Sitting of 15 June 1976

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

  AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES BILL
  [Lords]
  Read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

  RIVER MEDWAY (FLOOD RELIEF) BILL
    BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL
    Read the Third time and passed.
  STRATHCLYDE UNIVERSITY AND MACKINTOSH SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
  Considered; to be read the Third time tomorrow.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  DEFENCE

    Royal Navy
    Mr. Laneasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he remains satisfied that the strength of the Royal Navy will be adequate for the discharge of Great Britain's defence responsibilities during the next few years.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy (Mr A. E. P. Duffy): Yes Sir.
    Mr. Lane: On the morrow of the closure of HMS "Ganges", in which a number of us did our initial training, is not the Minister worried that the total manpower and womanpower of the Royal Navy—about 68,000—is now at it lowest level since the latter part of the nineteenth century? Is the Minister satisfied that that is adequate for Britain to fulfil her responsibility in the face of the growing
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    Soviet naval threat, particularly in submarines?
    Mr. Duffy: It is 100 years since we had a comparable figure but no meaningful comparisons can be made between the capabilities of the Navy 100 years ago and today. We do not settle for that. Measures are in hand to improve the Navy's capabilities with the introduction of new ships and equipment to keep pace with improvements in the Warsaw Pact's wartime capabilities.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Will my hon. Friend resist pressures, from whatever source, and ensure that there is no further reduction in the naval shipbuilding programme?
    Mr. Duffy: So far as it rests with me. I shall certainly do that.
    Mr. Townsend: Will the Minister assure the House that he is fully aware of the implications of the new exclusive economic zone and the patrolling problems that will result for the Royal Navy? Will they not require additional vessels?
    Mr. Duffy: Yes. That has been put in hand. The House debated the issue only a few hours ago, and I can tell hon. Members that a new Island class of 12 ships is in hand. The first was laid down earlier this year and it is intended that all will be completed within two years and be in operation very soon afterwards.

    Low-Flying Aircraft
    Mr. Wigleyasked the Secretary of State for Defence what was the outcome of the inquiry into recent crashes of low flying training aircraft near Caernarvon and elsewhere on the West Wales coastline; and if he will take steps to reduce the frequency of low-flying training over Gwynedd and Dyfed.
    The Under Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force (Mr. James Wellbeloved): The boards of inquiry have not yet completed their work, but there is no basis, as revealed by their interim findings, on which to justify any reduction in low-flying training.
    Mr. Wigley: While expressing sympathy for the families of those who were involved in these accidents, may I ask the Minister to accept that for every flight

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    that ends in disaster there are thousands that cause distress and fear to the inhabitants in the area over which the flights take place? Is he aware that the week before last there was nearly a serious accident in Gwynedd, when a low-flying aircraft came face to face with a car on the brow of a hill? Will he examine the possibility of changing the routes of such flights so that the same communities do not always bear the brunt of them?
    Mr. Wellbeloved: I join with the hon. Gentleman in sympathising with the families of those gallant young men. No one enjoys low flying. The RAF tries to avoid the more densely populated areas and distributes low flying activities throughout the United Kingdom. On the question of the rate of accidents. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not like to cause undue worry in that respect. The Gnat trainers have suffered only two accidents from low flying in the last 10 years and the Hunter has experienced only 10 accidents in 22 years.
    Mr. Goodhew: Does the Minister agree that it is a good thing for the Welsh Nationalists that it is the RAF which has been flying low over their area and not the Soviet air force?
    Mr. Wellbeloved: It is a good thing for the United Kingdom that it is the RAF that flies over our territory. I emphasise that low-flying must remain an essential part of the training requirement if the RAF is to retain its operational capacity.
    Mr. MacFarquar: Does my hon. Friend not agree that although the RAF may make attempts to distribute low-flying operations, the proportion of low flying over populated areas is still too great? Does he agree that more use could be made of virtually unpopulated areas for that type of training? Will he seriously investigate that, and do something about it?
    Mr. Wellbeloved: Since taking office I have given particular attention to low flying, because I am aware of the great distress that it can cause to local communities. So far as it is operationally possible, I am satisfied that the RAF takes great care to avoid densely populated areas. The difficulty is that there are insufficient areas of low population density to meet our requirements.
    Mr. Thompson: Will the Minister inform the local people precisely when the flights will take place, so that they can brace themselves to put up with them?
    Mr. Wellbeloved: Whenever possible the RAF attempts to maintain prior communication with local communities and to keep hon. Members and the public fully informed. I am holding a public relations conference in and around Wales fairly shortly, which I hope will result in my being able to give further reassurance on this matter to the people of Wales.

    Training Facilities
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will conduct a survey to estimate the under-use of training facilities in his Department.
    The Minister of State for Defence (Mr. William Rodgers): In so far as we have spare capacity for training, we are already aware of vacancies where they exist and keep the industrial boards informed.
    Mr. Canavan: Would it be possible to divert some defence resources towards the creation of jobs in manufacturing and other industries by handing over to the Training Services Agency any under-used facilities for training civilian apprentices, for example, so that young school leavers may have enhanced employment opportunities of getting jobs in industry? Would not that help the country's unemployment and industrial problems and prevent a massive waste of public money and resources?
    Mr. Rodgers: I entirely share my hon. Friend's concern. We have offered over 200 training places for apprenticeships, and I hope that they will be taken up.

    Northern Ireland
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will make a statement about the operations and rôle of the Armed Forces of the Crown in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Croninasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the operations of the Army in Northern Ireland.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Robert C. Brown): The Army continues to assist the Royal Ulster Constabulary throughout Northern Ireland at levels appropriate to the operational needs in each area. In response to recent upsurges of sectarian violence, particularly in certain areas of Belfast, extra troops were moved in from reserves in the Province. The security forces were therefore able to step up the level of patrolling and checking, and prevent a worsening of the situation. We intend to maintain the ability to respond flexibly in this way to meet the changing demands of the situation.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we appreciated his presence during yesterday's debate on Northern Ireland security? Having heard it, does he not think that when the Opposition make constructive suggestions for closer co-ordination between the Army and other security forces and for closer border co-operation those suggestions should be carefully considered, instead of being turned down out of hand? Will he do just that, in the interests of the Armed Forces and bringing to an end the troubles in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland less than credit in saying that he brusquely rejected the Opposition's suggestions. He gave careful consideration to all that the Opposition said. I reiterate that we now have on the border a high level of co-operation with the Irish authorities.
    Mr. Tinn: Is my hon. Friend aware that during a recent visit to study the work of the security forces in Northern Ireland my colleagues and I were impressed by the work done by the security forces in such difficult conditions, and by the degree of support that we found for the policy of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, following the abandonment of detention and the restoration of the courts and the normal rule of law and order? We found support both for the Army and for the present degree of co-operation with the authorities across the border.
    Mr. Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. The forces in
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    Northern Ireland are always pleased to welcome hon. Members, and were delighted by the visit of the Parliamentary Labour Party Defence Group.
    Mr. Goodhart: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there have been almost exactly 5,000 bomb explosions in Northern Ireland since the emergency began? Will the Minister give special recognition to the members of the Bomb Squad—who have borne the brunt of this campaign—for their skill and courage? If a special allowance is not thought appropriate, will the Minister consider the award of a special clasp to the Northern Ireland Medal?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman will not expect an answer directly to that supplementary question, but I shall certainly consider what he said.
    Mr. Watkinson: Is my hon. Friend aware that there have been reports that the power and range of weaponry available to our troops in Northern Ireland have not been comparable with the power and range of weaponry available to the IRA? Will he take steps to ensure that there is comparability of weapons?
    Mr. Brown: I reiterate what I said in the Army debate on 6th May. The General Officer Commanding, Northern Ireland, is satisfied with the weapons he has. The Army in Northern Ireland has a wide range of weapons, which can easily match the range of any weapon that a terrorist possesses. Every effort will be made to continue to improve the weapons available.

    France (Defence Minister)
    Mr. Formanasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he plans to have an early meeting with his counterpart, the French Minister of Defence.
    Mr. William Rodgers: My right hon. Friend has no plans at present to do so.
    Mr. Forman: When the Minister's right hon. Friend has a chance to meet M. Bourges, will he bear in mind that the French Government recently put forward a plan to double their defence expenditure over the next six years, raising it from 17 per cent. to 20 per cent. of the total national budget? Will the Secretary of State contrast that with the

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    irresponsible proposals made by his hon. Friends below the Gangway to make further cuts in defence expenditure of up to £1,000 million?
    Mr. Rodgers: Most comparisons are invidious. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make that comparison, I remind him that France spends less of her GNP on defence than does Britain. It is, therefore, arguable that there is more room for the French to increase their defence expenditure than there can be in this country. What we have to decide is how much we have to spend to provide adequate defence—no more and no less than that.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Has it not always been Labour policy that there should be no joint Anglo-French nuclear force while France remained outside NATO, as this would inevitably lead to a German finger on the nuclear button? Will the Minister give an undertaking that even if France rejoins NATO there will be no reversal of that policy?
    Mr. Rodgers: I can certainly tell my hon. Friend that no consideration has been given to the idea of an Anglo-French nuclear force.
    Mr. Arnold: How does the Minister of State characterise the recent pronouncement by the French President on France's attitude towards NATO?
    Mr. Rodgers: As typically French.

  BAOR
  Mr. Ovendenasked the Secretary of State for Defence what is his latest estimate of the cost in foreign exchange in 1976 of maintaining British troops in West Germany.
  Mr. William Rodgers: The estimate given in the 1976 Defence White Paper is £413 million for 1976–77.
  Mr. Ovenden: What is the estimated benefit to this country from the offset agreement we have with the West German Government, and what efforts is my right hon. Friend making to increase that contribution which, over recent years, has been derisory compared with the cost of maintaining British forces in Germany?
  Mr. Rodgers: I agree that the offset we have been receiving in recent years has fallen short of the figure I should like to see, partly because of changes in exchange rates and partly because of inflation. The German Chancellor and the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), discussed this matter some time ago, and I hope that we shall find a way towards a solution which is satisfactory to both sides.
  Mr. Fernyhough: Is my right hon. Friend aware that ever since the signing of the Paris Treaties it is doubtful whether there has been any year in which Germany has met her obligations? Since that time the amount by which the Germans have defaulted must run to nearly £1,000 million. Will my right hon. Friend ask the Germans what is their explanation for that, having regard to the United Kingdom's economic difficulties?
  Mr. Rodgers: I think my right hon. Friend is less than fair to refer to default. The fact is that we have received about £220 million under an agreement reached with the German Government in 1971, which it has faithfully honoured. Perhaps I should say that we maintain our forces in BAOR out of self interest, as part of our collective security through NATO, and not just out of kindness. We may get a much higher level of offset, but we should bear that fundamental fact in mind.
  Mr. Tinnasked the Secretary of State for Defence what is the present broad assessment of the cost in redundancy payments of the proposed cuts in the strength of BAOR.
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: We have no plans to cut the strength of BAOR.
  Mr. Tinn: I appreciate that reassurance, but my hon. Friend will be aware that there is talk elsewhere of a further cut of 30,000 men. Can he say what the cost would be if this cut were to be implemented, which I would strongly deplore?
  Mr. Brown: The proposal that my hon. Friend referred to does not, of course, reflect Government policy. Clearly there would be redundancies. If

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  the cut were made at a stroke, all involved would be made redundant. This would cost about £90 million over three years in redundancy payments, even after allowing for the savings on pay. The redundancy costs would be £306 millions, against pay savings of £217 millions.
  Mr. Ian Gilmour: Why have the Government cut the SACEUR Strategic Reserve?
  Mr. Brown: I was not aware that the Government had cut the SACEUR Strategic Reserve. I do not think that that point arises directly out of the Question, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants to table a Question I shall give him an answer.
  Mr. Gilmour: The hon. Gentleman should be aware from the Government's last two White Papers that the mobile force contribution of this country has been cut considerably. When will he realise that?
  Mr. Brown: That hardly arises out of the Question.
  Mr. Goodhartasked the Secretary of State for Defence when he will next visit BAOR.
  Mr. Tebbitasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will pay an official visit to British forces in Germany.
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: My right hon. Friend has at present no plans to do so, but I shall be doing so during the Summer Recess.
  Mr. Goodhart: As the cost of BAOR has increased by more than £50 million since the publication of the defence White Paper, because of the fall in the value of the pound, will the Minister give a progress report on the offset negotiations? If there is no quick outcome to these negotiations, how does the Minister intend to find the extra cost?
  Mr. Brown: All I can say is that the negotiations with the Germans on the offset agreement are proceeding. I cannot say when a result will be reached.
  Mr. Ronald Atkins: When he does make a visit to BAOR will the Minister say, as the representative of the Government with the greatest balance of payments
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  deficit to the representative of the country with the greatest balance of payments surplus that it is time that the aspirations of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House were realised, in order to get an equitable agreement for Britain in the negotiations on the offset agreement?
  Mr. Brown: I am sure that we shall get an equitable agreement, but when I go to BAOR I shall be visiting soldiers and not German politicians.
  Mr. Blaker: Since BAOR will no doubt be somewhat shaken—as we are on the Opposition side of the House—to discover that the Under-Secretary was unaware that we have cut the contribution to SACEUR Strategic Reserve, what does the Under-Secretary propose to do to restore BAOR's confidence?
  Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman has been to see BAOR often, and he knows well enough that there is no question of a lack of confidence either in BAOR or the Army generally, anywhere in the world.
  Mr. Greville Janner: When my hon. Friend visits BAOR, as I have just done briefly, will he take the opportunity to answer questions from the troops at all levels about the effect which the fluctuations in the pound has had on what their money may buy in Germany?
  Mr. Brown: Yes. I am quite certain that, just as I got my ears bashed last time in BAOR, I shall get the same battering when I go again, but I shall certainly answer questions.
  Mr. Roperasked the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage cut there would need to be in the Army's equipment budget for every percentage point of the proposed cuts in manpower in BAOR; and what loss of jobs this would represent in British industry.
  Mr. William Rodgers: Precise calculations are difficult, but between 40 per cent. and 50 per cent. of the Army's equipment programme is attributable to BAOR in the current year. Thus significant reductions in BAOR would clearly lead to cuts in the equipment programme, which in turn would place thousands of jobs at risk.
  Mr. Roper: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Can he give an estimate of the initial impact on the British economy of a 40 per cent. cut in BAOR?
  Mr. Rodgers: No, I do not think I could give that information. Certainly if it were sudden it would be very drastic, not only in terms of the equipment programme, about which my hon. Friend asked, but in terms of the need to absorb in this country all those returning Service men, with, in our view, very grave consequences in terms of the strain on our social services.
  Mr. Newens: But is it not a fact that, over the years that British troops have been stationed in Germany, the German economy has, in effect, received an annual subsidy from the British taxpayer? Does my right hon. Friend think that it is reasonable that we should continue to allow ourselves, in our present economic difficulties, to subsidise one of the strongest economies in the world? Does it make sense?
  Mr. Rodgers: If it were thought to be a subsidy it would not make sense at all. But it is quite mistaken—the calculations are extremely complex—to regard the question of offset and foreign exchange as a subsidy. Nevertheless, it is right that we should have a larger amount of offset than we have at present, and I hope very much that we shall get it.
  Mr. Pattieasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will pay an official visit to British forces in Germany.
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave earlier today to the hon. Members for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart), and Chingford (Mr. Tebbit).
  Mr. Pattie: Is the Minister satisfied with the amount of training time allocated to BAOR at present, and is he also satisfied that no false economies are being made in that direction?
  Mr. Brown: Yes, Sir. Training in Germany has considerably improved in recent times. There is now no shortage of fuel. Obviously we keep our eye on the amount of fuel we use because of the cost involved.

  BAOR

    Tritium (BNFL Contract)
    Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the recent contract with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. to supply tritium.
    Miss Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the recent contract with BNFL to supply tritium.
    Mr. Cryerasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the progress of the contract with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. to supply tritium.
    Mr. George Rodgersasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the recent contract with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. to supply tritium.
    Mr. William Rodgers: I have nothing to add to the reply that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave on 29th April to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bradley).
    Mr. Thorne: Since it would take something like 50 years to be able to use tritium for peaceful energy purposes, does the Minister agree that the Government's intentions in this respect only raises the doubt whether they are now pursuing a policy of an independent nuclear force for Britain?
    Mr. Rodgers: Whether it raises that doubt is a question for my hon. Friend and not for me. I can only say that that is not the case at all. It is entirely a matter of cost and convenience that we have decided to produce tritium for ourselves
    Miss Richardson: A number of hon. Members will find it mystifying that the Government should have taken this decision on tritium when we have been getting it from the United States for 18 years. Since this will provide only about 50 jobs, does the Minister not consider that the money could be better spent in finding and providing jobs in manufacturing industry, instead of using it in this way?
    Mr. Rodgers: I am sorry that my hon. Friend and others are mystified. I confess

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    that I am particularly mystified by her approach, considering that there has been no change of policy on nuclear weapons, which has been made clear on many occasions. On the question of cost, and in respect of the 50 jobs, I support the decision, particularly when the jobs will come in a development area.
    Mr. Thompson: Is the Minister aware that these jobs are placed in development areas, so that they will be welcomed, although in fact, they ought to be looked at much more critically from the point of view of health and environment?
    Mr. Rodgers: The hon. Gentleman, who has a special interest in this matter, ought to be satisfied on health and environment grounds. I do not think that there is anything to fear in this respect and I think that 50 jobs, even though the number is small, is better than no jobs at all.
    Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister recall the manifesto commitment, that Labour believes that government should be more open to the public? In view of this, will he provide more details about the contract with British Nuclear Fuels in regard to cost? Is it because the cost is so enormous that, with the potential of several thousand teachers unemployed because we refuse to reduce classes to 30, it will be looked upon as a mistaken decision? How does my right hon. Friend answer the growing concern among the trade union and Labour movements that Ministers seem, by evasion, to be acting as public relations officers to the brasshats in the Department?
    Mr. Rodgers: I wish that my hon. Friend would show more generosity. The matter is entirely straightforward. The facts have been given to the House by my right hon. Friend, and I have tried to confirm them today. I do not believe that there is any mystery or doubt. It is a simple decision and is entirely justified.

    Military Manoeuvres (Notification)
    Mr. Arnoldasked the Secretary of State for Defence what information has been given to NATO military authorities by the Warsaw Pact Powers and vice versa over the past year in connection with the notification of military manoeuvres in terms of the Helsinki Agreement.
    Mr. William Rodgers: Since the signing of the Helsinki Final Act on 1st August 1975, the NATO countries have notified eight manoeuvres and the Warsaw Pact countries have notified three manoeuvres, including two by the Soviet Union.
    Mr. Arnold: Does the Minister of State agree that while there has been some progress in this important but difficult area, there must nevertheless be continuing concern at the rapid expansion of the Soviet armed forces? What can be done to close the rapidly expanding gap between what is available to the Warsaw Pact Powers, in the way of men and material, and what is available to us?
    Mr. Rodgers: I agree absolutely with what the hon. Gentleman said about progress. We should be satisfied that, whatever shortcomings there may have been in the Helsinki Agreement, this part of it seems to be working reasonably well. As to the second part of the question, the answer lies in the continuing preparedness of NATO and in the progress of the MBFR talks in Vienna.
    Mr. Macfarquhar: I welcome the exchanges that have taken place in this regard, but will my right hon. Friend confirm that they did not involve the exchange of any real secrets, or information that could not have been obtained by any other means? His Department may be far more concerned about the possible one-way leakage of genuine secrets from NATO if Italian Communists get into the Italian Government. Will he confirm that his Department is engaged in consultations with other NATO partners on this matter?
    Mr. Rodgers: My hon. Friend has asked a lot of perhaps loosely related questions. I agree that the Helsinki Agreement does not involve an exchange of what might be termed secrets, and we would not expect that to be the case. Nevertheless, it is a useful way of monitoring the activities of the Warsaw Pact and, in return, of NATO.
    On the second question, we should await the decision of the Italian people in the Italian election before deciding how this may effect the Italian stance in NATO.

    Cyprus
    Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Secretary of State for Defence when he next intends to visit the sovereign base areas of Cyprus.
    Mr. Wellbeloved: My right hon. Friend has no plans to visit Cyprus.
    Mr. Price: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the sovereign base areas the Ministry of Defence is in the position of being in charge of both civil and military affairs? Will he confirm that it is no part of British policy to try to expel, in advance of a settlement, the refugees who are at present in the sovereign base areas?
    Will my hon. Friend have another look at the civil rights of those British citizens who are living in the sovereign base areas, since we are constantly told that these areas are just the same as any other part of British soil?
    Mr. Wellbeloved: I recognise my hon. Friend's keen interest in the subject, but the questions that he has posed would be more appropriately addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs than to me.

    Senior Officers (Public Statements)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for Defence if his permission was obtained for the recent public speeches by Air Chief Marshal Sir Andrew Humphrey, at Eastbourne, and by Air Chief Marshal Sir Dennis Smallwood in a BBC interview; and if it remains the policy of his Department that serving officers and senior civil servants should not make public statements on politically sensitive issues.
    Mr. Wellbeloved: The rules for obtaining clearance for public statements, and the policy on discussion of politically controversial issues, remain unchanged; and both were observed on both occasions.
    Mr. Allaun: But is not the size of our arms bill not only a military but a hot economic and political issue, and is not this the breach of a valuable safeguard against military interference with our democracy? Will the Minister ask his brasshats to keep their mouths shut in public, whatever they may say privately to him?
    Mr. Wellbeloved: I assure my hon. Friend that the speech by the Chief of the Air Staff was seen by me and approved by me before it was delivered. The briefing prepared for Sir Dennis Smallwood was also seen by me and approved by me before he gave that broadcast. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that if we are to have an informed debate on defence the more information that is available the better it is, provided that that information is made available by people in the Ministry of Defence or the Armed Forces who act in accordance with the rules. I am satisfied that on both occasions they did so.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: I thoroughly agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said, but will he try to straighten out the disagreement among the members of the Tribune Group about open government, which we heard this afternoon?
    Mr. Wellbeloved: I think that my hon. Friends in the Tribune Group, like all my hon. Friends in the Labour Party, are deeply concerned about the full process of democracy in this country. I believe that any genuine, unbiased reading of the statement that has been made by the national executive committee in respect of Labour's programme for 1976 would lead the reader to the conclusion that it is a genuine and proper discussion document for future policies, which may or may not be implemented by a future Labour Government.

    NATO Defence Ministers
    Mr. Blakerasked the Secretary of State for Defence when he next expects to meet the NATO Defence Ministers.
    Mr. William Rodgers: My right hon. Friend attended the Eurogroup and Defence Planning Committee ministerial meetings last week, and is in Brussels today for the Nuclear Planning Group. Inevitably he regrets his absence from the House at question time.
    Mr. Blaker: Will the Minister of State confirm that the NATO military programme—which I understand was agreed by the meeting of Ministers last week, to which he has just referred—foresees that up to 1982 the member countries will continue to spend about the same percentage of their gross national product on defence

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    as now? Will he confirm that the Government accept that policy?
    Mr. Rodgers: I remind the hon. Gentleman and the House that we ought to await the communiqué, which, following the usual convention, will be published at the end of this round of NATO meetings; but I have no immediate reason to dissent from the views that the hon. Member expresses.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Have the Opposition agreed to pair the Secretary of State to enable him to go to this very important meeting?
    Mr. Rodgers: The circumstances were such that the importance of the meeting necessitated my right hon. Friend's attendance, whatever the cost might have been.
    Mr. Ian Gilmour: We understand the reason for the Secretary of State's absence—of which he gave me notice—but in view of the obvious need to strengthen the southern flank of NATO, will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that as Spain moves away from the Franco régime the British Government will not oppose Spain's joining NATO?
    Mr. Rodgers: I cannot give that undertaking at the present time, although I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will take the opportunity to report to the House on his return.

    North Sea Oil Rigs (Protection)
    Mr. Banksasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he is satisfied adequate forces are available for the protection of North Sea oil rigs.
    Mr. Duffy: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Banks: Will the Minister confirm that the Royal Navy has at present overall responsibility for protecting the North Sea oil rigs against sabotage and attack?
    Mr. Duffy: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Viggers: Is the Minister in a position to answer a question I asked him at about 4.15 this morning, when I suggested that there should be smaller but cheaper fast frigates available, which can be purchased at a cost less than the £40 million currently spent on frigates and would enable us to have the proper answer to anything
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    that may be thrown against us in the North Sea?
    Mr. Duffy: The hon. Gentleman will recall that I promised to let him have an answer, and I will see that he gets one. But I also pointed out to the House that the Island class of patrol vessels, which are already in hand—and of which I spoke earlier this afternoon in reply to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend)—are considered, in regard to their hull shape, endurance and sea-keeping qualities, to be appropriate to the task in hand. If this is discovered not to be the case, the matter that the hon. Member raises will certainly be further explored, and urgently.
    Mr. Heffer: Will my hon. Friend tell us whether the Navy is properly trained to distinguish between an oil rig and a ship?

    Ship Construction
    Mr. James Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for Defence what will be the effect of a £1,000 million cut in defence expenditure on ship construction and the number of jobs involved.
    Mr. William Rodgers: A cut of such a size would put in jeopardy the jobs of many of the 25,000 men employed in the shipyards on warship construction and of many others employed by sub-contractors. It would be a massive blow to shipbuilding in the United Kingdom, with severe consequences for the development areas.
    Mr. Johnson: Will the Minister note that I, too, would like him to spurn any blandishments for cuts in this area of activity, in view of the continuing unemployment in the yards at Humberside and many other estuaries in the North of England?
    Mr. Rodgers: These are delicate matters, on which views are strongly held. It is plain that it is not possible to make massive cuts in defence without consequences on equipment, and it is not possible to make massive cuts in equipment without the loss of job opportunities.
    Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Will the Minister say whether there has been any discussion between the NATO Allies as to what would occur if this country were to agree to cut defence by a sum of

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    £1,000 million? Will he also say whether, in his opinion and that of his Department, it would create a greater chance of world peace if cuts were to take place?
    Mr. Rodgers: The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's question is "No." There has been no such discussion, because our NATO Allies think that such a prospect is preposterous. As for my hon. Friend's second point, it must be recognised that cuts of this size, however well-intended, would so severely undermine the position of NATO that we could see a complete reversal of the situation that has existed since 1945.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Has not Japan been able to sweep the market in shipbuilding because she has devoted her research and development expenditure to civil rather than military effort?
    Mr. Rodgers: Alas, that is not the case. I remind my hon. Friend that all the research carried out in regard to naval vessels is also available for use in civilian shipbuilding. There is an important amount of spin-off from the present naval shipbuilding programme.

    Land (Nugent Report)
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of the Nugent Committee's recommendations on defence have so far been carried out in full; and what percentage he intends to carry out.
    Mr. Robert C. Brown: Approximately 60 per cent. of the Nugent Committee's recommendations on individual sites have been carried out in full. We shall carry out the remaining recommendations, which were accepted in our statement on the Report of the Defence Lands Committee 1971–73, Cmnd. 5714, as far as possible bearing in mind the economic situation and the changing circumstances to which I drew to the attention of the House in the debate on 17th January 1975—[Vol. 884, c. 900].
    Mr. Bennett: I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that a figure of 60 per cent. is very disappointing, in view of the fact that the Nugent Committee was generous in its assessment to the Ministry of Defence? Does he also agree that as a result of the recent review of defence procedures, there should be
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    further reductions in the requirements for land?
    Mr. Brown: No, I do not agree that a figure of 60 per cent. in such a short time represents a poor performance. In regard to defence reviews we now propose to release the Nancecuke site, which Nugent recommended we should retain. But the concentration of defence forces in the European threatre and the need to economise in the use of overseas training areas puts even greater pressure on training areas in the United Kingdom.

    Shipping (Protection)
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the Government's reaction to SACLANT's plan for protecting allied shipping outside the NATO area.
    Mr. Luceasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he has completed his assessment on NATO's study report concerning the protection of merchant shipping outside NATO's area of military responsibility.
    Mr. Duffy: My Department has provided SACLANT with its professional comments on his draft contingency plan for the protection of shipping outside the NATO area in time of war. SACLANT will be forwarding the plan to NATO headquarters for approval in due course.
    Mr. Wall: Will the Minister bear in mind that contingency plans are not much use unless there are adequate communications in the exercise of those plans?
    Mr. Duffy: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Luce: In view of the great pressure on NATO forces in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean, will the Minister say what measures NATO is prepared to take to protect those routes?
    Mr. Duffy: There is no question of extending NATO's southern boundary.
    Mr. Goodhew: What is the Secretary of State for Defence doing to try to interest other NATO Powers in this part of the world, since the area is so vital to our defence interests?
    Mr. Duffy: My right hon. Friend has already taken that precise course. In other words, he has already brought this

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    matter to the attention of our NATO Allies.

  LEWISHAM
  Mr. Christopher Priceasked the Prime Minister whether he will pay an official visit to Lewisham.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I have at present no plans to do so, Sir.
  Mr. Price: Is the Prime Minister aware that he is always welcome in the borough of Lewisham, of which he and his family were such distinguished residents for so long? Is he further aware that the borough of Lewisham has a good record of race relations, although there is now great fear that the difficulties in west and east London, involving the cancer of racialism, are spreading to other parts of London? Does he agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury's condemnation of racialism, and will he ensure that the Director of Public Prosecutions has sufficient resources to bring to trial very quickly indeed those people against whom there is a case of infringement, through speech, of the Race Relations Act?
  The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his invitation. I have always found Lewisham a very happy place, particularly during my courting days many years ago in Labour Party committee rooms during General Elections. To turn to more serious matters—[Interruption.] There is always room for a little fun and games in between canvassing.
  If I may turn to the serious part of the supplementary question, I am sure that the whole House welcomed the terms of the remarks made by the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday, in which he condemned the deplorable events of recent days. I especially welcomed his call to the Christian community to beware falling into a trap.
  As regards the other considerations, I can tell my hon. Friend that some of these matters are already in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions. I have no intimation that he does not have the necessary resources available. However, that is a matter for my right hon. and
  304
  learned Friend the Attorney-General. I shall draw my hon. Friend's remarks to his attention.
  I wish to add that all of us who have experience of the Asian community feel that they are extremely industrious and hard-working citizens and therefore are entitled to live without fear, as are other citizens in this country. I know that the police will fully carry out the duty of protecting every citizen in this country. We shall bring the due processes of law to bear against those who abuse the rights of those citizens.
  Mr. Lane: When the Prime Minister next visits Lewisham or any other inner city area, will he do something to correct the growing impression that the Government are failing to keep up the attack on urban deprivation, because these matters have become increasingly urgent, requiring more resources to be devoted to those areas?
  The Prime Minister: I shall look into this matter. I hope that what the hon. Gentleman said is not true. The other day I had a meeting with a group of my colleagues who believe that one of the major priorities of government relates to urban deprivation in inner cities, where young people are growing up, sometimes without jobs. I shall examine the point made by my hon. Friend because it seems to me that this is one of the festering cankers that we shall have to remove. It is a question of priorities. The hon. Gentleman calls for more resources. I must tell him that if the Government are to spend more resources in this sphere they will have to spend less in others.
  Mr. Cyril Smith: If the Prime Minister visits Lewisham and has any talks there about race relations, will he bear in mind that the problems of good race relations are not confined to London boroughs? Will he remember that there are many parts of the country, my own constituency being one of them, which have large numbers of immigrants living in them? If the Government are to have talks with any groups about the fostering of good race relations—and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House subscribe to the view expressed by the Prime Minister in his last answer —will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that any such talks involve Members from more than one side of the House

  305
  and, indeed, from more than one part of the country?
  The Prime Minister: That is a very constructive suggestion. Of course, the Government must take responsibility, and if leaders of the communities wish to see Ministers such as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department they must see them. But I am certain that the Home Secretary, through the Race Relations Board, the Community Relations Commission, or in any other way, will be anxious and ready to involve Members of all parties to try to present a united front on this issue.

  PRIME MINISTER (SPEECH)
  Mr. Mike Thomasasked the Prime Minister whether he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech on counter-inflation policies to Post Office workers in Bournemouth on 23rd May.
  The Prime Minister: I did so on 25th May, Sir.
  Mr. Thomas: If he were to make that speech today, would my right hon. Friend feel able to agree with the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) that the trade unions have acted with patriotism and responsibility in the matter of the present pay policy, and would he feel able to disagree with the right hon. Gentleman in his prognostication that the pay policy is likely to collapse and fail? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is unpatriotic and irresponsible to make such statements? Does he also agree that it shows about the same level of political judgment as the Leader of the Opposition has shown in the past three weeks?
  The Prime Minister: I do not agree that the pay policy of the TUC is likely to fail this year. In my view the right hon. Gentleman's judgment will prove to be wrong. That is because the policy has secured not the force of law but something that is more important, namely, the voluntary consent of free men freely voting through their own organisations. I believe that it will stand up.
  The right hon. Gentleman's article, which I have before me, points out some
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  of the difficulties that will ensue. He is right in some of those matters, and he is doing no more than repeating some of the statements that have already been made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As I have pointed out, the longer a policy of this sort goes on the more the difficulties that follow, but that is no reason for indicating that a policy which, as I believe, will receive overwhelming support tomorrow is likely to fail in the period up to August 1977.
  Mr. Adley: Is the Prime Minister aware that his decision to stay in my constituency when he made his speech was very much welcomed, and that he always will be welcome in my constituency? But as the Government's policies are leading to a continuing depreciation in sterling, which is itself having an effect on the Government's fight against inflation, is the right hon. Gentleman willing to maintain the point that he made in his speech about the Government's confidence in getting inflation down to a level of 6 per cent., 7 per cent. or 8 per cent. by the end of 1977?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, I see no reason to depart from that forecast. The agreement that the trade unions are recommending to their members tomorrow will take effect from August and will run until August 1977. As many wage negotiations are not concluded until the spring, the impact will be felt right through until the spring of 1978. That, coupled with other fiscal and monetary policies of the Government, leads me to the conclusion that if we carry through our policies rigorously and in a determined way we shall be able to reduce inflation very substantially.
  Mr. Sedgemore: Assuming that the rumours are true and that we are about to witness the love story of the century, through the reunion of the harlot and the sailor, will the Prime Minister care to ask each of them whether they intend to carry out their counter-inflation policy through monetarist measures, through neo-Keynesian economic measures or—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that is enough for the Prime Minister.
  Mr. Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Should not the hon. Member

  307
  for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) withdraw that remark?
  Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Member wait until after Question Time? I shall deal with the matter then. There are only five minutes left for Prime Minister's Questions. I am afraid that I must tell the House—I am not trying to dodge the issue—that I heard only the phrase "the harlot and the sailor". I do not think it was applied to anyone in particular. I am not trying to avoid the issue. I did not hear anything else.
  The Prime Minister: I do not believe that we have yet had spelt out to us in any convincing way the policy that the Opposition would follow in relation to fiscal or monetary policies. Until that happens the Government's policy is the only one that stands in front of the nation.
  Mrs. Thatcher: If I may ask the Prime Minister a serious question, now that the truth behind the latest loan is steadily filtering through, does he intend within the next six months to take any steps to reduce the Budget deficit—action that the Bank for International Settlements says is imperative if our economy is properly to recover?
  The Prime Minister: I assume that the right hon. Lady used the word "loan" through inadvertence. It is not a loan; it is a standby credit, which may be used wholly, in part, or not at all by the end of three months or six months. As regards what the right hon. Lady had to say about Government expenditure for 1977–78, as she will know from her previous experience, that is a matter that is reviewed by Governments through the public expenditure survey exercise. That exercise will be carried out by the Chancellor in an orderly way during the coming months, and our proposals for next year's expenditure will be placed before the House in due course.
  Mrs. Thatcher: Is it the position that the Prime Minister has not excluded that possibility, and that he may take the view that in addition to pay restraint some movement on Budget restraint is also necessary?
  The Prime Minister: I have never ruled that out, any more than the Chancellor has done. As my right hon. Friend
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  has said—I think he was the first to say it—it rather depends on the rate at which private investment scoops into the available pool of savings. We do not want to create unemployment at this moment by cutting public expenditure, and that would be the impact of it. However, as private investment and manufacturing investment take up the strain, clearly the Chancellor will need to review the position. That will be done in an orderly way during the months that lie ahead.

  UNITED NATIONS ORGANISATION (GENERAL ASSEMBLY)
  Mr Ioan Evansasked the Prime Minister when he plans to visit the General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation.
  The Prime Minister: I have no plans to do so at present. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will, as usual, take part in the general debate at the beginning of the UN General Assembly, which is scheduled to start on 21st September 1976.
  Mr. Evans: Will my right hon. Friend consider visiting the United Nations at an an early date? Will he seek to speak to the Assembly and reiterate that the United Nations is the cornerstone of the Government's foreign policy and express wholeheartedly the Government's support for its objectives? Will he take the opportunity of expressing appreciation to the member states of the United Nations for the support that they have given to the Government's policy on Rhodesia?
  The Prime Minister: I shall consider that, but it is not normal for Heads of Government to address the United Nations. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will be able to convey those sentiments, as I did last year. It is part of the foreign policy of the Labour Government and the Labour Party that the United Nations, with all its weaknesses, should be one of the cornerstones of our foreign policy.
  As regards the future of Rhodesia, I was very happy that some members of the United Nations took up the statement that I made to the House on 22nd March, and particularly that the United States

  309
  Secretary of State did so, he having such influence in these matters.
  Mr. Rifkind: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that several thousand Cuban troops are still entrenched in Angola, and that according to recent reports both Cuban and Soviet personnel are exercising increasing control over day-to-day administration there? Will he take steps to have this matter raised in the United Nations Decolonisation Committee, as it appears to be a particularly relevant matter for that committee?
  The Prime Minister: The Angolan Government, which is now a legitimate Government, would not accept the terms of the hon. Gentleman's question, in the sense that they invited the Cubans to be there. Therefore, a propaganda exercise in the United Nations would not be likely to yield much benefit.
  I think that the sooner Cuban troops are pulled out of Angola, the better. But with the withdrawal of Portuguese technicians from Angola, it is to be expected that the other technicians—the Cuban technicians—who are there are preferable to some whom the hon. Gentleman might like even less.

STANDING ORDER No. 9 APPLICATIONS
Mr. Speaker: I have to tell the House that I received notice at 1.30 p.m. this afternoon from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Litterick) of his wish to raise, under Standing Order No. 9, the question of the published import and balance of trade figures. The hon. Gentleman is unable to do so because the Standing Order clearly provides that:
"A Member intending to propose to move the adjournment of the House under the provisions of this order shall give notice to Mr. Speaker by twelve o'clock, if the urgency of the matter is known at that hour."
Therefore, I cannot call the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Christopher Price: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is there any way, under the rules of the House, whereby you can give the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition an opportunity—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he must not use the raising of a point of order to make a political point, which he was about to do.

GOVERNMENT MINISTERS
Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It cannot have escaped your attention that during Questions to the Secretary of State for Defence Opposition Members on several occasions referred to Ministers going to important conferences. Is it in order for the Opposition to do that when, by their refusal to pair, they are in fact undermining Parliament and the ordinary commonsense operation of the Government's business through blind prejudice—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that no one on either side of the House will try to get me involved in the present cold atmosphere.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, at this day's sitting, Proceedings on the Methodist Church Bill [Lords] and the London Transport Bill set down for consideration at Seven o'clock by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means shall, instead of being considered at that hour, be considered at half-past Eight o'clock; that the Methodist Church Bill [Lords] and any Motion for an instruction relating to the Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock or for three hours after the Bill has been entered upon, whichever is the later; and that the London Transport Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed until any hour.—[The Prime Minister.]
Mr. Lipton: This is an extraordinary and unusual motion which, fortunately, is debatable, even if it is not capable of a rational explanation.
The motion provides that the proceedings on the Energy Bill [Lords] and on the baking tests (cereals) motion, instead of terminating at 7 o'clock, should terminate at 8.30. Presumably the effect will be that for four and a half hours or thereabouts the House will have an opportunity of debating the Second Reading of the Energy Bill [Lords].
The motion also provides that the House will spend up to three hours solving or dealing with some internal problem concerning the Methodist Church Bill [Lords]. That measure may be of

311
importance to Liberal Party Members, but I do not think that it is of sufficient magnitude to justify the House spending three hours on it.
After that, at 11.30 p.m., we are to go on to discuss the London Transport Bill ad infinitum. That means that the House may be sitting until 4 o'clock tomorrow morning, just as it did this morning. It seems an abuse of the procedures of the House to spring a motion like this upon us at the last minute. It shows a complete lack of proportion in assessing the value of the different items that we are called upon to consider this day.
The Lord President of the Council and the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I might assist my hon. Friend. The length of time for discussion of the Energy Bill [Lords] has been proposed in response to suggestions that were made when I announced the business on Thursday. The time for the Methodist Church Bill [Lords] follows the provisions laid down for private business put down by the Chairman of Ways and Means. We are following the arrangements which are normally followed in that respect.
Mr. Speaker: The Question is the business motion. As many as are of that opinion say "Aye".
Hon. Members: Aye.
Mr. Speaker: To the contrary, "No".
Hon. Members: No.
Mr. Speaker: I think the "Ayes" have it. The "Ayes" have it.
Mr. Foot rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have put the Question.
Mr. Beith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Am I mistaken in thinking that I heard a "No" from the other side of the House? Is a Division to take place or not?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman observed what I observed. I repeated "The 'Ayes' have it." If the House wishes a Division, the House can always have one. But it is an old custom that, if it is repeated often enough, there is co-operation. I thought that the "Ayes" had it.
Question agreed to.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THE RECRUITMENT OF MERCENARIES (PROHIBITION)
3.36 p.m.
Mr. Robert Hughes: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make newspaper proprietors liable for prosecution in relation to the publication of advertisements for the recruitment of mercenaries for service outside the United Kingdom.
Attempts are sometimes made to portray—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is trying to introduce his Ten-Minute Bill. I should be grateful for the courtesy of hon. Members leaving the House quietly.
Mr. Hughes: Attempts are sometimes made to portray the mercenary as a swashbuckling, adventurous and romantic figure. That is a gross distortion of the true nature of mercenaries. They are nothing more than hired killers who murder to order and for no other purpose than commercial gain.
A murderer in this country cannot plead as a defence that he was acting solely in the course of his employment. To do so in some far-flung part of the world does not diminish the offence, nor should it distract from the evil that is done.
I wish to end mercenary recruitment in this country wherever in the world the service is intended. I doubt whether anyone in this House is prepared to encourage the trade in mercenaries, but I suspect that some in this House would seek to excuse inaction by saying that control is too difficult. One of the important ways of prevention is to cut off the flow of information and to stop advertising by recruitment agencies.
Those who seek to further the mercenaries' cause are as bad as the mercenaries themselves. Indeed, the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870, which makes it illegal to enlist in the service of a foreign Power at war with a friendly State, recognises that. Section 12 provides:
"Any person who aids, abets, counsels, or procures the commission of any offence against this Act shall be liable to be tried and punished as a principal offender."
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My Bill would update the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 in its definition of the prinicipal offence and make it clear that advertising satisfies the intention of Section 12.
Incidentally, before Second Reading there must be an examination of the rôle of the Press regarding the recruitment of mercenaries in Angola. It has been said that certain reporters, as a result of stories appearing in the Press, were giving telephone numbers to those who inquired for the purpose of recruitment.
I am particularly concerned about the recruitment of mercenaries for the Rhodesian Army, advertisements having appeared widely in the British Press—notably in the News of the World and the Sunday People. It is a matter of urgency to close a loophole in the Southern Rhodesia (United Nations Sanctions) (No. 2) Order 1968. Under Article 14 of that Order, it is an offence to publish or to be party to the publication of any advertisement which would solicit or encourage the taking up of employment or residence in Rhodesia.
There is, of course, a saving provision that a person is not guilty if he can prove that he could not have known or could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained that the advertisement or notice was of that character. In the particular case of a company called Southern Placement Services, Johannesburg, it was easily discovered that this was recruitment for employment in Rhodesia. Indeed, this was exposed in a Tribune publication on 12th December 1975. The fact that the employment was for mercenaries compounds the offence.
I was quite astonished when the Director of Public Prosecutions recently decided that there was no one within jurisdiction against whom he could proceed although an offence had clearly been committed. My Bill, therefore, will change the onus of proof from the negative to the positive. That is to say, a defendant would have to show that he had taken positive steps to ascertain that an offence was not being committed.
In the case of Rhodesia, where we have an illegal régime which is carrying out illegal trials and illegal hangings, the Press has a special rôle to play. We

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should not forget that Rhodesia is in rebellion against the Crown. The Press of this country rightly defends the freedoms that we hold dear, and I believe that it has a moral as well as a legal responsibility to do nothing to support a régime which rules by force and which denies freedom to the majority of its population.
The trade of mercenary is obscene. It reduces man to below the level of beasts, because animals do not kill without purpose and without reason, as the mercenary does. We in this House have a responsibility to end this despicable trade. I commend the Bill to the House.
3.42 p.m.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds): I wish to oppose the motion on three grounds—technically, politically and morally.
First, on the technical level, I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would prefer to wait until the Diplock Commission has reported on this matter, as requested by his right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), the former Prime Minister. Second, on the technical level, I note that the hon. Gentleman is requiring the British Press to act as his policeman in stopping advertisements for mercenaries, but his Bill will in no way make it unlawful for British citizens to hire out to fight abroad. The Bill will not affect that at all, yet the hon. Gentleman seeks to require of the British Press that it should not advertise activities which, even if his Bill were to be passed, will remain perfectly legitimate under the law of this country.
I believe that this technical defect alone would lead the Government to advise the hon. Gentleman that this is a Bill which ought not to pass.
Secondly, I believe that the hon. Gentleman totally misconceives the not dishonourable rôle of the mercenary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] A mercenary is someone who follows the not ignoble profession of arms and sells his services for pay. He is by definition a volunteer, a volunteer who accepts a high reward but who frequently quite sincerely believes in the cause he is serving.
There is a long and honourable tradition of mercenary soldiers serving the cause of freedom and democracy. Among
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the best-known mercenaries are those Swiss who, over the centuries, have served as what the hon. Gentleman might describe as the "killer elite" of the Vatican's Papal Guard. More recently, our own country has made good use of the most effective and gallant mercenary soldiers the world has ever seen—the Brigade of Gurkhas. The Gurkhas have won endless awards for gallantry while serving this country for pay, and from time to time they are recruited by way of advertisements in Nepal, which at present are the responsibility of the Labour Secretary of State for Defence, who, I am glad to say, has been persuaded to keep the mercenary Gurkha Brigade.
Mr. Martin Flannery: A cross we have to bear.
Mr. Griffiths: Apart from the mercenaries that Britain engages to help to preserve our freedom, tens of thousands of young British soldiers, out of a love of adventure as well as for pay, have regularly hired themselves out as mercenaries abroad. Some of our fathers fought for pay on behalf of Hailie Selassie against Mussolini's Fascists. Others fought, for pay, against the Red Army in Siberia. Hundreds of members of the Labour Party fought, to their credit, in the Spanish Civil War. I recall Mr. Jack Jones boasting about how he and many others of the International Brigade went off to kill Spanish Falangists. Of course, they were volunteers and they believed in their cause, but I have no doubt that Mr. Jones not only expected but got the going rate for the job at the time.
My third objection is to the double standards contained in the hon. Gentleman's proposals, paricularly his description, on the BBC this morning, of the mercenaries as "hired killers".[An HON. MEMBER: "They are."] He made the distinction between "hired killers" and what he described as "freedom fighters" who—in the mythology of the Left—are supposed to kill only from conviction.
But what is the reality? All professional soldiers are hired, in the ultimate, to kill and to risk being killed. That goes for the paid Soviet mercenaries who are now actively assisting the paid professional gunmen who daily murder and

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mutilate fellow Africans as well as white settlers on the borders of Rhodesia. It goes, too, for the paid professional killers among the Palestine Liberation Organisation and, indeed, some of their opponents, in the blood-spattered city of Beirut.
It applies, in my judgment, to the mercenary army of Cubans who were hired by the Soviet Union to wage war which caused the deaths of infinitely more Africans than any European mercenaries may have injured in Angola. It could be applied with equal force to scores of so-called liberation movements, where the poor bloody infantry may well be provided by the peasants of Vietnam, Cambodia, Biafra or many another country but where the sophisticated staff, the bazookamen, the tactical commanders and those who handle the missiles are paid professional mercenaries from the Soviet Union and China.
Mr. Flannary: What about the South Africans?
Mr. Griffiths: The point about professional mercenaries, over the whole world, is that one should judge them more by the cause they serve than by their motivation in serving it.
I want to conclude by putting to the hon. Gentleman two questions. I hope that if he does not do so here he will answer them elsewhere. The first is this. Let us suppose that a group of young Socialists, tiring of unemployment in the hon. Member's constituency, to follow his advice and the advice of many of his hon. Friends and band together to go to Chile to fight against what they have been told is an illegal Fascist régime. Would the hon. Gentleman take the view that they were hired professional killers? Would he seek to prevent them undertaking that activity?
Secondly, in respect of the Budapest revolution—where I, among others, was taken prisoner by the Russian Army—let us suppose that a number of young men in this country, responding to the appeal of the oppressed Hungarian people, had banded together and gone to Budapest to seek to resist the Red Army's tanks. Would the hon. Gentleman have regarded their activities as disgraceful or their persons—as he put it—as lower than beasts?
The hon. Gentleman's proposals are founded on double standards. His proposal, like so many others that hon. Members have made, ought to be rejected by the House—for a particular reason. By choosing this day of all days to mount his attack on mercenaries, I believe that the hon. Gentleman may seriously have prejudiced the chances of the dozen or so of our fellow citizens—[HON. MEMBERS: "Cheap."]—who are now on trial for their lives in Angola.
The hon. Member may well have imagined that by hanging this motion on to the headlines he would gain additional publicity, as no doubt he will. But I wonder what effect this motion will have on the Angola show trial if by its vote today the House of Commons adds its voice to condemning, in advance and not on the evidence, all these young men who could be facing the death penalty in a foreign land.
I believe that the House should treat this motion with the contempt it deserves and throw it out.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nominations of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business) :—
The House divided: Ayes 184, Noes 89.

Division No. 182.]

AYES

[3.51 p.m.

Allaun, Frank

Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

Clemitson, Ivor

Archer, Peter

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

Ashton, Joe

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Cohen, Stanley

Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

Buchan, Norman

Coleman, Donald

Atkinson, Norman

Buchanan, Richard

Colquhoun, Ms Maureen

Bain, Mrs Margaret

Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)

Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

Bates, Alf

Campbell, Ian

Crawford, Douglas

Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

Canavan, Dennis

Crawshaw, Richard

Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

Cant, R. B.

Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)

Bidwell, Sydney

Carmichael, Neil

Davidson, Arthur

Blenkinsop, Arthur

Cartwright, John

Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Selby, Harry

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Lambie, David

Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

Dempsey, James

Lamborn, Harry

Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

Doig, Peter

Lamond, James

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Dormand, J. D.

Lewis, Arthur (Newham N)

Sillars, James

Dunn, James A.

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Silverman, Julius

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Lipton, Marcus

Skinner, Dennis

Eadie, Alex

Litterick, Tom

Small, William

Edge, Geoff

Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

McCartney, Hugh

Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

MacCormick, Iain

Snape, Peter

English, Michael

McElhone, Frank

Spearing, Nigel

Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

MacFarquhar, Roderick

Steel, David (Roxburgh)

Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

Mackenzie, Gregor

Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

Evans, John (Newton)

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

Stoddart, David

Ewing Harry (Stirling)

McNamara, Kevin

Strauss, Rt Hn G. R.

Faulds, Andrew

Madden, Max

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

Mahon, Simon

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

Mallalieu, J. P. W.

Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

Marks, Kenneth

Thompson, George

Flannery, Martin

Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Maynard, Miss Joan

Tierney, Sydney

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Mikardo, Ian

Torney, Tom

Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

Millan, Bruce

Tuck, Raphael

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

Moonman, Eric

Urwin, T. W.

George, Bruce

Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

Golding, John

Newens, Stanley

Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

Gould, Bryan

Noble, Mike

Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

Grant, George (Morpeth)

Oakes, Gordon

Watkins, David

Grocott, Bruce

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Watkinson, John

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Ovenden, John

Weetch, Ken

Hardy, Peter

Palmer, Arthur

Welsh, Andrew

Harper, Joseph

Park, George

White, Frank R. (Bury)

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Parry, Robert

White, James (Pollok)

Hatton, Frank

Pavitt, Laurie

Whitehead, Phillip

Hayman, Mrs Helene

Peart, Rt Hon Fred

Whitlock, William

Hooson, Emlyn

Penhaligon, David

Wigley, Dafydd

Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

Phipps, Dr Colin

Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

Price, C. (Lewisham W)

Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

Price, William (Rugby)

Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Radice, Giles

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Reid, George

Woodall, Alec

Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

Richardson, Miss Jo

Woof, Robert

Janner, Greville

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Young, David (Bolton E)

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Robinson, Geoffrey

Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

Roderick, Caerwyn

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Roper, John

Mr. Bob Cryer and

Kelley, Richard

Sandelson, Neville

Mr. George Rodgers.

Kerr, Russell

Sedgemore, Brian

NOES

Adley, Robert

Hannam, John

Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

Banks, Robert

Hicks, Robert

Mudd, David

Beith, A. J.

Holland, Philip

Nelson, Anthony

Biggs-Davison, John

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Neubert, Michael

Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Nott, John

Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

Pardoe, John

Bradford, Rev Robert

James, David

Pattie, Geoffrey

Braine, Sir Bernard

Jessel, Toby

Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

Brotherton, Michael

Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

Rathbone, Tim

Clark, William (Croydon S)

Kimball, Marcus

Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Lawson, Nigel

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Cope, John

Loveridge, John

Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

Luce, Richard

Ridley, Hon Nicholas

Drayson, Burnaby

McCrindle, Robert

Rifkind, Malcolm

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Macfarlane, Neil

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Eyre, Reginald

Ross, William (Londonderry)

Farr, John

MacGregor, John

Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

Fell, Anthony

Marten, Neil

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Forman, Nigel

Mates, Michael

Sims, Roger

Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Skeet, T. H. H.

Freud, Clement

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Spence, John

Goodhart, Philip

Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

Stainton, Keith

Goodhew, Victor

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Tapsell, Peter

Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

Moate, Roger

Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

Gray, Hamish

Monro, Hector

Tebbit, Norman

Grylls, Michael

Montgomery, Fergus

Townsend, Cyril D.

Hampson, Dr Keith

More, Jasper (Ludlow)

Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

320

321

Wakeham, John

Winterton, Nicholas

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Wall, Patrick

Wood, Rt Hon Richard

Mr. Eldon Griffiths and

Walters, Dennis

Younger, Hon George

Mr. Jerry Wiggin.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Robert Hughes, Mrs. Judith Hart, Miss Joan Lestor, Mr. Ioan Evans, Mr. Frank Allaun, Mr. Gwilym Roberts, Mr. Frank Hooley, Mr. Andrew Faulds, Mr. Bob Cryer, and Mr. Stanley Newens.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THE RECRUITMENT OF MERCENARIES (PROHIBITION) BILL
Mr. Robert Hughes Mr. Robert Hughes accordingly presented a Bill to make newspaper proprietors liable for prosecution in relation to the publication of advertisements for the recruitment of mercenaries for service outside the United Kingdom: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 16th July and to be printed. [Bill 164.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  ENERGY BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second reading read.
  4.3 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Energy (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill, as Members will realise, was taken first in another place because of the pressure of business here at the time of introduction. It has been changed in a number of ways. In some cases I shall be able to commend these changes to the House. In others I shall later explain why the changes are unacceptable to the Government and that we aim to remedy such defects during the passage of the Bill through this House.
  I should like to explain first in general terms the aims of the Bill and then refer briefly to each of the main clauses to provide the House with a little more detail of key provisions. The Bill will supersede the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973 and is required to give the Government permanent powers to meet United Kingdom obligations under the Agreement on an International Energy Programme and obligations as a member of the European Communities, and to develop the Government's policies for the conservation of energy.
  Therefore, this is an important Bill from both a domestic as well as an international point of view. However if hon. Members look closely at the Bill they will see that in many important respects, notably Clauses 1, 2 and 4, it re-enacts key provisions of the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973 giving the Government powers to act in an energy emergency. As concerns the actual powers to be available for such crises, therefore, the Bill touches no new ground. I shall deal later with the "triggering" provisions in Clause 3 which differentiate between a "domestic" and an "international" crisis.
  We touch new territory in the provisions affording power to conserve energy—the basic power affecting use of energy is contained in Clause 3(3)—and other more specific conservation measures
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  in Clauses 8 to 12 inclusive. Most of the other provisions arise, as does Clause 11 on the fuelling of new and converted power stations, from our international obligations to the International Energy Agency or the EEC.
  To deal first with the general background to our IEA obligations, the Agreement on an International Energy Programme entered into force on 19th January 1976 for States, including ours, which have notified consent to be bound by its terms. Under the agreement we are required to have available powers which will enable us to impose restrictions on the supply and use of energy in an emergency, to meet our obligations to hold a minimum level of oil stocks and to provide information to the International Energy Agency. Some of these obligations can be met under the 1973 Act, but that Act requires annual parliamentary approval for renewal and is therefore not a satisfactory basis for the fulfilment of international obligations.
  For that purpose, the requisite powers must be permanently available, and seen to be so by other signatories to the international agreement. Furthermore, the 1973 Act was designed to meet an emergency, not to meet the requirements of a long-term programme of international co-operation. It does not, for example, provide wide enough powers in respect of information, which is an important element of the International Energy Programme.
  In order to prepare for an oil emergency, we need to have permanently available powers which will enable the United Kingdom to meet its obligations as a participant in the International Energy Programme's oil-sharing scheme. Among other things, this requires the United Kingdom to be able to reduce oil demand by the amounts specified in the IEP agreement and to direct United Kingdom oil companies to reallocate supplies amongst themselves and, if necessary, to supply companies in other countries. We have decided, therefore, that the crisis management powers contained in the 1973 Act should be permanently available, but we recognise that they should be exercisable only for IEP purposes at time when the IEP agreement requires them. The IEP agreement defines these circumstances, and hon. Members will note the Government's intention that the extensive powers

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  to control production, acquisition, supply or use by order or direction should be used only after Her Majesty has, by Order in Council, activated them as a result of an oil emergency being declared by the members of the International Energy Agency.
  In another place it was suggested that the original wording of Clause 3(1) in this respect might not make this declared intention crystal clear, and the clause now contains in subsection (1)(a) a compromise formula which in the Government's view puts the situation beyond any doubt.
  The IEP agreement also requires us, as part of its provision for cushioning the effect of an oil shortage, to hold a minimum level of oil stocks. We are therefore seeking powers in the Bill which will enable us to meet similar EEC obligations to hold 90 days' stocks of oil.
  We have also to bear in mind the continuing need to have available contingency measures for controlling the production. acquisition, use and supply of energy, and for regulating oil prices, during a domestic energy emergency. I am sure that hon. Members will agree that it would be prudent to retain powers similar to those in the 1973 Act for domestic crisis management, subject, of course, as hon. Members will see from Clause 3, to the same degree of parliamentary control as provided in that Act. Here again the wording of the provision in subsection (1)(b) about "domestic" emergencies has been clarified after exchanges in another place.
  To turn to the energy conservation aims of the Bill, the Government's objective following the 1973 oil crisis and the ensuing sharp increases in energy prices has been to encourage greater efficiency in energy use and stimulate consumers to help themselves by saving energy. Much of our effort has thus been by exhortation and example, by information and advice; but in some areas voluntary restraint is insufficient and reinforcement through the statute book is appropriate. Certain measures are already in force under the 1973 Act affecting heating levels, speed limits and advertising lighting. These will be kept under review, but the present intention is that they will be continued under the Bill.
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  Powers are, however, needed to permit us to introduce new measures as and when the Government consider them to be necessary in support of the encouraging efforts being made to save energy throughout the economy. We are therefore proposing that the power to control the use of energy and the power to alter statutory provisions relating to the use of energy substances, similar to those in the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973, will be permanently available; but except in emergency the power to control the use of energy will be exercisable only for energy conservation purposes, only after consultation with those affected and with suitable advisory bodies, and only by Order, which will be subject to negative resolution procedure and thus to the control of Parliament.
  The Government have also decided to include a new power to subject fuel consumption in cars to a standard test, the results of which will be published, thus enabling car-buyers to make a more reliable comparison of a car's fuel consumption when contemplating buying a car. Again, I shall say more of that provision later, since recent discussions have taken place with the industry following exchanges in another place on some aspects of this clause.
  We are replacing Section 9 of the Continental Shelf Act 1964 by Clause 8 of the Bill, which would thus establish the ongoing régime over the supply and use of natural gas from the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. Much of the clause is designed to remove technical anomalies in the present situation, especially in the treatment of gas distilled from North Sea crude.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Does the Minister propose to keep Clause 8(2)?
  Dr. Mabon: May I come to that later? I am giving the good news first, but I shall come to the other news. I am sorry that I have to rush this, but I am trying to cover as many aspects as I can. I am only sorry that, even with the extension of time, there will not be an adequate day's debate on the Bill.
  Although this effort has resulted in some unusually technical language, it has been welcomed by the industries concerned and should facilitate the rational

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  development of our offshore oil and gas resources.
  The clause also seeks to clarify the Government's control over liquefaction, which was obscure in the Continental Shelf Act; we shall hope at a later stage to correct the unsatisfactory way in which that control is at present expressed. We shall also seek to amend the clause in order to give the Secretary of State discretion not to consent to the supply and use of gas for industrial non-fuel purposes.
  Clause 9 brings under control the flaring of natural gas or its release unignited into the atmosphere. In another place, certain forms of flaring were exempted from this proposed control. We may need to examine at a later stage whether these exemptions are well based, taking into account the requirement of conservation as well as the practicalities of industry. Given our limited ability to predict technical advance, it may be preferable to deal with these exemptions by Order.
  The Bill also contains provisions which will enable the United Kingdom, as a member of the European Communities, to implement Council directives and enforce EEC regulations in the energy field. One important directive is 73/238, which requires us to have powers for crisis management in an energy emergency when declared by the European Communities. Other directives implemented under the Bill are 68/414, as amended, which requires us to hold a minimum level of reserves of oil and to which I referred earlier; 75 /339, which covers the holding of minimum stocks of fossil fuels at power stations; and 75/404 and 75/405, which relate to the fuelling of power stations. Of these, the directives concerning crisis management and oil stocks are currently implemented under the 1973 Act. The Bill will also allow us to implement any future arrangements in the EEC for meeting energy crises.
  Mr. Arthur Palmer: Would my right hon. Friend give a figure for the ratio between the coal stocks at power stations which are required by EEC directive to be held and the present average stocks at power stations?
  Dr. Mabon: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will no doubt get those figures.
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  I do not have them in my head, but no doubt he will incorporate them in his speech. I agree that that is an important point.
  The Government propose to move an amendment in Committee to reinstate in the Bill the power to control the price of oil products on a permanent basis. This power is, of course, available under the Bill—Clause 1(2), triggered by Clause 3(2) —for energy emergency purposes. The power to control the price of crude oil will be limited to energy emergencies. At present the powers which exist in the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973 are being used only to control the price of paraffin, which is so important to many pensioners and other low-income users, but they were also used in December 1973 by the previous Administration, who fixed maximum retail prices for petrol and derv to protect the consumer from profiteering during a shortage.
  Mr. Peter Rost: Can the Minister explain what we could not discover from the proceedings in another place—the reason why price control for oil is required for energy conservation and its relevance to a policy for more rational use of energy? I should have thought that it had the opposite effect.
  Dr. Mabon: What I wanted to do now was give notice of the Government's intentions in Committee, which is a perfectly honourable procedure. I do not want to argue the case now. I would rather do so in Committee. We shall then see whether I can convince hon. Members that there is sense in that provision and that the hon. Member's argument is not as profound as he thinks. But I give notice that we intend to have this debate in Committee, which I am sure will be a very agreeable occasion.
  The Government wish to make this provision not only in the interests of the consumers, who may of course be private, commercial or industrial, but also as an important reserve power for possible use in the development of the nation's long-term energy policies. Most European countries and the United States of America already have special powers to control oil prices. The Government intend to table an appropriate amendment to the Bill in Committee.

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  Before looking at the key provisions of the Bill, it might help the House if I underline the way in which the powers of Clauses 1 and 2 would be triggered and operated. Clauses 1 and 2, which are a rehearsal of the 1973 Act, set out what appear to be very sweeping powers, but they are, of course, qualified as to the extent of their availability by Clause 3, which defines an "international" crisis and a "domestic" emergency and includes the general permanent power to control the use of energy for conservation purposes. In the case of an international oil emergency, we are proposing that the full emergency powers are to be activated by Order in Council when it is decided by the members of the International Energy Agency or of the EEC that an emergency exists. Such an Order in Council would not be subject to parliamentary procedure.
  Secondly, for a domestic emergency we propose that the powers shall similarly be activated by Order in Council but that such an Order in Council shall be subject to affirmative resolution by both Houses of Parliament. Thirdly, for energy conservation we are seeking the power to control only the use of energy, not its supply. We have undertaken to consult before making any energy conservation Order. Such orders are subject to negative resolution procedure. Thus, the United Kingdom will be able to meet its international obligations while retaining parliamentary control over the activation of the contingency powers for a domestic emergency and over measures taken for energy conservation purposes.
  I shall say nothing more about Clauses 1 and 2 but will turn now to Clause 3, on which there will probably be some debate. It covers the circumstances in which the full powers contained in Clauses 1 and 2 may be exercised. If these powers are required to meet the United Kingdom's international obligations in respect of energy emergencies, either as a member of the EEC or as a party to the Agreement on an International Energy Programme, they can be activated by the Orders that I have described.
  If hon. Members will permit me, I shall say nothing at this stage about Clause 4. Clause 5 prevents normal statutory controls from unnecessarily hindering national objectives in times of
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  emergency. In the case of an oil emergency, we shall be particularly dependent on the oil industry acting collectively to implement the Government's directions. Such joint action might infringe restrictive trade practices legislation. I believe that the then Prime Minister found this a particularly acute difficulty in 1973. The clause therefore provides partial exemption for certain restrictive agreements made by the oil industry, only during an energy crisis.
  Unless hon. Members wish me to do so, I shall not say anything about Clause 6, which I think is quite clear. Clause 7 implements the United Kingdom's obligations under EEC Council Directive 75/339 to which I have referred already.
  Clause 8 I have touched on already. As I said earlier, it supersedes Section 9 of the Continental Shelf Act 1964. That section did not cover the possibility of producing natural gas in association with crude or of gas-gathering pipelines not owned by the licensees or of an industrial company purchasing the gas offshore. With the help and advice of the oil industry, the Government have introduced a number of detailed technical provisions which will facilitate the development of our offshore oil and gas resources. In particular, this clause seeks to establish a rational régime for gas derived from off-shore crude and thus removes a disincentive to refining British crude in British refineries.
  Mr. Skeet: Clause 8 (2) deals with mandatory consent. It is contingent on the old procedure in Section 9 of the 1964 Act. I asked the Minister whether he would be leaving that in, and I assume that he will accept discretion and leave it where it is.
  Dr. Mabon: We shall have to debate that in Committee, but our inclination is to delete it. We shall argue this in Committee because other subsections flow from it which obviously we shall have to take into account.
  My second point in defending the Government's case on Clause 8 is that the Continental Shelf Act is obscure in its treatment of liquefaction of gas. The clause seeks to establish that it is subject to control, though in our view it still needs some amendments. Thirdly, it is our wish to amend the clause to give

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  the Secretary of State discretion in consenting to the supply and use of gas for non-fuel purposes.
  Clause 9 is primarily about flaring, but it also brings in the releasing of unignited gas into the atmosphere. It would be theoretically desirable to eliminate both practices, whether on environmental grounds or for energy conservation. But we have to admit that in some circumstances flaring is an industrial necessity. For that reason we shall have to give consideration to exemptions under Clause 9.
  Clause 10 gives permanent effect to the relief of the British Gas Corporation from its obligation under the Gas Act 1972 to meet demands for new or additional supplies of gas if these would involve the supply of more than 25,000 therms a year to the premises in question. This relief has been given for the last two years by a special authority granted under the 1973 Act, and in our view it needs to be maintained to ensure that demand does not outstrip available supplies through a major unregulated growth of non-domestic use.
  Clause 11 enables United Kingdom obligations under EEC Council Directives 75/404 and 75/405 to be implemented. I do not think that I should develop comments on that clause any further.
  Clause 12, about which we may have difficulty, provides that the Secretary of State may make Orders requiring the fuel consumption of sample models of passenger cars to be determined by officially approved tests and the results to be recorded and brought to the notice of the Public. I know that we shall have to go into this matter more fully in Committee. Nevertheless, Clause 12 is regarded as being very useful.
  Clause 13 raises the upper limit of the contributions payable under Section 2 of the Electricity Act 1972 from £25 million to £45 million, mainly to take account of inflation. Section 2 of the 1972 Act enabled the then Government to contribute to the costs incurred by the electricity boards in carrying out projects which they had agreed to advance in order to promote employment. The largest of these was the Ince B Power station in Cheshire.
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  Clause 14 is a general clause relating to the use of Orders and directions under the Bill. Clause 15, with the important Schedule 2, provides powers to obtain from undertakings information relating both to the substances mentioned in Clause 1 and electricity and to the undertakings themselves. I remind the House that the IEP Agreement requires us to furnish information on the structure and organisation of oil companies. The information may, however, be disclosed only in specified cases such as to the International Energy Agency, EEC institutions and other United Kingdom Government Departments for the exercise of their functions.
  Schedule 2 includes powers to call for documents and, in certain circumstances and subject to certain safeguards, to enter non-domestic premises. Clause 15 also creates appropriate offences for non-compliance with provisions made by or under the Bill and with the EEC Council Regulations listed in Schedule 3, and for making false statements or possessing false documents. Clause 16 provides penalties for these offences.
  The remaining clauses, Nos. 17, 18, 19 and 20, deal with miscellaneous provisions, and general matters and cover financial provisions, interpretation, repeals and savings, citation and extension to Northern Ireland, and so on.
  I hope that the House will agree that I have tried to explain the Bill, albeit at a mad gallop but nevertheless in the hope that right hon. and hon. Members will realise that this is an important measure upon which we shall have further debates in Committee and one which I hope everyone will agree is a useful Bill which should be put on the statute book this Session. In our view, the Bill is essential for the wide-ranging objectives which I have described. The Government attach the greatest importance to meeting our international obligations. We recognise that the 1973 Act is unsuitable for meeting those long-term obligations and is no longer appropriate. It has been overtaken by more recent events and has the defect of having to be renewed annually.
  I commend the Bill to the House. It is tailor-made for its various purposes. It is so constructed that its emergency

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  powers are available only when necessary and with appropriate parliamentary sanctions, as I have explained. It is an important part of the development of the Government's long-term energy policies. In my view no Government, of whatever party, can afford to be without available measures to deal with energy crises, whether internal or external, or with the long-term need to ensure that our energy resources are used in the most sensible ways so as to avoid waste or inefficient use. Some executives in industry may argue that they alone know best. This it not so. The Government cannot abdicate their responsibility for making the crucial decisions in the national interest after due and proper consultation with the industry as a whole where that is appropriate.
  4.26 p.m.
  Mr. John Biffen: I have a great affection for the House of Commons, but there is something slightly bizarre that, at 4 o'clock in the morning, this Chamber could be practically in turmoil on the Blaenau-Gwent Order, whereas at half-past 4 in the afternoon we are reduced to the hardy band of faithful who take an interest in energy topics when we are discussing a very significant Bill.
  I was touched by the hon. and ever-optimistic Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Palmer) when, on 20th May, he asked the Leader of the House:
  "Will my right hon. Friend say when time can be provided to debate the important subject of energy conservation, particularly in view of the Report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, to which after a period of ten months, the Government have made no reply?" —[Official Report, 20th May 1976; Vol. 911, c. 1717.]
  I think that the whole House will have a lively sympathy with the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West on this account. Perhaps he was hoping that the commitment in the Queen's Speech would enable his expectations to be fulfilled, because, of course, the Queen's Speech said that legislation would be introduced to meet the United Kingdom's obligations under the agreement on an International Energy Programme, to control energy supplies during any shortages, and to implement energy conservation policies.
  There has been a fairly general expectation—at least outside this House
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  —that at some point there would be the occasion when Parliament would either generally debate or else have the opportunity to fashion some kind of energy conservation legislation. Clearly, if that occasion is to arise, it is not to arise today.
  In some senses, the Bill before us is an Energy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. The Minister of State, in his engaging and charming manner, took us through it clause by clause, and indicated that the Government appreciated the very constructive work that had been done in another place. I noted that he referred to the Bill as being "tailor-made". The bespoke practitioners up the road have clearly played their part in the fitting, and I hope, as the Minister does, that the Committee stage will be constructive and will build upon the work already done.
  I should like to dwell on three themes that run through this legislation. This is perhaps an opportunity for the House to consider them in the wider context. If we do not do it now, we shall have no other opportunity.
  The three themes are, first, the relations between OPEC and the consuming countries, which are central to the whole institution of the International Energy Agency; secondly, the factors that will aid conservation and the development of energy sources; and, thirdly, the political relationship between the Department of Energy and the oil and petrochemical companies. It was in a sense to that relationship that the right hon. Gentleman turned in his concluding remarks.
  I fully realise that the first part of the Bill and, in a sense, Clauses 1 to 7 and some other provisions derive from an anxiety and obligation to deal with emergency situations and the maintenance of fuel reserves. A good deal of this is a consequence of our membership of the International Energy Agency.
  I regret that the Bill was not drafted, and is not susceptible of amendment, in such a way as to make a clearer distinction between the objectives of emergency control and the more general issue of conservation. Their coexistence in the early clauses could give rise to misunderstanding and anxiety. If the Committee stage can help allay those fears, it will

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  be one of the constructive rôles of the Committee. I am glad to see that I have the assent of the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis).
  I turn to the question whether we are ever likely to find ourselves having to operate these clauses under the trigger mechanism of the International Energy Agency. The House should take this opportunity at least to make a passing comment upon the agency's operation and how it can best proceed to our national advantage. It seems to me that there is, implicit in the juxtaposition— "confrontation" is not a word I would choose—of the OPEC countries and the agency, the danger that there would develop countervailing cartels. I very much hope that the purpose of the agency will be to encourage OPEC to operate in a market situation rather than a cartel situation.
  There will be interest in the recent developments in OPEC. The movement in prices has not been inexorably upward over the past few months. The recovery in industrial activity in the Western World has not set off the automatic response by OPEC producers of increasing their prices substantially. The latest indications are that Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait have cut or shaded the price of their heavy crudes, whereas, in a different situation and with different qualities of fuel, Libya and Venezuela have marginally increased their prices.
  I make no prophecy about the future behaviour of OPEC. I shall concede the position of prophet to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), who has been fairly brave in expecting that OPEC would not prove quite as monolithic as at one time fashion had supposed. But it would be extremely unwise of any hon. Member to make prognostications on the future behaviour of OPEC. However, we are certainly wise also to monitor the OPEC world as it is and not as it was so confidently forecast by a number of people inside and outside the House 12 months ago.
  Obviously, in Committee there will be great anxiety to secure for Parliament a monitoring of a situation in which there will be considerable governmental and inter-governmental controls over the disposition of oil, in a situation in which France is a member of the European
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  Community but not a member of the International Energy Agency.
  In that context, although I appreciate that there are other reasons, the Minister of State says that there is a virtue in the Orders not being annually renewable. Parliament always wants to be a little sceptical before becoming convinced that something that has been annually renewable should cease so to be.
  I turn to my second theme, of conservation. This will be an area in which there will be some controversy. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) has already observed that the existence of price control as proposed in Clause 3(3) does not sit easily with a general policy of conservation. It is not just my economic prejudices; I believe that it is a general, common-sense observation that price has proved to be a great conserver. If I wanted to pray anything in aid, I should take the evidence of Sir Arthur Hawkins when he gave a talk to the North Western Fuel Luncheon Club in Manchester on 4th March this year. He said:
  "The fuel taps have been turned down, and turned down with a vengeance, because of a combination of factors: reduced industrial activity; consumer reaction to high energy costs; and the 'Save It' campaign."
  He added—and I wish to underline this:
  "Of these factors, I personally believe that the swingeing increases in energy prices have been the main cause of the downturn."
  The Minister of State is right to say that there are other administrative buttresses to a policy of energy conservation. He referred to Community and national obligations in respect of heating levels and speed limits. Doubtless it was under that general philosophy that there was incorporated in the Bill Clause 12, about the fuel consumption records of motor vehicles. I suspect that it is one of those clauses that has generated a good deal of correspondence and a natural anxiety on the part of the trade interests concerned. Once again, it is an appropriate subject for Committee. That is what Committee stages are all about—to enable a meeting of minds with the world outside, which I suspect is sometimes a shade more real than the world at the Department of Energy, even as refined and perfected by the work of their Lordships. There is always the danger that the whole issue of conservation could become the

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  Trojan Horse for a more generalised political interference in the trade and commerce of the country.
  That takes me to my third theme, which is the political relationship between the Department of Energy and the fuel industries generally, and the fear that the Secretary of State will use his powers of control to extend ambitions for providing enhanced political authority.
  The Secretary of State could not be with us, and I make no objection to that. We are a cheerful, happy family at least for five minutes longer—and we are pleased to see the Secretary of State's ex-Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Chamber. There has been a reconcilation, and one has to clearly understand the nuances of relationships within the Labour Party to know why the Secretary of State, the Minister of State and now the Parliamentary Private Secretary all sit together in perfect amicability.
  Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: That is correct.
  Mr. Biffen: I am glad that the Minister of State has confirmed that, because I wondered whether he had been popped in to keep an eye on the Secretary of State and create that bland exterior that Government Departments like to have when members of the business community become over-emotional about prominent politicians. I accept that the situation is not as facile or as simple as that.
  The Secretary of State is a great communicator and he has placed on record the most interesting remarks and, many people believe, rather daunting suggestions, arguments and assertions. I have in mind that which he uttered during the debate on the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Bill which, as the Minister of State said, is being largely repeated in the current legislation. In welcoming the powers that the Bill was conferring the Secretary of State said:
  "It will give us the power to control all the oil companies, all the multi-nationals, to fix their prices and their distribution systems; and under these powers every other fuel and its use, including the chemical industry, will be brought within the control of the Government of the day."—[Official Report, 26th November 1973; Vol. 865, c. 141.]
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  At that time I sat where the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) now sits, and listened to a fine parliamentary performance. The trouble is that the Secretary of State has to some extent become a prisoner of his past rhetoric, because that was the ambition that he had then, and that ambition returns to haunt him. The desire to control chemical feedstock gas, particularly in Clause 8(2), causes concern in the petro-chemical industry that the Secretary of State may have undisclosed but wider ambitions.
  We must recognise that the House of Lords has done a valuable task in constructing a more appropriate form for the legislation. In a sense it has been trying to rescue the Secretary of State from the gaol of his former rhetoric. It has been trying to spring him. On the principle of "once a patrician, always a patrician" the House of Lords has done its best to help out, even though it is for a prodigal.
  Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: A fugitive.
  Mr. Biffen: I am trying to be more generous to the Secretary of State. I hope that the Minister of State will not go around making such comments about the Secretary of State. It would not be appropriate to the amicable way in which the Department of Energy's political leadership is now constituted.
  However bland and reasonably good-natured we are about the Bill, there can be no doubt that it incorporates substantial powers, which will be exercised by the Executive without detailed recourse to Parliament. We have to be realistic about the matter. Perhaps it is the way of the modern world and perhaps it is the only way. I shall listen to that argument, but let us not deny that substantial powers exist in the Bill and that its implementation will not be subject to constant and renewed parliamentary scrutiny. We must recognise that in the event of a crisis, or the need for conservation, there will be tremendous authority for the Government to direct the fuel industries. Many people fear that such direction could stultify the private sector and inhibit the risk capital that is essential if we are to exploit further fuel resources.

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  At Question Time yesterday the Secretary of State, who is good at demonology, feared that there would be a reappearance of Adam Smith as the guide of the nation's energy policy. I was somewhat puzzled by that, until I recalled a particular perceptive and thoughtful speech by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond). His speech was not unique, as the Minister of State suggested; it was characteristic. At the Oslo Energy Conference on 4th May the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "If the market were completely to disappear it would be impossible to carry on the nationalised sector in its present form. We are very near the situation where the market may collapse. I do not see, therefore, why oil companies which genuinely believe in a market should not say so loud, clearly and often … I believe that the question as to whether Britain ought to continue as a free and free enterprise country or is to slide over into total socialism is going to be a major question of politics for the next two or three years. In this the oil companies have a vital rôle to play."
  The right hon. Gentleman's words were pertinent, and the anxieties expressed about the legislation from some of the interests that are affected reflect his fears.
  We shall not resist attempts to see the Bill reach the statute book, but we are determined that it should go on to the statute book in a form that is most appropriate. Above all, we are concerned that it shall not be just one further piece of legislation to prepare for the harassment of capital, price and profitability.
  4.50 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Palmer: The Bill comes from the House of Lords at a time when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is unable to be with us today, is almost on the eve of his comprehensive energy conference of all the talents and interests to be held at Church House next week. I hope to attend that conference and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his enterprise in arranging it.
  But after all present at the conference have had their say in innumerable short speeches, which will not be much longer than four or five minutes—probably working down to three minutes towards the end of the day—a policy will not be produced. No one could seriously have supposed that it could be.
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  That kind of conference is valuable psychologically. It helps to make all parts of the energy industry feel as one. But in the end nothing can absolve the Government from adopting an energy policy in those spheres where the State, answerable to Parliament, either has an existing statutory responsibility or should have a new statutory responsibility if present powers are inadequate or out of date.
  That is the principal fault of the Bill, which has come to us somewhat mutilated from the House of Lords. The Bill does not attempt to set out any comprehensive energy policy for the United Kingdom, either nationally or internationally, in spite of its Title. I agree with the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), that a more accurate title would perhaps be the Energy (General Powers) Bill.
  The Bill probably started off in the Department as a simple measure to make permanent the powers in the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973—a Conservative measure. Then came in, I suspect, the necessary EEC and International Energy Agency adjustments. Later, before it reached the other place, it was found convenient to insert extra matter. That is a trick of Departments when they are bringing forward scrappy Bills of this kind.
  For example, Clause 12 provides for the testing of cars to find the petrol consumption, and for the figure to be published. Clause 13 raises the limit of the contributions payable under the Electricity Act 1972—another Conservative measure—to compensate electricity authorities for losses incurred at that time in bringing forward power projects. I shall return to these clauses later, but this patchwork approach does not give us the Energy Bill or the energy policy that the times demand.
  Bitter experience has taught us that we cannot successfully look too far ahead in energy matters. The 1967 White Paper on fuel published in the days when Sir Richard Marsh was Minister, is a glaring example of how difficult it is to look far in to the future. Nevertheless, from time to time decisions become pressing, and the Government should not delay too long in making those decisions. If those decisions require further statutory powers, it is proper for the Government

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  to explain to Parliament why they should have them.
  Among the pressing energy problems facing the country on which the Government must make decisions are first, the price of natural gas. There is much argument whether is is realistically priced. Secondly, there is the decision about the construction of a commercial fast breeder reactor. Sir John Hill, from Dounreay, almost begged the Select Committee on Science and Technology to bring influence to bear on the Government to make a decision fairly soon. We have had an undertaking—the evidence was taken in public this morning—from important officials of the Department, including Dr. Walter Marshall, that it is likely that a decision will be made in the autumn. Why do we have to wait for the leaves to fall before we can have a decision?
  The third area in which it is important that we should have some advance in Government action is in energy conservation, which the hon. Member for Oswestry mentioned. The Select Committee on Science and Technology has a right to complain, as I have complained, that it is 12 months since the Committee produced its report. The Committee, consisting of hon. Members from both sides of the House, put in about 18 months of solid work. The report contains 42 recommendations for energy conservation. A year has passed, yet there is no sign of the White Paper that the Select Committee has a right to expect.
  Mr. Skeet: Did not the Select Committee, in recommendation No. 7, recommend an Energy Conservation Bill? There is still no sign of it, although a year has elapsed.
  Mr. Palmer: I said that the Committee had made 42 recommendations, some of which involve Departments other than the Department of Energy. Nevertheless, it would be helpful and consoling if we could now have an explanation for such delay.
  To take the matters I have just listed in more detail, it is wrong to allow natural gas, a high-grade premium fuel, to be sold off below cost. In energy matters it is difficult to decide what is the true cost. We cannot relate it entirely to market forces. That does not work. On the other hand, an
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  over-planned price that does not take into account consumer needs does not work either. It is a question of trying to find the middle course, if we can.
  The proof that natural gas is being sold off below cost is given by Clause 10; the Gas Corporation cannot supply the total consumer demand. The corporation is to be exempted permanently by the Bill from its normal statutory obligation to supply all consumers on the basis of a fair field and no favour, which is common form in energy nationalisation Bills.
  It is not unknown to the House that I have close connections with the electricity supply industry. Electricity boards would also welcome, from time to time, an escape from their statutory obligation to supply the uneconomic consumer. That the Gas Corporation is to get that exemption indicates that the price mechanism is not working properly. It means that the country is consuming high-grade premium fuel too quickly and probably too wastefully.
  The gas authorities are unable to meet the demand, whereas the electricity supply industry has an excess of capacity. There is a margin of between 30 per cent. and 40 per cent. between maximum electrical demand and the capacity now available to supply it. All that spare capital investment is costing money. High interest is being paid upon it. Also the electricity supply industry is the biggest consumer of coal in the United Kingdom. Therefore by under-using electrical resources, and consuming natural gas instead, as a substitute, we are hitting the coal mining industry. I know that it is difficult to work out a proper pricing relationship, but I suggest that this is an area in which the Government must soon make some decisions or at least give some explanations.
  The fast breeder reactor is the key to the whole future of our nuclear technology, as it is in most advanced industrial countries, because uranium supplies are finite and the import price of the metal will steadily rise. It is important that we should have fast breeder capacity in order to maintain the whole momentum of nuclear expansion. The Atomic Energy Authority is now prepared and ready to go ahead with a commercial fast

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  breeder reactor station. A Government decision must be made soon.
  I have already expressed my feelings about conservation. I would only tell the House that page 15 of the report points out:
  Furthermore, it is quite clear that the capital sums involved in a sustained energy conservation programme would have to be very large indeed to equal the high costs of developing an equivalent additional supply capacity from North Sea oil and gas, the Selby coalfield, or nuclear power stations. The point was illustrated graphically by Sir Ieuan Maddock (Q. 90): a modest energy conservation programme would have saved more energy than that supplied by all Britain's nuclear power stations after 25 years of research, development and construction effort.
  That last sentence was from a principal Government witness. It is urgent that the Government tell us more about their intentions in respect of conservation.
  So much for what I think should be in the Energy Bill but which, unfortunately, is not there. I support the general intentions of the Bill, even though it was described not unkindly in the other place as "a collation of snacks". I must confess myself that, as drafted, the Bill is awkward and confusing. The general intention is to give permanently, in emergencies, powers to the Government of the day to control and direct energy supplies and, after that, to meet our EEC and other international obligations. I do not quarrel with that, and neither should Conservative Members—certainly not in view of their own Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973. But their earlier 1972 Act was a typical piece of Conservative economic distortion, which was not asked for by the electricity supply industry. Among other things, it enabled the then Conservative Government to compensate the electricity boards if they advanced projects beyond their due date to assist employment. It contributed to the surplus of generating capacity, which is now so embarrassing to the CEGB. The chief project covered was the Ince station, which was an oil-fired station.
  However, I am puzzled now as to why the sum of £25 million in 1972 should have become £45 million four years later. Has none of the original sum been claimed or paid out? If there is still something left in account no doubt that would have to be increased, but I should
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  have thought that the lot would have been paid out already. Or was that £25 million, in effect, a standby credit, awaiting the day of reckoning and now to be revalued? If so, I think that is careless accounting.
  Clause 12, which is typical of the rather ragged approach of the Bill generally, merits consideration. It empowers the Minister to make Orders requiring the fuel consumption of cars to be ascertained and published. Is this to apply only to new cars? If so, I do not think it is any real triumph for conservation, because new cars are usually good in respect of fuel consumption. It is the old cars that waste petrol. The Select Committee on Science and Technology pointed this out in its report. On page 42 it tackled the motor car efficiency question in a much more realistic fashion when it recommended:
  "Older, less well-maintained cars are often the least economic users of fuel. Checks on fuel efficiency, in relation to the age of the car, should be additional in the statutory sense to the motor vehicle safety tests of the Department of the Environment."
  I would have thought that that was a practical, effective and realistic way of tackling this problem. For the Department to pretend that it is helping fuel conservation on the road by giving publicity to the fuel consumption of a brand-new car, with its carburettor perfectly adjusted, shows how far from reality the Department sometimes is. It is surprising that the Select Committee's recommendation has not been met because the Bill now before us was given a Second Reading in the Lords in March of this year and the report of the Select Committee was available about seven months before that.
  With these reservations, I support the Bill, but I look forward, I hope in the near future, to a more genuine and comprehensive measure to make better sense of the present United Kingdom energy situation.
  5.10 p.m.
  Mr. J. Grimond: As the last two speakers have said, the Bill does not pretend to set out a comprehensive energy policy. I do not entirely disapprove of that, because I think that rigid policies often lead us into trouble, but it should be read in connection with the other steps that are being

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  taken—for instance, the research into other forms of energy, particularly solar energy.
  I was glad to see from Questions yesterday that the Government are spending considerable sums in that direction. I hope also that they are keeping in very close touch with research elsewhere, particularly in America, where it is on a vastly greater scale. There should be no need to duplicate it. This has great impact upon any policy of conservation, and it is with conservation that the Bill is partly concerned.
  The hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) rightly pointed out that there has to be some tandem work in the Bill as between general conservation and what may be necessary in an emergency, but there is, I feel, some conflict about conservation in general. I should like to repay the compliment that the hon. Gentleman paid me in quoting that quite brilliant exposition of Adam Smith, thereby emphasising the excellent relations that exist between the parties in this House—or some of them—in spite of certain local difficulties and motions on the Order Paper. I therefore draw attention to a Question that the hon. Gentleman asked yesterday about the relationship of the allocation of new blocks, the stricter time limit covering the relinquishment of blocks, and attempts to help various industries concerned with oil.
  This is a constant difficulty that we are always up against. While we would wish to conserve, we wish on the other hand, to raise standards of living, and so on, and to create employment. Therefore there is often a conflict. The Government wil lhave to make some very difficult decisions if they are to take them on their own shoulders.
  The Bill is also concerned with our international obligations, and surely no one can object to the Government taking powers to discharge them. But I suggest that one of the most useful things the Government can do is to show an example in the economic use of fuel. I do not think that anyone who goes about the country can really think that public authorities do this, for in both heating and the use of transport they are notoriously extravagant.
  When I see the Secretary of State for Energy arriving at the House of Commons
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  on a moped, with the Minister of State up behind, I shall know that the Government are really taking the oil situation seriously. Although that may be hoping for rather too much, I put it to the Government that we are constantly receiving complaints from the public that there are appeals to it to conserve fuel but that those appeals do not seem to get through to many of the public authorities. We should be quite clear for whose benefit we are conserving energy and passing many of these Regulations.
  In this regard I refer to Clause 8 and to the position in regard to gas. Anyone who reads the House of Lords debate will know that this is a complicated subject, because of the various types of gas involved. But it is a subject in which my constituency is very interested, and our problems must be similar to those in different parts of Britain.
  I am not wholly convinced that in the new situation we have the right division between the various huge organisations that deal with fuel. I am not convinced that we were right to deprive the National Coal Board of its holdings in the North Sea. I think that there is some possibility that the British Gas Corporation's monopoly of gas, and the monopoly of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, for instance, in supplying electricity, do not make sense in all parts of Scotland.
  In my part of the world gas—other than bottled gas—is irrelevant to the consumer as a method of lighting or heating. No one will pipe gas over the large rural areas of the Islands, but we shall have large amounts of gas of various types brought ashore at Flotta, in Orkney, and at Sullom, in Shetland. We are very anxious, first, that this gas shall be economically used and not simply flared off, and, second, that we shall gain some advantage from it.
  At various times I have raised this matter with the Government, the last time being in the Scottish Grand Committee. I had a very helpful letter from the Minister of State, Scottish Office, who assured me that the Government are seized of this problem and intend to find, within a reasonable period,
  "a solution which will make the optimum use of this national asset with the most economic expenditure of capital."

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  I wholly agree with that, but I am alarmed that the Minister of State also says that
  "there is a long way to go in the discussions which are at present taking place before a conclusion is reached on how the gas might most economically be used."
  After all, it is now many years since we have known that this gas would come ashore, and it is rather alarming to me that there is still a long way to go before there is any firm conclusion about how it is to be used.
  It is difficult to trace the history of the matter, but this is of general relevance to the Bill. Occidental offered the gas to Flotta for the generation of electricity and other purposes, and offered to lay a pipe. This has fallen through because the gas board claimed that it had a monopoly in the supply of gas, and that therefore it was not for any oil company to offer it to the NSHEB.
  That, in itself, seems to me to be a doctrine that we should oppose. The position has improved since that time, and the electricity and gas boards are in consultation about it, but it would seem very necessary indeed that this gas, when brought ashore, should be used partly for the generation of power.
  The Minister of State, Scottish Office, also says in his letter that the problem
  "would be much simpler if there were a guaranteed supply of gas for say, 25–30 years, but the only certain availability at this stage is a limited supply for about three years."
  As I have said, this is a complicated technical matter. I have understood that inevitably, if crude were brought ashore, it would bring with it a certain amount of usable gas not necessarily of the highest quality for all purposes. I am not certain what the letter means when it says that there will be
  "a limited supply for about three years".
  No one doubts that the North Sea fields will go on for 25 years or so.
  I think that most of the points that I am raising here would probably be best dealt with in Committee, and I would not blame the Minister if, despite his encyclopaedic knowledge of the industry, he held over a few answers for a later stage. But there is a great deal to be investigated about how we should make the best use of this gas.
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  I fully realise that its most valuable use is as a feedstock, and I know that the chemical industry in this country hopes to recover its fortunes to some extent by making use of this indigenous feed stock. I wholly sympathise with it, and I hope that we shall not flare off great quantities of gas which could be used for other purposes. As this is dealt with in the Bill, I hope that later on the Government will tell us rather more about it.
  The question of price is difficult. On the one hand, we know from our experience that Governments are not good at fixing prices. On the other hand, oil prices are already subject to the interference of OPEC countries. One of the great dangers is that those countries may suddenly drop their price, thereby making North Sea oil, if not uneconomical at least very much less profitable than we thought it would be, and having a serious effect on the balance of payments and in other ways.
  We must emphasise the extreme difficulty of getting this fuel. There is plenty of fuel in the world, but it is extremely difficult and expensive to get, and we can spend more in getting it than it proves to be worth.
  In my constituency the oil development is behind schedule. In Flotta the oil will not flow until autumn. I was assured by many authorities that it would flow last autumn. The only man who thought otherwise was the local manager, who regarded that idea as nonsense. That was denied by everybody else. At present there is an industrial dispute at Sullom Voe, which may hold up the oil supply. I shall say no more on that point, because there is a further meeting tomorrow, and the matter may be resolved.
  The public must realise that winning North Sea oil is not like plucking apples from a tree; it is an extremely expensive and difficult operation. Many problems have to be solved by industry before oil can be sold at a profit, and the situation is always difficult to forecast. Obviously, we should not like to see the price kept up artificially. On the other hand, if the price drops suddenly, many calculations will be thrown out. We have to justify the immense investment that is being poured into the North Sea. Therefore, I hope that when we examine the existing powers in the Bill we shall be able

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  to examine in detail the question of price control either in an emergency period or in general.
  Behind all these matters, in financial terms we in Orkney and Shetland are gaining a great deal from the discovery of oil, although to some extent we are suffering in other ways. The ordinary people of this country want to be assured that the benefits that flow to them will be kept in mind. They would like to know that if there is a chance of cheaper heating, motor fuel, and so forth, advantage will be taken of that situation.
  A certain danger is involved if we look at these matters too much from a global point of view rather than if we regard oil as a national asset to be used to bring down the cost of living and in other ways to improve our general situation. I await the Committee stage of the Bill, at which time I hope that we shall have a useful discussion. The Bill must be regarded as a miscellaneous provisions measure more than anything else.
  5.24 p.m.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: I agree with the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) and other speakers who have pointed to a confusion in the Bill between questions of crisis measures and the extension of measures which the Government might find it necessary to take as issues involving energy conservation. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) that the title of the Bill is a little pretentious. It sounds all-embracing but, as the hon. Member for Oswestry said, it is, in effect, a miscellaneous provisions Bill.
  On the other hand, I was surprised when the hon. Gentleman's friends in another place complained that the Bill tried to do too much and sought to interfere with the free market and all the rest of it. I was intrigued to hear the reference made to the fact that it was the oil companies who were out to defend freedom. I am not sure that I would agree with that sentiment. The issue is a little more than the British Government can deal with, and the oil companies are powerful institutions well capable of resisting all kinds of attacks, if that is the right word, from the present Government.
  I have listened to many debates in this House on topics such as defence
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  and foreign affairs, and in such matters we are almost like the Denbighshire County Council seeking to lay down its policy on Vietnam. I am not prepared to accept the premise that the British Government are seeking to usurp our freedoms and that it is the oil companies which are the last bastions in the protection of our freedoms. However, I agree with what has been said about the confusion in the Bill and its title.
  The Bill seems to have been used as a bag into which to dump one or two morsels. In the other place the Bill was referred to as a collation of snacks. It is as though the extension of a previous Act is being used to provide for labels to be stuck on motor cars to show the miles per gallon and all the rest of it.
  I appreciate that loopholes sometimes have to be closed and hence the provisions to limit flaring of gas. However, after three years of post-crisis situation there is little that we in this country or, indeed, we in the European Community have contributed towards a policy of energy conservation or, as the phrase goes, a. more rational use of energy. We have already brought in speed limits and provisions to control the lighting on advertisements as well as measures to govern industrial buildings. There have also been numerous exhortations to the public.
  Mr. Albert Roberts: My My hon. Friend will appreciate that the National Coal Board is a little embarrassed since it has 32 million tons of coal in stock. Therefore, does he not agree that it is not so much a matter of conservation as of using the indigenous fuels we possess?
  Mr. Ellis: I agree with my hon. Friend, but I am sure he would agree that nobody would advocate the wasteful use of a source of energy to make things better for a particular sector of the energy industry. It seems to me that little has been done to develop an effective energy conservation policy or a more rational use of energy.
  It so happens that the European Community has an objective in regard to this problem involving a rational use of energy. The community aims by 1985 to achieve a reduction in the use of energy from what it would have been had no conservation measures been

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  introduced. Indeed, the index in terms of energy consumption related to units of GDP means that in 1973 a figure of 1·12 kg. of oil was used per Community unit of account. The objective is that the figure of consumption in terms of GDP should be reduced by 1982 to 1·05 kg. If that were achieved, which means that the conservation programme would be realised, there would be an estimated saving of 240 million tonnes of oil equivalent. It must be accepted that this is a very large potential saving indeed. To that extent we are disappointed that so little has been done in the Bill to achieve that objective.
  Yesterday I asked a supplementary question of the Minister of State, Department of Energy, involving the amount of our nation's ongoing capital expenditure devoted to the development of the British sector of the North Sea. I was given a short two-word brush-off—"Not enough". That may be so, but it is a large fraction. Figures have been quoted as great as 11 per cent. of our total capital investment being invested to develop North Sea oil. Here is strong evidence that the question of conservation of energy is important and should be treated seriously by the Government.
  So far, that effort seems to have been confined to exhortation and to limits on lighting and other matters. There is another area that is open to a substantial saving in energy, and I refer to the industrial manufacturing sector of British industry. The hon. Member for Oswestry quoted Sir Arthur Hawkins and spoke of the swingeing down-turn resulting from the rising prices. I find the argument on the prices front extremely difficult. If we study the index which illustrates how energy prices have risen in comparison with consumer prices, taking 1970 as the base year and 100 as the base figure, in the last quarter of 1975 Britain's consumer prices increased from the base figure to 176·6 and the price of fuels and energy increased to 177, a similar increase. I obtained these figures from the statistics of the statistical office of the EEC.
  In some other countries—notably France, Germany and Denmark—there is a substantial difference in that the consumer index has risen at a slower pace than the energy index. It can be presumed
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  that those countries have deliberately allowed the price of fuel and energy to increase at a proportionately greater rate than consumer prices. Unfortunately, I do not have statistics to show whether there is a causal effect and, if so, how much of an effect, between prices and energy consumption. I suspect that Sir Arthur Hawkins is probably offering his own personal experience of an industry which is a heavy consumer of fuel.
  It so happens that there are great differences between the electricity generation industry and the coal industry, for example, and manufacturing industry. For example, in manufacturing industry fuel costs tend to be comparatively small when expressed as a proportion of total costs. They range from 2 per cent. to, say, 6 per cent. Although manufacturing industry has an institutionalised concern for costs and has cost accountancy procedures, the sharpness of its awareness is blunted by the fact that fuel costs are a comparatively small proportion of its total costs when compared with the costs incurred by heavy industry.
  A substantial part of the costs of heavy industry stems from primary fuels. Another factor which makes manufacturing industry such a potentially profitable area to work in from the point of view of saving energy is that in the manufacturing sector returns on investment are usually looked for over a comparatively short period—for example, between two years and three years. In some of the heavier industries, such as the coal and electricity industries, it may be that decades will go by before a return on capital accrues. Anyone who was anxious to sell an energy-saving scheme to an industrialist in the manufacturing sector would have to sell it on the basis that it would produce results in two or three years. That is another reason for that sector of industry being an appropriate sector for study.
  One of the great problems is that only a small amount of statistical information is available by which we can make a meaningful assessment. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East spoke about the advisability of testing cars after they had been in service for three years, four years or five years. That would be a good thing, but we do not know whether the effort involved in that testing

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  operation would be justified by the returns. I am not saying that it would or it would not. We simply do not know.
  I am disappointed that, three years after the crisis occurred, so little seems to have been done by the Government in developing their statistical information service to enable us to make a careful assessment of the work that is necessary and the work that has been done.
  I sum up by saying that I support the Bill. It is clearly a measure that will get general support. However, at the same time I cannot help but express a great deal of disappointment in that it contains so little that will lead to the development of a sound energy policy. Undoubtedly we do not find in it the conservation policy that it should have contained. Failing that, there should have been an entirely different and separate Bill dealing specifically with conservation and avoiding the confusion to which reference has been made.
  5.35 p.m.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: I think that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) made a very good speech. I am certain that his ideas on conservation will be read by the Department.
  I have thumbed through the Bill, and my comment to the Government is that if they were prepared to accept it I, too, should be prepared to accept it. I am disappointed to find that they have upset many of the Bill's provisions by giving certain undertakings this afternoon. We are now back to square one. In another place, careful revision work was done on Clauses 3 and 8. All that was secured by compromise and negotiation has now been rejected. We are heading straight back to a period of confrontation.
  I asked the Minister to refer to Clause 8(2), which is merely a re-enactment. It is a mandatory consent. If natural gas is to be used as feedstock for the chemical industry, the Minister will give his consent. The respectable antecedent for that situation is Section 9 of the Continental Shelf Act 1964, which worked perfectly well for the industry over the intervening years. I think that there has been only one application. There has been no objection from the industry, and I cannot see any objection from the Government of the day. However, we are to turn back,
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  on the ground that the Government feel that methane could be used to produce methanol, which could be used for gasoline. Of course, a large amount of the methanol could find its way abroad, as a chemical intermediate.
  I do not think that the Minister has had an opportunity to study the 1975 report of his own Department on methane-derived alcohols. The report states that
  "There is no firm evidence that under normal driving conditions the use of methanol-alcohol-petrol blends can lead to significant improvements in petrol consumption or thermal efficiency. With the newer designs of car engines with leaner fuel to air ratios the use of methanol might be a disadvantage both from the fuel economy and driveability viewpoints."
  I hope that the Department will study the summary with some care and that the Minister will take it in. The summary states that
  "the working party considered that there was no proven technical case for introducing a blend of petrol containing methanol and higher homologues as a motor spirit."
  What is the point of the Minister's suggestion that he will bring back a certain provision because of the fear of the production of methanol from natural gas, which is very valuable as a chemical intermediate and valuable for the production of ammonia for both fertilisers and synthetic fibres? In other words, he is raising a scare in what is known as a conservation Bill, for purposes that are not there.
  I now move to Clause 8(4)(b). Provision is to be extended, and extended not merely to include methane but ethane, butane and propane. This is a singular event, because in another place the amendment as it now stands was accepted by Her Majesty's Government. What they are doing is turning down their own suggestion, or their own acceptance in another place. I have never known a Government to show such inconsistency, but here are the Government hoist with their own petard.
  The Gas Act 1972 provided that the British Gas Corporation should have control of natural gas. That is how it came to be interpreted over the years. That applied to gas made from coal and later to methane plus. In the old days everybody knew the specification of gas for

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  the British Gas Corporation—it was methane, and only methane. That has now been extended to cover liquid petroleum gases. Although the corporation is not an operator in that sector, we are told that it must have extended powers, and that it must go into competition in an international industry in which it has no concern.
  When I look further down page 9 I see, in Clause 8(6), that
  "The Secretary of State's consent under this Section"—
  those outside the House may be interested to find out precisely what can be done—
  "may in any case be made subject to conditions framed by reference to the description or origin of the gas, or the quantities to be supplied, used or disposed of, or the manner of supply or use, or otherwise howsoever."
  In other words, the Secretary of State can say anything he likes and the conditions can be subject to negotiation, in which he brings in whatever terms he pleases. [Interruption.] I did not hear that observation. If the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) gets off his seat, we may hear his explanation. I need not bother about that. I go to the architects who will give us guidance on how this matter came about. The Secretary of State is to hold an energy conference, at which he will be the peacock for the occasion. The right hon. Gentleman will listen to many speeches. One paper is to be presented by Frances Morrell and Francis Cripps, his political advisers in the Department.
  What do we find?
  "the Government might exercise direct administrative control and override the merit order of use in the interests of national fuel balance…It has been seen that a planned energy policy would involve deciding which fuels should be used, and by whom and how they should be used, just as much as deciding how the supply industries should develop."
  In other words, a complete, planned economy. The Minister of State said that he was captive. The Secretary of State is a fugitive of his Department and the Department is interventionist. They want not a free market ecnomy but one that is strictly controlled. I should have thought that was not in the interests of the British economy.
  I should like to bring out one or two of the conclusions that I have drawn in
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  putting together the permanent controls over use and price that the Secretary of State is seeking. Reading the revised Clause 3 in conjunction with the threatened revision of Clause 8, the Secretary of State will have a level for the introduction of planning agreements into the oil industry and the petrochemical industry. I have confirmation from the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary.
  Mr. Joseph Ashton: I did not say a word.
  Mr. Skeet: The hon. Gentleman nodded his head in assent. It is extraordinary how one can—
  Mr. Ashton: I was actually falling asleep.
  Mr. Skeet: If the hon. Gentleman falls asleep by nodding his head in assent, it is an extraordinary way of doing so. But I have confirmation that that is what the Department is after. It is surprising that it should be moving in that direction. It is like the North Sea package "You can have additional licences provided you give the Government 51 per cent. of your concessions. The use of gas by the chemical industry will be subject to negotiation." The Government will be able to extract what they want in some extraordinary way, which may not appertain to the matter in question.
  This proposal could prevent the diversification of fuels by the electricity industry. Such fuels have been captive by the National Coal Board for too long. It will constitute a stranglehold over the input of the petrochemical industry. It will have a bearing on price. It will have an effect not only on naphtha, which is one of the building blocks of the petrochemical industry, but also on the subsequent price of everything derived from it—ethylene, propylene, butadiene, and so on. It will also have the effect of strengthening and extending the British Gas Corporation's monopoly. It will prevent the export of methanol and ammonia. It will devise methods of circumventing exports of certain petroleum products and chemicals contrary to Article 34 of the Treaty of Rome. It will also manipulate the petroleum and chemical industries in favour of the BNOC, the British Gas Corporation and the National Coal Board.

