look at the motions. The Select Committee, of which I was a member, sat and brought out a report which was printed before the referendum, in May. We asked the Lord President to consider splitting this debate and the discussion of technical amendments. We know that amendments to Standing Orders are technical and difficult. However, we thought that it might be much better to obtain the general view of the House on the report before taking a view. The Lord President tabled the amendments but has departed from the recommendations of the Committee in two major respects. I deplore the fact that we are not able to consider these matters in two bites.
  The second and more important point was also mentioned by the right hon. Member for Knutsford. On Thursday the Lord President, in reply to a question, said that he was tabling motions to implement the report of the Select Committee. However, this afternoon, for the first time, he said that in two important respects—the ability to table amendments and the question of the time limit—he was not following the Select Committee's recommendations. Those recommendations were important. They referred to two major matters. The Select Committee recommended that we should depart from the statutory instrument procedure. There is some difficulty here. My right hon. Friend may think that these are major changes, but it is clear from what was said that that view is not widely shared.
  If the Lord President persists in moving these technical amendments as the next business, I invite him to consider whether some of his hon. Friends will support him on the supposition that he is moving the implementation of the Procedure Committee's report when he is manifestly not doing so, although he said that we could argue about it since it was important. Those two matters are very much to the point.
  That brings me to the question of whether it is right to follow too closely the existing statutory instrument procedure. Our procedure under Standing Order 73A is relatively new. I believe that it has been in operation for 18
  46
  months, and we are not all necessarily familiar with it.
  The main point is that the so-called secondary legislation documents of the European Community are not secondary. They are super-primary. If they are in sufficiently definitive form, they override our own legislation. In constitutional terms they are superior to any of our normal Bills, which go through a complex procedure. They are not inferior to Bills. That is the part played by statutory instruments.
  Although I was not in a majority on the Committee, I doubted whether the analogy with statutory instruments was the right one. The Select Committee made specific recommendations. In paragraph 42(a) it recommended that
  "the Minister in charge of the business in the Standing Committee should be entitled to make whatever Motion he considered suitable. Motions to take note or to approve, or to do either with reservations, would obviously be appropriate; there might well be other forms suitable in different cases. They also recommended that the Motion should be open to amendment."
  That is the Select Committee's recommendation, and those of us who have been involved in European secondary legislation see the great usefulness of that recommendation.
  We know that the Lord President has in mind to move batches of documents to go to the Standing Committee. The Committee will wish to come to an opinion on each document or perhaps on a group of documents. The Committee may say that certain documents should have further consideration or be debated in the House. Under the Lord President's proposals, that would not be admissible. Therefore, in the one and a half hours available, the Committee would not be able to do even what we could do on the Floor and it could not do the work of the House.
  The legislation would not be "committed" in the real sense of the word, to the Standing Committee, which has to do a specific job and report to the House. The Lord President is denying the Committee the tools for the job in that it can only discuss the legislation. A specific vote cannot be taken, specific amendments cannot be moved and a specific resolution cannot be reached. That is the first major lacuna in the proposals.

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  The second major lacuna is in respect of time. The wording of the Select Committee in paragraph 42(b) is even stronger:
  "There may be a justification for these limitations in respect of Statutory Instruments, but your Committee can see no reason for applying them to European legislation."
  That is an under-statement. There is every reason for not doing so. The Committee may get its teeth into the subject with the help of the Scrutiny Committee's report and may wish to adjourn for two or three days to get facts or for its members to consult outside bodies to find out how the legislation will affect people. That is what we do on Standing Committees. For it to deal, for example, with lorry weights in one and a half hours would be impossible. I ask my right hon. Friend to concede that "minor changes" is not a happy description of the changes he is proposing in the Select Committee's recommendations.
  Although I am a member of the Select Committee, in my view the recommendations do not go far enough. They provide a route back to the House but not a satisfactory one. I said so in Committee but I was not in the majority. When the Standing Committee has voted and come to a conclusion, if necessary there should be an opportunity for a debate in the House even if only for half an hour. That proposal is not included in the Select Committee's recommendations or in my right hon. Friend's version of them.
  The general recommendation that EEC documents could be tabled as House of Commons documents is valuable. Difficulties might arise, but if EEC documents which have legal force in this country cannot appear in the Journal of the House something is surely wrong. The same applies to the lists. My right hon. Friend said of recommendation (2) that lists of 700 documents would not be helpful, but I am afraid that I have to disagree with him. Without lists, how are we to know what is going on? I know that that may cause staffing problems, but a strip index of the kind we use for our own documents in the Library would be helpful.
  A similar procedure might be adopted for lists of up-to-date amendments of
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  EEC documents. On one occasion I remember a long series of points of order arising on whether a document which was before the House was up to date. We found that it was not. The gentleman in the Chair at that time changed the rule on the selection of amendments because it was proved that amendments had been made to the documents before us. I hope that more efficient arrangements can be made for amendments.
  I had hoped that it would not be necessary for me to refer to my amendments which appear on the Order Paper. I still hope that it will be unnecessary for me to move them formally. I shall not need to do so if my right hon. Friend will consider not moving his proposals. If some of my hon. Friends who are not in the Chamber support my right hon. Friend in the Lobby, they may be a little surprised afterwads to discover what they have supported. Although my amendments are not altogether satisfactory, they are an attempt to repair the damage and put into effect some of the Select Committee's recommendations. Instead of interlarding the amendments into Standing Order No. 73A as my right hon. Friend proposes, I have provided two new paragraphs, Nos. 74A and 75A. The effect of the amendments is to make possible a debate of more than one-and-a-half hours in Committee on a motion which is amendable. A report would come forward to the House after voting in the normal way.
  My amendments do not entirely meet the case because we need a completely new Standing Order dealing specifically with European legislation. It is not right to include in Standing Order No. 73A matters relating to statutory instruments which are sub-primary and EEC legislation which is super-primary. I hope that it will be possible to agree on a new Standing Order dealing only with European legislation.
  It has been said that this nation does not have a written constitution. At present there is disturbance in the country about parliamentary democracy, the reputation of the House and how we go about our business. Indeed, my right hon. Friend has some thoughts on that subject. I therefore hope that he will think carefully before pressing on us Standing Orders which do not even put

  49
  into effect the Select Committee's recommendations. The Standing Orders of the House are, in effect, part of our constitution. They safeguard the liberty of the subject and the rights of back benchers who are the representatives of the people as against the Government. We have Standing Orders, "Erskine May" and the Treaty of Rome. If my right hon. Friend presses his proposals to a Division, we shall be changing what little written constitution we have. We may have to do that at some time, but it is not right to press amendments which were tabled only on Friday and the implications of which were outlined by my right hon. Friend less than an hour ago.
  I am sure that all of us, including my right hon. Friend, have the same object in view. We want to make the procedure of the House for dealing with EEC documents as efficient and as effective as we can. That is common ground between my hon. Friends the Members for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) and Farnworth (Mr. Roper), the right hon. Member for Knutsford and myself. We may differ on merits but on matters of procedure we are at one.
  4.28 p.m.
  Mr. Cyril Smith: I recognise that the subject we are debating is extremely important. Indeed, my constituents talk about little else than the way in which the House deals with European legislation, and I have long queues of people at my surgery all wishing to express their view on the matter. The issue I wish to raise is not to do with Standing Orders, because no amount of tinkering will alleviate the recognised inadequacies of our proceedure for dealing with European legislation.
  I believe—and I want this on the record—that the only way we shall resolve the problem of European legislation is by a directly-elected Parliament for Europe, a Parliament which, I hope, will be more representative of the will and wishes of the people than this one is. The curtain will finally fall on the longest-runing farce in the West End when it stops playing to itself and realises that the disenchanted audience left many years ago.
  I therefore welcome the assurance by the Leader of the House some weeks ago about the setting up of a Committee
  50
  to review the whole procedure of the House. I believe that part of that Committee's remit will inevitably have to be to go over the ground over which we are now going—the relationship of this House to European legislation and the way it deals with it. Therefore, I suspect that what we are doing today is tinkering, tending to fiddle while Rome burns, and that everything we say and do today will again become the subject of debate and discussion when the right hon. Gentleman's Committee ultimately reports, which I hope will be very soon.
  The Report of the Select Committee shows clearly that we are dealing in an inadequate way with EEC legislation. I said in my submission to the Select Committee that the only place where real control of legislation can be effectively exercised is at the level where it is initially drawn up and considered. I believe that this House will ignore at its peril the undemocratic and unrepresentative nature of both itself and the European Parliament as it exists. It will not be long before European laws will be challenged and flouted, as happened to recent laws emanating from this Chamber.
  The authority of the House is undermined when two moribund and unrepresentative parties come and go like yo-yos between one election and the next and both completely ignore the rights of minorities in the country and in the House. Only when this House is representative will it be able with authority to exercise its right to scrutinise, amend and oppose legislation.
  We have this year had a referendum on Europe. That referendum mandated the House to play its full part in Europe. It is not doing so. It does not even send a representative delegation to Strasbourg. It denies the minority parties their proper rights within that delegation. That is why I say that the House in what it is doing today is tending to fiddle while Rome burns.
  I can only say, therefore, that, as far as I am concerned, I am prepared to support the Government's proposals in this matter but only because I believe that they are a temporary measure. I am certain that what the country will demand, and what the House will be debating, is a directly-elected Parliament for Europe so that the Parliament of

  51
  Europe can deal with its own legislation in a way which demonstrates that it has been directly elected by the people and is therefore representative of them.
  That must be the ultimate aim of this Parliament. I believe that it is the only way in which European legislation can be satisfactorily dealt with. So long as we continue to bring before this House European legislation and couple with it the weight of legislation which the House has been asked to deal with over the last few years—and I do not blame any individual party for that, since I do not believe that the present Government's legislative programme has been any greater than that of their predecessors—we are trying to do too much in too small a place.
  What we should be doing is debating a directly-elected Parliament for Europe to deal with European legislation while this Parliament deals with legislation appropriate to it. I only ask that, when this House decides to support a directly-elected Parliament for Europe, as I believe is inevitable, we ensure that that European Parliament is more representative of the will of the people than is this one.
  4.34 p.m.
  Mr. Sydney Irving: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) took up the limited time that we have for this important debate to deal with his pet subject. It would have been more appropriate on other occasions. Whatever the future, we have a duty to find effective ways of dealing with this legislation now, legislation which is of great importance to our constituents.
  We are considering the first of the four Reports which the Select Committee, of which I am chairman, has completed this Session. The Committee started work when there was a huge backlog of such documents, and, as has been pointed out, when we were in the run-up period to the referendum. I am glad to say that the backlog has been disposed of. I believe that it is tribute to the members of the Committee and to the Select Committee system that while the membership contained, from both sides of the House, hon. Members who were very strong protagonists in the controversy, that situation did not intrude in any way into the Committee's deliberations, although, of course,
  52
  the issues were never far from the minds of any of us. The Report shows few scars of the strains we were suffering at the time.
  The Select Committee was concerned with two matters—first, to secure improvements in the consideration given to the large number of documents coming from Brussels, which, as we say, could be as many as 700 in any single year, and, secondly, to reduce the pressure on the time taken on the Floor of the House.
  As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House indicated, the Select Committee, in pursuing these objectives, proposed the setting up of a Standing Committee similar to that of the Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments. The Scrutiny Committee would recommend a third category of document, some of the documents which are already discussed on the Floor of the House would be referred to that Committee, and some documents which are not discussed at all now would get discussion in it. The Committee could be attended by back benchers who would have the right to speak but not to vote. The Committee would take a great deal of pressure off the Floor of the House and enlarge the opportunities of back benchers in dealing with these documents.
  As in the case of the Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, there would be a blocking mechanism whereby 20 Members could ensure that the documents concerned stayed on the Floor of the House. I congratulate the Government on accepting this recommendation although, as my right hon. Friend has said, they have departed from our recommendations in two other respects. The first is from the Committee's recommendation that the new Standing Committee should be able to debate amendable motions—in other words, to have an expression of opinion. The second is in the Government's proposals for an automatic closure of one and a half hours on the work of the Committee.
  Some members of the Select Committee will find it difficult to go along with the Government's decision in this respect. I take perhaps a less tragic view than does my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) on this. It is understandable that the Government should wish to treat these documents in

  53
  the same way as statutory instruments. There is validity in the view that, if the Government are to be instructed, they should be instructed by more than what could, perhaps, be no more than eight Members and perhaps the casting vote of the Chairman of the Committee. But that is as far as I can go, as it is at this point that the analogy with the statutory instruments procedure breaks down.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) intervened to ask about the procedure on return to the House. On return to the House, the original trigger motion could be moved—although I agree with my right hon. Friend in his interpretation of his amendments. No motion other than the original trigger motion could be moved—but that motion could be amended. We are therefore left with the situation that hon. Members could move, amend and vote on a motion but could not debate its proposals. That is an unsatisfactory position.
  In the case of an automatic closure after one and a half hours, there is an analogy with the statutory instruments procedure, although I believe that the passage of time would have enabled us to discuss these matters with less passion than over the past few months and with less suspicion, and the result would probably have been similar to that in the statutory instruments procedure, where most of the statutory instruments are disposed of in perhaps less than half an hour. The Government should look again at that proposal.
  The Committee was concerned to facilitate the work of hon. Members in dealing with what it described as the "vast and voluminous" papers coming from Brussels and made a number of suggestions to which my right hon. Friend did not refer. It said that the papers should be in standard format, numbered systematically, so that they can be clearly identified, listed and indexed, and that they should have explanatory notes giving an indication of their genesis. Also, an attempt should be made to make the documents available to the public in time for them to make representations to hon. Members before decisions are taken. I hope that my right hon. Friend will find it possible to consider those suggestions seriously—the Committee did not feel that they should be put in the form of firm recommendations
  54
  —but I hope that something like this can be done.
  My right hon. Friend talked about the second stage scrutiny. He did not make it clear—perhaps he will later—who will take the initiative in dealing with this matter, whether the Scrutiny Committee, the Standing Committee or the Government or whether it will be open to any other hon. Member. As the right hon. Member for Down, South made clear, the document coming back on its return visit may be very different in every respect from the one originally considered by the House, the Standing Committee or, earlier, the Scrutiny Committee.
  I express my appreciation to the members of the Committee for their support. I would especially like to thank the Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Willcox, for the enormous amount of work he did and for his help to me, as Chairman, to the Committee as a whole and to individual hon. Members who consulted him about various problems. I am most grateful to him. No Committee could have been better served.
  4.42 p.m.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to have caught your eye immediately after the speech of the right hon. Member for Dart-ford (Mr. Irving), who was Chairman of the Select Committee of whose Report we are taking note. It was, he knows, a matter of personal disappointment to me that I was not able to remain a member of the Committee, but I have been greatly honoured by the attention which the Committee gave to such propositions as I laid before it by way of evidence.
  This debate takes place upon an agreed basis. It is an agreed basis which was referred to earlier in the debate and was confirmed as agreed by the Leader of the House. It is the proposition, which has been accepted, I think, by all parties for nearly two years now, that Her Majesty's Ministers should not assent in the Council of Ministers to changes in the law of this country which have not been approved, in some form or other, in some way or other, by this House, except in case of emergency or great urgency.
  I still am of the opinion, as I always have been, that this rule, this basic agreement, is of such fundamental constitutional importance that it ought not simply to rest

  55
  upon ministerial assurances but ought to be given the precision and the permanence of a resolution of this House, which can then itself be dovetailed into the Standing Orders which give effect to it.
  There would be this additional advantage of such a resolution being made part of our constitution—the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) was right in saying that in a sense the Standing Orders of this House are a part of our constitution—namely, that it would ensure, first of all, that any substantial amendments made after prior consideration of documents came back to this House upon the initiative of the Government and, second, that subsequent approval was obtained in cases of emergency or urgency when assent had to be given by Her Majesty's Minister to changes in the law not previously approved by this House.
  Still, what we are considering this afternoon is not the fundamental principle, which is broadly agreed though not yet enshrined, but improvement in the ways in which we can best give effect to it. I believe that the Leader of the House helped the House in doing this by tabling the actual amendments to Standing Orders which in his view were required. That was very helpful and certainly enables hon. Members to sharpen their minds, but I hope that he will be persuaded before the end of the debate not to move some or all of his motions, so that he can take account of what is said in the debate. After all, as he said, we are almost at the end of a Session and there will be little loss of time for him or anyone else if a little more consideration is available for him and for others of the precise form in which we are to amend our Standing Orders.
  There are three instruments which the House has available for giving—or, as the case may be, withholding—its approval of proposed changes in the law to be made in the Council of Ministers of the EEC.
  The first is the Scrutiny Committee, the second is the Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, as invoked by amendments of the sort that the Lord President has laid, and the third is the House itself. I should like to consider them in that order.
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  So far as the Select Committee is concerned, no problem arises. It seems to me to be generally accepted that, where the Scrutiny Committee, which is now working fairly smoothly and efficiently, does not report a proposal as requiring the further attention of the House, that proposal could very fairly be regarded, ipso facto, as carrying the approval of the House and calling for no further procedures.
  Then we come to consider the Statutory Instruments Committee and to ask how far, and in what way, that Committee could best relieve the House while helping it to perform its function of giving or withholding approval on its part. It is when we envisage the Committee as doing that, as providing a kind of Committee stage in legislation, that we are forced to recognise that the Report of the Select Committee was wiser than the amendments to Standing Orders which we have before us.
  Certainly I support the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) and others in saying that there is no serious analogy between secondary legislation under United Kingdom statute and secondary legislation in the sense in which we speak of Community legislation.
  Mr. Graham Page: There is a minor reservation, perhaps, on that, in that Northern Ireland statutory instruments come before the Statutory Instruments Committee and they are, of course, primary legislation.
  Mr. Powell: Yes, indeed. The right hon. Gentleman has literally taken the words out of my mouth. I was about to remind the House that the Lord President had very fairly drawn attention to the fact that, in recognition of the special nature of statutory instruments relating to Northern Ireland, an extra ration of time was given by Standing Order, because those statutory instruments would otherwise be the legislation of at least a subordinate Parliament, if such a Parliament still existed—a subject which may be detaining the attention of the House in months to come. If we feel that in these circumstances an allowance of more than one-hand-a-half hours is essential, how much more must that be so when we consider the comprehensive scope of the legislation that will come forward

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  from the European Community in the years to come.
  I wish to put my argument to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, not so much by way of contradiction, but on the ground that he himself, as the person in charge of the Government's business, has much to gain by adopting the point of view espoused by the Select Committee. Whenever there is a proposed reference to the Standing Committee it can always be defeated by 20 hon. Members rising to their feet to object. The better the procedure in Standing Committee, the more the procedures of the Standing Committee give satisfaction to the rest of us who are not privileged to be on the Standing Committee, the more the Standing Committee can be regarded as a substitute for debate and decision in this House, the more ready will hon. Members be to permit legislation to be referred to it.
  I believe that by insisting on the narrow letter of 73A as it now exists the right hon. Gentleman is gravely damaging his own interests as manager of the business of the House. Of course we share, within our respective limitations, the desire that, so far as possible, time on the Floor of the House should be reserved for the more important matters. So I beg the right hon. Gentleman to understand that if he will see his way to accept the advice of the Select Committee on the two matters on which he has differed, he will find the means of relieving pressure on this Chamber which, with general concurrence, will facilitate the business of the House.
  We are trying to use the Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments as a means of delegating the giving of approval, or at any rate all but the formal giving of approval, on behalf of this House. If that is to be realistic, the Standing Committee must be able to debate and come to resolutions in the proper manner. Otherwise it would almost be like sending a Bill upstairs to Standing Committee and then considering it on Report in the House without the Standing Committee having been able to make any amendments, or alternatively without our having any access to the decisions taken by the Standing Committee. It is necessary in my view that the Standing Committee should be able to debate substantive motions and, if it
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  desires, to consider amendments to those motions, so that its decisions on those questions will be available for the guidance of the House when the Standing Committee has completed its procedure.
  Obviously the form of the questions will vary, and here I can see yet another advantage to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House if he takes the advice of the Standing Committee. In many cases the instruments considered by the Standing Committee will turn out to be instruments not for early implementation—instruments which it is important should at that stage be examined, but not instruments which in that form are likely to be turned into law by the Council of Ministers. There is every possible advantage in instruments of that kind being debated at leisure, and every possible advantage in the Select Committee being able to indicate by the form of its resolution what importance it attaches to the present form of those instruments in view of the stage of gestation they have reached. I fear that, if that is not done, Members of the House, when they hear that an important matter involving a voluminous document emanating from the Commission is proposed to be referred to the Standing Committee, will in numbers more than 20 rise to their feet, to ensure there and then that they have a discussion of that matter in the House.
  So it seems to me essential that the procedure of the Select Committee should admit of substantive questions and amendments to those questions. From that it surely follows that the Standing Committee must be master of its time. It would be impossible for this House to expect to receive from a Standing Committee decisions, and the consideration of possible amendments to those decisions, and at the same time to tell it that it was to come to a conclusion within one-and-a-half hours. The length of time spent by the Standing Committee, if it is to relieve this House, must vary according to the importance attached by the Standing Committee to each document that is before it.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House will have much more co-operation from the House if there is evidence that an important document submitted to the Standing Committee has had lengthy consideration than if the

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  House finds itself confronted with a self-evidently important document on which the Standing Committee has had to conclude consideration within one-and-a-half hours. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman in his own interests, in the interests of Government business and in the interests of the House, to reconsider his decision.
  I come to the third instrument for giving or withholding approval—namely, this Chamber itself. Many such matters may be capable of being dealt with either by accepting silently a report of the Standing Committee or by the summary procedure in paragraph 5 of Standing Order 73A, although I should like to say a few words about that presently. However, there will be those matters which the House will have reserved to itself by either refusing permission to send them to the Standing Committee, or else by the Government laying the relevant resolution before the House in the first instance. Again, it seems to me that the same two requirements are present; first, a specific resolution, whatever it may be, and, secondly, adequate time. If it is the principle that prospective legislation before being assented to shall be approved by this House, then we all know what is meant by the approval of this House. This House gives its approval by passing resolutions with or without a Division, and that is just as appropriate to Community legislation as to any other type of decision.
  I do not believe it is satisfactory either for the House or for the Government that there should be a standard one-and-a-half hours for what by definition are the most important issues of Community legislation, unless on any particular occasion the Government take part of the time before 10 o'clock to add to the hour-and-a-half after 10 o'clock. On the contrary, the proper course is not to set ourselves in advance any fixed maximum time for this purpose. Perhaps I am not in agreement with many hon. Members in my belief that we sometimes do very good work in this House after 10 o'clock at night. I do not think it is necessarily a condemnation of our procedure if we find ourselves debating important matters until 11 o'clock, midnight, or even one or two o'clock in the morning. Some of the
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  best and most fruitful debates I have attended in this House in 25 years have taken place at those hours, and I believe that has been the position not only in the recent past but throughout many centuries in the life of this House.
  Sir David Renton: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is right concerning the quality of the debating and about our capacity to indulge in these debates. However, is it not a fact that debates taking place at these late hours do not have the same impact upon public opinion, because the Press are very often not present in sufficient numbers?
  Mr. Powell: I quite agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that the Press are surprisingly careless in failing to discover that some of the most interesting things to report and some of the most exciting political events take place after they have closed their notebooks and gone to bed.
  However, what we are considering here is approval given by this House to EEC legislation. Rather than, for the convenience of ourselves or the Whips, attempt to compress that work into the hours before 11.30 p.m., I should much sooner—and there is probably no ideal answer—leave this at large for the more subtle pressures and arrangements we all know to do their work. After all, even in this class of the most important EEC legislation, there are bound to be differences between some subjects which can be disposed of fairly smartly and others which call for more protracted discussion; and I am sure it has been the experience of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House and of the Government Whips that, however great has been the strength of feeling on the EEC, there has been absolutely no disposition to use debates on EEC legislation as part of the means, however legitimate, of bringing pressure to bear on the Government by the use or misuse of time.
  Finally, I want to refer to the work of this House upon EEC legislation which has been through the Select Committee, because I do not believe that we have got this right, with respect, either in the Report of the Select Committee or, even less, in the amendments to Standing

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  Orders tabled by the right hon. Gentleman.
  It seems to me that two things must be possible. It must be possible and right for the Government themselves to secure—if they can—what they consider to be the right conclusion upon the particular legislative proposal; that is to say, there must be an appeal to this House from the Select Committee, from the point of view of the Government. But then surely there is something grotesque about the Government telling the House that it must reconsider and perhaps reverse the result of the intensive work of a few of its Members without allowing itself or anyone else the opportunity to put the reasons why or examine those reasons, however briefly. Perhaps this is a case in which the one and a half hours rule might be appropriate and might help us, but I simply cannot think it right that there should be an instantaneous decision whenever the Government consider that an instrument which has been through the Select Committee should be put before this House for decision. So much for the Government.
  Then there are private Members, whether official Opposition or groups or indidivuals. They ought to have the opportunity to "have a go". After all, on legislation of any kind we can "have a go" on Report and, if six of us put our names down, on Third Reading. We can always have individually the last word where there is debated legislation. I believe that there needs to be provision whereby a private Member—and this perhaps is a case where decision forthwith would be appropriate—could secure a decision of this House, a vote of this House if necessary, upon legislation which has gone through the Standing Committee.
  I am sorry that I have detained the House for so long. I end by saying once again most strongly to the right hon. Gentleman that he has nothing to lose and everything to gain from reconsidering the two points on which he has parted company from the Select Committee; and I say that out of an equal tenderness for his own duties towards the dispatch of Government business as for the rights of the House.
  5.5 p.m.
  Mr. John Roper: I think that I have followed the right hon.
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  Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) in a number of the debates that we have had after 10p.m. on European Community legislation in the last 12 months. All I can say is that there has been no occasion on which I have disagreed with him less than I have today. Although he will find, particularly when we come to deal with the question of the Standing Committee, that I am less convinced than he is that our procedures are right, certainly with much of the rest of what he said I am totally in agreement. In particular I hope, as he does, that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will consider very carefully again before he moves the detailed amendments to Standing Orders, which he has tabled today.
  I should, perhaps, declare an interest in that I have served on the Secondary Legislation Committee since its creation 18 months ago. At times it has indeed been a trying business, but I believe that under the guidance of the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies), and with some assistance from the Government, the Committee has made a significant amount of progress in serving this House and the people of the United Kingdom.
  In coming to the debate today and to this carefully prepared report, for which we are grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Irving), I have to ask myself why at this stage the House should be considering again the methods which it uses to consider Community draft legislation. Is it because the Scrutiny Committee, the Secondary Legislation Committee, has failed so miserably? Is it because the referendum is behind us? Is it because the Government are not living up to their pledge to withhold their approval of proposals in Brussels until this House has had a chance to consider them?
  I do not think that it is any of those reasons but the answer given by the right hon. Member for Down, South—the simple notion of convenience, both for the Government and for hon. Members. I must state plainly that I have not a great deal of sympathy with that notion of convenience, whether it applies in this context either to the Government or to hon. Members.
  From the point of view of the Government, I appreciate the difficult problem

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  of the Leader of the House. He has a large legislative programme to bring forward. To ease this process he would clearly like to remove items which compete for time and do not require the normal procedures of the House. But we have to ask whether—as has been said frequently today—the items relating to the Community that we are considering in the House so far and those which we shall probably consider in the months to come are likely to be considered less important than other items that come before the House. I can put it another way. Can it be claimed that the Secondary Legislation Committee has abused the undertaking given by the Government to provide opportunities for the debate of important Community draft legislation? Have we put too much forward for debate? I do not believe that the answer is "Yes".
  I think that hon. Members should know that in certain instances—quite rightly—the Committee has withdrawn its recommendation for a debate when a case has been made by the Government that the document in question is no longer a matter for serious Community consideration. My right hon. Friend and his successors must continue to shoulder the additional burden of providing time on the Floor of the House for consideration of Community matters.
  Again, as has been said by the right hon. Member for Down, South, for hon. Members the convenience relates to the time and the length of sittings. I do not want to criticise any of my colleagues in the House, but I feel obliged to say that I am a little tired of hearing speakers in almost every Community debate carping about the timing of the debate. The House of Commons is not a mere gentlemen's club. It is a collection of men and women who are meant, among other things, to look after the welfare of the British people. If that requires late night sittings, so be it. If it requires debates on Fridays, so be it.
  Mr. Frank Hooley: I should like to point out to my hon. Friend that Members of this House are also human beings, and they have the intellectual and physical limitations of human beings. In certain circumstances an excessive strain is put on the physical
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  stamina of men and women if they are expected to be in this House for 15, 16 or 18 hours a day.
  Mr. Roper: I realise that that is a problem, but I do not think that the British public will tolerate Members who on the one hand complain about their political impotence and who then, on the other hand, are not willing to suffer minor discomforts in order to perform what is expected of them. Therefore, the argument about the convenience of Members of the House is not one on which we need spend a great deal of time.
  I make these points at the outset because they undermine the prima facie case for moving EEC matters from the Floor of the House to a Standing Committee. The analogy which has been drawn with statutory instruments does not apply, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing).
  A second question, which is equally important for us to consider is: what is the essential difference between Community draft legislation and British legislative proposals which should underlie any analysis that the House makes of Community affairs? There are several differences, some of which have already been referred to. I believe that the most important as regards Members of the House, particularly back benchers, is that, unlike proposals coming from the executive in this House, when Community proposals come before us they are not the proposals of Her Majesty's Government, at least not at the stage that they come before us initially. When an EEC Commission proposal is deposited in the Vote Office it is not put forward with the support of the Cabinet. Often it is months or years before a Cabinet position is taken.
  The significance of this point is important. The parliamentary system as it normally operates is generally dominated by the position that the Cabinet adopts on a matter. On most matters party allegiance—the support or opposition of the executive—is the determining factor in the position adopted by hon. Members. However, on Community matters the situation is quite different. Until such time as Ministers have taken a view on Community proposals, those proposals are open for discussion and analysis by all

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  hon. Members in a quite different way from ordinary United Kingdom Government legislation. Partisan political points may arise in this analysis, but not at the expense of the Government or at the advantage of the Opposition. Anyone who has read the minutes of evidence at the sessions when the Secondary Legislation Committee has taken evidence will bear me out on this point. We have not debated the matter as supporters of the Government or of the Opposition. We have tried to analyse the merits of a proposal which at the point of time that it comes before us still has not the blessing or the opposition of the Government.
  It follows from this that the concept of ministerial responsibility, which is a good one in our general debates in the House, has a different connotation when it is applied to European Community matters. True, once Ministers have taken a firm viewpoint the distinction is no longer valid, but until that time no one can rightly claim that back benchers should be excluded from policy making. I have some sympathy with—although I do not altogether agree with their argument—those right hon. and hon. Members who say that we cannot have Select Committees for each Department to examine departmental affairs because such Committees would undermine ministerial responsibility. However, Community legislation is not analogous with the activities of United Kingdom Government Departments. We can have detailed analysis of such proposals without infringing on the right and responsibility of the Government to govern.
  That brings me to the third question: what is, therefore, the right format for such analysis? Beside the Floor of the House which I have accepted initially as being important, the obvious alternatives are a Select Committee and a Standing Committee, or a combination of the two. I have stated my objection to a Standing Committee as an obvious alternative to the Floor of the House. I see certain difficulties arising from the suggestion of the Select Committee on Procedure. The Select Committee has suggested that Ministers should decide which matters should be taken up in Standing Committee. As I understand it, neither the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Lord President nor the amendment of my hon.
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  Friend the Member for Newham, South would allow a private Member to refer a matter to the Standing Committee.
  Again, Ministers are to decide the form of motion to be debated. Presumably a Minister would lead the debate, provide the information, and respond to the debate. That is a perfectly appropriate format when a statutory instrument is being considered or when a Standing Committee is considering a Bill. However, Community matters are different at this stage. Therefore, a different approach is needed.
  I believe that Ministers will suggest the minimum number of debates on the Floor of the House. They will probably postpone debates until the last possible moment because they will not want to discuss proposals on which they have not yet taken a stand. They will be reluctant to tell hon. Members the attitudes of various interests outside the House to the proposals.
  This is not to argue that Ministers will act as if they are contemptuous of the House. Rather, they will act in the traditional pattern, which is not appropriate to draft Community legislation at the stage it comes before the House.
  There is the additional problem of information. On many of the Community proposals which have come before the Secondary Legislation Committee hon. Members have depended heavily upon outside interests to indicate problems. This is as it should be, because Members of the House are expected to attempt to redress grievances. However, outside witnesses could not be called in Standing Committee.
  Finally, I believe that there is the problem of duplication. The Select Committee on Procedure is not recommending that the Select Committee and the Standing Committee carry out precisely parallel tasks. My experience of the practical problems found on the Scrutiny Committee in trying to come to grips with EEC matters convinces me that members of the two Committees will find themselves covering much of the same ground. This will mean a squandering of scarce resources, by which I mean not merely monetary resources but also the time of right hon. and hon. Members.
  Having therefore found that neither the idea of a Standing Committee alone nor

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  the idea of a Standing Committee in conjunction with a Select Committee is acceptable, I believe that there is much to be said for the House considering whether the idea of a Select Committee could not be expanded to do the job more adequately than at present, combined of course with the continuing right and responsibility for debate on the Floor of the House on the Reports submitted by the Select Committee.
  This is an option which I believe is preferable, not merely because I believe that the present Select Committee has worked tolerably well but also because from the work of the Committee we have learned lessons on which we can build. In short, I should like to turn to one or two improvements which could be made to our existing Select Committee procedure so that it can do its job much more satisfactorily.
  First and most importantly, I believe that the Select Committee needs a change in its terms of reference to allow it to carry on a closer analysis of important Community documents. The Committee announced its intention in its Second Special Report of this Session to examine in more detail certain draft Community legislation. I note that the Select Committee on Procedure welcomes this in its Report.
  We must remember that the Government motion establishing the Select Committee on European Secondary Legislation gave as its major function the sifting of Community documents. That was a departure from the original recommendations of the Foster Committee but one to which our chairman has rightly held us. We have been precluded from commenting on the merits of individual instruments coming before us.
  No doubt the sifting of documents remains a task to be performed, but it does not need to be the primary task of the Committee. Other methods of sifting suggest themselves, the two most notable being that used by the European Communities Committee in another place whereby the chairman with the assistance of her clerks separates the wheat from the chaff, and the method used in the Bundestag—I understand that we are to consider this later this month—whereby the proposals that the clerks in consultation
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  with the Committee chairmen deem to be of minor importance are presented to the committees en bloc for consultation and odbjections from members.
  I believe that our Committee has benefited also from the advice of our Clerks and that something similar to the German system would work well. What is needed is a change in the terms of reference so that sifting is of secondary importance while analysis and assessment by the Select Committee of important documents should be our prime task.
  In addition to this expansion of our functions, a restructuring of the Committee might also be in order. As constituted, the Committee has one sub-committee, and that only for sifting. If the proposal which I have suggested were accepted, that sub-committee would be obsolete and in its place we would need to look at the possibility of setting up a functioning sub-committee, its work to some extent parallelling the functions of a Select Committee in another place. It would deal, for example, with agriculture, fishing, trade, energy, industry, employment, economic and budgetary affairs.
  I have no time now to go into detail about the way in which such a Committee would operate, but I think that the House, before it accepts the proposal submitted by my right hon. Friends for moving to a Standing Committee procedure—which has some merits because it would ease his burden on the Floor of the House—ought to consider whether such a procedure would be appropriate for the House of Commons for dealing with this new problem with which we are faced in contemplating, analysing and influencing the formation of policy of the British Government in relation to the Community.
  I have already spoken for a long time, but this is an issue about which I feel strongly. My attitude on the rôle of Britain in the Community is no secret, but I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that this House should play an active part in making EEC policy choices. Perhaps the most successful debate we have had in this House on Community affairs in recent months was on 17th October on the Community's stocktaking report. That was possible because that for the first time the Scrutiny Committee went much further

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  than it had done before and produced the sort of report which provided a basis for the debate. I hope this is something that we can use in future.
  I point to that debate to allay the fears of right hon. and hon. Members who believe that careful analysis in Select Committee and proper expression of the feeling of this House through debate in this Chamber are mutually exclusive. They can work together. We must have both in dealing satisfactorily with Community draft legislation.
  5.23 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Hurd: The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) and to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) because they took us back to the constitutional principles which underlie this debate. It is natural that in a debate of this kind the burden should be carried by people who have served, in this case, on the Scrutiny Committee and on the Select Committee on Procedure and who have lived through all the arguments and are masters of the details.
  I believe that I am the first Member to be called who has not, as it were, served that apprenticeship. But I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I feel passionately about the importance of this subject and I wish that we were able to interest a larger band of our colleagues and a larger section of the public in its overwhelming importance, not just as part of the pattern of a developing Europe but also as part of the older pattern of the history of this House.
  If the founding fathers of the European Community had been with us today they would have been rather startled by the debate. They would not have been startled by the fact that Britain is a member of the Community, because that is something which they always expected, but they would have been startled by the fact that this House at this time should have been anxious to assert its authority over Community matters and should be looking for ways of doing so. In their concept, the Community would by now have developed on the lines of a European Commission which would gradually have grown into being something indistinguishable from a European Government, and, on the other hand, a European Parliament
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  which would have gradually grown through direct election and increase of powers into an Assembly which effectively and democratically controlled the Commission and thus the executive of Europe.
  They would have felt, therefore, a tremor of sympathy with the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) because they, like him, would have been in ignorance of what has happened to Europe since the founding fathers left the scene. The Community has developed in quite a different way, like a tree which almost imperceptibly starts to grow in a different shape from that which one expected when it was planted. The growth of the Commission has been checked.
  The Council of Ministers has held on to and is now developing its own power and its own sense of being the centre of decision making. This fact has enormous implications for us in this House. If it had been true that the Commission was developing as the executive, one would have had some sympathy with the views of the hon. Member for Rochdale in saying that what mattered was the democratic nature and powers of the European Parliament because the Commission, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) pointed out in his evidence to the Select Committee on Procedure, does not feel any responsibility to this House.
  If the Commission were what mattered, it would be only the European Parliament which mattered when we were thinking about a democratic check. If the Council of Ministers is what matters—and I believe that this will emerge from the work that Mr. Tindemans is doing for the future—it is important that we in this House should find the best means of controlling the Ministers who go from this country to all the different meetings.
  These Ministers are our creatures. They come when we call them. They are not in the same way responsible to the European Parliament. That is where the hon. Member for Rochdale completely misunderstood the present situation. What we should aim at is a pincer movement of democratic control. I agree that the Members of the European Parliament should be directly elected and should operate as effectively as they can on the central machinery of the Community.

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  However, if a Council of Ministers is what is important, this House must be jealous and assertive of its own rights as it has ever been.
  Against this background I ask the Leader of the House to think again about his general attitude to the subject. We know that he has done his best. He has behaved towards these matters rather as a parent has behaved to a child guest whom his own children have invited to his home for the holidays. He has restrained his irritation. There has been a knife and fork laid for the visitor, but all the time he has wished that the holidays would come to an end and that the visitor would go away. There have certainly been no second helpings of parliamentary time for European business.
  But the situation has changed. The referendum has changed that. The visitor is, in fact, no longer a visitor but an adopted member of the household. We must ask—this has been the tenor of many speeches—the Lord President to think again about his attitude. The whole analogy of secondary legislation in this House has been criticised by almost every speaker. It does not stand up to the most elementary examination. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is trying to be helpful, but the spirit in which he has approached this matter has failed to rise to the level of the importance of the subject.
  It is important to realise that this will be a developing business. We shall not work out in this or the next Session the exact answer to the problem which will last perhaps for a century. For example, if we have directly elected Members of the European Parliament, there is the problem of what their relationship should be to Members of this House. It is a problem to which the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) has given careful attention and about which he has made suggestions. The noble Lord, Lord Chelwood has done the same. It is an important problem in the next chapter for the next four or five years. We should accommodate this problem within the structure which we are discussing today—not now, but we must keep it open.
  The directly elected Members who would not be Members of this House should nevertheless be able to take part in discussions in the Standing Committee
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  which we are considering. That is one way of accomplishing the important meshing together of the work of British representatives in Strasbourg who are directly elected, once those representatives are no longer Members of this House.
  I think worth noting and underlining one change which I have perceived over the past year in listening to debates on these matters. In all our discussions we have been grateful for the contributions made by experienced and energetic hon. Members on both sides who have been strongly opposed to British membership of the Community. I think it not unfair to say that, at the beginning, some of those contributions were principally directed to showing that the task which we have been discussing was futile, that there was no way of reconciling British membership of the Community with effective control by the House of Commons over the decisions of our representatives at the Community.
  However, I think that I have detected both today and previously a change of approach. Our constituents have told us that this task has to be accomplished, and therefore the energy and skill which we have admired is now being devoted to accomplishing it. Some right hon. and hon. Members told us in the past that it was an impossible task. Now that it is clearly a task which must be accomplished, they have realised the truth of the old saying that what is difficult can be done at once and what is impossible just takes a little longer.
  5.31 p.m.
  Mr. Bryan Gould: I join the hon. Member for Mix-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) and other hon. Members in regretting that the Government have not fallen in with the suggestion made by the Scrutiny Committee and by others that we should have a "take note" debate this afternoon and we should decide the substantive issues on the precise amendments to Standing Orders at another time. I regret that decision because this is an extremely important issue and we must get it right. As matters stand, the form of the debate and the conclusions we may reach are very much determined by the Government's motion. In my view, it might well have been in the Government's own interest to inform themselves

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  of the views of back benchers before moving any substantive amendments to Standing Orders.
  The Government's cavalier attitude on this issue is seen not only in the form of the debate but also in the substance of what is proposed. Here, I believe, we are paying the penalty for sloppy terminology. We constantly refer to Community legislation as European secondary legislation, and that sloppy terminology has inevitably led to a sloppy conclusion in the form which the Government's proposals have taken.
  The truth, as so many hon. Members have made plain, is that Community legislation is not secondary legislation at all. The only similarity it bears to statutory instruments is that in a purely technical sense it depends on an Act of this Parliament for its force as law. There the similarity ends. Statutory instruments must yield to Acts of Parliament if they are repugnant to those Acts. Community legislation, by contrast, prevails over Acts of Parliament. Statutory instruments are made within limits prescribed and established following debate in the House. Community legislation, by contrast, need never be even debated in the House, and it takes its place within a context determined not by an Act of this Parliament but by the Community Treaties.
  Furthermore, statutory instruments are made solely by Ministers as representatives of the British Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) pointed out, whereas Community legislation is made by or within a process of legislation in which our Minister plays merely a contributory part, that part being well beyond, in any normal sense, the control exercised by the House, the process being one in which negotiation and bargaining play a large rôle.
  Mr. Roper: Will my hon. Friend agree also that when these instruments come before the House it is unlikely that our Ministers have taken any part in their formulation, since they are purely the product of the Commission?
  Mr. Gould: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reinforcing the point. Given the unique nature of European legislation and the fact that it is in no sense analogous to subordinate legislation, save
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  in a purely technical way, we must try to adapt our procedures or adopt new ones. In the light of the loss of control which we have suffered as a result of our membership of the Community, we must make good that loss as best we may.
  The first and essential step in that effort is to have adequate scrutiny and an adequate procedure. I take pleasure here in agreeing with the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) when he suggests that, despite some continuing problems, the Scrutiny Committee is now able to identify those measures and proposals which are of substantial political or legal significance. However, it is what happens after that scrutiny which is important and which is the subject of today's debate.
  What happens at that stage, I believe, will depend on a number of elements which may come together to make up a proper system of control by the House over the executive. Those elements include the need for provision for debate on proposals on the Floor or by a Committee of the House. There must be a mechanism for initiating such debate. There must be adequate time for debate. The debate must take place neither so early that the proposals are still only vaguely formulated and may be substantially changed after the debate nor so late that the proposals have reached a final stage and will be unaffected by our debate. Moreover, the debate must be capable of determination by a decision of the House or its Committee.
  We come here to the crux of the matter. If this chain of control is to be maintained, it is essential that the House be able to form and reach a decision and be able to inform or instruct Ministers on what that decision is.
  I do not believe that the Government's proposals, as it were dividing the power to debate but not vote in respect of the House from the power to vote but not debate, as will be the case in Committee, will achieve the results which we desperately need, especially when the vote will be on a motion or amendments which will have been tabled before the Standing Committee has been able to reach a view. Nor do I accept that opinion which the Lord President expressed in answer to a question when he gave evidence to

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  the Select Committee. He said—this is Question No. 176—
  "The Government can get the views of Members of Parliament from the contents of the debate, I should have thought, rather than counting heads with about 26 people there at 11.30 at night".
  The traditional, orthodox and conventional way of determining the view of the House or one of its Committees on a proposal for legislation has served us well and ought not to be abandoned. It cannot be maintained that the lateness of the hour or the number of Members present, save for the provision of a quorum, has ever determined the validity of decisions of the House of Commons on legislation.
  After consideration of these matters by the House or a Committee, the Minister must in some sense be bound by what the House or the Committee decides. I was pleased to hear the Leader of the House reiterate the assurance that Ministers would not, at least in most cases, agree to legislation before the proposals had been discussed by the House. But I should have liked him to go further and accept that Ministers will not assent to legislative proposals which run counter to a resolution or the expressed will of the House, and I hope that we shall hear a word about that in the winding-up speech from the Front Bench.
  The whole process of control over Ministers rests on the veto, and that also must be maintained. There must be a mechanism for reporting back to the House about what Ministers have been able to achieve in the light of the views and decisions of the House. There must be the possibility—I agree with what other hon. Members have said here—of reviewing what has happened, especially when what has happened has in an important respect departed from what the House has been able to debate or decide. Ideally, I should like it to be possible for the House to be able to withhold the force of law from proposals which depart in that substantial way from proposals which it has endorsed.
  Many of these elements in the chain of control are to some extent beyond the ambit of this debate, but when we turn our attention to those elements which fall within the present ambit, what is the answer? How satisfactory are the
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  Government's proposals to meet the requirements which I have outlined? It will probably come as no surprise to hon. Members to learn that I do not consider the Government's proposals satisfactory. I believe that they are based essentially on the false analogy with statutory instruments.
  For my part—I believe that other hon. Members feel the same—I welcome the proposal that there should be a Standing Committee, and I depart here, I believe, from my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth. I welcome it because I believe that it deals with the practical problem which the Scrutiny Committee encountered, namely, that of dealing with proposals which are important and which therefore ought to be brought to the attention of Members of Parliament but are not so important as necessarily to require time on the Floor of the House. In my view, the Standing Committee system will deal with that practical problem quite well.
  I support the proposal also because our Standing Committee procedure is inherently preferable to the Select Committee procedure when we are concerned with special proposals of a legislative character. Because we are dealing with proposals which are not yet in their final form—Ministers will still have to negotiate and perhaps even the Government might not have taken a view—it is right that a Standing Committee should be able to reach conclusions and take a view. It is regrettable that the Government's proposals have ignored the Select Committee's recommendations in these matters, particularly the referring of the Standing Committee's conclusions to the Floor of the House.
  Our job of controlling the executive and scrutinising legislation is difficult enough. The derogation from our powers has been substantial. The House must adapt itself and strain its every nerve to develop new procedures to bring the executive back within our control as much as possible. We have done it in the past and we can do it again, but we cannot do it on the basis of these Government proposals.
  5.42 p.m.
  Mr. Hugh Dykes: I agree with many of the points made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test

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  (Mr. Gould) in his excellent speech. I sensed an enormous amount of agreement in the House with much of what he said. He has been a member of the Scrutiny Committee and speaks with a great deal of knowledge and experience. I particularly agree with him that the Select Committee approach would not be as suitable for what we shall be trying to do as a Standing Committee.
  This has been a relatively harmonious debate as we have grappled with trying to make Parliament work better and to improve our scrutiny of legislation. There are deficiencies in the Lord President's proposals which have disappointed many hon. Members. Following the publication of the Select Committee's Report in the summer, there were noises emanating from the Lord President's offices and elsewhere indicating that the recommendations and key suggestions in the Report would be accepted. The Lord President has failed to accept two of the most important recommendations. I regard the question of preparing a list of Community instruments in passage as extremely important and vital for the proper servicing of the House. One wonders who the Lord President consulted before reaching the decisions on timing and the inability of the Committee to make motions or amendments to substantive motions. This is a disappointing announcement. It will not do. Even if the right hon. Gentleman's will prevails, the House will have to return to this question. The idea that a Standing European Committee should start off hog-tied is unacceptable to all parts of the House.
  It was a little cool for the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith), who could be described, if it is not too much of a contradiction in terms, as a Liberal Patronage Secretary, to come to this debate to make a speech that was totally irrelevant. Presumably it had already been printed, with a duplicate copy for the latest edition of the Liberal News, circulation 1,000. He left the House immediately afterwards and his remarks were in no way related to the central substance of this debate. Admittedly, the hon. Member may have had a previous engagement outside, but it is too much for a Member of the Liberal Party, particularly a senior Member, to come into the House and subject us to a display of ignorance which, I suppose, is inflicted
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  on his constituents at his surgeries. He suggested that Liberals have a monopoly of concern for the Community and the way in which the House deals with these matters.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. Perhaps I may prevent the hon. Member from falling into the same trap if he will return to the Orders under discussion.
  Mr. Dykes: I not only note what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I immediately obey it. It was a pity that there was confusion in respect of the speech of the hon. Member for Rochdale about the way future developments of the European Parliament will have a repercussive effect on national legislatures, including our own. I think I am the first Member of the European Parliament to speak in this debate. The idea that, once directly elected, a European Parliament could replace this House in the scrutinising of European instruments is nonsensical and ludicrous as long as the present political structures in the Community continue, which, I imagine, will be for a long time. A directly elected Parliament would be a useful supplement for this House, but no more than that, in the to-ing and fro-ing and dialogue about Community instruments and legislation. I hope we can avoid all the disagreeable accidents of timing in these matters being considered by the two assemblies.
  I hope that elected European Members of Parliament will be given institutional access to this House in due course and to the Standing Committee if it succeeds, as I hope it does, despite the Lord President's disappointing response to some of the Select Committee's suggestions. This access could be anticipated now. It has been said that it would not be right to consider how elected Members of a European Parliament could be slotted into existing arrangements. Of course the question does not arise yet because, at present. Members of the European Parliament are also Members of this House or another place. However, one could anticipate their dual rôle in at least semi-institutional terms in advance of the direct elections. It is important for the Standing Committee to succeed vis-à-vis the executive and vis-à-vis the very great pressures on the time of the House, so that the

