Sitting of 28 January 1976

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

    Embassies (Closures)
    Mr. Banksasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many embassies are scheduled for closure in 1976; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. David Ennals): Our embassies in Nicaragua and the Malagasy Republic will be closed during the first three months of this year. My right hon. Friend has no plans at present for further closures of embassies or high commissions.
    Mr. Banks: Will the Minister undertake to have further consultations with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence on the defence implications of closing in particular the embassy in the Malagasy Republic without appointing a career consul in place of the ambassador? Secondly, will he now suspend any further closures of embassies pending the CPRS review and instigate economies within the present structure of the Foreign Service?
    Mr. Ennals: As I have said, there are no immediate proposals for closures and, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, the matter will be considered in the CPRS review. Concerning Tananarive, the defence aspect is a matter for my right hon. Friend, but the hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that apart from the fact
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    that our High Commissioner in Dar-es-Salaam will be presenting his letters as non-resident Ambassador to the Malagasy Republic and the fact that we are appointing an honorary consul, we are retaining the services of a senior member of the locally engaged staff, and I think that this will be helpful in relation to business interests.

    Embassies and Missions (Entertainment)
    Mr. Maddenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will direct all British embassies and missions abroad to reduce the total cost of entertainment offered by them in the coming year by 50 per cent.
    Mr. Ennals: No. I have already announced that there will be a 10 per cent. cut next financial year. To go further than that at this stage would be to anticipate the conclusions of the review of overseas representation already announced by my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. Madden: Does not the Minister agree, however, that calls for economic stringency at home conflict with the steady increase in numbers and costs of our staffs abroad, increased expenditure on rentals and maintenance of their embassies and the extraordinary expenditure of over £7 million in the last five years on entertainment? Does he not agree that action is urgently necessary in this area if the general public are not to be left convinced that diplomacy consists of nothing other than endless cocktail parties and banquets? Will he take interim action, before the major review, to cut expenditure on entertainment abroad?
    Mr. Ennals: It is important that the House and the public should recognise that there has not been an increase in numbers in the Diplomatic Service. Over the past 10 years there has been a steady reduction in the numbers involved in spite of the fact that demands have increased, particularly in the promotion of our commercial interests overseas—and there could hardly be a higher priority. As regards entertainment, the House knows that I announced very recently that there would be a 10 per cent. cut in expenditure.

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    There has been a great deal of sniping at diplomatic representation overseas. The purpose of entertainment allowances is not to keep our staff happy but to promote British interests overseas. Our exporters know just how much this matters to them and to British industry at home. The Diplomatic Service is under fire from some quarters, but I believe that its performance is second to none.
    Sir Anthony Royle: Does the Minister recognise that we on the Opposition side of the House welcome the way in which he has resisted the constant sniping by members of the Labour Party at the Diplomatic Service? It is quite clear to many of us that although costs have risen considerably in Whitehall and overseas, the Diplomatic Service has managed to maintain a considerable service overseas for us. The British Diplomatic Service spends only ·32 per cent. of Government expenditure compared with the 1·3 per cent. which the French service spends.
    Mr. Ennals: I am bound to say that most of the criticism and snipings have come from the Opposition side of the House. I should think that about 10 times as many questions on this subject have come from Conservative Members as have come from my hon. Friends.

    Terrorist Operations (Financial Support)
    Mr. Rifkindasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will confirm that it is the Government's policy not to give financial support to organisations indulging in terrorist operations, such as SWAPO, the Pan African Congress, ZANU and the South African ANC.
    Mr. Ennals: There has been no change in the Government's policy towards aid to liberation movements. We are prepared in appropriate cases to give political and humanitarian support for peaceful purposes. Of the groups named, SWAPO receives support, specifically for scholarships and other educational purposes.
    Mr. Rifkind: Will the Minister use this opportunity to repudiate the decision of an official Labour Party committee under
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    the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), which has decided to give large sums of money to terrorist organisations without any qualification as to how that money is to be spent? Will he realise that unless he repudiates this decision, it will make a mockery of the Prime Minister's call to American citizens not to give support to the IRA and its terrorist operations in this country?
    Mr. Ennals: I have no responsibility for the Southern Africa Solidarity Fund, of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) is chairman. She wrote a helpful letter of explanation which has been published in The Times today. The Labour Party has a long and honourable tradition of support for liberation movements in southern Africa, but certainly they do not depend on funds either from the Labour Party itself or, less still, from the Government.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend draw a distinction between those countries in southern Africa in which populations are held down by force of arms and denied any kind of democratic rights and those organisations rightly described as liberation movements? Does he agree that it is nonsense to refuse assistance to liberation movements and, when they turn elsewhere for help, then to brand them as Communist puppets, turn against them and support some other movement?
    Mr. Ennals: I draw a sharp distinction Many years ago I helped to set up the Spanish Democrats Defence Committee. That committee gave comfort and support to people who would play a full role in the democratic life of Spain. I draw a sharp distinction, but it is not right that we should give support in any military sense. We carefully ensure that none of the aid that Britain gives can possibly be used for weapons of violence.
    Mr. Maudling: If it is not Government money but Labour Party money, what is the position under the exchange control regulations of contributions made to overseas organisations which are not in any sense charitable?
    Mr. Ennals: That is a question that must be put to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is not a question for me.

    China
    Mr. Adleyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what subjects he intends to raise for discussion during his forthcoming visit to the People's Republic of China.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. James Callaghan): I hope to have wide-ranging discussions. The agenda for such talks is subject to agreement by both sides and with a view to strengthening the existing ties between our two Governments.
    Mr. Adley: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply and wish him well on his visit. Will he comment on the remarks of Mr. Schlesinger in London that China is now NATO's best ally? At the end of the talks, will he try to frame a joint declaration with the Chinese Government condemning the military intervention of the Soviet Union in Angola?
    Mr. Callaghan: I do not think that it will be helpful as part of my visit to China perhaps to inflame a dispute between the world's largest country and the world's most populous country. It is in our interests to have good relations with both countries.
    Mr. Hooley: Will my right hon. Friend be touching on the status and future of Hong Kong in his conversations?
    Mr. Callaghan: I doubt it, but if the Chinese wish to raise anything about that matter I shall listen carefully to what they have to say.

    Chile
    Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether, in the light of recent events concerning the treatment of British citizens in Chile, he will now impound the two submarines which were intended for Chile and ensure their retention in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. James Callaghan: The Government are keeping the future of the submarines under review.
    Mr. Thorne: Will my right hon. Friend take into account whilst reviewing this subject that torture and crimes by the Chilean junta continue and that to allow
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    the submarines to leave for Chilean shores is almost tantamount to supporting its activities?
    Mr. Callaghan: I do not think that the last part of my hon. Friend's question follows from the first. There is strong feeling about the actions of the Chilean Government, which I wholly share. However, when considering these matters we must realise that a different category is involved when we are talking about long-standing and binding contracts negotiated many years ago. We shall keep all these matters under review.
    Mr. Kinnock: Would I be right in being encouraged by my right hon. Friend's answer that the matter of the submarines is under review? Will he confirm or deny that an export licence has been granted for the submarines? Does he accept that if there is change of government in a democratic society, different conditions may be imposed on a contract drawn with an earlier government in a particular historical era? Does he agree that we should view the submarines more in that light than in the harsher commercial light of selling them to a country that cannot afford to pay for them?
    Mr. Callaghan: I do not know about the export licence. I am not sure whose responsibility it is to issue it, but I shall look into that. The question of commercial responsibility is a matter that turns more on the Law Officers' view of the situation. Her Majesty's Government would need to take note if Chile were to fall into defeault with its payments.

    Maintenance Payments (Overseas Husbands)
    Mr. Madelasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has any poposals for facilitating the collection of maintenance payments where the husband, although a British subject, is resident abroad in a country with which Great Britain has no special arrangements; and if he will make a statement.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Edward Rowlands): The United Kingdom is a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions relating to Maintenance Obligations. The United Kingdom proposes

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    to ratify the Convention soon. Discussions are taking place with the Government of the United States of America to establish with a number of states reciprocal arrangements for the enforcement of maintenance orders.
    Mr. Madel: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is quite a problem for some people? Is he having discussions with British firms with overseas subsidiaries? When does he expect the arrangements with the United States to be complete?
    Mr. Rowlands: We hope to promote these arrangements as speedily as possible with states within the United States. We have tried to make arrangements with Governments. We have already achieved such arrangements with most Commonwealth countries, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa and 35 other countries. Under the Hague Convention, the EEC and other European countries will be covered by the arrangements.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that even where arrangements exist with countries such as Belgium and other States in the EEC, it is extremely difficult to get satisfactory arrangements for women who have been deserted by their husbands and whose maintenance payments are not being made? Will the hon. Gentleman do everything he can to take action in such cases and to improve the present unsatisfactory situation?
    Mr. Rowlands: We shall always try to help in individual cases of hardship which are brought to our attention. The enforcement of these orders tends to be dealt with through the courts.

    Helsinki Agreement
    Mr. James Lamondasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what measures the Government have taken as a result of the signing of the Final Act in Helsinki on 1st August 1975.
    Mr. Kershawasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent steps Her Majesty's Government have taken to implement the Helsinki Agreement of August 1975.
    Mr. James Callaghan: The Government are in active consultation with other
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    European countries about implementing the promises of the Final Act. We have taken up with the Soviet Union the question of working conditions for journalists, and we have good prospects for success. On the multilateral plane, we have been active in the notification of military manœuvres.
    Mr. Lamond: That is a very good answer. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that there is co-operation between his Department and the Home Office about visas being issued to those who wish to come to this country to implement the agreement at Helsinki by discussing, for instance, world-wide disarmament and other matters that will be discussed at the York forum in March of this year?
    Mr. Callaghan: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Our visa procedures are under constant review and individual visa applications are considered on their merits. We shall welcome those who come to forward the policy of détente, but not those who come for different purposes while appearing to sail under the same flag.
    Mr. Kershaw: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that since the Helsinki Agreement there has been a considerable effort in the Russian and satellite Press calling for increased ideological orthodoxy and vigilance in order not to hoodwink the unfortunate citizens of those countries into believing that liberty and détente are breaking in, unlike the unfortunate understanding of the Secretary of State for Defence?
    Mr. Callaghan: What is true is that the process of détente is not a benefit conferred by the West upon the Soviet Union but a recognition of the mutual destructive powers of the two world super-Powers. It is not a benefit but it is something of value to both sides. Détente between States does not lead to an armistice in the war of ideas. That war is being continually prosecuted. It is my belief that those of us who are democratic Socialists have more to offer than anyone else in answer to that challenge.
    Mr. Luard: Did not the Soviet Union at the Helsinki Agreement secure to a large extent its side of the bargain—namely, some kind of ratification of the status quo in Europe? In return for

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    that ratification was it not felt that there would be greater freedom of movement and information between East and West Europe? Is it not time that we obtained more of our side of the bargain? Will my right hon. Friend consider calling regular meetings before the one that is scheduled next year so that public opinion in Europe may be mobilised on this issue? There is evidence that the Soviet authorities are to some extent sensitive to world-wide public opinion on matters of this kind.
    Mr. Callaghan: I agree with my hon. Friend and disagree with the Leader of the Opposition when she says that the Soviet authorities are not responsive to public opinion. That is not my experience. I must say to my hon. Friend that we cannot expect dramatic changes overnight, and especially regarding those matters covered by Basket III. The Final Act was the beginning and not the end of the process.
    The present position is that the Soviet authorities have agreed to our proposals for the introduction of a multiple exit/ re-entry visa régime. We granted such a visa to a Soviet correspondent in London. We have asked the Soviet Embassy to send in the passports of all resident Russian correspondents for similar amendments to be made to their visas. The Soviet authorities have now issued a number of multiple entry visas to British journalists in Moscow. This is a net gain. I hope that it will continue to be pursued, but I do not expect to change the world overnight.
    Mr. MaudlingWill the right hon. Gentleman give the House the information in his possession about the measures taken by the Soviet co-signatories to the Final Act in Helsinki?
    Mr. Callaghan: The Soviet co-signatories? The right hon. Gentleman will have to put down a Question, as I am not sure I fully understand it.
    Mr. Maudling: What have the Russians done?
    Mr. Callaghan: If the right hon. Gentleman had first asked "What have the Russians done?", it would have dawned on my simple mind.
    In addition to what I have said about the journalists, which is a beginning—we should not pooh-pooh it; it would
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    have been impossible 10 years ago—the Russians have decided to notify us of military manoeuvres in Europe, in accordance with the Agreement. I do not think that they notified us of anything in Angola, but perhaps that is not within the principles of the Agreement. Certainly we should not write off this policy. If we do, there can be nothing but a return to tension and conflict. In the present state of the world and with so many unsolved problems, that would be a policy of despair. Therefore, we must work to make it succeed whilst keeping our eyes open all the time for the consequences.

    Mr. Raymond Legge
    Mr. Tinnasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps have been taken to assist Mr. Raymond Legge, detained by the Saudi Arabian authorities; and what progress has been made.
    Mr. Ennals: Mr. Legge completed a prison sentence and is detained pending deportation. His case awaits review by the Ministry of Justice. We have asked the Saudi Arabian Government for a speedy decision and will continue to press for this. We remain in close touch with Aramco, his former employers, who are responsible for his welfare meanwhile.
    Mr. Tinn: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is totally unacceptable that a British subject should be detained months after the expiry of his quite proper sentence for an offence against the Saudi anti-alcohol laws? Is he satisfied with the conduct of Aramco, his employers at the time? Will he reassure Mrs. Legge, who has been anxious over all these months of uncertainty, that her husband will be returned speedily to her? Could he go a little further than saying that all efforts are being made? Mrs. Legge has been under stress all this time. Her husband should have been home long ago. I am grateful for what the Foreign Office has done. However, will my right hon. Friend go a little further than he has today?
    Mr. Ennals: I assure my hon. Friend that we are following this case very carefully and have expressed anxiety about it. Mr. Legge has not been in prison or detention for the whole of the original

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    sentence imposed upon him. He was released a substantial period before he had completed his prison sentence. I have no dissatisfaction to express about his previous employer, Aramco.
    I well understand the concern of Mrs. Legge. Our consul was in touch with and saw Mr. Legge on 13th January. His health does not appear to be at risk. We are hoping that a favourable decision will be taken.
    Mr. Rifkind: Regarding British subjects detained overseas, is the Minister aware of the call by over 150 hon. Members on both sides of the House for the release from detention of Mr. Garfield Todd, the former Prime Minister of Rhodesia? Will he inform the House what new representation the Government will make to the Rhodesian authorities to ensure that Mr. Todd may make his contribution to the negotiations presently taking place in Rhodesia?
    Mr. Ennals: I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend and I have great sympathy with that motion, which has been signed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Only two days ago I saw Mr. Garfield Todd's daughter and son-in-law and assured them that we would do everything we could to ensure the release of Mr. Garfield Todd, who, quite wrongly, has been in detention for four years without any conceivable justification. It is a deplorable situation.

    Angola
    Mr. Brocklebank-Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if, in the light of the recent OAU Summit, he will now propose a resolution in the Security Council of the United Nations calling upon all foreign Powers to withdraw their troops from Angola.
    Mr. Luardasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will propose a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to consider the presence of foreign forces in Angola.
    Mr. James Callaghan: In the light of inquiries I have made I am not convinced that it would be helpful for us to
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    raise this matter in the Council at the present time, but I shall continue to keep the matter under review.
    Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: Does the Secretary of State accept that Russia is interested not in solving tribal disputes in Africa but in naval bases, oil, and the spread of Communism—by the use of force, if necessary? Does he appreciate that had we tabled such a resolution in the Security Council, the USSR would have been forced to use the veto and exposed as the imperialist Power she is?
    Mr. Callaghan: I dare say that the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that Russia might have been forced to use the veto. But the use of the veto is not a very good way of solving problems. I am more concerned to see a Government of reconciliation set up in Angola in which the MPLA recognises and takes in the other factions there than to score a debating triumph in the Security Council.
    Mr. Luard: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is entirely wrong that the political future of this important country should largely depend on the relative military power of two external nations which, in the eyes of many countries, are violating international law by the presence of their military support? Would there not be an added advantage if the maximum possible publicity were given to the situation as that would perhaps help to bring about the compromise of a coalition Government, to which my right hon. Friend has referred?
    Mr. Callaghan: It is undesirable, as my hon. Friend says. Her Majesty's Government, both privately and publicly, have consistently represented to all those concerned that the best contribution to peace would be to withdraw all external armed forces from that territory, and we shall continue to do so. We do not need more publicity for that purpose. It is well known. What is needed is the patient discussion and negotiation which is going on behind the scenes at present and, alas, must continue to do so. I should love to score a public diplomatic triumph. It would be a bit of a change. However, on the whole, I do the best service I know for this country by pursuing these matters in a way which I think will achieve the best success.
    Mr. Churchill: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on being alone with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in earning an honourable mention in Soviet dispatches. In view of his reference to Angola in reply to an whether he regards the intervention of the Soviet Union and her satellites—in particular, Cuban satellites—in events in Angola as compatible with the spirit of détente?
    Mr. Callaghan: It would be churlish of me to dissociate myself even from the thought of being alone with the Leader of the Opposition. Soviet policy is complex and many-sided. I doubt whether the simplistic approach adopted by the Leader of the Opposition has contributed to public understanding of the problems of this super-Power.
    Mr. Newens: Does my right hon. Friend deplore the recruitment of mercenaries in this country to be sent to Angola? I understand that some have gone today. Will he take some action to stop this practice?
    Mr. Callaghan: I certainly deplore the recruitment of mercenaries—it is highly undesirable in present circumstances—just as I deplore the entry of the Cubans upon the scene, as I have made clear privately to the Cuban authorities. We must take a consistent attitude on this matter. It is still possible to retrieve some of the basic mistakes that have been made in Angola. We must continue to work to do so.
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy towards Angola.
    Mr. Blakerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about British policy towards Angola.
    Mr. James Callaghan: Her Majesty's Government are opposed to any external intervention in Angola and call for a ceasefire and a political settlement which would enable the Angolan people to determine their own future freely.
    Mr. Wall: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the main aims of the Soviet Union are to detach the whole of Southern Africa from Western influence and that this is the reason behind its operations in Angola? Is he aware that it is assisted in these designs by certain actions by the Labour Government and the Labour Party, such as the denunciation of the Simonstown Agreement and the giving of money to groups whose main weapon is terrorism?
    Mr. Callaghan: I do not think that the Simonstown Agreement has very much to do with this matter, even though the hon. Gentleman tries to drag it in by its tail. The Soviet Union is intent on strengthening its position in the continent of Africa ad elsewhere when the opportunity serves. The question is what the right response is and how that response should be made. That is why I object to the simplicity of some statements on this subject. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, who has great experience of Africa and its peoples, will not under-estimate the force of national or tribal identities, which may be stronger than any alien ideology.
    Mr. Skinner: Is my right hon. Friend in full accord with the Labour Party's decision to support the MPLA?
    Mr. Callaghan: The Labour Party has consistently entertained friendly relations with the MPLA—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Perhaps I may be allowed to answer the question in my own way. The MPLA is an important element in any settlement in Angola, but it is not an exclusive element in that country. Although the Labour Party has had connections with the MPLA, the Government should not ignore the interests of other peoples in that territory.
    Mr. Blaker: Is it not now clear that the key to the protection of the interests of the non-Communist world in the situation of Angola and the consequences that may flow from it lies not in Angola itself but in the leverage of one kind and another that can be exerted by the Western world on the Soviet Union? Is the Foreign Secretary consulting his EEC colleagues and the United States about the use of leverage?
    Mr. Callaghan: The answer to the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary is "Yes, both". I promoted a joint statement by the EEC—a statement which I hoped would have been made publicly before the OAU meeting, but I was unsuccessful. However, representations have been made. I have discussed this subject with the United States. There is a great deal in the hon. Gentleman's comments about leverage, but we must not ignore the feelings of the African people. I believe that in the long run that factor will be decisive.

    Portugal (British Property)
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement about the freezing and expropriation of British property in Portugal.
    The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Roy Hattersley): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) on 26th November 1975. Her Majesty's Government attach the greatest importance to achieving an early and satisfactory outcome to all the cases involving British property owners. We have continued to raise this matter with the Portuguese Government at the highest level.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: I welcome certain developments in Portugal towards a freer society and more respect for the rule of law. However, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether there has been any progress in this matter?
    Mr. Hattersley: There has been a good deal of progress by the Portuguese Government. They have made clear that, in a changing and difficult situation their power to implement the sort of régime they want to see in the agricultural industry is limited. I have no doubt that the Portuguese Government will do their best, and we shall continue to press them to do so.

    CBI
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement about his meeting with the CBI on 13th January.
    Mr. James Callaghan: I had a discussion about recent international developments with the President and senior officials of the Confederation of British Industry when they called on me on 13th January. This was the second such meeting with them and was in conformity with the practice I have introduced of inviting the International Committee of the Trades Union Congress and the CBI to discuss international matters with me at intervals.
    Mr. Canavan: Using his vast experience as Foreign Secretary, will my right hon. Friend point out to the CBI the damage done in many instances by overseas investment by multi-national companies which use those investments simply to exploit cheap sources of foreign labour? Did the recent reports that the Chairman of Vickers might use nationalisation compensation to increase this type of overseas investment not confirm that it is about time we took a much tougher line with these unpatriotic speculators to stop them shifting money out of the country?
    Mr. Callaghan: I did not discuss the matter with the CBI at the time, but I shall draw the matter to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade. The multi-nationals are a new phenomenon to which Governments have to pay increasing attention. The European Community is paying attention to this matter and I know from my contacts with the TUC that it is also dealing with the subject. It is clear that the boundaries of activities by multi nationals can conflict with member States. When that happens, those activities must be restricted.
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that interference by Governments of all parties since the war in decisions by companies to invest where they think most profitable has in many cases resulted in a loss of jobs?
    Mr. Callaghan: No, Sir. I would not agree with that statement. It reflects a simplistic view of the changing face in international affairs of conglomerates and multi-nationals. The longer I stay in this lob, the more I realise that trade is becoming more and more influenced by Governments throughout the world. I sometimes wonder whether we in this country have a system sufficient to meet

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    what we encounter overseas. I have particular thoughts in that direction. I am not being ideological about this matter. It is a practical question of how we deal with overseas trade. This may need new instruments in this country.

    CIA
    Mr. Atkinsonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with Dr. Kissinger in regard to CIA activity in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. James Callaghan: The United States Secretary of State and I have had a conversation on the matter.
    Mr. Atkinson: Although we all accept the legitimacy of military intelligence throughout the world and recognise that it is indulged in by the CIA in this country and elsewhere, does the Minister recollect that in the recent evidence given by the CIA to a Congressional committee of inquiry the CIA claimed a second interest—namely, political intervention in the hope of influencing political developments in other countries? Did not the CIA claim to be involved not only in military intelligence but in political subversion? Does the Minister agree that that is a legitimate rôle for the CIA to play?
    Mr. Callaghan: It is not for me to say what is a legitimate rôle for the CIA to play in the United States. What it does in this country would be a matter for Her Majesty's Government. But so far I have no evidence to lead me to raise the matter with the United States authorities.
    Mr. Goodhew: Has the right hon. Gentleman thought of discussing with the Soviet ambassador KGB activities in the United Kingdom because, despite those activities, the ambassador appears to display ignorance about free speech in a democracy?
    Mr. Callaghan: I have not thought of doing so, but I welcome the fact that the Soviet ambassador has embarked on public controversy in this country. I hope that it means that our ambassador in Moscow will have the same facilities.

    European Youth Foundation
    Mrs. Chalkerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
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    Affairs what progress is being made with the development of the European Youth Foundation.
    Mr. Ennals: The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided in 1975 that the Foundation, set up in 1972 for a trial period, should continue on a permanent basis.
    We are glad that the number of international activities financially supported by it and organised by the younger generation grows yearly. We are considering ways in which we can continue to co-operate with the Foundation.
    Mrs. Chalker: Why were we told on 20th November, following the announcement about the EYF continuing on a permanent basis, that the grant had been stopped while at the same time we had agreed to double the size of the European Youth Centre? Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be inconsistent to double the size of the Centre but have no funds to send British youth to further foreign exchange in Europe in this way?
    Mr. Ennals: The hon. Lady will have noticed the statement of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State on 17th December that we were considering ways in which we could continue to participate in the European Youth Foundation and provide some measure of financial support. That was made after the statement to which she referred and I have nothing to add to what he said.

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

    Tindemans Report
    Mr. Martenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Tindemans Report.
    Mr. Dykesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the Government intend to produce their preliminary response to the Report on European Union by Mr. Tindemans, the Prime Minister of Belgium, submitted recently to the European Council.
    Mr. Hurdasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he proposes to discuss with

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    his EEC colleagues the report prepared by Mr. Tindemans on the future of the Community.
    Mr. James Callaghan: I welcome the realistic nature of Mr. Tindemans' broad approach of building on the Community as it now exists. The Report will be a useful stimulus to discussion about the development of the Community in the next few years.
    I expect it to be discussed at the next meeting of the European Council at the beginning of April.
    Mr. Marten: As the Foreign Secretary has already told us that the final decision on direct elections to the European Parliament, which are mentioned in the Tindemans Report, will rest with this Parliament, can he answer the question which the Prime Minister evaded at Question Time yesterday and tell us precisely what powers that Parliament will have? We now have the cart before the horse. We must know what these powers will be before we can reasonably discuss whether it is right to have direct elections. Will the right hon. Gentleman make an announcement about this subject and define the powers in the Green Paper—and I hope that it will be green and not white—that is to be published?
    Mr. Callaghan: I thought that the Prime Minister answered the question completely yesterday, but I shall do my best to restate the position. The basis of the direct elections will be the existing powers of the European Assembly, no more and no less. If these powers are to be changed, it will be only with the consent of the member States. I prefer not to include a summary of the powers in the green White Paper or white Green Paper, because I want it to focus on issues of mechanics and the decisions that will need to be taken in relation to the elections and not to be side-tracked on to these other matters.
    Mr. Hoyle: The British people have never been consulted about direct elections. They were certainly not consulted during the referendum. Does my right hon. Friend therefore agree that another referendum must be held before we have direct elections?
    Mr. Callaghan: I do not agree with my hon. Friend and I do not think that the British people would welcome another referendum on this limited aspect of the issue. There is no doubt that the matter was put to the British people in the referendum. I can only repeat what the Prime Minister said. If those who were against continued membership of the EEC did not raise this matter in the referendum campaign, they were neglecting their duty and hon. Members who neglected to do their duty at that time should not now complain to me.
    Mr. Dykes: What specific steps do the Government propose to take in the foreseeable future to avoid the terrifying prospect for this country, to which Mr. Tindemans alluded indirectly, that we shall be not only members of the lower tier of the Community in economic terms, but its poorest country on a per capita basis?
    Mr. Callaghan: I do not accept the hon. Member's hypothesis. Whether there is to be a two-tier system will have to be discussed at the European Council and will require the consent of all member States before being introduced. I expressed my personal views in a speech in Hamburg last week and I think the debate should go on. I have to speak with some caution, because the Cabinet have not yet considered the matter, but I do not believe that a two-tier system would be to the benefit of the Community or of this country.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Tindemans Report covers a much wider range of topics than just direct elections? Will he consult the Leader of the House about having an early debate on the Report?
    Mr. Callaghan: I agree with my hon. Friend that direct elections play a very small part in the Report, which covers a wide area. I shall convey my hon. Friend's request to the Lord President. The only undertaking I can give today—because I have already consulted my right hon. Friend on this subject—is that we shall have a debate on direct elections once the White Paper has been published and consultations are taking place.
    Mr. Hurd: Do not recent events in Portugal, Angola and Lebanon under-

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    score one of Mr. Tindemans' main points—that we shall not be able to defend British and European interests effectively unless we have a much more closely concerted foreign policy? Could not Britain play a great part in bringing this about, and what will the Foreign Secretary do to help?
    Mr. Callaghan: We are playing a vigorous part in this matter. This is one area in which I feel very much at ease in moving. British experience, history and background enable us to take a lead in such matters. We have done so and shall continue to do so. We tried to do so over Angola, though we did not meet with complete success. There will always be failures as well as successes.
    Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that at this morning's meeting of the Labour Party National Executive Committee there was a unanimous decision that before the Government took a final decision on direct elections they should make sure that the Labour Party was fully consulted at a conference and had had an opportunity to consider the implications of such elections for this country?
    Mr. Callaghan: It will be for the party to decide whether it wants to call a conference on the matter. As far as the Government are concerned, I have already begun consultations with the leaders of all parliamentary parties and have written to them on the subject. At a later stage, it will be for the Home Secretary to follow the normal course in these matters and to call together party organisations, such as Transport House and Conservative Central Office, to work out detailed proposals.
    Mr. David Steel: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether we are to have a White or a Green Paper, or is there no longer any difference between the two? Can he say why so many hon. Members are anxious that the British people be consulted about everything to do with Europe except who represents them there?
    Mr. Callaghan: I am a little in the dark about the colour of the proposed Paper myself. As I plan it at the moment, the first part will contain decisions which have to be reached at Community level, such as the total number of members of the Assembly and their distribution among member States. That part of the
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    Paper would be white. But there would also be a number of questions which I hope to identify in the second part of the Paper dealing with the electoral arrangements here. This part would be raising questions, such as dual mandate, and not answering them. I am afraid that it will be a bit of a hybrid beast.
    Sir D. Walker-Smith: Will the Government give their support to Mr. Tindemans' recommendation that the Council should instruct the institutions to initiate action to evolve procedures for the protection of fundamental political, economic and social rights within the Community?
    Mr. Callaghan: I note what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said. This matter will certainly be considered before we go to the European Summit.
    Mr. Spearing: One of the conclusions of this Report, which my right hon. Friend admits is important yet which we are not to debate, is that member States should submit a greater part of their external relations and problems to a common policy. Does my right hon. Friend go as far as that and, if not, will he tell Mr. Tindemans so at their next meeting?
    Mr. Callaghan: I did not say that we would not have a debate. I am not in a position to say whether a debate will take place, because I have not yet consulted my right hon. Friend the Lord President. My experience leaves me in no doubt that the more European countries can work together on a common foreign policy, the stronger will be our influence in the world. As I wish to see British influence strengthened, I shall do my best to ensure that the Community itself works in that way.
    Mr. Amery: The Foreign Secretary referred to his initiatives in the EEC over Angola. Does he agree that to call for a coalition Government and for the withdrawal of all foreign forces is like trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted? Will he get in touch with our EEC partners and our NATO allies to see what steps we can take to prevent the Sovietisation of Angola and the disastrous consequences which would follow for southern and central Africa?
    Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. Gentleman is talking of a policy enunciated

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    when the balance of forces in Angola was different from what it is today, and he is seeking to apply that policy to the current situation. At the time the call made a lot of sense. It it had been accepted then, it would have been much to the benefit of the people of Angola. I said that I thought that a Government of national reconciliation was now required. In such a Government the MPLA would play a prominent, maybe a leading part. If we are looking for a solution to this problem and if there is to be peace in Angola, the other very substantial element of the people in that country must be involved. I do not believe that in the short run external influence will be extruded from Angola. However, knowing the African personality, I believe that in the long run it will be.

    Foreign Ministers (Meeting)
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next expects to meet EEC Foreign Ministers.
    Mr. James Callaghan: I shall see the Federal German Foreign Minister on 7th February on the occasion of the visit to this country of the Federal German Chancellor. I expect to attend a meeting of the Council of Ministers in Brussels on 9th and 10th February.
    Mr. Skinner: When my right hon. Friend meets these various people in various missions, will he explain to them that even after the referendum he was not the most fervent supporter of the the idea of direct elections? Will he also say that if the Labour Party conference comes out against direct elections, by 1978 or whatever the date may be, unlike the last occasion with the referendum he will accept the decision of conference? If as Foreign Secretary he cannot accept decisions of the Government and of the National Executive Committee, why continue to serve both?
    Mr. Callaghan: I know that my hon. Friend would like to take my place on the NEC. However, I think that he will have some competition before he achieves that. As for the attitude towards direct elections, I think that my colleagues in Europe know the position exactly. I do not know whether there are controversies between the Labour Party conference and
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    the Government. We have not yet had a conference, have we?
    Mr. Maudling: Does the Foreign Secretary consider that this country is committed in principle to direct elections, whatever any Labour conference may say?
    Mr. Callaghan: Yes, Sir.
    Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Commissioner Lardinois said in answer to me in the European Parliament that there was to be no re-negotiation of the common fisheries policy. Nevertheless, we hear constantly in this House, and even in the far north of Scotland, from one of the Scottish Office Ministers that there is to be renegotiation. Which is correct?
    Mr. Callaghan: That does not seem to arise out of the Question, but I can never resist the blandishments of the hon. Lady and I shall do my best to answer. The 200-mile limit which the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference might decide to introduce this year would clearly add a great deal of impetus to the need to re-negotiate the common fisheries policy for the EEC. These events are to some extent inter-dependent and an official decision cannot be taken on the second until we have seen the result of the United Nations conference.
    Mr. McNamara: In the re-negotiation of the common fisheries policy will my right hon. Friend go for a 100-mile exclusive economic zone around these islands in order to maintain the employment of our fishermen and of the many thousands of people in ancillary industries who are at present suffering great distress in their living standards and employment prospects?
    Mrs. Ewing: Ask Commissioner Lardinois.
    Mr. Callaghan: We seem to be getting even further from the Question, but the broad answer is that in any negotiation of the common fisheries policy the special position of Britain, with its long coastline, will have to be properly safeguarded.
    Mr. Luce: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that Angola is a test case of the Community's ability to act together in matters of common concern in foreign relations? Since the right hon. Gentleman said earlier that he was desperately

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    longing for diplomatic success, will he take the lead in persuading the Community at least to condemn all foreign aggression in Angola, and particularly the Russians for preaching détente at Helsinki but practising the opposite in Angola?
    Mr. Callaghan: I have answered many questions on Angola. I do not think that I can add much this afternoon, except to say that the hon. Gentleman's reference to getting a concerted policy only goes to illustrate a point I have made so often. There are nine individual member States every one of which can prevent a statement of common policy. I have never been able to get that fact across to some of the anti-Marketeers, but it happens to be the case. On this issue I was unable to get the agreement of all nine to a public statement.
    Mr. Christopher Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there might be one issue on which he could get agreement among all the States? When he meets the Federal German Chancellor and the other Ministers, will he convey the great appreciation in this country for the efforts that they have been making on the problem of Cyprus? Will he ask that they should redouble their efforts for the coming months? Many of our hon. Friends believe that an initiative from the EEC could help. While he is about it, will he come and tell the Select Committee how he is getting on?
    Mr. Callaghan: The answer to the first part of the question is "Yes". On the second part, I should not be agreeable to answering questions about my discussions with the former Turkish Prime Minister, which I understand to be the purpose of some of the questions it is intended to put to me.
    Mr. Christopher Price: No.
    Mr. Callaghan: Yes. That is the message that was conveyed to me.
    Mr. Tugendhat: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the Tindemans Report contains some interesting expressions of opinion about aid to the Third World and about the Community's approach to the Third World? This is an area in which a greater degree of concertation of policy could take place. Will the right hon. Gentleman give his view about British
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    aid policy in the light of the Tindemans Report?
    Mr. Callaghan: This is becoming a catch-all Question and I must ask the hon. Member to put down a specific Question on that point.

    Regional Development
    Mr. Crawfordasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next proposes to meet the EEC Commissioner with responsibility for regional development.
    Mr. Hattersley: My right hon. Friend meets Mr. George Thomson regularly in the course of Community business. He most recently did so during his visit to Brussels for the Council of Ministers on 20th January.
    He has no firm plans for a further meeting, but he expects to meet Mr. Thomson again soon.
    Mr. Crawford: Will the right hon. Gentleman leave the EEC Regional Affairs Commissioner in absolutely no doubt that the Scottish Assembly with powers over trade and industry will retain control over and administration of industrial investment incentives in Scotland, free from EEC diktat? Will he also make clear that a self-governing Scotland will construct its own system of industrial aids and incentives free from EEC interference?
    Mr. Hattersley: That is not so much a question as a statement of a number of prejudices most of which will not be fulfilled.
    Mr. James Lamond: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that of the assistance to development areas which has already been allocated from the EEC 50 per cent. has been allocated to Scotland? Is this not another example of Scotland's advantageous position and is it not time that the people of Scotland were told very clearly of the advantage which exists through remaining a part of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Hattersley: I have no doubt as to the truth of the implication of that supplementary question, but my task is not so much to underline the wisdom of the Government's attitude on the relationship between the various parts of the United Kingdom as to emphasise the

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    other implication of what my hon. Friend says, which is the very substantial benefits that all the United Kingdom gets from membership of the EEC.
    Mr. Sproat: Will the right hon. Gentleman continue to rebut robustly the parochial, petty and ignorant accusations made by the Scottish National Party? Will he remind the House that this very morning the United Kingdom received funds from the EEC over 20 per cent. of which went to Scotland although Scotland has under 10 per cent. of the population?
    Mr. Hattersley: I can rebut the ignorant propositions of the Scottish National Party only when they concern foreign affairs.

ICELAND (FISHERIES DISPUTE)
The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement.
As the House will be aware, the Icelandic Prime Minister, Mr. Hallgrimsson, visited this country from 24th to 27th January. We held a series of meetings in which my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and other Ministers also took part. In addition, talks were held between Mr. Hallgrimsson and my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. Legal advisers and conservation experts from both sides also met separately on 25th January to discuss problems which were referred to them.
Various formulae for a possible solution of the dispute were considered. I explained to Mr. Hallgrimsson our recognition of the importance of adequate measures to conserve fish stocks around Icelandic coasts in our interests as well as theirs.
The situation during the talks was complicated by problems which arose on the fishing banks as a result of action taken by Icelandic coastguard vessels. I am most grateful to the British fishing industry for the co-operation which it has shown in reducing the risk of serious clashes.
Mr. Hallgrimsson has now returned to Reykjavik to discuss the situation arising from our talks with his Government col-
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leagues. I expect to be in touch with him again shortly. It will not be easy to find a solution to this most delicate problem, and I am sure that the House will not wish to press me at this stage for details of the positions adopted by the two sides. It remains of great importance that nothing further should happen on the fishing banks to heighten tension, and in the last two hours I have found it necessary to re-emphasise this to Mr. Hallgrimsson.
It will be clear from what I have said that Her Majesty's Government have approached this matter in a constructive spirit and have shown and continue to show the greatest restraint. This point has been appreciated by our NATO partners, and I should like to express my gratitude to the NATO Secretary-General for the action which he took to make possible my meeting with the Icelandic Prime Minister.
I shall, of course, keep the House fully informed of any future developments. In the meantime, it is important that the prospects for further discussions should not be endangered by speculation or by ill-judged words or actions, particularly on the fishing grounds.
Mr. Maudling: I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. In this delicate stage of the negotiations I entirely agree that it would be wise to reserve any comment. I ask the Prime Minister to accept that the Opposition fervently wish to see a just solution of the problem. Will he undertake to make a further statement to the House as soon as possible?
The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his forbearance. It is a very difficult problem for all of us and for the Icelandic Government. Some of the ideas we discussed have been taken back for discussion by the Icelandic Government and, however difficult it is for us, we must wait until they have reached a determination on these questions. Meanwhile, I note that the right hon. Gentleman fully supports our actions. I emphasise how vitally important it is that nothing should occur in the fishing grounds or in any other way to exacerbate the situation.
Mr. James Johnson: I accept that Mr. Hallgrimsson has internal difficulties with

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a hostile Cabinet, perhaps a hostile Parliament and perhaps a hostile population on the pavements. I congratulate the Government on their handling of this complex and confused situation. Is my right hon. Friend aware that for every 1,250 tons of cod in our quota not caught, between 25 and 30 men become unemployed, five times that number in ancillary occupations become unemployed and one vessel has to be put back into the yard for demolition?
Will my right hon. Friend say what is the interim position of the fleet at sea? The fishermen have caught no fish for 48 hours and, as my right hon. Friend said, they have behaved in an exemplary fashion. May we have an assurance that if they are in difficulties and if—God forbid—the talks do not come to a successful conclusion, the Navy will still be there to defend them?
The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for what he said and his understanding as a Member of Parliament for a constituency comprising one of our fishing ports. It is true, as he said, that there is great feeling in the Icelandic Cabinet and among the Icelandic people. Cod is a central feature of Iceland's economy. We recognise that, and the essence of negotiation is to help the other chap as well as to stand up for our own national interests. I confirm what my hon. Friend said about the conduct of the trawler fishermen, partcularly those who are in an area of great peril. We had to intervene twice in the middle of a key part of the talks because of action taken. As to the future, we have asked the Icelandic Government to join us in cooling the situation in the inevitable period while we are awaiting their response. We have made clear that, if there are any problems, we reserve all rights in the matter of protecting our fishing vessels during the period while the Icelandic Government are reaching their decision. We have also made clear that, while we passionately hope for an agreement—as I am sure the Icelandic Government do—in default of an agreement the Government reserve their rights fully to protect our fishermen who are about their legal business in fishing in waters which we do not accept as having been closed to us.
Mr. Grimond: Is the Prime Minister aware that we fully appreciate the delicacy of the situation and welcome his statement about the importance of conserving stocks? Will he say a little more about the instructions which are currently being given to the British fleet and whether he is satisfied that they are sufficiently clear?
The Prime Minister: To reply to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, we have expressed to the Icelandic Government our full agreement with them on the need for conservation. That is In the interests not only of the Icelandic fishermen but of ourselves. There is great anxiety on the part of conservation experts that stocks may fall to an impossibly low level. We have been very reasonable in this matter. The scientists on both sides did not reach agreement on what should be the total catch on conservation grounds, but we have shown great flexibility because there is advantage to us as well as to Iceland in ensuring—or even over-ensuring—conservation in the first year or two to make sure that breeding continues and that more stocks will be available.
As to the immediate situation, I again pay tribute to the trawler industry. We had to give the fishermen rather differing instructions and they were very understanding about it. We have made clear that any continued interference—I am extremely worried about reports we have had in the last two or three hours—must be met by our telling the Icelandic Government that we are not prepared to accept a situation contrary to what we have agreed with them in the matter of cooling it. If necessary, we shall have to take action to protect our ships against harassment and interference, as indeed we had to tell the Icelandic Government two days ago. Certain reports in the evening papers, although well meaning, are not accurate. We have not increased the number of frigates in service in those waters. One has come off station and another has gone on. The question is not about the total number available. We have made clear that in the interim period or if—heaven forfend—there is no agreement, we shall not hesitate to protect our fishermen in their legal pursuits.
Mr. Prescott: I accept that it is extremely difficult in this delicate situation to pass comments. I welcome the removal of Royal Naval vessels whose presence inflamed the situation in the early stages. I am glad that realism seems to be coming into the negotiations. Unemployment on Humberside is just a small part of the problem. The real issue is to get a settlement at the Law of the Sea Conference and to call a meeting with Norway and Iceland to consider how to divide the area for exclusive use within the 200 miles.
The Prime Minister: The law of the sea is a matter for the United Nations Conference. We shall not determine our final domestic decision until that conference has reached a situation in which it is possible for us to do so. We have not accepted the unilateral declaration by the Icelandic Government. Indeed, it has been put in baulk by the decisions on the international law front. We are talking about an area of the high seas which has not been accepted internationally as territorial waters.
We must not take a one-sided view of this situation. If our trawlers, fishing legally, are to be harassed by tug boats, thug-boats or whatever they may be, we are entitled to protect them. I have made it clear that we shall do so in the interim period if that is necessary. But if the situation is to be cooled, that will not be done by inflammatory speeches. I have made it clear that we shall protect our trawlers in the interim period. I hope that it will not be necessary to take such action. In the longer term, if there is no agreement we shall continue to give protection.
This country has always insisted on the freedom of the high seas. I do not believe that one or two actions which were taken even while the talks were taking place were consonant with freedom of action, including fishing, on the high seas.
Mr. Clegg: I congratulate the Prime Minister on the reply he has just given to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) and on the attitude he has taken today. It will be much appreciated in Fleetwood. The protection by the Royal Navy was very welcome to the port. Equally, at the moment, no one should take any steps which could aggravate the proceedings.
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May I add a plea that, whilst the dispute is going on, the Prime Minister should ask his right hon. Friends to look into the renegotiation of the EEC policy, because that is a separate but very important issue?
The Prime Minister: I understand the keen interest of the hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) in Fleetwood, Knott End and other areas that he and I know well. I thank him very much for what he has said.
Clearly, the EEC fisheries policy is a matter for consideration in the Community, which inevitably takes time. But we were not backward in explaining to our Icelandic friends in these discussions the importance of Protocol 6 of the Treaty of Accession in relation to Iceland, and they are well aware of its importance and that we are prepared to help them in these matters but only as part of an overriding general agreement, which I hope we shall achieve.
Mr. Watt: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he has not used the herring stocks in Scottish waters as a bartering lever in the present negotiations?
The Prime Minister: All relevant considerations were taken into account both in preparing our attitude and in what we said.
Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that everyone will welcome his statement on the need to keep cool and not inflame the situation and that no one will disagree on the importance of conservation in this issue? But can he tell us how soon is "shortly"? When does my right hon. Friend hope for a reply from the Icelandic Government to Her Majesty's Government's proposal? Can my right hon. Friend also answer the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson) in relation to employment in areas such as Fleetwood and Humberside, where already far too many fishermen are walking the stones and far too many people in ancillary industries are also unemployed?
The Prime Minister: That last point was very much in our minds in our approach, and we made it clear in our discussions with the Icelandic Government.

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On the question of when we may expect a reply from the Icelandic Government, my colleagues and I are very anxious. We would have hoped to negotiate and agree something while the Icelandic Prime Minister and his colleagues were here, but we recognise their problems of reporting back to the Icelandic Cabinet. I hope that we are very near to getting a decision from them. I would rather get the right answer with two or three days' delay, however, than an immediate answer unacceptable to Her Majesty's Government, the House or to hon. Members representing fishing ports. But the matter cannot wait indefinitely, as I am sure the Icelandic Government know. Equally, every day a decision is postponed endangers the situation on the high seas.
It is for that reason that I keep coming back to our insistence that everything should be done on both sides to cool the situation. That means that we have to ask our trawler skippers and crews to show some restraint in the matter. It is no less important that the Icelandic coastguard authorities recognise the importance of getting an agreement and of not harassing our trawlers and escalating the situation even before we know what the Icelandic Government's answer is.
Mr. Wall: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware—[Interruption]—that we hope for a successful compromise which will both be fair to our fishermen and restore our traditional friendship with the people of Iceland? The right hon. Gentleman said that the status quo would remain during these negotiations. Could he be specific on one point, namely, that—[Interruption]—frigates will remain available although outside the 200-mile limit?
The Prime Minister: I am sorry, but could the hon. Gentleman repeat the last part of his question?
Mr. Speaker: Order. If hon. Members want to conduct conversations, will they please do so outside the Chamber?
Mr. Wall: Is the Prime Minister aware that we all hope for a successful compromise which will both be fair to our fishermen and restore our traditional friendship with the Icelandic people? He said that meanwhile the status quo re-
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mains. Can he give a specific assurance on one point, namely, that frigates, while remaining outside the 200-mile limit, will be available if needed?
The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I have already referred to the question of the number of the frigates concerned. They are outside the 200-mile limit. I specifically referred, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs did at Question Time, to the situation that if, during the period while we are waiting for a decision from the Icelandic Government, there is harrassment, that is something we cannot accept and then all bets would be off with regard to the positioning of the frigates.
We also made it clear that if there is no agreement we would intend to continue fishing with due regard for the conservation aspect which I have mentioned but that we would not in such a situation suffer our trawlers to be harrassed and therefore we would in that situation have to move the frigates within that area.

EMPLOYMENT DEBATE (AMENDMENTS)
Mr. Speaker: It would be for the convenience of the House if I indicated now my decision as to the selection of amendments in tomorrow's debate. I have looked at these amendments carefully. It appears to me that arguments in respect of all of them would be relevant to the general debate. I intend to select the amendment standing in the name of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition.
Representations have been made to me, perfectly properly and courteously, that I should call the amendment standing in the names of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) and a considerable number of other hon. Members. In my last week as Speaker, nothing would be easier or more pleasant for me than to accede to any request such as that. But I am afraid that I must say what I think to be right on what is a procedural matter. It is important that the Chair should try to maintain the procedures of the House.
This is not a judgment on the merits of the question. I fully realise the importance of and deep feelings about

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unemployment. But the Select Committee on Procedure, in its Second Report in the Session 1974–75, did advise an experiment about allowing for another vote. It stated:
"For the reasons set out in the preceding paragraphs, Your Committee do not recommend that Standing Orders should be amended to make a general and permanent change in the sense suggested by Mr. Steel. However, they consider that the House may find it useful to proceed by way of an experiment, as Mr. Speaker has proposed, confining such an experiment to the proceedings on the Address in reply to the Queen's Speech."
I extended that recommendation on my own authority to an amendment after the four-day debate on devolution. I am now asked to extend the innovation to a one-day debate, although on a very important topic. That would go far beyond the Select Committee's Report. It would be a precedent involving a basic change in the procedures of this House. I feel that such a change in Standing Orders should be made only with the authority of the House as a whole.
I am very sorry about this, and I assure the House that no pressures at all have been put upon me to rule as I have. I am disappointed—I understand the feelings of hon. Members—to have to say "No" during my last week, but I must do what I think is right.
Mr. John Mendelson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the point made at the very end of your ruling but draw attention to one relevant constitutional matter connected with the ruling and the interpretation of the change of rule.
In the years leading up to the change of rule and the advocacy of the experiment, it was pointed out time and again that it is frequently the case that in a matter of major policy—and obviously this applies, as you have indicated, Mr. Speaker, only to matters of major policy—there is an understanding between the Government Front Bench and the official Opposition Front Bench about giving special place in our proceedings to matters of basic policy. But then any segment of opinion in the House—however important, however numerous and however representative of a segment of opinion in the country—is not in a position to make itself heard in the centre of our political life.
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That is why the change of rule was advocated, and I draw attention to the fact that the official Opposition have now put on the Order Paper an amendment which specifically seeks to amend not so much the motion put down by Her Majesty's Government as my amendment. From the text, it is apparent that the two points attacked are the major points in my amendment.
I believe that I carry opinion in all parts of the House in suggesting that if a vote is not allowed on my amendment, the House will be prevented from coming to a decision on the disagreement about the economic strategy on which the two Front Benches are united, and which I seek to question.
It is purely on those constitutional grounds that I take the unusual step of urging you, Mr. Speaker, to reconsider your decision and to come to a different one.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has put that point to me already today, and I assure him that I considered it very carefully. It would be very easy for me, in my last week, to say "Yes", but I must do what I think is right. This is a very important procedural point for the House as a whole, and I cannot take it upon myself to depart from what is, I think, the spirit of the rules. I may think that the rules should be altered or I may not, but as things are I cannot do it. I beg the hon. Member to accept that no pressure has been put upon me to rule as I have. I have done it believing it my duty so to rule in preserving the procedure of the House.
Mr. Heffer: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I accept entirely, Mr. Speaker, with respect, the case you put forward, but I recall that there have been occasions, before you became Speaker, when my hon. Friends and I have had amendments called in this House—not under this new procedure but long before it was ever dreamed or thought about. May I therefore, with respect, Mr. Speaker, ask you to reconsider your decision, on the basis not of this precedent but of previous precedents under previous Speakers? One such example that I recall was a debate on Vietnam, and there have been other issues on which amendments put down by Labour Back Benchers have been called.

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Many of us in this House, Mr. Speaker, wish to express a positive opinion, and to be able to vote for the action we believe it to be necessary for the Government to take. We are now being edged into a position, much against our will, where we may have to vote in a non-positive way, or in a negative way, when what we want to do is to tell the Government the changes we believe to be essential, without voting entirely against all Government policies on unemployment.
Mr. David Steel: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As one who, were the amendment to be selected, would not be voting for it, I support the points made very reasonably from the Government Benches. I was the person who drafted the proposal from the Select Committee on Procedure. Unfortunately, when the Committee accepted the recommendation, it did so with the very narrow restriction that the experiment should be confined to the proceedings on the Address in reply to the Queen's Speech. You then extended that experiment, Mr. Speaker, with total acceptance by the House, to the general debate on devolution.
Mr. Gourlay: No.
Mr. Steel: We face the difficulty that an amendment—which I think was tabled first—representing a perfectly clear and specific point of view, and attracting a large number of signatures, is preempted. It could have been open to selection but for the fact that the official Opposition have, quite properly, put down their amendment. This is an intolerable position, and since, Mr. Speaker, you have already extended the advice—it can only be advice—from the Select Committee on Procedure, you are now free, with respect, to consider extending it further.
Mr. Ron Thomas: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have mentioned quite rightly, with respect, Mr. Speaker, that the circumstances of the devolution debate were unique. Over 100 Members on the Government side feel that the present level of unemployment is a far more important issue than any of the devolution proposals. There are 11- million good reasons, Mr. Speaker, for urging you to change your mind.
Mr. Hoyle: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If we are to exercise democratic principles in this country, they must apply to an important debate such as the one on unemployment. The opposition to the Government proposal must be heard not only from the official Opposition but from the Government side as well. We hope, Mr. Speaker, to be able to put forward constructive proposals.
Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hope, with respect, that you will reconsider your ruling, bearing in mind that Members of Parliament have a duty to scrutinise the work of the Executive. You will no doubt appreciate that Back-Bench Members of the majority party do not have any part in decision making. Important decisions have been made by the Cabinet concerning the economy.
One way of drawing attention to the very strong feelings within the majority party concerning the present state of the economy, and the very high level of unemployment, is by putting down amendments. If these amendments are not called, and no action is taken on them, so that we are denied an opportunity of voting, there may well be a tendency for the Executive to regard them as so much paper, without any effective force or feeling behind them.
As already indicated, 104 Members of the Labour Party have signed the amendment. Therefore I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to give earnest consideration to reviewing your decision and setting a precedent, otherwise one is bound to ask what level of unemployment must be reached before the House of Commons is prepared to change its procedures. In such circumstances the standing of the House with people outside is bound to be adversely affected.
Mr. Small: When reflecting on this matter, Mr. Speaker, I hope you will take into consideration the intellectual ferment that takes place here concerning the right to speak. One would like simply to be able to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, without first having to write one's name on a list or slate.
Mr. Flannery: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw to your

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attention the fact that, had it not been for the signatories to the amendment in question demanding a debate on unemployment repeatedly during business questions on Thursday after Thursday, such requests would not have been acceded to and that, following the motion by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) under Standing Order No. 9, the request to grant this debate came about? Therefore, the very basis of the debate springs from those hon. Members who tabled the amendment. For that reason, we ask you to change your mind.
Mr. Speaker: Taking first the remarks by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Small) about the shortness of speeches and about who is likely to catch my eye, I might say to him that he will have a very strong claim because his speeches are always very brief and because tomorrow's debate is exactly the kind of debate on which I should have liked to operate a time limit had I been given power to do so. But I have not been given it, and I greatly regret that.
With regard to the remarks of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery), if I had allowed a debate under Standing Order No. 9, I should not have been in my present trouble. I said that I thought that there should be a full day's debate, and it is that which has put me on the horns of this dilemma.
I shall consider the matter carefully again. Speaker Brand closured a debate without any authority to do so. Speaker Gully failed to suspend a sitting when he might have done. In each case, the Standing Orders were altered afterwards.
But my difficulty is that if I select the amendment in question on this occasion, it would be very hard to say why, whenever there was an important debate, the same precedent should not be followed. I do not think that I should tie a millstone of that nature round the neck of my successor.

EDUCATION (MARRIED PERSONS OF COMPULSORY SCHOOL AGE)
4.2 p.m.
Dr. Edmund Marshall: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Education Act 1944 in respect of the definition of "parent" for a married person of compulsory school age.
It was in September 1972 that the school leaving age was raised to 16 years. Since then it has been a legal requirement that all schoolchildren remained at school for up to two terms following their 16th birthdays.
Let me say at once that I fully supported and continue fully to support the raising of the school leaving age to 16 and that nothing relating to the Bill that I now seek to introduce should be interpreted in any way as an attempt to relax that very important and valuable measure to extend educational opportunity for all children.
However, the raising of the school leaving age to 16 has produced one anomaly which my Bill is intended to remedy. It arises because the lower age limit in England and Wales for a person to be lawfully married is also 16 years. The result is that, since 1972, it has been possible for married persons to be of compulsory school age. For instance, a person whose 16th birthday is on 1st September and who is married on that day or very shortly afterwards is legally required to continue attending school until the following Easter. In those circumstances, there must be a very great temptation for married schoolchildren to cease to attend school, especially if they have moved home to a new area and also if they are girls with household duties.
I do not in the slightest condone such truancy, but I can appreciate how it can easily occur. If a 16-year old married schoolchild is absent from school in this way, the law at present requires a prosecution to be brought under Section 36 of the Education Act 1944 by the local education authority against the parent of the schoolchild. Section 114 of the same Act interprets the meaning of
"parent" as including a legal guardian as well as a natural parent but not including a husband or wife.

439
In a case which arose in my constituency in 1974, a girl aged 16 years had married a young man who was over the age of 18 and had gone to live with him some 15 miles away from her previous home, her previous home having been with her widowed mother. The local education authority was obliged by the current state of the law to take the widow to court. But in no way was it able to take action against the girl's husband.
I submit that the law is out of touch with reality in such circumstances, and the main purpose of my Bill is to transfer the legal responsibility for securing school attendance in the case where a married schoolchild has a spouse who is over 18 years of age from the parent to that spouse.
It is true that there would remain an anomalous situation in cases where both partners to a marriage were less than 18 years of age with one or both of them being of compulsory school age. In circumstances such as that, I cannot at this stage see any alternative to the present assignment of the legal responsibility for securing school attendance to the parent of the child concerned.
There may be other implications of the Bill relating to the assessment of parental financial income with respect to the provision of free school meals, free milk or clothing for married schoolchildren. If a schoolchild is married with a spouse who is over the age of 18, again it appears
440
to me that it would be realistic to treat the spouse as having taken the place of the parent with regard to any assessment of financial income. I am still considering the legal aspects of that implication of the Bill, but in principle I should welcome the transfer to a spouse over the age of 18 years of all these aspects of the parent's role in relation to a schoolchild's education.
To sum up, it seems to me that the present law concerning the definition of "parent" in respect of a married person of compulsory school age is contrary to common sense, and I seek the leave of the House to attempt to rectify the position.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Dr. Edmund Marshall, Mr. Martin Flannery, Mr. Bruce George, Mr. Peter Hardy, Mr. John Horam, Mr. James Lamond, Mr. Evan Luard, Mr. Jim Marshall, Mr. Arnold Shaw, Mr. James Tinn, Mr. Michael Ward and Mr. Alec Woodall.

ORDER OF THE DAY
  PREVENTION OF TERRORISM (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL
  Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
New Clause 1

  ORDERS EXCLUDING PERSONS FROM NORTHERN IRELAND
  '(1) If the Secretary of State is satisfied that any person—

  (a) is or has been concerned (whether in Northern Ireland or elsewhere) in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, or

  (b) is attempting or may attempt to enter Northern Ireland with a view to being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism,

  the Secretary of State may make an order against that person prohibiting him from being in, or entering, Northern Ireland.

  (2) In deciding whether to make an order under this section against a person who is ordinarily resident in Northern Ireland the Secretary of State shall have regard to the question whether that person's connection with any territory outside Northern Ireland is such as to make it appropriate that such an order should be made.

  (3) An order shall not be made under this section against a person who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies and who—

  (a) is at the time ordinarily resident in Northern Ireland, and has then been ordinarily resident in Northern Ireland throughout the last 20 years, or

  (b) was born in Northern Ireland and has, throughout his life, been ordinarily resident in Northern Ireland, or

  (c) is at the time subject to an order under section 4 of this Act.

  Paragraph (a) shall be construed in accordance with Schedule 2 to this Act'.—[Mr. Roy Jenkins.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  4.8 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Speaker: I think that it will be convenient if the right hon. Gentleman himself indicates all the various amendments that he wishes to be considered with the new clause.
  Mr. Jenkins: I hope that I can accomplish that fairly complicated task. With the new clause, I believe that there are associated 14 consequential amendments, which are as follows:
  Government Amendments Nos. 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 25, 28, 30, 45, 46, 59, 60, 61 and 62.
  It will also be convenient to consider at the same time certain amendments tabled by Opposition Members before I tabled my proposals. They are:
  Amendment No. 11, in Clause 4, page 3, line 20, leave out 'Great Britain' and insert 'United Kingdom'.
  Amendment No. 12, in page 3, line 23, at end insert 'or Northern Ireland'.
  Amendment No. 13, in page 3, line 27, at end insert:
  'or Northern Ireland as the case may be'.
  Amendment No. 16, in page 4, line 2, at end insert:
  '(4) When an order is made under this section prohibiting a person from being in, or entering Northern Ireland, subsection (2) and (3) of this section shall have effect with the substitution of Northern Ireland for Great Britain'.
  There are also amendments to the proposed new clause:

  (a) in paragraph (a) to leave out "whether";

  (b) in paragraph (a) after "elsewhere", insert "in the British Isles".

  I hope I can say with a fair degree of confidence that the Opposition will not wish to press their amendments in the circumstances, because I think that my new clause and the consequential amendments cover fully the point which they had in mind.
  The purpose of new Clause 1 and the amendments is to introduce into the Bill the concept known as reciprocity in the making of exclusion orders. I shall explain what is meant by "reciprocity". At present, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies can be excluded from Great Britain only if he or she has been concerned in acts of terrorism or is attempting to enter Great Britain for that purpose. A non-citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies can be excluded from the whole of the United Kingdom. Probably in practice it means the Republic of Ireland, although there could be cases when it might mean elsewhere. However,

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  at present there is no power to exclude a citizen of the United Kingdom from Northern Ireland if, for example, he went from Great Britain to Northern Ireland to commit acts of terroism or there was reason to suspect that he was doing so. There is no reciprocal power of this sort.
  We have discussed this matter throughout the, happily, fairly short history of this emergency prevention of terrorism legislation. I recollect the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) putting the point to me fairly early one morning a year last November. As I recollect it—no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will confirm this—I indicated to him then that I had no objection in principle to the matter, but I did not think that it had any practical import and, therefore, at that stage, I did not wish to change the position. Equally, in Committee my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said that we would consider the matter further. Indeed, I understand that there was a Division. I was told that it was put forward in the spirit of helping us to consider the matter with even greater concentration. I do not know whether that affected our concentration, because I have always regarded this as a rather open point.
  The position as I now see it is that I do not believe that this clause is likely to have any practical effect. We know of no example recently in which we should have wished to make an exclusion order of this sort. However, I am quite aware that, should a case arise in which it was right to make such an exclusion order, there could be objections of principle to our not being able to do so. This could arouse a feeling of grievance, lack of equality of treatment or lack of proper respect for the unity of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland. Therefore, after consultation with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who, like me, does not see it as a practical issue but equally sees no objection to it, I think it would be proper in the interests more of logic than of practice to bring forward the new clause. I therefore do so.
  There is one other point which I should perhaps mention relating to the consequential amendments. In general the drafting of the new clause follows the wording of Clause 4 of the Bill—that is,
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  the exclusion clause—apart from the inclusion of a new subsection, (3)(c), which ensures that an order under this clause shall not be made against a person who is already subject to an order under Clause 4. I believe that it would be clearly ludicrous and unacceptable for us to take the view that a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies could be excluded from both Great Britain and Northern Ireland and turned, as it were, into a Flying Dutchman or that we should endeavour to export our own terrorists to a totally different part of the world. I do not believe that that would be reasonable. I think that, whether we be one side of the water or the other, regrettably we have to try to digest these people. Therefore, I think that this is a necessary saving provision. In my view, that is the only consequential amendment which I need explain to the House because the other amendments are essentially technical and drafting.
  4.15 p.m.
  Mr. John Biggs-Davison: The Opposition fully endorse the saving provision which the Home Secretary mentioned at the end of his speech. I am glad to see that the Under-Secretary of State is in her place, because I recall that towards the end of the proceedings in Committee she undertook to convey the feelings and arguments of members of the Committee to her right hon. Friend and to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. She promised that the issue of reciprocity would be re-examined. We are grateful to her for redeeming that pledge, and we are grateful to the Home Secretary for accepting the case which right hon. and hon. Members from the Conservative and Unionist Party have made in full accord with right hon. and hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies.
  The Home Secretary has the satisfaction of righting a wrong and removing an enormity from the statute book. He knows his Irish history and is aware that it yields many examples of fellow subjects across the Irish Sea being treated unfavourably and as second-class citizens. He mentioned the principle, the practicality and the logic of the matter. We consider that the principle is very important and has a practical application partly because of the effect that there has been on the morale of the brave and battered people of Northern Ireland.

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  Without the new clause, the people of Northern Ireland would be required to put up with those people whom authority over here was not prepared to put up with, and citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies could not be prevented from entering Northern Ireland even though they might be as dangerous to the peace as non-citizens.
  Northern Ireland is the main theatre of terrorism. It is easier for terrorists to operate with impunity in Northern Ireland than in Great Britain. It could be said that the Belfast Lough had been deemed to be a type of Botany Bay with the difference that those who were in former times transported to Botany Bay were kept under constraint.
  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, although wisely retaining the power to detain, has brought detention to an end, and perhaps that fact has reinforced the argument upon which the right hon. Gentleman has based his change of mind. It was surely completely inequitable that suspects in Northern Ireland with their origins on this side of the water—for example, the former Londoner John Stevenson alias Sean MacStiofain—could not be excluded from the Province and sent back over here for us to deal with.
  Therefore, the official Opposition are completely at one with the Ulster Unionists and other hon. Members in resenting the state of affairs—which the Home Secretary is now putting right—in which Northern Ireland is treated as a dump for unwanted, or perhaps sometimes wanted, men. We are glad that good sense and justice have prevailed.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The Home Secretary has fairly recorded that from the very beginning of this legislation it has been the view of my hon. Friends and myself that it should contain such a clause as the one we are discussing. We are very glad and very relieved that it is now to be inserted in the Bill, and certainly I shall not take the opportunity of attempting to belabour the right hon. Gentleman for the fact that it has not been in the legislation previously.
  It is, of course, intolerable, except for what one hopes will be a very brief period, that there should be any power to remove persons compulsorily from one
  446
  part of the United Kingdom to another or to exclude them and prevent them from moving from one part to another.
  However, if there is to be such power there are strong reasons both of practice and of principle why it should be a two-way movement or, to be more accurate, a two-way prevention of movement.
  The right hon. Gentleman is aware that on the issue of principle it has in the past 15 months been deeply felt, and certainly fully stated in Northern Ireland, that many people believed that the intention of this legislation was to use Northern Ireland as a dumping ground for the unwanted terrorists in Great Britain. However exaggerated that language may be, it represented real resentment which it is all to the good that we should now be removing.
  There are, however, and have accumulated in recent days, practical grounds which certainly reinforce the view of the Home Secretary that it is by no means out of the question that practical use might be made of this power. We have seen cases proved in the courts and leading to conviction of persons belonging to Great Britain for taking steps to send the materials of terrorism to Northern Ireland. It is certainly a very short step from organising such a transfer of the material to actually going or wishing to go to Northern Ireland to participate in its use.
  The right hon. Gentleman can therefore feel that he has not only considerations of principle but sound practical grounds to support the clause, which we welcome.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Some hon. Members on this side would have preferred my right hon. Friend to try to remove this anomaly by removing exclusion orders altogether rather than extending them to Northern Ireland. However, when we first read the new clause some hon. Members on this side were a little concerned that my right hon. Friend was perhaps extending the power further in relation to Northern Ireland than was provided for in the original Order. That is why we tabled Amendments (a) and (b), so that it was clear that this provision related to acts of terrorism within the United Kingdom and that it did not refer to acts committed elsewhere in the world.

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  There is a consensus about what constitutes terrorism in relation to Northern Ireland but not always about what is terrorism in other parts of the world. On many occasions in the past there has been considerable political controversy about whether someone, usually a non-British citizen, should be allowed in. But it is still possible that a British citizen will be involved in another part of the world in an act which some people would call terrorism and others would call freedom fighting. We were therefore concerned that the new clause should be tied specifically to acts relating to Northern Ireland.
  Having considered the Bill carefully, it is at least my impression that the new clause will be inserted somewhere in Part II, which relates to exclusion orders, and that the final words of Clause 3(1),
  "with respect to affairs in Northern Ireland",
  will govern the new clause. If that is so, we will accept that our small amendments are completely superfluous. I should like an assurance that the new clause will be governed by that provision.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: I think that I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. The Bill is closely circumscribed in the sense that it applies to acts of terrorism occurring in connection with Northern Irish affairs. There is no intention that it should apply more widely. I suppose that if a terrorist whose connections were with Great Britain and who went from Great Britain were to commit an act of terrorism in connection with Irish affairs in the Republic and then to retreat to Northern Ireland, that would be covered and it would be reasonable to exclude him if it were right on other grounds. But this would not cover acts of terrorism committed except in the Northern Ireland context.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 2

  CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS ACTS OF TERRORISM
  '(1) If any person—

  (a) intending that it shall be applied or used for or in connection with the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of
  448
  terrorism to which this section applies, solicits or invites a gift or loan of or receives or accepts, any money or other property from any other person, or

  (b) knowing or suspecting that it will or may be so applied or so used, gives or lends, or otherwise makes available, any money or other property to any other person,

  he shall be liable—

  (i) on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to a fine not exceeding £400, or both, or

  (ii) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine, or both.

  (2) A court by or before which a person is convicted of an offence under this section may order the forfeiture of any money or other property which, at the time of the offence, he had in his possession or under his control and intended to be applied or used for or in connection with the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism to which this section applies.

  (3) This section and section (information about acts of terrorism) of this Act apply to acts of terrorism occurring in the United Kingdom and connected with Northern Irish affairs.'.—[Mr. Roy Jenkins.]

  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): I understand that it will be convenient to discuss at the same time Government Amendments Nos. 32 and 68 to 71.
  Mr. Jenkins: The new clause and the consequential amendments create a new offence in respect of fund-raising for purposes related to acts of terrorism in the United Kingdom which are concerned with Northern Irish affairs. I do not think that we had a specific amendment on this matter in Committee. We certainly did not have a Division on it. Underlying part of our discussions, however, was a concern on both sides, which has been shared on both sides of the House in previous debates, that fundraising could conceivably take place for and in support of terrorist activities within this country.
  What happens outside this country we cannot control by law, although we might try to control it by other means, such as exhortation and bringing home the effect of what is done. But the fundraising could take place within this country and, because the actual fund-raising was not directly concerned with the IRA

  449
  or did not appear so to be, might escape any legal net.
  I must make it clear that while we would all, I think, condemn and regard as worse than reprehensible fund-raising, collecting or subscribing to funds to support terrorism, this is not by its nature something which can be dealt with infallibly and completely by a process of law. However, since the Committee stage I have considered whether I could reasonably proceed in any way which, while not giving us an infallible legal process here, would somehow improve the position.
  I believe that we can do that. It is being done by this new clause. Subsection (1) makes it an offence for anyone to solicit or invite a gift or loan or to receive or accept any money or other property which he intends shall be used for or in connection with the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism occurring anywhere in the United Kingdom and connected with Northern Irish affairs.
  It will also be an offence not merely to solicit money but to give, lend or otherwise make available any money or other property if the person so doing knows or suspects that it will be used in connection with such acts. The maximum penalty for the offence will be, on summary conviction, six months' imprisonment or a fine of £400, or both, or, on conviction on indictment, five years' imprisonment or a fine, or both.
  Subsection (2) enables the court to order the forfeiture of any money or property which was intended to be applied or used in connection with acts of terrorism found at the time of the offence in the possession or under the control of a person convicted of an offence under the clause.
  The clause places an onus on people contributing to collections to avoid making contributions if they have any grounds for suspecting that the money will be applied to terrorism. It will not be sufficient to say that the tin did not have "IRA" written on it. That is the essential point of the clause. It goes reasonably far and I believe that it is the right point to which to go in dealing with these matters by law.
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  Of the consequential amendments, No. 32 applies the powers of arrest and detention under Clause 9 to the new offence. Amendment No. 46 applies to Clause 11 the provisions of Schedule 3 about stopping and searching. Amendment No. 49 includes the new clause in the list of temporary provisions—in other words, it is subject to the considerations applying to how and when the Bill can be renewed and parts of it may or may not be dropped at certain stages.
  Proceedings for an offence under the new clause, which raise certain fairly difficult issues of law, will for that reason be subject to the Attorney-General's consent.
  I do not claim that the new clause or any legal provision will completely or absolutely deal with this abuse. What I have tried to do, which I think is in accordance with the view and the spirit of the Committee and the House, is to see whether we could sensibly find any means of legally strengthening the position. I believe that we have done that in a worthwhile and reasonable way.
  4.30 p.m.
  Mr. William Whitelaw: I am certain that the Home Secretary is right to introduce this clause. The House should be grateful to him and support it. I, like him, have some reservation about how effective it could be. The right hon. Gentleman properly stressed its limitations, and it is sensible to embark on the new clause on that basis.
  No one with experience of dealing with terrorism in Northern Ireland or elsewhere can doubt the considerable impetus that is given through money which is extorted by protection rackets, intimidation and many other methods. It is also true that some of the money comes from persuading innocent people to donate to causes which are not what they believe them to be. It is easy to give people the idea that they will be helping children in some part of the world, the unemployed or the underprivileged, but in fact the money might go to an organisation which would do no good to the children or anyone else.
  That happens outside our shores, and we can do nothing about it except seek to stop it by persuasion. I know that

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  the Government, like previous Governments, are exercising persuasion on all the people concerned in different parts of the world. We can do something towards warning people who might be tricked into subscribing to such an organisation of the dangers involved and the legal risks which they run. The clause should command considerable support.
  I am particularly glad that the clause refers to the
  "instigation of acts of terrorism"
  in general. I fully support the right hon. Gentleman's view that it should be no defence that a collecting tin does not bear the initials "IRA". If it was, it could lead immediately to clever acts of evasion. A wide provision is absolutely right.
  I hope that the House will give the new clause every support. It may have a limited value but even if it prevents only a few subscriptions and denies terrorists some money it will be worth while.
  Mr. Ian Mikardo: The only reservation I have about the clause is that it devalues our legislative process by putting on the statute book provision which will never issue in action. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said that we must not imagine that the clause will completely stop the collection of money for terrorist purposes. That was a grossly over-optimistic way of putting it. In fact, it will not only not completely do the job but it will in practice make no contribution to doing it, for the reasons given by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw).
  No one will go round the pubs of West London or elsewhere admitting that he is collecting money for bombers to blow up people in Belfast or Birmingham. I do not believe that those concerned have ever done that, nor would they if they were in their right minds. But I believe that it has been done in the United States and perhaps in Canada. I am sure that Colonel Gaddafi knows full well what will happen to the money which he contributes. Collections that are made to aid the victims of terrorism or for some other purpose will not be caught by the clause. We are talking about people
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  within the jurisdiction of this country. I would be surprised if a prosecution ever resulted from the clause. Only a man with suicidal instincts would lay himself open to action under the clause, since he can achieve his objectives by the "nod is as good as a wink" process.
  It might be said—I think that the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border hinted at it—that even if the clause was not much good it might create a climate of disapproval. If I believed that I would be an enthusiastic supporter, because none of us object to the end which it seeks. But I do not think that there is the least chance of its creating that climate. No collecting done up to now will be lessened or stopped by the operation of the clause.
  I shall not oppose the clause, because we are all agreed about its objectives, but it is a bad thing that, for the sake of show, public relations or whatever, we should put on our statute book laws which we know will never issue in action.
  Mr. Powell: I agree with the general principle which the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) has just stated. Indeed, I would go further and disagree with his statement—if I heard him aright—that legislation might be engaged in in order to create a climate of approval or disapproval. I do not think that that is the function of legislation. Nevertheless, I believe that practical cases might well occur in which it would be possible to bring home the provisions of the clause. That being so, it is also legitimate to take account of the fact that there is considerable public indignation at the knowledge that collections take place. Consequently, if only a small proportion of those concerned can be brought to book it is right to provide powers to do so. Therefore, my hon. Friends and I hope that the clause will be added to the Bill.
  I have two points with which I should like the Secretary of State to deal. Reference has already been made to acts which take place outside the jurisdiction. Does the expression in line 4, "receives or accepts", refer only to acts within the jurisdiction, or is a person liable to penalty under the clause if he has gone abroad, collected sums there and come back to this country with the product of his activities?

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  Even if that does not bite, does not the clause bite at some subsequent stage at which those sums collected abroad are handed over, as they must be, within the United Kingdom to those who will put them to the felonious objects to which the clause refers? Perhaps we could be clearer exactly to what extent the clause can bite on collections made outside the jurisdiction although they are to be applied within the jurisdiction.
  My second point relates to matters of drafting. I imagine that the clause may have been drawn fairly hastily, and if in another place its drafting can be brought up to the best standard of legislation that would clearly be desirable. There are two points at which I think that it falls below that standard. In subsection (1), which reads,
  "If any person—
  (a) intending that it shall be applied",
  the pronoun "it" refers forward to the antecedent "gift or loan" which comes two lines later. That is bad English anyhow, and it is bad English in a statute. It should not be beyond the wit of a draftsman to convert this subsection into good English. We should as far as possible put good English on the statute book.
  My second case is in subsection (2), which describes the "money or other property". I refer to lines 15 and 16, where I select the words with which I am concerned:
  "money or other property which … he had in his possession … and intended to be applied".
  This links together as qualifying the word "property" a relative clause,
  "which … he had in his possession",
  and a participle, "intended", used adjectivally. This is shocking English which would bring down condign punishment upon even a young student who dared to show up an essay which contained an ungrammatical expression of this character. I am sure that we shall have the sympathy of the Home Secretary, who is himself a writer of choice English, in ensuring that before the new clause finally reaches the statute book it is purged of its blemishes.
  Mr. George Cunningham: If the right hon. Gentleman feels so strongly about this matter, ought he not to bring forward a draft which combines linguistic beauty
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  with clarity? Has he an alternative to offer?
  Mr. Powell: I cannot believe that at this stage it would promote the cause that I have at heart for amendments to be put on the Notice Paper. My point will be on the record and I am sure that it has been taken by the Home Secretary. Fortunately, there are subsequent stages of the Bill. It is a known fact that however nicely one drafts amendments, the parliamentary draftsmen can draft them better. All I am asking for is that the Government should take the principle of my objection into account so that a minor and purely drafting amendment may be made to the clause later.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: I have much sympathy with the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo), both on the general principle that we should not write into the statute book laws which we do not think will be effective and on his specific criticisms of the applicability of the clause. I should not be willing to support the clause if I did not think that one could divide clauses into parts that were effective and parts that were not.
  The hon. Gentleman raised the difficulty regarding the financial purposes for which collections were made. He gave some examples, but I do not think that he gave a crucial example. Most of the collections are ostensibly on behalf of the dependants of those who were interned, previously, or who are now convicted prisoners, those who in some way or other are alleged to be victims of violence—not in the terms that we would use in this House but in terms of being victims of the application of punishment.
  Perhaps it should be considered whether the clause could be used against that kind of collection. It is a fairly subtle framing of the invitation to contribute money but one which might escape even this clause. On the other hand, the later stages in the chain could possibly be affected by the clause and made the subject of action under it. It is the acceptance of money so collected, the applying or using of money so collected, particularly in paragraph (b) but also in parts of paragraph (a), against which there may be applicability. That gives me sufficient grounds for thinking

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  that the clause should be included in the statute.
  However, I hope that the Government Front Bench will reflect on the particular kind of invitation to the public. Perhaps it is not unfair to say that it is disguised in many cases and proclaimed as a collection on behalf of the dependants of the boys in Long Kesh or the men in Armagh, or whatever it may be, but then the money is used in part for those dependants and other parts may be badly misused.
  Mr. George Cunningham: In view of some of the criticisms of the clause that have been made, I want to ask the Home Secretary to put my mind at rest in one respect. It seems to have been implied that if a person collecting money were to say at the time when he was collecting it that he was collecting it for dependants or that he was collecting it for other charitable type purposes, he would put himself outside the scope of the clause. As I understand it, he would not do any such thing. In most circumstances it might be difficult to prove that although he said that he was collecting it for dependants, he intended it to be used for direct purposes in connection with violence or suspected that it would be so used. It might be difficult to prove that. But there certainly are situations in which one can believe that such proof would be sufficient to satisfy a jury.
  As I see it, what the Home Secretary is doing in the proposed new clause is to provide for what might be a later occasion but one on which we do not want to leave ourselves without an offence on the statute book should the evidence be sufficient to bring before and convince a jury.
  4.45 p.m.
  I hope, therefore, that the Home Secretary can say that no person will put himself outside the scope of this offence simply by pretending that he is collecting money for charitable type purposes, and that he would be subject to the offence if it were proved that his intention or his knowledge was sufficient to come within the very wide ambit of some of the phrases in the clause.
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence: I very much welcome the Government's willingness to try to tighten up the legislation as
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  it first appeared when presented to the House. I would welcome any improvement to the Bill which closes any of the loopholes. However, as one of those who advanced a probing amendment in Committee, I must confess that I am a little puzzled as to how the new clause will improve the existing situation.
  As a lawyer—I must confess that at the start to those who do not already know it—I believe that it is important that we should make sure that our legislation is clear and simple and is not in any sense confusing. I have no doubt that something will be done to Clause 1(1)(b) as a result of the new clause. However, does the wording of the new clause add anything to Clause 1(1)(b) as originally presented? Clause 1(1) says,
  "Subject to subsection (6) below, if any person … (b) solicits or invites financial or other support …".
  The new paragraph says,
  "solicits or invites a gift or loan …".
  "Gift or loan" would be financial support.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: At the same time, the difference is "proscribed organisation".
  Mr. Lawrence: I understand that. That is another matter. The Home Secretary has moved on to another point. I see a re-wording "gift of loan", which adds nothing.
  When we come to "proscribed organisation", the new clause says,
  "acts of terrorism to which this section applies."
  The section to which it applies is presumably Section 1, which includes Schedule 1, which proscribes the IRA. Perhaps the Home Secretary will help me on this point.
  Mr. Beith: Does not the clause refer to
  "terrorism occurring in the United Kingdom connected with Northern Irish affairs"?
  Mr. Lawrence Mr. Lawrence rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Does the hon. Gentleman wish to consult a solicitor?
  Mr. Lawrence: My experience of consulting a solicitor, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that I am none the wiser after a long consultation than I was at the start.