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  The Minister now shakes his head. It is good to have this response. That was not assent, of course.
  One need only refer to the BNOC's paper for submission to the energy conference. That suggests that the oil sector should be completely State-managed, just like coal, gas, electricity and nuclear energy. This is supposed to be a new corporation.
  Mr. Jack Jones of the Transport and General Workers Union—the architect of the great ideas for the unions and management, and on the pay proposals —has indicated that the BNOC should move as quickly as possible into chemicals and plastics, That by itself is disturbing.
  I have not overlooked Labour's programme for 1976, which states that
  "Through planning agreements we must be able to issue in the national interest directives on a wide range of industrial matters."
  Even the Emperor Constantine, if he were alive today, would find that there are more edicts now available than in Roman times.
  Is this the way to run an industry? When I first heard about the idea of an Energy Bill, I expected a consolidation measure. These are not consolidating proposals. The Government have not done what the Americans have done in their 1975 enactment. They have not accepted the recommendation of the Select Committee on Science and Technology—of which the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) was the chairman—that we should have many conservation proposals. Several years have passed since the oil crisis in 1973.
  The Government have not done what the Federal Republic of Germany has done. The German Energy Protection Law of 1975 is worthy of consideration by this House. The Germans put it this way:
  "The regulations shall be limited to that means, which are absolutely essential for adjustment to any endangerment to or interruption in the energy supply. Said regulations shall, in particular, be so framed as to interfere to the least possible extent with individual freedom and economic activity, furthermore so structured as to provide for the least possible effect on the overall economy."
  I need hardly mention that the German economy is particularly prosperous. Their example, which many have recommended,
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  should be followed here. Their ideas on conservation should not be overlooked.
  My hon. Friend mentioned the various strands in the Bill. It is not an Energy Bill at all. There is little in it on that matter. It contains emergency provisions, which I support, but it also contains provisions that I do not support—provisions that give the Government permanent powers affecting one industry—petroleum and petroleum products.
  If a commodity is in short supply—petroleum, tin, lead, zinc, or anything else—are we to have State control over it for all time? Why is the Minister seeking permanent powers for ever? The only review in Parliament is by the negative procedure—a debate of one and a half hours. It is not by the affirmative procedure. There is no need to have it. I think that is correct.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Gordon Oakes): In a domestic emergency it must be by the affirmative procedure. If it is an international emergency coming from Europe, it will be by the negative procedure.
  Mr. Skeet: The Minister has not been listening. He is referring to Clause 3 (1)(a) and (b). I am dealing with subsection (3) and the new provisions being brought in for permanent price controls. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take the Bill away and study it to his heart's content. I hope that he will get it straight. I am talking not about the emergency powers in Clause 3(1)(a) and (b), but about the permanent powers that he is seeking to bring in in subsection (3). The Minister said that those permanent powers are desirable for the purpose of conserving energy and to effect price control. Those matters are not in the interests of the industry. This is the only industry in the United Kingdom that has been selected for permanent price controls. The tin and copper industries and other raw materials are not under the permanent check of any Government department. Why has the Minister sought to do that here unless he is not to follow the suggestions of the Department's political advisers, Morrell and Cripps, to ensure that the industry is "properly" planned? The Minister may laugh, but he knows that I have hit the nail on the head.

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  Also, the Minister must ask himself, if he wants to follow the suggestion that this is to be a conservation Bill, what will he do about price controls when they come? If one is going for conservation, prices will have to be high to deter consumption. If the prices are too low, too much will be sold on the market and supplies will be exhausted.
  I promised that I would not speak for long on this occasion. Many of my colleagues will wish to speak in the debate. However, I conclude by referring to merely one or two final points on prices. The Government's policy on downside drift, which is a basic minimum price which is being negotiated in Europe today—which is being opposed by the French—is wanted by the Government to keep the price of crude oil at $7 a barrel. Therefore, the Government's prime policy is to keep up the price of crude oil. I can understand why. They want to cash in on the North Sea. For patriotic reasons, I am not against that.
  However, let not the Government hood-wink the public. How can they possibly determine the price of products such as naphtha—determine either its use or price—which is quoted in dollars, when the pound is steadily depreciating and when companies have to pay more for it on the market? If the Government mean to do something on prices, let them arrest the depreciation of sterling permanently and adopt sounder policies. They are responsible for the inflation in the economy and for the escalation of the prices of many of the products which are utilised by the chemical industry. Furthermore, how can one possibly determine prices in any realistic manner if one ignores the pressure of demand?
  The price of naphtha—and naphtha will be one of the products that will be controlled by the Minister himself—has risen from $37 a tonne to close on $150 a tonne at present. Will the Minister say to the chemical industry "That price is too high. I am prepared to assist you by cutting the price back to $100 a tonne and to give you a considerable subsidy", or will he buy it on the international market and pay for the difference?
  If the Government intend to bring in these Socialist proposals, let the Minister say precisely how he will do it. What
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  is the point of having price controls under the Price Code at the same time as separate price controls by his own Department?
  I appreciate that I must not speak for much longer on this occasion. All of these matters will be raised again in Committee.
  In conclusion, I suggest that Clause 3 is most contentious. It has been made so by the action of the Secretary of State.
  Clause 8 is now totally contentious, because the Secretary of State has sought to divide industry and to fortify the monopoly position of the British Gas Corporation at the expense of the chemical industry. He is putting a premium on the use of gas as a fuel and is denying the chemical industry the right to a premium use—that is, to upgrade it into a chemical feedstock and finally into chemicals.
  Tonight we have to vote on the Bill as it is before us. As I indicated in my introductory remarks, I shall not vote against the Bill. However, if the Bill comes back from Committee in a mangled form I shall not be able to give it my personal support.
  5.54 p.m.
  Mr. Colin Phipps: As with all energy debates, I begin by declaring my interests. They are set out in full in the Register of Members' Interests, to which I refer the House.
  I start, as other hon. Members have done, by pointing out that in many respects this is a miscellaneous provisions Bill. Perhaps I may be allowed by the House to deal with one of the matters that the Bill does not contain. It has been suggested in the debate that other things could not be put into the Bill. That is not so. There have been miscellaneous provisions Bills in which other things have been included. In the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill recently before the House, what turned out to be the major item contained in it was introduced in Committee. The element that I should like to see included in this Bill is the consultation document—"United Kingdom Offshore Petroleum Production Licensing, Fifth Round—a Consultation Document".

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  On 27th May the Secretary of State, in giving a Written Answer to a Question, said that he would be placing a copy of the consultative document in the Library—which he did—and that he was making arrangements for discussion with various sectors of the industry. He said specifically:
  "I am approaching the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association, the Confederation of British Industry, and the trade unions to suggest consultations on the basis of the document. I hope to complete these consultations during June, and then to prepare Regulations, to be laid in due course before Parliament prior to inviting applications."—[Official Report, 27th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 303.]
  There is a significant omission in that paragraph—that is, the House of Commons. There seems to be no provision whatever to discuss the document in the House, and the time scale—that is, completion during June—gives us about 15 days in which to discuss it, should the opportunity arise. I know that the Secretary of State has indicated to the industry that applications in the fifth round might be invited as early as 1st August, and I think that that is the date to which the Government are intending to adhere. That means that any Regulation placed before the House—I assume in the form of a Statutory Instrument, although it is not said how the Regulation would be placed before the House—would not be subject to discussion by the House.
  This is a very serious omission, because the document raises a number of considerable and important departures from previous practice. These departures are of a number of kinds. There are departures which will technically be bad for the next round of licensing or, indeed, for the development of the industry. There are departures which are bad for the United Kingdom. I am greatly surprised that they should have been included by the Secretary of State.
  This is a consultation document and, therefore, this matter is up for consultation. I have to take advantage of this debate to raise these matters in the House. It is wrong that I should be the only Member who should speak about them. I should like us to have a debate on these matters. If that cannot take place on the Floor of the House, let us include it in the Committee stage of the Bill so that at least on Report and Third
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  Reading the House will have an opportunity to discuss them.
  I should like to point out one or two items in the consultation document which seem to require a great deal of thought and discussion. It is proposed that the fifth round should be a much smaller round of 50 or 60 blocks and that they should have a wide geographical spread. I think that the intention of having such a round is fully understood in the House. It is that we should even out activities in the North Sea and in particular the shore-based activities that go along in conjunction with them. We have had enough boom and slump already within the platform-building industry in its short life, and anything that we can do to even out the general development of the onshore industry should be done.
  However, in picking a round so small all sorts of questions are raised. First, there are in the North Sea already considerably more than 60 consortia. I do not know how many there are altogether but I suspect that there are about 120. It is certainly twice as many as there are blocks proposed to be issued. These are all consortia that have already developed expertise, and they are spending money in the North Sea. By definition and by simple statistical analysis, 50 per cent. are bound not to get anything. That is assuming that every licence will be a one-block licence. It is very probable that some larger companies—I would not dissent from this—such as the British Gas Corporation, Shell and BP and companies of that kind will get more than one block. If that is so, the number of blocks left over for the 120 consortia becomes even smaller.
  I think this will be destructive, in particular to the nascent British oil industry. I make no apologies for speaking up for it as I am very much involved in it. A great deal of work has been put in by British companies and, I would be upset to find that there was a round in which they did not participate.
  But there are other technical difficulties with this. We are told there will be a wide spread. This goes against the proper form of developing an area. It is also a two-edged sword. If we give a few blocks in the Western Approaches, it would be very nice if they all gave positive indications. In such an event

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  the Government would have no trouble at all in getting a lot of people for future rounds. However, if the indications were negative we would have a great deal of difficulty in getting companies to come in future. There have to be a sufficient number of blocks to enable a proper and sufficient technical evaluation to be made of an area. That would allow a lot of work to be done and more information to be gathered which would enable a better understanding to be reached on the geological facts which are needed in finding oil and gas.
  In addition, a large number of blocks gives a better opportunity for sharing pipelines. In a purely technical sense, going for a small round is damaging and it seems to be totally unnecessary. I would have thought that 100 to 120 blocks in one reasonable province was a much more sensible way of approaching this problem. It would also get away from another difficulty—the new requirement for relinquishment. Under this, one-third of an area must be relinquished after four years and another one-third after three years. With a larger number of blocks, there would be a degree of flexibility in choosing the areas of the blocks which one would give up. In the proposed circumstances, most licences must be single-block licences. The companies which actually got a licence would find themselves with one block, and after seven years they would have to give up two thirds of it.
  Then we come to the requirements for minimum shape and size of an area to be given up. There are existing requirements in this respect which, if continued, would mean that it would be impossible for any company, having found an oil accumulation covering 50 per cent. of its block, to retain more than 50 per cent. of that oil accumulation. This is unfair and the Department must give deeper thought to this point.
  There are a number of other issues raised which are important and significant.
  Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman is doing the House a great service by enabling this debate to cover the consultative document. Is it his impression that the provisions on relinquishment exist to try to accelerate the exploration activity and, therefore, help the offshore industry? If
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  that is his impression, would he agree that it is rather unsatisfactory that the Secretary of State declines to give any indication of the possible consequences in platform and rig ordering for the hard-pressed offshore industries?
  Dr. Phipps: I think that the consultative document has been prepared with very good intentions in mind. It intends that we should produce extra business and that we should level out what is already going on. Unfortunately, the approach which is taken will not have that effect. I am anxious, therefore, that the House should have an opportunity to debate the Bill. Most of us on this side of the House agree that this is a good intent, but if it is not to be brought about by the consultative document there should be an opportunity to point out the reasons.
  The arrangement whereby the BNOC has to pay its share of exploratory and appraisal costs is one which I would question. The only other country I know of which actually does this is Pakistan. I do not know of another country which actually calls upon its national company to pay half its appraisal costs. I am sure it is an aspect which would not be widely approved of on this side of the House if anyone were here to approve or disapprove. Maybe the Secretary of State felt that it was not worth having it in the Bill because the tiny band of us who turn up for these energy debates is not sufficient to give it a proper airing. In any situation in which there may be 20 exploration wells drilling at $8 million a time, the BNOC has to find $80 million. I would rather see that money spent in the development phase.
  The Minister says that the BNOC is allowed to enter into agreements, of the kind which it is currently negotiating, for which it would not put up front-end cash. I want to impress on the House that this is a consultative document for the big companies. It certainly is not for the smaller British companies.
  Mr. Biffen: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that it is quite extraordinary how the Secretary of State has got away with this one as far as the carried interest element is concerned? The hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan), the hon. Member for Bolsover

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  (Mr. Skinner) and the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) have all been berating the Secretary of State for becoming increasingly a lackey for the oil majors. Today they are absent on the one occasion when they could develop a case and we could hear from them exactly why they think that the Government have been reneging on the implications of participation which were contained in the General Election manifesto.
  Dr. Phipps: It is not for me to tell the House what my hon. Friends below the Gangway might or might not have done. It is a pity that there are not more of them here today. Under the terms of the legislation before us, however, there is no reason for them to come here and debate it. It is a pity that we cannot have a debate which would enable them to do so.
  Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: What the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) says is unfair. My hon. Friends are in Committee elsewhere. I take the point that the consultative document should be discussed in the House of Commons, but this is a matter for the Leader of the House and for business. The document is a consultative document and after consultation it will become the basis of further proposals. There is no statutory need for us to take any further powers in order to carry out what we intend in the consultative document. I might say that this is not exactly the most appropriate place to discuss this matter.
  Mr. Biffen rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Do I understand that the hon. Member is addressing the House? Could we have one intervention at a time? The hon. Gentleman may get his chance in a moment.
  Mr. Biffen: I would merely like to take this opportunity of thanking the Minister for explaining why his three hon. Friends were absent. In these circumstances I would not wish my remarks to bear the interpretation that I thought that they were neglecting their duty. I hope they will have an opportunity on Report to make their arguments.
  Dr. Phipps: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. I realise that I am raising a subject which the Front Bench was not expecting to have to
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  debate, and I do not therefore anticipate a lengthy answer on these points. My hon. Friend makes the point that this is a consultative document. I understand that the Department of Energy would not be unhappy to see the matter debated. If I am doing anything here today, it is to try to impress upon the House the importance of such a debate so that possibly on Thursday afternoon we may be able to make a concerted onslaught on my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to arrange a debate.
  I have one final point concerning the consultative document as it affects operating agreements. An operating agreement must be agreed with the BNOC before application is made. Let us suppose that 50 desirable blocks are put up for application and that 50 consortia are interested in them. The quite extraordinary position arises in which the BNOC has to negotiate a separate operating agreement with every one of those consortia for every one of the blocks. I calculate that as 2,500 separate discussions. I do not know whether the technical resources of the BNOC are sufficient to undertake this task, but I am sure that there will be no time between 1st August and the date 90 or 120 days later when the Department makes its decision.
  I hope that I have been able to highlight a few of the issues which arise and on which the House might take both a Tribune and a Conservative view. There are many points which need discussing, and I hope that we shall have the opportunity of a debate on them before 1st August when these matters seem likely to become a fait accompli.
  I wish to raise a point about the Bill which concerns the position of the United Kingdom with respect not only to the International Energy Agency and OPEC but to the oil majors themselves. There can be little question that in the North Sea the cost of finding and producing oil dominates the economics of conservation. It is all very well saying that we shall have the ability to conserve, but North Sea oil is extremely expensive to exploit. All the investment is in the front end. It is not like a land field where operators can drill a single well, link it to a pipeline and add other wells as time goes by. All the investment is in the front end in platforms, pipelines

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  and wells, and the facilities have to be there before operators can begin to exploit the field. That means that the cost of exploitation is known from day one. It puts the country in a difficult position should world oil prices drop below the base economic price for recovering North Sea oil.
  It is difficult for us as a country, except in most exceptional circumstances, to tell companies which have made this vast front-end investment that they may not produce their oil at a rate that will cover their investment. Conservation of this kind will be difficult in the absence of high prices. It is therefore very much in the self-interest of the United Kingdom to keep oil prices up.
  Mr. Skeet: Does not the hon. Member consider it incumbent upon the Government to make an early statement, subsequent to their December statement, on depletion policy? If they want companies to come in on the fifth round, they must be able to satisfy the companies that they will be able to exploit the oil they discover.
  Dr. Phipps: That is one of the most important points that the Department will have to consider in future rounds. Thus, if we can produce more oil than we need we must ensure that that oil can be produced, not merely for the companies' sake but also for the sake of our balance of payments. We have been told recently by the Treasury how marvellous the oil revenues will be, and no one doubts that they will be at $11 per barrel, or even $9 per barrel. But at $7 per barrel the situation changes dramatically.
  In a peculiar way, therefore, our interests are not those of the International Energy Agency. In most cases they will be distinct from those of the IEA. Our interests are not those of the major oil companies. They have investments all over the world. It makes do difference to them whether they close in here or somewhere else. Our self-interest is, I believe, aligned with countries like Saudi Arabia more than it is with some of the other OPEC countries. The Saudis appear still to be prepared to support the price of oil at current levels. It makes a lot more sense for them to produce 6 million barrels a day at $11 a barrel
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  rather than 10 million barrels a day at $8 a barrel. Therefore, our interest is in stability now, and it would require only another Libyan situation to upset the balance.
  It could happen that the Russians, for a variety of reasons, might find it expedient to put 3 million barrels of their Siberian oil on the market sometime in the next three years. That could upset the balance so much that the Saudis would be unable to support the sort of price which operates now, and as soon as that support was withdrawn the price would come down.
  In arriving at our energy-pricing policy we have to recognise that if the price of North Sea oil drops we shall be faced not only with falling production but with a severe attack on our balance of payments. The idea that to discover more and more oil is good for us would collapse. We might even be in the position where it would not be of the slightest use because we could not get it out. In this connection we must consider the importance of the EEC markets. If EEC directives can determine the price of our oil, we must make it in the interest of the other members that oil prices should remain high. The sooner we do that by getting them to invest in the North Sea, no matter what the route of that investment, the better. I shall feel much more secure about future development and continued production.
  I come lastly to gas production and its sale to non-domestic users. In the United States the petrochemical industry has largely gone over to natural gas as a feedstock in recent years in preference to naphtha. There is a very good case for examining the development of North Sea gas as a chemical feedstock, because as such it would be able to attract a price which would make commercial many of the existing gas discoveries and associated gas discoveries which are not commercial. I do not know how the Department would effect a proper balance between the price that the British Gas Corporation wants to charge the domestic consumer—a low price—and a much higher price, which would be competitive with naphtha prices, for the petrochemical industry. Existing gas fields are not subject to petroleum revenue tax but future discoveries will be. If we change that PRT provision, we might give a distinct fillip

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  to our natural gas and petrochemical industries. I hope that these points will be taken into consideration.
  6.20 p.m.
  Mrs. Margaret Bain: I hope that the hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) will forgive me if I do not follow him into the ramifications of the total oil scene. The SNP gives broad general approval to the Bill because we welcome conservation measures. We believe that they are in the interests not only of Scotland and the United Kingdom but of developing nations. The same applies to the price of our natural resources. We should do a disservice to the developing nations if we charged too little for those resources, because they are also the resources of developing nations.
  Many of the economic problems of the Western world are due to the fact that for far too long we looked on natural resources as infinite and cheap. We now have to recognise that they are finite and must be paid for. The jobs associated with these resources are not infinite either. No Government can extend the areas in which jobs directly related to these resources will be involved, but I ask the Government to ensure, particularly in Scotland, that these resources are used as widely as possible to prevent the troughs and peaks which we have seen so often in the economy and which bring social as well as economic problems.
  Dr. J. Dickson Mabon indicated assent.
  Mrs. Bain: I see the Minister nodding in agreement. I am sure that, coming from the West of Scotland, he appreciates this kind of problem.
  We need to know more about the long-term conservation strategy of the International Energy Agency and the EEC. The Bill is being discussed in a void because we have little idea of their long-term plans. What relevance will the IEA have for resources in Scotland? As today's papers show, Scotland is already self-sufficient in oil. We celebrated 14th June as Oil Independence Day. With 200,000 barrels a day coming ashore, Scotland's needs can now be supplied. Will our resources be used
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  to supply those of other countries, and how will that fit in with conservation? Will it be surplus resources that are redirected and curtailed? What effect will the IEA have on natural gas? Where does it fit into the equation?
  Several hon. Members have mentioned Clause 3 of the Bill. I am sure that some will be surprised to hear me defend the institution of Westminster, but, whatever my views of the shortcomings of this place, it is essential that elected representatives of the people should have full rights of scrutiny over any legislation. In Clause 3(1)(b) the exceptional circumstances are not defined closely enough. It does not appear that the elected representatives will have the right to question in any detail. I hope that we shall receive further definition of the exceptional circumstances and how far any powers used would be extended.
  Under Clause 11, since Torness was recently given up as superfluous, will Scottish electricity and gas boards be restricted in their use of gas for power stations?
  I welcome the clause relating to cars and fuel consumption as a step in the right direction. Because the new Hunter is doing so well, because of its fuel consumption, all the men are now employed at Chrysler, Linwood, and they are expecting to take on 2,000 more. That is great news for the west of Scotland.
  I hope that the standards suggested for new cars will also be applied to used cars. We have to fight many cases for our constituents relating to used cars. In one that I am fighting at the moment, a used car was bought on the basis of misleading information about fuel consumption. If the same standard were applied to used cars, many problems would be avoided.
  The wealth of Scotland is in stark contrast to the situation of the whole of the United Kingdom. I am thinking particularly of the cuts in education expenditure, which mean that many local authorities cannot provide their communities with the services they would like to give. When drafting Bills like this, the Government should remember that Scotland will have an Assembly and eventually independence. They should consider such legislation carefully and think of the ease of transfer of such

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  powers to an eventual Scottish Parliament.
  6.27 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Rost: It is more than two and a half years since the Western world was faced with the energy emergency and the huge increase in oil prices which has led to many of the problems that we are still trying to combat. Although the Government took some measures to conserve energy in December 1974–18 months ago—we still have no conservation policy which merits that description. I was a member of the Select Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) which produced a detailed report containing 46 recommendations for short-, medium- and long-term measures that this country could apply to make more rational use of its energy. That report appeared last September but has still received no response from the Government.
  Therefore, it is two and a half years since the first emergency, more than 18 months since the introduction of what the then Government called a "preliminary package"—mostly an advertising and promotion campaign—and a year since the Select Committee reported. We were told in the Queen's Speech at the beginning of this Parliament that the Government would introduce an energy conservation Bill. It is against that background that I must express my disappointment with this Bill.
  Far from being an energy conservation measure and a genuine attempt to deal with the problem and to produce more rational use of our energy, it is a hotch-potch of wide-ranging general terms. I regard it as a missed opportunity. Certainly it has very little to do with more rational use policies.
  Bearing in mind that the provision of energy is now our most important single industry—it absorbs 15 per cent. of our gross domestic product, which is about £15 billion a year or about the amount that it takes to feed the nation—one would have imagined that over the past two and a half years the House could have found time at least for a debate on the need to make better use of the energy that we have and to provide it more efficiently. Despite suggestions and protestations, however, there has not been a
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  single debate specifically on energy conservation since the emergency first arose.
  We have had several debates on EEC energy policy which have been used as a peg by one or two enthusiasts like me on which to make contributions. And thanks to you, Mr. Speaker, I was even allowed an Adjournment debate in which I was able to make some suggestions about what the country should be doing. But we have not had a debate on the specific matter of providing more rational use policies, despite the emergency, despite the report of the Select Committee and despite the vast resources which are absorbed by the nation in the provision of our energy.
  When considering what a large proportion of our energy resources are wasted, I have to refer to the latest report from the Department, which is its first serious contribution towards the production of an energy strategy for the country. I refer to the discussion document on energy research and development in the United Kingdom, published this week by ACORD, of which Dr. Walter Marshall is chairman. That report confirms what many of us have been saying and what many other reports have suggested over recent months: that is, that there is very substantial scope for energy conservation in the country, that only 40 per cent. of the United Kingdom's primary energy input performs a useful function and that the other 60 per cent. is rejected. There is no suggestion that we can conserve that other 60 per cent. But the report indicates that we could conserve a considerable proportion of that 60 per cent. and that probably we could increase the useful energy input from 40 per cent. to 60 per cent. if we had a constructive rational use policy.
  I say this by way of expressing my disappointment that this Energy Bill, which purports to be concerned with conservation, really is nothing of the kind. There are only two clauses which can be described as directly relevant to improving the use and efficiency of our energy. One is the power to control the burn of gas in electricity generation. That is a genuine measure which will reduce the wastage of energy. The second is an extraordinary attempt to advertise the fuel efficiency of motor cars. I shall refer to that again presently. Apart

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  from those two provisions, the other clauses provide only very wide-ranging powers and controls. They do not introduce constructive provisions for more rational use policies.
  In developing the argument that the Government are only paying lip service to the need for more rational use policies, I want to refer to another document which was produced by the Government themselves. It came from the Advisory Council on Energy Conservation, of which Sir William Hawthorne is chairman and of which well-known celebrities like Derek Ezra are members. It is a body appointed by the Government to make constructive proposals for the better use of our energy. Last July, it came out with a report to the Secretary of State for Energy. It was a short report and very much to the point, and one significant passage in that report to which, so far as I am aware, the Government have made no response—certainly there is none in this legislation—refers to the disincentives which still exist for energy conservation. It says:
  "At present there are some clear fiscal disincentives to private consumers…there is a need for the Government to review these disincentives in a more positive way."
  There is a wide range of disincentives, and I find it disappointing that in this legislation, despite all the prompting which has taken place over past months from all sorts of bodies and experts, the Government have still not seen fit to attempt to remove some of the fiscal disincentives which exist in our present system of taxation.
  We also have another very influential report published several months ago. I refer to the report of the Plowden Committee on the Structure of the Electricity Supply Industry. This again was a report commissioned by the Government. It was presented to the Department of Energy in January. It contains some very significant recommendations about the way in which the electricity industry, if reorganised, could make a more constructive contribution to energy conservation. Here again, I must express my disappointment that we have had no indication yet of even a response to the report. Certainly there is no indication that any of the clauses in this Bill attempts to deal with some of the important recommendations in the report.
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  I make one brief quotation from paragraph 4.22 of that report:
  "A good deal of evidence has been presented to us suggesting that the electricity industry could do more to secure the economic use of fuel…The industry's structure must not impede the economic use of resources."
  This is not the moment for me to elaborate on the way in which the electricity industry fails to make use of its fuel to the best advantage and the way in which it could be made to improve that position. We know that Dr. Walter Marshall is at the moment producing a report on the combined heat-and-power possibilities for the country, and I have no doubt that when that is published will be the time to debate these matters further.
  The fact remains that the Government have ducked the specific recommendations of the Plowden Committee. They have ducked the report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology on energy conservation. They have ignored the advice of their own Advisory Council on Energy Conservation, as they have ignored innumerable other bodies. Instead, we have here a hotch-potch of measures under the guise of a conservation Bill which goes very little further towards producing a more rational use of our energy.
  If I have not yet made my point, perhaps I might refer to the EEC and remind the House of what is going on there in comparison with what is not happening here. Admittedly there are two clauses in this legislation—Clauses 6 and 7—which are designed to meet our obligations under the EEC to increase stocks at power stations and so on. But I ask the House to consider whether that is really conservation. It does not reduce consumption and it does not remove the inefficiency. It is simple co-operation in case there is another emergency or shortage of supply.
  Apart, however, from the directives that we should prepare ourselves for an emergency, the EEC has come forward with a great many other strong recommendations about how we can use our energy more rationally and how we can save energy. The Government have not responded to those in any way. Most of our European partners have either carried out the other recommendations or are

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  doing so. I hope that the Minister will explain why he has not included other clauses, in addition to Clauses 6 and 7, which would make a more genuine contribution towards energy conservation as recommended by the EEC.
  I give three examples of what is happening in the EEC. First, according to the report of the Commission of 16th January 1976 on the action programme for the rational use of energy, every EEC country has proposed or is proposing through its Parliament to provide tax reliefs, grants or subsidies as an incentive to improve heating systems and thermal insulation—every country, that is, except the United Kingdom.
  Secondly, nearly every EEC country has provided or is providing incentives to promote combined heat and power production on a bigger scale than already exists for district heating and industry. The necessary incentives for co-operation between industry and the energy utilities are also being provided to encourage the utilisation of reject heat. In Germany, Denmark, Italy and Belgium the proportion of combined heat and power is already much higher than in this country. The condemnation is even stronger than I have suggested, because we are so much lower down the league already compared with our European counterparts. There is nothing in the Bill which removes the disincentives to promoting more combined heat and power, yet this is happening in Europe.
  I give a third example of where the Bill fails to implement recommendations which other EEC countries have adopted or are adopting. It relates to the siting of nuclear power stations. The four main countries which are embarking on a nuclear power programme—France, Germany, Belgium and Italy—have all agreed to reserve sites for new nuclear power stations only where they can be associated with industrial complexes, where the processed heat can be used. We are the only country that has not committed itself to do that. According to answers to my Questions to the Department, it has not accepted responsibility for issuing a directive about siting nuclear stations where we can achieve a thermal efficiency above the average 30 per cent. or 35 per cent. That will be possible only if the reject heat is used for industry.
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  I am disappointed that among the vast powers which the Government are taking unto themselves the Bill, under the pretext of energy conservation, does not include a clause specifically to provide for the siting of nuclear power stations where reject heat can be used.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: The hon. Gentleman is perhaps unwittingly misleading the House. In the report to which he referred the Community said that three years after the crisis one-third of the proposals had yet to be adopted, and 40 per cent. of those which had been adopted concerned simply public relations and the dissemination of information. Paragraph 9(b) says:
  "This means that very few steps have been taken to alter consumption structures and it might be feared that the underlying growth trend in energy consumption could strongly reassert itself once economic activity picks up."
  Mr. Rost: I am grateful for that intervention. I have studied that report in detail. It is only a digest of more detailed reports, which I have also studied. I was quoting specific examples of areas in the EEC where measures have been taken or are being taken for more rational use, measures which have not been adopted in this country. I gave the example of the nuclear power stations and thermal insulation and heating systems, where our European partners have provided or are in the process of providing the incentives to which I referred and we are not. I am not denying that there are other areas in which we have done as much or perhaps even more. The "Save It" campaign was probably more effective in this country than in other European countries. But that is not the point I was making.
  Clause 12 is one of the two clauses which I described as being apparently specifically aimed at energy conservation. It requires dealers in motor cars to advertise the fuel consumption of cars as independently tested—presumably by the Department. That is fair enough. If it is shown that it will be a worthwhile contribution to energy conservation, I shall not quibble about that. But it seems strange if, in a hotch-potch of legislation, we are not to have one clause specifically aimed at some degree of energy conservation.

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  It is strange that we do not have other clauses which would, for example, make it obligatory for the showrooms of the CEGB to advertise the fuel efficiency of electric cookers and refrigerators compared with gas cookers and refrigerators. If motor dealers must advertise their competitors' products, perhaps to their own disadvantage, why is not the CEGB being made to advertise the cost of running a cooker on electricity compared with the much more economical running on gas? It seems unfair that conservation proposal is not also included.
  Why are not builders of houses, such as local authorities. being asked to study the thermal efficiency and cost of heating their homes compared with a well-thermally-insulated and efficiently-heated home? The Select Committee which studied the matter of energy conservation proposed that the consumer should be better able to judge the cost of heating in one home compared with another. This applies to local authority buildings as much as to privately-built houses. It would make a far more valuable contribution to energy conservation than trying to deal with the motor industry.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's point of view and I can understand his concern. The Government may well have been thinking that if it was well advertised that the cheaper, mass-produced car did 40 or 50 miles to the gallon the patriotic company-director doing about 10 miles to the gallon in in Rolls-Royces were driving one of the patriotic for me to switch to the XYZ car, which does 45 miles to the gallon." We would then find that patriotic company directors who hitherto drove around in Rolls-Royces were driving one of the mass-produced cars. They would save energy and no doubt save the taxpayers' money, because those company directors write off expenses for tax purposes.
  Mr. Rost: I was attempting to draw my theme to a conclusion. I was emphasing that, if we have a Bill which purports to be a contribution to energy conservation, we should at least make it a decent one and have a range of proposals in it which are specific and go some way to meet advice and criticism from many sources.
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  I have further proposals for the type of clauses that would be suitable. Why not have a new proposal to replace the Government's failed loan scheme to industry? That scheme was small and was not taken up by industry because it was too restrictive. Why not have a proposal to change the statutory monopoly powers of the electricity supply industry, which discourages combined heat and power schemes in partnership with local authorities? Where is the clause to help pensioners and others who are housebound, in the lower income groups and trapped in an all-electrically-heated council house? Those people have to be bailed out by the taxpayers through supplementary benefits to pay their fuel bills and yet they cannot get grants for insulation. Such grants would be cost effective to the nation and would prevent people from having to pay bills for heat which they would not need to consume if they could afford insulation.
  A scheme of that kind would make better sense than a continuation of the genuine suffering experienced by a large proportion of people who have no alternative but to have their electricity in short supply or even cut off because they cannot afford the bills. They would not have to pay those bills if their homes were more efficiently heated and properly insulated. Grants are awarded for pantries, kitchens and bathrooms. Why are they not available for thermal insulation? That would save on our balance of payments and it would avoid distress.
  I have given a few examples of the type of measures which should be in the legislation. I hope that the Government will not think it is too late to come forward with amendments which could make the Bill a genuine energy conservation measure rather than the disappointing missed opportunity and excuse for wide-ranging control that it is. It should be a Bill which attempts to meet the urgent needs of the nation.
  6.55 p.m.
  Mr. Nigel Forman: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, which is disappointingly attended. I hope that in the future the House will encourage me, as a new Member, by taking a greater interest in the important subject of energy.

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  I do not want to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) too closely. Many of the points to which I wish to draw attention were admirably put by my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), who rightly said that the Bill might well be called the Energy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. It is little more than a shish-kebab of morsels served up by the chefs at Millbank Tower. It lacks coherence and a guiding theme. Winston Churchill was once reported to have said, when presented with a particularly unappetising pudding at a leading London restaurant, "Take it away, it has no theme". But if we took that line the Opposition might be open to misrepresentation. As the Bill stands, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry said, it is broadly acceptable to those of us who take an interest in these matters, provided that it reaches the statute book in a proper form.
  In the interests of clear discussion, I hope that the House on this occasion, and subsequently in Committee, will consider the Bill carefully by separating its component parts and examining them closely. That is something that the Department of Energy and its parliamentary draftsmen manifestly failed to do when the Bill was originally presented in the House of Lords.
  In an endeavour to practise what I preach, I shall separate three or four aspects of the Bill and say a few words about each of them. First, there are those aspects intended to enable the United Kingdom to meet its obligations as a member of the EEC and a participant in the international energy programme. As the Government argued in another place, it is obviously right that, to prepare for an oil emergency caused by international factors, the Government must have permanently available powers which will enable the United Kingdom to meet its obligations as a participant in the international energy programme's oil-sharing scheme. That means that the crisis management powers in the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973 must be permanently available without parliamentary approval being renewed each year. I understand and accept that.
  The Opposition need to be reassured, however, that under Clause 3 the powers
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  required solely to fulfil the United Kingdom's obligation to the International Energy Agency and the EEC in an emergency created by an international oil crisis will not be used unacceptably for dubious domestic purposes. We also want an assurance that the Draconian powers in the Bill will be speedily, immediately and even automatically deactivated when, by a decision of the International Energy Agency or the EEC, an international energy emergency is declared to be over.
  Secondly, there are aspects of the Bill which are intended to enable the Government to deal adequately with a domestic energy crisis. We must all have learned the often grim lessons of the winters of 1971–72 and 1973–74. There is a need for any Government, of whatever party, to have available appropriate powers and contingency measures for controlling the production, acquisition, use and supply of energy and for regulating oil prices during a domestic emergency, should that be necessary.
  I do not wish to quarrel with that aspect of Clause 3 as long as the Bill defines closely the domestic circumstances which will give rise to the activation of such powers and the circumstances in which temporary powers will be terminated when the emergency has passed, although I confess that greater flexibility may be needed at the latter rather than the former stage. The Opposition want to avoid any unnecessary or unacceptable extension of "war-time" emergency powers into the ordinary "peace-time" circumstances of energy use and supply.
  Thirdly, there are aspects of the Bill which are intended to enable the Government to exercise permanent controls on the use of energy in the interest of energy conservation. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South-East dwelt expertly upon this at considerable length. Many of the Bill's provisions are justified in the holy name of energy conservation. The Opposition must guard against any possibility that in the name of conservation the Government will try to extend political control effectively over the oil and chemical industries.
  In this context is was appropriate for my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry to quote the words of the Secretary of State when speaking from the Opposition Front Bench in the debate on the

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  Fuel and Electricity (Control) Bill on 26th November 1973. Those words serve as a warning to the Opposition of the possible long-range purposes of the Secretary of State when he uses, or perhaps I should say abuses, legislation of this kind.
  The Opposition presumably can have no reasonable objection to statutory conservation measures of the kind implemented in the 1973 Act. After all, they did not go very far and were confined to limits on space-heating levels in buildings, restrictions in the use of electricity for advertising and Regulations lowering the maximum speed limits on certain roads. All those measures are common ground between Government and Opposition. It is all desirable stuff, along with the ideas put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South-East, for better insulation standards in public buildings and more efficient conversion rates in power stations and in the general process of heat and power generation.
  However, if the Government, now or later, attempt to restore their powers for the permanent control of the price at which petroleum products must be supplied—here I am thinking of Clause 3(2)(b)—the Opposition would find such an initiative both illogical and unacceptable. It is illogical because the need to conserve energy is best met by allowing market forces to push up the price, thus reducing demand, as electricity demand has been reduced during the last two year or so. It is unacceptable because, with the exception of the possible need to control the price of paraffin to help old-age pensioners and others, price controls tend to distort the market and often damage industrial profitability. There is no case for singling out the 3,000 or so petroleum products which are affected by the Bill, and as the definition includes naphtha great harm could be done to the chemical industry, which is one of our major export earners.
  There are other aspects of the Bill about which my noble Friends in another place expressed serious reservations and sought successfully to have the Bill amended. The so-called "gas clauses" particularly Clause 8, were touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet). I am glad to see that certain improvements were made in
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  another place. I should like to put them on record because they are useful changes which I should not like to be overriden at any stage of the Bill in its passage through the House.
  Consent is no longer required for the incidental use of gas for fuel processes essential to ensure the supply of that gas to an affiliated company. It is no longer necessary to make a first offer to the British Gas Corporation of the gas supplied for use in terminal and similar installations handling North Sea oil and gas. It is no longer necessary to offer the British Gas Corporation the supply for fuel purposes of gas which is surplus to the corporation's requirements. All gas from stabilised crude—that is to say, gas which comes from crude during the normal refining process—is to be subject to the Gas Act 1972, and Clause 10 of the Bill as originally drafted has been removed.
  The point here is that industrial users of gas, especially those in the petrochemical sector, need to safeguard their investment and to have confidence to plan ahead for the future. Confidence and investment may be threatened if consents which were previously granted are revoked or if new consents are made subject to more rigorous conditions.
  Another area of concern to the industries concerned is the extensive new information powers sought by the Government in the Bill. The Opposition were glad when the Government accepted in another place that information which concerns two parties to an agreement should not be disclosed without the consent of both parties to such disclosure. We also feel reassured that information powers required under our new international obligations should be confined to such purposes, and that there should be a limitation on the number of people required to furnish this information in the first instance.
  In general the Bill, as amended and improved in another place, is broadly acceptable to the Opposition and should not been seen as a particularly contentious measure. We recognise the need to legislate to enable the United Kingdom to satisfy its international obligations to the European Community and the international energy programme.

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  We recognise the need for the Government to have adequate powers to deal with any serious domestic emergency. We recognise and endorse the need for even greater energy conservation on a continuing basis. If it is to be effective, it must be on a continuing, permanent basis. At the same time, we question whether it might not have been wiser if the Government had instead introduced a Bill confined simply to meeting the needs of energy conservation.
  Underlying everything else, we remain deeply, and I think justifiably, suspicious of the Bill, which has ben introduced, I would suggest, by a doctrinaire Labour Minister with avowed doctrinaire intentions. Anyone who seeks to challenge me has only to refer to the quotation already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry. At the same time, it is a Bill justified in the holy name of energy conservation which nobdy in his right mind, looking at the problem reasonably, would seek to oppose.
  We therefore find ourselves in a somewhat difficult position, with a great need to keep a wary eye on the implementation, if not the precise wording, of the Bill as it goes through its subsequent stages. It is fair to ask of the Government, both this evening and in the Bill's subsequent passage, to state their motives and intentions, and the limits to those intentions, in carrying through this legislation.
  7.12 p.m.
  Mr. Neil MacFarlane: May I at the outset of my brief remarks point out that I was employed by the oil industry for a number of years before I entered the House of Commons. I worked for Shell-Mex and BP in the BP United Kingdom market. Although I have no direct pay links with them now they are the custodians of my pension, so it is hardly surprising that I keep more than a passing interest in what the oil industry is doing. It is in that context that I want to speak this evening. I must apologise for not having been present throughout the entire debate due to pressures outside the Chamber of which hon. Members are obviously well aware.
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  The Minister of State, whose presence at the Department of Energy many of us find reassuring, swept through his speech today at breakneck speed, ignoring vast tracts of the copious notes prepared by a diligent body of gentlemen behind Mr. Speaker's Chair. It seemed that the Minister was ignoring his speech because he believed he had a deadline to meet at 7 o'clock. The reason certainly could not have been the serried ranks of Back Benchers sitting behind him anxious to participate in the debate, as few have been present throughout.
  I wish to spend a little time on the special powers which exist in the Bill. One aspect which concerns us is in respect of price controls because, in view of the Minister's remarks, it seems that the remarks made in another place are likely to be overruled when we go into Committee. I hope that the Under-Secretary will refer to this during his winding-up speech.
  It seems certain that the Government will attempt to return to permanent price controls on the supply of petroleum products. That would be wholly unacceptable to many of us on this side of the House. The Government already have extensive price control powers under the Price Code, and the price of paraffin has been pegged as a relief to old-age pensioners under the Fuel and Electricity Control Act 1973.
  I believe that there is no good reason for singling out petroleum products for special treatment in this way. The definition of "petroleum products" for the purposes of the Bill covers a range of more than 3,000 products. Even if the Government were to implement controls for a limited number of those products, the effect would be to distort the market and it is likely that the oil companies would have to raise other prices to maintain their margins. This definition would inevitably include naphtha, which is the vital feedstock for the chemical industry. There can be no connection between the powers to hold down prices and the need to conserve energy. On the contrary that would involve higher prices, and surely the purpose of consumer protection is to maintain prices as low as possible.
  The one aspect which concerns me deeply is the question of the Secretary of State's special powers. At first sight,

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  it looks as though their lordships had passed a relatively harmless Bill, but the aspect which causes great apprehension is the frequent reference throughout it to the powers which the Secretary of State may have. We are not in the emergency situation that we were in three years ago. I was working full-time in the oil industry in 1973 and I well recollect the enormous problems we had during that period of dire emergency—problems of production, transportation and supply. I well recall the remarks made in this Chamber on 26th November that year to which my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) referred.
  I draw the attention of the House again to what the Secretary of State for Energy said in one particular sentence. He stated:
  "It will give us the power to control all the oil companies, all the multi-nationals, to fix their prices and their distribution systems; and under these powers every other fuel and its use, including the chemical industry, will be brought within the control of the Government of the day. This will include road transport and private transport."—[Official Report, 26th November 1973 Vol. 865, c. 141.]
  That phrase
  "It will give us the power to control all the oil companies"
  struck chill into all of us in that industry. We find that is now pretty well enshrined in the Bill and is the next best thing to nationalisation.
  Page 1 of the Bill states:
  "The Secretary of State may by order provide for regulating or prohibiting the production, supply, acquisition or use of—
  (a) any of the following substances, namely—

  (i) crude liquid petroleum, natural gas and petroleum products;

  (ii) any substance, whether solid, liquid or gaseous, not falling within sub-paragraph (i) above…"etc.