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  House can consider Community legislation in a proper and rational way.
  The hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) got a bit mixed up when referring to Council documents rather than Commission documents. From our point of view, there is only one kind of document—originated by the Commission on behalf of the Council of Ministers or by the Commission exercising its own initiative. Later, the House will be considering the recidivist aspect of documents as they come back from this latest process in the Community. This is still very strange to us in this House. It has been difficult in the past, though once again I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davis) and his colleagues on the Scrutiny Committee, for the House has had to jump on the moving roundabout of European legislation and instruments at different stages in the preparation of the documents. It will be important for the Standing Committee to debate these matters at the latest stage possible, commensurate in practical terms with being able to influence the executive as it approaches decisive meetings of the Council of Ministers. But in that respect I would propose, by way of modification and as something which could be considered later, that the aim should be to combine the potential effectively to cover everything the Community sends to this House and to the executive for consideration with a ruthless but highly practical selectivity about those things which the Standing Committee should debate.
  If the existing procedure is maintained so that the Scrutiny Committee makes its selective suggestions to the Standing Committee on European matters, presumably the fact of having a Committee upstairs and not relying on debate on the Floor of the House after 10 o'clock will mean that more things will be proposed by the Committee for consideration upstairs.
  It is not essential for this House to be worried about everything but the most minor matters. I hope that the Standing Committee will pass over rapidly a large number of less than minor matters upstairs so that the House can once and for all concentrate effectively on the important issues. If the quid pro quo of the fact that Section 1 of the European Communities
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  Act was sweeping, comprehensive and grandiose is that our scrutiny procedure must be sophisticated and elaborate, this will be undermined not by the executive but by a House which is too ambitious in trying to cover everything, either on the Floor of the House or upstairs in Standing Committee.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) was right in saying that in that context the Lord President has the opportunity to be courageous this time to reconsider the fact that he has left out these key elements of the Procedure Committee's report. On European legislation the executive here will not be under attack in the traditional parliamentary sense, defending its exclusive individual position against a Parliament where often nowadays there may be a vigorous opposition from their own benches.
  There was a skilful article in the Financial Times on Friday by that newspaper's political correspondent which said that in these matters the Government in Brussels was like a lobby or pressure group seeking the best place and position for the United Kingdom. In that context therefore the Government do not have to worry that this House is seeking to embarrass or defeat them by conventional votes on these matters. The House must be able to agree that it is seeking the best results for the country without adopting the normal positions in Parliament which characterise all our internal legislation.
  We shall do this in a way which is new and to some extent rather alien to us. We have had several years' experience, groping on many occasions, and this House, having come late on the European scene, still has a scrutiny system which most other European Parliaments have abandoned. However, we can attempt to create a model for all other Parliaments which the member States could begin to emulate with enthusiasm.
  Mr. Costain: If a Minister were putting up an argument in Brussels, would it not help his arguments against the other ministers if he were in a position to say that this House was unanimously against such a proposal?
  Mr. Dykes: I entirely accept what my hon. Friend says. He comes back to the vital importance of having substantive

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  motions or amendments to them. Certainly on many occasions it will be necessary to reinforce the Government in that way, and I hope that that fact will encourage the Lord President to reconsider at least these two matters and perhaps some of the minor matters as well.
  The harmony of this debate is a reflection of Parliament's anxiety to try to get it right this time after many glottal stops. None of us will prove to be effective—apart from the two points which have concerned hon. Members this afternoon—unless there is a substantial back-up. Hence the significance of the lists. I was amazed when the Lord President said that the executive did not wish to trouble the House by publishing long lists of Community measures. About 150 directives come out of the Community every year. Most of them are of critical importance to vital groups in the United Kingdom. The Lord President's suggestion is treating the House too casually.
  The other back-up which would be needed concerns the quality of the documentation produced. I hope that this House has seen the last of the out-of-date drafts of Community instruments, the documents which have to be reproduced later and where the drafting emanating from official sources, was totally out of date. If that point is not dealt with, even though the quality of the debates upstairs is outstanding and magnificent, the work of this House will remain inefficient and ineffective.
  5.57 p.m.
  Mr. John P. Mackintosh: There has been a great measure of agreement throughout the debate on both sides that we must get the proposals right this time, and that is due to the great deal of experience that we have accumulated on various aspects of Community legislation.
  It is a great pleasure and privilege to have served on the Scrutiny Committee under the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies). He has conducted these matters with the greatest skill. It became clear to all of us on that Commitee that simply having the power of scrutiny and to divide all Community proposals into two categories—either they went by on the nod or they came to the House for full debate—was inadequate. The problem was what to do
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  with those items which were coming to the House from the Community which did not merit a full-scale debate on the Floor of the House. I refer to items which are not sufficiently controversial to excite a busy House, but which require adequate scrutiny, not just within the two-sided party framework, but in order to find out what the items are about. The people who would be touched by them could then be informed and the professional Press could know what was going on. It could draw a response about what British Ministers should say when the proposals come up before the Council of Ministers.
  The impressive aspect of this debate is that everyone has seized upon the point that what is coming before us is not legislation in the traditional sense. We are dealing with a proposal for what we might call a Green Paper. We must therefore devise a method of bringing the views of the House, of the British public and of the interests concerned to bear on a policy document on which the House or the Government have taken no position. It is in that respect that the Select Committee procedure is not a happy one to use.
  I disagree with the most able speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) in one respect. I agreed with him on the characterisation of the problem but I was surprised that he should say that the best technique was a Standing Committee technique involving two sides, where speakers go at each other, and where the Minister takes one position and other Members take another position.
  What are the characteristics which our procedure ought to have in dealing with this kind of policy proposal or legislative proposal? The first is that we want to know the views of outside bodies. We want to know what are the views of those closely affected. We cannot find that out in a Standing Committee. The way to get those views is to invite people to come and give evidence.
  Secondly, we need expertise. May I say to the Lord President that one of the things that worried me was his proposal to have, I gathered, a different ad hoc Standing Committee for each proposal or bunch of proposals. If we have

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  learned one thing on the Scrutiny Committee, it is that it takes a long time to understand what it is all about, and if we are continually standing down and being reappointed and doing different jobs, we cannot expect to understand it.
  To understand the detailed regulations relating to the common agricultural policy requires a great deal of specialism. It means having the same people to go into them week after week and month after month, so that they may realise precisely what is going on, and what attention needs to be drawn to which proposal. Again, the evidence of outside bodies is needed. There is a need for expertise, for persistence in the matter, and for time. In these circumstances a period of an hour and a half is quite insufficient.
  We need to have a situation into which party feeling does not enter. It might be a matter of disentangling a problem, and one cannot attack the Government when one does not know what they are saying. One might want to back them up. One does not always want to criticise. One might want to urge the Government to bargain in Brussels from a particular basis, making a number of points.
  One can add to these criteria. Another is that if Ministers do not put the case well on one instrument, one will want them to take it back again. One cannot do this without having the sort of continuing body which can say to the Government that the last time they went to bargain about the matter they made a mess of it and did not get what was wanted, and that this time they ought to do something better.
  These criteria are not available to a Standing Committee but they are available to a Select Committee, which is able to call evidence and to get the Ministry's officials to state what will be the likely impact of a particular course of action. It can hear the evidence of outside pressure groups, it can recall the Minister and it can make positive proposals. I feel that the correct intermediary body is not a Standing Committee, reproducing the Floor of the House situation, but a Select Committee which can act in the positive manner that I have outlined.
  There are two methods of doing this. One is the method suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr.
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  Roper). He said that we ought to extend the Scrutiny Committee, letting it work like a Committee in another place, with sub-committees to deal with the merits of questions concerning agriculture, transport, regional policy, industrial policy and so on. The other method is to set up separate Select Committees of this House to deal with these matters. But we shall never be able to do this work properly unless the Select Committees are able to have an on-going interest, not only understanding what is proposed but sometimes saying what ought to be proposed, and what the British Government should be asking for in Brussels, as opposed to reacting always to the Commission's initiatives.
  Mr. George Cunningham: Would the best course not be to have a Select Committee dealing with agriculture, for example, or transport, which would be responsible for keeping an eye on the Government concerning the domestic aspects of policy and also European policy. Is that what my hon. Friend is suggesting?
  Mr. Mackintosh: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. That is precisely what I am suggesting. It is the only way in which it can be done. There is such an interlock between domestic policy and what is coming from Europe that the two cannot be divorced. Unless we know the detail of the domestic situation we cannot look at, scrutinise and properly comment upon proposals coming from the Community. We need to know the areas in which the Community ought to be making proposals, even if these proposals are not coming forward. It is in this way that we get advantage out of membership, as well as by merely reacting to proposals which come to us from the Commission.
  It seems to me, therefore, that we should either expand the Scrutiny Committee and let it look at the merits, appointing sub-committees, and so on, or set up Select Committees as on-going parts of this House. Only three or four would be needed in order to cover the main areas of Community activity. This would be a positive way of doing it, adding to the efficiency and effectiveness of the House, not only in dealing with European legislation but in dealing with

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  proposals emanating from the Government on similar topics which are still purely under the control of Westminster and Whitehall.
  I have the greatest good will towards the Lord President, because I support him so strongly in some of his other policies on which he is battling at the moment, and I do not wish to add to his difficulties. I must say, however, that one thing is evident. Every speaker in this House has asked him to reconsider and to think again. I can only add my voice to theirs and hope that he does so.
  6.5 p.m.
  Mr. Graham Page: I want to follow very closely what the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) said. He has almost taken the words out of my mouth, because I was going to say that it has emerged from this debate that, to deal with the merits of European secondary legislation, neither the Select Committee, as we know it at present, nor the Standing Committee, according to our Standing Orders, is satisfactory.
  I do not think anybody could pretend that the Standing Committees dealing with Statutory Instruments have been a grand success. When I have intervened—as I have when matters of validity of orders and legal matters concerning orders have been involved—I have found the Standing Committees almost deserted. They have not attracted the attention of hon. Members of the House. I cannot, therefore, feel that it is really a good precedent to use for the very important primary legislation with which we are dealing, although it happens to be called European secondary legislation. My hope is that we shall be a little bolder and devise a Committee specially for this work.
  A Select Committee has the advantage that it can take evidence. It is also a continuing Committee, as the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian has said. It can make any report it chooses. It is not bound as to the sort of report it makes to the House. But it has the disadvantage that, under our rules, its deliberations are in private, it is restricted to the members of the Select Committee, and other Members cannot join in.
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  The normal Standing Committee, as we know it under Standing Orders, has the benefit that other Members can join in its deliberations—they can join in, but they cannot vote. But it has the disadvantage as has been said, that it is unable to call evidence.
  It has been said again and again in this debate that a Committee dealing with the merits of European secondary legislation would at that stage perhaps need further evidence. When we are dealing with European secondary legislation, after it has been processed through the Scrutiny Committee, there may be need, on occasions for additional evidence to be given. In short, as our rules stand at present, a Select Committee is very restricted in its deliberations; a Standing Committee, on the other hand, has the benefit of extended deliberation, by which I mean the attendance of other Members, but it is restricted in regard to taking evidence.
  Can we not be a little bolder and devise a form of committee to meet all the points brought forward in the debate today? I feel that the Select Committee on Procedure, in its recommendations to the House, and the Government themselves, have been too hidebound by our present procedure. We are dealing with something entirely new in legislative form. There is no reason why we should not devise our own process for dealing with it.
  The hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) suggested a Select Committee to deal with the merits. I do not think that a Select Committee, according to our rules, is satisfactory for that purpose, and I do not think that a Standing Committee is satisfactory, either.
  Let us put those suggestions in abeyance for the time being and think again, to see whether we can devise our own special form of committee to deal with this new type of legislation.
  Mr. John Davies: Does my right hon. Friend recall that the Foster Committee suggested that a novel type of committee was required? Is my right hon. Friend reflecting the views of the Foster Committee, that the special nature of European secondary legislation defies the normal format of committees to which this House has hitherto given effect?
  Mr. Page: Indeed, I had in mind that part of the Foster Committee's Report, I deliberately did not mention the report, because there were other parts with which I did not entirely agree, but certainly it accorded with what I had in mind in that instance.
  6.11 p.m.
  Mr. John Prescott: Having read the Report and looked at some of the amendments, I approach the debate feeling somewhat confused, particularly about constitutional matters and amendments to Standing Orders. But the principles of the issue involved are clear from the debate. Both sides of the House seem to be united in thinking that the Government proposals are not acceptable. The Government are being asked to review the situation, and it may be that at the end of the debate we shall come to some accommodation on that.
  The Government proposals are not acceptable, for a number of reasons. The proposed time for debate of one and a half hours in Standing Committee or on the Floor of the House is not sufficient for the very important legislation and regulations on which we shall be asked to comment. Other matters, particularly in regard to the votes and amendments, are not satisfactory. One pales at the thought of the proposal that we should amend something before it is discussed and vote on it afterwards. That is not adequate for a proper analysis of the situation.
  Mr. Edward Short: That is what we always do—put the amendments down before the debate.
  Mr. Prescott: I understood that we could have a document before us even at the consultative stages, and we should want to give it a proper examination before putting down amendments.
  Mr. George Cunningham: The equivalent would be putting down amendments for the Report stage before the Standing Committee stage, which no one would countenance.
  Mr. Prescott: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that analogy, which points out the minefields that we are entering when
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  we consider this matter of amendments and proper procedures.
  I am not a member of the Select Committee or the Scrutiny Committee, but as a member of the European Assembly I should like to deal in particular with one or two points made by the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) on the question whether this House should consider the rôle of its delegation to the Assembly in the shaping of the legislation we discuss here. The Select Committee stated:
  "Your Committee accept that in general the Members of this House attending the European Assembly will take account of the views expressed by the House, but it would not be practicable (even were is desirable) to hold them accountable as Ministers are held accountable. Moreover, since this aspect of the matter is outside our Committee's Order of Reference, they think it proper not to pursue it"
  That is unfortunate, because it is clear from the debate that we are talking about an essentially different type of legislative proposal. We are talking about documents—perhaps Green Papers—that are given to us to discuss so that we may pass on our view to the Minister concerned. I believe that the vote is by far the most satisfactory way of expressing that view. It is traditional for the House to reflect its opinion by a vote. By voting we can tell the Minister before he goes to the Council of Ministers that he should take account of the opinion of the House. We are expressing the accountability of the Minister and the Government to the House.
  In the discussion so far we have tended to ignore the delegation from the House which acts on its behalf in the European Assembly. Perhaps that is because the delegation was outside the Committee's terms of reference. The delegation influences documents at the early stages, because the documents are formulated by the Commission and then given to the committees of the Assembly, which express opinions on them. There have been examples of the Commission taking note of a critical debate in the Assembly, and probably an adverse vote, and changing a document. Therefore, our delegation has an opportunity to influence documents which will later come before the House or whatever Committee we decide upon.
  To that extent, the delegation is important. It is not just a body that can

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  determine its own views and decide as it thinks best in light of the idea of European solidarity. This raises the important question of what European union is to be. I cannot enter into that argument in this debate, but it involves taking a view of what has happened since the formulation of the Rome Treaty. The hon. Member for Mid-Oxon said that the treaty was not having the results that were envisaged, in that the Commission was not becoming all-powerful but was very much circumscribed by the Council of Ministers. That is a particularly important development, whose relevance to this debate is that if Ministers are to maintain their veto, which will also be important in any European union, the delegation from this Parliament will become another instrument to attempt to influence decisions about legislation, documents or regulations in the Assembly. It will do so not necessarily as an instrument of the Government but on behalf of this House.
  It is true that the House can dismiss the delegation. It appoints it, and therefore it can dismiss it. That makes the delegation, like a Minister, accountable to the House, and that raises the question of what it should be doing on behalf of the House. The delegation's important rôle is to reflect the opinions of the House in the European Assembly, and fight for them there.
  Mr. Hard: I find the hon. Gentleman's analysis very interesting, but is he not talking about a transitional phase? Under the treaty and in the view of the present Government, which is perhaps likely to be expressed more clearly in the next few weeks, the process by which the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are appointed from this House is transitional. In the next three or four years it is likely to be replaced by direct election, which will completely alter the basis of the hon. Gentleman's argument.
  Mr. Prescott: I do not know that that would alter the basis of the argument. It depends on how the direct elections are held. The Assembly has not yet determined that. The matter is being discussed between the Commission and the Assembly, and documents have been circulated. Even before this Parliament considers the matter the Commission and Assembly will be formulating policies on the dual mandate. There is the question whether there
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  should be one election period for all Europe, which could create interesting anomalies, such as the possibility of a Labour Government here and a Tory delegation. That would raise some problems which the House would need to consider. There is the difficulty of electing people who are not Members of Parliament. We would need to define their responsibility to this House and decide whether we should change our procedures so that they could take part in debate. I cannot accept that that would be acceptable. The relevance of the direct election is at the heart of the matter. If there are to be people representative of this House and the Community, they should be representative of all the Community and part of this House.
  I want to deal with the relevance of the vote. Whether on the Floor of the House or in Committee opinion must be tested by a vote. We must not wait until the Commission has formulated proposals and they are brought here. The committees in the Assembly are daily discussing Commission documents. They are asked to formulate the opinion of this House when there is no means by which that opinion can be ascertained. Such committees can pursue their own prejudices and their own views but they cannot ascertain the views of the House. It will be seen that the vote is not only of relevance in supporting Ministers but is also of importance to the delegation, in that it provides it with the views of this House.
  There are fundamental decisions being taken concerning direct elections, European union and energy. Members who attend committee meetings ought to be aware of the view of the House on these subjects. The Select Committee has made it clear that the rôle of the British delegation was outside its terms of reference. I appeal to the Leader of House to examine the suggestion of the establishment of a Committee to look at the rôle of the delegation, how it is serviced, and the views it should be reflecting.
  I support my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh)—probably for the first time in my life—over this question of Select Committees. This is a most important procedure. They can work closely with members of the European Assembly who specialise in certain areas. As a result, the House will be much better informed.
  6.23 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Stewart: I had not intended to say a word in this debate, but I have listened to it with increasing fascination and noticed that everyone from every quarter of the House, whatever his views on Europe, feels that these amendments are not satisfactory. I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to consider what follows from that. He cannot write this off by saying that this has been an ill-attended debate. My experience over the years in the House is that progressively our debates are less well-attended but better-informed. There is good reason for this. It is that government has become so increasingly complicated that any Member who wants to be any use has had to decide to devote a good deal of his attention to one or two subjects so that he may know them well. That obliges him to deny himself the luxury of listening to what may be interesting debates on subjects which are not those he is determined to master.
  More and more our debates—this is inevitable and in the nature of modern government—consist, except on certain great occasions, of limited groups of Members possessing a great deal of information. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have realised, as he has listened to the debate, that none of the speeches has been petulant. None has been motivated by a desire to score off the Government. They have been genuinely concerned to try to find the right answer to the question of the way in which the House is to handle European matters.
  The remarkable thing is that there has been so much agreement among hon. Members whose whole approach to the European question in the past, and maybe today, has been so different. Surely my right hon. Friend must give some weight to this considerable measure of unanimity. I will mention the points about which hon. Members have been concerned. The arguments have already been well deployed.
  There is the limitation of time, the proposed limitation on the powers of the Standing Committee and the limitation on the opportunity to propose amendments, on which the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) spoke powerfully. There have also been the remarkable
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  speeches by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) and the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). From all of this has emerged the fact that we are talking about something genuinely new in politics. I have always thought it dangerous, when people were arguing about the European Community, to try to draw analogies from history and to ask "How far is it like the League of Nations? How far is it like the Swiss Confederation?" The answer is that it is not like any of those. It is a new creation. That means that we need certain new creations in our procedure in order properly to deal with it.
  That is where the Government's proposals fall down. They represent an attempt simply to graft on a European piece of machinery to what is already familiar. They have not taken account of the extent to which we are facing a totally new problem. My right hon. Friend will remember, as I do, occasions when a Government have come to the House at the beginning of the day determined to do something but, after listening to a great deal of argument, have resolutely got up and said, "We agree. We will not do this now. We will take it away and think about it in the light of what has been said." That is what I am suggesting that my right hon. Friend should do. No one will feel they have scored a victory off the Government. We shall all feel that the House has made a real advance in tackling a major political problem.
  On the few occasions when I have heard Governments accept the wishes of the House in that manner it has nearly always worked out for the best. My right hon. Friend is in a position to render the House—and it is no exaggeration to say Europe, too—a considerable service. I hope that he will take the opportunity.
  6.29 p.m.
  Mr. Frank Hooley: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) on this question of the Select Committees. I have always taken the view that the major weakness in the procedures of the House lies in the lack of a coherent Committee system. Until we establish such a system we shall constantly be up against the kind of difficulties we

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  are debating tonight, not merely in terms of European legislation but also in terms of domestic matters.
  There is a curious contradiction in paragraphs 33 to 35 of the Report. In paragraph 33 the Report dismisses the possibility that we might use the technique of a Select Committee, and says:
  "The process of investigation, deliberation and report on the merits of a subject, inherent in the working of a select committee, is not suitable for urgent matters."
  By implication, it regards all European legislation as urgent, which I do not accept, as there are many matters of general policy which evolve over years or months.
  Having dismissed the Select Committee technique in paragraph 33, the Report says, in paragraph 34:
  "Your Committee therefore welcome the intention of the Select Committee on European Secondary Legislation, &c, to examine documents containing instruments of legal or political importance in greater depth and to obtain evidence not only from Government departments but also from interested outside bodies and persons…. The Select Committee have in mind the possibility of setting up sub-committees to deal with various classes of instrument, especially those which they decide to scrutinise in greater detail."
  Having dismissed the technique of the Select Committee investigation in paragraph 33, the Committee appears to commend it in paragraph 34. In paragraph 35 it welcomes it even more strongly by saying that this technique
  "will satisfy the need for a description and analysis, based on detailed investigation, of important and possibly complex issues in Commission documents. This description and analysis, together with the Minutes of the Evidence, will be of great value to Members and to the House generally in debating and eventually deciding on the merits of the documents."
  Paragraphs 34 and 35 of the Report accept the principle of the Select Committee technique for dealing with European legislation. I part company with the Report where it says, in paragraph 35:
  "the Select Committee on European Secondary Legislation, &c, is pre-eminently qualified to carry out this task."
  With all respect to the members of the Scrutiny Committee, I suggest that other Select Committees are better qualified to discuss, for example, energy or agriculture. For example, the Select Committee on Science and Technology, under
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  the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), has long experience of studying nuclear power, North Sea oil, energy conservation and related matters. That Committee could make a far better job of studying the Commission's proposals on energy policy in a European context, in view of the detailed study it has given to energy problems in the United Kingdom. Therefore, I am not happy with the implication that the Scrutiny Committee would be the best body to deal with that kind of problem, taking into account the enormous range of subjects with which European legislation is bound to deal. Unless there is a coherent set of specialist committees covering the main functions of Government, we are not likely to be able to deal successfully with the problems with which European legislation will present us.
  The recommendations of the Select Committee on Procedure move away from the Select Committee idea and fall back on the statutory instruments procedure. I agree that the Government's proposals are inadequate, even within the terms of this report.
  It is preposterous to suggest that a Committee of this House may debate a problem such as energy policy, agricultural policy or transport policy in one and a half hours'. The suggestion is ridiculous. We cannot possibly support it. The same applies to the weird proposal to propose a motion or an amendment, to send it to a Committee which is not allowed to do anything with it except talk about it, and then to return to the House and ask for a vote on it. That is the most curious idea of Committee procedure I have ever come across. That is a contradiction of the purpose of a Committee, which must be to arrive at a considered resolution or recommendation for the main body to consider.
  It is clear that the members of four different political parties, with widely different backgrounds and views about Europe and European legislation, are united in the view that the proposals to amend Standing Orders are inadequate, and that the procedure on the proposed amendment is ludicrous by any standards.
  I add my voice to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham

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  (Mr. Stewart) in asking the Government to withdraw these proposals and to give them more mature consideration.
  6.36 p.m.
  Mr. Michael English: I support the Leader of the House—he seems to need it at the moment—in that I believe it is possible to reconcile with the proposals the views expressed in this debate by the majority of hon. Members. Many hon. Members have suggested what should be done in the future, and I agree with much of what they said. But that is not a good reason for retaining the existing practice of dealing with Community documents. The Leader of the House said that the matter was debated on the Floor of the House on one occasion. That debate was adjourned. The recommendations made are now floating in limbo.
  I disagree with those who opposed the recommendations, saying that they should be delayed until the far future, when new Committees are created. The right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) said that we should create a new kind of Committee. However, I believe that we should agree to these proposals and take up the other suggestions made in debate. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for saying that he would reconsider the point which I made earlier by way of intervention. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) is not present, as he said that I was wrong when I made that point.
  I have looked up the Standing Orders of the House of Commons and the other place. The terms of reference of the body in another place, which is the equivalent of our Select Committee, are wider than the terms of reference of a House of Commons Select Committee.
  Mr. John Davies: I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) had in mind the point now being made by the hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend said that neither under the terms of reference in the other place nor under ours was it possible to have access to the working documents within the secretariat of the Council of Ministers.
  Mr. English: I understand that. However, the hon. Member for Harrow, East
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  misunderstood me. The terms of reference of the other place are wider. It can consider documents emanating from the Council and going to other organisations, although I believe that it has never done so. However, it could exercise that power, just as Select Committees may consider documents emanating from the Commission. That is my point. I referred to the documents coming from the Council as distinct from those coming from the Commission. For example, an important set of documents is likely to come direct from the Council, without coming from the Commission. I refer to the proposals on political union.
  Mr. Roper: A committee in the other place is considering the Lomé Convention. That document does not come from the Commission. It is a Community treaty. It must be treated in this House not by the Scrutiny Committee but by reference to a Standing Committee or by debate on the Floor of the House.
  Mr. English: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that apt illustration.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that all proceedings of the Council were confidential. It would be wrong to give the impression that, like the Cabinet, the Council is bound by rules of secrecy. The Treaty of Rome provides that it may meet in private or in public, as it chooses. Cabinets never meet in public.
  Many people in Europe have suggested that for legislative, as distinct from executive, purposes there should be at least a stage in the legislative process of the Council of Europe which is public. Successive rulings of Presidents of the Council of Ministers have made plain that "confidential" does not mean what we take it to mean. It means that any Minister is entitled to repeat in full what he said at the Council of Ministers' meeting but must not repeat what anyone else said. In other words, the "leak" is legal as distinct from being a mechanism of politics.
  I agree with much that has been said about the different forms of Committees. Our Standing Committees are accidents. The House resolved not to have them less than 100 years ago. Until 1947, Standing Committees had the power of Select Committees as well as of Standing

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  Committees. We need not go into that. It can be considered when, in the next Session, my right hon. Friend sets up a Committee to resolve the whole procedure of this House. I do not like Standing Committees for any purposes, including legislative purposes. A Standing Committee is a ridiculous way of dealing with the Committee stage of a Bll. Let us deal with that and with this group of Standing Committees when the time comes. Meanwhile, these proposals are better than the arrangements we have had over the past 12 months. I suggest that we should support them, provided that my right hon. Friend is prepared to consider alternative proposals for the next stage of European procedures.
  6.42 p.m.
  Mr. John Peyton: We have had an interesting debate, although it has not been a particularly happy one for the Lord President's proposals. The right hon. Gentleman said, at the beginning, that we were still feeling our way, and I should like to thank him for having put forward some proposals. They have at least served as targets for debate even if their inadequacies have been laid bare. The Lord President has earned the gratitude of the House for putting forward the proposals and—as the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) said—if at the end of the debate he should withdraw his proposals he will in no way be according a victory to anyone. No one will be scoring points; indeed, the reverse. He will be scoring a point by taking notice of what Parliament has said and showing that he is flexible and anxious to meet the demands of Parliament.
  The House will be indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) not only for his speech but also for his helpful and constructive rôle in dealing with a problem which is new to all of us.
  The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) earned the gratitude of the House for the way in which he dealt with his argument which was widely endorsed in the debate which followed. Both he and my right hon. Friend made two criticisms which have been echoed again and again. First, they require the Standing Committee to be enabled to do more
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  than consider. They require it to be enabled to discuss a substantive motion which is capable of amendment. The second criticism, which I endorse, is that for the Committee to be limited in its powers to saying that it has considered matters of this importance is woefully inadequate. With great respect, the Lord President's suggestion that an amendment should be tabled in the House, that a discussion should subsequently take place in Committee, and that a Division, if required, should thereafter take place in the House, does not make much sense. I hope that, on reflection, the right hon. Gentleman will decide that that proposal does not stand up and will withdraw it.
  Much the same can be said of the proposal that there should be a time limit of one and a half hours. The Lord President maintained that it was likely that the matters referred to the Committee would be of secondary importance. I think that he was largely led into that view by the false analogy that he has drawn throughout between "secondary importance" and secondary legislation. That analogy is invalid.
  If the Standing Committee is to perform a useful rôle, from time to time it will consider matters of great weight and substance. To say that the Committee can have its fun for one and a half hours and no more is beyond what we should tolerate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford laid down the criterion which we should adopt, namely: does the Committee have an opportunity to influence events and to influence the thinking of the executive and perhaps those who are responsible for the framing of legislation inside the Communities?
  As my right hon. Friend said, these proposals would result in the retention of power and initiative by the Government. Most of us have probably learnt by now that Governments, particularly when they are breaking new ground, are well advised at least to attempt to share power with Parliament.
  I am obliged to refer briefly to the intervention made by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith), whose noticeable absence we all greatly regret. If I were to describe his speech politely, I could say only that it was hugely silly and wholly irrelevant to the subject we are discussing.

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  The right hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Irving), who is the Chairman of the Select Committee, at least earned the gratitude of the House by bringing us back to the discussion. I echo his plea that an attempt should be made to keep the papers—of which there is a great volume—numbered, marshalled and in some kind of order.
  I think that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) carried the House with him when he said that ministerial assurances are not enough and that something more is needed when we are designing ways of changing the law. He was right in saying that the House should be grateful to the Lord President for tabling the amendments to Standing Orders, but I echo his counsel that, having tabled the amendments and having heard what the House has to say about them, he would do well to withdraw them. The right hon. Gentleman was right in saying that by doing so, in the long run the Lord President would be doing himself a service, in that the better chance that the new Committee has of doing its work properly the better chance has the Lord President of avoiding having the matter thrust back on his hands again and having to find time for debate on the Floor of the House.
  The hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) expressed his preference, as did others, for a Select Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) rightly came back to the point that we are here dealing with a wholly new development, that European legislation is wholly new in the history of this country and of Parliament, and that it therefore really demands new attitudes and new arrangements. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) was, I think, a little unkind to the Leader of the House when he accused the Government of adopting a very cavalier attitude—at least, I think the attitude of the Government will be shown to be the reverse because I believe that the right hon. Gentleman will, in reflecting on this debate, withdraw his proposals. If he does, I am sure that we shall all be glad to acquit him of what the hon. Gentleman prematurely accused him of.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), having rebuked
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  the hon. Member for Rochdale, returned to the point that the Standing Committee, or whatever body it is, should really have a chance to influence events. The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) was in favour of a Select Committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) said that the right thing would be for the House to devise a special form of committee to deal with a special event. On the whole, I come down on that side. It seems to me that any analogy one raises is almost certain to be misleading, and that it takes one's feet into the same kind of quagmire as that in which the Government find themselves today.
  I endorse what the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) said, including his interesting comment that our debates today are less well-attended but better-informed. I think that that last bit was over-generous about some of our debates, but undoubtedly today's debate deserves everything he said about it. I agree that it is unwise in these matters to rely too much on any analogy. The right hon. Gentleman said that hon. Members were forced to deny themselves the luxury of attending all our debates. I thought that that statement exceeded even his reputation for charm, good manners and generosity. Attendance at all our debates is not something which I would at any time be drawn into describing as a luxury.
  The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) opposed the time limit as an unworthy affair, and I agree. The hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), for reasons, I concluded, more of chivalry than sense, supported the Leader of the House. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and the Deputy Chief Whip, and anyone else who is listening, will at least see that the recording angel, if there is one in this place, takes note of the gallant conduct of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West.
  One is left, after this very interesting debate, with the situation in which not one hon. Member has spoken in favour of the Government's proposals, except for the hon. Member for Nottingham, West, who gallantly was prepared to be the odd man out. I would be reluctant to advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the proposals, because I think that they are well meant, but that is a very slender, emaciated compliment.
  Mr. Edward Short: It is a big one from the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Gentleman must get to know me better, and he must do a little more to deserve these things. I am giving him every opportunity to say that the Government make no claim to score anything in the debate. The Opposition make no such claim. Rather do we take the view that the right hon. Gentleman has served the interests of discussion well in putting forward these proposals, which at least serve as a target. But I think that he would be ill-advised to press them, bearing in mind that no one, until the last minute of the eleventh hour, could be prevailed upon from the back benches to say even one word in their favour.
  I therefore plead with the right hon. Gentleman, for the sake of his own reputation in the House, which I know he wishes to serve, to withdraw the proposals, which, though useful material for discussion, would, I believe, in practice not work at all well.
  6.56 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Privy Council Office (Mr. Gerald Fowler): The hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) said that we had gone further in this House and in another place with procedures for the scrutiny of EEC legislation than any other Parliament within the Community. I point out to the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) that if the present Government have got themselves into a quagmire, the Conservative Government avoided it by not entering the terrain of scrutiny at all.
  Many Members have said that this time we must get it right. I suspect that we shall never get it right in the sense of finding an ideal procedure. The question is whether we can improve and learn steadily and continue to improve upon our procedures for scrutinising this legislation. The hon. Member for Harrow, East said that the Government had accepted none of the key recommendations of the Select Committee. I do not think that he can have meant that. We take our stand today primarily upon the acceptance of the bulk of the carefully worked-out proposals put by the Committee. But I am not suggesting that they are perfect or that, in the
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  light of this debate, we should not think again.
  What I am saying is that, in the first place, there must be on-going observation of how our procedures work and on-going change, and in the second place, with regard to the time limit which has worried so many hon. Members, while we cannot withdraw our proposal, simply because the Standing Order to which it refers is also concerned with other matters, we undertake, if the House will pass it, to lay a further amendment in the near future to give effect to the general wish of those who have spoken in the debate.
  Mr. Spearing: I am grateful that my hon. Friend has conceded the point about the time limit, in theory at least, but does not he agree that my amendment would deal with the situation, although it also relates to matters of motions as well, which perhaps he does not wish to concede?
  Mr. Fowler: No, Sir, technically my hon. Friend's amendment would not be perfect. In any event, I do not wish to concede the other point dealt with by his amendment.
  Several hon. Members have stressed that real power in dealing with this legislation ultimately resides with the Council of Ministers and that therefore power to call our Ministers to account should reside in this House. I believe that the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) said, "We call Ministers. They are our creatures." That is why we are unwilling to allow Standing Committees to pass substantive resolutions on Commission documents which, in the absence of a further resolution taken on the Floor of the House, the Government would be expected to observe in subsequent negotiations in the Council of Ministers. The hon. Member is right. It is this House which calls Ministers. We are this House's creatures. But we are not the creatures of a Standing Committee of the House—least of all one of changing composition.
  As my right hon. Friend said, it has to be the House as a whole to which the Government are responsible for the conduct of affairs and it is the House as a whole which alone can charge the Government to take one course or

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  another on pain of the ultimate sanction—withdrawal of its confidence. That is why we must stand firm on that proposal.
  Mr. Powell: Surely the Minister must see that the same argument would apply against any other Standing Committee, that it would be equally valid against allowing Standing Committees to alter a Bill.
  Mr. Fowler: I was unaware that any Report from a Standing Committee on a Bill had passed through the House without the House noticing it. The difference is that every hon. Member has an opportunity, on the Report by a Standing Committee on a Bill, to express his view.
  Mr. Powell: I apologise for intervening again, but this is one of the crucial points of these debates. The Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments would report to this House, so that, if they desired, the Government or, subject to our arrangements, any private Member, could challenge it. It is exactly like a Bill being amended in Committee and no further proceedings being taken by agreement if it is willed that it should so remain.
  Mr. Fowler: We should be clear that what is proposed by those who wish the Standing Committee to debate, amend, to pass resolutions upon substantive motions is that all hon. Members may have the right of speaking but that only a select minority may have the right of voting. That is the proposal and that is why many hon. Members tonight, although they did not like the Government's proposal, did not much like the proposal of the Select Committee either.
  Mr. John Davies: But then surely the inference must be reasonable, that in the event of a resolution to which the Government find themselves unable to give their accord, they should put down a motion in the House in order to reverse it. We should then have the opportunity of debating it—
  Mr. English: It would be non-debatable.
  Mr. Davies: As it is, it is to be un-debatable on amendments put down before the discussion has taken place. That is surely the height of the ridiculous from
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  the point of view of the work of the Committee and the House.
  Mr. Fowler: No, Sir. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the burden of the proposals before the House, which in essence came from the Select Committee, is that a substantive motion can be put down for decision in this House and that amendments can be put down to that substantive motion. What the right hon. Gentleman appears to be suggesting is that one substantive motion alone should have precedence—that emanting from the Standing Committee—and that the Government should put down their amendments to that motion. That, once again, gives too much weight to the views of a small number of hon. Members—
  Hon. Members: No.
  Mr. George Cunningham: Will my hon. Friend forgive me?
  Mr. Fowler: I cannot spend all my time giving way—
  Several Hon. Members—
  Mr. Cunningham: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Fowler: Every one of my hon. Friends who is seeking to intervene—[Interruption.] I do not think that my hon. Friend spoke in the debate, did he?
  Mr. Cunningham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I have almost forgotten the point that I was about to put. Would he not agree that, in practice, what Members and the whole House will want to know is only one thing—did the Standing Committee find in favour of or against the proposal? If there is no difficulty in the Standing Committee, then Members may simply ignore the point, but it will spark off the Members of the whole House, just as a defeat of the Government in Standing Committee on a Bill does, if there has been a vote in the Select Committee.
  Mr. Fowler: I think that this difficulty arises because of the point with which I was about to deal. Many right hon. and hon. Members who spoke tonight criticised my right hon. Friend for comparing all EEC secondary legislation with statutory instruments. In fact, he did not do so. What he did was offer the House a

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  procedure, based on the statutory instruments model certainly, to deal with items of secondary importance.
  Here I come back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) said in an intervention: it will be this House which will in any event debate matters of major importance and the Government's judgment of what are matters of major importance can be challenged by 20 hon. Members. Therefore, if issues of principle arise which should be debated in this Chamber, there is ample opportunity for those issues to be debated.
  Mr. Powell: But surely the hon. Gentleman realises from what he has just said that the effect of denying the Standing Committee the opportunity to come to a resolution will be to force more and more of these matters on to the Floor of the House. If anyone feels that there should be a debate in this House or a debate at all on such a subject, he will stand up and resist its going to the Standing Committee.
  An Hon. Member: Then put the amendments down beforehand to make sure.
  Mr. Fowler: I think here we should wait and see—[Hon. Members: "Oh."] I said at the outset that we must have an on-going review of this procedure. The right hon. Gentleman may be right. He has sometimes been right in the past, but not always. I should be surprised if the House showed such irresponsibility as consistently to challenge the referral to Standing Committee of matters which frankly are trivial, provided that issues of principle can always be debated in this Chamber.
  I was fascinated to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) repeatedly stress the superiority of Community legislation over our domestic legislation and argue therefore that all that legislation should, apparently, not only be discussed but voted upon in a Committee of this House in such a way as to bind Ministers—
  Mr. Spearing: No.
  Mr. Fowler: If the argument had validity, it was an argument for debating all Community legislation on the Floor of the House and for referring none to Standing Committee. That would ensure
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  that most of the rest of our business went by the board.
  Mr. Spearing: I must apologise. I do not think that I said what the Minister says I said. If I did, I did not intend it. What I said was that it would be ridiculous for a Committee to be appointed which could not consider amendable motions.
  Mr. Fowler: I was alluding to my hon. Friend's argument about the "superiority"—I quote his exact word—of Community legislation over domestic legislation. Yet his argument subsequently was that if such Community legislation were to be referred to a Standing Committee it must therefore be practicable for that Standing Committee to vote upon it and thereby, apparently, to bind Ministers. That seems to me to be an illogical argument—
  Mr. George Cunningham: Select Committees do not bind Ministers when they criticise them.
  Mr. Fowler: My hon. Friend says that Select Committees do not bind Ministers. This is not a Select Committee but a Standing Committee, and many hon. Members have argued that in some way resolutions should bind Ministers. I was asked for an assurance that the Government would not commit us to any EEC document until it had been approved by this House.
  Several speakers mentioned the possibility of amendments to the Government's substantive motion. The Government's substantive motion would be tabled before the Standing Committee debate, but it will be possible to table amendments before the House reaches a decision. That answers a point that troubled several hon. Members.
  With regard to the two-stage scrutiny, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Irving) asked who was to decide which documents would receive a two-stage scrutiny. We have undertaken to provide the House with information relating to the amendments agreed in the Council machinery in regard to documents involving major policy developments. The onus must be on Government Departments and Ministers to identify those amendments which should be reported to the House, but we shall need to keep in close touch with the

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  Scrutiny Committee and with its thinking on important proposals.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) asked me to give an assurance that Ministers would not assent to propositions contrary to the express will of the House. I can do no more than to repeat assurances given by my right hon. Friend in the debate on 2nd May that the debate on any proposal which the Committee reported as being of extreme importance should take place before the Government assent to any Community legislation.
  Mr. Gould: The Minister has given an assurance on a point which is different from the quest on I raised. It is one thing to say that assent will not be given until a debate has taken place, but another thing to say that assent will not be given unless it is in accord with the express wishes of the House.
  Mr. Fowler: I take that point, but I cannot go beyond the assurance I have already given. It would be impossible in international negotiations if the hands of British Ministers were consistently bound behind their backs before they had entered into negotiations. We take seriously resolutions of the House on EEC proposals, and we shall ignore them only at the pain of withdrawal of the support of the House. But there is no point in giving assurances on such fundamental matters, which will mean that one should always have regard to every jot and tittle of every resolution of the House before entering into international negotiations.
  I was asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dartford about the numbering of EEC documents. He suggested that the system should be more comprehensible. I have every sympathy with him in that the EEC system is difficult to follow, but he would probably be more confused if we were to add an additional numbering system on top of the other one. We shall examine that proposal, and continue our consultation with the authorities of the House to see how EEC documents can be made more readily available, and we shall also look at their form, but I would be unwise to give any specific assurance on that matter tonight.
  The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cyril Smith) made a largely irrelevant
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  contribution to the debate, but he rightly stressed that only parliamentary reform of a comprehensive nature would enable us to ensure that we were giving due attention to EEC documents and not doing so at the cost of other business of equal importance to this House.
  I believe that that is the answer to some of the points raised by my hon. Friend and Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh). My hon. Friend's argument was essentially that the Select Committee procedure was best and that we would be wise if we were to refer EEC documents, not to one Select Committee, but to a number of specialist Select Committees. His adherence to the proposition that we should have such specialist Select Committees covering every element of Government activity is well known, and I have some sympathy with him. But it is a matter with which we cannot deal in the context of the scrutiny of EEC legislation. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House gave an assurance earlier this year that we shall be proposing the establishment of a Committee on parliamentary procedure as a whole. That is the right context in which to discuss such propositions. In the meantime, with the caveat I entered about time limits, I commend these amendments to the House.
  Mr. Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have tabled an amendment to Motion No. 6. I take it that the first Question will be on the first Motion and that the Question on Motion No. 6 will not be put until later.
  Mr. Speaker: That is exactly what I intend to do. I shall first put the first Motion, Motion No. 2 on the Order Paper, then Motions Nos. 3, 4 and 5, which will be moved formally. Then Motion No. 6 will be proposed formally and the hon. Gentleman will be able to move his amendment formally and, if need be, there will be a vote. The hon. Gentleman can then move the second of his amendments, if he so wishes.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House takes note of the First Report from the Select Committee on Procedure, Session 1974–75, on European Secondary Legislation (House of Commons Paper No. 294).—[Mr. Edward Short.]

  STANDING ORDER No. 3 (EXEMPTED BUSINESS)
  Ordered,
  That Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) be amended as follows:
  Line 17, after 'provides', insert 'and proceedings on Commission Documents'.
  Line 43, at end insert 'In this paragraph, and in Standing Orders No. 60 (Constitution of standing committees), No. 62 (Nomination of standing committees) and No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c), "Commission Documents" means draft proposals by the Commission of the European Economic Community for secondary legislation and other documents published by the Commission for submission to the Council of Ministers'.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

  STANDING ORDER No. 60 (CONSTITUTION OF STANDING COMMITTEES)
  Ordered,
  That Standing Order No. 60 (Constitution of standing committees) be amended as follows:

  That Standing Order No. 73A (Standing on Statutory Instruments) be amended as follows:—

  Line 3, after 'Instruments', insert 'etc.'.

  Line 5, after 'instruments' insert 'or Commission Documents (as defined in

  5

  Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business))'.

  Line 23, at end insert' or

  (iii) notice has been given of a motion relating to a Commission Document.'.

  Line 27, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.

  Line 35, after second 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.

  10

  Line 37, after 'instrument)', insert '(or Commission Document)'.

  Line 47, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.

  Line 50, after '3(ii)', insert 'or 3(iii)'.

  Line 52, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.

  Line 55, after 'thereon;', insert 'and, in the case of a motion relating to a

  15

  Commission Document, where an amendment is offered to that question, the

  question on that amendment'.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

  Amendment proposed: Leave out lines 9 to 11 and insert:
  'Line 48, at end insert:
  "(4A) In the case of a Commission Document referred to the Committee, the Committee shall consider the document upon a motion relating thereto made by a Minister of the Crown to which motion amendments may be
  Line 8, after 'instruments', insert 'or Commission Documents as defined in Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business)'.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

  STANDING ORDER No. 62 (NOMINATION OF STANDING COMMITTEES)
  Ordered,
  That Standing Order No. 62 (Nomination of standing committees) be amended as follows:
  Line 12, after 'instruments', insert 'or Commission Documents as defined in Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business)'.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

  STANDING ORDER No. 73A (STANDING COMMITTEE ON STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  moved; and the Committee shall report their resolutions to the House" '.—[Mr. Spearing.]
  Question put,That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 64, Noes 152.

  Division No. 381.]

  AYES

  [7.18 p.m.

  Allaun, Frank

  George, Bruce

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Madden, Max

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Biffen, John

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Canavan, Dennis

  Kerr, Russell

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Mikardo, Ian

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Moate, Roger

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Molloy, William

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Lee, John

  Molyneaux, James

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Litterick, Tom

  Newens, Stanley

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Noble, Mike

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Ward, Michael

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Watkins, David

  Prescott. John

  Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

  Wells, John

  Radice, Giles

  Stott, Roger

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Roper, John

  Tomlinson, John

  Mr. Bryan Gould and

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Torney, Tom

  Mr. Frank Hooley.

  Skinner, Dennis

  Tuck, Raphael

  NOES

  Anderson, Donald

  Ginsburg, David

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Archer, Peter

  Golding, John

  Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Atkinson, Norman

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Bates, Alf

  Hardy, Peter

  Ovenden, John

  Bishop, E. S.

  Harper, Joseph

  Palmer, Arthur

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Park, George

  Boardman, H.

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Parker, John

  Booth, Albert

  Hatton, Frank

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Hayman, Mrs, Helene

  Pendry, Tom

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Penhaligon, David

  Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

  Huckfield, Les

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Buchanan, Richard

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)

  Hunter, Adam

  Rose, Paul B.

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Campbell, Ian

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Carter, Ray

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Sandelson, Neville

  Cartwright, John

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Janner, Greville

  Short, Rt. Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Cohen, Stanley

  John, Brynmor

  Small, William

  Coleman, Donald

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Concannon, J. D.

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Stallard, A. W.

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Stoddart, David

  Corbett, Robin

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Stonehouse, Rt Hon John

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Strang, Gavin

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  Kelley, Richard

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Davidson, Arthur

  Lamborn, Harry

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Lamond, James

  Tierney, Sydney

  Deakins, Eric

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Tinn, James

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Urwin, T. W.

  Dempsey, James

  Lipton, Marcus

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Doig, Peter

  Luard, Evan

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Dormand, J. D.

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  McCartney, Hugh

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Dunn, James A.

  McElhone, Frank

  Weitzman, David

  Eadie, Alex

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Edge, Geoff

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  White, James (Pollok)

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Whitlock, William

  English, Michael

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Ennals, David

  Magee, Bryan

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Marquand, David

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Woodall, Alec

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Meacher, Michael

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Mr. John Ellis and

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Mr. James Hamilton

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Member wish to move his second amendment to the motion?
  Mr. Spearing: No, Mr. Speaker.
  Main Question put and agreed to.
  Ordered,
  That Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments) be amended as follows:
  Line 3, after 'Instruments', insert 'etc.'.
  Line 5, after 'instruments', insert 'or Commission Documents (as defined in Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business))'.
  Line 23, at end insert 'or
  (iii) notice has been given of a motion relating to a Commission Document'.
  Line 27, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 27, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 35, after second 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 37, after 'instrument)', insert '(or Commission Document)'.
  Line 47, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 50, after '3(ii)', insert 'or 3(iii)'.
  Line 52, after 'instrument', insert 'or Commission Document'.
  Line 55, after 'thereon;', insert 'and, in the case of a motion relating to a Commission Document, where an amendment is offered to that question, the question on that amendment.'