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  However, if the new clause is limited to
  "acts of terrorism to which this section applies"
  and this section applies to the IRA or acts of terrorism in Northern Ireland, it actually adds nothing to that which already exists.
  Mr. George Cunningham: Perhaps I may put it as a non-lawyer and, therefore, one who is very ignorant on these matters. Is not the situation that in one case a person has to ask for subscriptions to the IRA, and in the other case he could ask for subscriptions to the Red Cross or the WVS, but so long as he was aware that the subscriptions were going to the IRA he would be caught? That is the difference.
  Mr. Lawrence: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I should have thought that any court would construe the words
  other support for a proscribed organisation",
  which is what the original wording was, in a way which would embrace support for that organisation even though it is not specifically named. The Home Secretary will recall that in Committee I did not support the views expressed by some of my hon. Friends that because the words "proscribed organisation" were implied, it merely meant that the person had to put "IRA" on the collection box. I do not agree with that. I think that any court construing support for a proscribed organisation would look at the wider connotation and consider whether the spirit of the thing was that money was going to a cause for which the proscribed organisation stood. If my interpretation is correct, the new clause adds nothing. No doubt I shall receive some assurance from the right hon. Gentleman.
  I make no apology for raising that point because time and time again we are told, and we see for ourselves, that we are producing legislation which is practically incomprehensible to lawyers or laymen. I am for simplicity. Although the Government seem to be employing their best endeavours to improve the Bill as it stood I cannot understand that the new clause adds anything to collections.
  I move on to another matter that is perhaps more important in the sense of its application. We were told in Com-
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  mittee that Section 1 of the 1974 Act had resulted In three prosecutions. I think that there was one case in Scotland in which there were two acquittals and one conviction. I believe that there was no prosecution in England. The point was made in Committee that it was well-known that collections were taking place not only in London public houses but in public houses in other areas. I sought not an amendment of the wording as the Government have now provided; I questioned whether the police needed greater powers to stop collections in public houses. I meant by that some extra power vested in the police to go in to search, to ascertain whether collections are taking place and to stop them.
  I was given an assurance in Committee that the police did not require any further powers. I was told that the Government were satisfied that the police had adequate powers and that nothng more needed to be done. I welcome the new clause in so far as it is a second thought on the part of the Government. However, the matter requires more thought and continued thought as time passes. The fact is that collections are still being made.
  The Home Secretary will recall that early in December, shortly after the Bill left Committee, two persons made statements that appeared in the national Press to the effect that it was laughable that they and their colleagues had all been making contributions, or that collections had been taking place, and that that continued to be the position. I think that one of those persons was the leader of the Sinn Fein in England. I think that the other person was an ordinary individual who happened to attend one of the public houses concerned. They both gave their names and addresses. Presumably they are known and are interviewable by the police. I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman about the matter but, alas, as yet I have received no answer as to the action that he has taken.
  If there is evidence that money is being collected and will continue to be collected to support the proscribed organisation or any organisation relating to it, or in support of the ends of that organisation, it is clear that an offence is being committeed. However, there appear to be no prosecutions.
  Mr. Mikardo: Will the hon. Gentleman give me and the House the benefit of his legal advice? There is a worthy organisation that with the best possible objectives collects money in pubs on Saturday evenings not by taking collections but by its members—generally they are ladies—selling copies of its journal. They do not solicit gifts, donations or anything to which objection could be taken. The money so collected is used for the very best of purposes. If someone went around the pubs selling a journal, would that fall within the ambit of the clause? As a layman, my reading is that it would not, but I should be glad to have the hon. Gentleman's legal opinion.
  Mr. Lawrence: My reading as a lawyer is that it would. If one is making money, even though offering money's worth and even though others are buying, financial support is being given. If a journal is produced on behalf of a proscribed organisation I should have thought that the courts would rule that that was support for the organisation. There may be other views on that matter.
  In Committee I asked whether something could not be done to fill the obvious gap. I was surprised when I was told by the Government that it was not a gap, that everyone was satisfied that the rules existed and that collections had ceased. I think that those were the words of the Under-Secretary of State. I was surprised to hear her say that. The object of the exercise was to ask the Government to consider any way in which we can close the gap and stop the collections. Although we may differ in interpreting certain words in the new clause, I do not believe that the clause adds anything to that which already exists. Further, I do not believe that it is even remotely liable to close the loophole through which these collections are passing. I hope that I am wrong, but the evil is that the collections continue. I am sure that we are all agreed on that. If there is that agreement, the next thing is to consider what we can do to remedy the evil. Neither the clause as it stood nor the new clause remedy that evil.
  I return to the question to which I received what I consider to be an unsatisfactory answer—in Committee—namely, what more can be done and what consideration is being given to extending the powers of the police to go into public
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  houses. Is there any other thinking that the Government have been toying with, is there any other clause which we might add to ensure that the absurd situation surrounding collections shall be remedied? The newspapers publicly flaunted the circumstances surrounding the collections, and it was their duty to do so. It is a matter that deeply offends many people of parts of Britain and Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: In what will be a brief reply I begin by saying that I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) that the clause is inoperative. I do not want to overstate the case for pieces of legislation or amendments which we bring forward, and I shall endeavour not to do so on this occasion, but I would not bring forward the clause if I did not think that it would have some practical effect. It can and will have some practical effect. I do not wish to sell it to the House on the basis that, like a philosopher's stone, it will solve the whole problem.
  On jurisdiction, the act of receiving or accepting would apply only within the United Kingdom. It will be difficult enough to prove such an offence without trying to erect a somewhat fantasy world where one could have prosecutions for what happened in Boston, New York, or elsewhere. If the money is passed at a certain stage in the United Kingdom, that act could be caught even if the donor were outside the United Kingdom.
  5.0 p.m.
  Mr. Tom Litterick: My right hon. Friend's last remarks prompted a thought which may, on the face of it, seem absurd, but it is in my head and should be expressed. Is the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland exempt from the provisions of the legislation? Several hon. Gentlemen opposite have from time to time made allegations that public money passing through the Northern Ireland Office is finding its way into the coffers of the Provisional IRA through commercial organisations engaged in building houses, and so on. The words in the clause are "knowing or suspecting". There will always be areas where we suspect that unpleasant things are happening but will allow them to go on for other reasons. However, a zealous police officer might consider that the

  461
  Secretary of State for Northern Ireland should be arrested.
  Mr. Jenkins: When my hon. Friend has absurd thoughts in his mind, I hope that he will not always feel compelled to express them to the House. I assure him that his thought is fairly absurd. I say that with the utmost good will. If by chance a zealous police officer were to take that view about my right hon. Friend—one can never exclude the possibility that a zealous police officer might take that view about him, or me for that matter—and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General were prepared to endorse the police officer's view, no doubt the matter would lead to a prosecution. I hope that we may not concern ourselves unduly with that thought.
  I was about to turn to the stylistic points made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I do not share his absolute faith that it is possible to combine the prosaic need for clarity of parliamentary draftsmen with all the benefits of the most excellently and elegantly expressed English. In general, clarity and elegance of language go together. However, I have not on the whole found this with statutes. I can think of very few phrases in statutes which have resounded down the centuries as outstanding examples of English prose which have made a memorable contribution to our language. No Minister could possibly undertake to try to improve drafting from the point of view of the beauty of the language. If there be any lack of clarity, I shall look at it. There is another stage.
  Looking cursorily and quickly at subsection (1)(a), the word "it" appears to occur a little prematurely. The drafting may not be ideal. The right hon. Gentleman was fair to me. I am sure that he is right that subsection (2) does not obey the strictest rules of English syntax, but I do not find the use of the two phrases to which he referred offensive. The wording is perfectly clear. But I will have the matter looked at before we get to the later stage.
  The hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) made a number of points with which I do not agree. I thought that he
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  was clearly answered by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) in an intervention. The process of the hon. Gentleman's mind is singularly opaque. I am sure that he was anxious to help the House and to make an effective Bill. However, he seemed to outline a problem and, when coming near to a solution, to turn away from it and to run down some quite different alley way.
  The hon. Gentleman said that collections were going on and that we needed greater powers to deal with them. We have provided greater powers here to deal with two specific points. It will no longer be a defence to say "The collecting box did not have on it 'IRA'. It claimed to be for something else. The collectors said that it was for our boys in Ireland." The power that we are providing is substantially wider from that point of view. It means that if the person subscribing money has reason to suspect that it will be used for purposes connected with terrorism, he is at risk. Those are two substantial widenings of the power.
  It is no use the hon. Gentleman saying that the provisions are not wide enough and then, when they are made somewhat wider, saying that it is pointless—
  Mr. Lawrence Mr. Lawrence rose—
  Mr. Jenkins: —let me finish my sentence—making the provision somewhat wider because he wants greater powers for the police. I should have thought that even his limited experience at the Bar had led him to the conclusion that the way to give the police greater powers was by means of a statute. That is what we have endeavoured to do. The House would not carry a proposal merely that the police should have greater powers to deal with this evil. We must consider in what way we can give the police greater powers. We have done that in two important respects—by widening the form of the collection and by putting the responsibility upon the donor as well as the collector. That is an important provision which is well worth making.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 3

  INFORMATION ABOUT ACTS OF TERRORISM
  '(1) If a person who knows or believes that he has information which might be of material assistance—

  (a) in preventing an act of terrorism to which this section applies, or

  (b) in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of any person for an offence involving the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism to which this section applies,

  fails without reasonable excuse to disclose that information as soon as reasonably practicable to a constable, or in Scotland to a constable or the procurator fiscal, he shall be liable—

  (i) on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to a fine not exceeding £400, or both, or

  (ii) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or to a fine, or both.

  (2) Proceedings for an offence under this section may be taken, and the offence may for the purpose of those proceedings be treated as having been committed, in any place where the offender is or has at any time been since he first knew or believed as mentioned in subsection (1) above.'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

  Brought up, and read the First time.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take new Clause 4 and new Clause 5, both entitled Withholding of information about acts of terrorism, and Amendment No. 38.
  Dr. Summerskill: The new clause creates a new offence of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism connected with Northern Ireland affairs occurring within the United Kingdom, and various consequential changes are made through Amendment No. 38.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) moved a similar clause in Committee—he had also spoken on it when the Bill was first considered by the House—and argued persuasively that an offence of this nature should be created and that the practical difficulties about introducing it could be overcome.
  The Government now take the view that the Bill could, with advantage,
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  include a provision of this kind. The effect of subsection (1) of the new clause is that it will be an offence, without reasonable excuse, to fail to disclose information as soon as reasonably practicable to the police which might be of material assistance in preventing an act of terrorism in any part of the United Kingdom connected with Northern Irish affairs or in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of any person for an offence involving the commission, preparation or instigation of such an act. We believe that the clause should refer both to acts of terrorism which are about to be committed and ones which have been committed. Indeed, the former provision is important if the new clause is to make a practical contribution to forestalling terrorist incidents.
  My hon. Friend's clauses were limited to arrestable offences, those carrying a statutory penalty of at least five years. The Government's clause applies where the information relates to any offence. There are some serious offences of a terrorist nature which are common law offences and are not within the scope of the term "arrestable offence". In any event, it is most unlikely, bearing in mind the nature of terrorism, that the act of terrorism to which the information relates will be other than a very serious offence.
  It may not always be clear exactly where the offence of failing to give information occurs, if the defendant is moving around the United Kingdom, and to avoid any doubts which might otherwise arise subsection (2) makes it clear that the defendant may be prosecuted in any place where he has been since he first became aware of the information. The offence is a hybrid one subject to a maximum penalty on summary conviction of six months' imprisonment or a fine of £400, or both, and on conviction on indictment to five years' imprisonment or a fine, or both.
  Our consequential amendments have the effect of enabling the power to examine people at the ports contained in Section 10 to be exercised in relation to persons suspected of committing the new offence.
  Mr. Michael Alison: On behalf of the Conservative Opposition, I want to thank the Government for tabling the new clause. I wish to

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  congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) since the arguments he deployed in Committee obviously appealed to the Government and led to the new provisions. It does not seem to relate to the provision referred to by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo)—namely, as some kind of window dressing. I believe that the clause will have a practical effect.
  Its practical effect is most likely to occur—and perhaps the Minister would reflect on this—in circumstances to which the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury referred in Standing Committee. Let me quote what the hon. Gentleman said:
  "The situation in practice is more likely to be that a prosecution is brought against 10 people, for example, for a given outrage, two of them being charged with committing the act and comprising to do it, and the others being charged formally only with conspiracy. It may be that the jury is satisfied that some of the accused did it and that some of them conspired to do it, but is not satisfied that others of them conspired to do it. The jury may, on the evidence, be satisfied that those persons knew about it and could have informed the police. I suggest that that is a realistic scenario. As the law stands, the people found to have knowledge but who did not conspire could not be convicted of anything. I suggest that that is a situation which we should remove."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 16th December 1975; c. 149.]
  That seems to be a realistic scenario. If that is the situation the Minister believes is likely to be caught by the new clause, as I suspect, will she comment on the hypothetical case advanced by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury involving a group of 10, two of whom are found guilty of the offence, a further five are found guilty of conspiracy and the remaining three cannot be found guilty either of conspiracy or of committing an offence? After the new clause is enacted, could one of those people subsequently be tried for an offence under the new provision? It would become evident during the trial that he or she must have known what was going on, although one could not pin a precise conspiracy or felony on the person concerned.
  If that is the scenario, I am anxious to know at what point the new offence is likely to bite. This is the situation that will arise for people on the fringe of an outrage. They can be charged with
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  a major offence, but the chances are that they will be the small fish at the bottom of the net. It should be possible to apply to them the new clause, and perhaps the Minister can enlighten us whether that is the case.
  If those concerned have to be tried separately on different charges at a different trial, the matter could be dealt with by way of summary conviction, but the penalty in the provision is on the low side. In a magistrates' court the fine should be at least £1,000 where people are very much part of the group who perpetrate the offence.
  I should like to mention one drafting point. It is surely novel in parliamentary terms to seek to pin down what a person believes to be an offence. The first part of the clause reads:
  "If a person who knows or believes that he has information which might be of material assistance …".
  I do not see how one can establish what a person believes. I can visualise a situation in which it can be said categorically that somebody must have known what was to happen and could not fail to have been aware of the situation, but to try to pin down what is in somebody's mind surely envisages an intolerable burden of proof. It may be that there are common law precedents for this wording.
  5.15 p.m.
  Mr. Beith: Has the hon. Gentleman considered the possibility that the person concerned might wish to advance the defence that he knew that certain things were to take place but did not believe that they were related to the commission of an offence?
  Mr. Alison: If that is the offence, how do we prove the erroneousness of the disbelief? Surely there is nothing to be gained or lost.
  Mr. Edward Lyons: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when a person is charged with handling or receiving stolen goods, the concept is that the person concerned knows or believes them to have been stolen. That is the standard test. These words have been taken from that wording and they come up in almost every court every day of the week. The proof is based on knowledge or belief that property is stolen. There at other objections to the new clause,

  467
  but certainly on that point the hon. Gentleman is in error.
  Mr. Alison: I know that that comment comes from a practising barrister, and to reassure me the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) brings his legal knowledge to bear. However, I still see a marked difference between the receipt of stolen goods where a recipient has such goods in his hands and, on the other hand, a belief that their origin brings an awareness of the character, nature and origin of the goods. There is a dividing line which should be made clear.
  We welcome the new clause, but I hope that the Minister will deal with the matters I have raised.
  Mr. George Cunningham: As the initiator of this change, I should like to offer my views, unauthoritative though they be, on the final point mentioned by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison). The comparison mentioned by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) relates to Section 5 of the Criminal Law Act 1967, a provision on which I based my amendments last year.
  The purpose of Section 5 of the 1967 Act is to make it an offence not to give information to the police about an arrest-able offence as long as a bribe has been accepted for not giving the information. The wording is very similar to the drafting put forward by the Government and myself. It says:
  "Where a person has committed an arrestable offence, any other person who, knowing or believing that the offence or some other arrestable offence has been committed, and that he has information which might be of material assistance in securing the prosecution or conviction of an offender …"
  and so on. So the concept is not new to our criminal law. It is a heavy burden of proof, but where it is proved to the satisfaction of the jury, there is ample precedent for making it a criminal offence.
  The hon. Member for Barkston Ash seemed to think the normal procedure would be that when some people had been tried for a substantive offence, they could then be tried for not having provided information. I do not think that
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  would be the situation. I think the police will charge people with a number of offences at the same time. It is very common for a person to be charged with a serious and a lesser offence and to be acquitted of the serious charge but found guilty on the lesser offence.
  I understand that it would not be possible for a court with no charge before it in respect of a disclosure of information offence to find a person guilty of such an offence after acquitting or convicting him on a substantive offence, although there are cases where a court can convict in some circumstances. For instance, a man can be convicted of attempting an offence even if he has been charged and tried with committing it.
  I thank the Government for accepting the substance of the amendments I suggested a year ago and for improving my poor drafting. I understand why they have extended the coverage to non-arrestable offences. However, if there are serious offences, such as kidnapping, which are not technically arrestable, I wonder whether Section 5 of the 1967 Act should not also be extended to these offences.
  The Government also appear to have done something which is a little different from what would have been achieved by my amendments. There appears to be no provision for acquiring the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Attorney-General to a prosecution. The Criminal Law Revision Committee of 1965, when recommending the provisions in Section 5 of the 1967 Act, attached importance to the necessity of having the approval of the DPP because it does not want over-zealous policemen, or procurators-fiscal in Scotland, bringing actions against spouses for not giving information in respect of a spouse. The Government have obviously decided that this is not a weighty argument in this case, so I wonder whether it is right to continue it in respect of the 1967 Act. However, I thank the Government for going as far as they have gone.
  Mr. Powell: I am glad that the efforts in Committee of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham), which were industrious and protracted, have borne fruit in this new clause, among other places.

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  I wish to ask the Minister one question which may be of substance. There is a reference in the new clause to disclosing the information to a constable. Could the Under-Secretary spend a few moments explaining the ambit and meaning of "constable" in this context because there is an important point annexed. There are many circumstances in which a person having information, and wishing to deal with it in a public-spirited manner, would be frightened to communicate directly with the police and might choose a more indirect method of communication which he was reasonably sure would result in the information being received and acted upon in the proper quarters. I understand that this clause will apply in Northern Ireland, and there are many parts of the Province where perfectly law-abiding citizens who become aware of this kind of information would be in fear of their lives if they brought it to the attention of the police, but who might, nevertheless, wish to bring it to notice in a safer manner and who ought to take reasonable steps to do so.
  The clause makes the offence unduly restrictive or the onus unduly heavy by saying that the information must be disclosed to a constable, apparently, according to the wording of the clause, directly. I hat is the main point to which I would e glad if the Under-Secretary could address some remarks.
  With reference to the matter raised by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison), having listened to the semi-parallels adduced by the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) and the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, I wonder whether the words "knows or believes" in line 1 of the new clause have got themselves attached in the wrong place. Of course a person will always know that he has information. There is no question of his just believing that. There is no difference between one having information and knowing that one has it. But a person may genuinely not be sure whether that information would be of material assistance. He is aware that Murphy—I have not chosen the name with any prejudicial intention—went down a certain road at a certain time, but he may not know that Murphy was going down that road to commit a breach of the law. If the Under-Secretary is looking at the point
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  raised by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash, perhaps she could take this point into consideration.
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. Stan Thorne: Some of us are unhappy with the Bill itself, let alone the new clauses. I fully support what was said by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) about lines 1 and 2 of the clause. I also support what the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) said. I warn him that I shall be making a speech in his constituency in the near future.
  The clause begins as follows:
  "If a person who knows or believes that he has information which might be of material assistance".
  What does "might" mean? I do not know. I am confused about it and if my speech is confused, that is why. I accept what was said by the right hon. Member for Down, South about the difficulty of determining whether the information is of material assistance. A person who has seen two people lurking about suspiciously may temporarily dismiss that information from his mind because he has so frequently seen similar occurrences. If that person is asked about what he has seen and happens to reply in an Irish accent, he may be in danger. How can he prove that he did not know about what subsequently happened? The clause places a considerable onus on the ordinary man in the street to prove a set of negatives, which is extremely difficult.
  Mr. George Cunningham Mr. George Cunningham indicated dissent.
  Mr. Thorne: It is all very well for my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) to nod his head. I have been aware during the past half hour that this is a matter to be argued by lawyers and banisters, not by laymen such as myself. One wonders whether this sort of legislation is deliberately designed to fill the pockets of members of the legal profession, who spend a great deal of time arguing what is meant by a simple phrase.
  In line 5 there is a reference to "preparation". A great many operations are involved in preparing to carry out acts of terrorism with which, quite by accident, a person could be connected. There is a man at present in Long Kesh who

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  was asked by a complete stranger to be given a lift on his motor cycle. Subsequently, when that stranger was riding on the pillion, he said "Take it easy, Jack, I have a bomb on board". Eventually the motor cycle was identified, and no explanation could satisfy the police that its owner did not know that the man to whom he had given the lift intended to commit an act of violence. He might be guilty or he might not. I do not know the answer, but there is an element of doubt.
  In line 7 there is a reference to "reasonable excuse". How do we interpret "reasonable"? Barristers and judges may have a method of determining what "reasonable" means, but I have not.
  There is only one course open to us and that is to reject the clause. My main reason for saying that is the evidence we have of the operation of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act. Of the number of people taken into custody, the number subsequently charged is an infinitesimal proportion. How many more will be dragged into the net by this legislation? Shall we subsequently be talking of 0·1 per cent. of the people taken into custody who are charged with an offence under this clause? We should reject the clause.
  Mr. Lawrence: I join in expressing congratulations to the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) on introducing this new concept and thereby helping to make the Bill more effective. Just how far it will be more effective we must wait to see.
  I do not agree with the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne). The efficacy of the clause will not be impaired if no prosecutions are brought under it. Such a clause can be used as a legitimate lever in any criminal matter—particularly the disgusting crime of terrorism—to oblige a person to give information that he would not otherwise give which might provide the means of tracking down the more efficient terrorists. In due course we shall not look only to see whether prosecutions have been brought under the clause. We shall wish to know whether information has been obtained as a result of the clause, even though no prosecution is brought.
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  I ask the Under-Secretary of State to consider the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury concerning the Director of Public Prosecutions. It may not be desirable for a charge to be preferred against someone who refuses to give information, even though, according to the terms of the clause, he has committed an offence. It may not be desirable that those about whom information is given should know who has given it. When we reach the area where it is more important to encourage the giving of information than to bring charges on relatively minor aspects of terrorism, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General should first be consulted.
  Before I came to the House, as a practising barrister I was in almost daily contact with the phrases used in the clause. Handling stolen property is a common form of offence dealt with in our criminal courts. I support the wise assessment of the value of the first sentence in the clause made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). It is nonsense to put it in that way. The clause begins:
  "If a person who knows or believes that he has information which might be of material assstance".
  That is the sort of nonsense about which judges complain and of which lawyers make a good deal of meat. The way in which that form of words, which is shorthand for the mens rea—the mental element of guilt—in a criminal offence, is normally applied is after the substantive act—actus reus—has been proved. If a person has information the question has to be asked whether he knows or believes that it would be of assistance. That is the way in which that phrase is employed in the Theft Act and other legislation. That is easily understood by lawyers and judges. Not a penny of public time or money would be involved in putting the words round in the correct way.
  I come to "reasonable excuse". Notwithstanding the strictures—which were unjustified, and merely showed that the Home Secretary did not quite understand my argument—upon the opaqueness of my reasoning on new Clause 1, I see with pleasure that the Government have employed in new Clause 3 my suggestion in Committee and added a defence of "reasonable excuse". A "reasonable

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  excuse" is that excuse which is reasonable in all the circumstances, and the best people to judge that are 12 good men or women in a jury. The law has no difficulty in dealing with the concept of "reasonable excuse", which is easily explained to juries, and if the juries think that a person has a reasonable excuse for not doing that which the offence requires, they will acquit.
  Subject to the reconsideration of the functions of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General, and the amendment to subsection (1), I support the clause and welcome it. I hope that the Under-Secretary will ensure that the clause is amended at least in these respects before the matter comes to be considered in another place.
  Mr. Mikardo: I start my consideration of this clause from a proposition which I am sure will command the support of the whole House. It is that we have to find the best way as far as is humanly possible of preventing any act of terrorism from being committed. If one has been committed we have to find the best way of bringing the criminal to justice. I hope, therefore, that anything I might say in derogation of this clause will be considered against that background.
  I would be the last person to try to create a situation in which a chap who should be giving information does not, and gets away with it, or in which a chap who has committed a crime gets off free. However, we have all been conscious of the fact, and we have been agonised by it throughout the proceedings on this Bill, its predecessor and other related Bills, that we have a duty to hold a balance between, on the one hand, the prevention of crime and the punishment of the perpetrator, and, on the other hand, intolerable incursions into the liberties of people and intolerable dangers of people being punished when they are not guilty of any offence.
  The clause upsets that balance. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) is, as we all know, a modest man. In my judgment he is unnecessarily modest, and he is being ridiculously modest in suggesting that the wording of new Clause 3 is better than the wording of his new Clauses 4 and 5 which cover the same
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  ground. His clauses may have certain defects—I did not quite follow the point about arrestable offences—but they could have been put right by Government amendments. They could even be put right in a way which the Home Secretary has forecast in respect of another matter. However, what makes my hon. Friend's new clauses superior is that they refer to knowledge and not to belief. That is of major importance. New Clause 5 refers to
  "Any person who, knowing that an explosion"
  not "believing" that he knows about an explosion. It does not refer to a person "knowing or believing" that he has information—
  Mr. George Cunningham: What my hon. Friend says is perfectly true in respect of new Clause 5. However, new Clause 4 uses the phrase "knowing or believing" and it is that clause which relates to the situation where an offence has been committed and not simply to knowledge that a bomb is to go off at some future time.
  5.45 p.m.
  Mr. Mikardo: Perhaps we could devise another clause to get rid of the defects in all the other clauses, since it is manifest from the debate so far that none of them is perfect. The use of the word "believe" present difficulties in two different and, in a way, opposite respects. First, the situation arises in which a person is to be prosecuted because he has no reasonable excuse for not disclosing information. The man is regarded as guilty because he believed that he had information.
  Let us imagine what happens in the court. The authorities are not detaining without any onus of proof. The charge must now be proved. What authority, including the Director of Public Prosecutions, considering whether to bring a charge and taking into account, as these authorities always quite properly do, the chances of securing a conviction, will believe that it can get a court to accept that the defendant believed that he had information? Presumably he is on that charge because he cannot be charged with actually having the information, which is an easy charge to prove or to disprove.

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  The prosecutor will be charging the defendant with believing that he had information, but how will be know that the defendant believed that? How can I conceivably know what any hon. Gentleman is believing at this moment, and how can any hon. Gentleman know what I believe? The prosecutor will be unable to make that charge stick.
  I am a layman, not a lawyer. I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Thorne) that one advantage I have gained from being in this place for a long time is that I am no longer being used by lawyers, and I am no longer impressed by their constant arrogation unto themselves not only of a condition of omniscience but of a condition of intellectual superiority over all their fellow men. They do not get away with that with me.
  Even though I am not a lawyer, I cannot see a parallel between a person believing he has information and someone believing that goods which are offered to him have been stolen. If someone were to offer any one of us a gold sovereign for £5 or, which is perhaps more relevant, a pound of potatoes for 3p, we would have fairly solid grounds for suspecting that those potatoes had been stolen. Nothing of the sort could apply in this case.
  Mr. Alison: I am listening with fascination to the hon. Gentleman's line of argument about belief. In this context it must almost certainly be a defence to say "I might have believed it at the time but I am an apostate. I no longer believe it. I have changed my mind."
  Mr. Mikardo: The hon. Gentleman has made a very powerful point. I said that he cannot conceivably know what I believe. If he cannot know what I believe now, he certainly cannot know what I believed last Tuesday.
  We therefore are to create an offence which no one can prove upon the offender, and that seems to be a nonsense. The use of the word "belief" has a reverse and, possibly, an even worse effect. I spoke about holding the balance between justice and civil liberty. We in this country would never want to create the sort of informers' society which exists in totalitarian countries. I know of
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  nothing more horrible than that. After all, a person who believes that he has information about a chap might be that chap's child. How strongly and rightly we object to the practice in some societies where children are encouraged to snoop and inform upon their parents, where workers are encouraged to snoop and inform upon their workmates, where people are encouraged to snoop and inform upon their neighbours.
  The problem here is additional, because if I inform on someone under the provisions proposed in new Clause 3, that man can be proceeded against, unlike the case in almost every other situation, without any burden of proof. All hon. Members have had the experience of someone coming to them with little whispers that "Joe Bloggs is up to this and that and the other bit of no good." If such people went to the police, the first reaction of the police would be, "Can this be proved?" They would take the view that they would not waste time thinking about Joe Bloggs and his alleged misdeeds unless there was hard evidence. But in the case of people informed upon under this legislation, they are taken into detention at once and asked questions afterwards.
  If, for example, I wanted to get rid of my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South for a few days because I did not like the way he was talking, all I would have to do would be to go to the police and say, "I believe that that fellow Thorne is up to no good." These provisions are an encouragement to that sort of thing. I could make the thing stick even more if, instead of choosing my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South, I chose my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) and the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison). I could say, "I believe that those two are up to no good because they are Pat and Mike and therefore they have to be viewed with suspicion."
  I am putting the case lightly, and perhaps it sounds flippant. But I am not flippant about it. I take it very seriously indeed. These provisions are an encouragement to irresponsible informers. That is, above all, damaging in terms of this Bill, because it is one under which a chap can be put into detention and the questions asked afterwards. We know that the overwhelming majority of those

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  who have been put into detention have been released without charge against them and without even suspicion after a whole. Therefore, there is a tendency to grab them first and to ask questions afterwards. I do not think it right that we should set in motion such operations on the basis of belief or, as in the case of new Clause 1, of suspicion.
  Mr. George Cunningham: If a person were, without sufficient ground, to give bogus information to the police of the kind my hon. Friend seems to be thinking about, that person would himself be committing the criminal offence, under the Theft Act, of wasting police time. No one is encouraging a person to give bogus information. I ask my hon. Friend whether he has had bombs go off in his constituency. I have had them go off in mine. As the law stands, if someone knows that one is going to go off that night and he does not give information to the police, he is not guilty of an offence. That is the situation to which my hon. Friend must address himself. If it is discovered and if it is proved that a person could have given information and saved lives and maimings as a result, do we want to say to him, "You have committed no offence. We deplore what you have done but we are not going to charge you with any offence"?
  Mr. Mikardo: That is not the point at all. I am in favour of a clause which does penalise a man who has information and does not disclose it. I have said so from the start. But I say that none of the new clauses we are discussing would do the job in a way whereby innocent people would not be proceeded against. My hon. Friend says that if I give bogus information to the police, they can proceed against me. But he should note that under this proposal they could not do so because I could always say, "I believed that it was true", and they could never prove that I did not believe that it was true.
  Mr. Mark Carlisle: On what basis does the hon. Gentleman suggest that this proposal will make it more likely that people will give bogus information against others for the purpose of getting them locked up merely because there is an offence of not giving information when one has genuine information?
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  I do not see the connection between the two.
  Mr. Mikardo: The connection is precisely the point I was just making when the hon. and learned Gentleman interrupted. If people have information which they cannot substantiate, they are hesitant to give it for fear of that fact recoiling upon their heads in proceedings taken against them. But if they have 100 per cent. protection against such proceedings being taken against them and are simply able to say, "It turned out to be bogus but I believed that it was true", that is encouraging people to be irresponsible.
  I am not saying that people are villains and are going to go to the police with bogus information. I am saying that these provisions will make them less careful because they will have a defence. They can say that they believed that it was true.
  It is because I believe that new Clause 3 contains the danger of a snoopers' charter or of creating an informers' society that I find myself unable to support it. Notwithstanding his modesty, I would have had a go at supporting the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, but since one is not likely to have an opportunity of doing so, especially as he himself has abandoned the ring, I fear that I am in a position in which I cannot do other than refuse to support new Clause 3.
  Mr. Edward Lyons: One gets used to attacks on lawyers, although sometimes they intend not to oppose their attackers but to give them support. But sometimes we do not agree with the arguments of those who are so critical of us. It is nonsense to talk of lawyers always having an intellectual superiority. Nowadays, it is taking more and more courage for lawyers to open their mouths at all before some members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
  Whereas the formula "knowing or believing" is common in English law and in itself does not arouse misgivings in my breast, there are matters in new Clause 3 which worry me. My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) referred to new Clauses 4 and 5, put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South

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  and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). I tend to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow that they are in many ways to be preferred to new Clause 3. In their case, it would be a prerequisite that an arrestable offence would have had to have taken place before anyone else could be charged with anything. It is also implicit in new Clause 5 that an offence had to be known to be about to take place.
  Under new Clause 3, however, it seems that if an eccentric believes that an offence is to be committed when in fact it is not going to be committed, when it is a figment of his imagination, he can still become victim. It is not necessary under this clause to prove that an offence was ever intended by the principals. It has only to be shown that a person believed an offence was intended.
  Under the Theft Act, where there is a charge of handling or receiving stolen property, it is a prerequisite that it must be shown that the property was stolen before considering whether the person charged believed that the property was stolen.
  There seems to be no requirement in the clause to prove that anyone was planning a terrorist act, or had committed it, before a man can be charged with failure to disclose a belief that he had information which might prevent it.
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. Lawrence: Would not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that that is another reason why the DPP should be brought in to consider whether there should be a prosecution under this clause?
  Mr. Lyons: It seems to be a reason for tightening up the wording of the clause. The first prerequisite ought to be that there is evidence that the principal offence has taken place, or was planned, before anyone can be convicted of not giving information about it.
  Secondly, although a man can be convicted for failing to disclose his belief that he has information which might be of material assistance, there is no burden on the prosecution to show that the information would have been of material assistance. In addition to the accused person believing that he has information which might be of assistance, there should
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  be a burden on the prosecution to show that, had the man given the information, it would have been of assistance and not irrelevant. It could be totally irrelevant information, and yet the man could be convicted for withholding it. There is, therefore, the question not only of the man's belief but whether the information was relevant. Would it have been of material assistance? It is for these reasons that I am rather unhappy with the wording of the clause.
  It is true that the offence in the clause comes into the category of a lesser offence. To that extent it will reduce the number of convictions on more serious charges, because juries often opt for the easy course of convicting on the lesser charge. On the other hand, it is also true that there will be more convictions of persons who are on the fringes of terrorism and who sympathise with it.
  I should like to hear from the Minister what precautions exist to prevent prosecutions where there is no evidence that a terrorist offence was planned. That aspect worries me. I should also like to know what precautions there are to prevent prosecutions where the information was of no relevance, the belief having been held by a man of curious mental processes.
  I apologise to the Minister that I now have to take the chair at the meeting of the Home Office group upstairs, and cannot therefore be present to listen to the answer, but I hope to learn of the answer before I am called upon to vote—if there is a vote—on this clause.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Considerable doubt about the clause has been shown in our minds by several hon. Members and therefore it would be useful to have some examples taken over the last six months during which the legislation has been operating without this clause. Are there any instances where the clause would have prevented terrorism in some way? Because of the many doubts, we must be clear about the necessity to include the clause.
  There would seem to be two possible reasons for the clause. One may be the desire, once an event has happened, to make sure that as wide a group of people as possible will be punished for it. I can understand that attitude, although it is far more important to make certain

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  that we catch those who instigated the offence rather than those who may have been caught up on its fringes.
  The other possible reason is that the authorities are disturbed about insufficient information being given. Information will be given only if the political climate is right. That is the key. We have to ensure that in every community people will want to provide information rather than having to be threatened before providing it. That is one of the main drawbacks of the clause.
  If people are to be encouraged in any way to come forward with information, the need for it must be made widely known. There may be a kind of balance of terror involved, so that they may have serious reservations about what action to take. One wonders whether the penalties in the clause would persuade people to act in one direction rather than another. A consequence of giving information might be revenge on them. It does not seem to be a very good idea for the Government to have to threaten people to persuade them to come forward with information.
  One of the major problems for the police on many occasions is how to sort out useless information from valuable information. I wonder whether this measure, if well-publicised, will result in the production of a large amount of useless rather than important and relevant information.
  I am anxious about hindsight in this respect. All of us in our everyday lives have experienced a chain of events. We may not have known which course to follow at the time, but afterwards the right course might have appeared obvious. One of the most dangerous aspects of the clause is that at the end of a case a jury, knowing all the facts, might think that it was obvious to someone that he should have supplied information when during the course of the events it was nothing like as obvious to the person involved.
  New Clauses 4 and 5 appear to have many advantages. I particularly stress that new Clause 4 refers to an offence having taken place. That concentrates the mind. It makes it clear to a person that something has happened and that he ought to be searching his mind about whether he knows anything about it.
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  New Clause 5 contains the words "about to occur", which produce some sense of immediacy. There are some advantages in the use of these words, and another is the fact that the DPP is involved.
  Although I have great reservations and cannot see the need for any of the three new clauses, if we are to have anything of this sort in the Bill I prefer new Clauses 4 and 5 to new Clause 3. I hope that the Minister will be able to give the assurance that in the last 12 months a need for the clause has been positively found and that many things could have been done had it been included.
  Mr. Litterick: I hope that every hon. Member shares my anxiety that in considering this legislation we shall not throw out the libertarian baby with the antiterrorist bath water. I hope that we shall not allow ourselves to be intimidated into not opposing measures which our minds tells us are daft, inconsistent, or likely to be unfair, simply because we do not wish to be seen in our constituencies as being remotely in favour of terrorism.
  My concern is for the vast majority of people who are not terrorists and are never likely to be. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) and my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) concerning the vagueness and ambiguity of the words used. These offences are being created against the background of an Act which has already created huge powers for the police—powers of discretion, powers to arrest and powers to detain.
  Apparently, this type of offence is not like some other offences in other legislation, because the police have powers to hold people for days on end under this legislation. Having been denounced by a fellow citizen who may or may not have a malignant intention, who may or may not have a serious social intention and who may or may not be deranged, it is difficult for the citizen to disentangle himself from the hassle in which he is involved, because the police, who may be mistaken about the sanity or motivation of the individual who gives them the information, will naturally feel that they have to vindicate their actions. They

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  will try as hard as they can—which generally will mean keeping the victim incarcerated for days on end—to show that they have done the right thing. In saying that I am not attacking the police. It is a perfectly natural way for them to behave, because they are human and they have professional pride.
  This legislation encourages people to the notion that informing is good. The Government would like to dress it up and say that they are trying to encourage the responsible citizen. I argue that they are doing the opposite. They are encouraging the worst elements in our society to inform and to denounce. They are creating an atmosphere that will be poisonous.
  It has been said already that no one as yet has brought forward examples of specific situations during the operation of the Act in which the clause would have been of assistance. However, I can cite an instance in which the kind of information that this clause is intended to elicit has been given, and it may illuminate the way in which the police are inclined to interpret information of this kind.
  During the Second Reading debate, I mentioned a constituent of mind whose house had been raided and turned over by the police, following which he was detained. Since then I have discovered the basis on which the police acted. Strangely, it turned out that my constituent was denounced by a relative who was an alcoholic. He was seriously ill as a result of his condition, and he had conceived a grudge against my constituent. He felt that my constituent had inflicted damage and therefore that he should be repaid.
  The police acted on this information. In so doing, as I pointed out in my Second Reading speech, they revealed certain other aspects of police mentality. First, they acted on this flimsy testimony that my constituent might be implicated in terrorist activity. Secondly, having got themselves into his house, they exercised their discretion to judge him on the basis of evidence which they found in the house of other associations which no one in this House would suggest had any remote terrorist potentiality. They were associations with organisations like Amnesty
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  International and the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
  My point in mentioning this matter again is that the police are given a great deal of discretion to make judgments. This clause encourages individual citizens to make subjective judgments about other citizens, not so much about what they have done or may have done, but about who they are and what they are.
  A man could be suspected by the police of knowing information which the police might regard as potentially valuable simply because he worked alongside a man, on the basis that anyone working alongside a man for a number of years is bound to know something about him, about his friends, about which organisation he has joined and about his beliefs. We know from the many reported cases under the Act that the police have displayed a very unhealthy interest in people's beliefs. They want to know who is a Communist or who thinks he is a Communist. They want to know who is a militant or who thinks he is a militant. They want to know who might be interested in the affairs and activities of Amnesty International or the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
  I submit that this clause encourages everyone to adopt that kind of hideous psychology and to look upon his neighbour as someone who might be denounceable and towards whom he should feel hostility. This leads very easily to the attitude "Anyone who thinks differently from me should be denounced and, having been denounced, should be detained and interrogated", and then the whole hassle of the anti-terrorism legislation procedure begins for yet another unfortunate citizen. I shall oppose new Clause 3 for these reasons.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. Carlisle: It was not my intention to intervene in this debate. However, I must challenge the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Litterick).
  The hon. Gentleman said that he objected to the clause because it gave the impression that informing was good—implying that informing is always bad. But we must be realistic and consider the interests of society. The clause says simply that anyone with information

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  which he either knows or believes will be of material assistance in stopping or preventing a terrorist act has a duty to take that information to the police and, indeed, that he will be guilty of an offence if he does not.
  If we consider the interests of society, we must all realise that it is to the advantage of society and in the interests of society that people with information of that kind should come forward. It is not to say that informing is always bad. It is in the interests of society to make it clear that informing to the police in those circumstances should be encouraged if by encouraging informing we can avoid a terrorist act which will cause the deaths or the maiming of innocent people.
  I come new to this debate, not having served on the Standing Committee. But, having listened to the debate, I support the principle behind the Government's new clause and those tabled by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham).
  I believe that the argument of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) about "believing" as an alternative to "knowing" is nonsense. I may have some information which I know to be of material assistance in preventing an act of terrorism. Equally, I may have information which, although I cannot say with certainty I know to be of material assistance, nevertheless I believe to be of material assistance in preventing an act of terrorism. I have just as much a duty to take information to the police which I believe to be of material assistance in preventing an act of terrorism, even if my belief turns out to be wrong, as if I know it to be of material assistance.
  In my vew, the Government's new Clause 3 would be considerably weaker if it contained no reference to "knowing" or "believing". A person may be in a position where he believes strongly that an explosion is about to take place and that it is his duty to attempt to stop it. However, the police may never be able to prove that he knew it was likely to happen because something else may intervene to prevent the explosion.
  I cannot see that having a provision in our law which makes it a criminal offence for anyone not to bring forward information which he believes genuinely or
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  which he knows will be of assistance in preventing an act of terrorism will in practice encourage bogus references to the police. I believe that its existence as a criminal offence will encourage people with such information to come forward and, therefore, it will avoid the act of terrorism itself.
  Therefore, although I agree with the comments about the position of the words "knows or believes" in the first line of the new clause and take the view that it could be looked at again, I believe that the principle behind the new clause is right. I hope very much that it will be passed by the House.
  Mr. Gerard Fitt: Like many of my hon. Friends I have always had sincere reservations about this type of legislation. There are many aspects of it which could never really be enforced. However, I have listened to the academic arguments. I am glad to see that the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw), the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is present, because he has been to Northern Ireland and he will know the circumstances in which this type of legislation could operate.
  I fully understand the principles behind the Bill. I fully support my hon. Friends who want to stop terrorism being perpetrated in this country and who take the view that the receipt of information may prevent terrorist acts from being carried out. Certain parts of the Bill will apply to Northern Ireland, but I am not certain whether this clause will do so. If it does, I state here and now that there are certainly thousands of people in Northern Ireland—I do not say thousands and thousands—who know the identity of people who have been engaged in acts of terrorism and who are associated with terrorist organisations. However, either because they do not want to be labelled as informers or, more importantly, because they are afraid of reprisals, those people do not let the authorities know.
  The clause states that a person can be fined £400 if, without reasonable excuse he does not make the information available to the authorities. What can be classed as a more reasonable excuse than for a person to say "I did not give the information because if I did I should be shot dead"?

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  A week ago yesterday I attended the funeral of a young boy called Desmond O'Brien whose body was found the previous Sunday. He had been shot by the IRA on the grounds that he was a police informer. I do not know whether that is true, but the IRA issued that statement. The relatives of the boy have consistently stated that he was not a police informer. However, the fact is that the boy's body was found in the Hannah-town Road and he was shot for being a police informer.
  I freely concede that there are many people in what could be called the difficult areas of Northern Ireland and especially in Belfast who may have information about, or at least a suspicion that they have, people who are engaged in terrorist activities. I agree with the observations of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) about information being given to a constable. In Northern Ireland it is quite unrealistic for any person to give information to a constable. That is why there is a confidential telephone.
  Mr. Beith: In my view the confidential telephone would constitute the giving of information to a constable.
  Mr. Fitt: I think that that would have to be clarified by the Minister when she winds up the debate.
  If a person is charged under this new clause with not giving information, a reasonable excuse to advance to any jury would be that of self-protection and self-preservation. The accused person could say, "I was afraid to give the information on the ground that I might forfeit my own life by so doing."
  Mr. Ron Thomas: Or the lives of the members of his family.
  Mr. Fitt: Yes, indeed. The Bill is dealing with terrorists, and terrorists are ruthless people who have no hesitation or compunction about shooting people who may be opposed to what they believe they are justified in doing.
  Mr. Mikardo: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's observations, but there is an additional point. When a chap is
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  accused of having had information and not giving it, what will happen if he says "But I did give it—I gave it over the confidential telephone"?
  Mr. Fitt: Exactly, that is certainly another valid point. However, if a man gives information to the police which indicates that he suspects someone of being engaged in the commission of a terrorist offence, his information would be evidence and he would have to appear before the court. Moreover, he would be a witness for the prosecution and his name and address would probably be made public. I stress that the people involved in acts of terrorism are ruthless. If they did not take the informant's life, they could easily intimidate him by attacking his family.
  Therefore, people would be extremely reluctant to give evidence on behalf of the prosecution because that evidence may lead to the loss of their own life. I do not envisage any way in which the Government could entice such people to go into the witness box. People's lives are more precious than any telephone call or any information which they may wish to give to the police. At present in Northern Ireland there are many thousands of people who through absolute fear—not because they support the terrorists' actions—are not prepared to give information to the police.
  I believe that if the State is to enforce this law and inflict penalties, it has a duty to give some protection to those who give the information. I am not in any way supporting informers, but certainly if the State is to impose a penalty on someone for not giving information and therefore making it obligatory for him to give information, it must protect that person. Will it give police protection at the man's home or place of employment? Will that protection last for a day, a week, two years, 10 years or a lifetime? Terrorists have long memories, as has been proved time and time again throughout the centuries of the Irish conflict and Anglo-Irish relations.
  Having listened to the arguments, especially those advanced by my hon. Friends, I do not believe that the clause is worth the paper on which it is written. I do not believe that the Government

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  can force or coerce people to give information. That is an absolute impossibility. In my view people will be more concerned about the protection of their own lives than about any threats which are contained in the Government's new clause.
  Dr. Summerskill: I shall reply briefly to most of the many points which have been raised. The hypothetical situation raised by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) in which he asked the fate of the three remaining people was well answered by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) who said that in practice the prosecution would probably charge them with an alternative offence right from the start.
  There has been a great deal of discussion about the words "knows or believes". I agree with the comments of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury who referred to the Criminal Law Act 1967. The word "believes" is referred to in Section 5 of that Act which makes it an offence for a person to accept a bribe for not disclosing information which he knows or believes would assist in a conviction. I believe that it is no more difficult in principle to prove "believing" in the courts than to prove "knowing". "Believes" is not in the wrong place in the sentence. The concept is perfectly simple. It is an offence to know or believe that one has information which might be of assistance and not to disclose it. The wording follows that which is contained already in an existing Act.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) suggested that "believes" was not even necessary in the clause. However, a person may have information which he may not actually know will be of material assistance, but he may believe that it will be. If we did not include the word "believes", a person might say that he did not have definite knowledge and thus avoid conviction. This experience is borne out in the operation of provisions relating to the disclosure of information about the accepting of bribes, which I have already illustrated.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Powell: The hon. Lady just now, in referring to the existing law, herself rightly attached the alternative "know or believe" to the question of the information being of use in securing a conviction. My only point is that that is where it should be in this legislation.
  Dr. Summerskill: I think that everybody who reads this first sentence will appreciate exactly what it means, though I realise that the right hon. Gentleman is a stickler for accuracy in drafting. But we are all discussing the same thing as it is written into the clause.
  I assure the House that the Attorney-General's consent will be required before proceedings can be taken for an offence under the new clause. This is covered by Government Amendments Nos. 68 and 69 to Schedule 3. I hope that that reassures the many hon. Members who have conjured up hypothetical situations.
  We have had some discussion of what would be a reasonable excuse. Here again, in most cases one would not expect to get that far, because the Attorney-General would have to agree to proceedings.
  Mr. Keith Stainton: I have not studied Amendments Nos. 68 and 69, but, if I understand the Minister correctly, this would then become a discretionary matter in the hands of the Attorney-General. By what criteria would he operate?
  Dr. Summerskill: tie would operate by the criteria that he uses in any prosecution. This is a safeguard against many situations that worry my hon. Friends.
  Mr. Stainton: I am sorry to insist on this, but, although not a lawyer, I am concerned about this situation. If discretion is to do with facts or the law or the interpretation thereof, which is what the fiat of the Attorney-General is all about in the generality of the law as it stands, that is one thing; but if it is to do with discretion in terms of consequences, as described by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), in terms of fear and attack upon parties, which must cross his mind when he makes his decision, that is an entirely different area.
  Dr. Summerskill: I can only say that the Attorney-General's consent will be

  491
  needed before any proceedings can be taken in respect of an offence committed under the new clause. After all, this is not a unique situation for the Attorney-General. This assurance was in fact requested by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury.
  Mr. George Cunningham: Is it not a fact that, when the Criminal Law Revision Committee in 1965 drew up what has become Section 5 of the Criminal Law Act 1967, it positively recommended that the approval, it said, of the DPP should be sought, and that that is what the Act provided should be required? Is not the approval of either the DPP or the Attorney-General a common feature in what one might call security-type offences, where there may be considerations relating to the desirability of prosecuting someone for an offence, even when there is evidence for it?
  Dr. Summerskill: It is a safeguard against vexatious proceedings, which is what was disturbing my hon. Friends. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West, who kindly told me that he would have to leave, raised several points on this matter. Under both the Government's new clause and my hon. Friend's new clause it would be an offence not to disclose information about a forthcoming terrorist offence, but the difference is that my hon. Friend's clause envisages one knowing that the offence is to occur whereas the Government's new clause is related to information which, if given to the authorities, might prevent an incident.
  One can never know whether a future event will take place—it is an academic point, to some extent—but it would not be enough simply to confine the offence to a case in which one had absolute certainty that an incident would occur. No one is suggesting that proceedings will be brought where the information was about something quite imaginary or where it would have been of no assistance. Here again, the Attorney-General's discretion will act as a safeguard.
  However, I appreciate, in the general atmosphere of this debate, that, although many hon. Members opposite give full support to the Government's new clause, many of my hon. Friends prefer the other
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  new clause and that some would say "A plague on both." I therefore assure the House that the Government will look at both the new clauses between now and the next stage of the Bill in the House of Lords to see whether a compromise can be reached.
  Mr. Powell: Will the Minister be kind enough to refer to the problem attaching to the expression "to a constable", which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) as well as myself?
  Dr. Summerskill: I am advised that the confidential telephone in Northern Ireland terminates in a police station, so a person using it is disclosing information "to a constable".
  Mr. Powell: I apologise for interrupting the hon. Lady again, but surely if a person in this situation, being in considerable fear, went, for example, to a Member of Parliament—
  Mr. Beith: Or to the Army.
  Mr. Powell: —or to any other person in a position of responsibility who he thought would be reasonably likely to pass the information on, surely that would be a course of action upon which action for an offence ought not to be based.
  Dr. Summerskill: Yes, that could classify as a reasonable excuse. If he had made an attempt to pass the information on, he could plead the failure of the intermediary as a reasonable excuse.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am in some difficulty in knowing whether the Minister is giving way or whether she has concluded her speech. Is she giving way?
  Dr. Summerskill: I finished my remarks, having given that undertaking.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Lady has replied. The Question is—
  Mr. Whitelaw: Just before the Question is put, I would apologise for not having been here throughout the debate, but I had a most important engagement elsewhere. I therefore speak with some diffidence, but I have heard some of the points at the end of the debate.
  I think that the House would be grateful if the Government would consider their new clause carefully. We certainly

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  support its principle and if there is a Division, we will support the Government. However, we also have the right to point out that the point made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) about the phrase "knows or believes" is important and should be considered. Also, from my own experience in Northern Ireland, I know that the words "to a constable" have considerable significance.
  This is a genuine difficulty which should be carefully considered. If the Government, while adhering to the principle of the new clause, would look at these points again, perhaps that would be the best way to proceed. Otherwise, if there is a Division, we will support the Government.
  Mr. Ron Thomas: The Minister mentioned the safeguards in regard to proceedings, but did not say anything about the rôle of the police, which would be of great importance. If someone is arrested against whom there is concrete evidence, there would be considerable pressure on the police to think about the people with whom he had been in contact. They would have a responsibility to take some or all of them into custody because they had been in contact with the suspect and should therefore have believed, if they did not know, that that person might have committed an act of terrorism or some such thing.
  Therefore, the rôle of the police is very important. My hon. Friend has said nothing about it, and so I am uncertain about the clause. I cannot support it unless we have more information.
  Mr. Beith: At least some of us initially read the clause supposing that it would follow Clause 2 and, being in Part I, would not apply to Northern Ireland. It seems to me that the draftsmen thought in those terms. It is obvious from the points raised in the debate that it was not drafted with Northern Ireland in view, but the Minister has since nodded assent to the proposition that the clause applies to Northern Ireland.
  As for the general issue of fear of the consequences of disclosure of information, if the defence of fear is accepted in one court it must be accepted in almost every court and in every instance in Northern Ireland.
  The fact that the constable is the defined person by whom information may be received, rather than the Member of Parliament, the Army or anyone else, makes it clear that the clause was not drafted with Northern Ireland in mind.
  If the hon. Lady remembers these matters when she reconsiders the clause, and if her noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State introduces another clause in another place, we shall get a lot further.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: The clause is in principle valuable, but its history gives an indication of the difficulties suffered by people in charge of Bills when they try to be helpful and listen to arguments. The clause was not in the original Bill. It was persuasively suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) in Committee, and was opposed by no one then. I thought that my hon. Friend's arguments were better than those in my brief, which were against accepting the clause.
  Because I believe the clause is right in principle, I ask the House to support it. Our difficulty is in a sense a difficulty of our proceedings. The alternative is to be hopelessly rigid and gain nothing from discussion in the House, and I do not believe in that.
  The clause has entered our proceedings at a fairly late stage, and needs detailed examination after this debate. I propose to carry out that examination. I ask the House to accept the clause in principle on the undertaking that I shall carefully study the Official Report of the debate and see what form the clause should take when it goes to another place.
  Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 196, Noes 24.

  Division No. 42.]

  AYES

  [6.44 p.m.

  Alison, Michael

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Ashton, Joe

  Bishop, E. S.

  Buchan, Norman

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Bates, Alf

  Boardman, H.

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Beith, A. J.

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Campbell, Ian

  Carlisle, Mark

  John, Brynmor

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Carson, John

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Cartwright, John

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Judd, Frank

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Conlan, Bernard

  Kilfedder, James

  Rooker, J. W.

  Cope, John

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Corrie, John

  Lambie, David

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Costain, A. P.

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Crawford, Douglas

  Lawson, Nigel

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

  Crouch, David

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Shepherd, Colin

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Loveridge, John

  Shersby, Michael

  Deakins, Eric

  Luard, Evan

  Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Dempsey, James

  Luce, Richard

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Doig, Peter

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Sims, Roger

  Dormand, J. D.

  McCartney, Hugh

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  McCusker, H.

  Small, William

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  McElhone, Frank

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Eadie, Alex

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

  Elliott, Sir William

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Stainton, Keith

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  English, Michael

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Marten, Neil

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Eyre, Reginald

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Fernyhough, Rt Hn E.

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Ford, Ben

  Millan, Bruce

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Fox, Marcus

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  Freud, Clement

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Tinn, James

  George, Bruce

  Molloy, William

  Tomlinson, John

  Golding, John

  Molyneaux, James

  Tomney, Frank

  Goodhart, Philip

  Monro, Hector

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Moyle, Roland

  Ward, Michael

  Graham, Ted

  Mudd, David

  Watt, Hamish

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Nelson, Anthony

  Welsh, Andrew

  Grist, Ian

  Normanton, Tom

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Oakes, Gordon

  White, James (Pollok)

  Hannam, John

  O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Harper, Joseph

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Whitlock, William

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Osborn, John

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

  Hatton, Frank

  Palmer, Arthur

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Pardoe, John

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Henderson, Douglas

  Park, George

  Woodall, Alec

  Hooson, Emlyn

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Woof, Robert

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Penhaligon, David

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Percival, Ian

  Younger, Hon George

  Hunter, Adam

  Perry, Ernest

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Mr. David Stoddart and

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Mr. James A. Dunn.

  Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)

  Raison, Timothy

  NOES

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Lamond, James

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Lee, John

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Corbett, Robin

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Cryer, Bob

  Newens, Stanley

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Noble, Mike

  Mr. Ian Mikardo and

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  Parry, Robert

  Mr. Tom Litterick.

  Flannery, Martin

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 1

  PROSCRIBED ORGANISATIONS
  Mr. Alison: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 5, leave out '£400' and insert '£1,000'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this Amendment we are to take Government Amendments Nos. 4 and 5, and Amendment No. 6, in Clause 2, page 2, line 43, leave out '£200' and insert '£500'.
  Mr. Alison: The Opposition amendments seek increases in penalties on a summary conviction in a proportion which corresponds more closely to what we feel is the seriousness of the offence—first in respect of the offence of association with proscribed organisations, in Clause 1, and secondly, the offence of what one might describe as the explicit or brazen flaunting of support for a proscribed organisation, as it is defined in Clause 2.
  It is difficult to know just the right scale that one should seek to lay down for penalties on a summary conviction. However, we believe that the sums set out in our amendments show that we have erred on the side of restraint and moderation. After all, we are dealing with people and activities which are, as it were, in the shallows or on the foothills of lethal terrorism and violence. In many cases there is no real or meaningful break or division in purpose or intention between the sort of activities in which people engage and with which they can be charged under Clauses 1 and 2, and the full range of horrors involved in contemporary violence and terrorism. This is a seamless garment in the case of the intention of many of these people.
  One thinks of the analogy of the Brownshirts in the early days of Hitler, before he was Chancellor, and the way they used to run around with Nazi flags, breaking windows, and so on. There is nothing between that and the full horror and panoply of what they stand for.
  It is for this reason that we think that, certainly on the summary conviction penalties, the increase should be in proportion to the inherent seriousness of the offence.
  Given that the maximum fine on a summary conviction can rise as high as
  498
  £1,000, it is very reasonable that this group of offences, particularly those under Clauses 1 and 2 for which we have sought increases in penalty, should admit of the fullest scale of fine which is practicable.
  In the first debate in Standing Committee on 9th December, the Under-Secretary made it quite clear that the maximum fine on summary conviction can exceed the normal £400 in a limited number of instances. She gave an instance of which I should like to remind the House. She said,
  "where the speed of summary proceedings is essential for effective enforcement as in the case of certain offences committed by the owners or masters of foreign vessels, particularly in connection with oil pollution."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 9th December 1975; c. 24.]
  It seems ludicrous that it should be possible for the offence of pollution of the sea by the master of an oil tanker to admit of the highest possible range of fine on summary conviction, whereas the hon. Lady is still standing firm in not letting the penalties on summary conviction under Clauses 1 and 2 to rise higher than £400 and £200. It is quite unsatisfactory.
  It is rather like the eighteenth century precedent of hanging people for sheep stealing. In this case the oil pollution offence, which attracts the highest remedy, is equivalent to sheep stealing. However, perversely, in the eighteenth century people were hanged for sheep stealing and also for murder. In this case, the equivalent of sheep stealing, polluting the sea with oil, carries the highest possible fine on summary conviction, but being involved in the instigation or propagation of, or participation in, proscribed organisations or flaunting activities concerned therewith, and so on, still attracts the minimum fine.
  It is quite out of proportion. The hon. Lady is doing nothing in the Government amendments except introducing an element of uniformity with the penalties applicable under Clauses 1 and 2. I hope that the hon. Lady will exhibit the flexibility that her right hon. Friend manifested in his concluding words on new Clause 3. I hope that she will reconsider whether she should not use the precedent already set for £1,000 on summary conviction, and include the two ranges of fine in Clauses 1 and 2 that we have suggested—namely, £1,000 in Clause 1 and £500 in Clause 2.

  499
  I ask the hon. Lady to give sympathetic consideration to our amendments. I do not think that she has gone far enough in introducing the element of uniformity that appears in her pair of amendments.
  7.0 p.m.
  Dr. Summerskill: As I undertook in Committee, we have carefully considered the arguments that were then put forward on fines, and particularly the arguments in favour of a heavier financial penalty on summary conviction of these offences. However, we feel that the general level of fines and penalties in the Bill accurately reflects the gravity that we wish to attach to each offence, bearing in mind that it is only penalties on summary conviction which are involved and that they are maximum penalties. The normal maximum fine which can be imposed by a magistrate in England and Wales is £400. Furthermore, we believe it right that the levels of the penalties for offences under the Bill should apply uniformly throughout Great Britain. We do not believe that there is a strong argument for making an exception in this Bill.
  It would always be possible, if a heavier penalty were considered appropriate, for a case to be tried on indictment. In such circumstances the maximum penalty is five years' imprisonment or an unlimited fine, or both. There is a review of maximum penalties which is periodically undertaken.
  Ideally we should not alter penalties in individual Bills, as is being proposed, but increase them all at the same time in a measure such as the Criminal Justice Act 1967. In our amendment it is proposed to increase the maximum penalty in Clause 2 to six months' imprisonment or a fine of £400, or both, instead of the present levels of three months' imprisonment or a fine of £200, or both.
  I accept that there is a good deal of feeling that penalties for these offences should be severe. We were content that the level was right in Clause 2, but in view of the anxieties expressed in Committee we agreed that the penalty should be the same on summary conviction as for an offence under Clause 1. As regards Amendment No. 6, the Government amendment will double the maximum
  500
  penalty that now exists in Clause 2. On reflection since Committee, we have decided to provide that an offence under Clause 2 should be dealt with as seriously as an offence under Clause 1, and that the penalties on summary conviction should be comparable. In any case, we wish to keep the penalty within the normal limits of the powers of the magistrates' courts—namely, £400.
  I remind the House that it is possible for a heavier penalty to be imposed if it is thought appropriate that a case should be tried on indictment. In those circumstances, the maximum penalty is five years' imprisonment or an unlimited fine.
  Mr. Carlisle: Although I see the force of the hon. Lady's argument that we should have consistent maxima in all cases I am conscious, having heard my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison), of how the fines for oil pollution cases came on to the statute book. They did so against the advice of the Home Office at the time. The matter was carried by a vote of the House against the Government. Since that time we have had the Report of the James Committee. The Committee recommended that in general maximum fines should be increased from £400 to £1,000. If that is so, and if we are bringing in new legislation that is post-James is there not an argument for putting in the new maximum that was recommended by the James Committee? That would seem to be more consistent with our inflationary days than the maximum of £400.
  I realise that I may be speaking as a lone voice, but Governments have persistently said that they are anti short-term imprisonment. However, they continue to provide powers which allow magistrates to send people to prison for periods up to six months. Would it not be better to have higher fines available to magistrates and to provide the power of imprisonment only when the case is tried by the higher court? For offences under Clause 1 the prosecution can always elect to take the proceedings to the higher court if it considers that they are of a gravity which requires imprisonment.
  With respect, I am not suggesting that the present Government are alone in the fault I have described. If we say that we are against the idea of short terms of

  501
  imprisonment we are unwise to continue to legislate so as to provide maxima of three months' and six months' imprisonment in magistrates' courts when there is always the alternative of going to the higher court if the case is considered to be of sufficient gravity.
  Mr. Powell: Two separate issues are raised by this group of amendments. The first issue is whether the penalties for membership of a proscribed organisation should be twice as much as those for displaying support for such an organisation. That is how matters have stood in the Bill hitherto. It is clear that the Government are right to have decided that the penalty for displaying support should be at least as high as the penalty for membership. We all know that the offence of membership is particularly difficult to bring home to the offender whereas the offence of displaying support is not only a public acknowledgement of membership or support but a positive and deliberate flaunting of that support. It is a flaunting which is done to create hostility and to lead, amongst other things, to public disorder.
  If there were to be a proper ratio between the penalties for these two offences and if they were not to be the same, one would be inclined to say that the penalties under Clause 2 should be higher than those under Clause 1. At any rate, we have now rightly brought the penalties into line. I am sure that those who wrote the brief for the hon. Lady were unnecessarily grudging. They could have given themselves much more enthusiastic credit for what they are doing.
  The second issue that this group of amendments raises is whether the penalties that we have now enacted are adequate. The hon. Lady reminded the House that this scale of penalty was most recently fixed in 1967. It is important that the Government should understand the natural irritation which is caused to the public by the realisation that penalties are still being imposed at the same levels after eight to nine years of inflation at the level we have experienced. By simply passing Clause 1 in the same form as it was passed a year ago we are reducing the penalty by one-quarter.
  I am not suggesting that we should go through the statute book every year and
  502
  upgrade the penalties by the percentage of inflation during the intervening 12 months. That is not a form of escalation to which I should subscribe. But we are making new legislation. The House deliberately decided not to enable the original Bill to be renewed; it did so in order that there might be the opportunity by new legislation to reconsider the matter after a year. Therefore, it is natural that those looking at the Bill should take offence at penalties which, being imposed for these offences in 1976, conform to the 1967 general scale and are lower in real terms than the House decided were appropriate a year ago. The Government have made a mistake by insisting on moving on the general front or not at all, and moving many years too late in a period of high inflation. There is a strong case, if not for the figure of £1,000 proposed in Amendment No. 1, at any rate for a figure substantially higher than that which appears in the Bill.
  Mr. Lawrence: I support all the arguments advanced by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), and as advanced in Committee. I am happy that the Government have considered those arguments, but unhappy that they have decided to reject the strength of them.
  I should like to advance one further argument for the raising of the fine. There seems no reason in law why this House shall not decide that, unusually for magistrates' courts offences, the maximum fine should be £1,000. The fact that there is a rule which is normally followed is neither here nor there, provided that there is some reason for thinking that these offences are unusual.
  The Under-Secretary said that there was no justification for making these offences an exception. I beg leave to differ. When dealing with terrorist offences, the public expect an exception to be made by virtue of their seriousness. Furthermore, there is some practical advantage. There is reason to suppose that the IRA feels most offended when its pocket is attacked. There are strong reasons for taking away any financial support being received by the IRA from any source.
  Subsection (7) provides the power of forfeiture, but that is subject to the amount of money which can be found at

  503
  the time to have resulted from the commission of the offence set out in Clause 1. I suspect that in reality, although a sum of money may have been raised by virtue of these collections which are offences under Clause 1, when the persons concerned are arrested there will be precious little left to be seized for forfeiture. Therefore, we can hit the IRA and stop it raising vast sums of money by taking that money away when it is found and when the persons concerned are found to be guilty of the offence.
  That can best be achieved by raising the maximum fine. If in a public house in some part of the country there has been a collection directly or indirectly in support of the IRA, the magistrate should be able to say to the person found guilty of the offence, "I will fine you £1,000". That will hit the IRA where it hurts. There is no point in being considerate and saying that the ordinary level of fines for offences which come before a magistrate's court is £400 and that there is no reason for making an exception. There is every reason for making an exception, and making it sting and hurt as hard as we can.
  7.15 p.m.
  If one adds to that the persuasive argument put forward by the right hon. Member for Down, South, that there is no reasonable case for deliberately reducing the efficacy of the fine from what was imposed a year ago—£400 then is now worth 25 per cent. less—I suggest that this is a reasonable opportunity to increase it.
  The Minister said that this matter can be reviewed when the penalties are next reviewed. When will the penalties next be reviewed? If they are to be reviewed in two, three, four or five years, we are wasting this opportunity of doing something of which the IRA will disapprove because it will take away the money which is raised when offences of this kind are committed and which goes to buy weapons with which to take the lives of our soldiers and the people in Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: I am dismayed by the principle on which the Minister has approached the amendment. It seems offensive to the concept of punishment and
  504
  justice that, rather than get an appropriate penalty right, we should suit some administrative convenience whereby all maximum penalties are raised identically at the same time. The absurdity of that argument is that offences do not necessarily maintain their equivalent gravity. Whereas pollution of the sea enlarges as an offence with the advent of the large tanker, so other penalties which were once important—for example, sheep stealing—now become relatively trivial. Therefore, it is a particularly bad concept to say that punishment and the fixing of penalties should be organised to suit the convenience of raising all penalties at the same time and keeping them equal.
  I conceive that there is a hidden convenience. There is a myth or fiction that penalties are automatically translatable into terms of imprisonment if fines are not paid. There is a concept that if a person is fined so much and does not pay, he serves three months' imprisonment if he is fined £400 and does not pay, he serves six months' imprisonment; and if he is fined £800 and does not pay, he serves 18 months' imprisonment, or whatever the formula may be.
  I have a dreadful feeling that resistance to the amendment is based on administrative convenience, not on any real attempt to assess the gravity of the offences.
  It is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which it would be appropriate for these offences to be treated summarily. When dealing with offences as grave as the deliberate flaunting of belonging to a proscribed organisation, it is right that the criteria should not he related to any other act—careless driving, or anything else. We should get the penalties right in this instance.
  Since the whole Bill is framed to suit the structure of the courts of England, not the courts of Scotland, I find it additionally offensive that administrative habit is the generating argument for resisting the amendment.
  Dr. Summerskill: With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) on the James Report. I appreciate his argument that we should consider that Report but, on the other hand, it would not be wise to anticipate new legislation based on a

  505
  Report concerning the general level of fines involving alterations of maxima in a Bill or Bills to be introduced—in other words, for there to be a piecemeal approach to the problem.
  I hope that I did not mislead the House when I referred to the possibility of heavier penalties for cases tried on indictment. Clause 2 creates summary offences, but by Clause 1 it is possible for cases tried on indictment to attract unlimited fines. The hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) said that in his opinion most of these offences should be tried on indictment.
  Mr. Whitelaw: The Minister has moved a long way to meet us and we welcome her approach. I still hope that she will consider some of the arguments put to her by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison).
  We tabled our amendments so that we would have the opportunity to discuss penalties. I repeat that the hon. Lady has gone some way to meet us by tabling Government proposals. The Government often take refuge in the argument that a general review is about to begin. It is then asked "When will that review take place and, when it does, will it produce results?" Sometimes one feels that it is time that such a review produces results.
  I appreciate that the hon. Lady is not responsible for a general review and must seek to tie the penalties in this Bill into the present set-up. However, there is a strong feeling that a general review should produce results which are somewhat overdue.
  Having had a useful debate and having been given some concessions, I suggest to my hon. Friend that we should not press our proposals.
  Mr. Alison: I beg to ask leave to withdrew the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Dr. Summerskill: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 2, line 25, leave out 'then' and insert 'he became a member'.
  506
  The effect of this amendment is to replace the words "since then" in Clause 1(6) with the words
  "since he became a member".
  The sole purpose of the amendment is to clarify doubts which some Members felt about the effect of the words "since then". There is no change of substance involved. The doubts expressed were whether the words "since then" referred to the period since a person had joined an organisation or to the period since the organisation had been proscribed. The amendment makes it absolutely clear that a person can invoke the defence in subsection (6) if he can show that he became a member when it was not proscribed and that since he became a member he has not taken part in any of the organisations activities.
  Mr. Powell: I am obliged to the hon. Lady and the Home Department for having solved the conundrum that plagued me as the Bill was drafted. I have no objection to her complaining about my pernickertiness in drafting so long as she is so quick to take the points I make.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2

  DISPLAY OF SUPPORT IN PUBLIC FOR A PROSCRIBED ORGANISATION
  Amendments made: No. 4, in page 2, line 42, leave out 'three' and insert 'six'.
  No. 5, in page 2, line 43, leave out '£200' and insert '£400'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Clause 3

  EXCLUSION ORDERS: GENERAL
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 3, line 10, leave out Clause 3.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we may also take the following amendments:
  No. 10, in page 3, line 19, leave out Clause 4.
  No. 18, in page 4, line 6, leave out Clause 5.
  No. 21, in page 4, line 23, leave out Clause 6.
  No. 27, in page 5, line 19, leave out Clause 7.
  No. 29, in page 5, line 29, leave out Clause 8.
  No. 33, in Clause 9, in page 6, leave out line 17.
  No. 37, in Clause 10, page 7, leave out lines 8 and 9.
  No. 39, in page 7, line 13, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c).
  No. 41, in page 7, leave out lines 24 to 27.
  No. 42, in page 7, leave out lines 31 to 33.
  No. 43, in Clause 11, page 7, leave out lines 39 and 40.
  No. 44, in page 8, line 6, leave out subsection (2).
  Mr. Bennett: The intention was that I was to play a sweeping role in this debate but, having looked round the Chamber, I see that I am to be regarded as almost the only sweeper.
  This group of amendments deals with the principle of the exclusion order. Many of us have been concerned about the concept of such orders, particularly following the removal of internment in Northern Ireland and the feeling that there is still a need for some judicial process.
  I am concerned about the numbers involved in this process. When the legislation was introduced over a year ago it was clear that the numbers were to be small, but as time has elapsed the numbers have grown and they are still growing. The procedure does not appear to lead to a reduction in numbers. It would appear that we must wait until such time as it is felt that there is no longer a need to provide in legislation for any substantial reduction in the number of orders. The occasional order is appealed against and sometimes that appeal is successful, but the basic number of orders in existence is steadily growing. Many hon. Members are concerned that they will grow into a mountain.
  If the number of orders increases too greatly, I believe that it will become a matter of concern in English communities, as did the question of internment in earlier days. Indeed, the process may well have the reverse effect from that intended when originally introduced in that it may turn the community against
  508
  the Government rather than assist their efforts.
  We are also concerned lest two levels of evidence are to be involved—one requiring conviction in the courts and another involving a level of evidence sufficient for an exclusion order to be made. We should ensure that evidence is heard in the courts rather than that there should be extra powers based on less positive evidence but still leading to an exclusion order.
  We must ask certain questions. Is the present set-up producing the effect we want? Is it intended to keep one or two people out of the country, or to scare the whole Irish community? In one or two cases that have come to light the latter rather than the former concept appears to be the intention. There are many reasons for questioning exclusion orders. I hope that we shall receive some explanation from the Minister about how we are to get rid of them. I hope that we shall be told how people who have been excluded for a certain period can go about obtaining revocation of an order. This is an important matter for people who have been uprooted from their homes and who wonder whether they will ever have the opportunity to return.
  There is disquiet about exclusion orders. They have now existed for a year and they appear to be needed even beyond that time. I hope that the Government will seriously consider dropping the provisions relating to exclusion orders.
  7.30 p.m.
  Mr. Ron Thomas: I wish to deal with the subject of exclusion orders because it cannot be denied that as the legislation stands it involves a serious infringement of civil liberties. That point was clearly made in Committee. I was not a member of the Committee and I was surprised that no amendments were moved to protect civil liberties. It is on the basis of protecting the civil liberties of the British people that I make my remarks about exclusion orders.
  I speak in terms of the experience of two Bristolians, one of whom was a constituent of mine, who were served with exclusion orders. I have made the point before, but it is worth repeating. At no stage of the proceedings leading to the serving of the orders were they

  509
  given any indication of the evidence against them. Neither their families nor their Members of Parliament were given any information about the evidence.
  There is an amendment for discussion later which seeks to ensure that individuals who are taken into custody receive legal representation. Under the exclusion order procedure, no lawyer can get any information to help him prepare a defence statement. I was rightly inundated with telephone calls from a solicitor in Bristol who had taken up the case of my constituent. His request was quite simple. He wanted to prepare a defence statement to help his client—and I take it that that is the first duty of a legal representative—but the police would not give him any information about the evidence against the man. I contacted the Home Office which refused to give me any information.
  I am told that the adviser who visited the men in prison told them that he had no indication of the evidence against them either. Imagine that! The man who had to advise the Home Secretary whether these men should be taken away from their wives and families and sent back to Ireland apparently had no idea of the evidence against them. I ask the lawyers in the House how they would proceed in this kind of situation.
  My right hon. Friend has said that this is an executive order and that he takes the decisions. However, I understand that the words "Secretary of State" in the Bill mean any Secretary of State. If this sort of procedure was happening in other countries, whether Fascist Chile or the Soviet Union, hon. Members would not be reticent about putting down Early-Day Motions, and I am sure that the Home Secretary would support them. Hon. Members would protest at families being split up in this way and at Members of Parliament being unable to get an indication of the evidence against their constituents.
  This House should be the watchdog of civil liberties, not the Home Secretary's poodle. I am concerned about the House passing legislation which gives these incredible Dowers to the Home Secretary. He can exclude people from this country and send them back to Ireland and we do not know whether they and their families will ever be reunited. Hon.
  510
  Members who feel this situation can be passed over lightly should come to Bristol and talk to the wives of the men served with exclusion orders and explain to their families why their fathers have been sent out of the country.
  A number of hon. Friends and myself are concerned about this legislation. If there is evidence that people have been, or are likely to be, involved in acts of terrorism, they should be brought before the courts and, if they are found guilty, the full penalty of the law should be imposed upon them. To find someone guilty without telling him the evidence on which that decision is based is contrary to what we have always believed to be British justice.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have never pretended that I like these powers and I have always been anxious that they should be as temporary as possible, but I dislike still more the acts of terrorism to which we have been exposed and their consequences. While this House must safeguard civil liberties, it must also safeguard, as far as possible, the safety of the people of this country.
  We face a difficult decision. I must tell the House and my hon. Friends that opposing the exclusion order provisions would be equivalent to opposing a very large part of the Bill, removing many of its teeth and leaving us, if recent circumstances arose again, with no effective measure in this area. I hope that we can move in the reasonably near future to a position in which we can dispense with these provisions.
  In normal circumstances, I would not advocate them as desirable, but in the circumstances of the sustained acts of terrorism through which we have lived, I am sure that they are both necessary and desirable. I should not like anybody to be in any doubt that if he votes for removing the exclusion order provisions, he is voting to remove a very large part of the effectiveness of a Bill against terrorism.
  Why can we not proceed by purely judicial procedures? Unfortunately, it is not possible. We can often convict people after crimes have been committed, but we are most anxious—and this is my duty—to prevent the acts of terrorism. That involves acting as we do. I believe that I have exercised these powers with a great deal of care and discretion.