  It adds:
  "electricity."
  It says in Clause 2 that
  "The Secretary of State may by order provide for regulating the price at which crude liquid petroleum, natural gas or petroleum products may be supplied."
  On page 2, in respect of:
  "Reserve power to control by government directions",
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  it states that
  "…the Secretary of State may give directions—
  (a) to any person carrying on an undertaking in the course of which he produces any substance mentioned in section 1(1) above…."
  Throughout the Bill we see the Secretary of State taking extra special powers. We see it on page 5, where
  "The Secretary of State may direct any person who he has reasonable cause to believe is or may be party to an agreement exempt by virtue of this section to furnish him with such particulars of the agreement as may be specified in the direction."
  Page 6 refers to the powers he can have over the "bulk stocks of petroleum."
  There are other sweeping and extensive powers throughout the Bill. I wonder whether this is not, perhaps, the first step towards the much-sought-after objective of the Secretary of State to nationalise the petroleum industry. This may well be the first step. The Minister of State looks a little dubious, but I hope that when his hon. Friend replies we can have some assurance to the House that this is not the case.
  I think that the Bill warrants close scrutiny in Committee. I hope I shall be a member of that Committee, because there is much which needs to be explored and improved. I hope that maybe the time factor is not so pressing upon the Government Front Bench at the moment and that it will enable the Minister's colleague to give us a little more detail which the Minister of State felt so reluctant to do earlier today.
  7.19 p.m.
  Mr. Hamish Gray: I think it fitting that in this debate we have a maiden speech on energy from my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman). If what he said is any indication of what we are likely to get in future, we all hope that he will continue in his new rôle and frequently take part in our debates.
  It would be courteous of me if I mentioned the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain), whom I do not recall having participated previously in an energy debate. I am sorry that she is not in her place. A great deal of what she said was not agreeable to me, but she mentioned that she was worried about

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  the right of scrutiny in regard to Government Bills. We certainly agree with her in that, and hope that she will be fortunate enough to find herself on the Committee dealing with the Energy Bill, when she will have ample opportunity to put into practice that which she professes.
  The introduction to the Bill by the Minister of State was delivered with his usual moderate style. He perhaps let the cat out of the bag a little when he said that what the Government intended in Clause 3(1)(a) was parliamentary control on the same basis as in the 1973 Bill.
  We believe that, since the powers being sought at the present moment by the Government are permanent powers and the 1973 powers had to be annually renewed, there is a strong case for having stronger control and even more scrutiny. But we can deal with that point at greater length in Committee.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) made what I think we all found to be a very interesting speech. He was particularly skilful in the way be deployed his argument. His observations on the relationship between OPEC and the consuming countries proved almost as interesting to those of us on the Opposition side as did his comments on the relationship between the Department and the companies. I am sure that that is an aspect on which we would have liked him to expound at greater length.
  The debate has been very interesting, but I am bound to say that I found myself in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane) when he remarked on the very poor attendance in the Chamber this afternoon, particularly on the Government side. I cannot help feeling that this, to some extent, is related to what can only be described as the ham-fisted way in which the Government set about organising their business this week. Originally, in discussion we were given to believe that we would have an all-day debate on this subject. That was quite reasonable for a Second Reading of a very important Bill. Then, to our horror, we heard the announcement by the Leader of the House last Thursday that we were to have only half a day. Then, yesterday afternoon, we heard that an extension
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  of one and a half hours was to be given, but by then the damage had been done. Many people on both sides of the House, who would have liked to take part in the debate, having heard that it was to be only a half-day debate, had made other arrangements, and therefore found it impossible to be here today in order to take part.
  I hope that the Leader of the House will realise that when important legislation is to come before the House it is not good enough, simply because the Government have already lost three and a half days of valuable time, simply to knock it off an important subject, such as energy. We naturally assumed, when the Government decided to give only a half-day to this very important Bill, that they had already taken a decision with regard to the content of the Bill, and would accept it as it came back from the Lords. We would have welcomed this. That was the only reason we could think of for the short time—
  Mr. Albert Roberts: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many hon. Members are disappointed and that what we want is a full day's debate on energy? I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the miners' group have a very great interest in it. It is because of the business arrangements that some of the Members sponsored by the National Union of Mineworkers are not here this evening. They would have liked to give their point of view on this subject. For the last 30 years Governments have not been able to give us the right kind of reorganisation. It is not just this one Government.
  Mr. Gray: I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. He has made a very reasonable point. Many of us on the Opposition side would join him in his representations to the Leader of the House if the hon. Member were to ask for a full-day debate on energy.
  The Bill, as it has come back to the House, is broadly acceptable to the principal Opposition. We should like to see a number of minor amendments made, but had the Government considered accepting the Bill in its present form there would have been great support from us.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), in one of his more robust speeches, pointed out in no uncertain terms that he considered that a state

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  almost of confrontation had been reached as a result of the Government's insisting on bringing back Clause 3 in its original form.
  We believe that the other place has greatly improved the Bill. Originally it seemed to be an innocuous enough piece of legislation. I remember talking to the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman. He said "When the Bill comes out it will be a tidying-up measure, following very much on the lines of the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973." But, of course, we had had experience of the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill 1975, which had a similar history. Before it saw the light of day we were told that it was to be a relatively innocuous measure, but that was proved to be quite wrong. When the Bill was presented and we started examining it in depth, we discovered that it went a great deal further than its predecessor. It caused a great deal of worry to those who were involved and were to be affected by it.
  The oil companies, the chemical companies and some of the nationalised industries had considerable reservations about what was contained in the Energy Bill, and industry warned the Government. On 8th April 1976, the day on which the Bill received its Second Reading in another place, there was an article in The Times by the energy correspondent, in which it was stated that
  "The Bill, which comes up for its Second Reading in the House of Lords today, has, company executives say, been presented as legislation to enable Britain to meet its commitments to the International Energy Agency. But they feel the legislation goes far beyond this, particularly in the sections requiring companies to disclose information and forecasts about their operations. Powers are so wide in this direction that it amounts to the basis for 'backdoor' planning agreements, they claim, and is contrary to the voluntary spirit of the Department of Industry's proposals on planning agreements."
  We feel that that was quite a fair criticism. Indeed, it was reflected in many different quarters. A few days later, on 12th April 1976, when the Bill was in Committee in another place, the energy correspondent of The Financial Times said:
  "The Government has been told that future North Sea development and, possibly, the building of ammonia and other chemical plants, could be affected if control of natural gas becomes a State monopoly. Oil companies are also anxious. The industry points
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  out that deals like the $1 billion (£535 million) liquefied petroleum gas export contract announced by Shell last week, could be hit by the new legislation."
  These are serious worries that people in the industry have had. I understand that there have been a number of consultations between industrialists and members of the Government, but I do not think that all the fears have been sorted out, by any means.
  Some of the amendments made in another place are welcome, but there remains a considerable amount to be done. If the Government insist on reinstating certain of the clauses, it may take some time. Concern has been expressed not only by people outside this House; in the debate today, concern was expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) referred to certain draft matters as being confusing. The hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), to whose speeches we always listen with great interest, was worried about Clause 7 and questioned the Minister about coal stocks at power stations. I hope that the Minister will be able to deal with that point when he replies.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) said that in terms of conservation the Bill does practically nothing. He also drew attention to the great need for legislation on that aspect of the matter. My hon. Friend, and also the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East, drew attention to the report of a Select Committee of which they were both Members.
  I was particularly interested in the remarks of the hon. Member for Dudley (Dr. Phipps), who said that it was wrong that the consultative document on the future round of licensing had not been presented to the House for debate. He said that he wished that the contents of the licences had been included in the Bill. That was a fair criticism of his own Secretary of State.
  We all know that the Secretary of State for Energy is a very busy man indeed. However, when the House is dealing with a Bill as important as this one, surely he could have taken a little time this afternoon to hear what hon. Members have to say on the measure. No doubt he has a

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  very good excuse for not attending, but it is significant that, because it is obviously a measure that is not bubbling over with publicity for the right hon. Gentleman it does not attract him. If this were a Bill that attracted a great deal of emotion—a matter on which the Secretary of State could make a tub-thumping speech—I am sure that he would be here; let us make no mistake about that. In any event, I shall have a chance to say a little more about that topic in the next round of licensing.
  The Bill was unquestionably prepared in haste. A number of drafting alterations have already been made, and I feel sure that others will have to be made. If the Government are prepared to accept the Bill as it came from the other place, I am sure that the Committee stage will proceed at great speed. However, if the Government insist on replacing the objectionable clauses, inevitably the Bill will take rather longer to get through the House.
  We take particular exception to the permanent price controls and to the gas clauses. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford dealt fully with our objections. We fear the controls sought by the Secretary of State. We know that both the Minister of State, Department of Energy, and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy are highly capable though mild, moderate and reasonable men, but we are apprehensive, to say the very least, about the Secretary of State for Energy. Furthermore, I believe that we represent in that view a wide body of opinion not only in the House but outside it. Perhaps in this context I may refer to the Old Testament, to which I go for an analogy. I refer to the two sons of Isaac—Jacob and Esau. If I may relate the analogy to the Bill, I must point to the Ministers as being the hand of Esau, but the voice of Jacob—and it is that voice, the voice of the Secretary of State, that is behind the thinking in the Bill.
  Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: It is the wrong way round.
  Mr. Gray: No, it is not. If the Minister checks his facts, I think he will find that he is wrong.
  Mr. Skeet: Where do the parliamentary advisers come in? It is they who direct the Secretary of State.
  Mr. Gray: I do not wish to trail the poor old parliamentary advisers through the mill at this stage. The Secretary of State for Energy is the person who has to answer to this House, when he is here, and in that event we shall reserve our criticism for him rather than for those who advise him. After all, he is not bound to take their advice.
  Mr. Macfarlane: When my hon. Friend says that the Secretary of State is answerable to this House, does he not agree that once the Bill is passed the Secretary of State will not then have to answer to the House for much of the legislation that is now being considered?
  Mr. Gray: That is a reasonable point. I am sure that my hon. Friend will wish to pursue it in Committee.
  We feel very unhappy about the situation in regard to Clause 3. Our concern, and, indeed, the concern of the Opposition in the other place was, first, to ensure that powers required solely in the event of international crises are not used illegitimately for purely domestic reasons and, secondly, that domestic powers are used only in an emergency.
  The purpose of the amendments in the other place was not to alter the powers themselves but to limit their application specifically. We regard these powers as important in implementing international obligations during an international emergency, or in dealing with a situation in which essential energy supplies and distribution facilities are threatened—for example, in a genuine domestic crisis—but we have great fears as to their implementation in terms of this Bill.
  We are against the introduction of permanent price control, which will do nothing whatever to help conservation. Indeed, it will be difficult to administer, and will damage confidence. We know that such a policy does not work effectively elsewhere and, if the Government insist on reintroducing this clause, we shall oppose it vehemently.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) dealt at length with the gas clauses. They are acceptable to us in their present form.

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  I emphasise the necessity to retain freedom in terms of refinery gases and also the gases used in refinery flaring.
  Mr. Skeet: Clause 9 deals with flaring. My hon. Friend will be aware that if the Government persist in the present wording of the clause it will cost the chemical companies a total of £1 million to install the necessary equipment. Surely that would be a waste of the nation's resources?
  Mr. Gray: My hon. Friend emphasises a most important point. I am sure that he will seek to deal at length with that matter in Committee.
  In regard to the proposed consent procedures, it is important that companies should retain their existing freedom, with the necessary exceptions, rather than that they should be given only qualified freedom, which would tend to undermine commercial confidence.
  The changes in regard to Clause 8, if left in their present form, would have dramatic consequences. In one step the chemical industry would be cut off from supplies of a vital raw material. All rights of the industry to use natural gas as a feedstock would be lost, except as dictated by the Secretary of State. The impact would be felt not only in the fertiliser sector but throughout the plastic resin, synthetic fibre and rubber industries. The impact would also be felt by intermediates, such as pharmaceuticals and dyestuffs. At the very least, Parliament has an obligation carefully to consider how the national interest will be affected if that sort of legislation goes through without any check.
  I am delighted that the Secretary of State has managed to spare some time to come to the Chamber to hear what we have to say. We welcome him to our gatherings. I hope that he will read my speech tomorrow so that he will know what I had to say about him. I acknowledge that he is probably very busy. As I say, we are delighted that he has been able to come along.
  We believe that this legislation will create considerable uncertainty. As regards the gas clauses, it is reasonable to point out that the completion of a major chemical plant that depends on gas from the discovery of a North Sea gas resource
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  can take from eight to 10 years. That, together with the life of the plant itself, which is from 10 to 15 years, is the period during which security of supply and constancy of legislative conditions are necessary. We are not satisfied that any Government will be capable of maintaining the necessary uniformity of purpose over as long a period as that.
  It is not an answer for the Minister to say that the Secretary of State may give consents to specific projects, because before considering a chemical project the exploration and development of the gas field has to be undertaken. In its present form the Bill will inhibit participation in exploration activities for gas users. This is a worrying situation and one that I hope that the Minister of State and the Under-Secretary of State will think about carefully before the Bill is considered in Committee.
  I know that when a Government prepare their legislation they are reluctant to give way on some aspects that they consider to be vital. However, I suggest to the Minister of State that legislation in the amended form that he has said this afternoon he intends to introduce could have an inhibiting effect on the chemical industry, an industry which is responsible for providing a great many jobs. We have seen, to the regret of us all, a decline in orders, for example, in the platform industry. I do not expect the Minister of State to agree with me, but I believe that to some extent the decline has been caused by a lack of confidence in the policies that the Government are pursuing.
  I accept that the Minister of State could quite fairly present a contrary argument, but I believe that the policies that the Government are pursuing have to a large extent played their part in the decline. It would be disastrous if, for any reason of dogma, the Government were to insist that they reintroduced the legislation that they propose, which would have an impact on the gas clauses. That is terribly important, and I hope that the Minister of State will take it on board. I am not trying to make a political point; I am arguing what I consider to be a reasonable case for the industry.
  Dr. Phipps: I take the hon. Gentleman's point about gas exploration. It

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  is a matter that I dealt with in my own speech. Running through everything that he has said is the theme that has been put to me by people in the petrochemical industry over the past few months—namely, that in some way the demon, in the shape of the Secretary of State, will reduce prices to such a level that the whole industry will collapse, nothing will be done, and the present petrochemical complex will be put out of business. I find it difficult to see why any Secretary of State should want to destroy the British petrochemical industry by doing that. I have not yet heard an argument from Conservative Members or from the industry to tell me why my right hon. Friend should wish to take that course.
  Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman has made a fair point. I am sure that the last thing that this Secretary of State or any other Secretary of State would wish willingly to do would be to damage the industry. However, we believe—certainly this is what the industry believes—that the industry is being put at risk as a result of this legislation. Therefore, as the hon. Gentleman would do if he were on this side of the House, we believe it is our duty, as a responsible Opposition, to argue as strong a case as we can on behalf of the industry and to try to convince the Government that what we want to do is to the greater benefit of the industry and in the national interest, and of greater benefit than what the Government seek to do.
  Mr. Skeet: As I understand it, it is the Government's argument that there might be a shortage of methane and that the British Gas Corporation wants as much as is available from the North Sea, but as the United Kingdom has about 38 years of reserves left—Sir Arthur Hetherington mentioned a period of 25 years ahead—there appears to be no shortage for the small requirements of the chemical industry. Would it not be more appropriate to leave that supply to the chemical industry, which is of greater value than gas, and not use it for burning?
  Mr. Gray: Obviously my hon. Friend has made a good point. I have no doubt that that is an argument that will be deployed in Committee.
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  As I have tried to explain to the Minister, we believe that the Government must take on board the necessity to encourage confidence in the industry. The information that is required in Schedule 2 is something that is giving the industry considerable worry. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will give an assurance that the requirement in the Bill in no way exceeds the requirement laid down for us as a result of our EEC membership. Those outside this place would be assured if such a statement were made.
  The oil companies and the chemical companies make enormous investment in this country. The hon. Member for Wrexham asked about the amount of GDP invested in the North Sea. It was an interesting point. The Under-Secretary of State may have the answer when he replies.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford, in a Question, recently asked what proportion of investment in the North Sea had come from private sources and what proportion had come from the Government. The answer was that 94 per cent. of all investment in the North Sea has come from private sources. That highlights the importance of the private sector of the industry. If ever there was an argument against nationalisation, that is it. In the event of nationalisation, where would investment come from? Do we believe that it would be available in years to come, as in the past? My right hon. and hon. Friends do not have that belief.
  Confidentiality, in terms of Schedule 2, is of paramount importance. We wish to see the burden of supplying information kept to a minimum. It is an enormous task to supply the required information. That is apparent when one discusses the problem with people in relatively small ways of business. They spend a considerable amount of time in form-filling and supplying information. When that time is multiplied to reflect the demands on national or multinational companies, we can get some idea of the time-wasting performance that is involved.
  During the passage of the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill we expressed doubts about the wisdom of creating the British National Oil Corporation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford mentioned today, our

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  fears were well founded. In the Financial Times of Monday 14th June, under the headline
  "BNOC call for more State control of oil"
  we find:
  "The second development is the strong reaction by the nationalised gas and electricity industries against what they consider to be unwarranted attempts by Mr. Benn's political advisers to interfere with their commercial freedom."
  On the one hand, we have the BNOC demanding more nationalisation and State control and, on the other, we have considerable reservations from other sections of the nationalised industry about the amount of control that has already taken place.
  The Secretary of State has been congratulated this afternoon—not by me, but by one of his Back Benchers—on his initiative in organising the energy conference.
  Mr. Palmer: I think that it is now the policy of the Opposition to support the mixed economy. What is the objection to the mixed economy in North Sea oil, particularly in view of the figures given by the hon. Gentleman showing overwhelming private investment? Does it hurt very much to have a little public investment as well?
  Mr. Gray: That remains to be seen. At present we are having public investment through participation agreements that have been entered into by the BNOC. We read in the Press—the Secretary of State confirmed it during Question Time yesterday—that discussions are now taking place with Shell and Esso. There seems little doubt that the result of those discussions will be some form of participation with those companies. Whether that form of participation will follow the thinking of the Secretary of State, as he would like to see it progress, remains to be seen. Nevertheless, there is that participation.
  We believe that is unnecessary. We believe that where there is an almost unlimited amount of private investment for the purpose of developing North Sea oil resources, State intervention is not required. The State has its own power, in terms of the clawing back of remuneration in due course. There is no need for
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  the BNOC to operate in this area. It would be better to leave the exploration, development and production of North Sea oil to those who are already highly qualified in that sphere. The money can be got back through the normal taxation system.
  To return to the energy confidence, there is an article in The Sunday Times of 23rd May dealing with certain of the questions that will be posed as a result of that conference.
  It may be that the Secretary of State has hit on a good idea—I should be the last person to try to take ony credit away from him in that respect—but I wonder whether the conference that has been organised—given its size—provides the most likely way to arrive at decisions at the end of the day. I fear that this will be a publicity exercise from which the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State unquestionably will benefit. I doubt whether anybody else will gain a great deal from it. If the right hon. Gentleman initiates a discussion with high-powered people which, at the end of the day, leads to some constructive and concrete proposals, his time will have been well spent.
  The motor industry is worried about the Bill. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Ltd. is particularly appalled at what is said concerning the determination and publication of fuel consumption for motor vehicles. I believe that that is a bit of a gimmick—a sham. I do not see how it can be accurate at the end of the day. How can statistics on petrol consumption by cars possibly be accurate? Surely much depends on how a car is driven and by whom it is driven. For example, hon. Gentlemen and I could drive down the M1 together. I could have my foot hard down on the floorboards whereas hon. Gentlemen could observe the 70 m.p.h. limit. At the end of the day there would be a vast difference in petrol consumption. I do not see how statistics can be accurate in that respect. They will cause a great deal of difficulty for the industry.
  The magazine Autocar is particularly worried about this aspect, because of the complexity of Government Departments

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  that will be involved. In an article on 29th November it states:
  "As an example of how the ever-spreading tentacles of bureaucracy in this country are starting to twine themselves into an almost impenetrable mess, the Government's proposals for publishing fuel consumption figures are a classic.
  Our first enquiry on who was running the scheme was directed—appropriately enough since they ran the type approval and emission testing schemes—to the Department of the Environment. However, they said that they were not dealing with the fuel economy side of testing, but rather thought that the Vehicles Division of the Department of Industry was looking after the tests. The Department of Industry admitted to running the mpg part of the testing, although they acknowledged that the figures would be taken at the same time and on the same occasion as a vehicle was emission tested by the DoE. The Department of Industry evidently feels that as the subject of the exercise is economy, the Department of Energy ought really to be concerned with the mpg testing…
  However, as soon as the Department of Industry publishes the figures (which incidenttally the manufacturers will not be forced to use in their publicity material), yet another department enters the arena. This is the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection, who will be responsible for investigating Trade Descriptions Act implications of the figures and the performance aspects of consumers' cars."
  That seems to be a bit of a shambles, does it not? I hope that as we plough our way through the Committee stage of the Bill we shall be able to achieve a simplification of these matters.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in America, the home of free enterprise—where, as Galbraith says, free enterprise is a minor branch of theology —there is a requirement that in 1980 motor cars will be forced not simply to have labels on them but to run at guaranteed mileages per gallon?
  Mr. Gray: I am sure that, with their ingenuity, the United States Government will devise something slightly less complicated than I have just quoted from Autocar. I take the hon. Gentleman's point.
  Mr. Keith Stainton: It is a question not only of the United States Government but of the United States motor manufacturers. I am particularly interested in the numbers of civil servants who will be involved. Is my hon. Friend able to enlighten us on that aspect?
  Mr. Gray: That is a question that we shall be putting to the Minister of State in Committee. I should not care to put a figure on the numbers of civil servants who will be involved. It may be that in his winding-up speech the Under-Secretary of State will give an indication.
  We believe that the permanent powers on price control of petroleum products and on energy use and the possession of permanent powers to enable the State to obtain a wide range of confidential information are not desirable. We believe that those aspects of the Bill should be very carefully examined by Parliament. We shall seek to do that in Committee. We shall be constructive, but we shall endeavour to improve the legislation in Committee.
  8.0 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Gordon Oakes): We have had an interesting and very wide-ranging debate. It is inevitable that it has been wide-ranging when the title of the Bill is the rather grandiloquent one of "Energy Bill". It is a rather high-sounding title for what is an important and useful Bill but a Bill which, perhaps, does not do many of the things that the title would lead the House to believe that it will do.
  Most speeches, surprisingly enough, for one of two reasons, have criticised the Bill for what is not in it. Many of my hon. Friends and other hon. Members, such as the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain), wanted more measures with regard to conservation and they criticised the Bill for not containing them. They said that it was a sin of omission in the Bill. Opposition Members are possibly very concerned with the sin of omission. Hon. Members have also been criticising something that is not in the Bill but which we hope subsequently, in Committee or on Report, to put into it.
  The differences between the two sides of the House in regard to the Bill as it stands are almost non-existent. On matters where there is disagreement between the two sides—for example, on Clauses 3 and 8—no doubt a large measure of agreement can be reached on some of the minor points, but on the

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  major points there are inevitably differences and difficulties that arise between us.
  Mr. Skeet: Why do not the Government leave the Bill as it is?
  Mr. Oakes: I shall deal with the hon. Gentleman shortly. We shall not leave the Bill as it is because, for instance, we are not satisfied that some of the things that the other place did will provide sufficient energy conservation measures. It is not a case of ratting on undertakings given in the other place in the matters that we are trying to put back into the Bill. In Committee and on Report and even in that rather peculiar procedure in the other place—Third Reading—we divided the House each time. The other place being what it is, we lost; but we fought it all the way through on these points.
  I was saying that the Bill is being criticised for what it does not contain. I want to discuss some of the speeches we have heard today and to say what the Bill is not. The Bill is not a substitute in itself for energy policy or for the energy forum which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be conducting a week from today. I am glad that hon. Members congratulated my right hon. Friend on the idea of that energy conference, where all people concerned with energy, not merely energy producers but energy consumers and energy industries, will at least be physically present at one conference and will be able to talk to one another and to put in papers. If they are not called upon to speak, they will subsequently be able to have their views put on record. This is very useful for public participation. Every political party in the House has been invited and every parliamentary political party has received an invitation to send someone to the conference. We want this to be as wide a public debate as possible.
  However, the Bill is not that conference. Neither is the Bill a definitive Bill on energy policy. It cannot be. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) said that he wondered whether an energy policy would emerge from all the discussion. Of course it will not—not immediately. It is not the sort of conference at which one passes a resolution and then goes away having an energy policy settled for the next 30 years. However,
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  an invaluable contribution will have been given by all sections of the public and by the industries to help the Department and the Government to get an energy policy in which there has been genuine public participation.
  Mr. Skeet: When is the Bill on conservation coming, as recommended by the Select Committee's report?
  Mr. Oakes: I hope that hon. Members will be patient. I shall be dealing at some length with conservation. I have a particular interest in that subject.
  The other criticism, which came most forcefully in a very excited speech from the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) —I have no doubt that it was a very heartfelt speech—and from the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), who spoke on the same theme, as did the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray), was the theme that somehow or other contained in this apparently harmless Bill is a sort of skeleton key which will open the road to full-blooded Socialism for the oil industry. That is how it has been represented by some hon. Members.
  I leave Opposition Members with this thought. The Bill limits the powers that the Secretary of State now has to do all the things that they were complaining the Bill would allow him to do, because he has those powers under the 1973 Act, which was passed in emergency circumstances by a Conservative Government, and the powers have been renewed and are still in existence. The Bill limits those powers. Therefore, when hon. Members ask where my right hon. Friend has been, if he is the villian of the piece as they have been describing, I would say that probably this afternoon he has been back at the Department busily using his powers under that Act before this Bill is enacted and takes them away from him.
  It is nonsense for hon. Members to suggest that the Bill in any way increases powers to take over industry and so on. The Bill is basically dealing with energy conservation, but it is also dealing with emergency conditions—this is what hon. Members do not seem to realise—that are triggered off by set events that I shall discuss later, triggered off either because of an international emergency when an international authority requires us to do something because of a treaty obligation

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  or because of a domestic emergency in this country. If it is a domestic emergency, the position is that it is by affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament that the powers contained in Clauses 1, 2 and 4 come in.
  Mr. Rost: Why, then, are the Government proposing to introduce permanent powers on price control? Is the Minister assuming that there will be a permanent emergency, or that price controls make some contribution to energy conservation?
  Mr. Oakes: When Ministers give way at such a stage in their speeches, inevitably it turns out to be on a point to which they will be coming later. Hon. Members should be patient. I shall cover all these points.
  On the face of them, Clauses 1, 2 and 3 look Draconian, but they are Draconian to the extent that any Government need Draconian powers in an emergency situation. However, they are emergency powers. For example, if it were a domestic emergency as distinct from an international emergency, the position would be this. An Order would have to be laid. It would have to have affirmative approval of both Houses of Parliament, and if within 28 days it did not get that approval it would lapse automatically. An Order which was approved would lapse after 12 months unless it was reaffirmed by the House. We are dealing with emergency conditions.
  This is not a Bill that is giving all these powers on a permanent basis to a Secretary of State to rule the entire fuel economy with a rod of iron. However, as Conservative Members realised when they introduced their Act in 1973, it gave even greater powers. One must have these teeth to act quickly in various types of emergency situation.
  Mr. Biffen: Will the hon. Gentleman say a little about the actual trigger mechanism itself? Under the International Energy Agency in particular, what are the provisions that cover not so much a general embargo, such as we obviously experienced in 1973, as a selective embargo? Is the Minister satisfied that there is sufficient refinement of reaction concerning the trigger mechanism?
  Mr. Oakes: It is difficult to answer the hon. Gentleman, not because I am trying to evade his question but because the circumstances of an emergency are difficult to define in advance. There may be a very varied series of things happening. It is difficult to say to the House that it would be triggered off internationally by A, B, C, D or E. Indeed, the hon. Member for Oswestry said that he would be a very foolish man who tried to predict what OPEC would do in the future as compared with what it did in 1973. That is perfectly true. For that reason, it is very difficult to give a definition, but there would be international action. Because of that action from the international authority, it would trigger oft in each member nation the introduction of the whole or part of the demand restraint and emergency measures which are contained in Clauses 1, 2 and 3 of the Bill.
  A matter of great interest has been the power of price control of oil products. I understand that if the Secretary of State wanted to use the powers under the 1973 Act he could control the prices of oil products now. He has the power to do so. It is not something peculiar to this country with a Socialist Secretary of State introducing the Bill in order to get his hands on the country's oil industry. Austria, France, and Italy all have the same powers.
  Mr. Skeet: What about Germany?
  Mr. Oakes: Germany is the exception, not the rule.
  Mr. Rost: What about Sweden?
  Mr. Oakes: I was talking about EEC countries. I was saying that almost all the EEC countries and many others as well already have these powers, and hardly any of them has a Social Democrat or Socialist Government. Spain and Portugal have these powers at present, and so does the United States of America. What we are asking for in the Bill is not a power which may be exercised by the Secretary of State as he pleases but the power to exercise it only when he needs to do so.
  A number of hon. Members have talked about energy conservation. Opposition Members have claimed that price control of oil products is the antithesis of conservation because prices are kept down artificially. It is envisaged that

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  these powers would be used only if the Secretary of State needed to do so because of a state of shortage of fuel, oil and oil products. When hon. Members opposite complain about the conservation aspect here, I should point out to them that there is a difference between the economics of prudence and the economics of famine. It would be in circumstances of the economics of famine that this sort of thing would be brought in and there would be price control in this way. All we are doing is giving powers to the Secretary of State. Indeed, we are limiting his powers slightly. Therefore, I hope that this bogy, the idea that control of prices of oil products is a Socialist device by a Labour Government wanting to lead the country along the road to rampant Socialism, will be seen by hon. Members opposite in a little more perspective.
  Mr. Macfarlane: Surely the hon. Gentleman can understand our feelings in view of the comments made by his right hon. Friend on 26th November 1973.
  Mr. Oakes: Yes, he made those comments while welcoming a Bill which was being introduced by a Conservative Government. But whatever those comments may have been, this Bill in fact limits the powers which hon. Gentlemen opposite gave to the then Secretary of State in their Bill.
  Mr. Skeet: That was an emergency.
  Mr. Oakes: I come now to the main theme from hon. Members on all sides of the House—the question of energy conservation. This was mentioned particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer). I share the general concern that the report of the Select Committee came to my Department as long ago as September 1975. It is now June 1976. I have been at this Department for only a short time. I make no excuses, but I have tried to push this report very hard. There are difficulties since not only my Department is concerned. There are 42 recommendations in the report and nearly every Department of State is involved. When one has to deal with all the other Departments and get their observations on different aspects, it takes time. I shall try to use my best efforts to make certain that the report is printed and available before the Summer Recess. We have
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  no intention of avoiding a reply to the document.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) mentioned the efforts of industry in energy conservation. In the "Save It" compaign we concentrated on domestic householders because space heating in domestic households is one of the ways in which a great deal of heat is wasted, and it is easier and cheaper to control this than it is to control wastage in industry. Industry often needs capital investment rather than just a simple solution like lagging a tank or insulating a roof. I have a major programme of energy conservation from now to the end of the year taking in all parts of the country.
  On the question of energy audits, the firms which have employed such audits are amazed at the amount of energy and cash they have saved. In fact, the saving to the firms concerned is remarkable. Earlier today my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) told me that the Leeds City Council had decided to take a week off the Leeds schoolchildren's summer holidays and add a week to the Christmas holidays. The parents are reasonably happy about that because the long summer holiday can become tedious for them, if not for the children. The savings in fuel amount to £93,000. If one multiplies that by 100 other cities, one is talking about £9 million a year in fuel saved. That could go towards maintaining teachers who might otherwise be lost, at a time when local authorities are in difficulty.
  Fuel economy and fuel conservation make good sense, apart from the impact they have on the fuel resources of the country, which are not unlimited. I endorse all that has been said about energy conservation. Many of the matters in the Bill were criticised by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East, who said that only two or three of them were directly related to conservation. If the hon. Member looks closely he will find that there are a lot more. Clauses 1, 2 and 3 re-enact the provisions of the 1973 Act which have an energy conservation base. Clause 11 on the fuelling of power stations is also concerned in this, as is Clause 12. So also are Clauses 8, 9 and 10, all of which have a conservation aspect. There is more to the Bill than perhaps the hon.

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  Member for Derbyshire, South-East sees. That is particularly so on the aspect of conservation.
  Mr. Stainton: I apologise for having been absent from the debate, but I have been occupied in a Standing Committee on a Government Bill. I am particularly concerned about Clauses 8, 9 and 10 on gas with regard to the lack of proper safety specifications for refrigerated liquefied petroleum gas installations. This is a great deficiency which could have been rectified in the Bill and which must be pursued in Committee.
  Mr. Oakes: I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman or his hon. Friends will deal with that in Committee.
  If I may return to conservation, perhaps I should explain that the Bill goes only part of the way. Conservation is more a matter of education than legislation, and that has been echoed in our approach. Nevertheless, there may be instances where legislation is necessary, hence some of the provisions in the Bill. There may be further provisions in other Bills after discussions have taken place with other Departments about heat insulation standards and so on. But we must get it right when we talk about heat insulation, because what we do now may have to stand for 100 years. We therefore do not want to be panicked into what seems to be a good idea only to find that difficulties arise in some other respect.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East asked what proportion of the requirements under EEC Directive 75/339 on the 30-day stocking of fossil fuel was currently held at the CEGB's power stations. I understand that the board's commercial practice is to hold stocks sufficient to meet 50 winter days' demand at the beginning of each October and to let these run down to 50 summer days' demand at the beginning of each April. Currently the board holds more stock than is required under this commercial practice. That means that it will be able more than adequately to meet, now and in the future, the demands of the EEC directive.
  My hon. Friend asked whether natural gas was realistically priced. Generally, I would say that it is. The British Gas Corporation will be seeking price increases
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  in the autumn under the Price Commission procedure, but the increases will still leave natural gas very competitively priced, and the Government have no plans currently to disturb that arrangement by means of any special gas tax.
  Mr. Palmer: Surely the Minister accepts that this is a point which is open to considerable argument.
  Mr. Oakes: There could be considerable argument if one wanted to interfere with the mechanism by some form of tax to make gas less competitive with other fuels. There is another side to the argument. This concerns the counter-inflation policy and the effect that any unnatural increase in the price of fuel would have on that. There are no current plans in the Department to institute a special gas tax.
  The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) made an excellent contribution to the debate, although he was a bit unfair to some Government Departments. He said that we should do more. I am never complacent about Government Departments, either for the fuel saving they can effect themselves or for the good example they can set to others. It would be pointless for me or other Ministers to fulminate around the country in search of economy measures when Government Departments could be the worst offenders—although I can assure hon. Members that they are not the worst.
  Perhaps I may draw attention to the excellent scheme instituted by the Property Services Agency by which, for a quite small investment, an enormous saving is effected year by year. The Ministry of Defence has an excellent record in this respect, as has the Department of Health and Social Security. All Departments are looking at this matter, and they will continue to do so. Very shortly a ministerial committee of junior Ministers will be set up under my chairmanship to look specifically at energy conservation as it affects particular Departments.
  I agree that there is some dissention on Clause 8, but there is not all that much. The other place inserted what is now subsection (2), and we presently intend to take it out. There is a conflict between that subsection and subsection (6). The

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  idea behind the Government's proposal in the clause is not to have some fiendish hand at the throat of the petrochemical industry. That industry is using basic raw materials and fuels for other purposes, and, therefore, the fuel could be liquefied and used for another purpose with methanol and so on. One hon. Member read at length from a circular issued by the Department. Therefore the Department, for reasons no more sinister than that, wants the Secretary of State's consent to be given in all cases and it does not want that power to be qualified by the exclusion in subsection (2) as provided in the other place.
  The hon. Member for Bedford raised the question of liquefaction, but in Committee we can talk together on this. I think that the matter must go further than methane and will probably have to go to ethane. The hon. Gentleman will see that I am putting the hand of friendship across the Chamber to him. It may be that ethane ought to be put with methane, but possibly not propane and butane. In Committee there may be many instances such as this on which there can be sensible agreement in this House just as there was in another place on many of the clauses.
  There will be battles on Clause 3, which involves a fundamental difference of approach and principle between the
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  two sides, partly because of the Conservatives' suspicion about how the power may be used. I think it is an exaggeration to say that we in the Commons will undo all the agreement that was achieved in the House of Lords. We disagree with what the other place did on only two clauses, Clauses 3 and 8.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West wanted to know whether there would be a debate in the House about the fifth round proposals. The Secretary of State has it in mind to let hon. Members know when the discussion between the committee, the trade unions and industry has been completed. He thinks that that would be a suitable time at which Parliament might like to consider the matter.
  I do not have time to cover all the other matters that were raised. Many were Committee points in any event. No doubt they will be hotly but, I hope, fairly debated in Committee. I hope that this useful measure will eventually go on to the statute book.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

  METHODIST CHURCH BILL [Lords]
  (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  8.30 p.m.
  Dr. Edmund Marshall: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This Bill has been promoted by the Methodist Church in Great Britain and it has been agreed by the appropriate courts of that Church by overwhelming majorities. To show how that agreement within Methodism has been reached, and for the benefit, I hope, of those hon. Members who may not be so familiar with the structure of the Methodist Church, it may be helpful to give a brief explanation of the way in which the Church is organised in this country.
  There are about 550,000 members in 8,600 local Methodist churches or societies. Those societies are grouped into 734 circuits, the size of a circuit varying from the exceptional one society forming a circuit by itself to possibly 50 or even more societies. It is the circuits that appoint and pay the full-time ministers serving the societies within the circuit. At the most recent count, there were 3,768 ministers throughout the country.
  Each circuit has a governing body, known as the circuit meeting, which is composed of representatives from all the societies in the circuit, most of them on an ex officio basis because of particular offices that they hold within their own local societies. In turn, the circuits are grouped in 32 districts, the district being the Methodist equivalent of the diocese of the Church of England, although I hasten to point out that the geographical boundaries between the two sets of bodies in the two denominations bear hardly any correspondence.
  The governing body of each Methodist district is the district synod, which meets twice a year, in May and September. The synod is composed of all the ministers serving within the district and an approximately equal number of lay men and women elected directly by the circuit meetings, plus a number of ex officio lay officials and representatives of district committees. The membership of synod will vary from district to district, but
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  it is nearly always more than 100 and may even be in excess of 500.
  Because all the full-time ministers are members of synod and are duty-bound to attend synod, every society within Methodism has a direct link with its own synod. Therefore, there is a channel of communication by which every member of the Church can become aware of the business before synod.
  Above the district synods, the national governing body of the Methodist Church is the annual conference, of which there are two sessions, one ministerial and the other representative, composed of almost equal numbers of ministers and lay people. For purposes such as the House is discussing tonight the key session of conference is the representative session, which has 670 members, of whom nearly 500 are directly elected each year by the district synods.
  So one has the picture of a hierarchical structure, perhaps, but one in which there is direct representation from the lowest level of organisation to the conference. Although this whole structure may not satisfy the democratic purists, no one can deny that it enables the opinions of Methodists throughout the country to be expressed in all the courts of the Church. I can recall numerous instances in the Methodist conference of a president going out of his way to enable individual view-points to be heard, sometimes with great embarrassment but always with tolerance and understanding.
  The standing orders of the Methodist Church lay down a specific procedure to be observed whenever a parliamentary Bill is to be promoted. That procedure has been observed meticulously in respect of the Bill at present before the House. At the Methodist Conference of 1974, a draft of the Bill was approved by a 99 per cent. majority—well in excess of the required three-quarters. Then, following standing orders, the Bill was submitted to all the 32 district synods, of which only one expressed any reservation about it, and that was only in respect of a single clause. Then the Bill came back again to the conference the following year, 1975, and was again approved by a 99 per cent. majority. It is remarkable that one of the petitions submitted to this House in opposition to the Bill is signed by 6,000 members and

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  adherents of Methodist societies representing possibly 1 per cent. of the total membership of the Church and, therefore, in proportion to the minority viewpoint expressed in the conference.
  Before I explain the main provisions of the Bill, it may also be useful if I remind the House of the main historical developments that brought present-day Methodism into being as we know it.
  Methodism was founded, perhaps accidentally, by John Wesley, who died in 1791. In the 60 years or so following his death, there were a number of secessions from the main body of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. In 1796, the Independent Methodist Church broke away and has remained apart ever since. In the following years, there were successive secessions by the Methodist New Connexion, the Primitive Methodists, the Bible Methodists, the Protestant Methodists, the Armenian Methodist Connexion, the Wesleyan Methodist Association, and the Wesleyan Reformers. Of those, the Primitive Methodists were the only ones to retain an independent separate existence right up to 1932. Over the intervening years, all the others either grouped themselves together, mainly in the United Free Churches, or were left as an off-shoot called the Wesleyan Reform Union, which separated from the Wesleyan Reformers in 1859 and which again has been completely separate and independent to this day.
  In 1929, the three main strands of the Methodist Church existing at that time—the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists and the United Methodists together promoted a parliamentary bill—the Methodist Church Union Bill—which was enacted and which led to Methodist union in 1932. I emphasise that the Independent Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Reform Union were completely outside that union and have maintained their separate existence ever since. There is no intention on the part of the promoters that those separate organisations should in any way be affected by the Bill.
  The union of 1932 was brought about by the Methodist Church Union Act 1929, and it is the content of that Act which ensures that the main purposes of this Bill can be pursued only by further parliamentary legislation. Indeed, the Bill
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  provides for the repeal of the 1929 Act, although some provisions would be reenacted in the Bill.
  One difficulty that arises from the 1929 Act is that Section 8 (2) denies the Methodist Church any power to vary the doctrinal standards of the Church as expressed in a deed of union made by the first conference of the Methodist Church in 1932. This provision for the doctrinal standards of the Church to be entrenched was considered necessary at the time in order to combine the three strands within the new United Church to safeguard against the danger of withdrawal of membership in the early days. But the curious effect of Section 8 (2) is that the only way in which the Methodist Church today, 44 years later, can make any alteration to its own doctrinal standards is by further parliamentary legislation.
  I fully recognise that the House is very jealous of its rights and powers, but it seems anomalous that Members of Parliament, several of whom are today sincerely apathetic, if not antipathetic, towards the Christian religion, should retain power in respect of the doctrinal standards of what is, after all, a nonconformist Church. One of the main purposes of the Bill, as expressed in Clause 5, is to give the Methodist Church freedom in respect of its own doctrinal standards, and to subject it to no further parliamentary restriction.
  The position of the Methodist Church today is very different from that in 1929. Methodist union is an accomplished historic fact. Indeed, it took place eight years before I was born. The present generation of Methodists look to the future in this rapidly-changing world with awareness that doctrinal standards may from time to time need to be brought up to date. It is not that there are any proposals before conference to amend or refine the doctrinal standards, although the promoters would not seek in any way to hide the fact that there may well be need for such amendment in the years to come.
  At this point I draw attention to the special safeguards referred to in Clause 5(2). That provides for a deferred special resolution procedure, which means that in dealing with any alteration to the doctrinal standards the conference will need a 75 per cent. majority of those present and voting, and such alteration

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  will need to be approved by the same majority two years later before any amendment to the doctrinal standards can become effective.
  As will be seen by the definition of the "deferred special resolution" in Clause 2(1), "appropriate consultation" which is also defined in that clause, must take place during the two-year interval between the passing of the resolutions. Already, in preparation for the enactment of the Bill, the conference has been preparing standing orders to prescribe the appropriate consultation. It will mean that any proposal to alter the doctrinal standards will have to be submitted for approval not only to the synods of the 32 districts of the Methodist Church but to the overseas districts and to the circuit meetings of all the 734 circuits of the Methodist Church. The House will see that any proposed amendment to the doctrinal standards of the Methodist Church would involve the widest consultation, not only in this country but overseas, in many parts of the world.
  Another of the most important provisions of the Bill is contained, appropriately, in Clause 4, which, for the first time in any legislation, defines the purposes of the Methodist Church. Clause 4(a) declares that the primary purpose of the Methodist Church is the advancement of
  "The Christian faith in accordance with the doctrinal standards and the discipline of the Methodist Church".
  It further declares, in subsection (c) that the purpose of the Church includes
  "any charitable purpose for the time being of any society or institution being a society or institution subsidiary or ancillary to the Methodist Church".
  Clause 4 (d) further provides that the purpose of the Church includes
  "any purpose for the time being of any charity being a charity subsidiary or ancillary to the Methodist Church."
  The significance of the clause is increased when one reads it in conjunction with paragraph 12 of Schedule 2, which declares that all property that is to be held upon the model trusts, as defined in the Bill, shall be held upon such trusts if and so far only as the execution of these trusts shall be in furtherance of or incidental to one of the purposes of the Church.
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  The broad terms of Clause 4, in conjunction with Schedule 2, will remove doubts concerning the user of model trust property and the purposes for which the proceeds of sale of any such property can be applied. It will give Methodists a wide latitude and flexibility in deploying their assets in such a manner as might be considered appropriate for the purposes of the Church.
  Under the Bill, the managing trustees of model trust property would be able to change the use of, for instance, a church hall to become a child welfare centre, provided that the new use was covered, in accordance with the purposes of the Methodist Church as defined in Clause 4. The provisions will enable the Methodist Church to act more flexibly.
  Mr. Albert Roberts: I am a member of the Church of England. A Methodist chapel is being voluntarily built in my constituency. Those concerned can see the control of the chapel being taken away and the power of the local trustees being taken and vested in the hierachy. Can my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) explain that for me?
  Dr. Marshall: I am aware of the chapel to which my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. Roberts) refers, but I am not familiar with its legal situation. Only when one has full knowledge of the local deeds of the property can one come to any conclusions. My hon. Friend's concern is widely shared in many Methodist chapels. It is a concern that I recognise, and that I believe the promoters of the Bill recognise. I hope to be able to deal with this concern in such a way as to show that much of it is inappropriate and misplaced.
  The third main purpose of the Bill is to provide for a new system—the system to which my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton referred—of vesting the legal ownership of all Methodist property held at present under the deeds listed in Part I of Schedule 1. The first part of the answer to my hon. Friend's question is to find out whether the chapel to which he refers has such a deed.
  Each of the 8,600 Methodist churches in the country has its own trust body, which holds the building in trust for the

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  whole Methodist connection and ensures that the property is used in accordance with the trusts upon which it is held. It also keeps the building in good order and repair. In short, the local trust is responsible for the fabric and the proper use of the local church building.
  At the same time, alongside the trust, each church has a church council, with especially important duties, exercising the pastoral oversight of the local society, arranging for services of worship and other church activities, and generally filling a rôle similar to that of the parish church council of the Church of England. Each Methodist society has a church council and a trust—two distinct bodies, usually but not always with overlapping membership but with quite distinct functions.
  The membership of the church council is easily and frequently changed with the passage of time, but under the present law the trustees can continue as members of the local trust even though they may have ceased to be members of the local society to which the trust relates. They still have to be members of the Methodist Church somewhere in the country, but they do not need to be associated with the local church.
  On occasions, trustees have grown out of touch with the needs of the local church and the local community. Sometimes they have become out of harmony with the active members of the local church. I know from experience in some of the Methodist churches with which I have been associated that it is a complex legal operation to reconstitute the trust of a local Methodist church.
  Dr. Alan Glyn: The whole point of a trust is that the trustees should observe the terms of the trust. If they fail to do so there is a perfectly good legal remedy. The Bill attempts to take away the rights of the trustees under the trustee deed by which they operate.
  Dr. Marshall: No, that is not correct. Under the Bill, although there will be a move to transfer the legal vesting of the trust to a central body to serve as a custodial trusteeship, the management of the trust at local level will be transferred to the church council—the other body that I have described. That gives a
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  much greater degree of local involvement in all the matters relating to the Church. The reason why the Methodist Church wants to make this change at this time is precisely to end the sometimes awkward diarchical system that I have just described.
  Over the last 10 years there have been wide consultations at district and circuit levels of the Methodist Church, and each year the reports of working parties have been approved by conference in trying to find a solution to this overall problem. As long ago as 1969 the proposals for central vesting were approved by conference. In 1973, following consideration and approval of the proposals by the districts, conference unanimously approved changes in the structure of the organisation and government of the Methodist Church including an alteration so as to confer upon the local church council authority and oversight over the whole area of the ministry of the local church, including, on the passing of this Bill, the management of the local property. Subject, therefore, to the necessary consent of Parliament, the conference desires to shift responsibility for the management of model deed property from the existing trustees to the church council. Each church council comprises a large number of individuals appointed annually by the church members.
  Mr. Patrick Mayhew: The hon. Gentleman referred to approval for this part of the scheme having been given at district level, but is it not the case, in the instance of the Anglican and Methodists conversations for church union, that the conversations were extended right down to circuit level? That has not been the case in the matter that is the subject of the present Bill. This is a subject of great anxiety amongst Methodists. Would the hon. Gentleman at some convenient moment, care to explain why that is so?
  Dr. Marshall: The answer is that under the standing orders of the Methodist Church, proposals to promote legislation in Parliament are required to be discussed only by the conference and the synod. There is no requirement for the proposal also to go to the circuits. The reason why that procedure was extended in the case of the Anglican/Methodist conversations of 1969 was that that issue

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  was felt to be of much more importance to the whole life of Methodism than even the provisions in this Bill. Anglican/Methodist union would have altered the existence of the Methodist Church beyond all recognition for ever. It was of momentous importance, far beyond the importance of provisions of a Bill such as the one now before us.
  However, there was nothing to stop individual members of conference or synod making an effort to discover the views of the people in their localities within the Methodist Church in respect of this Bill. If there is any complaint that people in local churches have not been consulted, the responsibility must rest partly with themselves, in that they have not taken the trouble to keep in touch with their circuit and synod representatives, and partly also with their synod representatives who have failed to report back to them on the business before the synod.
  Mr. Richard Wainwright: Is the average Methodist chapel likely to have a synod representative of its own whom the congregation could meet on a Sunday? Is that the impression that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to give?
  Dr. Marshall: I am certainly seeking to give the impression that every member of the Methodist Church has easy access to a member of synod, namely, his own minister, because every minister is duty-bound to attend synod and every member of the Methodist Church is under the pastoral care of a minister of the Church. Therefore, I answer the hon. Gentleman's question clearly in the affirmative.
  Mr. William van Straubenzee: Does a non-Methodist also correctly understand that it is open to a member of the circuit, or groups who are members of the circuit, to address a memorial to the district synod, and thereby to have a direct access to the synod, so that they can make representations—as, indeed, has happened—in that way?
  Dr. Marshall: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me that every Methodist circuit has the right of addressing a memorial not only to synod but to the conference of the
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  Methodist Church on any subject relating to the business of the Methodist Church. Over the last few years circuits have done this in relation to this issue. They have been able to make their views known in that way, and have also received the replies of conference to those memorials.
  Similarly, the synods, although they are in a position of being able to discuss this item on their agendas, are able to send what are called suggestions to the annual conference of the Methodist Church.
  I am also reminded of the fact that every Methodist minister, with the approval of his district synod, may seek to attend and be heard by the whole ministerial session of the annual conference. That also would give him or her an opportunity of raising any doubts about the Bill before us.
  I shall curtail my remarks in the hope that some of my hon. Friends will be able to fill in the gaps in the argument, but I wish to make reference to the petitions lodged in respect of the Bill.
  The petitions, as I understand it, come from two particular local societies, which have properties under Deeds 5 and 6 respectively in the list given in Part I of Schedule 1 to the Bill. In both these cases the local congregation has been, at least, for the last 10 years, separate from the membership of the Methodist Church as a whole.
  I understand that they each wish to remain independent of the Methodist Conference. If their properties are to be vested centrally, as would occur under the intentions of the Bill, in theory it would be possible for the Methodist Conference to establish new bodies to manage the buildings of these churches. If the dreadful situation arose in which the future of the buildings was in question, the conference, by this Bill, would have power to dispose of the properties.
  I believe that it would be contrary to the spirit of Methodism for action to be taken in such a dictatorial form by conference, and I can understand the concern of these two local congregations. I know that a similar petition was brought against the Bill in another place, as a result of which it was amended by an addition to paragraph 23 of Schedule 2, which would enable these properties to be sold to the local congregations.