  PREPARATION OF LEGISLATION
  7.28 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General (Mr. Peter Archer): I beg to move,
  That this House takes note of the Report of the Renton Committee on the Preparation of Legislation (Command Paper No. 6053).
  On 7th May 1973 the then Lord President appointed a Committee on the Preparation of Legislation, under the chairmanship of the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton). In May 1975 that Committee presented a very full and careful Report. I am sure that the House would wish me, right at the outset, to express our indebtedness to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Committee for the valuable and comprehensive Report which they presented and for the sheer hard work which led to it.
  The Report points to the startling fact that there has been no inquiry of this kind for 100 years. The last was the Select Committee of 1875. In that time there have been many complaints about the form of our legislation, and it is interesting to observe, from the Committee's historical chapter, that those who have been complaining have simply been echoing what has been said by many of our distinguished forebears for 400 years. I note that King Edward VI is recorded as having commented:
  "I would wish that…the superfluous and tedious statutes were brought into one sum together, and made more plain and short, to the intent that men might better understand them."
  The purpose of this discussion is to facilitate the task of at least three groups of people. First in point of time are those who deal with a proposal. During the law-making process, in particular, Members of both Houses require to see clearly and without undue labour the proposal which they are asked to consider. Secondly, there are the lawyers and other experts, who are required to explain and apply provisions after they have reached the statute book. Thirdly, there are the members of the public who may be affected by it but who possess no special training or expertise in following legal technicalities.
  In recent years there has been much discussion, very properly, about the need for involving in the law-making process

  115
  the public, for whose benefit the law exists, who suffer if it is inadequate and who are asked to observe and respect it. The public no longer play a purely passive rôle in law making. They ask for legislative intervention in an increasing number of fields. They insist on being consulted in the framing of the law and this entails producing proposals in a form which is intelligible to the public.
  These objectives are not always mutually compatible, and much of the Committee's work was concerned with balancing the respective needs of these three groups. Since the publication of the report, Ministers and officials have, of course, been giving it detailed consideration, but before taking substantive decisions on a number of the more important proposals we wish to take account of the views of the House. I therefore hope that this will be a take-note debate, in both senses of the term. The Government's purpose is certainly to take note of what is said tonight before reaching conclusions.
  I hope that the House will understand if I do not express any dogmatic conclusions. Indeed, it might be a matter of complaint if I were to do so, particularly if I were to deal with all the 121 recommendations. It would have defeated the purpose of the debate if the Government had taken decisions in advance of giving hon. Members an opportunity to express their views, and I should be reluctant to say anything which might appear to pre-empt an open-minded consideration of what is said.
  What I propose to do in these opening remarks, therefore, is simply to indicate, in the general Order followed by the Report, the Government's initial views on a few of what seem to be the most significant of the Committee's proposals. Then, with permission, Mr. Speaker, I would hope to deal briefly at the end of the debate with any points that appear to call for reply, but basically I propose to take this opportunity to listen to views about the Report rather than to pronounce decisions of the Government upon it.
  First, it is obviously fundamental to the quality of parliamentary drafting that there are sufficient and properly trained parliamentary draftsmen available to do the work. The Committee rightly regards
  116
  this as a matter of the highest importance, and proposes the establishment of a training course in drafting and the recruitment of more draftsmen as a matter of high priority.
  It is right to say at this point that those of us who have had the opportunity of seeing at close quarters the work of the parliamentary draftsmen are compelled to express admiration for their quality as lawyers and for the clarity of their minds. The setting up of the Committee was in no way a criticism of their work. The draftsmen are themselves conscious of the difficulties imposed by an attempt to meet a variety of objectives, including that of maintaining and improving the quality of our legislation, and of constantly working under the pressure of inadequate time and chronic undermanning. I believe that the Report not only confirms the inevitable constraints on the aim of achieving simpler legislation but also emphasise the constructive efforts continually being made by the draftsmen within these limits.
  The Government are aware that there is a shortage of draftsmen and fully share the Committee's concern in this matter. Their aim is a gradual building up of the strength of this office. However, as the House will appreciate, the highly specialised nature of the work necessarily limits the scope for recruiting people of the right calibre. Moreover, as experience has shown that it takes about 12 years before a drafsman can handle a big Bill under pressure, any major expansion of the body of draftsmen is bound to be a slow process.
  The need for more draftsmen has arisen in recent years more quickly than the office can expand. I understand, however, that judging from inquiries recently received the prospects for the competition planned by the Civil Service Commission for 1976 are promising. As is to be expected, this career is attracting candidates of very high calibre. One more professional member has already joined and another is about to join the three full-time and one part-time draftsman working at the Law Commission. This will restore its full drafting strength, as proposed by the Committee.
  The Committee pointed out also that in the past we have not encouraged an interest in statute law in our university

  117
  courses, and it proposed the establishment of a post-graduate course in legislative drafting, which might reduce the period of apprenticeship for new recruits and the training load on senior draftsmen. I understand that First Parliamentary Counsel has been for some time considering this and other training possibilities but, as the report recognises, it is not easy to find an experienced draftsman to run such a course.
  The first important group of drafting recommendations made in the report, which has wide implications and to which I should like to draw the attention of the House, is the group in Chapter X referring to the possible scope for increased use of "statements of general principle" in the drafting of legislation.
  The Report recommends only a cautious extension of the use of such statements in limited fields, normally not including Bills of substantial political or administrative content. But if this practice were widely adopted it could have very considerable effects on parliamentary procedure and the organisation of our business. This aspect of the Committee's Report, therefore, might best be considered in the context of the impending review into our procedure generally which my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council has at present under consideration. Meantime, it is a matter on which the Government would be particularly glad to know the views of hon. Members.
  The next principal sections of the Report deal with detailed questions of drafting technique and conventions in legislation generally and—in Chapter XVII—in relation to fiscal legislation in particular. In general the Government welcome these recommendations as a valuable guide and encouragement to the best drafting practice. Clearly, however, in some instances there will be differences of opinion on the question whether a particular recommendation would in practice provide a more intelligible text.
  For example, I understand that questions of increased printing aside, the draftsmen would not agree that schedules of amendment should normally be in tabular form of the kind recommended in Recommendation (28), and there are various other recommendations which will need to be critically considered
  118
  in the light of their potential impact on the already heavy burden of our printing resources.
  Study of all these recommendations will continue in consultation, as necessary, with the Statute Law Committee and with the House authorities. Special consideration is being given by the Revenue Departments to the proposal concerning the drafting of fiscal legislation, but the views of the House would be welcomed.
  The Committee was quite clear that in these matters its indications were not intended as inflexible rules and that Parliamentary Counsel must continue to be permitted a degree of discretion in adapting drafting techniques to the needs of particular statutes. Presumably it was not intended to suggest, for example, that the draftsmen must always use fractions and mathematic formulae automatically, regardless of context, or limit the length of paragraphs in some standardised way.
  It should also perhaps be pointed out that a number of the suggestions made by the Committee, including some of the most important—for example, that on the practice of textual amendment, recommendation (41)—are already current drafting practice, as the Committee recognises. As the House will appreciate, all this area is very much an ongoing process.
  I found myself particularly interested by the chapter on consolidation, because I was privileged for a number of years to participate in the work of the Joint Select Committee on Consolidation Bills. This provides me with an occasion to offer a tribute to the work of that Committee and its Chairman, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. I do not normally have that opportunity, since consolidation matters are usually dealt with in the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson). Parliament and the public may not always be aware of how well served they are and of the hard, detailed and not always exciting work of that Committee. Together with the Law Commission, that Committee has enabled us very greatly to expedite the work of consolidation.
  I note the Committee's observation that, in spite of all our running, we are not even staying in the same place. The backlog is lengthening. The Government note what the Committee says on that matter.

  119
  I should like to refer now to the Committee's recommendations in two other fields—explanatory aids and computerisation. In each of these, very considerable progress has been made in recent years, and both offer practical hope of easing the task both of the draftsmen and of the consumer of legislation.
  As everyone must recognise, I think, there are inevitable limits to the extent to which the actual text of many Bills can be made readily intelligible to all those who, for one reason or another, need to consult them. The availability of aids to understanding outside the legal text is, therefore, one of considerable importance.
  As the evidence to the Committee shows, this can take many forms, both during the passage of legislation and after enactment. What is needed in a particular case depends on the nature of the Bill and the various classes of user involved. The Government fully accept the importance of this matter and will continue to develop these aids, adapting their practice, as the Committee proposes, to the circumstances of each case.
  Within this general undertaking, however, I should perhaps enter an early reservation in relation to Recommendation (58) and its proposal that explanatory notes might be printed opposite the clauses to which they relate. This could involve a major additional printing burden, and I am afraid that the Government are unable to give any undertaking in this respect at present. I note that some members of the Committee also had doubts about the practicability of this proposal.
  Concerning the Committee's proposals on computerisation, there is, as the House will be aware, a rapidly growing interest in the use of computers in relation to law generally. The Sub-Committee of the Statute Law Committee considering this question, chaired by Lord Justice Scarman, will be taking careful note of the recommendations made in the report, and I understand that two members of the Committee are now serving on this Sub-Committee.
  I also understand that the Central Computer Agency supports the Report's recommendations, since, broadly speaking, they accord with the objectives
  120
  which both Her Majesty's Stationery Office and the agency have been pursuing. I think, therefore, that the Government's attitude to this section of the Report can be summed up as one of welcome, with an assurance that the recommendations have been noted by the appropriate bodies concerned.
  I now turn to the recommendations in the Report dealing with new parliamentary procedures designed to diminish the need for complex statutes and for reducing their bulk. Some of these proposals would require legislation. The proposals include the possibility of a new procedure for parallel Scottish Bills and, where a parallel Scottish Bill has not been introduced, for some form of simplified re-enactment of the Scottish provisions. The Report also proposes the abolition of Appropriation and Consolidated Fund Acts and new proposals for incorporating drafting improvements in statutes. Such proposals, if implemented, would significantly affect both Houses. In the Government's view, it would be appropriate for these proposals to be considered further by a parliamentary body, either in the form of a Joint Procedural Committee or in some other way.
  With regard to the proposal—No. 100—that there should be consultation between the two Houses on harmonising the form of amendments, this would seem to be a wholly advantageous move, and I believe that discussions are already in hand.
  As to the Committee's recommendations with regard to the intervals between the stages of legislation, I do not think I can say more than that the Government accept their responsibilities in these matters—but, as the Committee and the House will appreciate, there are bound to be some occasions when these intervals would not be practicable.
  The final section of the Report concerns the Committee's proposals for a new Interpretation Act as a further aid to the readier understanding of the effect of statutes. The Government fully recognise the need for legislation in this field. As to its scope the Report indicates that there is some controversy about certain of the Law Commission's proposals, and these are matters which will need to be considered further in consultation with the Statute Law Committee.

  121
  In conclusion, I wish again to thank the Committee for its realistic and practical approach to these matters. There is no magic formula which will produce clearer legislation, and the problems which arise generally do so from genuine conflicts of competing needs and objectives.
  As I said earlier, what hon. Members, lawyers and the general public require of legislation can differ very widely. What is best suited to meet the structure of parliamentary debate may not be best suited to the needs of the courts. What is intelligible to the tax lawyer is often bewildering to the ordinary taxpayer. Draftsmen and Departments, I believe, are fully aware of these potential conflicts and have made considerable progress in recent years in reconciling them, both in the texts of legislation and by the development of explanatory material. But we have a long way to go, and I am sure that the effect of this Report will be to assist and accelerate that progress.
  7.45 p.m.
  Mr. John Peyton: While I welcome very much the assurance of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General that the Government do not take a dogmatic view of this matter and that they have not made any decision in advance of the debate, I nevertheless find it difficult to resist the conclusion, from the way in which he rather galloped through his speech, that perhaps this was not receiving quite the weighty attention from the Government that it deserves. Perhaps I am being unfair, but I hope that this very important report will be taken very seriously indeed.
  I certainly echo what the hon. and learned Gentleman said in thanking my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and the distinguished members of this Committee for their extremely thoughtful and thorough piece of work, which was well overdue. It is certainly not just another report to be dismissed with a polite "Thank you." It is a serious study of a problem which the volume of legislation has made urgent, and it is a restrained and politely worded reminder of that legislative misconduct of which all Governments have been guilty as initiators and to which all of us have been the accessories.
  122
  I learn with horror from the Report that there are some 3,480 public general Acts of Parliament—or there were in 1974—in whole or in part in force. We have been adding to the statute book at the rate of 1,500 pages a year. If that fearful reflection does not cause all of us to shudder with horror at what we have done, we are lacking in modesty and shame. We lack unhappily the toughness of Lord Keeper Bacon who made the splendid comment:
  "All contrarieties should be scraped from our books."
  How much we need a real scraper here to clean out those books and purge them of some of the messy contributions for which we are responsible.
  The Report goes to the heart of the matter fairly early when pointing out that it is no good tinkering with it but that something must be done about the volume, it being quite clear that the machine we have is quite incapable of absorbing and digesting the volume of legislation which it is called upon to bear. Chapter 1, paragraph 1.10, dealing with this matter, deserves to be quoted in full:
  "We must add that little can be done to improve the quality of legislation unless those concerned in the process are willing to modify some of their most cherished habits. We have particularly in mind the tendency of all Governments to rush too much weighty legislation through Parliament in too short a time with or without the connivance of Parliament, and the inclination of Members of Parliament to press for too much detail in Bills. Parliamentarians cannot have it both ways."
  The hon. and learned Gentleman echoed that point. The Report continues:
  "If they really want legislation to be simple and clear they must accept Bills shorn of unnecessary detail and elaboration. We cannot emphasise too strongly that the Government and Parliament have clear responsibility for the condition of the statute book."
  My right hon. and learned Friend and his Committee have every justification for issuing that very sharp reminder.
  Later in the Report, Chapter VII, paragraph 7.10 contains the following words:
  "Either the flow of legislation must be staunched so that the draftsmen may have more time in which to make their Bills more intelligible, or, if this is impossible, then in spite of the shortage of time, statutes must be enacted by Parliament in a form that will make it easier for them to be understood by those to whom they are addressed."

  123
  I call particular attention to those last words. How many of us in passing some of the indigestible verbiage which now defaces the pages of our statute book ever think of the burdens which we put upon the ultimate user whose duty it is to understand and implement it?
  The Report rightly contains throughout its pages an implied tribute to the parliamentary draftsmen, and in paragraph 6.21 the Committee pays them a particular and well-deserved tribute. We who are the co-culprits in this matter with them would do well to echo that tribute and, indeed, trace the faults back to the thoughtless ambitions of Ministers whose practices are far more conditioned by their ambition than they are by thought for the result.
  Mr. David Weitzman: On both sides.
  Mr. Peyton: I did not distinguish in any way. The hon. and learned Gentleman makes pinching little remarks of that kind, but I have been careful to use the word "we" throughout. He has been in the House a long time, and he also ought to take his share of shame. He is certainly entitled to it.
  The specific complaints made in the report are of direct importance, and we find them set out in paragraph 6.2 grouped broadly as follows. First, the language used is described as
  "obscure and complex, its meaning elusive and its effect uncertain."
  The second charge is over-elaboration, caused by an excessive desire for "certainty".
  Next, the structure is criticised—
  "The internal structure of, and sequence of clauses within, individual statutes is considered to be often illogical and unhelpful to the reader."
  What a wonderful choice of words. To describe our modern statute law as "often unhelpful to the reader" is one of the most charming pieces of understatement that I have ever come across, and I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend, to whose kindly hand I naturally attribute that remark.
  The fourth complaint is directed to arrangement and amendment, the procedures for which
  "make it difficult to ascertain the current state of the law on any given matter".
  124
  The report goes on in greater detail later to point out the effect of not making the law clear. We must recognise that we deprive the citizen thereby of one of his basic rights, and I shall come back to that in a moment. Meanwhile, I draw to the attention of the House the comments reported in Appendix B. I shall not weary the House by quoting them all, but I mention, in particular, the magisterial rebuke of Lord Justice Russell in 1966 that
  "The drafting of this section appears to me calculated to postpone as long as possible comprehension of its purport".
  That is a fairly adequate and terse condemnation which was, no doubt, richly deserved by the passage of law there involved but which could equally well be applied to many others.
  We are grateful also to Lord Simon of Glaisdale—this appears on page 28 of the Report—for drawing attention to a passage in one statute which deserves to go on record once again in this Chamber:
  "For the purpose of this Part of the Schedule a person over pensionable age, not being an insured person, shall be treated as an employed person if he would be an insured person were he under pensionable age and would be an employed person were he an insured person."
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has referred to that. Perhaps it would apply to me.
  Mr. Peyton: How can I possibly reply to such a modest claim on your part, Mr. Deputy Speaker? I should not for a moment associate you with such rubbish as that. I regard you as being in a very different category altogether, if I may say so with great respect.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will have some compassion for the office which I occupy. According to what he has been saying, I might be created a superannuated man.
  Mr. Peyton: I can only assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that not one of us would wish to see you in any way involved with such stuff as that.
  Lord Simon is quoted on page 61 also as defining the objective which should be

  125
  in the mind of draftsmen and all legislators—
  "Desirably, the language of legislation should be as near to ordinary speech as precision permits".
  Again, we come to the charge of over-elaboration—in other words, that Parliament is not content to enunciate broad general principles but seeks always for certainty. That desire for certainty is thought sometimes to emanate from a distrust of the courts, and I endorse here the comment made by two learned Scottish judges which is reported on page 29.
  However, I believe that the anxiety of Parliament to search for certainty springs at least as much from the hostility of back-bench Members of Parliament towards Ministers, who are not always fully trusted by their erstwhile colleagues who often feel that they go to other fields for advice and are wont to forget the reasons that brought them here in the first place.
  We on this side would wish warmly to endorse the suggestion made again and again in the Report that it is better to set out the principles in clauses and the details in schedules. On the question of the structure of Bills, I endorse also the Committee's recommendation that the intent should be made clear, since not only would this be an interesting and valuable aid to those who have to study a Bill—and in due course an Act—but it would be a valuable discipline on the Ministers who launch these measures on their way.
  I endorse the suggestion that the law should be more happily arranged with a view to making possible convenient access to amendments where these have been made. The Report says on page 36:
  "The law should be readily ascertainable and reasonably clear."
  It goes on:
  "To the extent that the laws do not satisfy these conditions, the citizen is deprived of one of his basic rights and the law itself is brought into contempt. Whatever may be the pressures to increase the volume and extend the scope of legislation, it is our firm view that legislation which is complex and obscure may for that very reason be oppressive."
  Those words should be remembered and borne in mind by this Government and their successors. On the following page, the Report says:
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  "The way in which the law if drafted presents, at times, an impenetrable barrier to understanding."
  The Report is quite right to indicate the need for forward planning and an early start to legislative projects. We have abundant evidence that legislative projects are launched here without adequate planning, consulation or thought. Too often projects are brought in at the last minute. I am not blaming the parliamentary draftsmen, who have to labour under considerable pressures.
  The Report points out how much consolidation of the law is handicapped by the insufficient numbers of available draftsmen. I warmly endorse the recommendation that the pace of consolidation should be accelerated. The Report says in Chapter 10, paragraph 3:
  "the interests of the ultimate users should always have priority over those of the legislators."
  Legislators would do well to endorse that comment. The conflict between certainty and clarity is one to which we all ought to give greater attention.
  The statement in the Report that the demands for immediate certainty have often been more insistent than necessary is abundantly well justified and, one might add, such demands are often self-defeating. The adoption of the "general principle" approach would lead, according to the Report, to greater simplicity and clarity. I agree with that and with the conclusion of the Report that a statement of purposes would be helpful in producing a degree of clarity. I hope the Government will take this recommendation seriously and act on it.
  The Report recommends that amendments to the law should be made whenever possible by changing the text of the original law, and I think that that would be helpful.
  There are many other matters which arise from this interesting and important Report, including the length of sentences used in Acts, definitions, long clauses, intervals between stages of legislation, the amendment of drafting errors after the parliamentary process has been completed, a review of the structure and language used by the Statute Law Committee, the need for a new Interpretation Act and the use of computers, all of which have to be dismissed, in order

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  that I shall keep my speech within decent bounds, much more shortly than they ought to be. They are, nevertheless, matters of very great importance to which I hope the Government will give careful thought.
  I do not blame the Government, but I regret that the debate is taking place in such a thinly populated house. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire and his committee should be assured that the attention their Report deserves and will, no doubt, receive is not reflected by the attendance here. This is a very important subject to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire has made a signal contribution after a very distinguished parliamentary career.
  8.6 p.m.
  Mr. Bruce George: Looking around the House, I am impressed by the wealth of skilled and experienced parliamentarians. It may be considered rather impertinent that someone who has been a Member for less than two years should dare to comment on such an important subject. I hope that my remarks will be of some interest, as perhaps my views are, to some extent, those of an outsider, as I have not yet succumbed to the parliamentary embrace, as have others with infinitely longer experience of the House.
  Our political and economic decline has led us to re-examine the workings of our traditional institutions. Since the war, we have managed to make the wrong decisions in almost every area of our public life. We do not have a lot of time to ponder over the mistakes, or over the reforms we ought to make, as though we were philosopher kings. We must respond very urgently to the need for institutional reform.
  It is absurd of us to ask industry to adapt itself radically and change if we, in the machinery of government and politics, appear to be so loth to make radical changes in our own institutions.
  I very much welcome the Report. It is a succinct document, and it would have been ironic if it had been accompanied by enormous volumes of evidence, like some other reports. The Report is a very good contribution to
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  the re-appraisal process through which we are going. It concentrates on one stage of legislation—the initial stage—but sets it against the general background of the legislative and governmental process.
  In my analysis, I want to look at the three stages of legislation. The first stage is the drafting and consultative stage. This is entwined with the second—the Parliamentary stage. The third is the administrative stage, where statutory instruments are promulgated. Legislation is a multi-stage and highly complex process. It is almost a "system" and a characteristic of a system is that one part is totally dependent on another part.
  It would be an act of folly to analyse one stage of legislation in isolation from the other parts. My critique is of the legislative process generally, setting this against a background of decision-making in Government.
  The twentieth century has exhibited an enormous increase in the power of the executive. Alongside this there has been a remarkable decline in the power of the legislature, not just in this country. That decline is a universal phenomenon. There are those countries where legislatures, if they ever existed, are now extinct, and there are nations which have legislatures with severely truncated powers.
  In this country our system exhibits the greatest concentration of power and authority upon the executive Hardly anywhere else is a Government nominally so free to make decisions without constraints, such as powerful local government, a written constitution and a powerful Upper House. Under our system the Government have enormous independence of action, and therefore much of the blame for the ills affecting society today can be placed upon their shoulders.
  The executive may have adapted itself to changed circumstances, albeit unsuccessfully, but the power of Parliament has declined, is declining and will continue to decline, unless we are able to adapt its procedures to changed conditions. Winston Churchill said of Parliament, during the war, that all he wanted was compliance with his wishes, after reasonable discussion. We in this House would see the legislature having

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  a much broader rôle than simply discussing legislation and then allowing the Government to make the decisions they were going to make anyway. I am reminded of what was said by Frederick the Great, who remarked that his people and he had a wonderful arrangement. He let them say what they liked and they let him do what he liked.
  Clearly, there must be a bridge between the talking and the doing. We talk in our Parliament. The word "Parliament" comes from the French word parler, which means to speak—to talk. We produce mountains of paper, but we must still question whether the bridge has been built between the discussion in Parliament and the end product—namely, the making of decisions. We call ourselves by delightful and honourable titles. In some ways I think that for all we do on some occasions, we could call ourselves "honourable and superfluous Members".
  Nowhere is the subordination of Parliament to executive clearer than in the process of legislation. Some countries have institutions which they call legislatures, and they actually legislate. That is something of a phenomenon today. In this country legislation is a function of government. In America there is the separation of powers between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. They are not completely divorced, because of the system of "checks and balances". In this country the Government dominate the legislature, and in some aspects they have great influence over the judiciary.
  It would be stupid and incorrect to say that this Parliament is in any way approaching the rubber stamp of an institution like the Supreme Soviet, but, clearly, we are much closer to that concept of a legislature than we are to the American concept of a genuine parliamentary assembly. We in this country need a strong and efficient Government, but I do not see that that is necessarily incompatible with a strong and efficient legislature. One could have a powerful legislative institution hand in hand with a powerful executive.
  Let us return to the reality of the British situation. The Government dominate every aspect of legislation.
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  Professor Griffiths said, in a very good book recently published:
  "The presentation of the proposal in the form of a Bill means that the ossification is well advanced. The most formative part of the whole process, the point at which the proposal may most significantly be changed is at the time when the departments are consulting with interests".
  Where do we fit in, in this institution, at this vital stage? My contenion is that we figure hardly prominently in the pre-parliamentary stages.
  I am not in any way opposed to a close relationship between the Government and pressure groups. This goes back centuries. It certainly predates the democratic revolution in this country. Some writers have called it the "Old Whig" theory of representation, which lays down that almost any decision taken by Government without active consultation with affected organisations is seen to be on the very margins of legitimacy.
  There has therefore been a long tradition in British Government that pressure groups and interested parties are closely involved in the process of legislation and government. One cannot help wondering, however, whether what goes on behind closed doors between private and public bureaucrats is of more importance than what takes place in this institution, either on the Floor of the House or even in Standing Committee.
  We need greater participation by Members of Parliament in the process of legislation. Ministers, civil servants and senior pressure group officials do not command a monopoly of knowledge, skills and expertise. In this House there is an enormous reservoir of experience, which is not being properly harnessed. The rôle of Members of Parliament could be much more dynamic in the process of legislation. Parliament should have a more positive and purposeful rôle. Today, a great deal of legislalation consists of managerial decisions, made by Government decisions, governed only broadly by statutory authority.
  Professor Griffiths' book, entitled "Parliamentary Scrutiny of Government Bills"—a voluminous research—points out better than almost anything the impotence to which the House of Commons has been reduced. Professor Griffiths covered three years, in which he discovered that there were over 4,500 amendments moved and discussed. Of these, 436 were moved by

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  Government back benchers and only nine were carried against the Whips. Opposition Members moved 3,000 amendments and, of these, 131 were agreed to by Government and only 13 were carried against the wishes of the Government. By looking at the process of the amendments to Government Bills Professor Griffiths is able to ask why, as back benchers, we put so much time into legislation when the rewards are so few. He points to the small number of Bills which have been significantly amended as a result of pressure by Opposition or Government back-bench Members.
  I have looked at the limited rôle of Members of Parliament in the pre-parliamentary stage, and I have touched very briefly on their limited rôle in the second or parliamentary stage. I come now to the third stage of legislation—the making of delegated legislation. One academic said that, for the constitutional purist, legal and parliamentary controls are the most important, but they are, however, the least effective. Parliament makes, generally, a more superficial examination of statutory instruments. This is in no way a criticism of those who are seated on the appropriate Committee.
  We know how difficult it is, and how unsuccessful efforts have been in the past, to move a Prayer or motion to annul a statutory instrument. These are institutional controls, exercised by Parliament over delegated legislation. They are generally formal and minimal. Generally speaking, our examination of European legislation would fall into that category too.
  What can be done to arrest this decline in the rôle of Parliament in the machinery of government today? I believe that we have surrendered a large number of our powers. Many of them have been usurped One can almost point to a conspiracy between Government and Shadow Cabinet to contain the reform movement in Parliament. If the boat were rocked, if more power were given to Parliament and back bencher, however much one might eulogise the reform movement in opposition, the work of government would be more difficult. One suspects that there is a conspiracy of Front Benches to prevent meaningful reforms.
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  I think that the time has come when we should no longer remain a passive forum. We must reform and modernise our own house. I believe that, first, there must be a closer involvement of Members of Parliament in the formative stages of legislation—a much more meaningful rôle in the parliamentary stage. As a believer in an expansion of the Select Committee system, I should like to see more Standing Committees—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): The hon. Gentleman has spoken for 15 minutes. I have no objection to that, but I am still waiting for him to make some reference to the Report under discussion, concerning the preparation of legislation. I hope he will keep that in mind.
  Mr. George: I had thought that the points I made were not superfluous, but were linked to the whole process of legislation.
  Secondly, I believe that there should be greater facilities for Members of Parliament to perform their rôle as legislators more effectively. I believe, too, that a number of institutional amendments can be made to make this Parliament much more effective. I believe that one should accelerate the trend to full-time Members of Parliament, to allow us more time to examine legislation.
  I should now like to make some brief comments on the Report. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has made many useful suggestions, which I hope will be incorporated into our process of government. I am most interested in the chapter on the use of computers. I would not be able to participate in the process at all, with my dismal record in mathematics and science.
  Sir David Renton: A start has already been made.
  Mr. George: What the hon. and learned Gentleman said about the need for consolidation and simplification is most welcome, and obviously there cannot be many here who would oppose the employment of more parliamentary draftsmen. But there are one or two issues on which I oppose what the right hon. and learned Member and his Committee have written. I refer to the question of more

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  or less government. It is very easy to say that the more legislation there is, the less liberty there is for the people. I do not believe that there is any correlation between the size of the statute book and the degree of freedom enjoyed by individuals in this country. To say that if one diminishes the statute book one therefore enlarges freedom is quite nonsensical.
  As one person said, if the volume of legislation were reduced, we could reach the situation in which freedom for the pike means death for the minnow. If we minimise the amount of legislation, we allow the more powerful sections within our community to take advantage of the absence of legislation. As a Socialist, I certainly feel that we should legislate more, and make this institution a more efficient machine for translating into reality the wishes of the electorate, of the parties, and of this legislature.
  The next objection I make concerns the great support that the Report appears to give to the European system of law. There will be more and more problems arising as a result of the incompatibility, almost, between our own tradition of law and the European tradition of law, which, as was said, is based on Roman law and later developed by Napoleon, the arch-democrat.
  The European tradition of legislation appears to be to express the law in terms of general principles and to leave it then to the courts or to the Government to fill in the details. The last thing I want to do is to allow the judiciary more flexibility in interpreting. What we have done in this country is to reduce the flexibility of judges, and this is something that I generally support. The general background of the judiciary is such that I am not totally inspired by its analysis of a situation. It is usually based on a very limited social experience. I have reservations about any system which would allow judges more opportunity of interpretation.
  Legislation is very complicated, and could in many ways be made simpler. I am anxious to emphasise my view to the House that in dealing with legislation this institution has become an unsuccessful institution.
  A hundred years ago, Walter Bagehot wrote that our political system could be divided into two parts—the "dignified"
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  and the "efficient" elements. The dignified were those who were part of the process of government but did not really do anything. Crossman made this point in a book about 10 years ago, when he said that we have, in Parliament, moved out of the efficient sector of government into the dignified sector of government and politics.
  I believe that if the proposals of this Report, along with the other reforms that other hon. Members and I have mentioned, could be translated into reality, Parliament could be plucked out of this limbo, in which it has little importance, and enabled to play an important rôle in the machinery of government—a rôle, I suspect, that it has long since lost.
  8.27 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: The Session that mercifully comes to an end next week has been an agony for the legislative process. It is the climax of a series of Sessions each piling agony upon agony. The reason is that government has made exorbitant demands, first, upon parliamentary counsel, secondly, upon Members of Parliament, and, thirdly, upon the printers, each of those categories being almost broken down in the past decade as a result of government's exorbitant demands upon a machine that is not equipped to deal with the load that it is now made to bear. Until government modifies its demands upon the legislature in the way of which the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) spoke, no amount of valuable recommendations such as those in the Report will cure the problem that we face.
  There are 120 recommendations, most of which I support, but they do not deal with the inhibiting factor that makes us so ashamed of the products of our labours, the factor mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) which is lack of time, energy and opportunity owing to the over-loading of the machine.
  It is not only that. The statute book has been used by government not for the purpose of making law but frequently for the purpose of making propaganda. For example, I remember the old statute setting up nationalised corporations, which usually began something like this: "It shall be the duty of the Gas Board to provide clean gas at reasonable prices

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  throughout the realm." That is a duty for which there is no sanction if it is broken, a duty which is impossible to observe in modern circumstances, and which, when it was put on the statute book, was intended not to be law in any sense that we know but to be propaganda. That is one among many of the sins that government has committed.
  Secondly, there is a reference in the Report—although I think that the vice is much worse than the Report indicates—to the order in which the various sections of Bills are often placed. They are often placed in such a way as not to lead the mind naturally on a logical process from one section to another but to enable the Committee stage to go as easily as possible from the Government's point of view. Some very important measures are often put in schedules, which are dealt with when the Committee is extremely exhausted and therefore go through much more readily. That is an abuse of the legislative process.
  A new and horrifying abuse has grown up, started, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, when he was Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, in his Prices and Incomes Bill. That abuse is to put into a schedule the whole White Paper upon which the statute is founded. That is the ultimate in propaganda and the lazy man's solution. The schedule is put on to the Bill with a vague phrase such as "The board shall have regard to the considerations set out in the schedule"—an enormous White Paper—without emphasising which considerations shall have priority, which shall be binding, or which the Government fervently hope will be abandoned. We have had another example of that in the present Session with some of the Bills emanating from the Department of Employment. Government of all complexions has been guilty of debasing the legislative process. Those stratagems are part of that debasement.
  I come to that part of the recommendations that affects me. I do so briefly, because many other hon. Members wish to speak. In particular, I see here some of my hon. and learned Friends who know more than I do about the process in question.
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  When I speak of that part of the recommendations that affects me I refer to those concerning the Statute Law Committee, a body which I first joined more than 20 years ago. Although I was then, and still am, its least distinguished member, I think that I have been on it for longer than anybody who is now there. It is described by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and his colleagues as exercising
  "a very healthy, expert and well-informed…oversight of public and private Bill legislation generally."
  We are very grateful for that commendation, but I regret to say that we meet only once a year, because the distinction of that body is such that everybody in Whitehall, Westminster and the Strand who is anybody is there, and only once a year can the Committee be gathered together altogether. That happens in December, under the distinguished chairmanship of a succession of Lord Chancellors. I am not sure that our "healthy, expert and well informed oversight" is quite as continuous as my right hon. and learned Friend would have us believe. However, it is nice to have these commendations, particularly when they are the preface to a suggestion that we might meet rather more frequently. In recommendation 108 the Committee recommends that
  "The Lord Chancellor should arrange for the Statute Law Committee to keep the structure and language of the statutes under continuous review."
  Although it meets rather infrequently that is already one of our obligations. We are also urged to
  "review the carrying into effect of those of our recommendations that are accepted,"—
  that is the Committee's recommendations—
  "in particular our recommendation with respect to textual amendment".
  It is said that we should
  "publish reports (to be laid before Parliament) from time to time, but not less often than every three years."
  So we have to show something for our annual meeting in future.
  Those recommendations are most important. There ought to be a body that has a continuous and ongoing responsibility for duties which may appear

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  to be small and detailed duties but which are immensely important in the context of parliamentary draftsmanship. I hope that, even though it is so difficult to get together, our Committee will meet once again in the course of the year.
  These are excellent recommendations, with the emphasis on explanatory memoranda, with a desire for greater clarity and for legislation based on principles rather than on the process of stopping up every conceivable hole—which is the present attitude, particularly in fiscal statutes.
  I found the reading of this Report a most interesting and instructive operation. I did not think it would be so, given the terms of reference on a subject which is by its nature rather arid. My right hon. and learned Friend managed to make it a most interesting matter.
  For all of these reasons we hope that the Government, and shortly the next Government, will take the Report to their hearts and place the burden of its implementation upon one pair of shoulders high up in the Government. Unless that is done, it will be docketed and simply approved but not activated. If it is activated, perhaps we shall see that the statute book is no longer the disgraceful wastepaper basket that it often is now.
  8.38 p.m.
  Mr. David Weitzman: I listened with great interest to the philosophical discourse of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George). There was a good deal of truth in much of what he said.
  I prefer to come down to earth. As one who has been in this House and practised in the law courts for many years, I have always been deeply interested in the subject matter of this debate. On many occasions I have drawn attention to the lack of simplicity and to the involved language used in Acts of Parliament. How difficult it often is for the layman—and sometimes for the lawyer—to spell out the real meaning of an Act. How often has the attempt to do so led to protracted and expensive litigation. In Appendix B the Report refers to some such cases. There are many more.
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  I welcome the Report. It is long overdue. It renders a service in focusing attention on a problem. Everyone is deemed to know the law and is called upon to obey it. But how can we obey a law unless it is couched in language that a layman can understand? All too often there is a slavish adherence to precedent. There is elaboration due to the desire to cover every possible contingency. We all recognise that our draftsmen are skilful. Their work is admirable. However, on many occasions they are faced with conditions which make their task extremely difficult.
  Fiscal legislation is a special case. By its nature it demands exceptional treatment. But even here there is scope for greater simplicity and for the use of less complex language. There is great force in the view put forward 'that all Governments—I emphasise that—create initial difficulties in that they attempt to enact too much legislation in too short a time. They desire to bring into effect as quickly as possible the promises they made as a party in their manifestos. When a Government attempt to do too much too quickly they place a heavy task on the draftsmen. Insufficient time may well lead to unsatisfactory drafting and the need for legislation of a corrective nature at a later date.
  Political parties often draw up preparatory drafts of the measures which they intend to bring in, if elected. Perhaps if more care were taken in preparing such draft Bills under expert advice, they would form a useful base on which the draftsmen could build when the party succeeded in obtaining office. There are cases where it is necessary to put on the statute book quickly measures to deal with an emergency or a pressing need. But in the main there should be ample time for the consideration of a Bill, enough time between the various stages, and enough time for the formulation and detailed consideration of amendments in Committee and on Report.
  I am a strong believer in gradualism. I think that one step should be taken at a time, and that only when that step has been taken, and has accomplished its purpose should we build upon it, step by step. Surely it is better that legislation should be dealt with in a more leisurely fashion so that we can avoid the danger of ill-digested legislation.

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  The Report is right in stressing that in principle the interests of the user should always have priority over those of the legislators, and that a Bill should be regarded primarily as a future Act. Yet how often do the Opposition, of whatever party—I emphasise that—in their desire to delay or defeat a Bill, treat it as a game and engage in antics which make it a parliamentary sport? Let us take a recent instance. I refer to the debate on Report of the Hare Coursing Bill. Hours were spent discussing amendments to define the simplest of words. Indeed, the Chairman of the Committee which drafted this very valuable Report also joined in the sport. I must not criticise the Chair. However, I often feel that the occupant is merciful in his application of the rule on tedious repetition.
  Chapter XIV of the Report deals with the need for consolidation. Often it is necessary to refer to a series of Acts to understand the state of the law. Consolidation is of paramount importance. The Report refers to the need for more draftsmen to speed up the process. That is a task which should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. I welcome the assurance of the Solicitor-General that the Government are taking that matter seriously.
  There are many matters in the Report that can be touched upon. A great deal of time and labour could be saved if, when an Act is amended, a schedule could contain the complete text of the Act so amended. The date on which various sections of an Act come into force sometimes causes confusion. Should a Bill set out the general principle, leaving details to the schedule? Should there be published a White Paper making clear the effect of the legislation? Should an explanatory memorandum be published for every Bill? Should publicity be given to the meaning of new legislation so that the public can be made aware of the changes that are being made? Those are some of the issues which require careful consideration.
  I hope that action will follow the publication of the Report and our discussion tonight. The danger is that the Report and the discussion may be regarded as an academic exercise in considering the preparation of legislation, and
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  that the Government—indeed, every Government—will go their way as they have before and there will be little practical result.
  I listened carefully to what the Solicitor-General said. I hope that the Government will take seriously the issues put forward in the Report and that where the proposals can be introduced, they will be introduced without delay. I emphasise that if every Government dealt with legislation in a more mature way, more carefully and more slowly and did not impose an immense amount upon the House, the result would be better and more comprehensible Acts of Parliament.
  8.46 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Rees: Many of us on the Opposition benches will agree with the cogent analysis put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Weitzman). It is pleasant to find such a broad measure of agreement between the two sides of the House, at least on the analysis if not on the conclusion to be drawn from it.
  No one who has been concerned either politically or professionally with legislation has not sought for simpler, more succinct and clearer legislation. Lawyers, perhaps unfairly, blame the parliamentary draftsmen. I have no doubt that parliamentary draftsmen complain of Ministers and that Ministers complain either of the Opposition or of the governmental machine.
  The idea that legislation can be simplified by a sleight of hand or by small technical adjustments has been exploded by the analysis made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and his admirable Committee. I echo the tributes that have been paid to them. Their Report is workmanlike and painstaking and throws a great deal of light on an impenetrable subject. The Report is a rich quarry to which we shall return over the years when we come to debate this subject. I certainly do not conceive that this will be the last occasion on which we shall complain of the quality of the legislation that emerges from this House.
  There are some small technical improvements that could be made, and most of them have been detected and enlarged upon by my right hon. and

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  learned Friend and his colleagues. It would assist if interpretation were standardised, if the interpretation of all phrases and words which are to be interpreted came either at the beginning or at the end and if the words so interpreted appeared in the text in italics so that the fact that they are interpreted would not be overlooked.
  I hope that in future we shall avoid referential legislation. I know the temptations in that regard, but it is better to spell out at length the precise passage to which we wish to refer rather than to refer to a mass of statutory provisions that may be contained in another volume of legislation. I should like to see more frequent and more comprehensive consolidation. I suffer in my professional life from the fact that the taxing statutes have been partially consolidated by the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1970, the administrative measures have been consolidated by the Taxes Management Act 1970, while the measures relating to capital gains tax have not yet been consolidated.
  The Solicitor-General said that there has been dramatic improvement in the recruitment to the draftsmen's office. I am delighted, but that will not solve the problem. All the same I commend the possibility that with more draftsmen all taxing statutes, whether they deal with capital gains tax, administration or questions of liability, should be consolidated into one overall measure which would be easy for those concerned to refer to.
  I have a practical suggestion about the form of Bills presented to the House. I would like to see the Chair rule on whether Bills are in due form. I hesitate to suggest that the Chair should have the added burden of such an onerous duty, but I believe that in an impartial manner, with the assistance of counsel to Mr. Speaker, it could determine and certify in advance whether the basic rules for constructing legislation had been adhered to. That might eliminate some of the sloppier outpourings of the overworked governmental machine.
  I regret the tendency of radical administrations—I do not necessarily have this one in mind, although my example relates to one of their measures—to cast overboard the experience so slowly and laboriously garnered from previous Acts in the same area. I had
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  the doubtful privilege of being a member of the Standing Committee which dealt with the first Finance Bill of this Session. It was largely taken up with the capital transfer tax. I appreciate that the tax was new in concept, but it did borrow a great deal from earlier legislation on estate duty—or could have done so.
  However, with a certain arrogance—I hope that it was not genuine but somehow I detected it—the Government chose to brush aside experience gathered over the years and instead to construct an entirely new legislative framework for the tax. The results have not yet been fully felt by the country, but I forecast with confidence that we shall have inflicted on us a morass of amendment and detail over the years to come as long as this measure is allowed to remain on the statute book. I hope that the Solicitor-General will bear that point in mind. We are well aware that the Government have other great radical measures in mind for us, but I hope that at least they will build them to a degree on the experience of earlier measures.
  But at the end of the day, we have to look a little deeper even than the Renton Committee was permitted to do. I regret that the Committee was not empowered to consider the legislative process.
  Sir David Renton: The pre-legislative process.
  Mr. Rees: My right hon. and learned Friend is correct—the pre-legislative process. If my right hon. and learned Friend and his Committee had been allowed to consider the formulation of policy on these important matters, to analyse the translation into legislative form and to draw conclusions, I am sure that we would have had an even more helpful and constructive report. It was as idle to ask that distinguished Committee to consider the details of the legislative process without considering the pre-legislative process as to ask them to examine sin without allowing them to cross-examine the Devil.
  I agree that we must consider whether it would be possible to have full exposure of legislation before consideration in this House. Of course a Select Committee is considering a wealth tax and another has considered taxation of dividends—two particularly technical matters—but the

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  detail of legislation has rarely if ever been exposed to this kind of scrutiny.
  The only venture in this field that I recall lies to the credit of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) when Chancellor, who set out in a White Paper the form of a Bill which might have put personal taxation on a current year basis. That was a worthwhile experiment and I am sorry that it was not followed through then—possibly due to the unfortunate result of the 1964 election—or since.
  Mr. Graham Page: May I remind my hon. and learned Friend of the valuable Law Commission Reports which have included draft Bills as annexes and have been helpful in doing so? That might be extended to other legislation as well.
  Mr. Rees: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has a comprehensive knowledge of these matters. That is a constructive suggestion which I would endorse. Whether it be done through the Law Commission or through some form of Select Committee or merely by publication and the invitation of submissions from the general public, particularly those professional bodies which are interested, I care not. But this obsession with secrecy which all administrations exhibit is one of the root causes of the imperfect quality of the legislation presented to both Houses.
  To return to the theme of the Committee, perhaps some hon. Members who are more defeatist than myself may feel that a complex civilisation demands complex legislation. I hope not, but it is to be observed that Governments of both parties have succumbed in recent years to the temptation to a greater volume of legislation and to greater detail. This afternoon, I looked at the bound volumes of the statutes in my chambers. In 1972, there were three volumes with 2,565 pages. I show my utter impartiality by going back to 1972. In 1973, there were three volumes of 2,248 pages. In 1968 there were only two volumes, admittedly, but again 2,532 pages. In 1967 there were two volumes of 2,206 pages. I hope that we shall come to judge our administrations by the volume of their legislation. By that test, most administrations, at least those since 1964, have failed dismally.
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  My right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) said that there is a conflict between certainty and clarity. I am not sure whether that is so, but—this is where I commend, if I may do so, one recommendation of the Renton Committee—Governments should be content to legislate in broad principle and should eschew the lengthy and complex definition and the attempt to cover every contingency. That way lies disaster.
  Nor do I believe that that objective is attainable. We have had inflicted on us for a decade legislation, particularly fiscal, in which the Government have tried to cover every detail, every avenue of avoidance, and as a result have produced pages and pages—section after section, schedule after schedule. Indeed when I look back and think of misspent nights upstairs in Committee dealing with details of fiscal legislation, I wonder whether at the end of the day the consumer—whether the individual taxpayer or those who advise him—is any the wiser about the detail of the statutes we have enacted.
  Furthermore, I believe that Governments must learn to accept the decisions of the courts. There is a consuming arrogance in Government that as soon as the courts have given a decision that conflicts with the Government's preconception about their legislation, they rush through amending legislation immediately which is often retrospective in character.
  I hope that I may be permitted to give one small example of a case in which I was involved. A complex measure was introduced into the Finance Bill 1972, lodged obscurely in the twenty-third schedule, which attempted to redefine the rights of preference shareholders—a matter of some importance to those shareholders. The case did not primarily affect the Inland Revenue and, because the legislation was a little obscurely drawn, one group of shareholders felt obliged to go to the courts to test the matter and the Revenue was offered the opportunity to appear in that case but declined to do so. Some hon. Members may know the case to which I refer, the case of Sime Derby, a case heard this summer. The decision arrived at was in a sense contrary to that which found favour with the Revenue. The Revenue refused the opportunity to appear in that case, but almost immediately following the decision

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  a junior Minister of the Crown put out a statement to the effect that owing to the confusion resulting from the judge's decision, the Government proposed to introduce a provision in the next Finance Bill which would be retrospective in effect and which would reverse the judge's decision. That is the kind of arrogance to which I refer—and it is peculiar not only to Socialist Governments but to Governments of all complexions. I believe that the country finds that attitude profoundly distasteful.
  The remedy is simple. Governments should be content to lay down broad principles and the objectives they seek to achieve. If questions of detail are resolved in a sense they find unfavourable, they should live philosophically with it, unless real hardship and injustice results. They must not on a whim rush in some new corrective measure that will probably be as obscure and detailed as the measure which they have sought to correct.
  Some will say that if Governments choose to legislate for broad principles only no certainty will be achieved. I have tried to make the point that certainty is not always attainable in certain areas of activity. Let me instance taxation matters in which I claim a professional knowledge. That is an area of legislation which has become most complex. For example, the concept of an allowance in respect of relief for wear and tear was introduced in a short provision of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act 1893. Seventy years later the whole area of capital allowances is dealt with in 100 sections of the Capital Allowances Act 1968. Some will object that this is not a fair comparison because questions of balancing allowances and charges not dealt with in 1893 have been introduced. The point I wish to emphasise is that there is no greater certainty now with the present volume of legislation on tax issues than there was in 1893. The courts and practitioners had no more difficulty in those days in determining taxpayers' rights than they do at present.
  At the end of the day, as I have said, there are some underlying general questions which we must resolve, which to a degree were touched on by the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George). I agree to a certain extent with his analysis, although I dissent violently from some of his conclusions.
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  There is at present an imbalance in our public or constitutional life. Parliament, manipulated to a great degree by the executive, has arrogated to itself the right to legislate for every aspect of our national life and in the process to turn our judges into mere lexicographers. There is no longer any balance between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.
  Parenthetically, I find the criticism levelled at the Bench by the hon. Member for Walsall, South rather distasteful, and I found his interpretation of our institutions in class terms, indeed, in Marxist terms, rather unattractive. I think he quite misunderstood the rôle of the Bench, which should not be a subjective rôle but should be to attempt to do justice with scrupulous impartiality.
  I remind the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, the Solicitor-General, of an observation made by a very distinguished member of the Upper House and a member of the Judicial Committee, Lord Thankerton. It will not be found in any law report. It was told to me by an advocate who took part in the particular case. Lord Thankerton made it to the then Solicitor-General, the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill—for whose forensic powers and, indeed, for his political powers I had and still have respect. Lord Stow Hill on that occasion was pressing a rather literal construction of a difficult passage of a taxing statute on that Judicial Committee. Lord Thankerton said to him,
  "Mr. Solicitor, you and your clients"—
  by which he meant the Government—
  "should understand that their lordships conceive it their function in this House to do justice even in a tax case."
  That is something, I regret to state, that cannot always be said of our deliberations in this House.
  The most constructive conclusion, therefore, that might emerge from this debate is that we should henceforth exercise a little moderation and self-discipline in our legislative proceedings, that we should not press for or accept detailed and complicated measures, and that we should legislate in terms of broad principle and leave the detail for consideration by the judiciary—detail which through pressure of time and party conflict we are probably ill-adapted to resolve.

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  If we accept this self-discipline and if we accept the practical measures which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire and his distinguished colleagues have put before us, there is just the faint chance that future generations may enjoy from this House rather better legislation than has come out of it in previous years.
  9.8 p.m.
  Mr. Ian Percival: I start by echoing the one point upon which everyone is agreed: Yes, we should all be very grateful to all the members of the Committee whose Report we are considering—and we should be very proud of the part played by our colleague, the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton), as its chairman.
  All that is very right and proper, so long as we all, starting with the executive, also appreciate that all of that effort will be totally wasted unless the executive steel themselves to the decision to which one executive after another have failed to steel themselves—namely, that action must be taken; that all the action that is needed can be taken by an executive with a parliamentary majority; and that nothing will happen unless and until some executive does take the necessary action. It is at that point that despair begins to creep in.
  In March my right hon. and learned Friend wrote a letter to the Prime Minister enclosing the report. In April he had what seems to have been a formal acknowledgment. In September he received another letter from the Prime Minister. This correspondence has now been made public. It chills my heart. The first page of the Prime Minister's letter shows the greatest complacency about a recommendation which could not be made within the terms of the Committee's Report because it did not fall within its terms of reference, but which the Committee's chairman, in his letter to the Prime Minister, made clear was of overriding importance. I refer to the question of ministerial responsibility for the law.
  I despair, too, because the Solicitor-General galloped through his speech without really saying much beyond making a few comments about this, that or the
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  other recommendation. He offered little more than a hope of some action on a few recommendations. And I despair, because of the history of the subject.
  Let me first quote from a debate in '56, when the Member who was speaking said he supposed we should have to live with existing legislation—it was too much to hope to put all that right—and went on:
  "But when we come to our current legislation, we must acknowledge that the magnitude of the evil requires that it should be grappled with at once."
  All the speakers in that debate agreed with that proposition, just as all the speakers in this debate will agree with the proposition that there must be immediate action—but there has still been none. I should have given the House the reference to the quotation. It is in the Parliamentary Debates of 1856, Vol. 140, col. 622.
  Let us hope that this time the Government will determine to take action. If they do, they will have a large measure of support from the Opposition, because there is a widespread and strong feeling that the executive must take action and the House must support it.
  There are one or two recommendations on which I should like to commend in a moment, but may I first stress the point which has been made so many times by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire and which was made tonight by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke). I do not believe that any significant progress could be made, even if all the recommendations were to be adopted, if the volume of legislation remained as it is. The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), who was one of my opponents in Southport a few years ago, advocated more and more legislation. He said that the less legislation there was the more the position of the already strong was strengthened. How wrong can anyone be? The more legislation we pass the more necessary it is for people to turn to professional advisers to gain any idea of what the law is—and so the more the position of the already strong is strengthened. No, we cannot hope to make any improvement in the quality of legislation unless and until we reduce its quantity.