  511
  There has been no question of my simply rubber-stamping orders. I gave the figures recently and they will not have changed much in the intervening period. I told hon. Members that I had made 69 exclusion orders. Notice of the making of an exclusion order has been served on 61 people. The other eight were not in this country. Fifty-six of them have been removed, 39 to Northern Ireland and 17 to the Irish Republic. Sixteen of the 61 made representations objecting to the orders, and in five of those 16 cases the orders were revoked after being referred to the advisers. This shows that the advisers procedure and consideration by the Secretary of State are not meaningless. I have revoked orders in just over 30 per cent. of the cases referred to the advisers.
  I was asked why the whole system could not be used openly with the evidence presented against an individual. When people are removed, they are not imprisoned. They are removed to another part of the country, or to the Republic of Ireland, wherever they originated. People who were born here or who have lived here for 20 years cannot be so removed. I do not like the process, but its dangers have to be balanced against the danger—not just the threat of danger but the actuality of danger—to which the British public have been subjected in the past few years.
  It is not a case of removing people against whom cases can be sustained in a court of law. Of course that is a much better and much more satisfactory procedure. In a great many cases however, that can be done only after acts of terrorism have been committed in circumstances which are difficult to prove. In present circumstances it is my duty to be prepared to act, balancing considerations in a way which enables us to act on real suspicion but not necessarily on sustainable evidential proof in a legal sense.
  I was asked why the proceedings before the advisers could not be conducted in a judicial way. That would be to confuse the object of the two procedures. Either there must be a fully judicial process or an executive process with responsibility resting upon the Home Secretary. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas) stated correctly
  512
  that another Secretary of State could always sign an order for the Home Secretary. That does not mean that these matters are tossed around Whitehall. I think there may have been two cases in which orders have been signed by other Secretaries of State because I have been away. However, in each case the matter has been looked at most carefully by my advisers before signing and by myself on return. Every exclusion order case has received my careful individual attention. As for the advisers procedure, the fact that five of the orders have been revoked is in itself a strong indication that this is not a useless and ineffective whitewashing procedure.
  I was asked why people cannot be told the charges against them. Obviously that cannot be done without endangering our sources of information. We all know the sort of conspiracies which have confronted us. One of the most vital factors for anyone trying to preserve the safety of people is to safeguard the sources of information.
  Of the two advisers let me say that one prefers to see the man first, to hear what he has to say and to form a view about him, contrasting it afterwards with the case against the man. The other prefers to do it the other way around. They have both given very good, dedicated and balanced service. I would find it impossible to decide, if there were an instinct which was more favourable to the cause of the person against whom the order was laid, which of the two advisers would be likely to come up with the more favourable result. The two processes balance each other out. One does not result in a process any less favourable than the other.
  Therefore, so long as we are subject to this terrorist threat, we have to continue with these powers, and if we took any other view, we should not be making an effective Bill. I certainly regard this part of the legislation as the most effective part and the removal of which would be the most damaging to the purposes of the Bill.
  7.45 p.m.
  One of my hon. Friends suggested that in some way this was not a measure for the safety of the British people, but a measure against the Irish community here. Nothing can be further from my intentions or from the effect of the legislation.

  513
  As a Member representing a Birmingham constituency, my great desire in dealing with the aftermath of the Birmingham bombings, which were the worst we have had to suffer and potentially the most dangerous to relations between the very large and valued Irish community in Birmingham and the indigenous community, has been to prevent these bestial acts from having any general effect upon those relations. In order to achieve that we must strike the right balance, and we have to strike a certain balance over a period of time.
  It is extraordinary how short term are our reactions and our memories. When there is a dreadful incident, such as we have happily been free of for nearly two months, as a result, to some extent, of some very effective police work in December, great waves of emotion arise in this House and among the public. If we do not take care, large numbers of people get into the frame of mind in which they abandon all idea of justice and want to shoot almost anyone who might be involved.
  After a number of weeks, memories fade and views swing the other way. People begin to think that the only important thing is to ensure that there is not too much executive power. My duty, and it is one of the most difficult I have ever had to discharge in a number of offices, is to try to hold a proper balance over a period of time between those two attitudes.
  I believe that with all its difficulties and problems—and I should not like to see it a permanent part of our legislation—the Bill broadly achieves that objective. Without these provisions, it would be gravely weakened and unacceptably affected.
  Mr. Litterick: My right hon. Friend has made a point about the Irish community and that is very germane. Will he say how many, if any, non-Irish people have been deported from one part of the British Isles to another under this legislation?
  Mr. Jenkins: I am not sure that I can. I am not sure of the relevance of the question. Probably—I am not quite sure—all those involved had some form of Southern or Northern Irish connection, otherwise they would not have been involved.
  514
  I remind my hon. Friend that we are here discussing a Bill to deal with Irish terrorism. Other forms of terrorism exist in the world and can arise. It is not a peculiarity of the Irish people that they produce terrorists. My hon. Friends below the Gangway have been extremely anxious that the Bill should be confined to Irish terrorism, and I have been asked in the course of the passage of both the previous Bill and this to give many assurances. Therefore, any construction based upon my hon. Friend's question would not be valid, and any suggestion that the legislation has led to a general anti-Irish feeling would be entirely misplaced.
  Mr. Whitelaw: I rise to say briefly why I feel deeply and strongly that the House must support the Home Secretary in resisting the amendment. He rightly spoke of the need to preserve a balance and rightly stressed that the legislation was of a temporary nature, which is an extremely important safeguard.
  On the question of balance, the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas) asked how one would give an answer to the families of people who had been subjected to exclusion orders. I accept that it is a difficult answer to give, but it would be much more difficult to explain to the families of people who had suffered from terrorists' actions in this country why the House was not taking every possible effective step against terrorism.
  The House must take effective measures. Inevitably, from time to time they are distasteful measures. When I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I had to exercise considerable powers against terrorism, some of which were distasteful. No one in the position of Home Secretary or Secretary of State for Northern Ireland likes to exercise these powers. One does it not from pleasure but because one has a duty to protect the people against acts of terrorism. Measures taken against members of the Irish community who might be engaged in terrorism are a great safeguard for the remainder of the Irish community who are not engaged in terrorism in that they are thereby to some extent safeguarded against the undoubted reprisals which would come upon innocent members of the Irish community—as the vast majority

  515
  undoubtedly are—if we did not have such measures.
  I wish to endorse what the Home Secretary said about the powers of the Secretary of State. From time to time, when I had power as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, other Secretaries of State signed orders on my behalf, but never without my accepting personal responsibility for the action taken. They might sign, but I took personal responsibility, because I was answerable to the House. Naturally and properly, I took that responsibility, as would any Home Secretary or Secretary of State.
  I also endorse what the Home Secretary said about safeguarding sources of information. We have to preserve the right balance. It is proper that questions concerning the individual and civil liberties should be raised in the House, but, in the light of what we have had to endure from terrorism, the House has to be seen to be determined to take effective action.
  To allow the amendments to the Bill would make it seem that the House was not in earnest and was not determined to take effective action. It would appear that we were passing a Bill which would not do the job necessary. Having set our minds to deal effectively with terrorism, we should not flinch at our first chance of doing so. That is no way to safeguard our people, which surely is the primary consideration.
  Mr. Mikardo: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary devoted a substantial part of his speech to an account of how he had administered the provisions since they had been in operation and the scrupulous care he had taken to use them in such a way as to minimise their adverse effects and consequent encroachments upon civil liberty. I totally accept that part of his speech. Everyone, even its supporters, agrees that the legislation is obnoxious. The best anyone says of it is that it is a necessary evil. If we are to have this obnoxious legislation, I can think of no one I prefer to my right hon. Friend to administer it. But he is not a permanent fixture.
  Although the Bill is temporary, such is the insecurity of man upon the earth that even in the Bill's temporary life we
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  cannot be sure that my right hon. Friend will be administering it for all its life. It is a poor reason for legislation to say that it is awful but at least the present Minister is doing a good job with it. I totally accept what my right hon. Friend said. I pay sincere tribute to him for the way in which he has administered the provisions. No one admires more than I my right hon. Friend's humanitarian and libertarian views, but I do not think that they are relevant to the amendment.
  I turn to the main burden of the argument put forward by my right hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw). I have not before listened to a speech like that made by my right hon. Friend, but I have read one. I read in a Soviet journal a detailed account which purported to give a point by point answer to the "Gulag Archipelago" and which said exactly what my right hon. Friend said. He will no doubt be horrified to hear that, but he needs no assurance from me that I am not comparing him—or indeed the right hon. Gentleman—with the people who committed the atrocities referred to in the "Gulag Archipelago".
  The point by point refutation in the Soviet Press of the accusations in the "Gulag Archipelago" were virtually indistinguishable from what my right hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman said. The same arguments were used. It is true that in the Soviet Union chaps are put in prison or in a psychiatric hospital whereas we do not do that. But we separate chaps from their wives and children and choke them out of their jobs. The pains felt by the victims referred to in "Gulag Archipelago" are imposed by the Bill upon some of our citizens.
  8.0 p.m.
  What is the point by point refutation of the "Gulag Archipelago" that no hon. Member accepts? It is as follows: "It is bad and we should like to proceed against these people by the processes of law, but they are enemies of the State." We call them "terrorists"—for "terrorist" read "enemy of the State", for "enemy of the State" read "terrorist". The refutation goes on: "They are enemies of the State and the first consideration must be to protect the people."

  517
  That is what the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border has just said. That is what was said in Pravda. We were told in its refutation: "Do not have sympathy with these people who are sent to the Gulag Archipelago; have sympathy with the potential victims of these enemies of the State. We should like to be able to proceed against these enemies by the due processes" and so on, and so on—we know it all. "The State must be protected because these people are ruthless"—we have heard those terms in the House today. The conclusion is: "The community must be protected and so we have to take powers different from any powers which have been taken before to deal with enemies of the State."
  It is just a matter of which side one is on. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. One man's terrorist is another man's enemy of the State. One man's protection of the community is another man's Gulag Archipelago. It depends on the way one looks at it. There is a great deal of subjectivity in all this.
  Mr. Peter Rees Mr. Peter Rees (Dover and Deal) rose—
  Mr. Mikardo: If the hon. and learned Gentleman is rising to ask me whether I am trying to protect terrorists, the answer is that I am not, by any means. But I do not want us to start the beginnings of a process the end of which could well be the Gulag Archipelago.
  Mr. Rees: The hon. Gentleman is developing an extremely interesting line of argument, but so that we can appreciate its full sublety, will he tell us whether crimes of violence are as prevalent in the Soviet Union as they are in Ulster?
  Mr. Mikardo: I have not the least idea. I have no statistics, and nor has the hon. and learned Gentleman. I do not think
  that either of us could get them. I am trying to figure out the purport of his intervention. Is he saying "Good. The Soviet Union has done this. It has the Gulag Archipelago and it has got rid of crimes of violence and therefore we should have a Gulag Archipelago"? That is what it sounds like. Otherwise I cannot see sense in his intervention. Much as I deplore crimes of violence, I deplore the Gulag Archipelago more, and I hope that he does, too.
  Mr. McCusker: The case being made of innocent workmen on the flimsiest evidence being wrenched from their families and sent to Ireland, North or South, would be substantially reinforced if it could be shown that when they got to Ireland they all settled down, got jobs, worked hard and found homes where they could be reunited with their families. But what do we find when we examine the activities of at least some of them? I have not examined all their cases, but I have examined the cases which have impinged on my constituency,
  Among the people referred to by the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas) may be the one who, weeks after his return, was not only actively working in the Republican movement, but came into my constituency and in June 1975 made an oration over the grave of the only known IRA terrorist shot by the British Army during 1975 in the commission of a terrorist crime. He described that terrorist as having been killed on active service. That was all done during the period of the so-called IRA cease-fire. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if the family of that man were to ask me for an answer, I would say, "Look to your father and what he is doing in Ireland."
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 21, Noes 140.

  Division No. 43.]

  AYES

  [8.7 p.m.

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Lamond, James

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Litterick, Tom

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Corbett, Robin

  Noble, Mike

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Cryer, Bob

  Parry, Robert

  Mr. Ron Thomas and

  Evans, Gwyntor (Carmarthen)

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Mr. Andrew Bennett.

  Flannery, Martin

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Skinner, Dennis

  NOES

  Alison, Michael

  Harper, Joseph

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds E)

  Archer, Peter

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Henderson, Douglas

  Reid, George

  Ashton, Joe

  Hopson, Emlyn

  Rooker, J. W.

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Bales, Alf

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Beith, A. J.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Hunter, Adam

  Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

  Bishop. E. S.

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Blaker, Peter

  James, David

  Sims, Roger

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Boardman, H.

  John, Brynmor

  Small, William

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Judd, Frank

  Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Proven)

  Kilfedder, James

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Buchan, Norman

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Campbell, Ian

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

  Carson, John

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Cartwright, John

  Lector, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  McCusker, H.

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  Deakins, Eric

  McElhone, Frank

  Tinn, James

  Dempsey, James

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Viggers, Peter

  Doig, Peter

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Dunn, James A.

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Eadie, Alex

  Madden, Max

  Ward, Michael

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Watt, Hamish

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Welsh, Andrew

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Millan, Bruce

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  White, James (Pollok)

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Molyneaux, James

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Monro, Hector

  Whitlock, William

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Moyle, Roland

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Fernyhough, Rt Hn E.

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Nelson, Anthony

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Freud, Clement

  Oakes, Gordon

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Golding, John

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Woodall, Alec

  Goodhart, Philip

  Pardoe, John

  Woof, Robert

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Park, George

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Graham, Ted

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Pavitt, Laurie

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Grist, Ian

  Penhaligon, David

  Mr. J. D. Dormand and

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Mr. David Stoddart.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Amendment made: No. 9, in page 3, line 15, leave out 'or 5 below' and insert:
  '(orders excluding persons from Northern Ireland) or 5 of this Act'.—[Mr. Roy Jenkins.]

Clause 4

  ORDERS EXCLUDING PERSONS FROM GREAT BRITAIN
  Amendment made: No. 14, in page 3, line 41, at end insert
  'or
  (c) is at the time subject to an order under section (orders excluding persons from Northern Ireland) of this Act'.—[Mr. Roy Jenkins.]
  Dr. Summerskill: I beg to move Amendment No. 15, in page 4, line 1, leave out 'Part of'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): It is proposed with this to take Government Amendments Nos. 22, 23, and 64, together with the following amendments standing in the name of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham):
  No. 65, in Schedule 2, page 12, line 12, leave out:
  'to which paragraph 5 below applies
  and insert:
  'exempted under paragraph 5 below'.
  No. 66, in Schedule 2, page 12, leave out lines 15 and 16 and insert:
  'An order under section 5 of this Act shall be exempted for the purpose of paragraph 4(a) above where it'.
  8.15 p.m.
  Dr. Summerskill: These amendments are designed to simplify the present pro-

  521
  visions respecting the service of notice of exclusion orders, and have the effect of placing an obligation on the Secretary of State to serve notice of the making of an exclusion order on any person who is within the United Kingdom, whether the exclusion order has the effect of excluding him from Great Britain, Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom.
  At present, the obligation on the Secretary of State to serve notice of the making of an exclusion order is qualified by the provisions of Part II of Schedule 2. These have the effect that an order made by the Home Secretary, whether excluding a citizen from Great Britain or a non-citizen from the United Kingdom, has to be served only on a person who is in Great Britain, and an order made by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has to be served on a person only if he is in Northern Ireland.
  The basis for this has been that notice need only be served when the person concerned is in that part of the United Kingdom against which his activities are aimed, and that the practical difficulty of requiring the security forces in Northern Ireland to undertake the task of serving notice of exclusion orders made by the Home Secretary may amount to an unreasonable burden.
  We have, however, since the Committee stage, reconsidered the whole question of the service of notice of exclusion orders in the light of the forceful arguments put forward then, particularly by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). We accept his view that if a person is excluded from the United Kingdom as a whole, the exclusion order ought to be served on him wherever he is in the United Kingdom. We also accept that a person who is excluded from one part of the United Kingdom to another should be served with notice of the order, whichever part of the United Kingdom he is in—provided, of course, that he is in the United Kingdom."
  We do not think that any obligation should rest upon the Secretary of State to serve an exclusion order on any person who is outside our jurisdiction, for example, in the Republic of Ireland. Therefore, Amendments Nos. 65 and 66 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) appear to be unnecessary,
  522
  because one of the Government's amendments will have the effect of deleting the whole of Part II of Schedule 2.
  Mr. Powell: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the favourable consideration that she has given to the views put forward in Committee and, indeed, for writing to me on this subject between the Bill's two stages.
  Virtue sometimes has its own reward, and one of the by-products of the Government's decision, which has been welcomed in the House today, to introduce into the Bill the principle of reciprocity has been that it has helped to clear up and simplify the unsatisfactory Schedule 2 by making it possible to eliminate Part II, which was not only obscure but which many of us thought involved substantial unfairnesses. The hon. Lady can feel that a considerable, though minor, improvement has been made to the Bill by the tidying up to which she has applied in her mind.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment made: No. 17, in page 4, line 3, leave out subsection (4).—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Clause 5

  ORDERS EXCLUDING PERSONS WHO ARE NOT CITIZENS OF THE UNITED KING- DOM AND COLONIES FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM
  Amendments made: No. 19, in page 4, leave out line 7.
  No. 20, in line 22, at end insert:
  '(3) An order shall not be made under this section against a person who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.'—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Clause 6

  RIGHT TO MAKE REPRESENTATIONS ETC. TO SECRETARY OF STATE
  Amendments made: No. 22, in page 4, line 24, leave out
  'subject to Part II of Schedule 2 to this Act'.
  No. 23, in line 29, at end insert:
  '(1A) Subsection (1) above shall not impose an obligation to take any steps to serve a notice on a person at a time when he is outside the United Kingdom.'—[Dr. Summerskill.]
  Mr. Beith: I beg to move Amendment No. 24, in page 4, line 29, at end insert—
  '(c) set out the general reasons for the issue of the exclusion order'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this Amendment we may take the following amendment: No. 26, in page 5, line 10, at end insert:
  'at which he may be accompanied by a legal adviser if he so wishes'.
  Mr. Beith: I am glad, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you have selected for consideration with this amendment a related, though not identical, point about the procedure for the discussion of exclusion orders and about the presence of a legal adviser.
  I deal first with Amendment No. 24. The House has just decided that exclusion orders, repugnant though they are to us all and unlike the normal pattern of British justice as they are, must be accepted as a necessary evil. That having been decided, however, we are not absolved from the need to ensure that the procedure is as fair and reasonable as possible, and we have just passed Government amendments which represent improvements on that procedure.
  I look for quite specific improvements by this amendment. An important one is that the person upon whom an exclusion order is served should have some general indication of the reason for having that order served against him. It is difficult and sometimes dangerous to provide excluded persons with information which is so detailed that those from whom the information was obtained would be identified, with the result that their lives might be put at risk. However, it is fundamental to the principles of British justice that people should know what they are supposed to have done, are likely to do, or are liable to do. We enter new areas when we think of offences that people are liable to commit, but in this as much as in any other situation a person served with an exclusion order is entitled to a general statement of what the nature of the activities concerned are supposed to be. Therefore, some effort should be made to give this general indication, although we are aware of the difficulties involved.
  However, there is a difficulty on the other side. If no indication is given of the basis for the exclusion order, how is
  524
  the person concerned to prepare representations to the Secretary of State against the order? What is he to say if he has the benefit of an interview with one of the Home Secretary's advisers? On what can he ground his defence? I hesitate to use the word "defence", because we have been instructed to avoid construing this as a trial or hearing. However, the person on whom an order is served needs to know in general terms what is alleged against him, and there must be something that could be stated when an order is issued.
  I hope, therefore, that the Government will look favourably upon this amendment. I see it as sufficiently important to want to press it upon them and, indeed, to press it to a Division if it does not find favour with them.
  As for the right of access to a legal adviser and other parts of the procedure, the Bill allows accused persons or persons on whom exclusion orders are served to appeal and to seek a personal interview with the Home Secretary's appointed advisers. There is some difficulty about defining the precise rôle of those advisers, and the Secretary of State has helped the House by describing the way in which that procedure is followed and the different ways in which his two advisers choose to carry out their duty. But we must remember that even if we make it clear that we are not erecting a trial, a hearing or an appeal, some of the difficulties in the procedure still apply to the person confronted with it. The ordinary person with no legal training or experience of being confronted with a situation in which he has to account for himself before someone of considerable authority and standing is at some disadvantage.
  Without seeking to make a trial out of what is not a trial, I feel that it is desirable to have someone to assist such a person in presenting his case and to advise him about what would be helpful for him to say and what would not be helpful for him to say in that situation. I do not seek to challenge the Home Secretary's approach to the procedure by trying to reconstruct it or to make some second-rate form of appeal procedure which is defined differently in his mind. I am not sure what the definition is, but I think that the job of the adviser is to make an assessment of the credibility of the person against whom an exclusion

  525
  order is served and of what he says about his standing and to decide upon the appropriateness of the order.
  I grant that that is a different exercise from a trial, a hearing, or a re-hearing of what the Home Secretary has determined. But it remains necessary for a person unfamiliar with proceedings of this kind if he feels that he needs it to have access to someone who can help him in matters of presentation and help him to avoid difficulties in proceedings which he does not understand.
  It would not necessarily go against the express desire of the Home Secretary to retain an informal procedure to ensure that those who have to go through it have access to legal advice during that procedure. Therefore, I hope that this amendment will find favour as well.
  8.30 p.m.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has moved the amendment in a persuasive and very reasonable way. Indeed, our whole debate has been conducted in a similar tone. I should like to be able to accept both of the hon. Gentleman's amendments, but I do not think it would be right to do so and I shall explain briefly why I take that view.
  Amendment No. 24 provides for the setting out of
  "the general reasons for the issue of the exclusion order".
  I do not think that I can make any meaning out of going beyond what is contained in the Bill at present without coming up against the difficulty which I outlined in dealing with the last major amendment. In a general sense—the hon. Gentleman said that he wanted it to be fairly general—the matter is specified in Clause 4. I freely admit that it is very general. It says:
  "If the Secretary of State is satisfied that any person—

  (a) is or has been concerned (whether in Great Britain or elsewhere) in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, or

  (b) is attempting or may attempt to enter Great Britain with a view to being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism".

  That is firmly the position in the Bill and indeed, it has been the position for the past 15 months. I have not and
  526
  would not make an exclusion order without being satisfied on those grounds.
  Therefore, those are the general grounds upon which an exclusion order is made. If there be any doubt about it, I shall make sure that these grounds are drawn to the attention of the people concerned so that they are in no doubt that they are regarded by me as being within one or other of these categories. Indeed, they will know in which category they belong, because one category concerns those people who are in this country and the other applies to those people who are trying to enter this country.
  I believe that by attempting to move to a type of half-general position we would be at a half-way house which it would be extremely difficult to defend. Moreover, if we are more specific, we come up against the difficulty of safeguarding information. My view, based on experience, is that we could endanger sources of information and involve a risk to life.
  We cannot have the best of both worlds. That is the difficulty. I cannot see a reasonable half-way house in which we could stop between what I admit is the very general provision in Section 4 of the old Act—Clause 4 of the Bill—and giving information which would go too far, indeed, so far as to endanger sources and thereby lives.
  Therefore, I cannot accept the amendment, but I undertake that if there be any doubt, we shall make it clear to anyone against whom an exclusion order is signed in future that it is because of these grounds relating directly to my satisfaction that he
  "is or has been concerned … in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism".
  Amendment No. 26 provides that a person
  "may be accompanied by a legal adviser if he so wishes".
  Again, I am in difficulty about this matter. On Second Reading and during other debates on this subject I think the House accepted, though not without dissent, my view that this process cannot by its very nature be a judicial one. I make no bones about it. It is an executive process subject to certain limited safeguards. It is a procedure which I should justify only under the threat with which we have had to live for the past few years.

  527
  I do not believe that there is any halfway house between getting the best of both worlds so that we have a quasi-judicial, quasi-executive procedure. If we try to do that, we shall fail and get into a hopeless position. If the right of legal representation is automatically conferred at such proceedings, I am sure that the next step will be that we shall be asked to keep records and to have a stenographer making a formal record of everything that happens. We are then moving to the borderline of a judicial procedure.
  In the first place, there is no question of someone who goes before an adviser being denied the right to have consultations with and advice from his solicitor before he sees the adviser. That has been the practice and I will certainly ensure that it is the practice in future. As far as I know it always has been the practice in the past where the person against whom the order is served has a legal adviser and wishes to consult him.
  I would also be prepared to say that, when the adviser takes the view that it is reasonable in the circumstances, the person should be accompanied by someone, by a legal adviser or a friend or relation if that is thought appropriate. But I must hold the position that in certain cases which could be very difficult and sensitive the question must be whether the adviser, knowing what he has to deal with, thinks that that is a reasonable procedure.
  Mr. Beith: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not mind my asking him to be a little clearer or to repeat what he said a sentence or two back. In drafting the amendment as I did, I was conscious of the alternative possibility of some other person accompanying the person concerned. Indeed, as I said earlier. I was not seeking to create a trial but to enable him to have the benefit of some assistance. If the right hon. Gentleman would clarify or repeat that, in many circumstances which he did not define, he would make this possible, that would help me.
  Mr. Jenkins: What I will say is that I am not prepared to accept a blanket provision that in all cases there is a right to legal representation. That moves towards a quasi-judicial procedure which
  528
  this is not, should not be and in my view cannot be without undermining its whole purpose. What I am prepared to say and what I tried to say is that in many cases the adviser might be content that the person should be accompanied by someone else, whether a legal adviser, a friend or a relation, according to the view of the individual and of the adviser. That would be reasonable in many cases, but I could not accept it as being a statutory right, because there might be cases in which it would be inappropriate.
  I should like to take this oportunity of correcting information that I gave in a discussion of a previous amendment. I accepted the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas), which was true as far as it went, that there was, in the early stages of the operation of the first Act, a difference in the procedure adopted by the two advisers. One saw the case first, before the interview, and the other did not. The one who did not see it first at that stage was anxious not to let anything slip in discussion which might give the man who was to be excluded a lead as to who had informed against him, or whatever the case may be, and he wanted to approach the interview with an open mind. However, after he had had experience of doing this, he decided that, although this had not been an unfair practice—in my view also it had not—it was probably better to adopt the practice of the other adviser and that he should see the case against the man before the interview. They both now follow the same practice.
  Mr. Thorne: I am trying to follow what my right hon. Friend has said. Clause 6 refers to the setting out of the rights afforded to the person concerned "by this section ". I assume that to mean Clause 6. Subsection (2) sets out what some of those rights are and refers to the serving of a notice and to his ability to make representations in writing to the Secretary of State.
  I should have thought that anyone served with a notice would be much more able to fulfil the requirements of subsection (2)(a) in his own defence if he were provided, as the amendment suggests, with the general reasons for the issue of the order. Despite what the Secretary of State said, the amendment has

  529
  the value of providing for someone an additional defence, which will tend to preserve his individual liberty in difficult circumstances and against a background of difficult legislation.
  Amendment No. 26, dealing with the presence of a legal adviser, would help the individual to preserve his rights. I appeal to my right hon. Friend on that basis. In his original statement when we first discussed the Bill, he referred to the Draconian measures he was taking in the Bill. I believe that he was sincere in expressing regret at being forced to introduce powers which invaded the liberty of the individual. I ask him to accept the amendments.
  Mr. Mikardo: I also ask my right hon. Friend to accept the amendments. His case against them was pretty thin.
  On Amendment No. 24 my right hon. Friend said that the House would understand—and we shall—why it was impossible for a chap to be told in full what was alleged against him, because sources must be protected. But I do not understand why, because one cannot tell him everything, one cannot tell him anything. That is almost an argument reductio ad absurdum, and is not up to my right hon. Friend's usual standard.
  One of the first hallmarks of a totalitarian society, one in which the machinery of law does not protect the liberty of the individual against the executive, is that it is possible to take action against people without telling them why. As far as I know, this will be the first time in peacetime that we have empowered a Minister to take action against a person without giving him the least inkling of the reason, and it is action that separates him from his wife, his kids and his job.
  I turn to Amendment No. 26. My right hon. Friend said that a person should not be accompanied by a solicitor, because then the process would turn into a trial. That will not do. The majority of solicitors in the House, if not all, would tell my right hon. Friend that attendance at trials represents a small part of their work. For example, a man will often take a solicitor along when attending to business negotiations, and for very good reasons. It is a laughable idea that, because a solicitor is present, the trial process is started. A trial is
  530
  created if there is a judge, a charge sheet, a prosecution, a defence and evidence. In the circumstances covered by the Bill, there could never be a trial, because there is no charge and there is no evidence.
  No doubt some of the people against whom action is taken under this provision are hard-boiled cookies who can take care of themselves. But many will be terrified by the procedure. Many innocent people have been involved—presumably if they had not been innocent exclusion orders would have been made. Such people have probably never before been dealt with by the long and powerful arm of the State. They could be absolutely terrified of what was happening to them. There they are, alone, with all the high-powered apparatus ranged against them, and a very competent, clever and experienced adviser talking to them, apart from all the apparatus of the police, and they are not allowed to have even a mate with them, let alone a solicitor or anyone else.
  This is weighting the scales much too heavily on one side. I think that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed made his case, and that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary did not really answer it.
  8.45 p.m.
  Mr. George Cunningham: I have great sympathy with both of the amendments. However, my concern is that if we were to carry the first amendment I feel sure, not only in the light of what the Secretary of State has said but in the light of what one might expect without his having said it, the notification to the subject of the order would simply be in terms of Clause 5(1) of the Bill, and the recipient would be no better informed than he is now.
  I am rather surprised, if it is the case now, that the recipient is served with an order which does not draw attention to the wording of the section under which it is made. I hope that that is not happening. But I fear that if the amendment were to be carried we would not add anything to the information that he is given.
  I seem to remember that during the war there was a famous case about the serving of an order under Regulation 18B in which the court finally held that reasons for the making of the order did

  531
  not have to be stated, but one of the judges trying the case made a very fervent statement of his belief that it was totally contrary to the principles of English justice, even in the conditions of the war and the context of Regulation 18B, that reasons should not have to be stated to some extent or other.
  I would incline, regretfully, to not voting for the amendment. However, I should like to take this opportunity of asking the Secretary of State about something very much related to it. If the subject of the order is not to be informed of the reasons in the mind of the Secretary of State and of the adviser, I think that it is all the more important that, as a matter of administrative procedure within the Home Office, the reasons which have compelled the adviser and the Secretary of State to decide to make the order should be set down in the dossier.
  As I have previously said to the Secretary of State, the British are sloppy decision-takers. Unlike the French, they do not put all the facts into one dossier so that people may know what has been taken into account and what has not. For all I know, and for all any of us will ever know, it may be that the British are acting totally contrary to their character in these cases and setting down the secret reasons very carefully—but I suspect not.
  I ask the Secretary of State to look at that point and to ensure that when the records are finally opened up in 50 years' time or 100 years' time, even on these cases, when historians look at them they at least can see that, right or wrong, the reasons were clear in the minds of those who took the decisions. This would be at the very least a useful mental discipline and some safeguard—though they will not know it—for the people who are the subjects of the orders.
  Mr. Ron Thomas: I very much hope that my right hon. Friend will accept the two amendments. In supporting them I should like to make one or two brief points.
  Under Clause 4(1) the Secretary of State may issue an exclusion order if he is satisfied that any person
  532
  "is or has been concerned (whether in Great Britain or elsewhere) in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism."
  Presumably there are a number of documents which indicate certainly likely happenings and "evidence"—I use that word in inverted commas—which the Secretary of State has to examine before being satisfied. I take it that those documents are typed by a young woman or man—I suppose it may be a man now that we have the Sex Discrimination Act—in the police station. She or he will know all about the case. A number of police officers will know all about it as well as some Home Office officials.
  My right hon. Friend tells me that the assessor has now decided to consider the evidence before he sees the individual who is faced with an exclusion order. That is a much better system than the one which I understand operated in the two cases about which I have spoken. In those cases the assessor had not seen the evidence. When he saw the individuals concerned there was a general conversation.
  It has been suggested that one of the Bristolians who had exclusion orders made against them engaged in certain activities when he reached Northern Ireland. I understood that in both cases the individuals concerned were excluded to Southern Ireland, but it is suggested that in one case there were certain activities in Northern Ireland. As a non-lawyer it seems strange that we have a situation in which the Home Secretary is satisfied that certain individuals have been concerned in the
  "commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism"
  and excludes them to the North or South of Ireland, leaving them to go about whatever business they may have. Presumably, some of them have jobs and live part of the normal life of the community. That is strange if there is sufficient evidence to satisfy my right hon. Friend that they have been concerned with terrorism within the terms of the Act.
  I support the first amendment. I think that the individual should be given some indication of the evidence against him, as I tried to make clear in an earlier debate. If not, I am not too happy about the second amendment. Does the hon.

  533
  Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) consider that it would be a good thing to insist that someone should have legal advice, when that advice may be useless as the solicitor who is attempting to help the individual cannot get any indication of the evidence and cannot prepare any brief or representation? It could be that the hon. Gentleman feels that when the individual meets the assessor it would be useful to have a solicitor present to assist him. If the solicitor has no indication of the evidence his presence will still be unhelpful.
  Mr. Mikardo: It would provide a bit of moral support.
  Mr. Thomas: Yes, that is fair enough. I hope that the Government will accept both amendments because they go hand in hand. It would be far better if the individual could be given some indication of the evidence. He could then obtain legal assistance to help him produce a case against the evidence that has been suggested against him.
  My right hon. Friend talked about the acts of terrorism which he feels have been prevented by this legislation. I honestly do not feel that there is any way of saying whether acts of terrorism have been prevented by it. I should not think that they have been prevented under any exclusion order process. I and all my hon. Friends insist that we want to ensure that a person is brought to trial and charged in the appropriate manner, with the full force of the law, if there is any evidence against him. But we are now talking about situations in which people are excluded and families are broken up, situations in which no indication is given of the evidence against the individual either to themselves, Members of Parliament, lawyers families or anyone else.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: I am sorry, but I cannot be moved regarding a statutory change on these two matters.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) was right when he said that one could accept the first amendment and get away with it by merely giving the reasons which already appear in Clause 4. However, that would be to mislead the House and would not be an honourable way to proceed. We cannot go further
  534
  than we have gone without seriously undermining sources to which I must have the greatest regard.
  Regarding the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas), I cannot prove that the Act has prevented particular acts of terrorism. If we can apprehend the people who have committed acts of terrorism, we can bring them to justice. Often 20 or 30 people are killed. This is the Prevention—not the punishment—of Terrorism Bill. There are provisions in ordinary law for the punishment of acts of terrorism. We cannot sit back and wait until people have committed acts of terrorism in the hope of catching them afterwards. That is not the philosophy underlying the legislation.
  I am not prepared to accept a statutory provision on the second matter. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) that it would not in itself erect the whole mechanism of a trial, but it would move towards a more rigid procedure. It could lead to interchanges between the adviser and the man concerned becoming matters of public controversy, and that would lead to a more formal kind of interview. Such formality might be deleterious to the interests of the person concerned.
  The object of the adviser is not to try a man, but to apply a second opinion to my judgment and, in certain cases—this has already happened—to say, "I think that, on the balance of the evidence submitted to you, the case is not strong enough." The adviser will apply a second test to whether I am acting reasonably, based on a judgment of a man's character in a fairly free-ranging discussion with him and knowledge of the facts. It is not a judicial procedure.
  If it is felt that people are unduly exposed, I should be willing to consider as a matter of general practice—I cannot guarantee it in all circumstances—to discuss with the advisers whether it would be reasonable, if an individual wished, for him to be accompanied by somebody else, whether he be a lawyer or not. I cannot go further than that.
  Mr. Beith: I share the Home Secretary's assessment of the purposes of the Bill and do not seek to challenge it. The right hon. Gentleman said that it

  535
  is the Prevention of Terrorism Bill. We are dealing with provisions which we would not employ as part of the trial and punishment process, but we still need to improve them for the protection of the individual in so far as that is consistent with the protection of society as a whole.
  I am grateful for what the right hon. Gentleman said about the provision for some other person to accompany a man on whom an exclusion order has been served. I shall need to read and re-read in Hansard what he said before being clear how far he has gone in that respect. I am still puzzled by some of his reservations.
  I welcome the attempt to broaden the terms of my amendment by bringing in persons other than legal advisers. I share his reasons for wanting to do that. However, I am not clear why in certain circumstances he would not wish any particular person to accompany someone on whom an order had been served. I can understand why certain people might be inappropriate. I can understand why, if the accompanying person is not restricted to a category with certain professional disciplines, he might say that person is not appropriate to accompany the man served with the exclusion order. However, it is more difficult to understand why any individual, whatever the case against him, should be wholly precluded from being accompanied by a friend, legal adviser or other person when he goes to meet the Home Secretary's adviser.
  9.0 p.m.
  It must be made clearer to those on whom exclusion orders are served that such a possibility might be open to them. I do not know whether a person on whom an order has been served has ever been accompanied as suggested, but if the Home Secretary accepts the principle, it is reasonable that the situation should be made clear. People must know that the opportunity is open to them.
  It may be said that Amendment No. 24 will add nothing to the Bill since it would remain possible for the Secretary of State to use the provisions in Clause 4 as a general reason for exclusion in every case. I do not believe the courts will look with approval on persistent use of such a provision by the Executive. The possibility of a challenge in the courts is open in relation to every order. The same form of words could be trotted out each time, but I doubt very much whether that would find favour with the judiciary. I am sure that neither the present Home Secretary nor his successors would wish to proceed in that way. I am sure that he could find a half-way house between the two arguments. Since he fails to find such an opportunity at present, I believe that the House should have the opportunity to press the matter so that the possibility should be quite clear.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 35, Noes 116.

  Division No. 44.]

  AYES

  [9.2 p.m.

  Beith, A. J.

  Hooson, Emlyn

  Rooker, J. W.

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Bidwell Sydney

  Lamond, James

  Skinner, Dennis

  Canavan, Dennis

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Litterick, Tom

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Madden, Max

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Corbett, Robin

  Mikardo, Ian

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  Cryer, Bob

  Newens, Stanley

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Noble, Mike

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Flannery, Martin

  Pardoe, John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Freud, Clement

  Parry, Robert

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Penhaligon, David

  Mr. Cyril Smith and

  Hooley, Frank

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Mr. Richard Wainwright.

  NOES

  Alison, Michael

  Bishop, E. S.

  Carson. John

  Archer, Peter

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Cartwright, John

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Boardman, H.

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Ashton, Joe

  Booth, Albert

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Speltho e)

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Crouch, David

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Bates, Alf

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Buchanan, Richard

  Deakins, Eric

  Dempsey, James

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Small, William

  Doig, Peter

  McCartney, Hugh

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  McCusker, H.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Dunn, James A.

  McElhone, Frank

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Eadie, Alex

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Stoddart, David

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Mahon, Simon

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Fernyhough, Rt Hn E.

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Tinn, James

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Millan, Bruce

  Torney, Tom

  Golding, John

  Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, Itchen)

  Viggers, Peter

  Goodhart, Philip

  Molyneaux, James

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Graham, Ted

  Moyle, Roland

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Mudd, David

  Ward, Michael

  Harper, Joseph

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Watt, Hamish

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Welsh, Andrew

  Henderson, Douglas

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Park, George

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Whitlock, William

  Hunter, Adam

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch)

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Jenkins, Rt Eon Roy (Stechford)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Wilson, Cordon (Dundee E)

  John, Brynmor

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Johnson, Jamas (Hull West)

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Woodall, Alec

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Woof, Robert

  Judd, Frank

  Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Kilfedder, James

  Rowlands, Ted

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Shepherd, Colin

  Mr. James Hamilton and

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Mr. J. D. Dormand.

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Sims, Roger

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Amendment made: No. 25, in page 5, line 7, leave out
  'or as the case may be the United Kingdom'
  and insert
  'Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom, as the case may be'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Clause 7

  POWERS OF REMOVAL
  Amendment made: No. 28, in page 5, line 21, leave out
  'or as the case may be the United Kingdom'
  and insert
  'Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom, as the case may be'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Clause 8

  OFFENCES UNDER PART II
  Amendment made: No. 30, in page 5, line 37, at end insert—
  '(bb) a person is knowingly concerned in arrangements for securing or facilitating the entry into Northern Ireland of, or in Northern Ireland knowingly harbours, a person whom he knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, to be a person subject to an order under section (orders excluding persons from Northern Ireland) of this Act, or'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Clause 9

  POWERS OF ARREST AND DETENTION
  Amendment made: No. 32, in page 6, line 13, leave out 'or 8' and insert
  '8, (contributions towards acts of terrorism) or (information about acts of terrorism)'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]
  Mr. Mikardo: I beg to move Amendment No. 34, in page 6, line 21, leave out '5 days' and insert '48 hours'.
  Throughout the proceedings on this Bill and its predecessor there have been many expressions of regret from all quarters of the House about the fact that we are legislating to detain people without charge and without trial. The best that even the most passionate advocate of the Bill has been able to say about it is that it is a necessary evil. Many tears have been shed over this evil which we commit, and the reactions to the amendment will be a fair test of which tears are genuine and which crocodile.
  9.15 p.m.
  If we are as genuine in believing that it is monstrous in Great Britain to keep in detention people who have had no charge levelled against them and who are not brought to trial—there have been motions on the Order Paper deploring that practice in the Soviet Union, Chile,

  539
  Indonesia and many other places—as we are in believing that it is monstrous to do so in, say, Indonesia, the least we can do is to shorten as far as possible the period of detention. I am not wildly enthusiastic about moving the amendment, because I object to the principle as a whole. I am in a fall-back position.
  Originally, we had a period of 48 hours. It could be argued that if a man is arrested late on Friday night, it is difficult to get hold of people over the weekend and more time might be needed. I know many cases of people having been detained for two days and then for five days, and then being released without anything having been done.
  We should put the authorities on their mettle and give them a little less time, so that they have to move into action more quickly. No doubt the time passes quickly for those in authority who are able to go home and have a meal with their wives at night, but it is long drawn out for the fellow who has been detained. I wish to put a shade more urgency into the proceedings. If the authorities cannot find out enough to sustain a case against a person in four days, they will not find it out in seven days. The history of detention up to now suggests that that is so. To adopt the amendment would be a move in the right direction.
  Dr. Summerskill: The amendment would have the effect of reducing from five days to 48 hours the period for which the Secretary of State may extend the detention of a person arrested under Clause 9 beyond the first 48 hours. Thus, the maximum period for which a person arrested under Clause 9 could be held would be reduced from seven days to four.
  The reason for including in the Bill this exceptional power to be used in exceptional circumstances is to enable persons suspected of being involved in acts of terrorism to be detained for up to seven days so that the police can examine a suspect thoroughly and take all the necessary steps to establish whether the person concerned has been involved in acts of terrorism. These steps, often including the examination of fingerprints and other records to obtain positive identification of a person, sometimes take more than four days.
  540
  In deciding that the maximum period for which a person may be detained should be seven days, the Government took careful advice about the minimum period which would be required in a case where thorough investigation was considered necessary. If this amendment were accepted, the purpose of the subsection could be undermined and one of the powers which have been considered necessary to help combat the terrorist problem would be significantly weakened.
  This exceptional power is essential in the present circumstances, but an exceptional power should always be an effective one, and my hon. Friends who are supporting the amendment are not disagreeing with the exceptional power. They support the principle of the Secretary of State being able to extend detention.
  Mr. Mikardo: Actually, we do not.
  Dr. Summerskill: The amendment supports the principle of extending detention, so the difference between us is really a matter of time. I suggest that the power as contained in the Bill is effective and that its effectiveness would be considerably reduced and rendered less useful if the amendment were accepted.
  Mr. Arthur Latham: Does not my hon. Friend agree that five days is more objectionable than two days? Does not she feel that in replying to this amendment she has some obligation to comment on the conditions in which people are held for this extended period? From the cases about which I have written to the Home Secretary, it seems to me that sometimes people are treated worse when held in these circumstances than are those who are being held on ordinary criminal charges, certainly as far as visits are concerned. Can we have an assurance that my hon. Friend will look into the conditions in which people are held under these provisions?
  Dr. Summerskill: As I have said before, if there are any complaints or representations to be made about the conditions in which people are being held, we are anxious and willing to look at them if hon. Members will tell us of the particular cases they have in mind. There is no difference about the way people are held, whether they are being held for five days or 48 hours. The principle of this exceptional power remains, and, as I have

  541
  pointed out, the amendment supports that power, so that we are disagreeing only about the exact time.
  Amendment negatived.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I beg to move Amendment No. 35, in page 6, line 21 at end insert—
  '(3) Any person arrested under this section shall be entitled, provided that no hindrance is reasonably likely to be caused to the processes of investigation or the administration of justice by his doing so, to inform a relative, or require a police officer to inform a named relative, of the fact of his arrest and the place of detention; and any person in respect of whom the Secretary of State has extended the period shall be entitled to communicate with and consult in private a solicitor (or his duly authorised clerk) at any time during the five days'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we shall take the following amendments:
  No. 36, in page 6, line 33, at end insert—

  '(3) Where any person has been arrested under this section and is being held in England or Wales under an extension made by the Secretary of State under subsection (2) above such person shall be entitled immediately to have intimation sent to a solicitor that his professional assistance is required by such person, and informing him of the place where such person may be interviewed.

  (4) Such solicitor shall be entitled to have an interview with the person arrested.

  (5) For the removal of doubt it is hereby declared that a person arrested under this section and held in Scotland under an extension made by the Secretary of State under subsection (2) above is entitled to the rights conferred under section 19 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975.

  No. 47, in Clause 11, page 9, line 6, at end insert—
  '(10) The provisions of Schedule (Rules of Police Procedure) shall apply to the operation of this Act'.
  No. 58, new Schedule—[Rules of Police Procedure].
  Mr. Bennett: On 28th November 1974, when the House was first considering the Prevention of Terrorism Act, many of us were concerned that we were taking away many civil rights, and, that being so, that we should do all we could to give some countervailing protections. We were particularly concerned that the Judges' Rules should be applied in any case of arrest or detention under these
  542
  provisions. Repeatedly we pressed Ministers for and received assurances that the Judges' Rules would be observed and that there would be access to solicitors and the right at least to contact a relative so that the family would know that a person was being held at a police station.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General told the House:
  "I can certainly undertake that my right hon. Friend will make that absolutely clear."—[Official Report, 28th November 1974; Vol. 882, c. 906.]
  He went on to say that it was not possible, in the short time available for that legislation, to build in some administrative rules which would ensure that these rights were laid down.
  Unfortunately, it appears, at least from the evidence that I have, that in many instances over the last 12 months the rights of access to solicitors have not always been made available. There has been plenty of time to consider the introduction of administrative rules or some other way in which the Judges' Rules could be incorporated into this legislation. The Government should have used the intervening period to draw up such safeguards.
  I was disappointed, when reading through the Committee stage proceedings, to see that at the end of the debate there was merely a reiteration by the Minister that people had two possibilities open to them if the Judges' Rules were not observed. The first was that if they came to court it would be taken into account. The second was that they could use the complaints procedure against the police in order to try to get some redress if they felt they had been wrongly handled. In this very sensitive area it would have been reasonable, in bringing forward this legislation again, to build in safeguards of this sort.
  On the Order Paper there are three possible ways suggested for reaching this objective. I do not suggest that any one of them is necessarily ideal, but I particularly press the Minister that, at least when the Bill goes to the other place, an attempt should be made to put into the legislation the undertakings given 12 months ago. These, unfortunately, in some cases have not been carried out.

  543
  I have been given a list of eight cases about which the National Council for Civil Liberties has been particularly concerned. In one case a man received an urgent telephone call from Belfast. His mother had died and he wished to go to the funeral. He left home to fly to Belfast and was then held by the police for over 24 hours before he had an opportunity to contact anybody. As soon as he was able to make contact, he was very quickly in a position to establish his credentials, and was rapidly released by the police.
  I do not want to list these cases by name. These people have already suffered enough. In many instances, they have been the subject of newspaper stories. But it is very much a matter of concern that, in the instance I quoted, the police would have had their time saved if the man had been able to inform his wife that he was being detained. She could have made contact with the people who eventually assured the police that there was no reason at all for detaining the man.
  Then there was the case of some people who were visiting London from Belfast and, most unfortunately, happened to travel on the day that the Guildford bomb trial started. They were detained for six days and for a considerable period of time had no opportunity to contact their parents or indicate to them their concern at being held. It was not possible for them to allay the concern of their parents as to what had happened.
  In another case a man was held twice in a period of 12 months. On each occasion he had no opportunity to contact a solicitor or to assure his relatives that he was perfectly all right.
  The comment will be made that if a person makes contact with a solicitor, or if his relatives are informed, it may impede inquiries, but it is very difficult for someone to convey to a solicitor information which will stop police inquiries being made. If the relatives were informed that a person was being detained, that would not normally impede inquiries.
  Where someone is arrested in his own locality it is very important that a relative should be informed, for one of the fears concerning the development of a totalitarian State is that a person can disappear
  544
  and there is no opportunity for people to know about it.
  The National Council for Civil Liberties has also drawn my attention to the practice in Birmingham of taking in both husband and wife for questioning and leaving a policewoman to look after the children. This is a very frightening experience for the children. Presumably, again, it gives nobody the opportunity to ask for legal advice for the people being interrogated.
  In view of the feeling that this is a very evil measure though possibly a necessary one—we ought to be prepared to build into it these basic safeguards and to say that in every single case where these powers are used the Judges' Rules will be observed. Following the experience of the past 12 months, we ought now to put them into the statute, rather than merely having a repetition of the undertakings given in the debate just over 12 months ago.
  9.30 p.m.
  Mr. George Cunningham: If it is convenient, I wish at this stage to speak to Amendment No. 36, which is grouped with Amendment No. 35.
  My amendment would secure in its first subsection that a person arrested under those provisions during what might be called the five-day extension period would have the right to inform a solicitor or have information sent to a solicitor of the fact of his arrest. Under the second subsection he would have the right to an interview with a solicitor, though I make the point that I do not propose a private interview necessarily. The third subsection, although I understand it is technically defective, is intended to remove a doubt which exists in Scottish law. The wording of the amendment is drawn from Section 19 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 and cannot therefore be said to be totally unprecedented on the British statute book.
  At the moment, the rights that a person in England and Wales enjoys for access to a solicitor are said to be defined in the so-called Judges' Rules, which are a complete dog's breakfast which should have been sorted out long ago and which should now be sorted out quickly. It might be said that because we are here talking about rights which all people arrested enjoy or ought to enjoy, this Bill is not the place to achieve a reform

  545
  in the situation. I think that it is, at least in regard to the five-day extension period.
  This Bill is the legislation which provides for the five-day extension. To be held without charge for seven days is very different from being held without charge for two days. The judges cannot be expected to get together to think up different rules, or even to apply the same rules to the five-day extension period. Either we do it, or it is not done at all. The argument that this is not the place to provide for access to a solicitor during the five-day extension period holds no water.
  For that reason, we have to look at the rights which the Judges' Rules give to a person arrested for this extended period of five days. First, the Judges' Rules really are a dog's breakfast. They are in three different bits—the so-called principles, followed by the so-called rules, followed by the so-called administrative directions.
  If they are not adhered to, there is no comeback for the victim of that, except in one case. If, as a result of not adhering to the rules, he has made a statement not in a voluntary manner, that statement will be held to be inadmissible in court. But there are all sorts of other ways in which the rules can be ignored without there being any comeback either as regards admissibility or as regards bringing a prosecution against those responsible.
  To illustrate that I draw attention to Rules IV(a) and IV(d). Rule IV(a) provides that, where the police officer is taking a statement from a person, he has to start by asking whether the person making the statement wishes to write down himself what he wants to say. We see in Rule IV(d) that
  "Whenever a police officer writes the statement, he shall take down the exact words spoken by the person making the statement, without putting any questions other than such as may be needed to make the statement coherent, intelligible and relevant to the material matters: he shall not prompt him."
  I dare say that on occasions many of us have made statements to the police which should be governed by those provisions. On neither of the two occasions that I have made statements to the police has either of those rules been adhered to. Most police officers engaged in taking
  546
  statements at police stations would be surprised to find that they are supposed first to invite the person making the statement to do the writing down himself. That is just an illustration of the way in which the rules are ignored and of the way in which when they are ignored there is absolutely nothing one can do about it.
  It is said that the rules are only a guide and therefore any mandatory words which they appear to contain within them are mandatory only as a guide, which is a contradiction in terms. Let us see what the rules say specifically about access to solicitors. The relevant bits are Principle (c) and Administrative Direction 7(a), the first paragraph. The second paragraph does not have a letter. If we examine those two provisions we see that the judges do not seem to make a better job of writing legislation when they do it themselves than they sometimes say we do when we draft legislation. I point out that Principle (c) contains the loophole that one does not need to give access to a solicitor in cases where
  "no unreasonable delay or hindrance is caused to the processes of investigation".
  However, when we consider the first paragraph of Administrative Direction 7(a) the phrase is different. It says:
  "where no hindrance is reasonably likely to be caused".
  There is no reference to delay. It is hindrance without delay.
  It is the normal practice, if different wording is used, to assume that someone means something different. If anyone is to adhere to that rule of drafting then presumably their illustrious lordships of the Queen's Bench should have done so. However, they have not done so. That is just one illustration of the type of mess we can get into when we stray from the path of putting legislation through the House of Commons with the rigorous procedures that apply here, and more particularly upstairs.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) referred to some cases where people had been held without being given the opportunity to inform their relatives or a solicitor. As I understand the Judges' Rules—I think it is perfectly clear—that is contrary to the rules and there is no loophole in this

  547
  respect. If we turn to Administrative Direction 7(a), and the second unlettered paragraph it says,
  "He"—
  that is the person in custody—
  "should be supplied on request with writing materials and his letters should be sent by post or otherwise with the least possible delay. Additionally, telegrams should be sent at once, at his own expense."
  There is no loophole there about interfering with the judicial or investigation processes. Therefore, any prisoner who is denied the right to send a telegram at once, at his own expense, is being treated in a way which is fundamentally contrary to one bit, at least, of the Judges' Rules.
  I ask the Minister who winds up the debate to say whether I am right in my interpretation of the second unlettered paragraph of Administrative Direction 7(a) and whether any people in England have been denied the right to send such a telegram. Is the Minister prepared to take steps to ensure that that unqualified provision in the Judges' Rules is vigorously adhered to in future? We should never tolerate, whatever the circumstances, Nacht und Nebel in this country. When people can disappear into a police station, be held without a charge and without even the capacity to tell somebody else, it is something reminiscent of Nacht und Nebel and the Hitlerian principles of the 1930s.
  Ministers of both parties always say that the Judges' Rules are best kept out of statute. What I cannot understand is why, if it is desirable to keep the right of access to a solicitor out of statute in England, it is in statute in Scotland.
  Mr. Mikardo: Because the Scots are more sensible.
  Mr. Cunningham: I know that. But why are all the terrible disadvantages which are said to be likely to accrue if this terrible thing is done in England apparently not accruing in Scotland?
  I have been in touch with the Lord Advocate about the situation in Scotland and the exact meaning of Section 19 of the Criminal Procedures (Scotland) Act 1975. That section dates back to 1887 at least and perhaps before that. It says clearly in statute:
  548

  (1) Where any person has been arrested on any criminal charge, such person shall be entitled immediately upon such arrest to have intimation sent to a solicitor that his professional assistance is required by such person, and informing him of the place to which such person is to be taken for examination.

  (2) Such solicitor shall be entitled to have a private interview with the person accused before he is examined on declaration".

  and so on.
  I understand from the Lord Advocate's letter that there is some doubt as to whether the words in that section
  "arrested on any criminal charge"
  would exclude people arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act. Some people arrested under that Act would certainly be entitled to those rights, but there is a doubt about others. However, as I understand it, the preferred view of the Scottish legal luminaries is that they all would be entitled to access to a solicitor under the Scottish Act.
  Whatever the view of their legal entitlement, I understand from the Lord Advocate that, as a matter of fact, anyone arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in Scotland gets access to a solicitor from the very beginning. In his letter to me the Lord Advocate refers to the number of people arrested in the Strathclyde area, where nearly all the Scottish applications under this legislation have occurred, and says:
  "The police are willing to extend the right of access to a solicitor to all persons arrested and detained under Section 7 of the 1974 Act".
  even if a court were to rule that there was some doubt about the legal, mandatory nature of the provision.
  So if this is happening in Scotland without any terrible consequences which have been reported to us, why on earth can it not happen in England, too? The answer quite simply is habit—bad habit—and the sooner we get it changed, so that English practice comes into line with Scottish, and the sooner we get this dog's breakfast called the Judges' Rules sorted out by the House of Commons, whose responsibility it is to do it and which has been ignoring its responsibility for too long, the better.
  I shall be prepared to vote for one of these amendments just to get something on to the statute book, knowing that it probably will be defective in some way, but in the belief that it will be an

  549
  encouragement to the Government if something is forced on to the statute book, rather than leaving the situation as it is and hoping for the best, as we have done for so many years.
  Mr. Mikardo: I draw one clear conclusion from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham)—if, at any time, I have reason to believe that I might be in danger of arrest under this Bill, I shall immediately take a train to Edinburgh and get myself arrested there. In the administration of the previous Act, as in many other things, it seems that the standards of civilised behaviour are higher in the north than in the south of this island. The three amendments that we are discussing, with slight differences, seek the same objective—to give certain rights to someone who is arrested under this legislation or who has been arrested and has had his period of detention extended—notably the right of access and communication.
  9.45 p.m.
  I do not mind which amendment my right hon. Friend accepts. I would be happy to forgo my own in favour of that of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury. I would be happy, and I am sure that my hon. Friend would be happy, to forgo both of them in favour of that in the name of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). But certainly one of them must be accepted.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) spoke of the horror of a chap being picked up and taken with his wife to a police station while a policewoman was left to look after the children. What a traumatic experience that must have been for the mother and children. But is it worse than the case of a man who was picked up and refused the right to make a telephone call or to make any communication at all? He was kept in custody for seven days and then released. In these seven days his wife did not have a clue where he was. She did not know whether he had been arrested, had an accident and was in hospital, had an accident at work, been kidnapped, had run off with a blonde or fallen down a pothole. I can document this case, if what I say should be contested. How would hon. Members like their
  550
  wives subjected to that ordeal? It is not very pleasant.
  This sort of uncivilised, barbaric behaviour is not essential for the prevention of terrorism. I do not believe that terrorism is better prevented by denying a man in prison the right to let his wife know where he is, or stopping him from contacting a solicitor for advice about his position. I do not believe that that is the right way. It is a myth that is being built up to make life easy for those who are doing the detaining, rather than to increase the effectiveness of the prevention of terrorism or punishment for that and other crimes.
  My example is not an isolated case. A reputable firm of solicitors has told me in a statement that it has handled a dozen cases under the previous Act and in none was the person concerned allowed contact with the outside.
  It will not do. If my right hon. Friend does not accept one of the three amendments I hope that the House will register a strong protest.
  Mr. Beith: The eloquence of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) has saved me the necessity of developing the argument in favour of my amendment. I share all the views he expressed about his amendment. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing out that my constituents at least are more favourably placed than those of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo). Being on the border, they can benefit from the enlightened legal provision on the other side if they wish.
  I should have been aware that the amendment was unnecessary for Scotland, because of existing statutory provision. I have long believed that there is a need to place the Judges' Rules in statute form, though not the present Judges' Rules, which have been described as a dog's breakfast and need to be improved. We should start somewhere, and this is not a bad place to start.
  A more important argument is that we are dealing with a far longer period of detention. The rules might have to have some modification for that purpose. The objective is the same—the protection of certain basic rights and liberties—but the nature of the exercise is different if

  551
  someone is detained for seven days. I could accept the Governments arguments that the rules as they are included in the amendment could be improved upon, but I think that they need to be there.
  All that I need to do in giving support to the amendments is to apologise for the drafting of my amendment before the Home Secretary has a chance to attack it. Amendment No. 47 does not refer correctly to the point in the Bill where it should properly be placed, whereas the other amendments do, and there are points in the schedule that should have been omitted and other points that should have been included.
  I hope that the Secretary of State will recognise the widely held feeling that the Judges' Rules are necessary in our statute book in any case, and particularly so when detaining people.
  The Lord Advocate (Mr. Ronald King Murray): I should point out to the hon. Gentleman that his suggested amendment in relation to the schedule is also defective in regard to Scotland. It would be quite inappropriate for Scotland.
  Mr. Beith: I readily accept that correction. My ignorance of these matters has already been demonstrated this evening. If the Home Secretary wishes to intervene in the debate, he may make the same point.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: I recognise that among those who have spoken and who represent some differing points of view there has been widespread concern about the position. However, one must also recognise that there is a certain danger here. I make no objection to all these points being taken and argued very fully. It is the duty of hon. Members who believe, as I do, in protecting civil liberties, to take up these points. However, we are slightly in danger of getting away from the reality of what terrorism is and our discussions of the Bill. This has happened in the last hour or so.
  The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said that his constituents were lucky in that they were near to Scotland. They are also lucky in not having had terrorist attacks made upon them.
  We must keep certain facts in mind. The position with which we were dealing
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  only two months ago should be remembered. There were then terrorist attacks about twice a week on a major scale in London, and there have been others. I regret to say that we could easily go back to that position in the near future. I must ask the House to keep that in mind.
  First, it may be helpful to inform the House that chief officers of police, following the coming into effect of the first Act, have been specifically reminded that the normal safeguards for people in custody apply to persons who are detained under the prevention of terrorism legislation, and that includes the provisions of the Judges' Rules. It may well be that the Judges' Rules are fairly defective in some ways—a dog's breakfast, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) described them. I am not sure that that would be the most powerful argument for writing them in statutory form into this legislation.
  Secondly, I do not think that it would be right. There are quite powerful arguments on both sides about whether the Judges' Rules—no doubt brought up to date and looked at afresh—should be given statutory form. I would not take a firm view of principle against that at all. It may well be right to do that. However, it would not be right to put the Judges' Rules—dog's breakfast or not—in statutory form so far as terrorists were concerned and to leave the rules in non-statutory form so far as every other type of criminal was concerned.
  Mr. George Cunningham: I am surprised that my right hon. Friend refers to people who are held for the five days as terrorists. That should not be allowed to pass. If they were terrorists, different considerations would apply. We are talking of people who may or may not be terrorists, and they are entitled to the full protection of the law as being innocent until they are proved otherwise.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: They are not subject to exclusion under the Act until they are proved in a court of law to be terrorists. There is no presumption of guilt here more than that anywhere else. However, the desire of the House and the overwhelming desire of the country is that we should give what protection we can against terrorist activities. That means before the act and not after the act.

  553
  People who are held under this Act are held under the suspicion that they are terrorists. That suspicion may or may not be right, but they are picked up because it is thought that they are likely to have been concerned in acts of terrorism.
  Let us not get into the position of thinking that fears about groups of terrorists operating in this country are figments of people's fevered imagination. Sometimes one almost feels that some hon. Members talk as if that were the case. There is no doubt that there are substantial numbers of dedicated terrorists who are willing to do the most desperate damage to people in the perverted pursuit of what they regard as the right course.
  Mr. Beith: Who is denying that?
  Mr. Jenkins: Some hon. Members sometimes talk as though we are dealing with the most innocent of people.
  Mr. Mikardo: This is not an answer.
  Mr. Jenkins: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to proceed.
  I respect the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury and his knowledge of these matters. He follows these matters very closely—indeed, so closely that following his advice we took an hour and a half in introducing one of his clauses this afternoon, something which we did not originally intend to do. My hon. Friend took exception to my use of the word "terrorist". Perhaps it would be more accurate to describe them as suspected terrorists. However, we are dealing with people who are suspected of coming together to commit acts of terrorism. I do not think it right when dealing specifically with terrorism to put the Judges' Rules in statutory form in a way that does not apply more generally. I am willing to consider whether It is a reasonable proposition that the Judges' Rules should at some stage be put in statutory form, but if that is done it should he done generally.
  I agree that the Judges' Rules are not completely clear. I accept that in some instances they are somewhat contradictory. I recognise that there may be good reasons in some cases for refusing to allow a person being interviewed to
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  communicate with someone outside the police station, but in my view that power should be used sparingly. I am bound to tell the House that there may be some circumstances in which the use of that power in the Judges' Rules may be justified if it is used sparingly, even if the provision is somewhat ambiguous. I think that that view would be taken by the majority of the House, were it present, in relation to terrorist activities.
  It is fairly well known to the House that terrorists operate in fairly small groups. They do not operate singly but in what are sometimes known as active service units. If a member of such a unit is picked up it is not possible to be certain as to his guilt. It is necessary to engage in processes which take a little time to complete—for example, fingerprint comparison with prints that have been found in bomb factories or on bombs placed or exploded. That must be done to discover whether the person who has been picked up has had that sort of involvement. If such a person is picked up it is of the utmost importance to public safety that that action should lead to the police being able to arrest other members of the unit, which may number four, five or six. It is also of the utmost importance to discover, if possible, the store or factory which provides the unit with the material which enables it to do its job. It is a fact that if a man is immediately picked up and is allowed to send a signal announcing the fact, the chances of being able to proceed further in the near future are greatly reduced. That applies whether the signal goes to his family or, in certain cases, to his solicitor.
  Mr. Beith: The right hon. Gentleman should not assume that those who are concerned about certain aspects of this matter do not fully share his fears about the existence of groups of terrorists. I intervene briefly to draw attention to the presence in the Judges' Rules—
  It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at this day's sitting, the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Bill and the National Coal Board (Finance) Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. John Ellis.]

PREVENTION OF TERRORISM (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
Mr. Beith: I was about to draw attention to the presence in the Judges' Rules of the words
"providing that no hindrance is reasonably likely to be caused to the processes of investigation, or the administration of justice by his doing so."
I grant that it might be possible to improve on that wording in a specific context. The exercise is not quite the same, but that qualification is there.
Mr. Jenkins: I do not wish to impute any difference in the dislike of terrorism to different hon. Members.
Mr. Mikardo: My right hon. Friend did.
Mr. Jenkins: With respect, I did not. It is no use my hon. Friend muttering. I have to bear a greater responsibility for the consequences of these acts than he does. I do not wish to be drawn any further into this controversy. I accept everybody's motives. We want to strike as reasonable a balance as we can between preventing acts of terrorism and preserving civil liberties.
I have been asked about the practical issues with which I have to deal. I have just outlined an extremely practical issue of the kind with which I have to deal.
I am not sure that the interpretation of the Judges' Rules by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury is right—that in all circumstances people have to be notified immediately.
Mr. George Cunningham: Yes.
Mr. Jenkins: He suggested that they did. However, I am sure that there would be a substantial body of opinion in the House to the effect that the Judges' Rules should be modified so far as they applied to terrorist activities.
I am confronted with a number of conflicting arguments. My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) does not think much of the Judges' Rules. The hon. Member for
556
Berwick-upon-Tweed wishes to write them into the law. The strongest point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury who asked whether it could be right to go on after the 48 hours without ensuring as a matter of adminstrative practice that people were allowed to communicate before introducing the five-day period.
Mr. George Cunningham: Seven days.
Mr. Jenkins: Before moving into the five-day period there is the 48-hour period, which makes up the seven days. It might be possible to look into that matter.
For the reasons I have given—first, that the attention of chief officers has been drawn to the fact that the rules apply here as much as elsewhere; secondly, that it would not be right to put the rules in statutory form, even if they were appropriate to be put in a statutory form here or anywhere else; and, thirdly, that there are certain practical problems—I cannot advise the House to accept any of the amendments.
Mr. George Cunningham: My right hon. Friend has not addressed himself to the point which I thought the most compelling. How can it be right in Scotland and not have these terrible consequences there if it is not right and has terrible consequences in England? No one starting from scratch could explain bringing forward one situation for Scotland and another for England.
Secondly, will my right hon. Friend undertake to communicate to the House somehow whether my understanding of the unqualified effect of Administrative Direction 7(a) is correct, and, if so, to say what he proposes to do about it? We cannot tolerate a situation in which the rules are categorical and yet are being constantly breached.
Mr. Jenkins: My initial impression in relation to the Judges' Rules is that there may be some contradiction, and there is certainly a division of opinion as expressed in this debate. Therefore, I think that we should examine the situation and see what follows.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate will deal with the legal position in Scotland. I wish to point out

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to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, who spoke of dreadful consequences, that Scotland has not suffered any bombings.
The Lord Advocate: Let me deal with the part of Amendment No. 36 that is intended to apply to Scotland.
I can best approach the matter by pointing out that the amendment is defective in two respects in its application to Scotland. The first defect is that it refers only to the rights of an arrested person under Section 19 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975. It should also refer to rights conferred by Section 305 relating to provisions similar to those in Section 19 in the case of a person arrested on a summary charge.
The second defect goes to the heart of the matter and could not be so readily cured. This part of the amendment commences with the words:
"For the removal of doubt …"
There is no doubt to be removed. A person who is arrested under the provisions of the Bill could undoubtedly rely on Section 19 or Section 305 of the 1975 Act. The only doubt is as to the precise ambit of the rights conferred in various situations covered by Clause 9. That is the doubt to which my reply to the letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) was directed. As I pointed out in that letter, even that doubt is largely theoretical. In practice there is no doubt.
Perhaps the best evidence on that point can be adduced from the Second Report
of the Thomson Committee on Criminal Procedure in Scotland, which was published towards the end of last year in Command 6218. Page 24 of the Report, at the beginning of the chapter dealing with the rights of persons in police custody, refers to the Scottish practice as follows:
"It is the practice of the police to contact a solicitor if an arrestee so desires."
In those circumstances my hon. Friend may be willing to accept my assurance that this part of his amendment, in so far as it is not defective, is unnecessary.
In support of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, I must point out that the position in Scotland is simply the standard procedure for arrested persons. The situation which my right hon. Friend adumbrated for England is standard procedure for a person arrested in England. The procedure which I have just outlined for Scotland gives the arrestee under this Bill no higher right than any other arrestee already enjoys.
Mr. James Dempsey: Is any action taken to notify the next-of-kin of a person apprehended by the police?
The Lord Advocate: That is a wider question and the answer depends on various circumstances. If my hon. Friend will write to me setting out the details, I shall be glad to reply to him.
Question put. That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 35, Noes 109.

Division No. 45.]

AYES

[10.09 p.m.

Beith, A. J.

Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

Rooker, J. W.

Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Bidwell, Sydney

Lamond, James

Skinner, Dennis

Canavan, Dennis

Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

Litterick, Tom

Steel, David (Roxburgh)

Corbett, Robin

Madden, Max

Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

Cryer, Bob

Mikardo, Ian

Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

Newens, Stanley

Wigley, Dafydd

Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

Noble, Mike

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Flannery, Martin

Pardoe, John

Freud, Clement

Parry, Robert

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Grimond, Rt Hon J.

Penhaligon, David

Mr. Stan Thorne and

Hooson, Emlyn

Rodgers, George (Chorley)

Mr. Ron Thomas.

NOES

Alison, Michael

Bates, Alf

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Archer, Peter

Biggs-Davison, John

Brown, Hugh D. (Proven)

Armstrong, Ernest

Bishop, E. S.

Buchan, Norman

Ashton, Joe

Blenkinsop, Arthur

Buchanan, Richard

Bain, Mrs Margaret

Bradford, Rev Robert

Carson, John

Cartwright, John

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

Judd, Frank

Ross, William (Londonderry)

Crawshaw, Richard

Kilfedder, James

Rowlands, Ted

Crouch, David

Lawrence, Ivan

Shepherd, Colin

Deakins, Eric

Le Marchant, Spencer

Sims, Roger

Dempsey, James

Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

Skeet, T. H. H.

Doig, Peter

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Small, William

Dormand, J. D.

McCartney, Hugh

Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

McCusker, H.

Spriggs, Leslie

Dunn, James A.

McElhone, Frank

Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

Eadie, Alex

McGuire, Michael (Ince)

Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

Mackenzie, Gregor

Stradling Thomas, J.

Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

Mackintosh, John P.

Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

Mahon, Simon

Tinn, James

Evans, John (Newton)

Marks, Kenneth

Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

Walker, Ter y (Kingswood)

Fernyhough, Rt Hn E.

Millan, Bruce

Ward, Michael

Fookes, Miss Janet

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

Watt, Hamish

Golding, John

Molyneaux, James

Welsh, Andrew

Gourlay, Harry

Monro, Hector

White, Frank R. (Bury)

Graham, Ted

Moyle, Roland

Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

Grist, Ian

Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

Whitlock, William

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Oakes, Gordon

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

Harper, Joseph

Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

Winterton, Nicholas

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Park, George

Woodall, Alec

Henderson, Douglas

Peart, Rt Hon Fred

Woof, Robert

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Hunter, Adam

Rathbone, Tim

Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

James, David

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

Mr. Laurie Pavitt and

Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)

Reid, George

Mr. David Stoddart.

John, Brynmor

Rifkind, Malcolm

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 10

CONTROL OF ENTRY AND PROCEDURE FOR REMOVAL

Amendment made: No. 38, in page 7, line 12 after '8', insert

'or (information about acts of terrorism)'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Mr. Biggs-Davison: I beg to move Amendment No. 40, in page 7, line 17, at end insert:
'(2) For the purpose of facilitating the examination of persons arriving in Great Britain from Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland or arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain or the Republic of Ireland in accordance with subsection (1)(a) above, and for facilitating the control of entry of persons into Great Britain or Northern Ireland no person shall be admitted to Great Britain or Northern Ireland without production of a valid passport or such other document of identification as the Secretary of State shall provide for citizens of the United Kingdom'.
In it we propose nothing which would seriously inconvenience the law-abiding. Still less would it threaten the freedom of the individual, which so greatly depends on the defeat of terrorism. Indeed, it would contribute towards that. In Committee we were told that police opinion was adverse to what we suggest. I am not the only hon. Member who had heard otherwise from police and military officers closer to the struggle than anyone in this House.
I much regret the absence in hospital of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates). He has seen service with the Army in Ulster, he has personal and practical knowledge of security measures and he has advocated a particular design of identity card which he considers to be reasonably forgery proof. I have it in my possession. We are not tied to any particular form. That suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend looks a little like a credit card. On it are embossed the name and status of the holder, together with a reference number. That reference number might be the same as the person's national insurance number. The card would include a photograph and fingerprints. Fingerprints are not liked. I do not like the idea, but it is a small price to pay for even one innocent life.
In Committee my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mr. Gilmour) said:
"The fingerprint does not produce any undesirable Police State implications."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A. 16th December 1975; c. 118.]
The reason for that is that the only edition of the fingerprint need be that placed
562
on the card, and the only person in proper possession of it would be the person whom it identifies.
I do not know what the Home Secretary will say, but he may again tell us that our scheme would be expensive and non-productive. The right hon. Gentleman said in Committee:
"the amount of expense which would be involved in the universal issue of identity cards would be significant, but it is a degree of expense which I should be prepared to countenance—and, I believe, the Government would, if it would lead to the extirpation of terrorism."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 16th December 1975; c. 131.]
As the Home Secretary recognised in Committee, the amendment encompasses not the universal issue of identity cards but the issue of documents for travellers. One can argue for identity cards for everyone, and I have argued that case, but the amendment is strictly concerned with checks upon movement. As for expense, it would be for consideration whether a small fee would be levied for the issue of a document.
The Home Secretary maintained in Committee that police checks should appear to be haphazard, selective and unpredictable, but perhaps he attached too much importance to the wording, of the amendment, which is as follows:
"no person shall be admitted to Great Britain or Northern Ireland without production of a valid passport or such other document of identification as the Secretary of State shall provide for citizens of the United Kingdom".
We are not insisting in that wording that officials should be obliged to inspect the travel document of every person passing through the check, so perhaps the amendment could be better worded.
Immigration officers are already making checks by inspecting, for example, driving licences. In Northern Ireland a driving licence bears the holder's photograph. Sometimes less satisfactory documents than driving licences are produced before immigration officers.
The Home Secretary laid before Parliament in November a Statutory Instrument under the previous Act—The Prevention of Terrorism (Supplemental Temporary Provisions) Order 1974, which

563
came into operation on 30th November. Article 5 of that order is as follows:
"It shall be the duty of any person examined under Article 4"—
that is, persons examined when arriving in or leaving Great Britain—
"to furnish to the person carrying out the examination all such information in his possession as that person may require for the purpose of his functions under that Article."
Article 2 is as follows:
"A person on his examination under Article 4 by an examining officer shall, if so required by the examining officer … produce either a valid passport with photograph or some other document satisfactorily establishing his identity and nationality or citizenship;"
I do not think that the Home Secretary can be so far away from our amendment, or at least its purpose.
We have heard few objections from Northern Ireland to the sort of system we are advocating. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) pointed this out in Committee. Formerly, there were objections to proposals to differentiate between Ulster people and other United Kingdom citizens. This amendment does not do that. Persons entering the United Kingdom by sea, air or land would have to show on authorised demand this or other identity documents.
This brings me to the position of Irish citizens, which raises important questions between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the Irish Republic. The effect of the British Nationality Act 1948, the Ireland Act 1949 and the Immigration Act 1971 is to exempt from immigration control citizens of countries within the Common Travel Area embracing the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the Irish Republic. That exemption has already been qualified in the Prevention of Terrorism legislation. The Secretary of State has taken the power to exclude Irish citizens and to examine travellers between the Irish Republic and Great Britain. The carrying out of what we ask would require discussion with Dublin, but I cannot believe that an Irish Government so determined to suppress terrorism would show themselves unreasonable or unconstructive.
We cannot afford to neglect any instrument for the apprehension of terrorists and the protection of human life and
564
property, and although the Home Secretary may say "No" today, he may say "Yes" a little later. I beg him not to close his mind but to consider what could be done in another place.
Mr. Powell: It has been recently shown by the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition that it is a perilous enterprise In this House for anyone not a Scot to quote Burns, yet I am emboldened to attempt the same enterprise and to say,
"For a'that, for a'that,
It's coming yet, for a'that."
and although tonight perhaps the Home Secretary—I hope not—will repeat the objections he raised in Committee to this proposal, it is a proposal which sooner or later, and better sooner than later, will be found to be indispensable.
The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) pointed out how narrow, though still important, is the difference between the law as it stands under the regulations made under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the law as this amendment would leave it if it were accepted. There is at present a power to require the production of documents of identification for the purpose of this legislation, but the manner in which that power is exercised is at present unsatisfactory, and the unsatisfactory nature of this exercise is something which calls in question the seriousness of the implementation of the Act and, indeed, has wider implications by calling in question the seriousness of the Government in maintaining the status of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom.
Many hon. Members—those on this Bench and some hon. Members opposite, although those on the Treasury Bench commonly travel by different and less harassing methods—are familiar with what actually happens when travellers enter and leave Great Britain from or for Northern Ireland. I am not just saying that the procedure is haphazard in the sense that the special branch police who are in charge do not know what they are doing, but it is indeed a remarkable procedure. My method is to raise my hat, and that is sufficient to secure my admission or exit, as the case may be. I believe that that is perfectly lawful, for I have satisfied those responsible—it would be difficult not to—of my identity.