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  If the petitioners are not satisfied by that amendment, they have every right to be heard further by a Committee of this House. That is the whole purpose of the private legislative procedures. But I do not understand why these petitioners should wish to block the passage of the Bill for the Methodist Church when the Bill has the full support of the main body of Methodism throughout the country. We may be jealous of the rights of small minorities, but we must never allow the situation to develop in which the tiny minority can decide issues for the vast majority.
  I conclude on a personal note. For 20 years I have been in full membership of the Methodist Church, in which earlier I had grown up under the influence of my Methodist parents. During those 20 years I have belonged to five local Methodist societies, scattered around the country, widely differing in size, characteristics and local activities. On occasions I have served as a member of the synod in varying districts from Lincolnshire to Merseyside and from the London area to Leeds, where I now live.
  I know the Methodist Church to be rich in diversity and to be strong in local character and colour. Methodists meet together in the spirit of fellowship at all levels of organisations. There is an atmosphere in the synod and at conference which I have found in no other organisation. Given a true truly Christian spirit and a spirit of toleration and understanding, I can see nothing in the whole of this Bill which does not redound to the benefit of all in the Methodist Church. I commend the Bill to the House.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): It may be for the convenience of the House if I indicate that Mr. Speaker has selected for debate the proposed Instruction on the Bill in the name of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and certain other hon. Gentlemen—namely,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill to ascertain to what extent the trustees of property held upon the trust of the deeds referred to in paragraphs 1 to 7 of Schedule 1 to the Bill have been informed of and consented to the provisions in the Bill relating to property held by or vested in those trustees and to exclude any such property from those provisions unless the trustees concerned consent to those provisions."
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  I remind the House that, following the business motion to which the House agreed at 3.30 this afternoon, a total of three hours is available for the two parts of the debate. We shall first take the Second Reading debate, which has now begun. Then, if the Bill is read a Second time, we shall debate the Instruction.
  9.7 p.m.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: The whole House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) for the painstaking and careful way in which he introduced the Bill to the House and for the way in which he dealt with its clauses. Even though I may dissent from some of his conclusions, I shall not depart from that judgment. The hon. Gentleman was a great help to the House.
  When Private Bills of this kind come before the House, we have to apply certain tests as part of our responsibility. As I see them, the tests are three in number. The first is whether a Bill is needed, the second is whether it is fair and the third is whether it is based on the widest possible consultation and agreement with the various interests affected. Those are the tests which the House must apply to private legislation, from whatever source it comes.
  I have an interest in the Bill since, like many others present tonight, I am a Methodist and, indeed, I am a local preacher. I am not a trustee, and I have not the special interest in the Bill of those who may be discharged from responsibility under one part of the Bill. The Bill is important for those of us who have a direct interest in the work of the Methodist Church in carrying out the work of God. Therefore, we must judge the measure on the ground of whatever it will advance that cause. That, however, is not the test that the House should apply to private legislation. That test must be based on fairness and the degree of consultation with the interests affected. Therefore, we must look at the various aspects of the Bill in the light of that test.
  I wish to look first at the subject of doctrine. The doctrine of the Methodist Church is protected by Parliament. It was not chosen by Parliament, it was not determined by Parliament and it was not worked out by Parliament. Nobody

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  would ever ask Parliament to be the arbiter or the assessor of the doctrine of the Methodist Church. That would be an absurd proposition. The only church whose doctrine this Parliament has ever sought to be concerned about—it has now divested itself of much of that concern—is the established Church.
  It would be quite absurd for Parliament to be the body which worked out or even adjudicated on the value or the validity of Methodist doctrine. That was not the task which Methodism asked Parliament to undertake in 1929 in preparation for the union of 1932. What Parliament did was to entrench an agreement made between the three parties who joined into a united Church. It ensured by entrenchment that the agreement could not be changed. The doctrine on which the agreement was based was without further recourse to Parliament.
  I do not necessarily think that the doctrinal formulation that the Methodists chose at that date was the best that was possible. I do not think that it is ideal for all time and not suspectible to change or alteration. However, I see no reason or need for the conference to be removed from the safeguard of having to go to Parliament before changing the agreement or from the safeguard of having to use a very special procedure to ensure that the various people who regard themselves as successors to the parties to the agreement have an opportunity of presenting their views and interests before Parliament.
  If they were to do that, I emphasise that it would not be for Parliament to judge the theological validity or standing of the views before it. It is the job of Parliament to satisfy itself that the various parties to the agreement have been fairly treated and that the power of the majority has not subsequently been used to overturn the position of any minority party to the agreement.
  The promoters of the Bill say that they have no wish to change the doctrine—at the moment, at any rate. There is no intention or proposal before the conference to change the doctrine. If we accept the clear statement that the promoters have made, why is the doctrinal clause necessary? Why should it be brought before us?
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  There is a danger of confusing these proceedings with those engaged in by a similarly attentive House some months ago over the position of the Church of England. Parliament changed the relationship of the established Church with Parliament in a significant way. Some hon. Members were in favour of that and some were not. Some hon. Members now in the Chamber took an active part in that debate. That was an entirely different proceeding. It had nothing to do with the issues now facing us. On that occasion Parliament was divesting itself of the power to determine doctrine and worship in the Church of England.
  Should we continue to safeguard the kind of agreement which was arrived at by the parties to the Methodist Union? If Parliament does not safeguard that, the way is opened to certain rather serious risks, such as going back on the guarantees that were given between 1929 to 1932 without testing the need and without testing the way in which the decision had been reached. That does not give very much hope or encouragement to the schemes of union which may now be being considered between the Churches, and there are many such schemes under discussion. One has gone through from the United Reform Church and there may be others. We are likely to have such agreements again.
  It will be necessary for parties who arrive at agreement between different Churches to sink their many differences and to arrive at a formula and compromise which each side is confident will be respected. This may involve large and small groups joining together. The procedure is common to Parliament not only in religious denominations but in other areas—namely, to safeguard proceedings when they involve property by the way it turns on private legislation.
  Mr. Eric Ogden: The hon. Gentleman asked what I thought was a serious question, although it may have been merely rhetorical. He said that Parliament should have no part in deciding the doctrine of the Methodist Church although we should have a place in deciding the safeguards relating to how that doctrine was decided. Does he agree that at present Parliament has a veto on deciding the doctrines of the Methodist Church and

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  that the Bill, right or wrong, would remove the veto? In fact, I happen to agree with the Bill. We can use the words "veto" or "safeguard", the latter being the hon. Gentleman's word.
  Mr. Beith: As an exchange of words, we could make "safeguard" into "veto". This House would not contemplate arguing about the doctrine of the Methodist Church if it were confronted with a situation in which the Methodist Church changed its doctrine. The debate we are now having, if it were opposed on the Floor of the House, would be concerned with the necessary tests to be conducted and the procedures to be followed to ensure that the widest possible support existed and that it did not represent only the wishes of one section of the parties concerned. I do not see why we should be asked to answer the question in the abstract when confronted with a situation in which the doctrine is proposed to be changed.
  Mr. van Straubenzee: I am following the speech of the hon. Gentleman very closely. He will remember that some of us were closely associated with a similar operation relating to the Church of England. If there were to be an application for a change in the doctrine of the Methodist Church under the law as it now is, would not this House be bound to debate that change of doctrine? Would it not find itself being the judge of Methodist doctrine? Does the hon. Gentleman feel that that is satisfactory in 1976?
  Mr. Beith: The question would not be the theological question whether a particular doctrine was sound, but the question whether the views of the Methodists and the various parties to the agreement had been ascertained and were fairly reflected in the decision that was taken. That was not the position with the Church of England. That was a different question. The hon. Gentleman must know that there is a difference.
  Mr. A. P. Costain: Would the House have any say in whether the theology was right or wrong? What would be the machinery? Would there have to be another Bill, a Statutory Instrument or an Adjournment debate? How could it happen? Why
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  does the hon. Gentleman, as a lay preacher, contend that he has more confidence in this House than in the conference to respect the views of Church members?
  Mr. Beith: I shall come to the conference later. It would have to be a Bill. It would be by legislative proceedings. No reason has been advanced why it should be done in any other way, except the strange analogy with the proceedings in the Church of England.
  Mr. Ivor Clemitson: As I understand the position, if the Methodist Church wished to change its doctrinal basis a Bill would have to be presented to this House. A Bill is capable of amendment by this House, but if a measure comes to this House from the Synod of the Church of England we cannot amend it. We either accept or reject it in toto.
  Mr. Beith: The procedure which would be used on any subsequent occasion would be to put the doctrinal standards not into the Bill but into a document referred to in the Bill. The House made no attempt in 1929 to change the doctrine or to modify the agreement which was reached. It gave an entrenchment to the agreement that was reached. That was contained in the deed of union. It was not amended or capable of amendment by the House. Parliament entrenched that document. In that sense, the House is in the same position as with a worship and doctrine measure. There is no question of amending or changing it.
  The principle involved is significant. The doctrinal standards in the deed of union must be seen in the context of the connectional structure of Methodism, which is a fairly authoritarian structure in some respects. It differs markedly from the Congregational type of church government. If the doctrine is changed, severe consequences follow for those who might dissent from any change. Some objectors fear that a different group might be affected. It would depend on the change that was envisaged. We do not know what groups would be involved.
  The point at issue concerns not only the internal procedures of the Methodist Church but the model deed. A new version of the model deed is contained in

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  Schedule 1. Paragraph 14(3) of Schedule 2 provides:
  "Subject to the foregoing sub-paragraph and to any provision of the Act of 1969 or of any sharing agreement made thereunder affecting the property or any part thereof, the managing trustees shall not permit any person, at any service or meeting for religious worship held at or in any part of any premises comprised in the property, so to preach or expound God's Holy Word or perform any act as to deny or repudiate the doctrinal standards."
  The importance of that is that anyone who obtains his or her livelihood as a minister or a deaconess in the Methodist Church could be placed in the position, if the doctrine were changed, of being deprived of that livelihood and any opportunity to preach in Methodist pulpits. The conference did not enter upon that matter lightly. However, it has the power to preclude from its pulpits and its ministry those who dissent from the doctrines. If one changes the doctrines, one risks putting people in that position. It is not unreasonable that there should be safeguards for people who are at risk of being placed in that position. The three Methodist movements wisely had that consequence in mind when they entrenched that provision.
  It is difficult to see that it is fair and reasonable to take the risks involved as regards livelihood and the effect on those who preach and obtain their living and ministers and deaconesses of a change of doctrine without a clear safeguard for their own position and future. That is one of the areas in which the House must be satisfied that there is fairness and reasonableness.
  There is a special case, to which the promoters of the Bill have referred elsewhere, in regard to the position of those from other denominations who are invited now to preach in Methodist pulpits. I have great sympathy with the objectives of the promoters in trying to ensure that Methodism does not get itself into a legality where it invites ministers from other denominations to occupy its pulpits. One of the reasons advanced for a change in the doctrinal clause is that it applies too harsh a limitation on the invitations to ministers of other denominations to preach in Methodist pulpits. However, that difficulty does not derive from the doctrinal standards themselves and would not necessarily be solved if
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  one changed the standards, because however one changed them one would be likely to leave some denomination or group with which one wished to continue to exchange preachers from time to time which might not be covered by it. The way of dealing with that problem is by amendment of the model deeds themselves. The promoters have used this device and seem to be trying to have a double method of achieving it. The change in the doctrinal clause cannot be justified on those grounds.
  The second area in which the House must apply the tests of fairness and reasonableness is in relation to local trustees, their discharge from present responsibilities and their replacement. I accept what was said by the hon. Member for Goole. Problems arise in the relations between trusts and those who run local churches and societies and who now organise them in church councils. Situations can arise where a gulf opens up between the trust and what we used to call the society, the active church members. It should not do so, because any sensible society should make sure that its members are among the trustees, but it has happened and does happen.
  I understand the desire of the promoters to ensure that the local trustee responsibility and local management of the Church's affairs are as closely bound together as possible. Not only am I unhappy, but many others are unhappy that central custodian trustees should be the device used to achieve this purpose. I believe that it would be much better if we could have an established procedure by which we kept membership of trusts closely aligned to local churches rather than become involved in a process of centralisation.
  The difficulty is felt at its keenest where this is associated with the awkward occasion that arises when a society or local church feels for some reason or other that it must leave the Methodist connection or when it finds that the Methodist connection no longer wants it and wishes to declare it redundant. In those cases, the existence of a central instrument of power and responsibility causes those who fear this situation to be very worried about central custodian trustees.
  Their Lordships tried to deal with the case which could arise when a society had to leave the Methodist Church be-

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  cause it was declared redundant. An amendment was introduced into the Bill, but the difficulty about that is that it may be defective in drafting. This is a Committee matter for later, but it depends on the whole redundancy procedure being followed through to the end. As the hon. Member for Goole knows, that often has not happened. At the end of the day the unfortunate members have found their church closed over their heads.
  They have one small benefit if the whole procedure is correctly followed. They have the privilege of being able to buy back on the open market the chapel which their forefathers built and to which they have devoted their life's efforts. In some cases they may not be able to afford to buy it back, but in other cases they may be fortunate because it may be on the market at a low price.
  There is an additional problem. There is no intention to embrace the various chapels which have nothing to do with the Methodist Church but belong to the Western Reform Union or other separate or breakaway Methodist groups, some of which are very small, or even limited to one chapel only. The difficulty arises because the list of trustees in the schedule goes a long way back and can embrace chapels which have never had anything to do with the Methodist Church at all.
  Dr. Edmund Marshall: Has the hon. Member any evidence that any one of those in the Western Reform Union or these independent Methodist chapels has a deed included in it?
  Mr. Beith: Quite a number of bodies, and certainly the Western Reform Union, are very doubtful about indicating on which deeds their chapels are, because they are uncertain of the consequences of such legislation. It is incumbent on the promoters of the Bill to bring before us a schedule to embrace these chapels and the deeds they have lost. The promoters cannot except Back-Bench Members of this House to pursue through the safes of the United Kingdom the deeds of all the chapels involved. The areas of risk are well enough known for the promoters to draft the Bill in such a way as to safeguard them. This is why the Instruction has been tabled, and even those who are enthusiastic about the Bill should ensure that the promoters ascertain
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  whether they are not sweeping into the Bill people who do not want to be any part of it.
  A third area on which the House must ask questions is whether those affected have been consulted adequately. Are the promoters satisfied that consultations have taken place? It is simply not good enough to say that the synods have seen copies of the Bill. It has been widely claimed at synods at which the Bill was available that copies of it were taken away and were not available to take back on to the circuits to local churches. The fact that ministers are synod members does not necessarily mean that this is an effective method of communication. My chapel shares its minister with eight others. When the minister is not there, services are conducted by local preachers. On his quarterly visit, the minister can hardly be expected to take part in the kind of discussions described. Many people did not become aware of the Bill until a fairly late stage in the procedures.
  Methodism is a connectional movement. It has always been influenced by both connections and by congregational traditions and attitudes. It seems that the rôle of local societies in seeing that their needs are met by representation at synod level is unfair to the Methodist tradition. I do not think that the hon. Member for Goole can reasonably suggest that the vote in conference represents the potential result of the same referendum among Methodist people. Of course, the conference produced an overwhelming majority in favour of the Bill. I am sure the hon. Member will recognise that if one took a poll among societies or Methodist members they would divide in the same proportion.
  The hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) said that Methodist churches had the opportunity to put before the conference memorials indicating their view. Even in spite of the lack of early information at that level about the Bill, many societies and circuits did precisely that. Quite a number of memorials came before the 1975 conference deploring the lack of information about the Bill. One was from the Hoylake and West Kirby circuit, and the Birmingham Mission circuit urged a withdrawal of the Bill. From the Redruth circuit came criticisms, and doubt about the Bill were raised by the Bolton and Rochdale

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  synod. The Bolton meeting, with 100 people present, voting by 82 to 17, came down against the Bill. Other representations include those from Bury and Heywood, Bridlington and the Forest of Dean.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): The hon. Member said that many people were not aware of the Bill, and now he says that circuits that were not consulted have been making representations. How does he square those two statements?
  Mr. Beith: I have said that knowledge of the detailed provisions of the Bill was not available at local church level, but in a very large number of circuits people did what the hon. Member for Goole said they should—they went to great pains to find out more about the Bill. Now that a great deal more is known about it, there are memorials on the agenda to the conference for 1976—a conference which has not yet met—requesting that the Bill should be substantially changed, withdrawn or not acted upon. The Birmingham Central Mission is responsible for one of the memorials and others come from Romsey, the Brigg circuit, and Southport. The circuit at Worksop deplores the fact that in March 1975 the circuits were not given access to, and therefore could not discuss the contents of, the Bill.
  Mr. Kenneth Lomas: Is the hon. Member aware that the Huddersfield Methodist Church has said that it is in favour of the Bill? Would the hon. Member care to comment on that?
  Mr. Beith: He is a wise Member of Parliament who takes the trouble to ascertain the views held locally. There are differences of view among a great many people who favour the Bill. We are discussing tonight whether adequate consultation took place, whether the Bill should proceed and whether the different views involved have been adequately met. The hon. Member for Goole sought to give the impression that the most inconsequential group of people was opposed to the Bill I do not think that the circuits I have referred to can be put into that category.
  Even if there were a large and clear majority of every circuit throughout
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  Methodism in favour of the Bill, there would still be a large minority opposed to it and it would be the duty of this House to take notice of that opposition. The circuits which I have quoted have indicated in their memorials that there is a wider degree of dissatisfaction and concern at the proposal than had been thought hitherto.
  The conference made replies to those memorials and said the kind of thing that the hon. Member for Goole has said. It recommended that the Bill should be dealt with in accordance with our long-established procedures for dealing with all items of legislation. Frankly, the circuits concerned did not share that view and were unhappy about it. It gives me no pleasure to make criticisms of a measure brought forward by people I respect in the Church to which I belong.
  Whether Methodist or not, however, I would be failing in my duty as a Member of Parliament if I did not express concern at the sort of issues I have raised. I would have been much happier if substantial agreement could have been reached to avoid this spattering of the conference agenda with genuine, deep-seated misgivings from circuits in all parts of the country. It behoves hon. Members to acknowledge the existence of these feelings and to be accommodating towards them.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, I should point out, after the two reasonably long speeches that we have just heard, that if the Instruction is not reached before the end of the three hours allotted for this debate, the House will not have the opportunity—it may not wish to have the opportunity, of course—to vote on the Instruction. If the Second Reading debate lasts for three hours, I shall not be able to call the Instruction.
  9.35 p.m.
  Mr. Ron Lewis: I claim no special qualifications for intervening in this important debate, but, like the two previous speakers, for my sins, I am a member of the Methodist Church.
  Mr. Speaker: I know that I am impartial, but that would not be for one's sins surely.
  Mr. Lewis: I was going to say that if I am spared until August of this year I shall have completed 45 years as a Methodist local preacher. I look back on those 45 years with great pleasure.
  The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) quoted certain circuits. I have not received one letter from my constituency, yet he quoted my circuit, the Worksop circuit. I want to be fair to my superintendent minister there. It was only when he arrived on the scene last September, I understand, that this question was stirred up there. Even now, some of the ministers in that circuit are supporting this measure, as proposed by conference.
  There are two contentious issues—the dissolution of the local trusteeship and the withdrawing of the unalterability clause relating to doctoring. My own humble thought is that the affairs of the Methodist Church should be in the hands of those who for the time being comprise that Church and who are reacting to its needs and those of the time. Applying that reasoning to doctoring rules out any clause made at one time, in this case back in the 1930s, which seeks to fix matters for all time.
  There is however a personal view which to me is satisfying as a principle but which ignores the reasons for the unalterability clause in the deed of union going back to 1930. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) that it is still relevant to recall the clause, which arises from the deed of union, the document which set out the terms of the union of the three United Churches—the Wesleyans, the Primitives and the United Methodists. After all these years, we are not now uniting three previously separate Churches, as they were in the 1930s.
  According to one eye witness, the clause sought to placate the hard liners of the Wesleyan pastoral ministerial session who wanted to guard against eroding the status of ministers, particularly superintendent ministers, while the hard liners of the Primitives and the United Methodists wanted to guard against any enhancing of the status or function of the ministry and corresponding erosion of lay authority and responsibility.
  That conflict is understandable in the context of the discussions in 1928–32,
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  because for years the only thing that kept the uniting churches apart was the question of ministerial-lay authority and responsibility.
  Therefore, in my view the clause functioned as a means to an end. It was a mechanism to assist the uniting of three previously separate Methodist Churches, and that is important. But this most certainly is not the issue now. Therefore, this reason for such a clause no longer applies, in my humble opinion.
  Is there any virtue, in 1976, in maintaining an anachronism, therefore? I appreciate that there are those who see the clause as a safeguard against changes of which they fear they may disapprove. However, having said that I think that to shelter behind the clause and to decline to argue a case is somewhat immoral. If the real concern of those who wish to maintain the clause is to safeguard the future from hasty or immoderate change, surely the way forward is to devise a procedure within the Church to ensure that no change can take place without full discussion and a substantial majority being in favour of it.
  On this point, the current proposals seem to me to be satisfactory. However, if they are not judged to be satisfactory, surely it is the proposals that require amendment. Nothing needs to be stopped by the blunt instrument of the unalterability clause. What is more, I see no reason why the legislative and secular authority of this House should be the guardian of matters theological. I think that the Methodist Church should be free from parliamentary encumbrance. As I understand it, that is what this measure seeks to do.
  My thoughts on the proposals to dissolve the local trusteeship and to vest all Methodist property in a central body of trustees acting for the Connexion seems to be reasonable. Again, I hold the view that the current affairs of the Church should be in the hands of those who are the Church for the time being, and that applies to the local church as well as to the Connexion as a whole.
  I know that a number of Methodist ministers, after their attendance at the synods, have referred the proposed change to every trustees' meeting that they have attended, and have done that as their churches' representatives to the

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  synods. If some ministers did not do so, I suggest that they were abdicating some of their duties. But a number of ministers have told me that they raised this question at meetings of their local trustees time and time again when it was first mooted several years ago. As far as I have been able to ascertain from the various ministers to whom I have spoken, there were very few exceptions at the time that they raised the matter and made their report on this measure, especially when it was realised that all but the legal responsibility was being transferred to the church council.
  Mr. Richard Wainwright: We all applaud the spirit in which certain ministers spoke to the bodies of trustees to which they were responsible. Although these have not been quantified or specified, is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that in doing that ministers were under an instruction from the conference? In other words, was there a rule that all ministers should tell the trustees of their churches?
  Mr. Lewis: I am saying that a minister who goes to synod is under an obligation to report back to his trustees' meeting what happens at the synod. If ministers did not do that, some of them probably erred and strayed in that regard.
  Only the legal responsibility was being transferred to a central body. This seems relevant, because it is the legal responsibility that local folk have shied away from when asked to become trustees.
  Another relevant issue is the absent trustee. The older a trust is, the more likely it is that its members will be dispersed and therefore lose touch with local matters. They consequently become less willing to act, even if they go to meetings. This situation is no help to the local church. On this practical issue, I welcome the proposed change, because it keeps the responsibility local, where it should be, and maintains an elected body. I regard that as a real improvement.
  I appreciate that some regard the proposed change with fear, thinking that the Trust for Methodist Church Purposes can now close our chapels, but as that cannot happen without the agreement of the church council, circuit meeting, district synod and conference, I do not see any
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  closures resulting from the proposed change. We shall watch with great interest, but I do not foresee the Trustees for the Methodist Church Purposes initiating any closure. There would be too many ready to say "This is just what we feared."
  I am content with this move, because it draws attention to the connectional form of Methodism as distinct from the congregational form. That is good for the Methodist Church.
  Bearing in mind that we have a membership of about 600,000 in the great Church and that only about 8,000 have so far petitioned against this, I hope that the House will give its full support to the elected body of the Methodist Church, the Methodist Conference.
  9.49 p.m.
  Mr. Paul Dean: I shall remember your appeal for brevity Mr. Speaker.
  I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Lewis). He and I had the pleasure of living in the same village for a number of years. I know that he and his family are great pillars of the Methodist Church in that village in North Somerset.
  I think that I am the first Anglican to speak in the debate. I support the Bill. The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) made a persuasive case for allowing the Bill to go to Committee, where the details can be considered.
  I have three general propositions, which I find useful guidelines in approaching Church matters. The first is that I am a firm believer in retaining an established Church in this country. It symbolises the link between the Church and the State, between the spiritual and temporal and is of great value, particularly in these days when practising Christians are, alas, a minority.
  My second guideline arises from the closer links that have been developing in recent years between the Churches. I rejoice to see the barriers breaking down and new links being forged. The Bill will assist in forging those new links and will give additional flexibility within all Churches.
  My third guideline is the principle that there must be compelling arguments to

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  justify the House rejecting a Bill put forward by any responsible Church.
  For years the trend has been towards maximum self-government in the Churches and a minimum of intervention by Parliament. Churches are responsible bodies, and we should treat them as such. They have their own methods of government and representation of clergy and layity, and we should be careful before we interfere. If we were to make a practice of intervention in the growing amount of legislation coming to the House from the Churches, what effect would it have on relations between the Churches and Parliament? History gives us a warning that we should proceed with caution. That warning also applies to the Churches.
  I have one suggestion, which I hope will be followed up. We must work out a better early warning system than we appear to have at present, so that when a Church is thinking of legislation, ways will be devised for informal consultations to take place in the early stages, to avoid potential clashes developing between the Church and Parliament.
  Although I disagree with many of the remarks of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), I agree that consultation with membership is not one of the Church's strongest points. Perhaps the Methodist Church and other Churches may wish to reflect upon that.
  I ask myself whether there are arguments that are sufficiently compelling to justify rejection of the Bill. My answer is clearly "No". Are there sufficiently compelling arguments for asking the House to impose this Instruction? My answer to that is also "No". The hon. Member for Goole put forward compelling arguments in the references he made to the amendments introduced in the other place to try to meet the understandable fears put forward on the part of some trustees. It would be unfortunate for the House to try to pre-empt the later stages of the Bill by accepting an Instruction of the kind suggested.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: Despite what he said, does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the House has responsibility for the generality of the membership of the Methodist Church, who apparently on this occasion were not
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  as widely consulted as they might have been?
  Mr. Dean: I am coming to that.
  There are two aspects that need to be looked at separately—the spiritual and the temporal. First, as to spiritual matters, matters of doctrine, the Methodist Church, as the hon. Member for Carlisle reminded us, is asking that it should be able to determine its own doctrine and be released from the bonds of the 1929 Act. It asks for the freedom that other Churches have. In introducing the Bill the hon. Member for Goole referred to the history of the 1929 Act, and I need not go into that.
  It is wrong, certainly in modern times, that spiritual matters which are the concern of a responsible Church should be decided by a secular Parliament composed of Christians and non-Christians. There is no doubt in my mind, from my discussions with Methodists, that their feelings on this matter are very strong. If I were a Methodist I should feel exactly the same. Although the Bill deals with temporalities, on the spiritual side the House should hesitate before throwing it out and thereby also throwing out that aspect.
  On the temporal side, the issues are not so clear and the House is entitled to do some probing in the light of its responsibility as the ultimate watchdog of the national interest, national justice and individual rights. I admit to some misgivings. I at least understand the argument put forward on behalf of the petitioners with regard to the trustees. I understand the misgivings about consultation, but there are two arguments that counterbalance the misgivings that have been expressed.
  The first argument is that these proposals will enhance the power of the local church community. They are designed to enable the local church community to respond more effectively to new needs. The managing trustees will be the people on the spot—the church council. That seems to be a compelling argument, which we cannot lightly gainsay.
  The second argument, which is important, is that the Methodist Church assures use that it has gone through its well-established procedures before bringing forward the Bill. We have the clear

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  statement on behalf of the promoters in paragraph 4 of the paper that:
  "In accordance with the Standing Orders of the Conference, and after full consultation within the Methodist Church, the provisions of the Bill have been submitted to the Conference in each of two successive years and, on each occasion have been approved almost unanimously."
  It has been argued that the consultative procedures are not perfect, but what should be pre-eminent in our minds is that the established procedures laid down by the Methodist Church have been gone through. The case that has been put by the promoters of the Bill is convincing. Any misgivings we may have are much better dealt with in Committee. There is no case for rejecting the Bill, with all the serious consequences that would entail for the Methodist Church. Neither is there a case for the Instruction. I hope, therefore, that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.
  10.0 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): At the outset I would like to say that I speak for myself tonight and not in my capacity as a Minister of the Crown. I was reluctant to intervene, but in 1974–75 I was vice-president of the Methodist Conference. During that year, when the Bill was being discussed in chapels up and down the country, I was privileged Sunday after Sunday to visit chapels throughout Britain and my experience prompts me to say what I hope will be a brief word tonight.
  I grew up in a West Durham mining village where the chapel was the social centre. It was the training ground for involvement in community life. It was the sort of chapel where we were not given permission to go into politics: we were expected to go into politics. It was also the place of worship.
  I am bound to say that the Methodist folk in my village have had a profound influence on my life. I cannot pay too high a tribute to the influence of the chapel in my thinking. In that village we had a built-in suspicion of everything that was said and done south of Darlington, let alone what happened in London. We were against anything which came from London. We ran our own affairs and we resented interference from circuit,
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  synod and particularly the Methodist Conference. Therefore, my traditions are with the traditions of those who have voiced the minority view tonight, because it is a minority view so far as the Methodist Church is concerned. Yet I find myself, as it were, commending the Bill.
  I believe the Bill to be sensible, reasonable and forward-looking. I know, and I say this with great sincerity, that it is supported by the overwhelming majority of Methodist people. There is not the slightest shadow of doubt about that, otherwise I would not say it. Anybody who was fortunate enough, as I was, to grow up in a closely-knit, neighbourly community will understand the doubts, fears and misgivings which I know are sincerely and genuinely felt by those who have petitioned against the Bill. I assure hon. Members concerned that I understand those fears because I grew up in that kind of background. It is because I believe that those fears are groundless that I am making these remarks tonight.
  The Methodist Conference is a democratic body—make no mistake about that. The democratic procedures have grown up over the years. There is equal representation of the ordained ministry and lay persons, as we now describe what in the old days we used to call laymen.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) detailed the provisions of the Bill. It has been discussed in the Church for some years now. It was discussed in conference, then went back to the synods and then back to conference again. At no time has there ever been—and I say this with some authority—any attempt or wish by anybody I know in the Methodist Church to prevent people discussing what is in the Bill. Indeed, the very opposite is the truth.
  It may well be that the formal procedures of consultation ought to be looked at, but I assure the House that the fact that there was not an instruction to ministers to consult the local church does not mean—certainly in my own experience—that ministers, laymen and certainly the vice-president have failed to take every opportunity to discuss the proposals in the Bill.
  If I thought that discussion and consideration at local level would have meant any difference, I would have had doubts about my enthusiastic support for the

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  Bill. Nobody would accuse a Northumbrian or Durham Methodist of being an autocrat. I learned my democracy in the Methodist chapel, and I was very disturbed to hear my Church being described as one that was not ready to consult the grass roots.
  The two issues which seem to be troubling the objectors are concerned, first, with property and the rights and duties of the trustees and, secondly, with doctrinal standards. Legal ownership of Methodist property will be transferred to the Central Board, and custodian trusteeship gives the central authority no duties or functions to perform in respect of the property vested in it other than actually holding the property and ensuring that it is not party to a breach of the trust upon which the property is held.
  On the other hand, the managing trustees—in other words, the local church council—will have spiritual oversight over the local church and also manage the property. Far from being a resort to central administration or control, the Bill will in reality enhance the powers of the local church fellowship.
  The Bill gives no new powers to close any chapel which are not already available to the Church. The Bill does not confer new powers to deal with redundancy. The chapel of which I have such vivid memory is now closed. When we decided to close it I regretted it, in a way, but I realise now that by joining the ex-Wesleyan and ex-Primitive Churches together we did a service to the Church and to the local community. Indeed, we now recognise that this was a step forward.
  It has just been suggested—I do not quarrel with this—that there are people who want to be away from the Methodist Church as we know it. I think that the hon. Member who said this over-emphasised it. I remind him that since powers were taken there have been 1,122 redundancies and that 1,121 of those were voluntary. Only in one case has compulsion been used.
  I am bound to say that the experiences in that one case have, I am certain, taught the Church a lesson. In these changing times, however, when there are three chapels in one village, it is surely sensible that redundancies should occur and that
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  the Christian community should work together. I hope that not only the Methodist churches but other churches as well will see the light in that respect.
  I stress to the House, therefore, that in no sense is this a vesting of power centrally and a taking away of power from the local folk. The Bill provides flexibility in deploying the assets of the Church, as long as the use comes within the broad purpose of the Methodist Church.
  On doctrinal standards, I am sure that the House may wonder why a non-conformist church is unable to alter its statement of doctrine without parliamentary approval. The conference—it represents the Methodist people—believes that the Methodist people, through their democratically elected decision-making assembly, should have the power to alter or amend the doctrinal standards, provided that such amendments are approved by a substantial majority after careful and prolonged consultation. Certainly "appropriate consultation" as defined in a standing order could not be more democratic.
  The conference must first approve any change by a 75 per cent. majority. Then for two years there will be consultation right down to circuit level, and the whole of the Methodist people will be consulted. Every local Methodist church has direct representation to the circuit meeting. Then, two years after the first proposal, it will be submitted again to conference. Again, conference must have a 75 per cent. vote before any proposed alteration must become effective. I know of no more democratic procedure than that in any organisation to which I am attached.
  The Bill will bring up to date the whole statutory machinery controlling the affairs and trust property of the Methodist Church. The genuine nature of this exercise, which has been the subject of many years of earnest and honest discussion, is clearly established by the overwhelming support of Methodists throughout the country. Because I believe that it is the express wish of Methodists, and because I believe that the Bill is in the best interests of our Church, of our nation and of the world, I commend this measure to the House.
  10.12 p.m.
  Mr. Patrick Mayhew: Many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, and I know that many of them will have a better claim to speak in this debate than I have since they are members of the Methodist Church rather than as in any case, of the Anglican Church. I shall heed the request from the Chair for short speeches, and I can only hope that in trying to accede to that request I shall be acquitted of any charge of superficiality in dealing with this important Bill.
  I intended to begin by saying that I had no interest to declare because I am not a Methodist, but that would be wrong, because as a Member of Parliament I believe that I do have an interest to declare. As Members of Parliament, we are vested by the 1932 Act with a responsibility. Whether it is right or wrong that we should have that responsibility, the fact remains that we have it. That responsibility is to scrutinise measures brought forward by the democratic processes of the Methodist Church.
  I believe that there is value in this procedure, which, I recognise, is somewhat anomalous. In the case of the Anglican Church, our minds go back a few months to the occasion when the Vacant Benefices Measure was before the House and when, for the first time since 1928, this House threw out a measure that came to us through the Anglican processes, it having been through the Synod and having been before the Ecclesiastical Committee of the Anglican Church. We threw out that measure not because we were against its purpose but because the Anglican Church had produced a legislative abortion. We threw it out, and the Church Times said in a leading article the following week that the Church should be grateful to the House of Commons for having been so vigilant.
  I personally believe that there is value in the responsibility of this House in these matters. Whether there is value in that process or whether it is right that we should have that responsibility, the fact is that we possess it. Therefore, we must ask ourselves by what
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  criterion we should exercise our powers. I am clear that we should not exercise our powers by the criterion that we are arbiters of theology in the Methodist Church or from a belief that we are arbiters of the proper administration of the Methodist Church. We should exercise those powers according to the question whether, in our view, the Methodist Church has been consulted fully, thoroughly and painstakingly.
  I do not doubt that those responsible for the Bill sincerely believe it to be right and to represent the wishes of the majority of the Methodist Church—and, for all I know, it may well be so. The vast preponderance of correspondence that I have received from my constituents is on the other side. I do not understand it to be contested by the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall). They say "We have not been consulted at church council or at circuit level". They say—and who am I to contest it?—that the lower one is in the Methodist hierarchy, if I may use that expression without offence, or the nearer one is to the grass roots, the greater is the degree of opposition to the Bill. If the circuits in a formal sense and the church councils have not been consulted, that represents a serious question mark against the rightness of voting for the Bill.
  I observe the contrast between the procedure which has been thought right for this Bill and the procedure which was thought right for the Anglican-Methodist conversations. In the latter instance it was thought right to take the consultations down to circuit level. I was not impressed by the answer I was given when I put that point to the hon. Gentleman. He said that the Anglican-Methodist conversations represented a proposal which went to the very roots of the continuence of the Methodist Church, that this Bill is of lesser importance and that, therefore, that procedure is not necessary. I hope that does justice to the nature of the hon. Gentleman's reply.
  The crucial features of the Bill are twofold. The first is to remove from the surveillance of this House any changes which may be put forward in the doctrine of the Methodist Church. The second is to remove from the control of local trustees the right to dispose of local

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  church property. Those would seem to be matters of great importance.
  I am told in the vast preponderance of letters that I have received that this is a matter of great anxiety to Church members in my constituency. They resent the fact that there has been no consultation at circuit, let alone church council, level. When they tell me that their fellow Church members do not know what the Bill proposes, as a non-Methodist but as a Member of this House, as at present advised on the basis of what I have heard, I feel bound to oppose the Bill.
  Mr. van Straubenzee: I have been following closely my hon. and learned Friend's cogent argument. Would not a closer analogy be with the actions of this House at the end of 1974 when it granted freedom over worship and doctrine to the Church of England, doing so upon a request by the General Synod of that Church, realising that the dioceses had been consulted but not having any knowledge that the consultation had gone down to parochial level? That is surely a closer analogy. On that occasion the House gave its assent.
  Mr. Mayhew: That is an important point that occurred to me. I believe there to be a distinction. I hope that I can be put right if I am wrong. Whereas in the Synod of the Church of England I believe there to be a more directly democratic foundation or basis, I am told that the Methodist Conference, which comes at the top of the pyramid as it were, is composed as to 50 per cent. of lay representatives and 50 per cent. of ministers. I understand that the lay representatives consist of heads of departments and chairmen of districts and that there is no election by way of mandate. There is a strong official or office-bearing component in the Methodist Conference. I am told that the district synods are chaired by district chairmen who are appointed from a general purposes committee. Therefore, there is a strong office-bearing component within the membership of the synod. That, if it is right, seems to be an important distinction between the hierarchy, as it were, of the Methodist Church and the example put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee).
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  I do not want to say any more, but I hope that I have indicated the considerations that are a great cause for anxiety to me, trying to do my best as a Member of Parliament who is vested, rightly or wrongly, with a share of the duty to survey a proposal of this nature. The considerations that I have outlined have weighed strongly and with urgency upon those who have written to me. On the basis of what I have heard, I am bound to say that they will oblige me to vote against the Bill.
  10.21 p.m.
  Mr. Eric Ogden: The hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew)—that is a speech in itself—is absolutely right to take an interest in this debate on behalf of his constituents. He is right to do so, whether he be a Methodist, an Anglican, or a member of any other denomination. His duty as a Member of Parliament is to supervise and consider the legislation before us.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman and I have almost exchanged places. I had the temerity to take part in the Church of England measure on worship and doctrine. I hope that my support on that occasion was welcome to the Anglicans. Any support on this occasion from Anglicans will be welcome to the Methodists.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman made two references which I would take up straight away. First, he referred to the Methodist hierarchy. If anything, that hierarchy is longitudinal rather than pyramidical, but if it is an inverted cone we believe that the churches and chapels are at the top level and that the Methodist Conference is at the base. I say that with no disrespect to those who may or may not be witnesses of this debate.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to consultation. Perhaps he will listen to the words of a Methodist minister in the West Derby constituency with whom I took up the issue of consultation by asking how far along the line conference should have gone and how far along the line it went in different areas. He makes the point that Parliament decided what the procedures of the Methodist Church should be.

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  Parliament decided how that consultation should take place, and the minister asks "Can Parliament direct the Methodist Conference to overrule its constitution, which is itself guaranteed by an Act of Parliament?" That is one of the dilemmas.
  In coming to this Bill, the Methodist Church has done everything that Parliament asked it to do. If Parliament had wanted conference to do more, we should have asked conference to do more. The Methodist Church, after its consultative processes, comes before Parliament having done everything that Parliament has asked. In individual circumstances, conference has done much more than the minimum that Parliament imposed.
  Mr. Spearing: Does my hon. Friend recall in another context that Caesar asked one to go a mile and one had to go? As Parliament is Caesar in this rôle, and as the Methodist Church is a Christian church, why did the Church not go the second mile towards its total membership?
  Mr. Ogden: I have the highest and warmest regard for my hon. Friend, but he is the "Great Dissenter" in these matters. I always welcome interventions from Congregationalists, but sometimes I wish they were in other places. My answer to my hon. Friend is that this is a matter of personal opinion. The Methodist people in West Derby have no complaint about the consultation. It might be that people in other parts of the country are more backward in coming forward than we are in the North-West. I never heard of a Nonconformist of any group who was not more than capable of knowing what was going on in the world and saying "Ah, but listen. They are not all south of Darlington or north of Watford".
  My purpose is to support the Bill and to help to reduce the average length of speeches in this Chamber on this occasion. It is known that Members of this House belong to an infinite variety of religious groups. There are Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants. Christians, members of the Jewish faith and members of no faith but humanity itself. It is equally known with affection that there is a parliamentary group known affectionately
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  as the Mafia. Its full title is the Methodist Mafia. You, Mr. Speaker, are a witness to the fact that this group has friends in high places. The Methodist connexion in Parliament is deeper than is ever declared in the Register of Members' Interests. If I have to lobby you later, I hope that you will give your casting vote in support of the Bill.
  Equally, however, hon. Members have put forward cogent, proper arguments in opposition to the Bill and done their duty to themselves and other interests. I am pleased that they did not begin quoting my constituents' points of view, because I might have had a point of principle to raise. It happens that I belong to the Methodist Church. My family, whether they came from St. Erth in Cornwall or from Lancashire, were known in that lovely term "Big Methodists". We were Primitive Methodists. I have been told by one of the Catholic hierarchy in Liverpool that if they had to have a Protestant they could not get someone much more Protestant than a Primitive Methodist. I still regard myself in that light.
  This is a strange Bill. Perhaps it would have been better if we had had two Bills, one on doctrine and one on property. Clauses 3 and 4 are supremely important to me, and much more important than the other clauses. These two Clauses, 3 and 4, are about the doctrine of the Church, and surely that ought to be decided by people outside this House. Clauses 5 and 6 concern the power to unite with other Churches. Would anyone oppose that? Those four clauses out of the 17 are essential and are four very good reasons why the House should give a Second Reading to the Bill.
  Fortunately or unfortunately, in this sceptred isle we are bedevilled by land and by property. Ten out of the 17 clauses of the Bill are about property. As my dad used to say, "Get hold of a bit of land or property." But that is not the fundamental point or purpose of the Bill. Presumably for some reason these matters had to be linked together. We do not have such Bills every few weeks. This is an expensive procedure. However, let us not throw out constitution and doctrine, purposes, amendment of the deed of union and the power to unite with other Churches because of differences about property that ought

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  to be able to be accommodated within the Second Reading and Committee proceedings.
  I have done my best to consult those who have a direct influence and concern in Liverpool, in my constituency of West Derby, about this Bill. They have no complaints about the consultation procedures or about any lack of information. They know more about what has been happening in relation to this Bill than what their Member of Parliament has been saying about certain other parliamentary events. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) will know, if Liverpool Members say something it is published in the Welsh editions of local papers, and if a Welsh Member says anything it is put in the Lancashire editions. There are no complaints from the people in my Liverpool constituency about this Bill. We should give it a Second Reading and send it on its way to Committee tonight.
  10.29 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Mills: I welcome this opportunity of speaking in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall). He put his case very fairly, properly and very well. I do not agree with all he said, but he made a very reasonable speech.
  I am not a Methodist, but I was a Nonconformist in my younger days until I joined the Anglican Church in a marvellous service called "Baptism for those of Riper Years". It was in the "riper years" that I transferred from being a Nonconformist to being an Anglican.
  In my area of Devon, particularly in West Devon, there is a very large number of Methodists. If I may say so without being rude, they are a particular type of Methodist, in that many are Bible Christian Methodists. They feel these things very strongly indeed. As a matter of interest for the House, I think that the Bible Christian Methodist movement started in a little village called Shebbear in my constituency.
  I believe that because I was a Nonconformist, and because I have many Methodists in my constituency, I have the right to speak on their behalf and try to put forward the views which they have expressed to me. I also believe that this House has a role to play. I do not see why we should be shy about this and
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  apologise for speaking. Surely it is our duty. The Methodists came to this House with the Church Act of 1932, and now they have come again with this Bill. It would be very funny if we in the House of Commons did not speak about these matters and air the views of our constituents. Let us do away with this nonsense that we are not supposed to speak of these things. We have every right to do so and indeed, a duty to do so. I only wish that these things were discussed more often than some of the other stupid things we have to debate.
  The House of Commons should act as a sort of long-stop in these matter's. We should say to the Church concerned "Think again", because that is the role of Parliament. It is as true of the Methodist Church as it is of the Church of England. Recently we told the Church of England to think again, and that is absolutely right.
  I am opposed to disestablishment. I think that this link is absolutely vital. It will be a sad day for the Methodist Church if, as has been suggested, it wants to break that link. Let us continue to try to work together. We should never forget that we have a Christian heritage in this country, and Methodists and Anglicans should count it a privilege that they have a link with the Mother Parliament. Long may it continue.
  Again, we in Parliament should be the protectors of minorities and the views they express. Much of this Bill must be correct and must be wanted by the Methodists. I do not argue against that. But I am desperately worried about the whole business of consultation. According to my constituents, there was not the full consultation that there should have been. I think that this sort of thing happens in most denominations. The criticism made by my people in West Devon, and in the South-West generally, is that they have not been consulted fully on these matters. They may be wrong, but I should express their views tonight.
  Mr. Lomas: I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but when he says that his constituents were not consulted is he referring to lay preachers or to the ordained members of the Methodist Church?
  Mr. Mills: I am talking entirely about the lay people who make up the body of

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  the Methodist Church and attend Sunday after Sunday those tiny chapels in the countryside. People feel very strongly, even passionately, about these matters of doctrine and trusteeship, both of which are very sensitive areas.
  I would have thought that the Methodist Church as a whole should go out of its way to see that every person was consulted about these matters, if possible. It should bend over backwards to see that these were no grounds for such criticism. I say this to the Anglican Church as well.
  It is important that bishops, superintendents and other leaders of the Churches must get it firmly in their minds that people are not prepared these days not to be consulted. I therefore ask that the Bill should be put back for proper consultation. I do not believe that that would do any harm. If the Bill is important and in the interests of the Methodist Church, it should be put back for a short time so that this further consultation can take place.
  I have heard no one say that that would be difficult or would upset or spoil what is intended. After all, the Methodists have been going on the way they are for a very long time. What would six months' delay mean if it were to lead to fuller consultation? The strength of the Methodist Church lies in the very people who are saying that they have not been consulted. These are the people who regularly attend, God-fearing people who go to the chapels every Sunday.
  Perhaps I may quote some of the letters which I have received on this subject to prove that these are not simply my views but that my local people are bitterly concerned about the matter. I have a letter from a circuit at Winkleigh, in Devon, which says:
  "We feel that our freedom as members of this body is being taken from us, and we feel that eventually not only will our places of worship but also the doctrine of our beloved church will also be affected."
  The Northlew circuit wrote saying:
  "So you can appreciate one reason why opposition may be very small. Methodists are getting more and more frustrated by so much being done 'over their heads' without consultation."
  Mr. Ogden: Will the hon. Gentleman give the date of those letters? Did he
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  offer to meet any of these groups to explain, as he would for any other Bill, the intention behind the Bill?
  Mr. Mills: I have done my best to explain it. I am a fairly busy lay reader in the Church of England on Sundays and at other times, and it is difficult to get round to the Methodist chapels. One letter was dated 25th April 1976 and the other 9th February. I have many other letters which express the same views.
  This House is right to discuss these matters. I must ask the Methodist Church please to go back and consult fully. Once it has done that, it can go forward with the full confidence that is needed. I would then wish it very well indeed.
  10.39 p.m.
  Mr. Richard Wainwright: Like other hon. Members, I approach this debate with the care that this House always takes over Private Bills of substance, especially when the interests affected are not selfish but public-spirited. To approach a private measure with care must involve the House in inquiring carefully into its parentage.
  I know that there is still time to go and there are revelations to come, but I suggest that in terms of parentage the Bill should be called the Methodist Conference Bill, not the Methodist Church Bill. Although there has been a certain amount of generalised talking, and although the Bill has been discussed by eminent Methodists in the areas they have visited, there has been no evidence that the generality of Methodists throughout the country—the 600,000 members of the Church—have been informed about the Bill.
  Secondly, I approach the Bill—
  Dr. Edmund Marshall: Has the hon. Gentleman heard of the Methodist Recorder? Does it circulate in his part of the country?
  Mr. Wainwright: I have taken certain precautions and established that the circulation of the Recorder at the last count was 41,000. I have noticed that in Yorkshire, where I practise my Methodism as a lay preacher and have done so since 1936, the Recorder is taken less and less, probably because of the lower spending