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  But provided that we do do that, the Committee's recommendations offer much scope and hope for improvement. May I mention some which I find particularly attractive. The first is Recommendation (19):
  "A statute should be arranged to suit the convenience of its open users".
  and Recommendation (39) says:
  "The needs of the eventual user of the statutes must be given priority over those of the legislator".
  Those are especially attractive propositions because they are so obviously right and because it would do the House so much good in the country if those for whom we legislate were to think just for once that we were putting their convenience first. We owe it to them. If we had the sense to do that, it would meet with a very good response from those concerned.
  The recommendation that there should be statements of purpose and of principle is well worthy of close consideration. I hope that it will receive consideration and that appropriate steps will be taken.
  As for the proposal for the recruiting of parliamentary draftsmen, everybody agrees about it, but everybody has agreed about it for goodness knows how many years. I only hope that something will now be done.
  I agree very much with the recommendation that whenever possible textual amendments should be used. I also agree with the reasoning of the Committee in seeking to accelerate consolidation, both because it is so much more convenient to the practitioner and the public when the law is consolidated in one statute, and because it is so much easier to adopt the textual amendment practice when one has a consolidated statute upon which to operate.
  I now turn to one other aspect of the matter which I think is the most important of all. As appears from the Report, I had the privilege of giving evidence to the Committee, and there are some kindly references in it to that evidence. What is not said is that the part of my evidence which I considered the most important of all, and the one recommendation which I thought more important than all the rest put together, could not be countered or referred to because it was outside the terms of
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  reference. That was the view, which I hold very deeply indeed, that we shall not make any real progress until there is more closely defined ministerial responsibility for the quality of the law—not the political content but its quality.
  This was what the debate in 1856 was all about. A Member called Napier was moving a motion, saying that a Minister should be appointed with personal and specific responsibility for the quality of legislation, and everybody, including the Government, agreed with him. The only question was whether the Minister should be in the Cabinet. In 1857, there was another debate in which another lawyer, the Member for Midhurst, said that he was not going to speak for long, because he was afraid that the great cause of law reform might be talked to death. This is a real danger. The House has talked about this subject for so long that it will talk it to death unless it does something about it.
  The history of the matter from then on is set out in a report of the Committee of the Society of Conservative Lawyers published in 1971, over which I had the honour of presiding. My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) was the secretary and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) was also a member. We drew attention to some of the recommendations made during the course of the last 100 years and more on the subject. One of them was a recommendation of Lord Haldane in 1918. He said that a new Department must be created and that some of the administrative burden of the Lord Chancellor could be taken off his back and shouldered by this new Department, leaving the Lord Chancellor free to "watch over and master legislation." He was to be the link man between the parliamentary draftsmen and the Department. He was of course to tell the draftsmen if he thought they were doing their job badly.
  But that was only half the story. The Lord Chancellor was also to protect them against the Departments—which seem often to make wholly unreasonable demands upon them. Although the parliamentary draftsmen must, and I have no doubt would, accept their share of

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  the criticism, all too often it would seem that the instructions given to them leave them so little time to do something that it is a marvel that they get anything out—and on other occasions, even worse than than, the instructions given to them are so vague as to make it really impossible for them to do the job that they would like to do.
  That was Lord Haldane's view, that the Lord Chanellor, being freed of administrative duties, would be able to watch and be master over the whole quality of legislation.
  But it seems clear that, if we were now to implement that principle adopted so frequently by the House during all these years of having specific ministerial responsibility for the quality of the law, additional ministerial manpower would be required. I do not think that the Lord Chancellor ought not to be invited to take on any more burdens. In 1971 Lord Dilhorne expressed the view that the burdens on the Lord Chancellor were already as much as any one man could bear. Far from being relieved of any duties, as Lord Haldane had suggested, the Lord Chancellor has been given greatly increased duties in administering the new organisation of the courts following the Beeching recommendations.
  I take serious note, of course, of what the Committee says in this connection and of the correspondence with the Prime Minister, and I should like to consider that further, but, with respect, it seems to me implicit in the Committee's recommendation, which would seek to bring in the Statute Law Committee, so to speak, to devil for the Lord Chancellor, that the Lord Chancellor would not be expected to be personally responsible to the extent that he would in fact himself look at all our statutes and express a personal view.
  Sir David Renton: It may help if I try to clarify this matter. What we had in mind was that there should be a member of the Cabinet with overall responsibility for the form, structure and drafting of statutes—to use my hon. and learned Friend's phrase, for the quality of legislation. For reasons which I cannot elaborate in an intervention, we felt that the Lord Chancellor would be the most suitable member of the Cabinet to do that work. I
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  say "We", but I should add that that was the view of all but two members of our Committee. There were two who did not agree with the rest of us.
  Obviously, whenever any Minister is given any responsibility, he has the backing of his Department to help him. Sometimes, he has the backing of an advisory committee of people outside the Department, and so on. We felt that the Lord Chancellor, with the backing of the Statute Law Committee, could best carry this responsibility as a member of the Cabinet.
  Mr. Percival: I am much obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend, and I hope that he will in this debate take the opportunity to enlarge on that and some other aspects of the recommendations which we have been discussing. However, my view is that if this new ministerial responsibility is to be effective it must be implemented in a way which imposes a direct personal obligation on the Minister responsible. It may for that reason mean that he cannot be a Cabinet Minister, but in my view it is essential that it be a responsibility carried out in a very personal way by someone who has to come to the Dispatch Box and be questioned about any piece of legislation the quality of which is less than one would desire.
  It was for that reason that the committee of which I spoke earlier came to the conclusion that the Lord Chancellor already had so much to do that he could not take on that duty. We considered whether it might be carried out by the Law Officers, for it seemed to us to be very much in the spirit of the general duty of the Law Officers, going beyond their duties as members of the Government, to advise the House on what the House is doing.
  It seems very much in line with that duty that a Law Officer should say to the Government, "No, you should not do that. The quality of this is really too bad". It is also in line with the duty which the Law Officers accept as being part of their general functions, of looking after the liberty of the subject, since there is nothing more oppressive to the liberty of the subject than either too much legislation or legislation of poor quality. We felt, therefore, that it was very much in accord with the spirit in

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  which we understand the Law Officers to be not just Ministers of the Crown but servants of the House and of the people as a whole, that they should carry this responsibility.
  However, we thought that with just two English Law Officers, it would be impossible to burden them with any more work, for we thought it was remarkable how they managed to do all they have to do at present. Therefore, if our suggestion were adopted it would seem to necessitate an increase in manpower, and this we accepted and advocated. Once we used to have six Law Officers; they included the Queen's Advocate. One way would be to revive or fill that post and allocate these duties to that officer. Alternatively, the Attorney-General could use the Queen's Advocate for more general legal duties and take on these other obligations himself. There are also other suggestions in the Report about how this problem could be tackled.
  The fundamental point remains that the performance of these duties should be allocated to a senior Minister who should have a personal and direct responsibility to this House for seeing that the quality of what we turn out is improved. This was important in 1856. It was even more important in 1956. I have been here since 1959 and I know that many hon. Members have been stressing it continuosly since then.
  It could be so exciting. There are so many things we ought to be trying, such as having small committees of professional men looking at the drafts of legislation and commenting on them not on the policy content but simply on the meaning of the words used. This could be something like the German pre-presentation and vetting by experts. Most legislatures have the same problem. We should try some of the things they do, and above all we must make it somebody's job to improve the quality of legislation and stand at that Box to answer for any failure to do so. Only then will we get someone whose job it is to try some of these experiments. It is now even more important than ever, because if we are to take advantage of the work of this Committee—and we shall bear a very heavy responsibility if we do not—the Government must now appoint a Minister with direct and personal responsibility for
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  doing what everything in this Report is directed towards—improving at long last the quality of the legislation we pass—and for giving effect to the recommendations of the Committee.
  9.28 p.m.
  Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) on this excellent Report. It would have been so easy to produce a report which was unreadable on legislation which is unintelligible. The highest compliment I can pay to the Report is to say that on the many nights recently when we have been sitting into the early hours, the Report has proved sufficiently arresting to command my attention for up to half an hour before I went to sleep.
  The Report might be named the Renton Report. It is not, as is printed on the cover, a Report on the preparation of legislation. That is something very much wider. If my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) had conducted the researches in his chambers at even greater length, he would have found that the volume of delegated legislation passed in the years he mentioned was even greater than the volume of statute law. This is sometimes overlooked.
  If one moves on from the cover to the terms of reference inside, one finds something which is much more restricted, which covers less than half the legislation passed each year. It says
  "I hereby appoint"—
  and then it gives the list of members of the Committee—
  "to be a Committee on the Preparation of Legislation with the following terms of reference: 'With a view to achieving greater simplicity and clarity in statute law,"—
  and
  "'to review the form in which public bills are drafted'".
  My first observation therefore is that the Report covers less than half the legislation inflicted upon this country each year. Moreover, it covers that less than half which at least Parliament has power to amend. Bills which are defective when introduced can at least be amended by this House in Committee or on Report, but more than half of the legislation inflicted by this House is delegated legislation, and Parliament has no power to amend a single word of that.

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  Some might think there was an even more pressing need to inquire into the preparation of legislation which is beyond the power of this House to amend. I say that in the belief that I am the only Member of this House in the last half century to have attempted twice to introduce Bills to give the House of Commons power under certain restricted circumstances to amend delegated legislation. Alas, neither of these Bills reached the statute book.
  It is dangerous to have legislation which cannot be debated. I mention that, and with a caveat. Those who are not inclined to read reports but to read only the summary of recommendations and conclusions at the end can fall into traps. I recognise the need for a last-minute corrective process, and if we read Recommendation (106) merely in the summary of recommendations and conclusions, few will dissent from it. However, the paragraphs from which it emanates propose that this remedy should be applied without debate.
  "The proposed amendments would be printed on the Order Paper with the requisite certificate, and Parliament would be given the opportunity to accept or reject them, taken together and not individually, without debate."
  What is the purpose of giving Parliament power to assent to or negative a resolution without giving power to those who are opposed to that assent to state the reason for their opposition?
  It might be said that this recommendation was intended to deal with very urgent matters and that it was not desired to consume the time of the House on such matters. There are precedents for dealing with this. If any one Member of this House objects to the proposition contained in a motion to introduce a Ten-Minute Rule Bill, he may state to the House the reasons for opposing that motion. If there are stronger reasons than are apparent to me why no debate should be allowed pursuant to Recommendation No. (106), I hope at least that we shall take the analogy of the Ten-Minute Rule Bill and allow one Member of the House to express, on behalf of himself and others who might agree with him, his reason for thinking that the sponsor's motion should not be accepted by the House, otherwise the consent of the
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  House is without debate. I think it could be said that without exception such motions would be carried. That illustrates also the importance of reading the Report itself rather than just the summary of conclusions at the end.
  Reading this Report in conjunction with the Kilbrandon Report, I feel that it appears to confine its considerations of the territorial applicability of legislation to questions differentiating between legislation for England, or for the United Kingdom, or for Scotland, or possibly for the United Kingdom and Ireland.
  I mention en passant that there is another class of legislation to which attention is drawn in Part XI of the Kilbrandon Report on the Constitution. That is legislation which applies to the islands which are not part of the United Kingdom. I refer to the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which, though not part of the United Kingdom, are legislated for by this Parliament often without intent, without realising that it has happened, and in a manner which is in breach of the 1957 undertaking given by the Government of the day. I make this point, again not in criticism of the Renton Report but to draw to the attention of those who may seek to implement it that certain matters have not been stated quite as fully as unlimited time would have permitted.
  I think that Recommendation No. (57) is a most admirable one—
  "The practice should be developed of making available for Committee stage debates in both Houses notes on clauses and similar additional explanatory material."
  This will, I think, ring a very loud bell in the ears of my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), because this very matter came up within the last few days on the Report stage of the Community Land Bill.
  I should be most grateful if my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire would tell us when he speaks—I am sure that we are all looking forward to hearing him—whether his Committee meant to confine to the Committee stage the recommendation that the explanatory memorandum should be provided, and whether the Committee had reasons for its not being available to the House as a whole on Report.
  Sir David Renton: I think that it was felt that, if these memoranda were provided for the Committee stage, they would serve a useful purpose, but that, by the time the Committee stage was passed, much of the material in the memoranda would have been overtaken by amendments accepted or to be accepted by the Government, that they would have to be completely rewritten for the Report stage, and that the effort would not be worth while. It would be a very great effort.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I am most grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend, but I suspect that if his Committee had sat after the passage of the Community Land Bill it might have come to a different conclusion. It would have been helpful if explanatory memoranda—rewritten, yes, because the amendments were so substantial—had been available to the House for the Report stage of that Bill.
  That is merely one example. If the amendments on Report were not substantial the work involved in preparing explanatory memoranda just for the Government amendments would not be great. But if the Government amendments for Report were considerable, in equal measure would there be a need for explanatory memoranda on them.
  Recommendation No. (50) states:
  "Where powers are conferred to amend Acts by Order in Council in order to facilitate consolidation, the exercise of the powers should be made subject to affirmative resolution, and no such resolution should be taken in the Commons until the relevant order had been reported by the Joint Committe on Statutory Instruments."
  Maybe, but it does not lie within the power of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments to comment on merit. Its function is to comment on whether the proposals are ultra vires or intra vires.
  I mention that because in the past two weeks I was present at a meeting where a Minister of the Crown, addressing fishermen in Devon on the new survey regulations, stated that they had been unanimously approved by an all-party Committee of the House. When I challenged him, he admitted that it was the Statutory Instruments Committee, and that it had no power to comment on the merit of the regulations.
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  I am not happy that a body outside this House, however eminent, should have power to legislate, even for consolidation, through such a procedure that the House has no power of amendment. I return again to my plea that we need to reintroduce a procedure, even if it should be tightly bounded, whereby the House can amend statutory instruments. Otherwise, if we increase the scope of delegated legislation we increase still further the danger of unforeseen consequences and of slipshod, incompetent or unskilled drafting, simply because it does not have ahead of it the test of amendment to sharpen the wits of the draftsmen.
  I know that it is always denied—it was denied before the Joint Committee on Delegated Legislation—but I have at the back of my mind the conviction that a draftsman will be much more careful if he knows that that which he drafts must be justified line by line, clause by clause, before a Standing Committee, and perhaps amended by the House, both in Committee and on Report, than if he knows that the Minister can come to the Box with crocodile tears streaming down his cheeks and say "It is not within my power to amend. The statutory instrument must be accepted or rejected in toto by the House. If you throw out the bath water, you throw out the baby with it." In 15 years I have heard that plea by Ministers of both parties for shoddily drafted statutory instruments.
  If we give to Ministers or outside bodies, however commendable in themselves, more power to circumvent the normal processes of legislation, which include the gauntlet of amendment, we do so at the risk of all the perils identified by the Renton Committee for legislation which is the minority of legislation which passes through this House and reaches statute form eventually.
  We do not at present—and the Renton Committee was right to say that we should not in future—give judicial effect to side notes in Bills or to statements made by Ministers at the Dispatch Box during our proceedings which purport to inform Members and presumably the public at large as to what a Bill means. Often we have had such statements from Ministers. As the courts rightly observe, it is for them to interpret the law, not

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  Ministers. I am glad that my right hon. and learned Friend's Committee did not fall into that enticing trap of recommending that explanatory statements made by Ministers in the House should be subject to judicial notice in interpreting legislation. That would be dangerous, all the more so because it is so alluring since the hypothesis could be made that, as the House legislated on the basis of the Minister's assurance, surely that is what the judges should enforce. The judges would then need to know what was in the Minister's mind at the time and what advice the Minister had been given about disaffection in his own majority.
  I have endeavoured to confine myself to what is in the Report. When, many years ahead I hope, my right hon. and learned Friend retires from this House, this Report will be one of his lasting memorials. It will be referred to in places of learning, in universities as well as in this House. I hope that it will not be the sort of memorial that becomes completely obscured with ivy—the fate of many memorials. Rather I hope that it will act as a fertiliser.
  I echo the words of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) who said that we were being swamped with legislation. Several Labour Members who should have known better referred to this House as a legislature. That is merely one of its functions. It has become the overwhelming and all-consuming function. But it is not what it is supposed to be. Among other things it is supposed to be a deliberative assembly. We are having little enough time to deliberate.
  This debate, in half a parliamentary day, may, whatever we would desire, be the last occasion when this valuable Report will be subject to proper debate and scrutiny. It may be that a Government programme of legislation will once more descend upon us, a programme of such intensity, complexity and duration that with the best will in the world most of the recommendations contained in this Report will pass into history, not because anyone wishes them ill but because no majority wishes them sufficiently well to see them carried out. My right hon. and learned Friend and his Committee deserve a better fate than that.
  9.48 p.m.
  Mr, J. M. Craigen: I could not agree more with the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) in that this is an extremely important subject. I share his pessimism that little may emerge from this evening's deliberations. It seemed earlier that the debate was made up largely of lawyers speaking to lawyers. As a layman I believe it important to emphasise that this subject deals with the tools we use to perform one of our important jobs. Much has been said about the volume of legislation passing through this House and the other place. The fact is that modern life demands more and more legislation. Parliaments have done no more and no less than respond to the demands of the people who elect Members of Parliament.
  One of the problems is that Members of Parliament increasingly face the difficulties of operating in a situation which has grown up, probably unnoticed, over a long period, but one which now demands all their skills as territorial representatives and all their energies and expertise as professionals on a wide variety of subjects. Members of Parliament will appreciate what I am talking about. I refer to the volume of legislation on a wide variety of subjects, which demands close study if a proper job is to be done. As a result of the limitations on time for debate and on the time of Members of Parliament it is becoming increasingly difficult to do justice to much of this legislation.
  This Report is thorough enough, though it deals with legislation in the existing framework. The hon. Member for Tiverton mentioned devolution when he referred to the Kilbrandon Report. There is uncertainty about the future framework in which we shall deal with the laws of Scotland, England, Wales and the United Kingdom. The Lord Advocate may well comment on some of the points made in paragraphs 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, and 12.5 of the Renton Report. Although some functions may be transferred to a Scottish Assembly, many items will still require special attention because of the differences between the Scottish and English legal systems. I noted with some concern the point made in the Report about legislation in British Departments in the paragraphs to which I referred.

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  It is surprising that there are no representatives present from the Scottish National Party as I should have thought that they would be taking a far greater interest in this matter.
  If there is uncertainty about the future legislative processes following the devolution arrangements, there is also uncertainty about the future framework of our parliamentary processes. Many Bills have been well cut and dried before reaching the Vote Office as a result of the considerable amount of discussion between Whitehall and the interested groups concerned, whether it be the TUC, the CBI or the various pressure groups now knocking at the doors of Parliament asking for legislation.
  One of the major problems involved in the preparation of legislation is the speed with which events move in our society. Perhaps this means that Parliament should be more concerned with the basic principles of the Bill rather than with the detailed intricacies. Circumstances change so quickly today that we can get so caught up in the trivia that we lose sight of the main objectives of a piece of legislation.
  I readily confess that this leaves us with the basic problem of who interprets all these intricacies once Parliament has decided the objectives. It might be the lawyers, it might be the civil servants. An aggrieved constituent might still feel it necessary to come back to Parliament to point out an anomaly which has arisen because of the interpretation of the Civil Service or the legal profession.
  Part of the problem is that we are in a period of vacuum. We are not clear how the problems concerning the institutional side of our parliamentary affairs will be resolved.
  The Lord Advocate (Mr. Ronald King Murray): My hon. Friend mentioned certain paragraphs in the Report dealing with some of the problems of Anglo-Scottish legislation—that is, legislation that applies both to Scotland and England—and he mentioned devolution in that connection. In my judgment, devolution may contribute to the solution of some of the problems dealt with by the Renton Committee, but it would be wrong to suggest that it may be the complete answer to the difficult problems raised by my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Craigen: I was not suggesting that it would be a complete answer. In mentioning those paragraphs in the Renton Committee's Report I was concerned that even in dealing with legislation which applied to Great Britain, problems of draftsmanship and the availability of professional assistance sometimes arose which were not always helpful to the Scottish dimension. We may not, I think, be able to do justice to this thorough Report because of the uncertainties of devolution but more particularly because of the uncertainties over the operation of the parliamentary system itself.
  9.58 p.m.
  Mr. Tim Rathbone: I rise with certain trepidation as one of the few hon. Members present who is neither tested by time in Parliament nor a learned or unlearned lawyer. I join my hon. and right hon. Friends in congratulating my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and his Committee on their Report, which is excellent both in content and in form. Form is an important aspect. In debating the process of law making, form is crucial, because it is through correct form that law will become effective in its application.
  I was a little concerned at the outset about what my unlearned ear interpreted as a somewhat superficial interjection by the Solicitor-General. I do not profess to be competent to judge the reference made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) to the need for scrubbers and scrapers. I shall dwell on one theme only which runs through the whole Report, that is, the theme of time. So many of the recommendations of the Report are drawn from the fact that time is of the essence, and this is one element which is inelastic.
  It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  Ordered,
  That the Motion relating to the Preparation of Legislation may be proceeded with at this day's sitting, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock.—[Mr. Thomas Cox.]
  Question again proposed.
  Mr. Rathbone: As I was saying, running throughout the Report seems to be the essential quality of time, which is inelastic in all our lives. Time is of the

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  essence in the grey areas where drafting instruments are given and where directions are established for turning policy into the draft Bill. The Report refers to the fact that time often inhibits the correct or best drafting of these Bills. Time is obviously of the essence in working out and then reviewing the considerable detail in Bills and the Report makes suggestions for relieving the law of some of these details.
  I believe that the First Parliamentary Counsel, in his evidence, struck it right. Time is of the essence in ensuring the best understanding of the law in applying to it the correct syntax, sentencing, paragraphing, titling and other details. Time is of the essence in the provision of sufficient and coherent explanatory detail which I, as a layman, more than welcome.
  Lastly, I believe that time is of the essence to ensure simplicity and clarity in drafting for the best consideration in this House, which it is presumably in the interests of the Government to have because it means that that discussion and consideration can be got through more quickly, and also to ensure simplicity and clarity for my hon. and learned Friends and others in applying the law.
  The Report has a myriad technical recommendations on which I do not pretend to be competent to touch. But two particularly caught my eye, and I want to make two or three comments which have not yet been made in the debate. I believe that the most excellent and most crucial recommendation is on the need to recruit sufficient suitable parliamentary draftsmen. Not only will this lead to better and speedier drafting for the Government but, as the Report mentions, it will lead to more generous drafting support for Private Members' Bills, an essential component of this House.
  I believe that the most intriguing recommendation is the extension of computerisation, the speed in printing of draft Bills and the speed in printing, presumably, amendments to those Bills, which are so often late and available only at the last minute for our consideration before we debate them.
  Surely crucial to the proper effect of all these recommendations is that this and future Governments have to be aware of
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  the need to lessen the legislative load. The Report points out that there are about 50 days in the Session for Government Bills and that in this Session alone we have had 79 Bills. I am not making a party political point but it is crucially important to the consideration of legislation in this Parliament that such a situation should not continue.
  The Prime Minister himself touched on this point when, in a letter, he told my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire:
  "…I would not wish in any way to weaken or appear to weaken the responsibility of parliamentary counsel to departmental ministers for the drafting of a public Bill and the minister's own responsibility to Parliament for the legislation which he introduces."
  There is in turn a responsibility of Parliament to the country, the ultimate user of the legislation, which we have to remember.
  With temerity, I would offer one suggestion which, if the Committee's terms of reference had been wider, it might have considered. That is, how all this fits in with the question of a Bill of Rights. Whether that is a Magna Carta or a Declaration of Rights or, as in the European Community, a Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, I am not particularly qualified to comment. With a Bill of Rights in existence, the quality of legislation and perhaps the delegated legislation as well, could be tested against a touchstone. Perhaps it might also lead to statements of general principle and facilitate the movement in that direction as recommended by the Committee, without jeopardising the rights of individuals or increasing the difficulties of legal interpretation.
  Wherever we get to in improving our preparation, interpretation and application of legislation, we shall get further more quickly if we heed this important, vitally positive anud constructive Report.
  10.7 p.m.
  Mr. Patrick Mayhew: From the days of Justinian, if not from the days of Caius, and in every legal system, ignorance of the law has excused no one. But such has been the failure of modern Parliaments to enact clear law that today everyone might be excused for being ignorant of the law.

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  It is customary in these circumstances, when we ruefully recognise this fact, to turn first upon the draftsmen when we are confronted with the incomprehensible or even, sometimes the unreadable. But the principal fault in recent times has lain not with the draftsmen but with Ministers of both parties who have insisted upon overloading the legislative system so that it can no longer properly perform its function.
  The primary responsibility lies in the fact that no Minister is personally responsible for the quality of legislation. If there were such a Minister, the statute book would look very different. To begin with, it would look much slimmer. The primary cause of the statutory monstrosities that Parliament from time to time spawns—particularly Finance Acts—is Ministers' determination to plug on with legislation even though the parliamentary time table will not permit it to be properly considered. In consequence, it is not even properly prepared.
  This has meant that diligent and experienced solicitors have to confess to their clients that they do not know what the law is, that they have not had time to catch up with changes. I am speaking not of arcane and exotic mysteries but of the ordinary everyday matters affecting the farm, the family and firm that form the substance of inquiries by solicitors' clients. If there were a Minister responsible for the preparation of statutes, they would be far easier to understand.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) said that part of the trouble lay in the matter of timing. Ministers in charge of Departments with a heavy—as they see it—departmental programme of legislation before them, do not have the time to give their minds to the quality of the legislation that they are bringing forward. If there were a Minister with the time and the specific responsibility to do just that, we would have many more examples of legislation that followed the shining example of the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957, which is a model of clarity and ordinary language. Many Members will recall the splendid example that appears in Section 2(3) of that Act which, seeking to define "common duty of care" says:
  "…so that (for example) in proper cases an occupier must be prepared for children to be less careful than adults…."
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  What could be more refreshingly simple and clear than that? It is no coincidence that there have been only two cases taken to appeal on the interpretation of that Act.
  At present in Standing Committee it is customary for a Minister, when confronted with complaints about the complexity of legislation, to blame the lawyers and to say, "You know what lawyers are. I am simply the Minister responsible for the Nationalisation of Bookmakers Bill." But a responsible Minister would have to acknowledge that they were his lawyers and that the thicket represented by legislation was his thicket. He would have to justify its, and his, continued existence. If I may adopt a parenthesis, which is the device used by many draftsmen, I wish to observe that lawyers comprise one-ninth of the total of hon. Members of this House, yet at this moment they comprise 75 per cent. of those present in the Chamber. Those who are not lawyers seem to be missing an opportunity tonight.
  With simpler and more comprehensible legislation, the saving in time, in solicitors' fees, in counsel's fees for consultation, in the costs incurred in obtaining the interpretation of the judges, would be enormous. But these are the benefits that would accrue only after legislation has been enacted. If the current chronic legislative diarrhoea can be staunched, a more important benefit will be gained here in this House. We would understand the full legislative consequences of what we are enacting. At present that is not the case, even if we are members of a Standing Committee charged with the detailed consideration of a Bill, because there is just not enough time to get on top of the task.
  I attach the highest importance to the Committee's recommendation in Chapter 18·34 calling for greater time to be allowed to elapse between the successive stages of the passage of a Bill through tie House. The Report stage of a Bill is one at which the whole House is supposed to receive, and to be able to consider properly, the report of what is merely its Committee. At present, the Report stage is merely an opportunity of which only the weary contestants who were members of the Committee are left to take advantage—and then only to rehearse their former arguments.

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  There is not enough time between Committee and Report for those coming fresh to the argument to master anything approaching the detail. This does not occur wholly by accident. The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) spoke rightly of the reservoir of experience and talent in this House, but I believe that Ministers fear that if it were tapped the carefully balanced compromises arrived at outside the House and the nicely-calculated stages of their timetable would be swept away. The conflict between a Government's purpose and the proper functioning of this Chamber is a long-lasting one, and at present it seems that it is nearly always resolved in favour of the Government. The recommendations in Chapter 18 of the Report would redress that.
  Less legislation; a Minister responsible for its preparation; greater intervals between its stages in Parliament; and simplicity and clarity of language—these are beacons which shine forth from this Report, to which I should like to add my respectful tribute to those which have already been heaped upon it. These beacons have been shining for five months now, since the Report was published. Because they call for a major change in governmental practice we are entitled to expect an expression of governmental reaction and intention. All that we have had is a polite noise from the Solicitor-General. We are about to have another polite noise—no doubt the same one—from the Lord Advocate. But where is the Lord President, who is responsible for bringing legislation forward in this House? In so far as the Prime Minister is the Minister responsible for legislation and for the quality of the legislation, where is the Prime Minister to come in? Why do we have only a Law Officer to open and conclude this debate, pleased though we always are to see both of them?
  I hope that the Government will realise that this rather offhand reception of a Report which is both a beacon and a landmark simply will not do, and that what is now required is evidence that the Government are prepared to take action on the recommendations of that Report.
  The Solicitor-General: Before the hon. Gentleman resumes his seat, may I ask him whether he is complaining that the
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  Government have not made up their minds in advance of the debate?
  Mr. Mayhew: Yes. I am complaining that the Government have not come forward with an assurance that they propose to take action upon many of the recommendations of the report which are self-evident in their desirability and rightness.
  10.17 p.m.
  Sir David Renton: I rise only briefly to thank the House for the welcome that it has given to this Report. Although in accordance with custom the Report bears the name of the Committee's chairman, I assure the House that this was a genuine team effort on the part of a very good team. Perhaps I can betray the secret that each member of the Committee, reading the Report, would be able to identify his own thoughts and phrases which he or she contributed.
  Except for two fairly minor matters, I am glad to say that we were unanimous in our conclusions and recommendations, and that perhaps strengthens the Report. It is a relief to me and, I am sure, to the rest of the Committee that our Report has been so widely welcomed in the House, because some of our recommendations mean, as I think hon. Members accept that they mean, that the House would have to abandon some of its cherished habitual practices.
  I should like to thank the Solicitor-General for his welcome. However rapidly it was given, I am sure that it was sincere. It offered the hope that the Government would give our proposals a fair wind if the House did so. The House has given the proposals a fair wind, so now it is up to the Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), speaking as Shadow Leader of the House, not only welcomed the more important of our proposals but did so in a superbly thoughtful speech.
  I realise that the Government will wish to consider our proposals and have time to consider them in the light of the discussion tonight. However, I should like to ask the Solicitor-General, or whoever is replying to the debate, when we are likely to be told the Government's decisions. Will he bear in mind that some slight changes in Standing Orders will have to be submitted to and approved by the House? The Solicitor-General mentioned

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  one which would be required under paragraph 10.13, in which we make a rather important recommendation—perhaps the most important. Meanwhile, will the Solicitor-General say to whom Questions should be addressed in the House about the form and drafting of Bills in general and about the implementation of our proposals? In the light of the Prime Minister's reply to my letter on the matters outside our terms of reference, presumably it will be the Prime Minister himself who will have the responsibility of answering, but the House would like to know. The position should be made clear.
  I am sure that the members of my Committee would wish me to thank First Parliamentary Counsel, Sir Anthony Stainton, for the help which he gave us. He was wonderfully forthcoming in telling us exactly how his office works and in all the information he gave. Needless to say, he had to be very clear about the stresses to which he and his learned colleagues are subject. He was admirably open minded in the matters that we discussed with him and on which we asked his opinions.
  In conclusion, if our laws are, as we find and as has been said again tonight, incomprehensible and chaotic, it brings the law into disrespect, and that brings Parliament into disrespect. We should take pride in the quality of our work as legislators, but it is clear that a vast amount of our work gives us no cause whatever for pride. Badly written laws are a disservice to the people themselves, because it causes them to suffer injustice, inconvenience and expense. It may sometimes also defeat the object of Parliament and lead to disorder and to flagrant violation of the laws.
  We have to improve the quality of our legislation, otherwise we weaken our parliamentary democracy. Our Committee's principal aim was to try to strengthen parliamentary democracy by suggesting to Parliament and the Government these many ways of improving our laws.
  I am deeply grateful for what has been said in this debate. Let us hope that it will lead to further steps forward in improving the quality of our legislation.
  10.22 p.m.
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence: It is a great honour to follow my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and I hope that no words of mine will dim the brightness of his words or dull the lustre of his message.
  The words
  "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"
  come readily to mind in this debate. It is a salutary reflection on the Trojan labours of the Renton Committee from 1973 to 1975 that this House should have said that this was a matter of urgency in 1856, but it is an even greater cause for regret when one recalls that one of our Kings said
  "I would wish that…the superfluous and tedious statutes were brought into one sum together,—and made more plain and short to the intent that men might better understand them;—which thing shall most help to advance the health of the Commonwealth."
  That was said by Edward VI in 1550.
  I, too, welcome this diligent and eminently readable Report because it brings several blasts of good sound common sense to the confused incomprehensible, gargantuan, turgid and seething mass of our statute book. There are three basic problems. The first is that we in Parliament who make the law must be given the time to make it properly, must be given the opportunity to discuss it, to analyse it and to see it tested against expert opinion, and on all of these the purpose of many of the recommendations of the Renton Committee dwells. But—I am merely repeating a theme that has been repeated time and again throughout the debate—the best way in which we can be provided with the time is for us to make much less legislation.
  The second problem is that those who have to administer the law must be able to administer it speedily. That means that they must be able to find it and to understand it. That means that computers must be more widely used, that amendments should be more sensibly introduced, and that consolidation must be accelerated with more parliamentary draftsmen. All of these are recommendations of the Renton Committee. It also means that the administrators of the law should have less law to plough through.

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  The third problem is that the people who are governed by die law must be able to understand it, for only from understanding can come respect, and from respect can come the voluntary submission to the rule of law without which our system of parliamentary democracy would be but a sad illusion.
  To this problem also the remedy is at least partly a reduction in the volume of legislation. But when the miracle occurs and these three problems are solved, and the wand of the good Renton fairy touches the turgid, seething mass of our statute book and puts most of it to rights will the transference then be permanent?
  On this the Renton Report makes a strange recommendation. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), with his usual wit and charm, has observed, the proposal for breathing new life into the Statute Law Committee may be more difficult than is allowed. To quote the opinion of one of our most distinguished former parliamentary draftsmen, Mr. Francis Bennion,
  "They"—
  the Committee—
  "prefer to load further duties on the Statute Law Committee, an august body that meets once a year and consists of people whose job it is to do something else. The Statute Law Committee have been responsible for our statute law for over 100 years. They are therefore responsible for the deplorable stale it is in. To load further duties on a body that has so emphatically demonstrated its incompetence is no sort of solution."
  I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen will not read into that any personal criticism of the no doubt vital function which he and that Committee performs. Mr. Bennion's own recommendation is for a new Statute
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  Law Commission which would, as he says,
  "consolidate sets of statutes dealing with one subject into single Acts, compile indexes, supervise subordinate legislation and local Acts, provide a drafting service for Members of Parliament and set up a training scheme for draftsmen."
  The Renton Committee rejects this solution, doubtless for good and thorough reasons, and, as a mere beginner in the field of legislation, I would not presume to judge between the opinions of the eminent and the most distinguished.
  I make only this point. The continuing supervision of legislation in the future will indeed be a very great problem. It will be a problem that must be solved with farsightedness and good sense. We must consider at least the possibility, as the Renton Committee could not do by its terms of reference, of a Law Officer whose sole responsibility should be the continuing supervision of the statute book, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) has said.
  The pre-eminent feature of such a Minister would be that he would be subject to the relentless activating criticism and questioning of this House. Only if such a one were to come into our midst would we stand a reasonable chance of getting some action upon these proposals which the Government are so fairly considering.
  If we do not watch beyond the day of the miracle touch of the Renton wand, we shall still be debating the reform of the statute book in 2075, and yet again an hon. Member, perhaps the then hon. Member for Burton, will have to rise to his feet and say:
  "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
  10.29 p.m.
  Mr. Graham Page: As there is still some time left to this debate, may I intervene by way of repetition, although not tedious repetition, by congratulating my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and his Committee on this Report which has been given to us to debate.
  The main theme of the debate has obviously been that we should try to make our legislation more simple and clear, and therefore that we should legislate on principle and purpose rather than in detail. If we are to do that, if that is the intention and the House accepts that legislation shall in future be brief and in principle, we must get the balance right between certainty and clarity. Otherwise, if we sacrifice certainty, we shall either give great power of interpretation to the courts or give great power of subordinate legislation to Ministers.
  As regards the courts, it would be very nice if we could adopt principles of the sort followed by the great common law judges in their judgments, laying down principles as precedents and saying "This is the principle of the law: let the courts further interpret it". That might be right, but what I fear as an outcome from it is that, if we go too far without having the balance right, we shall merely transfer the debate on the law elsewhere, transferring legislation from this House to litigation in the courts. We shall be asking the citizen to decide the law at his expense in the courts instead of protecting him against doubt as to the law. I recognise that it has been said many times in the debate that our effort to make the law more certain has in many cases made it more uncertain, and that is why I say that we must try to achieve the right balance.
  I come next to what I mean when I say that by legislating in broad principle, using the broad brush, we may well give Ministers and the executive too great power and freedom to legislate. I can illustrate the point by using the example which has already been used—the Community Land Bill. There was an effort in the drafting of that Bill to legislate in principle. Naturally, the Opposition, myself included, objected strongly, insisting on knowing what the legislation would
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  be. We wanted to know in the Bill itself what it would be. We were told that the Minister wanted to be flexible, that he wanted to legislate by statutory instrument for the details of the scheme. But, as all Oppositions will, we tried to insist that every detail of it should be put in the Bill.
  It may well be, therefore, that if we try to legislate in broad principle, we shall only succeed in pushing the legislation further down the scale into subordinate legislation. Unfortunately, my right hon. and learned Friend's Committee did not have an opportunity to look at the statutory instruments procedure.
  Sir David Renton: I think that my right hon. Friend may be overlooking yet another possibility—he has not mentioned it yet—which is recommended in paragraph 10.13 of our Report, that we should have the statements of principle in the clauses, when they have to be set out, and where detailed guidance or matters have to be spelled out, have that in the schedules. We felt that that would make for greater clarity without sacrificing the certainty which my right hon. Friend wants.
  Mr. Page: I had not overlooked that. But I think that what will normally happen is that it will not be put in the schedules but be left to subordinate legislation. The Minister will be given powers to legislate by order. Unless we improve our procedure for examining subordinate legislation, I fear that we may fall into a trap.
  Mr. Peyton: I hope that my right hon. Friend will be careful lest his intelligent and sensible words offer opportunities to those less well intentioned, to wicked men quite different from himself. I hope that he will make clear that nothing he is now saying should be taken as conveying for a moment that the first edition of the Community Land Bill was in any way clear.
  Mr. Page: Certainly not. What I said was that there had been an effort to legislate in principle rather than in detail. I did not say the effort was successful.
  If it is true that we must leave much more of our legislation to statutory instruments in order to achieve a broad brush in our statute law, there should be an

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  examination of the proposed instruments in the Standing Committee considering the Bill. The instruments which a Minister proposes to make have frequently already been drafted while the Bill is going through the House. The Standing Committee should be kept in existence for, say, six months after a Bill has become law in order to consider any statutory instruments brought into operation. This would relieve our statute law of a great amount of detail.
  Why does every Bill have to die upon Prorogation? In the past few weeks, we have seen Bills rushed through just because they must be passed before Prorogation. Surely we can change our Standing Orders so that we can spread out our consideration of Bills.
  The appointment of more parliamentary draftsmen to assist in the consolidation of our laws is one of the most advantageous acts any Government could perform. Consolidation is not exciting work. For several years, I took part in late night debates on consolidation Bills—in which it is very difficult to keep in order—and there was usually only a Minister and myself in the Chamber. I always thought it dull work, but one night someone leapt to his feet in the Public Gallery and shouted, "You bastard.". I apologise for the unparliamentary language. He jumped over the rail and a body came hurtling down on to the Floor of the House. I thought at the time that if I could raise that sort of emotion on a subject like consolidation, what could I do on something else?
  10.38 p.m.
  Sir Michael Havers: I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and offer my person admiration on what is a remarkable Report, not least for its clarity. I regret the low attendance for a debate which is of importance to every hon. Member. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) said, the results of what we do in legislation are either to our credit or to our shame. It is to be regretted that we have such a small turnout and that so few laymen have spoken. Those who say the lawyers have swamped it because they have hogged it should know that there has been no non-lawyer who has sought
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  to catch Mr. Speaker's eye who has not been called.
  Mr. George: I am not a lawyer.
  Mr. Peyton: The hon. Member should listen to what my hon. and learned Friend says.
  Sir M. Havers: I thought that I had made my point clear. I am sorry that I was not speaking in a lecturer's tone.
  It is sad that there is only one Government back bencher present for the wind-up speeches. The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), in the course of the lecture he delivered, appeared to have no time for the Report until he was called to order by the Chair. He seems to have developed an antipathy for the judiciary. As I am sure the Solicitor-General will confirm, the hon. Member's phrase about the Government dominating legislation and, in some aspects, having a great influence over the judiciary is totally wrong and absolutely false.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) spoke, as have so many hon. Members, of overloading the machine, and he pointed to something I had not thought of before which is clearly right—the use of the statute book on occasions for propaganda purposes. That is something over which every hon. Member should keep a close eye with a Government of any complexion.
  My hon. and learned Friend spoke fondly of the Statute Law Committee—more fondly than did my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) who referred to it in terms which make me as a very new member, who has not attended a meeting, slightly worried about what will happen when I get there.
  The hon. and learned Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Weitzman) made a clear and valuable contribution to the debate and spoke of the need for the law to be in language the layman could understand, a plea which was echoed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees). The hon. and learned Member should have paid great attention to my hon. and learned Friend. However hard one tried with the Finance Bill it would be quite impossible to put it into language which the layman could understand, not only in respect of the clarity

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  of the language but in respect of the Government's intention in seeking to close loopholes left by earlier Acts.
  The hon. and learned Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said that there was too much legislation in too short a time, that this imposed a heavy burden on draftsmen, that there were unsatisfactory draftsmen, and that Bills prepared by the Opposition should have the benefit of expert advice. He said that he was a strong believer in gradualism, and I hope that tomorrow he will be waiting on the Prime Minister's doorstep to tell him as strongly as he told us about this matter. The hon. and learned Member made a useful contribution to the debate, particularly in his warning of the danger of the Government treating the debate more as an academic exercise than as an intention to act upon it.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover and Deal said that taxing statutes should be consolidated in one measure. I wonder how many pages such a measure would fill, and what the task of drafting that measure would be. I believe that it could be done, and I suspect that a great deal of pruning could take place in the process of putting it all into one volume. That would be a solution of immense value to all those who have to advise on tax matters. My hon. and learned Friend made the very good point that one must look deeper, that the Renton Committee had not been allowed to look at the pre-legislative process, and spoke of the obsession with secrecy.
  It has been suggested by a number of people, including one or two right hon. and hon. Members, that we should give consideration to the publication of draft Bills for comment before Bills are finally published. There may be something to be said for this. It might get round the problem that the Renton Committee considered—and then dismissed—about a sort of First Reading debate.
  The obsession with secrecy is curious, because it applies to Members of this House, not to the bodies whom the Government are always prepared to consult and to whom they tell what is in a proposed Bill. They are given third and fourth prints sometimes of a Bill, while we know nothing about it except what comes by the back door and by way of whispers, rumours and Press leaks.
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  We could get away from this altogether if a draft Bill were published. There would be circumstances in which the action following a Bill would be such that it could not be published in advance, but many Bills do not have that drawback, and the draft could well be published in advance so that people could comment.
  I sympathise and agree with the comment of my hon. and learned Friend about the determination of every Government always to cover every possible detail in a Bill. Mr. Justice Byrne, a great judge who had been senior Treasury counsel at the Old Bailey for years—one of the few holding that office to be made a High Court judge—always advised those preparing indictments, "Do not have an indictment containing 10, 12 or 20 counts. Do not go round looking for all the holes you can find to stop up. Make up your mind which crime or crimes the man has committed, and charge him with those. If he is convicted, you have done your job. If he is not, good luck to him."
  With some of the indictments at the Old Bailey, and with some of the Bills going through this House, one can almost see people looking for every possible hole in order to stop it up. The result is that the legislation becomes completely top-heavy and far more complicated than it ever need be.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) spoke of a matter that he considered of great importance—and I agree with him—in No. (19) of the summary of recommendations: the convenience of the ultimate user. He spoke also of ministerial responsibility for the quality of legislation, and referred to the exchange of letters between my right hon. and learned Friend and the Prime Minister, in which the Prime Minister spoke of law Ministers still having the responsibility for the supervision of legislation.
  I simply do not understand it. It may be that my successor, who will be winding up the debate, is in a luckier position than I was when I held his office. It is absolutely impossible for any Law Officer to look at legislation across the board, to look at every clause of every Bill. I doubt whether there is a single Member in the House tonight, lawyer or otherwise, who can put his hand on his heart and

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  say that he has examined with care anything like one in five of all the Bills that have gone through this House within the last 12 months—certainly not to look at every line of every clause. I do not believe that any Law Officer or pair of Law Officers would be able to do it.
  Certainly they would look at matters which involved the liberty of the subject, at matters which might involve a degree of retrospection, or improper use of a power by a Minister, or a provision that appeared to be contrary to natural justice, but they would not be able to make recommendations as to brevity and clarity in every clause of every Bill to be considered by this House.
  I will not say that the Prime Minister was being far from frank but I think he was a little over-optimistic about the influence exercised at the moment upon the general quality of legislation going through this House by what he calls—though I do not know of any such office in our present administration—the Law Ministers.
  The House must be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), who drew attention to the fact that delegated legislation is in bulk greater than statutes. Having become a member of the Committee concerned, which receives as much contempt as praise from the House, I have been sent recently the volumes dealing with statutory instruments for the last quarter of, I think, 1973. There are four volumes dealing with three months. It is true that, one, the bulkiest of all, is entirely taken up by various Customs and Excise regulations and orders.
  If such regulations, which must be purchased at ever-increasing expense, are to achieve anything they must be mastered by somebody. We are imposing an intolerable burden upon all professional people who are expected to keep up with what is going on. Solicitors are now frank enough to tell their clients that they cannot keep up. That is not their fault but ours. We churn the stuff out at such a rate that it is impossible for any professional man such as a small country solicitor, who is not a specialist and who has to speak across the board and help people with all the various problems that
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  they have, to master it all. He perhaps has just one partner.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) said that time was of the essence, and emphasised the need to have enough parliamentary counsel. He spoke of what I thought was the original proposal in the Report to use computers to make legislation more efficient. I am sure that it could be done. If the United States can put the whole of its law reports effectively into computers, as it apparently has done, we certainly should be able to put all our statutes into computers equally efficiently.
  My. hon. Friend also spoke of the link between the debate and the increasing discussion about a Bill of Rights, saying that such a Bill would improve the quality of legislation. The Bill of Rights is a subject in which I have become increasingly interested. This is a spin-off that I had not considered, but I see the value for the quality of legislation.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells has told us that we do not understand the consequences of what we are doing. It is because we cannot master it. We cannot all see what is going on. The bulk of the legislation is so great that we cannot keep in line with it. My hon. and learned Friend and I came across an example a comparatively short time ago. After a Division, for which there had been a three-line Whip, I was about to leave when my hon. and learned Friend drew my attention to the fact that a Church measure was to follow. He had done what I had not, and what I suspect very few lawyers in the House had done. He had read it, and he had found in it provisions which stared out at anybody who looked at it as being, at least on the face of them, contrary to the principles of natural justice.
  A number of my hon. and learned Friends who are present tonight stayed behind. We asked the Second Church Estates Commissioner to have the sense to take the measure back to the General Synod of the Church of England to reconsider it. He decided that he would not, and we then made certain that that measure did not go through.
  The moral of that is that none of us, except my hon. and learned Friend, had seen the measure or read it with the care

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  that it deserved. I suspect that the Law Officers had not seen it either. I am certain that if they had the learned Solicitor-General would have taken the same view as I took.
  There are a number of recommendations in the summary to which I pay particular attention. They are all important. The fact that I single out some of them does not mean that I consider them to be more important than others. They are the ones which especially attracted me. Advice on draft Bills being sought from specialists in the relevant branch of the law is one such example. I was particularly impressed by the suggestion that the Law Commission's drafting strength should be restored and further increased as soon as possible. There was also the recommendation to the effect that the use of statements of principle should be encouraged and that the statute should be arranged to suit the convenience of its ultimate user.
  There were also criticisms of legislation by reference, which I have always found an unattractive way of working unless it can be absolutely clear. It is wrong that the users of what we produce should have to pick up one Act and start tracing backwards through the statutes to find out what we mean in 1975. I will not weary the House with the other matters. What we can say is that it is useless to have proposals of this sort unless the flood of new legislation is slowed down. There were 1,500 pages of it a year in the late 1960s and there are over 2,000 pages of it now, without taking into account statutory instruments. This flood not only erodes the quality of the legislation, but ultimately in many cases, I suspect, washes the quality completely away.
  May I seek an assurance from the Solicitor-General—I know that it is one which he will be able to give us—that when the Government are considering these recommendations there will be no intention to increase legislation by enabling Bills and the use of statutory instruments? That is a process which is even more dangerous than our present system. I hope that the Government will show more enthusiasm than was shown during the course of the Solicitor-General's opening speech. It may well be that the speed at which the hon. and learned Gentleman went was not meant to
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  indicate any lack of enthusiasm. Unfortunately that was the impression I received.
  10.57 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General: This has been a good debate. I find myself in agreement with the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) that it deserved a better attendance. Certainly it offered an opportunity for some hon. Members to beat the Government. That must have been irresistible, and I do not complain about that. It was perhaps less than generous of certain Conservative Members to suggest that there was any lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Government over the Report. Quite what I could have done to emphasise our enthusiasm more than I did I find it difficult to understand.
  Obviously I could have come here with the Government's mind already made up on all the important issues. We would have been criticised for that. Many of the suggestions made tonight assist in meeting the objective we all share. They have attempted to face the problems facing all Governments. I hope that I shall be forgiven if I do not comment on all the suggestions made. Certainly they will all be given due consideration.
  The theme which has been repeated perhaps most frequently during the debate is that found in paragraph 7.2 of the Report dealing with the weight of the legislative programme. No one is more conscious than Ministers of the Crown of the heavy load of legislation with which the House has been confronted—nor, indeed, of many of the consequences.
  The hon. and learned Members for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) and Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) argued from this that the answer to many of the problems was a reduction in the load of legislation. I am not sure that that follows. I take on board what is said in the Report about the consequences of the load. But if there is a good reason for introducing a number of statutes, we do not solve any problem by pointing to the difficulties to which they give rise. Whether we think some or all of them are desirable depends on our view of the policy they implement. This is not wholly a party matter but something obviously turns upon which party is in Government. There was a period when those of us on

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  the Labour benches would willingly have dispensed with the Industrial Relations Act and the Housing Finance Act. But as my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North—
  Mr. George: In the course of the evening I have been admonished by Mr. Deputy Speaker for being too long, by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Weitzman) for being philosophical and irrelevant, and in my absence I have been accused of being a Marxist. I accept all that, but being called the "Member for Walsall, North" is too much.
  The Solicitor-General: As a close neighbour of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) I can only grovel, but I was on his side on this point. Perhaps he will forgive me a measure of calumny. As he and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Mary-hill (Mr. Craigen) said, it is not self-evident that a decrease in the bulk of legislation is desirable, and certainly it does not follow that that would be equivalent to greater freedom. Legislation may be intended to remedy what are already inhibitions on freedom.
  The Committee recognised in Chapter VII that the pressures at present towards a greater bulk of legislation are very real and recognisable. A party which is in government and does not fulfil its election promises gives rise to criticism in that respect. This is where a Government just cannot win.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Weitzman) suggested as a possibility that Opposition parties should come to office with draft legislation already prepared. Obviously, every Opposition consider what they would do if in government, but I find some reservations with the suggestion that one could present the parliamentary draftsmen with a half-drafted Bill. I am not sure that that would be the answer.
  Certainly the Government have not overlooked the strains which are imposed upon us by trying to do too much, and the point made by the Committee is obviously taken. One possible solution came from the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). I, too, cannot understand why Bills automatically have to die
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  at Prorogation, and that is certainly a question I shall invite those concerned to answer.
  The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) pointed to the bulk of delegated legislation and gave the startling statistic that it constitutes more than half of our total legislation. There are a number of possibilities about what one could do about it. One possibility is to reduce the amount of delegated legislation by simply not dealing with the subjects. That again depends on one's view of policy. Another suggestion which would go some way towards solving the problem came from the right hon. Member for Crosby, who said that the Statutory Instruments Committee might be invited to consider the merits of certain of these instruments. That is a matter which ought to be considered, and I give an undertaking that what has been said about it will be carefully considered.
  On the question of aids to understanding, the hon. and learned Member for Darwen made a proper protest about the habit which all Governments sometimes have tended to adopt of either beginning their legislation with, or including in it, something which is not intended to have legislative effect but is merely there as a crusading declaration of intent. He pointed to certain examples from nationalisation statutes. To show that we are all impartial, I am sure that he will forgive me if I quote:
  "The provisions of this Act shall have effect for the purposes of promoting good industrial relations in accordance with the following general principles"
  The first principle is:
  "the principle of collective bargaining freely conducted on behalf of workers and employers and with due regard to the general interests of the community."
  No doubt he will recognise that quotation. It is from the Industrial Relations Act 1971. But, having balanced the examples, I fully take the point and go along with him.
  Mr. Peter Rees: Would not the hon. and learned Gentleman consider that what followed was to be construed in the light of that general declaration? Perhaps he is not being entirely fair to that Act, which of course he looks at with the slightly coloured eyes of the partisan.
  The Solicitor-General: The hon. and learned Member for Darwen gave similar