565
10.30 p.m.
But behind and in front of me there stretches a queue of people—women with children, business men, and so on—fumbling in their handbags and brief cases—no, the business men will not have their brief cases with them at this stage; they have to wait another 30 minutes or so to get them back—in their wallets for a bit of paper by which they can perfunctorily—and it is necessarily perfunctory—satisfy the examining officer of their identity.
Others carry their passports, and show them as they would if entering Heathrow on return from the Continent. Others show driving licences, which, if they are issued in Great Britain, contain no form of identification other than their signature.
It is a totally haphazard procedure, and I simply cannot believe that it conduces to the efficient performance of the tasks laid upon the examining officers, or to the fulfilment of the law as it has been made by the right hon. Gentleman.
Those of us interested in this matter have studied many times what the right hon. Gentleman said in Committee. In Committee he said that
"the police have an almost universal view … in believing that the introduction of a compulsory system by which they would not be permitted to admit anyone without such documentation, and would therefore have a responsibility for doing a universal check, so far from helping them would be a considerable disadvantage."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 16th December, 1975; col. 132.]
Try as I may, I must say for myself that I cannot understand the argument. Is it alleged that, if it were a requirement that those entering or leaving were to carry passports, or another form of specified identification, the examination of those entering or leaving would need to be more exhaustive or more time-consuming, or that there would be less opportunity for the police to concentrate—as of course they should—upon doubtful cases, without wasting time where they were instantaneously satisfied? After all, there is no substantial difference here from the control upon entry to the United Kingdom from elsewhere outside the Common Travel Area.
We all know that the immigration officers, the Home Office staff at the
566
point of entry, are highly skilled and concentrate their time and attention upon the necessary cases, waving through, upon the production of a passport, which takes only a few seconds, those whom they have no reason to spend more time in examining. I cannot see but that the same reasoning applies as between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in present circumstances.
Indeed, if the right hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that it is the haphazard nature of the operation, the fact that there is no obligation to carry a specific document of identity, which enables the police to perform their tasks successfully, then it would appear to follow that we should have more chance of preventing international criminals and other undesirables from entering the United Kingdom if we were to abolish the requirement of carrying a passport to come into the United Kingdom from outside the Common Travel Area.
I have been very careful, and most considerate, in the examples and cases I have given, in making no reference whatsoever to a subject which must be a painful one for the Home Secretary's mind to dwell upon, and to which, therefore, I have deliberately made no reference, feeling that the reference to entry from outside the Common Travel Area is fully sufficient for my purposes.
I believe that it is necessary for the Home Secretary to face the requirement of rendering the enforcement of the law under this Act and the regulations made under it much more regular than it is at present and for it to be seen to be regular and a requirement by all those concerned. If he has a case for saying that to do so would involve an undue and unnecessary expenditure of police and other manpower, he must explain far more convincingly than he has yet succeeded in doing how that arises.
My arguments are directed wholly to the ambit of the Bill. However, it would be absurd to deny that there is a connection between the apparent determination of the Government to avoid disturbing the Common Travel Area for the purposes of the Bill and the much larger question of the determination of successive Governments to keep up the fiction that there is some essential difference in the distinction between United King-

567
dom citizens and citizens of the Irish Republic and the distinction between United Kingdom citizens and citizens of the other countries of the European Economic Community. I shall not dwell upon that point, but it is one which goes to the very heart of the political background to the terrorist activities in Northern Ireland which are the underlying reason for the Bill.
Therefore, although the ambit of the debate is narrow, its implications are very large. I join with the hon. Member for Epping Forest in assuring the Home Secretary that the question of control upon travel between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom is one which will not go away, will not lie down, and will not rest in its present unsatisfactory form. It may be brushed aside once again this evening and in the passing of the Bill, but it will return and sooner or later it will have to be dealt with and acknowledged openly for what it is—the control of movement between two independent and mutually foreign States.
Mr. Roy Jenkins: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) for the way in which he moved this important amendment because it raises questions of considerable importance. It is desirable that even at the end of a fairly long series of debates we should deal with it seriously, but I do not think that that necessarily means dealing with it at length.
There is no difference of principle between the hon. Member for Epping Forest and myself on this matter. However, there is a certain difference between the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and myself because in the concluding part of his remarks he indicated that he rather wanted for its own sake the erection of travel barriers between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom. That is not my view. I would embrace them in the same way as I would embrace travel controls between the Six Counties and the United Kingdom if I thought that they would make a significant difference to our battle against terrorism. However, the right hon. Gentleman took the matter somewhat wider, as I think he recognised, and raised the point that it was desirable in principle to break the Common Travel Area. That, I think, goes wider than the point
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made by the hon. Member for Epping Forest. Between the hon. Member and myself there is no difference in principle. We would embrace such measures if we thought that they would help in the battle against terrorism. No one should take up a dogmatic position—I would not accuse the hon. Member of so doing—on this matter.
We have argued this matter at some length. We probably debated it for an hour and a half in Committee, and some of the arguments will be familiar to most hon. Members present now. At the end of the day, I said that, although I was satisfied that the police did not think that such new controls would be helpful, I would consult them again and report to the House at this stage. This I have done, formally and in writing. I have consulted the Commissioner of Police and the relevant committee of the Association of Chief Officers of Police. They remain firmly of the opinion that, subject to one small matter with which I will deal later, no new powers or documents are required, and that this suggestion would, in their view, make no useful contribution to the task of controlling the movement of terrorists across the Irish Sea.
I do not believe that it would be right to impose, against the advice of the police, a requirement for which they see no need. The decision for this must, of course, be one upon which Ministers should advise the House and it must be for the House to decide whether to take that advice. I would certainly not wish to promulgate the doctrine, in which I do not believe, that the police should make law. But it seems to me that it would be foolish for the Government to go against police advice in a matter of this sort, which essentially concerns the best use of manpower to detect terrorists.
I do not know whether I can move any way towards convincing the right hon. Member for Down, South. In Committee, he put, as he often does, a pretty acute point, which he rather repeated tonight, when he asked why, if what I was advocating was right, the existence of passports for travel outside the Common Travel Area did not impede the detection of international crime. I was aware that in endeavouring to deal with that argument in Committee I did not absolutely convince myself that I had dealt with all aspects of it and therefore thought it

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unlikely that I had succeeded totally in convincing everybody else. Therefore, I tried not only to get the advice of the police as to what they thought should happen but also in the interval to apply myself to exactly this point and to see, if it were invalid, why it was invalid.
I believe that it is so for this reason: we apply immigration control to entry from countries outside the Common Travel Area. We do not apply immigration control within the Common Travel Area. The right hon. Gentleman may think that we should, but we do not do so. Therefore, the supervision of travel within the Common Travel Area, or within the United Kingdom for that matter—within the two separate parts of the United Kingdom—is a matter for the police and the police only, whereas in the case of people coming in from areas outside the Common Travel Area, that is primarily a matter for immigration officers, with the police able, as it were, to move freely and selectively, and, on top of the work of the immigration officers, to do their work of crime control or terrorist control as a supplementary, selective process.
On the other hand, if there were an absolute requirement that people could not enter the United Kingdom without a passport or some other document, without a great deployment or redeployment of manpower that we do not have or cannot spare it would be necessary for the police themselves, who are the only people there concerned, to do this universal check.
That is the difference. That is the reason why the police are not only sceptical but a little more than sceptical about the value of this provision. They not only say that they do not want it: there is a hint that they think that it would be positively deleterious.
They believe that a control which is designed to identify terrorists should concentrate principally on examining and assessing the travellers themselves rather than relying entirely on the documents they carry. Although it may seem paradoxical, they see certain positive advantages in there being a variety of documents, which enable them in certain cases to engage in conversations with travellers as to why they are carrying particular documents. This may lead to some more useful information than going through
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the routine passport check as is done in other cases. That is the essential difference.
10.45 p.m.
Mr. James Molyneaux: We all appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's desire to keep separate the police procedures and the procedures carried out by immigration officials. In that case, why is it thought desirable to use at certain airports in the London area immigration cards to be completed by travellers from Northern Ireland?
Mr. Jenkins: A variety of methods is used, but they are not subject to the normal checks through immigration officials. There is a difference in the relationship of the police and immigration officials to movement, whether between Northern Ireland and Great Britain or between the Republic and Great Britain.
I do not want to be dogmatic about this. I do not think there is any chance of my changing my mind, because the advice I get will not change between now and the remaining stages of the Bill in another place. I do not share the right hon. Gentleman's view that this will necessarily come. I very much hope that it will not. I hope that we shall move into a position in which the need for it will appear much less attractive to some people than at present.
I agreed to meet the right hon. Gentleman on the point about reciprocity, having been persuaded by his argument. If I believed that full passport control would make a significant contribution to defeating terorrism without having a number of disadvantages, I would be prepared to set aside all those considerations and to introduce it. However, I am not prepared to introduce it as a gesture to demonstrate toughness when those in positions of responsibility advise me that it would not help.
I hope that the Opposition will place considerable weight on the advice I have been given and will think carefully about going against it. That advice could change. If it did I would take careful notice of it.
I have fully discharged the undertaking which I gave in Committee that I would consult fully and thoroughly again. I consulted the Commissioner and the Association of Chief Police Officers,

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representing provincial forces throughout the country.
There is one matter on which the police do want controls over entry to be tightened. They are anxious about the possibility of potential terrorists entering Great Britain in light aircraft which may not land at airports where passengers may be examined. At present there are requirements which apply to aircraft carrying fare-paying passengers but not to private planes which may carry one or two passengers other than for reward.
We wish to have the power to require, if necessary, any aircraft to land at airports where crew and passengers may be examined. No new provision for this is required in the Bill. The necessary requirements can be made by Order when the Bill becomes law. I will discuss the detailed arrangements with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade. As the new requirements are bound to cause a marginal measure of inconvenience and expense to those operating the aircraft, it is right to tell the House of the proposals. My disposition is to strengthen the Order to plug this possible loophole as far as possible.
I hope that hon. Members, bearing in mind that we can make ongoing judgments about the matter, will not divide the House. It would be unfortunate if, against professional advice, we gave the impression that there was some protection that we could give if only we were not stubborn. It is not a question of being stubborn. It is a question of acting on the best professional advice—not infallible, but to be given a great deal of weight. If that advice changes, I shall reconsider the matter.
Mr. Lawrence: I had hoped to catch your eye before the Home Secretary rose, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall be brief, because some of my intended remarks may now be superflous, but I should say something as I contributed to the debate on the matter in Committee.
The right hon. Gentleman says that there is no difference in principle between him and the Opposition. He does not think that the difficulties surrounding identity cards or problems of cost would stand in the way of what is proposed. He bases his refusal to accept our amendment
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on the argument that the best professional advice from police officers is against it.
I shall not vote against the right hon. Gentleman now, but I urge him to keep the matter in the forefront of his mind, so that if he or the police change their mind we need not wait another year before the amendment is implemented. There may be differences of opinion about whether it would limit the number of terrorists coming into the country, but if the people feel that the Government and Parliament are doing everything possible to deter terrorism the whole climate will be much better than it may be at times now.
We are not starting from scratch and expecting that there may be some terrorism in the future, not yet having had any, and seeing no reason to introduce legislation which is costly in money or manpower. In present circumstances, with no identity cards, terrorists are not being prevented from entering the country. There was more terrorism here last year than in the year before. Something more must be done, or we run the risk of recurrent bouts of terrorism caused by terrorists coming from the other side of the Irish Channel, slipping through our protective barriers.
I appreciate that the essence of the police objection is that they may not have enough manpower to cope. That is not a sufficient reason for not preparing ourselves to take this action when we can build up the manpower. If cost is not a reason, and identity cards are not a reason, we must do something about manpower. If it means a reallocation of resources so that we attract more people into the police force or the immigration control force over the next 12 months, so that they are properly manned, we must do it.
Mr. Roy Jenkins: The hon. Gentleman never seems to move along with the argument. I answered this point in Committee. The job is one of the most skilled that the police have to do. People with great knowledge and considerable experience are needed to do this Special Branch work. The recruitment of an extra 5,000 people into the police would make no difference, within the period we are discussing, to the ability of the police to do this skilled job effectively. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will occasionally take the point.
Mr. Lawrence: I do take the Home Secretary's point, but it does not impress me, and it will not impress most of the public.
Mr. Jenkins: Why does it not impress the hon. Gentleman?
Mr. Lawrence: It does not impress me because over a period of time people can be trained to look at identity cards to see whether they are in order or are not in order. It does not require a vast amount of police training or the greatest amount of experience and wisdom in order to do that. Immigration officers exist who do not have necessarily the degree of training that police officers have. I am not saying that we can do this tomorrow. This is a plea to start manpower recruitment and training to the degree required so that perhaps at some time in the future, if it is necessary, we shall be able to do this. The Home Secretary said that there is an advantage, of which the police have informed him, of conversations which can take place but which might not take place if there were identity cards and, of course, that is a very understandable point of view. But we do not know whether that way we are tracking down more people than we would be tracking down if there were identity cards.
The fact of the matter is that the terrorists are getting into this country. Therefore, I ask the Home Secretary to bear this matter very much in mind as he has borne very much in mind the attitude of the police on previous occasions. One has only to recall the objection to proscribing the IRA 12 months ago. The Home Secretary was telling the House then, or if not him then his predecessor in office, that the police had said that proscribing the IRA would make their job more difficult. In due course the pressure of public opinion, as reflected in this House, brought about the proscribing of the IRA in the Bill this time last year.
Twelve months have gone by, and we have had the experience of it. The Home Secretary has not said that this experience has been a failure. I only draw his attention to this to say—with the greatest of respect in the world for the police—that the police view of two years ago is not necessarily the police view today. I ask him to bear that matter very much in mind.
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I do not wish to take up any more of the time of the House but I think that these matters are very important and worthy of the gravest consideration. While I give all credit to the Home Secretary, all I am asking is that he will keep these matters in mind. I hope that I can urge upon him the acceptance of the view that manpower resources in the experience or wisdom of the police, are matters which could be taken into account in the coming months so that, if necessary, identity cards can be introduced.
11.0 p.m.
Mr. Whitelaw: First, I should like to get one small point out of the way. The Home Secretary referred to it. There will be a general welcome for the arrangement as far as light aircraft are concerned. This is believed to be a loophole which should be dealt with, and I would strongly support the arrangement.
As the House knows, I come rather fresh to this argument in its current context of this Bill, if not in the least fresh to it in another guise or role.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) made a very powerful case when moving the amendment. He made it clear that it was none of our purpose in putting forward this proposal that it should be just a gesture. If that were the case I would agree entirely with the Home Secretary. A gesture in this regard would be totally valueless, and I can think of no reason for suggesting it. But that is not the problem.
I must say, in parenthesis, to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that I did not, as he will appreciate, have the experience of the sort of travel that he undertakes in Northern Ireland. I travelled around by a rather different means. I am glad that I did not travel by his means, because I never wear a hat if I can possibly avoid it.
I believe that we have to think very carefully, if the police view is that this provision would not help, whether this House would be entitled to press forward at this stage with this proposal. The Home Secretary has made it clear that the police would not favour it. Indeed, he went as far as to say that in some cases they might regard it as possibly harmful to their efforts.

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Here I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) that the methods employed by the Special Branch are highly sophisticated and are not matters which we normally discuss in the House, nor indeed should we. This matter is not something that can be easily brushed aside as though one could recruit a few people tomorrow and hope that thereafter they would be powerful people in the prosecution of terrorists. It does not work that way.
We must realise that the members of the Special Branch have a very special role and that the way in which the police act in this matter must be something of which they are the best judges. That is where I find the Home Secretary's arguments persuasive.
Nevertheless, I hope that the Home Secretary and the police will constantly look at this matter. If at any time it is felt that it would be helpful to have this provision, I hope that the Home Secretary will not hesitate to come back to the House and say so. There is a widespread feeling in the country that this would help. The Home Secretary has told us that the people who actually operate in this matter and on whom we rely in dealing with terrorism feel that it would not help. Very well. I still hope that if at any time they felt that it would help they would not hesitate to say so. If the mood or the idea changes, it should certainly be brought forward. Whether the right hon. Member for Down, South was right in saying that it was bound to come is a point on which I would not speculate tonight—certainly not at this hour of the night.
As for tonight, I think that it would be reasonable not to vote on the amendment, simply because the people who would have to operate the whole arrangement do not feel that it would help them, and they are the people on whom we should rely. In the circumstances I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will agree that it would be right not to press the amendment.
I shall say nothing further because I see that another hon. Member wishes to speak in the debate and I do not wish to preclude him.
Mr. James Kilfedder: There is a real need for officials, and
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especially members of the Special Branch in Great Britain, who are responsible for interviewing and questioning at points of disembarkation, to do that with proper consideration for the ordinary traveller. The Home Secretary, in replying to what was said by the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), emphasised that members of the Special Branch were people who were very skilled police officers. I should like to give him and the House some examples of just what some of the Special Branch do at these points of disembarkation in Great Britain.
I take up what the Home Secretary said about producing some evidence which would be of interest to the police and might lead to some conversations between the police and the person being interviewed. One of my constituents happens to be the president of a respected professional organisation in the United Kingdom. For his year of office he has a gold medal. He carries it on his person because it is very valuable. When he was searched at a check-point by the Securicor men they wanted to know what it was all about. He was eventually allowed through, but then he was stopped by the Special Branch and asked about the gold medal and about those who were members of this professional organisation. Is that the sort of skill to which the Home Secretary refers? I do not think so. There have been many such cases, and the people of Northern Ireland are tired of being treated as if they come from a leper colony when they enter another part of the United Kingdom, a country of which they are citizens.
I give another example which concerns an incident which occurred only recently. It is right to bring this matter to the notice of the Home Secretary as he is placing such importance on the way in which the Special Branch in Great Britain carries out its duties at the airports and at Liverpool and other ports. Recently three of my constituents were interrogated by a member of the Special Branch. Again, I do not have his name. In this instance the officer refused to give it. As he was in plain clothes it was not possible to get his number. In front of a queue of people at Liverpool dock who were waiting for their baggage to be checked before boarding the boat for Belfast, a Special Branch officer asked a

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young man who was with his father and another young person whether he hated the police. Is that a question which a skilled police officer should put to anyone? I think that it was meant to trap. I think that it was totally wrong of the officer to put such a question to the young man.
My constituent was then told that he was the spokesman for the gang, that he was speaking for his father and the other young man who was employed by the father. Apparently the officer expected him to be the leader of a gang. Is that the language to use to an ordinary traveller, to a young man who has never been in trouble in his life? The officer went on to say that no doubt my constituent had forged his identity papers and that his driving licence was stolen. Is that the way in which a skilled Special Branch officer is supposed to operate?
I happen to know that that incident took place only recently. The officer was not satisfied with the monstrous assertions he had made. He went on to address my constituent with the prefix "terrorist", suggesting that he was a member of the IRA, the UVF and the UDA—all of them. This exchange took place in public—namely, in front of the people who were having their baggage checked.
There then followed the interrogation. There was question after question. One of the questions involved the officer asking my constituent whether he had ever been in trouble with the police before. That indicates the nature of the interrogation. It seems to have been a fishing expedition and not the sort of interrogation that has been contemplated by the House.
It is all very well the Home Secretary feeling pained about having to introduce this legislation, but it would appear to be the pain of the gourmet forcing himself to swallow another oyster. We should remember that this legislation is being enforced by men who do not all have the standards that we expect.
The Special Branch officer emphasised that he was a police officer and that he could take my constituent back to the nick in Liverpool and hold him there for seven days. That is the power that we have given him and his colleagues to exercise responsibly, but I fear that it is
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used all too often by Special Branch officers in Great Britain to annoy—perhaps not deliberately—and frustrate those who are travelling from Northern Ireland to this part of the United Kingdom about their everyday business.
The officer's excuse for the conduct I have described was that he was protecting England. This legislation was introduced immediately after the Birmingham atrocity and the Under-Secretary of State has referred to the seeking out of people who carry out terrorist activity, in that part of the United Kingdom. That is the purpose of this legislation. The provision is aimed at protecting one part of the United Kingdom, but surely it should exist to protect the whole of the United Kingdom against terrorists.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and other hon. Members are right to demand that the situation should be placed on a proper and regular basis. I wish to protest at the way in which people from Northern Ireland are being treated. They will not accept the situation without making their own protests. Therefore, I hope that the Home Secretary will ensure that Special Branch officers and members of Securicor will behave with respect to members of the public. It must be remembered that those personnel are there to protect citizens and to facilitate travel between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
Mr. Fitt: I had not intended to speak on this amendment, but I wish to reinforce the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell).
I do not intend to deal in great detail with the objections raised by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I wish to underline the fact that there is cause for complaint against the activities of Special Branch officers at ports.
I know personally many Special Branch officers in London and they are always very courteous and helpful. I do not wish to condemn any Special Branch officer because I appreciate that they undertake a difficult job. However, I wish to put before the House the story of what happened to a constituent of the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder). That man and two of his friends arrived in London on Tuesday of last week, intending to return home on Thursday evening by way of the Liverpool boat to

579
Belfast. They were stopped by Special Branch officers and brought in for questioning. If necessary, I will give the constituent's name to the Home Secretary, and I am sure the hon. Member for Down, North knows him. The person concerned is a professional man who owns four chemist shops in Northern Ireland, a foremost member of the pharmaceutical profession. I repeat that that man was arrested by the Special Branch and brought in for questioning, and with his friends was kept in custody until Sunday.
On arriving home from Westminster on Friday evening, I received a telephone call and consequently made inquiries seeking to obtain the man's release. What annoyed and angered me was that when I telephoned a civil servant who I thought would be able to help, he said "It is a difficult time of the week. It is Friday evening and the staff concerned will not be back until Monday morning." I did not regard that as a valid excuse. The three men concerned—men who have never been involved in terrorist activity—were expected to await the arrival of staff on the Monday morning.
I persisted in my inquiries and contacted the RUC in Northern Ireland. The RUC within a very short space of time, efficiently and effectively, checked the bona fides of the three men and relayed that information to the Special Branch in Liverpool. The result was that the three men were cleared of suspicion but had to remain in custody until Sunday morning. They then discovered that there was no boat to get them home on Sunday evening. They are married men and obviously their wives and children were very concerned.
Surely if such a procedure is to exist, it should be properly staffed so that all the relevant inquiries may be made. People should not have to depend on a skeleton force before identities can be checked. Therefore, the present situation should be examined by the Home Secretary.
11.15 p.m.
On the larger issue—I say this against the IRA as a terrorist organisation—most people who have been engaged in acts of terrorism in Britain have not come immediately from either Belfast or the Republic. I realise that that happened with the Price sisters and others, but
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many who have been engaged in acts of terrorism have been resident in this country for many years. They were not imported from either the Republic or Northern Ireland into Great Britain. That is why the legislation is much too drastic and would affect and inconvenience many innocent people.
Mr. Kilfedder: In case there is any doubt about what I said earlier, I should like to point out that my criticism was against not the RUC but some Special Branch men operating in Great Britain. The hon. Gentleman has illustrated how proficient and able the RUC is.
Amendment negatived.

Clause 11

  SUPPLEMENTAL PROVISIONS
  Amendments made: No. 45, in page 8, line 14, at end insert:
  '(3A) When any question arises under this Act whether or not a person is exempted from the provisions of section 4, (orders excluding persons from Northern Ireland) or 5 of this Act, it shall lie on the person asserting it to prove that he is.'.
  No. 46, in page 8, line 16, after '10', insert:
  'and sections (orders excluding persons from Northern Ireland), (contributions towards acts of terrorism) and (information about acts of terrorism)'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Clause 14

  DURATION, EXPIRY AND REVIVAL OF ACT
  Mr. Mikardo: I beg to move Amendment No. 50, in page 9, line 17, leave out subsection (1) and insert:
  "(1) This Act shall expire six months after the date of its coming into force unless continued for a further period of not more than six months by an Order under this section.".
  Although I am only now moving this amendment, there have already been a number of powerful and cogent speeches made in favour of it during the hours which have passed since four o'clock this afternoon. As might be expected, one of the most cogent, powerful and weighty speeches was made by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
  Throughout the day hon. Members have repeatedly said, "We must have this legislation, but we hate it. Bearing in mind that we hate it, we have made

  581
  it temporary." On an earlier amendment I suggested that the matter under discussion was a test of the sincerity of these protestations. This is an even sharper test. If hon. Members hate the legislation and put up with it only because it is temporary, they should make it as temporary as is reasonably possible.
  How temporary is temporary? The French have a saying c'est seuletnent le provisoire qui dure—it is only the temporary which goes on. That happens in too many walks of life.
  If we—not least my right hon. Friend—believe what we have been saying—that we are striving to hold a balance between security and civil liberty and to ensure that there shall not be arbitrary power in the hands of the Executive—we should be willing to require the Executive, when we give them these extraordinary and unpleasant powers, to come back and ask for the renewal of their mandate, and to do so frequently. We ought not to create a situation in which the Bill can continue without a renewal of the mandate for a longer period than its precedessor.
  If at the end of six months it is found that the Bill is necessary, that it is working properly and is beneficial in operation, my right hon. Friend will have no difficulty in getting this House to renew his mandate. This House is a reasonable place. It acts along the lines of practicality almost all the time. However, the danger of these powers being used arbitrarily increases the longer they can be used without being accounted for. The essence of the rights of the citizen is the public accountability of the Executive for the way in which it uses the powers given by Parliament.
  If the Home Secretary means all that he has said today, he cannot possibly resist the amendment. If he does so, then, without any disrespect to my right hon. Friend, we shall find room for doubt about whether he regards this sort of legislation, with its blanket powers, as objectionable as he claims.
  Mr. Beith: A Liberal amendment is linked with that which is under discussion. It is not as far reaching, but it includes a six-month review. The Home Secretary said an hour or so ago that he was anxious that the powers in the Bill should be as temporary as possible, and
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  I think that that is the general view in the House. However, it is not generally understood outside, and I have had many representations from people concerned about civil liberties who increasingly believe that there is some intent to have permanent legislation. I have sought to reassure them, because I do not believe that this is the intention of the House or of the Home Secretary. I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman is entirely true to himself. But when he says that he wishes the legislation to be temporary and to be seen to be temporary, I have to tell him that it is not so seen outside this House.
  I do not expect the problem of terrorism to go away within six months. If anything, I am less optimistic than the Home Secretary about how long we shall be faced with this problem. I believe that we shall have problems of terrorism, small or large, for very many years. Some may not be associated with Northern Ireland and will not come within the ambit of this Bill. Even if we are successful beyond our wildest dreams in achieving a political settlement in Northern Ireland that is calculated to reduce terrorism, the settlement will be against the interests of some people and they might well use violent means in an attempt to destroy it.
  The basis of this legislation is that it involves temporary provisions which are seen, at this moment, as being helpful to the authorities in dealing with terrorism as it manifests itself now. The nature of the proposals, the way in which they have been conceived and described as temporary during detailed discussion of their features, all bear out the fact that they would need to be re-assessed if terrorism continued for some time. However, the character of terrorism may change and other temporary provisions may be necessary. The nature of the legislation is impermanent so the procedure by which the House enacts it should make sure that it is temporary.
  There are clear advantages in a six-month review. The last Bill was subject to a renewal order after six months and another after 12 months. At that stage, the Home Secretary made it clear that he would be seeking new legislation, which is what we are discussing now. One of the advantages of a six-month

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  review which might not have been apparent at that time is that we can draw attention to shortcomings in an Act's operation and point out features which ought to be amended after 12 months. The desirability of renewal can be challenged and hon. Members can point out shortcomings in areas where amendments are needed—even though they may not be sufficient justification for refusing renewal.
  It might be supposed that this is unnecessary because after 12 months these matters could be drawn to the attention of the Home Secretary. But the pressure of business in this place is such that when legislation has to be reconsidered within a limited period, things such as I am referring to are not forgotten but are left on one side until it is almost too late to deal with them properly at a later stage.
  The Home Secretary should not underestimate the advantages of a six-month review. I hope that he will therefore be sympathetic to the amendments.
  Dr. Summerskill: The amendments would make the temporary provisions subject to renewal at least every six months rather than every 12 months as provided by the Bill. Under the 1974 Act the maximum renewal period is six
  months, but that period is extended to 12 months by the Bill because the Bill offers the opportunity to consider in detail the form which temporary provisions legislation of this kind should take. The extensive consideration to which this Bill has been subjected was not possible with the 1974 legislation, which was passed in a state of gross emergency. The House has considered this Bill throughout all its stages in far more detail than was possible with the 1974 Act.
  It would be rash to predict for how long temporary provisions of this kind will be necessary. Recent events have shown that it is unlikely that we shall be able to let the powers lapse in the very near future. The provisions are temporary, but as the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, the problem of terrorism may not be so temporary. A renewal period of up to 12 months is therefore considered appropriate.
  We hope that when the Bill is enacted it will be thought safe to operate 12-monthly renewal. The flexibility to renew the provisions for periods of less than 12 months is retained.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 31, Noes 105.

  Division No. 46.]

  AYES

  [11.28 p.m.

  Beith, A. J.

  Lamond, James

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Litterick, Tom

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Canavan, Dennis

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Madden, Max

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  Cryer, Bob

  Newens, Stanley

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Noble, Mike

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  Parry, Robert

  Flannery, Martin

  Penhaligon, David

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Mr. Ian Mikado and

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Mr. Robin Corbett.

  Kilfedder, James

  Skinner, Dennis

  NOES

  Alison, Michael

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Graham, Ted

  Archer, Peter

  Deakins, Eric

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Dempsey, James

  Henderson, Douglas

  Ashton, Joe

  Doig, Peter

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Dormand, J. D.

  Hunter, Adam

  Bates, Alf

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Dunn, James A.

  James, David

  Bishop, E. S.

  Eadie, Alex

  Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Judd, Frank

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Carson, John

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Le Merchant, Spencer

  Cartwright, John

  Eyre, Reginald

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Fernyhough, Rt Hn E.

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Cocks. Michael (Bristol S)

  George, Bruce

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Crawsha, Richard

  Golding, John

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Tinn, James

  McCusker, H.

  Reid, George

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  McElhone, Frank

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Ward, Michael

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Watt, Hamish

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Welsh, Andrew

  Mahon, Simon

  Rowlands, Ted

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Shepherd, Colin

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Small, William

  Whitlock, William

  Millan, Bruce

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itches)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Molyneaux, James

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Woodall, Alec

  Monro, Hector

  Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

  Woof, Robert

  Moyle, Roland

  Stoddart, David

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Oakes, Gordon

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.

  Park, George

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Mr. James Hamilton and

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Mr. Joseph Harper.

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Rathbone, Tim

  Tierney, Sydney

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Amendment proposed: No. 49, in page 9, line 17, leave out from 'The' to end of line 21 and insert:
  'provisions of—
  sections 1 to 10 and sections (orders excluding persons from Northern Ireland), (contributions towards acts of terrorism) and (information about acts of terrorism) of this Act,
  section 11 of this Act except in so far as it relates to orders under subsection (2)(a) or (b) below,
  subsection (2)(c) below, and,
  Schedules 1 to 3 to this Act'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): With this we shall take Government Amendments Nos. 52, 53 and 54. We shall also take the following Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham):
  No. 57, in page 9, line 36, at end insert:
  '(3) This Act, and any order made under this section for the continuance in force or revival of any of its provisions, shall cease to have effect four years after the passing of this Act'.
  We shall also take sub-amendment (a) to Amendment No. 57, standing in the name of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo), leave out 'four' and insert 'two'
  Mr. George Cunningham: I thank the Government for taking account in their amendment of the substance of the points I made in Committee, but I think they have lost some of the advantage of the particular way of doing it which I have proposed in Amendment No. 57.
  First, it will mean that even if there is a need to retain these special powers for year after year after year, by the Government's method of dealing with it
  586
  we shall never have to have further legislation. If, for example, we need to have this kind of provision for a period of five or ten years, by the way in which the Government have done this job there will never be any need for the Government to come back to the House and to ask it to provide further legislation. It will always be possible to extend the powers merely by order. By my amendment, on the other hand, after four years—that figure could have been changed and extended if necessary—it would be necessary for the House, in legislative form—in Standing Committee and so on—to go through the subject again.
  I accept that we do not want to have to legislate again every year on this subject. Some of my hon. Friends may object to that statement, but to legislate every year in present circumstances is quite unnecessary. I also think that, if Draconian powers of this nature—and everyone agrees that they are Draconian—are to remain in force for many years, every few years the House ought to go through its legislative process, and not only the renewal process which is provided by the Government's way of doing it.
  Even now, I ask the Government to reconsider that point in the remaining stages of the Bill in the other place, and if the Government are not minded to do it, I would ask the Members of the other place to give it very serious consideration.
  I accept that my amendment is defective, in that if the present Bill were allowed to lapse in toto, without exception, automatically the 1974 Act would again come into force, and it would have

  587
  been necessary, therefore, to correct my amendment in order to save Clause 15 of the Bill, so that we did not automatically revive the previous Act in allowing the present one to lapse. But, subject to that change only, my method of doing it is a much more parliamentary one than that proposed by the Government, and I am sorry that they cannot agree to make that small change in the substantive move which they have agreed to make.
  Mr. Mikardo: The arguments just used by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) were powerful and convincing. They become, by the laws of algebra, twice as powerful and twice as convincing if the temporariness which my hon. Friend seeks, without recourse to the legislation, is made twice as temporary, that is to say, is halved in length. It is on those grounds that my hon. Friends and I have ventured to put down the sub-amendment to my hon. Friend's amendment.
  Dr. Summerskill: The Government's amendments are designed to ensure that the powers in the Bill could not be reactivated by order after a long period during which the Act lay dormant but remained on the statute book.
  We have looked carefully at the drafting of Clause 14, particularly in response to a point raised in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). He expressed concern that the drafting of the existing Clause 14 creates the possibility that any powers in the Act which were allowed to lapse could be reactivated at any time in the future—for instance, even after an interval of 50 years—for a period of not more than 12 months at a time, provided that the Act was still on the statute book.
  It can be argued that, if at some distant time in the future, powers of the kind conferred in the Bill are thought necessary, the correct way to proceed will be by a new Bill rather than by reactivation of the present Bill. We agree with this, but it is also essential to retain the flexibility to reactivate the powers fairly urgently if the need to do so arises. This is not only to ensure that prompt action can be taken if events require it but also to avoid the position in which,
  588
  although there was no immediate need for such powers, it was difficult to dispense with them because one could not be satisfied that there would be no further urgent need for them.
  The first of these amendments, therefore, includes in the list of temporary provisions which must be renewed, at least every 12 months, the reactivation power itself. Thus, while the flexibility of renewing each of the powers separately is retained, the House will be able to make a decision at least every 12 months on whether it is right to retain the power to reactivate the Bill in the future should any of its provisions be allowed to lapse.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendments made: No. 52, in page 9, line 24, leave out 'this section' and insert 'subsection (2)(a) below'.
  No. 53, in page 9, line 26, leave out
  'provisions of those sections and Schedules'
  and insert 'said provisions'.
  No. 54, in page 9, line 28, leave out 'section' and insert
  'paragraph or paragraph (c) below'—[Dr. Summerskill.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Does the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) wish to move formally Amendment No. 57?
  Mr. George Cunningham: No.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Then Amendment No. 57 falls.

Schedule 2

  EXCLUSION ORDERS
  Amendments made: No. 59, in page 11, line 10, after 'treated "insert—
  '(a) as ordinarily resident in Great Britain'.
  No. 60, in line 11, leave out from 'Act' to at 'in line 13 and insert
  'or
  (b) as ordinarily resident in Northern Ireland for the purpose of the exemption in section (orders excluding persons from Northern Ireland) (3)(a) of this Act'.
  No. 61, in line 18, leave out 'Great Britain' and insert 'the United Kingdom'.

  589
  No. 62, in line 19, leave out 'that exemption' and insert
  each of those exemptions'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]
  Dr. Summerskill: I beg to move Amendment No. 63, in page 12, line 1, leave out 'sub-paragraph' and insert 'paragraph 2'.
  This is a drafting amendment. The reference in paragraph 3 to sub-paragraph (c)(ii) in Schedule 2 should be a reference to paragraph 2(c)(ii) and the amendment so provides.
  Amendments agreed to.
  Amendment made: No. 64, in page 12 leave out lines 7 to 22.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

Schedule 3

  SUPPLEMENTAL PROVISIONS FOR SECTIONS 1 TO 10
  Amendments made: No. 68, in page 14, line 15, leave out 'or 8' and insert
  '8, (contributions towards acts of terrorism) or (information about acts of terrorism)'.
  No. 69, in line 16, after '8', insert
  '(contributions towards acts of terrorism) or (information about acts of terrorism)'.
  No. 70, in line 22, leave out or '8' and insert
  '8, (contribution towards acts of terrorism) or (information about acts of terrorism)'.
  No. 71, in page 16, line 15 at end add—
  'Scheduled offences
  8. Offences under sections 8, (contributions towards acts of terrorism) and (information about acts of terrorism) of this Act shall be scheduled offences for the purposes of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973; and accordingly in Part I of Schedule 4 to that Act there shall be inserted after the paragraph 13 inserted there by paragraph 7 of Schedule 2 to the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) (Amendment) Act 1975 the following paragraph:—
  "Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1976
  13A. Offences under the following provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1976—

  (a) section 8 (breach of exclusion orders);

  (b) section (contributions towards acts of terrorism) (contributions towards acts of terrorism);

  590

  (c) section (information about acts of terrorism) (information about acts of terrorism)."'.—[Dr. Summerskill.]

  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  11.47 p.m.
  Mr. Mikardo: I shall not at this hour detain the House long, but I am bound to say that quite a small number of hon. Members voted against the Bill on Second Reading. It would have taken only a minuscule concession on the part of the Government to the views which we then expressed to give us an excuse for not voting against the Bill on Third Reading. We should have been happy to find such an excuse.
  However, throughout the Committee stage and the Report stage there has not been a scintilla of a concession towards the views which I and my hon. Friends expressed during Second Reading and which led us to vote against the Bill. There was certainly not a concession during the Committee stage because, by a brilliant piece of legerdemain on the part of the Selection Committee, no hon. Member who voted against the Second Reading was put on to the Committee, so there was not likely to be much change there.
  Today we waited with an open mind to see whether there would be something—the smallest crust of bread—which would give us the opportunity to change our view. We have not had it.
  11.49 p.m.
  Mr. Alison: The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) has given the House the opportunity to have a short debate on Third Reading.
  I wonder whether the Minister would kindly turn her attention, if not necessarily now, between now and the transmission of the Bill to another place, to a point to which I drew the Home Secretary's attention informally earlier this evening. I am referring to the apparent contradiction between the earlier part of Clause 8, which makes it an offence for anyone served with an exclusion order to stay in the country or not to fulfil it, and the right apparently given to such a person under Clause 6 to delay for 96 hours. There seems to be a serious contradiction.

  591
  Clause 8 says,
  "If—
  (a) a person subject to an exclusion order fails to comply with the order at a time after he has been served with notice of the making of the order"
  it is an offence.
  However, Clause 6 makes it at the same time possible for him to stay here for 96 hours to fulfil certain opportunities for appeal.
  I have put the matter to the Home Secretary. I understand that he was to take advice about it. There seems to be some serious misdrafting. I do not expect the hon. Lady, unless she has received a note from her advisers, to answer the point now, but I hope that she will reassure us that the matter will be considered carefully between now and the passage in another place to ensure that at least there is not a contradiction.
  11.50 p.m.
  Mr. George Cunningham: There is one detailed consequence of the form in which we have amended the Bill today. When we passed new Clause 3, the one relating to the withholding of information about terrorist offences, the question arose whether it would apply in Northern Ireland. The Minister said that it would not. I ask hon. Members to ask themselves the question, who says so?
  The difference between clauses which apply in Northern Ireland and those which do not is defined in Clause 16(2):
  "Part I of this Act shall not extend to Northern Ireland."
  So the question whether new Clause 3 will apply or not in Northern Ireland will depend on whether or not it is put in Part I. But because it is a new clause and not an amendment to an existing clause, nowhere is booked for it, whether in Part I or anywhere else.
  I accept that those who cobble the thing together afterwards have plenty of evidence in the amendments which we have passed to show that the new clause
  should go outside Part I, but the House has not decided that. If anyone wanted to stop it applying to Northern Ireland, I do not know how he would procedurally go about it.
  This curious situation has arisen because of the way in which Clause 16(2) is drafted. Instead of specifying the clauses which will not apply to Northern Ireland, in which case an amendent could have been made to add a reference to the new clause, the draftsman has said that Part I shall not extend to Northern Ireland. I ask the Home Secretary to bring this point to the attention of parliamentary draftsmen so that they do not use that drafting technique in future. It prejudges a decision of the House which the House has not taken.
  11.52 p.m.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: I do not wish to detain the House for long, but it would be discourteous if I did not say that I will note carefully the point made by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) about Clause 8, which relates also to some extent to Clause 7. I will also take note of the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). Not only in fact but in effect, in my undertaking, we carried the principle of new Clause 3. We shall look not only at the other points which were raised but also at the question where it could best go into the Bill and whether the Lords would wish to change that.
  I think that our proceedings have made it worth while to re-legislate on this matter in somewhat less hurried circumstances than those of a year ago. I thank hon. Members and my hon. Friends for the constructive and good-tempered way in which the debate has been conducted almost throughout.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 118, Noes 11.

  Division No. 47.]

  AYES

  [11.53 p.m.

  Alison, Michael

  Bishop, E. S.

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Archer, Peter

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Ashton, Joe

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Cryer, Bob

  Bates, Alf

  Buchan, Norman

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Beith, A. J.

  Carson, John

  Deakins, Eric

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Cartwright, John

  Dempsey, James

  Doig, Peter

  McCartney, Hugh

  Rowlands, Ted

  Dormand, J. D.

  MacCormick, Iain

  Shepherd, Colin

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  McCusker, H.

  Small, William

  Dunn, James A.

  McElhone, Frank

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Eadie, Alex

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Madden, Max

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Mahon, Simon

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Eyre, Reginald

  Marks, Kenneth

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Fernyhough, Rt Hn E.

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  George, Bruce

  Millen, Bruce

  Tierney, Sydney

  Golding, John

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

  Tinn, James

  Graham, Ted

  Molyneaux, James

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Monro, Hector

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Harper, Joseph

  Moyle, Roland

  Ward, Michael

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Watt, Hamish

  Henderson, Douglas

  Newens, Stanley

  Welsh, Andrew

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Noble, Mike

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Hunter, Adam

  Park, George

  Whitlock, William

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Penhaligon, David

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Judd, Frank

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Woodall, Alec

  Kilfedder, James

  Reld, George

  Woof, Robert

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Lamond, James

  Rodgers, George (Cherley)

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Rooker, J. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Mr. David Stoddart and

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Mr. Laurie Pavitt.

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  NOES

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Litterick, Tom

  Canavan, Dennis

  Mikardo, Ian

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Parry, Robert

  Mr. Ron Thomas and

  Flannery, Martin

  Skinner, Dennis

  Mr. Stan Thorne.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time and passed.

NATIONAL COAL BOARD (FINANCE) BILL
Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): The new Clause in the name of the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Evans) is out of order.
12.3 a.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I should like to make sure that all the matters raised in the wide-ranging and valuable discussions in Committee on this Bill are cleared up.
I undertook to give further consideration to an amendment proposed by the hon. Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson) and his hon. Friends, inserting in Clause 2(4)(c), after "statement" the words
"reporting on the overall financial position of the Board".
594
I wrote to the hon. Gentleman on this matter and I would like merely to put on record why such an amendment is, in my view, superfluous.
I fully agree that it is only right that the House should be given all the information it needs for proper consideration of any order that may be laid to increase the Government's contribution to the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme. The state of the Board's finances at that time would naturally be an important part of such consideration. That is why the Bill specifically provides in Clause 2(4)(b) that the Secretary of State should review the
"overall financial position of the Board"
before laying a draft Order. Subsection (4)(c) further requires the Secretary of State to explain in the statement accompanying the Order the considerations which had led him to conclude that the Order should be made, including
"references to the result of his review"—
that is, the review of the overall financial position of the Board that has been carried out under subsection (4)(b).

595
It is quite clear, therefore, that the object desired by hon. Members will be achieved by the wording of the Bill as it stands. It was a source of encouragement to me to see hon. Members on both sides welcoming this Bill in Committee. I should like to remind hon. Members briefly of the purpose of the three clauses of the Bill.
Clause I increases the Board's borrowing powers. I explained in Committee the reason why progress with the plan for coal investment made this necessary. The coal industry examination only just over a year ago recommended 42 million tons of new capacity. The Board has already approved schemes which will provide for 12 million tons.
The Board's new deep-boring programme, now over two years old, is up to schedule and currently adding to workable reserves at a rate of 500 million tons a year or four times the current output. The fact that the Board has this much proven work ahead of it will justify its long-term investment. It is only right that new discoveries of coal are given as much publicity as important finds of other indigeneous energy resources such as oil and gas.
I will not dwell on the provisions of Clause 2 except to say that I think it has been generally agreed that in the present economic climate the contribution of £18 million a year towards the deficiency in the mineworkers' pension scheme is a handsome one and is another proof of the Government honouring their undertakings in the coal industry examination.
Clause 3 provides a sensible extension of power to assist the National Coal Board with stocks. It was said in Committee that the right place for the CEGB coal stocks was as close as possible to its own boilers. This is the sensible stocking strategy that this clause encourages. By keeping the stocks moving away from the pit head, double handling is avoided and miners have the encouragement of seeing the coal move to the main customers.
More eminent spokesmen than I have recently been talking of an end to recession. When this happens it is essential for the coal industry that it is not caught unprepared for increased demand.
596
We are anxious to establish market possibilities both at home and abroad. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has now arranged for 20th February the meeting of which he spoke in the Second Reading debate—that is a meeting where the Electricity Council, the CEGB, the NCB and the unions of both industries can discuss the relationship of coal production and demand to electricity generation.
12.9 a.m.
Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for giving the assurance he promised in Committee as far as Clause 2 is concerned, when we explained the problem of reporting the overall financial position of the pension fund.
I would also like to congratulate him and, indeed, the NCB on the fact that the negotiations regarding the possible closure of the Langwith Colliery are still taking place and that the overtime ban has been postponed for further negotiations to take place.
The Under-Secretary pointed out that this was an important Bill. He is right. It is a short Bill but an important one. It is over six weeks since the Committee stage. While I do not wish to detain the House at this very late hour, I must mention the fact that a number of matters have arisen in that six-week period which are entirely germane to the Bill and the clauses that we discussed.
As recently as today we have had a Report from the Price Commission about the coal trade. Obviously this would not be a moment to discuss that in detail, but the Under-Secretary will recall that in that Report it was suggested, as reported in today's edition of the Financial Times, that
"The Commission also points out that the allocation system used by the National Coal Board at the time of that inquiry tended to discourage competition. In any new system of allocation, the needs of consumers and the effect on prices should be taken into account."
Perhaps the Under-Secretary will give us the Governments view on that Report, as Clause 3, as he pointed out, deals with stocks, and the very high level of stocks is to some extent determined by the falling consumption to which he referred. While the domestic market may be small, it is a significant market. Obviously one

597
would hope that the Board is able to sell competitively against other fuels in this market.
Another point which has arisen since the Committee stage concerns the leaks in the Press relating to what I think the Under-Secretary was telling us a moment ago—namely, the decisions which are being taken by the Government and the Board relating to oil substitution in power stations. In a reply to a Question earlier this week, the Under-Secretary told the House that the switch from oil to coal was continuing at a rapid pace. My hon. Friends and I do not quarrel with that at all. However, reports are circulating in the Press at present which lead us to believe that the NCB is to have total control over all import policy concerning the generating boards—that is, that it is intended to remove from the generating boards the powers which they now enjoy and which have led to contracts—long-term contracts in many cases—and to put that power into the hands of the NCB.
I want to ask the Under-Secretary a question which is entirely relevant to Clause 3. What effect will that have upon the long-term contracts which the generating boards have entered into, many of which will go far beyond this year? Is it the Government's intention now to direct the generating boards to burn some indigenous coal even though there may be contracts for importation which go on into the future? What action does the Under-Secretary intend to take about that? Again related to this point, there is also the rumour that the Government intend, by coal substitution for oil, to save about £250 million on the balance of payments. The Opposition would welcome such a plan. Indeed, in the reports which have been circulated individual power stations have been named. Will the Under-Secretary tell us whether these reports are fact?
It would be far better tonight when dealing with this important Bill, which we shall not see again, to be able to confirm to everyone present and those outside the House that these discussions are taking place and that the actions to which I have referred are in the Government's mind.
The Bill provides the industry with a borrowing limit of £1,400 million. I am
598
delighted to know that there are now 21 drilling rigs looking for new coal in Britain. That is only a dozen or so fewer than those looking for oil in the North Sea. I am delighted to think that major new discoveries of coal are being announced so frequently. We are now moving into an era unlike anything which most of those who have been in the House for 10 or 15 years have ever seen, an era in which we find coal being discovered in seams which are thick and easily worked. This will be a contribution to the economy every bit as important as anything that will ever be found in the North Sea.
However, I sound one note of caution. At the moment coal enjoys a 10 per cent. price advantage over oil, but during the recess, when I and some of my colleagues visited oil-producing countries in the Middle East as guests of OPEC, we saw in Kuwait the largest oilfield in the world. The Burgan oilfield has a potential as great as that of the whole of the North Sea put together—namely, about 6 million or 7 million barrels a day. That oil comes out of the ground at a cost of 28 cents a barrel. North Sea oil is coming out of the North Sea at approximately six dollars a barrel.
It is no secret that the National Union of Mineworkers and the coal industry as a whole keep a careful watch on the OPEC price, but what would worry me—and it should worry us all—is a situation in which the oil-producing cartel slashed its price. Such action would maroon on a rock the North Sea operations and the coal industry. When we consider investment and the other matters which we have discussed in detail in Committee it is essential to recognise that there is that risk. I welcome the suggestion to build a floor price under these investments, be they our oil in the North Sea or the coal industry. The fact is that the risk exists.
Against that risk we must always realise that coal offers us security of supply, strategic security and a great advantage as regards our balance of payments. I want, as do my right hon. and hon. Friends, to see a well-paid, thoroughly efficient and modern industry. It is only by having such an industry that we shall be able to provide the right career prospects for those in it and those joining it. It is only by achieving that

599
standard that we shall be able to recruit the sort of manpower that will be needed to exploit the resources to which I have referred.
We welcome the Bill if, as part of the continuing story of development, it provides a basis for a modern and efficient industry. We recognise that the coal industry will always have its critics, but we realise the problems which now face Britain and the nation's need to be as independent as possible of imported energy. We recognise that the Bill represents an important step, and for that reason we support it.
12.18 a.m.
Mr. Neil Kinnock: Any hon. Member who rises at this hour of the night must do so with hesitation. When that Member has been unable to contribute to the earlier stages of a Bill for various parliamentary reasons he approaches the task with temerity.
It is with temerity that I raise certain matters which I know will receive a great deal of sympathy from the Minister. I draw attention to the financial obligations which I think the Government should assume and which through them the National Coal Board should assume, obligations which have been widely discussed in earlier debates but for which, regrettably, there appears to be no acceptable provision in the Bill. I refer to compensation for sufferers from pneumoconiosis and silicosis and for the dependants—whether the sufferers are still alive or whether they had the great misfortune to die before 26th January 1970.
I do not wish to rehearse old arguments in discussing this Bill, but the matters which I am seeking to raise must be considered when we are dealing with mining communities and their representatives.
In 1973—one of the best ever years for the coal industry—there were 367 deaths—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sorry, but I have already referred to a new clause which has been ruled out of order because it does not relate to the Bill. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not try to introduce that subject on this Bill.
Mr. Kinnock: I shall relate my remarks entirely to the Bill, which relates to the financial obligations of the National Coal Board. I am seeking to use the pneumoconiosis statistics as an illustration of the shortcomings of the Bill.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must remind the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing what is in the Bill, not what is not in the Bill. We are now on Third Reading and we must confine ourselves to what is in this measure.
Mr. Kinnock: Obviously at this time of the morning I do not want to enter into a procedural wrangle about what is or is not in the Bill, but if we are to give it a Third Reading it has to be judged on its merits in terms of the provision made in the Board's finances, which have a direct link with the Title of the Bill. It is of great consequence that inadequate provision is being made in the respect of the matters with which I am seeking to deal. I hope that on that basis I shall be allowed to make a brief contribution to this Third Reading debate.
As I was saying, 1973 was a "good" year in terms of accidents but there were 367 deaths from pneumoconiosis—more than one a day. There were shortcomings in the provision made for those affected. Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Hamilton (Mr. Wilson) and Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)—as well as thousands of people connected with the coal industry—believe that there should be more generous provision and more attention paid to this problem.
Excluded from the present provision are those commuted cases who were blackmailed up to the late 1940s into accepting abysmally low sums as compensation for contracting the diseases. Those sums do not match the sums awarded under the tripartite agreement in 1974. A simple arithmetical calculation could be made to show the large difference in the sums paid to those many tragic cases and the sums paid under the 1974 agreement, and those sums subtracted from the amounts now paid and the residue paid to sufferers and their dependants, many of whom have spent years nursing close relatives through painful and tragic diseases.

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A further anomaly relates to the travesty of natural justice suffered by women who were unfortunate enough to become widowed before 26th January 1974 and who are treated differently from others. The warrant of indemnity that these women—and they are not simple women but politically sophisticated women—were asked to sign was an act of discrimination because it precluded them from any further claims. This was perpetrated on women who, having lost their loved ones, had just come through the valley of deepest tragedy. Much more attention should be paid to those cases to enable the qualifying period under the 1974 scheme to be shifted back to take in the period of qualification for compensation for pneumoconiosis.
Mr. Alexander Wilson: I hope that my hon. Friend realises that, on behalf of those who have commuted, we do not expect to receive any sympathy or practical help from the Opposition. As secretary of the miners group I have said before, and I repeat, that our Government will realise that we are serious. It is time that extra provision was made for the National Coal Board to do something about those commuted and other cases, particularly the pre-26th January 1970 widows. I emphasise that our opponents are not necessarily the Opposition. We are pleading and demanding justice for those people from our own Government.
Mr. Kinnock: My hon. Friend is right. The "pre-1970 widows," as they are becoming classified, are a tough group of ladies who will not be put off by the provisions in the 1974 agreement, the platitudes of lawyers or the sympathy of myself, my hon. Friends and the Government. In Wales and elsewhere—certainly in South Wales—they are forming themselves into a flint-tipped wedge of protest which will make a considerable difference to the way in which we consider the right to compensation under the 1974 agreement. But, not to get out of order—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. I understand since coming into the Chair that the hon. Gentleman is tending to stray rather wide of the Question. He is now suggestinc, how certain provisions should be altered. This is Third Reading. He must stick to what is in the Bill.
Mr. Kinnock: I want to dig myself back into order in the context of the Bill and to restrict my remarks to its financial provisions.
In Clause 2 justifiable provision is made for the extension of pension schemes. Many people who live in coal mining communities have an imagination and generosity which goes far beyond what they will receive week by week from the National Coal Board. Anyone with experience of a mining constituency or community knows this to be a self-evident truth. Consideration extends not only to the commuted claims and to those of the pre-1970 widows but to those who are excluded from the provisions because they worked in the industry for less than 10 years. They need the closest possible examination—particularly those who worked in the anthracite fields and contracted pneumoconiosis whilst working in the industry for a relatively short time. Many sufferers from bronchitis and emphysema, who are still working in the industry or who retired before these provisions were brought in, should, by any definition of justice or logic, be in receipt of the more advanced compensation which is available not only for working in the industry but for contracting a killing disease. I make an additional plea for those 10-year men, and we shall return to the demands of emphysemics and bronchitics.
I know there is a great deal of sympathy for these people, but it now boils down to a matter of cash. We ask for a major advance from the money already made available to the sufferers of the inevitable consequences of coal mining. Full and proper compensation should be paid to all sufferers—those who have the disease and those who have nursed them through it and lost normal marital relations, earning capacity and all other rights and privileges which comfortable people like us take for granted.
There are many other issues, including stockpiling, imports and pensions, which every hon. Member from a mining constituency would like to raise, but the burning issue in the industry since the 1974 agreement, especially in the South Wales valleys, is how we are to treat the people whose lives have been blighted by pneumoconiosis and silicosis, like my own family, in jobs they had to do because there was no other way they could earn

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a living. In the many coal mining homes and especially in widowed homes the Government will be judged on the way in which they treat the victims of the most treacherous and dangerous of industries.
12.31 a.m.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: I should like to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) in relation to the diseases he mentioned and to pay tribute to those who have worked and suffered in the coal industry. In dealing with the problem of the medical conditions these men have sustained, no Government can be too generous and I am disappointed that we have not been able to discuss the new clause that was ruled out of order.
Generally, I welcome the purposes of the Bill. I agree with what has been said about the price of coal, oil and other surces of energy being interlocked. The action of the OPEC countries in increasing the price of oil may have done much to give the coal industry a new lease of life. If the expenditure envisaged in the Bill is used to find new sources of coal, everybody will be pleased, regardless of where it is found.
I want to be brief because of the lateness of the hour. My party has always maintained that the coal industry in Scotland has a future, and we included a production target of 12 million tons in our election manifesto. The Under-Secretary recently made a speech in which he suggested that we had dropped that target. I can assure him that we have not.
Mr. Alexander Wilson: Does the hon. Member not realise that no Scottish colliery is economically viable? If his party achieves its aim of separation from the United Kingdom, how would the jobs in the Scottish coal industry be maintained?
Mr. Gordon Wilson: I hope to deal with these matters in my speech. If, as the hon. Member maintains, the Scottish industry is not viable—and I do not necessarily agree with him—then when cheaper sources of coal are found, for example at Selby, the NCB, on a British basis, would be under a great temptation to accept the hon. Member's con-
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tention and to rationalise the Scottish industry out of existence.
If one looks at the figures of how the Scottish industry has been dealt with over the years and the effect of NCB policies, one is shaken. In 1965, there were 48,000 wage earners in Scottish collieries. By June 1974, the number had fallen to 24,400.
Mr. Dennis Canavan: Would it not be fair also to compare the Scottish coal industry as it exists in the nationalised British context with the Scottish coal industry as it was under the capitalist coal owners? Would the hon. Gentleman care to give the comparable figures for wages, productivity and so on?
Mr. Gordon Wilson: It is not for me to justify what the capitalist coal owners did in the past. My party is opposed to what they did in many instances.
Mr. Alexander Wilson: No.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: Since these owners have disappeared, to be replaced by the National Coal Board, it is proper to consider the actions of the Board in reducing the work force in Scotland over that period. It may have done the same in other areas, but that does not mean that if the industry is run on a British basis it will automatically guarantee the jobs of Scottish miners.
Mr. Dennis Skinner Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) rose—
Mr. Gordon Wilson: This is the last time I shall give way.
Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the reduction in manpower for the Scottish coalfields where there was a fall from about 48,000 to about 24,000. The output per manshift for the Scottish fields, mainly due to geological conditions, has been much lower than in the North Derbyshire coalfield where I worked for 21 years. Under Lord Robens the NCB ravaged the manpower levels in the coalfields generally in the United Kingdom. However, thanks to the efforts of the National Union of Mineworkers, it did not savage the Scottish coalfields to the same extent that it savaged the profitable North Derbyshire field. There the reduction in manpower was from 38,000 to 12,500. In other words, in spite

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of the difference in productivity, Scotland did not fare as badly in this respect. That was because of the efforts of the miners in North Derbyshire, North Nottinghamshire and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. But for their action the Scottish coalfields might have been obliterated.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: I cannot understand the hon. Gentleman's point.
Mr. Joseph Ashton: We have subsidised Scotland.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: The NCB pulverised the North Derbyshire miners and it has done the same, to a lesser extent, to the Scottish miners. That shows that it is a vain hope to expect the NCB, on a British basis, to have a human heart.
The increasing oil prices have improved the outlook for coal in all parts of Britain. One of the primary purposes of the Bill concerns the stocking of coal. In 1972 in Scotland coal had about 35 per cent. of the energy market, oil had 50 per cent., natural gas 5 per cent. and nuclear-generated electricity 5 per cent.
The South of Scotland Electricity Board is jointly financed and planned with the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, even though they each maintain autonomous control. The SSEB's plans for extending nuclear generation lead to the assumption that if consumption does not rise—and it has in some instances fallen over the last year—the nuclear expansion could be at the expense of other fuels.
I do not think that anyone would object to oil, which is a relatively expensive form of energy, not being consumed in power stations. It is the worst possible use of oil. Therefore, oil consumption in power stations will be hit by the increased production of electricity by nuclear generation, particularly if consumption does not keep pace with the increased production. I fear that the market for coal, which I consider has to play an important role in the Scottish scene, would be hit.
If the coal-burning stations of the SSEB are eliminated in favour of nuclear generating stations, the stocking provisions in the Bill will be made valueless. Has the Minister given consideration to the impact of the SSEB's nuclear generating policies on the future of the coal
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industry? I know that there are negotiations currently on that matter.
I understand that there is a danger that the number of Scottish collieries might be reduced to about six or so hard-core pits during the next few years. There is a rumour—I ask for an assurance from the Minister that it is incorrect—that the Ayrshire pits will be taken out. According to reports, the Fallin pit in the constituency of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) is due for closure. I hope that the Minister will repudiate that rumour.
Has consideration been given by the National Coal Board in Scotland to the deposits of 70 million tons of high quality coking coal in Ayrshire? I understand that a shaft has been sunk, but the NCB does not wish to develop the seams because of the intended rundown of the steel industry.
Mr. Canavan: What is the source of these rumours?
Mr. Wilson: I am putting these questions to the Minister, and I hope that he will repudiate the reports. If he does, I am sure that the employees in the Fallin colliery will be delighted to hear what he says.
Mr. Canavan Mr. Canavan rose—
Mr. Wilson: I am dealing with high quality coking coal—
Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is customary in the House that when an hon. Member refers to another hon. Member and raises a matter concerning his constituency, as a matter of courtesy he gives way to the hon. Member who represents that constituency when he seeks to intervene. The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) refuses to give way. Surely that is a breach of etiquette, if not a breach of order.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) has made his point. It is a matter of opinion but not for the Chair. An hon. Member need not give way if he does not desire to do so. This is not a point of order.
Mr. Wilson: I am very grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for that ruling. I said earlier that it was not my intention

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to give way again. I was asking a series of questions directed to the Minister.
I ask the Minister to expand on the role he expects the Scottish Division of the NCB to play in investment in the search for the location of coal.
12.44 p.m.
Sir Paul Bryan: As a certain amount of the finance authorised by the Bill will be directly or indirectly used in developing Selby coalfield, I should like to use the occasion to get from the Under-Secretary of State a progress report on that project. It is the only project on which I should care to dilate in the presence of so many expert mining Members of Parliament.
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us when we can expect the results of the public inquiry? It met in early spring last year. I gave evidence in April. It seems to me that it should have reported by now. Since the inquiry ended, all information has dried up. In answer to questions from my constituents about the future of the area, we have been told, quite naturally, to await the outcome of the inquiry. That is not unreasonable, but it is worrying to a community waiting to hear about the considerable changes which are to take place there.
When the findings are published, I hope that the Government will be in a position to give the maximum information, for information is what we lack. I give notice of one or two questions which will be put to the Government as soon as the report is published. The Chief Executive of the Selby District Council today put this question to me:
"Will the Goverment set up a Joint Consultative Committee for the area of the new Selby Coalfield upon which would be represented the North Yorkshire County Council, the Selby District Council, and other bodies who have a direct interest in all aspects of this new development, in view of the good work done by similar bodies in other parts of the country following the construction of major projects such as power stations?"
I think that is an admirable idea. We need a focus for information, for ideas and for questions.
At the moment, no one knows whom to ask about anything. If it is about roads, it is the county council; if it is about housing, it is the district council; if it is about compensation, it is the
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NCB; if it is about flooding, it is the water board. Altogether, we are in a fairly confused situation there. When there is a special situation which concerns not just an ordinary mine but one which will dominate an entire area and add a tremendous population, special treatment is needed of the sort I have mentioned. I commend that idea to the Minister.
Another problem which still worries people very much, and will continue to do so, is housing. Up to 2,000 new houses will be needed to house miners and their families in the new coalfield. Some miners will buy their own houses but most of them will be renting them.
Mr. Canavan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is this relevant to Third Reading? Surely it is not.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps I might comment that the hon. Member for Howden (Sir P. Bryan) is getting a little wide of the substance of the Bill. I am sure that he will now bring himself back to the main theme.
Sir P. Bryan: I am doing so, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The reason I am bringing up the whole question of housing is that we fear that the Selby District Council, which is very small, will be required to finance this enormous housing effort, which is quite out of keeping with its size. We are saying that the project should be financed by the NCB. Whether it is or not, some special arrangement, such as that applied to a new town, simply must be made. It is not possible for the present ratepayers to pay for the burden of this vast new housing effort through the rates.
Mr. Alexander Wilson: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether the landlords and landowners in the Selby area are scared stiff that they will not get enough compensation when we start mining coal? Secondly, is the hon. Gentleman's party scared stiff that, when we start to develop Selby for the benefit of the British economy, with the introduction of miners and their wives into that area, there will be fewer Tory votes and more Labour votes?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair must ensure that we keep on the right rails. Probably "tramways" would be more appropriate in this case. The

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Bill is narrowly drawn. Hon. Members must not stray away from what is written into the Bill.
Sir P. Bryan: I shall leave the Under-Secretary to answer the point about compensation. He will no doubt tell us what has happened to the Government's committee which has been meeting for four years now to decide the basis of compensation. Naturally we are interested to hear its findings. I understand that they are due at any moment.
Finally, there is the question of subsidence and flooding at Selby. At this moment my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison), in whose constituency the Selby coalfield also lies, is waiting for a reply to a letter to the Under-Secretary regarding the recent flooding. This constitutes entirely new evidence on the danger of flooding, on a scale not seen since 1947. The question is whether the pillar which is at the moment to be under the cathedral, should be extended to cover the whole of the town, because of the flooding danger.
Mr. Alec Woodall: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the chief executive of the Selby District Council has received a reply from the chairman of the Yorkshire Water Authority as to the reason for the recent flooding?
Sir P. Bryan: A reply may or may not have been received. I have brought this up as a result of a conversation I had this morning with the chief executive, so I assume that he has not had a satisfactory reply.
That is all I have to say on this subject at the moment, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to deal with those points in his reply.
12.53 a.m.
Mr. Loan Evans: Those of us who are concerned with the coal pits in Scotland and in Wales realise what a great benefit the Selby coalfield will be to the finances of the National Coal Board. That is why it is utter nonsense for the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) to be talking, by implication, of a separate coal board for Scotland. I hope that colleagues from Wales will not think in terms of a separate coal board for Wales, because it is not wanted by the miners.
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A great development in Britain has been that, instead of the miners organising themselves on the basis of their area pits, they are now organised on an all-British basis. If there had not been public ownership of the coal industry, I doubt whether private enterprise would have kept one pit open in Wales today, especially when we know the geology of the mines. It is important, therefore, that we should organise this industry on an all-British basis.
There has been a transformation in the coal industry in the last two years, and we can look forward throughout Britain to a coal industry with greater harmony, security and prosperity in the years ahead, after the unhappy chapter of events that preceded the General Election in February 1974. This Government might not have been elected had it not been for the foolish way in which the Conservative Government tried to deal with the problems in the coalmines.
This is the second Bill which we have had on this subject in this Parliament. The previous Bill which became an Act endorsed the anticipated compensation scheme for sufferers of pneumoconiosis and their widows. I do not want to dwell on it for too long, but this is an opportunity for Back Benchers from Welsh and Scottish constituencies to deal with this matter which is causing grave concern among the mining community.
The Government previously backed the scheme to the extent of £100 million. The scheme is well under way. I understand that over 50,000 claims have been received and that many thousands of applications have been dealt with. The Government's action in this regard is deeply appreciated by the coalmining community.
However, the fact that benefits have been paid has made many people in the mining community more aware of certain anomalies. I know that my colleagues who have worked in the coalfields are familiar with the problems. We have a great mining group in this House and I should like to pay tribute to it. Some of my hon. Friends have raised this matter on a number of occasions and I realise that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has also worked at the coalface and therefore looks at the problem sympathetically.

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Although, as a nation, we are going through a period where there is great demand for restraint in public spending and a mounting campaign for cuts in public expenditure, I hope that the Government, when considering the financial provision they will make for the National Coal Board, will look seriously at the anomalies which arise in the Act.
I support the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Pedwellty (Mr. Kinnock). There are two main categories. The first category concerns pneumoconiosis sufferers employed in the coal industry before 5th July 1948 who, because of the workmen's compensation payments, had their benefit commuted. I am in possession of a mass of correspondence, and I shall quote one or two examples. Mrs. Neale is organising a committee in South Wales and I was privileged to arrange for a lobby of the widows of pneumoconiosis sufferers to come here. They met my colleagues from the mining group and many of my hon. Friends. I have a shoal of correspondence.
One lady wrote to Mrs. Neale saying,
"I received £300 in December, 1943. The gentleman who brought the cash told me that if I didn't take the money then maybe we would never have the offer again."
That illustrates the arm-twisting which took place before the industry was brought into public ownership.
I shall not mention names, but the letter goes on to say,
"Mr. W … died on 8th March, 1974 (after a terrible illness)."
I am not making a complaint on behalf of those who are receiving benefit. The Government have given £100 million. Indeed, they have done a tremendous job. However, this widow can see someone living near her whose husband has not suffered to anything like the extent that she and her husband suffered and yet she has to be content with £300 whereas the person who lives near her may be getting £6,000 or more.
I shall quote from a letter from a person in Abercynon which is in my constituency. The letter reads,
"I was certified as suffering from pneumoconiosis on 4th June, 1948"—
that was before the National Coal Board really got going—
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"and because of that I had to finish in the colliery. After being unemployed for a while I was issued with a green disabled person card, which I still have today, for light work out in the open. I then had a job in a factory. After I had been there a while I had my compensation stopped because I earned three shillings and three pence too much over my rate."
That is the type of case with which we have to deal.
Mr. Alexander Wilson: I share the feelings that my hon. Friend expresses. Would he allow me to put on record our appreciation of what the Labour Government have done? In all their years in power, the Tories did nothing like it. If the Scottish nationalists have their way, there will be no chance of doing anything for the people for whom we feel compassion.
Mr. Evans: I agree entirely. My hon. Friend, who is secretary of the miners' group in the House, has spoken about this matter in Committee, and I know that he and the rest of my hon. Friends feel deeply about it. I pay tribute to the Labour Government. The widows and those receiving commuted claims do not begrudge what these beneficiaries get, but they wonder whether that magnanimity could be extended to them. As with any social benefits, a line has to be drawn and those the wrong side of it want the same treatment as the others.
Another letter from the shoal I have received says:
"My dad died four years ago. He worked nearly 50 years underground. He had 75 per cent. dust, but years ago took £350. My mother does not get a weekly pension after my father."
The mother is 88. There are many such letters. A big campaign is building up. Perhaps we have strayed a little from the strict subject matter of the Bill, but I hope that the Minister will realise the depth of feeling which exists on this issue.
The miners' group has raised this matter many times. The original scheme was drawn up by the NCB and the NUM and they have done a good job for those who have received the benefit. But I hope that we shall also consider those who feel a sense of injustice because they have been left out. That would create a better spirit in the mining industry and ensure that the industry, which is going from strength to strength, partly because

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of international conditions, can be rid of this sense of injustice.
1.3 a.m.
Mr. Gwynfor Evans: A decade ago the coal industry was considered almost expendable and the oil and nuclear lobbies were euphoric. Until about 1970, more and more cheap energy was pouring into our countries, while coal was rapidly being run down. In Wales, between 1964 and 1970, one pit was closed every seven weeks.
But that euphoria has now been blown away by the bitter winds of reality and we realise how grossly over-optimistic were the estimates in the United Kingdom and the EEC about the future supplies of cheap oil, nuclear power and natural gas. The EEC strategy based on those estimates is seen to be quite unrealistic. Some major gas fields, such as that at Groningen near Holland, have already passed their peak.
The EEC expected nuclear power to supply 50 per cent. of energy needs by the year 2000. By 1972 it was supplying only 6 per cent. and that proportion has increased little since then. Because of the technical difficulties and dangers associated with the production of nuclear power, it is not likely to increase to a figure anywhere near the target set by the EEC.
In the devolution debate it was said that the oil in Scottish waters could be near exhaustion in a quarter of a century. Therefore coal certainly has a future. Coal is cheaper to produce than oil. In fact The Times said on 25th January 1974:
"Oil with the thermal equivalent of that of the coal an average miner produces in a week costs nearly £250 to get. Including the miner's average earnings of £41 a week, it costs the NCB about £83 to produce one miner's average weekly output."
Obviously coal has a great future, but it can be ensured only by most careful planning of coalfields and adequate investment. NEDO's estimate is that if we are to maintain the present output, investment should be doubled. But more than that is needed, and miners and their dependants must be treated quite justly in all respects.
The Bill adjusts the situation of the pension scheme on which a great burden was laid by massive mine closures in the recent past, which caused the number of pensioners to leap in relation to the con-
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tributing miners. It is right that the Government should top up the fund.
It is shameful that the Government have not taken this opportunity to redress what is a great scandal in the coal fields, to do justice to all retired miners and their dependants, particularly those who were forced to retire through pneumoconiosis, which has played such havoc with the lives of thousands of miners and their dependants.
I also refer with appreciation to the scheme drawn up by the NCB and the NUM, to which the Government contributed £100 million. There are many anomalies in that scheme, and I refer to some of them in the new clause which was not selected. I shall not go over that ground now or I would risk censure.
I want to reinforce the appeal made on behalf of the dependants of those victims of pneumoconiosis who died before 26th January 1970. In my district—within 20 miles of my home—there are hundreds of women, mainly widows but also some daughters suffering grievously because of the present situation. No one has struggled more gallantly for their husbands in adversity than have these women. I hope that I can make an appeal on their behalf, as other Members have been allowed to do. In some cases the husbands were totally incapacitated by pneumoconiosis for decades before death. The cause of death is stated starkly on the death certificate as pneumoconiosis, yet the widows are dismissed from the mind and conscience of society, if the husband died before 26th January 1970, with a pittance of £300.
Some hon. Members may have seen a television programme early last year in which the central personality was a man who died of pneumoconiosis incurred as far back as 1942. This was a progressive case, and it is one of the horrors of pneumoconiosis that it is progressive. People in the late stages can walk only a few steps with difficulty, and then they become entirely bedridden, kept alive because they have an oxygen tube alongside the bed.
The central character in that television programme had accepted a lump sum of £300. That did not increase, but his disease did. His widow, who had had to go out to work to maintain the home, was no longer able to do that but had to stay at home to nurse him. When

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the man died, the day after the film was shown, the widow found that she was not entitled to any money because he had contracted the disease so early and had accepted the lump sum.
That case is typical of many in my constituency. When I appealed to the Government in Committee to do something for such people the Under-Secretary listened with great sympathy, but he wanted us to understand that in the present economic circumstances it would not be possible to extend the scheme to cover them.
I hope that the Government will listen tonight to an appeal made on behalf of many people in many parts of the southern coalfield in Wales, particularly the anthracite coalfield. I hope that their conscience will be touched and they will act in the way which I think their heart dictates.
1.12 a.m.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: I did not intend to take part in the debate, because it was said that Third Reading was likely to go through on the nod.
Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have been wanting to embrace the miners in the best possible fashion. I should have liked to see some of them embracing the miners at the time of the 1972 strike. It can be argued that, notwithstanding the generosity of the Labour Government, many improvements for the industry, including the pneumoconiosis scheme, emanated from that struggle. The miners were able to show then for the first time, even before the quadrupling of oil prices, that they had got back a little of the muscle with which they had always been credited. They had been unable to use it for some time because during the Robens era, when stocks were mounting, they did not have the bargaining power to elevate themselves to what many people would regard as their rightful position in respect of wages, conditions and many of the other matters discussed to-night, including those in the Bill.
We welcome the new friends, and hope that they will remain friends for a long time, but my guess is that if the situation gets tough—certainly north of the border, with the North Sea oil that will eventually arrive—there will be politicians with the inane idea that it would be a good thing
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to start running down the mining industry again and to use the oil supposedly to benefit the national interest.
The miners' group, of which I am chairman, has discussed the matter at length. I believe that the Government are sympathetic to our view that that should not happen again. The Bill is an indication that they at least recognise the problem. But we cannot discuss the Bill, with the extension of borrowing powers and all the other matters in it, without taking account of the present situation in the economy generally.
One of the most disastrous things which occur when we are in recession in this country—and I suppose it could be argued about any Western capitalist country—is that we are not able to sell coal to the extent that we used to do. Instead of shutting down factories to be reopened 12 or 18 months later when the boom arrives, if there is no planned energy policy it means that certain pits will be shut and it is very difficult to reopen them.
This Bill must be argued and debated in the knowledge that we are going through the most severe capitalist recession we have had since the end of the war, and it has reflected upon the National Coal Board's position financially. Indeed, it is remarkable that the situation in respect of the surplus or deficit has not been greatly different from that which occurred last year and is likely to occur at the end of this financial year.
Quite apart from the extension of borrowing powers, the Government must take account of the need to plan an energy policy which results in using coal to the fullest extent not merely on a short-term basis but for a considerable length of time.
That brings us to the need for secure markets. I hope that my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend are taking the necessary steps to secure those markets. We do not want to be placed in the situation whereby we have another 40 million tons of coal on the ground. The National Coal Board yesterday told the National Executive Committee that it was likely to reach 35 million tons on the ground by the end of this year. Somehow or other the economists on the Board seem to take the view that the up-turn in the economy will not come in 1976 or, if it

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does, that it will be extremely late. Their figures suggest, on the most optimistic basis, that there is likely to be an increase of 7 million tons in stocking capacity even on present trends. We have to secure markets in our economy and that can be done only by complete cooperation between essentially the gas industry, but, more importantly, the CEGB and the Scottish Electricity Generating Board.
If that is not done, we shall go on that same old merry-go-round that we have been on before, and hon. Members who have been making their points tonight will be running away from the struggles which will then lie ahead. We must avoid that. I hope that my hon. Friend is taking account of the need to change the fuel used in some of the power stations which we were discussing at the joint meeting yesterday. He knows which they are. There are about six under discussion at present, and that will result in an additional 4 million tom of coal during the course of the next 12 months or two years. That would result in less stocking during this very severe recession.
I hope that my hon. Friend will take account of the remarks I made with regard to the importing of coal, especially in regard to those imports which are replacing our coal in power stations. I take full account that there are imports coming into this country which it would be difficult to replace on the basis that these are types of coal which we currently cannot produce in Scotland, Wales or the rest of the coalfields. But there are some which are replacing indigenous steam coal which could be provided by the British colliers, such as the 40,000 tons per annum contract which is currently going to Didcot. That ought to be stopped as soon as possible. If necessary, some compensation may have to be paid, but I am told that even on that basis it would be a better bargain than continuing current imports of that kind.
I hope, too, that those in the House, there are not many, who were fervent admirers of the Common Market will pay some attention to the fact that the idea that we would export large amounts of coal to the rest of the EEC should be brought to fruition as soon as possible. Frankly, I cannot see it coming about. However, they have a duty to explain why we have not been able to sell coal—
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from the largest coal-producing country—to the Common Market population of 250 million, which they repeatedly promised. That is another area of the market that we need to secure if the Bill is to represent a real advance.
I come finally to the question of closures. I think that I have said enough to indicate that if we do not do some of the things I have mentioned tonight in securing a market for our product, the result will be closures both north and south of the border. I am speaking on behalf of the whole of the miners' group. I take account of the political considerations that have weighed heavily in the past. Long before the Scottish National Party was capable of capturing even one seat in Scotland, those considerations weighed heavily. I hope that SNP Members understand that if we do not have this kind of policy, the same events will occur and the result will be closures throughout the British coalfields. We must prevent that from happening at all costs.
That is why I mention particularly the pit in my constituency which is now producing coal very profitably—and much more profitably than any in Scotland. I do not say that disparagingly, because the Scottish miners work in difficult seams and need to be propped up by the Midlands miners and others in the rest of the United Kingdom who are able to produce coal at a profit, such as the Langwith miners.
I know that it is not within the remit of my hon. Friend the Minister to see that development work continues at Langwith within the next fortnight, but he could put pressure on the NCB and indicate that this matter involves not merely one colliery. This is a question that has alerted all the miners in the United Kingdom. They can appreciate that if a colliery that is currently making about £400,000 profit can be closed, it is a danger signal for many more throughout the coalfields. I hope that my hon. Friend will use his best endeavours to indicate to the NCB, in the fortnight's grace that he has, that the Langwith development must continue, in order to allow that pit to carry on for possibly as long as seven or eight years.
If we do some of these things, consistent with the Bill, and if we have a proper energy policy, one of co-ordination

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between the various fuels that I have mentioned, matters such as payment for pneumoconiosis and early retirement for miners, and many other things, will follow in train. That is the answer. Most of the things that we have failed to get in the past—although we have had a few benefits recently—will be obtained if we adopt this kind of policy.
The present recession will be a difficult period. It is not for me in a debate on coal to argue about some of the ways in which we may get out of that recession much more quickly. That matter will be debated tomorrow. We are talking now about the coal industry. That industry can escape the serious hazards that the rest of British industry is facing if the proper steps are taken now, notwithstanding the deep recession.
I appeal to my hon. Friends to take that matter on board and see to it that the representations being made by the miners' group, well in advance of any holocaust that might come are dealt with as speedily as possible.
1.25 a.m.
Mr. Dennis Canavan: As usual, I wish to be brief. However, I make a contribution on Third Reading because I believe that this is an important Bill. It is a short Bill, but it is of tremendous importance. It is of especial importance to my constituents, many of whom are members of the mining community.
I am interested in any Bill which means more investment in the coal industry. I take that interest not merely because it means more investment in jobs, but because it means more investment in the production of energy. Coal is a vital source of energy, and despite the new source of energy in North Sea oil, we shall need coal for many years to come. It is important that we ensure that investment in the coal industry continues at a viable level.
Mr. Alexander Wilson: I think that my hon. Friend knows what I am about to say, but at the moment we have 800 years of available viable coal at present production levels. All this stupid talk about oil off the so-called Scottish waters must be set against the fact that it will last for only two or three decades.
Mr. Canavan: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for underlining the importance of the coal industry and emphasising that there will be a coal industry long after the last drop of North Sea oil is extracted.
Mr. George Reid Mr. George Reid (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire) rose—
Mr. Canavan: Although I welcome more investment—
Mr. Reid Mr. Reid rose—
Mr. Canavan: Let the hon. Gentleman make a speech of his own if he wants to enter the debate.
Mr. Reid Mr. Reid rose—
Mr. Canavan: Although I welcome more investment—
Mr. Reid Mr. Reid rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. If the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) does not wish to give way, he need not do so.
Mr. Canavan: Although in principle I welcome more investment I should like the Department of Energy to ensure through the NCB that investment takes place on an equitable basis. It is obvious that throughout the British Isles there are coal seams which are easy to work and which require little capital investment and seams which are difficult to work and which require proportionately more capital investment.
For example, the Selby field has seams which are easy to work. I suppose that in general the majority of the Scottish coalfield is composed of seams which are narrow and more difficult to work because of geological faults. I hope that the Minister will ensure through his colleagues in the NCB that appropriate investment goes to Scotland to ensure the continuing and thriving existence of the Scottish coalfield. But it is clear that unless we work coal in an integrated manner throughout Britain, the Scottish coalfield will die.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for pointing that out recently in a reply to a Question, which corroborates a speech which I made in my constituency at Fallin, the home of the last pit that is left in the whole of Stirlingshire. I pointed out in

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my speech that if the separatists—namely, the SNP—have their way and establish a separate Scottish coal board, we shall see the decline and possibly the death of the Scottish coalmining industry.
Mr. Reid: Does the hon. Gentleman concede that what went wrong with the Scottish coalfield was that the capitalists who controlled the Fife Coal Company were given jobs when the NCB took over? Secondly, does he not share my deep suspicion that the coalfields in Ayrshire, and similarly Fallin, are shortly to be shut down? Thirdly, does he not concede that at Airth there are approximately 70 million tons of coking coal, but that there is little chance of its being used, because we do not have an integrated energy policy in Scotland and because there are no iron works at the far end of the line? Fourthly, does he concede that most of the investment within the NCB will go to Selby in Yorkshire? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is right that the chief executive of the NCB in Scotland should have the same—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman can make his own speech if he catches the eye of the Chair. His intervention is too long.
Mr. Canavan: It was interesting to hear a renegade Socialist on the SNP Bench giving an analysis of the faults of Scottish capitalists who ran the Scottish coal industry. Let us not forget and let him not forget that the real argument in Scottish politics and Scottish industry is not Scotland versus England, but work-people versus exploiting capitalists. Fortunately, the coal industry is no longer run by capitalists. At one time the Scottish coal industry was run by capitalists who exploited fellow Scotsmen and worked them to the bone, making them hew coal to produce huge profits for the owners. That day has now passed thanks to a Labour Government. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would extend his analysis of the Scottish coal industry to other Scottish industries and whether the SNP industry spokesman, who happens to be one of the most Right-wing industrial economists in Scotland, would agree with him.
I have tabled Questions on the Airth coalfield in my area because it is impor-
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tant that we have a reserve field in which constituents can find work. The Department of Energy's view is that if and when it becomes economic to extract coking coal from Airth coalfield, appropriate investment may be forthcoming.
Mr. Ioan Evans: One of the problems is that when Opposition Members nod their heads in agreement, it is not recorded in Hansard. I think that it should be recorded that when my hon. Friend said that Scottish capitalists exploited workers, three or four SNP Members nodded in agreement.
Mr. Canavan: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which shows that even the dumb can nod.
Coal must be worked in an integrated manner. If we were to split up the National Coal Board, as the SNP would like, that would be the surest way of closing pits such as Fallin and making sure that the coal seams of Airth are never opened up.
It is interesting to see SNP Members taking part in a coal debate—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that we are straying well outside the area covered by the Third Reading of a Bill. I appeal to hon. Members to conform to the normal practice of the House.
Mr. Canavan: I was just getting round to the Third Reading.
It is interesting to see the SNP taking part in any stage of a coal Bill. On Second Reading they went home to their beds. The SNP has no sense of priorities and the Scottish mining industry certainly comes nowhere near the top of its priorities or policies. Indeed, its policies would be disastrous to the Scottish mining industry.
I also welcome the references to increased investment in people rather than merely to increased extraction of coal. The men who hew that coal are the lifeblood of the industry. They are the most valuable resource in the industry and it is appropriate that they should be given special consideration. I welcome the provision of increased finances for pensions.
Several hon. Members have mentioned pneumoconiosis, and I particularly agreed

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with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Evans).
I should like to refer to the problem of drawing lines in regulations regarding pensions, redundancies, or whatever. Last week I had a case reported to me by a constituent. I shall be sending full details to the Under-Secretary of State later. The Department of Energy is reported to have
"agreed that an ex gratia lump sum may be paid to miner workers who were redundant (a) within 30 days of attaining their fifty-fifth birthday; (b) in the period 17th July 1967 to 10th December 1972; and (c) qualified for payment under the Redundancy Payments Act".
This letter from the NCB states that my constituent cannot qualify as he was made redundant prior to 17th July 1967. He missed it by two days. He finished work on 15th July 1967 but the notice of redundancy is dated 17th July. It is most unfortunate that he, along with many others who have given 40 to 50 years' service in the industry, does not qualify for this ex gratia lump sum payment. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind and see whether anything can be done to help such cases.
It is all very well being wise in retrospect, but I think that it can be said that some miners' leaders in previous generations thought more about the wages at the end of the week than the long-term benefit of pensions. There are still grave risks of physical injury and disease in coal mining. It is therefore important that miners should have adequate pensions at the end of their working lives. In cases of fatal injury or disease, it is important that widows and dependants should receive compensation.
Mr. Alexander Wilson: I should like to put the record straight. My hon. Friend said that miners' leaders in the past were concerned mainly with wages, quite rightly. However, there was a man called Keir Hardy who, when the people of Merthyr were deciding that he was the best Socialist to represent that constituency against the Welsh nationalists, said that what he wanted for miners was early retirement and compensation for pneumoconiosis and illness.
Mr. Canavan: My hon. Friend has made a valid point. I cannot emphasise too much the importance of pensions, but nevertheless wages are also very important for the working man.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that it is almost hypocritical of some hon. Gentlemen opposite to suggest that miners deserve higher wages because coal is important and mining is demanding, dangerous, and so on. But where were they during the miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974? I do not recall their sticking out for the fundamental principle that miners should get more money. Indeed, I do not recall any Member of the SNP, particularly not the hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Reid), going round constituencies and saying, "We support the miners in their strike because they deserve more money." The attitude of the hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire to the miners was similar to that of his predecessor. Perhaps his fate will be the same.
I welcome the Bill. It will mean more investment and opportunities in an industry essential to our future energy requirements. It must be worked in an integrated manner, not just geographically but as part of an integrated policy which makes use of all our fuel resources. I believe that in this way and with the help of this Bill the mining industry will continue in Scotland, England and Wales long after North Sea oil has become merely a legend.
1.40 a.m.
Mr. John Biffen: I did not take part in the Second Reading or Committee stage of the Bill. I come to it therefore with almost virgin innocence.
I have listened with great interest to the Third Reading debate and I do not think that I should be representing it unfairly if I suggested that it was in part about coal and in part about Scottish politics. I hope that I can draw together these two themes, within the elasticity provided by the substantial borrowing facilities given to the NCB in Clause 1, by asking the Under-Secretary to indicate to what extent the operations of the NCB in Scotland are on a profitable or loss-making basis.