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  power of Yorkshire people rather than through any fall in the quality of the Recorder. To expect active and hardworking Methodist people to rely on a wholly commercial newspaper with a modest and falling circulation is no compliment to the Methodist authorities and is not a point of substance in discussing the parentage of the Bill.
  Secondly, like other hon. Members I approach the Bill with particular care because of the high expression of regard which Methodist people of all different traditions held for this House in 1929. Some hon. Members are overlooking or have forgotten the fact that it was the three different Methodist Churches, nation-wide bodies with very different social backgrounds, which asked Parliament to act as referee in future if any wish were expressed by the conference for a change of doctrine. The House was approached to confer this boon on Methodist people, and when Parliament is treated with that degree of respect it should not easily contemplate passing back that duty as something which is no longer appropriate.
  Mr. Tom Ellis: Reverting to the circulation of the Methodist Recorder, does not a circulation of 41,000 among a membership of 600,000 compare favourably with the circulation of any newspaper in the country?
  Mr. Wainwright: I am not discussing—with respect, it is not material—the degree of penetration of the Methodist Recorder in newspaper terms. I am simply saying that if we are inquiring what the generality of 600,000 Methodists think about the Bill it is not a great help to be told that 40,000 copies of the Recorder are sold. Even if one allows three readers per copy, one is still short of a quarter of the Methodist membership.
  Thirdly, I approach the Bill, as many others have done, with just the bonus of some little knowledge of Methodism, at any rate in Yorkshire, as secretary of the trustees of a chapel in a vast and battered down-town housing estate, a post which I gave up only when I was elected to this House. That piece of knowledge, scrappy and experiential though it is, enables me to put a gloss on some of the academic statements made in support
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  of the Bill. I do not suggest that anything inaccurate has been said, but when, for instance, the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) told us that, through its minister, every church had a live and close link with the district synod, which is the highest level which has been told about the Bill, let alone discussed it, I could not repress a chuckle.
  The chapel that I know is visited by a minister once or twice a quarter. No one would be so tactless, foolish and boring as to detain the minister about a Bill when four or five people were queueing up to tell the minister about the boiler that had burst, six or seven others were queueing up to tell him that they wanted him to stay another two years, three or four more were waiting to ask him about the condition of the manse and, far more important, the stewards were doing their duty by telling him about those members of the society who were sick and needed a visit from him. The idea that the minister comes flashing like Mercury into the chapel saying "Boys, I have news from the synod. Come and ask me questions about the matters raised in the district meeting.", bearing in mind that he is meeting 270 eminently respectable but highly establishment characters, is beyond belief.
  Then we had the interesting and very characteristic speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden). I must point out to him that, when he speaks of procedures such as those which the Methodist Church went through before presenting the Bill, he must not think that those procedures were ever laid down by Parliament. There is nothing about these procedures in the Act of 1929. They are simply the current standing orders of the conference.
  That brings me to conference standing orders, and I ask for the attention of hon. Members because this is a matter of great substance which in my view contains what should be in the Bill. If the House allows the Methodist Conference to dispense with the parliamentary safeguards which conference itself sought in 1932, surely there should be put into legislation some definite form of obligation for future consultation on changes of doctrine. But that has not been done. The only words in the Bill which lay down any guideline or standard for the future conduct of doctrine negotiations

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  within Methodism are the vague, sentimental words "appropriate consultations". It is left entirely to the Methodist Conference to interpret those two pale, weak words which are in the Bill.
  On the subject of the standing orders. I ask the House to appreciate that the Methodist Conference, time and again throughout history—even when it was accused in The Times of being a Star Chamber—has boasted that it is always master of its own house. That means that any standing orders, which have been described even tonight as a safeguard in the matter of future discussions about doctrine, could be cancelled, substituted or amended by any Methodist Conference as it pleased. The idea that this House is bequeathing to Methodism, as a substitute for its own safeguard, any kind of built-in, sacred standing orders is entirely wide of the mark.
  I suggest that if the Bill is to proceed it should contain as a matter of principle—as part of the statute—a definite procedure for remedying the gross defects of the lack of consultation which have been exposed by so many hon. Members in this debate.
  Mr. Costain: If the hon. Gentleman is showing so little confidence in conference, why not say that this House should authorise every standing order of conference? Why not go the whole hog? Surely the Nonconformist Church is designed to give its members the right to run their own affairs.
  Mr. Wainwright: My point must have escaped the attention of the hon. Gentleman. It is that Methodists, running their own affairs and in full control of their own affairs in 1929, voluntarily, expressly and deliberately said "We ask Parliament to give us this safeguard." That is exercising exactly the power that the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) wants.
  I conclude what I was saying about conference with two points. First, this determination of conference not to submit itself to any of the checks and balances of a normal senior constitutional body was brought out clearly in the Select Committee proceedings in another place only a few weeks ago, when the secretary of the conference, a most zealous servant of Methodism, was in Committee:
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  "You are asking that the Conference should be unfettered in decisions if it wishes to take them?"
  and he replied:
  "Yes, indeed. It is for the Conference to decide in the light of the seriousness of the issue and its knowledge of our own people what kind of consultation is best likely to serve the interests of the whole church."
  Conference is to be the total master. It is not to submit to any standards of conduct from outside or to submit to any instructions from Methodist people, but is to run its own proceedings.
  What is this conference to which it is suggested that this House should hand over power which at present vests in Parliament? It consists of 576 people, half of them travelling ministers of the Church, and half of them lay persons, who include local ministers and local preachers. Of those, seven are current office holders, six are past presidents and vice-presidents, eight are assistant secretaries, 24 are secretaries and treasurers of departments, 20 are elected by the conference as laymen and 20 are elected by the conference as laywomen. Twenty-six are chairmen of districts, office-holders by their very nature. Last year 11 were ministers' wives. Eighteen are elected by divisional boards, 20 come from other Methodist conferences and 55 others are additional members of connectional committees. There are, therefore, 221 national ex-officio members, if I may so describe ministers' wives. Of the members who come up from districts, a number are mandated members of the local Methodist establishment. The same names appear year after year, and the conference has an even more spectacularly high average than this honourable House.
  I turn to the question of whether the circumstances which led the Methodists to beg this House to act as a referee and safeguard have materially changed. The hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Lewis) put the point that circumstances have greatly changed since 1932, and I would put two points. The hon. Member spoke as though the 'thirties were some vanished palaeolithic age. That is strange talk, especially from the Labour Benches, from which we are still continually reminded that the memories of the 'thirties are of great importance, a view which I personally support. I would say, from the observations I have been able to make, that the tensions, potential splits and

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  fissures are as dangerous and potent now as they were in 1929.
  Mr. Ron Lewis: What business is it of ours?
  Mr. Wainwright: The business of ours is that the circumstances which led the Methodists ask the House of Commons in 1929 to take on this job still obtain today. There is just as much tension today as ever there was, and it is perfectly honourable and understandable tension, between those whose passion is for the local church or for independence for practising one's Christianity on the spot in local fellowship, in very much a New Testament fashion, and the equally honourable stance of those who say "In this wicked world we want a strongly-directed centralised church a power in the land, able to speak with a powerful voice."
  I conclude with a further piece of evidence. The tension in respect of independence is far greater than it was in 1929, because then, as I remember, local resources were desperately strained. It was a time of intense depression and people were lucky indeed if they could get a grant of £25 a year out of Methodist headquarters in London. Today, the growth of the Charismatic and Pentecostal Churches shows that it is the easiest thing in the world to build up an instant congregation provided there is the talent available. Sometimes those of us who are in established denominations turn our eyes away deliberately from the extraordinary material, outward success of the Charismatic and Pentecostal Churches, which in our towns attract much greater congregations than those of most of the established bodies. There is just as much danger in Methodism today of a split if there is no outside referee as ever there was in 1929.
  Mr. Ogden: Is there not an alternative? If the need for a particular form of consultation inside the Methodist Church, which the hon. Gentleman argues for, is accepted by Parliament, would it not be possible to give the Bill a Second Reading and in Committee write into it a form of consultation taking it much further along the line than the synod? If that form of consultation were not followed through, members of the
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  Church who were aggrieved would have the ordinary right in law, because the constitution and the law had been changed. All the hon. Gentleman's fears could he removed in Committee. If that were not done, would not Third Reading—not tonight—be the time to reject the Bill?
  Mr. Wainwright: I still believe that retaining the safeguard of parliamentary approval is what many Methodists want. It has never been found wanting. There has been no defective operation of that section. Therefore, I am not anxious to lose it. The promoters have shown no disposition to meet us on this matter. As a minimum safeguard there should be a procedure written into the Bill.
  There is abundant evidence that the Bill in its present form, especially Schedule 1, would catch properties which possibly for more than 100 years have had no official connection with the Methodist Conference or any of the Methodist conferences, properties which belong to the Wesleyan Reform Union and which one sees throughout the country, especially in the North, with a big, proud notice outside saying "Free Methodist Chapel". The bodies concerned run their own affairs, and many of them do not do badly. It is not a Committee point only, but a point of principle, that the House should not give a Second Reading to a Bill which will catch an uncertain number of properties which do not belong to the body promoting the Bill, and have not belonged to it for 100 years. The promoters have not been willing to meet us in any degree.
  If it is suggested that I cannot state which of those Wesleyan Reform chapels are caught, it is for the reason given by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) that the promoters are keeping mum about it, because if the House were unwise enough to legalise a polite form of theft their chapels would be involved. There can be no doubt that chapels which were Wesleyan until the secession, which are held on deeds of 1832, 1842 and possibly 1846, and which since 1859 have had no connection with the Methodist Conference, will be caught by the schedule.
  On those two grounds of principle, I hope that the House will reject the Bill.
  10.59 p.m.
  Mr. Robert J. Bradford: Before coming to some of the details, I should like to make some comments about the method which the conference has adopted to pursue its objective expressed in the Bill.
  With a certain flush of pride, the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) said that 33 bodies were consulted and that that is the ultimate in democracy. But other hon. Members have made clear during the debate that some thousands of local congregations and hundreds of circuits have not been consulted.
  When we talk of conference being representative of the whole Methodist Church, we must be careful. As a minister ordained in the Methodist Church in Ireland, I have had long experience of conference, which, I am sure, is run on similar lines to that on the mainland. Conference is not representative of the vast majority of Methodists in Ireland, and I suspect that English conference is not representative of Methodists on the mainland. As the hon. Member for Caine Valley (Mr. Wainwright) said, the type of people who attend conference are those who tend to go there whether or not they are those most fitted to do so. Perhaps the time has come when the Methodist Conference should substitute its opening hymn "Are we yet alive" by the song "I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places". The same people turn up, particularly when fundamental decisions are to be taken.
  The hon. Member for Goole said that those who object to the Bill represent only 1 per cent. and number only 6,000 members of the Methodist Church. If we listen to Dr. Coggan—I often do because he is a distinguished theologian—we are led to believe that for every person who takes the time and trouble to sign a document there are at least 100 who agree with a particular proposition. Even if that figure is halved, the number objecting to the Bill could be half the Methodist population on the mainland. It is not valid to argue that, because only 6,000 people petitioned against the Bill, only that number are in opposition to it.
  We have heard that procedures are being meticulously observed, but that is untrue. A Methodist minister with 4,000 signatures to his document tells me
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  that in 1974–5 the circuit meetings were not consulted, and great care was apparently taken so that information did not reach the March 1975 circuit meetings in time for them to send memorials to conference against the Bill. Scant information emerged, instructions to submit memorials were hindered and few memorials were discussed at the 1975 conference. Procedures have obviously not been adhered to.
  I now turn to property. If we indulge in central trusteeship, we move towards monopoly and manipulation. Many argue that central trusteeship is a way of enforcing adherence to a future doctrine on which there may not be agreement. Central trusteeship is almost an immoral problem. I am not trying to attack freedom. Freedom with dignity is a well-known gospel concept. I am attacking irresponsible licence. If a Church usurps to itself authority over property which did not belong to it in the first place—which is apparent from Part I of Schedule 1—there is in that action an element of monopoly and manipulation for reasons best known to the conference which indulges in that improper practice.
  The question we should be asking is, what are the motives for this great desire to change the deed of unity and the theology of the Methodist Church? The House is not in a position to judge theological matters—this is not a theological convention—but the House is capable of objective judgment of the motives for change.
  I suggest that there are two reasons for this desire for a change in doctrine. The first is to make easier future transition into a united church with the Anglicans. To do that, Methodists have to contravene their sources of belief, practice and doctrine, which are Wesley's "Notes on the New Testament", and the 44 sermons recognised by the Irish conference and the British conference.
  I come to the interpretation of the sacrament. The Methodist Church has a committee which is liaising with a committee of Roman Catholic theologians. The Anglican Church has taken a new stand on the sacraments. It no longer adheres to the consubstantiation doctrine. It clearly stated two years ago that it adhered to the doctrine of transubstantiation. Again, the Methodist Church will

  461
  have to contravene its doctrine as stated in Wesley's sermons and the "Notes on the New Testament" if it is to facilitate further dialogue with the Anglican committee and the Roman Catholic committee.
  The second motive for the desire for change might be that the Methodist Church realises that it has no organic future unless it is united with a larger and more viable body. The pursuit of the Bill to safeguard whatever is left of the Methodist structure because it is no longer a viable unit is not a very commendable motive. I can think of many reasons for joining the Anglicans. I have the greatest regard for the Anglican Communion, but surely one of the worst possible motives is to join out of a position of financial weakness. That certainly is one of the ulterior motives of those who urge acceptance of the Bill.
  I would ask the Methodist theologians who are here in great strength, what are their reasons for departing from the established doctrine? What have they now discovered to be so deficient about the Methodist position over all these years which urges them to change the doctrinal basis? They may say that that has not yet been done, but many Methodist preachers and ministers have done so unofficially. What the Bill seeks to do is to afford them the right to do so officially and legally.
  I well remember the time when Dr. Sangster was packing to the doors that great structure not far from this House. It attracted men and women of every nationality. They found there a spontaneous warmth and dignity and a true Methodism. When that kind of ethos dominated the Methodist Church here in Great Britain and Ireland, we truly had a mission and a witness. The interesting thing is that the Anglican churches which have now assumed that sort of ethos are the vibrating churches within the community. They are the churches which are attracting the people. They have no financial difficulties or difficulty about finding their mission or theology or what they ought to be doing in the community. We are sacrificing that kind of heritage and tradition for an unknown quantity, for a system which has yet to be defined.
  We have been told by the Secretary of the Methodist Conference that if John
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  Wesley were here today he would have supported the Bill. That is completely to ignore the position which Wesley adopted in his writings and which the Methodist Church, both on the mainland and in Ireland, purports to adhere to. It is quite clear that for the Secretary of the Methodist Conference to make that sort of statement there is a serious casualness in the highest quarter of the Methodist Church. That does not augur well for Methodists who are seeking some kind of safeguard as far as their future position is concerned.
  Mr. van Straubenzee rose—
  Mr. Bradford: For one of the chief office-bearers in the Church to make such a ludicrous statement and to misrepresent Wesley's position does not augur well for those who would seek to hold on to the traditional doctrine and teaching of the Methodist Church.
  I make a plea to this House and to Methodists, Anglicans and atheists to retain democracy. It has been established beyond a shadow of doubt that all the procedures were put into operation to establish the consensus of the whole Church. Whether we are churchmen or not, we ought to be interested in democracy. This honourable House is eminently suitable to exercise surveillance over democracy, to demand it where it has not been present and to purify it when necessary.
  Of course, the Methodist Church in Great Britain and Ireland is free to change its doctrine by a majority vote and decision. Once it decides to scrap its traditions and heritage, let it come as such with one mind to this House. Let it declare itself no longer to be the Methodist Church. Let it call itself the Church of the Reformation, let it join Mr. Moon, but do not let it call itself the Methodist Church. The true Methodists in Great Britain and Ireland are looking to this House for protection. They must have the protection of this House against the capricious escapades of conference. I plead with hon. Members to vote against the Bill.
  11.15 p.m.
  Mr. William van Straubenzee: If it is an advantage to a debate to have contrast, we have been greatly

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  benefited by the speech to which we have just listened, because up to this moment it has been a debate of the very highest level and for a brief moment we heard some of the reasons for our tragedies in Northern Ireland.
  There is one short answer to the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford), and it is this. He knows it, and that was why he would not give way to me. Nothing in this Bill refers to Northern Ireland. If later a change is required in the Methodism of Northern Ireland, a Bill will be necessary for that.
  The Bill, in its Long Title, refers to Great Britain. That is what we are talking about, and the hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled, as a Member of this honourable House, to speak. I did not care very much for the glimpses of the Popery which he found so unpleasant behind the Bill. It seems to me to conflict almost exactly with the general attitudes of almost every hon. Member who has spoken, whether for or against the Bill.
  I must be brief. If we are to come to a decision, as I hope we shall, those of us who are now to be called must be very brief indeed, and I put my short comments in note form only.
  There is a very considerable lesson in the Bill for Anglicans, because there are many Anglicans who search after disestablishment in the belief that thereby they would get relief from control by this House. Here we are dealing with a Church which is not established, but as soon as property rights of any kind arise, whatever church it may be, it is subject and rightly so, to the jurisdiction of this House. This House is right to be careful and watchful where property rights are involved, whoever may be concerned.
  I confess, quite frankly, that I have not myself, as a non-Methodist, found it at all easy to decide whether it was right for this House to agree to the greater centralisation of powers and the removal of certain powers to central trustees, which is inherent in part of the Bill. But as one of a number of Church Commissioners, under powers given by this House, month by month I take part in a centralisation process in the Church of England.
  I reluctantly at times have to make corporate decisions with others about the
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  redundancy of churches, under authority given by this House. With others I have to make decisions about the amalgamation of parishes and the rest, sometimes, as well I know, causing acute hurt and anxiety to the devout Anglicans working within those parishes.
  The truth is that the churches, if they are to survive, must live. They must live in the modern world, and part of this, as I believe, is the bringing up to date of their affairs. That is hard on the active church people, and a number of active Methodists have had a pretty hard time, in a friendly way, from hon. Members on both sides of the House tonight. They are the activists who are so often criticised, but they are the people who are seeking day by day to bring their respective churches into the last part of the twentieth century.
  Have the members of the Methodist Church been adequately consulted about the Bill? I consulted the minister of one of my local Methodist churches, and he used a phrase which I found persuasive. I think I could understand it as an elected member—I think I am the only Member here who is—of the General Synod of the Church of England. He said "It is in our Methodist tradition to deal gently with those who take a different view from the majority view that the rest of us will take." That group of ordinary church people, who play a vital part in the affairs of my constituency, are content and happy with the situation. They do not believe that those who represent them in the various groupings are unrepresentative of the work of the Church of England.
  Finally, I wish to draw attention to the analogy to which I have drawn attention on other occasions—as did the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) in a very persuasive speech—namely, what this House decided rather less than two years ago with the doctrines of the Church of England. I am not sure whether this House has understood what a profound occasion that was in the life of the Church of England or how difficult it would have been for devoted members of that Church had this House not given it freedom over its worship and doctrine.
  It has been said that we must draw a distinction because for Methodists this

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  is a compact to which we are witnesses, with the implication that the situation in the Church of England is different. But is that the case? Of course, historically in a doctrinal sense, in many ways the situation is different. We as the sovereign Parliament were witnesses to part of the settlement of the Reformation. That is what we were "breaking" when we made that historic decision in 1974. We then decided that it was no longer fitting for us as a House of Commons—a House which until 1829 required of all its Members that they should be members of the Church of England—to sit in judgment on the doctrines of the Church. It is that argument which I find totally persuasive, and it is that which I hope will lead hon. Members to vote for the Bill tonight.
  11.23 p.m.
  Mr. A. P. Costain: Time for debate is short, and I shall come briefly to the point.
  I was brought up in a strict Methodist tradition. My uncle was the Headmaster of Rydal School, a leading school in the Methodist Church. When I was a schoolboy I would sit with my uncle in the days just prior to the 1929 Act of Union. Therefore, I probably know a good deal more than most hon. Members about what went on in the minds of Methodists at the time when discussing union. I also remember Dr. Burton, a leading Methodist and hymn-writer. These matters were discussed carefully at that time many years ago.
  From what I remember, the feeling at the time was that it was unusual for the Methodist Church to wish to get itself tied up in parliamentary affairs. But in considering union with other faiths with the same basic belief which had been separated over the years, who else could act as arbiter and keeper of their conscience? That is my recollection of the feelings leading to Parliament being given these powers.
  I find it extraordinary tonight to hear leading Methodists and local preachers say that we must retain powers in this House and appear to have no confidence in the Methodist Conference. What an extraordinary speech we had from the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford) on that score.
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  Let me turn to the subject of consultation. The first things I did when I heard of the Bill was to send a copy of it to the minister of Methodist church in my constituency. I said to Methodists "This Bill has been introduced. Do you want it explained?" I had meetings with them. Even tonight I telephoned every Methodist minister in my constituency and said "The Bill is coming up tonight. Are you quite satisfied? Do you wish me to vote for it?"
  The argument has been put forward that people have not been properly consulted. When I telephoned ministers in my constituency, they replied "Good gracious, have all Members done what you have done?" For hon. Members to suggest that the Bill should be turned down because their own constituents have not been properly consulted is not a reflection on the Methodist Conference or on the Methodist Church but is possibly a reflection on themselves. Hon. Members should have taken the trouble that I have taken to consult, to explain, to take copies of the Bill to their constituencies and to take photostat copies. I did not think it was fair to ask the promoters to do that. Therefore, the photostat copies were taken not here but in Folkestone.
  Hon. Members now say that the Bill should be rejected and put back for six months, with extra expense. Surely they know how difficult it is to raise funds for the Methodist Church. What right has the House to say that the Bill should be put back? It would put the Methodist Church to considerable expense to reconsider the Bill. It is the duty of every Member who wants to help the Methodist Church to support the Bill.
  11.27 p.m.
  Mr. David Mudd: In the few moments that remain I shall, if I may, become somewhat disjointed and speak rapidly from notes.
  My first fear is that in rural areas where Methodism means a great deal to the social and moral life of communities there will be a tendency on the part of many local Methodist societies to go totally independent and to break outside the Methodist Church, thus causing fragmentation.

  467
  My second fear is that in future many churches that are now kept going by the very real sacrifice of worship will be closed at the whim of centralised accountants, and for no reason relating to worship.
  My third fear is that we shall see in the Methodist Church, as in the Church of England, a growing standardisation and centralisation in what is traditionally a free form of worship. Indeed, we would see not only centralisation but standardisation from the various decisions of conference until such time as conference, with a 75 per cent. majority and two years of deliberations, declared itself redundant. I believe that the Bill could better be known as the Methodist Church Dismemberment Bill. For that reason I shall be opposing it tonight.
  11.28 p.m.
  Mr. John Farr: I give my full support to the Bill. I think it is a first-class measure. I was sorry to hear the remarks my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) made about the speech of the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford). Although some of the
  hon. Gentleman's remarks went further than some hon. Members would have gone, I thought that he rightly stressed —I think I am right in saying that he never said the words "Northern Ireland" but referred continually to Ireland as a whole—that in Ireland there are many Methodists. It is a flourishing organisation in Ireland, and I am lucky to call many Methodists in Ireland my friends.
  I am much in favour of the Bill. Like many of my hon. Friends, I have been approached from people in various parts of the country—for example, by circuits in Leicestershire and the East Midlands, which are substantial Methodist areas. They are particularly anxious to see the Bill proceed.
  Dr. Edmund Marshall rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, That the Bill be now read a Second time: —
  The House divided: Ayes 115, Noes 33.

  Division No. 183.]

  AYES

  [11.33 p.m.

  Archer, Peter

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Ogden, Eric

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Ford, Ben

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Ashton, Joe

  Forrester, John

  Parry, Robert

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Fox, Marcus

  Perry, Ernest

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Bishop, E. S.

  George, Bruce

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Boardman, H.

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Roper, John

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Brittan, Leon

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Silvester, Fred

  Buchan, Norman

  Harper, Joseph

  Sims, Roger

  Buchanan, Richard

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Small, William

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Campbell, Ian

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Cant, R. B.

  Knox, David

  Tinn, James

  Carlisle, Mark

  Lambie, David

  Urwin, T. W.

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Lamborn, Harry

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Coleman, Donald

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Litterick, Tom

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Cordle, John H.

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Ward, Michael

  Costain, A. P.

  Loyden, Eddie

  Watkins, David

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Watkinson, John

  Crouch, David

  McElhone, Frank

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Cryer, Bob

  Madden, Max

  Weetch, Ken

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Mahon, Simon

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Dempsey, James

  Marks, Kenneth

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Dormand, J. D.

  Mates, Michael

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Mawby, Ray

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Woof, Robert

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Younger, Hon George

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Farr, John

  Nelson, Anthony

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

  Newens, Stanley

  Dr. Edmund Marshall and

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Noble, Mike

  Mr. Ron Lewis.

  Flannery, Martin

  Oakes, Gordon

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Skinner, Dennis

  Bates, Alf

  Mills, Peter

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Molyneaux, James

  Spearing, Nigel

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Mudd, David

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Dunlop, John

  Nott, John

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Freud, Clement

  Pardoe, John

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Penhaligon, David

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Golding, John

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Hooson, Emlyn

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Mr. A. J. Beith and

  McCusker, H.

  Shepherd, Colin

  Mr. Richard Wainwright.

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time and committed.

  LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
  (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  11.43 p.m.
  Mr. Ernest G. Perry: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Mr. Speaker has not selected the Instruction in the name of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook).
  Mr. Perry: This is a private Bill promoted by the London Transport Executive. It is modelled on earlier Acts of the executive and its predecessors.
  For the sake of convenience, a number of standard clauses have been incorporated by Clauses 7, 11 and 12 of the Bill, by reference to the appropriate sections of the London Transport Acts of 1963 to 1975.
  The undertaking operated by the executive comprises mainly the London Underground system with its associated electrical generating stations and substations and the extensive system of bus services operating mainly within Greater London.
  One of the purposes of the Bill is to authorise the carrying out of railway works which require the authority of Parliament, because without it they would or might be nuisances in law. The most obvious example is work involving interference with a highway. If done without statutory authority, it would of course be a public nuisance by definition. Since statutory authority is needed for works, it is also convenient to obtain from Parliament power to take
  470
  the land required compulsorily. This has always been the practice.
  Part 1 of the Bill deals with interpretation and incorporation of General Acts.
  Part 2 deals with works and authorises the construction of the executive of certain railway works in Greater London. Only one new work is proposed by the Bill, a ticket hall and footbridge at Surrey Docks station. This is most important because it deals with dockland in London. Most Londoners are concerned about the delay in rebuilding the dockland in South-East London.
  The purpose of the works is to improve Surrey Docks station in order to enable it to deal with increased traffic likely to stem from the trade mart for which Trammel Crow has been granted planning permission. Its project is part of a much larger commercial development and one we all desire in order to see greater employment, more work and more development in dockland. The Greater London Council has made the preliminary step by developing the dockland area. There are technical reasons why the above-station works cannot be carried out without statutory authority or under the authority of the London Transport (No. 2) Act 1971, passed by the previous Conservative Government. Under that Act the executive is empowered to construct an enlarged station at Surrey Docks for the purposes of the Fleet Line.
  There has been great controversy in the House about the delay in the completion and the further extension of the Fleet Line. This is a most important line. The final decision about when it should be completed has not been taken, and it is of keen interest to people living in South-East London as far out as Bromley and Orpington.

  471
  The objection to the first of the alternatives is that an interference with the highway known as Lower Road is thought to be necessary. The difficulty about the second alternative is that the power given by the 1971 Act is for the purposes of the Fleet Line. It is conceivable that it may never be constructed, but the enlarged station may nevertheless be wanted in connection with the trade mart. It is, however, of course intended to carry out the work now proposed so that it will fit in with the Fleet Line. The whole of the project is therefore connected with the Fleet Line and with the development of better transport for the people throughout South-East London down to the outer people throughout South-East London down to the outer boroughs of Greater London.
  The ancillary works powers are dealt with in Clause 6 of the Bill. They are normal for such provisions. Part III deals with lands powers of which the same can be said. The powers which have been in the possession of the London Transport Executive for many years are simply being continued. Clause 9 enables the executive to acquire easements or rights for the purpose of constructing, maintaining and using the various functions that it already has.
  Clause 10 provides that the compulsory purchase powers in Clause 8 are to cease on 31st December 1979. This provision was promised a few years ago, and the executive is simply keeping that promise. Clause 11 includes a number of common form ancillary powers taken from previous London Transport Acts relating to land. These powers have all been provided before, but it is necessary to include them in the Bill to prevent their expiry.
  Protective provisions are included in Clause 12. Clause 13 provides protection for the sewers which belong to the Thames Water Authority, and that is another normal procedure. Clause 14 is made up of four subsections each of which extends the time for compulsory purchase of land required for the carrying out of works authorised in previous legislation.
  The Bill is needed to expedite the provision of the Fleet Line and the extension of the line from the Strand or Charing Cross station to Fenchurch Street, which is the key link with the
  472
  whole of the development of the docks area. The second stage of the Fleet Line is a necessary prerequisite for constructing any further railway to South-East London beyond Fenchurch Street.
  There has been some public discussion of whether priority should be given to the remainder of the Fleet Line for which statutory authority already exists—that is, the railway from Fenchurch Street to New Cross and Lewisham—or to the proposed railway to the dockland area in respect of which statutory authority would be required and has not yet been sought.
  It is important that these powers should be granted so that the work can be carried out in dockland. I am aware of the concern of some Conservative Members who for a long time have been pressing for dockland to be redeveloped and for an adequate road or Underground system to be provided. The Bill will help to expedite the development of dockland.
  Clause 15 is the usual right given to owners and lessees of land in respect of which the compulsory purchase power is extended by Clause 14 to compel the executive, at any time after 31st December 1976, either to acquire its interest in the land or to give up its power.
  Clause 16 extends certain powers of the police which were originally conferred by Section 54 of the British Transport Commission Act 1949, which had been renewed for successive periods of five years until 1975, when they were renewed for two and a half years. Section 54(1) authorises any constable to stop, search and arrest any person in the employment of the British Transport Commission—now the executive and the other successor bodies to the commission—or employed upon railway or other premises used for the handling or storage of goods who is reasonably suspected of being in possession of anything stolen or unlawfully obtained. The need for Section 54(1) has not been seriously disputed, and the Home Office has informed the executive that it supports it.
  Section 54(2) of the 1949 Act makes it a criminal offence for any person arrested under subsection (1) to fail to account for how he came by the goods to the satisfaction of the court.

  473
  A clause identical with Clause 16 included in the British Railways Bill has recently been the subject matter of a debate in the House. On Report, an amendment was made deleting Section 54(2) from the extension of time, so that it will cease to be law on 31st December 1976. The executive will be seeking the leave of the Committee to which its Bill will be referred to make the same amendment to it.
  Clause 17 of the Bill seeks the repeal of Section 91 of the London Passenger Transport Act 1936. Clause 18 authorises the executive to make microfilms of documents and provides by subsection (3) that enlargements of microfilms of documents which have been destroyed are to be admissible in evidence for any purpose for which the original would have been admissible.
  This is a short Bill which is of interest to the people of London, particularly the South-Eastern area, which is one of the worst hit in terms of transport. It is essential to give a Second Reading to a Bill which will not only improve the environment of south-east London but will help the services of that hard-pressed commuter area to give people an adequate chance of getting to and from work.
  11.53 p.m.
  Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: I am grateful for the chance to discuss London Transport, and I am sure that the whole House is grateful to the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Perry) for his lucid exposition. His interest in and concern for the travelling public of inner London is well known. I want to take this opportunity to put some points on behalf of the outer London commuters.
  As the hon. Member said, the Bill is perhaps of most importance to South-East London, extending especially to the outer suburbs. As any London Transport map shows, this sector, to use a piece of current jargon, is the most deprived. We depend for public transport almost entirely on Southern Region suburban services. They are inadequate. After all, this is a length of main-line railway. But services are often unsatisfactory, and the result is that the commuter in South-East London gets a raw deal compared with people living and working in other
  474
  parts of the Greater London area and further out along the main lines.
  South-East London is neglected in its transport services, and the statutory provision laid upon the Greater London Council for ensuring the integration of transport within its area should be adhered to, bearing in mind especially the deprivation of South-East London in this respect.
  There are a number of individual matters that I wish to raise, the first of which concerns the Underground. We do not often get an opportunity to raise matters of this kind, and I am grateful for this opportunity to do so. We know, for example, about the state of the District and Northern Lines. Their rolling stock is between 30 and 35 years old. It would be interesting to know what progress is being made in replacing it. From time to time official spokesmen have declared that it was to be replaced. It is still awaiting replacement. The Northern Line probably suffers most of all on the Underground system from inefficient, outdated and obsolescent stock.
  I want to take up what the hon. Member for Battersea, South said about new lines. Can we get on more quickly with the extension of the Piccadilly Line to London Airport, for instance? It has been promised that it will be completed in mid-1977. I suppose that it is not possible to do it any earlier than that, considering the inhibitions on public expenditure and the sheer practical size of the problem. But it is tremendously urgent, as anyone who goes to London Airport by any means knows.
  When I was last there on Saturday, the work being done in the airport seemed to be going on very slowly. Of course, a great deal of it is underground. At surface level, it is impossible to tell the extent to which progress is being made in laying the lines. Hatton Cross was opened in July 1975. I do not know whether that was on time. Can we expect definitely to see the Piccadilly Line extended right into London Airport for air travellers to take full advantage of it in mid-1977, as has been promised?
  That brings me to the Fleet Line. A great many people in central London would like to know when we may expect to be clear of the works between Baker Street, Charing Cross and Strand stations.

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  They have caused a great deal of difficulty to the travelling public. I should also like to know whether it will include travellator and other facilities for those arriving at Charing Cross main line station who wish to travel on by Underground and for those arriving at Charing Cross Underground station on the Embankment who at present have to trudge up Villiers Street and then climb the steps into the main line station. I hope that the existing works on the Fleet Line will provide for some sort of easier connection between the Embankment station and the main line station.
  Then, what about stage two between Charing Cross and Fenchurch Street? Is that getting Government financial support? What can be done about plans for its development, we do not know. Yet it is in that direction, perhaps, that development is most important of all, especially when we consider the prospect of the River Line, which is a quite exciting prospect That will open up a vast new area of urban habitation in London which will be comparatively new and which, because we are planning it now, enables us to avoid all the snarl-ups and bottlenecks in traffic and other arrangements which make life so difficult for the inhabitants of other parts of London.
  Here we are with a new redevelopment area in dockland and the possibility of a line running through Fenchurch Street to dockland, which is quite exciting. It is important that we get our priorities right. Surely communications of this sort, Underground lines that will take us through that area and help its people as it is built up and developed are necessary where it is all too easy for the people to feel deprived of the social and urban amenities of the remainder of London. We should get this right. An Underground line and a proper system of communication are the first things we should ensure in any work in that part of the world.
  There are other matters I should like to raise—for example, the provision of station car parks on the various lines to the outer London suburbs. They are an extremely useful contribution, in which the Greater London Transport Executive is giving a great service to the traveling
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  public by encouraging many motorists not to go further into London than their own local station or a station half-way along the route. People get into certain habits about these things and need to be encouraged.
  It follows that charges at station car parks must be sufficiently attractive for motorists to be prepared to leave their cars and travel to London by Underground. In this connection, I understand that the experimental free parking which was allowed at Eastcote, Ruislip, and Ickenham has been abandoned. That is a great shame, because it means that the scheme was not supported by sufficient numbers of motorists and the charges must go up or that it was supported to such an extent that the council feels that it is able to charge. That is perhaps a good thing, but one would like to know whether the policy has succeeded.
  There is a great problem of hooliganism at some Underground stations. Prevention is better than cure, and the police are already over-extended and overworked in various duties apart from having to keep on the watch for vandalism at certain stations.
  I understand that there has been an installation of closed-circuit television at certain stations. I have not seen any results of this yet, and I do not know whether it is possible to monitor progress in these matters, but there are some stations, which I shall not name, where the problem is difficult and there have been arrangements for closed-circuit television surveillance. One would like to know what effect this has had and whether hooliganism has been or can be cured by this project.
  The other matter I wish to raise concerns the proposed new one-man operated television-assisted trains on the Circle and Metropolitan Lines. They have been promised for some time. I should like to know when they will come into operation and which other lines are being proposed for one-man service. One wonders about this. Should we continue, even on a one-man basis, with manual operation of the Underground system? Should we not be considering a wholly automatic system? We have introduced it on the Victoria Line and I believe that it is a great success. Therefore, it seems a rather retrograde step to be considering development on the basis of one-man-operated

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  trains. Cannot we convert them all ultimately and prepare now for automatic operation?
  When I was last in the United States, I was privileged to be shown over the Bay Area rapid transit system around San Francisco. Members of the Minister's Department will have been there, and I hope that he will pay San Francisco a visit. It is a very nice city and well worth visiting. It has much to show us in connection with the problem of transit of commuters. The system there is fully automatic, comparatively cheap and very efficient, apart from the odd breakdown, when everything is chaos. It was designed for the future and conditions very similar to ours. The benefits of full automation are great. I hope that it will be possible for London Transport to think on those lines when dealing with Underground development.
  I turn to the question of the buses. I understand that last year about 15 per cent. of all scheduled mileage was lost—because of staff shortages or traffic congestion? Who knows? It has not been easy to understand. I gather that the overall staff shortage has been about 10 per cent. to 11 per cent., although it is as much as 20 per cent. in some areas. It is a wonder that the whole system of bus transport keeps going in London, considering the staff difficulties which have to be contended with.
  But that is not the only problem. We are short of serviceable buses. I have had many complaints in my constituency about buses being late or simply not arriving. People sometimes wait for as long as an hour in the rain for a bus which eventually turns out to have been cancelled further along the route or never to have been put on. There is no early warning system for bus cancellations. In a constituency such as mine in South-East London, this is very damaging to the social life of a community which depends to a great extent on public transport of this kind. There is no Underground there, only some buses, and they are very much relied on.
  I must pay tribute to the Chairman of the London Transport Executive, Mr. Kenneth Robinson, and his predecessor. They have both been immensely helpful and courteous over any query or complaint I have referred to them. I have
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  no criticism to make of the immense help one receives from the executive when one approaches it with practical problems. Because of the shortage of good, serviceable, roadworthy buses, however, services are often stymied in particular areas.
  How are we getting on with replacements, spare parts and repairs to buses? The problem of staff comes in here again. I understand that a large proportion of buses load up but cannot be put on the road for want of a spare part or repair.
  How is the delivery of new vehicles progressing? We see in the glossy literature wonderful examples of the new types of bus to be put on the roads in London. It would be marvellous if we could have them. It would be even more marvellous if the existing bus service could be made to work more efficiently, preferably to a greater percentage capacity.
  While on the subject of buses, I should like to refer to the 36-ft. Red Arrow service. The whole fleet of single-deckers purchased in the late 1960s is being withdrawn because it has been discovered that they are too long for the roads on which they are expected to travel. Who made that error? The roads in London have not changed much, and one would think that those responsible would have calculated that a 36-ft. bus would be difficult to drive out of Great Peter Street into Victoria Street and other similar junctions. Has whoever was responsible for that error learned from the mistake, and will it be avoided in the future?
  There are constant reports of industrial disputes, but I suspect that this is not as bad a problem as it used to be. I would like, however, to know by how many buses we are short. In August 1975, the last annual report said that there were about 900 too few for operating a full service. What percentage is that of the total? It must be a large percentage because the total is about 5,000 What progress is being made towards increasing the total number of serviceable buses and reducing the number not available for use?
  Hooliganism and vandalism is the big problem at nights on certain routes. All too often one sees paint sprayed on the bus shelters that are kindly provided by London Transport, on timetables and on the upper decks of buses. We hear of attacks and assaults on passengers and

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  staff and of insults to the staff by young hooligans. The effect of the breakdown of law and order in society tends to show its ugly head first on the late night bus where the driver is isolated from passengers and the conducter has to deal with riff-raff and hooligans, who are often affected by drink, refusing to pay their fares. What progress is being made on that situation?
  I am sure that there must be good police liaison, but how effective can it be? It is nice to think that the police can be called by alarm systems which, I understand, are fitted to 80 per cent. of buses in affected areas. Some of them have radios, but difficult situations arise suddenly and last for only a couple of seconds. A hooligan can run off before anyone can come to the assistance of the luckless conductor. Has the existing provision against hooliganism had any effect? Are further powers needed on top of those which the House helped to provide in the Public Service Vehicles (Arrest of Offenders) Act 1975?
  One-man buses number 2,000 out of a total of 5,000. Are they all that useful? One sometimes gets the impression that the time wasted in giving change for fares almost equals any saving made by reducing manpower.
  Perhaps the biggest problem is traffic congestion in the London area. The speed bus is apparently very popular with London Transport, but it is not so popular with motorists, the travelling public and taxi drivers who share the same routes. How effective are those buses? Is it right to say that they have not yet been brought fully into operation so that we have not seen the full benefit? They run over the most congested roads—Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street and Regent Street. What progress is being made with these services, and can we expect an extension of the system throughout the area?
  Traffic congestion is perhaps as much a matter for the Greater London Council as it is for London Transport Executive. For many years London Transport has been working on the art of predicting where major traffic jams will occur. The police, with the monitoring of closed circuit television, can assist in this, but to what extent there is co-operation I do not know. In this technological age, with the
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  assistance of monitors and closed circuit television, it should be possible to do a bit of fine tuning of the London bus system to take account of temporary traffic congestion and keep traffic moving.
  What experiments are proposed to limit the number of private cars in central London? That is a big question. Unreasonable restrictions will be greatly resented.
  All in all, we can look at the whole picture, especially at the number of passengers carried, with some satisfaction. According to last year's annual report, published this year, every morning 343,000 passengers travel into London by Underground, 402,000 by British Rail suburban services and 148,000 on central buses, making a total of 894,000 commuters who travel into and out of London every day. That is 83 per cent. of the total number of travellers into London. There are 161,000 passengers who come in by private car and 18,000 who come in by motor cycle or pedal cycle—17 per cent. of the total number. Over a million people travel into and out of London every day. We can be proud of that. There is a lot to be proud of in the London Transport system and the people who work it. They deserve our support in tackling the bigger and bigger problems that face them with the smaller and smaller resources they look like getting.
  12.18 a.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Kenneth Marks): It might assist the House if I intervene at this stage to state the Government's attitude to the proposals contained in the Bill. Our view is that we have no objection to the proposals and we recognise that the provisions would contribute to a general improvement in and the effective running of the undertaking.
  I hope, however, that my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Perry) will not read too much into the financial provisions for the docklands.
  The Government's position was stated in the White Paper "Redevelopment of the London Docklands", Cmnd. 6193, as follows:
  "Developments in Docklands will be eligible for the normal forms of Government financial support to transport, housing and other purposes. The Government has no plans for special forms of support over and beyond these."

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  We are having discussions with London Transport and the Greater London Council on the future of the docklands and will examine carefully all the proposals that are made.
  The Government receive many demands for financial assistance from all over the country, not only from London. As the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) said, it is important that we should get our priorities right. He raised several matters which are of concern to London Transport and the Greater London Council, and I have no doubt that those organisations will be communicating with him on the points he raised.
  I hope that the House will decide to give the Bill a Second Reading and send it to Committee, where its provisions can be examined with the benefit of expert evidence.
  12.20 a.m.
  Mr. Anthony Berry: I am glad to follow the Minister. His remarks contrasted greatly with the silence of Ministers last night when we debated another London Bill for three hours. There was complete silence from the Government Front Bench on that occasion, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was not to blame, and I am grateful for his intervention.
  For the second night running, we are debating an extremely important Bill after midnight. The Bill last night was of such importance that the debate lasted the full three hours. The Government should in future think seriously before putting on two Bills of such importance late at night. I am sure that many other hon. Members would like to have taken part in the debate, but understandably, after last night they are elsewhere.
  I would not like my criticisms of the Government in that respect to reflect on the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Perry), who explained the provisions of the Bill with his usual charm. We are most grateful to him. The House will also be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) for drawing our attention to the problems of London Transport.
  The Bill is mainly concerned with South-East London. As a North London Member. I make no complaints about that because the problems of dockland are
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  familiar to all of us who represent London. It is right that the emphasis in the Bill should be on South London. However, that does not mean that we do not have problems in other parts of London as well.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington mentioned Heathrow and the connecting link to the airport. My information is that we have slipped rather far behind in respect of the final link to Heathrow. With the abandonment of Maplin, however, the importance of a connection with Heathrow is now even greater than it was before. It is vital that this link with Heathrow should be completed at the earliest possible opportunity.
  One thing which has not been mentioned in the debate is the question of bus lanes. I welcome bus lanes in principle but I have considerable reservations about some of them. I have an innate hatred of the one in Piccadilly because I think it is wrong for buses to go against the flow of traffic. The fact that they have to keep their headlights on all day is an indication of the problem.
  I am also concerned about the bus lane now being constructed in Buckingham Palace Road. I am concerned because, having often travelled along that road when leaving the House, I feel that to have traffic from the railway station, the bus station and the air terminal in such a short space will lead to considerable difficulties, particularly during the next two or three months when the tourist season and holiday periods are at their height.
  I hope that the Minister will be able to let us have more information about the installations of radios in buses. We have discussed this in previous debates and I would like to have the latest information about it. I believe that it would be an effective way of dealing with the hooliganism which has been referred to in the debate.
  I would also support what has been said in respect of car parks at Underground stations. The present GLC policy of persuading commuters to leave their cars on the outskirts of London is being effective, and rightly so. However, one of the problems is that Underground station car parks are not large enough and more and more people are leaving

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  their cars in residential streets around the stations and causing great hardship and inconvenience to the people who live in the areas. If we are to succeed in persuading people to leave their cars outside London, there must be somewhere for them to leave them so that they do not inconvenience the people who live nearby.
  Linked with the question of bus congestion and traffic congestion generally is the fact that it is vital that we complete as soon as possible the M25 around outer London. This will divert a lot of traffic from central London and enable buses and other traffic to travel much more freely.
  I use the word "vital" deliberately, because even in these days of reduction of Government expenditure, which we all support, I was glad to see that the Minister for Transport, in opening the motorway two or three weeks ago, referred to the M25 as being vital. I support him in that, and I hope he will do everything possible to speed up the building of the road. It will affect my constituents and the constituents of many other hon. Members very beneficially.
  Finally, I pay tribute to the previous Chairman of London Transport and to Mr. Kenneth Robinson. We are fortunate that as an ex-colleague he understands parliamentary problems and difficulties. He has been helpful in all the matters which have been raised.
  In this short debate we have had the chance to air some of the grievances and problems which we have as London Members, and I am sure that the Minister, like his predecessors, will take them seriously.
  12.27 a.m.
  Mr. Ernest G. Perry: With the permission of the House, I should like to say that I am sure the points raised by the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry) and the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) will be answered by the offices of the LTE, I hope very soon.
  I agree with what has been said about the problems of hooliganism in London, particularly at some of our Underground stations. The remarks that the hon. Member for Orpington made, in his usual manner of concern for his constituents, can be applied to most of the London boroughs, inner and outer, We
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  all face these problems. Buses have been laid up, there has been a lack of spare parts and buses have remained in garages, not being used. From the information I have received, however, I am glad to note that the situation is improving. I hope that it will improve in places such as Orpington which suffer to some extent from not having an Underground service and having to rely only on British Rail and a bus service.
  I thank hon. Members for their cooperation this evening. Perhaps we can learn to extend it to other spheres in the House within a relatively short time.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time and committted.