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  examples from legislation of which no doubt he disapproved. I was giving a counter-example. It can be argued that declarations of this kind have some legislative effect. Broadly speaking, if all that is intended is a crusading declaration, I think I am on the side of the hon. and learned Member for Darwen, but obviously this is a matter which should be considered carefully.
  The hon. and learned Member for Dover and Deal, with an expertise which we all recognise on fiscal matters, referred to the capital transfer tax and the way in which it was drafted. Perhaps one should not spend too long on this point, which is not wholly in the mainstream of the debate. The CTT was replacing the estate duty tax, a duty based principally on death. Those responsible for the draftsmanship thought it appropriate to introduce a new framework. But certainly, as the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon said, most of us would agree that there are peculiar problems in the realm of tax legislation, and certainly we find particular difficulties there in reconciling the various objectives of legislation.
  I come now to another vexed question—ministerial responsibility. The suggestion, as I understood it, was that there should be one Minister responsible for the quality of the statute book. Those of us who have such a responsibility might welcome anything which would to some extent lighten our burden and strengthen our arm, but I am not sure what function such a Minister would have in actually producing less legislation.
  If the suggestion is that he would approach in turn all of his ministerial colleagues who are responsible for policy and try to persuade each of them to reduce the number of policies he proposed to implement, I am not sure that government could work in that way and that the effect hoped for would be gained.
  Mr. Percival: One way in which it might work is that the Minister responsible for the quality of legislation might be in a position to make a Department take back a piece of legislation which really was bad and not bring it forward again until it had it in comprehensible language. This would reduce the burden or at least the task of the House.
  The Solicitor-General: That is a different matter, and I was coming to it. Certainly there should be someone who should scrutinise legislation for the purpose of saying, if necessary, "This is not very well prepared and perhaps should be looked at again". The hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon, with his experience of office, will know the way in which these matters work in government It is a complex and delicate series of relationships. The departmental Minister who introduces a piece of legislation must obviously accept responsibility to the House for it. It would be an impossible situation if that responsibility were shared. If the House has any criticism of the quality of draftsmanship it should be directed at the departmental Minister who presents the Bill.
  But there is also a responsibility on Law Ministers, who attend the Committees where these matters are considered, who consider the legislation itself and who are at the apex of the pyramid of which the parliamentary draftsmen form part. They certainly have a responsibility. I accept that they cannot possibly scrutinise every piece of legislation which is ever directed to the statute book, but nor could any other Minister. That, as I understand it, was not the purport of the Committee's recommendation. What was suggested was that there should be a Minister who, when the appropriate officials direct attention to a drafting problem or when such a problem emerges in the course of consideration, should have the responsibility and the power to direct the attention of his ministerial colleagues to it. That is a function of the Law Ministers, who for this purpose include the Lord Chancellor, who is a member of the Cabinet.
  Mr. Mayhew: Would not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that nothing should ever be done or said to diminish the special position in relation to the Government and to the House of Commons occupied by the Law Officers? Does not the introduction of this term "Law Ministers" serve to diminish that special position?
  The Solicitor-General: No, I do not think it does. It was simply intended as a term to include the Law Officers and the Lord Chancellor, but if the hon. and learned Gentleman wants me to say "Law

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  Officers and Lord Chancellor" wherever the phrase occurs in my speech, of course I will do it.
  Sir David Renton: This is an important matter which needs to be clarified, bearing in mind what the Prime Minister said in his letter to me of 11th September, which has been published:
  "My conclusion is that no change in the existing Ministerial arrangements is called for."
  We had no evidence that the Lord Chancellor had a general responsibility. Indeed, in my letter to the Prime Minister I said that all except two of us felt that the Lord Chancellor should have a general responsibility placed upon him. The letter goes on:
  "This general responsibility is already clearly placed on the Law Ministers, subject of course to the collective responsibility of Ministers generally, with the Lord Chancellor a Member of the Cabinet."
  My reading, and others' reading, of that was that "Law Ministers" was an alternative description of the Law Officers and was not intended to include the Lord Chancellor, but as the hon. and learned Gentleman has now said that it does include the Lord Chancellor, that places a different and important interpretation upon the Prime Minister's letter to me.
  The Solicitor-General: Certainly that is my understanding, that there would be consultation on any point where it was required between the Law Officers and the Lord Chancellor.
  I was asked to whom questions relating to these matters should be addressed. Since the Lord Chancellor is not in this House, they should be directed to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General in relation to drafting matters. In relation to supervision of the parliamentary draftsmen they should be directed to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
  Sir David Renton: In relation to the implementation of the recommendations in the Report, if and when the Government accept them, to whom would the questions then be directed?
  The Solicitor-General: I can only repeat that in so far as they relate to drafting matters they will go to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, and in so far as they relate to
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  matters affecting the draftsmen they will go to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful.
  The right hon. Member for Crosby pointed out what I thought was the central theme of the problems with which we are dealing tonight—namely, that we have to draw a balance between the many interests to be served by legislation and, in the process, to strike a balance between broad declarations of principle and that certainty for which the courts and the legal profession have traditionally asked. I thought that that was the point my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South was making in the comment for which he was criticised. I did not interpret what he said as meaning that judges were subject to some kind of improper pressure from Government and would submit to such pressure if it were applied but that the detailed content of legislation imposes a kind of constraint on the judiciary. Of course, we accept that because it is the existing system.
  Mr. George: Perhaps I may try to set the record straight. What I said was descriptively correct. The fact is that there are Law Officers who are politicians, and the Lord Chancellor is a politician holding a position at the apex of the Cabinet and the judicial system. That strikes me as constituting influence by the political on the judicial. That is not to suggest that any secret deals are being made between Ministers and judges. That is not the case. My analysis was not, as some suggested, a Marxist analysis. It was a gentle admonition of the way in which our political system operates with the linkage between the Cabinet, the judiciary and the legislature.
  The Solicitor-General: I thought that I had misunderstood my hon. Friend, but if he is suggesting that the judiciary is subject to political pressure by reason of the position of the Lord Chancellor, I can only say that that is not the case.
  The right hon. Member for Crosby mentioned the need for lawyers to advise their clients clearly as to the likely outcome of litigation before they had incurred heavy costs. That appears to indicate a fair amount of detail in our legislation and a high degree of predictability. Against that, one has to balance other

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  considerations mentioned by the Committee. The hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) mentioned the impact of a Bill of Rights. It is probably true that we shall all have to learn to interpret a new kind of legislation with a different texture, because both parties are pursuing studies on this matter and because the courts are now constrained to look at EEC legislation. For both reasons we shall all have to learn different techniques of statutory interpretation.
  Most of the matters discussed in this debate are not party issues. Most of the contributions did not seek to make party points. I was sorry that a number of contributions sought to reflect on the sincerity of the Government's commitment. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), who unhappily is not with us at the moment, apparently found no complaint in the content of what I said, but accused me of galloping through my speech. That was an allegation dutifully echoed by the hon. and learned Member for Southport. We have learned better than to expect a more generous reaction from the right hon. Member for Yeovil, and one cannot accuse him of over-conciseness in most of his remarks. If his complaint was simply one of style, I apologise to those who may find my style offensive. But if the complaint was that I did not present the House with a complete package of all the Government's conclusions on the recommendations of the Committee, it appears that this is a matter on which the Government cannot win. If the Government, in advance of the debate, had tonight said, "We have made up our minds about these matters", that, too, would have been the subject of criticism.
  Mr. Percival: In accusing others of being less than generous the hon. and learned Gentleman is being less than generous himself. He referred to me "dutifully echoing" an allegation. He ought to know me better and to know that I do not echo allegations, dutifully or otherwise. They may be right or wrong. Perhaps I may try to respond to what he is saying. I hope that he will deal with the point. His present speech is a much better speech than that which he made at the beginning of the debate. Now he is seeking to argue various points, whereas the first speech did not seem to contain much. Several
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  of my hon. Friends felt that. It did not indicate much thought about this point. This is a much better and more useful speech.
  What I was saying was that the Prime Minister's letter was saying that there is a clear ministerial responsibility already. If that is so, it is something which has escaped all of us so far. That is where the hon. and learned Gentleman was complacent, and that is why I commented on that point adversely. I was saying to the hon. and learned Gentleman that his first speech did not seem to add anything to that. I hope now that he will be more generous and forthcoming. He is—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke for 20 minutes earlier, and this is a very long intervention.
  The Solicitor-General: If I were guilty of galloping through my speech, I am certainly prepared to echo what I said a moment ago. No one could accuse the hon. and learned Gentleman of galloping through that intervention.
  However, I repeat that this is something on which the Government cannot win. First, if I had presented the House earlier this evening with a long and a detailed speech, I would have been subject to the comments, which are often very properly made, that the Front Benches take up too much time. I was conscious that I was hoping, with permission, to speak twice tonight. But certainly I have not attempted to present the House with the Government's conclusions on this matter because this debate was precisely what the Government were waiting for.
  Perhaps I may say that some of us are as concerned as right hon. and hon. Members of the Opposition about these matters. We have been thinking about them for just as long. We said the same things when in Opposition. We have read the Report of the Committee just as assiduously, and we are as grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) as are the Opposition. We are just as determined to do what we can to improve the quality of the statute book.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington asked me to repeat the assurance that the Governmnt were taking this matter seriously and that what was

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  said tonight would result expeditiously in whatever action the Government genuinely think appropriate. I repeat that assurance without qualification. What has been said tonight will play a very important part in that consideration.
  Sir Michael Havers: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman deal with the question of there being no intention in the Government's mind to make greater use of enabling legislation? I am sure that he can deal with that point.
  The Solicitor-General: The hon. and learned Gentleman asked me that question previously, and I am sorry to have omitted an answer to it. All that I can say about that is that we on the Government side of the House are as critical in general of enabling legislation as are right hon. and hon. Members of the Opposition. But just as on occasion they found it necessary to make use of it, I cannot give a blanket undertaking that it will never be used. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will understand that.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House takes note of the Report of the Renton Committee on the Preparation of Legislation (Command Paper No. 6053).

  PREPARATION OF LEGISLATION
    Adjournment
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dormand.]

  M4 (CARDIFF)
  11.24 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Roberts: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the question of the proposed access from the M4 into Cardiff.
  The present proposal is for one and a half interchanges—that is, one full interchange which will take eastbound and westbound traffic at Coryton, and what I think can only be described as a half interchange at Pentwyn for eastbound traffic. I believe that these proposals are inadequate to meet the needs of the population of South-East Glamorgan, which is approximately half a million.
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  The inadequate provision of interchanges will damage the economy of the city, will put in jeopardy the transportation policy of the county and the city, and will prove an environmental disaster for the people of North-West Cardiff.
  I draw the attention of the House to the motorway interchange provision in other areas. For instance, in Bristol there will be three interchanges from the M5, or one per 127,000 of population. In the Preston and Blackpool area there are five junctions, one for every 106,000. In Slough and Windsor there are three junctions, one for every 50,000. In Southampton six interchanges are proposed for the M27, one for every 50,000.
  This should come as no surprise to the Welsh Office. Indeed, I am confident that the Under-Secretary will have these figures in his brief. This is the cause of my major complaint because all this and more was pointed out at the inquiry. The Under-Secretary need take no credit from the fact that all these statistics are in his brief. I gave many of them in my evidence to the inspector at the inquiry. My complaint is that the Welsh Office has not taken sufficient notice of these important facts relating to Cardiff.
  Coming much nearer home from Preston, Blackpool and Southampton, there are five interchanges in our neighbouring town of Newport, one for every 27,000. At Newport some of the local traffic uses the M4. Let no one suggest that this might be a cause of accidents, as some of the theorists have suggested in terms of motorway transportation, because an accident study established by the Welsh Road Safety Unit showed that accidents on that section of the M4 adjacent to Newport were lower than the national average for motorways.
  No one can dispute that Cardiff needs better access to the M4 than is now proposed, for three reasons. For many years South-East Glamorgan has been short of industrial jobs. This has been recognised and the area has been accorded development area status. The M4 has rightly been regarded as the artery serving the South Wales economy. If Cardiff and South-East Glamorgan are denied easy access to that artery, the economy of the area will suffer, there will be fewer jobs and the capital city will not be the stimulating growth area and growth centre essential for the general economic health of south Wales.

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  So on economic grounds we need more access to the M4.
  The transportation policy of the South Glamorgan Council has been thought out and developed in full accordance with Government policy. It has been to minimise expenditure and to rely far more on public transport. No major highway construction is planned in Cardiff. But to assist the essential traffic flow to the main centres of employment and commerce, proposals have been developed for a box of primary highways, the northern section of which would be the M4. It is absolutely essential for a transportation policy for Cardiff for each section of the city to have its own access from the primary road system.
  I remind the Under-Secretary that there was considerable political opposition to the proposal to establish a hook road into Cardiff. That proposal for a great urban motorway from the M4 right into the centre of Cardiff would have solved all the problems of transportation and of access. But that was rejected politically by the Under-Secretary's own political party, and rejected eventually by the electors in the city of Cardiff in the by-election for a city seat, if not in the General Election of 1970.
  Thirdly, the environment of the city will be disastrously damaged by the present proposals. The interchange at Coryton will act as a magnet. From all parts of the city, traffic will be drawn to that interchange. Manor Way will become intolerably congested. It is already overused. Any major accident on that road would paralyse the whole city. The areas adjacent to Manor Way will also suffer. Rhiwbina, Whitchurch and Llandaff North will have their streets crammed with lorries, vans and buses.
  I have mentioned only those areas which will suffer most within my own city. But there are many people who know Cardiff even better than I do who will know that the damage will extend outside the constituency of Cardiff Northwest into its neighbouring areas. This one magnet of the Coryton interchange will cause congestion throughout the northern part of the city of Cardiff. With the present proposals I can only say that the picture of the M4 as an artery serving the capital city is a dream which will not be realised. The present Welsh Office proposals will achieve a planning
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  thrombosis. These things have happened before.
  If we allow this to go through, it is safe to predict exactly what a future Under-Secretary at the Welsh Office will say when the people of Llandaff North complain that their shopping centre is congested with lorries and vans, that Rhiwbina is crammed, and that nobody can walk across the streets in Whitchurch. He will say, "We are not responsible for the roads in Llandaff North, Whitchurch and Rhiwbina." But it is the Welsh Office which makes decisions on trunk roads. It is the Welsh Office which will make decisions on interchanges which will affect the citizens of Cardiff.
  This happened, as everyone knows, in that monumental planning blunder when we placed a great teaching hospital adjacent to a major road, Eastern Avenue, so that the hospital suffered all the disadvantage of noise, fumes and vibration which have so adversely affected so many of the patients. But there was no compensation of access. When we complained the Welsh Office was quick to point out, when the citizens of the surrounding areas—whose environment has been destroyed by the traffic generated by the hospital—complained, "This is not a problem for the Welsh Office; it is something for the city authority and for South Glamorgan".
  I have done a great deal—it has been difficult to do it—to dissuade the people of those areas from taking direct action. I tell them that I do not believe in demonstrating and stopping up roads, and they then tell me "Some of your political opponents are very keen to take direct action in terms of achieving their desired social goals and aims." I tell the Under-Secretary today that I do not want to see an intolerable situation being developed throughout the northern part of the city of Cardiff.
  It is absolutely essential in the interests of the city and, indeed, South Glamorgan, that urgent consideration is given for an interchange at Capel Llanilltern, serving the western part of the city; that we can have a road from Eastern Avenue, going a short distance to the proposed M4, and an interchange there that will take both eastbound and westbound traffic. I know that the city authority and the South Glamorgan authority will press—as they

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  have said in their evidence—for an interchange at Thornhill.
  I conclude by asking for two assurances—that urgent consideration be given to placing the Capel Llanilltern-Culverhouse Cross link road into the trunk road programme; and that the Under-Secretary will ask the Welsh Office to co-operate with the South Glamorgan authority as a matter of urgency on the location, design and programming of further interchanges from the M4 to serve Cardiff.
  11.42 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Barry Jones): I suspect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you have followed this debate with great interest.
  The hon. Member for Cardiff, North-West (Mr. Roberts) knows his Cardiff, but I do not accept his cardiac allusions. I am grateful to him for raising the matter of access to and from the M4 because of the importance of this road not only to Cardiff but also to the whole of South Wales. It forms a vital part of our regional strategy—an artery to the industrial heart of South Wales which will help to make it much more attractive to industry. The faster and better links that it will provide with the South-East and with the Midlands will place the area in a very favourable position.
  I certainly understand the economic point that the hon. Member made at the beginning of his speech. On the M4, I can say that, currently, 30 miles are under construction, costing approximately £100 million, and that today, literally, the Tredegar Park section is starting.
  The route for the M4 between Cardiff and Swansea has been located to provide good communications into the mouths of the Valleys in order to encourage the development of industry there. An interchange is also being constructed at Miskin, to provide a good route to the Rhondda. These improvements in communications will bring great benefits to the Valley communities and to the whole economy of South Wales.
  The wider issue of the route strategy of the M4 was fully debated at each of the public inquiries into the three sections of the M4 west of Coryton and again at the public inquiry into the Castleton—Coryton section. Indeed, the greater part of the Coryton—Capel Llanilltern public
  196
  inquiry was taken up with this issue. All four inspectors separately came to the conclusion that the general strategy adopted was the best.
  Representations were made by the hon. Member, shortly before the Coryton—Capel Llanilltern public inquiry was held, that there should have been one public inquiry to cover the whole of the new length of the M4 between Tredegar Park and Groes. There are sound historic, financial and administrative reasons, which were fully explained to the hon. Member in correspondence with the then Secretary of State, why this has never been a practical proposition—explanations, I would add, which were accepted by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, with whom he also raised this matter, and by the inspector for the Coryton—Capel Llanilltern public inquiry. It was the latter who said:
  "I do not consider that delaying the opening of the road for a year on this account can be justified."
  I agree with the hon. Member that access to the M4 must be such that the capital can get the maximum benefit from the road. Any interchange on the road itself is, of course, only one element in that access.
  As the hon. Member knows, the need for interchanges to serve Cardiff was considered at length at the public inquiry into the Castleton—Coryton section which was held last winter in Cardiff. Indeed, he himself appeared before the inspector to give evidence and advocated the provision of additional interchanges, one at Capel Llanilltern and the other in the Pentwyn area from where a new link road with Eastern Avenue was envisaged. He will recollect that the case for the former was accepted in principle by the Welsh Office at the inquiry, but the inspector came to the conclusion that the need for an interchange at Pentwyn had not been demonstrated.
  There were also demands at the public inquiry from the South Glamorgan County Council and the Cardiff City Council, together with private developers, for the provision of an interchange with the A469 principal road between Cardiff and Caerphilly at Thornhill. But I remind the hon. Member that the inspector found that this road is already overloaded and will continue to be so. Accordingly, his

  197
  conclusions were—I read from his report, paragraph 12.19—
  "The suggestion has been made that an interchange should be provided at Thornhill. My conclusion is that, the Hook Road scheme having been abandoned, it would be a grave disservice to Cardiff to construct an interchange with no links to it other than the totally inadequate A469. The provision of an interchange could have no other effect but to force the construction of a link road and thus the reversal of the county council's declared policy of no major roads in the north of the City. The advantages to the consortium of a private interchange are appreciated but I will make no recommendation in the matter."
  Nearly two years ago, my officials told the county council that the need for one or more additional interchanges between Castleton and Coryton was accepted, but the location of these facilities and the associated link roads could be considered only as part of the revised highway network which was then being prepared for Cardiff following the city council's decision to abandon the Hook Road. In saying that, I am taking account of the important point which the hon. Gentleman made about the city's transportation policy.
  My Department has not altered its stance on this, and the motorway is being designed so that interchanges could be constructed, if necessary, in the Thornhill and Pentwyn areas. It would be feasible also to construct interchanges at other points, but the actual number and location cannot be decided in advance of firm decisions by the county and city authorities on the development of the local highway network.
  As the inspector has rightly recognised, the effect of providing an interchange with the A469 at Thornhill without any accompanying improvement to the local highway network would be to divert motorway and valleys traffic travelling from the north-west to the south-east side of Cardiff on to Caerphilly Road and hence through other largely residential streets to its destination. This would be an unacceptable development from both a traffic and an environmental standpoint, particularly since it could well be that residents in the roads affected might be denied the benefits of the mitigating provisions of the Land Compensation Act 1973 that it has been possible to offer residents of Manor Way and properties adjoining Eastern Avenue.
  198
  The case for an interchange at Pentwyn was based on fears that, in its absence, there would be heavy flows of traffic through the city from eastern Cardiff to the west and north via Gabalfa. When figures were finally produced, however, these showed that the Pentwyn interchange and link would divert very little traffic from the city streets. In the light of this information, the inspector found that the evidence did not support the arguments advanced in favour of an interchange.
  Decisions on interchanges cannot be taken on the basis of subjective views, no matter how sincerely they may be held. The need for a particular interchange must first be established on the basis of known facts. It is then necessary to put proposals to the public in the form of draft orders and only after careful consideration has been given to representations received can a decision be taken on whether an interchange is to be built and, if so, its location and layout.
  The hon. Member is concerned about the number of interchanges being provided for Cardiff, but I suggest that he should look at the road system of the Cardiff area as a whole. Eastern Avenue, which was completed four years ago, includes three interchanges which have been located specifically to provide good connections with the central area of the city and with the docks as well as with an important and growing residential area. This high standard primary distribution system will be connected directly to the motorway by the Tredegar Park-St. Mellons scheme, and so provide direct access between the heart of the city and the main markets and industrial areas in the United Kingdom.
  The hon. Member is concerned about access between the proposed large-scale housing and commercial development at St. Mellons and the motorway and I think he will find that adequate facilities will be available if he studies the plans.
  Traffic flow between the new development at St. Mellons and the east should be comparatively light, and as the existing A48 will be relieved of most of the-traffic at present using it by the construction of the motorway between Tredegar Park and St. Mellons there should be adequate facilities available which will

  199
  include a full interchange with the M4 at Tredegar Park.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State is considering adding to the trunk road preparation pool a scheme for an interchange at Capel Llanilltern with a link connecting with the Cardiff road network at Culverhouse Cross, so that this proposal could be brought forward in step with other roads being planned by the South Glamorgan County Council and provide a completely new access to the M4 to serve western and southern parts of the city.
  Until the Castleton-Coryton section is built, Manor Way will, unfortunately, have to remain as the main route to the north, but this section of trunk road has been strengthened and improved to increase traffic capacity and safety for pedestrians. Signals and a pedestrian subway have been provided and the county council has been asked to prepare proposals for a footbridge, and, as I have already mentioned, my Rt. hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State has additionally exercised his discretionary powers to offer double-glazing for dwellings in and around Manor Way in accordance with the Noise Insulation Regulations. These are positive measures which have been taken to help the people living in Manor Way and Northern Avenue during the interim period between the opening of the M4 west of Coryton and the completion of the Coryton-Castleton section. Their benefits will, however, remain after this new connection to the motorway to the east is open and later when a new access to the west of Cardiff is provided. When the county council comes forward with plans for a road network calling for more interchanges the requirements will be considered further.
  Obviously, the county council requires time to re-think the highway plans for Cardiff following the decision to abandon the hook road and not to build any new primary roads in the northern part of the city in the foreseeable future.
  Mr. Michael Roberts: I can assure the hon. Member that the county council has thought out its basic transportation policy and is happy to liaise with the Welsh Office in order to provide interchanges.
  Mr. Jones: I am sure that before the conclusion of my remarks I can come to the point of giving assurances. I am, therefore, grateful for the hon. Member's intervention.
  The Council will also probably wish to consider very carefully the views expressed by the inspector about the consequences of constructing an interchange at Thornhill.
  I am sure that the hon. Member would not wish to see the construction of the M4 deferred while the road plans for Cardiff are being re-presented and rethought. This motorway has already been delayed by particularly thorough statutory procedures, and my Rt. hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State is most anxious to press on with construction quickly. The M4 will bring great benefits to the economy of the whole of South Wales, and the hon. Member will also appreciate that delaying the Castleton-Coryton scheme by further argument now will prolong the use of Manor Way by through traffic.
  I appreciate that there may be a need for additional road links between the centre of Cardiff and the motorway, but the routes will have to be chosen very carefully to fit in with local planning requirements as well as to take account of the views of people living in the areas through which the traffic will pass. Let me come to the hon. Member's request for assurances. The county and city councils should be well placed to assess and balance the various traffic and environmental problems involved, and I shall, of course, be very pleased to consider carefully and sympathetically any proposals which they may wish to bring forward.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes to Twelve o'clock.

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

LORD JACOBSON
Sydney Jacobson, Esquire, M.C., having been created Baron Jacobson, of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Ardwick and the Lord Cudlipp, and made the solemn Affirmation.

POST OFFICE: CHRISTMAS POST STATISTICS
2.48 p.m.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, as the charge of 5p for sending Christmas cards abroad does not yield a profit, the result is an actual deficit; if so, who pays the deficit and to what organisation; and what was the deficit for Christmas 1974.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, because of constraints imposed by the rules of the Universal Postal Union, the overseas surface mail printed paper service, by which unsealed greetings cards may be sent for 5p, made a loss of about £4½ million in 1974–75. Compensation under the Statutory Corporations (Financial Provisions) Act 1974 is payable to the Post Office up to an amount equal to the total deficit incurred by the postal business as a whole.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask for his help
860
on another matter? Does he recall that on Thursday last—as reported at col. 607 of Hansard—I asked the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, whether he could confirm that the figures for the number of letters posted during the Christmas period 1973–74 were, respectively, 781 million and 806 million and that the noble Lord said he would check? Can the noble Lord comment on that?
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Beswick intended no discourtesy in expressing the changes in terms of percentages. He was quoting from the annual report and accounts of the Post Office. These shows that in the Christmas period of 1972 the number of letters posted was 904 million. The reduction of 5 per cent. reported for 1973 implies a figure of about 859 million items, and the increase of 3 per cent. in 1974 would bring the figure to about 885 million items. On looking into the Post Office's report and accounts, I see that in referring to posts on page 23 it says
"At Christmas, letter traffic increased by 3 per cent. and parcel traffic by 21 per cent."
However, in case there is any doubt at all about this matter I will certainly look into it, and if the figures are other than those I have given I will gladly write to the noble Baroness.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, while being very appreciative of the trouble the Minister has taken, may I write to him in detail about this, for is he aware that the information given to my noble friend Lord Beswick was based not on the letter traffic for the three-week period concerned, but for letters and parcels combined? If I send the noble Lord the full details, perhaps he will let me have a reply.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, I should be grateful to the noble Baroness if she would do that.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, will the Post Office be sending the noble Baroness a Christmas card this year; and, if not, will it be a Valentine?

WORLD DISARMAMENT: PROPOSED CONFERENCE
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether a date has yet been fixed for the World Disarmament Conference and, if not, whether they will propose to the United Nations Security Council that a date be agreed.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, this is a matter for the U.N. General Assembly. The First Committee started its disarmament discussions on 30th October, which will include consideration of the latest report of the ad hoc committee on a world disarmament conference. Noble Lords will not expect me to forecast the outcome.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, in view of the cynicism that exists everywhere may I ask whether Her Majesty's Government cannot give a positive and dynamic lead towards disarmament? Was it not 13 years ago that both the United States and the Soviet Union proposed a phased complete disarmament policy, and cannot Her Majesty's Government give a lead in that direction now?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, before I attempt to answer that question, I should like to congratulate my noble friend and to wish him many happy returns of yesterday as well as cautiously to wish him well in his protracted attempts to substitute the inquisitive society for the acquisitive society. Indeed, we have given leads, dynamic and otherwise, in the Conference on the Committee on Disarmament. It is a continuing conference in Geneva. We have given valuable leads and have made contributions which have led to at least four substantial advances in non-proliferation, partial test ban, biological warfare and in a fourth field relating to technical disarmament. I remind my noble friend that the ad hoc committee was set up by the General Assembly to assess the views
862
of countries generally as to the convening of a world disarmament conference. So far, there is no consensus about the feasibility of such a conference. It would therefore be somewhat premature for us or anybody else to propose a date for a conference about which, sadly, there is no agreement so far. However, I take note with sympathy of what my noble friend has said on this matter and I repeat that I wish him well in the future.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his kind reference and the House for its reception, may I just say that I do not propose to celebrate my birthdays until the 90th one. May I ask whether, in view of the fact that the Disarmament Conference, with its millions of words and the SALT Conference and the Vienna Conference are bogged down, is it not desirable that there should be a world conference and a consensus of world opinion for disarmament and peace?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords, that is eminently desirable, and it is why the General Assembly appointed an ad hoc committee, to look into ways and means of setting up such a conference.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to say whether, on the ad hoc committee to which he has referred, there has been any progress towards a unification of views of the Defence Ministers of the EEC countries?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the ad hoc committee is composed of representatives of 14 non-nuclear Powers. However, nuclear Powers such as ourselves and another from the Community participate. The views and information which we make available to the ad hoc committee would, I believe, broadly reflect the attitude and views of the Community.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, can my noble friend inform the House whether high on the agenda of this conference there will be placed the growing phenomenon of the large States in the world competing with one another at ever-increasing intensity to supply weapons of destruction to the developing countries?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the production and distribution of weapons of destruction by any country will, I expect, be at the top of the Agenda of any world disarmament conference when it is agreed that such a conference shall be held.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, could we not make a start by ourselves refusing, and persuading other countries to refuse, to sell arms to countries against which there could not possibly be any aggression of any kind and which have no internal problems of their own which demand the use of these arms?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, certainly that seems unexceptionable, though it depends on the definition of "aggression". Here again, the discussion of disarmament inevitably leads one into a discussion on aggression.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, referring back to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks which the noble Lord mentioned a moment ago, could he confirm that the principal problem there is still the difficulty of persuading the Russians to agree to proper policing of any arrangements which may be agreed?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords probably since the Baruch plan of 1946, the problem has been to devise a system of verification which is equally acceptable to East and West.

GIBRALTAR: AIR TOURS
2.57 p.m.
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (a) whether IATA Resolution 810e (which deals with Inclusive Tours) applies to Gibraltar, under the provisions of the United Kingdom Cabotage Air Passenger Tariff which states that "unless the context otherwise requires" it shall apply, and (b) whether this Resolution is referred to where it is stated under SGIT arrangements that "Normal Inclusive Tour Rules" apply.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the authoritative interpretation of the terms of air service licences issued by the Civil Aviation Authority is a matter for the courts, but my honourable friend intends to draw the attention of the Chairman of the Authority to the noble Lord's Question.
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. In view of the fact that the representations of the Gibraltar Government which were put forward to the Government on 10th October were to have been considered and commented on before the end of the month, can the noble Lord say what is the result of the CAA comments which were forwarded to the Government? Can I take it that a "sponsoring member" regarding an inclusive tour means the participating IATA member and that it is he who will be solely responsible for approving the tour literature and for executing the air tour certificate between the United Kingdom and Gibraltar and vice versa?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, any exchange between the Gibraltar Government and another organisation is in confidence and I feel sure that the noble Lord would not wish me to comment on it. As regards the noble Lord's second point, this is a highly complex matter and if the noble Lord cares to put down another Question when my honourable friend has had a chance of studying his Question, I may be able to give a satisfactory answer.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, when the arrangements were made in 1956 for tours to be diverted—previously tours had been Gibraltar to Spain—the arrangement was an inclusive tour starting with three or four days in Gibraltar and going across the Straits to the North African side, so that, in that sense, it certainly was an inclusive tour?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I believe my noble friend has touched on part of the nub of the matter, but this is not a simple question.
Lord THOMAS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that IATA is mainly concerned with the scheduled services and that inclusive tour matters are a highly complicated commercial undertak

865
ing which is looked after by the Civil Aviation Authority?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord and I believe we had better let the CAA deal with it.

AIRPORTS AUTHORITY BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, this Bill has been amended by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. I understand that no further Amendments have been set down to the Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION BILL
3 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords Amendments, Commons Amendments to certain other of the Lords Amendments and Commons consequential Amendment to the Bill be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords Amendments, Commons Amendments to certain other of the Lords Amendments and Commons consequential Amendment to the Bill he now considered.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS REASONS FOR DISAGREEING TO CERTAIN OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS, COMMONS AMENDMENTS TO CERTAIN OTHER OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS AND COMMONS CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENT TO THE BILL
[References are to Bill (304) as first printed by the Lords. Commons Reasons and Amendments are printed in italics.]

LORDS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 1to 6]
Clause 11, page 8, line 41, after ("union") insert ("or an employer").
Clause 12, page 9, line 17, leave out ("trade union") and insert ("party making the reference").
Clause 12, page 9, line 26, leave out ("trade union or unions") and insert ("party or parties").
Clause 12, page 9, line 28, leave out ("unions") and insert ("parties").
Clause 12, page 9, leave out lines 30 and 31 and insert ("the remaining parties to the reference may be the subject of a recommendation for recognition").
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:—
Because the Amendments are unnecessary in view of the fact that employers will be free, in relation to recognition issues, to request the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service to exercise its powers under other provisions of the Bill, namely Clause 2 (Conciliation) Clause 4 (Advice) or Clause 5 (Inquiry).
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, with the leave of the House I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 1 to 5 en bloc to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 6. The consequence of these Amendments was to enable an employer to refer a recognition issue to the Service under Clauses 11 and 12. No doubt behind this Amendment was the belief that employers needed further protection so far as recognition was concerned, but I hope to be able to show that that belief was mistaken. Clauses 11 and 12 are designed to deal with the straightforward issue of an employer's refusal to grant recognition to a trade union or unions. It is, of course, in those circumstances for the union or unions to refer the matter to the Service. But the Bill goes out of its way to lay down the precise procedure for such a hearing, and this is very neatly described in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill, from which I now quote:
"Clause 12 requires the Service to seek by conciliation to settle any recognition issue referred to it, and to examine the issue, to consult all parties affected, to make enquiries and if the issue is not settled, to prepare a written report, with any recommendations, and to send a copy to every trade union and employer concerned and to other such bodies as it thinks fit."
Arising out of that one can come to two conclusions: first, that the Bill is meticulous in its efforts to ensure that all parties get a very fair hearing—that is, the employer as well as the trade union; and, secondly, that it is not arbitration; it is conciliation, and with recommendation only if need be.

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More than 90 per cent. of the recognition issues are of that kind and will be dealt with under Clauses 11 and 12. There are a few on the fringe, where the employer is happy to recognise a union but cannot do so because he feels that he will get involved in trouble with other unions. Those cases are internal conflicts within the trade union movement, and that movement has gone out of its way to set up adequate machinery for dealing with them. That machinery is working very effectively, and has prevented many a dispute. Therefore it is imperative—and I should have thought everybody would agree with this—that when machinery of that kind is working, it should be encouraged. Thus we believe that the TUC machinery should be fully used and fully encouraged.
On the other hand, we recognise that there might be circumstances when that machinery would fail. There might be circumstances when the unions concerned were not affiliated to the TUC, and accordingly there is proper provision in the Bill for dealing with that. An employer who finds himself frustrated because of an inter-union dispute—whether or not they are affiliated to the TUC—is fully entitled to seek advice from the Service under Clause 4. He can seek conciliation under Clause 2, and he can seek an inquiry under Clause 5. The elected Chamber decided by a majority of 55 that this Amendment was not necessary. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 1 to 5 to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason No. 6.— (Lord Jacques.)
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, one wonders just how far the Government view this Bill as being anything other than a benefit for their supporters in the trade union movement. Over a matter such as this, one would have thought that the Government would be quick to see that there could be an injustice here against employers, while at the same time doing nothing for employees; and that they would strain to try to meet us so far as this Amendment is concerned. We grant that the Government recognise that there is a problem, and I know that they are determined that in problems such as this
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ACAS should be the body to deal with such difficulties, which from time to time include recognition disputes.
I grant that they are not as frequent as they may seem—certainly not as frequent as the publicity, which such difficulties enjoy in the media, suggests. Nevertheless, they exist and cause an immense amount of resentment; more especially do they cause resentment where the people at issue in a recognition procedure are small and weak, so far as their bargaining stature is concerned. It may be that they belong to a small union; sometimes they do not belong to a union at all. The Government do not seem able to accept that employers should be allowed to use the same avenue of approach to the ACAS as the trade unions. There is almost an element of apartheid about this. I appreciate that the noble Lord has said that employers may make use of Clauses 2, 4 or 5 of the Bill, and I am sure they will; and no doubt they will find them of some use. But it must be said that all three of these clauses—2, 4 or 5—give a relief which is only discretionary on the part of ACAS. The merit of Clauses 11 and 12 is that they enjoin the ACAS to take certain action when a dispute of such a nature has been submitted to it. That is my first criticism of what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, said about these clauses.
He went on to say that the Trades Union Congress had set up adequate machinery—I think I am quoting his words correctly—which was working very efficiently. No doubt by that he was reminding us of the Bridlington Agreement. We recognise that the machinery is efficient; it has peacefully settled a large number of disputes. But by the same token we must also say that the machinery is perhaps a little antiquated now and is certainly creaking at the seams. The noble Lord has no doubt read of the case of Rothwell v. Apex and another, which was decided only last week. I must be very careful what I say about that case, because I have an interest in the employing firm. Nothing that I say now—and I do not believe that any noble Lord will take this the wrong way—is in any sense a comment upon the case at all. But it shows that the procedures which have been laid down, and which have been working for a considerable number

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of years, are not nearly so beneficial in their effects as may sometimes be thought. It is in that light that one must ask oneself whether the legislation in the Bill will achieve the purpose which the Government really wish.
My Lords, we have spent a great deal of time discussing ACAS and the disputes which will be referred to it. We are sorry that the Government, while realising the difficulties, are not prepared to meet them in the way we think is justified by the vast numbers of people who are not part of the trade union movement; indeed, by the majority of working people in this country. We feel that they and some of the weaker unions which represent them are deserving of better than this provision.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, I thought it peculiarly inappropriate that the noble Earl should suggest on this Amendment, in particular, in his reference to employers, that the Government were seeking merely to look after their own supporters. I recall that when the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, first put down this Amendment I ventured to pose a question to her which I will now pose to the noble Earl. We are here looking at the ability of a union which is refused recognition by an employer, and the noble Earl's case is that the employer should have an equal right to make a submission. Can the noble Earl tell me of one occasion when a union has refused to recognise an employer? In other words, the issue is always the other way round. The straight issue, as we all know, is that there may be a number of unions—one or two or whatever it is—which come to an arrangement with an employer, who then recognises them for the purposes of negotiation. I have had very long experience of this problem, as indeed have many of my noble friends who I see in the House now, and I can never recall a single instance during my lifetime when a trade union refused to recognise an employer. Unless the noble Earl can quote one, he really should withdraw his remarks.
Viscount CALDECOTE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, explained why he believed this Amendment was unnecessary, but I think he will agree that the Government have stressed very strongly that they need the wholehearted co-operation of employers and unions in
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solving the very difficult economic problems of the day. In view of that, can the noble Lord help us by explaining a little more clearly why the Government feel that this Amendment is undesirable?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the Government have not said that this Amendment is undesirable; they have said that it is unneccessary. The plain fact is that the kind of dispute in which a trade union is involved and is likely to wish for the assistance of the Service is quite different from that in which an employer may be involved and may require the assistance of the Service. In the one case—that of the trade union—it is a straightforward question; it has sought recognition and the employer has refused to give recognition. More than 90per cent. of the recognition issues fall into that category. Because that is the predominant issue, Clauses 11 and 12 of the Bill provide the straightforward machinery for dealing with that issue and that issue alone, and it was quite unnecessary to amend those clauses in the way in which this House did.
Quite separately from that, the Bill provides for the handling of another issue —an issue in which the employer is interested—and that is the issue of inter-union disputes, when the employer is being frustrated because of antagonism between unions and wants the matter resolved. In that case, he can seek advice under Clause 5, he can seek conciliation of the issue under Clause 2 or he can seek an inquiry under Clause 5. So the two kinds of issue are quite different, but they have both been adequately provided for in the Bill. In consequence, this Amendment is unnecessary and irrelevant so far as Clauses 11 and 12 are concerned.
Viscount CALDECOTE: My Lords, I understand that entirely, but in view of the great need for co-operation from all sides of industry—and I think the noble Lord will agree that the CBI made it very clear that it would like to have an Amendment such as this, just as the unions asked for many things and, quite rightly, had them included in the Bill—does the noble Lord not think it very sad that the Government are not prepared to accept this Amendment for that reason alone, because, in his own words, it is undesirable?
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, may I say something on the same point? We on these Benches are concerned that there are small, highly-professional unions and staff associations which are very strong and highly successful in fighting their cases but which are not affiliated in every case to the TUC; or, indeed, if they are, are small because of their membership but, in the main, are highly-skilled unions. It really is not good enough for the noble Lord to say that this is a matter for the unions to decide when a pistol is being put to the head of the employer. If the TUC is to decide that, because of its weight of membership in a factory or an industry, this or that union will not exist any longer but is to be taken over by one of the giants, it can very easily hold the employer to ransom and say, "Either you allow us to take over this smaller membership or we call our men out on strike". It has happened before and it can happen again.
This is what we are concerned about, that this is the thin end of the wedge to eliminate, in many cases, small and often very skilled unions. We know from a debate that we have later this afternoon of the threat to the Institute of Journalists as against the NUJ; and we are concerned that many of these people in unions which fight just as toughly for their rights but which feel they have a certain professional capacity will not have a chance to continue in existence unless, under this Bill, they are given that protection which your Lordships proposed, by Amendments agreed to here, they should have.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, in view of the speech which we have just heard from the noble Baroness, perhaps I may say that it would have been as well if she had had some experience of the conciliatory machinery within the trade union movement. It is obvious that she does not understand conciliation and what it involves, or even what the Government are seeking to introduce. As an old trade unionist, I can tell her that the people who will benefit from this are the employers. Many employers in this country have been fighting for generations to find positive conciliation machinery by which employers of labour and those working for them could get together and determine their disputes more quickly.
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Many of us who belong to the trade union movement and have been in Ministerial office, looking after people's interests so far as the labour side is concerned, have had cases held over not only for 12 months but for at least two years. That could not happen under the set-up which my noble friend is seeking to introduce by this Amendment from the other place, where they have given it serious consideration. I repeat that the one who will come out on top in regard to the conciliation machinery set up under this Bill is the employer of labour.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, this is not a Committee stage and, therefore, I speak again only with the leave of the House, but I ought to reply to one point that has been raised. I would say to the noble Baroness that the Bill has the opposite effect to that which she has stated. By Clauses 11 and 12 any union, whether or not it is affiliated to the TUC, whether or not it is small, whether or not it is professional, will have the right to go to the Service because the employer refuses to recognise it.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, supposing the employer does recognise already the smaller union, a union which may or may not be affiliated to the TUC. Supposing the larger union refers the question of recognition to the Service to eliminate the smaller union—because I think what the noble Lord in his explanation has overlooked is that this subsection says:
"In this Act recognition in relation to trade union means recognition of the union by an employer or two or more associated employers to any extent."
I repeat, "to any extent"; so that the larger union may be applying for recognition to become a closed shop. Supposing that the employer himself was able to make the application, there would be a psychological advantage here in that the application is not being made by either of the parties. This is what the noble Lord has overlooked here: that there is a slight psychological balance in favour of the person who makes the application. It is almost impossible to deny that. This would be a good reason at least to leave the latitude for the employer to apply, whether or not it would be possible for him to use other clauses to which the noble Lord has referred. It is only a facility; it could

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be a valuable facility. I suggest to the noble Lord that it would be a mistake to obliterate it.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, I should like to support strongly from these Benches what is being said on this subject, notably by the noble Baroness. I think that the argument used by the Commons in their reply to our Amendment is not really a very strong one because if it is true that the employers have the right to apply to the Conciliation and Arbitration Service (which I must warmly agree with and support everything said in its favour) it is not obvious to me why the employers should not have the right to apply to it in cases covered by Articles 11 and 12. I cannot see that there can be any reasonable objection to that in view of what was said by the Commons themselves.
My Lords, also it seems to me on a much broader point very undesirable that the law should appear to be bent in the direction of one side to a whole series of disputes; as it would be if the text were changed back to what it originally was. I was shocked when I read these Articles on first receiving the text of the Bill that the law appears to be bent in this way. I do not think that the state of the trade unions in our country, where they have a most honoured position and a great deal of power, is such that the law ought to be bent in their favour. I hope that we shall insist on our Amendments.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 7 and 8]
Clause 17, page 15, line 24, at end insert—
("(6) Where an employer, being a company in the case of which there has, as respects the whole or any proportion of its share capital, been granted a quotation on a recognised stock exchange, is required by virtue of this section to disclose any information to trade union representatives relating to future plans of the company which could have a significant effect on the assets or profits of the company, he shall at the same time make the information available in accordance with the disclosure requirements for the time being of that stock exchange.")
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:—
Because this Bill is not the proper context in which to legislate on disclosure of information in connection with the requirements of a
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stock exchange and because the amendment is unnecessary as there is nothing to prevent a stock exchange altering its own requirements as to disclosure.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 7 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 8. The effect of this Amendment was that it required an employer to disclose according to Stock Exchange rules any information which the Bill requires him to disclose to a trade union and which could have a significant effect on the assets or profits of the company. The safeguarding of the investing public is a matter for Stock Exchange rules. If these rules require amendment or more rigorous enforcement, that is a matter for the Stock Exchange. If they require a legal backing that is a matter not for an Employment Protection Bill but for a Companies Bill. Consequently, we feel that this Amendment is irrelevant to this Bill.
I hope that nobody will tell me that there is a matter of urgency about this and that we cannot await a new Companies Bill in order to deal with it; because I would point out that employers for a very long period had been voluntarily giving information to the trade unions in the course of negotiations and, indeed, since 1971 have been doing so in accordance with the Industrial Relations Act 1971. This Bill, as far as information is concerned, is substantially the same as the1971 Act and on this issue I have a most impeccable source. The right honourable Member for Lowestoft, Mr. Prior, leading for the Opposition at the Second Reading debate on this Bill said in another place:
"I now turn to the information clauses to which we have no objection. They are the same clauses with perhaps a little elaboration as were contained in the Industrial Relations Act."—[Official Report;28/4/75; col. 54.]
I think we can say therefore that the information clauses in this Bill are no different in substance from those in the 1971 Act.
This kind of Amendment was not needed to the 1971 Act and there is no reason why we should need this Amendment to this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Terrington, moved a similar Amendment in 1971 to the Bill, but it was unacceptable to that Administration. That Administration had an inbuilt majority in this

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House and was able to resist the Amendment which was withdrawn. On this occasion, the Government of the day did not have an inbuilt majority in this House; the Amendment was not withdrawn and it was carried against the Government.
My Lords, the information which is normally given to the trade unions is not price-sensitive and in so far as it might be price-sensitive it is too fragmented and too detailed to be of interest to the Stock Exchange. Furthermore, the Amendment is vague and uncertain as to its effects. It provides that where there will be a significant effect upon the assets or profits there shall be the communication with the Stock Exchange. Who is to determine when the effect is significant? Each company will decide that for itself. Under the Stock Exchange rules a company is allowed to discuss price-sensitive information with both its managers and advisers. Some companies will regard the shop steward who is in their service as their adviser on labour matters; others will not. There would be therefore a considerable measure of inconsistency as far as the company is concerned. Then it would be vague and uncertain whether the Stock Exchange ever received any information at all. There is no sanction in the Amendment if a company fails to give information to the Stock Exchange in accordance with the Amendment. Nothing happens; there is no sanction at all.
My Lords, finally there is the constitutional point. Is it right that Parliament should give legal backing to rules over which it has no control? It certainly has no control over the Stock Exchange rules. I would suggest that it would be entirely wrong for Parliament to give that kind of backing to rules over which it has no control. The elected Chamber resisted this Amendment by a majority of 52; I recommend to your Lordships that we should not insist on it. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 7 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason Numbered 8.—[Lord Jacques.]
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I doubt if you will want to hear very much more about this subject that we have now debated a great deal
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but I should like to make one or two brief points. The purpose of the Amendment was to ensure that information given to trade union representatives which was price sensitive should be given simultaneously to the public via the Stock Exchange. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, says, the Amendment was entirely innocent of any Party political bias; it was of a purely technical nature. It in no way restricted information to be disclosed and I regret its rejection. But I am not surprised.
In spite of all that has been said on the subject, I can only think that the Government do not understand the point we have tried so hard to make. No doubt the Stock Exchange will do their utmost to try to ensure that the risk of creating insiders by the enlargement of the circle of those privy to price-sensitive information will, so far as possible, be minimised. Presumably the matter will be put right when a new Companies Bill comes before your Lordships' House. In the meantime, if and when an insider scandal occurs, the fault will not be with the City but with the Government. I would ask the Minister what steps can be taken in the event of price-sensitive information being leaked—no doubt quite involuntarily—by a trade union representative? What, if any, sanctions are there? This person may not be in the employ of the undertaking at all; he may even be employed by a rival undertaking. Is the employer to be powerless in such a case?
My Lords, finally I should like to make it clear that I and my Stock Exchange colleagues are in favour of the maximum disclosure of suitable information to all those employed in any undertaking, be they trade unionists or not; but regarding price-sensitive information, I am apprehensive of the effect of trade union representatives being placed by Statute in a privileged position vis-à-vis shareholders.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I have not the slightest doubt that the noble Lord who has just spoken believes all he says. It is a grave reflection upon the intelligence of the Conservative Party if what he says is true, that there was no political motive behind the Amendment. When one examines the arguments which were produced on a previous occasion in this House and in the light of the case made by my noble friend Lord Jacques, there

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is obviously no case for this provision within the Bill. If the Stock Exchange are concerned about price-sensitive information being revealed, all they have to do is to deal with it within their rules. There is nothing in the world to stop them doing that. The safeguards are there.
As my noble friend Lord Jacques said, a Conservative Administration chose to proceed in exactly the same way as the Government are now doing. Why then, except for Party political purposes, should the Conservative and Liberal Parties go out of their way to combine to vote down the proposals which were put forward by the Government? Of course they were doing it for Party political purposes. They are here today for no other purpose than to embarrass the Labour Government. Those are perfectly good political tactics; but do not let us be humbugs and pretend this is not happening. They use those tactics very effectively on occasions. The noble Lord sitting on the Conservative Benches does not do himself or his Party any good by pretending that they are actuated by noble impulses. Of course they are not. The noble Lords on the other side of the House are there, and their families have been there for centuries, to protect their privilege and power; and I am here to take it away. I hope very much, as a result of some of their actions today, they are going to give me arguments to hasten the process. Let us cut out the humbug.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 9 and 10]
Clause 18, page 15, line 38, after ("would") insert ("be likely to").
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:—
Because in order to avoid having to disclose information under the Bill the employer should have to show that the disclosure would actually cause substantial injury.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 9 to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 10. The effect of the Amendment was to introduce the word "likely". The Bill provides that an employer will not have to disclose information if he can show that substantial injury would be caused to his undertaking by such a disclosure. The effect of the Amendment is that the
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employer would merely have to show that disclosure was likely to cause substantial injury. There are three reasons why we cannot accept the word "likely" in that place. First, it would mean that it would weaken the right of trade union representatives to be given information for the purposes of collective bargaining. Secondly, the uncertainty which the word "likely" would cause would mean that there would be more cases for the Central Arbitration Committee and their task would be much more difficult. Thirdly, the word "likely" was not introduced in the corresponding clause in the 1871 Act, and we see no reason at all why it should be incorporated here.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on Amendment No. 9 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 10.—(Lord Jacques.)
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, it is nice that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, is gradually coming round to the view of accepting the 1971 Act as Holy Writ. One hopes that as time goes on he will accept more and more of that excellent piece of legislation. It is worth trying to recollect for a moment the way in which your Lordships' House tried to improve this not very elegant piece of legislation both in Committee and on Report. So far as the legal connotation is concerned, the word "likely" is perfectly easy. What we tried to do in Committee by drafting an Amendment, which we withdrew, and by a further Amendment on Report, which we did not withdraw, was to try to ensure a fairer balance regarding information. There is nothing about price-sensitive information or anything like that in this Amendment. It is a way of trying to ensure that where an employer feels that the information would cause injury the burden on him should not be so hard as it was before the Amendment was made. The Amendment does not seek to go beyond that.
The matter was considered in a similar way during your Lordships' discussions last week on the Industry Bill. That is a matter to which I should like to return briefly because a similar point was then taken to this point although, unfortunately, your Lordships' House became rather embroiled with other considerations. The point I wish to make is this: what is the effect likely to be

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where one has disclosed information which is likely to cause serious damage to the undertaking, to people who may not be employees of that undertaking and who will have no regard, let alone loyalty, to the undertaking and thereafter make improper use of such information? The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, is not in his place, but I hope it is not unfair to say he glossed over that element of the discussions. They cannot just be dismissed. Trade union officials—and I do not seek to say anything against them—have their jobs to do as do the rest of us. Their jobs and loyalties are of course to their members; but recently we have frequently come across inter-union disputes, one of which I referred to not so long ago over the first of these Amendments before your Lordships' House today. Where is the safeguard written into this Bill, or any other provision for that matter, against this prejudicial use of the information? It is for that reason alone that we have tried to amend Clause 18(1)(e) —in other words, to try to allow the employer, with a little less of a burden, to claim that substantial injury would be likely to be caused if the information was disseminated.
What Reason are we given for the Commons disagreement to the Amendment? It is merely:
"Because in order to avoid having to disclose information under the Bill the employer should have to show that the disclosure would actually cause substantial injury."
It will be a difficult, if not impossible, task on many occasions, first because, as I said, it will be impossible for the employer to show that there has been, or is likely to be, impropriety in the dissemination of the information; and, secondly, that such impropriety will actually cause substantial injury.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords this is an Amendment which I moved, and I moved it simply to gain clarification. It seems to me that one can judge only what is likely to happen. How can we possibly tell that substantial injury will be caused? How can anyone know that for certain? It is a very small point but I hope that when this clause is interpreted, it will be interpreted in that way; otherwise, it will be impossible for the employer ever to show that he is likely
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to receive substantial injury. Even when injury is 99 per cent. certain, he will still not be able to get away under this clause if it is interpreted literally. Therefore, I hope it will be interpreted liberally.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, this seems to me to be a lot of "word chopping". The Bill said "would" and the Amendment said "be likely to". The other place have sent the Amendment back here on the grounds that "would" means "would actually". In those circumstances, is it not best to leave it alone? Clarification does not seem to be coming from attempts at clarification.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, surely there is something illogical in the submissions which have been made in support of this Amendment. The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, said it would be very difficult to prove that something would happen, and he has suggested in substitution the word "likely", but if you cannot prove "would", how do you prove "likely"?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, with the leave of the House, you prove "likely" on the balance of probabilities.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 11 and 12]
Clause 23, page 20, line 10, at end insert ("or of an interruption in the supply of fuel and power which is beyond the control of the employer")
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:—
Because a primary objective of the provision of guarantee payments is that workers laid off through circumstances beyond their control should receive a payment.
3.42 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 11, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 12. The effect of the Amendment was to disqualify the right of an employee to guarantee payments where lay-offs result from a breakdown in the supply of fuel or power for reasons beyond the employer's control. In moving the Amendment, the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, said that its purpose was to ensure that employers who, due to lack of fuel or power as a result of industrial

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action in the public sector, are unable to provide work, should not have to make guarantee payments to their workpeople.
However, quite clearly, the Amendment has much wider ramifications. It would have the effect of disqualifying the right of an employee to guarantee payments where fuel or power supplies were interrupted for reasons totally unconnected with public sector disputes; for example, those caused by floods, non-delivery of fuel supplies, voltage reductions in bad weather and, indeed, the failure of the private sector of the oil industry to distribute supplies. The Government feel that by providing for disqualification where the lay-off of an employee arises from a dispute involving other employees of his employer or of an associated employer, they have struck the right balance and do not need to go further.
There is a further reason for our disagreement with this Amendment. The guarantee payments scheme embodies an important principle which we believe is fundamental to the fair and just treatment of all workers. That principle concerns the progressive removal of disparities between groups of workers by legislating to help those who are less advantaged to enjoy some of the benefits a ready enjoyed by many of their colleagues. This Amendment was not acceptable to the other place, who disposed of it without a Division. I urge your Lordships not to insist on this Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 11 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 12.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 13 and 14]
Clause 36, page 29, line 13, leave out ("if he so requests")
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:—
Because it is undesirable, in the interests of both employer and employee, to impose an inflexible requirement of notification in writing in all circumstances.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 13 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 14. The effect of the Amendment is to provide that the employee's notice that she intends to be absent from
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work because of pregnancy must be in writing in every case and not just when the employer so requires it. There are a number of reasons why we cannot accept this Amendment. First, we have made the provisions with regard to maternity as flexible as possible. This would introduce an element of inflexibility. Secondly, it would increase the unnecessary burden of paperwork. Thirdly, it could mean that a woman could be denied both maternity pay and reinstatement for the purely technical reason that she had not put the notice in writing. Indeed, an employer might be refused a rebate for the purely technical reason that he had paid without its being put in writing, and therefore was not entitled to the rebate. This was disposed of in the other Chamber without even a discussion.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 13 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 14.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 15 and 16]
After Clause 39, insert the following new clause:
Maternity pay rebate
".—(1) Subject to any regulations made under this section, the Secretary of State shall pay out of the Maternity Pay Fund to every employer who makes a claim under this section and who being liable to pay, has paid, maternity pay to an employee, an amount equal to the full amount of maternity pay so paid (in this section and sections (Payments to employees out of Maternity Pay Fund), (Supplementary provisions in relation to employer's insolvency) and (Complaint and appeals to industrial tribunal) below referred to as a "rebate").
(2) The Secretary of State may if he thinks fit, and if he is satisfied that it would be just and equitable to do so having regard to all the relevant circumstances, pay such a rebate to an employer who makes a claim under this section and who has paid maternity pay to an employee in circumstances in which, by reason of the time limit provided for in section 39(2) above, a complaint by the employee has been dismissed, or would not be entertained by an industrial tribunal.
(3) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2) above, a payment of contractual remuneration by an employer shall be treated as a payment of maternity pay to the extent that, by virtue of section 38(4) above,—

(a) it extinguishes the employer's liability to pay maternity pay; or

(b) in a case falling within subsection (2) above, it would extinguish that liability

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if a complaint by the employee were not time-barred as described in that subsection.