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When discussion of the industry proceeds along the lines largely determined by the course of the debate tonight, it is clearly the will of the House that we should know a little more about the financial structure of the Board as between its Scottish operations and the other component parts in the United Kingdom. That is my one, simple, brief request to the Under-Secretary.
1.41 a.m.
Mr. Eadie: It is difficult for a Minister to reply to a coal debate, especially when matters concerning roads, housing and sewerage have been raised. Hon. Members who referred to these subjects know that they are not within the ambit of the Department of Energy.
This has been a wide-ranging debate and, despite the late hour, there are a number of important issues which deserve an answer in order to clarify matters and to educate and inform hon. Members about the role of the industry and the Bill. The House will welcome the fact that the hon. Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson) stressed the importance of the Bill for miners and their families who depend on the coal industry for their sustenance. The Bill is also important in the interests of the nation. We must do everything possible to ensure that we retain a large mining industry in this country as a defence in order to make sure that we have sufficient indigenous sources of energy.
I therefore listened with interest to what the hon. Member said, because I think that he expressed the feeling of the House. He asked about the Price Commission's report on coal merchants. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection announced in a statement today that the Government welcomed the report. She said that the NCB had recently revised its contractual arrangements for the sale of solid fuel. It will be reviewing the working of the arrangements in the spring and will then report to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy.
The hon. Member referred to what he described as leaks in the Press on the subject of oil substitution, and he mentioned coal imports. It is unnecessary to conceal from the House the fact that coal stocks have recently reached high levels. In such circumstances it is only natural
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that there should be some concern about imports. They are expected to fall this year from the higher than average levels of last year, levels which resulted from contracts negotiated by the CEGB at a time of energy shortage. The hon. Member spoke of a so-called leak in the Financial Times. There have been a number of suggestions for dealing with imports. This question is of great importance to both the Government and the energy industries, particularly coal and electricity.
A series of joint meetings by my right hon. Friend with the unions and the industry, which will start on 20th February, will provide an opportunity for discussion of these important issues, including coal imports. Such questions of concern to the coal and electricity industries should be discussed jointly before final decisions are taken. The CEGB has already undertaken to consult the NCB about future coal imports.
The hon. Member for New Forest referred to OPEC. He must forgive me for not attempting to widen the scope of the debate to include whether there should be a floor price for oil. No one can predict what will happen in June when the oil price comes up for review by OPEC. I am no prophet, and I cannot forecast what will happen. The last agreement with OPEC was not for a year but for nine months. The issue will come up again in June. I am sorry that I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman any more about that matter.
My hon. Friends the Members for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), Aberdare (Mr. Evans), West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) and Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley)—to whom I am grateful for the way he raised the matter—all spoke about pneumoconiosis. We debated pneumoconiosis at length in Committee, and the hon. Member for Caernarvon appreciated the problem that faced the Government. The Committee conceded that the Government had put their money where their mouth was in providing sustenance for pneumoconiotic miners. Such a scheme was never thought of before the Government came to power.
When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry was Secretary of State for Energy, he went to the

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Cabinet at a time of great economic stringency, when there was great pressure on the allocation of public resources, and he was able to get £100 million to back up the pneumoconiosis scheme. I have never pretended that the Government would not have liked to provide more than the £100 million. Although the Government provided £100 million, the scheme is not a Government scheme. It was negotiated between the NCB and the NUM.
In Committee I was accused of being over-emotional. I said that the Government, in association with the employers and the union, at the time of the tripartite agreement, wanted to give money to people while they were alive rather than when they were dead. There is no need to describe to me the suffering caused by pneumoconiosis. I spent more than 25 years in the mining industry, nearly all the time at the coalface. Anyone who spends that amount of time in the mining industry is bound to have dust in his lungs. I have seen many of my mining friends suffer terribly from pneumoconiosis. I do not need to be reminded of that suffering.
The hon. Member for Caernarvon accepted the arguments on the scheme which I advanced in Committee. One of the lessons I learnt as a trade union negotiator was first to get the principle of a scheme accepted and then to build on the principle. I have no authority on behalf of the Government to say that tomorrow we shall build on the principle by making provision, for which hon. Members have so eloquently pleaded, for those who have been left out of the scheme. But I say to the hon. Gentleman that I welcome the fact that hon. Members have once again expressed the difficulties of the scheme. As I have said before, I hope that people will listen to what is said and to what hon. Members have described. The principle has been established and in future it can be built upon. But I stress that this is not a Government scheme but one drawn up and negotiated between the NCB and the NUM.
Mr. Gwynfor Evans: While I do not wish to deny credit to the Government for the grant of £100 million for this scheme, does not the hon. Gentleman agree that it was forced upon the Gov-
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ernment by the result of two court cases? As the Government had to make this grant—they might have had to pay out more—will he bring pressure on them to extend the scheme to include the people we have heard about in the debate?
Mr. Eadie: I have tried to respond to the hon. Gentleman's view with the same courtesy as he has extended to me, but I must say to him now that he is less than fair in trying to diminish the contribution that the Government have made, in full compassion, to the people involved. To suggest that the Government were compelled to do so is a travesty of the facts. Hon. Members with legal experience know that the Government could have let the matter drag on through the courts; it would have been a long and laborious battle. When in Committee I made the speech for which I was accused of being emotional, I said that the Government were determined that these men would get some financial help while they were alive rather than when they were dead. The wheels of justice can grind slowly. There was no compulsion on the Government to act as they did. There was a genuine, compassionate appraisal arising out of the tripartite inquiry by the NUM, the NCB and the Government.
Mr. ICinnock: But, acknowledging his experience and compassion and the absence of compulsion on the Government and their compassion, I say flatly to my hon. Friend, as I would expect him to say to me if our positions were reversed, that not enough has been made available and that we shall be coming back for a great deal more for those cases which have not been justly dealt with, despite the compassion, generosity and consideration of the Government.
Mr. Eadie: If my hon. Friend reflects on what he has just said, I am sure that he will realise that his intervention was unnecessary. I have said that the principle of the scheme has been conceded and that people will listen to the debate. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept what I am saying in the spirit in which I am saying it.
I hope that hon. Members will now allow me to answer the rest of the points raised in the debate. Interruptions make a reply much longer.

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I sincerely welcome the fact that at last the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) has made a speech in a coal debate. I have longed for the day when he would because it is important to have on record the views and opinions of other parties in the House. I only wish the hon. Gentleman had taken part in the Second Reading debate. I wish, too, that he had taken part in the last debate on coal legislation, an occasion when all members of his party were absent.
I said that the SNP had entirely ignored Second Reading, Committee and Report stages. I was told that the SNP Members were too busy doing other things. I say in all sincerity that I hope that they will not be too busy in future to take part in coal debates, because coal is an important part of the Scottish economy and deserves full discussion, argument and debate in the House.
I am aware of some of the things the hon. Gentleman said, for example, about pneumoconiosis. It was rather late in the day for the hon. Gentleman to say them, because we have had very many speeches on the subject in the past. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire put it, it is difficult to listen to the SNP talking about solving this problem when we regularly hear from SNP Members nothing but anti-nationalisation speeches. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is absolutely ludicrous, if not hypocritical, for the SNP to suggest that this problem could be solved by going back to Scottish coal owners.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: Will the Under-Secretary say where he got the idea that it was the policy of the SNP to pass the Scottish coalfields back to Scottish coal owners? Our policy is for a Scottish coal board—a different thing altogether.
Mr. Eadie: It is very difficult to understand the policy of the SNP. That is why I sincerely appeal to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends to take part in energy debates, so that we can discuss these matters with them.
The hon. Gentleman and his friends are stomping Scotland attacking nationalisation, and they have already recruited into their organisation some of the biggest apostles of private enterprise. When the SNP Members talk of their targets, they ought to tell the House how they will maintain them. One of them spoke of
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doing so by reducing the consumption of oil in Scotland. The consequence would be to lose current jobs in the oil industry, so that is not a satisfactory answer. The hon. Gentleman's party ought to be clear in its thinking on this issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire said, the idea of a Scottish NCB is ridiculous, because the problems of the coal industry in Scotland can be solved only in a British context.
There were references by SNP Members to pits in Scotland being closed very shortly. It is deplorable that hon. Members should make such a statement for political advantage without attempting to substantiate it. To play with people's livelihoods for political advantage is the height of irresponsibility. If SNP Members have evidence that pits are about to close, they should produce that evidence to the House. I deny it flatly and I say that, in the absence of their putting forward that evidence, hon. Gentlemen are telling untruths in the House.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to make such an allegation in the House?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the Minister would agree that that was not a very parliamentary remark.
Mr. Eadie: If SNP Members are to participa1e in energy debates, they must say where they stand in relation to nuclear power. I have listened to what they have had to say on that subject and they have been anything but positive. They will have to make up their minds and say whether they are for or against the development of nuclear power. The whole House will look forward with interest to any comments which they may make on this topic.
Mr. Reid: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Eadie: No, I shall not.
I turn to the capacity of coal burning power stations in Scotland. I want to make it perfectly clear that there is at present sufficient capacity to burn all the power station coal likely to be produced in Scotland. The South of Scotland Electricity Board's consumption of coal and slurry has risen from 5·4 million tons in 1970–71 to an estimated 8·9 million

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tons in the current financial year. However, of course, the prospect of a large amount of oil and nuclear generating capacity coming on stream in the next few years when electricity demand will be below previous expectations naturally raises questions about the future level of coal consumption.
The National Coal Board and the South of Scotland Electricity Board have referred this question to the Government, and my Department and the Scottish Office are currently examining it. In fact, I had a discussion with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Scottish Office yesterday. This matter is one of those to be pursued in the forum of the coal and electricity discussions that my right hon. Friend has arranged. In their approach to this problem the Government will have in mind the contribution that the Scottish coalfields can make to the long-term energy needs of the country.
Mr. Reid: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Eadie: No, I shall not.
The hon. Member for Howden (Sir P. Bryan) has discussed Selby before. I know that he has a constituency interest. He knows that many of those issues are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment.
However, I can say briefly and succinctly that there may be further delays in a planning decision on the Selby project. The Department of the Environment has circulated the interests concerned to establish whether the flooding that took place in the area at the beginning of January, due to the storms and high tide, has any implication for the subsidence problem, which bulked large at the public inquiry. It will inevitably take a few weeks to clarify this issue, but I can assure the House that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is fully aware of the desirability of an early decision consistent with the need for proper consideration of the very important issues involved. I hope that at this late hour the hon. Gentleman will accept that explanation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover rather characteristically described
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to the House the reasons why one must have an energy policy and he said that the understanding and agreement among the NUM, the Government and the National Coal Board must be fully implemented. We agreed to a target of 150 million tons a year. My hon. Friend said that it was necessary to secure markets to implement this policy, and I have already described our approach to coal imports. Conversion will be appraised by the Department in conjunction with those concerned. We are seized of his point that pits are not like factories, that once a pit is closed, in all probability it is closed for all time.
The policy that we are implementing is that outlined in the examination of the industry, a policy of new investment. Of course exhausted pits will be closed, but if we pursue a policy of new investment, new sinkings and a resarch for new resources, both production and manpower will be sustained.
Mr. Reid: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Eadie: No, of course I shall not give way. The hon. Gentleman has not been here for most of the debate. It is unfair of him to come in half way through and expect to take part.
We are now looking forward to consolidating the industry's future. This short but important Bill will help to provide the basis for that future in line with the commitments undertaken in the coal industry examination. As I said on Second Reading, the Bill must be seen in the perspective of an overall strategy on which the industry and the Government have agreed.
I said on Second Reading that there were four main planks in our policy: first, coal as the foundation of a British energy policy; second, a refusal to allow short-term difficulties to blow the industry off course; third, a desire to see that the miner is accorded his rightful place in society; fourth, ensuring that the industry starts this new era without the dead weight of financial millstones from the past.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) on his appointment as Opposition spokesman on energy. He asked me about the financial position of the Scottish coalfield. That is a very

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important question, to which the people of Scotland and Britain are entitled to know the answer. I shall write to him giving details of production and finance in the Scottish coalfield. No doubt he will wish to study them carefully and comment on them later.
Mr. Biffen: I do not wish to prolong the Under-Secretary's peroration, but may I take it that that correspondence will be passed to me with the prospect of its receiving the widest possible publicity?
Mr. Eadie: It certainly will not be private and confidential. The hon. Gentleman will be able to publicise it in whatever way he sees fit.
Mr. Andrew Welsh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Eadie: No.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way to me?
Mr. Eadie: No, I shall not give way.
This short Bill is a further stage in implementing the Government's share in the policy that I have described. I thank hon. Members opposite for their constructive remarks and relevant questions during the debate. The Government are grateful to all who have contributed to this discussion.
It is encouraging to see that the coal industry has the support of both sides of the House and that both sides welcome the fact that the industry is beginning again to play a proper role in the country's fuel policy. In the light of that encouragement, I ask the House to give the Bill a Third Reading.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

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

POTATOES
2.16 a.m.
Mr. Sydney Tierney: I feel the responsibility of keeping the House later at this time of the morning, but the subject I want to
634
introduce is one long delayed and worthy of some debate before now. I am glad of the opportunity to introduce a debate on the supply, marketing and prices of the potato, or how did the humble "spud" achieve stardom? Perhaps, as some others put it, the King Edward rules supreme as the aristocrat of the fruit and vegetable kingdom. How long will it reign? This appears to be the main question.
In recent weeks potato prices have gone sky-high. The price of potatoes is now three or four times what it was this time last year, and there is still no sign of any stability in the market.
Even before the latest escalation of prices, potatoes largely contributed to the 23 per cent. increase in the cost of food last summer.
The quarterly return, July, August, September, from the Ministry of Agriculture showed that the amount spent each week on potatoes doubled from 7·9p to 16·15p, despite a 14 per cent. drop in sales. The overall food increase, including beef and milk along with potatoes, meant that the food bill for a family of four went up by £2·88 a week in that quarter.
I fully support the Government in their efforts to combat inflation, and I express whole-heartedly my appreciation of the restraints accepted by working people in co-operating with the Government's policy. That is why when they are contending with inflation in all areas of their domestic budgeting they have to have the best possible explanation why the potato—once the cheapest purchase on their list—is now in the luxury class. We in this House should ensure that they have all the support they need to help carry the burdens of inflation.
It is accepted that neither Government nor Opposition can do much about the weather. We all rejoice about that. The mind boggles at the thought of debates about long dry, sunny spells in the summer, with a week of rain in between, as long as it is not the time for our constituents' holidays. No one underestimates the difficulties created by the very fine summer.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister of State for a Written Answer to me on 15th January, when he explained that there had been a shortfall of 2¼

635
million metric tons in the home crop of 1975. My hon. Friend also said that it was not possible to make good the estimated deficiency and that as prices were determined by normal forces of supply and demand, they would remain high over the coming months. He concluded:
"I hope that all concerned will recognise that their long-term interests are best served by orderly marketing during the remainder of the season."—[Official Report, 15th January 1976; Vol. 903, c. 212.]
In other words, we have potato rationing by the purse: "If you can afford, you can have. If you cannot afford, eat something else."
Since the debate was announced, my hon. Friend has gone into more detail in answer to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) on Monday this work. It was considered important enough to place copies in the Whips' Office. I do not grumble about that answer. One of my objects has been to get the Minister to make a lengthy statement. One should have been made a long time ago. I hope that my hon. Friend will take this opportunity to go into still more detail about our future supplies of potatoes and whether reasonable price levels are gone for ever.
On 31st July last year, in answer to a Question by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten), my hon. Friend said:
"With regard to the main crop, this is not normally a matter involving imports, but we are keeping the position closely under review."
In answer to a supplementary question, he said:
"The difficulties of last month were caused by factors that were hard to foresee. I have no doubt that in future we shall be better able to regulate supplies and, accordingly, ensure reasonable prices."—[Official Report, 31st July, 1975; Vol. 896, c. 2023.]
In the light of those answers, it is fair to comment that we do not have regular or sufficient supplies, and that prices are extremely unreasonable.
My hon. Friend has said that we were not able to make good the estimated deficiency of 2¼ million metric tons, and that as soon as it was known that the main crop was affected by drought, the Government lifted the normal import ban on main-crop potatoes. Bearing in mind
636
his answers to Questions on 31st July last year, can he say when the import ban was lifted? Was it soon enough?
It appears from all reports, particularly the reports we hear from Belgium about fines and imprisonment for hoarding, the problems of price-freezing and so on, that the Community countries are restricting their trade in potatoes and we have been unable to rely on them. The question I want to ask is why the United Kingdom has applied to the EEC Commission only last week, for the tariff on the imports of potatoes from non-EEC countries to be temporarily suspended. I am pleased to see that it has now been suspended for three months. What immediate effect will this suspension have on the regular supplies of potatoes at reasonable prices? In short, with or without the constraints of the Community, why have we not secured alternative supplies at reasonable prices for the British housewife?
Apart from the problems of the housewife there are problems for most suppliers, although some are obviously enjoying the situation. Whatever the problems for wholesalers and retailers, I think that they are fed up with the frustration and chaos in the present distribution and retailing of potatoes.
There are claims that farmers who struck lucky in the 1975 season are turning the potato shortage into handsome profits—indeed, in some cases exploiting the situation. Similar claims are being made about middle men, wholesalers and retailers. To be fair, I suppose that they are a cross section of the community and have in their ranks some who take advantage of the situation. As the great majority involved in the trade want a steady supply of potatoes at reasonable prices, I hope that some action can be taken to seek out and deal with undoubted exploitation. Even so, the trade as a whole would rather be done with the frustration, the chaos, the publicity and all the other features of the potato shortage.
Because of spiralling prices and the instability of the market, frustration and chaos abound. It is thought in some quarters that prices will continue to rise and begin to ease off only in August. I am sure that some feel that the best way to deal with the problem is to quieten it down by ignoring it and simply letting

637
market forces take their own course. If we take that line, and it seems to be the one that is to be taken, how do we begin to get rid of the activities of the silly fringe?
There are reports that potatoes have become valuable bingo prizes. They are offered as an incentive to buy secondhand cars. They are compared in value with jewellery. I heard on the radio this morning that someone had offered his super de luxe speedboat for 7½ tons of potatoes. It seems that suppliers themselves are watching their stocks by night seated on their tractors. It seems that someone has been fined £100 for stealing, presumably by night. No doubt there is much more to follow in this vein. It is a ready-made situation for such events.
It is claimed that any artificial restraint on prices would encourage consumption and lead to a run-down of stocks. One can understand the economics of that. But some limit must be placed on prices if only to stop the nonsense to which I have just referred. But, more important, the pressure on the cost of living for working families must be eased.
We have already been warned by the United Kingdom growers that seed potatoes will cost much more than they have ever cost previously and that potato prices in Britain are bound to remain high. The Community farmers are also claiming that unless their prices remain high, considerably higher than in the past, the danger of future shortages will remain whatever the weather. The European Commission is urging Ministers to extend the common agricultural policy to potatoes. These are some of the problems we have to face in relation to the supply and the price of potatoes.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection recently pointed out in a speech to the NFU that she had told the Council of Agriculture Ministers about the reality of consumer resistance to higher prices. She said that we should see a decline in butter consumption in this country over the next two years as prices moved to full CAP levels. That probably sounds good for margarine manufacturers.
We know that the beef premium, which the Minister of Agriculture is insisting on being retained, keeps beef prices
638
down and enables more in this country to eat a steak. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection also said that high prices simply reduced consumption, depressed the market, caused a build-up in intervention stocks and solved nothing. Are we to have more, bigger and better mountains? Surely that is not the answer.
I do not claim that the Government are deliberately set on this course at present. But we have to go to the EEC to get permission to import from non-EEC countries. Given the attitude of the growers in the Common Market and that of the Commission, and the need for adjusting to common price levels in the Common Market, we shall eventually get such a situation.
Beef mountains exist only because people do not eat the available beef. Many in this country are priced out of a steak. It we are about to begin to build the largest potato pie in the world to solve our supply problems, many British consumers will have had their chips, too.
I hope that my hon. Friend will address himself to some of the points that I have raised, which I am sure are causing concern in the country at large. Any hope that he can give to the British housewife will be well received. I thought that this was a subject that ought to be debated. I am glad of the opportunity to introduce it and, even at this late hour, I want to say how grateful I am for the time of the House.
2.32 a.m.
The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): I am grateful to my hon. Friend, the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Tierney) for raising this matter tonight because it gives me the opportunity of describing to the House and the country, the reasons for the current potato supply difficulties and explaining the action that has been taken to alleviate the situation. I know that this matter is of concern to hon. Members and the public generally, and rightly so because the humble potato, as my hon. Friend implies, is an important part of the national diet.
I think that I should start by explaining our general policy on potatoes. The policy of the present Government, as of

639
successive Administrations since the passing of the Agriculture Act 1947, is that the United Kingdom should be self-sufficient in main-crop potatoes, except in years of unusually low yields. The guarantee and marketing arrangements under the Agriculture Acts are geared to this end. Our climatic conditions prevent us from being self-sufficient in new potatoes and there is a traditional market for imported new potatoes in the late spring as stocks of the old home crop begin to run down and before supplies from the new home crop are available.
Each summer, the Government and the Potato Marketing Board, in consultation with the National Farmers' Unions, determine the target acreage for Great Britain for the next year's crop. In fixing the level of the target we are aiming to secure a planted acreage which on normal yields would produce sufficient supplies to meet our estimated requirements for human consumption and other needs, such as seed, for the coming year and leave a modest surplus of some 200,000 to 300,000 tons.
The Potato Marketing Board, which operates in Great Britain, allocates acreage quotas to registered producers. But it is for the individual producer to decide how many acres he will plant to potatoes. A producer in Great Britain is not obliged to plant his quota allocation. If he does not plant up to his quota he knows that his entitlement is likely to be reduced in the following years. Conversely, if he decides to exceed his main-crop quota he knows that he will be liable for an additional levy to the Board in respect of the excess. The normal levy is reduced on acreage harvested as new potatoes.
For the 1975 crop the Government set a target acreage of 565,000 acres for the United Kingdom. The full acreage was not planted, but some underplanting of the target acreage has been normal over recent years. There were probably a number of reasons for the lower plantings. The 1974 harvest had been exceptionally difficult. The extremely wet autumn prevented lifting and many fields were so waterlogged that machines could not be used. About a fifth of the main crop was still in the ground at the end of November when all should have been lifted. When the potatoes were eventually
640
lifted many went into store in very wet condition. Also some other crops were perhaps more attractive propositions to some individual growers—namely, less labour intensive and with fewer production problems.
The actual planted acreage was down by 28,000 acres—about 5 per cent.—compared with 1974. This in itself was no great cause for concern since in normal weather conditions improvements in yields from technological factors combined with lower riddle standards would have ensured sufficient supplies to meet our expected needs. We have to go back several decades to find a year which approaches anywhere near the circumstances of this season.
Because of the adverse weather conditions in the autumn and again in the spring, the land was less well prepared than growers would have hoped. The weather continued to be against us for the remainder of the growing season. In fact, it could hardly have been worse for potato growing. If it were not so serious the saga I have to relate would have echoes of the Hoffnung tale of the workman who kept getting clobbered by extraneous objects. Planting conditions may have deterred some people from planting. The cold late spring discouraged early growth and the following prolonged dry spell affected the development of the crop. Yields were low and prices reflected the shortage of supplies.
The difficulties began even before the commencement of our own season as a result of a substantial shortfall in our traditional supplies of imported new potatoes because of poor crops overseas, particularly in Cyprus, and a low carryover into the late spring from the 1974 crop. As soon as the prospects for the 1975 harvest became apparent, the Potato Marketing Board adjusted the normal riddle sizes and in particular relaxed the riddles which normally apply to home produced main crop potatoes from 1st August. The top riddle size of 3½ in. was removed and the minimum riddle size of 1⅝ in. was reduced to 1½ in. Below this size potatoes can still be sold in the shops as "mids", and I am advised that all sound potatoes can now find a market for human consumption. Requirements on diseases and faults have not been relaxed.

641
Throughout the summer the Government kept the situation under close review. In August we consulted all major interests in the potato industry on the prospects of the 1975 main crop yield. The yield of potatoes then being lifted was still low and as a precautionary measure—even before the full extent of the shortfall was known—the Government lifted the seasonal ban on imports of new potatoes in September and October and, more important, the usual continuous ban on imports of main crop. My hon. Friend asked about the date of the lifting of the ban. Since 1st September last it has been possible to import main-crop potatoes from all countries satisfying our plant health requirements. As the prospects did not improve, we took the only other action open to us—we imposed a ban on the export of eating potatoes from 17th October 1975. This was not an easy decision to take as it meant disrupting the normal patterns of trade.
From what I have said of the events of last summer and autumn, hon. Members will note that the Government and the Potato Marketing Board took action early in the 1975 main-crop marketing season to conserve and supplement home supplies of potatoes for the United Kingdom consumer. But this action could not make good the shortfall in production of one third compared with 1974—an estimated shortfall of 2¼ million tons. European countries also had poor crops, caused by the hot summer, and although we estimate that we have imported about 170,000 tons of main crop so far, mainly from the Netherlands, imports cannot possibly bridge the gap.
Hon. Members will know that the United Kingdom has applied for a temporary suspension of the tariff on imports of new and main-crop potatoes from non-EEC sources. We hope that by our suspending the tariff additional supplies will be attracted into the Community. The suspension of tariff on main-crop imports took effect on 26th January, only a few days ago, and further discussions are taking place on the new potato tariff. There was little point in seeking a suspension of the tariff until this month, since under the tariff arrangements which applied up to 31st December the United
642
Kingdom had a significant preferential advantage over other member States.
We have also reminded our representatives in countries conforming with our plant health requirements of the supply position here so that importation of any stocks available for export can be facilitated. We have tried to find additional sources of supply. We must recognise, however, that we are faced with a difficult supply situation which will continue until early potatoes are available in quantity. Prices, which are determined by the usual market forces of supply and demand, will remain high over the coming months.
I do not underestimate the difficult position in which processors, fish friers, and all other users find themselves. I also appreciate the motives of those who have called for further Government action. I should like to deal briefly with some of these suggestions.
First, it has been suggested by some people that we should relax our plant health requirements. But these regulations are designed to ensure that we do not get serious potato diseases and pests which would be costly and difficulty to eradicate and would endanger future yields. Relaxation of our health requirements would hazard the long-term future of the industry, and this is a risk that I could not responsibly take for what is essentially a short-term problem.
I have also been pressed to prevent hoarding. Although some farmers sell their crop on to the market as soon as it is lifted, the far greater proportion of main-crop potatoes are put into store for release on to the market in the winter and spring. This is the normal seasonal pattern—indeed, the essential pattern if we are to have supplies for the whole of the season. Precipitous unloading of the remaining stocks on to the market would only increase the problem later on.
I have been asked why the Government will not take steps to stabilise prices. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection commented in her speech last week to the National Farmers' Union, any action taken by the Government or the trade to restrain prices artificially would encourage consumption and lead to a run-down of stocks which need to be marketed in an orderly fashion to cover the

643
remaining months of the season. As hon. Members know, the food subsidy programme was introduced to help those on low incomes during a period of sharply rising food prices.
The Price Commission has been monitoring potato prices and margins. All the indications are that the level of prices simply reflects the supply position and the Price Code covers wholesalers' and retailers' margins on their overall businesses.
Summing up, let me say that we are well aware of the present difficult situation and appreciate the very real problems of those whose livelihood is directly affected by the current supply shortfall. But we have to face the prospect of high prices continuing until supplies of new-
644
crop potatoes are available in quantity. In the meantime, it is in everyone's interest that the remaining stocks are made available to the market as consistently and regularly as possible. Over the coming months the exceptional circumstances which we are experiencing currently will be resolved by the new season's crop.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to go into detail on a problem that is of concern to the country. I assure him that we shall do all we can in the months ahead, before the new and main crops, to safeguard our supplies and to watch over consumers' interests.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Three o'clock a.m.

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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

LORD BRADWELL
Thomas Edward Neil Driberg, Esquire, having been created Baron Bradwell, of Bradwell juxta Mare in the County of Essex, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Brockway and the Lord Pitt of Hampstead.
The Earl of Lichfield—Took the Oath.
The Lord McNair—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

MOTORWAY CONSTRUCTION
2.42 p.m.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what motorways will be started, completed or extended in the next five year period 1976–1981.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, 18 motorway schemes are under construction; on present plans, and subject to the satisfactory completion of statutory procedures and availability of funds at the time, a further 23 schemes should be started and completed by about 1981; 11 more schemes should be started but not completed during the period. The ultimate design standards for these 34 schemes are dependent on the assessment of traffic flows nearer the date of construction. With permission, I will arrange for the detailed information on individual schemes to be circulated in the Official Report.
Following is the information referred to:

a. Motorways under construction

North West

M62

Queens Drive to Tarbock.

M66

Bury Easterly By-Pass (Northern Section.)

M67

Hyde By-Pass.

North East

M18

Armthorpe to Hatfield.

M62

Rawcliffe to Balkholme-Ouse Bridge.

M62

Balkholme to Caves By-Pass.

M180

Brigg By-Pass.

Midland

M42

Solihull Section of the Birmingham-Nottingham motorway.

M69

Coventry-Leicester.

South East

M20

Swanley to West Kingsdown.

M25

Reigate to Godstone.

M25

Egham to Thorpe.

M27

Parkgate to Portsbridge.

South West

M5

Chelston to Willard.

M5

Sandy Gate to Pearce's Hill.

Eastern

Ml

Staples Corner.

M11

Redbridge to South Harlow.

M25

Hunton Bridge to Maple Cross.

b. Motorways which should be started and completed by about 1981

North West

M56

Hapsford to Lee-By-Backford.

M58

Aintree to Skelmersdale.

M63

Stockport East West By-Pass.

M65

Calder Valley (Whitebirk to Burnley).

M67

Denton Relief Road, Stage 1.

North East

M18

Wadsworth to Armthorpe.

Ml80

Thorne to Scunthorpe (including Trent Bridge.

M180

Scunthorpe Southern By-Pass.

Midland

M42

Tamworth Section of the Birmingham-Nottingham motorway.

M54

Telford to M6.

South East

M3

Popham to Compton.

M20

Maidstone-Folkestone.

M20

West Kingsdown to Addington.

M25

Godstone to Sevenoaks.

M25

Thorpe to Reigate.

M25

Egham to Heathrow.

M26

Sevenoaks to Wrotham.

M27

Chilworth to Wendhover.

A3(M)

Horndean to Bedhampton.

Eastern

Ml

Widening between Breakspears and Berrygrove.

M11

Bishops Stortford to Stump Cross.

M11

Cambridge Western By-Pass.

M25

A10-A13.

A1(M)

Cecil Road to Roestock.

c. Motorways which should be started but not completed until after 1981

North West

M63

Bredbury By-Pass.

M65

Calder Valley M6/M61 to Whitebirk.

M67

Denton Relief Road Stage 2.

Midland

M42

Bromsgrove and Castle Donington Sections of the Birmingham-Notting-ham motorway.

South East

M25

Sevenoaks to Swanley.

M27

Havant to Chichester.

Eastern

M11

Hackney to Woodford.

M25

M4-Maple Cross.

M25

Hunton Bridge to South Mimms.

A1(M)

Roestock to Stanborough.

M40

Oxford to Birmingham Motorway.

Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU: My Lords, in thanking the noble Baroness for that Answer, and agreeing that no doubt it would be for the convenience of the House for that list to be put in the Official Report, may I ask two supplementary questions? First, would the noble Baroness agree that the completion of our motorway system in Great Britain is of vital importance to our economic existence and future survival? Secondly, would she agree that a sustained and long-term programme will greatly assist in reducing unemployment in the construction industry?
Baroness BIRK: Yes, my Lords.
Lord VERNON: My Lords, will the noble Baroness agree that there is a growing body of opinion in the country which believes that Government efforts should be concentrated on improving or dualing the existing trunk road system, rather than building expensive new motorways which use up to 40 acres a mile of much needed agricultural land?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, the Government have to take a balance between the different needs of traffic congestion and environmental effect. It is perfectly true that an increasing proportion of the programme is going on such schemes as by-passes and other roads. Nevertheless, in many cases, not only from the point of view of speed but in reducing accidents, motorways have been found most effective. I can assure the noble Lord that the amount spent on motorways and road construction has gone down and is going down.
Lord ST. JUST: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree that, bearing in mind the expense of building motorways —and we have to have a national network—tolls on motorways might be the answer?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, that is a further question and I could not possibly answer it without notice.
Lord POPPLEWELL: My Lords, will my noble friend ask her honourable friend to have another look at this matter? A large amount of land is going to be taken from agriculture for this purpose in order to save a few minutes additional travel time and there is already a network of other A1 roads and a rail network capable of carrying long-distance traffic. In view of the financial stringency that the nation is now facing, and the serious financial difficulties railways are now in, will the Government consider this?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, at the present moment, as my noble friend is aware, my Department are preparing a policy review on the whole of transport. All the points raised by my noble friend are under consideration. We should await that report before taking matters any further.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, can the noble Baroness explain whether any conclusion has been reached regarding the Winchester by-pass?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, that is a different question. It is a rather detailed matter, and the question of the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, was on motorways.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, will the noble Baroness say something about agricultural land, which has been mentioned specifically but has been omitted from her answers? Will she agree that some of the earlier motorway construction was very extravagant in the amount of agricultural land taken for unnecessarily wide verges? Will she stress to her colleagues the importance of seeing that the minimum agricultural land is taken when, on balance, it is deemed necessary to use such land to construct a motorway?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, it is always a specific policy to try to avoid taking good agricultural land for new roads. Wherever possible land of a lower grade is used. I can tell the noble Lord that the remainder of the trunk road programme up to 1985 will take only 0.05 per cent. of the total

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land in rural areas. We are very aware of this.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, regarding the use of agricultural land for the highway system of this country—which seems to he the topic in question at the moment—is my noble friend aware that the compensation paid by Her Majesty's Government is adequate and nobody from the agricultural industry who owns the land can offer any form of objection to the compensation paid?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, my noble friend is probably correct, but I think that is a different question.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: Yes, my Lords, but does wheat grow out of compensation?
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, in the light of that intervention, may I draw the attention of the House to the fact that there are some 30 speakers who wish to take part in our debate. The Question in front of us is: what motorways will be started, completed and extended? I hope the House will agree with me that we have gone very wide of that Question.
The Earl of PERTH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she can tell us what the figure she quoted means in terms of acres of agricultural land?
Several Noble Lords: Answer!

SOVIET FREIGHT RATES AND TRADE PRACTICES
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are giving urgent consideration to the problems arising from the different methods used by the Soviet Union, compared with the United Kingdom and other non-Communist countries, in fixing freight rates for cargo trade and other commercial practices.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we are well aware of the concern felt by the shipping industry about competi-
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tion from the Soviet Union and are giving the most careful consideration to this problem.
Baroness WARD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that if the present system is allowed to continue it will do untold harm to our vital and industrious shipping industry because a great deal of unemployment will occur? May I ask whether, in the debate to be held tomorrow in another place on unemployment, the Minister concerned will be in a better position to say what action has resulted from whatever effort has been made—although I am not certain what it is—on this very important issue regarding the Soviet Union?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, as the noble Baroness will know, I cannot answer for what will happen in another place, but I can tell her that Her Majesty's Government are well aware of the problem. But it is not a problem for this country alone; it is one for all the maritime nations of the West. The OECD are discussing it today and the Consultative Shipping Group, which consists of 12 European maritime countries, plus Japan, are discussing it tomorrow. This is a problem that can be tackled only by international action. Her Majesty's Government are taking preliminary steps by preparing a unified approach to the Soviet commercial initiative, which has not yet been proved to be anything other than proper commercial competition.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether there has been any co-operation, in relation to this question of Russian freightage, with those countries who signed the Helsinki Agreement and also whether he is able to confirm that the Russians are undercharging by enormous amounts on tramp freight, which is, I understand, not controlled by international agreement? Especially where there is surplus shipping tonnage at the moment, will he bear in mind that this will cause grave hardship not only to dockers and those involved in dock work but also to the shipping industry as a whole?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we were talking about the Conference lines: that was the nature of the Question put by the noble Baroness. There is an

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Anglo-Soviet Merchant Shipping Agreement, Article 5 of which lays down that the parties will follow the principles of free and fair competition in international shipping. Whether or not competition is fair has to be proved in negotiations between sovereign Powers and it is not easy to get this; but Her Majesty's Government are well aware of the implications of the development of the Soviet Merchant Fleet and, in consultation with our commercial friends in Western Europe, we are preparing a joint approach to the Soviet Union.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, referring to the Conference line, may I ask whether the Minister will tell us what the difference is between the Soviet freight rates and the English freight rates?—so that the House might then be better informed as to whether or not there is a problem about this matter.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the situation is not unamusing. The Soviet Union is working to a set of these Conference lines. Therefore, the rate is the same from that point of view. On the other hand, there may be occasions when attitudes change.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he agrees that, unless the situation is checked, within a matter of five years Western European trade could become dependent on Eastern bloc ships and when this monopoly has been obtained there will be nothing to stop the Eastern bloc rates being put up to whatever level they wish? Also, could the noble Lord please give the figures for the United Kingdom exports to Russia in 1973 and say what proportion of those exports was carried in Russian ships and in United Kingdom ships?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the second part of the question is another matter and I cannot answer it now; but I am sure that Her Majesty's Government will defend the interests of the British shipping industry.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, the noble Lord said that we could not act unilaterally in this matter, but is it not a fact that, as regards trade between this country and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union insist on the bulk of the trade
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being carried on their ships? Would the noble Lord agree that, if that is the case —as I believe it to be—surely we could retaliate?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I did not say that Her Majesty's Government could not act unilaterally. I said that we thought it better to act in concert with our trading colleagues in the West.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Soviet Union completely ruined the flax trade in Europe and in this country through direction of labour and undercutting? May I ask him whether there is not a danger that they might do this with shipping? In fact, they can undercut any country in the world if they wish, because of their direction of labour.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I think that was a statement and not a question.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, would the noble Lord be kind enough to tell me why Her Majesty's Government have not acted before but have waited until the Chamber of Shipping have become extremely anxious over the present position? While thanking the noble Lord for having said that action appears to be about to take place, may I ask him why have we waited until the matter has become so very urgent?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we have been in contact; there have been regular meetings between ourselves and the Russians on this matter, and we have put up a marker that we are concerned over the affair. Damage has not yet been caused, but it is a subject for concern, as the noble Baroness has rightly pointed out. It is being discussed today by the OECD and tomorrow by the 12 European nations plus Japan.

BRITISH RAIL: DISABLED PERSONS' FARES
2.56 p.m.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will hold discussions with British Rail with a view to extending cheap mid-week travel to those holding disability pensions, in the same way as to old age pensioners.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, it is the Board's management responsibility to decide what fares to charge. They do in fact already offer some reductions for disabled people; and their national reduced fares scheme is available to all disabled people who can take advantage of it.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that Answer, may I ask whether she would agree to have more conversations with the Minister concerned with the disabled in order to see whether more concessions might be given to disabled war pensioners to use trains mid-week, since fares are rising dramatically in comparison to pensions?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, as I pointed out in my original Answer, they are able to use the concessionary fares mid-week. The point is that whereas old age pensioners are an homogenous group, so far as disabled people are concerned it is very difficult to get them into one group, because they are more diffused and the degree of disablement can vary enormously. Nevertheless, there are fare concessions for the disabled, the blind and those in wheelchairs, and now there is accommodation in first class compartments to hold wheelchairs.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, while not in any way wishing to upset my noble friend behind me, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she is aware that there is a vast difference between certain disabilities of pensioners, because some may have leg injuries while other disabled pensioners who have eye injuries—such as myself—do not need any concessions?
Baroness BIRK: Yes, my Lords, I had that in mind when I answered the noble Lord's Question.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that British Rail are rapidly pricing themselves out of the
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entire market? Is she aware that, because fares are going up so much, it is not only disabled people who cannot afford to travel, but people of all classes and incomes? Would the noble Baroness ask her colleague in charge of these matters whether British Rail could have a trial period of a month or two during which they would revert to reasonable fares, to see whether they could get their rolling stock better occupied and turn themselves into a profitable business again?
Baroness BIRK: No, my Lords, because that is an entirely different Question and one that the noble Lord will have to put down in different terms.
The Earl of PERTH: My Lords, before we go on with the Business of the House, may I put a point to the noble Lord the Leader of the House? On the first Question I asked for clarification of an answer that had been given by the noble Baroness. I was not extending the Question in any way. I fully recognise that it is very important that the House should not wander or talk too much on Questions when we want to get down to Business; but I think I have a right to demand an answer to the question which I put, which merely asked the noble Baroness to please explain the meaning, in terms of acres, of 000 something and, if the answer was not known, whether she would inform the House at a later date.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I say to the noble Earl that no noble Lord can demand the right to put a question. because all questions are put by leave of the House. It is also for Ministers to decide which questions they can answer. My noble friend did not have available the information requested. She has just said to me that she will write to the noble Earl, and if he then wishes it to be put into the Official Report so that other noble Lords may be aware of the question and answer, I will so arrange it.
But I have to say this. Increasingly, we go very wide of the original Questions on the Order Paper. There is a limit to what Ministers can be expected to reply to, and I think the House has to exercise a certain amount of judgment and charity. Ministers on both sides have always sought to provide the House with the maximum possible

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information about a Question on the Order Paper, but there must be an understanding that there are limits to what any Minister can have at his or her fingertips at any particular moment.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINTMARYLEBONE: My Lords, without in any way seeking to dispute what my noble friend on the Cross-Benches may say, I hope that the House and the Government will be aware that we are very grateful to Ministers for the generous efforts which they make to answer our Questions. Whether we are always completely satisfied with the answers is rather a different matter.
The Earl of PERTH: My Lords, I should like to say, "Thank you very much", to the noble Lord the Leader of the House. Certainly, all that I want is to have the answer in due course, and I am in no way criticising the fact that we were not given it earlier.

ICELAND: FISHERIES DISPUTE
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lord Shepherd will repeat a Statement on Icelandic fisheries.

DEVOLUTION TO SCOTLAND AND WALES
3.1 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved yesterday by the Lord Privy Seal—namely, That this House takes note of the White Paper Our Changing Democracy: Devolution to Scotland and Wales (Cmnd. 6348).
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, in his opening speech yesterday, my noble friend the Leader of the House explained the Government's general approach to devolution. We see it as essentially a process of moving power closer to the people, and bringing bureaucracy and its work more effectively under democratic control. We believe that this change will not only serve to make the conduct of public business more responsive and more acceptable to the people of Scotland and
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Wales in devolved matters; it will at the same time lighten the excessive load upon Ministers and Parliament, and so help to improve the conduct of matters for which responsibility will still remain with our central institutions. I suspect that none of your Lordships, especially the many who have had experience of Government, will doubt that the central burden is at present too heavy to be carried effectively. The delegation of part of that burden to new democratic institutions, nearer to and with closer involvement and participation by the people, can therefore bring a double benefit.
The Government have done a great deal of work to elaborate this basic philosophy into a detailed scheme, so that debate can focus upon specific practical issues, and not just broad generalities and rhetoric. We are convinced that the broad concept that we bring forward is right, but we do not claim finality for every facet of the proposals. We look forward and shall of course be responsive to the "grand inquest of the nation", conducted particularly through Parliament.
All of us in your Lordships' House will recognise the profound constitutional significance of the enterprise on which we have embarked. As the noble Lord, Lord Home, said yesterday in his notable speech, it raises the greatest constitutional issue which has faced our country since 1707. I am sure we all hope that the continuing public debate will be conducted in an atmosphere of tolerance and calm, as a matter for cool heads, not hotheads, as it was so signally conducted in your Lordships' House yesterday. During the debate, it was approached from all sides in a spirit of seeking to achieve the widest possible consensus and not in any spirit of simply scoring Party points. The quality of the debate underlines the special contribution that your Lordships' House can make in great constitutional issues of this kind.
I should like to begin by considering particular features in the Government's White Paper relating to some of the constitutional issues and to some matters relating to Wales, which took rather a back seat yesterday—not a customary position for Welshmen to occupy. But, first, I think is is important that the general philosophy within which our proposals are

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intended to work should be fully appreciated. The White Paper makes clear that the schemes for Scotland and Wales are designed to give wide freedom to the new Administration in domestic matters which arc of closest concern to them, while ensuring at the same time that the essential interests of the United Kingdom as a whole are safeguarded. The lines of responsibility between the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish and Welsh Administrations will be as clear as possible. Every effort will be made to avoid overlap and uncertainty. But our researches have shown that, with the best will in the world, it is impossible to define respective responsibilities down to the last detail; and even where that is possible there will still be matters of mutual interest on which London, Edinburgh and Cardiff will wish to keep closely in touch. For these reasons, arrangements will be needed for extensive and flexible consultations at all levels, political and official.
Inevitably, there will be differences of opinion. One of the main reasons why we are setting up the new Assemblies is to enable Scotland and Wales to do things differently if they wish. And it is hardly to be expected that what they propose will always be to the liking of the United Kingdom Government. The Government must obviously be prepared to accept the natural consequences of the new freedom which is being given to Scotland and Wales. But, as the White Paper indicates, that does not mean that the long-standing spirit of partnership within the United Kingdom will be lost. In the Government's view it will be possible—indeed, it will be in the interest of all of us—to develop, in a friendly spirit, effective two-way, or indeed three-way, consultation and co-operation. In the background there will be the Government's continuing responsibility for the essential interests of the United Kingdom as a whole. That responsibility cannot be shed. If you are not to have either complete separation or federalism, then sovereignty remains with the United Kingdom Parliament; and in those circumstances it must follow that, ultimately, the United Kingdom Parliament can pass Acts of Parliament on any matter, whether or not it is devolved.
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There are in fact more detailed procedures built into the White Paper, proposals which would enable the Government to intervene, subject to the approval of this Parliament, where some act of the Scottish or Welsh Administration would otherwise have harmful consequences for the United Kingdom. But there is no reason why these powers should be a source of conflict. I will come to the details in a moment. The preliminary general point I seek to make is that very substantial powers are being devolved and the Government will be prepared to see them used in ways which they do not necessarily like. If that happens, it will not in the ordinary course be a case for intervention. Such an approach would kill devolution.
Turning now to particular features of the proposals, may I first say a word about what was discussed yesterday; namely, the procedure for checking the vires of Scottish Assembly Bills? It can be seen from paragraph 56 of the White Paper that under our proposals it is envisaged that there will be a good deal of informal checking on the vires of an Assembly Bill, before it gets to the point of being forwarded to the Secretary of State in order that he may submit it for the Royal Assent. As the White Paper says, and I quote:
" The Assembly's presiding officer, on the advice of his counsel. will report to the Assembly of the vires of a Bill (that is, whether it falls within the devolved powers) when it is introduced, and again before the final Assembly stage; if the report is adverse it will not stop the Bill but will serve as a warning to the Assembly and the Executive. The Government will not be formally involved at these stages, but they will be aware of the Bill and the presiding officer's report and may wish to give informal warning of any difficulties about vires which they foresee. The Scottish authorities will be similarly free, if in doubt, to consult the Government informally."
On this basis it may well be that the difficulties which some people foresee will not be as common as has been supposed. The difficult points will be ironed out before the real formalities are reached.
But most discussion has been concentrated on what happens after the Secretary of State receives the Assembly Bill. The White Paper proposes that, at that stage, the Government will then consider, with advice from the Law Officers, whether any part of the Bill is ultra vires.

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It is pointed out in the White Paper that in accordance with normal legal principles, ancillary provisions reasonably incidental to a main purpose falling within a devolved field will be treated as intra vires, even though they may not strictly relate wholly to devolved subjects. Nevertheless, there is still the possibility that a Bill may appear to be over the borderline. The proposal is that in such a case the Law Officers—who include, of course, the Lord Advocate—will advise the Government on whether the Bill is ultra vires and the Government will then decide.
The question which has been raised in the course of the debate is whether it is right that the decision on vires should rest with the Government of the day. It is argued (and of course there is a great deal of force in this) that vires is essentially a question of law. The powers of the Assembly will be laid down in the Act, and it is said that it is a legal question whether they are, in the case of a particular Bill, exceeded. The argument, therefore, is that the job of checking the vires of a Bill should be given to some independent judicial body—perhaps the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, perhaps some other regular panel of judges. This was not a matter specifically left open in the White Paper, but the Government are quite prepared to listen further to arguments about it. They are not irrevocably wedded to the idea of vires being entirely a matter for the United Kingdom Government on the advice of the Law Officers. Other possibilities can be looked at.
I say this particularly because the question of vires scrutiny before Royal Assent may well be related to the question of judicial review afterwards. This latter question concerns the application of an Assembly Act in particular cases which may come up after the Act has been passed. In such cases the courts can, of course, interpret the words of the Act, but the further question is whether they can pronounce it invalid on the ground that it exceeds the Assembly's powers. This is a difficult question which the White Paper leaves open for discussion. The opposing arguments are set out in paragraphs 63 and 64 of the White Paper. They were canvassed yesterday in debate and I will not go into them again now.
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Since the White Paper was published we have received conflicting reactions on the question of judicial review. For example, the higher judiciary in Scotland are unanimously in favour of it and we heard their views powerfully expounded by the noble and learned Lords Kilbrandon and Wheatley yesterday. On the other hand, the Law Society of Scotland firmly oppose it. So far as the Government are concerned, we welcome the arguments that will be brought out for public discussion so that a final decision can be made.
I now turn to what, in many ways yesterday, was the most discussed part of the White Paper; namely, the question of reserve powers exercisable on grounds of policy. As I have explained, if an Assembly or its Executive does something which the Government and Parliament, from the standpoint of their wider view and ultimate responsibility for all of the United Kingdom, judge gravely harmful, Parliament can, in the end, always pass a new, overriding Statute, but that is a ponderous, sweeping and last-resort procedure. There is at least a case that there ought to be some Parliamentary mechanism of a more modest and flexible character. It is on this case that the proposals in the White Paper—paragraphs 58 and 59 for legislative matters relating to Scotland and paragraphs 73 and 208 for executive matters—relating to both Scotland and Wales—are based. Those proposals provide in essence that on a Government Motion Parliament may decide to overrule the devolved Administrations, either on the making of law or on executive acts. The procedure would be broadly analogous to that whereby we deal with Statutory Instruments requiring Affirmative Resolution. The control would be quite clearly in the hands of Parliament. There is no question of its being an unfettered power of the Executive. Let me reiterate, however, that there is no thought whatever that these mechanisms should be invoked simply because a devolved Administration chooses to do something which the Westminster Government of the day happens to find politically distasteful. There is no thought of that approach. The whole point of devolution is the ability to diverge, politically as well as administratively. If the reserve mechanism is misused—if it is not made by constitutional convention a matter of great

927
restraint—the devolution scheme will fail. If the Government intended to use it habitually, we should never have embarked on devolution at all.
I can understand the feelings of those who wish that an arrangement could be found which lent itself to greater formal precision and definition than can this concept of reserve powers, relying as it inevitably does in some degree on constitutional convention which cannot be neatly enshrined in Statute. No one would be happier than the Government if this could be achieved. The more that difficulties at the "interface" between devolved and Central Govrenment can be handled as a matter of legal vires and the less as a matter of awkward policy judgment, clearly the better the Government will be pleased. What, indeed, would please us most would be if the mechanisms for "policy"reserve powers never had to be invoked at all. We hope that this will be, at most, very rare. But to hope that they will never be used is one thing; not even to provide them is, we believe, another.
My noble friend the Leader of the House mentioned yesterday, in the context of the difficulty of devising an acceptable division of sovereignty in a federal system, the great complexity and the constant interactions of the various aspects of a modern industrial society. This fact lies at the root of the present issue also. After a year's intensive and detailed work, the Government simply do not believe it is possible—certainly not possible in a Bill of manageable size and workability and having a reasonably generous approach to devolution—to devise a legal dividing line between devolved and non-devolved business so perfect, so exact and so comprehensive that it will foresee and resolve every possible interaction between the responsibility of the Assembly and the overall responsibility of the Government. We must do our best to make the dividing line as clear and sound as we can, and we intend to do so. But at the end of the day there are bound to be situations, probably unforeseeable, in which the question whether the effects of a particular interaction are tolerable must be left to a policy judgment by Parliament in the light of the practical circumstances. The Government's detailed proposals are intended to provide the procedures by
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which that judgment can be made openly and carefully, but without excessive constitutional fuss or demand on Parliament's scarce time. Nevertheless, as my right honourable friend the Lord President of the Council made clear in another place, this is a subject which we are prepared to look at again in the light of the views that are expressed in Parliament.
There is one other question, or group of questions, on which I should like to comment. They concern the constitutional role of the Secretaries of State, particularly the Secretary of State for Scotland. Some critics have described it as a "Governor General "role, plumed hat and all. Whether my right honourable friend Mr. Ross would appreciate that adornment I know not; I doubt it very much. But what are the main points at which the Secretary of State would have a constitutional role in relation to the Assembly?
First, there are the matters where the Secretary of State is simply acting as a Member of the Government on a matter of Government policy within the framework of collective responsibility. An example would be any initiation of reserve powers on policy grounds, which I think only a Government could do. Secondly, there are matters where the Secretary of State is the channel to the Crown—for example, when an Assembly Bill is on the way forward for Royal Assent, Advice to the Queen goes formally from her Ministers, and the Secretary of State is the natural person for the job. Whether in this process he should be formally responsible for scrutiny of vires is a matter which I have already touched on and about which we shall be happy to hear comment. Then there are mechanical matters which someone has to do, such as the formal supervision of elections and fixing dates, and setting initial pay arrangements and standing orders to get the Assembly launched, and so on. Here again it is sensible that the Secretary of State should be designated to do those things.
Finally, there is, in Scotland only, the question of getting an Executive formed. The White Paper proposes that the Secretary of State should be the person who invites a suitable Assembly figure to form an Executive team. This is perhaps the aspect on which a good deal of complaint has been focused.

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In cases where the course is clear—where one Party has a clear overall majority and a plainly acknowledged leader—the job of inviting the appropriate individual is straightforward and formal. The difficulty arises when the task is less simple—when some kind of political judgment is needed, for instance in a situation where no Party has a clear majority. The complaint is, apparently, that such a judgment ought not to be made by a Minister, who is inevitably a political figure. If the choice of someone to form an Executive is liable to be as politically charged as critics suggest, will it not be highly invidious to place it, for example, on one of Her Majesty's judges, or on the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as some have suggested? It is much better that it should be made by someone whom Parliament can call to account.
In any event, the suggestion that here is a dangerous, unfettered autocratic discretion is, I believe, wide of the mark. The last word on who is to form and lead the Scottish Executive surely lies positively and expressly with the Assembly itself. If the Assembly judges that the Secretary of State has made the wrong choice for Chief Executive, or has wrongly dismissed a previous Chief Executive, it can simply refuse the specific approval required for a proposed new Executive; and the Secretary of State cannot then appoint anything more than a set of caretakers until he gets the answer right to the Assembly's satisfaction. And of course he cannot dissolve the Assembly in search of a more compliant one—no such power exists. Accordingly the true masters of the Executive are the Assembly, not the Secretary of State.
My Lords, I should like now to turn to the Government's particular proposals for Wales. As in the case of Scotland, the Kilbrandon Commission identified over-centralisation, dissatisfaction with Whitehall and a weakening of democracy as the chief causes of discontent with government in Wales. These are the problems which we have sought to tackle through the White Paper proposals. When the Royal Commission reported in 1973 it recommended, in varying forms and with varying powers, the setting up of a directly elected Welsh Assembly. That proposal was endorsed by a large majority
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of the representative bodies in Wales, including the political Parties, local authorities, both sides of industry and the farming community, which were consulted during the summer of 1974. The Government accepted the Kilbrandon diagnosis and recognised the widespread feeling in Wales as to what should be done to remedy the situation. We therefore committed ourselves to securing increased accountability in a democratic form for major decisions affecting ordinary people.
That commitment was embodied in the White Paper published in September 1974 and endorsed by the electorate in the following month. The detailed proposals contained in the White Paper published in November will, we believe, provide for the greatest involvement of the Welsh people in the process of Government in Wales. I believe that our proposals will mean both more open Government in the Principality and a much fuller discussion of the issues which are important to the people living there. The devolution scheme for Wales differs in some of its features from that for Scotland. These differences reflect the distinctive historical backgrounds, governmental structures and systems of law in the two countries. Wales once upon a time had the laws of Hywel Dda, but long ago they were, alas! superseded. During the Government's consultations in the summer of 1974 the claim for legislative devolution to Wales was advanced by only a small minority; the majority view was for an Executive form of devolution, as we now propose, and we are satisfied that this was a fair reflection of general opinion in Wales. It is not intended therefore that the Welsh Assembly should have powers of primary legislation.
The Assembly will, however, have very substantial policy-making and executive powers over broadly the same range of subjects as its Scottish counterpart, and with wide responsibility for democratic oversight, working within the framework of the Westminster Acts. In controlling the devolved services it will be able in general to do anything central Government can do now as to these, and will take over whatever powers those Acts confer on central Government. We believe that such a body will meet the needs and aspirations of the great majority of Welsh people. Under our

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proposals it will be the Assembly which will decide, for example, on the construction of motorways and trunk roads and the allocation of resources for this purpose. It will be the Assembly which will choose the policies and priorities to be adopted in such fields as housing, health and education. It will oversee the factory building and derelict land functions of the new Welsh Development Agency. It will take over from central Government powers on environmental matters. It will be responsible for policy and finance for new towns in Wales; for approving structure plans and deciding appeals against the decisions of local planning authorities on development applications, and for regulating atmospheric pollution. It will also be responsible for the well-being of the Arts and the fostering of the Welsh language.
It will certainly, therefore, not be a mere "talking shop ", as has been wrongly suggested, but a powerful executive responsible for virtually all those domestic matters affecting the people of Wales alone. It is because it will have such important functions that we want to ensure full democratic participation in its work and to see Welsh government as open as possible and responsive to all shades of opinion in the Principality. Our proposals therefore seek to balance effective decision-making with genuine democratic control. Executive power will rest in the Assembly, but most of its work will be done through Standing Committees dealing with particular devolved subjects such as health and education. A central Executive Committee will oversee general policy and the allocation of resources.
We also feel the need to extend democracy to the various Government appointed bodies which operate in Wales. If there is anything which causes resentment about the administration of Government in the Principality it is the existence of so many nominated bodies with their limited degree of answerablity. There are proposals in the White Paper to deal with that problem.
Criticism was expressed yesterday in the course of the debate that the new form of administration will lead to over-government in Wales. I believe that to be based on a misunderstanding of what
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we propose. Not a single new Government function is being created. Each and every function will be transferred to the Assembly from an existing department of central Government such as the Welsh Office, the Department of Education and Science or the Home Office. Every power transferred to the Assembly will be one less to be exercised in Wales by central Government. Our proposals do not therefore add a tier of Government; they improve the democratic control of an existing tier.
Another matter which has caused understandable but, again, I believe, unnecessary concern is the effect of the Government's proposals on the powers and functions of Welsh local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Heycock, made an eloquent speech on that subject yesterday, as did the noble Earl, Lord Minto, in his notable maiden speech. My noble friend who is winding up the debate will be dealing with aspects of that matter.
My Lords, I should now like to sum up the benefits and advantages which we see as flowing from our proposals for Wales. First, there has been growing concern over the inability of Parliament, and particularly the House of Commons, to discharge adequately all the burdens with which it is now charged. All of us who have been in the other place will know how Members there have to queue up for Questions, the Welsh Grand Committee debates are infrequent and not always well covered by the media. In my view there will be more effective accountability for the devolved subjects to a Welsh Assembly than there is to Parliament now.
Secondly, the decisions now taken about priorities and allocations of resources by the nominated bodies which have stood apart from the pattern of democratic government will be taken under the direct supervision of an Assembly answerable to the people of Wales. Thirdly, there will be more open government in Wales, and a better informed discussion of the issues which are important to the people living there. Fourthly, the Assembly should be in a position to design policies more in tune with Welsh needs and conditions. I believe this should lead to better decisions and better use of scarce resources.
My Lords, the reforms we arc proposing are radical. We believe they will meet the needs of the Welsh people. We are

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proposing a very big change. It is being done consciously and I believe it follows, in making a basic proposal now, the precept of that great Welshman, Lloyd George, when he said on one occasion:
"It is undesirable to traverse a chasm in two leaps "—
a characteristic contribution of the great man to the simplicity of political judgment! It will be consistent with the emphasis which democratic Socialists have placed at all times on the central importance of democracy. We believe, then, that the Assembly envisaged should bring about greater involvement of the Welsh people in the process of Government.
My Lords, I do not believe that this enhancing of democracy in Wales will weaken the unity of the Kingdom. As a Welsh-speaking Welshman myself, I know the importance that the great majority of Welsh people attach to that unity. It has survived even the annual jousting at Twickenham, Murrayfield and Cardiff Arms Park—if it is not too indelicate for a Welshman to refer to Twickenham in this immediate context. We share a small Island, even though in Wales we claim that we occupy the most beautiful part of it. England and Wales have a closely integrated economy. We inherit a tradition based on the sovereignty of Parliament and the independence of the Judiciary. We share loyalty to the Crown, and are proud of our Prince of Wales. There are also the invisible bonds of family and friendship, and the sense of common purpose in peace and war, which have for so long in the past made Wales part of a United Kingdom.
My Lords, the Government believe that the new proposals will reinforce our unity, the need to maintain which has been the golden thread running through the whole course of our debate yesterday, the debate which so impressively began this grand inquest of Parliament.

ICELAND: FISHERIES DISPUTE
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have just seen the Prime Minister's Statement on Iceland, and I would advise the House that it is one of a holding nature. I would suggest to the House that, in view of the length of the debate today, it might be best to
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adopt one of our practices—that of having the Statement printed in Hansard and for us to continue with the debate. I think this would be the best thing to do. I have consulted with the noble Earl opposite and with the noble Lord, Lord Byers, and they both agree with this procedure.
Following is the Statement referred to:
" With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a Statement.
"As the House will be aware, the Icelandic Prime Minister, Mr. Hallgrimsson, visited this country from 24th to 27th January. We held a series of meetings in which my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and other Ministers also took part. In addition, talks were held between Mr. Hallgrimsson and my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. Legal advisers and conservation experts from both sides also met separately on 25th January to discuss problems which were referred to them.
" Various formulae for a possible solution of the dispute were considered. I explained to Mr. Hallgrimsson our recognition of the importance of adequate measures to conserve fish stocks around Icelandic coasts in our interests as well as theirs.
" The situation during the talks was complicated by problems which arose on the fishing banks as a result of action taken by Icelandic coastguard vessels. I am most grateful to the British fishing industry for the cooperation which they have shown in reducing the risk of serious clashes.
" Mr. Hallgrimsson has now returned to Reykjavik to discuss the situation arising from our talks with his Government colleagues. I expect to be in touch with him again shortly. It will not be easy to find a solution to this most delicate problem and I am sure that the House will not wish to press me at this stage for details of the positions adopted by the two sides. It remains of great importance that nothing further should happen on the fishing banks to heighten tension, and in the last two hours I have found it necessary to re-emphasise this to Mr. Hallgrimsson.
"It will be clear from what I have said that Her Majesty's Government have approached this matter in a constructive spirit and have shown and continues to show the greatest restraint. This point has been appreciated by our NATO partners and I would like to express my gratitude to the NATO Secretary General for the action which he took to make possible my meeting with the Icelandic Prime Minister.
" I shall of course keep the House fully informed of any future developments. In the meantime it is important that the prospects for further discussions should not be endangered by speculation or by ill-judged words or actions, particularly on the fishing grounds."

DEVOLUTION TO SCOTLAND AND WALES
3.36 p.m.
Debate continued.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, if it were not for an attack of influenza that has laid him low, my noble friend Lord Aberdare would be opening the proceedings this afternoon from these Benches. I should like to start with an apology on his behalf for his absence, and also for any disappointment your Lordships may feel as a result. My noble friend Lord Aberdare is, of course, a Welshman, and it had been his intention to concentrate the bulk of what he had to say chiefly upon the Welsh aspects of the White Paper on devolution. Your Lordships, I hope, will agree that I can best serve the interests both of this House and of the Welsh people if I follow that plan. It may also serve this House if I adopt a brevity which will be appreciated more acutely as the evening progresses.
My Lords, I know that it is customary to consider the Welsh problem as analogous to the Scots', and by concentrating on the latter to expect to solve, without great additional effort, all the complexities of the former. But I think that that analogy is false, and I should like to particularise at the outset my reasons for so assuming. The Scots have a population of 5½ million; the Welsh have a population of only 2½ million. The ancestors of that population in Scotland were united in a common realm with the people of England and Wales only in 1707. Although that was nearly 270 years ago, the ancestors of the smaller Welsh population had, even then, already been formally united with the English for 171 years, and have now been part and parcel of the Union for only 60 years less than half a millennium—which may give them a certain resilience at Twickenham and other places.
The Scots have their own judiciary; the Welsh do not. In almost every statistical work published the Scots have a table to themselves; the Welsh do not. In almost every Bill that your Lordships may pass through this House special provision has to be made for Scotland, as a result of the different body of Statute Lay, upon which the new Act has to be
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grafted where it applies North of the Border. That is not the case with Welsh legislation. If I may paraphrase what was said yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Heycock, in a most effective and, if I may say so, illuminating address, the Scots' approach to devolution is a philosophic nationalism; the Welsh motive is primarily, although not entirely, linguistic and not nationalistic. Electorally, the Scottish National Party has taken 11 seats in the Westminster Parliament and the polls predict, regrettably, that it may take more.Plaid Cymru has taken a bare three seats, polled a mere 11 per cent. of votes cast, and 27 of its 36 candidates lost their deposits in the General Election.
My Lords, for all these reasons I believe that to pursue the analogy between the Scottish case and the Welsh is an illusory pursuit, because the analogy does not exist. The case of each resembles that of the other about as closely as does the music of their respective musical instruments—the bagpipes and the harp. While I do not dissent from the view of my noble and learned friend Lord Hail-sham of Saint Marylebone that differences of history, geography and environment do not prevent the co-operation of devolved parts in a constitutional whole, I do question the premise that the arguments that hold good for Scotland hold equally good for Wales. And, of course, my noble and learned friend demonstrated admirably that these arguments of the White Paper do not, in their present form, hold good for Scotland and that to bind a devolved Scotland to the United Kingdom in the manner described therein is simply to tie us together with a burning fuse. Common elements, of course, there are between the Welsh and Scottish situations. There is a degree of discontent in Wales, to which the noble and learned Lord has eloquently alluded, with the feeling of remoteness surrounding government.
But it is felt in England, too, as well as in Scotland. It is a malaise of the Kingdom, not of the nations of which the Kingdom is composed. It rests upon the growing suspicion that, although we have achieved universal suffrage and equality of electoral power—among all who do not have the misfortune to be lunatics or paupers or the fortune to be Peers—although we have attained these

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democratic achievements, they are not delivering the goods. We are not living in a more peaceable but in a more violent society day by day. We do not repose more but less confidence in the economy day by day. We are not more certain but less certain of employment day by day.
Whenever the product of the governmental system lacks appeal, as it now does—whether for reason of bad government or simply circumstances beyond human control; and I make no distinction between Parties here—some of that disenchantment rubs off on the system itself. And more is being generated by the justifiable feeling that individual people are, in the age of the multinational company, the computerised data bank, of mass media, mass markets and consumerism, counting less and less as people and more and more as cyphers as day follows day. The principal cry of the people of this country and of Wales is, therefore, for better government, for more personal government and for less government. We have to ask ourselves whether the devolution of powers to an elective Welsh Assembly will satisfy that cry.
It can, of course, be argued—independently of that line of reasoning—that, if Parliament decides to devolve generous or considerable powers on an elective chamber in Scotland, the Welsh might covet similar arrangements for themselves. After all, my noble friend said yesterday that there is a spirit of envy abroad, and it was a notable phase. All I can say at this stage is that there is no sign, I think, that they would, though I was impressed by the list of supportive opinions which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor adduced as having been presented to him in the summer of 1974. But I will return to that. The Association of County Councils is wholly opposed to the scheme, reluctant as the Prime Minister was to accept the evidence presented to his ears, and I believe subsequently to his eyes, in another place on 13th January. The best evidence of Welsh opinion held nationally at present seems to be that most Welshmen do not want an elected Assembly. The performance of Plaid Cymru may not indicate a view of an Assembly so much as a view of separatism, but we cannot here ignore their electoral performance, to which I earlier referred.
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The conclusion of the policy statement by the Policy Committee of the Association of Local Authorities says in part:
" The Assocation reject the proposed devolution scheme "—
and it refers here specifically to the scheme for Wales—
"on the grounds of its unnecessary introduction of an additional level of government, with its inevitable complications and delay in administrative processes; of its immediate and projected interference with the recently reorganised existing local government; and of its cost in both manpower and materials at a time of need for the utmost economy. In their view the needs of Wales should be met by practical arrangements of a different nature."
This is not a comment on Scotland or on devolution; it is a comment on devolution in Wales.
The problems and preconceptions of the Welsh and Scots nations are so different that they seem to me to warrant the very serious consideration of the proposal—in which I was anticipated yesterday by the noble Lord. Lord Heycock—that they should be solved, if they are to be solved, by two separate Acts of Parliament. The argument against this, of course, is quite simply that each part of the United Kingdom should consider itself and be treated, as long as it remains united, equally. And the answer quite simply is that, so far as the White Paper goes, England, which is an integral part of the United Kingdom, is not to be treated at all.
I noted the promises of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that the Government would very soon turn their attention to the problems of England, but I wonder whether we have yet sufficiently taken on board what the corollaries of the proposals contained in the White Paper are for England and Wales. Large areas of executive responsibility and of secondary legislation are to be devolved to elected national Assemblies, West and North of the respective Borders. Since the purpose of this exercise is to bring effective government more nearly within the grasp of the private citizen, and since it is conducted in response to that citizen's supposedly well-informed and irresistible desires, we must assume that the functions chosen for devolution are those most precious to the voter. Upon these no Scot is to be ruled by an Englishman or a Welshman, and no Welshman is to be ruled by an Englishman or a Scot. But

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what about the English? If the Scots find it insupportable to be ruled by the English, do they, or Her Majesty's Government, suppose that the English clamour to be ruled by the Scots?
Here we are brought, willy-nilly, face to face with contemporary political considerations, whether or not we wish it. Are we not aware that it is only, in the view of many, the voice that the present Government derive from their Scottish seats, and those seats to become ancillary though not joined to it, that enables them to dictate to a reluctant majority in England the policies it shall accept in education and in health, areas specifically given under the White Paper to the Scots and Welsh to attend to for themselves so far as concerns their homelands? Under these proposals, the very Members of Parliament for Scotland and Wales themselves will be precluded from speaking on devolved subjects in their own Kingdom and Principality, but they will have a voice in this Parliament on what happens in the same areas in the Kingdom of England. To that extent the White Paper, which goes too far in many directions, does not go far enough for me. If Her Majesty's Government are going to water the soil of nationalism, they must expect the rose to bloom as well as the thistle and the daffodil.
Despite the impressive support which the noble and learned Lord recited earlier, my impression is that the Welsh are not enthusiastic nationalistically for devolution, and that they are right not to be. They will be better served by less government, not more. I believe that at this time to lay the foundations of a Civil Service of up to 1,600 people at a projected cost of £12 million is wrong-headed. Certainly we do want more jobs, but we want more productive jobs. The Civil Service, for all its outstanding merits, probity and renown, has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished, as should unproductive expenditure in all fields at a time of national stringency.
It matters perhaps not much what we say today. There is no prospect, we are told, in speech after speech and in the White Paper, of immediate action or irrevocable decision. We are, I suppose, in the position of someone sitting in front of a steaming plate of food—some might say a dog's dinner—pushing
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it about and waiting for it to get cool enough to eat. For my part, I am unconvinced that those British subjects who live in Wales want any part of what is suggested in this White Paper. It would multiply the expense of government, it would delay its processes and render it more remote. The new body would even, under paragraph 229, be empowered to make a surcharge on the rates, an emotive subject which has been touched on already for Scotland. We have already seen in Wales the intense resentment stirred up by the water authority precept on the rates. Any elected Assembly that followed that example would be doomed to opposition from the outset, but that is not a bad thing where taxation is concerned.
Numerically the population is such that the Assembly and the Welsh nation would be dominated by the South-East, by the counties of Gwent, South, Mid and West Glamorgan. This is viewed by many in North, Central and West Wales with even less enthusiasm than government from Cardiff, and working to a Secretary of State and the Welsh Office in some ways has the advantage of simplicity and familiarity over working to an elected Assembly subject to regional pressures.
The noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal made a point yesterday, echoed from the White Paper, that was endorsed today by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor who made it his opening theme; that is, that the intention was to bring power closer to the people. The noble and learned Lord said that this was to be a practical effect. All I can say is that at present the local authorities can apply their rate support grants within limits as they please, and all that money will go in the block grants, under the new arrangements, to the Assembly, and they will have no say in that until the money has been devolved in the second stage to them. This is very germane to what the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, said yesterday; that is, that the Welsh eventually got, as a result of sweat, tears, and I think a little blood, to London, to Westminster, where the Exchequer is. It is the purse-strings as well as the ballot box that give power in this democratic age.
I revert to my question, my principal doubt which lies at the basis of everything I have said. I am not convinced

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as the noble and learned Lord had to be convinced if he was to say what he did say earlier this afternoon, that the people of Wales want what is here offered to them. It may have a redeeming feature in a closer control of nominated bodies, and that needs closer examination, but beyond that I find it a rather bad curate's egg. But I may be wrong. We have the example of a referendum on a fundamental constitutional issue already behind us. Some of us were reluctant that it should be accepted as a precedent, but if it was a precedent I can think of no better occasion upon which it should be followed. Let us establish the truth of the matter.
Let us recall before we set out upon this that this year is what I believe is termed the sesqui-millennium—or, I would prefer to say, the 1,500th anniversary—of the withdrawal of the unifying legions of Rome from the British Isles, and let us beware. I would rather see a practical re-review of the subject approached on the lines of a body drawn from elected county councils to concert their strategy, quite possibly in an ad hoc fashion at the outset, and that semper ad hoc might indeed be the motto of a good deal of government. This body, by correlating a common view where there was a common view between local authorities which are elected, might make a common strategy where that was appropriate.
I cannot believe that such an authoritative body, so close to what is infelicitously called "the grass roots of politics ", would be ignored by Westminster. If it was to put a view on legislation when legislation was being considered, if it required a Statutory Instrument, if it wanted to mould public opinion, could such a body once it was established and enduring and effective, be swept aside? I think not. And I think that is the way that constitutions usually grow, because constitutions do grow and they are not always made. I think that such a body, carefully constructed, would have as much effect as the proposals in the White Paper, and it would do so at infinitely less cost, in infinitely less time and with much greater satisfaction to the Welsh people than the suggestions that we are today debating.
3.53 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, many millions of words and many hectares of paper have been covered by the discussion on this question of devolving powers in domestic affairs to Scotland and Wales. But in the light of the decades of political discussions which have preceded this White Paper, I must say at once that the White Paper is fundamentally disappointing. Indeed, so far as Wales is concerned, I will say that the proposals are likely to be politically dangerous and disruptive of government at both national and local level. If I may paraphrase the charming quotation made by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor about trying to cross a chasm, the trouble with these proposals is that an attempt is being made by the Government to cross a chasm with not two leaps but with too short a leap, and disaster can only follow. My somewhat severe expressions of disappointment about the proposals may be more readily acceptable at this stage to your Lordships, at any rate when I say that I do not propose to follow the wonderful oratory of the previous two speakers, but I am proposing to deal briefly and succinctly with three or four main points of vital importance to the future government of Wales in its domestic affairs, in the unity of Wales, and in the unity of the United Kingdom.
I fully realise that the Government may not be able at the end of this debate today to give a firm reply to some of the points which I propose to raise. But I hope what will happen—and I am encouraged by the statements made by the noble Lord the Leader of the House in the earlier part of his speech yesterday—is that the Government will be good enough to consider the proposals and arguments which I propose to adduce, so that they can be adequately covered in the legislation which is to be introduced later in so far as Wales is concerned. At this stage may I, with your Lordships' leave, take the opportunity of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, on his new appointment. He will be speaking later in this debate. He is an eminent constitutional authority and he has achieved, as your Lordships will agree with me, great political distinction both inside and outside this House.