  WHEAT (BREAD-MAKING QUALITY)
  12.28 a.m.
  The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): I beg to move,
  That this House takes note of Commission Document No. R/1368/76 relating to Baking Tests (Cereals).
  The document before us tonight, EEC Document R/1368/76, is a draft Regulation laying down requirements for determining whether common wheat is of bread-making quality. My right hon. Friend and I welcome this opportunity of hearing hon. Members' comments before the draft Regulation comes before the Council of Agriculture Ministers next week.
  The first question which comes to mind in considering this document is "Why do we need a Regulation of this sort?" It might therefore be useful to hon. Members if I explain briefly the background to the proposal, but before I do so I should like, on behalf of the House, to express our gratitude for the clear and helpful report produced by the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) and his Committee.
  The system of support which has been in force in the EEC up till now set an intervention price for wheat substantially above the level of other feed grains, and the eligibility of wheat for this price at intervention was related to milling

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  quality. This system was unsuitable, particularly to United Kingdom conditions, in two ways. First, a single support price for wheat higher than that for other feed grains discouraged the substitution of home-grown feed wheat for imported maize that might otherwise have occurred to the benefit of the balance of payments. Secondly, the use of "milling" characteristics to determine eligibility for intervention meant that some feed wheat was sold into intervention, particularly in Germany, at a price level designed for bread-making wheat. This has meant additional expense for FEOGA and the resultant mixture has been hard to dispose of.
  In June last year, the Council of Ministers warned producers of wheats unsuitable for bread-making that they could not expect a return higher than was appropriate to a feedgrain and invited the Commission to submit appropriate proposals for the 1976–77 marketing year.
  In consequence the Commission, as part of the common agricultural policy price proposals for 1976–77, proposed a new regime for wheat. The intervention price would relate to feed wheat and be set at a level commensurate with the price of other feed grains. Support for bread-making wheat would be by optional intervention measures at a reference price to be set above the feed wheat intervention price at a level reflecting the difference in yield of the two kinds of wheat. For 1976–77 a premium of about 13 per cent. over feed wheat was proposed.
  The Council of Ministers, at the meeting held from 2nd to 6th March, decided to postpone this new system for one year and, instead, for 1976–77 agreed that the intervention price for soft wheat would relate to wheat of bread-making quality, with a lower effective support price for feed wheat. This system will operate for the 1976–77 year only. In subsequent years it is intended to return to the Commission's original proposals and to implement a reference price system for bread-making wheat.
  In order to operate this two-tier system, it was clearly necessary that before the beginning of the 1976–77 year, on 1st August 1976, scientific experts in the various member States should agree on a satisfactory test to distinguish bread-making from non-bread-making wheats.
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  It might be convenient to emphasise that the proposed test is only for use for intervention and that normal trade is not affected. It is important that that fact should be made clear. At present, all the indications are that sales of bread-making wheat or feed wheat into intervention are most unlikely next season.
  I wish now to stress some important points. The test which experts have been examining for intervention purposes has been called the "baking" test. It amounts to a detailed and rigorously-controlled examination of wheat at all stages from the grain, through the flour, the formation of dough and the proving stage, up to the baking of a loaf. It determines whether, under standardised conditions, samples of different wheats can be milled, made into dough, processed and then be baked into an acceptable loaf. That does not all take as long as might be expected. The process amounts to a comprehensive assessment of bread-making characteristics in wheat.
  The trouble with some of the alternative tests already used by the trade is that they are tests of single or isolated properties of wheat. Tests of milling properties reveal whether a wheat is hard and whether it has a certain protein content. But wheat that passes such tests can still be of only poor quality in bread-making. For example, Maris Huntsman, being a hard grain, mills well but makes poor bread. Similarly a Continental wheat, such as Clement, can pass the Hagberg or alpha-amylase test and still produce poor bread.
  Scientific experts drawn from all the member States recently concluded, on the basis of tests carried out under the auspices of the European Millers' Association at the request of the Commission, that it was not yet possible to classify loaves consistently in all member States at the final stage of bread-making. They none the less unanimously concluded that the first stage of the test—up to the point of testing the dough after mixing—was sufficiently reliable to be taken as a basis for assessing bread-making quality during the 1976–77 season, and have so recommended to the Commission. This solution—what is called the "machinability" test—now forms the basis of the document before us tonight.

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  My officials have held a number of meetings with trade associations and the National Farmers' Union to discuss the Commission's proposals. I must explain to the House that in general the trade would prefer to see a postponement of the new measures on wheat until the 1977–78 marketing year, when the full baking test will be available. However, it is unlikely that the new arrangements for supporting wheat could be postponed without the risk of reopening the entire price package agreed by the Council of Ministers in March. This is something my right hon. Friend and I wish to avoid. The trade understands this, and I think it accepts that the proposals regarding the machinability test will be made as watertight as it is possible to make them at this point in time.
  We must bear in mind that the people carrying out the tests are expected to be scientists with long experience of this type of work. Moreover, the procedures will normally be carried through to the baking stage for comparison with results obtained at the dough-handling stage. This will provide useful experience for operating the full baking test in a year's time when support for bread-making wheat will be at a reference price set above the feed wheat intervention price at a level reflecting the difference in yield of the two kinds of wheat.
  Finally, I remind hon. Members that the proposed test is for use only in an intervention situation. It is not a first step towards a Euro-loaf nor will it be used in trade, except for the purposes of intervention buying. Tests will be undertaken by suitably qualified individuals acting on behalf of the Intervention Board. As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, we do not expect that there will be any substantial offering of bread-making wheat or, indeed, feed wheat into intervention next year.
  I hope that this brief explanation of the document before us will be helpful to hon. Members. I look forward to hearing the views of the House.
  12.38 a.m.
  Mr. Jerry Wiggin: It is because this whole subject refers only to intervention wheat that perhaps we should not be over-concerned about the quite substantial deficiencies in
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  the technical side of these proposals that I shall be mentioning. The Minister says that in the forthcoming harvest the United Kingdom price is likely to be higher than the intervention price and that it could well be that the test concerned will never be used. If, however, one has been involved, as I have been, in selling grain on the domestic market—I am sure that my hon. Friends who are in farming will confirm what I am about to say—one will accept that nothing is too certain.
  We must be prepared for the possibility of using the intervention process to put a floor in the market. The House will know that the United Kingdom is deficient in all wheats and that the United Kingdom food industry wishes to continue to buy North American hard bread-making wheats as they are vastly superior to even the best European hard wheat for that purpose. I hope that our European partners will not expect Britain to be used as a dumping ground for all their hard wheats as a result of the negotiations that have taken place.
  The Chorley Wood bread process, which has come into widespread use in the bread-making industry since 1966, has enabled the lower protein flour that is produced in this country to be used in our bread. That increased the proportion of European home-grown wheat in bread in this country from about 25 per cent. before 1966 to between 40 per cent. and 50 per cent. today. I do not think that there should be any real objection to the United Kingdom adopting a two-tier price system for wheat as long as the test to divide the two varieties—the bread-making and the non-bread-making—is cheap, effective, speedy, reliable and well understood. I am afraid that the tests that are being proposed do not at present fall within those qualifications.
  The Minister mentioned the package that his right hon. Friend brought back from Brussels. I hope we shall not be tempted into assuming that, because the overall balance of that package may have been beneficial, we should not go through the parts of such packages which are not helpful. Indeed, the debates that we have had on proteins and other matters show that that is not the Opposition's attitude. I think that this matter is worthy of more detailed criticism.
  The House has before it an extract from the Twenty-third Report of the

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  Select Committee on European Secondary Legislation &c. The report has not yet been printed, but it has been reproduced for our benefit tonight. That report quotes the British Association of Grain, Seed, Feed and Agricultural Merchants Ltd as objecting strongly to this proposal and the Home Grown Cereals Authority as having considerable doubts about the technicalities of the test. The authority believed that the scientific evidence on which the Commission based its proposal was open to some dispute. I would go further and say that it is open to a good deal of dispute.
  The British Association of Grain, Seed, Feed and Agricultural Merchants Ltd wrote to the right hon. Gentleman. I acknowledge that he has replied to that letter. The association put succinctly the three points that have disturbed the merchants, and I hope that the House will bear with me while I read an extract from page 2 of the letter:
  "The proposals therefore concern one season only, the harvest for which will commence in about two months' time. The regulations for the testing have not yet been finalised and approved by the Council of Ministers, and the detailed control system to be operated by the intervention agency has also still to be agreed and finalised.
  It is submitted that the principles involved in two-tier intervention, whereby producers are encouraged to grow high quality wheats, have been missed for this season, as by the time the scheme was announced the vast majority of the seed had already been sown.
  The need to conserve Community funds is appreciated, but the complications of the implementation and control of the system currently being considered are such that the high administrative costs, at least in national terms, will greatly offset any potential savings."
  This highlights one problem of the whole principle. If a satisfactory test can be devised, how will it be possible to sell the concept of two types of wheat to the farmer who is to produce it? How can we explain to a farmer why an apparently bread-making variety of wheat has not passed the test and what he should do to ensure that his next year's crop passes the test?
  These are highly complex agricultural matters to which there is no simple answer. If we are to pay by quality or by differentiating between the reactions of a product, we must make clear to those producing that product what they can do to aim for the best market. One does not need to be a sage agriculturist
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  to know that there is a 15 per cent. lower price for wheat not of bread-making quality. The Minister suggested that there would be a 13 per cent. higher price the other way, but I suspect that it comes to much the same thing.
  These points have been put before the Commission. The European Parliament debated this matter as long ago as 10th February during the general debate on the annual price-fixing. The rapporteur of the Committee on Agriculture, Mr. de Koning, went into this matter at some length, as reported at page 35 of the sitting of Tuesday 10th February. I shall not quote what he said. It has been stated in the debate. The matter has been drawn to the attention of the Commission by that Parliament.
  I come now to the test. I cringe at the word "machinability". I hope that we shall not be inventing English words of such ghastly clumsiness to describe what is no more than a simple test of how sticky or not sticky the dough might be. The scientists in whose judgment the hon. Gentleman has much more faith than others who have studied their reports—I have in front of me several pages of criticism of the way in which they have arrived at their decisions—are working on the very simple proposition that if the dough is sticky it is not bread-making dough and that if it is not sticky it is bread-making. That will be the main yardstick on which wheat shall or shall not be paid for at the higher price if it goes into intervention this season.
  The baking test is more complex. The matters that were investigated when the scientists were trying to come to a decision on this matter were such aspects as water absorption, alpha-amylase activity of the flour, dough-handling properties, and the volume, height, crust, colour, pore structure and crumb texture of the loaf. I am in no doubt that at least some members of the corn trade have visualised those factors being considered in a test loaf while a lorry is waiting to be topped into bin A or bin B. This was the basis for some concern. That concern ought to be allayed, I think, because the proposals which have been made will get round that detailed point.
  Nevertheless, there is an indication that there will be some delay at intervention depots if, for example, there were to be a rush or any pressure on

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  them. First, there is very limited capacity for carrying out even the simple dough test. Secondly, I am not too clear about the number of points to which the grain might be delivered if physical intervention were to be attempted during the forthcoming season.
  Finally, there are two points of fundamental importance which must be considered when the matter is raised again. The first and most important may be obvious. It is that the test should be a standard test throughout the Community. It should be simple, cheap, readily available and understood by merchants and farmers and by Governments or intervention authorities alike. No such test has yet been devised. If the two-element payment for wheat is to be continued in the future, a test that fulfils those requirements must be devised and agreed —not six weeks before next year's harvest; work must start on it at once. It should not be beyond the wit of the scientists of the Community to come up with a better yardstick than they have done so far.
  The second point is that while the Minister of State has made it clear that this scheme is for this year only, pressures are building up, I understand particularly from the French, that the reference price system, which will do away with quite some part of the differentiation, should be delayed and not brought in next year. I do not know whether that information is good. However, if confusion is to be avoided, a scheme must be produced and made clear to the farmers of the Community before planting time this year.
  In the selection of varieties—indeed, one could go so far as to say species, because it may be that planting wheat is not the most profitable occupation, and farmers may wish to plant barley, oats, rye or even maize—standardisation of the test is essential. A firm proposal from the Community as to how the whole of the cereal intervention and support system will work for next year must be established soon, as a matter of great urgency.
  However, the basic principle of paying for quality is not one with which we would quarrel. Although it will be hard for British farmers to qualify for the
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  premium in the way as some of those in France and Northern Italy, we cannot argue with the basic concept of paying more for human than for cattle food. We would not wish to be more critical than that.
  12.52 a.m.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I welcome the opportunity to speak on this document because it is a classic example of the sort of Alice-in-Wonderland situation we are getting into with the agricultural Regulations which seem to emanate from the last price review.
  We do not need to rehearse the skimmed milk saga again to see how one can get into the most extraordinary situation. Having listened very carefully to the Minister, I am very dissatisfied not only with his explanation but also with the fact that we are being asked to decide a matter of great concern not only to the agricultural community but to this Parliament. To put it in its most simple terms, I do not approve of legislation which is presented to the House on the basis that although it is inadequate and does not bear any close examination, and although none of the so-called experts is able to produce a test which is universally recognised and acceptable as being administrable, nevertheless we should accept the document because wheat will probably never go into intervention and, therefore, we should accept the suggestions that are made to us.
  I was not elected to this House to pass bad legislation. That applies as much to tonight's document as to any major legislation. I have said at many discussions on this particular nonsense that, although I do not pretend to be an agricultural expert, I can at least make dough. When I read some of the so-called expert opinions, I think that what is needed is a housewife or two to try to evolve a baking test and come up with more sensible answers.
  We decided in discussions on the price review that there would be a two-tier system of payment for wheat. It was then said that a means of differentiating between hard and soft wheat was needed. We were told that it was exceedingly difficult to do this but that a test was in the process of being evolved and a certain amount of time was needed before it could come into operation.

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  We have a quotation from the diary of the European Parliament for 9th–12th February 1976 about a speech by Commissioner Petrus Lardinois on farm prices. It says:
  "He spoke first of the new cereals dispensation for wheat. He reminded the House that when the system had been changed for oats and barley there had been severe criticism in Germany, but once the system had begun to operate this criticism had faded out. As to devising a system by which one could tell which wheat was which, he asked the House to give him until 1 July, and not to condemn the system out of hand already."
  That has been the history of the matter.
  We are now well into June, and the provision is intended to come into operation on 1st August. I have never received satisfactory information about the type of test, about the so-called experts and their methods of work, or about the evidence upon which their views have been based. If Parliament is to be asked to decide a matter which will have a direct financial involvement, it should have these elementary facts. If not, we shall be back in the same situation that we were in before when Parliament had the opportunity to debate subjects of this kind late at night but the Benches were empty. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will forgive my saying that he and I must stop meeting like this in the early hours of the morning with only you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to keep us company.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Not merely to keep the hon. Lady company, but to keep an eye on her.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I accept your reprimand, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am always happy to have your clear Gaelic eye upon me.
  We are here yet again talking about a major price decision which is being submitted by the Commission before it has been properly thought out by the experts concerned and only a very short time before it is meant to be applied. When my right hon. Friend the Minister discusses this matter with the other EEC Ministers of Agriculture, I hope he will not be deterred by the fact that the price review carried this proposal as part of other recommendations. This matter is indicative of a lot of the difficulties we are getting into with the EEC on agriculture.
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  The agriculture industry in Britain could not survive if it was subjected to major financial measures taken at the last minute, applied without proper consultation and rubber-stamped at the last moment by a Parliament which did not have the opportunity of throwing them out.
  That was what happened over skimmed milk powder, and the same is likely to happen to the proposal before us tonight. I am disturbed because I do not believe that the baking test is adequate. I do not believe that the machinability can be defended, and as a point of principle I do not believe that any major Department should ask Parliament to accept a Council Regulation which would have the force of law once it was fully accepted without giving adequate information to support the request.
  The House should refuse to take note of the Council Regulation in the form in which it exists. I hope my right hon. Friend will make it clear to the Commission that, if it is to apply the Regulations, it must make sure that they are workable and defensible, that they have been arrived at on the basis of knowledge and that they are not the last possible decision which is politically and cosmetically acceptable.
  The Regulation is an open invitation to fraud. If the test is not clear and universal, as it is not, there will be countries in which, mysteriously, all the wheat that goes into intervention suddenly goes into the higher category. Perhaps I simply have a naturally nasty mind, particularly at this late hour, but that is possible if we are not clear what we are doing.
  I hope that the House, if it does not reject the motion, will insist that any decisions, whether for this year or for any future price review, will be much more accurate than in the case of this Regulation and that the Commission will not use vague phrases in the expectation of being able to explain them when the scheme goes into operation.
  11.00 a.m.
  Mr. John Farr: I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) said. I, too, think that much of the phrasing of the Minister's speech and the Commission document is sloppy and unsatisfactory. I

  495
  am unhappy that the Minister should say that because, in his belief, the document will never come into operation, because we are not likely to go into intervention for wheat this coming season, it does not matter how it is worded. It is all very well to say that now, with wheat at £100 a ton, but that is not a safe assumption for a Minister to make.
  It is a pity that the test is based on a vague criterion which has not yet been finalised. It is fantastic to put on the statute book a Regulation based, according to the explanatory note, on the stickiness of the dough, which is only an interim assessment, pending the finalised solution. The note also states that certain high-yielding wheats would not meet the test requirements. We have only an idea of the temporary test requirements. What will be the final test requirements?
  Is not this the wrong way to proceed? Is not the Minister putting the cart before the horse? If his consultations had started with the plant breeders, they would have told him that, instead of introducing a pattern to which British breeders will have to conform next year or the year after, the right way would have been to lay down those requirements three or four years ago. Then the breeders could try to gear themselves, if it were possible—I believe that it can be done—to produce a high-yielding hard wheat.
  The Minister said that he had consulted the NFU and he mentioned the tests in certain laboratories. Presumably that is a continuing process, and I gather that a final result will be achieved next year. Are any tests being done in Britain, or are we relying purely on tests on British wheat in Continental laboratories, in Continental atmospheres, which are generally much drier than the humid atmosphere in the British Isles? It is essential to have a working pattern of tests evolving all the time in Britain, which has a far more humid atmosphere than any other member of the EEC except Ireland.
  Farmers in Britain have many advantages over their counterparts in the EEC. We enjoy perhaps more humid and acceptable climatic conditions for many products. My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Mr. Mills) probably will say that certain parts of his constituency produce the best milk and dairy products
  496
  in the world. Climatically, Britain has many advantages over the rest of the EEC, but not when it comes to the production of hard wheat. Climatically, and because of our geographical situation, it is more difficult to produce hard wheats in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. Therefore, in a situation where we are likely to face a cut of 13 per cent. in the return on wheat prices, we have to recognise the geographical disadvantage to Britain and to Ireland, because hard wheats are produced more readily in southern EEC countries.
  Having recognised that it is a geographical disadvantage, it is up to the Government of the day and up to the Minister to express our dissatisfaction with 13 per cent. Does not the hon. Gentleman think that that is too high a cut for soft wheats? I know that my farmers think so. We produce a tremendous amount of soft wheats in the Midlands, and my farmers think that a cut of 13 per cent. is far too high.
  I appreciate that the Minister is probably much more tired than many of us. He has had a number of late nights recently. Even at this hour, however, I expected a sign of passion in his voice and a glint of fire in his eye. I hoped he would say "I am not accepting the 13 per cent., because I do not regard it as satisfactory for Britain." Something like that would have been a much more acceptable performance from him.
  What the Minister said hinged on his statement that he did not expect intervention in wheat this year and, therefore, the document did not matter all that much, so why should we not all shut up and sit down? However, I think that there is a good chance that we may be getting into an intervention situation very soon, possibly in the autumn. It depends entirely not on what happens to the British harvest but on what happens in Russia and other countries and how their wheat harvests come off. This is a most significant point, and I want to elaborate on it for a moment or two.
  The Minister is arguing that there will be no wheat intervention this year. I say that that assumption is based upon a reasonable return in world harvests. World production of wheat amounts to about 1,000 million tons a year. We in Britain produce less than 10 million tons a year, or about 1 per cent. Therefore,

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  what we produce here does not matter very much. But what happens in America, Russia and the other Eastern European countries which are big producers of wheat has an effect on whether we are likely to get into an intervention situation.
  It should be put on record that for the past seven years the Russian harvests of all forms of cereals, especially wheat, have been very faltering. For many years, targets have not been met. In 1974–75 alone, the Russians produced only 160 million tons of a target of 232 million tons. This year they are expected to be much nearer their reduced target of 205 million tons and they are expected to produce 185 million tons. The situation is so delicately balanced on a knife edge that if the Russian harvest production were to exceed the 185 million tons target and get near to 205 million tons we could get into an intervention situation before October is with us.
  I mention these statistics merely because we have to recognise that it is not what happens on British farms that really determines the prices our producers get. They are determined in the much bigger world markets. I beg the Minister to take a more robust attitude about all this and not simply assume that merely because an official tells him or he reads it in Farmers Weekly, we shall not get intervention this year. He must not fall into the trap of believing everything that his officials and fellow Ministers in Europe tell him.
  Finally, I must echo once again the words of the hon. Lady the Member for Crewe, who made a sound point when she said that not only was the wording of the document faulty but the reasoning behind the Minister's argument was also faulty. I hope that my words will stir and encourage him. It is only ten minutes past one, and there are seven hours to go before the work of the morning starts. The hon. Gentleman should go to his office at half-past six, wake up his officials and say "We are not satisfied with 13 per cent. We cannot assume that there will be no intervention, and we should take a little more robust attitude."
  1.10 a.m.
  Mr. Peter Mills: I must declare an interest as a producer of grain. I only hope that this year we shall not
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  have to sell to intervention and that the price will be above that.
  I am not happy about this draft Regulation. The Minister has said that it is only for intervention. We understand that, of course, but I think he is making a mistake. It could be that we shall have a large harvest, but it may be that we shall have to use the whole intervention procedure. I agree with the hon. Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) when they say it is not right that the Minister should use the argument that we shall not use intervention and, therefore, there is not much to worry about. That is wrong.
  Does the Minister realise the problems that this will mean to the trade? I doubt it. I do not think he understands the difficult position that the trade is in about this. Everyone in the trade is against the Regulation because, they all say it is unworkable. They should know. The House and the Government would do well to take careful note of what the trade is saying in these matters.
  I see nothing wrong in the Minister going back to Brussels and saying that this one is not "on" this year. I hope he will make a stand about this. He talks about this as being part of a package and, therefore, something we have to accept. We have looked at the package and we do not like what we see. Not only that, but the trade says that it is unworkable. I see no reason why the Minister cannot go back and say that it will not work for us this year. The House should consider what would happen if the boot was on the other foot. If this happened to the French Government, they would certainly say that they could not accept the package.
  The package is not workable. Therefore, we must have a much tougher attitude. Why did not the Minister and his officials realise this when they were making this unworkable package? Why were they not better briefed?
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I do not need to defend my hon. Friend, because he is capable of looking after himself, but I must make the point that one of the difficulties is that until very recently we were never given information on what the Regulation contained. Hardly anybody could be well briefed because no

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  one knew what the Regulation would say.
  Mr. Mills: That may be absolutely right, but why did not officials and Ministers realise that it would be extremely difficult to get any testing system to work? I do not always agree with everything the hon. Lady says, but I, too, have grave suspicions that other countries in the Community will see that things are right for them.
  We recently had a very interesting discussion in a Select Committee. This country obeyed the rules right along the line. We advertised 3,450 times in the Journal. The others did so 1,500 times, 800 times and only eight. In other words, we were carrying out the Regulations. Others were not. We always have the dirty end of the stick because we play the correct rules and others do not. Therefore, I share the hon. Lady's fears.
  I regret to say that I think I am the only member of the Select Committee present. The Committee considered these matters carefully and thought that the House should debate them.
  The Minister cannot disregard the views of the trade and the Home Grown Cereals Authority, which have made some strong points. The authority's point about the testing of samples and the physical tests and so on must be taken into account.
  I am also concerned that this is for one year only. It is no wonder that the trade is concerned about it. Nothing has been worked out in detail. The Regulation about testing and control by the intervention agency has still not been agreed. We have only two months to go before it could be in operation. The Minister must think again.
  In the British Farmer, the NFU spoke about a "two-tier wheat mess". It is a mess, one that we should not accept. The Minister must seriously consider taking the views of the House to the Community and asking that this part of the package should not be accepted for one year. I believe what my hon. Friends have said about the farmers. They have not had a fair deal in that they have not had the time to prepare. That important point should not be overlooked.
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  I hope that we shall abandon this. I hope that even at this late hour the Minister will say "We shall try to leave it for a year and introduce a better scheme next year." The scheme should be agreed with the trade and the farmers.
  It is right that there should be some scheme. We should try to conserve the Community's funds and reduce expenditure, but another way must be found. The message from the Scrutiny Committee is "Please, Minister, think again."
  1.20 a.m.
  Mr. Bishop: The debate has been useful, although I regret the hour at which such debates take place. That, however, is not a matter for me, and I shall do my best to inspire the House with fire and passion. I stress that although I have said that the matter refers only to cases where wheat is taken into intervention—and intervention is not a certainty—I do not suggest that that is why the House should accept the motion. I suggest that the merits of the case are such that they should be supported.
  The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) spoke of the prospects for intervention in the United Kingdom in the next year. That is important, but it is too early for us to be certain about the likelihood of intervention following the 1976 harvest. We are in deficit in both bread-making and feed wheat, and the price for imported grain therefore tends to keep market prices well above intervention levels. The situation depends also on the harvests in other parts of the world. Our present estimates suggest that there is unlikely to be any substantial amount of bread-making wheat from the 1976 harvest being offered into intervention. Whether intervention is used substantially is not, however, an argument for accepting a second-rate scheme.
  The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) claimed that the scientific evidence leaves much in dispute. Scientists were unanimous in their opinion to the Commission in Brussels. They included representatives from most distinguished research organisations in the countries concerned, including the Flour Milling and Baking Research Association and the Lord Rank Research Institution.

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  I have discussed the matter with our scientists to ascertain how watertight the scheme is.
  Mr. Wiggin: That is crucial to the debate. Is the Minister speaking of the dough test or the baking test, because the baking test is likely to be the most foolproof? Agra Europe of 21st May goes into detail and says that the baking tests were far more satisfactory and far from unanimous. Even the simplest assessment of the results shows that the tests were inadequately carried out and would not form the basis of any purchases in the coming season.
  Mr. Bishop: Tests have been carried out by scientists from various countries, and we should not overlook the considerable experience and expertise of our own industry. A number of tests have been carried out in the trade. Because we have not yet achieved agreement on the baking tests, we feel that the present stage, where there is agreement, is sufficiently watertight to say with condence that it should go ahead.
  There will be very little delay in testing at the intervention store, no more than occurs at present for milling wheat generally. The hon. Gentleman asked what farmers can do to aim for the best market. I remind him that our agricultural advisory service is already advising farmers on the best way to improve cereal production. We must not forget that farmers are producing primarily for sale on the market and not necessarily for sale into intervention.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) referred to the possibility of inadequate legislation. I hope that my comments on the wheat tests which have taken place in the Community and in the United Kingdom by scientists who have had many decades of experience will set her mind at rest. My hon. Friend also referred to the possibility of fraud. As soon as we produce Regulations, someone always tries to think of a way to get round them, but tests on wheat quality are scientific and carefully defined and the Intervention Board is used to devising effective procedures for preventing abuse.
  That brings me to the points made by the hon. Members for Harborough and Weston-super-Mare about the need for standardisation. It is important that all
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  the countries concerned should accept the need for standard procedures for checking if abuse is to be avoided. The fact that we have agreement among the scientists on the effectiveness of the measure should commend it to the House.
  The hon. Member for Devon, West (Mr. Mills) said the trade thought that the Regulation was unworkable, but I think he rather exaggerated the trade's objections. Most trading associations would prefer the matter to be put off for a year, as I said in my opening remarks. We have had full discussions with the trade associations concerned, and they have not suggested that the arrangements cannot be made to work. Their main concern is that the arrangements should be made as watertight as possible.
  Baking tests involve a range of tests which must be done on expensive, complicated apparatus which is not found outside specialist laboratories. It is likely that the dough-handling test will be cheaper and more reliable than most of the alternative methods of testing. The tests will be carried out at Chorley Wood by scientists of many years' standing.
  I value the brief discussion we have had tonight, and I assure the House that my right hon. Friend will take note of all the points raised when the matter is considered in Brussels next week.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House takes note of Commission Document No. R/1368/76 relating to Baking Tests (Cereals).

  PROCEDURE
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Kenneth Baker, Mr. A. J. Beith, Mr. George Cunningham, Mr. Michael English, Mr. John Garrett, Mr. Norman Lamont, Mr. Richard Luce, Mr. David Marquand, Mr. John Peyton, Mr. J. Enoch Powell, Mr. Giles Radice, Sir David Renton, Miss Jo Richardson, Mr. Nicholas Ridley, Mr. Nigel Spearing and Sir Thomas Williams be members of the Select Committee on Procedure:
  Ordered,
  That the members of the Select Committee on Procedure nominated this day shall continue to be members of the Committee for the remainder of this Parliament:
  Ordered,
  That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.—[Mr. John Ellis.]

  RABIES
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bates.]
  1.28 a.m.
  Mr. Robert Adley: I am grateful to have the opportunity, three hours earlier than last night, of raising on the Adjournment the threat to the country of the importation of rabies. I thank the Minister for his constant courtesy and attention to me and several hon. Members on both sides of the House in his attempts to cope with the many requests and Questions we have thrown at him in recent weeks.
  I had the opportunity to raise this subject in the Whitsun Adjournment debate, but on that occasion the Leader of the House was not in a position to make a ministerial reply. I know that many people will be eagerly looking forward to hearing that the Minister has accepted many of the suggestions which have been put to him.
  Rabies is a disease which can bring to man one of the nastiest and most painful deaths known. There is no known cure for rabies. It can have, and in many countries does have, a devastating effect on animal life.
  The problem of co-ordination is a great one. The Department itself is responsible, particularly for the post-outbreak situation. The Home Office is responsible for police powers. The Department of Health and Social Security has responsibility connected with port health authorities and the Treasury controls Customs. The county councils act as agents for Customs, and the police and district councils are involved. In my constituency the New Forest District Council has now instituted a thrice-weekly patrol, and the marina operators are greatly concerned about the problem.
  It is now vitally important that the Minister gives a lead to all the county councils and authorities involved in the country in the co-ordination of the measures being taken in attempting to prevent the entry of rabies into this country.
  Perhaps I may ask the Minister to consider a model plan which could be sent out urgently as a guideline to all county
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  councils to try to get conformity in the co-ordinatory measures. The Minister is on a hiding to nothing in this matter, because if rabies does not come in this week or next week no one will thank him. However, if there is an outbreak he will get the blame. In his own interests, he is obviously well advised to do as much as he can.
  The Government have listened carefully to representations which have been put to them. I understand that the National Yacht Harbour Association yesterday received assurances from the Minister about the points it raised with him. I do not think it is immodest of me to point out that until I put down a Question on the Order Paper asking the Minister to meet the NYHA there had been no contact between that body and his Department.
  I hope that the Minister tonight will be able to say something about the outcome of the discussions he is having with the Association of Chief Constables. This was referred to at length at a recent meeting we had, and we are anxious to know the views of the police. I hope he will also be able to say something about the vaccine position as distinct from the vaccination position. Is plenty of vaccine available, and what transport facilities exist to carry the vaccine from the place where it is presently being stored should an outbreak occur at our ports or elsewhere on the coastline at an inconvenient moment during the weekend, which is always the likeliest time for these things to occur?
  The Minister has been pressed about large signs at estuaries, ports and marinas. Up to the moment, he has been somewhat unenthusiastic about the proposal. I would inform him that Hampshire County Council has now accepted that the environmental disadvantages of large signs must be considered to be the price which has to be paid. In the Hamble River an 18-sq. ft. sign is being erected by the Hampshire County Council at a cost of £700. There is no doubt that if these signs are put up county councils will find themselves involved in the expenditure of large sums of money.
  The Christchurch council, in my constituency, is now authorising the posting of notices at suitable points along the coastline where possible boat landings

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  could be made. However, I still believe that there is far too much hit and miss in respect of the problem by local authorities up and down the country. That is why I hope that the Minister will consider a model plan at the earliest possible opportunity.
  Why is it that Hampshire County Council is having to print its own leaflets? I believe that this is something the Department should have done and should be doing. It seems stupid that the Hampshire County Council is printing leaflets in six languages and that at the bottom are the words
  "Issued by Hampshire County Council in the interest of public safety."
  I hope that the Department will produce some leaflets so that every local authority in Great Britain will be able to use them.
  Mr. Michael Jopling: While I agree with everything my hon. Friend says, may I ask whether he has seen the advertisement in last weekend's Sunday Telegraph by the Cunard Steam-Ship Company extolling the virtues of crossing the Atlantic backwards and forwards in the "Queen Elizabeth II"? That advertisement contains a drawing of a lady who is enjoying the pleasures of the shopping arcade, and who seems to be tripping around with a lot of parcels and with a clog on a lead. Would he agree that this is a most deplorable advertisement which, if read by people in America, might easily lead them to believe that it would be perfectly permissible to bring a dog across the Atlantic? Does he agree that the Government should take steps to see that this particular advertisement by the Cunard Company is suppressed at once?
  Mr. Adley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention and for the support he has offered from the Front Bench to a number of the proposals that have been made. Of course, I agree with him. I do not know who can have written the copy for that advertisement, but it cannot be anyone who is aware of the fears and anxieties, particularly in this country and around our coastlines, about the present situation.
  I want now to consider those whom we are trying to prevent breaking our animal quarantine Regulations. It has become accepted in the last few weeks that the most likely people to break the Regulations
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  are foreigners visiting these shores. I have long doubted this, certainly from the evidence of my own eyes in my own constituency, where some British citizens are in the habit of getting on their boats at the weekend and taking their animals with them. I agree with my hon. Friend that the offenders are more likely to be the sort of people who get on "gin palaces" or the "QE II" than the genuine yachtsman.
  As a result of Questions which I put to the Department, I have come up with the rather surprising statistic that 38 per cent. of the offences committed during 1975 in contravention of the Rabies (Importation of Dogs, Cats and Other Mammals) Order 1974 were committed by British citizens and 19 per cent. by German citizens. Quite a long way down the scale come the French, the Italians, the Dutch and so on.
  The evidence is that it is British citizens themselves, deliberately and knowingly abusing the quarantine Regulations, who may well be the main culprits. Mum comes down from the Midlands in a large motor car, parks it in the marina, gets on an expensive motor yacht with her poodle stuffed up her jumper, not wanting to be separated from the pet for the weekend, and nobody is to know whether they are going for a sail round the Isle of Wight or to Cherbourg. A great deal more attention needs to be paid to the problem created by our own citizens.
  I want to ask the Minister about the position with our EEC partners. He has told me in a Written Answer that our embassies are now in the process of distributing new publicity material in six languages for display at ports, marinas, yacht clubs and other suitable locations.
  The reality in France is very different. This was borne out horrifically over the last weekend by a reporter from the Southern Evening Echo, Mr. George Chastney, who has come back, after two days in Le Havre and Deauville, with a horror story of what is actually happening in France. The recent Isle of Wight case has been widely publicised in Le Havre, where one of the two yachtsmen on a charge in the Isle of Wight lives. But Mr. Chastney reports in the Southern Evening Echo that there are no posters in Le Havre in the modern marina area or at the headquarters of

  507
  the local yacht club, to which Mr. Aubrey, one of the people to whom I have referred in the Isle of Wight case, belongs. In Le Havre the harbourmaster, Mr. Yves Tallegas, said to Mr. Chastney "If the British Government gave us leaflets, we would hand them out, and we would also put up a notice in the harbour." At one of the nearest points to our South Coast, nothing has happened, despite the soothing assurances given in ministerial answers. The British Consulate at Le Havre received about a dozen leaflets from the Central Office of Information which are still in the consulate office.
  In Deauville a customs officer was quoted as saying:
  "For every 10 French yachtsmen who take dogs with them to Britain, there are 10 Englishmen who bring dogs here. When they arrive, they do not keep the dogs on boats—they take them ashore for walks, just like everyone else. We do not stop them because they break no French laws. But when those yachtsmen return home, do they say 'We have been to France with our dog—please put him in quarantine for six months'?".
  I hope it is not unparliamentary to say "Do they hell!".
  This story, appearing in the Southern Evening Echo, is corroborated by an Australian yachtsman, a Mr. Robert Kirk, who was in Deauville for six months. He is quoted as saying:
  "I have seen it happen several times. They take them for walks round Deauville."
  There is a considerable discrepancy between what the Government hope will happen and what in fact happens. I shall send a copy of the article to the Minister and I hope that he will read it carefully. The wheels of government tend to grind slowly. It is the zebra-crossing syndrome —namely, that a child has first to be knocked down on a stretch of road before a zebra crossing is authorised. I hope that, as Mr. Chastney's report seems to suggest, the Government will not wait until rabies has entered the country before ensuring that action really is taken.
  Perhaps the Government should set themselves the target of persuading our EEC partners to implement the same quarantine Regulations as we follow. That would certainly deter British citizens taking their pets abroad.
  I turn to the subject of policing. Let me quote the words of the Devon County
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  Trading Standards Officer on the effect of policing:
  "Whilst we have excellent liaison with harbourmasters and Customs and Excise authorities, it is virtually impossible to monitor this volume of holiday traffic throughout the summer months to a stage where one could confidently feel that adequate control was being exercised over these vessels."
  The Customs authorities welcome help from the public, but I do not believe it is sensible or realistic to expect the over-stretched Customs officials to act as an effective police force.
  There are many other problems on which I shall briefly touch. There is the problem of vaccines. Will the Minister issue leaflets to vets which they can pass on to the public explaining why the Government will not allow the vaccination of pets? Is it because it is too costly, or is it unsafe to do so? Has any vaccinated dog ever contracted rabies?
  There is also the problem of the urban fox. This is not a problem which can be easily dealt with, but if rabies ever finds its way into this country we shall have to deal with it. Rats are also a problem. We talk a good deal in this context about dogs and domestic pets, but there is the problem of rats to be borne in mind. In some overseas ports, de-ratting certificates are about as hard to come by as a packet of cigarettes.
  Small coasters, which are often family boats, constitute a great problem. There is also the problem of oil rigs, a matter about which my hon. Friend the Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Mr. Corrie) has recently expressed concern. I am sure that the Minister is aware of this problem. It is not only yachts that present difficulties. Offences are also committed at airports and major seaports. People who smuggle animals into the country deliberately are selfish, odious, self-righteous and moronic. It is almost impossible to think of words strong enough to describe them. There is only one language they understand, and that is the language of much tougher penalties.
  I am delighted that the Prime Minister replied to me in these terms on 20th May:
  "I think that we should consider the possibility of making offences under the rabies legislation arrestable. I do not know what answer we should come up with, but that is the kind of issue that I am having examined.

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  I hope that we can find some answers to it. I do not think that any hon. Member is in doubt about the gravity of the matter."— [Official Report, 20th May 1976; Vol. 911, c. 1708.]
  I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to say how far the Prime Minister's investigations have proceeded. I should like to see a mandatory prison sentence and the destruction of all animals imported illegally. Consideration should also be given to the impounding of boats, if that is at all practicable. Since the fact that policing is impossible has been accepted, tougher penalties are the only way to prevent the disease reaching this country.
  The Minister knows that I do not wish to exaggerate the problem, but my constituency is in the front line. I do not believe that our existing penalties are adequate. Although the hon. Gentleman may say that it is possible to impose a prison sentence, which in theory is true, the position in practice is that from the beginning of 1975 to date only one case has been heard on indictment, which is the only way in which prison sentences can be meted out, at a Crown court empowered to impose imprisonment. In that one case the punishment meted out was a suspended sentence and a £200 fine with £200 costs. The number of cases heard at magistrates' courts during this same period was 82. No offenders have yet been imprisoned. I think it is about time they were.
  1.46 a.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Gavin Strang): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) for raising the important matter of the co-ordination of measures to prevent the importation and spread of rabies. I thank him for his kind remarks at the beginning of his speech. I think we can safely say that on this issue we are all on the same side. We are all anxious to do the most we possibly can to minimise the threat of rabies in this country.
  First, I should like to explain the Government's policy to deal with the rabies threat. Our primary and overriding aim is to keep rabies out of Great Britain. To achieve this we have introduced stringent import controls, compulsory quarantine requirements and severe
  510
  penalties for offenders. In addition, and far from least, we rely on a high level of public awareness. Our contingency aim, should an outbreak nevertheless occur, is to stamp it out swiftly and effectively before it takes hold. To achieve this we have drawn up contingency plans and we are now encouraging local authorities to draw up and develop their own local plans to suit local circumstances.
  All this involves a tremendous amount of co-ordination at various levels, and I am happy to say that we enjoy an exceptionally high level of co-operation from all concerned. In terms of keeping rabies out of anywhere in the British Isles, we work in close concert with the appropriate authorities in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In terms of central Government, there is close co-ordination between all the Departments concerned, the two Agriculture Departments, the Department of Health and Social Security, the Home Office, Her Majesty's Customs, the Scottish Office and the Welsh Office. At the ports and airports there is close co-ordination between Customs officers, the local authorities, the port health authorities and the police. We are also in touch with such bodies as the National Yacht Harbour Association and the Royal Yacht Association.
  For our contingency plans there is full co-ordination between the agriculture Departments, local authorities, the police and other local organisations. We are also in close touch with the many other interested bodies and organisations—for example, the Nature Conservancy Council, the Forestry Commission and the Masters of Foxhounds Association. I believe that the Government have every right to be proud of the degree of coordination and co-operation which has been achieved.
  We also set much store by our publicity campaigns to achieve a high level of awareness of the rabies risk, though we are anxious that it should be soundly based and not hysterical. On 5th May I launched a fresh publicity campaign—the Rabies Awareness Campaign 1976—and I think we can fairly claim success. Offences against our import controls have been fully reported by the whole news media. The whole country is exercising vigilance. Several offenders have been brought to book by the alertness and initiative of the man in the

  511
  street. This in itself, I suggest, has made our publicity campaign worth while.
  Moreover, the courts have responded to this higher level of public awareness. Several cases have recently been reported where the magistrates have imposed the maximum penalty on summary conviction of £400. I am sure that such penalties have the overwhelming support of the public.
  But our publicity campaign has not been confined to this side of the Channel. Fifteen thousand posters explaining our Regulations in six languages have been, or are being, distributed through our embassies and the Governments concerned in eight European countries to ports, marinas, yacht clubs and other suitable locations. A five-minute television film explaining our policy has been shown in most European countries. In addition, a Ministry veterinary officer is co-ordinating publicity effort in liaison with the veterinary authorities on the French, Belgian and Dutch coasts.
  For example, the French naval authorities have issued standing instructions that any animal belonging to a French warship must be left behind before sailing to the United Kingdom. The French Ministry of Transport has circulated information to associations of shipping owners, the fishing industry and the unions concerned. Posters and leaflets have been circulated to nearly 500 maritime sailing clubs affiliated to the French National Sailing Federation, and there was publicity in the federation's magazine for May. Our consulates in Bordeaux, Calais, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Lille, Marseille and Strasbourg are also taking part.
  Perhaps at this point I should assure the hon. Gentleman that I will look carefully into the allegations which have been made in the Southern Evening Echo. Naturally, I am concerned at what I have heard about Le Havre.
  All this points to our having achieved a greater degree of awareness on both sides of the Channel—an awareness that we now wish to maintain during the years ahead.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to the National Yacht Harbour Association. We have met representatives recently. We have not decided to take up all their
  512
  suggestions, but they made a number of suggestions, some of which we regard as constructive and hope to take on board.
  I reassure the hon. Gentleman about the availability of vaccine. The point regarding the vaccination of animals has sometimes been misunderstood. Despite the modern vaccines which are now available, none can guarantee complete immunity against rabies. Therefore, the production of such vaccines in large quantities would be wasteful of resources without providing a real safeguard.
  The World Health Organisation recommends a policy of import control and quarantine for rabies-free countries, particularly countries such as our own where there is no kind boundary. The hon. Gentleman will find that the overwhelming number of veterinary surgeons in this country take the view that it would be a mistake to introduce routine vaccination. As he knows, however, we have vaccine in stock, and it would be used almost as a matter of course if an outbreak of rabies took place in this country. It would be used in any affected area. Of course, the level of use would depend on the nature of the outbreak and the contacts which the dog or cat had had with other animals and people in the locality.
  I was surprised to hear that the Hampshire County Council is having to print its own leaflets. We have an excellent supply of leaflets which we make available to local authorities. I understand that some local authorities are unwittingly printing their own. They do not seem to have grasped the fact that we have leaflets which we make available. I am not sure whether this applies to Hampshire, but I will look into that point.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to the police. As he gave me advance notice of this matter, I made inquiries and I understand that discussions have taken place between the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers. Those discussions have been of a confidential nature. Therefore, I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman what the basis of the representations to and discussions with the Home Office was.
  I now turn to our contingency plans to stamp out any outbreak of rabies that

  513
  might occur. I am happy to assure the House that the Ministry has a properly-drawn-up contingency plan capable of achieving its objective. We shall keep it under continuous review and will constantly strive to improve it.
  We have also consulted the local authority and police associations about local contingency plans to supplement the Ministry's plans. As a result, this week we are sending to county councils guidelines to enable them to draw up their own local contingency plans to suit local conditions. Some local authorities already have their local plans, but our guidelines will serve to achieve both a higher state of preparedness and a higher degree of co-ordination between local authorities and the police, on the one hand, and between local authorities, the police and the Government on the other. I think that that covers the point the hon. Gentleman raised when he suggested that in addition to encouraging local authorities to produce their own plans we should send out what would be in effect a model plan. These guidelines are, in effect, a model plan.
  There will be full co-ordination between local authorities and the Ministry's regional and divisional veterinary staff. In the case of an outbreak, an outbreak control centre would be set up in the infected area by the Ministry's regional veterinary officer. It would keep in direct and close touch with all concerned. Direction from the centre would be given from the Ministry's Exotic Disease Control Room at Animal Health Headquarters, Tolworth, Surrey.
  Perhaps I may deal with the important points the hon. Gentleman raised with regard to the need to tighten our import controls still further. We shall consider them all. Many, if adopted, would involve amending the Rabies (Importation of Dogs, Cats and Other Mammals) Order 1974. We shall not hestiate to do this if it will tighten up our defences.
  The hon. Gentleman drew attention to the assurance that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has given. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the maximum fine on summary conviction is £400. One of the
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  problems in the past has been that we have not taken advantage of this maximum. I am sure that the increased usage of the maximum is a reflection of the greater public awareness. We are looking at the question of raising that fine and at the whole question of arrest. There are powers to arrest under the Diseases of Animals Act 1950, but we are looking at the question of increasing these powers.
  The hon. Gentleman raised points about advice to vets. This is a fair point. There are some vets who are unclear about the position on vaccination. We are arranging for an article to appear in the Veterinary Record which will explain this matter very fully. The Veterinary Record is the main channel of communication to vets, so I hope that this will meet the hon. Gentleman's purpose.
  Mr. Adley: Will the Minister please try to take on board the point about leaflets for the public? A vet cannot give a long complex article to the public. What is needed is a simple leaflet to explain to the public why they cannot have their pets vaccinated.
  Mr. Strang: I shall consider that point. We have been inundated with demands for leaflets as a result of our public awareness campaign, and we welcome that. The hon. Gentleman is calling for a specialised type of leaflet. We shall consider that matter.
  The Government have highly-developed policies both for keeping rabies out of the country and for stamping out any outbreak that might occur. There is coordination at the various levels of government. Above all, I should like to reassure the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), who is on the Opposition Front Bench—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at two minutes to Two o'clock.

  BRITISH POLITICIANS (ALLEGED SMEAR CAMPAIGN)
  BRITISH POLITICIANS (ALLEGED SMEAR CAMPAIGN)
  TUC AND CBI
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WALES
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NORTHERN IRELAND
  Gas and Electricity Industries
  Gas and Electricity Industries
  Gas Prices
  Gas Prices

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

AFRICANS: CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have now asked our diplomatic representatives to collect data concerning the remuneration and conditions of service under which African employees in Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Botswana work so that these can be compared with the equivalents paid in South Africa.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, no information has been sought about the remuneration and conditions of service of African employees in the countries mentioned; nor are there any plans to compare such information with similar information in respect of South Africa, which is a special case. The noble Lord is referring in his Question to independent African States where the indigenous workers enjoy political rights and the freedom to join trade unions. Wage rates in those countries are influenced by the activities of those trade unions and are generally at levels which accord with national development plans formulated by the sovereign Governments.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, if one is to set a standard for wages and remuneration which British firms pay in South Africa, would it not be logical to try to discover whether firms in neighbouring countries surrounding South Africa are paying comparable rates? If nothing is done to get this information through our commercial attaches, surely we are creating a disadvantage to British firms operating by the competitive price of their products; whereas the surrounding
1098
countries, housing firms from perhaps France, Germany and other industrial countries, may be paying lower rates and thereby getting some favouritism and better prices. is this not to the disadvantage of all who work in South Africa and of the British firms who operate there?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I think that it is generally recognised that South Africa is a special case in these matters because of the disadvantages at which the African worker is placed under the apartheid system. This has been the cause of the controversies over the last year or so. The questions that the noble Lord asks about comparisons with neighbouring States are perhaps matters for concern within international for a, but I do not think, since these countries are sovereign States, that it is a matter for British Government responsibility.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that, quite apart from apartheid, which is a different question, British firms have been denigrated by the suggestion that they are paying under the rate? All the evidence one can get unofficially is that this is not true and that they often pay over the general rate in those areas. Merely to say that because in what the noble Lord calls sovereign States the workers are free to join trade unions should not permit the world to denigrate British firms on the pay question. That is not in accord with what I would expect the British Government to try to do for their nationals.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, firms which operate in South Africa and are of the kind the noble Lord referred to are invited, and have been requested, by my right honourable friend to publish information indicating what are their wage standards. Some have done so and others have not done so. It would be well if all who were so invited were to publish that information.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, when my noble friend investigates this matter, could he let me know how the wage rates for women in these countries compare with the wage rates in South Africa?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, certainly any information that emerges will be available to my noble friend.
Lord BARNBBY: My Lords, the Minister in his first reply mentioned trade unions in connection with the countries named. Is it thought that the trades unions in those countries have the same kind of independent status that trades unions enjoy in this country?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the workers have the freedom to join their trade unions and they are free trades unions. That, I think, is an important difference between the countries named in the Question and South Africa.
Lord SAINSBURY: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that some of the countries mentioned in the Question do not compare with South Africa in wealth or in industrial development, and thus in the ability to pay?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, that is most certainly the case. I hope that no one will seek to justify inadequate wages in British-owned enterprises in South Africa simply on the basis that South Africa is surrounded by poverty-stricken countries.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, would the noble Lord consider whether it is realistic to say that in the countries surrounding South Africa the trades union are as highly organised as he suggests? Would it not help the trades unions to negotiate for better rates of pay if they knew how their wages compared with those paid in South Africa? He might be assisting the wellbeing of the coloured people surrounding South Africa. Would he not consider this most seriously? Is he not aware that the firm impression exists that in fact some 10,000 Africans travel on foot into South Africa in order to get jobs with better remuneration and better consideration than in their own countries? Would it not be useful for all Africa to know what wages are paid in the surrounding countries?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I return to the point that it is not Her Majesty's Government's responsibility to make these comparisons. I have already dealt with the underlying cause of the long walk to seek employment. This is,
1100
understandably, due to the surrounding poverty. As to the point about the organisation of trades unions within these countries, it is true that they are infant movements because these countries are infant countries. One does not expect miracles of social organisation within the course of two or three decades. But my main point is that they are on the right road, and South Africa in these matters is on the wrong road.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, the Minister says that it is the duty, as I understand it, of the British Government to inquire what British companies are paying in South Africa. Is it also the duty of the British Government to inquire what rates of pay are being paid by British companies, some of which operate in these other countries?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, there is no reason, I suppose, why such an investigation could not be made through the proper channels. The point is that special representations in respect of the special case of South Africa were made, and the Government responded to those representations.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, is it not a fact that if the British Government asked about the wages that British companies were paying in these other countries, they would find it extremely embarrassing for their case?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, most certainly not. The reason for low wages in the surrounding countries is the abject poverty in those countries. I will readily debate with the noble Lord the causes of that poverty: but it is no justification to defend inadequate wages in South Africa on that basis.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, would it not be true to say that the countries adjoining South Africa, whether or not they have lower wages, prefer lower wages—and might even prefer hunger—and freedom of movement, freedom to join trade unions? Is it not extraordinary that noble Lords opposite do not understand that men prefer freedom even where they have hunger?
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords. There are many aspects of freedom and my

1101
noble friend has drawn attention to the important ones. But another important aspect is the freedom to enjoy a reasonable standard of living; and the Government's policy in the aid and development field is directed towards that end.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, surely the noble Lord the Minister will agree that the fact—and it is a fact—that higher wages are paid in South Africa because it is richer highlights the need for Western technology to be deployed in these countries; and, furthermore, for these countries to accept that and provide conditions to enable Western technologists to go there.
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords, I think it is well known that we have aid and development arrangements with these countries with that end in view,
Lord HALE: My Lords, in view of the widespread interest manifested oil all sides of the House—
Several noble Lords: Order, order!
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I am so sorry that I have had to interrupt my noble friend, but more than nine minutes have now gone by on this Question. We know the great interest that noble Lords feel regarding this Question, but we have three more to come, quite a long day ahead of us, and another tomorrow. I think it right therefore that we should brine, this Question to an end.
Lord HALE: My Lords, in view of the widespread interest manifested in this matter would not publication of the Lonrho report provide much Valued information to all—
Several noble Lords: Order, order!