(4) The Secretary of State shall make provision by regulations as to the making of claims for rebates under this section and such regulations may in particular—

(a) require a claim to be made within such time limit as may be prescribed; and

(b) require a claim to be supported by such evidence as may be prescribed."

The Commons agreed to this Amendment but proposed the following Amendment thereto:—
In subsection (1) of the proposed new Clause leave out ("(Payments to employees out of Maternity Pay Fund)")
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 16 to the Lords Amendment No. 15. This is a drafting Amednment.
Moved, That this House cloth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 16 to the Lords Amendment No. 15.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 17 to 20]
Clause 45, page 36, line 27, leave out from ("a") to end of line 28 and insert ("specified union.
(4A) For the purposes of this section a trade union—

(a) shall be taken to be specified for the purposes of, or in relation to, a union membership agreement if it is specified in the agreement or is accepted by the parties to the agreement as being the equivalent of a union so specified; and

(b) shall also be treated as so specified if—

(i) the Service has made a recommendation for recognition of that union covering the employee in question which is operative within the meaning of section 15 above; or

(ii) subject to subsection (4B) below, the union has referred a recognition issue covering that employee to the Service under section 11 above and it has not withdrawn the reference, or from the reference, and the issue has not been settled or reported on under section 12 above.

(4B) Subsection (4A)(b)(ii) above shall not apply where the reference is such a reference as is described in section 12(2) above on which, in accordance with that subsection, the Service declines to proceed.")
The Commons agreed to this Amendment but proposed the following Amendments thereto:—
In subsection (4A)(b)(ii) leave out ("subject to subsection (4B) below")
In subsection (4A)(b)(ii),line 3, leave out ("it") and insert (the Service has not declined to proceed on the reference under section 12 above, the union")
In subsection (4A)(b)(ii) leave out from beginning of line 6 to the end of subsection (4B) and insert ("that section")
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 18 to 20 inclusive to the Lords Amendment No. 17. These are drafting Amendments which I anticipated might be necessary during the Third Reading of the Bill in this Chamber.
Moved That this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 18 to 20 inclusive to Lords Amendment No. 17.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 2 and 22]
Clause 45, page 36, line 29, leave out ("religious belief") and insert ("conscience")
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:—
Because the Clause, as amended, would lead to too much uncertainty in union membership agreements.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 21 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 22. The effect of the Amendment was to provide that employers may not compel a person to belong to a union if he objects, on grounds of conscience rather than religion, to belonging to any union. This Amendment and variations of it have been discussed on a number of occasions relating both to this Bill and to the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill. It has now been accepted by both Houses that the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Bill, in dealing with dismissal for non-membership of a union in a closed shop, should make a statutory exception only for the person who objects to union membership on the grounds of religious belief. Clearly it would be wrong to make a different provision in this Bill in respect of actions which are short of dismissal.
The House will not expect me to repeal the arguments in detail. They hinge on the uncertainty of how conscience may be interpreted by different individuals, employers, employees and, eventually,

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trade unions. I would remind the House again that the tribunals have had great difficulty in the context of union membership agreements in differentiating between conscience and religion. In the case of Heinz v. Spiller French the Industrial Court held:
"In our opinion grounds of conscience necessarily points to and involves religious belief or conviction based on religion in the broadest sense as contrasted with personal feeling however strongly held."
We ask that your Lordships do not insist upon this Amendment, first, because it would be inconsistent with a decision already made on the Amendment Bill, and, secondly, because it would create uncertainty both for employers and employees and for tribunals.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 21 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 22. —[Lord Jacques.]
3.52 p.m.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, there is a considerable difference between religious feelings and feelings of conscience. As a trade unionist, I will give way on this one with the greatest of reluctance. Conscience is quite distinct from religion. If one of my friends in the Transport and General Workers' Union, on conscience basis, decides that he does not want to belong, he has a perfect right. He does not have to declare a religion. I am horrified by the base on which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, puts this issue forward. I suspect that he has already organised it with the Opposition so that they are not going to oppose. I wish to speak out for quite a lot of people who simply say: "I don't need to prove a religious objection. I just conscientiously don't want to belong."
Without developing the point at great length, thereby messing up the business this afternoon, I should like to think there are many noble Lords here who would agree with me in saying that it should be acceptable for a fellow to say, conscientiously: "Don't probe me too closely as to how I get my conscience, but conscientiously I do not want to belong to that union." We have just seen a situation between APEX and ASTMAS and some others. Most of us on this side of the House grew up as objectors. One did not have to prove a Jewish religion, a Christian religion, or any other
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religion; we were just objectors. What we mostly objected to were the fellows who were running the show.
I find it hard to accept the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. I will resist simply because men who object should not have to prove a religion. As in the war, one could be a conscientious objector because one did not happen to believe. One just does not happen to believe in Jack Jones. Ernest Bevin was much nearer my liking. If you want conscientiously to object, you should be able to. I should like some of my noble colleagues and friends to go into the Lobby with me against acceptance of the Commons Amendment.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I would first assure the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, that there has been no collusion or co-operation by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, from this side of the House. Nevertheless, I must welcome what Lord George-Brown has said and go a long way with his statements. Much has been said on this item and I will not repeat the arguments; but there was a certain matter of substance which my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham raised in Committee and which should be elaborated slightly. I recall the Queen's Speech at the beginning of this Session of Parliament, at which the Government claimed to protect, promote and respect observance of human rights. A long time has passed since those words were spoken and they seem to have been forgotten. I would therefore draw attention to the relevant provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which refer to this particular situation of somebody who does not wish to join a trade union. Article XX, Clause 2, states:
"No one may be compelled to belong to an association."
Article XXIII states:
"Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment."
These words are surely clear in their meaning.
I know it was said by one noble Lord (I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Pannell): "I am afraid that the Declaration of Human Rights has no significance on the factory floor." He may well be right, but surely these people on the factory floor would be the first to demand their rights. I would also draw attention

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to the European Social Charter, which in 1965 a Labour Government ratified, and in which the Government undertook:
"… with a view to ensuring the effective exercise of the right to work, to protect effectively the right of the worker to earn his living in an occupation freely entered upon."
I should like to know how the clause as it stands is in conformity with that undertaking by a Labour Government in 1965.
I would further draw attention to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article VI, again ratified by a Labour Government, which states:
"The States party to the present Covenant recognise the right to work which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right".
These words, again, are clear and perhaps noble Lords opposite should be reminded that this Covenant is very soon to come into force as already 35 Member-States of the United Nations have ratified it. And perhaps noble Lords opposite should be reminded that the denial of the right to exercise conscience is a step in the direction of tyranny. It must be said that denying acceptance of this basic Amendment—which many noble Lords in this House have supported—denies the right of a British Labour Government to claim to be the protector of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the citizens of this country.
3.59 p.m.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, I agree with almost everything that the noble Baroness has just said, but this is a very late hour at which to be debating this matter afresh. My noble friend Lord George-Brown could not have been present earlier or have read the Official Report, otherwise he would have known that many of us expressed his point of view in earlier debates. I believe that inclusion in this Bill of the words "religious belief" is an affront to those of us who have deep conscientious convictions which are not based on religion.
For this Amendment to be inserted by a crowd of agnostics in another place, I believe to be quite an outrageous thing to be done. There it is. They apparently insist that the only identification of con
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science for this purpose must be based upon religion. When there was conscientious objection against war service, we did not say that it had to be religious objection; we said that it had to be conscientious objection. Conscientious objection—the depth of it and the length of time that people had had it—could, if necessary, be investigated by a tribunal. One realises that with the possibility of industrial disputes on one's hands and with the right of appeal to a tribunal there are many difficulties in the way of settling these matters in time so as to avoid disruption of production.
The remarks of my noble friend Lord Pannell in an earlier debate have been seriously misrepresented. If I may say so on his behalf, he was not associating himself with the belief that conscientious objection had short shrift on the factory floor; he was stating what in many cases is a fact. Declarations of human rights, which have been subscribed to by most of the nations of the world, including Soviet Russia, appear to be only scraps of paper. When it comes to the crunch, the problem always is to insist upon human rights and to get others to support them when vested interest does not want to concede them. This is the situation with which we are faced today.
I have explained on many previous occasions that I come from a family of conscientious dissenters—dissension that is not based upon religion—and I am saying another word in support of that position. Therefore, I deeply object to the inclusion of religion as the only basis for conscientious objection.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I comment upon the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Elles. When she speaks about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—a Declaration which includes countries that condone slavery and have no human rights at all—and compares it with a country like ours in the West, a highly sophisticated country with a long history of democratic government, and uses this very simplistic way of applying the Universal Declaration, she knows perfectly well that this is absolute nonsense.
Lord GEORGE BROWN: My Lords, am I allowed to speak twice?
Several Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND: My Lords, I have listened to the noble Baroness pleading passionately for human rights. As I did so my mind went back to my boyhood days. When I started work my wages were reduced arbitrarily by the manager from 2s. 9d. to 2s. 6d. a shift. We went on strike, but nobody bothered about us. We walked the streets for weeks. Wages at that time were not what they are now. We went along to the local trade union official who, with the power of the union behind him, said to the manager, "You have no right to reduce the wages of these boys without negotiation." All of us—about 20 at that time—joined the union. Within three months only two of us were paying our subscription to that union; the remaining 18 had obtained that trade union benefit for nothing. Something of that kind is remembered by boys as time goes by and they insist that people who obtain benefits should pay what is necessary to obtain them.
Those who sit on the Benches opposite have fought the trade unions for half a century. They have fought safety measures inside industry. We have had to fight them in order to pass legislation to obtain damages when employers have been neglectful. We have obtained those damages for men who have joined trade unions. We have also made it obligatory that men should obtain damages, whether or not they are in trade unions. If, however, they are not in trade unions they do not obtain legal benefit and very often they lose damages because they do not know how to deal with employers who will not be fair to their employees.
If we take the question of pollution, at one time the practice was to throw filth into the streets. It took Acts of Parliament and the payment of rates to stop that offence. If a man objects on conscientious, religious or other grounds to being prevented from throwing his filth into the streets and to paying the rates for refuse collection, do we say to him, "You don't need to pay your rates because you have a conscientious objection to paying them on that ground"? If we decide that we are to help people who are unfortunate enough to be unemployed and that we are not going to allow people to be unemployed without providing them with
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some assistance and a man says, "I have an objection to paying taxes to assist somebody while he is not working," do we allow him to object to paying those taxes and not to pay them?
Where does the Bill of Rights end and where does it begin? If you are employed as a coalminer and you have to fight the employers, as one had to fight them at one time and as one has to fight them even now for decent wages, and you obtain decent wages and a man then says, "I have a conscientious objection to paying the trade union who obtained those wages for me," do you say to that man, "Do you have a conscientious objection to taking wages which have been negotiated as a consequence of paying those contributions"? I could go on for a long time in this vein because I have long experience of these matters. Let us not confuse the Bill of Rights with the determination that people who obtain benefits should carry the responsibility for those benefits.
If I may turn to religion, this country has a long-standing respect for people with religous views. Whether or not we agree with their religion does not matter. Many people of foreign religions are coming into this country. They have strange habits and strange customs. We accept all of them because of this country's practice of religious tolerance. Because we practise religious tolerance let us not confuse it with something called "conscience." I am not denigrating the Salvation Army because I have a great respect for them, but at a time when wage negotiations were being conducted a man belonging to the Salvation Army said, "I object to paying my contribution". The trade union official said, "I will accept your objection if you will accept that you should not receive the benefits that we are negotiating for you now. Let us get this on to a sensible basis". Immediately that man paid his contribution. In other words, he was using religion as a cloak. If we allow Parliament to use religion as a cloak because we tolerate all religions it will be a bad day for us. Let us talk no more nonsense about this Bill of Rights.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, this matter has been debated frequently in your Lordships' House and in another place. One can inject the issue of human

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rights and ignore the various interpretations. Even the term "conscience" is capable of various interpretations. The issue before your Lordships' House is a simple one, whether or not your Lordships like it. It has been referred to on a previous occasion not only by me but by other Members of your Lordships' House; namely, are we going to resist the decision of another place. My noble friend Lord George-Brown made a speech which had certain overtones of moral value: so much so that I thought he might have introduced it from the Bench below him.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: Why not?
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, perhaps he will come to that in due course. That is not the issue. If he sought in his speech, however eloquent, however persuasive it was, to provoke Members on the other side of your Lordships' House to resist the decision of the other place, he had better save his breath to cool his porridge. I tried it myself: it was a complete failure, despite my accepted eloquence and persuasion!
The fact is that we are dealing with a simple political issue. Despite the minimal majority of the Government in another place, despite the fact that they have been elected by only a minority of the electors in the United Kingdom, despite all the other facts that have been referred to repeatedly, Members of your Lordships' House on the Opposition Benches are not ready for the fray. It is as simple as that. Why waste time? We have heard some remarkable speeches from the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, my noble friend Lord Douglass of Cleveland and others. They are wasting their time.
We have heard from my noble friend—I can call him a friend sometimes—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, of whose views of moral value, as I have said before, I approve, if not wholeheartedly, to a remarkable extent—and I mean what I say. I think we should have more of those speeches, more of the content of those speeches and be more ready to accept what those speeches mean. But he has just agreed with me that we are dealing with a pragmatic issue; we are not going to fight the other
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side—the people at the end of the corridor, those common people! Of course we are not; we are not ready for the fray and I suggest to my noble friend Lord George-Brown that he had better "try it on" on some other occasion, when it is likely to be more fruitful.
4.12 p.m.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, it is amazing how often reasonable men say outrageous things. We had an example of this a minute or two ago. The noble Lord, Lord Douglass of Cleveland, who always sounds so reasonable and looks so dignified, said some really outrageous things when he suggested that the safety efforts and all the improvements in industry have come from one side and that this side of the House had in fact resisted them. I do not think that is a true explanation of what took place in those days, and I do not think it is helpful to have said it—it is not in keeping with the noble Lord. I think it is right that the record should be put straight as to how some Members of this House judge history.
The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, is not able to speak again, and I suggest what he wanted to say was that it was not the case that he came today and made his points at the last minute. My recollection is that he made the same case—which is a good one, of which I heartily approve—in the earlier discussions in the passage of the Bill through the House. If it comes to a vote I shall support the point of view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown; but whether or not it is wise to do that is a matter that we have to judge.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, perhaps I may just remind your Lordships that only last week we were considering this very issue to which we have given a great deal of thought on all sides. On that occasion your Lordships' House decided—not just as a matter of being wise or, I think, from weakness—that it would be right to accept the view of another place. I am all for debate if there is a point to be debated, but it seems to me that today there are no grounds for being inconsistent, doing one thing one week and completely the opposite the following week, despite what feelings exist. There are most important issues which this House wishes to debate,

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and I wonder whether we should deal with this matter and then move to the next Amendment.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 23 and 24]
Clause 55, page 45, leave out line 9.
The Commons agreed to this Amendment and made the following consequential Amendment to the Bill:—
Clause 57, page 48, line 13, after ("pay") insert ("maternity Pay").
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 24 to Lords Amendment No. 23. This Amendment is consequential on the funding of the maternity pay.
Moved, That the House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 24 consequential on the Lords Amendment No. 23.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
4.16 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 25 and 26]
Clause 104, page 87, line 13, leave out from ("which") to ("remove") in line 15.
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
Because safety representatives should be appointed by recognised trade unions which are the bodies best able to undertake the responsibility.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon its Amendment No. 25 to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 26. The effect of the Amendment is to retain Section 2(5) of the Health and Safety at Work Act which provides for the election of safety representatives by employees. We have sought to confine the provisions of Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act to recognised trade unions, for two reasons: first, the unions are the bodies best organised to take on these responsibilities and it can be detrimental to give rights and responsibilities to those who cannot make full use of them.
Secondly, if the legislation requires an employer to undertake consultation with his employees otherwise than through the normal channels it may well lead to industrial relations difficulties. Any apparent discrimination between provisions for
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union and non-union employees is more apparent than real because there is nothing to prevent the making or continuance of voluntary arrangements between an employer and his employees. The Amendment was rejected in another place by a majority of 53, and I recommend that the House doth not insist upon this Amendment.
Moved, That the House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 25 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 26.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 27 to 32]
Clause 104, page 87, line 15, leave out ("remove the special provisions relating to health and safety at work in agriculture and")
Schedule 14, page 148, line 15, leave out paragraph 1.
Schedule 14, page 148, line 17, leave out paragraphs 2 to 7.
Page 149, line 1, leave out paragraphs 9 to 20.
Page 150, line 27, at end insert—
(". It shall be the duty of the Commission to submit to the Secretary of State and to Agriculture Ministers at such times and in such manner as may be prescribed, reports as to the operation of the Act in its application to the relevant agricultural purposes, having regard to the general purposes of Part I; and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State concerned with agriculture in Scotland shall cause any such report to be included in the next respective reports to Parliament under Section 29.")
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:—
Because the Amendments affect the incidence of expenditure as between the Agriculture Ministers and the Health and Safety Commission in connection with health and safety in agriculture, and the Commons do not offer any further Reason trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendments Nos. 27 to 31 en bloc to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 32. The effect of these Amendments was to retain the special provision for agriculture contained in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. These special provisions have the effect of practically excluding the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive from health and safety matters relating exclusively to

895
agriculture. They single out for special treatment the agricultural industry, as though for some obscure reason persons engaged in agriculture should be deprived of the protection offered to workers in other industries.
In some fields there is a greater accident rate in agriculture than there is in our factories. For example, during the years 1972 to 1974 inclusive, fatal accidents due to a fall from a ladder or stairs, fatal accidents due to electricity, fatal accidents due to poisoning or gassing, had a higher rate of incidence in agriculture than they had in factories. The agriculture Departments have not got the specialist facilities of the Commission and the Executive, which is a specialised functional body. Since the formation of the Executive in January 1975, the specialist inspectorates which previously worked in isolation have been able to share their experience and expertise. This is proving increasingly beneficial. Concentration of effort and resources, and cross-fertilisation of information and methods, are a sure prescription for progress in this area.
My Lords, the Government are well aware of the progress made in agricultural safety and health matters since the Act was passed, including the progress stemming from the work of the Farm Safety Steering Group, and the extension in the size of the agricultural safety inspectorate. These factors will be considered in the discussions which must take place between the Commission and the agriculture Ministers in order to decide what arrangements need to be made when the overall responsibility passes to the Commission. The chairman of the Health and Safety Commission has given an assurance that he is determined to maintain the momentum created in recent months by the work of the Farm Safety Steering Group.
The Commission propose to establish a number of advisory committees for the major industries, and have suggested that one of those should cover health and safety in agriculture. The chairman has said he would want to see the Farm Safety Steering Group continue its work until such time as it
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might be carried forward for a more general arrangement acceptable to the agricultural industry.
My Lords, with those explanations, the other place rejected the Amendment. I recommend to your Lordships that this House should not insist upon this Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 27 to 31 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 32.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 33 and 34]
Schedule 11, page 141, line 11, after ("conditions") insert ("substantially less favourable than").
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:—
Because the Amendment makes the meaning of the Schedule less clear and is unnecessary.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 33, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 34.
My Lords, the Bill provides that where there are no recognised terms and conditions a claim may be reported to ACAS that an employer is observing terms and conditions less favourable than the general level of terms and conditions. The Amendment seeks to insert the word "substantially" so that the terms and conditions would have to be substantially less favourable. The majority in the other place disagreed with this Amendment on two grounds: first of all, the introduction of the word "substantially" would create uncertainty; and, secondly, Schedule 11 to the Bill is in line with the fair wages resolution. This Amendment would make the Schedule inconsistent with the fair wages resolution, and would imply that Parliament was speaking with two voices on the same issue.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 33 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 34—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 35 to 39]
Schedule 15, page 167, line 8, at end insert—
("10A. After paragraph 6(5) of Schedule 1 (dismissal in closed shop situation), insert the following sub-paragraphs:—
"(5A) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (5) above a union shall be treated as specified for the purposes of or in relation to a union membership agreement (in a case where it would not otherwise be so treated) if—

(a) the Service has made a recommendation for recognition covering the employee in question which is operative within the meaning of section 15 of the Employment Protection Act 1975; or

(b) subject to sub-paragraph (5B) below the union has referred a recognition issue (within the meaning of that Act) covering that employee to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service under section 11 of that Act and it has not withdrawn the reference, or from the reference, and the issue has not been settled or reported on under section 12 of that Act.

(5B) Sub-paragraph (5A)(b) above shall not apply where the reference is such a reference as is described in section 12(2) of that Act (reference of issue previously considered by the Service) on which, in accordance with that subsection the Service declines to proceed." ")
The Commons agreed to this Amendment but proposed the following Amendments thereto:—
In line 3, leave out ("sub-paragraphs") and insert ("sub-paragraph").
In head (b), leave out ("subject to sub-paragraph (5B) below").
In head (b), line 5, leave out ("it") and insert ("the Service has not declined to proceed on the reference under section 12 of that Act, the union").
In head (b), line 7, leave out from ("under") to the end of sub-paragraph (5B) and insert ("that section").
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I formally move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 35 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reasons numbered 36 to 39. These are entirely drafting Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 35 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reasons numbered 36 to 39.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMUNITY LAND BILL
4.25 p.m.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I was anticipating a request from the other side with regard to the Community Land Bill but I will disclose now to the House that immediately on my return from sunny climes I was presented with a request by noble Lords opposite that two clauses of the Community Land Bill should be recommitted. I understand and fully appreciate the reasons why the request was made. The week before last we recommitted on Report a major new Amendment, and it was done because the Amendment was of new substance. This request is for the recommittal of clauses which have already been considered in Committee, and I am naturally very hesitant, therefore, to agree to this proposal.
However, in the light of the problems of dealing with Business at the end of this Session, it may well be that there was insufficient time for these clauses to be adequately considered, so I am agreeable to these two clauses being recommitted on two conditions: first, that the time which I believe has been allotted is agreed to; and secondly, that what is being agreed here will not be taken as a precedent for recommittal of clauses on Report when they have been considered in Committee. If we concede this, it is not a precedent, but only a recognition of the difficulties under which the House has been considering some of this legislation.
Earl ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal for that statement. I know it will give great satisfaction on this side of the House. I should like to assure the noble Lord that we should certainly not look upon this in any way as a precedent which should be quoted by any future Government, or the present Government, at any time. I may say that on the two clauses, although there are a number of Amendments which deal with other matters, the only two points that will be considered from this side of the House are those dealing with the charities and the Church properties—solely those two. The rest will be dealt with when we come back to Report stage a little later on. I can also assure the

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noble Lord that the timetable as agreed for the final completion of this Bill will be adhered to.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn. I will make sure that this is put on the Order Paper tonight.

TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL
4.28 p.m.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendment to one of the Lords Amendments be now further considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendment to one of the Lords Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENTS TO A LORDS AMENDMENT AND AMENDMENTS TO BE MOVED TO THE COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[References are to Bill (82) as first printed for the Lords. Commons Amendments are printed in italics. The Lords Amendment is printed as amended on 20th October 1975, as shown in italic.]

LORDS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 10 and 15]
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:—
"Freedom of the press
After section 1 of the principal Act there shall be inserted the following section:—
"Charter on freedom of the press
1A.—(1) If, before the end of the period of twelve months beginning with the passing of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Act 1975, there is agreed among parties including employers of journalists, or employers' associations representing such employers, editors or editors' organisations, and trade unions representing journalists, a charter containing practical guidance for employers, trade unions, editors and other journalists on matters relating to the freedom of the press, the Secretary of State shall lay before both Houses of Parliament a draft of that charter.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) above, matters relating to the freedom of the press include—

(a) the avoidance of improper pressure to distort or suppress news, comment or criticism;

(b) the application of union membership agreements to journalists including the right of journalists not to be unreasonably
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excluded or expelled from trade unions and to belong to the union of their choice and the right of editors to discharge their duties free from any obligation to join a trade union;

(c) the right of editors to commission and to publish or refuse to publish any material;

(d) the assurance (subject only to editorial discretion) of access to the press of all contributors at all times.

(3) If no such charter has been agreed as mentioned in subsection (1) above, the Secretary of State shall, after consultation with the Press Council and such of the parties referred to in that subsection, such organisations representing workers, and such organisations representing employers, as he thinks fit, prepare in draft a charter containing practical guidance on the matters specified in subsection (2) above together with such other matters as may have been agreed among the parties mentioned in subsection (1) hereof and shall lay the draft before both Houses of Parliament.
(4) If a draft laid under subsection (1) or (3) above is approved by resolution of each House of Parliament, the Secretary of State shall issue the charter in the form of the draft.
(5) A charter agreed as mentioned in sub-section (1) above, or prepared by the Secretary of State in accordance with subsection (3) above, may be revised from time to time by agreement between such parties as are referred to in subsection (1) above, and the Secretary of State shall lay a draft of the revised charter before both Houses of Parliament.
(6) If a draft laid under subsection (5) above is approved by resolution of each House of Parliament, the Secretary of State shall issue the revised charter in the form of the draft.
(7) On issuing a charter or revised charter under subsection (4) or (6) above the Secretary of State shall make by statutory instrument an order specifying the date on which the charter or revised charter is to come into effect.
(8) No criminal proceedings shall lie against any person on account of a contravention of the charter but the obligation to comply with the charter is a duty owed to any person who may be affected by a contravention of it and any breach of that duty by industrial action or otherwise is actionable accordingly subject to the defences and other incidents applying to actions for breach of statutory duty.
(9) In this section—

"article" means any matter printed or intended for printing or broadcast or intended for broadcasting by television or radio;

"industrial action" means—

(a) a concerted stoppage of work by a group of workers, whether (in the case of all or any of those workers) the stoppage is or is not in breach of their terms and

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conditions of employment and whether it is carried on during or on the termination of their employment, or

(b) any concerted course of conduct which—

(i) is carried on by a group of workers with the intention of preventing, reducing or otherwise interfering with the production of goods or the provision of services, and

(ii) in the case of some or all of them, is carried on in breach of their contracts of employment or (where they are not employees) in breach of their terms and conditions of service.")

The Commons agreed to this Amendment but proposed the following Amendments thereto:—

COMMONS AMENDMENT
At the end of subsection (3) insert—
("( ) A charter agreed as mentioned in subsection (1) above, or prepared by the Secretary of State in accordance with subsection (3) above, shall define its field of operation."
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, Amendment No. 15 is intended to enable the charter which is provided for in Clause 2 of the Bill to state its scope and application within the broad coverage of the Press. It is basically a technical Amendment, which is essential if we are to avoid creating considerable practical difficulties for those who are to make and draft the charter.
My Lords, the phrase, "Freedom of the Press", is an expression which can cover many different sectors—newspapers, magazines, books, and possibly even other media concerned with the dissemination of news and information. A charter drawn up by parties in the industry may not be appropriately applied to all those sectors, particularly if the sector was not represented among the parties who are to draw up the charter. The interests of daily newspapers are very different from those of specialist magazines. Therefore, the charter needs to state to what sector it applies, or possibly to state that it is making this provision for those sectors, and these Amendments enable this to be done.
Furthermore, it is by no means clear whether the term "freedom of the Press" covers broadcasting. Both the BBC and the IBA have statutory duties and
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responsibilities which guard against improper pressures on the dissemination of news and opinion; at least, they ought to be so guarded. Anything said in the charter would be at least superflous and might also conflict with those statutory duties. The broadcasting authorities themselves are, therefore, anxious that the charter should not apply to them. The kinds of matter which it is envisaged that a code on Press freedom should cover relate principally to the rights of editors to perform an editorial function, selecting what to include in or exclude from a paper, free from improper pressures, whether from those who employ them or from those with whom they work. But translated into the context of the BBC's and the IBA's news and comment programmes, this emphasis becomes irrelevant. The BBC's and IBA's concerns are different. Their responsibility is to comply with the duties laid on them by, in the case of the BBC, its charter, and, in the case of the IBA, by Statute. The BBC's charter establishes as an object of the BBC the collection of news and information relating to current events in any part of the world and in any manner that may be thought fit. The Postmaster-General may, in addition, prescribe provisions to be observed by the BBC, and one of these prescriptions requires the BBC to refrain from expressing its own opinion on current affairs and matters of public policy. Furthermore, the BBC's policy of impartiality of reportage has been the subject of formal exchange of assurances between the BBC's Chairman and the Postmaster-General.
The policy to which the BBC is required to work is, therefore, already stated without need for a code. A code principally directed at editorial freedoms would be inappropriate. Newspapers are at liberty to editorialise on any subject they choose, whereas the broadcasting authorities are specifically prevented from doing so. No code or charter is needed to stress the BBC's duty to secure impartiality in reporting and refusal of censorship. This is already clearly established BBC policy, which is binding on the BBC.
The statutory duties of the IBA are equally clear and require no supplementation by any code. If your Lordships desire me to elaborate that proposition, I will be very happy to do

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so. We are happy to accept, in view of the requirements that fall upon the BBC and IBA, their Chairmen's own assessment that broadcasting does not need further protection against improper influence, and that is one of our reasons for concern, which will be expressed in due course, about the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. The provisions in Amendment No. 15, which I am moving, would enable the charter to make clear that broadcasting is not to be covered, which we think is the right course. It would also enable the extent of the application of the charter to be clarified in the light of the relevance of its provisions to particular sectors of the Press. From both of these points of view, I submit that the Amendment is valuable. I beg to move that the House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 15.
Moved, That the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I do not want to speak at this stage, but I take it that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, or someone speaking on behalf of the Government, will be moving Amendment No. 15A, and that is the stage at which I wish to address the House.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, might I ask the noble and learned Lord whether he could tell us by whom the field of operation is to be defined.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it will be defined by those who will be preparing the charter. They are the master of it they will control it, they will determine it.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, is it really being suggested that the question whether or not broadcasting comes within the ambit of the charter will be the responsibility of those people negotiating the charter within the newspaper industry? If so, it seems to me an astonishing proposition.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the charter will be prepared by both sides of the industry. I am afraid I may not be getting the point which is in the wise head of the noble Lord, and if so I apologise.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask a question to settle the confusion that I am in at the moment? Which Amendment are we dealing with? I did not realise that Commons Amendment No. 15 was the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which follows on.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I apologise for the fact that my speech was obviously lacking in clarity. I was moving Amendment No. 15, and if your Lordships will be good enough to look at the Marshalled List it is set out there. It provides that at the end of subsection (3), which will be seen in Amendment No. 10, there should be inserted:
"A charter agreed as mentioned in subsection (1) above, or prepared by the Secretary of State in accordance with subsection (3) above, shall define its field of operation."
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I wonder whether at this juncture it might be wise to remind your Lordships that we are not in a Committee stage, and that the noble and learned Lord, though greatly provoked, has now made four speeches on this Amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has made two interventions. I think it would be wise if your Lordships kept to such Rules of Order as we have.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I must agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, as I usually do on matters concerning the procedure of the House. I think that if my noble and learned friend will now move Amendment No. 15A we can then proceed with the general debate.

LORDS AMENDMENT
[No. 15A]
[As an Amendment to Commons Amendment numbered 15]
At end insert—
("( ) A charter agreed as mentioned in subsection (1) above, or prepared by the Secretary of State in accordance with subsection (3) above, shall provide for the constitution of a body which shall have the functions of—

(a) hearing any complaint by a person aggrieved by a failure on the part of any other person to observe any provision of the charter;

(b) issuing to the parties a declaration as to whether such a complaint is well-founded; and

(c) securing the publication of its decision.")

The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I proceed to move Amendment No. 15A with great pleasure, and I am grateful for the happy intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, at that moment. Being cross-examined by a noble Lord in the great profession of solicitor is not something to which I look forward with any great alacrity—either past or present. Amendment No. 15A is, of course, an Amendment of very great importance, and embodies a new provision which has not hitherto been debated in either House. I regard it as a most welcome development and I hope that this will also be a view widely shared in your Lordships' House.
I am sure that many thought that the approach of the Amendment initially moved by my noble friend Lord Houghton was basically right and that legal sanctions were wholly inappropriate, but they must well have thought that a charter standing on its own, even if it could be taken into account by the courts, was insufficient. The parties to the charter might well be expected to take steps to see that some mechanism was set up which would bring influence to bear in cases where the charter was breached. But there could be no certainty that such machinery would be established, although there were reasons for hope that it would be when, for instance, the executive of the National Union of Journalists, in its statement of 8th March, said that it would support the setting up of machinery within the industry, possibly within the Press Council, to deal urgently with complaints concerned with censorship or any other contravention of their declaration of Press freedom.
Mr. Hetherington made a significant contribution in the earlier stages to the development of the concept of a charter. In the draft charter he drew up earlier this year it was said:
"We believe that it will also be beneficial if the Press Council accepts the need to investigate and report on any case where improper pressure is alleged to have been applied by a proprietor, or management representative, or trade union, or group of workers, or advertiser, or Government body, or other source of influence."
I quote this passage not in an attempt to show in detail how the body we propose to set up would work, or to suggest that the responsibility should necessarily be handed over to the Press Council, but
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to demonstrate that this proposal is based in part on suggestions made by those in journalism. But it seeks to go further by embodying the idea of a supervisory body, as this Amendment does, within a statutory framework.
This Amendment means that the charter will need to lay down means whereby complaints may be heard, questions of interpretation can be resolved, guidance given, and disputes settled by the supervisory body. It is not our purpose to set out in legislation the composition or constitution of the body which is to be charged with this task, nor do we see it as the function of this Bill even to lay down a title for it. This is not because we underestimate the importance of the matter; it is because we think that this is something which is best left to the parties themselves to settle, both sides of the industry, and especially to consider how they see such an organisation fitting in with existing organisations concerned in one way or another with the Press, and perhaps, above all, with the Press Council which, in some respects, already has functions in part of this field.
No doubt some of your Lordships will be tempted to conclude that the Government ought to be firmer on this point and lay down in law a constitution for this body. I think that that would be wrong not only for the reason I have already given but also for the reason on which much stress has already been laid in debates on this subject: it is not for the Government to regulate matters of Press freedom. We are content to provide a framework within which the newspaper industry can work, and I am sure that those in the industry can and will rise to that challenge.
Much concern has been expressed both here and in another place about the need for effective safeguards against risks to Press freedom. I should like to emphasise once more that the Government are concerned that safeguards to secure Press freedom should be effective. It is our view that a charter which can, as a result of good will in the industry, be quickly agreed and put into force and, which, as a result of this Amendment, can be the subject of adequate supervision, would be much more likely to lead to satisfactory results than procedures that have the force of law. Those procedures run the risk of untoward consequences in industrial

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relations; consequences which themselves could be harmful to Press freedom.
We can return to some of these issues when debating the next group of Amendments which will be moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, but I wish to underline that the proposal for a supervisory body set out in Amendment No. 15A has a vital role in the Government's proposal for effective action to defend Press freedom. I beg to move.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 15B and 15C]
[As Amendments to Amendments numbered 15A]
In paragraph (b), after ("well-founded") insert—
("and if so whether the party aggrieved has suffered material or pecuniary loss by reason of such failure and in what amount, and in such case directing the party in breach to pay that amount")
At end insert the following new subsection—
("( ) Any decision by the said body shall be final and conclusive between the parties and any decision of the said body made under paragraph (b) of the foregoing subsection shall be enforceable in like manner as an award made in pursuance of an arbitration agreement by an arbitrator in accordance with the provisions of the Arbitration Act 1950.")
4.45 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I rise to move Amendment No. 15B standing in my name and I would, with the leave of the House, also seek leave to move Amendment No. 15C with it because these two Amendments stand or fall together. I fully agree with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that the Government have now introduced an important new Amendment to this Bill, a fact which alone justifies the somewhat protracted proceedings which this Bill has pursued in its course through Parliament. I hope that we may have a relatively short debate because we have debated many of these issues before.
I propose first to put my remarks into context, and secondly to explain why it is that I have thought it right to put down these Amendments and what in my view they will do. May I say that I was delighted to see the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, on them too. Last week on 20th October we
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decided that Press freedom, to which all of us express, and I doubt not attach, great and sincere importance, was not simply a matter for the two sides of the industry but was something in which Parliament, and more than Parliament the public and people, have a right to a say. We therefore inserted in the minimal requirements of the charter Amendments which were designed to show that we were particularly concerned about a few cardinal matters. We wished to preserve and to defend the independence of editors not to suppress or distort news, and not to have it suppressed or distorted. We wished also to preserve and defend access to the columns of the Press by outside contributors, and we also desired to preserve and defend the de facto situation under which journalists have a right to join theoretically any institutions but, in practice, either of two important institutions.
The question remains at the point where we adjourned; what is to happen if the charter is breached? At the moment, and without the noble and learned Lord's Amendment No. 15A, the answer is absolutely nothing. It is apparently true that it may be referred to, like the road code, in any proceedings in court which may take place. But unlike the road code, which is based on a system of law founded on negligence and breach of statutory duty, there is no system of law founded on negligence or breach of statutory duty on which this could hang. The result is that, so far as any practical result would obtain, nothing would happen if the code were breached.
Indeed, no one needs, in theory at any rate, ever know of the extent of the breach. That certainly did not seem good enough to noble Lords on these Benches, and I would think that this was also the view of the Liberal Benches and the Cross-Benches. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, at that stage put forward an Amendment which still stands in his name as, I think, Amendment No. 16B—your Lordships will see it on the Order Paper—in which he invokes the principle of public policy, and says that a breach of the charter will be against public policy.
I was grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for agreeing to adjourn at that stage. The Amendment

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had only just gone down. Public policy, as most of us know, is a difficult horse to ride and, speaking for myself, I wanted to consider what the effects of that Amendment might be. I did consider them. I do not want to enter into a technical discussion, but if those who are interested in technical legal matters and wish to challenge me would do so privately, I am prepared to defend what I now tell the House, to the best of my knowledge and belief, would be the effect of that Amendment.
If a member of the National Union of Journalists were to be unjustly expelled by reason of a breach of the charter, it is my opinion that under the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that could be remedied in court by an ordinary action. I do not regard that as certain, but as probable by virtue of recent decisions of the courts. If an applicant to be a member of the NUJ were unjustly excluded from membership by reason of a rule or conduct in breach of the charter, I think it possible, but not likely, that he would have a remedy in court. That is the conclusion which I formed, rightly or wrongly. On the other hand, the position of outside contributors is, at least in my opinion, wholly unprotected by that Amendment, as is the position of the Institute of Journalists, in any possible conflict that might arise in any given instance between them and the NUJ—totally unprotected—and also I think the position of editors is, as such, totally unprotected under the effect of that public policy Amendment. Therefore I thought it right to table an Amendment in my own name.
I have fully accepted that the Government, in putting forward their Amendment No. 15A,were desiring to be constructive and helpful, and to improve the situation. I hope they will concede the same degree of sincerity to me in having tabled my Amendment. The Government propose a body and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has, perfectly candidly, admitted that he does not wish to specify what the composition or rules of procedure of that body may be. I think there are disadvantages in that course, but he has decided to take it and he has explained his reasons for doing so. The body will be charged with the function and duty of considering the complaint of any person—which, I take
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it, would include an editor or an outside contributor or a member of the Institute or of the NUJ—that the Charter has been broken. They are bound also, as I read the Amendment, to decide aye or no whether the complaint is made out, in other words whether or not the charter is or has been broken; and they are also charged with the obligation, as I understand it, to publish their findings in a way in which the fact of the breach or of the dismissal of the complaint will be made known to the public.
These are advantages. But let us suppose that somebody makes a complaint that the body, whatever they may be, decide in his favour that the complaint is made out, that the charter has been breached, but he has lost his livelihood or has suffered damage or has suffered materially in his pocket as a result of the breach of the charter of which, by now, we must all assume we are all in favour. What remedy has he if Amendment No. 15A is passed unamended? The answer is that he has no remedy whatever. I do not understand that anything the noble and learned Lord has said seeks to controvert that. He gets the benefit of a declaration and he gets the benefit of publicity, but he gets no compensation at all, nor any other remedy. Is that good enough in the field of the freedom of the Press, about whose principles at least we are now agreed and about which at any rate a majority of us think that public and people and Parliament have as much right to make pronouncements as have the two sides of industry itself? The answer I give is that it is not good enough; that where a man has been injured by a wrong we, as Parliament, should provide him with a remedy by way of compensation, and the Amendment which I propose would give him that remedy.
I have deliberately not sought to go beyond the terms of Amendment No. 15A. I do not agree with the observations hostile to and critical of the courts which have fallen from Back Benches and from the Front Bench opposite, though not—noticeably not—from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor himself. I do not agree with them, but I have accepted the view of the Government and of the Back Benches opposite. I have said, "Very well; have your body set up by your

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own industry without any more precision than the Lord Chancellor has been good enough to give us this afternoon. Let that be the body. Let them be something therefore in which you have complete confidence; but do not deny the aggrieved party a remedy." And what I have sought to add is, I should have thought, the bare minimum. It is simply that if a party is wronged by a breach of the charter and he goes to the body constituted by the Government and the industry and they find the complaint proved, they are to say whether or not there has been material loss suffered and, if they find that material loss has been suffered, then they are to direct the erring party, the party in breach, to give compensation in that amount. I cannot see anything wrong in that, and in order to make sure that the compensation, when ordered, is paid, I have provided that it shall be treated for the purposes of enforcement in exactly the same way as the award of an arbitrator under the Arbitration Act 1950.
I have tabled that Amendment in the sincere hope of being helpful. I have sincerely tabled it not with the idea of entering into conflict with the Government or with another place, but in the belief that I am perfecting that to which they have now put their hands. I desire to put it before the House in the most conciliatory manner possible; but I beg the noble and learned Lord to accept it and so put an end to any possibility of conflict between the two parts of this Parliament, and so to put an end to the protracted and sometimes unpleasant differences of opinion that we have had over the past months. I beg him to accept it on behalf of the Government and, if he does, I assure him that the thanks which will be expressed will come from the heart. But if he does not, then I am bound to tell him—not that I would impute anything of the same sort to him personally—that I should treat it as one of the signs that those who take a stronger view about these matters in the Government and who may not be Members of this House do not intend what they do to be effective at all. I say no more. I have put down the Amendment in the hope that it may be satisfactory to all parties in the dispute. I hope it will be accepted. I beg to move.
5 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, I sat through practically the whole of the Second Reading of this Bill, through the two days of the Committee stage, through the Report stage and the Third Reading and I did not say a word, so I hope that the House will allow me to say something now. When I first saw the Bill, I was aware that the Industrial Relations Act 1971 had not met with universal approval and I was not surprised to hear that in the Social Contract it had been agreed that the Labour Government, if elected, would repeal the Act. This they set out to do last year but, owing to Amendments in this House and something of a schemozzle in the other place, two sections were left extant. I thought that the object of the present Bill was to remedy that situation.
I was therefore surprised to read that the object of the Bill was to attack the freedom of the Press. It did not seem to be a Bill on the Press, though I noticed that, even on Saturday, a Times headline described the Bill as "The Government's Bill on the Press". I have very strong views on the freedom of the Press. Indeed, if I may say so, all my life I have always fought in every direction for as great a freedom of expression as possible. I believe that we must have an Official Secrets Act, but, even before I appeared for Miss Barbara Fell, I thought that certain sections of the Act were far too wide and that it was a sledgehammer used on ridiculous occasions, of which that was an example. I have always opposed the pre-censorship of plays and I helped to get that abolished. I successfully defended Lady Chatterley and I was, and am, of the opinion that any law making it a criminal offence for adults to read whatever they want to read in that field always has done, and always will do, more harm than good. All my life I have passionately believed that a free Press is the life-blood of democracy, so I approached the present Bill in a very prejudiced position, particularly in relation to editors.
I sat through the Second Reading. There was, of course, no dispute about the freedom of the Press as such. Nobody wanted the Press controlled. It was a clear and obviously sincere division of opinion as to whether we should, at the end of the day, get what we all wanted