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I am strongly of the view that while the democratic institutions of this country, of the United Kingdom, are sound, they need at this stage to be revitalised, and this revitalisation can only come from an adoption of a Parliamentary system of devolution without any breakdown of the essential unity of the United Kingdom. But in my view the proposal for the system of devolution in the White Paper is a sham devolution. Having regard to the needs of Wales, it does not devolve adequate powers to that Assembly.
I now turn specifically to deal quite briefly with important points in relation to the proposals in the White Paper on the domestic affairs of Wales. Of course I recognise that the Government's present proposals give for the first time to Wales an elected Assembly. This is obviously a very great step forward. But my first serious objection is that the White Paper does not grant this Assembly, either now or in the future, adequate legislative powers to deal with Welsh domestic affairs. In effect—and I am supported by what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor indicated in his attractive speech this afternoon—what the proposals of the Government embodied in the White Paper will do is to shed some of the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Wales to the Assembly, thus creating a further tier of government, and this is what I call sham devolution. No real powers will be devolved to the Welsh Assembly from the Parliament at Westminster which, for example, will enable the Assembly to have control over the Welsh economy or anything touching economic matters in Wales.
If the Assembly is to have a proper status in order for it to be effective in Wales, it should have legislative powers in relation to Welsh domestic affairs. The states in the United States of America, Lander Parliaments in Germany, the Parliament in Northern Ireland, all have legislative powers: Wales is not to have legislative powers. I ask the Government, why should this be? The proposals in the White Paper, as I have said before, provide a sham devolution which can only breed uncertainty and conflict for the future.
My first recommendation to the Government, if I may put it that way, is
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therefore this: precise legislative powers should be devolved from this Parliament of Westminster to the Welsh Assembly, with, of course, residual powers in the Parliament of Westminster; and safeguards should be included in the Act which sets up the Assembly to ensure that the system of operation is a Parliamentary system and not the Committee system, which the proposals in this White Paper envisage and certainly will produce in practice. Those of us who have been concerned with politics at local and national level in Wales will understand the references made both in the other place and in this House to the Government in Glamorgan.
My second recommendation is that fair and democratic representation in the Welsh Assembly can be achieved only by some form of proportional representation. The Kilbrandon Commission was unanimous that the present system of voting was most unfair and that a form of proportional representation was essential. I was somewhat surprised that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made no reference to this aspect of the proposals of the Kilbrandon Commission; but I do not propose this afternoon to emphasise further this point of the desirability of having proportional representation in view not only of the recommendations of the Kilbrandon Report but of the powerful speech made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, himself.
My third point is that it is necessary to charge the Welsh Assembly specifically with powers to review the organisation of local government in Wales. The Welsh Assembly, as conceived in the White Paper, in my view adds another tier of government. I do not want to raise Party political controversy at this stage, but the Tory Government rushed headlong into the reform of local government before the publication of the Kilbrandon Report and thereby in my view largely prejudiced the case for devolution. As a result of measures for the so-called reform of local government, I accept that the then Tory Government made the position more difficult for the present Government.
The whole question of Welsh local government must be looked at with a view to devolving more power from the large county councils to the district

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councils. Indeed, it may be reasonable that most of the present functions of the Welsh county councils could be dealt with by the district councils. However that may be, the Welsh Assembly should be specifically charged with reviewing local government with the object of having a single tier of, if possible, all-purpose local authorities. In this way there would be a reduction in the amount of government. In this way the cost of devolution as at present envisaged in the White Paper would be greatly reduced. This matter of local government is not one which should be left entirely to the Welsh Assembly. I can see conflicts arising between existing local councils and the proposed Welsh Assembly. These problems must be dealt with by the Westminster Parliament, with specific safeguards in the measure, and should not be left, as at present, to the Welsh Assembly.
I also fully realise that in the climate of present political thinking there is a great deal to be said for bringing in a Welsh Assembly, as it were, on trial for four years; that would be for the whole of one sitting of the Assembly. Thus, there could be a constitutional conference in the third year with Members of the Assemblies of Scotland and Wales and of this Parliament, to consider the best means of setting up a much more permanent structure within the United Kingdom. However, in saying this I do not qualify in any way my previous argument that there should be legislative powers given to the Welsh Assembly, and that it should have given to it by the Parliament of Westminster specific powers for dealing with local government.
I address your Lordships as a Welsh-speaking Welshman. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is unable through illness to be present today. I do not think I could go along, at least this afternoon, with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, a Welsh Tory. It is not unfair for me to say that most Englishmen know more about other countries, like Spain and France, than they do about Wales. I have not gone into the details this afternoon. We Welshmen are asking for more powers to control our domestic affairs in the context of a United Kingdom remaining united. I have presumed to direct the attention of your Lordships to only some of the main
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points in which the White Paper is deficient in regard to Welsh matters in a United Kingdom, and I hope the Government will think again about their proposals for Wales.
4.6 p.m.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, in view of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, perhaps I should open my remarks by nailing my flag firmly to the mast and saying that I am strongly in favour of an elected Welsh Assembly. I feel that it should have considerable supervisory powers, that it should have some executive powers. I do not believe—and here I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran—that it should have any primary legislative powers and I have become more doubtful than I was some time back about the desirability of its having secondary legislative powers; a point to which I shall come shortly.
After Parliamentary experience extending over more than 25 years in the other place and in this House, I know that it is futile and unreasonable to expect adequate examination of particular aspects or functions of Welsh public administration to take place here at Westminster. As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said, debates in the Welsh Grand Committee or on the Floor of the House in another place are, of necessity, perfunctory. There is little specific Welsh legislation and even if more time could be given to the Welsh Grand Committee or more separate Bills devised for Wales, there would not be enough Welsh Members to undertake the work that would be required for this more thorough examination of Welsh administration if they were also to play a proper part in the wider issues confronting Parliament. We are, in fact, slightly over-represented in the House of Commons, with 36 Welsh Members, because of our thinly populated rural constituencies.
Thus, the answer cannot be more Welsh Members; and with a Labour Government, a handsome proportion of Welsh Members will be engaged in Ministerial office, leaving only a small number of Back-Benchers from Welsh constituencies to man Welsh committees or take an effective part in Welsh debates. Long ago I came to the conclusion, therefore, that the better administration of Wales could not come from Westminster. I am also experienced as a former Minister

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of State at the Welsh Office. The functions already devolved on the Secretary of State for Wales are such a conglomeration of diverse duties that adequate Ministerial surveillance is exceedingly difficult. It is not made easier by the fact that the Welsh like to see their Ministers and make very heavy demands on their time and energy. Civil servants in the Welsh Office, as I know very well, have to lean heavily on the specialist knowledge and expertise of Whitehall. Except for priority subjects, they are apt to find it difficult to provide their Ministers with enough ammunition when they are engaged in the customary internecine Departmental warfare of Whitehall or at Cabinet policy committees.
Quite rightly, in the circumstances, the Welsh Office civil servants concentrate on areas of major importance to Wales, such as industrial development, the derelict land programme and the like, where they have scored some outstanding successes. But in my view the Welsh Office is already over extended and piling more functions upon it would not help. It is for these reasons that I welcome proposals for a Welsh Assembly to take over some of those burdens, provided we are clear about what it is intended to do.
Having, as I hope, firmly established my position on the main issue of the Assembly, I must explain why I am worried, as are many people on both sides of the Border, and why a number of people and of leading local authorities in Wales have been asking for a referendum on this matter. I do not necessarily go along with that idea, but I understand the reasons underlying the anxieties which have led to that demand from some very reputable quarters. One reason for that anxiety was touched on last night by my noble friend Lord Heycock, and other noble Lords have mentioned it today. It is that the Local Government Act 1972 has left local government in the Principality in such an unsatisfactory condition that to superimpose an elected Assembly upon a two-tier system of local government without reform of the latter will cause considerable difficulty. My noble friend Lord Heycock was in error in suggesting yesterday that we had not thought of the relationship of an Assembly to the proposed reorganisation of local government
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in 1972. I myself am certainly on record in Hansard as pointing out with some vigour to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare —whose absence today we very much deplore—that the Government which he was at that time defending from the Front Bench were gravely in error in proceeding with the reorganisation of local government without having waited for the Kilbrandon Report and without having made up their mind what they proposed to do in its totality. We needed a synoptic view at that time but we did not get one and we are now reaping the consequences.
In putting forward the White Paper which we are debating, I believe that the Government have not faced that problem fairly and squarely. We have three tiers of local government in Wales because we have the statutory Community Councils as well as the districts and counties. I also feel that the Government have not squarely faced the "English dimension ". We should have had an English White Paper included in the present White Paper which we are debating today. Furthermore. I do not believe that any of us have adequately taken on hoard the "European dimension", though reference has been made to it. I am speaking now in Parliamentary terms, not of the wider matters of the Community. I am concerned that, unless we think through the problems of local government, of the English dimension and of the European Parliamentary dimension, and see just where we are going, we may find ourselves inexorably led to a federal system in the United Kingdom, whether we want it or not.
If I may, I should like to say a further word about what I call the "English dimension ". Of course, the English are always a little slow in the uptake and I believe that they have only recently begun to realise that this is not just a private fight of the Welsh and the Scots but that they, too, are involved. The few rumblings which we have so far heard, particularly those from the North-West and the North-East, could grow into a roar. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, used a more elegant floral analogy. I was in Cardiff last weekend where our Labour Party Annual Local Government Conference was held. There were representatives from all parts of England and Wales and there is no doubt whatsoever that there is a growing feeling in the North-East and the North-West that, if certain

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powers and, as they consider them, privileges, are to be devolved on Scotland and Wales, they will want to know the reason why. I do not believe that we can ignore that. I feel that it would be a great pity if, through lack of foresight, we proceeded in a way which might arguably be satisfactory for Scotland or Wales but which could create considerable problems in the future when we come round to considering the English situation.
I was much interested in the thesis which was put forward at the weekend by Derek Senior, who held a minority view on the Kilbrandon Commission and who suggested that some at least of the political heat might have been taken out of the Scottish and Welsh devolution proposals had they been placed in a setting of regional government for England. That would not have ruled out additional provision for Scotland and Wales, but it would have kept the discussion of what functions are suitable for regional devolution on a much more rational and less inward-looking basis.
I should like also briefly to refer to the "European dimension". It appears to me that we need to discuss that if we are to reach a sensible conclusion on our proposals for domestic devolution. As yet, we have not debated in this House the proposition—though we shall be doing so before very long—that we should have directly elected Members to a European Parliament. It is true that, at present, the European Parliament does not exercise power but is primarily a consultative and advisory body, but if its numbers are to be increased and the members are to be directly elected, it seems to me to be inevitable that sooner or later the European Parliament will demand further powers. It is proposed to elect 67 United Kingdom Members, not one of whom need have any connection with the Westminster Parliament under the present suggestions. This means that, in the Principality, the bewildered elector will be involved in voting for six representatives for different areas, different constituencies and different functions. I believe that the elector will find it very difficult to distinguish and disentangle who does what and why. It is hard enough now to keep up with what the European Parliament is doing. I believe that few citizens realise that legislation is beginning to come pouring out of
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Brussels to regulate all aspects of our lives, from the programme of nuclear power to how we are to mix our mayonnaise.
A Noble Lord: And mustard, my Lords!
Baroness WHITE: Yes, my Lords. I am much obliged to my noble friend. At present, this legislation emanates from the Commission and is determined by the Ministers, but I am sure that the Parliament will assume a larger role in the future. As a Parliamentarian, I am concerned to know what we shall have left at Westminster when our duties are dispersed between Strasbourg on the one hand and Edinburgh and Cardiff as well as Westminster on the other. One cannot enlarge on this theme today, but I believe that it is germane to the kind of devolution which we are about to embark upon.
Against that background, and with all these unanswered questions, how do the White Paper proposals for Wales stand up to examination? If time had permitted I should have liked to go into some questions of finance because I feel that that is central to the propositions which have been put forward, but I shall content myself with saying that I hope that, whatever arrangements we reach, it will at least be possible for the Welsh Assembly, should it wish to do so, to obtain special finance for such worthy objects as providing an adequate opera house for our Welsh National Opera Company and providing the National Eisteddfod with an adequate pavilion which will not be in chronic danger of collapse.
I should like to discuss briefly the question of delegated legislation going to the Assembly. At one time I thought that this would be the solution for Wales, on the inevitable assumption that if one were to have devolution at all Scotland would demand a primary legislative function for itself. I should much prefer that all legislation should be kept here at Westminster, simply on the grounds that I think it an absolute waste of time, of skilled manpower and of general effort to legislate four times with such differences as I think would be marginal in primary legislation between the four parts of the United Kingdom. But I repeat that I recognise that there is a

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Scottish situation which one has to accept. This is where we must think very carefully about the possible English dimension, because I am sure that it would be entirely unacceptable to have devolution of secondary legislation to the regions of England. If that were done —as well as to Wales—then one could only boggle at the confusion which could arise.
It is all very well to say—I thought rather cavalierly—in the White Paper, that of course the Parliament of Westminster could legislate on a "framework "basis to be filled in by the Welsh Assembly. If that were done, then the English regions, if they are to be formed in the future, would undoubtedly press for perhaps a little at the beginning, and then for more and more devolved legislation to be handed to them with, I think, a state of hopeless confusion. I am not necessarily against secondary legislation going to the Welsh Assembly, but I ask that we think very carefully about what we are doing and how far it should go.
I now wish to turn briefly to some of the other proposed powers of the Assembly. Here there is a very important point of principle which seems to me to be causing confusion of thought in the Principality. This is the distinction between supervisory and executive powers. The local authorities are broadly executive in function. As a rule they do not have the role—which I think would be one of the most important roles for the Assembly—of supervising an activity or function carried out by another body. This seems to many local Government representatives to be unreal; it is not a function to which they are accustomed. I do not think that they fully understand what I believe is the intention of the White Paper; and it is extremely important that the Government should make clear what they have in mind, so that we do not have confused expectations, and consequent possible disappointment, through misunderstanding on this, to my mind, very clear distinction.
I have recently become the chairman of a nominated body in Wales to which it would be improper for me to refer in any detail in your Lordships' House. But I think that the attitude which we are taking would be shared by members
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of a number of other comparable bodies. My colleagues and I are perfectly content with the proposition that we, or our successors, should be appointed by the Welsh Assembly; that our finances should flow from the Assembly; that our accounts should be scrutinised or questioned by the Assembly; that our annual report should be addressed to the Assembly, and that we should receive policy directives from the Assembly.
But we are not convinced that the particular job that we have been asked to do could be carried out as effectively by a committee of elected members as by a body, with its own staff, concentrating on a special area of activity for which it had been appointed.Mutatis mutandis, I believe that this argument applies to many bodies in Wales and, I suppose, also in Scotland, which should come under close Assembly supervision, but which should otherwise be allowed to get on with the job. The White Paper is far from clear on this point, and I hope that this can be clarified and more fully discussed before any legislation is brought forward.
There are other areas of dubiety, as my noble friend Lord Heycock made plain yesterday, as to the relationship between the Assembly and the local authorities. These can be worked out, but I can fully understand the apprehensions of the county councils in Wales, for example, when they are told that the priorities in such matters as education will be decided by the Assembly. They are worried about this and would like to know exactly what it means.
There are many other matters which I should like to touch upon, but time does not permit, and so I shall confine myself to three brief, though not by any means small, points. The first concerns the position of the Secretary of State for Wales. It is essential that nothing should be done to diminish his role in Wales to such a point that he would not have a really powerful voice in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. On the whole, in my view the division of proposed functions between the Secretary of State and the Assembly provides for the Secretary of State to have an adequate base from which to work as a member of the United Kingdom Cabinet, but it is essential that that base should not in any way be further diminished.

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I feel that it is unwise of the Government—it is politically naïve—for them to reiterate (as my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor did today, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, did yesterday, and as did other speakers, among them, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd) that we are not inserting a further tier of government. Of course it is entirely true that the proposed powers, at this stage at least, are devolved from central Government. But what is the good of telling the ordinary citizen that if he is to go into an election and vote for candidates for an Assembly he is not voting for something different from what he has at the moment? I hope that this entirely unconvincing argument is at least somehow rephrased, or re-presented, because as it stands at the moment it carries no conviction whatsoever.
Finally, I wish to say a little on the relationship between the Members of all these bodies—the European Parliament, the Westminster Parliament and the Assembly. I am concerned that if we are all to be part of a Parliamentary process there should be the maximum communication between us. We shall be discussing this at the European level in a few weeks' time. As I said 18 months ago, in a lecture which I gave on this subject of devolution to the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, it is so often on the small things that communications depend. I should like within the United Kingdom—I am not suggesting free trips to Europe all the time—that a Member elected in a United Kingdom constituency for the European Parliament, for the Westminster Parliament, or for the Scottish or Welsh Assembly, should have, as it were, a passport to the other bodies within the United Kingdom. I do not mean that he should have this "passport"in order to speak, but rather to be made welcome there, and to be able to confer with his colleagues. We shall have three people—a European Parliamentarian, a Westminster Parliamentarian, and an Assembly Parliamentarian —for each area of the Principality. There ought to be adequate opportunities for them to get together and to know what each other is doing. Life being what it is, free travel for them between London and Cardiff or Edinburgh, as the case may be, might lubricate the process to some degree.
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I must not take any more of your time, my Lords. While I welcome the White Paper as issued by the Government, I feel that the English White Paper should have accompanied it, and I hope very much that we shall have considerable opportunities for further consultation before legislation is brought forward.
4.30 p.m.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, after listening to four distinguished speeches from Wales, whether or not from natives, I very much hope there will be two Acts of Parliament dealing with this subject. However, I must say that there are points in what the noble Baroness, Lady White, said on which I have very strong feelings, too. She mentioned this question of five tiers of government. What we are doing, or are likely to be doing, is that within the space of six years we shall insert three new tiers of government. That is so in Scotland, and I gather that it will be substantially so in Wales, too. It is all very well to say that it will not be a tier, but why is it costing £10 million? Is there any possible explanation of why a tier which is not a tier will cost £10 million? This is something which will need a little explanation before we can readily accept it.
My Lords, I am very glad that a lot of English speakers, or more, are taking part today because, as the noble Lord the Leader of the House said to us, this is really a problem for the United Kingdom, and yesterday there were too few English speakers. The Government came through the debate yesterday extremely well. Of the 37 speakers, 33 were broadly in agreement with the framework of that which the Government suggest. There was a certain amount of talk about the Act of Union and, if I may, I should like to add a word to that. The noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, said that he did not want to take it away or break it for the moment, but that he would do so in due course. I am bound to say that I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, was perhaps a trifle equivocal about the Act of Union. He said it had no a priori claim to immortality. I thought that was exactly what it had; it is written in the document itself that it is an indissoluble Union. Let us think about this for one moment. It undertakes the

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maintenance of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland. That is what the English do to Scotland, and that is what Scotland does to England. It took 200 years from the time when negotiations started to the time when it became a success. There were five attempts in the century before 1707; that followed 300 years of almost unbroken warfare. It is said that, of course, this is impossible today. A Statement was made about Iceland this afternoon, and one cannot make too ready an assumption of what might well happen today.
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Home said that, if there was any question of the Act of Union being brought into doubt, the answer was a referendum. I would add only this to what he said; I think it should be one held in all parts of the United Kingdom, because this is a union—what Dicey calls "a true contract "—between two Parliaments which have ceased to exist. England ceased at that time to be a separate country; Scotland ceased to be a separated country. I have doubts whether it is proper to regard an Act of that sort in the same way as one would, say, an Act for the better protection of badgers. I am fully in agreement with that law, but I think it is in a different category; there is authority in the courts in Scotland, possibly obiter, which indicated that this Act of Union has a stronger or more fundamental base than other laws in the country.
My Lords, I have spoken a good deal in this House about the devolution of power, and, if I may, I should like to say quite frankly what I think I have been trying to go for. There are two problems in Scotland which have gone on for years: unemployment and dislike of London control. These have been going on for a very longtime. In Scotland, we have normally had twice the level of unemployment, in percentage terms, of England, perhaps three times of the South-West. Today, unemployment has risen a good deal in England and it is very nearly the same as the percentage in Scotland. Moreover, Scots people believe that they are not getting their share of the good things which are going in London. Indeed, before the war this was perfectly true. During a four or five year period just before the war four-
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fifths of the new factories were built in the Greater London area. London as an area never felt the hardness of life which was known, I would say, North of the Trent and, certainly, as in Scotland, in the North-East, in South Wales and in Westmorland.
That period was followed by the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Industry, which said this:
"The social, economic and strategic problem of London is a problem which demands immediate action ".
I shall not say that some action has not been taken; it has. On the other hand, there has been an increased concentration of power in London. The whole process of nationalisation has brought much more power, much more control, into this area. We may ask ourselves: Why should the coal mines be run from Victoria? Is that an inevitable way of running coal mines? Perhaps it is necessary for coal mines. Virtually all nationalised industries are run from the same place. Is that really necessary? Is that an integral part of Socialism, or are there other Socialist solutions which could quite reasonably have been put forward?
It is always curious to me why the Scottish Office has never caught the imagination. I believe it is a very efficient and extremely conscientious Office. Secretaries of State have dedicated themselves to their task. I do not know why it has never caught the imagination. It may be that in England the Secretary of State is regarded as a pseudo Scottish Nationalist, while in Scotland he is regarded as a London collaborator. I do not know if this is a fair description, but somehow it has never caught the imagination of people in Scotland, and this is very sad. The Report of the noble Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, in a most extraordinary passage found out that 50 per cent. of the people in Scotland did not know the Scottish Office existed. This is almost incredible, and it is quite beyond the sphere of just a public relations operation. It is a much more profound and difficult matter to explain.
My Lords, what I have always felt was wanted—and I have always regarded an Assembly as secondary to this—is this: I want opportunity in Scotland for men of high skill and ability, ranging from research to great managerial ability.

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It is only when that is achieved that the problem of unemployment will be resolved. I remember that the late Lord Reith said to me, "I should like to have a job in Scotland". Frankly, there was no job for him to do. He had been chairman of three or four nationalised industries. There was no job of sufficient significance which he could really fulfil. He was High Commissioner, but that was not a job in the full sense of the word. The Government are now going to bring Yarrows, the shipbuilders on the Clyde, under control in London. They were in London until about 1890. They went up to Scotland and had a magnificent record of the highest possible skill there. But now they are coming down to London. Why go on with it? If this is the way it is going on, it quite inevitably will make people want to get the control in their own hands. I am not going to say that an Assembly will solve this; of course it will not. But what is important is that sensible people of ability should go into that Assembly.
We had a good deal of talk yesterday about proportional representation. The noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, strongly recommended it at paragraph 249 in the minority report. I must utter a word of caution here. It may be because I was a student in Germany during the Weimar Republic and studied a little the way things worked out. The single transferable vote will not work North of the Highland line. The areas would be far too vast. You could have the alternative vote—I think that is a possibility. In regard to the urban areas, it is perfectly possible to have the single transferable vote, but I think one must picture what happens. Say there is a minimum of three seats for each constituency and there are four Parties, making 12 candidates, with possibly one or two Independents, making 12, 13 or 14. You are expecting someone to go into a polling booth and remember the order in which those should be written. I must confess to your Lordships that in a local government election I have been into a booth with three names on a piece of paper which I probably would not have remembered had I not written them down. This means that the contact between the voter and the elected member is not so personal and not quite so acute. The matter has certainly not got to be approached without a
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good deal of caution. I am not saying more than that at the present time. What I think is essential is the need for first-class men; it must be a job worth doing. Without being discourteous, they do not want to be Mr. Ross's poodles. People will not go into an organisation if, even remotely, they feel that that is the sort of position they are in.
This takes me, just for a moment, to a rather wider point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, in a very strong speech yesterday. The problems of Scotland are, of course, only symptomatic of a very much wider problem in this country, that in many ways people really have not got the confidence that they once had in our ways of government. I do not think that many people really believe today that the vox populi is vox die. What they need to have is confidence that their affairs are properly dealt with. If you undermine that confidence, whether Government is good or bad, you are undermining something which is quite fundamental. I do not want to go into that matter, but I think that a great many people have not the faintest idea of what Parliament is doing. The mass of stuff emerging is neither understood nor known about; and it is only learnt with utter astonishment by members of the general public.
I am always ifluenced by the sweet reasonableness of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. He always makes such a charming case that one hesitates to criticise it; but he emphasised that the matter should be clarified. If he really meant that, what is suggested in the White Paper for Scotland needs a great deal of clarification. He talked about democracy. Democracy has two sides. There is the side of electing a representative and the side of saying, "Who is responsible?", to know who to go to to get a decision one way or another. Stephen Runciman in one of his books on South-East Asia puts it this way: "Democracy in the East, means going to the top man." It is much the same here. You want to know who can make a decision. This system, may be a marvellous mechanism but the division of responsibility is hopelessly muddled.
There was a mass of questions raised yesterday. The point was made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley

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on the position of the courts. We heard something about vires which is still a matter for discussion; and I cannot honestly say that many people would accept even what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said. There was the conflict about housing raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes; there was the question of agriculture, and there are masses of other questions. There was a statement on the meaning of "acceptable on policy grounds ". I can only say that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor gave an explanation which was wholly different from that in paragraph 58. I do not know now what is intended.
How do the Government propose to resolve these questions? What are they going to do about all this? They know very well what they ought to do about it. The noble Lord who was a Professor of Political Science is very conscious of what we have done all over the world and of the immense pains and trouble that we have gone to—not always with success—in working out constitutions. We want a constitutional conference with the Speaker in the chair. We did this in territories all over Africa, in Borneo, and elsewhere in South-East Asia. This is being done constantly. Why should we not take the same course?
If we do not get an acceptable Asesmbly, this whole plan will fail. If it fails the consequences may be very serious indeed. I think that if the noble Lord refuses to do as I suggest, certain suggestions will be made. I should like to call to your Lordships' memories some words said yesterday by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson. He said them gracefully and gently, but his meaning was perfectly clear. He quoted the late Lord Attlee when he said, "There is always a danger of a political Party concentrating exclusively on winning votes." The Government will be open precisely to that accusation if they do not call a proper conference to discuss these issues.
My Lords, I would only add this. Last night I found the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, very depressing in what he said. He said that if Scotland is too successful, we will have to stop it. I thought that was going just a little too far. He went on to say that the Government proposals
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had been very well thought out and that we must not think that anything in the White Paper has not been lengthily, and carefully examined. If it really has been as carefully examined as all that over a long time, why were we not told when we were talking about the Scottish Development Agency this summer, that it has now got to be divided into two, partly run by the Assembly and partly by the Secretary of State? We could have been told that last summer. Would I be wrong in saying that these proposals were really concocted in about three weeks last October? Would that be wrong? It looks a hurried and ill-digested document There are three motives for what we are discussing now. They are: political expediency, a desire for separatism or a desire for good government. I say that unless we go for the third we shall stand condemned at the bar of history.
4.46 p.m.
Lord RAGLAN: My Lords, I should like to echo what the noble Earl said at the end of his speech and also at the beginning of it, because anyone attending the debate yesterday might be forgiven for thinking that he had dropped in on a meeting of the Scottish Assembly with a pair of guest speakers on the Front Benches. There is a sprinkling of English speakers today, but this exclusivity, and lack of English interest in what are taken to be purely Scottish or Welsh affairs is an indication of the compounding effect which these proposals by themselves are having on the unity of the United Kingdom: that of making Scotland and Wales seem even more distant and separate than they appeared before. I think that as was indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, it could also be a warning that the English would not continue to take kindly to being prevented from participation in Scottish and Welsh affairs while Scottish and Welsh Members of Parliament continue to come to the Parliament at Westminster to tell the English how to run theirs. I suggest to those of your Lordships who have sensed this, and therefore have espoused the idea of a Britain of federated regions, that it would be unwise, and to my mind improper, to try to impose on the English (who have little sense of region but a strong sense of locality) a government of large regions for the purpose of justiying or giving the appearance of legitimacy to Scottish

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and Welsh Assemblies which would in fact be national and not regional Governments.
Regions or provinces which are small enough to identify with and which take realistic account of community of interest would be something worth studying in our continuing quest for ways and means of devolving power from the centre. At the moment that is a different subject from this and having spoken already in our debate on Scottish devolution just over a year ago I want to concentrate today on the background of why these proposals have come to us for discussion, for I feel that has been largely overlooked.
My Lords, while considering what to say about them, from the back of my mind came the phrase, "Heaping Pelion on Ossa" It must be a legacy of my classical education or perhaps from Shakespeare, and it sounded rather indecent, and so I looked it up to discover that they were two mountains in ancient Greece and that "Heaping Pelion on Ossa"appears to be a flowery way of saying that it makes things worse. In explaining why I am certain that if these proposals were put into effect it would make things worse, I must start by saying that I do not agree that the cause of Welsh and Scottish nationalism, which these proposals are intended to placate, is economic. Poor economic performance in the country as a whole can exacerbate it since protest votes go to the nationalists. The possibility of oil revenues has recently made Scottish separation appear economically practicable, so that it can now appeal to pockets, and successfully does so. Yet the Crowther Commission was set up before oil was discovered. There is small sign as yet of nationalism in many parts of England which were ancient kingdoms—although I read that there have been stirrings in Wessex—but the discovery of oil in or off the coast of. say, East Anglia is not likely to spark off a movement for East Anglian independence any more than economic depression there has done.
The Welsh and Scottish nationalism which we are talking about here, is a phenomenon which, historically speaking, has not been with us very long. At least one remarkable aspect of it is that on the whole people appear to be shy of talking about it and its causes. When the Crowther—later the Kilbrandon
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—Commission reported, there was a debate in this House, rather thinly attended, called by the Liberals and not by the Government. They have been shy of debating it in the House of Commons at all. It seemed that a lot of people hoped that if they kept quiet the problem would go away. It is only now, when it threatens a constitutional upheaval, that the matter is being properly debated and scrutinised in depth. To most people, the Welsh, Scots, and especially the English, the problem is new; but I have thought about it for many years, and as my contribution this afternoon I do not want to comment on the inevitably uneasy and contrived details of these proposals, but to invite your Lordships to step out from among the tangled trees so as to have a look from another angle at the wood and keep some other things in view as well.
If one asks the question: Why do you think Scotland and Wales, despite appearances, are so different from other parts of the United Kingdom?, one will get the answer, "Because they have a different history ", and then, "Because they are a different people ", and then, "Because they have a different culture ". Inquiring about the history first, one is immediately transported back through the ages as if on a time machine, stopping at selected places. Bonnie Prince Charlie? Well, no, he was a Unionist; James I was another one. We get right back to Robert Bruce and William Wallace, who fought the English and enabled Scotland to stay independent. With Wales, likewise we are taken back to the 19th, 18th and 17th centuries, flinching at the 16th century and the Tudors, until we get to the early 15th century and Owain Glyndwr, or to the late 13th century and Llewelyn the Last. These were defeated by the English (often called the Anglo-Saxons) who, so the story goes, prevented Wales from developing into a nation in its own right.
If one reads the nationalist literature, it becomes clear that they are acting from what they see as historical precedents, which are as real to them as if they had happened yesterday, and that these precedents are of a selective and warlike kind. Yet it must be observed that this is not how either individuals or nations behave in real life. So far as I am aware, noble Lords do not pick quarrels with other noble Lords because their respective

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ancestors fought each other in the time of Henry VI; though I suppose they might strike up a friendship because two other of their ancestors jointly speculated in a profitable venture in the American colonies. As for nations, after fighting three historic wars in the space of 70 years, two of them within the lifetime of many people alive today, France and Germany are now partners in the EEC thinking and talking about political union. Why is it that behaviour, which would be considered idiosyncratic to say the least in individuals and in which in real life nations do not indulge, is considered natural, understandable and even laudable when it comes to discussing Wales, Scotland and England?
Leaving that question for the moment, let us question how different are the people. Racialism is rooted deep in the nationalist mythology. For some reason that is supposed to be O.K. and all right if we subscribe to that in this country, though not if we apply it to coloured people or in the rest of the world. But really the English are a mixture of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Norse, French, Friesians and I do not know what, with many who would be descended from the Celtic speaking people who were here when the others came. The Scots and the Welsh are supposed to be Celts, but it is now known that the Celts are not and never have been a race but are a linguistic group. In other words, the only Celts are those who speak a Celtic language as their mother tongue. There are some thousands in the outer areas of Scotland and there are said to be upwards of half a million in Wales, though these are concentrated mainly in the North and West. Scotland and Wales themselves have been settled from many directions. It is well-known, for instance, that the Scottish lowlands were populated heavily from Northern England in the 14th and 15th centuries and that at least half of the ancestors of the population of South Wales moved there after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The races in these Islands are all mixed up; the differences are only such as would interest a technical anthropologist, and such differences as there may be do not in any way coincide with the Scottish and Welsh borders. There is no factual basis for racism.
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Cultures do not follow the borders, either. They change locally or sub-regionally, merging into each other all across the country, conforming with geology or topography and patterns of settlement which occurred irrespective of the borders or of their modern political significance. The Scottish border marks the result of a feudal conflict, the Welsh border the abolition of the Marcher Lordships in the time of King Henry VIII. As the land became more peaceful, so these boundaries lost their meaning, and for the purposes of everyday life they still have virtually none.
But something happened in the late 18th century which changed the course of events: the Mediaeval and Celtic revivals. The Celtic revivalists thought that the Celts were another race and that the Scots and Welsh borders were where they had been driven to by the Anglo-Saxons. That was their name for the English. They loved dressing up and had a grand time inventing customs and costumes, being druids and so forth. What a friend described to me as the whimsical Compton Mackenzie-type Scottish nationalism of Scotch whisky and sporrans, appears at least in part to stern from the Celtic revival. It never did any harm; it is utterly lovable. It is the racialism which has done the harm.
The mediaeval revival profoundly affected thinkers as early as Sir Walter Scott and as late as William Morris. The lure of the life of those times was great, and each addict picked out what suited his ideas the best. It even inspired a whole new and important style of architecture of which this Palace is a splendid example. The incipient Welsh and Scottish nationalists who were fired by their Celtic theories were attracted to the feudal condition of mediaeval Britain, and they wanted—as they still want—to recreate the Wales and Scotland of yesteryear before, as they saw it, the English came along and prevented their separate development as nations.
That may sound absurd, but there are people who really believe in it. Mr. Gwyn for Evans, the President of Plaid Cymru, said recently that Wales is in servitude. He thinks this because Anglo-Norman Kings defeated Welsh princes 700 years ago. In reality of course he is in servitude to his imagination. But

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there are many people who may not actually belong to Plaid Cymru, who think upon the same lines as Mr. Evans. You can tell a Welsh Nationalist because he talks about the "dignity"of Wales for the same reason as Mr. Evans talks about servitude. This is a sentiment which goes very deep. There are thousands of Welsh people who feel it terribly, because they have been brought up to believe in this stupid and vicious myth that Welsh people are a defeated race and have lost status.
These people are very easy to insult, I can assure your Lordships. It is as if they look for insults. It is a tragedy and doubly hateful for the foundation of their beliefs being entirely bogus. A Scottish nationalist talks about recreating the greatness of Scotland especially with an Assembly. But I wonder. For one thing, the United Kingdom having been so closely integrated for so long, the capablepeople—with the notable exception of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, whom I would be very sorry not to see again—would continue to tend to drift South like big fish drawn to bigger pools. That was a respectable argument against our joining the Common Market. I guess there would not be enough challenge or interest in just being a Scot in Scotland. Nye Bevan used to say that it was the duty of every Welshman to go out and govern England. The Scots do it as well, but they will not be able to do it from Scotland.
This historic revivalism is a big problem not only in Scotland and Wales but also in Belgium; and in France, where some people want to resuscitate the Kingdoms of Burgundy and Aquitaine and have got very worked up about it. General de Gaulle, himself an historical romantic, deliberately stirred it up when he visited Quebec, and they are still shaking from it there. A notable recent revivalist was General Grivas, who dreamed about the time when Cyprus would be Greek again. I suppose that what he did could be, and indeed has been, represented as noble, but Cyprus did not deserve what he did to it. Everywhere this phenomenon, this cult, appears politically, it causes trouble because its adherents want to impose upon the modern scene some kind of status quo ante which has taken their imagination from the pages of history. Perhaps the nearest some of your Lord-
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have been to flavouring the passion which can grip participants in an historical argument is in reading letters published in the Press between the Richard III Society and the Bosworth Society. To that add racialism, the aggressive spirit of nationalism and a fervent belief that everyone within the chosen boundary is, or must become, of the same culture and you have a powerful, disruptive political force.
By talking about it, discussing it, studying it and bringing it out into the open, we could blow the myths away and with them the cult. But we are hampered in that successive Governments have gone along with these beliefs, with tacit approval from among all Parties; and now we have reached the point where similarities with Ireland have been drawn. I see some similarities with Ireland, but they are not those which have been voiced by the Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr. Jeremy Thorpe. In Ireland there were and are fierce religious differences; there were the famous absentee landlords, the appalling treatment of the local population and the Great Famine. None of these has parallels here. Scotland and Wales, by special pleading, actually do better economically than the North-West and North-East of England. All of them are represented equally in Parliament, and Wales and Scotland are represented more than equally. This is not repression or the denial of rights. However, I see two similarities with Ireland. These, are, first, the intoning of selected distant historical dates which is used to keep up the friction and, secondly, the fact that Ireland had a Lieutenant Governor whose position imparted a sense of distance and separation and gave, or reinforced, the appearance of Ireland's being a colony.
This, I believe, has been the effect of the creation of the posts of Secretary of State in both Scotland and Wales. I have been unable to learn, from reading the relevant Parliamentary debates, why a Secretary for Scotland was appointed in 1885, after a lapse of 170 years. The theories of the new Scottish independence movement evidently fell on sympathetic ears. Perhaps Queen Victoria herself had something to do with it, and in any case there had been an historical precedent. Soon after this appointment was made—a selective Governmental differentiation as between one part of the

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United Kingdom and another—came the founding of the Scottish Home Rule Association in 1886. Things built up again, and in 1926 the Government "pom-posed" the Secretary's title, called him "Secretary of State "and gave him more functions. "Should not the Scots feel pleased," they seemed to say, "to have an important-sounding Secretary of State looking after them?" Especially pleased at their new distinction were the Nationalists, who founded the SNP only two years later in 1928.
More functions were transferred to the Scottish Office in 1939 and in 1945 the first Nationalist MP was elected. The Secretary has acquired the appearance of a Colonial Governor. as has the Welsh Secretary, whose post was created in 1964. This was followed by the election of the first Nationalist in 1966: now there are three. When my right honourable friend Mr. Short says that unless these proposals are put into effect the United Kingdom will break up, it must be emphasised that the evidence points the opposite way. The reason is that the more differently you treat people the more different they feel themselves to be. What in effect has happened is that in the Welsh and Scottish Offices two foreign bodies have been created which the British Constitution can no longer digest. In my view, the proposed Assemblies would not last because no number of ingenious draftsmen can write a Constitution which would last against nationalist pressure.
It has been suggested that there should be a referendum on the question of the setting up of the Assemblies. I believe that in due course of time this must be done and that it should be confined to the electors of Scotland and Wales, because these are the areas in which the inhabitants are said to be so different that they need a different kind of Government. The question that I think ought to be asked is not: "Do you wish to be separate? "—because they have been separated already, in greater or lesser degree. The question should be: "Do you wish to be in a union with England? "If the answer is "No", I would set each country up with its independent Assembly. If the answer is "Yes", then the electors would have voted on the understanding that the post of Secretary of State in either country
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would be done away with and that the borders would cease to have—as have all other borders in this country—political relevance. In other words, it would be a real union, which is the only kind of association that can remain politically stable. Then we can start looking at methods for devolution. In any other arrangement, the Nationalists will go on with their bitter feudal battles, their propaganda and their unreal and unassuageable grievances.
I have the honour to be a member of one of your Lordships' Sub-Committees which scrutinises legislation emanating from the EEC. This Sub-Committee, like the others, works carefully and painstakingly, and we give much time to its work. The process in which we are involved is called—and it is a good word—" harmonisation ". The nations comprising the EEC are trying to see how many points they can agree upon to form a common policy for the common good. If they do not agree at first they try again, because the idealism, the good sense and the reality of the common interest gradually overcome the differences. What is happening in the Community contrasts with what has been happening in the last 90 years or so between Wales, Scotland and England. Differences, separation and disharmony have been encouraged where none existed or need exist. This has been done mostly unintentionally, often through expediency and always, it seems to me, through a lack of knowledge or understanding of the motivation behind the respective Nationalist movements. I hope, my Lords, that I have managed this afternoon to convey an outline of the situation and to suggest a practical solution to the problems it has raised.
4.49 p.m.
Lord FOOT: My Lords, I am rather sorry to find myself so high up on the list of speakers this afternoon. I do not say this out of my native modesty, although modesty and diffidence are the badge of all my tribe, but rather because this debate, as was foreseen, has turned itself largely into a discussion of the Welsh situation and the few remarks that I want to address to the House will be of a more general nature which might perhaps more appropriately and conveniently have been given later in the proceedings. However, I have to select

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the order of battle which has been set for me.
My only qualification for intervening in this debate and speaking upon this subject is that I had the privilege for four and a half years or so of being a member—a very obscure, minor member, let it be said—of the Commission on the Constitution. I cannot pretend that that long experience was altogether an unalloyed delight, but there were some things which were entirely agreeable. One of them was the privilege of sitting as a member of that Commission successively under the chairmanship of Geoffrey Crowther and then, although he seemed to be irreplaceable, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon. The quality of that chairmanship was demonstrated to this House in that remarkable speech which we heard from Lord Kilbrandon yesterday.
Another of my recollections in which I wholly rejoice is my association, which was sometimes close, with the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, on that Commission. We were sometimes in contention; I think that our relationship was always harmonious and I learned, as did all the other members of the Commission, of the originality, the ingenuity and inventiveness of the noble Lord's mind. I hope he will not misunderstand me if I say that he will be in need of all those talents when he comes to defending the White Paper.
I should also say that, as a result of my experience in sitting on the Commission, the conclusions to which I have come differ in some respects from the conclusions of my Liberal colleagues—I do not think in any matter of great principle, but nevertheless they do differ. Therefore, what few remarks I have to make to the House this afternoon will be delivered in a purely personal capacity, and my colleagues who surround me are in no way involved or implicated. But it would have been odd if anybody in his senses had gone through the experience of sitting on a Royal Commission for more than four years, and had emerged from that experience with his prejudices intact and his predelictions unsullied. It would be rather as if when Darwin came back from his voyage on the "Beagle", which I believe also took about four years, he had then proceeded to write a tract arguing for the historical accuracy
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of the first chapter of Genesis. Therefore, what I have to say this afternoon is of a general character and, indeed, will be the views of no one else but myself.
One of my prevailing recollections, looking back over those years on the Commission, is the enormous complexity of the task which we were given, and if I have one main criticism of this White Paper it is that it fails to recognise how complicated and difficult this problem of devolution within the boundaries of the United Kingdom is. We are asked in this Motion to take note of the White Paper. One of my complaints about the authors is that they have failed to take sufficient note: of the complexities and difficulties to which our Commission very clearly pointed, and which are indeed implicit in the whole problem of devolution.
I should be perfectly happy if the few remarks that I make could be regarded as an addendum—I shall refrain from using the word "footnote "—to the truly majestic speech which was made yesterday by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. I am sorry that he is not here to hear me say it, but I have already conveyed my view of that speech to him personally and therefore nothing is lost. The splendour of that speech was primarily that he directed our attention to the fact that we are engaged here in this debate, and will be engaged in the course of the years, in a transaction of the first magnitude.
He reminded us that we are now engaged upon re-examining the whole conception of the sovereignty of Parliament—those basic things which have become almost part of the fibre of our life. He reminded us that we shall be engaged in the task of dismantling this highly centralised, unitary structure of government which we have in this country, without falling into the error of dismantling the Union itself. He pointed the way to the fact that inexorably, as I believe, we are on the road to a written Constitution for the United Kingdom—a completely new conception in our English affairs. In total, the noble and learned Lord succeeded in bringing it home to me, at any rate, that we are indeed discussing the very future of this Realm.
What I find disappointing about the White Paper is that it does not measure up to the magnitude of the problem with

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which we are confronted. I cannot find in the White Paper anything that might be called a Grand Design. I believe that this results partially, at any rate, from the fact that the authors of this document and the authors of this scheme have not asked themselves the right questions. The questions which ought to have been asked are: is this right? Will this be fair and just? Will this contribute to the good government of the United Kingdom under the Crown? Is this for the benefit of the common weal? I fear that the questions which were asked were not at all of that character.
I fear that the questions which were asked were: how can we appease these awkward and clamant demands for self-government coming particularly from Scotland and Wales? How much must we give in order to assuage these demands? What is the least that we can get away with? On that account, this White Paper does not represent the drawings for any enduring edifice. I fear that what it really represents is the clobbering together of two conceptions. One is the idea of legislative devolution for Scotland, in much the same form as was advocated by, not the majority of the Kilbrandon Commission but the largest number of the Commission who were of one mind, and the other is the recommendations for Wales of which the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, was the author. On the matter of England there is a gaping, yawning void.
Indeed, if your Lordships look at page 2 of the White Paper—so far as I know this is the only direct reference in the whole of this document to the problem of England—the last sentence of paragraph 7 on page 2 reads:
"England is different again,"—
that means different from Scotland and Wales—
"and the Government will publish separately a document to provide a basis for discussion of possible future arrangements in England".
That is all that the White Paper has to say regarding what the Government have in mind for England. It seems to me that the implication is perfectly clear. It is that you can seriously, happily and safely discuss the problems of devolution to Scotland and Wales without coming to any conclusion whatever about what
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you are going to do about England. The implication is clear, is it not, that you can consider devolution to Scotland and Wales not only in isolation but as if England did not exist. That seems to me to be an almost breathtaking misapprehension.
On this occasion, we are making the same mistake, although a graver mistake in its possibilities and dangers, as we made when we reorganised local government before making any decision upon the problem of devolution to the regions of this country. The result is that we have all got ourselves on to a hook. I do not intend to quote it because I do not wish to take up the time of the House, but it is clearly acknowledged in paragraph 119 on page 24 of the White Paper that because we undertook the reorganisation of local government before we had dealt with the matter of devolution to the regions we are now pre-empted from considering another reform of local government. Therefore, the limits of the argument about devolution are more closely drawn than they need to be because it is said, and sensibly said, that you cannot reorganise local government all over again within a span of five years. It was due to the original error of time-tabling. I believe it is generally accepted in all parts that it was a vast mistake to have proceeded with the reorganisation of local government before dealing with the question of devolution, but far from having learned that lesson we are now about to repeat the error.
If I were to take one sentence as the text—I am now reverting to my Methodist childhood in talking about texts—which I would seek to underline and emphasise to this House it would be from the speech yesterday of the noble Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone. At column 747, he said:
"We have to live together in a single country, and I must say I agreed with Mr. Heath that the terms on which we live together in different parts of the United Kingdom, although not necessarily identical in every respect, must in the end be roughly comparable".
I believe not only that that is right, and overwhelmingly right, but that it clearly follows that when we come to the problem of devolution for England—as inevitably we shall—then, because we shall have granted these extensive powers by

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that time, particularly legislative devolution to Scotland, we will have to invest the regions of England, or England itself, with comparable powers. That inevitably follows.
The argument against giving legislative devolution to Scotland of the kind which is proposed in the White Paper and giving nothing to England was most cogently developed—and, indeed, developed in a way which I could not possibly imitate—by no less an authority than the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, in his memorandum of dissent to the Kilbrandon Commission. It appears at page viii of the Preface and I should like to read to the House what the noble Lord there says. He wrote the memorandum of dissent in conjunction with Professor Alan Peacock, but it is acknowledged that these are his words. This is what the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, who later this evening will be commending to us the proposals for legislative devolution to Scotland had to say. It appears right at the beginning of his memorandum as a summary of the reasons why he wrote it. He said at paragraph 2 (g) on page viii:
"We cannot accept the scheme of legislative devolution for Scotland and Wales "—
in the rest of this quotation I shall leave out the reference to Wales because it is not proposed to have legislative devolution for Wales, so I will confine myself to Scotland—
"recommended in the majority report. This scheme (akin to the old Stormont system of government) would devolve to Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and Governments ' sovereign ' or ' autonomous' powers in a wide range of subjects—with the Westminster Parliament normally precluded from legislating for Scotland and Wales in these matters. We oppose this because:—
(i) we believe it makes no sense today to seek to move ' sovereignty ' downwards when in more and more subjects it is actually moving upwards—to Brussels; ".
May I say in parenthesis that that is the only part with which I do not agree. With all the rest I am in entire sympathy and agreement. It reads:
"(ii) it would be giving to the people of Scotland and Wales significant additional political rights which would be denied to the people in the different regions of England (all of which have larger populations than Scotland and Wales and a range of problems no less special to themselves). This would be the more unacceptable in that some of the English regions would be providing, perhaps
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for Scotland,… substantial economic and financial support while being denied the same degree of self-government;
(iii) we cannot believe it is right or acceptable that the Westminster Parliament should he precluded from legislating for Scotland…in a wide range of subjects (including education, housing and health) while at the same time, about 100 Scottish and Welsh M.Ps at Westminster would have a full share in legislating in these same matters for England alone;".
Lastly—and this is almost ironic in view of what the Government have been saying about increasing the scale of government—it reads:
"(iv) the scheme at best would not result in any significant reduction in the burdens on Whitehall and Westminster; and, indeed, it is all too likely in our view to increase those burdens still further".
Those are the words which the noble Lord used advisedly and wrote after years of contemplation and consideration, and it will be interesting—and exciting—later in the evening to listen to the noble Lord explaining why it was all so wrong. However, there is a very serious issue, for what is the logical end of that argument?
Surely the inevitable logical end of the argument is that when we come to work out some devolutionary provision for the regions of England we shall be constrained, first, in fairness to the English people and, secondly, we shall be constrained in pure logic and common sense, to follow the Scottish model, whatever model of evolutionary government we may by that time have set up for Scotland, and possibly Wales.
If that is right, then the next question which arises—it is this question with which I shall close, but it is in my view the most momentous question which confronts us in the whole of this debate in general terms—is whether you can in the end set up 10 or a dozen separate regional Parliaments within the boundaries of the United Kingdom, each of them clothed with the massive powers (these are the Government's words) which it is proposed should now be conferred upon Scotland. Can you do that and can you at the same time maintain the political and economic unity of the United Kingdom?
I am not going to answer that question. My colleagues here who are federalists

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would say, "Yes, you can", and it may be that in the course of time I shall come round to the view—the noble Baroness, Lady White, was saying much the same thing earlier on—that we shall be pushed into federalism as the only logical end of the road upon which we are now embarking. Whether or not that be so I shall not answer the question. But I would draw the attention of this House solemnly to the fact that the question of whether you could have 10 or a dozen independent Parliaments within the boundaries of the United Kingdom, clothed with such powers, and still maintain the unity of this country— when it was put to the Kilbrandon Commission—was answered unanimously in the negative, not only by the majority but by the minority; by the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, and by all of us. Rightly or wrongly we all came to the conclusion that, if we went as far as that, we were indeed embarking upon a course which would lead to the inevitable dissolution of the Union of the United Kingdom. I think this House ought to bear in mind that conclusion of the Kilbrandon Commission.
5.33 p.m.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, as I listened earlier this afternoon to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whose eloquence I always envy and admire, I had an increasing conviction that the White Paper as it stands is a formula for the political disruption of this island. As I listened to the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, that conviction was strengthened. I will go further, and say that I believe the way in which the Government are handling this issue is likely to hasten that event.
The other impression I have is that the political confusion which surrounds the issue we are debating bears a startling similarity to the confusion of counsel which preceded the Treaty of Union of 1707. Then, as now, those who took part in the debates in Parliament in Edinburgh and at Westminster were inspired by a variety of different emotions and objectives. Listening to the speeches yesterday of a long series of Scottish Peers I had the impression that there were some ancestral voices speaking; some echoing of the Earl of Seafield's view that the Treaty was a lasting settlement betwixt
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the two nations, and others—those of Lockhart of Carnworth, who wrote:
"From this day may we date the commencement of Scotland's ruin ".
My Lords, in offering my views to you this evening, I think I should explain that I am by blood more Scots than English. I have always been conscious of the fascination of Scottish history and the powerful attractions of Scottish nationalism. I have tried to recognise this in practice when an opportunity came my way. Years ago, inspired by a particularly exhilarating Burns' dinner, I conceived the idea of giving Scotland its own postage stamps. I am still awaiting recognition in Scotland for this small offering at the altar of Scottish national consciousness. I merely mention this to show that I am no less sensitive to Scottish aspirations than anyone else in your Lordships' House.
However, it is my purpose today to do as other speakers in this debate have done; that is, to draw attention to the English interest in the maintenance of the Union, and in doing so I hope I shall not be accused of any Anglo-Saxon chauvinism. As the noble Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, reminded us yesterday, the reason for the Treaty of 1707 was in part at any rate to prevent a new conflict between England and Scotland in terms, in fact, of war. I would remind your Lordships—it is a subject which has not been mentioned very frequently, if at all, during these debates—that the vital matter of importance to the whole of Great Britain is its security and that if, by a disruption of the Union, it was seen that the security of this island was endangered, it might become necessary to resist that process by force.
The second point I want to make is that the form of the constitutional links between the various parts of this island is not something which can be decided simply in terms of the political aspirations of a particular region or section. The views of minorities must be regarded, but they cannot prevail against the just and essential interests of the majority. We are "one island, one nation" Nor, my Lords, can a decision on a constitutional change of the magnitude which the White Paper envisages, and which was referred to yesterday by the noble and learned

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Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, and which the Government apparently intend should be shortly translated into legislation, be carried out by an Administration whose supporters are deeply divided and which represents fewer than a third of the electorate in terms of the votes at a General Election. Historians in the future will spend a good deal of time and use a great deal of paper in analysing why, at this moment, when the separate nations of Europe should be sinking, or endeavouring to sink, their centuries-old antagonisms and should be contemplating the possibility of political unity, the British Parliament should be engaged in a process which could end in encompassing the destruction of the political unity of this island.
My Lords, I very much doubt whether those historians will conclude that the reason was that the Government of the English majority in London inflicted such hardships on the Scots and the Welsh that they were driven to seek separation and, perhaps, independence. I think they may find an explanation in the decline of national willpower and in our failure to adapt our political institutions to the revolutionary changes which have taken place during the last 50 years. They may even attribute it to the enervating effects of decades of prosperity and success combined with the debilitation of two world wars. The threat to the political unity of Great Britain—and I distinguish Great Britain from the United Kingdom —which the nationalist movements represent, in my view can only really be met by a revival of a sense of confidence in our institutions and in our system of government, which will enable us to enter whole-heartedly into the wider movement aimed at uniting the nations of Europe to achieve security and prosperity in a world threatened by Russian expansion and Communist power.
As I have said, the first and ultimate criterion so far as the majority of the people of this country are concerned is security. In English terms, it is just the same today as it was 300 years ago, when Scotland was the back door for our ancient enemy, and for their ancient ally. But this does not mean that the system of government evolved to enable imperial Britain within the social matrix of that era to reach a pinnacle of power and prosperity, must remain unaltered. As a
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lifelong member of what is known as the Conservative Party, I have long been a critic of the ultra-conservatism of the English. It is an instinct which has sustained our national cohesion and strength in the past. It does not, and will not, however, ensure that the Britain of 1976 can face successfully the challenge of the disruptive times in which we live. Continuity is important, but only if institutions which time and history have created for the representation and control of our political life can be brought into effectivej relationship with the spirit of our own times.
My Lords, it is not the rise of Scottish or Welsh nationalism which is significant of itself. It means that our present methods of exercising government—that is, our political institutions—no longer represent the aspirations of this century, or are able to reflect the wishes and retain the confidence of the people. As has been said earlier in this debate, this goes for the people of Yorkshire or East Anglia just as much as for the Scots or the Welsh. The answer does not lie simply in regionalism, nationalism, in devolution or in any tailor-made expedients of the constitutional experts. but in radical reform of our national and political institutions, the realignment of our Party affiliations, and in the introduction of a new electoral system which will produce a more fair and more realistic system of democratic representation. It is not enough to leave the initiative in proposing these changes in the hands of a single Minister, or in those of some narrowly-based Party committee or, least of all, in the hands of an expert commission of civil servants and lawyers.
We need a constitutional convention, politically representative of all Parties in Parliament and each region of Great Britain, working on a timescale unfettered by the lifespan of a Parliament or a Parliamentary Session, and elected by a system of proportional representation. The objections advanced towards proportional representation by my noble friend Lord Selkirk may or may not apply to the Parliament here in London or, for all I know, to a Parliament in Edinburgh or Cardiff, but those objections certainly would not apply to the election of a constitutional convention. What is more, they would give to that convention the exact representational

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quality which it requires. It would differentiate from the normal political representation which we would find in Parliament.
A delimitation commission presided over, if necessary, by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor or by the Speaker of the House of Commons, if that were the right arrangement, could very quickly provide the delimitation of the constituencies for such an election, and existing electoral rolls would be available for the purpose of that election. In this, all Parties in all parts of Great Britain would be seen to be fairly represented. The issue would be withdrawn from the Party clash in the House of Commons which enables a small minority to play off one major Party against another by a system of sheer electoral blackmail. The whole problem would be tackled—as in my view it must be—as a national issue and not as simply one affecting the Welsh or the Scots alone or, indeed, affecting the electoral prospects at the next election of any of the Parties.
What is more, a constitutional convention would enable us to review the working of our existing Parliamentary form of constitution, and to evolve the changes which will be necessary if, for example, the Government White Paper gets translated into legislation. There will be a change here at Westminster in any case. Let it be considered in the right context, not simply on a piecemeal basis as otherwise would be the case. This constitutional convention would have the great advantage of avoiding any interference with the proper preoccupation of the present Parliament with the grave problems of economic survival and national security. I suggest to your Lordships that it would be consistent with the spirit of our democratic system and our success over the centuries in evolving constitutional expedients to meet the changing needs of the times. As my noble friend Lord Selkirk said, there are many, many precedents for this in the recent political history of the Commonwealth.
My Lords, I would expect that the conclusions of such a constitutional convention would lead us towards some form of federation. It would comprehend and seek to fulfil the desire of the Scots and Welsh for some sort of devolution. I
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hope it would breathe a new spirit of confidence into our political life and a new vigour into our Parliamentary institutions, at the same time preserving our national unity. If it were to find a new role for a second chamber, perhaps at the apex of a federal system, in my view so much the better. I ask the Government to consider this proposal seriously, for I fear that otherwise the road along which we are being driven will, in the end, see the disruption of the political life of this island; it will weaken this country tragically in the face of dangers which lie ahead for us, and it may even lead to civil strife and bloodshed, which in this country we have not seen for the last two centuries.
5.48 p.m.
The Earl of CAITHNESS: My Lords, the Government White Paper, Our Changing Democracy, is the most challenging and important issue in pure political terms which has faced the Scots in a British Parliament since the Act of Union of 1707. I must confine myself to Scotland as I believe the case for devolution to Wales is very different, and therefore must be argued by those concerned. There have been four days of debate in another place, and the net result is confusion without any signs of an acceptable formula emerging from the debate on the White Paper. The debate in this House has shown a marked degree of accord; and for that I am thankful. The problem facing us is too acute for us to enter a period of massive inactivity and hope, that because no agreement has been reached—yet the case discussed at length —Scotland will be placated and the problem will disappear. If we do not come forward with some workable proposal soon, I am much exercised as to the future of the Union. Too many of the English Members in another place are unaware of the feelings North of the Border, and I hope that they do not stand in the way of an ever-increasing demand in Scotland for a certain amount of self-government.
In order to put forward a solution to the problem we must look at the reasons why such support is now given to the desire for an Assembly in Edinburgh. There is not the time for me to discuss all of them, but I feel that the following arc some of the most important. First,

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every Scot is at heart a nationalist. This feeling has been coupled with, and accentuated by, the impression, real or imaginary, that successive Governments have failed to take account of the Scottish viewpoint and have failed in their duty to Scotland.
Secondly, it is not mere chance that there is a correlation between the increase in nationalism and the rise in taxes in the United Kingdom to an intolerably high level. Thirdly, the extension of interference by the State in our daily lives has helped to breed separatism. My Lords, these three points have been talked about for a long time in Scotland, but the arguments put forward have not been heeded because those who put forward the discussions did not have a trump card. Oil has now been found in British territorial waters, Scottish waters. It is for this reason that the arguments on self-government no longer fall on deaf ears.
The transference of some real powers from Whitehall to Edinburgh is essential, but very great care must be taken not to create a further tier of bureaucratic government. It appears that the White Paper will create such a tier, which, furthermore, will be ruled, with the threat of its decisions being vetoed, by the Secretary of State in Whitehall. This can only add fuel to the fire of those who demand a completely separate Scotland. Edinburgh must, and must be seen to, make the decisions. It is not the remoteness of Government that is the real dispute, as a decision made in Edinburgh is as remote to Caithnessians as one made in London. The problem is the proper restructuring of government without further encroachment by the State. It is a pity that local government reorganisation in Scotland has recently taken place. It would have been better to set up an Assembly first and then to have altered local government structure more effectively to take account of the wishes of the people. However, an Assembly in Edinburgh which will not intrude in the daily lives of the Scots will be a tremendous step forward.
If the Scottish Assembly is to have any real power it must control to some extent the economy of the country. This must not be limited to the discretion to impose a surcharge on rates and taxes levied by
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Whitehall. This is totally unacceptable and will only lead to increased resentment of the proposed system. The Scottish people will not tolerate such surcharges, and therefore the Assembly must have real influence over part of the economy. With an effective Assembly based in Edinburgh the loss of identity which Scotland feels will to a large extent be eradicated. Scotland is not the only country in the world that has lost its identity; all three countries in this Island have. It is our duty to restore that loss, and if we do I believe this Island will become more united and our future more secure. Those who favour devolution as set out in the White Paper, or even a lesser form, must be aware of the resentment that will still be harboured. This can only lead to a greater division between the peoples of this country and a greater demand for complete separatism for Scotland.
On the question of complete independence, I feel this is something we must guard against. The United Kingdom is too small and there are too many interlocking interests to have a separate Scotland. If it were to happen, then a Scottish Parliament would be dominated and directed by those South of the Highland Line. As a Highlander, I do not view that situation with any degree of alacrity.
The oil would belong to Scotland, but that, too, raises problems. Will there be the defence force necessary to protect the rigs? Items as valuable as these will have to be defended against internal and external aggressors, and this will be even more necessary in the future. Furthermore, by far the majority of the oilfields discovered lie in waters that could be claimed by Shetland. What Scotland can do to the United Kingdom so can that county do to Scotland. After all, historically those islands, together with Orkney and Caithness, have looked towards Scandinavia rather than to the rest of Scotland. This country is a success because it trades as a United Kingdom. I believe that given separatism the sum of the overseas trade of the three countries in this Island would not be as great as the figure we now achieve as one body. Our fishing grounds, which are so important, also need to be protected. Could an independent Scotland act decisively if a country with a larger merchant and naval fleet deliberately flaunted international agreements

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and by over-fishing ruined those grounds? The future defence of this Island cannot, if it is to be maintained to any standard be the responsibility of three countries defending their portions of the coast. However, I take note of the views of my noble kinsman Lord Thurso on this matter with regard to Europe and NATO.
My Lords, this House has many experts in a wide variety of fields and those noble Lords have spoken on their particular issues. However, I believe I am the only Member to speak who was not alive during the last war, and I am grateful for what my generation has been given. If, but for no other reason, I cannot support a move towards a totally independent and separate Scotland, it is because for me the most important issue of all is the defence of this Realm. This is a matter for the Union, and I can be no party to any cause that would jeopardise what the United Kingdom fought for in the last war. If I really believed that devolution would destroy that, then I would not support it.
If there is to be constructive devolution, the present representation of Scottish Members of Parliament will probably need to be changed. Such items as are the responsibility of the Scottish Assembly could, in England, be purely under the control of an English Assembly in Westminster. However, on United Kingdom policies that will affect everyone in these Isles there should be a much more balanced representation than at the moment. This is how many companies, based in Westminster but having regional offices and partnerships, work. I believe that Scotland would be a healthier and better country by playing amore positive part in matters concerning a revitalised United Kingdom, while at the same time having an effective Assembly of its own in Edinburgh.
There are noble Lords in this House who fear that an Assembly is the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom. I ask them to consider that the overwhelming consensus of speakers do not wish to see this happen, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, has said that if this Assembly has real authority then he will stand as a candidate. I am convinced that there will be further noble Lords willing to join him, and on
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yesterday's debate they will fight separatism.
The White Paper is a partially satisfactory document on Scotland's future, but cannot be accepted as it stands. The emphasis lies on many of the wrong points and can only serve to increase division within the country. It is sad that in a matter as important as this there was not a separate Paper for Scotland and Wales. I hope that the Government will see fit to introduce individual Bills for these two Kingdoms. More details must be given as to how the system will operate and its functions will be carried out, for it is only then that a satisfactory discussion and conclusion will be forthcoming. There must be no grey areas where disputes may arise, and the division of power must be clearly spelt out. My Lords, it is evident that the Government should have invited much more comment before publishing the White Paper. There was no need for the secrecy which shrouded it, for we are all losers as are sult of that action. The people of Scotland want an Assembly of their own. Let us not keep them waiting, but let us create an Assembly to be proud of and one that works. For that reason, I take note of this White Paper, but cannot support it.
5.58 p.m.
Lord MAELOR: My Lords, I need not remind your Lordships that I come from Wales and that I am proud to be a Welshman. My pride in this Parliament has been enhanced because I would remind noble Lords that the Lord Chancellor and the Deputy Leader of this House both come from Wales, and the Deputy Speaker in the other place also is a Welshman. Indeed, I would say that the greatest Parliamentarian of all time came from Wales. I refer to David Lloyd George. Some of your Lordships might argue that the greatest was Oliver Cromwell. Even so, Oliver Cromwell came from Wales. His name was not Cromwell; his real name was Williams, and in Wales he would affectionately be referred to as "Williams bach" or "Williams Boyo". Even Gladstone had his home in Wales and had no desire to leave there.
Before we can claim any measure of devolution we have to prove first that we are a separate nation. I claim that we have all the attributes and pecularities of a nation. In the first place we have

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our own country. Wherever I have been on the Continent I have found that they believe that Wales is a part of England, except in Southern Ireland, and now I shall repeat a story which I think will bear repetition. I was in Southern Ireland a few years ago when I was approached by a native. He asked me what part of England I came from. I said, "I don't come from England. I come from Wales." He said, "I am sorry for you in Wales." I asked "Why are you sorry for us in Wales? "He said, "Well, you are nearer to the buggers than we are ".
Yes, we have our own country, and Offa's Dyke still forms a solid boundary to it. It is only 200 yards from my home, and I can see England from my bedroom. That is why I do not go for a holiday. I can always look at a foreign country even from my own bed. Then we have our own language; a language that is spoken in only two places—in Wales and in heaven. I remember some years ago sitting on the shore of the Dead Sea in Palestine when an Arab came up to me and pointed to Mount Nebo across the water. "It was from the top of that mountain ", he said, "that Moses went to heaven ". I thereupon sprang to me feet and sang a Welsh hymn referring to Mount Nebo. "What language is that?" asked the Arab. "Oh," I said, "that is the language that Moses learnt after he got to heaven ". It is a beautiful language, a poetical language, and a cultural language. My late friend, Dai Grenfell, M.P., used to say that it is the oldest language in the world. If that is so, then it must be the language of the Garden of Eden. Indeed, perhaps that is why Adam fell. The temptation was probably to speak English. I have never spoken a word of English to the Lord Chancellor, nor to the Deputy Leader of this House; we always converse in Welsh. It is very useful, especially when the "Pagans" are around.
In religion we are a nonconformist nation. We have no Established Church. Even the sister of the Church of England —that is, the Church in Wales—is Nonconformist. So also are the Roman Catholics and all the other denominations. But we are Protestants in Wales, and in contrast to Northern Ireland we live in a perfect harmony. There is no Ian Paisley in Wales, thank God! We
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are also the only truly Socialist country in Western Europe. Over the years, out of 36 Members of Parliament we have been returning 26 Socialists. In sport, I would only remind your Lordships of what took place at Twickenham a week last Saturday. In the light of all that I have said, I think that I can claim that we in Wales are a separatenation, and can justly request a measure of devolution. I do not ask for Home Rule, for that would mean separation, and the people of Wales do not ask to be separated from the rest of the United Kingdom. That was clearly indicated at the last General Election when every seat in Wales was contested by the Welsh Nationalists and when, with the exception of three seats, they lost their deposit in every constituency.
I am sorry that my friends, the Plaid Cymru Members in the other place, attacked the White Paper and will have nothing to do with it. Their demand is for self-government. Well, if we even regard that as a legitimate aim, would it not be better to approach it one step at a time? My own position is expressed in the famous words of Newman:
" I do not ask to see the distant scene, One step enough for me."
The "one step"suggested in the Government's White Paper is an elected Assembly for Wales to deal with matters exclusively concerning Wales. It must be an elected Assembly. We do not want a selected Assembly. We have 50 selected assemblies in Wales today. The Members of the Assembly must be elected Members and be answerable to the electorate.
What will be its duties? I do not see that it need take over some of the duties now performed by the county councils. It need not do that. It may, however, make it one of its first duties to consider the reorganisation of local government in Wales. The present county councils are far too large and unwieldy. Think of Gwynedd constituting three counties, none of which has some things in common. Then we have Powis, which stretches from the North of Montgomery down to the South of Breckonshire. That does not make sense. Neither does it make sense to have Glamorganshire divided into three county councils. My noble friend Lord Heycock showed us the fallacy of such a division last night. The county councils as at present constituted must be changed, and the Assembly would

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know best how to deal with this problem and make recommendations to Parliament and to the Central Government here in London.
As I said previously, the Assembly will not, and should not, possess legislative power. However, it will have the time and ability to consider any Welsh problem and then make recommendations to the Parliament at Westminster. The recommendations should then be implemented by the Government. It should be made clear, however, that each recommendation will be automatically implemented after the Government have decided on the best manner to do so. If the recommendations are dallied with or rejected we shall be back in square one and the Assembly will have wasted its time. The Assembly's main duty, therefore, should be to recommend, but to recommend in the knowledge that it will be brought into effect on every occasion. Many Members of Parliament in the other place suggested that the will of the people of Wales in this matter of devolution should be ascertained by a referendum. As I have already stated, I believe that the will of the people was expressly stated in the last General Election, but a referendum would no doubt settle the question once and for all.
I stress that what belongs to Wales should be owned by the people of Wales. There are many treasures of which we are robbed. I am sickened by that silly old jingle:
" Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a thief.
Taffy came to our house
And stole a lump of beef."
I remind noble Lords that in Wales today there is no need to steal a lump of beef. The farmers on the hilltops of Wales have been so impoverished in recent years that they have been glad to give away their animals free of charge.
Several Noble Lords: Give away?
Lord MAELOR: Yes, my Lords. They have given them away because they cannot afford to keep them. Twelve months last September I saw a calf being sold for £50 although it was worth well over £100. Indeed, a similar calf was sold last September for £250. However, we are acquainted with thieves; for
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example, we have had our water stolen from us by Liverpool and Birmingham. They have taken our water without paying a penny for it, and they do not pay us anything for it now. On the other hand, we in Wales must pay dearly for our water. A year ago my water rate went up by 80 per cent. and last week I was told that it is to go up again, this time by 23 per cent. In other words, my water rate has gone up by 103 per cent. in 12 months. Similar water goes to England for nothing. This does not make sense. It shows where the thieves are. This is another matter which the Assembly could consider.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, was critical of the White Paper because it does not warrant legislative power for the Assembly. I contend, however, that it could enforce legislation on behalf of Wales and that this will be its function. In other words, as I said previously, if it is done, as I am sure it will be done, in the way I suggested, with its every recommendation having been considered seriously by it, those recommendations will be carried out by the Government in the manner in which the Government see fit. Today we are asked simply to take note of the White Paper. I am sure the House will be very pleased to do so.
6.12 p.m.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, if I were a Welshman I would venture to debate with the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, in spite of his reputation as a tremendous debater. His references to Cromwell rather stung me up as a Roundhead. Cromwell Williams! Is there any limit to Welsh aspirations? But as I am not a Welshman, to do so would be an act on my part of irresponsible impertinence.
As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said, this is the biggest constitutional issue with which we have been faced since the Act of Union. If wrong decisions are reached, the unity of Britain will be in jeopardy. I cannot remember an issue of anything like comparable importance having been brought forward with less real enthusiasm on the part of the majority of any of the Parties or their leaders. It seems a pity that at a time when we are beset with so many national problems we should now be faced with this additional one. The reason clearly

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is because the pace has been forced by events in Scotland. It would be a tragedy indeed if short-term political reasons, or any other short-term reasons, were to result in long-term damage being done to the strength and survival capacity of the United Kingdom.
In his splendid speech yesterday, my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel wisely reminded us that even the oil is likely to be a short-term benefit. The noble Lord the Leader of the House gave an excellent lead-in to the debate yesterday and I thought that my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone made a magnificent contribution, the sort of thoughtful, restrained and statesmanlike speech of which he is an acknowledged master. I agreed with his deduction, if I understood it correctly, that we might be destined to move somewhat in the direction of a written constitution. I do not say that with any enthusiasm but, quite apart from devolution, two other pressures are likely to lead us in that direction; one, our membership of the EEC, with its appeals to its court, and the other, the growing dangers to the freedom of the individual from the possible excess of power exercised by sectarian minorities and by the bureaucratic actions of executive Governments and even of Parliament itself. If devolution were to lead us to adopt some of the features of a federal state, I hope very much that before we committed ourselves we would study carefully the real day-to-day problems of those nations which have a federal structure. It is not something to take on light-heartedly. Most but not all of those countries are geographically far more extensive than, we, in these small islands, are.
I do not propose to talk about Scotland. I have only 12½ per cent. Scottish blood in my veins and for that reason and also because I do not feel that I understand fully the pressures that have developed in Scotland in recent years in this field, I will stay off the subject. All of us recognise the love and loyalty that Scotsmen feel for their homeland, however far removed they may be from it, as illustrated by the story of the Scottish soldier who was in the First World War in Mesopotamia. When asked where he was wounded there, he replied, "It was about 20 miles on the Auchterlocherty side of Baghdad." That made a deep
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impression on me at the time. Whatever financial or fiscal autonomy is given to Scotland, it must be such as to leave the overall control of the national economy firmly in the hands of Parliament in Westminster. That, of course, would not exclude a local Scottish sales or other tax.
I intend to offer only a few, perhaps obvious, comments on the implications for Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. The White Paper is, in my view, not a wholly satisfactory document. It offers a number of generalisations. Perhaps that was inevitable. Some of them fail quite to carry conviction and the White Paper shies away from many difficult, practical problems. The kind of devolution which would seem to make the best sense would be some further, carefully worked out devolution from the centre to exising local government authorities.
As one reads the White Paper, one cannot avoid the fear that some of the powers foreshadowed for the new Assemblies may be transferred not downwards from the Central Government but from the existing powers of local authorities upwards. If that were to be the result it would be a retrograde step and would go far to destroy the new local authorities which have been set up under the recent reorganisation. It would make nonsense of the firm assurances, given to the new local authorities on repeated occasions by the Government, that they intend them to exercise real local discretion and decision within the powers given them under the reorganisation Act. They have already lost their direct health and water powers and any further serverance or subordination would take the heart out of them and severely discourage good people from coming forward for election. If the powers given to the regional authorities are really to be true delegation downwards from Central Government, well and good. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor gave us some firm assurances to that effect in his speech. But, from past experience, one is bound still to have some lurking fears that it may not work out in quite that way. Secretaries of State have never yet shown themselves ready relaxers of their Departmental grip.
The other dreadful fear is that the regional authorities will form yet another

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tier in local government at a time when, with our present three tiers, we are already in danger of being over-governed. If a further tier is to be superimposed we shall, without question, be and be seen to be the most ludicrously over-governed country in the world. We shall also be a most expensively governed country. I agreed with the anxieties expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady White, on that head. When one looks at the outline proposals for Wales, those fears remain and are even strengthened. What will be the final views of the people of Wales I do not know, but their first reactions to the present proposals do not seem to be wholly favourable, to put it mildly. Many people in Wales believe that a referendum held on these proposals would be unlikely to approve them. It looks at first sight as if the proposals would be in real danger of weakening local government in Wales and would absorb a good deal of additional administrative manpower to boot. The reference in the White Paper to the Assembly's responsibilities for Social Services, education, libraries, housing, planning, environment and health carry at least a risk of duplication of responsibility. The power proposed to be given to the Assembly to make a surcharge on local authority taxation also looks like a deliberate restriction on the powers at present possessed by local authorities to raise finance on a scale which is already somewhat limited. In the financial field generally, after Parliament has decided upon a block grant for Wales, it will apparently be the role of the Assembly to decide how and where the money shall be expended. That would mean a risk that local authorities would no longer be likely to know in advance how much they were to get. Nor would they have much discretion on how it should be spent. If that were so, it would, again, surely be a retrograde step.
What would be the relationship between the local authorities and the Secretary of State for Wales? That is not clear at present. Also, what would be the relationship between the local authorities and the Assembly and its committees? Will circulars emanate from the Secretary of State or from the Assembly or from both? If the Welsh Assembly is to operate a committee system like that
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used by local authorities, one wonders where the elected Members will come from and, indeed, for that matter the official manpower. The noble Lord, Lord Heycock, in an eloquent speech last night and speaking with unrivalled knowledge, outlined some of the anxieties which he felt regarding the White Paper proposals as they stand. What the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said about the substitution in some cases of elected Members for non-elected Members on certain bodies is very much to be welcomed. Also, I strongly agreed with the able and eloquent speech of my noble friend Lord Elton, though he surprised me by his reference to the daffodil. I thought it was the leek, but I stand to be corrected by the noble Lord from Leek when he comes to speak.
The Association of County Councils, including its Welsh representatives, is deeply anxious about the proposals as they stand. If this is to be the pattern for Wales, there are risks that the scheme will, in effect, amount to an additional intermediate tier, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, suggested. I feel that that would be bound to have alarming implications for the rest of the United Kingdom, that is, for what the noble Baroness aptly called the English dimension. There is little doubt that the political Parties have committed themselves to some form of devolution, but, in deciding what form it shall take, let us remember that, first and foremost, it must not weaken the United Kingdom nor add to the already top-heavy cost of government. This is an issue on which the traditional good sense and moderation of the British people will be quite severely tested. As several noble Lords have said, at the time when our nation needs above all unity and an outward-looking confidence, it would be a tragedy if we were to take a wrong decision on an issue which will affect the lives and livelihoods of many generations to come and which will in one way or another affect the lasting strength, performance and future survival of our country.
6.27 p.m.
Lord TAYLOR of GRYFE: My Lords, my first word today is one of apology. I put down my name to speak yesterday and I may not be able to be here at the end of the debate. We have