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—namely, the protection of the freedoms of the Press—by the path of consensus or by the path of force; in other words, by the force of law.
Here, again, I was not impartial because I am a lawyer. Of course I believe that everyone—and that includes trade unions—must be subject to law and that, normally, the proper place to get disputes decided is the courts. So I listened with the greatest interest to what was said. It was, in a way, a curious debate for me because, while I was very much in two minds about the whole matter, as far as I could make out everybody else in the Chamber was absolutely certain either that the best bet was the path of consensus, or that we must use force—the force of law. In the end, I voted against the Amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and in favour of those of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. The reasons were the following. First, I remembered the right reverend Prelates—who, if I may say so, we are always very glad to see here—but who are here because there was a time when the Church was so strong that the King could no longer rule the country without arriving at a consensus with the Church. That did not mean that the Church ran the country. The King ran the country, but there had to be a consensus. Then there were the Barons, as King John found at Runnymede. Then there were the big landed proprietors, so many of whom were hereditary. Then there was the new and rising middle class.
I was not at all surprised to find that, in the world's oldest and, at one time, largest industrial democracy, a time had arrived when the workers also had to be consulted. I never thought for a moment —and I said so at the time—that in these days a Government could come to Parliament and say, "We have a Bill dealing with trade unions, to control them. It has eight pillars. We have not consulted the trade unions. We refuse to consult the trade unions on any of the eight pillars and we will hear them only as to matters of detail." I did not think that the workers would stand for it and they did not.
My second reason was that I have had a great deal of experience of cases in which trade unions come before the courts. I never specialised in trade union
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cases. I was always fortunate in having a very general practice. It is not merely that I was counsel in Rookes v. Barnard and that, in nearly forty years of practice at the Bar, I appeared in many, if not most, trade union cases and therefore have practical experience as to how it works out if you seek to apply the law to them. Before I come to that, may I deal with a point which I feel, for personal reasons, I must raise?
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, does not usually say anything twice, but he said one thing twice in the course of these debates. He said that, in his view, any idea that the courts had acted with anything other than their usual impartiality was a myth. He asked to be told whether other noble Lords agreed. At one point, he referred to a person whom he called, "One very distinguished Member of your Lordships' House, the previous noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor" and went on to say that this person had nodded his head in assent. That was when he had said it the first time. The previous noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. What confused me a little was that, when he said that, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, looked at me. I do not wish to be on record as assenting to that view. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, would not have said what he did say twice if he had not thought it relevant to the Bill, and I believe he was right and that it is relevant and I shall shortly explain why I dissent from the view in question.
The Taff Vale case was decided at the beginning of the century by Mr. Justice Farwell against the trade union. The Court of Appeal unanimously reversed his judgment in judgments which, at the time, were said to be compounded of irresistible logic. Whether or not that was right, it did not stop the House of Lords from reversing the judgments of the Court of Appeal. In 1902 came Quinn v. Leetham and an attempt to bring pressure upon an employer to agree to a closed shop; that is to say, there was an attempted boycott. It was decided, apparently, on what seemed to many a new concept in law which was there called a "civil conspiracy". There were some eminent lawyers who evidently thought that, consciously or unconsciously, the judges

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were bending the law against the trade unions. It was something of a minor election issue in 1906, and I have myself had the Osborne case which decided that a trade union could not take part in politics or operate a political fund. To remind your Lordships of what that meant, the next Election—that of 1910—saw the birth of the Labour Party, and even in 1920, when there were 89 Labour Members, 88 were sponsored by trade unions because they could not have afforded to be Members of Parliament if it had not been so. So when they got in again in 1911 they proceeded to deal with Osborne.
As soon as they came in in 1906, the Liberal Party repealed Taff Vale, but we seen a photograph of a Liberal Party Election poster—for the Liberal Party felt very strongly about this—which was a simple poster of a High Court Judge sitting on the Bench in wig and robes handing a flail to a man marked "employer" for him to administer to the workers. I suppose that that was as succinct a way of making the point as possible.
In the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Byers, I am most anxious not to misrepresent in any way the position of the Liberal Party at the time, so may I quote from the winding-up speech of the Home Secretary on the second trade union Act, that of 1912? On 30th May 1911, at column 1022 of the Official Report, the Home Secretary said that one of the two main objects of the Bill was—
"to relieve trade unions from the harassing litigation to which they have been exposed and set them free to develop and do their work without the perpetual check and uncertainty of frequent trials and without being brought constantly into contact with the courts. It is a very unseemly thing, and indeed in the House of Commons we must regard it as such, to have the spectacle we have witnessed these last few years of these workmen's guilds, trade union organisations, being enmeshed, harassed, worried and checked at every step and at every turn by all kinds of legal decisions, which came with the utmost surprise to the greatest lawyers in the country. It is not good for trade unions that they should be brought in contact with the courts, and it is not good for the courts."
The Liberal Home Secretary was, of course, Mr. Churchill.
"The courts hold justly a high and, I think, unequalled prominence in respect of the world in criminal cases, and in civil cases between man and man, no doubt, they deserve and com
916
mand the respect and admiration of all classes in the community, but where class issues are involved, and where party issues are involved, it is impossible to pretend that the courts command the same degree of general confidence. On the contrary, they do not, and a very large number of our population have been led to the opinion that they are, unconsciously, no doubt, biased. [HON. MEMBERS: 'No, no' and 'Withdraw,' and interruption.]
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I must ask hon. Members to allow the right hon. Gentleman to proceed.
Mr. KEBTY-FLETCHER: On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member speaking for himself or for the Government?
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order"—
Some things do not change very much!
"Mr. Churchill: I am sure the House will feel that that is an abuse of interruption on a point of Order [Hon. Members: 'Withdraw.'] I have not the slightest intention of withdrawing, and I repeat what I said, that it is unfortunate that these collisions occur between the courts and the great trade union bodies. [Hon. Members: 'Withdraw.'] I have only got two or three more words to say, and I am quite indifferent to the interruptions. It is for those reasons that we have sought to find in our Bill some bulwark which will stand between the trade unions and the courts. Some authority which will be able—[Hon. Members: 'Withdraw.'] We have tried to discover some authority—[An Hon. Member: 'We do not attack the judges.'] No, you do not attack them."
As a matter of interest, on the following day an application was made to Mr. Speaker on the footing that Mr. Churchill had erred by attacking the judges otherwise than on a Motion. But Mr. Speaker ruled, first, that the point ought to have been taken the day before; and, secondly, that in any case as he had said "unconsciously, no doubt, biased" that made it all right. I have drawn four conclusions from all this. The first is that, whether rightly or wrongly, the Government of the day, supported by many eminent lawyers, did think that, consciously or unconsciously, the judges had been biased against trade unions. Secondly, in my judgment such a view has no modern justification. I say that because the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said that sometimes they decided cases in favour of trade unions. He referred to two, Sorrell and Ford. I am very familiar with the Sorrell v. Smith case; that was in 1925, I think. I think the Ford case was won in 1969.
I should make it plain that while this period lasted long enough, it started at

917
the beginning of the century, but it finished in 1913, because by that time—there having been two General Elections; two Governments which held this view; Parliament having passed trade union Acts, greatly extending the extent to which workers could combine against their masters—the judges obviously accepted this.
Thirdly, it was said by some of those behind me that the reason why the trade unions felt so strongly about not getting involved in the courts was due to the Industrial Relations Act. I accept that that had its effect, but they also have their memories of their contacts with the courts from the past. I do not think that this is helpful. When one is trying to solve a modern problem, memory is not always a help, as anybody who has had anything to do with Northern Ireland knows. But they are human beings and that is the fact.
Fourthly, I am not one of those who thinks that Mr. Churchill was always wrong. Indeed, if I may say so without giving any offence to anyone at all (because these are matters of opinion), my own three favourite Home Secretaries have always been Mr. Churchill, Mr. Butler, and Mr. Jenkins; and I think Mr. Churchill's instinct for keeping the trade unions out of the law courts was right.
Certainly, in my experience of trade union cases, one learns a few elementary things pretty quickly. The first elementary thing one learns—and it is a fact, and it is no good quarrelling with facts —is that one cannot make men work with a man whom they will not work with. They are human beings. You can fine them; you can send them to prison. That is not quite accurate; you can if you shoot them. But in a democracy you cannot do that. Secondly, there is our history of trying to stop strikes by law. It was for 94 years—a long time—illegal for employees in certain public utilities to strike. That was not a law which was ever enforced, because it could not be enforced. I am afraid that I part company from two noble Lords with whom I usually agree, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and my noble friend Lord Snow, both of whom seem to think that we cannot have a law which cannot be enforced; that is not so.
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This is not only in the field of trade unions. Some lawyers have been heard to say that a judge cannot make a decree of specific performance of a contract for personal services. I do not believe that that is the law. It is not that they cannot; it is simply that they do not; and as they are governed by precedent one may even say that it comes to the same thing. They have found from experience that an order of that kind cannot be enforced; and any judge is reluctant to make an order which cannot be enforced. If you seek to make him do so that does nothing whatever to uphold the rule of law; on the contrary, it is destructive of the rule of law, because every time an order which cannot be enforced is made it serves merely to bring the law itself into disrepute.
The Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, is, I am sure it will be felt, of a minor character, in that all it does is enable a decision made by those who create the charter to be enforced by the courts. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will tell me whether I am wrong, but that means that the proprietors, and the editors and the journalists are not to be allowed to sit around a table to think it out for themselves. I am not suggesting that if they ask for some legal backing we should give it to them; that is another question. The noble and learned Lord does not want them to sit down and consider this at all, unless the proprietor knows that if the journalist breaks the code on behalf of his union (the National Union of Journalists) and the proprietor suffers damage, he will be able to sequestrate the funds of the trade union.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord has said that I should interrupt him if I thought he was wrong. May I say, without arguing the matter in a second speech, that I think he is entirely wrong in ascribing those views to me, because I do not hold them at all. He will also acquit me of discourtesy if I do not make a second speech in the middle of his.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will no doubt have an opportunity to say whether he thinks I am right in my view that if the Amendment is carried it will

919
be open to the court, if an award is made which is not carried out in the payment of money, to sequestrate the funds of the trade union. I must say that it seems to me that this is all the wrong atmosphere. If we are right in thinking that at the end of the day the best plan which has been put forward for maintaining the freedom of the Press is to leave it to the Press themselves—proprietors, editors and journalists sitting round a table—I suggest we ought not first to provide for enforcement. We ought to leave it to them; and, of course, if they think they need some legal backing, then they can say so.
Finally, I would have said one word to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, if he had been here, but as he is not I will address it to those on the Front Bench opposite. In so doing I am wearing another hat, and that is my hat as the former Chairman of the All-Party Committee on House of Lords Reform. It concerns the constitutional issue involved. Whatever view we take, I think everybody in this House will agree that the Government moved a long way to try to meet the anxieties which had been expressed, and, because of that, I have respectfully to suggest to the House that this is not at all a suitable issue for a constitutional crisis. I may remind the House that the day afterwards, The Times, in a leading article headed,
"We must guard our freedom",
said this:
"Mr. Foot has made useful concessions. It is doubtful if much would be gained by the Lords pressing it to the point of denying the Government its Bill this Session. The first and best safeguard against that sort of threat is in the hands of those who work in the industry, managers, editors, journalists, and if they possess the clear sightedness and will to guard the essential freedom entrusted to them, they have the power to do so."
On the same day the Guardian inquired,
"whether it is the sort of issue that should precipitate the worst crisis since the war between Britain's two Parliamentary Chambers. A thoughtful charter may be a greater defence than Lord Goodman's amended battlements. Some constitutional confrontations have compromise written all over them. As they ponder the issues and the possibilities the Lords may well conclude that this should be one."
Presumably both The Times and the Guardian have seen the Amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and have not departed
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from that position. I was interested to notice, too, that whatever the Press may originally have felt there has, I think, been a very noticeable change. Indeed, yesterday neither the Sunday Times nor the Observer had a word to say about it at all.
For those reasons I very much hope that your Lordships will agree that we should now leave it to the profession itself, or parts of it, and not at this stage seek any legal consequences from what may be done. On any view, whatever view we may take about this, this would be a most unsuitable case for a constitutional clash between the two Houses when the difference between us now is so small and when everybody, I think, accepts that it is an honest difference of view as to the best way of safeguarding what we all want—the freedom of the Press.
5.24 p.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, my noble friends on these Benches would want me at once to convey our deepest gratitude to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, for his extremely effective reminder to your Lordships that the Liberal Party has always championed the cause of the oppressed. At the turn of the century the trade unions were the oppressed, and I see nothing inconsistent in the views which were expressed then on behalf of the Liberal Party and the views which are expressed today by those of us who feel that perhaps the balance has now somewhat tilted and that now, perhaps, the danger is that it may be the individual who is being oppressed and that the trade unions as bodies have indeed established for themselves a secure and firm base in our society.
My Lords, I was sorry to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, add that it may be that even today, after the many (if I may say so respectfully) wholly admirable judicial appointments which he made when he was the Lord Chancellor, he still has doubt as to whether the trade unions would get a fair hearing in our courts.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, if the noble Lord will forgive my interrupting. I said the precise opposite. I said that nobody could hold such an opinion in modern times. This was a period which ended in 1913. I thought I was perfectly clear about that.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, if I misunderstood the noble and learned Lord I apologise at once. I hope I did not misunderstand him when I heard him go on to talk about a constitutional crisis and clash. This is a highly premature stage at which to talk in those terms. What is happening at the moment is surely that there is a sensible, informed discussion going on between two bodies of people, one in the other place and one in your Lordships' House, each determined to secure as best they can the freedom of the Press, and each taking part in a civilised exchange by way of Amendment and counter-Amendment. What your Lordships are considering today is, therefore, an Amendment to a further Amendment proposed in the other place.
It would be a great mistake to underestimate the degree of agreement that has already been reached as a result of this interchange. When this Bill first came to your Lordships' House there was no protection whatsoever for the freedom of the Press. We have now agreed on all sides that a charter is desirable. We have reached the stage where there is substantial consensus as to what the contents of the charter should be: not a consensus yet as to the final detail, but a substantial consensus as to the nature of the matters it should cover. What now remains for your Lordships' House is the final stage: whether that charter can he made effective. One can understand those who believe that there will be a spontaneous explosion of bonhomie in the newspaper industry over the next few years which will render any form of supervision unnecessary and which will mean that all parties can be relied upon safely and explicitly to observe the charter. We on these Benches certainly hope that that will be the situation. But there have been isolated instances in the past few years—happily isolated ones—as a result of which it appears to us possible that the charter may be breached in a dangerous way; in a way which will imperil the freedom of the Press, and in circumstances in which it is therefore desirable, if possible, to find some way to ensure that those breaches are remedied should they occur.
The original suggestion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was a simple and effective one. It was to make any breach of the charter a breach of
922
statutory duty. One can well understand, if I may say so, why, in the other place, that was not accepted and why it is now clear, I think, that your Lordships would not wish to proceed along that path. We can all understand that, in the aftermath of the Industrial Relations Act, an atmosphere has been created in which it is for many people not possible to use the words "law" and trade union "in the same sentence, although if I may say so I sometimes think that perhaps there are politicians who revel in that situation very much more than the average member of the average trade union; and that there are a great many trade unionists who recognise of course that over the next few years we shall have to come back to a situation in which the trade unions, like any other powerful body in the country, are subject to the law of the land.
But accepting, as we do, that that is not practical politics, the question now arises: what are the alternatives? We have one move, again towards this agreement, from the Government with the Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. That is Amendment 15A, which sets up a body with these various functions and powers and, if I may say so, with an indication that those powers may have to exceed being merely persuasive. As your Lordships will see, the body is to have the function, among other matters, of securing the publication of its own decision. If one envisages a situation in which there has been an unwarranted censorship imposed on the contents of a newspaper, one might venture to ask how this body is to secure the publication of the decision which rules that the censorship was unjustified. Is it to be suggested that there are to be continual door-to-door distributions of political pamphlets on behalf of the Government? Or is it not recognised that, in fact, some means will be necessary of ensuring that the Press do, in one way or another, accept the decision of this body?
We should want to accept the Amendment moved in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and to take the matter a little further. There is no great dividing gulf here. We want to take it a little further; to take the matter to the extent that where the body does find that pecuniary loss has been caused it can make an order for the payment of the

923
amount suffered. That would give some protection to the journalist who is wrongly excluded from membership and therefore deprived of his livelihood and some protection for the freelance writer, the outside contributor, who might find his contributions are unable to be published.
My Lords, I would add only this. I do not want to anticipate any later discussion; but I do not believe there is anything inconsistent between the Amendments in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, and myself and the subsequent Amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. They are two schemes that can operate side by side that will give some limited protection in the very, very occasional case in which the charter is being defied and in which freedom of the Press is thereby endangered. My Lords, in those circumstances no one will pretend that this is a particularly neat scheme. The noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack can no doubt point to many legal anomalies that will result if these Amendments are adopted; but they are, I venture to suggest, the best that we can do in these circumstances. They are an effective step forward towards protecting the freedom of the Press and towards protecting the individual who otherwise might find himself oppressed.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, says that Amendments Nos. 15B and 15C take only a little further the Amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Shepherd, he fails to understand, if I may say so, how much further these Amendments go. What is proposed in these Amendments is to introduce the pecuniary penalty for the breach of the code of practical guidance with all the dangers that can flow from trying to impose those penalties upon trade unions. The original code of conduct imposed in the earlier part of the Industrial Relations Act 1971, contained no such provision for reference of breaches of that code to an independent tribunal; still less did it propose that financial penalties could be imposed for breaches that might incur losses to the parties concerned. Nothing of that appears in the 1971 Act.
In the principal Act, to which this present Bill is an Amendment, the idea of a
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general code for the conduct of industrial relations was re-embodied in the law with a code approved by Parliament for general application. At no stage was the Press separated from the rest of the trade union movement in provisions for a code of practical guidance. It was non-discriminatory in its original concept; it was non-discriminatory in its renewal to the Act of last year. Now, in this Amendment we get a proposal to discriminate against trade unions particularly in one section of industry. The Government's Amendment carries the matter further: a step proposed to meet the fears and anxieties that have been expressed in this House and elsewhere many times about the freedom of the Press.
My Lords, the Government have gone a long way to meet those fears by providing for a tribunal that could consider alleged breaches of the code and pronounce publicly their findings upon the allegations made. Public opinion can be a salutory influence on misconduct or upon activities which are regarded as contrary to the public interest. When once the financial penalties are introduced, how are they to be recovered? First, these penalties can be imposed by a body which is not a court of law. In Amendment No. 15C this tribunal is to be clothed in the authority of a body set up under the Arbitration Act 1950;but recovery, presumably, must be through the process of law, that process prescribed by the law for the recovery of penalties imposed by a statutory body.
Are we to be put back to the situation which is still so vivid in the memories of many, when attempts were made to recover from a trade union, when strikes took place and when benefactors, presumably still anonymous, came to the rescue of the trade union, heavy fines imposed on it which the union refused to pay? Are we to invite a return of those conditions? Have noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite not learned from the experience which was so bitter and electorally so disastrous following the 1971 Act? The mistakes they made then were prodigious and grievous; and. politically, I think the Conservative Party suffered more from the follies of that Act than perhaps from any other part of their policies during their period in Office.

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My Lords, I think there are great dangers in carrying proposals for a tribunal to the point of authority to award pecuniary damages. I am surprised that any noble Lord should think that the Amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, carries the matter only a little further. It carries it into fresh and dangerous territory which we can judge from our own recent experience. I sincerely hope that this House will not embark on this course. It is, I know, an easy phrase to use, as did the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, that when damage is done then there should be a remedy by way of compensation. We know the problems of that and we have had experience of them.
My Lords, in conclusion, I must repeat that I think it is asking the trade union movement as a whole too much to accept discrimination against trade unions in the newspaper industry which are not imposed upon any other section of the trade union movement. We know that the freedom of the Press is fundamental, but it has to be shown that it will be seriously threatened if the proposals of the Government are put into operation with the safeguards that are now available in a code of practical guidance, and in reference to a tribunal in the event of alleged breaches. Public opinion can be brought to bear. The Press are in a special position to give publicity to the outcome of proceedings before a tribunal of this kind. It need not be hidden through lack of space or lack of inclination on the part of the editors to give public notice to what may have transpired at a hearing of a tribunal. All that can be known to the public, and public opinion can be brought to bear. There are some matters for which no financial penalty is either appropriate or satisfactory. If there were serious breaches of the code, I suggest that fresh notice would have to be taken of its operation, and the award of money damages would not be the answer to any serious breaches which might occur. I beg your Lordships to reject Amendments Nos. 15B and 15C and to adopt the Government's Amendment No. 15A which goes a long way to meet some of the objections which have been raised in earlier debates. I am sure that in the other way lies disaster, and the repetition
926
of events which I for one would not like to see occur again.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I had intended to make one speech which dealt with all the Amendments. As some speakers limited themselves to this Amendment, it may be wrong to regard this as a general debate without indicating that that was intended.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I made inquiries of the noble and learned Lord earlier in the day. His view was definite, that we should confine ourselves to these Amendments and the noble Lord's Amendment should be dealt with separately. That was why I adopted that course. I hope that the House, that course having been adopted, will follow it.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I can be extremely brief. It may be helpful to the House if I give an indication of my intention in relation to the developments that might ensue. If the Government should indicate a willingness to accept the Amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, I would of course be satisfied with that and would give serious consideration to withdrawing my own Amendment, although, as I shall indicate, I have a natural preference of authorship for that over the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. But I regard his as satisfying the principle involved in this matter; and hence I would be prepared to withdraw my own Amendment.
If the Government are not prepared to accept his Amendment, I will support his Amendment. If the Government, in the course of this debate, indicate a preparedness to accept my Amendment, I will not support his Amendment. I think a situation as clear cut as that should be made plain during the course of the day. The only point I should like to make about the noble and learned Lord's Amendment and my own Amendment is that we may reasonably he reproached—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, dealt with the matter—with the fact that we have not produced masterpieces of jurisprudential drafting. The answer to this is that the first Amendment I put down was, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder,

927
was kind enough to say, clear cut and simple. We then observed that there was to be considerable resistance to any suggestion that there should be a clear cut and simple assertion of a legal remedy.
What we have tried to do is produce what we want with the least possible affront to the Government Benches. That is not an entirely simple matter. It has led to the ambiguities and difficulties in which we find ourselves. I make no apology for them. If we can avoid the so-called constitutional confrontation by a little ambiguity and obscurity in drafting, I am all for it. If we can make it clear that we are concerned not to encourage litigation, but to discourage it, to leave it as the last resort for the man who has no other means of redressing his injury—which is all we want—then, indeed, we shall be entirely satisfied, even if the draftsmanship may be criticised in the years to come. That is the simple position, and that is all I wish to say on this Amendment.
5.44 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should like to assure the noble Lord that I did not feel in the least affronted. Whether he will be affronted by what I am about to say, I know not. It is that neither the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, nor the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is acceptable to the Government. I do not expect that announcement comes with any surprise to anyone in the Chamber. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, began his speech by recognising the importance and significance of Amendment No. 15A, of the creation of the new supervisory body which the Amendment, if it is passed, will achieve. It is a crucial step. It will be a body set up by and within the industry itself to perform and overlook the terms of the charter, the application of the charter and how it is lived with in the industry. It will also have a conciliatory role, and that role would come into sharp contradiction and conflict with the role which the noble and learned Lord seeks to give it; namely, the role of imposing awards of compensation to be enforceable through the machinery of the courts. That is not consistent with the kind of super
928
body that the Government and Amendment No. 15A have in mind.
I turn at once to the consequences in law which the proposal of the noble and learned Lord involve. He proposes that its awards of compensation should be enforceable in the same way as arbitral awards are enforceable. The effect of that would mean that the complainant would go to the court and seek the assistance of the court, at the last resort at any rate, to processes of recovery which could, as has been said both by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, result in the sequestration of funds of a union, if it was a union that was complained of, or bankruptcy of an individual if he had no resources. We would be enmeshed once again in the misery which led to the kind of situation, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, in the ConMec Case. It is because of that possibility taking place, which would wreck relations within the industry, wreck the running of Fleet Street, and would damage the freedom of the Press by its implications and consequences, that we reject the imposition of the bringing in of the courts for enforcement proceedings in that way.
That is the Government's objection in principle to this Amendment; but it is not the only one. In practical terms, the consequences of providing for compensation to be payable to any aggrieved party could be enormous. The noble and learned Lord's Amendment No. 15B is not confined to making compensation available to individuals, say an editor expelled from a union, or an occasional contributor who was not allowed to contribute an article. The aggrieved party could be a newspaper proprietor claiming enormous sums for the loss of an issue, or loss of sales because an article was not printed. The financial implications of this Amendment, whether for unions and their individual members, or for an individual editor whose action may have breached the charter and thus, for example, occasioned substantial loss to an advertiser, are deeply disturbing.
We do not think, for the reasons I have indicated, that the idea of compensation is an appropriate one to introduce. We also fear, as I have said, that it would transform the proposed supervisory body

929
into something wholly different from what we have in mind. To impose this as part of the machinery for setting up the charter and the supervisory body would, in our view, from the very outset, pejudice discussion of the charter and the chances of arriving at sensible agreed policies within the industy. In our view, it would poison the whole thing from the beginning. That would in turn increase that which is provided for but which we hope will not have to take place; namely, the possibility that the Secretary of State will have to produce a charter. Everybody seems to think that would be very much a desperate last-resort measure. It is much better that the parties in the industry should produce it.
Accordingly, we take the view that a supervisory body of the type we have suggested to fulfill the objects which we have suggested goes a long way to meeting the fears of those who consider that the existence of a charter agreed within the industry does not of itself guarantee Press freedom. We remain convinced that Press freedom, as was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, in his remarkable speech, is best safeguarded by those within the industry on the basis of understanding and agreement. I beg your Lordships that these new provisions we are submitting for a charter within the industry, upheld by co-operation within the industry and sustained by the existence of this supervisory body, should be given a chance.
We, as a Government, are firmly on record as having given the promise to take whatever action is necessary, including legislation if that seems to be the best way of proceeding, to safeguard Press freedom if what is proposed in the Bill should prove ineffective. Weal so await, as does everyone, the report of the Royal Commission on the Press, which will have the opportunity to study all the factors affecting Press freedom which we are so anxiously discussing, far more fully than has been possible in the context of this Bill. The Government have undertaken to give careful consideration to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Press, but until we know what those recommendations are it seems sensible to us to see how the new machinery in the industry, for which we are providing, works, without intro
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ducing legal sanctions and remedies which may well prejudice its success from the very outset. I therefore invite the House to agree that we should accept the Commons Amendment No. 15, as amended by Amendment No. 15A, and that we should not make the further additions of Amendments Nos. 15B and 15C.
5.55 p.m.
Lord SNOW: My Lords, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor mentioned my name and although I am not especially anxious to speak, I feel obliged to say a word or two. Nobody in this House on either side likes quarrelling with his old friends, disagreeing with them on an important matter and changing for one night the political habits of a lifetime. I felt obliged to do that on the last vote we had on this matter and I still feel obliged to do it, almost for the opposite reason from that which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, attributed to me. It is not that I think legal sanctions are likely to work very well: it is much more that I fear the total absence of any kind of indication of the attitude of comparatively sensible men may get us on a slide so slippery and on a slope so steep that we shall see the whole thing disappear before our eyes. I was horrified to hear my noble friend Lord Houghton talking about the impossibility of distinguishing between this trade union and any other. It is very different from other trade unions. We talk of the newspaper industry. It is an industry, but it has other responsibilities and values which are totally different from the normal industry. It is rather like talking about the entire medical profession and its ancillaries as an industry. I am afraid I was speculating darkly on the speech of my noble friend Lord Houghton as to whether he would make a similar speech about the entire medical profession, if that chose to take on a trade union role —and it may do.
I think I am one of the very few Members of your Lordships' House who are comparatively familiar with Eastern Europe, and familiar not in a purely disapproving sense. I know some of their virtues as well as their vices. They have an energy and purpose which I should like to see in my own country; but they have certain constraints, to put it

931
mildly. My fear is that we may slide, with the best will in the world and with all the talk of consensus, into a state where we do not have their energy and purpose but do have their constraints. I suspect that is not impossible. I can quite easily imagine this country becoming similar to an Eastern European society—on the whole not so efficient and not so forceful, but with the Press gone already. However, if Parliament—and I mean both Houses—does not show any awareness of this danger, then I would guess that within 10 years those of us who are still alive would think that we had betrayed a most important value. This may happen; life is uncertain.
When I last spoke on this matter—and I have spoken only twice with great reluctance—I said that every ordinary creative writer in England would agree with what I had said. I said that completely without authority, but I knew I was right; and without any prompting from me 50 of the most eminent writers of England wrote a letter to the Times Literary Supplement, entirely unprovoked, his got a very inadequate reply. They still view this entire proposition with horror. The printed word is too important to be regarded purely as a matter of industrial dispute and I am afraid I shall have to vote, with deep and bitter regret, for Amendments Nos. 15B and 15C; otherwise I would feel that I had betrayed part of my life which is valuable to me.
5.59 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I think it is possible that the House may be ready to dispose of this matter, not the less effectively because the debate has been a short one. I do not propose to exercise at any great length the right of reply, but I should like to say one or two things to those who have taken part in the debate. In the first place, I was grateful for the courteous way in which the noble and learned Lord dealt with my Amendment. I thought that some of his language was a trifle exaggerated. He always sounds so reasonable, but when he says that we should wreck the whole running of Fleet Street, I really feel he was stating what will not turn out to be the case, whatever the fate of this Amendment.
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The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, gave us in the first 20 minutes of his speech a history of the very well-known decisions of the courts between 1895, I think, and 1913. They are now irrelevant, as he himself pointed out, and wholly irrelevant to my Amendment, because the whole object of this Amendment is to take the decisions of the arbitral tribunal set up by Amendment No. 15A and not the effect of the judges' decisions.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, was under a considerable disadvantage because he misunderstood the effect of this Amendment. He kept on talking about a pecuniary penalty. No penalties are suggested by this Amendment; simply that if a man has suffered a wrong, he should have compensation if the wrong takes the form of pecuniary disadvantage. That is not a penalty. Nor is it a penalty imposed by a statutory body, because the body by which it will be imposed is the body set up by the industry itself under Amendment No. 15A. Nor is there any discrimination against trade unions, because of course the penalty, if it were a penalty —the order for compensation—might apply to proprietors or editors no less than to trade unions, and might be to their advantage. So there is no uneven justice in this case.
I quite agree, of course, that an arbitration award can be enforced in the courts. But the courts have no power if the arbitrators have behaved properly, which they would do in this case, to go behind it; they have to enforce it. I can see absolutely nothing in the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, that one wants the people concerned in the industry to sit down every time they discuss it, thinking: First of all, if we don't agree we must go to arbitration; and secondly, if we go to arbitration and one side loses there must be a summons before the court." I leave absolutely no doubt that, if the body set up by the industry itself came to the conclusion that an injustice had been done and ought to be compensated for, and acted in the moderate way which such a body could be expected to do, whoever it was who was adjudged to pay the compensation would do so without any recourse to the courts. It must be pointed out to the noble and learned Lord the

933
Lord Chancellor that they do not have an opportunity to do so if Amendment No. 15A stood alone, because that makes no provision for an award of compensation, enforceable or unenforceable.
We are therefore faced with a perfectly straightforward issue. We are all agreed that there should be a charter. We are all agreed that it should protect the freedom of the Press. We are all agreed that there should be a body to investigate complaints of breaches of the charter. The simple issue is whether or not, if a wrong is done to one side or the other resulting in material damages, there should be a right of compensation. For that matter, I maintain that there should. I say so without passion. I say so without the desire to poison anybody's relations with anybody else. But I say so with
complete conviction, and I shall ask the House to divide upon my Amendment.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: The original Question was, That Amendment 15A to the Commons Amendment No. 10 be agreed to?—since when Amendments Nos. 15B and 15C have been moved by the Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone. The Question I therefore now have to put is, That Amendments Nos. 15B and 15C be agreed to?
6.4 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendments (Nos. 15B and 15C) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 162; Not-Contents, 73.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Effingham, E.

Lonsdale, E.

Adeane, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Lothian, M.

Airedale, L.

Elles, B.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Allerton, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Lyell, L.

Amherst, E.

Elton, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Malmesbury, E.

Amory, V.

Exeter, M.

Mancroft, L.

Amulree, L.

Falkland, V.

Mansfield, E.

Arran, E.

Ferrers, E.

Merrivale, L.

Atholl, D.

Feversham, L.

Mersey, V.

Balerno, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Meston, L.

Balfour, E.

Gage, V.

Monck, V.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Gainford, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Banks, L.

Garner, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L [Teller.]

Barrington, V.

George-Brown, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Gibson, L.

Netherthorpe, L.

Belstead, L.

Goodman, L.

Newall, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gore-Booth, L.

Northchurch, B.

Boothby, L.

Gowrie, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Bourne, L.

Grantchester, L.

Ogmore, L.

Brock, L.

Greenway, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Grenfell, L.

Onslow, E.

Byers, L.

Gridley, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Caldecote, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Pender, L.

Camrose, V.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Carrington, L.

Perth, E.

Cathcart, E.

Hankey, L.

Piercy, L.

Chelwood, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Porritt, L.

Clwyd, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Cole, L.

Hawke, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Henley, L.

Reading, M.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hood, V.

Redesdale, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Reigate, L.

Craigavon, V.

Howe, E.

Robbins, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Hunt of Fawley, L.

Roberthall, L.

Croft, L.

Hylton, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Daventry, V.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Robson of Kiddington,, B.

Davidson, V.

Iliffe, L.

Rochester, Bp.

de Clifford, L.

Inchyra, L.

Rothermere, V.

de Freyne, L.

Inglewood, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Kemsley, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Drogheda, E.

Kinnaird, L.

St. Davids, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Kinnoull, E.

St. Helens, L.

Duncan-Sandys, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Saint Oswald, L.

Dundee, E.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Sandford, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Sandys, L.

Eccles, V.

Long, V.

Savile, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Tanlaw, L.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Sharples, B.

Tenby, V.

Ward of Witley, V.

Snow, L.

Teviot, L.

Watkinson, V.

Somers, L.

Thomas, L.

Wigoder, L.

Stamp, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Windlesham, L.

Strathspey, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Wolverton, L.

Sudeley, L.

Vickers, B.

Young, B.

Swaythling, L.

Vivian, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Fulton, L.

Melchett, L.

Bacon, B.

Gaitskell, B.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Bernstein, L.

Gardiner, L.

Morris of Grasmere, L.

Birk, B.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Noel-Buxton, L.

Blyton, L.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Brockway, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Pannell, L.

Brown, L.

Hale, L.

Peddie, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Hall, V.

Phillips, B.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Hanworth, V.

Platt, L.

Champion, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Popplewell, L.

Collison, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Jacques, L.

Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal)

Crook, L.

Kissin, L.

Shinwell, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Leatherland, L.

Slater, L.

Cudlipp, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Soper, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Stedman, B.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Lyons of Brighton, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

McLeavy, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Maelor, L.

Wigg, L.

Fisher of Camden, L.

Mais, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Maybray-King, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

On Question, Commons Amendment No. 15, as amended, to the Lords Amendment No. 10, agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendments agreed to accordingly.
6.15 p.m.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 16]
Leave out .subsections (8) and (9) and insert—
('( ) A failure on the part of any person to observe any provision of a charter which is for the time being in force under this section shall not of itself render him liable to any proceedings, but in any proceedings—

(a) any such charter shall he admissible in evidence, and

(b) any provision of such a charter which appears to the court or tribunal to be relevant to any question arising in those proceedings shall be taken into account by the court or tribunal in determining that question.")

6.16 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 16. This Amendment deals
936
with the fundamental question of what status the charter on Press freedom should have. In substance, Commons Amendment No. 16 proposes that it should have the same status as was originally suggested by my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby at the Committee stage of the proceedings on this Bill in your Lordships' House. There is, however, one difference. The provision of my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby gave the charter a standing in proceedings for breach of contract between a journalist and his employer, or between a member of a trade union representing journalists and their trade union, or in proceedings before an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal under Schedule 1 to the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974. However, in another place the Government accepted an Amendment which provides that the charter shall be admissible and must be taken into account in any proceedings before a court or tribunal in which its provisions may be relevant to the question at issue.
This Amendment, therefore, is broader than the approach of my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby. It differs from the approach adopted by the noble

937
Lord, Lord Goodman, in his Amendments Nos. 16A, 16B and 16E to which we shall shortly be turning, in that it does not provide for breaches of the charter to constitute new grounds for legal action. In other words, the provisions of the charter are not to be enforceable as such. This is, of course, a quite fundamental difference. We do not think introducing the possibility of court cases based on the charter is in any way likely to help the achievement of Press freedom, for the reasons we canvassed in the last debate. Indeed, we think that it is likely to prove disruptive in industrial relations terms and, as I ventured to submit to the House in the last debate, to be potentially dangerous for the maintenance of Press freedom.
What is proposed in this Commons Amendment is that although breach of a provision of the charter should not give rise to a cause of action in the courts, where a right of action already exists—for example, for breach of contract or on complaints to an industrial tribunal—the charter's provisions must be taken into account by a court or tribunal in any proceedings founded on these existing rights of action in which the charter may be of relevance. In other words, the charter will help to strengthen the existing case, but will not provide new grounds for a fresh cause of action. If Amendment No. 16 which I am now moving is accepted, the charter will have a status comparable to that of the Code of Industrial Relations Practice which has already proved helpful in guiding industrial tribunals. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I wonder whether it would be convenient to the House if the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, were to move his Amendments now and we then had a general debate. If we do not adopt that procedure we may be here for some time.
[Amendments to Commons Amendment No. 16]
[Nos. 16E, A, B and F]
Line 2, at beginning insert—
("Subject to the terms of paragraphs (c) and (d) hereof").
At the end of paragraph (a) leave out ("and").
After paragraph (b) insert—
("(c) any rule, agreement, act or conduct which is contrary to the provisions of the charter shall be deemed to be contrary to public policy,
(d) nothing in the charter shall be taken to restrict or abridge any right existing by statute or common law.").
At end insert—
("( ) In this section—
"editor" includes any deputy of such editor;
"material" includes any matter printed or intended for printing or broadcast or intended for broadcasting by television or radio.").
6.20 p.m.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, with the leave of the House I beg to move en bloc Amendments Nos. 16E, 16A, 16B and 16F to Commons Amendment No. 16. I respectfully agree that it would be more convenient if, in view of the hour, I said what I have to say and were as brief as possible and a general debate then ensued. May I begin by saying that since we last debated this matter very strenuous efforts have been made to see whether the difference between us, which is narrow but incredibly important, could be resolved and bridged. Unhappily, at this moment it still remains unbridged, although I do, not believe that it is unbridgable. With resolute determination I think that we shall find a way out of the dilemma that will reassure those people on my side that some effective remedy exists against injustice, which is really what this is all about.
I should like to pay a special tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, with whom I have had discussions and who I know has made the most strenuous efforts to think of ways of dealing with the matter. I have also had the very considerable assistance of discussions with the noble Lord. Lord Douglass of Cleveland, who has tried to guide me along the ways of trade unionism. Sometimes I think he slightly despaired of my intransigence in understanding—not out of any reluctance to do so, I may say. However, he has been extremely helpful to me and I think we had almost alighted on a solution, at least to one of the points still outstanding, but not to this legal point. I wish to say

939
that we have had these discussions and I hope they will continue. I should like also to make it clear that I shall press this Amendment to a Division, because I believe most firmly that unless a proper legal remedy is provided as a very last resort in these circumstances there will be no security for a number of people who are entitled to it.
I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, who I do not think can be enjoying his participation in these proceedings, in what other areas of social, commercial, industrial and domestic activity he now thinks the law should be abrogated. He has decided that it should be totally abrogated in relation to trade unionists. If it is the case that the law is inadequate in relation to such great institutions as trade unions, it cannot be just and fair that an inadequate system of law should be maintained for the rest of us in other directions, and its urgent reform and reconstitution is apparently called for.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, made the point that up to 1913 there were serious grounds for doubting the impartiality of His Majesty's judges (as they then were), but he made it clear—and I think he was in something of a dilemma—that having had the responsibility of appointing them for about six or seven years there could be no doubt at all about their present impartiality, and certainly not the impartiality of his own nominees. I could not understand the immediate relevance of the lack of partiality of judges before 1913. It is indeed the case—
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, the noble Lord will appreciate that I did not introduce this question. He himself raised it, presumably thinking it very relevant, on two occasions.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I never at any time raised the question of the impartiality, partiality, probity or otherwise of judges before 1913, which appears to be a matter of history for historians. I was concerned with the adequacy of the courts at the present day. It may well be that Judge Jeffreys would be open to serious reproach, but I certainly do not regard him as a menace to the freedom of the Press at this moment of time.
940
I regarded a great deal of the extraordinarily interesting, persuasive and eloquent speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, as having very little to do with our discussion. The fact that he heroically maintained the innocence and purity of Lady Chatterley's Lover (with which I entirely agree) had nothing to do with this matter. What has to do with this matter is that if the late D. H. Lawrence was here and wanted to write for the Press the chances are that he might be prevented under this Bill. That, if I may say so, is the relevance of the matter so far as we are concerned.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor referred to the fact that there is sitting a Press Commission. This is indeed the case. He asked why we did not wait to see what they reported, and then we could arrive at a conclusion. Well, why do we not wait to see what they report and then arrive at a conclusion? Why do we wish to pre-empt the decision by this piece of legislation in relation to the Press? I happen to know, because I was telephoned to by a member of the Press Commission who told me that I had his wholehearted support in this matter. He went further, but I think it would be wrong for me to say any more than that and I would venture to ask Her Majesty's Government to inquire of the Press Commission whether they would make an interim and urgent decision on this matter—a conclusion which could be arrived at within days. After all, we here are reaching a decision on this matter on the basis of a debate in an afternoon. They could reach a decision on this matter on the basis of an investigation within a week. It may well be that the decision would be that the Government's determination that there should be no law in these matters, that nobody should enjoy an effective means of protection, would be endorsed by that Commission. I doubt it; I doubt it very much, but why do the Government not find out?
The suggestion that there should be no law is, if I may venture to say so to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor—for whom I entertain the greatest respect and considerable sympathy in this matter—a piece of manifest hypocrisy. The law is being introduced into this matter in the most brutal and the most crude fashion. If your Lordships

941
will look at Section 5 of the 1974 Act (his own Act) you will find that the remedies were carefully prescribed. There was stated in the very first subsection of Section 5 of that Act the protection that should be given to a man who was expelled from a union, excluded from membership, expelled from a branch or a section of a trade union by way of arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination.
As one would have expected in a civilised, humane country, provision was made for this situation. That is all being swept away by the law. It is not being swept away by a private meeting in which gentlemen are saying: "It is a matter of individual choice between ourselves without any coercion of the law. We have abandoned these rights." This is a legal provision that is taking away the rights; and when we want to put back into the Bill some suggestion that there should be some slight legal redress, we are then told that this is an appalling use of the law which is unacceptable to the trade unions.
May I say one word to the trade unions. I venture to say that throughout my life I have been a great supporter, a friend and admirer of trade unions. In the areas in which I have worked I have had a great deal to do with trade unions. I have never regarded this matter as having anything to do with trade union law or industry; it is a question of whether a man who can write is permitted to write. That is what the question is about. It is not a question of industrial discipline; it is not a question of trade union organisation. It is a question of whether a small union of 20,000 members, who supposedly redeem their reputations for intolerance and capriciousness by a vote which comprised one-third of their membership and in respect of which there was a majority of something like one thousand in favour of those resolutions which could be regarded as progressive, that is to say 5 per cent. of the membership, are alleged to have redeemed the membership from any prospect of behaving in the wrong way in the future.
I invite the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to examine the voting; to ask whether we are entitled to rely on that sort of vote and the decisions of that sort of union (for which I have the greatest respect) as placing in jeopardy the right of a man to a creative activity and occupation. That is what it is about.
942
That, if I may say so, as the noble Lord, Lord Snow, said, is the crux of the matter. It is not an industrial dispute; it is not a question of affronting trade unions by once again confronting them with legal situations that they do not like. It is a question of protecting people who want to pursue a talent and a craft in circumstances where that craft is placed in jeopardy.
I venture to ask the Government what conceivable objection there is to adopting the very moderate and minimal protections for which we have sought. What right have we to jeopardise and endanger the entitlement of a man to pursue his talent in any circumstances whatsoever because we are told it is unacceptable to the trade unions? The trade unions have acquired great rights and great powers of recent years, and I certainly do not challenge them. Nothing in any observation I have made or any proposal I have put forward suggests that any writer or any journalist should not be a member of a trade union. There are people who may hold a contrary view and their views may be open to respect, but nothing in the world that I have said relates to any such suggestion. All I have said is that nobody should be arbitrarily excluded from pursuing his craft in circumstances where he has not a redress that means something.
I do not think I take quite so slender a view of the benefits of the Amendment numbered 15. I think it may well be that they will have a considerable moral effect. I believe in an honourable industry. If honourable men get together to make a declaration that a man has been affronted, while something may come of it, it just is not good enough. We are not entitled to rely on it. It would be pure self-indulgence on our part to seek to evade this problem by saying that all men will behave well. There never was a time in the history of this country when the rule of law was in greater need. If at this moment we could say, "Everyone is flocking back to the churches and you will find on Sundays they are packed to the doors. Behaviour is changing towards morality in an absolutely unprecedented way; crime is descending at a tremendous rate", that might be a moment for saying, "All right, let us give up the protection of the law". But for Her Majesty's Lord High Chancellor now to

943
say that the law is not available in an immensely important field of human activity, when we need it more desperately than ever is, I think, an abdication of responsibility, which I find very regrettable. I do not believe that, left to themselves, the two very distinguished Lord Chancellors who have spoken in this matter in previous years would have uttered a word of the type they have this afternoon. They do it out of loyalty; they do it because they have come to believe that confrontations are more dangerous even than the abrogation of the rule of law.
My Lords, I venture to suggest to them that in this situation there is no danger of confrontation. The few aggrieved journalists will not march through the streets. We are not to have a situation where anyone is to be asked to dictate trade union policy. I venture to recommend—and it is an impertinence for me to recommend anything to do with trade unionism—a very interesting book recently published, which has been prepared by a Working Party of Warwick University. The book is called Industrial Relations and the Limit of the Law, written by four young research students. It is a very interesting book, and demonstrates quite clearly that the law has a very limited application today in relation to trade union matters. But it also demonstrates quite clearly, I venture to suggest, the arguments I have put forward for a validity in trade union matters far in excess of anything that seems to have penetrated the Government Benches at this moment.
It is of first importance that we recognise what this discussion is about. It is not an attack on trade unionism; it is not a move by the proprietors of newspapers—and I am happy to say that I have now resigned from being Chairman of the Newspaper Publishers Association so it cannot be suggested I am doing this on their behalf; I leave that onerous office on 31st December of this year and trust that I shall be bothered no more with their innumerable problems. They have my enormous sympathy on this matter, but I say that we ought to consider whether we are going to invite a constitutional confrontation on a matter about which people feel so fiercely on matters of principle.
944
Should there be a raid against trade unions, against the entire authorship and editorship, and all creative thought in the country? Is it right that the unions should provoke that sort of situation? Is it wrong that trade unions, who have always been on the side of thought, have always given support to the Arts? I remember when I was Chairman of the Arts Council, the assistance I received from creative unions, if I may call them that—Equity, and the musicians union and the like. They were the first and foremost in supporting the Arts. Is it right that now the word should go about that in order to create some industrial regimen that should relate to everybody they should cause people to believe that their right to write is imperilled? It is no use saying that that belief is fanciful. It may be in the event, but it is validly and firmly held by people who genuinely believe that this Bill will endanger their right to write, and nothing will shake that belief.
My Lords, I received a resolution from 42 editors of the IPC group. The noble Lord, Lord Cudlipp, made his maiden speech the other day, which I did not think was quite worthy of his distinguished career, in which he said that I would go down in history as the man who failed to save the Press but who destroyed the House of Lords. There will be worse epitaphs. If a man does that, I can think of a worse way to be remembered in history. That does not fill me with shame or ignominy, but with a belief that those who cause the destruction of the House of Lords on account of this issue will be the people really responsible for the situation.
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, if I may say so, made an unwontedly conciliatory speech. I am anxious to do the same. I hope everybody will make conciliatory speeches. Every word I have said is a conciliatory word, because every word is a word of truth. It is often painful to hear the truth. It is often painful to find that the truth runs counter to one's ingrained prejudice and beliefs. I assert that a way should be found over this difficulty, and there should not be a refusal of the small Amendment I have sought.
May I deal briefly with the Amendment dealt with by the noble and learned

945
Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone? It is simply this: that we reassert Common Law rights such as they exist. Their nature, to some extent, is nebulous and uncertain. There was a very good article in the Financial Times, written by Mr. David Watt, which some noble Lords may have read. The article analysed the nature of the remedies which would exist if my Amendments were passed and achieved. Noble Lords will see that Mr. Watt gives a good prospect of remedy in most of the cases with which I am concerned. I ask no more than that. I am not asking for certainty of remedy, but that there shall be injected into the Common Law a shot in the arm to enable the Common Law to develop in a contemporary fashion and a fashion which is consistent with the growth of trade unionism and the enormous increase in worker power, which we recognise, welcome, and which we have all brought about. That is all we ask. We are not asking for any statutory provisions or for legislation that affronts anyone or asserts a new course of action. We are simply saying that if am an is expelled wrongly from his trade union, if he is unable to join a trade union because of circumstances of prejudice, if in circumstances which he cannot control he finds himself unable to work, the Common Law should be entitled to develop that particular theme of law.
My Lords, my position is quite simple. I am satisfied with my Amendment, and would be satisfied with the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. I believe it likely that my Amendment would be more acceptable than his, because I assert no new right, I do not refer to damages, but merely indicate that if the Common Law right exists, it is revivified and fertilised by a declaration that the charter shall be a matter of public policy. It is little to ask. If this is acceptable, I go no further with any other Amendment. If both Amendments go back to the Commons in the event of my being successful in the Division, I still say to Her Majesty's Government that I shall be satisfied if, on reflection, they decide to accept my Amendment, and not to accept the other one, or vice versa. Neither are inflammatary Amendments. Mine can be fully and easily explained to reasonable men of any position, in any Party.
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All I say now is that we have had a long debate. We are divided by a matter of principle. I do not believe we can rely on society being organised as a kind of coconut island. We cannot have everyone sitting around in a circle distributing coconuts to the baboons, on the footing that if a small baboon fails to get a coconut, a generous large baboon will give him one. The day may come when this will happen, and we shall then have achieved the millenium; then we shall be living in a happy and contented situation. Until that happens, we need to protect the small baboon. We need to ensure that the large baboon has one coconut taken away from him, and is left with all the rest. I do not believe that it is anything but fanciful to regard the organisation of society as possible on this footing. Because I do not believe that the weak are secure against the strong, I do not believe that the poor are secure against the rich, and that without the intervention of a system of law it is possible to protect them; so I am persuaded we ought to accept my Amendment.
My Lords, may I say a last word to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. For seven years he was a very distinguished and brilliant Lord Chancellor who heartened us all. In that time he and I had certain differences about the organisation of the legal profession, the appointment of the Judiciary, and a number of other things where I continue to believe that if he had followed my precepts, we might not have these difficulties today. We might have had a Judiciary which would not cause such terror and alarm in the hearts of the trade unions. We might have had a Judiciary that was not so formally associated with any particular class structure, drawn—perish the thought—from 25,000 assembled solicitors and barristers instead of 2,500 barristers. We might have had a Judiciary, in short, acceptable to the people as a whole. This is a most delicate moment to deal with the matter. Feelings are inflamed, injuries are not repaired, wounds are not yet healed. Everything must be dealt with with the utmost caution and as slowly as possible. To expel the law at any moment is in my opinion total madness. Let us reform the Judiciary, and let us have a Judiciary in which the trade unions can have confidence. But let us recognise that