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had an excellent debate in this House and we had four days' debate in the other place. With all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, who, I gather, is the only Member of the SNP in this House, if there was one thing missing from our debate it was the absence of the SNP's case presented as vigorously as was done in the other place. I feel it important that, however inadequate its representation in this House, we should look at the case for the SNP because, according to the opinion polls, it can now command a greater number of votes than any other single Party in Scotland. I have tried, in thinking about the SNP case and about the general expectancy which has been built up in the debates in this House and the other place, to ask myself how relevant are our expectations and the claims of the Scottish National Party to the economic situation in which this country finds itself at present.
On the day of the opening of the debate in the other place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that he had presented a letter to the IMF indicating that the public sector borrowing requirement of this country had now reached £12 billion. On the final day of the debate in the other place, the Minister for Employment announced that there were 1,400,000 people unemployed in this country. Today, as we reach the conclusion of our debate, I read in the Scottish Press that the British Steel Corporation are shortly to lay off 7,600 workers in Scotland, that Chrysler has already drawn up a redundancy list of around 3,000 and that in relation to the shipbuilding industry—which is important to the whole economy of West Scotland—17 per cent. of all shipping orders placed by British shipping interests last year went to other than British yards. I imagine that the situation on Clyde-side in the shipbuilding industry will be worse than Chrysler in the year ahead.
I mention these facts because I believe that our inadequate economic performance and the economic difficulties of the neglected areas of Scotland have been a breeding ground for nationalism. I do not suggest that this is the only reason why nationalism flourishes in Scotland. It is all tied up with emotional nationalism, which has been so well diagnosed by my noble friend Lord Raglan
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in an excellent speech this afternoon. The growth of nationalism is also linked with a decline in respect of Parliamentary and democratic government in itself. The current mood of Scottish nationalism is a dangerous mood. It is a mood that breeds on the unemployment situation. It wraps it all up in the emotional nationalism; and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said that in Scotland we arc all nationalists. But I hope that this is not true. I hope that we are all patriots, but not necessarily nationalists. There is a growing contempt for the democratic processes and this also is a part of the nationalist upsurge.
Consider their propaganda, my Lords. In the current difficult economic situation they cover the country with posters declaring:
" Will you be a rich Scot or a poor Briton? "
" The balance of payments is an English problem."
"England wants your oil without paying for it."
All these slogans are extracts from the current propaganda material and posters which are appearing throughout Scotland. Perhaps the most objectionable of all was the one referred to by the Secretary of State in the debate in the other place. A large poster appeared on the hoardings depicting a rather pathetic old lady under the heading: "It's her oil "; and announcing that last year in Scotland 5,000 old persons died from hypothermia, linking the relationship of ownership of oil to that startling statistic, when in fact nine people died in Scotland from hypothermia last year. Here we have some indication of the distortion on which Scottish nationalism now bases its propaganda.
In the discussion in this House, I am afraid that as we have sought to sell the Assembly idea we are perhaps claiming too much for the Assembly by suggesting that it will make some substantial contribution towards solving the economic problems that I have just outlined. We must be perfectly truthful about this. The state of the economy in Scotland will always be closely linked to the general condition of the United Kingdom economy, and there is no escaping that. The Scottish Development Agency, with its resources, imagination and good management will not escape from that. Neither can we escape from that fact by

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any type of economic separation such as is suggested by the Scottish Nationalists.
Far from the balance of payments being an English problem, between 1961 and 1971 the adverse balance of payments situation in Scotland was around 10 per cent. per annum. At its very highest the adverse balance of payments figure in England in 1964 was 2.6 per cent. It is commonly argued that if only we were separated from England all kinds of exciting economic developments would take place. England, and our association with England, is not a drag on Scotland. From 1974 to 1975 the identifiable public expenditure from the National Exchequer, excluding nationalised industries, in Scotland was £636 per head; in Wales it was £578 per head; and in England it was £545 per head.
Thus the association with England is one which benefits the Scottish people by subsidy and Treasury assistance. The Scottish Nationalists argue that if only we had our own oil we would slow down the depletion rate and therefore spread the life of this finite resource. To slow down the development of North Sea oil would make much of the North Sea oil investment totally uneconomic. The people who have invested millions in the North Sea would expect a reasonable return on that investment, and it would make many of the marginal fields in the North Sea totally uneconomic to spread he investment over so long a period as is suggested. Far from encouraging and benefiting from North Sea development, the Scottish Nationalists' economic plan would seriously frustrate North Sea development.
I am reasonably familiar with the nationalised industries. I sit on the board of one of the nationalised industries, and let me tell your Lordships that it would cause no heartache in 222 Marylebone Road if a Scottish devolved organisation, Assembly or Government, were to remove the Scottish railways from the BRB network. Let me tell your Lordships that it would cause no heartache to the National Coal Board if the uneconomic Scottish pits were removed from the National Coal Board's central finances. It could also be said, in relation to steel which is essentially a large and integrated industry. It would make economic nonsense to split
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a Scottish Steel Corporation from the national network.
Therefore in looking at these problems we must denounce this propaganda and its influence in Scottish politics. I am worried that, having created an Assembly on the assumption that it is to solve some of these problems, which it cannot, there will be considerable disillusionment and despair which could lead to two things: a further decline in respect for democratic government and a greater demand for separation. So we should be warned at this stage not to claim too much. The whole debate may divert us from the problems we should be facing in this country if we are to survive. It may intrude considerably on Parliamentary time and it may not strengthen the national will for survival which is so essential in the present situation. So the main Parties have a major responsibility to face that situation calmly and courageously.
Perhaps we can derive some comfort from the fact that when a group of responsible politicians in Scotland and in the United Kingdom got together during the European referendum against the marshalled forces of the Scottish Nationalists, the Nationalists were routed in Scotland. It may be that there is a lesson in this for us. If we get together as reasonable people and present the problems in a real sense, without the emotion, excitement and distortions of nationalism, perhaps we can plan a reasonable Assembly in Scotland.
Much has been said about the weaknesses of the White Paper by many speakers more experienced than I. I must confess that I am attracted to the idea of proportional representation for the new Assembly, for a variety of reasons. Like the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, I lived in Germany during the Weimar Republic and I do not think the destruction of the Republic was entirely due to the fact that they applied a system of proportional representation. There were a whole lot of other more fundamental reasons for that situation.
I am delighted to see that the White Paper provides for the Executive being strengthened if "strengthened" is the word (it is not the word in the White Paper) by outside members of the Executive who are not necessarily elected to the Executive. I think this may be a

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very useful innovation in government. I am interested in the block grant arrangements, because at the moment you build up your claim for a block grant and the Treasury pays on certain demands for agriculture, housing and what have you, and the block grant is made. I wonder on what basis the block grant will be calculated to give freedom to the Assembly, once they get the block grant, to establish priorities after that. I am interested in the procedure by which the block grant will be made.
I accept that if we are to have so much devolution as is promised, there is a doubtful case for retaining the same number of Members of Parliament down at Westminster. I would look again at the problems of the fact that agriculture is a non-devolved business and is the responsibility of the Secretary of State, although it appears that forestry, with which I am somewhat familiar, is substantially devolved. I think there are areas there which ought to be clarified. The question of ultra vires has been discussed at great length. It is not only a question of the Central Government questioning whether the laws passed by the Assembly are in order but also whether the private citizen will be able to take action in the courts regarding such legislation as to whether it is in fact ultra vires.
I want finally to say that we must be very careful in our enthusiasm for the Assembly and in talking about giving it teeth, running the economy and so on. I should imagine that the relationship between the SDA and the National Enterprise Board will probably he more important than its relationship with the Assembly, because the Scottish economy is part of the entire United Kingdom economy, and to decentralise it in this kind of way may not be to our advantage. We have benefited greatly from being -Dart of the United Kingdom economy; we have benefited greatly from the regional policies which have been built up on the highly moral principle of:
"From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,"
and I should have thought that that kind of moral principle might be more acceptable than some of the narrow and selfish propaganda of current nationalism.
I hope that, through the debates which have taken place, we in this House will
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develop some sense of the responsibilities which we carry in working out this new development in constitutional government. I hope that we will do it wisely, and I hope that we will do it with a sense of consensus among all parties, determined to see that whatever instrument we create is efficient, democratic, and will enhance the respect for democratic government.
6.44 p.m.
The Earl of CROMARTIE: My Lords, on 18th December 1974, I had the honour to move a Motion in your Lordships' House on Scottish devolution, and I think we had a very constructive debate. Since then much has happened, a lot of it of a very negative nature. A White Paper has been produced which, in my view, does not in its present form meet the needs and aspirations of the Scottish people. A Scottish Parliament, properly elected and with fair representation, should be set up in Scotland within the framework of the United Kingdom. It should have the power to levy its own taxation and decide where and how this should be spent.
We have been inundated by some Members of Parliament with observations of a kind which can be described only as scaremongering; for example, the consistently repeated phrase about being on the slippery slope to separatism; about Customs posts at Gretna, and rubbish of a similar kind. Not least—I am sorry to have to say this because I have not come across this oil question in the North, about which the last speaker, an old friend of mine, spoke so well—very few Scots people that I know (and there are a lot of them) would dream of saying that they should have 100 per cent. of the North Sea oil supplies. It is a political gimmick. Scotland should certainly have a fair share; and, in order to ensure this allocation, it should not be left entirely in the hands of Westminster. In my view, such remarks have no useful purpose; the one thing which would ensure eventual separation would be the inability of either of the major Parties to keep their word. I realise that the public do not place too much reliance on political promises, but in this case I think that to go back on what has been definitely promised—that is, an elected body with full powers—would be disastrous. This has been

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brought before the public by the admirable and honest speech of the recent Leader of the Conservative Party in another place.
Of course, it is not appreciated by the majority of people South of the Border that there were two Parliaments under the Crown from 1603 to 1707, sadly be devilled by religious bigotry, which was the basic cause of the difficulties of this period. The Act of 1707 united the Parliaments. My ancestor at the time played some part in this. The perpetuation of the Office of the Secretary of State is surely absurd given a proper Scottish Parliament. To keep this Office means yet another increase in the hordes of civil servants who now burden the country, and is completely unnecessary, provided a Scottish Parliament has its own civil servants. I dislike the word "Assembly", which normally applies to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, so why not call it a Parliament and, at the same time, do away with the unattractive idea of referring to its Leader as the Chief Executive? There is no shadow of doubt that unless there is a separate Scottish Civil Service there will be a continual tug-of-war between Edinburgh and Westminster, because no man can serve two masters.
As the White Paper stands, those who are against devolution have a viable argument—namely, that Scotland will be grossly over-governed and, therefore, overtaxed—but this supposes that we are going to retain the ridiculous set-up we have created, much too soon, by the reorganisation of our local government. The regional councils as now set up should be abolished and a single tier established to replace them, possibly based on the existing districts; but this is not to say that the areas of these districts could not be expanded. I would make an exception here of the Western Isles Islands Council, which is in an entirely different position, and it seems reasonable that it should retain its organisation. I think the public would be only too grateful to see a change in this direction. Nowhere do I find any support for this regional set-up, except, of course, among those who have discovered a bonanza and those who have managed to build up an even greater bureaucracy than existed before. The regions are apt to be remote,
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services to the public have deteriorated and the costs have increased astronomically, although I quite appreciate that part of this increase is due to inflation.
My Lords, the question of defence would be a mutual affair, perhaps with an agreed grant from the Scottish Authority to Westminster. One feels that the block grant system could be used as political blackmail, and for this reason Scotland should have its own Treasury. The Scottish universities should be controlled by the Scottish Parliament, and it might also be of benefit if all the responsibilties of the Scottish courts should be devolved on the Scottish authority. It must be remembered that under the Act of Union, Scottish law was to be kept separate; and in many respects it still is. The question of appeal to the House of Lords could also be considered as it might be preferable to put this also into the hands of a Scottish Parliament, but with a right of final appeal to the Crown. In my view, it is of paramount importance that a nationalised industry should come within the jurisdiction of the Scottish authority. In the White Paper, the Assembly is not given any responsibility for consultative councils which means that if Scotland is not given control, the Scottish Parliament has no power to criticise any nationalised industry. Also, I think one of the bad apsects of the White Paper is that one of our principal industries, agriculture, is not mentioned.
My Lords, I return to another criticism of devolution; namely, that the Highlands as well as other great areas out with the central industrial belt of Scotland would be dominated owing to the numbers in these areas. It was for this reason that in my own Motion a year ago and in the Conservative Party discussions on the matter some form of proportional representation was recommended. There could be and possibly should be, other safeguards for these areas whose ways of life and people are in some cases very different. Perhaps sometimes too much is made of this difference. I believe that Scotland is perfectly capable of governing itself without endangering friendly co-operation with those South of the Border. Again, I would say that more damage is done on this score by those who slam any idea of real devolution. It might be salutary if the Government were to look at the

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1926 Government of Scotland Bill which in many ways reflects the views of those of us who want devolution but not separatism.
My Lords, I think the statement is questionable that the White Paper covers very wide fields of government. The White Paper refers to the need for a constant and coherent pattern of government. In the last 30 years under the two-Party system, with each change of Government, half the effective time and money has been spent on undoing what the previous Government have done. To maintain unity the same exchange rate should exist within the United Kingdom but, as I have said, there should be separate Treasuries. This would involve a change in taxation rate or a change in public expenditure or a differential in the investment grant. This is an exercise conducted in a most satisfactory manner both in Germany and in Canada without any talk of separation. Finally, I would appeal to all politicians to try to avoid emotive catch-phrases which do nothing to help forward a devolution policy that has been part of the Manifesto of all political Parties.
6.53 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, it is significant that in the course of this debate—and to use the language of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, in his remarkable speech yesterday, it is a debate; not altogether controversial but nevertheless associated with a measure of contention—that there has been hardly a murmur of Party strife. That is all to the good and, moreover, despite the contradictions and disagreements—we have had a typical example in the two speeches by the noble Lords who preceded me—there remains a consensus of opinion that whatever happens, whether the acceptance of the White Paper or a modified form of White Paper embodied in a future piece of legislation, the integrity (by which I mean the unity) of the United Kingdommust remain. That, in my judgment, is essential and any attempt to disrupt it must be resisted with all the strength, power and influence at our command. To do otherwise would be to place the future of our children and grandchildren and the future of our society in jeopardy.
Not a single problem that confronts Scotland or Wales—and many have been
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mentioned in the course of our debate—is incapable of solution; and this without recourse to the proposals in the White Paper. To take an example, a few minutes ago we had a speech from a Welsh representative, the noble Lord, Lord Maelor. He made two complaints in the course of his speech. One concerned the impoverishment of the hill farmers; the other the interference with the water supply in Wales by some parts of English territory. Neither of those problems need remain unresolved. It requires a measure of co-operation, co-ordination and understanding; but there is no need for a Welsh Assembly in order to find a solution.
The same applies to the situation in Scotland. Perhaps here I might introduce a personal note. In the year 1918 at the Election I stood as a candidate for Parliament. In my Election address was contained the proposal for Scottish Home Rule. There was an additional item: prohibition. Now it may be thought that prohibition was an irrelevance. But it was subsequently discovered in the Election of 1922, particularly in the Election at Dundee, that a prohibitionist was able to secure a majority of votes against one of the outstanding statesmen of the time, Winston Churchill.
We can dismiss the subject of prohibition and concentrate on Scottish Home Rule. What was the purpose of Scottish Home Rule at the time? It began in the 'eighties of the last century, inspired by a Liberal M.P., Robert Cunningham Graham, a descendant of Scottish kings, the Laird of Gartmore, supported by William Morris, by Keir Hardie and later by Ramsay MacDonald, who became the first Secretary of the Scottish Home Rule Association. What was its purpose? A Scottish Assembly? —there was never a mention of it. The proposals embodied in the White Paper never occurred to them. Its purpose was more employment, less unemployment, the registration of unemployed and the provision of benefits in the form of a doleor some other method, and the removal of squalor-connected slumdom which was characteristic not only of the urban centres in Scotland but right throughout Scotland, particularly in the Highlands, at that time. The purpose of Scottish Home Rule was criticism of

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the Government of the day. That criticism of Governments on one side of the political fence or the other has remained ever since.
What was the purpose, the cause, of this debate? What is the purpose of the White Paper? What is the answer to that? It is this: the belief in certain political circles that the SNP in Scotland, having managed to secure 11 seats at the last Election, may obtain a larger number of seats and thus threaten the supremacy of the political Parties. That is what it is all about. If there had been no fear of the ascendancy of the SNP there would have been no need for the White Paper; it would never have been mentioned. Of course, the question of Scottish autonomy would remain; it has been with us all the time. Indeed, as we heard from the notable speech by the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, yesterday—a speech of high distinction—first of all there was the creation of a Scottish Secretary of State—that was a concession to Scottish sentiment—and later there was the creation of the Scottish Grand Committee.
The only mistake made by the Government at that time was to inject into the Scottish Grand Committee a number of English MPs. If that Scottish Grand Committee had consisted exclusively of Scottish Members, and if those Scottish Members on two or three days of the week were properly paired, according to the procedure of another place, and had repaired to Edinburgh, to St. Andrew's House or whatever habitation was available before the creation of St. Andrew's House, to discuss Scottish questions and deal with Scottish Bills, it would have destroyed, if not completely, much of the sentiment that developed in connection with Scottish Home Rule.
How are we to deal with the problem now? What are the problems in Scotland? Unemployment, impoverishment, the lack of investment, the need for further industrial development, the development of agriculture, the condition of those in the Highlands who are unable to find gainful employment in industry. These are some of the problems. None of these problems could be solved by the creation of an exclusive Scottish Assembly. The problems would still remain because they are problems
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associated not only with Scotland but with England and Wales and, indeed, as we see at the present time, with almost every industrial country in the world. They are symptomatic of a world crisis.
I am going to make a suggestion about how we can deal with problems which face our country at present and assist our Scottish friends to gain much of what they want. First of all, I believe their criticism is directed solely against the Government. They are disillusioned; the Government are incapable of solving their problems. Before this White Paper and its proposals are embodied in legislation there may be another Election, as a result of which we may have another type of Government. That Government will still have to deal with the problems to which I have just referred which exist in Scotland and other parts of England, and of course in Wales. They will have to counter the opposition of the trade unions; there will be very little time left to deal with the problem of devolution, and even if they sought to deal with it, and succeeded in resolving some of the problems of government in Scotland. England and Wales, there would be plenty of trouble left untouched.
Some suggestions have been made about the type of Government that will exist if a Scottish Assembly is created; for example, that there should be proportional representation. It has been suggested and rejected before that what this country needs for several years ahead in order to create confidence in the country is not Party Government but a Coalition Government derived from a change in the electoral system—proportional representation of one form or another, the single transferable vote, or the alternative vote, or a list provided from which the electors can pick and choose according to their political opinions—in order to create what is essential at the present time above all else, a measure of confidence. Let us be frank, truthful and objective about it, whatever our political inclinations may be, there is a lack of confidence; there is no conviction in the country at all, even in the initimate circles of the political Parties, that any single Party is capable of solving our problems in the foreseeable future.
It may be thought that what I have just suggested derives from proposals made by the Liberal Party or that had

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been suggested in the course of our discussions yesterday and today. But in point of fact when I ventured to nave a book published in November 1973 there was an epilogue which I provided, not as a final word but for the purposes of debate. I suggested proportional representation and an eventual coalition as a possible means of approach—no more than that—to a solution of our problems.
In 1970 in this Chamber, while I did not go so far as to suggest a coalition, I offered the opinion that if Mr. Heath, who was then Prime Minister, would approach Mr. Wilson, the Leader of the Opposition, and Mr. Thorpe, the Leader of the Liberal Opposition, for the purposes of co-operation, together with a coalition with the CBI and the TUC and perhaps some representatives from the finance houses in the City of London and elsewhere, as might have been found necessary, it would have created a confidence that has been missing ever since. When Mr. Wilson came to power with a Labour Government in 1974, I made a similar suggestion in this Assembly; namely, that Mr. Wilson should approach Mr. Heath, who was then still the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Thorpe and the other bodies I have mentioned for the purposes of achieving co-operation, even if it did not represent a coalition.
I have now come to the definite conclusion that a coalition is the only possible way out for the foreseeable future. I believe this is more essential than the proposals embodied in the White Paper or, as some noble Lords have suggested, a constitutional conference with the right honourable Speaker of another place in the chair—in other words, a repetition of previous conferences of a similar kind. These are irrelevancies. What is wanted in this country is a Government representing all the political Parties, not excluding minorities, which will give to the electors in England, and not only in Scotland and Wales, some conception of what is passing through the minds of millions of our people in the country, namely, that single political Parties do not represent the way out. It requires a co-ordinated and co-operative representation of political opinions of every possible kind.
I suggest we should have that in place of the White Paper. Indeed, I follow the line that was taken by the noble and
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learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and my noble friend the Leader of the House, who both declared in the course of their speeches that the White Paper was not the final word. I want that to be emphasised. I want the final word to be: "Forget all about it! "It is an irrelevance It will not solve the problems of the Welsh or the Scottish people or those of the people of the County of Durham, who have as much right to self-government as the people of Scotland or Wales. They have similar problems. I should like to recount them: vast unemployment, still far too much poverty and not enough investment, too much squalor and too many slums—precisely the same problems as are to be found in others of our urban centres. I do not want them to be excluded from any possibility of social and industrial improvements.
Therefore, I have not ventured to speak very much about devolution, except to say that I see no reason why we should embark on that particular adventure at the present time but rather that we should concentrate on something which is essential. Before I sit down, may I put the question in this way: What is it the country wants? Is it the sentiment, emotion, outbursts, the hysteria, the euphoria that are now exemplified by what is now going on in Scotland, as was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Taylor in his speech a few moments ago? It is just complete nonsense, a load of rubbish. What is it the people want? I understand what they want. Consider the workers in Glasgow or in other parts of Scotland where steelworks have been closed or are about to be closed down, and where there is to much unemployment already. If you ask them what they want as you go along a Glasgow street or visit public houses, they will say, "We want jobs; we want good wages; we want security." This is what they want. You ask them: "Do you really want what is contained in the White Paper? "Their answer is "No".
But there is a section in Scotland which wants something else. What is it that those people want? I will tell your Lordships. They want more authority, they want power and they want prestige. That is what nationalism means. That is what it has always meant. Often it has led to revolutions and massacres. More often than not, it has led eventually

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to chaos. I reject it, and so I want your Lordships to concentrate on the essentials and the indispensables. We must make clear to the country as a whole that what we, the Peers who can speak and argue and contend objectively, want is a Government who are fully and wholly representative of the opinions of people throughout the country, whoever they are and whatever they are; in other words, dismiss the White Paper! In my opinion, if there is just one thing contained in it which is worth while it is the simple statement that Peers would be entitled to stand for election to the Assembly. That was the only item in the White Paper that I found attractive; there was nothing apart from that. As for the rest—no matter what the Labour Party will say about me because that does not concern me a bit—it is just a load of rubbish and the sooner we forget about it, the better it will be.
7.17 p.m.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, after such a momentous contribution from my noble friend (if I may so call him) Lord Shin-well, I must adopt a more humble tone. I must begin by apologising for my absence yesterday during a large part of the debate. However, I have listened today to the deliberations of your Lordships and I shall continue listening to them on into the night.
We have been privileged to hear many excellent and probing speeches in the two days during which this debate has been under way. It is fitting that I should intervene very briefly because I should like to ask the Government what steps they are proposing to take through this White Paper, when they say that they are seeking to provide better Government for the citizens of the United Kingdom, with any decisions which affect Scotland or Wales taken, as far as possible, in those two countries, while at the same time retaining the United Kingdom in its present form. I think it is inconceivable to at least 80 per cent. of the Scottish people and, I would suggest, to the entirety of the rest of the United Kingdom that any citizens of that United Kingdom should at any time, whether now or in the future, require passports or be made subject to Customs regulations when travelling across our frontiers.
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Last week and in the week before I heard in another place proposals such as these put forward as possible statements of fact for the future. I understand that they might become necessary. This I believe to be totally impossible. I believe that it is not wanted by the population of the United Kingdom, and it is certainly not wanted by Scots. Yet unless this House and another place can effect a reasonable form of devolution, I believe that we shall find ourselves in that situation. Customs barriers and frontiers are admitted by the Scottish National Party as possibly being necessary. Their policies and Manifesto are geared to what they say is a gradual approach, yet we here are pressed to find the form of devolution which will satisfy the biggest majority in Scotland, as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom.
Almost every speaker in this debate has referred to the position of the Secretary of State for Scotland in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom Parliament, and I would ask the Government whether they regard as workable their scheme as set out in the White Paper, because I believe, as do many of my fellow Scots, that any Assembly and any chief executive, or for want of a better name, premier or any other person who heads such an Assembly, is bound to clash with the Secretary of State at Westminster.
Any Assembly which is set up to provide the proper and due consideration of legislation which is unique to Scotland must be effective. Two examples of what can be termed the legislative log-jam which is at present endemic, and two measures which have not received due consideration here at Westminster, are, first, the law of divorce in Scotland; and, secondly, the licensing law. The entire law in Scotland has a unique flavour, but I do not believe it is inimical to the legal framework of the United Kingdom, and there is every reason why Scots should he able to settle internal affairs when they are subject to closer and more exacting scrutiny than is permitted by the sheer weight of United Kingdom legislation and the time available here.
Earlier this month it was suggested during the debate in another place that the desire for better government, which is felt all over the United Kingdom—and let us not forget that, my Lords; it is felt in Scotland and Wales, but it is also

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felt in the regions of England, as well as in Northern Ireland—emanates from the huge amount of legislation which threatens to overwhelm all of us here and in another place. I think noble Lords will tend to agree with me on this score, particularly when we cast our minds back 12 or 13 weeks and to earlier than that, when we had to come back for what was known as the "overspill week". That is just one small example of the terrifying weight of legislation which has grown here at Westminster.
The White Paper provides a start—I would not go further than that—in our search for better government; not for more costly government, not necessarily for more powerful government, but for a system in Scotland where the log-jam of legislation can at least begin to be cleared. It may take two or three years or even longer, but I hope that some form of devolved power can be given to Scotland and, if necessary, to Wales—but that is something for Welshmen to decide and I do not think I should cross those frontiers—because I believe that devolution is at least a start.
In his magnificent speech yesterday, my noble friend Lord Home said, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained ". I think that for Scotland an Assembly is a major risk. First, more often than not, it is likely to find itself in opposition to the Government and the Secretary of State here at Westminster. Secondly, sooner rather than later, it is likely to feel that it wants to spread its wings and wants greater powers than could rightly be granted by a United Kingdom Parliament. Can we expect honourable Members of another place, representing English and Welsh constituencies, to allow their Scottish colleagues to devolve responsibility on many issues to an Assembly over which the United Kingdom Parliament has what I believe will be decreasing control? Thirdly, we hope and expect that when the Assembly is set up it will attract men and women of the highest calibre. Such a wish was expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, earlier today. I hope that such people will feel that they can do a worth while job and give a worth while amount of service to their respective communities.
Yet I feel that the more effective is this Assembly, the stronger will become the case for more autonomy; and not necessarily
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concerning merely the devolved subjects set out in the White Paper, and in earlier reports and discussion papers. I do not necessarily believe that an Assembly will be satisfied with a mere sub-ordinate role in the United Kingdom Parliament here at Westminster. It seems to me that the more effective the Assembly becomes, and the higher the quality of its members, the faster will grow the feeling that Scotland can run her own affairs.
This is a view which is already held by the Scottish National Party who are on record as saying in their Manifesto in October 1974 that they are in favour of breaking up the United Kingdom and reassembling the nations, as they call them, "in an imaginative scheme for an association of British states ". They say that they wish to obtain Commonwealth status for Scotland. Do they wish to go further and obtain the status, which is not Commonwealth but something unique, of Eire? I just wonder. This is a terrible danger.
We hear a great deal about the slippery slope towards separatism, and it is that danger which haunts me and which, I believe, sits in front of us here when we are discussing the problem of devolving powers to the outlying areas, and indeed to the other nations of the United Kingdom. I do not believe that this proposed Commonwealth status proposed by the Scottish National Party, or the status of Eire, is what 80 per cent. or more of the Scottish people want, but it may happen. I believe that it may happen if the concept of the unitary State continues. It may happen if an Assembly is successful.
We are assured that a strong and meaningful Assembly will prevent the break-up of the United Kingdom as we know it, and this proposition is put forward by the proponents of devolution. The opponents of devolution, and the supporters of the unitary State as it is at the moment, tell us that the whole argument is not necessarily about devolving power—the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, put this very succinctly—but is about economics, jobs, the education of people's children, housing and, in many places, law and order. I consider that this latter argument is entirely valid. Yet the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, earlier today, and the noble Earl, Lord Perth, yesterday, pointed out that economic and political centralisation has done much to bring about the

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feeling of remoteness which many Scots feel when they consider their whole way of life.
But it seems to me very probable that centralisation will occur even with a Scottish Assembly. Can anyone who proposes a powerful and strong Assembly honestly say that the headquarters of the British National Oil Corporation, or of a Scottish National Oil Corporation, should not be situated in what I regard as the oil capital of Europe—Aberdeen? But, no, my Lords, we find that it is to be situated in Glasgow, and I submit that it is most likely to be there under a Scottish Assembly, purely for electoral reasons. That is one example to show that, in one respect, we shall be no better off with an Assembly. We heard other examples from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, who pointed out that there might be great delight among various nationalised industries in devolving their problems, possibly in unprofitable Scottish pits or unprofitable Scottish railway lines, into the lap of an Assembly and some other authority way beyond their frontiers. I believe that this could be absolutely disastrous.
Further, I should like to support the noble Earl, Lord Perth, in his expression of misgiving about the responsibility of the Secretary of State for the Scottish Development Agency. I believe that noble Lords will agree that such a body is a natural focusing point, together with the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, for any industrial reorganisation which I believe has to take place within Scotland. It is both logical and right that such bodies should put their viewpoints and be answerable to an Assembly in Scotland.
It may not be possible to maintain that only the Scots are capable of curing the ills within Scotland, but the assistance needed for the reorganisation of Scottish industry and, indeed, the Scottish economy will be forthcoming both from the block grant and from a share of the oil revenues that accrue to the United Kingdom Treasury. The noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, yesterday provided the fascinating suggestion—at least, it was imaginative—that the Assembly should be allowed to raise its own tax and he proposed a sales tax; yet the
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White Paper stresses that the United Kingdom Parliament should be responsible for taxation.
I agree that there can be no obstacle to Scotsmen taxing themselves more than the rest of the United Kingdom, but I believe that the people of Scotland will neither thank nor bless politicians, particularly Scottish politicians, who offer them better government at a greater cost to them than to their fellow citizens in the rest of the United Kingdom, just as part of a devolved Assembly. This will be a burden for all Scottish politicians and we shall have to look at it. I do not believe that there is a great deal of latitude in terms of the financial considerations for the Assembly.
Centralised governmental expenditure is already far too heavy and a matter of Party debate. The White Paper merely suggests a surcharge on local authority taxation in Scotland known as "the rates", and there is no more emotive word to mention to any businessman or house owner in Scotland. It is the financial aspect of the Assembly's power which causes me the most apprehension, since I cannot imagine that the Assembly will be satisfied for very long with financial and other powers so restricted as those in the White Paper. Nevertheless, it is fitting that the Assembly should have control over the emphasis of public expenditure in Scotland and the priorities accorded to, let us say, housing or education.
Yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, pointed out that the pattern of Scottish house ownership is entirely out of balance with the pattern in the rest of the United Kingdom. Certainly this problem cannot be laid at the door of Union with England. It is unrealistic to expect the United Kingdom Parliament to grant to Scotland enormous subsidies to cure this ill. Such subsidies, over and above the block grant, together with Scotland's share of oil revenues, would be totally unrealistic. This is one major problem that the Assembly will have to face. This aspect of housing is only one example of the problems which will be thrown at the Assembly under the heading of "Devolved Powers "; there will be others—and major ones.
It is right that I should be brief because already I have taken up more of

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your Lordships' time than anybody could have wished. The White Paper is a vehicle for discussion and I believe that this Parliament has been charged with improving the system of government everywhere within the United Kingdom. All Parties here are united in their desire to provide better government, but I repeat that disenchantment with national government can be claimed as being the result of the inability of the United Kingdom Parliament to restrain the Executive from treating it as a machine for processing measures which arc at once both remote and suffocating. I believe that the economic problems endemic to Scotland can and should be solved in Scotland by Scots. The United Kingdom wants to help and is waiting to hear from us what it can do to help Scotland. Sadly, the Scottish people believe that we politicians have failed to speak up adequately for their interests, and it is incumbent upon us to give that lead. Let this White Paper be the basis for an efficient form of discussion.
In conclusion, I may surprise your Lordships when I say that at least twice a year, and sometimes more, my emotions run high. I feel a terrible envy, anger, rage and fury at anybody and anything which comes from England. I hate those three lions. When I see just one lion on a yellow background, that is good and everything else is bad, in particular anything to do with England. I am far more of a Nationalist than anybody down the corridor—and more so than quite a few of the politicians in Scotland. This happens only, I hope, at Wembley, or Twickenham, or at the other sports grounds. But sadly there are unscrupulous men and women who use these easily aroused emotions in all of us for political purposes, and I believe that we in this United Kingdom Parliament have to banish such emotions when we take note and, I trust, improve this White Paper.
7.35 p.m.
Lord TANLAW: My Lords, I am about the fiftieth speaker in this debate and I hope that I shall be forgiven if I am showing signs of shell-shock or a similar disability. In this state of mind I have asked myself one question: how is it that in this sovereign Parliament of ours, which I believe has given new Parliaments,
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new constitutions and new Administrations to more than one-third of the world's population, should have been trying for the last two days to deal with 5 million disconsolate Scots? I should dearly like to follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and say that the whole of the White Paper is rubbish; let us do away with it. But unfortunately it is here.
I was most relieved that in opening our debate today the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was able to reassure me about one matter which caused me concern at the end of the debate last night; namely, the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, that the White Paper we are debating is of fairly rigid character and we can do very little about it. However, the noble and learned Lord has reassured all of us that there are many things which can be done and, indeed, should be done about this White Paper. I agree not only with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, regarding proportional representation but with his view that this debate has been brought about by far more deep and worrying problems than those which come under the headings in the White Paper. I, like many others, feel that all is not well with the present administration of Scotland and Wales and that all has not been well for some time. The difficulty—it occurred in the Kilbrandon Report—is to identify these areas of discontent.
The debate in another place as well as yesterday's debate in this House covered a very wide range of differing opinions, but all speakers felt that something must be done, and not just be seen to be done, to prevent a separatist State emerging in Scotland. The speakers included the noble Earl, Lord Minto, who, in a forceful and accomplished maiden speech, expressed his fear that further regionalisation of power would mean over government. The view was echoed by a number of noble Lords and, indeed, by speakers in another place. But one question which has not been asked is whether this view is reflected in the Civil Service. Regrettably, we are unable to hear their views in this Chamber.
I know very little about the workings of the Civil Service and can only turn to a document entitled Civil Servants and

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Change, which on page 23, under the heading "The Task Ahead ", says:
"Resources—both of manpower and of finance—are centrally controlled both within Departments and for the Service as a whole; this can hold back an immediate and flexible approach to problems as they arise, and resource allocations from the centre will not always fit the local sense of priorities."
This pamphlet was written by themselves about themselves. I am afraid it is this factor that not only can hold back an immediate and flexible approach to local problems but has mainly created the conditions which have brought about this debate.
Put another way, my Lords, and to borrow a phrase from computer terminology, the local terminal points of the central Administration have had, and continue to have, a voracious appetite for forms, information, facts, figures and, above all, money from the public, but the output from the same points in terms of assistance, entitlement, grants and services in general is not proportionate to the input. What I am really saying is that the public in Scotland, England and Wales appear to feel that they are not getting their money's worth. This is an area of administration which needs immediate attention, regardless of the outcome of this debate, and I believe to some extent it can be rectified within the Civil Service themselves, providing they will continue to recognise the need for a more flexible approach to those who live on the periphery of their administration.
I should like now to move on to matters of perhaps great principle which are at stake in this White Paper, and indeed will be at stake in the setting up of a devolved Assembly. Many speakers have touched on them already therefore it is with some hesitation that I do so myself. But a debate in this House took place some 200 years ago in which similar principles were discussed to those we are discussing this evening. In that case they were trying to arrive at a decision on how to apply the American Stamp Act and I feel that it might be worth while, just for a moment at least, to hear what was said by two of those speakers. First, the noble Earl, Lord Camden, said at that time:
"Taxation and representation are inseparably united. God hath joined them, no British Parliament can put them asunder. To endeavour to do so is to stop our very vitals."
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I agree with that statement in the context of the White Paper.
Later in that interesting debate the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, made an intervention which provided us with a genetic link at least to the noble and learned holder of that title who spoke last night in our debate, although I do not think he is with us today. In 1776 his distinguished ancestor said:
" A distinction has been taken between the power of laying taxes and making laws. I must declare, that after the most diligent searches on this head, I cannot find any distinction or difference whatever."
I also agree with that.
In my opinion the White Paper is far from clear on these matters of what I have described as "deep principle ". Let us take taxation first. The powers of a directly elected Assembly man will turn out, if I understand aright, to be less than those of the most lowly borough councillor, who at least has the power to alter the rates. Furthermore, if the devolved Administration has no power to create a budget or budgetary forecast of expenditure, how will it be possible or practicable for the total sum of the annual block grant to match the next year's anticipated expenditure? The Government seem to imagine, if I am correct, that the extra power of the surcharge on the rates will only be necessary on rare occasions when the block grant proves to be inadequate. So far as I can see, the books are bound to be out of balance every year and, what is more worrying, the percentage surcharge would therefore be open to very wide variations, depending upon how wide that gap turned out to be.
Clearly, some power must be vested in the devolved Assembly other than the surcharge on rates as suggested, if it is to be fair and not open to intolerable fluctuations. Furthermore, the function and control of the SDA, which has been mentioned by other noble Lords, proper powers over Scottish housing, which again have been mentioned by other noble Lords, and agriculture must also be correctly placed in the power of our new Assembly. I mention agriculture because, if I understand him correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, seemed to indicate that the forestry element under the powers of the Assembly was quite enough for his particular interest but what I think may have escaped the

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authors of the White Paper is that many hill and upland farms are having to look towards integration—that is farm and forest integration—in order to protect themselves for the future, for a whole number of other technical reasons of survival, if no more; and I feel that the whole process of integration must be pursued with great speed if the hill and upland land and those who farm it are to have a proper, and indeed a surer, future than they have at the moment. I see this division of agriculture and forestry, as it will be bound to occur as these responsibilities are divided, as not assisting such policies of farm/forest integration which I believe to be so essential. I hope that the Government will reconsider this point in the light of the knowledge of those of us who try to practice this rather difficult occupation.
A number of other points on which I intended to speak have already been made by other noble Lords, so there is no point in making them yet again. I should like now to turn to the matter of legislation. As I see from paragraph 51, it is intended that the Assembly will be:
" free to amend or repeal existing law and to pass new laws of its own".
This is a great step forward and it may relieve some of the areas of discontent that have arisen over the handling of some Scottish matters in another place, like the divorce law for Scotland and the provision for homosexuals in Scotland. Unfortunately, successive Governments have deferred proper discussion and debate on these very human problems, apparently through lack of time or by the use of procedural devices. I give these two examples simply because they are non-political in content and have, rightly or wrongly, left the impression North of the Border that the sovereign Parliament is not over-concerned with these matters. The unfortunate results of these delays merely add fuel to the more extreme voices of nationalism, which I think is unnecessary and I hope this will be looked at shortly.
To return to paragraph 51, it may be appropriate to mention at this stage that if a Scottish Parliament amends or repeals existing law and by so doing incurs the displeasure of the Government of the day at Westminster, no Minister of the Crown can threaten that Assembly as this House was threatened in the terms which were used last night in
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another place by the right honourable Minister concerned. The representatives of a Scottish Parliament will not take their seats by genetic accident or by the hand of patronage, as we do; they will be directly elected by the Scottish people, hopefully through the recommended system of proportional representation, and, what is more, they will be proud and jealous of their duties in the service of their country, as they have every right to be. I think that by the creation of an Assembly with the proper powers and with the undertaking and good will of the central Government, this will create a time of stability for Scotland.
On a further small point, it may be wise, while looking at the change in the voting system for the election of this Parliament, that the dates of election for the new Assembly in Scotland should coincide with local election dates, and preferably with General Election dates. Not only would this be a saving and economy, but a lot of the general public do not care for elections and I think it would be a great help to have them all on the same day. Indeed, they should possibly go for an extended period without interruption, because I believe it is one of the matters which can be easily rectified without any great political significance or disruption. But to business men alone, it would at least give some degree of confidence that there will not be any change of ideology and at least they can put down a five-year plan for Scotland or for Wales, or indeed for England, without the worry that another Party with views completely contrary to the Party that is in power will undermine their entire five-year plan because it was done on a wrong premise.
My Lords, I see no point in delaying your Lordships further. To conclude, the matters of principle I am trying to establish in this debate are very simple. The Government must indicate that if they accept that there can be no taxation without representation, they must surely accept that with a Scottish Assembly there can be no representation without taxation. By the same token, the Government must also accept that if the Scottish Assembly is empowered to pass new laws of its own, it must thereby possess the powers of laying taxes. Earlier I quoted the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield; like him, I can find no

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distinction or difference whatever between these separate powers.
7.51 p.m.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, that the plight of hill farmers in Scotland is bad. I hill-farm in Scotland, and have tenants who also hill-farm. This last year the prices of lamb and of beef on the hoof were very good in the store markets; we receive good subsidies, so I cannot agree with the noble Lord on that. I should like to take up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, when saying, "no taxation without representation ".
Lord TANLAW: My Lords, I said, "no representation without taxation."
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, no representation without taxation. We have taxation, but here in this House we have no representation. However, to get on with my speech, I am really a British "mongrel "—Scottish, Irish and English, and I am equally proud of all my bloods. So this is rather a sad day, and I hope very much that we are not witnessing an avalanche. I hope that an avalanche has not started, and that we will not devolve into fragmentation of the United Kingdom. We have handed away an Empire, most of it to anarchy, I am afraid for no better reason than Party politics. I would say that Party politics were chiefly responsible. I only hope to God that we are not now presiding over the dissolution of the mother country.
Where is all this going to end? One of the excuses of the Scottish Nationalists is that government is over-centralised in Whitehall; there is too much government. But let us consider: if we are to have a Government in Scotland, there will be district councils, regional councils, county councils. We are also to have elections to the European Parliament in 1978; we have Elections to Westminster. The whole thing will become top-heavy and very costly. For Wales and Scotland, if the proposals go through, the cost will be £150 million. I cannot talk about Wales at all because I know nothing about Wales. I am told it is a very beautiful country, but the only times I have been through Wales have been during the night
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when I was a boy, travelling on the Holy-head boat train. As I was always violently seasick on the crossing to Dublin, my memories of Wales are not very happy ones.
But Scotland is another matter. I can understand the frustration of the Scots. I can understand their frustration at the proceedings in the Scottish Grand Committee down here, because those proceedings are either never, or scarcely ever, reported. So, as I say, I can understand the frustration of the Scots. I think the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, made a good point when he suggested that instead of going into this vast expense, why cannot the Scottish Grand Committee go to Edinburgh, say for three days a week? Of course, the members of that Committee would have to work out a system of pairing, and I suppose there ought only to be Scotsmen sitting on that Committee. But I think that course would save much of the expense which would be incurred in setting up an Assembly.
My Lords, if one is going to set up an Assembly—and I am not very enthusiastic about that; in fact I am not at all enthusiastic about the White Paper —one must consider the powers given to that Assembly. If they do not like what the Assembly does, I do not think the Government in Westminster can say to the Assembly, "Oh no, you can't do that. That is not allowed. We will over-rule that." If you are devolving powers, they must be altered only by the courts. This must be a judicial matter. One must have a written constitution and, of course, in any argument over powers, there must always be present the question of the courts. I know the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that there will be no question of the Westminster Government over-ruling the powers of the Assembly on Party political grounds. I am sure the noble and learned Lord and the Government that he represents would not do that. But Governments come and go, and there might be occasions when the decisions of the Assembly were over-ruled for political reasons.
Scotland has played a glorious part in the United Kingdom. She has a record of achievement out of all proportion to her population. I am amazed that so many Scots appear to want to weaken the links, while apparently quite a number of others want to completely sever those

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links. I was rather surprised to hear the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie. I cannot agree with him in a great deal of what he said. After all, Scotland only became united under the British Crown, and sometimes half in number of our Cabinet Members have been Scottish and Welsh. The power that Scotland receives through being a member of the United Kingdom is far greater in the councils of the world than if she were independent. They are greater than she could ever get if she were outside the United Kingdom. With her population of 5 million, if Scotland were independent she would have no voice at all in the councils of the world.
I must not speak for too long, but I should like to make a few more points. I repeat that Scottish people remember that they have only been united in their history a comparatively short time under the British Crown. Before that happened there was a lot of strife in Scotland. The Highlanders were not keen on the Lowlanders—they may have had good reason to feel that way. But the point is that if there were to be an Assembly as proposed in the White Paper, Scotland will be ruled by the Strathclyde Region and East Fife, and the Highlanders will not like that. Even now, the people in the Western Highlands are very upset about being in the Strathclyde area. Not all the Western Highlanders are upset, but those in the part in which I have a house feel that way. They are not happy about it. If, in the end, the White Paper becomes a reality, the situation will remain the same, but the Assembly will presumably have a lot more power.
My Lords, I will skip some of what I had intended to say because it has been said before. I was very interested to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe. I only wish that what he said would be widely published in the Press, but as this House gets such very poor Press coverage it probably will not be. He was very much on the ball; the noble Lord always is, I am sure. He pointed out the great advantages that Scotland had had from England economically, and, of course, it is a fact. We have to remember that the Industrial Revolution came quite a long time after Union, and the two economies of Scotland and England are so integrated that
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you cannot tear them apart; I think it would be impossible.
As I have said, I do not like what is suggested in this White Paper. The noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, said that Scotland is disconsolate. I have not personally met many disconsolate Scots. I have met a lot of very young people who are quite excited by the idea of complete Scottish independence; it appeals to their emotions. I have also met other people who see in independence the chance of good jobs and advance in their personal ambitions. But on the whole I do not think that certainly the more wise of the Scots people want anything approaching independence. I agree that they might want some greater control over their affairs in Scotland. But why could it not be done through the local authorities? We have just set up this new organisation of local authorities. Could not the local authorities appoint members from all local government over Scotland to be members of a council and advise the British Government on what Scotland wants? The British Government would then be morally bound to put the recommendations into effect. Of course, it would be apart from such matters as defence and foreign affairs; I can think of no greater national matter than defence. It would save a great deal of expense and I think it would be more effective.
My Lords, I should like to sum up. This is a momentous question; it is an appalling decision to have to make. We have got to be terribly careful. I should have liked to see a great constitutional conference before any White Paper was produced. This may have been mentioned before, but if so, I have not heard it. I was away most of yesterday; I had permission, because I had something else to do which I could not avoid. Such a constitutional conference would have enabled every shade of opinion to be put; everybody who had anything to say of importance could really thresh it out. For this White Paper to have only been produced by the Government is not really good enough.
I shall end by saying that Scotland and the Scots are too important, too great a nation, to leave anything to chance. We must not be influenced at all by political expediency. I quite agree that votes in Party politics are important, but when

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the Constitution of a country is being decided, political expediency must be left out of it. Speaking of the Constitution, it would have to be a written Constitution, and personally I do not think it would be a bad idea if we had a written Constitution in the United Kingdom today. The unwritten Constitution has served this country well in the past, but you never know who will one day be in power in this country. If you have an unwritten Constitution, your freedom can go overnight. I must not go on with that; I have spoken too long anyway. I end by saying that I would ask Her Majesty's Government to scrap their White Paper and call an all-Party conference to discuss this matter.
8.5 p.m.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, I, for one, welcome the White Paper, no matter its shortcomings, especially as it was introduced yesterday with such a tolerant and constructive speech by the noble Lord the Leader of the House. The second paragraph in column 735 of yesterday's report will cover my point there. I agree with my noble friend Lord Polwarth, who spoke at 10.35 last night, and complained that the powers-that-be had allowed too little time for so vitally important a debate on a subject which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, described as a major constitutional issue.
I listened to most of the speeches yesterday and have read those which I did not hear. But Hansard, of course, goes to bed at 10 o'clock. It went to bed after the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson; eight speeches are not yet in your Lordships' hands and will not be until tomorrow morning, and they were important speeches. I followed them assiduously, though I admit I began to flag about midnight. As I said, the White Paper has certainly given us something to bite on, and that is why I welcome it, despite its somewhat confused reception along the corridor. But, of course, the real crunch will come when the relative legislation is laid before Parliament. It seems to me that one lesson that we have learned in this debate is that there had better be two Bills. I am not the first to say that. I think that seems to be one lesson; that is, one Bill for Scotland and one for Wales. Taking the two rather disparate problems to-
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gether, as we have done in this debate, has led to a somewhat disjointed discussion.
However, throughout the discussion there has been virtual unanimity that whatever happens the Union must not be broken. I say "virtually" because last night, in response to a specific challenge from my noble friend Lord Mansfield, the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, said categorically that the S.N.P. stands for ultimate separation, although he qualified it by saying "if only gradually ". This only confirmed what my noble friend Lord Balerno said in his forceful speech earlier on. This aspect is desperately serious. The state of opinion in Scotland is in some doubt, to my mind. Lord Kilbrandon in his excellent speech referred back to 1707, and stated that, if there had, four or five years later, been a plebiscite on the continuation of the Union, if it had been possible to take one, on both sides of the Border the reply would have been a resounding, "No ".
Be that as it may, I have recently been reading some papers about the reactions of a prominent Ayrshire family to the Rebellion of 1745. By that time, only some 30 years later, things had changed. Scotland, as a whole, did not support the Jacobites. Moderate men shied away from them. Militia units were formed on both sides of the Border to fight them. It was a British Army that won the battle of Culloden, not a purely English one. The trouble was that the severity of Cumberland's measures produced an array of martyrs. He so far disregarded Scottish moderates' pleas for leniency that he began to distrust everybody in Scotland and to treat all of them almost as rebellious. That is what led to the romanticising of the Jacobites by Carlyle, Scott and Stevenson. Some of this romantic element has rubbed off on the SNP, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe. It is this emotional aspect which is so dangerous, although conditions today are of course quite different from what they were 200 years ago.
Despite all the claims of the SNP, with their rather extravagant posturing, I feel confident that the great majority of sensible Scots folk really do not welcome the idea of separation. As the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said, a lot of them do

1025
not even think about it; they are concerned with much more personal matters. The noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, said that to a referendum on the straight question, "Do you wish to be separated from England "—assuming the existence of an Assembly—the answer would be, "No".
But I say to myself: can we contemplate a plebiscite of any sort? I think not. In a letter from Mr. Adam Fergusson, published in The Times of 13th January, I think he demolished such a reference based on the Scottish electoral roll. I shall not go on with his details, in order to save time, but he pointed out the heterogeneous nature of the Scottish electorate. I go further and ask, "What about the opinion of Scots out with Scotland? Scots in England? Scots in Europe? Scots all over the world? "They are intensely concerned. I know something about them having spent more than thirty years abroad. Their views cannot be polled, though I think I know how they would vote. They are in a measure entitled to be consulted, being proud of their Scottish nationhood. Therefore, it seems to me that a referendum in any form cannot be a contribution to this problem.
This matter is one which Parliament must decide. Mr. Heath, in his important speech in the other place, said that we have to decide whether we are dealing with what he called a "passing whim ". Whatever we are dealing with, we must go very carefully. My noble friend Lord Kinnaird made this point in a notable and brief speech last night. Of course, it was a point not entirely in line with my noble friend Lord Balerno's feeling that we should be more urgent. I am reminded of the story of the stalker who got his rifle up to a stag which was browsing slowly towards the march, and he said, in a whisper, "Shoot, and take your time, but be quick about it!" I think that that ought to be our motto. However, it is well to remember, as we can see, that this matter of Scottish nationalism is a sensitive thing. I, for one, am proud of my British passport: "Place of birth, Edinburgh ". A sensible Englishman said to me the other day, "Until the Scottish Nationalists started their antics, I never thought of myself as an Englishman. I was just a Briton."
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I am not going to mention oil, because there are other people more competent than I to do that, and it has been referred to to a great extent. But I ask myself the question, "What happens if OPEC drop the world price? Where goes the bonanza? "In talking of that, I think again of the powerful speech just made by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, and to which the noble Viscount who spoke before me referred. He said, "We are all Socialists "; and I must say that we are not. I might as well say to him that we are all Unionists, because if anybody was a Unionist in his speech it was the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe.
It may be, as Mr. Heath said—and it has been said over and over again in this House in the last two days—that it is too late to reject the idea of an Assembly, though, of course, when the crunch comes it may be that such a scheme cannot be devised. Several noble Lords have said, "We don't want it ". Some of them, including the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, have said it in very firm terms. My noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood, like myself, does not recommend the use of the word "Assembly". I think I am right in saying that my noble friend Lord Cromartie said the same thing. I should like it to be called a "Convention "which is more traditional in terms of Scotland.
But as well as the challenge of my noble friend Lord Mansfield to the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, another important point was raised late last night by the noble Earl, Lord Kintore, who talked about the position of your Lordships' House and suggested that all devolved legislation for a Scottish Assembly, or Convention, call it what you will, should be referred to the House of Lords as a Second Chamber. My recollection of what my noble friend Lord Mansfield said about that was that that is a matter which is of interest because the position of the House of Lords in regard to devolved legislation is not mentioned in the White Paper at all. As to the White Paper itself there is only one paragraph about which I am mystified, and that is paragraph 33. I should like that elaborated, which, of course, it will be when the Bill is drafted.

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I cannot conclude without a reference to the importance of the reporting of Parliament to Scotland by the media. Indeed, some of your Lordships—at least, one has already spoken to me about it—would be surprised if I did not refer to that. I am emboldened by the speech made by my noble friend Lord Selkirk earlier to go on about it. He said, "So many people are ignorant. Why are they ignorant? Why don't they know? "The ignorance of the ordinary people in Scotland on the workings of Parliament is abysmal. There is no question about it. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, admitted this, but there are many guid-going people who have no means of knowing about our proceedings. The Press does not provide them with reports of Parliament and the ordinary reports of the proceedings at Westminster should, I have maintained for years, be aligned to the far distant areas because they are possibly more important than the metropolitan ones.
I do not think that the people can be altogether blamed, because all sorts of silly things happen. For example, the other day I switched on the car radio to listen to a broadcast to schools. It was on Radio Scotland, and it was an excellent story about the history of the sheriffdom, but it was about the sheriff in England and had absolutely no application to Scotland. It was a wonderful talk, but if only it had begun or ended with a comment such as, "Listeners will have to realise that this does not refer to the sheriff in Scotland, who is a very different person", it would have been superb. In a programme on Friday, broadcast by Radio Scotland, called "Voice of the People "we had 55 minutes of fascinating exchanges in respect of the relationship between barristers and solicitors, but there was not a word about advocates; not a word about the fact that the system to which it referred did not apply to Scotland, where the legal system is different.
It is a pity that there is not a little more wisdom in matters such as this. If there were, it would all build up to provide information for people who are in search of it. I am tempted to tell the story of a very thrifty, guid-going, hardworking, skilful forester who was always after me to join the SNP. One day I
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said to him, "Jim, we have other things to worry about down in London. One of these days there may be a tremendous tide come up the river and flood the Houses of Parliament and flow into the Underground." He replied, "The whole ruddy lot can drown for all I care "—and who can blame him and others when they know so very little about what is going on here; that man had hardly ever been out of the country. We are dealing with people like this and that is why I have taken your Lordships' time to tell these stories.
On the subject of information, the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, and, in a measure, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, referred to a lack of scruple in the conduct of the SNP. I must admit that I am embarrassed at Murrayfield over the fact that when God Save the Queen is played there are catcalls and whistles from a certain area, no matter how small, which is bad manners and can do the SNP no good. I have spoken to the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton, about it and he said, "You can say that I absolutely dissociate myself from it ", and he thinks that most members of the SNP would also dissociate themselves from conduct of that nature. Of course, the remedy lies in our own hands; if only the band would play loud enough and properly—they always seem to be out of time with the stand—or perhaps if we sang it more loudly ourselves; or perhaps they could play it twice and we could bring in the verse about, "Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks", we might be able to do something. Joking apart, this is a desperately serious matter and I feel that this debate has established that if a Convention which precludes any possibility whatever of secession cannot be established, then better have no Assembly at all. As I have said, the crunch will come with the Bills. Let us pray, and strive, to see that the issue will be approached with the utmost tolerance on all sides under the Crown.
8.25 p.m.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, having listened to about 90 per cent. of the debate both yesterday and today, bearing in mind the succinct speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and bearing in mind the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard,

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who said he was proud of the triple flow of blood in his veins, I can only feel that when Parliament is grizzling, Parliament has itself to blame, at least somewhat, for the position in which we find ourselves. I refer to the way in which Parliament is denigrated in British life today. Those who expected that the world would speak to the world by way of television have been disappointed by what has occurred in the last 30 years. I recall, in the early 1920s, listening to broadcasts on the radio. I remember listening to the details of the General Strike. Later I thrilled at the sight of images appearing on the television screen. It has all not had the effect we expected. Nobody seems to be able to suffer a political discussion in depth.
If noble Lords will take a walk down the corridor they will find in the Library copies of The Times dating back further than the Battle of Trafalgar. I was looking at a copy from a little earlier than the middle of the 19th century which told of how a fanatic outside Buckingham Palace slapped Queen Victoria in the face with a cane. Telling of that story, the headline was simple. Imagine the headlines that would appear these days in the Sunday newspapers; they would be bigger than that for the Second Coming. I mention this to illustrate how everything is thrown out of perspective and, with it, Parliament is losing out. Today we are concerned with big sport, which I love, having played rugby myself. But it is all out of place; everything seems to be out of proportion.
I listened with avidity and absolute interest to the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, just as I frequently listen —I do not know whether other noble Lords do so, too—to his little chats on philosophy on BBC3. I do not want to sound pompous or condescending, but I enjoyed the talk on philosophy which the noble and learned Lord gave yesterday. I may not always enjoy listening to his politics, but I enjoy those little chats. I also enjoyed the opening speech yesterday by my noble friend the Leader of the House. Whatever we may say about the material world in which we live—I use Marghanita Lasky's famous phrase which she adopted in a series of three broadcasts she gave on the radio —unless we can trigger off some ecstacy
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which will enable us to adopt a spiritual and basic approach to our problems in this material world, there will not be much hope for economic and industrial man to have a kind of life that is much higher than that of the beasts. I do not want to make a treacly contribution to the debate. While I am not a good and devout Christian in the sense in which I am speaking, I am convinced that we are forgetting that to live a rich and full life, human beings must be able to trigger off this ecstacy in their political and other institutions.
I will try in the few minutes at my disposal to explain how we in Wales try to do that. I had intended to make a lengthy speech, but in view of the hour I will discard much of what I had intended to say. In speaking about the SNP, I do not want to trespass on Scottish affairs too much, but I have been around a bit and I am able to speak generally on the subject, just as other noble Lords have. When I pick up my Sunday newspapers I find that a by-election is about to take place in Strathclyde; the result will be known this week. Apparently George Leslie, a very able veterinary surgeon, is fighting it for the SNP, and it seems that all that the Tory candidate can say is that he hopes to make Labour third. What a wonderful aspiration with which to enter an election! This shows that the entire purpose of political Parties is confused. I took the trouble to make a note of what the Sunday Express said about the fight. This is what it reported about the SNP candidate:
"He is intelligent, cultured and articulate. He is a 39-year-old vet who is charming and is anything but a fanatic. He pays tribute when talking, with affection, of the English virtue of tolerance and decency."
Mr. George Leslie is nevertheless asking for separation, not devolution. This is absolute political atavism. He says seriously that the day will inevitably come when Scotland will have its own army, its own currency and a seat at the United Nations.
I feel that, if there is to be an appeal by the SNP, the Scots people should know that that is the direction in which they wish to go. Or do they? Should there be a referendum on this? I do not want to be dogmatic, but I feel that we should try to find out because this is absolute nonsense. I agree with my noble friend

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Lord Shinwell that it is nonsense for them to talk like that. Take the oil, for instance. It is time for the world to know that a drop of oil is worth a drop of blood. The oil would be worth nothing if all they had to defend it was a little Scots army. I suppose they would then want to claim the nuclear bomb as well. When one looks into this in depth, it is pure nonsense and it is time that the British democratic system—and I say this as a Welshman—shouted about some of the gifts it has given to the world, for all its sins and errors.
I want the Scots and the Welsh and the Common Market—which I voted against, but that is another matter and I do not wish to become involved with that—to know that, had it not been for the tenacity of the British when they were all alone for 12 months with no Russians and no Americans and with nothing but the speeches of one Britisher whom they called Churchill, and had the frightened but courageous British people—Scots, English and Welsh—not held out while the beaches were there to be invaded, the entire history of Scotland would have been different as would have been the entire history of Wales, and we might have had a Hitlerite system of government or something like it in what we call our British democratic process. I want to know from the SNP whether Mr. George Leslie—bless him!—articulate, charming and a man who praises the virtues of tolerance and decency (I do not always do that), is speaking for the SNP. If so, the Government should know exactly what to expect from the White Paper.
I should like now to go back to the subject of Wales. Not many people have spoken about it and I have four or five points which I wish to deal with. One is the incubus of bureaucracy; another is the tiers of regionalism which are choking us. Then I wish to make some special references to paragraphs in the White Paper and to draw attention to something which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor pointed out. We in Wales have no legislative system. There is a difference between us and Scotland. We do not want it because ultimately we can get the English to do what we want with our own words,
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and there is therefore a completely different approach from the Scottish one.
My noble friend Lord Maelor, who is also a Welsh speaker, talked about our water being taken from us. But God does not recognise geographical factors. Ethnology is dominated by geography and by geology. The ethnological build of men living in the mountains is a barrel chest and thick thews, and this is so anywhere in the world from Greece to Switzerland to the Celts, wherever Celts may be. When one is talking about water, water depends on watersheds that cross man-made, linguistic, geographical and political frontiers. We must face that in Wales without grumbling and Scotland had better face the fact that, to them, water is much more important than oil. "There is no wealth but life ", said Ruskin in his famous essay Unto This Last. The sooner we learn that the first axiom of economics is not that all wealth comes from the land but that there is no wealth but life, the better. Water is much more important than oil in the sustaining of life. Scotland should realise that. When I was a kid, we had a great bonanza—and that is a word that I do not like because it spoils the rhythm of the beautiful English language—andwe had seas of coal in trucks outside Cardiff. One and a quarter million colliers, Scots, Welsh and East coast, cut coal and England lived on it as she lived on cotton. But that passed, just as the oil will pass. For any political Party to build itself up on any transitory economic asset at one point in its history shows a completely myopic outlook on history.
I believe that we should carry out some propaganda on the other side. We in Wales axe called mean. I thought Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, but it is sheer greed to think that one nation can have the approach to oil, just as it would be to say that no ships can sail on the seas. I should like to point out that the biggest coastline in the world is that of Russia and that the Russians too have a right to have ships in the seas. Therefore, we, in a democratic Parliament, should be trying to get at the core of matters.
Taking the abundance of problems which we have today, a question has been

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raised whether many of the responsibilities which are currently the business of national government should remain so. We are now faced with regional tiers of government which already exist in England and which lack coherence. We have 50 different nominated agencies, nine regional water authorities and the water rates are going up. For those of us who live in country areas, transport in Wales is worse than it was in the 1840s. Yet the local government rates for country areas are higher than they have ever been in the history of the country. This is true of Scotland. Unless we get down to this problem, we shall generate Welsh and Scottish nationalism of the worst kind. We should be looking into this problem. As Kipling said, "Transport is civilisation."
The boundaries of our economic regions really grew out of the problems of the war, though I shall not go into that now because I do not wish to take up too much of your Lordships' precious time. I shall now turn to the White Paper on Wales. The county councils have criticisms, many of which I agree with. It is misleading to say that central Government is responsible for social services, as the White Paper says in paragraph 239. Paragraphs 242, 245 and 246 deal with education and cultural matters, libraries, physical planning and environment, and there is no clarity about the responsibility. All these are at present shared responsibilities of central and local government, but the White Paper seems to indicate that they will be the responsibility of the new Assembly. Like the noble Lord who has just spoken, I do not like the word "Assembly". There is no strength in the diction. There is sibilance in it. A stronger word would be "Congress ". Language is important. Consider the beauty of language, the beauty of the words used. They have a dynamic, electrical effect upon people. Everyone in this august Chamber, everyone who has spent his life in politics or has had experience of speaking in public, knows about the marvellous electricity of language. We should find the phraseology which fits the dynamism of the subject with which we are dealing, and not deal with it as though we are in a baker's shop kneading dough.
I turn now to the question of cost. The cost can be only an estimate, and we
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shall be as far out with this as we were with the cost of Concorde. Think of the manpower involved, and the money, the materials, and the lay about who are looking for odd jobs. Consider, too, the creating of empires under Parkinson's Law. This is the tendency, and if we are not careful we shall increase the bureaucracy in Wales. The precise roles and functions of the Assembly are not clear. My noble friend Lady White and others made a succinct and deliberately constructive criticism of this matter. Clarification is needed without citing what has already been cited. Clarification we shall get. The relationship of the Secretary of State for Wales and the Welsh Office will be made clear. They have done a job of work. Am I right? I think it was in 1951 that this was first set up and I think that the job was worth while.
My Lords, I wanted to say much more, but it would be unfair to do so because noble Lords have been so assiduous in attending this debate and I do not want to bore your Lordships. But I have one thing to say before I sit down. I am concerned about this strange paragraph—paragraph 188—which gives power to the Assembly to issue circulars. The power to issue circulars! What about the right to be televised? What do we do about that? Shall we take the television cameras into these smaller Assemblies and get the people trained to deal not merely with trivialities? A vital issue might be under consideration and some beautiful looking wench—I will not name her—shoves a "mike "under somebody in the street. Half the time the person interviewed is a "yobbo" and he is asked to give an instantaneous comment on a life and death problem. It lasts only about half a minute. I have sat in audiences like Alf Garnett's, and I have seen them nodding their heads and saying: "Aye, she's right." I have not heard that in well-informed areas. Television is to blame for pandering to this kind of political triviality. I hope that when these bodies are set up television coverage will be introduced and that in local areas local material and issues will be dealt with. If this is done it will help stabilise a democratic system which it has taken the United Kingdom 1,000 or more years to build up.
There are many other things I should like to say but I have spoken for 18

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minutes, which is far too long. All I want to say as a Welshman is that I want to keep alive our music, the joy of our poetry, and the triggering ecstasy of having won a match at Twickenham and sometimes carrying the Wallabies off when they have licked us, in the way we carried the All-Blacks off in New Zealand. That is a marvellous, balanced national feeling, which is a joy and a strength which the gods have given to us. We are ready to make fellows like that the Prince of Wales. But that is completely different from the vicious undermining that could lead to guerrilla warfare and to internal strife that would be a blotch on the escutcheon of British unity; and as a Briton and a Welshman I want that unity to last.
8.44 p.m.
Lord GRAY: My Lords, it can never be easy to follow the eloquent noble Lord who has just resumed his seat. It is with temerity that I enter into a debate of such stature and import; all the more so because of the very few occasions that I now have opportunities to transport myself the 400 miles to your Lordships' House. My pride in being Scots, my pride in my lineage and in Scotland, is no way diminished by my allegiance to the sovereignty of the Union nor by my pride in the immense achievements of our United Kingdoms in partnership. It is easy to be critical, but without wishing to make any Party political point I must say that surely the debate in this Chamber, to which I have listened today and yesterday, and the debate in another place—or at least as much of it as I have managed to read—indicate, or confirm, that the White Paper, brave attempt though it may be, represents a compromise between opposing views within one political Party. Surely we need wider consultation.
One cannot blame the nationalists for feeling that they have perhaps reached the floodtide in their affairs and for pressing so aggressively. But if the long debate on devolution has brought us to the cross-roads of the Union, surely we should—as my noble friend Lord Selkirk suggested this afternoon—call a constitutional conference and not look upon this, delay that it might be, as other than proper. Surely we owe it not only to ourselves, to our respective fellow-
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countrymen, to our Union partners, to history and to posterity, to do our utmost to preserve what we value and what is valuable, and I trust that we ourselves may yet discover a formula that will remove for the most part the disaffection of the present with our evolved style of governing without dissolving the system and perhaps losing the good in attempting to exorcise the bad.
Much mention has been made during our two days of debate—and instances given in definition—of over-government. I shall not dwell on this, but surely we return to the theme which so often has cropped up in debates on constitutional matters, on questions of individual liberties in your Lordships' House: the modern relationship between the Executive and Parliament. if we ourselves at times feel frustrated by the Executive, surely we in turn transmit this feeling to the governed. This disaffection to which I have referred is surely reflected in part in the support for the Scottish National Party. Surely it is ironic in this day of technologically rapid facilities for communication—and this is similar to a point just made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek—that Governments seem so unable to establish rapport with the electorate, while minority groups take such successful advantage of the media. Let us first therefore take a look at our present Parliamentary institutions.
The Scottish National Party is a minority Party. It does not represent the average Scot, who in any case does not exist any more than the average Englishman or the statistical man-in-the-street. It culls protest support from the disaffected, romantic support from the romantics, and in my experience from the very young for its anti-establishment image and because the coming generation do not perhaps have the feel for the Union and the great achievements of our twin Kingdoms in the 19th century and through the years that have seen two great World Wars. In my experience the Scottish National Party does not have a large following for separation among its adherents—a pursuit of separation which should surely make them the one Party with a guaranteed built-in obsolescence.
My Lords, if the White Paper proposals, diluted in some respects, reinforced in others, come to form the basis of legislation, I would wish to see the

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policy veto written out, as well as the overlordship of the Secretary of State. The policy veto in the White Paper will surely, in real life, be a political veto. Despite what the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack said this afternoon on this matter, there is surely a gulf between theory or intent and practice, and no guarantee that a convention pursued by one Whitehall Government will be followed by their successors.
On the question of relationship with local government, the cart certainly seems to have got in front of the horse, and I quake to think what the judgment of posterity will be when they contemplate how we have so drastically restructured our local government before attempting what we now appear to wish to attempt, especially at a time of such great economic difficulty. As one who lives in "the monster Strathclyde ", I speak with considerable feeling when I say that I feel the regions must go if the Assembly comes, remembering that I was put into Strathclyde against the wishes of your Lordships' House. Other noble Lords have referred to the question of taxation by a Scottish Assembly, and I think I would be fair in saying that there has been a general abhorrence for the idea of a surcharge on rates. I wonder whether, in time, direct development aid to a Scottish Assembly would be available from the EEC to offset any deficiencies of a block grant. Such an observation perhaps comes oddly from such a diehard opponent to our Common Market entry as myself, but we are in.
My Lords, I have, perhaps, spoken overlong for so late in the day, so I shall say no more except that if we are to embark on a major constitutional upheaval, pray God it becomes not a holocaust. My Lords, I remain a true Scot and a true Unionist, and I pray God we do wisely and do well in the interests of all our people and posterity.
8.53 p.m.
Lord SWANSEA: My Lords, the time is getting on and I shall try not to detain your Lordships too long. I was very glad to see from the list of speakers that there were more Welsh speakers down for today's debate than there were yesterday. I particularly regret the absence of my noble friend Lord Aberdare. I am very sorry that he was
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unable to address us himself this evening; but his mantle seems to have fallen very effectively on the shoulders of my noble friend Lord Elton, who bore the Red Dragon with great style. One might almost say he achieved the hwyl which his noble Front Bench colleague would undoubtedly have brought to this debate. If it were in my power to award the title of Honorary Citizenship of Wales to the noble Lord, I would gladly do so.
My Lords, I was born in Wales and I have lived there all my life. My family have been intimately associated with it for over 150 years. I am not of Welsh descent; I think I have only about one-eighth Welsh blood in my veins, but the rest is almost entirely Celtic from various other parts of the British Isles. So, although I would never call myself a Welsh Nationalist in any sense of the word, I hope I can call myself a Welsh patriot, because I have a great love and affection for the land of my birth and I would hate to see anything happen to it which would detract from its present status as a part of the United Kingdom.
My Lords, I have great misgivings about the desirability or the practicability of this proposed Welsh Assembly. It will mean an additional tier of government one remove further from the central Government, and I am very much afraid that central Government will become more and more remote and will tend to lose touch more and more with the problems of Wales. The proposed Assembly, lacking any legislative powers, will be little more than a glorified county council. In recent years we have seen how the new Welsh super-counties have worked. Quite frankly, my Lords, I think it has been a change for the worse. I think we were far better off with our old counties than we are with the present ones. This proposed Assembly, I think, will be little more than a talking shop, with very little in the way of real powers. There is also a grave danger that it will be dominated by the membership from the urban and industrial areas. It will be like one of those children's toys which have a lump of lead in the bottom and which, however often you knock them over, will stand upright. It will be over-weighted by the great majority of its members being drawn from the South Wales industrial belt, to the detriment of I the interests of the rural areas.