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without a Judiciary we have no security. We have anarchy and no security.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the original Question was that the House doth agree with Commons Amendments No. 16 to Amendment No. 10, since when Amendments 16E, 16A, 16B and 16F have been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in the terms set out in the printed list. The Question is, therefore, that Amendments Nos. 16E, 16A, 16B and 16F be agreed to.
Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND: My Lords, I have listened with some consternation to the whole argument this afternoon, because I feel that the code of practice is being slowly strangled by statutory obligations. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, now appears to accept the fact that a man should not have the right to join the union of his choice. He says that this is theory; that in practice he will have the right to choose between two unions. I must say that that is the strangest argument I have ever heard from a lawyer who claims to be precise; but at least we have got that point over. I am bound to reciprocate what the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said about our conversations; I have learned a lot from them about the law, about which I do not profess to know very much—only some of its effects.
But the Amendment says, "the provisions of the charter shall be deemed to be contrary to public policy". On the TUC, we argued for many years about what is in the public interest, and what is in the public interest depends upon who is deciding what is in the public interest; and at the end of the day that is something which is not clearly definable. Some judges make judgments which are decisions as men. I give one example in the last few days, in respect of the TUC Disputes Committee. I greatly regret that the judge interfered with the Disputes Committee of the TUC. A decision had been given by that Committee that one union had poached the members of another, and the judge decided that the TUC Disputes Committee was wrong, because where a staff association merged with another union that was not poaching. I suggest that that is a matter of individual opinion, and not something which the judge decided upon case law
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or any other sort of law. This is what we on these Benches are afraid of.
The whole history of the trade union movement, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner referred, is extremely relevant to this case, because this is the atmosphere in which the case is argued from these Benches. The case which is argued from the Opposition Benches is argued from the atmosphere of the law courts; they are going to make all decisions by law. I want to say here very definitely that if ever we get to the state where we believe that the law is a substitute for leadership, that will be a sad day for this country.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, may I intervene?
Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND: No, my Lords.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, it is all right for the noble Lord to say "No" …
Several Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND: My Lords, there are times when I argue better with my noble friend Lord George-Brown by silence than I do by argument.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: The noble Lord is quite right about that.
Several Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, there can be only one noble Lord on his feet at one time. I suggest that my noble friend should now be allowed to proceed, and then, of course, we are open to debate.
Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND: My Lords, I will not give way, because of what was said earlier in the debate. I do not want a repetition of the argument, when I am trying to be serious about a very serious subject. When the code of practice was introduced—I am not sure whether it was introduced or continued—in the 1971 Industrial Relations Act, when the Conservatives were in power, they impressed me with its value. I did not believe it when we started to argue it, but as time went along I learned its value, because the code of practice meant that the two sides in industry were getting together

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and agreeing about how they would proceed to avoid strikes. Today, as a consequence of that, we have leaders of employers, leaders of trade unions, writing in our national Press with one end in view, and that is the good of this country and the destruction of inflation. That is a consequence of the code of practice being allowed to go unfettered by law. I wanted to see more of this.
Nobody wants freedom of the Press more than I do; nor the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, nor indeed, I believe, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. It is the approach to the subject which matters. It is the leadership which we are now giving in this country that matters. If that leadership breaks down at this very moment when we are trying to conquer inflation, it will be the worst day's work ever done in either House of Parliament. If I was making a speech in this House today which I would regard as the most important speech of my life, it would be to ask the Opposition to stop strangling this code of practice with their puny attempts to wind the strings, the manacles, of legal action around the voluntary agreement which is undoubtedly taking place in this country today. I could almost have gone with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, except for the fact that he is ahead of his time. We have not decided what is the public interest. We have not decided what is the best public policy, and to put it into a document with legal enforcement would be fatal at the present time. It is about the only rock on which we are divided in our long discussion. I plead with your Lordships to accept the Commons Amendment and not follow on to the tyranny which can arise if we are not very careful with regard to these other Amendments.
6.47 p.m.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I should like to support Lord Douglass in what he says; that is, in suggesting to Lord Goodman that he has second thoughts. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made a case when he argued—indeed he went further than arguing; he gave a pledge on behalf of the Government—that if the charter that was envisaged was worked out and found to be defective, if it did not do the job the Government
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thought should be done, the Government would come to Parliament to seek further powers. Having a specific pledge of that kind of the willingness of the Government to act promptly should the necessity arise, I must now ask Lord Goodman this question: does he not think that the prerequisite of the rule of law is respect for the law, that it is impossible to imagine that the mere putting of measures on the Statute Book is in itself the rule of law. I did not think he was very fair to my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, because one of Lord Gardiner's principal points was that you bred disrespect for the law if measures were enacted which were then disregarded. It seems to me that is a very important point.
If I may say so, Lord Goodman was not up to his usual form. That is probably because of close association with Lord Hailsham. Be it noted that Lord Goodman did draw attention to how out of character Lord Hailsham was acting. I first struck Lord Hailsham such a long time ago in the by-election in Oxford when the great patriotic young Quintin Hogg was extolling the virtues of appeasement. I watched Lord Hailsham on that occasion and again I had a chance of seeing him in action in the 1945 Elections; then, again, subsequently, when I came to this House, and he sat on these Benches and I sat over there. The key to the character of Lord Hailsham is never conciliation, never reasonableness. If, therefore, he was reasonable today, it was because he had a little political flypaper, and I am afraid one of those he has caught is Lord Goodman. He really ought to know better than to believe that today Lord Hailsham was taking this great phalanx of conscience-stricken Tories and a few would-be Tories into that Lobby in the interests of the freedom of the Press.
The opportunity to free the Press in this country from its thralldom has existed for a long time. Our Press is a long way short of being free. It is a long way short of anything that we can be proud if. We need a free Press. I certainly join with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman—I have joined with him as an ally on many occasions—in arguing and fighting in individual cases for the principle of the upholding of the rule of law and the establishment of the rule of law. What I

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can never do is to play a game in which the rules are altered by the other side when it suits them. In other words, if we are playing cricket, play cricket, but if, on the other hand, somebody picks up the "dry scrubber" I shall blame myself if I do not get there before him.
I want to examine the position of your Lordships on the maintenance of the historic principles of revision and delay. I have supported a second Chamber, and support a second Chamber, because I served over 20 years in the other place and see the necessity for it. I have quoted previously in this House the occasion on which noble Lords on that Bench pleaded for delay and revision, until we came to the Common Market, and then it was an issue here which the Conservative Party wanted at all price. If ever there was an issue on which there should have been delay, and the country should have been consulted, it was that one. If men forget principle when it suits them, and pop up today as sweet conciliators, do not ask me to accept their good intentions, because I do not.
This is an issue in a very delicate area. I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, does not see the delicacy of it. I believe that the measure which has today gone through the House, the Employment Protection Bill, will be seen to be revolutionary in character. Not revolutionary in terms of bloodshed, but revolutionary in terms of giving men the opportunity to exercise their freedom and wisdom for our common good. If that does not work, unless we can get ACAS to operate intelligently, then indeed we shall be in a sorry plight. For it to work there must be acceptance on all sides: employers, trade unions, and the like. Each must accept the good intentions of the other, and very slowly indeed build a bridge.
It may be regrettable, but the facts are that there are millions of people in this country who do not know as much about the law as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman and I certainly do not know very much about it—but who do not accept what the noble Lord is arguing; this is, that you must have the sanction of the Common Law to ensure a right. I think that, in the long run, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, may in the event
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prove to be right; but if he is right he has got the pledge of the Lord Chancellor in the bank on which to draw if what he wants is necessary, and then that necessity will be met. Until then it surely would be wiser to rely upon good will, and common sense, and accept the Government's pledge and not try to hasten this.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, does himself no credit. He draws on a very heavy political overdraft when he associates himself with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and the Tories, because their purpose today, as I said earlier this afternoon, is one purpose, and one purpose only; that is, to damage the Labour Government. For the moment they are willing to wound, but they have not got the guts to strike. So, they are waiting for the day, and this is an occasion on which they think they can discredit the Government.
Remember the simple words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham; no noble gesture, no appeal to the conscience, the kind of conscience of the noble Lord, Lord Snow. He said that the simple issue before us is that if an individual suffers a wrong and that wrong can be put right by an award of damages, what they are seeking to do is to give that individual this right. There is no question of conscience, no question of great moral issue; it is the simple issue of the Conservative Party going into the Lobby to damage the Government, and I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has fallen for that nonsense.
6.56 p.m.
The Earl of DROGHEDA: My Lords, I want to say only a few words as seconder on his Amendment to my noble friend Lord Goodman. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, was rather unfair. It was certainly not the case that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has associated himself with the Conservative Party. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, might just as well have rebuked him for associating himself with the Liberal Party, or the majority of the Cross-Bench Peers, or indeed certain Labour Peers who have had the courage to get up and say that they see a threat. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, is a man who is very articulate and expresses himself clearly and forcefully and is a most intimidating character,

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and for me to dare to cross swords with him at all is probably to stick my neck out a long way. In any event, in this regard I think he was unfair to my noble friend Lord Goodman.
My position is what it has been from the beginning. There is an enormous amount of fear on the part of the newspaper industry of the actual and potential threats to the freedom of the Press. It is true that prior to 1971 it was theoretically possible for closed shops to be imposed, for outside contributions to newspapers to be excluded, and so on, but nobody took the threat remotely seriously at that time. It is only because of the tremendous increase in the amount of union activity, and the very clear signs of militancy among the National Union of Journalists, that we have felt that we should seek this protection not for our industry particularly but for the country.
My own attitude, to a considerable extent, would be influenced if one could be given some indication by the Government as to whether on not the words printed in italics in the Lords Amendment No. 10 are going to be accepted by Her Majesty's Government. They spell out clearly some of the specific protections which we seek to assure. All we know is that the Government voted strongly against these Amendments at the time. I should like to feel that this form of words as shown here will be accepted. I hope that we shall not end up with a constitutional clash. I felt that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, could have made his speech about a constitutional clash many months ago, and he stayed silent at the time. To bring it out now is a tremendous pity.
This is an enormously important matter. My noble friend Lord Goodman is a most accommodating man. As your Lordships all know—noble Lords laugh, but this is a true statement—he is sometimes too accommodating. He bends over backwards to reach solutions. Therefore, I have been honoured to have my name associated with him throughout these days of debate. I hope that our Amendment will be carried or that an alternative form of words can still he evolved so that the freedom of the Press can be assured.
7.0 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords. I draw your Lordships' attention
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back to the words of the Amendment. of which sight has perhaps been lost. I have not previously spoken in any of the debates on this Bill. I voted against the Hailsham-Wigoder Amendment because it seemed to be open to considerable objection, but I ask the House to consider whether the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is deserving of much more careful consideration, particularly from the Government's point of view, because it seems to have great merit and, moreover, provides a basis on which a reasonable compromise could be arrived at, something which would avoid all this talk—in my view, irrelevant talk—of constitutional crisis.
The merits of the Amendment are simple; it introduces no new statutory cause of action and no new statutory right of any kind. It simply seeks to make a resounding declaration in favour of certain developments that the Common Law has been undergoing in the last 20 years or so, and gives the courts some encouragement to pursue that line. The background of the Common Law in this matter has been fully recognised by Mr. Michael Foot, because not long ago in the House of Commons he said that he had no desire to interfere with the processes of the Common Law; and, as we know, the role of the Common Law in this matter was strongly supported by the Donovan Report, something of which we must not lost sight.
The Common Law has not been standing still in the last 25 years. To venture a personal note, as long ago as 1956 I delivered a public lecture of total unimportance which I called "The right to work" and which was subsequently published. It sought to indicate the sort of developments that were going on, rather quietly, in the processes of the Common Law. It is fair to say that in the course of the subsequent 20 years there have been very substantial developments in our courts. They are still uncertain in scope, but they have to a large degree relied on the concept of public policy. It has been said by some noble Lords this afternoon that public policy is a vague idea which might mean anything to anybody, but the whole point of this Amendment is that it tells the courts specifically that in this area Parliament is saying that public policy is involved. Thereby, it clears up this uncertainty and

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makes it easier for the courts to accept the fact that the issue of public policy arises, and that they can give effect to Common Law remedies in a number of situations, some of which have already arisen and been the subject of decisions.
I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, that the Judiciary had a rather unhappy record in trade union matters before the 1914 war, but as he recognised—and one would be surprised if he did not—the record of the Judiciary in the last 25 years in trade union matters has been not only very good but very successful. They have intervened in actions brought before them in a variety of matters and, so far as I am aware, their decisions have never aroused any particular resentment or difficulty; they have been accepted by trade unionists as fair decisions. One can perhaps make an exception in the Rookes v. Barnard case in 1964, and I agree that that was a bit of an aberration, but apart from that one case their record has been good.
Therefore, I suggest that here we have an Amendment which is of a most conciliatory kind. I do not know how anybody who knows the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, could describe him as other than conciliatory. Even in the numerous accounts one has of him he is always described as the "master conciliator", and I think everybody knows him in that capacity. He has made enormous efforts to try to produce an acceptable solution which is not open to the sort of objections that, for example, the Amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, is open to; namely, that it reopens this whole area of special statutory causes of action which could lead to the same hostility as we had under the 1971 Act.
Therefore, I strongly urge the Government, with all the earnestness I can command, that this is an area where they should think very carefully as to whether the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is a platform on which a reasonable solution could be arrived at, which would reconcile without bloodshed the difficulties between our respective Houses, and which could avoid what would be a rather puerile exercise in constitutional brinkmanship, if it were carried to that length.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, I do not know how loudly one has to shout to be heard; I have risen three times in an attempt to speak. It seems that the lawyers in this House think they have a prescriptive right to talk about the affairs of trade unionists. I happen to prefer the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, to that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, but I will vote for both. My only problem with the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman—and we had this argument some while ago—is that I wonder to myself why he thinks it is especially true of journalists and should not be applied to the rest of trade unionists. This came up clearly when my noble friend Lord Douglass of Cleveland spoke. He spoke as a manipulator, a controller, and he gave absolutely nothing to the ordinary members of trade unions. I support the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in this, and the reason why I hope his proposal will get accepted is that if we are not careful we shall be creating a new power, a new creation.
If one becomes the leader of a union, it does not really matter whether one's members are with one. One has, by definition, become "it" and, with respect to my noble friend Lord Douglass, it happened to the steel workers before it is now happening to the NUJ. It is happening to them all. I speak as a trade unionist and not as a lawyer. I do not lead or advise a trade union; I speak just as I have always spoken, as a trade unionist. It is very worrying. Bosses are arriving, the Mafia is arriving. I remember hearing the noble Lord, Lord Bernstein—who I am glad to see here tonight—saying in a debate that the one union he got along with very well was the one that was Communist controlled. He had no trouble with them, he said. That is why I support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and why I would even have supported the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham.
We are individuals. We formed trade unions because we individuals thought that we were being trodden into the ground by bosses who had too much power. Now we are in a new situation, and I beg the noble Lord, Lord Douglass of Cleveland, to understand that. One

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can get into a new situation when one's bosses tread one into the ground. My purpose as a trade unionist is to make sure that, whether I am an editor, a journalist, a member of the Transport and General Workers Union—the least skilled of the lot—or one of the noble Lord, Lord Douglass's precious steelworkers or blast furnace men, I a in m free, free to argue and free to disrupt if need be. We created this trade union movement of ours order to be free to disrupt if need be.
We are now getting infiltration—and the noble Lords, Lord Goodman and Lord Douglass, know this as well as I do —by people who do not want us to be free and who just want to run the movement. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, we do not really need any help from Colonel-Generals and we are fighting a tremendous battle ourselves to try to relieve ourselves of infiltrators who want to use our movement as a way into total control. Those infiltrators will control our money, our members and our thinking, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigg—with whom I have fought many a battle for good against chaps who do not have the courage that he and, I hope, I have—should remember that these Amendments will not do us all that much good except that, by carrying them, we shall establish something in which decent folk ought to believe.
I once had a quarrel with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which I did not want to have. We quarrelled because I asked him why he thought it only true of newspapers and journalists and he said—rather arrogantly, I thought—"Because we are creative", meaning, I suppose, that the rest of us are non-creative. However, I am with him tonight and I do not mean to pick a fight. I want to go on from this point. My father is still alive and carrying an 1898 docker's card. He must be the only man alive who is still doing that. I speak as a trade unionist who has gone all the way through. I want freedom from all the bosses, not only those with whom we argue but those in our unions. I do not want anybody saying who is to belong to which union. I want freedom for us all and if I do not want to belong to that union I want freedom to belong to this one. I do not want an American
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trade union situation. If I want someone to join my union, it is my business to convince him that he should belong to my union. I do not want a fixed arrangement. Speaking as an ordinary trade unionist, I urge that we should keep the law as free as we can. Leave us to sort out ourselves which union we want to choose.
7.17 p.m.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, it is very difficult for someone who is not a lawyer to take part in this debate in any seriousness, be he or she layman or laywoman. I came here today full of sympathy with the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. However, when I heard him say that he agreed with the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, I did not know where I was, because that Amendment retraced the steps of the Conservative Party in their Industrial Relations Act, which was a disaster. I remain very confused.
In discussing the wide range of Press freedoms, I feel that it is necessary to find a balance between two freedoms—the freedom of association, which is the trade union freedom, and the freedom of expression. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, originally wanted a statutory code for the benefit of proprietors and editors. However, as I understand it—and I stand to be corrected by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor—in his new Amendment the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has wisely compromised and has abandoned statutory wrongs and agreed that the proposed Press charter should apply both to proprietors and editors and to the unions; in other words, that it should apply in both directions. To me, that seems to make some kind of logic and sense.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, also wants it to be made clear that the charter will be a declaration of public policy. I do not understand all the intricacies of how lawyers interpret the words "public policy", but I cannot see why, when a Labour Government are in power, they should so strongly object to the words "public policy". This seems to me to be a very important question, because unless the charter has this declaration of public policy it will be of little value in practice.

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In the new Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, he does not wish to create new legal wrongs. He says he wishes to enable the charter to be a source of practical guidance to courts in dealing with existing wrongs. Unless the Government accept this, which I see as a reasonable approach, I believe that there is real danger of a constitutional crisis which is wholly unnecessary, because there is only a minor difference between the Government's Amendment and that of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. Therefore, while on the last occasion when we debated this matter I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was unwise in risking a constitutional crisis, today I think that the Government should not risk losing the Press charter by invoking the Parliament Act.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, your Lordships' House has been considering this matter for some time now, and it may be that your Lordships will wish to cease your deliberations and decide the issue before very long. It may be worth stating, very shortly, in the absence of my noble and learned friend, what we on these Benches consider to be the way our feelings are running over the Amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and others. I say, first, that I should have thought that in all quarters of your Lordships' House it would have been admitted—probably, readily admitted—that the speech by my noble and learned friend was certainly conciliatory, and he certainly showed that he had an earnest desire to try, as far as possible, to bring the two sides together.
Since he moved his Amendment—and I will not go over that ground again—the debate has gone down several paths. But, in the end, if I may sum it up from this side of the House, the whole argument can be encapsulated (if that is the right word) in very small compass indeed. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, put the matter very well when he was discussing the Amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. No new right of action is introduced or indeed contemplated. These Amendments are merely declaratory of the law as it is at the moment.
Going back in time to the Amendments of my noble and learned friend Lord
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Hailsham, they seek to do precisely the same, but in a different way. The question can be posed quite shortly—and so far no noble Lord on the Government Benches has sought to answer it—that if a person is wronged in the circumstances which have been outlined by several noble Lords, if a journalist is excluded from his employment, if a contributor is not allowed, by wrong action, to contribute to the paper according to the wishes of the editor, is there, first, to be are medy, and, secondly, what kind of remedy shall there be?
The answer so far as the Bill is concerned—before your Lordships voted on my noble and learned friend's Amendment—was "None". There was no remedy at all! The Amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, seek, as I think in a very similar way, to achieve much the same as the Amendments of my noble and learned friend. As I see it, that is the issue between us, and it is an argument in comparatively small compass.
When my noble and learned friend opened the debate he said, in effect, that he had certain reservations about the noble Lord's Amendments, and I shall not seek to go down that avenue now, nor shall I seek to argue about it. Nevertheless, despite those reservations, we on this side of the House think that a safety net, a remedy of whatever kind, is vital to the freedom of the Press in the future, and I hope that noble Lords on this side will support the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in his endeavour.
7.24 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, at the beginning of his speech the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, indicated that there is a question of principle at issue here. We have debated that question of principle for many hours, and I apprehend that the House will not want me to occupy it very much longer. On the question as to how far legal sanctions should intrude into the sphere of industrial relations in the context of newspapers, we on the Labour side of your Lordships' House take the view that that intervention would be damaging to industrial relations—damaging by its possible disruptive consequences to the freedom of the Press itself. I am in full agreement with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, said; that there would be

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few things more damaging to the rule of law than the imposition of unenforceable orders by the court.
Before I turn to the content of the Amendments, there are one or two matters with which I wish to deal. The noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, asked whether I could give any undertaking—because that might have affected the vote; I doubt whether it would, even if it had been a favourable answer that I was about to give—as to whether the Government would accept the words now in Amendment 10 in subsection (2) (the words printed in black), or whether we would wish to revert to the words approved in another place. The answer is that we would propose in another place to revert to the words that were approved there; so I must not mislead the noble Earl into thinking that there is any comfort for him along that road.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, raised the position of the Royal Commission on the Press. The Chairman of the Royal Commission has made his, and the Commission's, position plain. When taking oral evidence from the National Union of Journalists on 23rd September, he stated that the Commission would want to consider the major issue of the closed shop and Press freedom at a later stage. He was not prepared to do so while the question of legislation was still before Parliament, and discussions were continuing between the parties. He would take full evidence when the law was in being, and he made it clear that he would not assume that the law as it then stood would necessarily be the most desirable form. In other words, as I understand it, the present Chairman, like his predecessor, does not want to be rushed into special inquiries into that aspect of Press freedom, and he reserves the right of the Commission to make up its own mind about what is needed, irrespective of the form of law passed by Parliament on this occasion; but he wanted to consider the issues against a stable background.
My Lords, I should like to say this in regard to the general argument that has taken place. I believe that in the present climate of opinion there is a real chance that a voluntary scheme, a voluntary charter, a voluntary supervisory body can work; and if it can work, is it not the best solution? Let us try it! We have tried the other way—it failed. I beg your
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Lordships to give this scheme a chance now, in this present climate of conciliation, which we see manifested in various ways. I do not at all share the pessimism expressed in some of the astonishing speeches we have heard in your Lordships' House tonight. There is an awareness of a need to pull together and a need to substitute agreement and conciliation for the constant in-fighting in industrial relations. So let us give it a chance. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, said, I have given a solemn undertaking on the part of the Government that if it fails we shall come back to seek other powers.
I come now to the content of the Amendments which the Government and I find unacceptable. The suggestion which the Amendments make, that a Statute might deem something to be contrary to public policy is, as far as I can recall, an entirely new device. The effect originally intended in the Amendment as first put down by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was, as I understand it, that a rule or agreement of a union which offended the charter should be void or possibly illegal. That limited purpose has now been greatly extended by widening the Amendment to cover acts or conduct which are contrary to the provisions of the charter, thereby incorporating an earlier Amendment.
The purpose of this exercise (if that is not too respectful a name to give it) is of course to bring the courts in. In the face of this provision becoming part of our law—that every infringement of the charter is to be treated as contrary to public policy—the intention, presumably, is that the complainant can then go to the court and seek an injunction or a declaration in order to restrain that about which complaint is made. The unusual feature of this proposal is that the courts themselves would have no discretion to determine what was contrary to public policy. That decision would be taken away from them, whereas normally, of course, it falls to the courts to consider where public policy is a relevant consideration. Once a court or a tribunal had found, on the strength of this Amendment if it became law, as a finding of fact that a rule or an agreement conflicted with the charter, the Statute would itself determine the result in law; namely, that public policy must be taken to be infringed, with the inevitable consequences that it must be

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deemed by the court to be invalid, because the courts will not enforce that which is contrary to public policy, and the whole paraphernalia of injunctions and declarations would again flow in.
In my submission, the concept is not only unusual but fraught with difficulty and obscurity, and one is bound to ask where it would lead in practice. I would remind your Lordships that the contents of the charter as outlined in the Bill will cover a wide range of matters relating to the freedom of the Press. No doubt there will be provisions which will give precise guidance which can be applied to particular situations, but other provisions may well be couched in terms quite unsuitable for use in the way this Amendment proposes. I must tell the House that I simply do not know what limits could be foreseen to the possible scope of this Amendment, or its consequences in practice. If rules and agreements, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was originally thinking of, were to have added to them acts or conduct, the difficulties could be compounded. Noble Lords with experience of industrial relations will no doubt be able to imagine for themselves the kind of situation in which to declare invalid a trade union rule or a contract of employment, perhaps embodying a collective agreement, would have serious consequences. There must be a real risk that by its potential disruption of industrial relations this Amendment could bring in again, but this time by the back door, the difficulties which we have already experienced from introducing legal sanctions and which this Government are determined to avoid.
My Lords, there is also a second leg to Amendment No. 16B which ensures that nothing in the charter should be taken to restrict or abridge any right existing by Statute or Common Law. It is not of course the Government's intention that the charter should restrict such rights, but it is unnecessary to say this in the Statute and I cannot commend even that part of the Amendment to your Lordships. If there is any suggestion of abrogating the Common Law, that can be done only by a specific provision in a Statute. Then, as to Amendment No. 16A, in my submission it is too simple a view of the situation to
964
regard Amendment No. 16A as simply a paving Amendment for Amendment No. 16B. What it seems to do is to make it abundantly clear that the charter can, in the circumstances which are defined in paragraphs (c) and (d) of Amendment No. 16B, make a person liable to proceedings. For the reasons I have given—and I do not propose to add to the long time we have spent on this very important debate—I submit that the Amendments proposed should be rejected by your Lordships.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I shall reply very briefly. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor really defeated his own argument when he said that the vice of my Amendment was that it might produce industrial disruption and upheaval to an extent which would make it impossible for the law to be enforced. What he is in effect saying is that if that situation arises which he has promised to rectify by legislation he will not rectify it by legislation for the very good and valid reason that he will recognise that the legislation will not be enforceable. Hence, we have the most profound doubts about the assurance he gave, not as to his good faith or integrity, but as to the possibility of an assurance that this will be put right in later legislation if it goes wrong. His very argument defeats that. If he were able to say that there was something wrong with my Amendment in legal terms because it does not operate in the right way, that is one thing: but what, in effect, he is saying is, "Look at what an up heaval might be precipitated if it is sought to enforce this charter".
It must also be remembered that the charter prescribes what is to be done. There is no suggestion that public policy would enlarge that in the slightest degree. Everything that is in the charter is something which is now being promised by the unions, by the employees, by the employers—by everyone concerned—as things that they will or will not do. Hence, that this should be enforceable is not only a matter of logic; it is a matter of decency and a matter of good faith, and the suggestion that to enforce it is something which nobody can achieve is really to say that the rule of law has departed, and we must accept the fact that in many areas it is impossible to

965
impose upon large elements of society the discipline which arises from legislation. If it may be so, let us say so; but, in that event, why are we apprehensive about the dissolution of the House of Lords? What is the possible point of maintaining an institution which legislates to no purpose? What is the possible point of maintaining an institution which legislates for Statutes which cannot be enforced? I do not believe that we have attained any such position. I do not believe that if decent, respectable, self-this country or of the mass of trade unionists in this country. I think the phenomenon of the Industrial Relations Act is something quite distinct, and I do not intend to try to enter into the complicated history of that matter. But I do believe that if decent, respectable self-evidently just legislation is enacted by the Legislature, by both Houses, it will be enforced by the people of this country. If I did not believe that, we would all be wise to be packing our bags.
My Lords, there were a number of other speeches. The noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, made a speech which I found very encouraging. May I explain to her why I have adopted the apparently inconsistent course of supporting the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham —support to whom has given apoplexy to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg—and at the same time supporting a measure which is at variance with it? It is quite simple. I believe that my Amendment is a moderate Amendment and that with verbal adjustments and legal discussions it ought to be acceptable to the Government. I still maintain the hope that this may be the case. I shall be immensely conciliatory, whatever other views may be expressed, in adjusting the wording, changing the emphasis, producing something which nevertheless achieves what is wanted while at the same time giving the minimum of affront.
But I am supporting the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, for the reason that if the Government intransigently refuse to accept anything, then it is reasonable that both should be on the list so that they may make a choice. But I have made it clear that if these Amendments are passed and they go to the other place, and if it is con-
966
templated. that my Amendment is possible but they will not accept the Amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, I shall abandon him without the slightest compunction. It will be one of the greatest betrayals in the history of this House. I am concerned to have something that achieves the result I think necessary. The most important result that will emerge is a declaration from both Houses that the rule of law still obtains and that it is no longer an indecency to contemplate bringing an action to vindicate your rights.
There is nothing else I need say except to address one remark to the noble Lord Lord George-Brown, who said that I could claim some special status of superciliatory and superior character for the writer and artist. I do not think that the artist, writer, painter or any creative person is a whit better than the tailor or metal beater or others engaged in industrial activities. I never said so. I said that industrial disciplines cannot apply to him; because each writer writes something different. There you have a situation which is totally at variance with the ordinary industrial routine. Whether he writes well or badly, grandly or pornographically, he is writing something different; and industrial disciplines cannot apply to that effect. The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, has forgotten that I specially disclaimed any superior status for the writer. That I may believe that he has a superior status is a matter between me and my personal deliberations. That I claim that for him in the Legislature would be something that the writer would repudiate and disclaim.
My Lords, having said that, may I say that it is a matter of great regret that the Government have not been able to accept this very mild Amendment. It is, therefore, my hope, even at this late stage—and I do not think that we are anywhere near the constitutional crisis—there may be second thoughts about what the real issues are, and what the implications will be if it is ultimately rejected.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the original Question was that Amendment No. 16 be agreed to; since when Amendments Nos. 16E, 16A, 16B

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and 16F have been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. The Question therefore I now put is that Amendments 16E, 16A, 16B and 16F be agreed to en bloc.
7.41 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendments (Nos. 16E, 16A, 16B and 16F) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 138; Not-Contents, 58.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Falkland, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Airedale, L.

Ferrers, E.

Onslow, E.

Allerton, L.

Feversham, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Pender, L.

Amory, V.

Gainford, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Arran, E.

Gaitskell, B.

Perth, E.

Atholl, D.

Garner, L.

Platt, L.

Balerno, L.

George-Brown, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Balfour, E.

Gibson, L. [Teller.]

Rathcreedan, L.

Banks, L.

Goodman, L.

Reading, M.

Barrington, V.

Gore-Booth, L.

Redesdale, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Gowrie, E.

Reigate, L.

Belstead, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Robbins, L.

Berkeley, B.

Greenway, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Gridley, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Boothby, L.

Hankey, L.

Rochester, Bp.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Rothermere, V.

Byers, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Caldecote, V.

Henley, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Hood, V.

St. Davids, V.

Camrose, V.

Hunt of Fawley, L.

St. Helens, L.

Carrington, L.

Hylton, L.

Saint Oswald, L.

Cathcart, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Sandford, L.

Chelwood, L.

Iliffe, L.

Sandys, L.

Clwyd, L.

Inchyra, L.

Savile, L.

Cole, L.

Inglewood, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Colville of Culross, V.

Kemsley, V.

Sharples, B.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Kinnaird, L.

Snow, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Kissin, L.

Somers, L.

Craigavon, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Stamp, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Cross, V.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Daventry, V.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Sudeley, L.

de Clifford, L.

Long, V.

Swaythling, L.

Denham, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Tanlaw, L.

Drogheda, E. [Teller.]

Lyell, L.

Tenby, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Dundee, E.

Malmesbury, E.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Eccles, V.

Mansfield, E.

Vickers, B.

Effingham, E.

Merrivale, L.

Vivian, L.

Ellenborough L.

Mersey, V.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Elles, B.

Monck, V.

Ward of Witley, V.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Monk Bretton, L.

Wigoder, L.

Elton, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Windlesham, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Netherthorpe, L.

Wolverton, L.

Exeter, M.

Northchurch, B.

Young, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Kirkhill, L.

Bacon, B.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Leatherland, L.

Bernstein, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Birk, B.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Blyton, L.

Fisher of Camden, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Brockway, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Lovell-Davis, L. [Teller.]

Brown, L.

Gardiner, L.

Lyons of Brighton, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Maelor, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Champion, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Melchett, L.

Collison, L.

Hale, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Crook, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Pannell, L.

Cudlipp, L.

Janner, L.

Peddie, L.

Phillips, B.

Stedman, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Popplewell, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Wigg, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Slater, L.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendments agreed to accordingly.
7.51 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the Question is, That the House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 16, as amended, to the Lords Amendment No. 10.

CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS BILL
7.52 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, may I descend from the sublime to the mundane and commend this Bill to the House. It is short, and it has the support of all sides of the industry. Its aim is to divert a very small part of the British Film Fund to the National Film Finance Corporation where it will be used for financial assistance at the pre-production stage of film production, including script-writing.
I think I should first explain the circumstances which have led to this Bill being brought before the House. For years past the cinema and film production industry in this country have been declining. There are now just over 1,600 cinemas in Great Britain compared with nearly 2,000 ten years ago, and nearly 5,000 at their peak in the late 1930s. The number of admissions has fallen from 385 million in 1964 to 138.5 million in 1974. We must accept that many people wish to sit at home and watch television, and we cannot hope to put the clock back to the 1950s. Nevertheless, while the huge attendances of the immediate post-war years are unlikely to return, there is still a large audience for good films in cinemas. The number of admissions has recently gone up by nearly 4 million, from 134·2 million in 1973 to the 138.5 million in 1974 which I mentioned earlier. Cinema takings in 1974, including VAT, totalled £69·8 million and are up by about £11 million on the previous year. I hope it will be possible to continue this upward trend and maintain the cinema as a means of family
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entertainment. I should however add a further note of warning. These increased takings are due far more to inflation than to increased business; and credit is due to the many cinematograph exhibitors who throughout this economically difficult period have remained in business despite their many problems, which cannot always be met simply by increasing seat prices.
The effect of the growth of multi-screen cinema complexes on the size of the British Film Fund was mentioned in the brief debate we had last week on the draft regulation which raised the exemption limit for small cinemas to £700. This problem was first raised in the Cinematograph Films Council in October 1974. This was prior to the receipt of a joint proposal from the Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association and the Association of Independent Cinemas for an increase in the limit of weekly cinema takings at or below which a cinemais exempted from payment of levy. In considering the proposal the Council were thus able to take into account the possible effects of the growth of multi-cinema complexes on the British Film Fund.
The Cinematograph Films Council made a number of useful and constructive proposals in their Annual Report for 1973–74 which were intended to remedy the present situation. The particular proposal which led to the Bill has the unanimous support of all members. It is also supported by the Film Production Association of Great Britain, the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, and the Federation of Film Unions—all of whom played a part in devising the scheme. The proposal was put forward because, however attractive a project may appear to its sponsors, it must be effectively worked up before it can attract financial backing. The experienced and well-known film producer may well be able always to raise finance for his films whenever he has a good project to offer. This is not true, however, of the younger and less well-known producers and writers who, if they are not permitted to develop their ideas and abilities because of economic difficulties, will be lost to the industry in

971
years to come, so that there may eventually be no one to succeed today's experienced producers.
It is hoped that this Bill will go some way towards solving this problem and remedying the shortage of good projects. The scheme will enable someone who comes up with a good idea, but who has not sufficient funds himself to develop it to the point where he can attract investment capital for production, to get additional finance to enable him to develop his idea. He would be able to prepare a complete script and plan for the proposed film, and so reach the stage where he could convince potential backers that the project is worth pursuing.
The money for assistance under the proposed scheme will come, as I said, from the British Film Fund. It will thus be the industry's own money, and the Bill will not lay a new burden on the taxpayer. The rate of levy will not be increased, so there will be no additional burden on exhibitors. The money will, in effect, come from the makers of British films as the establishment of the Fund will mean that less money will be available for distribution to film makers. The Bill is necessary because the existing Cinematograph Films Acts prescribe the uses to which levy money may be put, and these statutory uses do not include the kind of financial assistance which we have in mind.
Although the Bill does not itself limit either the amount to be made available or the period during which the scheme will operate, it is my right honourable friend's intention to follow the recommendation of the CFC, and to make the sum of £200,000 available in each of the first two years of the scheme, after which it will be reviewed. That sum will be divided up so as to provide enough money for script-writing and pre-production expenses for about 20 projects in each year. The Bill would permit assistance to be provided in the form of grants; but the present intention is that assistance will be provided in the form of loans, repayable whenever a project actually goes into production. No single project will receive more than £10,000, including the script fee.
Turning to the Bill itself, the first clause authorises the British Film Fund Agency
972
to make payments to the National Film Finance Corporation. This is required because the use of the monies in the British Film Fund are confined, under the Cinematograph Films Acts 1957 to 1970, to payments to makers of British films and to payments to three bodies; namely, the British Film Institute, the National Film School and the Children's Film Foundation.
Clause 1 of the Bill will add the NFFC to the bodies which may receive payments. The Bill does not specify how much these payments will be, but follows the precedent whereby the Secretary of State is required to consult the Cinematograph Films Council in every case before approving a payment to these bodies. Hence, the industry will have ample opportunity to make recommendations as to the amount to be used. It is intended that the monies will be administered as a separate fund, unconnected with the other funds held by the NFFC; and Clause 2 of the Bill directs that the NFFC shall apply the payments in accordance with arrangements to be approved by the Secretary of State. I am sure that he will consult the industry fully before giving his approval to the initial arrangements, or to any subsequent amendments which prove necessary as a result of practical experience. Indeed, the Cinematograph Films Council has already been considering them; and I hope that it will be possible to bring them into force very soon after the passage of the Bill.
I think it might also be useful if I describe what are likely to be the main features of these arrangements. They will specify that an Advisory Committee, probably composed of six persons, will be appointed by the Secretary of State to advise the National Film Finance Corporation on the suitability of applications for assistance under the scheme. This Committee will have nothing to do with the other work of the Corporation. I expect that, as in the case of the arrangements themselves, the Secretary of State will consult the appropriate bodies in the industry, including in particular the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, the Film Production Association of Great Britain, and the Federation of Film Unions, before making appointments. I hope that it will be possible to complete these consultation and appoint the members of the

973
Committee within a month or two of the Royal Assent to the Bill. The arrangements will preclude a member of the Advisory Committee from voting, forming part of the quorum, or taking part in the discussion on any application in which he, or any company with which he is associated by way of business, has an interest.
Responsibility for making loans will rest with the NFFC, but the NFFC will normally follow the recommendations of the Advisory Committee in selecting applicants and in determining the amounts to be loaned, subject of course to the terms of the arrangements. Under the arrangements, the Advisory Committee will, in recommending applicants, be expected to satisfy itself that the application is based on a genuinely thought-out proposal. The Advisory Committee will take account of the previous record of the applicants, who must include a writer and a producer or director in film production matters; but the Committee will not be expected to make any qualitative judgment on the story itself or on the treatment of a particular subject. No interest as such will be charged on loans, but if a project goes into production then the loan will be immediately repayable. In addition, a premium will also become due. This will enable the NFFC to receive a small sum from the expected profits, which will help to cover the losses resulting from loans made for projects which do not succeed in attracting backers and which do not go into production.
The question of the size of the premium is still being considered but, at least initially, it is likely to be 50 per cent. In any event, the amount of the premium will be spelt out in the arrangements, so that applicants will know what their liabilities will be. The arrangements will also require the NFFC to make a formal agreement with each successful applicant, and this will spell out the exact conditions of the loan.
Subsection (2) of Clause 2 is necessary because, in the course of its normal lending business, the NFFC is restricted as to the period of a loan and as to the interest which must be charged. Financial assistance under this new scheme will take a different form and these restrictions would be inappropriate. Subsection (3) of Clause 2 will confine the scheme to projects intended to result in
974
the production of films primarily for exhibition in cinemas. Clause 3 includes the normal statement on citation. Subsection (2) follows the precedent of other Films Acts which generally do not extend to Northern Ireland; but this subsection would not debar a citizen of Northern Ireland from eligibility to receive financial assistance under the scheme.
I appreciate that £200,000 in each of the next two years are small sums of money in relation to the problems facing the industry and to the very considerable sums which are normally needed to finance a feature film. But we must bear in mind the difference between, on the one hand, the money needed for the development of a script and of the preliminaries necessary to demonstrate that the idea has merit—this is the pump-priming part of the operation—and, on the other hand, the much larger sums needed to convert the project into a fully-developed production. This Bill is thus an interim measure, to provide some immediate help to the industry until the more far-reaching recommendations, which I hope will emerge from the Working Party set up by the Prime Minister, can be received and studied. It has the support of all branches of the industry, and I confidently hope that the House will accept it. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
8.5 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, we must thank the noble Lord opposite for having introduced with such admirable succinctness the supporting programme after the main feature is over and also for having turned a favourable eye on the screen which he has unveiled. The cinema at the moment is struggling with increasing signs of success against the small screen, and in so doing it has to use material which is either outstandingly good or outstandingly controversial. In between, there must be a great deal of material which goes to waste, which is the work of potential writers and producers of great ability. If we now have a fund which will enable the script writers in particular to survive the arid years from inspiration to general release, then we are to congratulate them on having beaten the authors of printed works, who still await the introduction of the Public Lending

975
Right Bill promised to them before the last General Election. We now see the growth of a seed which was sown in the "reign" of my noble friend Lord Eccles, and we are glad to see that there is a recognition that the garret and genius syndrome rests upon the fallacious assumption that one is a genius because one lives in a garret when in fact one lives in a garret because one is a genius. One hopes that this small Bill will release funds to enable men of potential worth and ability in this field to be freed for productive work.
The noble Lord mentioned the reference he made in this Chamber last week to the film complex, when I suggested that it would be appropriate to examine the exemption limit in connection with a film complex where effectively a triple exemption was achieved for the same number of seats in the same ownership as there had been prior to the conversion of the building. Perhaps it would be appropriate to say that of course any such review, as I think the noble Lord implied, should be coupled with a review of what in the trade is called, I believe, "the equity factor"—that is, the lower limit which is the proportion of the receipt per ticket which is exempted from the levy.
The noble Lord, Lord Winter bottom, outlined matters which we may look at more closely in Committee, and in particular the reason (which had puzzled me) for the exemption included in Clause 2(2) from Section 2 of the Cinematograph Film Productions (Special Loans) Act 1949. This leads me on to ground to which we may return in Committee, because it appeared to me from what he said that the first beneficiaries from this new enactment would benefit by means of grant, whereas subsequent beneficiaries would benefit by means of loan. I may have misheard him, but it sounded as though he was saying that this was a transitional period, and it is something that we may want to look at later.
I do not wish to detain your Lordships after such a long and exciting evening, and it only remains for me to say that we were glad to hear the noble Lord say that although it will not be within the purview of the Advisory Committee of the NFFC to control the treatment of any subject which is accepted for grant or loan, it may be possible for them to bear
976
in mind his reference to the need for an increase is family entertainment when this subject is being looked at. This is in no way to advocate straight control or censorship of the screen, but I am sure nobody would wish public funds to be expended in a way which might subsequently give public offence. That said, we welcome anything which may bring encouragement to men and women of talent who are able to enrich the nation's life in preserving what is not only a means of communication, but also a valuable art form.
8.10 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for introducing and explaining this Bill. It is a Bill, which as he says, is welcomed on all sides; and I, for one, should like to welcome it, not just personally but also on behalf of the Liberal Party and in my capacity as President of the British Federation of Film Societies. As all noble Lords in this House already know, the Federation is at present celebrating its 50th anniversary —or, if your Lordships do not know, we have not been doing our publicity well enough. It is very important that this recommendation of the Cinematograph Films Council should have been put forward in a Bill as quickly as this without waiting for the other recommendations to be considered, as no doubt they will be by the Films Working Party.
This is an extremely necessary Bill. It is a great pity that there is no new money. Sooner or later, if the film industry is to prosper, new money must be put in. It is a pity that the amount in question is so ludicrously small. But we all know the problems which the Government have to face, and we all have sympathy with their efforts to try to be economical at these moments. All I can say is that we hope that in the future something much more far-reaching may be done. It is very important that money should be available to stimulate and help those people who have not yet achieved reputations, to enable them to put forward ideas for films, and to allow these films to reach the production stage.
I would make a point which was not made in another place but which is extremely important; that is, about the necessity to cultivate the people who are working straight from the idea through

977
the film. As we all know, a great many good films have been made from books. But the cinema is an art in itself; it is an art form on its own, and the more we can encourage those people who write scripts directly for the cinema from the original idea, the better it will be for the cinema as a whole. This Bill will certainly do this.
There is one serious point I wish to make, which I hope the noble Lord the Minister will take on board, and perhaps we may come back to it at another stage. I have not given him notice of it tonight, for which I apologise, and I do not expect an answer tonight. But we are told that the grants will become repayable with a premium when the film goes into production. It is absolutely right that the grant should be repayable. It is absolutely right that there should be a premium, and as hefty a one as 50 per cent. is not at all unfair, judging by the fact that there will obviously be a certain number of losses as well. But I do not think that the moment for both those things should be when the film goes into production. The moment for repayment should be when the film goes into production, but the moment for paying back the premium should be when the film begins to make a profit, and it should be done out of profits. Otherwise, we are deterring the very thing we want to encourage; we are deterring people from taking up the young, experimental film makers, from taking a risk in going into production, on something which may very well not make money. So far as I can see, this is a point which has not been seriously considered, and I ask the Government and the Department to take it on board, to look at it again and to come back to us with it.
All sorts of other things need to be done in this area. We need to ensure that films of this kind, made in this way, are in fact distributed. We all know that the structure of distribution of the industry in this country is such that it does not always happen. Such good films as, "England Made Me", both the recent versions of "A Doll's House" and "Zardos", have had exhibitions in London but very few outside. "Kes", which eventually made a great deal of money for its makers, got general distribution only because the critics shouted about it so much—and more power to them!
978
We must find some way of ensuring that good films receive a wider distribution. That is something which the Working Party will no doubt look at.
Another matter which they must look at again is the whole busines of the Eady levy, and the National Film Finance Corporation, and we look forward to that. In the meantime, we very much welcome this Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, suggested, there are one or two points we may want to take up at a later stage. Among others I should like to take up is the point of films being either outstandingly good or outstandingly controversial. I do not know whether that was a slip of the tongue, or whether the noble Lord was retreating into deep conservatism in thinking that a film which was outstandingly controversial could not be outstandingly good. It is hardly a point which arises—
Lord ELTON: My Lords, the inference from my remarks should be entirely the view of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. Whether a controversial film is good or bad is open to question. Some are very good and some are very bad. I do not think that being controversial is necessarily bad; it is not necessarily good, either.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: No, my Lords, but I am glad to have that elucidation. Meanwhile, from these Benches I should certainly like to welcome this Bill.
8.16 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I too should like to thank my noble friend Lord Winterbottom for introducing this Bill and for the admirable way in which he did so. Naturally, I strongly approve the purposes of this Bill. I say, "naturally" because, being the chairman of the British Film Institute as well as of the National Film School, it is hardly surprising that I have a particular interest in any measures which are calculated to encourage the activities of young, creative film-makers. The only reason why I desired to intervene briefly in this debate was simply to give expression to a certain faint apprehension that I have, an apprehension which I hope will prove to be totally unfounded.

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My apprehension stems from the fact that this further sum of £200,000, which of course in itself for this purpose is a very modest sum, as the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, conceded, is nevertheless to come out of Eady money—the Film Fund, the same Fund which is already providing grants for the Production Board of the British Film Institute, for the National Film School and also for the Children's Film Foundation. In these circumstances, one naturally feels some faint apprehension that those who are concerned with and have a say in the giving of these grants may feel that having another grantee included in the list might be a ground for reassessing the grants made to the other beneficiaries.
I was to some extent fortified in my apprehension and to some extent relieved by an exchange which took place in the other place, where Mr. Durant asked for an assurance that the proposal would not in any way penalise the other grantees. Mr. Deakins gave a helpful assurance, so far as it went. At column 438 of Hansard (Commons), in the Second Reading debate in the other place, on 21st October 1975, he said:
"The hon. Member for Reading, North made an important point about whether there would be a penalty imposed in the form of, perhaps, reduced payments out of the Eady money to the Children's Film Foundation, the National Film School and the British Film Institute Production Board. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is not the case. The new scheme will in no way prejudice the payments made from the levy to those three institutions and the Cinematograph Films Council will continue to be consulted about all these payments. That is an adequate safeguard for those organisations and for the industry."
As I say, I am relieved to have read of that assurance. It seems to me, however, that there remains a possible lacuna in this situation. One would like to have some kind of assurance that the Cinematograph Films Council has got the message and will accept the view and, in giving its advice in subsequent years, will proceed on the basis that nothing contained in the Bill should be regarded as diminishing the claims of the other beneficiaries.
From this point of view, one has to consider how vulnerable the grantee is in this inflationary situation with which
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we are all faced. Year by year one needs a good deal more to stand in the same position as one held in the previous year. If one receives a grant, it is no good being told, "You are getting the same as you had before". Indeed, this may mean a substantial cut in one's grant. Also, there is the fact that new developments occur and that from time to time there is a need for an increase in the grant. Therefore, one hopes that this matter will be left not simply to future deliberations but that it will be clearly understood and made manifest that the granting of the sum envisaged under this Bill to the new beneficiary—which I entirely applaud and think is a valuable proposal—must not be regarded as in any way affecting what would be granted to the other beneficiaries had this new provision not been made.
I hope very earnestly that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, will be able to give an assurance that the matter will be looked at from that point of view and not regarded just as a pure matter of discretion, so that in future these claims are regarded as competing one with the other. The fact of the matter is that there is no competition between any of these claimants. All of them complement one another; in their different ways they are all serving the same end. Therefore, it is vital that the grants they receive should not be diminished simply because they are coming out of the same pool. Any kind of diminution in the flow of grant in relation to any of these beneficiaries (although I speak particularly in relation to the Film School and the Production Board) would deal a very severe blow to those avenues through which fresh creative talent can be injected into the industry. It would be a sad day indeed if this beneficial Bill, which has nothing but the advantage of the industry at heart, should eventually turn out to have caused more harm than good. I am sure that that is remote from the intention of the Government, but may I urge upon them that they should give very careful consideration to this matter and appropriate advice to all those who will be concerned with the administration of this Fund.
8.24 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, what is important about this Bill is that although we are in the middle of

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lean years we can, with some confidence, hope for better years to come. The one thing that lean years do not stop is the work of young creative artists who are moving in the field of creativity in the film industry. They are perhaps impelled by the lean years to develop their talents. This House has recognised that it is good that the fund which is being created should be available while a wider plan for the film industry as a whole is being worked out.
May I touch on one or two points. We can go into the more important ones in greater depth at the Committee stage of the Bill next Friday. I have great sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. In his final words he stressed "family entertainment". Today there is a tendency for many films to stress the sensational, in the wider sense of the word "sensational". Anybody who can make sex boring should immediately be abolished from this planet! For this reason we ought to consider the point made by the noble Lord. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, also raised the question of grant versus loan. We have a hybrid here. It is a question of heads I win both times". If the young script-writer with his sponsor is accepted, he obtains his grant. He has to repay it only if the script goes into production.
I have noted the point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that it would be good to repay the grant in two tranches—the money he had when the film went into production and the premium when it becomes profitable. That seems to me to be sensible and equitable, and I shall bring it to the notice of my right honourable friend. Very rightly, the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, is defending his own two areas of responsibility. However, may I draw to his attention the Order which we passed on Wednesday, 29th October, 1975, which is called the Cinematograph Films (Collection of Levy) (Amendment No. 4) Regulations 1975—a very splendid title.
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He is rightly worried about the impact of inflation. The value of money now is not what it was, nor what it is likely to be. It is recognised in this Order that the upper limit of £5 million was specified in 1957, and that at present price levels its value then is the same as £13 million now, almost exclusively because of inflation. While the limit that we are proposing need not approach this figure, it is necessary to raise it to a more realistic level and £7 million was the figure that we chose. Therefore, I do not think that competition between the various beneficiaries of the Fund need worry my noble friend. We are increasing the Fund and, if it were necessary, could increase it further by Order. I look forward to going into the various points on this Bill later in the week. May I thank the House for its general welcome to our proposals.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

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