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The White Paper skates rather lightly over the estimated cost of running this Assembly. In paragraph 286 it says:
"The long-term cost of devolution in manpower and money cannot be calculated exactly."
In paragraph 290 it says, again, that the requirements in Wales are difficult to estimate closely, but:
"…the extra staff might be around 600 initially, rising thereafter to about 1,600 when the Assembly gets into its stride. At the earlier level the extra running costs would be around £5 million, rising at the later stage to around £12 million ".
Is this a realistic way to talk in the light of present economic circumstances—to talk blithely of extra costs such as these falling on the population of Wales alone? What will it mean in the way of a precept on the rates? Has that really been brought home to the Welsh people? I very much doubt it, my Lords.
In paragraph 291 the White Paper expresses the sanguine hope that the extra costs incurred in running the Welsh Assembly might be offset by corresponding economies in Departments of central Government. We have heard stories like this before, and they can all be lumped together under the general heading of Parkinson's Law. I beg leave to doubt whether these extra costs will be offset at all by any corresponding economies.
I get the feeling that these proposals are nothing more nor less than a sop to the nationalist minority, and from what we have heard of the nationalist element I am quite sure they are not going to be satisfied with any of these proposals. They are going to ask for the whole cake and nothing less than the whole cake in the way of full separation, full independence, for Wales. The setting up of this Assembly will only encourage them to step up their demands in that direction. I see a danger of the Welsh Assembly being dominated by nationalist elements because the moderate majority of the electorate may not feel sufficiently moved to see to it that a proper balance of opinions is maintained in the Assembly. I see a great danger of the Assembly being dominated by nationalist elements.
My Lords, that raises another point, that of the Welsh language, One of the objects of the Assembly will be to foster the development of the Welsh language.
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I have every admiration for the Welsh language. It is a very ancient language with a fund of wonderful literature. Unfortunately it is not spoken very much, or hardly at all, in the part of Wales where I live so I have not learned to speak it myself which I have always regretted. I should like to learn it but I would resist very strongly any attempt to shove that language down my throat. I can see it giving rise to endless difficulties and problems in the Welsh Assembly because I have no doubt that some members of the Assembly would wish to speak in the Welsh language. Therefore you would need translators and all the paraphernalia of simultaneous translation. That may seem a minor problem. Perhaps it is; but there is a greater problem and that is in the staffing of the Welsh Assembly. I hope that it will not be a compulsory requirement for any member of the staff of the Assembly to be able to speak the Welsh language. That would, in effect, set up a Welsh-speaking elitistclass which I think would be very much to be deplored.
I would back up what was said yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Heycock, that the requirements of Scotland and Wales in these proposals are so vastly different as to require that there should be separate Bills affecting Scotland and Wales to set up these Assemblies. The present Government and previous Governments of the same Party, have shown a regrettable tendency to introduce what might be called omnibus legislation, perhaps in the belief that if you put a whole lot of varying proposals into one Bill, that one Bill is likely to go through Parliament rather more quickly than two or three separate Bills. I take leave to doubt that because if you get an enormously complex Bill, it is going to take just as long to go through Parliament as would two or three Bills each dealing with a separate aspect of the omnibus Bill.
I am not convinced that the Welsh people as a whole really want to have a Welsh Assembly. I should like to see them given the opportunity to express their own views. We had a precedent not long ago when we had a referendum on whether or not the United Kingdom should stay in the EEC. The noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, said yesterday that here we are faced with a proposal

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for constitutional change bigger than anything that has taken place since 1707. That was underlined today in the speech by the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack. This change with which we are now faced will affect the lives of the people of Scotland and Wales and the whole of the United Kingdom to at least as great an extent as our entry into the Common Market. It is an issue on which they should be given an opportunity to express their own views.
Then there is the problem of what to do about the large number of Welsh people who are living, perhaps temporarily, outside Wales or somewhere else in the United Kingdom and, likewise, the probably equally large number of Englishmen and Scotsmen living and working inside Wales. How are the views of these people going to be considered? It is a very complex problem. Indeed, I only hope that some answer can be found to it. I am afraid that in these proposals we sec what may be the first step towards the separation of Wales from the rest of the United Kingdom because, as I have said, the Nationalists, given this encouragement, will not stop here. They will hold out for more. As the noble Lord the Leader of the House said so rightly yesterday, it would be an utter disaster if either Wales or Scotland were separated from the United Kingdom.
My Lords, under the present Constitution, Wales is in a position to play her full part as a partner in the United Kingdom and I, for one, do not wish to see it become a poor relation in a looser federation, or whatever else you may choose to call it. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will take note of what was said yesterday and today in this debate, because this is fundamental to the whole set-up of our country. It was Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen and Welshmen who in the last few hundred years made Great Britain truly great. They probably did not think of themselves as being Englishmen, Welshmen, Scots or Irishmen; they thought of themselves as being British, as working for the eventual benefit of Britain. That is what made Britain great, and I should hate to see any step taken which would lessen the status of Great Britain or any of its constituent countries in the eyes of the rest of the world.
9.8 p.m.
Lord STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, we have already been told by my noble friend Lord Cromartie that just over a year ago he opened a debate on the necessity for some form of devolution of the government of Scotland. I opened my remarks on that occasion by stating that I did not believe there was any such necessity, but there might well be a case for adjustments in our existing arrangements. Your Lordships will be pleased to know that I have no intention of repeating that speech tonight, other than to remind you that, having looked at various proposals in the White Paper, I have concluded that they would in no way benefit the Scottish people and that in the existing circumstances they were nonsense and, so far as the Assembly was concerned, dangerous nonsense as well.
After the great spate of words spoken and written in the intervening months, that is still my considered opinion based on the experience of seven years in local government, 15 years in another place and seven years in St. Andrew's House. In recent months we have heard much of the great desire of the Scottish people for greater participation in the process of decision-making by bringing it nearer to the place where the people live. For some of our people that is obviously true, but for the Scottish people as a whole I do not think it is true. In that connection, I understand that the Kilbrandon Committee ascertained that only 42 per cent. of the people knew that the seat of Scottish administration was in St. Andrew's House, Edinburgh, and had been there since 1939; but not many of them had any idea of what went on there. Possibly they neither knew that it was from St. Andrew's House that the Scottish policy and legislation emerged nor that Scottish Members of Parliament scrutinised and otherwise dealt with legislation when it came before Parliament.
We are told that the need for change is due to the maladministration and misgovernment of Scottish affairs and of the present régime. But what examples, I wonder, if any, have been given by those who make these charges? They point, however, to the consistently greater rate of unemployment, particularly in the Clyde area; but that surely is not all

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the fault of Government but rather to our inability in recent years to meet delivery dates or match our prices with those offered by our competitors elsewhere. On the other hand, things might have been very much worse had Government or other agencies not persuaded Leyland to come to Bathgate, Rootes to Linwood, Rolls-Royce to East Kilbride, and many others to move into Scotland. Could the influence of a Scottish Assembly have achieved more or indeed as much?
We have been learning more in recent days about the great desire of the Scottish people for more devolution and for a Scottish Assembly. Indeed, eminent politicians have made statements to the effect that if an Assembly with vast powers is not set up we may anticipate a state of affairs—indeed an uprising—not far removed from civil war. Where on earth these people get such views, I simply cannot conceive. I have spent the whole of my life, except for 22 years in the Navy, in my own country of Scotland. For the most part, I move freely among ordinary working people and, to a lesser extent, professional people and businessmen.
With the exception of those active in politics, I have never had even mentioned to me devolution, the Assembly or splitting from the United Kingdom or a desire for any change. When I am asked to explain what it is all about, I am also asked: "How will this affect us? Will it not mean more laws, more interference by officials and higher taxes, as has happened in the reorganisation of local government? "Our rates have been approximately doubled, and we hear of the salaries of officials in the regions and in the district councils being increased out of all reason while the great majority of them do the same job as they were doing before, though perhaps for a different authority and in a different place. I am often reminded that the success of the Scottish National Party in the last two Elections shows that the people of Scotland demand change.
What is proposed with the setting up of this Assembly? Surely in brief it is the transfer of all that has been devolved on the Secretary of State for a considerable number of years to an Assembly and an Executive which are to be em-
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powered to legislate and to impose taxation. Not only will the people be called upon to pay taxes raised by Parliament, as today, but also those raised by the Assembly, which it is estimated will cost £22 million a year. Meanwhile, legislation passed by the Assembly will not receive the Royal Assent unless approved by the United Kingdom Parliament. I really cannot think of a better way of creating resentment in Scotland than legislation passed by the Scottish Assembly being vetoed by the United Kingdom Parliament.
Before the Union, I gather from my history books that Scotland in 1707 was indeed a very poor country, subject to constant internal quarrels and bickerings among its people. Working in unity during the last 270 years with our partners in the United Kingdom, we have prospered progressively and exceedingly and gained in stature, while Scotsmen have been enabled to play a great part in taking civilisation, with law and order, to many lands—a role which has won for our country wide respect throughout the world and one which we could not have fulfilled to anything like the same extent but for our partnership with the United Kingdom.
And now we are contemplating the setting up of what will be in fact a Scottish Parliament, with all the risks involved and no gain that I can see for our people. May I remind your Lordships that the great concentration of population in the industrial belt of our country will ensure that its representatives will have a majority in any Assembly elected in the manner to which we have been accustomed and that they are likely to continue in that majority for as long ahead as we can possibly see.
In spite of the many brilliant and persuasive speeches to which I have been privileged to listen during the course of this debate, I remain convinced that the setting up of this Scottish Assembly will be against the real and true interests of our country and also those of the United Kingdom and may well pave the way to the dissolution of a partnership under which our country has prospered exceedingly over some 300 years and in which our affairs, political, financial, industrial and trading, are so enmeshed as to make it almost impossible to separate them without risk of grave damage to us all. I

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still believe that the proposed change is unnecessary and will bring with it no real benefit to our people. Accordingly, so far as I am concerned, it is a nonsense, and a vicious nonsense at that.
9.18 p.m.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, like so many of your Lordships who have spoken in this debate, has given a special air of authority to what he has said by speaking from a deep knowledge and love of the particular region of the United Kingdom from which he comes. Others of your Lordships, from long experience in local or national Government, have looked at the proposals we are discussing today from that angle. But nearly every speaker—and if I had heard every speech I would have said. "every speaker "—has concentrated on what the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack called "the golden thread "that runs through all our discussions on these subjects; that is, the need to preserve the integrity of the United Kingdom, whatever we may decide to do about proposals for devolution now.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady White, whose penetrating speech I enjoyed so much, I am bewildered by the effect that so many new para-Parliamentary assemblies may have on the way we govern ourselves. There are those from beneath which we are discussing today. There is the European Parliament in Strasbourg which will soon be directly elected. The noble Baroness, Lady White, said that when it is directly elected it will probably ask for more powers. As soon as it is directly elected, it will use its existing powers in such a way that it will not need any more powers for a very long time to come. So that with the immediate prospect of a powerful European Parliament and some thrusting and acquisitive regional assemblies in the United Kingdom, the role of the Parliament at Westminster, and of your Lordships' House in particular, will be changed, if nothing else.
This debate has illustrated what to Mr. Crossman in 1968, and to many of your Lordships now, must surely still be one of the most important functions that this House provides for the nation as a whole. In the White Paper on Lords Reform in 1968, the Government put first as the function of the House of Lords:
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"The provision of a forum for a full and free debate on matters of public interest for the nation as a whole."
What I wish to discuss this evening is the political scientists' dream or nightmare, if your Lordships like to call it that, of how the continuing evolution of your Lordships' House might play a proper part in keeping the Parliament at Westminster useful, with the threats from above and the threats from below and the continuing and persistent threat presented by the lack of respect shown by all for democratic and Parliamentary forms of government.
It was the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, who commented particularly on the proposal in the White Paper that some of the members of the Executive in Scotland might not be members who had been elected to the Assembly in that country. They might be Members of your Lordships' House, but that would be a matter of chance. If we are thinking about how we preserve the integrity of the United Kingdom, surely there must be a platform in the Assemblies in Scotland and Wales—and perhaps in Northern Ireland, and maybe sooner in the new County of Avon from which I come, as well as in the other regions of the United Kingdom—to make their collective voice heard at the centre of government, because however much they can do in their own regions they will still need to be heard in Whitehall, and they will need to be heard publicly as well as in the corridors of power.
So what I should like to ask your Lordships and the Government to think about is the mechanism by which it is hoped to bind the Assemblies and the Westminster Parliament together. How are the Government to do it? How are they to provide the Assemblies with a public voice at the centre? If they are to do it—and I feel that they must—surely one of the best ways of doing it is to ensure, by putting it into the Bill that creates the Assemblies, that there is an automatic provision whereby some Members of those Assemblies become Members of your Lordships' House.
Stranger things have happened. We have Lords who are not Peers—Bishops. In the past, we have had Lords electing themselves to active membership of your Lordships' House. The Scottish Peers did it very well for many years. We have had all kinds of systems for selecting the

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Members of your Lordships' House, and there is no reason why we should not continue to add to the variety of systems whereby people arrive here. I am sure that piecemeal reform of this House will stand a much better chance of success than any other attempt at wholesale reform, which seems to be an invitation to mortality at a date very soon after the proposals have been put forward.
In his remarkable and constructive speech, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, teased his former colleague on the Kilbrandon Commission, the noble Lord. Lord Crowther-Hunt, by quoting some of the noble Lord's views in his previous incarnation. I do not propose to tease the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, in his present incarnation. I am delighted that the latest stage is so near karma which is. I believe, the ultimate destination. That is where he should be now.
Several Noble Lords: Destruction!
Lord O'HAGAN: Is karma destruction? My Lords, never mind. In his Minority Report the noble Lord said, and I hope he believes this still, that if a proportion of those directly elected members of the Scottish, Welsh and English regional governments were also Members of the House of Lords, this would enable them to participate in the United Kingdom legislative process and to contribute directly their expert knowledge of their own Assemblies' problems to policy-making at the United Kingdom level. Moreover, they would also be seen to be so contributing. This, then, is an additional possible way of helping to ensure that central Government take their decisions with full appreciation of the problems of the intermediate level governments.
The noble Lord went on to list some of the advantages that such an extension of the traditional role of your Lordships' House would bring. With his colleague, he said that such a scheme would have four main advantages: first, it will give effect to the interlocking principle and enable intermediate Governments to participate directly in central policymaking; secondly, it will introduce a still further check on the centralising tendencies of any Government; thirdly, it will provide a national platform for the representa-
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tives of the intermediate level governments; fourthly, it will add prestige and incentive to membership of the intermediate level Assemblies when some of their members are also Members of the House of Lords. I am sure that those who have been worried about the turn-out at these new elections will bear that in mind.
If we get right all the principles of these proposals for devolution, still we shall have achieved nothing unless we have made the mechanism equally as good as the principles. All the discussion in your Lordships' House has rightly centred on the principles, but I very much hope that the Government are as receptive to comments from this House on the mechanism for putting into effect those principles as they appear to be to the principles themselves. I very much hope that the ingenuity shown by the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, some time ago will continue to fertilise the mind of the Government as a whole when they bring forward their Bill to enable real devolution to take place without splitting the Assemblies from Westminster and so snapping the "golden thread of unity "which the noble and learned Lord stressed we must seek to preserve above everything else.
9.30 p.m.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, yesterday the list of speakers in the debate read like the casualties at Flodden: perhaps not so numerous but in proportion—24 Scots and 10 English. Today 50 per cent. of the speakers are Welsh or Scottish. In my humble opinion the devolution debate tended to ignore the 84 per cent. of the English until my noble friend Lord Elton and the noble Lord, Lord Foot, included them today. The case for unionism as it exists has also gone by default. The noble Lords, Lord Raglan and Lord Shinwell, perhaps made me re-write some of my notes on that. One of the reasons for this is that we are still haunted by, and want to forget, Ireland: the memory of the Home Rule debates in the 19th century; Sinn Fein and the troubles of the 1920s and the present quasi-rebellion going on there. If I may be so bold as to say so, this was underlined by the noble and learned Lord the Lard Chancellor when he said that the present proposals (referring to the White Paper) were the

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most important constitutional event since 1707. Has he forgotten the treaty of 1922 and the separation of the Free State?
What we are really discussing is the devolution of Scotland only. Wales, it appears, has been added as a sort of balancing act. Several noble Lords have pointed out that there is very little demand for devolution in Wales or any great support for Plaid Cymru, except in isolated pockets. As the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, said yesterday, 23 years ago the Coronation Stone was stolen from Westminster Abbey by some self-confessed Scots Nationalists. All of Scotland was embarrassed and shocked. We now know that they tried to palm it off on half the Peerage of Scotland. That was the strength of Nationalist feeling in 1953. In 1967 Mr. Wilson's Government were going through a period of intense unpopularity—one may be tempted to say, not an untoward occurrence. When the Hamilton by-election occurred Clyde-siders could not bring themselves to vote Tory or Liberal, so, to express their distaste for the Labour Government of the time, they voted nationalist. The Tory Party and the Labour Party then, if I may be so bold as to say so, panicked. This is what the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, was implying in his speech. The proposals of my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel were produced, to be carefully fudged in the 1970 Conservative Manifesto, and then conveniently forgotten. Then the Labour Party, after much heart-searching and public wrangling, produced devolution proposals in which I am sure it really did not believe.
Meanwhile, oil had been discovered in the North Sea off Scotland, and the Scottish Nationalists, in what must be one of the most dishonest—and I underline the word "dishonest "—campaigns of recent years, screamed at the Scottish people: "Scots' oil is for the Scots. It will bring uncounted riches to you and the English should not have any of it ". That was the main cause of the blossoming of Scottish Nationalism. What they totally failed to tell the Scots people, and to a certain extent the Government of the United Kingdom have also failed to say, is that had it not been for the action of the OPEC cartel in 1973 British oil would be far too expensive to extract. They confused turnover with profit.
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The net cost of crude from Saudi Arabia landed at Fawley but—and I heavily underline the word "but "—excluding the royalties and taxes, is 1 dollar 25 cents a barrel. That shows a profit to the oil companies and the tanker owners. The cost of British crude landed is much nearer 9 dollars a barrel. The noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, touched on this yesterday, but I think it is so important that it needs heavy underlining. Cartels have a habit of breaking up. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the interests of the high reserve, low population countries of the Arabian Peninsula will clash with the interests of low reserve, high population countries such as Iraq and Iran, leading to the breakup of OPEC. If that happens, the cost of oil to the industrialised world will go down very sharply indeed. There have already been signs in the accusations made against Kuwait for giving a bigger discount for sulphur content than the rules of OPEC allow. Nobody believed before October 1973 that the Arabs could successfully quadruple the price of oil. They tried in 1967, and failed. I have digressed on oil because it seems to me the skeleton upon which the flesh of discontent, caused, I believe, by bad and over-centralised Government, has been added.
What is wrong with the present constitutional arrangements? The Scots and the Welsh are over-represented compared to the English. They have had more than their arithemetical share of central Government funds, and far more than their share of Prime Ministers. The Scots have been integrated into the United Kingdom far more than the Irish ever were, and to the immense benefit of Great British—England, Scotland and Wales. The barbarities of the Highland clearances were carried out by Scots to other Scots, not by Anglo-Irish ascendency to an alien peasantry, as in Ireland. In the 19th century Scotland enjoyed great prosperity, as did the North of England. There was patriotism yes; nationalism, no. Cumberland's treatment of the Highlanders was no better than Cromwell's treatment of Drogheda, but then, the Scots do not have that distorted Irish memory! In other words, the fear of the analogy with Ireland is unfounded, even though it is unmentioned.

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My Lords, I think the cause of the unrest is the lack of confidence in our-selves as individuals, and the lack of confidence in Government since the war. In 1945 we were tired; we had bankrupted ourselves twice, and we had saved civilisation. The rest of Europe had done rather badly. Russia and America were like we were in 1815 and we said, "Thank God that's over. Well done us! "But the rest of the world had to pull itself together and live down its past. We have never ever recovered from that psychological and very damaging blow.
Consequently, we now demand of the State more than it can provide. Consequently, we have got more government of a not particularly high quality, and less wealth creation, thus producing more unease and dissatisfaction. If the present proposals along the lines of the White Paper are enacted they will lead to rows between London, Edinburgh and Cardiff and if, in the case of Scotland, the price of oil drops and some form of allocation of oil revenue to the Scots has been agreed, the Scots will not only have a row with the Westminster Government but also have to ask the English for more money. The English worm, if there is such a beast, may turn, and they could say to the Scots: "When you thought that you were rich you wanted none of us, but now that you are not as rich as you thought you were, you come back to the English for money." I think it is clear that the present constitutional arrangements have, as I have said, few adherents because we all panicked; but it is a good arrangement. We should heed Burke's warning, the English Constitution is delicate machinery which should be interfered with at our peril. If, however, we must interfere with it, which I doubt, we should go for a much greater degree of independence for Scotland and Wales, leaving perhaps the coinage, defence and foreign affairs to the central Parliament. Under those circumstances the buck will have to stop at Edinburgh and Cardiff, and cannot be volleyed back and forth over Hadrian's Wall or Offa's Dyke like a Mephistolian tripartite tennis final at Wimbledon.
An opinion poll recently taken in Scotland put jobs and rates, housing and education ahead of devolution. The two Scottish Members of another place who
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are most implacably against devolution have fended off the Scottish National Party pressure better than others. So let us put this devolution business behind us and encourage a programme of much less government for all constituent parts of the United Kingdom, regain faith in ourselves, keep the Union as it is, and remember the advice to Brutus:
"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves, that we arc underlings".
9.42 p.m.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, we have heard about 60 speeches already on this subject, and I do not propose to add to them at any length, but what I do say will be entirely to follow the noble Earl and to speak on behalf of the United Kingdom as a Union, because I believe it is vital to our history and to our future. I am sure we must preserve the unity of the United Kingdom. But how can we be sure to do this if we give any serious measure of devolution to Scotland and Wales? I am really not persuaded, after some of the speeches we have heard, that any measure of devolution which is not extremely serious will satisfy the Scottish National Party in the least. I think this really is a nettle we shall have to seize.
I should like to say that we must remember that England is very much larger than either Scotland or Wales, and I think we should be extremely sensitive in dealing with both of them. They have a very fascinating culture in each country, and in each country they have fascinating languages which not many of us know. But I have a friend in the Home Office who learned Welsh in order to do business in Wales, and I am a governor of the Atlantic College in South Wales; I am proud to say that Welsh is one of the 12 languages we teach there. I think that a diversity of culture such as we have in the United Kingdom adds enormously to the interest and to the inspiration which one can derive from living in the country.
It does not follow from that that you want to go further and give measures of political devolution. I am astonished really that we have not heard more in these debates about the examples of other countries. The Scots have done pretty well out of the Union. Your Lordships know the story of the Scot who went to London on business for the first time

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in the War. When he got back his friend said, "Well, Mac, how did you find the English? "He said," I do not know; I only spoke to the directors ". I went to Canada some time ago, and when I got back a friend said to me, "What on earth is all this about separatism in Quebec? "I said," I am completely foxed ". The Minister of External Affairs, whom I have known in Paris, was extremely kind and invited me to a magnificent lunch at the House of Commons. I discovered to my surprise that Mr. Paul Martin was really M. Paul Martin. He is a remarkable person, and he is now Canadian High Commissioner in this country. Then I called on the head of the trade unions. I discovered it was M. Paul Jodoin. I wrote my name in the Governor-General's book; it was General Vannier.
I went to choose a Canadian to serve on the Board of the International Baccalaureate who was a real educational expert. I found that Professor Leopold Lamontagne was the most suitable person. Now, of course, M. Trudeau is Prime Minister. So what is it in Quebec? Why is it the Quebecoise tend to think that these people who rendered such enormous services to Canada have in some way betrayed their national culture and their Province? I do not think it is very reasonable. I do not think it is very reasonable for the Scots to forget what a tremendous number of Ministers, and indeed Prime Ministers, as somebody remarked, and distinguished people in every sphere all over the Commonwealth have come from Scotland.
There are many examples from which we can learn a great deal. Look at Ireland, for instance. We gave Ireland a good deal of self-government, and then it got stretched more and more. It was always understood, or at any rate assumed—I do not know quite which to say—that in the event of war Britain would enjoy the use of our naval bases in Eire. When it came to the point, we did not do so. I remember sitting next to a pretty Irish nurse in Teheran at a party thrown for some hospital nurses by the Military Attaché, and she kept saying how proud she was that more Irish people had come to fight for the British than if they were still Hart of Britain. After listening to this for some time, I said: "It seems a pity that you have the Italian and German Ambassadors sending home
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intelligence all the time, so that the Germans can torpedo the boats in which your boys are coming out here". She said: "Och, and aren't we independent? "The Scots are not so illogical as many Irish people, but this is the sort of thing we are liable to have, and we have to be careful.
How important is the Clyde to the security of the United Kingdom? I believe that it is essential. For the security of the Clyde, how important is the coast of Northern Ireland? I believe that that is essential, too, but nobody ever says so. What about Milford Haven? Is that not essential? I think that Ireland is a clear warning., and it would be disastrous if Scotland moved that way also.
Look at Northern Ireland. The problem of Northern Ireland is extremely interesting, because we gave a measure of devolution there and Stormont insisted on ruling the country in a way which this country could not approve. There was a state of religious discrimination with which we could not go along. This ended in our having to suppress Stormont, and look at the trouble we have got into. T think that perhaps we were unreasonable in not recognising that there was a territorial claim, but the fact remains that we have a situation there with urban guerrillas which we have not been able to suppress, and I think that we have been very weak in dealing with them.
The other day I was talking to a man from Uruguay, where my colleague Sir Geoffrey Jackson was kidnapped by the Tupamaros. At a certain moment in Uruguay, the Government changed, the army was let loose, and the Tupamaros were suppressed in two months. On the radio the other day, somebody said that the British Army in Northern Ireland was never allowed to take the initiative. I mention this because once devolution starts it is extremely difficult to stop, and once it gets out of hand, if you push the Army in, absolutely everything goes wrong. These are dangers to which I think the United Kingdom has to be wise. It is not as if we have not had this trouble in our own country, and I thought the Clay Cross business was extraordinarily significant. We insisted on the rule of law but we had great hesitation in doing so. I was Shocked at the hesitation shown by the Government in insisting on

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the rules laid down by Parliament being carried out by the local authority. But say the local authority had had the Scottish Nationalists behind them; that would have been a different kettle of fish and a difficult one with which to deal.
Thus, we have to think very seriously about this and my conclusion is the same as that reached by some noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, that if we have a serious form of devolution we must have a written Constitution. We should also have a Supreme Court which will be able to decide cases of a clash of interests and questions whether or not the written Constitution has been infringed. We cannot expect that to be an English court because I do not think it would enjoy the necessary prestige in outlying parts of the United Kingdom. It would have to be a special court and it would have to be much more ably backed up than the way in which we backed up Sir John Donaldson and the National Industrial Relations Court which, in my opinion, was very much let down. In other words, it would have to be seriously supported.
The rise of the national movement in Scotland has been due largely to the weakness of Government in the United Kingdom. I entirely agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, about this. The two Parties give the impression to a great many people—I say this with some hesitation but it is true—that they are more interested in black-guarding each other than in attending to our common interests. I am sure that that is not the case but it is what a lot of people, many quite intelligent people, and the man in the street, think. Each Party when it comes to power undoes what the other has done and the result is to throw doubt on leadership, and this is ably played up by the media in such a way that it is hard to lead the United Kingdom. I do not think that either Party can do it very effectively nowadays.
I feel, therefore, that if we are to make a success of Government in the United Kingdom, which is essential not only to get us out of our present difficulties but to carry conviction in the further parts of the United Kingdom, we really should eventually (and I do not know how it is
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to be done) achieve some sort of a consensus Government, a Coalition or a Government by common consent and agreement; in other words, some sort of power sharing. We are always advocating it for the Northern Irish; let us advocate it for ourselves for a change. We are told that Coalitions are weak and invariably unsuccessful, and that that is hardly the sort of effective leadership I am advocating. Nevertheless, our present Government are a bit of a coalition between Social Democrats and the extreme Left, and that is one of the things from which we are suffering. I believe there would be a great deal to be said for a Government of the centre at some point. I am afraid, in fact, that we will not get it unless we have some absolutely major economic calamity, though I believe that it is what the country will ask our politicians to provide.
I was impressed with what my noble friend Lord O'Hagan said. He offered, I thought, some very fertile suggestions, and a number of others have been made in this debate. I have an idea to throw into the common pool. I wonder whether there could not be a system of Parliamentary committees such as exist in the United States or Sweden where questions under discussion in the Legislature are the subject of more or less public hearings. In our country, the TUC, the Scottish TUC and various local authorities could come to Westminster, or the committee might on occasion go to Wales or Scotland and hear the locals on the spot when their own interests were particularly engaged. In this way, Parliament would be seen to be occupying itself with the affairs not only of Scotland and Wales but also of England; that is necessary because there is a feeling in many parts of England outside the Home Counties that Parliament is too remote and not sufficiently sensitive to their views. I believe that that feeling is one of the things which lie behind the desire for devolution. I know that it is dangerous to put forward new ideas, but I feel that a small Parliamentary change might produce a quite considerable psychological change over the years.
To conclude, the essential point is that we should preserve the United Kingdom as such. It was not the Scots who discovered the oil; it was the British. It does not lie inside Scottish territorial

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waters; it is miles from Scotland. If ever the Scots made it their own and the English had a motive for getting cheap oil, I cannot think of a more disastrous situation for Scotland, so let us at all costs preserve the Union.
9.57 p.m.
Viscount MUIRSHIEL: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, has given grave warnings, as have other noble Lords, of the possible consequences of the creation of Assemblies of the kind which have been discussed during this debate and in another place. May I assure him that those of us who live in Scotland all the time and who have had to think about this for many years are equally aware of the dangers. What we have to face is that there is without any doubt a strange mood throughout Scotland. Indeed, it is not confined to Scotland but exists here in England and Wales in a different form and in many other countries around the world. We must find a solution in the circumstances which exist. Allow me to be quite frank. I should dearly love to drop this whole argument about devolution and to get on with what really matters, but I do not believe that we can. I may be wrong, but that is my belief.
I had intended to avoid producing any preamble to my remarks because of the hour and because of my intention of speaking very briefly, but I should simply like to say that I profoundly hope that the reports of yesterday's proceedings and of today's debate, with the exception of my own speech, will be carefully studied by those responsible for producing a policy for devolution with its resulting legislation. The present White Paper may well be a good point of departure, but I do not believe that anything that comes out of that White Paper, unless it be very substantially altered, can possibly produce a wise and lasting solution to our problems. I only wish that these debates might have a much wider readership than they are likely to achieve in normal circumstances. The reason is—and I may be optimistic —that here it has at last seemed that a pattern of thought may be emerging which could achieve a reasonably substantial measure of agreement except, of course, with those whose ultimate aim is separation. I refer in particular, if that is not an impertinence, to the speeches
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of my noble friends Lord Hailsham and Lord Home of the Hirsel. Those speeches, along with others from both sides of the House, have indicated at least a rather different approach to a solution from many of those so far formulated by the major Parties. The speech of Mr. Heath in another place was also highly relevant and I strongly recommend those who have not read it to do so.
No one who has been a Minister in the Scottish Office for any length of time can fail to go on contemplating at intervals over the rest of his life the perennial question of whether and how the system within which he operated could be improved in the interests of Scotland and the United Kingdom. The true interests of both—constitutional and economic—are absolutely inseparable, and will continue indefinitely to be so.
After five and a half years in the Scottish Office, I have had 13 years in which to contemplate, but my speech will not be of comparable length. One conclusion I reached a number of years ago is that under various Governments we had evolved a remarkably effective system of executive decentralisation. I use that word deliberately, because outside this House devolution is a word that has come to mean almost anything that any speaker wishes it to mean for the purposes of any emotive speech he happens to be making to any particular audience. Ask almost anyone in Scotland today whether they are in favour of devolution and the answer will be, Yes. Ask them what they mean by it, and the answers will vary profoundly, if one gets any answer at all.
For many years, legislation relating to Scotland has been passed at Westminster. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde has spoken on this point already, and my noble friend Lord Selkirk made some very good remarks about it in an admirable speech. But very few people realise that Executive action covering a very high proportion of the decisions which affect the daily lives of every single person in Scotland stem from the powers of the Secretary of State, backed up by a very effective Department, which certainly in my time was highly sensitive to the needs of people throughout Scotland, and I believe still is.
Very few people seem to realise that in those days the Secretary of State had

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—and there may even be more now—virtually all the functions of four Ministers in England, plus some of the functions of another five. What is more—and here I risk attack from some people, although not, I think in this House—I do not remember, racking my brains in the effort, any case in which the valid needs of Scotland, once established and understood, were ignored or frustrated by the wicked English. Of course, there was argument, which was both necessary and very healthy. Finance inevitably provided the major subject of argument and of dissatisfaction. But just as we have ensured in song that there will always be an England, so there will always be a Treasury, or its equivalent, whether it be sited in Whitehall, in Edinburgh, in Fort William, or for that matter in Lerwick; and whether or not there be oil revenues. Here I wish to say in parenthesis that we ought to have a careful look at what happened in Shetland. Some remarkably clever operations were carried out by the county clerk of that area, and the results in terms of oil in Shetland have so far been very good indeed, and have been unmatched anywhere else.
Spending Departments—and this will apply to any form of Scottish Assembly there ever is. with whatever degree of automony—will always want more money than they can get out of the national pot. If all spending Departments—and I do not know which Departments do not ultimately spend—got what they, and their customers, would like to have, then no nation could survive beyond a very short time. I emphasise this point because I do not think that it has begun to be realised by those who place enormous value on a new Assembly of any kind in Scotland. As my noble friend Lord Selkirk pointed out very effectively —and I say this with great respect to those of my colleagues, almost a trades union of former Secretaries of State who are in this Chamber—my predecessors, myself and my successors, and our Information Office, have failed despite valiant efforts to get through to the general public just how much Executive powers already rest in Scotland, how much devolution (in a very important interpretation of that word) already exists. Why we failed it is extremely difficult to know. Every effort was made, and my own very
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arbitrary conclusion is that the people we were trying to explain all this to simply were not interested at that time. We tried the media. They would publish something once—one-fiftieth of what one had said, but one could hardly blame them for that, perhaps—but, after that, silence.
But we failed in this, and the conclusion that we had failed led me—this was over a good many years—to think very carefully about the need for some form of convention or Assembly, initially, perhaps, along the lines of the Council of Europe or the Assembly of Western European Union, in both of which I have been very heavily involved in the past and both of which certainly fulfilled, and I think still fulfil today, very useful purposes indeed. The functions of such an Assembly could have been developed. Another realisation was that during my 5½ years as Secretary of State there was no occasion, other than formal lunches or dinners, or on the occasion of some deputation on a specific matter, on which I could meet collectively the elected members of local government. Contact between officials was close and very effective, but the Secretary of State remained, and I think still remains, remote from a very desirable contact.
These two considerations, taken together, really pointed to an indirect or even nominated form of Assembly, with membership based on the local authorities, meeting in public so many times a year for so many days, and attended not only by Scottish Office Ministers but also —there is no reason against it—by other United Kingdom Ministers whose functions were relevant to the whole Scottish scene. An Assembly of this kind would have given to the Secretary of State the opportunity to explain to the Assembly what he was up to and why, what the Government were up to and why, and would certainly have meant that he was never in doubt as to what a very important sector of Scottish life, very close to the heather roots throughout Scotland, thought about his actions and about him. I must confess that the Opposition in the House of Commons, in my time, were fairly skilled at dealing with the latter. I remember emerging from one debate, with two different Members' contributions to my character, as "a spineless jellyfish with all the instincts of a dictator ". It took me quite a long time to puzzle that

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one out, and I came to the conclusion that I must have been just about right.
Another result would undoubtedly have been a very much wider understanding in Scotland of what government in Scotland is all about. The media could not have failed to report properly such an Assembly; and the deliberations, too, of such an Assembly could hardly have failed to influence the development of policy in all matters, legislation included, affecting Scotland. No narrow nationalist, no member of the Scottish National Party as it now exists, would have been remotely satisfied with any such Assembly. It is now quite clear, if it was ever in doubt, which I do not think it was, that no nationalist will ever be satisfied by anything short of total separation; and it is folly for anyone to try to evolve a policy thinking it will keep the nationalists quiet. It will not.
My Lords, I must be honest and say that I wish with all my heart that some solution such as I have been describing might still be found in the interests both of Scotland and of the United Kingdom. I agree that there are grave dangers in whatever policy we pursue other than just possibly what I have been trying to describe. But I believe, too, that such a solution would even now meet the wishes of a very substantial number of people in Scotland who undoubtedly want devolution, who have very little idea of what is meant by it and have no idea whatsoever of how much already exists —an increasing number of whom over very recent weeks have begun to appreciate some of what I believe to be the virtually insoluble problems which are
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bound to emerge if the approach of the White Paper which we are considering at this time is not altered very substantially indeed in the weeks and months to come.
I have taken up your Lordships' time with what I am afraid is a recital of one individual's ideas of what might have been. I still have this faintest of hopes that it might even be thought of again. But the relevance of what I have said to the situation today is that if, as may be the case—I have to concede that—the time for such a solution has gone, certainly, my own thinking has taken a large jump indeed to the conclusion that any halfway house, or quarter-way house, must fail and that any directly-elected Assembly which may be created in Scotland must have limited and absolutely clearly defined functions and powers of its own, subject only to appeal not to politicians but to the courts on all questions of vires. At this time of night I am not going into any detail on that.
Others have very competently made suggestions in this debate. I leave it at that, but I feel it strongly that I do not consider it possible for two separately-elected Assemblies to take part in any way in the same bit of legislation without leading almost immediately to deadlock and conflict. I hope profoundly that time and effort will now be concentrated on an approach which has some chance of working and which could be acceptable to people of good will. I feel that there must be many changes in the White Paper we have been discussing over these two days.
10.12 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, my first reaction to the debate in the House over the last two days and to the debate in the other place, and to the debate outside in the country, is one of surprise at the way in which the subject is regarded as being a new one and the way in which the word "devolution"is regarded as a new word in our political vocabulary. When I first became a supporter of the Liberal Party at the age of 16 when still in the sixth-form at school—this was in 1935—I was handed a copy of a document called The Liberal Way which was then the official statement of policy. It contained this declaration:
"There should be a large measure of devolution. Subordinate Parliaments should be established for Scotland and Wales and also for large areas of England with powers similar to those enjoyed by the Parliament of Northern Ireland."
That particular point of view the Liberal Party has continued to press in the intervening 40 years. The attitude goes back in Liberal circles much earlier than that. One can trace it back to Mr. Gladstone, who in 1897 said:
"I will consent to give Ireland, in principle, nothing that is not on equal terms offered to Scotland and to the different parts of the United Kingdom."
It is probably because I am conditioned by this background that I cannot help feeling that some of the fears expressed for the future of the United Kingdom are somewhat exaggerated.
It has been made clear by speaker after speaker that your Lordships do not wish to see the break-up of the United Kingdom. My noble friend Lord Mackie of Benshie made it very clear yesterday that we on these Benches subscribe wholeheartedly to that view. But if the people of Scotland and Wales wanted separation, if there was an overwhelming desire for separation, then, with great regret, I would agree that they should have it. It would, of course, pose serious problems. But I do not believe it would be the end of everything. They could certainly exist on their own; and England, as a nation of 48 million people, would survive. We should all remain closely linked in the European Economic Community and I hope we would remain allies in NATO.
However, all the evidence of course is that the people of Scotland and Wales
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do not want separation. I support the holding of a referendum, which I am convinced would make that abundantly clear. What they want is to exercise more power themselves, and the problem is to find the best method of carrying this out. The danger is that we may be so anxious to preserve the unity of the United Kingdom—understandably so —that we do not act boldly enough to meet the wishes and the needs of Scotland, Wales and, indeed, England, so that unity will not be preserved. Anxiety about the need to preserve the unity of the United Kingdom pervades almost every sentence in the White Paper. It is in a way an obsession with the authors, and this attitude is inevitably inhibiting.
During our two days of debate, and particularly yesterday, the limitations on the degree of devolution proposed in the White Paper have been much criticised—the reserve powers; the possibility of conflict between Parliament and the Assemblies; the role of the Secretary of State in this; the possible conflict where the Secretary of State, the Government and Parliament decide that a certain piece of legislation being pursued by the Assembly is not acceptable on policy grounds; the revenue raising powers of the Assemblies; the degree of control which they can exercise over the economy in each case: the absence of an legislative power over the Welsh Assembly referred to by my noble friend, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. All these criticisms of the limitations of the powers have been made and there has been a feeling that the White Paper has not gone far enough; that something more is required.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, described it as true devolution, and he agreed this was close to federalism and might indeed be federalism depending on what overriding authority was retained at Westminster. The noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, also said that her position was close to federalism, and she was not concerned and worried about that. A considerable agreement has emerged in the debate among those who feel the White Paper has not gone far enough. Those who feel it has gone too far have been vocal today; but among those who feel it has not gone far enough there has been a considerable degree

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of agreement that there must be a separation of powers, and conflicts of power should be resolved by the courts.
My noble friend Lord Foot, in a powerful speech, argued that either we must have something much less than what is in the White Paper or we must have federalism. He argued that if we are prepared to give legislative devolution to Scotland, we must be prepared to give it to Wales and to the regions of England as well. He said it must be either that or something less, and he went on to say that the Kilbrandon Commission had not been prepared to say that federalism of that kind with 8, 9, 10 or possibly 12 Assemblies in the United Kingdom could work. I see no reason why it should not work. I see no reason why Western Germany should be able to run a federal system and that we cannot possibly contemplate it in this country. It is a question of what are the areas that are to be given as the areas of authority to the lesser Parliament.
That is the question: what is the division of power between them? I see no reason why a satisfactory division of power should not be arrived at, and it is surely quite clear that nothing less than what is proposed in the White Paper—indeed, probably a great deal more—is required in order to give any kind of satisfaction to majority opinion in Scotland. I am not talking about Scottish Nationalists now, but about majority opinion in Scotland. If this be so, and if my argument so far is sound, then we come to the conclusion that the most satisfactory way of solving this problem of the conflict of powers and of giving some measure of devolution and some measure of passing down power to different parts of the country is in fact through a federal system.
Speaking for myself on this particular point, I do not see why it should be necessary for all the elements in the federation to have precisely the same powers. It may be argued that this is normally the case in a federation, but we do not necessarily have to be orthodox or follow any accepted or recognised pattern. It seems to me that it would be possible to say to Scotland and to Wales that they could be given greater powers than are given to the regions in England, because I think the regions in England
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would in fact be happy with that situation. I would stick to my Gladstonian dictum that the regions of England should be offered the same powers, but I believe they would accept lesser powers than those given to Scotland and Wales. In those circumstances, where the United Kingdom Parliament was acting for England as a whole—which in these circumstances it would have to do—if it was merely the English Members who did so and not the Scottish, Irish and Welsh Members who would not sit with the English members, for these purposes it would become the English Parliament.
I think it is important, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, said yesterday, that when we are considering these questions we should consider the whole field of constitutional reform and not attempt to arrive at conclusions piecemeal. This would involve, as he hinted, tying in this question of national and regional assemblies with a reformed Second Chamber in which they could be represented. It would also involve dealing with the question of the electoral system, about which a great deal has been said in these last two days. I am glad to say that there has been a great deal of support for the idea of using a system of proportional representation for the election of the Assemblies. The single transferable vote system has also been supported, as has the German system.
The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, made two comments upon proportional representation. He spoke about the difficulty of dealing with a long list of names, but this has not been found to be an obstacle in Eire or Northern Ireland, where the system is in operation. The noble Earl also spoke about the breaking of personal links between the Member and the constituency because of having multi-Member constituencies with the single transferable vote system. However, there would be this additional advantage, that the individual elector would be much more likely than he is now to have somebody to whom he could point and say that his vote had helped to elect that person—perhaps 80 per cent. of the electorate would be in that position, as against something between 40 per cent. and 50 per cent. at the present time. This would mean a greater link between the elector and that particular person. Then

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it is quite possible to say that after election has taken place in a multi-Member constituency the individual Members—five, six, or whatever it is—might be responsible for particular sections of their constituency, thus restoring if it was felt to be desirable, a direct link between one Member and a territorial area.
There are one or two essential points that I would mention very quickly in passing. One is revenue raising which is dealt with in the Memorandum of Dissent in the Royal Commission's Report, where various examples are put forward of how revenue raising powers might be given. I know that in the White Paper two are shot down I think the other one is not mentioned. But I should hope that other and more exciting methods —if any method of taxation can ever be described as exciting—can be found than the surcharge on the rates which is suggested.
Finally, thinking about our constitutional reform, a Bill of Rights and a written Constitution are essential parts of this overall reform. Also, we have to bear in mind that we are seeking this constitutional development in the framework of another development, the development of the European Community, and that that itself may one day become a federation. There are divided views in this House about that but it may become so, and if it does we shall have a divided Britain on the line of argument which I am pursuing within a federal Europe.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said yesterday at the beginning of this debate that all that was said would be given very careful attention. I believe that if careful attention and consideration are given, and if that results in the exercise of some influence over the Government, then, when the legislation appears, particularly if one thinks of the comments which were made during yesterday's debate, it will be much closer than is the White Paper to the orthodox federal arrangement which I have just described.
10.27 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I should like to start by adding my congratulations to the noble Earl, Lord Minto, on his outstanding maiden
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speech yesterday. He told us that he was nervous at the time, but in fact we can all tell him that he spoke with great confidence and clarity. As he reminded us with some modesty, his forebears centuries ago helped to guard the border against raiders from the South. We look forward to hearing him speak again in this House on many future occasions.
My Lords, I have listened to nearly every word in two long days of debate. Your Lordships can bring a wealth of knowledge, experience and wisdom to bear on this difficult subject, and that has happened. Speeches have come from all sides, I believe, and from all Benches which have analysed the situation and contributed valuable comments and suggestions. I hope that the Government will consider them. I myself will try to avoid repetition in these remarks towards the end of the debate.
The large majority of those who have spoken have insisted that the United Kingdom should remain a single country. Noble Lords have discussed various possible forms of partnership in government and constitutional change. Parts of the Government's White Paper have come under fire. The noble Lord the Leader of the House and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor have expressed the Government's attitude and the reasons for their proposals. We are grateful for the way in which they have given these clear explanations, though we are not all persuaded to accept every proposal in the White Paper. Then the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, yesterday evening helpfully spelled out the financial proposals of the Government.
My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham eloquently and convincingly recalled in his speech yesterday the achievements of the United Kingdom as a community and its influence in the world. He also introduced suggestions for a Bill of Rights and a written Constitution, as improvements and safeguards when changes of the kind in the White Paper are being made. This added another dimension of special interest to our debate. My noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel told us that thoughtful Scots now want a more direct voice in government and more decisions on the spot, but not independence. I am sure that he is right. The House should give

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great weight to what the noble Lord has said, to his conclusions in the light of his own intense interest in this subject over recent years and his great experience. The noble Lord raised the question of a referendum, as did my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie. Clearly there would be difficulties over arranging a referendum, but it might well help to settle the main issue whether there should be a system of devolution for Scotland which could be put into effect without mixing it up with independence and without sliding involuntarily into independence, thus splitting up the United Kingdom into separate countries.
The debate has concentrated largely upon Scotland. There does not seem to be much enthusiasm for an Assembly in Wales, as my noble friend Lord Elton told us today. That devolution proposals should be principally relevant to Scotland is not, however, surprising. For many years Scottish Ministers and Scottish Departments have been administering separately a wide range of subjects, and my noble friend Lord Muirshiel dwelt on this fact just now. There has also been the Scottish Grand Committee and Standing Committee system since early in this century. This system evolved as an ingenious way by which the same group of elected representatives for Scotland could debate Scottish affairs in the morning and Imperial and United Kingdom affairs in the afternoon and evening, all in one place at Westminster. This, of course, was before the aeroplane had become a normal means of travel.
At the same time the Government's majority in the House of Commons as a whole is sustained under the present procedure, despite different proportions in Party strengths within that Scottish group of Members of Parliament. Thus, conflict, if it occurs, between Scottish Committees and the Chamber is contained within Westminster. But that system I no longer think is suitable. Parliament is now bearing much heavier burdens than it did when that system was growing and coming into effect. So much more is being undertaken both by the other place and by your Lordships' House. Moreover, the Scottish Committee system is concealed and remote. There is a Public Gallery but it is usually empty. I should add that this is not a reflection upon the quality of the debate that takes place
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there but because very few people are aware that debates are taking place. And, indeed, the Public Gallery is difficult to find. The machinery is creaking. People in Scotland cannot see what is being done, and little is reported in the Press. Your Lordships will understand why I shall concentrate on Scotland. I myself am in no doubt that change is needed and that it should include a body with devolved powers sitting in Scotland.
Before considering what form such devolution might take in the light of this debate, I must draw attention to the principal issue which arises and identify the contenders. The issue is devolution or independence. Two or three noble Lords have said that they do not know what the SNP's constitutional objective is and others were unaware of it. We were not enlightened by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven and Stenton. He spoke amiably about Scots supporting the SNP and told us that many agreeable people in Scotland are doing so. I am sorry he is not here now, because I agree with him; that is correct and he is one of them. He is one of the agreeable people supporting that Party. But most of this support is coming because the SNP appear to be a pressure group for Scotland, causing authorities in London to take more notice of Scotland and to act more quickly. Many of them do not know what the objective of the SNP is and would not support it if they did. But it is no secret. It is contained in manifestoes and statements, though they are not easy to obtain and the writing is usually in small print.
Devolution within Britain, and Scotland becoming an independent country, are two entirely different and incompatible situations. There are a great many people in Scotland who favour the first—some form of devolution. The second, Scotland as a separate country, is the aim of the SNP. As their Manifesto of August 1974 stated, the SNP's aim—and I quote from page 3—is:
"the restoration of Scottish national sovereignty within the Commonwealth ".
This has for years been repeated as the purpose of the SNP's official activists. It is confirmed by their proposals for separate Embassies and Armed Forces. That means breaking up Britain into more than

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one country. It is the opposite of devolution, which is delegating functions and decisions within one country.
Let there be no mistake about this. Speaking in the debate in the Commons on 13th January, the Parliamentary leader of the SNP said that they did not intend to break up the United Kingdom. But that was simply to play upon the word "Kingdom ", confirmed by his explanation that the SNP's aim was that Scotland should be part of the Commonwealth, recognising the Queen. Scotland's position would be like that of New Zealand. Whether recognising the monarchy or not, the policy of the SNP is to divide Britain into more than one country. Many of those who have been supporting the SNP for other reasons do not yet realise what their aim is, or they believe that they can withdraw their support short of that destination. It is important that they should now see that the SNP do not want devolution as a settled system for Britain; they are only interested in it as a steppingstone to breaking up Britain. This was clear at the SNP's annual conference in 1974, on one of the rare occasions when they openly discussed the different options of independence and devolution. The SNP Whip was reported in the Press the next day as speaking for all the Party's MPs in declaring—and I am quoting from the Press, which itself contained a quote:
" I do not believe in devolution. I believe in independence. We stand for full self-government for Scotland and nothing else."
The matter was left there and a vote was avoided. But the words were, "I do not believe in devolution ". It is important that that policy be widely known and not blurred.
I will give an illustration of how this works out. A Nationalist MP circulated a letter to Service families in October 1974, which began:
"I am often asked what happens to the RAF when Scotland becomes independent."
In reply to this question, the MP stated in the letter that it would continue as the Scottish RAF and that a Serviceman who was not Scottish would have to opt for Scottish citizenship or apply to continue to serve as if he were from Canada or Australia, depending upon agreements to be reached with England and Wales. The same letter stated that non-Scottish Servicemen would be allowed to own houses
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in an independent Scotland and would be entitled to let their houses while on tours of duty abroad. How kind and generous of the SNP to state beforehand that Servicemen would be specially allowed to own and let houses in the Britain which they have loyally been serving!
I have so far simply been stating the SNP's declared policy from published documents, without comment, but I will now allow myself a criticism, and observe that this written statement on the RAF is not only a clear indication of the aim of the SNP, it also brings out the utter nonsense and muddle which their policy would produce in such matters as citizenship and defence. That is not devolution; that is demolition—demolition of the systems, services and institutions which have been built up over many years for the mutual advantage of everyone in the British Isles. Indeed, your Lordships will note that the rights of the individual, for example in citizenship and of holding a British passport, would be in jeopardy.
Devolution within one country is another matter. What is now needed, I believe, is a workable form of Parliamentary devolution for Scotland to match the substantial administrative devolution which already exists, and to which my noble friend Lord Muirshiel referred. The Secretary of State and the Scottish Office now cover virtually all domestic subjects except finance, trade and industry. I concede immediately that it is not easy to find the kind of Scottish Assembly which will meet this aspiration. I accept that the Government have an exceedingly difficult task. But the Government have stumbled into several pitfalls in their White Paper. Their scheme has obviously been prepared piecemeal, subject by subject. It will produce great confusion and dangerous conflicts. The Government must make major changes in it before preparing their Bill, and there must be a separate Bill for Scotland, since the situation is very different from that in Wales.
My Lords, before I leave the principal issue to be borne in mind, devolution or independence, I must point out that there is a danger—a danger of confusion and misunderstanding. There is a serious possibility at the end of the day of Balkanising our country against the wishes or the intentions of the majority of

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people in each of Scotland, England and Wales. The SNP stand for independence, while support is coming to them from people who do not want it. In England and abroad this could none the less be interpreted as voting for independence when, in fact, it is not; and the reaction could well be in England, "Let them go ". That is a situation, a break-up, which nearly every speaker in this debate has opposed. It also makes the process of devolving powers very difficult. If stones in the edifice are dislodged, there is a risk that the rest of the building will start to slide and crumble.
Moreover, those who want independence for Scotland will have little interest in devolution or in an Assembly or Convention, whatever it be called, working smoothly. The more friction and obstruction there is, the easier it will be to agitate for a breakaway. I agree with my noble friend Lord Polwarth, when he said last night that Scottish industry and commerce should make their views clear. The Scottish chambers of commerce only a few days ago issued a statement that they were against Scotland becoming a separate country: it is contrary to Scottish commercial interests. I wish such statements would get more publicity. Certainly Scottish industrialists and businessmen appear unanimous so far as their firms and the Scottish economy are concerned. Almost all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate have expressed the same view.
Last summer, the Scotland in Europe campaign had a resounding success against SNP opposition. It is now necessary to promote a Scotland in Britain campaign. I am sure that more than 80 per cent. of people living in Scotland would support that campaign, especially if sensible changes could now be made to reduce centralisation.
The proposals of the Government were criticised by my noble friend Lord Mansfield last night. I will refer briefly to the main points. First, we are critical of the division of functions between the Secretary of State and the Assembly. It seems strange that the Assembly should not be able to consider agriculture, or even the police—subjects which have been devolved administratively to Scotland for many years.
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There is the anomalous position of the Scottish Development Agency, which is to be considered by both. And then there is electricity, which has not been mentioned; electricity is not to go to the Assembly, although the Secretary of State and a Scottish Department have been responsible for it for many years. And even when the Department of Energy was formed in January 1974, with the idea of bringing together all the energy Departments, none the less the function of electricity remained devolved in Scotland. I cannot see why all the subjects which the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Scottish Office deal with cannot be within the scope of the new Assembly. Those subjects have over the years been very carefully examined and have been found to be subjects which can be devolved.
I recognise that there are difficulties over devolving financial and economic control and that these must stay with the central Government. We have had an integrated economy for 270 years. Moreover, attempting to apply different financial measures North and South of the Border would cause immense difficulties to many companies. For them to have to distinguish and separate their activities and interests between Scotland and England would be a huge task—many are closely interwoven—and a quite unnecessary and expensive one.
Lastly, if I may make my last main criticism—many others have been made during the debate by others—the Government should certainly look again at their proposal for a surcharge on the rates.
Paragraphs 58 to 64 are likely to provoke conflict. May I ask the Minister when he replies whether it is really necessary to have two Executives. This in itself will provoke conflict and ambiguity. In any case, even if a second Executive appears to be essential, there should be a different approach. There is much disquiet that the present proposals, whereby the Secretary of State for Scotland can appoint and replace the Chief Executive and others, will not work and will simply provoke difficulties. Some of these people need not even be members of the Assembly.
Then there are the two vetoes which have been proposed. Others have spoken

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about these. I will simply draw attention to the fact that the ultra vires veto is one which most speakers, and certainly I myself, consider should be dealt with in the courts and should not be a matter left to Government Ministers. And it should be distinguished from the question of policy, which is dealt with in the same paragraph in the White Paper.
Where functions are restricted, as is proposed in this White Paper, many of us think that there should be a judicial system; functions should be laid down by law and matters tested in the courts. The rights of the individual are involved in this. I note that Mr. Short in the debate in the other place acknowledged that there were differing views within the Government on the question of judicial review, and paragraph 65 invites discussion before a final decision is taken. Well, the Government have had very clear indications during this debate.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, in his penetrating analysis of the problems, suggested that there should be a reserve power which would very seldom, if ever, be used, and he referred to Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act. It had not been used for 50 years and it was only used in a crisis bordering on civil war. That also should be considered as part of a system when the Government are rethinking their plan. Many fertile minds have addressed themselves to these matters. The Committee under my noble friend Lord Home put forward their proposals in March 1970, and no less than four members of that Committee have taken part in this debate. But by then the Royal Commission on the Constitution had been sitting for several months; the announcement of its establishment took place between the setting up of the Home Committee and its Report. The Royal Commission then took 4½ years and did not report until four months before the change of Government early in 1974.
It is no reflection, I quickly say, on that Royal Commission that it took that time. It had a very wide remit, including the Channel Islands and even Northern Ireland. The effect was that, while the Royal Commission was sitting, the whole subject was on ice where the Government of the day were concerned. In Scotland we knew the problem existed, and we
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knew that action was needed, and some of us were waiting a little impatiently in 1972 and 1973 for the Royal Commission to report. An enormous amount of work and study, for and by the Royal Commission, is now available. We have had the benefit of that, although the recommendations of the Commission were not unanimous.
I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, has been appointed to this new position. He was a member of that Commission and has devoted a great deal of time and energy to this subject. He is also very much aware of the options on the different points that have been raised during this debate. I hope that he will be flexible in his approach, and I wish him well. I shall myself be more than ready to give him any help that I possibly can from my own experience in Scottish affairs. He will also be able to look at it from the point of view of England, and I do not, even in what has to be a brief speech at this hour, overlook the interests of England. The views of both parties to an agreement should be considered when changes to that agreement are afoot.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, and his Commission suggested that the number of Scottish seats in the other place should be reduced; that is an understandable recommendation along with the others which were made. Then there is the question of what happens when Scottish Members of Parliament are able to vote on subjects like health and education at Westminster affecting England and Wales, but are not involved in health and education in Scotland because that is being dealt with by a different group of representatives in Edinburgh. There is not an insuperable problem here. May I suggest that, in the same way that Scottish Bills are certified by Speaker's Certificates, one possibility as part of a scheme would be for Bills affecting England and Wales to be similarly certified, and for an arrangement to exist whereby Scottish Members in Westminster did not vote on those. All these matters must be considered when the final shape of a devolution plan has been adopted, because so much will depend on the functions that are devolved.
The noble Lord, Lord Raglan, referred to the question of oil, as indeed have other speakers. The point I wish

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to make here is that this subject has entered the situation in Scotland in this way; it has been seized on by those who want complete independence for Scotland, because they say that it would turn Scotland into a kind of Sheikdom, and there would no longer be any shortage of money. But the oil will be there only for a certain time, and the constitutional changes which we are considering must be for a much longer time than that. It is also a risky business, as several noble Lords have pointed out, and could be affected by changes in world prices. Lastly, if the fragmentation of Britain were to take place, most of the oil that has been discovered so far would be in the Continental Shelf belonging to the Shetland Islands, and the Shetland Islands have made it perfectly clear that in such circumstances they would wish to go their separate way.
I agree with most of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe. He drew our attention to SNP posters and propaganda. I would sum up that the picture is presented from these of an independent Scotland using income from oilfields, apparently on the scale of Midas, to maintain for years to come every obsolete open-hearth furnace in the steel industry North of the Border. That would not last very long and would be a path to disaster. The noble Earl, Lord Perth—perhaps I may be allowed at this point to draw on my experience as a former Secretary of State—gave some grounds for Scottish grievances, real orimagined. I was delighted that the three subjects which he mentioned, the A9 road, Edinburgh Airport and the deep water port at Hunterston, happen to be three on which I took the decisions, between 1970 and 1973, which he welcomed. His point was that they should have been taken several years earlier.
Anybody who flies over the area to and from Inverness, as I do twice a week normally, can see below much of the 140 miles of reconstruction which is taking place, some of it several miles from the present road with bridge crossings of two firths reducing the distance by 15 miles. That is the new A9. But life is not as simple as the noble Earl suggested because, in all three cases, there were objections in Scotland, and on the second and third there were serious objections. In respect of Edinburgh Air-
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port and the deep-water port at Hunters-ton there were national television and radio programmes opposing my decisions and almost wholly devoted to the cases of the objectors. At Hunterston I was burnt in effigy on the beach; a Secretary of State needs a thick skin but he also needs a heat-resistant one.
Like the noble Earl, Lord Perth, I was certain that the large majority of the interested Scots approved of those decisions—he took it for granted—because they were good for Scotland as a whole. That majority, however, was distinguished by its silence at the time. It would have helped me—this is an additional point about our proposals—as Secretary of State or as chief Minister in a new system, and it would have helped to inform public opinion in Scotland, if there had been some form of visible Assembly considering those matters in Scotland. The majority would have been there clearly and visibly supporting my decisions because I did get support from both sides in the other place; but it was submerged and hidden and not seen by the Scottish Press or the public. In other words, the present processes at Westminster on such matters are invisible.
My message tonight is, as noble Lords will realise, a warning. My noble friend Lord Selkirk, in a most perceptive speech, also spoke vividly of this danger. A devolution scheme has to be worked out very carefully. It must be workable and lasting and it must meet the reasonable aspirations of the people North of the Border while also being acceptable in the South. If it does not fulfil these requirements, we run the serious risk not only of confusion but, worse, of the splitting-up of Britain to the detriment of every part of it.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question before he resumes his seat? I have listened with a good deal of impatience, waiting for some indication of a lack of foresight on the part of the Conservative Party in assessing the aspirations of the people of Scotland. His whole speech appeared to be an indication of foresight which evidently must have been lacking. Does the noble Lord agree or does he not agree that, while the SNP has made certain claims—with some of which we agree and with many others of which we wholly disagree—about the

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Parties in Scotland having failed to put the message over, the Tories, having failed to grasp it, failed in their assessment of the situation?
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, in order to answer the noble Lord's question, perhaps I may extend my speech slightly. I thought I had made it clear—I did not want to go over all the ground again—that between 1968, when we announced in principle that we thought some form of Assembly was necessary in Scotland (that is nearly eight years ago), and 1970, my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel and his Committee were considering that matter. When their report came out, the whole subject was in baulk because a Royal Commission was appointed.
My understanding was that, if we had produced a White Paper or started a scheme, the Royal Commission would have resigned on the spot. Unfortunately, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, is not here to confirm whether that is so, but certainly it would not have been the right way to go about it. Personally, I hoped that the Royal Commission would have reported in less than four and a half years, but, considering the amount of ground which it had to cover, one cannot criticise the Commission for not being quicker.
11.1 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, PRIVY COUNCIL OFFICE (Lord Crowther-Hunt): My Lords, this has been a long and most useful debate because it has shown how admirably this House can recognise the realities and needs of the present political and constitutional situation. I say this as a now convinced devolutionist—but, like many of your Lordships, I was a late convert to the cause. Indeed, when as a member of the Commission on the Constitution we started our work way back in 1969 I did not think that the solution to the difficult constitutional problems we faced would lead us down the devolutionary road. I believed then—and I had already studied these problems for many years as a Fellow of an Oxford College—that the way to make the United Kingdom Government more responsive to the needs of the different nations and regions of the United Kingdom was to alter our
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policy-making and administrative processes in Whitehall and Westminster and to alter local government as well. I believed that we should do all that rather than spawn assemblies all round the place —in Scotland, Wales and the English regions.
However, as our work went on, first under the noble Lord, Lord Crowther, and then under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon—I should like to emphasise yet again in your Lordships' House how much the country owes to the heavy burdens they bore during those four years of hard work by the Commission on the Constitution and to say again too how much I personally appreciated all their kindnesses to me and particularly the sympathetic understanding of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, of my own position when I felt I had to produce my Minority Report—I gradually became convinced of the need for devolution. I became convinced of it for two main reasons. First, it seemed to me that the enormous growth this century in the functions and responsibilities of central Government was placing too big a burden on Ministers, the Civil Service and Parliament. As a consequence of this it was becoming more and more difficult for Ministers to have the time to take well-thought-out major policy decisions and to exercise adequate policy control over the vastly expanded Civil Service. Secondly, all this had also contributed to the decline of Parliamentary control over our vastly expanded Executive.
So, my Lords, I became convinced of the need for devolution to reduce the burdens on the centre, to enable Parliament to have a more powerful role in central Government and policy-making and administration and, just as important, to bring decision-making nearer to the people mostly affected by it. And if that line of thought bears a certain resemblance to the diagnosis presented yesterday by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, in his brilliant speech—well, there is no point in speculating who converted whom. In fairness here I ought to say that I think I first heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, express ideas along these lines at a discussion in my own Oxford College—Exeter College—in the 1960s. I remember challenging him then, though very diffidently.

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But if he was first in the field I think I probably worked out the ideas more fully and with more detailed documentation and analysis at the beginning of my Minority Report.
Now all that was by the way of saying that, as a now convinced devolutionist, I find myself especially pleased about the way this debate has gone. And I say this with particular reference to the point made by my noble friend Lord Shepherd when he said in his speech:
"We do not intend to legislate in haste or on the basis of rigid preconceptions, or without seeking the widest possible consensus ".—[Official Report, 27/1/76; col. 735.]
This links with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, when he said that his object was
"trying to find ingredients for consensus so that we may from this House propose something practical on which the Government can work ";
and when he emphasised that the debate had
" been conspicuous for the fact that nobody has given any thought at all to any Party gaining votes from this issue. It would be fatal if either House of Parliament looked upon this matter from that point of view ".—[Official Report, 27/1/76; cols. 774–775.]
Now it is in this general context that it is so heartening to note that the gap between the political Parties—in this House, at any rate—is clearly narrowing and indeed, is narrow, certainly so far as Scotland is concerned. Let me just illustrate this by reference to what various noble Lords have said. First of all, of course, it is clear that virtually everyone in this House agrees that separation is out. It would not be in the interests of either Scotland or Wales, or of the United Kingdom as a whole; and there is, and will be, no substantial demand for this anywhere in the United Kingdom if we get our devolution proposals right and on to the Statute Book as soon as possible. Secondly, it was evident from the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, that though he believes our scheme has got "square wheels", as he put it, he was more concerned to make the wheels round rather than fundamentally to alter the load they are designed to carry. I cannot help observing, in this context, that a scheme of devolution with square wheels might actually have certain advantages. If some people are worried that the scheme proposed in the White
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Paper might lead us down the slippery slope towards independence, then square wheels would obviously be an advantage.
But I was much encouraged by the noble and learned Lord's emphasis on what he called "true devolution ". He said that this means a separation of powers between the central and regional Governments. This, my Lords, is what we are trying to achieve. When he went on to say that, if there is to be true devolution to Scotland and Wales, the powers to be transferred must be defined as precisely as possible, again, we are in basic agreement. When he further said that that division should be "policed" through the courts of law, well, as my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has indicated in what he said both about vires and the policy over-ride, or policy veto, the difference between us may well be much narrower than had previously been thought. I should like to return to this point in slightly more detail in a rather different context a little later, because now I wish to take up the points that the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, specifically addressed to me yesterday.
I listened with special attention, as I believe all Members of this House did, to the words of the noble Lord. I welcome very specially what he said about the importance of finding consensus over fundamental constitutional issues of this kind; the Government will weigh his words in that spirit. I noted in particular that he felt that the proposals he made some years ago, after a most careful study of all the issues involved, would no longer meet the case; and he sketched out a most interesting development of them.
The scheme that the noble Lord sketched out would distinguish clearly between Bills which affected Scotland alone, and those which touch Scotland simply as part of their effect on the United Kingdom as a whole; he would give the Assembly full responsibility for the former. They would start in the Scottish Assembly, go through all their processes in the Scottish Assembly, and not come at all to Westminster. This line of thinking has a very evident affinity with the basic criterion underlying the Government's proposals on which matters should be devolved and which should not —the criterion presented in paragraph 15 of the White Paper. I think the dividing

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line between devolved and reserved probably cannot be precisely the same as the dividing line, under our current system, between Bills which are formally Scottish and Bills which are United Kingdom but with a Scottish application; but I want to think more carefully about this than I have so far had the opportunity to do. But I find myself in close sympathy with what I take to be the noble Lord's basic approach.
However, I wonder—though I am not pressing the noble Lord for clarification now—just where the logic of that approach carries the noble Lord in respect of executive powers. It seems to me hard to conceive realistically of a situation in which the Scottish Assembly passes its own distinctive laws and yet does not have its own distinctive Executive. Let me consider one example here. Suppose the Scottish Assembly, chosen, in the wisdom of the Scottish people, mainly from candidates on the Left, wishes to pass a law for phasing out all private schools. Suppose, also, that by some temporary mishap there was a Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland. Who, in those circumstances, would prepare the Bill? Could such a Bill really be prepared by a Conservative Secretary of State? Will it really be credible to the Assembly, or tolerable to the Conservative Secretary of State and to his majority support in Parliament, that he should be charged with the responsibility of administering such a law in Scotland? I find it hard to imagine that. I believe that the logic of the noble Lord's concept leads inescapably to matching devolved legislative power by devolved executive power.
This I would say also to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, when he was asking me, "Is it necessary to have two Executives?" The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, was going a good deal further than the noble Lord, Lord Home, because he was saying that a Scottish Assembly should assume legislative power in all matters for which the Scottish Office now has administrative responsibility. It seems to me, my Lords, that the logic of this approach and this concept leads inescapably to matching devolved legislative power by devolved executive power. If by any chance thinking could converge broadly in that general
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direction—I am choosing my words very carefully, my Lords—I would see a very real possibility of a central nucleus of consensus upon which all the Parties which stand for the Union might build progressively and constructively.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that if you have a Labour Government, let us say, in power in England and based on a majority of Scottish seats, with Scottish education devolved to Scotland but with those Labour Scottish seats making the English have no private education when there is a majority of Conservative English seats, then that is equally unjust?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I do not want to comment on the justice or injustice of these matters. What I was simply trying to illustrate was the very difficult constitutional problems that we have to face. I do not want to make debating or Party points at this stage because debating and Party points have not been made, for the main part, in the debate which has taken place. I simply wanted to illustrate some of the difficulties that could arise, and would arise, and that we have all got to face, with as much consultation as we can, along the roads that noble Lords have indicated.
My Lords, I should like next to refer to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, because that was also most encouraging, I thought. After very usefully reminding your Lordships of the sentiments which underly Scottish feeling, he went on to welcome the White Paper as a great advance. I must not overstate his approval of our plans. He does not think they will do enough to harness the imagination and energy of his countrymen; he hopes to see alterations. Quite naturally, in accordance with the views long held by his Party, he is perhaps interested ultimately in a federal system, as the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, was emphasising.
It is unlikely that the Government will be able to meet those who hold Lord Mackie's views all along the line. He said a number of things—about a specific allocation of oil revenues to Scotland, for example—which apparently conflicted with our declared policy of maintaining the political and economic unity of the United Kingdom; but there seemed to be enough common ground to suggest that a

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consensus might be possible. I will come later to today's speech by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, because I should like to refer next to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir. She too was most encouraging in the context of consensus. The noble Baroness also recognised that the proposals of Lord Home's Committees, on which she served, could not now be put forward as a suitable solution as they stand. She aligned herself with what I might call the "advanced devolution" position of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham.
The noble Baroness, of course, suggested changes in the Government proposals—no veto powers, for example, and again another look at the tax proposals—but, listening to her, I felt that the Government's own general position was not all that far away from her own area of thinking. As she rightly said, it is now time that we got on with the job. This is where I would disagree with the suggestion of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and other noble Lords who suggested a constitutional conference; to get the scheme right, as they generally put it. The Commission on the Constitution laboured for 4½ years on these immensely difficult problems. The Conservative and Labour Governments both considered their recommendations and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, pointed out, the White Paper eventually came out broadly taking the majority scheme for Scotland and my minority scheme for Wales. We are having, have had and will have, wider and wider discussions on all this; but it is now time, as the noble Baroness emphasised, to get on with the job, with the development of a real consensus, if that is possible, on the lines I have indicated. Besides, we have already an admirable Constitutional conference—it is called Parliament. The debates we have been having over the last two days admirably illustrate how useful that has been.
My Lords, I should like to say a word or two about vires and the judicial review. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has already dealt with checking the vires of Scottish Assembly Bills before Assent and also with the question whether Bills should be subject to judicial review after Assent. Others have
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referred to these questions, also, and I do not think it is necessary for me to traverse this ground again. I would only say that the Government have made it quite clear that these issues are open for discussion. Our minds are not closed on them. Such important matters cannot be conceded now in a piece-meal fashion. They have to be looked at together. But we are prepared to retest our thinking to see whether it stands up in the light of your Lordships' comments.
So far as the question of veto or overriding on policy grounds is concerned, this is another problem which we are prepared to look at again in the light of the views expressed in another place and in this House. In this context, it is important to stress that there is nothing that we can do, or would want to do, which can take away the sovereignty of this Parliament. It is a question of how rigid or flexible the ultimate power of intervention should be. In considering this, however, I hope that the continuing debate will recognise the character of the problem. Interactions between devolved and retained responsibility can arise in a host of ways.
Real-life issues do not come in neat pigeon-holes conveniently labelled "devolved" or "non-devolved ". They have many facets. For example, legislation by a Scottish Assembly within the area of its proper devolved competence might affect or inhibit, or even prevent, the exercise in Scotland by the United Kingdom Government of a power which had not been devolved. One illustration of such a situation would be if a decision of the Scottish Assembly about land use planning or a piece of legislation from the Scottish Assembly in a Housing Act—all matters which would have been devolved under the scheme to the Scottish Assembly—seriously affected the location or operation of a United Kingdom defence installation. Clearly, we have to find a way in which the actions of a devolved authority do not prevent the exercise in Scotland by the United Kingdom Government of their powers which have not been devolved. That is the main problem that we have to solve here. Our proposals on reserved powers are therefore,addressed to this real practical difficulty; they have nothing to do with interference for interference's sake. As I said, we are having another look at

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this whole problem in the light of the debates.
I now come to proportional representation, because I would rightly be accused of ducking a significant issue which has been mentioned by so many noble Lords if I did not refer to it. I have been gently reminded in this very good-natured debate that the White Paper does not propose the adoption of proportional representation for elections to the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies, whereas in my Minority Report I said I favoured it. Well, you cannot win on everything!
The fact is of course that the issue of proportional representation for the Assemblies is inevitably in many people's minds associated with the question of proportional representation for Westminster Elections. It can hardly be denied that many of those who are busy arguing for the former are really after the latter.
The Government's view is that any possibility of fundamental change from the present voting system would have to be considered for all levels of government together, and not for the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies alone.
The Earl of DUNDEE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it was not perfectly satisfactory at Ulster?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, there were of course special situations in Ulster. I would not deny that proportional representation there had certain merits. Indeed, as I was going to say, the arguments in the case of Assembly elections are not quite the same as those for Westminster elections. Particular factors in the case of the Assemblies are the stronger possibility for long-term one Party government if you do not have proportional representation, or alternatively the risk that a Party committed to breaking up the Union might gain an Assembly majority on a minority of the people's vote. But it must be recognised that the adoption of proportional representation for the Assemblies would inevitably be taken out of context and used to prejudice discussions about having proportional representation in Westminster Elections or in local elections too. There is a further point. Here I have to disagree with what the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, said yesterday when he argued that proportional
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representation would make the elected representatives more responsible to and accountable to those who had elected them. But this is very often not what happens. Where proportional representation leads to Coalition Government, the Party leaders, to form the Coalition, have to discard certain promises they have made to the electors. The electors have no say over which promises are then discarded or broken. In this sense, proportional representation enables politicians to escape too easily from the promises they have made to their electors; whereas the "first-past-the-post "system, where it does not produce a Coalition Government, at least enables the electorate to hold one Party and one Government clearly responsible for any promises they may not have carried out.
Lord FOOT: My Lords, the noble Lord prefaced the whole of his comment upon proportional representation by saying, "The Government's view is this." May I ask him whether this is his view?
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, could I also ask the noble Lord to illustrate which of the two major Parties has not broken their promises with astonishing frequency?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, the second intervention concerns a slightly different question. I must answer the noble Lord, Lord Foot, by saying that I am a Member of Her Majesty's Government. Turning now to another point, which has been raised by a number of your Lordships—the question of two Bills or one, both in this House and in another place it has been suggested that there should be not one but two devolution Bills, one for Scotland and one for Wales. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Heycock, argued that this would be in the interest of Wales, particularly. He suggested that there is a difference between the Welsh and Scottish approaches and that the Welsh people should be able to decide their own destiny within the framework of a Welsh Bill. As your Lordships will know, the Government have so far envisaged one Bill to cover both Scotland and Wales. The adoption of two Bills instead of one might not be wholly advantageous. It could possibly add to the length of the devolution time-table; and it would probably introduce some new technical complexities as well

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as avoiding others. Nevertheless, as my right honourable friend the Lord President has said, although our present intention is one Bill, we shall now consider carefully the possibility of two Bills.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he has taken on board the fact that almost everybody who has spoken, as it were, for Wales has had grave reservations as to whether Wales wants it at all? Could he do something to establish whether that is the fact?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: With respect, my Lords, I was just coming on to that because I was about to deal with the question of a referendum. This is another problem which I have no intention of ducking this evening, even if it means going on for rather longer than perhaps I should. There has been a good deal of talk and a good deal of demand, both in this House and in another place, about holding a referendum—especially in relation to Wales. The Government have no plans for a referendum. In the case of separatism it is quite clear that the great majority of people do not want it. I take the point made by the noble Lord. Lord Campbell of Croy, that if we had a referendum on that issue it might settle the question once and for all—though nothing ever really settles a question once and for all.
It is quite clear to us that the great majority of people do not want separatism. In the case of devolution there has already been a long period of debate and consultation, and it seems clear in principle that devolution would be widely welcomed in Scotland and Wales; the task now is to work out the details. This will involve further public debate and consultations. Nearly 400 bodies have already been invited to comment on the White Paper, and a similar invitation has been issued to the general public. The comments received and the advice offered in Parliamentary debates will be taken into account, and our intention is to prepare a draft Bill for publication in the spring. There will be further consultations and debate on that draft Bill before a fresh Bill is introduced in Parliament at the beginning of the next Session. When all these stages have been gone through, the final result must be closely in line with the wishes of the electorate, particularly if we can develop the con-
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sensus approach; and that, after all, is the object of a referendum.
Those who speak in favour of a referendum tend not to face up to the difficulties which it would involve. For example, what would the question be? How would the results be interpreted? Most awkward of all, who would be asked—Scotland and Wales only, or all the United Kingdom? Because all are concerned with devolution and devolution is developing a new relationship between the different parts of a unitary State, and all parts of a unitary State would have a right to express a view on a proposed new relationship. If the referendum were to be mainly concentrated in Wales as the place where it is alleged that, unlike Scotland, no consensus for an Assembly exists, it seems hard to imagine the Welsh people rejecting an Assembly for Wales when they knew that an Assembly was proposed and was to be instituted for Scotland.
May I now deal with the question of local government and another tier? Much has been said both here—
Lord SWANSEA: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to interrupt before he leaves the referendum point? He said a minute ago that the majority of people in Wales do not want separatism. I should like to ask him how he arrives at that assumption, and how he also arrives at the assumption that they want an Assembly.
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I will do my best to answer both of those questions. The fact of the matter is that there has already been widespread consultation in Wales on the Government's discussion document which was published in June 1974, and I accompanied the Secretary of State for Wales in discussions in Wales with a large number of representative organisations of different aspects of opinion in Wales. What was remarkable about those consultations was the virtually unanimous agreement that there should be an elected Assembly for Wales. There was also virtually unanimous agreement that the kind of Assembly that the people of Wales wanted was not an Assembly with legislative power, but an Assembly with the kind of executive power that the Government have now proposed in the White Paper.

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May I now quickly say something about local government and the question of another tier, because much has been said both here and in another place about the position and role of local authorities, and in particular about the alleged insertion of another tier of government between them and central Government. Let me seek to be as clear as I possibly can about this. What we are proposing is not adding a new tier of government either in Scotland or in Wales. In effect, what we are doing is taking away from United Kingdom Government Departments, like the Scottish and Welsh Offices which are now in Edinburgh and Cardiff, certain functions and responsibilities which they now exercise in Scotland and Wales, and putting those functions and responsibilities under the control of Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. So that, instead of those functions being carried out, as they are now, by the Scottish and Welsh Secretaries of State and their civil servants, they will in future be carried out by members of the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies and the civil servants who will come under their control.
So this is not creating a new tier. In effect, it is subjecting the operations of an existing tier to the direct control of Scottish and Welsh Assemblies; that is, the kind of democratic control which the noble Baroness, Lady White, recognised Westminster is not now adequately exercising. In this context, it is important to stress that the White Paper makes it clear that it is not the Government's intention to take away any of the existing powers and functions of local government. So much for the situation which will exist when the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies have been created.
After that, a situation may arise in Scotland which is different from that in Wales. The Scottish Assembly will have legislative power. Accordingly, it will be able, if it wishes, to reorganise the whole structure of local government in Scotland and produce a different distribution of powers and responsibilities between itself and the Scottish local authorities. The Welsh Assembly will not have the power of primary legislation, and it will not be able to alter the structure of local government in Wales or the present statutory distribution of existing powers
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and functions between the existing local authorities in Wales, on the one hand, and the Welsh Assembly on the other. The Westminster Parliament will itself have to legislate to produce any such change.
I intended to say something about the block grant and rate support and about the Welsh joint education committee, but the hour is getting late and I have taken a great deal of time, so may I be permitted to skip over those topics? However, the Government's line on those is eminently justifiable, and if I had time to talk about them I could perhaps clear up some confusion.
I should like to comment on the eloquent speech that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, at the beginning of today's debate. I hope I have dealt satisfactorily with his point about the additional tier of government which he thought we were creating. I cannot resist the temptation to say that we are not creating an additionaltier of government. When the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that there ought to be a newly created body in Wales, representing and growing out of the local authorities, it seemed to me that it was the noble Lord, Lord Elton, himself who was setting up an additional level of government in Wales, whereas we are not.
At this point may I reply to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, that the Welsh Assembly should have legislative powers. I have explained already that so far all of our discussions in Wales have shown that the majority of organisations there with which we had such wide-ranging discussions did not themselves want legislative powers for their Assembly. They wanted it to be a different kind of Assembly.
The noble Baroness, Lady White, made the point that we as a Government have failed to take into account the European dimension. This is not true. The Government have considered very carefully the European dimension. If I may say so, in my Minority Report there is a chapter which deals with the European dimension and which is headed "The Common Market Dimension ". It makes the case that, given the fact that we have joined the Common Market, this will add still further burdens to central Government and increase the need for a move of functions downwards, although

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it would limit the kind of functions that could be devolved. But the Common Market and the European dimension have been fully taken into account by the Government.
I come now to the points which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, with whom I was privileged to serve on the Constitution Commission. He was right to remind me of the words I used in the Minority Report to condemn the scheme of legislative devolution recommended in the Majority Report which the Government have broadly adopted so far as Scotland is concerned. Those words of mine which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, quoted were very powerful and I was delighted to be reminded of them, but we have to remember that when I wrote those words I was in my academic ivory tower. Here we must remember that politics is the art of the possible and that what looks right from the "dreaming spires of Oxford "may not always be possible in the real, harsh world of practical politics. If, as I believe, devolution is crucial in the interests of democratic government, then I have no doubt whatsoever that what we as a Government are doing is very much in the right direction and the best in all the circumstances that can be achieved now. If temporarily I have left my ivory tower in the cause of promoting devolution, then I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has taken over my academic conscience. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, also said that we have made no reference to England in our grand design, but in my view the proposals now under consideration for Scotland and Wales will not pre-empt or limit in any way any of the devolution alternatives for England which are both practicable and possible.
At this stage I am not going to say anything about finance or industrial powers. I was going to speak about them but my noble friend Lord Kirkhill said a great deal about these subjects yesterday.
Before I sit down, may I say that I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, for his reference to the way in which in paragraphs 298 to 307 of my Minority Report I had linked my scheme of devolution to a proposal that certain members of the Scottish and Welsh
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Assemblies should also be Members of your Lordships' House. Such a proposal would, I believed at the time, have all the advantages which the noble Lord. Lord O'Hagan quoted; and indeed one of the reasons why I had to write a Minority Report was because I could not sell this idea to the rest of my colleagues. I still believe that it is a good idea. Indeed I believe it is an excellentidea, and I believe that it will come in time. But I am now sufficient of a realist to believe that if we tied this idea for a modest addition to a reform of your Lordships' House to our schemes for devolution for Scotland and Wales it would not prosper at this moment those particular schemes of devolution which must be our overriding priority.
My Lords, the hour is late. I do not pretend that I have answered all the points raised by noble Lords, but I have taken note of all of them and in the further consideration we are giving to all these problems I can assure your Lordships that they will be fully taken into account. But as a Government we believe that schemes of devolution along the lines outlined in the White Paper are not only vital if we are to bring decision-making nearer to the peoples of Scotland and Wales and to give them a greater say in the running of their affairs, but they are crucial too if we are to maintain the political and economic unity of the United Kingdom, which we are so determined to preserve.
Lord BALLANTRAE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down I should like to ask a final question, because the opportunity may not recur. In view of the fact that the noble Lord the Leader of the House and the noble Lord himself both promised us that the Government would look at everything that was raised, can we take it that the door has not been slammed against the point of looking at proportional representation in the election of the Scottish Assembly? I have the feeling that the door has been slightly shut.
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I do not propose to go any further. I dealt with the whole question of proportional representation very fully and carefully, and I do not think it would be right to go further at this late hour.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker (pursuant to Section 2(4) of the Parliament Act 1911) that the Bill as compared with the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill of last Session contains only such alterations as are necessary owing to the time which has elapsed since the date of that Bill or represent Amendments which were made by the House of Lords in the last Session; read la and to be printed.
TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL
Suggested Amendments brought from the Commons pursuant to Section 2(4) of the Parliament Act 1911; and to be printed.
  EEC AGRICULTURAL GRANTS
  EEC AGRICULTURAL GRANTS