TORTURE IN PRISONS
2.46 p.m.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
1102
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their Representative at the United Nations has made any suggestion that, when accusations of torture in prisons are made against any Government, they should be encouraged to invite the International Red Cross to make investigations and report.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): No, my Lords. We of course abhor the use of torture and will give our unstinting support to measures designed to eliminate it or curtail its incidence.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his reply, may I ask him whether he agrees that we might take a lead in this matter at the United Nations? The United Nations is supposed to help to set standards of humanity all over the world. Would he agree that if this question was put—and there is no point in having a vote—the Government would be willing to make this invitation to the Red Cross? The Red Cross has an international standing and would be acceptable to the world in general. At the moment practically every week we have descriptions of tortures of persons in prisons from an admirable society, I have no doubt, but it has not the same standing as the International Red Cross.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I have every sympathy with the purpose of the noble Baroness's intervention. However, I think we might be well advised to concentrate on the fact that the United Nations itself, having produced an International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, Article 7 of which expressly forbids torture, and having set up a Human Rights Committee on which hopefully we may have our own representative, has the right machinery, if States' parties are willing to use it, to make a beginning on the attack on the use of torture wherever it happens.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister again for his reply. If we can make certain that we have a representative on this Committee that would he a step

1103
forward. Would he agree with me that those Governments which were not willing to invite the Red Cross in would obviously discredit themselves by their refusal, whereas those Governments who agreed to invite them would find it helpful not only to their standing in the world but to the prisoners? This is why I want to press strongly that we ourselves ought to make a start and an impression in this matter.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the suggestion has merit and I am in no way rejecting that or any comparable suggestion, or, indeed, suggestions for bilateral ad hoc interpellation with Governments with whom we have normal relations and to whom we can usefully make known our abhorrence of certain practices, always remembering of course that there is a danger of these representations being counterproductive. We have to be very careful about that. At the same time, while we are open to any suggestions, such as that made by the noble Baroness, it would be well for us to concentrate on making as effective as possible—hopefully as a member of the Human Rights Committee—and supervising the operation of, this covenant and the sister covenant on economic and cultural rights, at least in the next year or so.
Baroness HYLTON-FOSTER: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the danger that Governments might try to use the International Committee of the Red Cross as a cover-up, having made certain that when they make their visit there is no evidence of torture?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, there is, of course, that danger. These suggestions, as the noble Baroness will recognise, carry with them certain points of attraction and, on closer examination, certain points of difficulty and danger. That is no reason why such suggestions should not constantly be examined as additives to the central procedure of operating international covenants of this kind as effectively as we can.
Lord CARADON: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that, whereas there may be objections to calling on the Red Cross to carry out such a difficult task, there is everything to be said for making a fuller use of an international endeavour
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through the United Nations to establish a system of international investigation similar to that which has long existed in the Council of Europe? Would he not agree that, if there could be international machinery to provide for international investigation, with the authority of the United Nations, we should act in accordance with that?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I certainly agree, and the first step towards that objective is to try to get a scat on this Human Rights Committee, which is after all a full-time body set up under the aegis of the United Nations.

EDINBURGH COUNCIL: COMMUNITY COUNCILS
2.52 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: 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 it is a fact that Edinburgh District Council have refused to implement Section 52 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, in connection with community councils, and whether the Minister will set up an immediate inquiry into Edinburgh District Council's decision.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (Lord Kirkhill): My Lords, the City of Edinburgh District Council have not refused to implement Section 52 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. Although the District Council have indicated some doubts about the need for community councils in their area, they have been given until 31st July 1976 to submit to the Secretary of State a scheme for the establishment of these councils. The extension of time was granted at the request of the Council. No final decision about the scheme has yet been taken by the District Council and it would be inappropriate, therefore, for an inquiry to be set up into this matter.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord

1105
for his encouraging Answer—encouraging because I had understood that the City of Edinburgh District Council was quite adamant about that—may I ask whether he is aware that under Section 11, the relevant section, this is the second time the Edinburgh District Council have been granted delaying powers? If by July they have not produced a plan for a community council, will the Government take action?—because otherwise the Edinburgh District Council will be breaking the law.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, the Secretary of State for Scotland has default powers under Section 54 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. I am well aware that the noble Baroness paid very close attention to that Bill during its passage through your Lordships' House, but the underlying concept of community councils is that such councils should develop by way of consent and negotiations: hence the Secretary of State's agreement to a further extension.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, is it not quite clear that, while the desire of the City of Edinburgh for economy is very commendable, there is a clear legal obligation that where a community council is requested such a council should be formed, and it falls upon the local authority to do so? Was that not specifically stated by the Government during the Committee stage in 1973?
Lord KIRKHILL: Yes, my Lords; I agree with the substance of the question put by the noble Earl. But the present position is that there are indications that the Edinburgh City Council is moving towards the creation of a community council, and their propositions and any outstanding representations pertaining thereto will eventually lie with the Secretary of State for Scotland. I think, at this stage, the correct policy, which the Secretary of State is pursuing, is to give an extension of time for these discussions to take place.

RABIES LAWS: PUBLICITY ABROAD
2.55 p.m.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU:
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My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what publicity is being given to our rabies laws in Continental ports, marinas and yacht clubs.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, 15,000 foreign language posters explaining our anti-rabies regulations have been sent to our Embassies in eight European countries for distribution at ports, marinas, yacht clubs and other suitable locations. This task is being achieved, I am glad to say, with the full co-operation of the Governments and national organisations concerned.
A special television programme explaining our policy and regulations has already been shown in most European countries. In addition, a Ministry of Agriculture veterinary officer will be coordinating our publicity campaign in liaison with the veterinary authorities on the French, Belgian and Dutch coasts.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lords for that reply, and appreciating the good intentions of the Government, may I ask whether he is aware that it was reported last night in the Southampton Echo that no posters at all were exhibited in Le Havre and Deauville? Is he also aware that many Frenchmen still think that the vaccination certificate is sufficient, and that many feel that the literature already abroad has not been properly distributed? In view of this most disturbing report, could he perhaps look into this aspect of the matter?
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, of course, my Lords. We are aware of public concern about this, and I may say we are meeting this threat with resolution and vigour. If the noble Lord, or any other noble Lord, has knowledge of any instances where the campaign has not been properly carried out, we shall be glad to hear of them.
With regard to France, the French Navy authorities have issued standing instructions that any animals belonging to French warships must be left behind before sailing to United Kingdom ports.

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The French Ministry of Transport has circulated such information to associations of shipping owners, to the fishing industry and to the unions concerned. Posters and leaflets about our controls and penalties have been circulated to nearly 500 maritime sailing clubs affiliated to the French National Sailing Federation. I do not think there will be any excuse for travellers, whether British or foreign, not being aware of our regulations.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord in how many foreign languages these warning notices are published and whether, in each of the ports concerned, French, German and so on, there are notices in more than one foreign language?—because Italians travel through French ports, and so do many other people.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the six languages are French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, would the noble Lord also consider that these notices might perhaps be posted at airports, particularly those concerned with light aircraft?—because many light aeroplanes cross the Channel.
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords. I think this is probably being done and, as the noble Earl may know, to land an animal at any location other than an accredited port or airport is not permitted.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, did I understand the noble Lord to say—
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: This side next! My Lords, as most of the individuals responsible for the crime of bringing infected animals into this country appear to be wealthy and so have no difficulty in paying the fine, would it not be better to give them a short, sharp, prison sentence? This would be more salutory and would be reported in every paper in the world.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, of course that is permitted under our legislation. I think we must leave this to the courts concerned; but I may say that on indictment it is possible to order an unlimited fine and/or a year's imprison-
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ment. I think it is important to note from what one reads in the Press that magistrates are beginning to reflect public opinion about the seriousness of this offence.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, did the noble Lord say that a veterinary expert is co-ordinating the dissemination of information? If so, would it not be better if an expert on information did that job?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the co-ordinating authority for this whole campaign is, of course, the Ministry of Agriculture in conjunction with the Welsh Office and the Scottish Office: and the COI produces the publicity posters. We had a Press Conference last month, and I must say that we welcome very much the co-operation of the Press in this matter.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind that it now costs about £300 to put a dog into a kennel during the incubation period, which in many cases is a real hardship? Also, are we spending enough money on improved vaccines, so that we can move to an arrangement under which we have a foolproof and effective vaccine? In many cases there is real and genuine hardship and the loss of a much valued companion and pet during the six months' quarantine which must now be imposed.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I think that that is a different question.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I have had representations from a number of friends, who say that although there are stickers at airports they are not eye-catching and are, in fact, rather drab compared with all the other advertisements which are scattered about? May I also ask him whether, in order to stop the smuggling of dogs in cars, the Customs could put stickers on cars going out of this country, and ferry operators could put other stickers on cars coming in?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, that is a useful suggestion which we shall certainly bear in mind. I am afraid I cannot agree with the noble Lord that our posters are drab. I have some here, both in French and in English, which, if your Lordships

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wish, I will arrange to have displayed in the Library. Also, I have put in the Printed Paper Office a memorandum, which is also available in the Library, which spells out in very considerable detail, first, what we are doing to prevent rabies-infected animals coming to these shores; and, secondly, in what we hope is the unlikely event of an emergency, what special plans will have to be implemented.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his original Answer, that the Government are taking this action, will give a great deal of satisfaction? Can he say whether the posters which go to the Embassies are being received with welcome by the port authorities? Presumably those authorities are under no compulsion to put up posters, so are the Embassies having any difficulty in persuading them to do so?
Lord STRABOLGI: No, my Lords. We have enjoyed full co-operation for a very long time; and, of course, we have also enjoyed EEC co-operation through each Member State. As well as working through the Embassies, we are working with British consulates in the main French ports and also in Lille, Lyon and Strasbourg.

BUSINESS
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVEES of HASTOE: My Lords, perhaps I should make the next announcement in English, Dutch, Italian, German and Portuguese. May I inform your Lordships that, as the House will be sitting late tomorrow, dinners will be available.

LOTTERIES AND AMUSEMENTS BILL [H.L.]
3.7 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee (on Recommitment) on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee (on Recommitment). —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 25 agreed to.
Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Permits for commercial provision of amusements with prizes]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 28, line 31, leave out (" £2 ") and insert (" £2.50 ").
The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment alters the amount of the fee specified in paragraph 18 of Schedule 3 to the Bill. That paragraph derives from paragraph 16 of Schedule 6 to the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. The fee that was payable under that paragraph became £2 by virtue of two subsequent Statutory Instruments. These, in turn, have been replaced by two further orders which came into force on 31st May 1976, by virtue of which the fee payable is now £2.50, which accounts for the Amendment I have the honour to move. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Repeals.]:
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 31, line 37, at end insert—

(" 1973 c. 65.

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.

In Schedule 24, paragraphs 28 and 29.")

The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment adds two further repeals to the list in Schedule 5. Unless your Lordships wish me to explain the additions, I do not think I need trouble the Committee further. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 5, as amended, agreed to.
Lord DERWENT: May I say one word? Is it not a deterioration of the customs of this House, due I suppose to force by the usual channels, that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor should be here on the first day of Ascot?
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

RATING (CHARITY SHOPS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES &c. (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
3.8 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The principal purpose of this Bill is to provide powers for phasing out the use of imperial units of weights and measures, and to provide a framework for further progress in metrication. In several important respects it is an improved version of the Bill which was introduced in another place earlier this year. Noble Lords will recall that the Second Reading there was postponed to allow further consultations. These have proceeded satisfactorily, but in the meantime the pressure on the timetable in the other place has considerably increased and that is the reason for introducing this Bill here.
Later I shall indicate the changes which have resulted from the consultations undertaken by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, but first it may be helpful if I sketch the historical background of the Bill, outline the progress that has already been made in respect of metrication in this country, and explain how and why the proposed new powers will facilitate further progress. It is not often appreciated that this country already has a long history of involvement with the metric system. Indeed, in 1871 a Bill to make the metric system compulsory failed by only five votes. Four years later, following the Metric Convention, an International Bureau of Weights and Measures was
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formed with the duty of establishing and preserving international standards of length and mass.
The United Kingdom joined the Convention in 1884. It has participated in its work ever since and has played a major part in establishing the SI—Système International—metric system as it is today. In 1897 the Weights and Measures (Metric System) Act made metric units lawful for use in this country. Therefore what we are concerned with in this Bill is not making the metric system legal in this country. That was done long ago. What is involved is whether, and for how long, we are to continue with our present practice of having two systems side by side, the metric and the imperial.
This question was posed for us clearly in 1950 by the Hodgson Committee which reviewed weights and measures legislation. It stated the problem in these words:
" The real problem facing Great Britain and these countries "—
that is, other countries using imperial units, principally the United States and some Commonwealth countries"—
" is not whether to adhere either to the imperial or to the metric system but whether to maintain within their boundaries two legal systems of measurement or to establish world-wide uniformity by changing over completely to the metric system and abolishing the imperial."
That was how the Hodgson Committee set out the problem and it gave its answer to that problem equally clearly. It said:
"… we have come to the unanimous conclusion that the metric system is, in the broadest sense and in the interests of world uniformity, a better' system of weights and measures than the imperial; that a change from imperial to metric for all trade purposes is sooner or later inevitable; that a continuance of the present option to use either the metric or the imperial until the inevitable comes about will cause in the long run more inconvenience than an ordered change within a specified period; and that the long-term advantages which would flow from an organised change in the near future would far outweigh the inconveniences of the change itself. We therefore recommend that the Government should take the steps which we outline below with a view to abolishing within a definite period all use of the imperial system in Great Britain and to establishing the sole use of the metric system for all trade purposes ".
I thought that that quotation was worth giving in full because in my view it is a succinct statement of the case for the change.
In making that recommendation, however, the Hodgson Committee made two

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provisos which were very necessary in 1950 but are not necessary today. Because of our dependence on world trade, the Hodgson Committee said we should act in concert with North America and the Commonwealth and we should metricate our weights and measures only if our coinage was decimalised. Those two conditions are now fulfilled. Our coinage, of course, is decimalised. Commonwealth countries are well ahead with conversion and the United States last year passed its Metric Conversion Act.
The situation now, therefore, is that to all intents and purposes all our trade is with countries which use or which are in the process of conversion to the SI metric system and it is impossible, in my view, to overemphasise the importance of this fact. The market for exports in imperial units has shrunk dramatically over the past few years and will virtually disappear within the next few years. The inevitable result of this situation has been that British industry has been virtually forced to adopt metric units to a very large degree. A large part of industry is now metric as a result and I think that I should pay tribute to the work of the Metrication Board, whose chairman is with us, in helping forward this process.
Most inland and overseas freight tariffs are now based on metric units. Trading in industrial materials has been in metric for several years. Metrication in engineering is well advanced, with almost 60 per cent. of engineering products being in metric and more than 85 per cent. of engineering firms having some metric production. Nearly 60 per cent. of engineering firms do all their design work in metric. In agriculture and horticulture the situation is that by the end of this year farmers and growers will be working in a substantially metric environment. All major textile manufacturers work in metric units and commercial transactions are also in metric. Bulk deliveries of petroleum products changed over to metric units at the beginning of this year, and both postal and telephone tariffs are now on a metric basis. In our schools, colleges and other training establishments metric teaching is now predominant and children have been progressively, although not yet completely, released from the drudgery of having to
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learn by rote the complicated relationships between units in the imperial system.
The effect of this marked changeover to the metric system is, I suggest, already apparent to the ordinary consumer. Many products on sale in the shops are already in metric dimensions and weights. For very good reasons the metric system is in such widespread use and over so many areas of our national life that it is totally unrealistic to suppose that the tide can be stemmed, let alone turned back. The question is: can we, and should we, perpetuate the imperial system alongside it? Is the interest of the consumer likely to be best served by such a perpetuation, by what the Hodgson Committee called " an ordered change within a specified period "?
The hope has sometimes been expressed that it should be possible for industry to go metric without affecting the rest of us in our capacity as consumers. I suggest that we have to be clear about what would be involved if it were practical, which I do not believe it is, somehow to divide the economy into separate metric and non-metric compartments. First of all, both our domestic industry and foreign manufacturers wishing to export to this country would need to run separate imperial production lines for the United Kingdom retail sector. This separate production would entail duplication of design, packaging, stockholding and sales. Our schools would need to teach both systems in perpetuity and production workers would need to be familiar with both systems.
The result of all this would be that goods would be more expensive in this country than elsewhere and that British industry would be less competitive than its rivals. Living with two systems would be not only costly but confusing and the country would gain none of the economic benefits of going metric. In reality the ordinary citizen is inescapably involved; as I have said, many goods are already metric in the shops. If total and continuing confusion for the consumer is to be avoided and if the retailer is to be spared the headache of grappling with two sets of purchases, stock controls and pricing, we must standardise on the basis of a single system.
Quite understandably, it was concern at this stage of the process for the welfare

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of the consumer that caused the demand in another place for further consultations w hen the Bill was introduced there. As I have said, the Bill has been strengthened to meet the anxieties which were expressed. and I noted with pleasure that in a recent statement by the National Consumer Council (not all of which I agree with) they paid tribute to the changes which have been introduced. The Secretary of State will now be required to consult in particular with organisation representative of consumer interests before making an order under Clause 2: secondly, it will now be possible to continue to use imperial units of measurements for explanatory educational purposes alongside metric units. even though those imperial units may no longer be used as legal measures for trade. Thirdly—and this is the third difference from the original Bill—the Bill now provides for the display of conversion tables in order to help the consumer.
Perhaps. though. I should make it clear, since these were improvements from the consumer point of view, that consumer organisations favour the Bill. The message that we have received over and over again from all quarters is unequivocal: that the Government must step in and ensure that the final stages of the changeover are carried out in a planned and orderly fashion—otherwise there will be chaos—and that to do this the Government need the power to set cut-off dates for the use of imperial units.
Perhaps I may quote just one or two of the messages that we have received from organisations. Going back a little to the Consumer Council that existed in 1970, it said:
" The Consumer Council believes that conversion to the metric system will be of advantage to consumers ".
The Consumers' Association wrote to us recently:
" We are pleased that you are taking enabling powers in the Weights and Measures Bill, and we hope these will make rapid progress through Parliament. Each month that now goes by without these powers, the greater the possibility of utter confusion as some members of the trade change to metric measure and others do not."
Other organisations that I could mention are the National Federation of Consumer Groups, the Housewives Trust, Age Concern, which looks at these matters particularly from the point of
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view of elderly people; the National Council of Women of Great Britain and the Consumer Standards Advisory Committee of the British Standards Institution, as well as many local consumer groups. have all in their messages to the Department advocated the adoption of the metric system. I have already menioned that there was a recent statement by the National Consumer Council. It came to me somewhat as a surprise in the light of the statements of so many other consumer organisations in favour of what the Government are proposing to do.
Although consumer organisations, as I have said, have for some time been asking for a speedy conclusion of the changeover, it is true that delays and postponements have created a feeling of uncertainty among shoppers themselves. This loss of confidence has been reflected in some research that has been undertaken for the Metrication Board. The research has shown a falling off in support for metrication since 1972. and particularly since July of last year. On the other hand, the most recent research shows that the majority (some 57 per cent.) of people who have come across metric units found they " were fairly easy or I found no difficulty. A much larger majority (85 per cent.) accepts that as metrication is bound to happen it might as well learn to use it; and that I think is a quite pragmatic and practical approach to this question. So a summary of public attitudes is that there has been some fall in public support, but experience in using metric has been favourable and, in the final analysis, " people believe that metrication is bound to happen and they want to learn how to use it ".
I recognise that a major worry about metrication is the fear that it will lead to higher prices. One can understand the fear, but I believe that experience shows that there is no basis for this suggestion. In cases where the quantity or size of the products changes as a result of metrication—and this does not automatically follow, as is sometimes supposed; it sometimes can be a smaller quantity or size—the price too will obviously change; but in the field of, for example, prescribed quantity goods, metrication which has been proceeding has not led to any increase in the price of the goods themselves.
The parallel is sometimes made of what happened, or rather what was

1117
supposed to have happened, at the time of the decimalisation of the coinage. Whatever is the truth of that argument—and I doubt whether anyone finally will be satisfied—I should stress to the House that there are three fundamental differences between the present position and the position of decimalisation of the coinage. From the consumer point of view decimalisation of the coinage happened overnight and across the board. Metrication has been a gradual process and it will continue to he a gradual process on a sector by sector basis. This means that the industry, the retailer and the consumer can closely monitor what is happening.
Secondly, there is now in existence the price control system which is administered by the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection through the Price Code and the Price Commission, and it is their task to ensure that no unwarranted price increases take place. This is a most important safeguard for the consumer which did not exist at the time of the decimalisation of the coinage. But I must reject the allegation in some of the suggestions that are put around, that most retailers are cheats who use every opportunity to make unjustifiable price increases. This is not only unfair to them but it fails to recognise that retailers in this country operate in a highly competitive market. So even if they were disposed to cheat, they would not have much opportunity of getting away with it.
Thirdly, to ensure that the consumer will still be able to make value-for-money judgments during and after the changeover, the Government have unit pricing powers under the 1974 Prices Act. These will be extremely valuable in this connection, and the Department is currently considering the way in which they can most effectively be used during the changeover period in the shops.
In bringing forward this Bill the Government are very conscious of the views of all sections of industry, trade and consumer organisations and, indeed, have been influenced by the strength of the views put to them. I have already indicated the strength of views from consumer organisations. But the CBI has consistently urged the need to bring in this Bill, which it believes to be extremely
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important for British industry. The Trades Union Congress has similarly placed on record its view that a prolonged changeover period is undesirable. I think it fair to say that perhaps until recently the retail trade has been more divided, some parts of it having been more enthusiastic about going metric than others. Traditionally, parts of the food side have been opposed to metrication. But over the past year or so there has been here a growing recognition by the retail sector that cut-off dates are desirable, indeed necessary. The recorded views of the very many trade associations are perhaps too numerous effectively to put on the Record here, but I think that the position of the Retail Consortium accurately sums up the overwhelming view throughout this sector of the economy.
My Lords, at a recent meeting with my honourable friend the Minister of State, the Consortium made it clear that while they did not particularly relish the prospect of metrication, they considered it to be essential for the Government to step in and take the powers proposed in this Bill if chaos for the trade and the consumer is to be avoided. Finally, I come to the Treaty of Accession to the European Economic Community which firmly commits the United Kingdom to the adoption of the SI system by 1978, and to the phasing out of the general use of imperial units for legal purposes. On the Accession of the United Kingdom to the European Community, this country accepted the commitment to the SI system and the Directive was amended to incorporate imperial units in a separate Annexe.
In the proposed amending Directive currently under consideration by the EEC Council, imperial units have been absorbed into the main body of the Directive, and the proposal is that certain units should cease to be authorised by the end of 1977, some by the end of 1979, and the future of the rest, which includes all the everyday important imperial units, to be decided by 1979. The main point to emerge from all this is that we are obliged to adopt. that is to say, obliged to authorise legally, the SI system for all purposes by April 1978, but we do have some flexibility to decide the timetable for phasing out imperial units.
I have felt it right to concentrate almost entirely on the metrication aspects

1119
of the Bill, and these are covered principally by Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill. They simply establish the piece of flexible machinery to enable the Government to bring forward proposals to remove or restrict the use of units of weights and measurement for the purpose of trade. As a piece of machinery it is entirely neutral; it does not say that we have to get rid of or restrict the use of any units, nor does it establish any timetable. The Bill places an obligation on the Government to carry out full consultations before bringing forward any orders under it. It further provides that such an order will need to be debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament.
Briefly a word or two about subsequent clauses. Clause 3 empowers the Government to make regulations authorising the use for trade of prescribed weighing or weighing equipment where the stamp indicating that it has been passed for use for trades has been obliterated or defaced. This power is needed primarily to deal with price changes on petrol pumps. Clauses 4 and 5 confer powers to standardise containers. At present under existing legislation many important household goods, mainly foodstuffs, can be sold only in prescribed quantities. For certain products, however, particularly those with varying densities, standardisation by weight is not necessarily the best aid to the consumer. A good example of this is the case of washing powders, where standardisation by weight would result in a confusing multitude of different pack sizes which would be of little help to the consumer, whereas standardisation on the basis of the size of the container would be of real assistance.
Lastly, Clause 6 will enable local authorities to charge fees for work undertaken by their weights and measures inspectorate, not only in carrying out their national responsibilities, but also in connection with EEC obligations. I said " lastly ", but I have found another.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Oram, comes to the final point, would he allow me to go back to Clause 4? I should like to ask what is the purpose of standardising material of which containers are to be made? What is the purpose of that provision? I think it will save some discussion if we know that now.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I recognise that certain trade associations arc in trouble over this. If the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, would agree, I think it would be more helpful to take this up on Committee stage, because discussions have been going on about this point. Although I cannot indicate this afternoon how, I hope we can be helpful in that respect.
My Lords, I come to the last point in explanation of the Bill. In Clause 8 the Government propose to take powers to relax or suspend certain provisions of the Weights and Measures Act and the Food and Drugs Act during times of shortage. The need for such a power became apparent during the sugar shortage of 1974. Noble Lords may recall that during this period, packs of sugar were specially imported—from Holland in particular, I recall in my own shopping. This sugar was imported to cope with the emergency situation, but in many cases the sale of the sugar was technically illegal. I do not think any prosecutions were proceeded with, but it was technically illegal, and therefore retailers were technically at risk in selling the sugar. This clause would give the Government power to suspend or relax these requirements if a situation of shortage were to arise in the future, and thereby ensure the risk of prosecution would be removed.
My Lords, I am sorry to have taken rather long in introducing this Bill. However, I think it will be recognised that although its particular provisions are perhaps technical and those of establishing machinery, the Bill does deal with an important development in our national life, one about which there is some misunderstanding and some controversy. Therefore, I felt it was right to go over the background fairly fully. I hope that approach has been helpful to your Lordships, and that at the end of the debate you will give the Bill your approval.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (Lord Oram.)
3.40 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, the noble Lord has been generous to us in the clarity with which he has introduced this Bill, and we would not grudge him the length of his introduction, which we are still able to measure in minutes. The

1121
public affected by this Bill fall roughly into two groups, and the noble Lord has already alluded to them. They are, on the one hand, the producers and the manufacturers, most of whom want it, and on the other, consumers, many of whom do not. There are exceptions in both. But the retailer is caught in the cross-fire. By and large, it is the retailer with a pair of scales who is concerned, and the retailer of prepacked goods is slightly more fortunate. Her Majesty's Government are, therefore, faced with a band of opinion that wants no compulsory legislation and a band that does, and the Bill falls neatly between two stools and satisfies neither group; for by its recourse to legislation it offends one group, and by its failure to specify dates it disappoints the other. The prospect now is not for one, as it were, capital M-day but a whole scattering of m-days, with food, one gathers, coming right at the end of the queue, a queue which will be marshalled by the Secretary of State by means of a series of Statutory Instruments made under Clause 1(2) and Clause 2(1), which will become the new Section 9A(3) in the 1963 Act, as amended by the Bill.
Where this procedure results in a delay, it may have one or two fortuitous but welcome advantages. The Government first attempted to bring this Bill in when inflation had reached a crescendo, or what we hope will prove to have been a crescendo. It remains to be seen whether the present attempt will coincide with something less fearsome; but inflation, and savage inflation at that, there undoubtedly still is. It is a feature, regrettably, under these circumstances of the imperial to metric conversion tables that the nearest metric equivalents to the normal convenient units of sale in grocery and other lines are, on the whole, 10 per cent. larger than the imperial equivalent. A public rendered sceptical by experience of new larger economy packs of this and that commodity are not going to accept easily the proposition that a 10 per cent. increase in price is necessarily the result of a 10 per cent. increase in quantity, even if they are absolutely clear as to what 10 per cent. in real terms is. It is just no good telling a lady with only 50p left in her purse that the smallest available quantity of a product which now costs 55p
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is bulk for bulk no more expensive than last week's smallest available package costing 50p. It may be no more expensive, but the fact remains that last week she could afford it and this week she cannot.
It has been suggested, first, that metric packs should be marked with both the metric and imperial measures of contents, and orders already exist to make this possible. I welcome the noble Lord's allusion to his intention to continue this trend. Secondly, it has been suggested that a watchdog body of some sort should be empowered to referee this aspect of the changeover and to disqualify price increases greater than those justified by increases of quantity. We hear this afternoon that the Price Commission will have this task. It will be the duty of the Government not merely to tell us that in this Chamber; it will also be their duty to tell us how they will convince the public at large, as convince them they must, that they are doing the job and doing it effectively.
I do not wish to imply that most producers, wholesalers or retailers, will take this opportunity to add an unacceptable margin to their profits. The noble Lord said that it was frequently put about that most retailers are cheats who make unjustified profits out of changes in the law. I join him in rebutting that allegation. I did not think it was as frequent an occurrence as he suggested, but it goes a long way to justify the doubts and reservations which some of the retailing organisations, some of the producing organisations and many individual consumers have about this piece of legislation. First of all, to increase by 10 per cent. the standard quantities in which commodities are sold, when those commodities may independently of metrication rise in price by up to 15 per cent. is to magnify the appearance, and, therefore, the psychological effect of inflation across a wide sector of the hoard. Secondly, for those for whom either poverty or the fact of living in isolation dictates that the smallest packs are always and only the ones to be bought, it increases the actual impact of inflation as well, since it increases by 10p in the £, as I hope my earlier illustration showed, the cash that has to be tied up in the necessaries of life week by week.
Some industries have taken great trouble to avoid any shred of justification for a

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charge of profiting by metrication. If it is not invidious to select one, the sugar industry in particular has undertaken to keep its prices within 1p per ton of the present level, and that is indeed a very close margin. It intends to change over on 1st July, thus demonstrating the superfluity of this Bill, at least so far as sugar is concerned. I should like to return to timing in a moment. But it is an irony of circumstances that that is the date on which the intervention price for sugar is due for revision, and the chances are that any change in the price of sugar will be attributed by the public not to this factor but to metrication. The sugar industry has chosen a date: it has acted voluntarily in advance of the Bill.
I would refer your Lordships to the very important paragraphs 103 to 105 in the Metrication White Paper of 1972. Although time passes quickly, it is not yet out of date. I think it would be trespassing on your Lordships' patience if I were to quote these three paragraphs in extenso, but the effect of them is that without reservation it is the view of those forming the report that timing is of the essence for the success of the scheme, and that the exact right timing will vary not merely from industry to industry but from factory to factory.
Retooling for packaging is a task of quite extraordinary expense, at least in my view, when you consider the flimsy cartons that finally emerge. It is most important that the Secretary of State shall bear in mind recommendations he is given when discussing the timing of individual orders to be made under this Bill. We ought to bear in mind that while a great part of the industrial and technical sectors have already voluntarily gone metric, and while this change affects a very large volume of trade both at home and abroad, a much larger number of individual people remain both to be exposed to the effects and to be convinced of the merits of metrication than have so far crossed this bridge. These are the purchasers for personal purposes, the consumers who can be recognised as the child buying a quarter of toffees, the housewife buying a lb. of potatoes, the pensioner buying an oz. of " baccy " and the householder ordering a cwt. of coal.
All the denominations that l have listed
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are due to be swept away. If the step is taken arbitrarily, and if in advance of the events great care is not taken to educate the consumer to a much greater degree than at present, then, in spite of the rhyming and often effective efforts of my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing and his Board, I fear the result will be confusion followed by resentment. Most people who feel confused by a transaction end up by feeling that they have been done when it is concluded, and the resentment will, quite unfairly, be directed, not at the Government, not at the Board, not at the EEC, but nine times out of ten at the supplier, who hence earns the reputation, which the noble Lord said he had had attributed to him so frequently already, of being a cheat who makes unjustified profits out of changes in the law. We, therefore, welcome the provisions included in the Bill to continue to use imperial measures for explanatory and comparative purposes during the changeover period.
We live in difficult times, but it is usually possible to gain advantage out of a difficulty. We are all aware that one cause of the underlying weakness of our industrial system has been a prolonged phase of under-investment. Many companies are operating with obsolescent equipment. Where replacement awaits a decision on adopting a metric standard for the product the decision will not be taken early or willingly so long as expenditure on new equipment remains so costly as to render retooling an uncertain way of maintaining or increasing profits. It should not be necessary to underline that without profits there will not be business or employment in the private sector, and that even the present Government cannot afford to borrow sufficient cash to take all private industry into public ownership.
It is essential, therefore, to remove some of the disincentives from re-equipping wherever they can be found and re-equipping to metric standards. There are occasions when a decision on the introduction of a metric item on a production line may prejudice and delay a complete retooling of a factory. Therefore, if it should be possible to find some incentive for what may amount to a considerable sum of reinvestment, then I think that this is something that the Treasury should look into. It is not the function of this House to interfere in fiscal matters, and I

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would not commit anyone, least of all my noble friends, to a policy on this, but it would seem sensible that some system of tax allowances or benefits should be made to coincide with any timetable of re-equipment so that the intervention in this aspect may not be unwelcome.
That scheme should apply not simply to the manufacturing and packing industries but also to the retailers. There is logic in this and also justice, for while it is possible to argue that the manufacturers' troubles will be over when metrication is complete, I strongly suspect that for the retailer that will he when they begin. It is he, after all, and not the manufacturer, who has to argue with the housewife. It is worth noting here that, while the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum says that the Bill will have no significant financial effects in the short term, this is correct only in so far as Government finance is concerned, and the cost to some industries of going metric and indeed to some retail groups as well will he very considerable indeed.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, could the noble Lord give us the basis on which he makes that last statement?
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I am not quite sure which half of the statement it is to which the noble Baroness refers, but I believe that there are something like 200,000 points of retail and, on average, about three pairs of scales at each. So taken across the country the sum is very large. Some of the multiples and chains are very large organisations. I regret that I did not anticipate the noble Baroness's intervention, which I should have done, and did not bring the figures in with me, but they are of that order and I think that that is sufficient to show that it is a considerable expenditure.
This is perhaps the right point to ask the Government to go a little further than they did on the matter of European legislation. The noble Lord referred to a document, which I have before me, R/3070/75, which is introduced ill the European collection of documents downstairs as being a letter from M. Lardinois to Signor Rumor, and proposing for a Council Directive amending the Council Directive of 18th October 1971. I am fairly confident that we are on the right
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document here. This document has in parallel another with the same reference which purports to be from the Minister of State for the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection describing the letter which I have mentioned as being a draft submitted by the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection.
The reason why I raise this matter at this point is that I think that a number of us, though perhaps we should not he, are a little in the dark about the procedures here, because if it is advanced that we are under an obligation to follow the ruling in this proposed draft Directive—and I. am not clear from what the noble Lord said whether in fact it inevitably will become a Directive or whether it may stay in the draft condition—and if this draft Directive is to become law, and if that law is to be binding on us, then it would seem to have been drawn up by a Minister prior to consultation with Parliament, and the Minister is then in the position to come to Parliament to say, This is what we have got to do, because, force majeure, we have no alternative." I think that the noble Lord will wish to reflect upon that. It is a matter of some importance, as indeed are the contents of the document itself.
The document contains four chapters in the Annexe listing measurements which it shall be, and which it shall not be, legal to use in, among other places, the United Kingdom. I am puzzled and will pursue in Committee the fact that the schedules in these chapters do not everywhere coincide with the Schedules in the Bill we are going to look at in Committee. I am sure there are reasonable explanations of this but they are not at once apparent. I notice that Chapter C, for instance, contains a number of items including the yard, the square yard, the cubic inch, the hundredweight, the quarter of a ton, but all these we are familiar with and we know how the Government propose to deal with them. We notice also the British thermal unit stamped on the side of so many of your Lordships' boilers, and the therm. But C is the chapter which contains the units to be abandoned by the end of 1979. Chapter A contains the units which are passed as acceptable: B the ones which have to be abandoned by the end of 1977 if the draft Directive becomes a Directive, and I take it that the actual existence of the Bill implies that that is the case.

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In that we find, among other things, the calory, with which so many noble Baronesses have had a long-standing love-hate relationship: and also the hand, and many of your Lordships will find yourselves at a loss to describe your hunters if you are not allowed to use it. Those apparently, according to the document that I have referred to, have to go out of use by 1977. I have not yet found them in the Bill, which I find puzzling. Also we have a Chapter D which contains the items which may come under review by 1979. As I say, I will not dwell on this longer but it would be very agreeable to know what consultation, and particularly what Parliamentary consultation, was taken before these items were put into these chapters to be inserted into what it would appear is about to become a piece of legislation which Parliament has no choice but to accept.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I have the noble Lord's permission to ask him a question? In view of that long series of criticisms of this piece of legislation, is it the intention of the Opposition to vote against the Bill, because if that is their intention they can rely at least on one vote from this side—mine.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, it is always heart-warming to give way to the noble Lord because he always surprises one almost in the last sentence with the agreeable nature of his interruption. I should not like to go quite as far as that at this stage. I have asked, after all, for information. I have said that it may be regrettable that many of your Lordships are not aware of what processes this document has gone through. I am one of those, and for that I must apologise.
We shall be looking at this Bill very carefully between now and Committee stage with a view to removing what appear to be a number of anomalies, to elucidating a number of conundrums, and to making it a more serviceable tool for the purpose intended, and for assuring that no unnecessary or dictatorial powers are given to this, or indeed a successor Government. We shall also want to satisfy ourselves similarly about the powers given to the inspectorate, and the provisions for consultation by the relevant Minister before he sets in motion the machinery for making Statutory Instru-
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ments. We will be particularly interested in any proposals the Government have to render more satisfactory the present arrangements for rounding or approximating weights which at present can lead to exactly indentical packs of tea being half a gramme different in their translation, as it were, on the label from imperial to metric.
At present what we see before us is a Bill which, while it goes some way to satisfy some sections of the manufacturing and distributive industries, goes rather further to exasperate a few of them and a very long way towards antagonising the purchasing public. Your Lordships will be aware by now that it is the consumer with whom we are concerned principally in this and that there are no substantial difficulties in the industrial field. Let us remember that for more and more people in the consuming area, a shopping expedition has become a rather alarming experience in the last few years. More and more people on fixed incomes and on incomes that do not keep pace with inflation feel a vague sense of insecurity as they enter the supermarket or village store—though in the latter they are perhaps a little reassured by the fact that they can probably get credit—because they cannot be sure exactly how much of what they want or need they are going to be able to buy with the contents of their purses. If we add to that an element of uncertainty as to exactly what quantities it is that they must make their purchases in, and a sneaking suspicion that goods prepacked in metric sizes 10 per cent. above their imperial counterparts are dearer as well, we shall be doing them a grave disservice.
My Lords, I have already suggested that the poorest proportion of these customers may find themselves temporarily at least unable to buy one or other item on their weekly shopping list. It is this sort of feature that gives the Bill a bad name, that makes many of us sympathetic to arguments against compulsion, and that must be alleviated wherever possible. I feel that the Government have done less than is possible to convince the purchasing public of the desirability of this piece of legislation. If we do not welcome the Bill with enthusiasm, we will at least endeavour to see that it leaves this House better than it entered it.
4.2p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I was sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, adopted such a hostile tone towards a piece of legislation which, in my view, is very much in the interest of the consumer. I assure him that when he speaks of the consumer being the person with whom he is principally concerned, he is not alone in that. Everybody in this House and. I should hope, in another place is vitally interested in the effect of any legislation on the consumer, particularly legislation which is of such immediate impact as the change in the system of weights and measures. I hope, therefore, that Lord Elton will not claim any monopoly of interest on the side of the consumer. At least the noble Lord's speech elicited an interesting intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell. It never occurred to me that one of the disadvantages of this piece of legislation is that Lord Shinwell will be deprived of the opportunity of measuring the height—or is it the width?—of his horses in units of hands. It was at that point in the speech of Lord Elton that Lord Shinwell intervened saying that he would he on his side if the Conservatives chose to press the matter to a Division
The only other point in the speech of Lord Elton to which I wish to refer is his reference to what he described as a failure to please any section of the community. The gist of his remarks seemed to be that the failure to specify definite end dates was annoying to some people and that the introduction of the legislation had disappointed others. If the noble Lord reflects on it, I think he will see that that was inevitable. We cannot always please 100 per cent. of the people; in legislating we have to do what is best for the vast majority and in my opinion, and in the opinion of my Party, that is precisely what this legislation does.
I have always thought that we had a tremendous amount to gain from the adoption of SI units and I sincerely believe that the longer we spend in the period of transition, the further we delay the time when these benefits can be realised. The worst possible situation we could face would be one of prolonged retention of imperial units for some purposes while metric units are already in general use for other purposes. Nothing could be more confusing to the public and
1130
wasteful to manufacturing and retailing industry than to have two completely different sets of measurements operating in parallel for an indefinite period.
The advantages of the SI system are well known and should not need rehearsing yet again. The fact is that throughout the world—this was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Oram—there are very few countries which have not yet decided to make the change, and it is worth naming them. They are Burundi, Burma, Liberia and the two Republics of the Yemen, which are hardly the markets which immediately spring to mind when that fine old cliche " export-led boom " is under discussion. But if the argument for change is so overwhelming, why is legislation necessary? That is a legitimate question, and the answer, as Lord Oram pointed out, is that manufacturing industry retailers, trade unions and consumer organisations have, virtually unanimously, asked the Government to lay down a definite time-table so that they can make firm plans and minimise the cost. And in speaking about the cost we should remember that it is a once-for-all cost, whereas the benefits which we expect will continue for ever.
It has been said by a few opponents of the Bill—not by Lord Elton—that this legislation, compelling us to use metric units by law, is an infringement of liberty. However, as Lord Oram pointed out, Governments have for many years laid down permitted sizes and weights, and if most people are agreed that it is necessary for these units to be expressed in metric quantities, then it is obviously a denial of democracy if a small minority is permitted to insist on the retention of imperial units.
There remains the question, the most important one—this is the only point on which I agreed with Lord Elton—What will the effect, if any, be on prices in the shops? It is widely believed that decimalisation of the currency triggered off inflationary price increases and some people fear that the same may happen with metrication. So far as I am aware (and Lord Oram confirmed this), there is no evidence whatever to suggest conclusively that decimalisation led to a general wave of price increases, although there were a few instances of profiteering. I was discussing this with the taxi driver

1131
who brought me to the House this afternoon. He told me of a café where, prior to D Day, the proprietor charged 4d for a cup of tea and 4d for a slice of toast, which meant that he could buy a cup of tea and a couple of slices of toast for a shilling. Immediately after D Day, he told me, the proprietor charged 10p—that is, until people noticed. This is where the point about competition comes in, although he did not protest at the time, he could have decided not to patronise that café or tea stall any longer, and the same option will be open to any consumer who discovers overcharging taking place as a result of the conversion to metrication. However, we are now far better organised to deal with this issue than we were at the time of decimilisation. At the same time, it is now less easy for the unscrupulous trader to " con " the public because so many goods are already sold in metric units. Thus, the consumer is familiar with them whereas, as Lord Oram said, the changeover to decimal currency occurred on a single day.
As to the costs falling on manufacturers which might legitimately be recoverable in higher prices, I disagree with Lord Elton that there should be any additional tax or other incentive given to them to cover their costs. That would obviously be grossly unfair on, for example, the sugar manufacturers, who are already making the change voluntarily, and I do not think that any group in industry or commerce has seriously advanced that case to your Lordships' House. Certainly, in none of the literature which I received before this Second Reading has there been any suggestion that public money should be used to help finance the changeover. If the metric packs are generally speaking very slightly larger than imperial ones, costs ought to fall because the amount of material used in packaging increases as the square of the dimensions, whereas the contents increase as the cube of the dimensions. Therefore, the amount of material necessary for a given pack would decrease as the 10 per cent. increase in size came into effect. We have already seen this in the case of cornflakes, where there was a 10 per cent. increase in the size of the pack and where the manufacturers offered the public only a 5 per cent. increase in price, so that the cost per unit was reduced.
Much more important. is the tremen-
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dous opportunity which metrication gives us to standardise the range of containers and pack sizes so that we should be able to exploit significant economies of scale both in manufacture and in the reduction of inventories in manufacture and retailing which should also lead to keener prices. I do not believe that people really think that the shopkeeper will have an opportunity to cheat them nor that costs are likely to rise. I believe that the few cranks who still oppose metrication—for instance, the English National Party, led by Dr. Hansford Miller—do so for purely emotional reasons which they have to cloak in a semblance of rationality purely for public consumption. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will reconsider some of the things that he said this afternoon so that he does not fall into that group.
4.13 p.m.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I suppose that there is no one else in this House who welcomes this debate quite as warmly as I do. For four years until last month, I was deputy chairman of the Metrication Board and I was therefore, by the conventions of this House, obliged to remain silent when these matters were discussed. I extend my sympathy to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, who, being still chairman of the Metrication Board, is unfortunately not able to participate. On the other hand, Lord Ritchie-Calder, a former chairman, is now free from bondage and will be able to testify to the truth. I hope that we shall continue this debate on a higher level than, for example, the letter which appeared in the Daily Telegraph some 10 days ago—and no doubt it is a favourite newspaper of the noble Lord, Lord Elton—in which a gentleman from West Wickham asked, " If God had intended man to go metric why did he choose 12 Apostles and not 10? " He had failed to observe that the Creator in his wisdom had given us 10 fingers and 10 toes.
I was extremely disappointed in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I will say frankly to him that I thought it sour, superficial and, in a very important respect, thoroughly irresponsible, as has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in bringing in a quite spurious suggestion of incentives. That is a matter which I shall touch on in a moment,

1133
but I felt that the noble Lord fell so far below the standard that we are accustomed to expect from him in this House that I trust that, in the future stages of the Bill, he will reconsider some of the things which he has unfortunately said this afternoon. I would remind him that, hitherto, this has not until very recently been a matter of Party difference. The decision on the part of the United Kingdom to adopt the international system of measurements—and I would remind the House that it is not just a European system but an international one—has been taken with the full cognisance and consent of Ministers of all Parties in Government over the past decade and more. If I may remind the noble Lord that Ministers on his own side who have been responsible for and who supported this move include Mr. Rippon, Mr. Peter Walker, Mr. John Davies, Sir John Eden and Sir Geoffrey Howe, it will be seen that the support covers a fair spectrum of opinion in the Conservative Party. On our side, Mr. Jay and Mr. Benn, who are not exactly ardent Europeans, supported the change and the present Minister, who has given us perhaps the most effective support, is Mrs. Shirley Williams.
I would also remind my noble friend Lady Phillips, to whose remarks on the radio I shall refer again later, that she used the words before millions of listeners that the Government was " rushing into the matter ". She should know. It is true that she has not attended a meeting for nearly three years, but she is still a member of the Advisory Committee on Consumer Affairs of the Metrication Board, and she should know that we are now in the eleventh year of a programme of conversion to the metric system, the decision having been taken at the insistence of British industry in 1965. I stress that this was not a spontaneous notion of the Government of the day. They recognised that it would not be an easy or, probably a popular process, but it was under the consistent pressure of British industry that Britain decided in 1965 that we must face this change. It was because our industrial leaders—not the politicians—at that time quite rightly foresaw that the world was going metric. I know that certain people have been disposed to link the change with the decision whether or not to apply for membership of the
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Common Market, but that is really only a fraction of the problem. When, two days before Christmas, so it received no publicity in this country, the President of the United States signed the legislation passed by Congress, the very last argument of all on the international front for remaining imperial—and what an old-fashioned sound that has. anyway!—had really vanished.
We cannot, as the Confederation of British Industry has said in the notes which I think it sent to a number of' noble Lords in the last few days, afford to dilly-dally as we have for the past decade. It has done us no good at all. That is why I was so much disappointed with the lack of resolution in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. He cannot possibly have devoted his considerable intellectual powers to this subject. Otherwise he could not have spoken as he did. If he had taken the trouble even to read the memorandum of the Confederation of British Industry he would have appreciated their view. I know that he said he was not addressing himself to the problems of industry but was concerned with those of the consumer; but they are indivisible.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I merely wish to say that the noble Baroness has accused me of superficiality and something approaching incompetence, and also of reading the Daily Telegraph. I am not sure which is the more serious charge. I wish she would not also belabour me for not having done my homework. The fact that I do not draw the same inferences as she does does not mean that I have not done my homework nor, when she comes to read Hansard tomorrow, as I hope she will, will she find that I have followed a partisan Party policy or attempted to obstruct the Bill.
Baroness WHITE: Handsome is as handsome does, my Lords. We shall see what happens in the later stages. I repeat I that those concerned with industry and commerce in this country have been of the view, which they hold now almost with desperation, that unless the country really faces this problem with resolution we shall be wasting time and involving ourselves in quite unnecessary expense and shall be adopting a posture which cannot bring us respect in the rest of the world. After all, if so many other countries—now, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, virtually

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the entire globe—have decided to take this step, how do we look if we are so fearful that we cannot face the problems? I certainly do not belittle them, but if we tackle them with resolution they can be solved, and I am quite certain that that is the desire of industry and the desire of those concerned with commerce. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned organisations which were against this Bill, though he did not specify which they were. The majority of those of the highest standing in the fields to which I have referred—the CBI, the Food Manufacturers' Federation, and the Retail Consortium; I could give a long list—all recognise that the time for delay and hesitation has passed and that we should now bend all our energies to solving the remaining problems.
The noble Lord mentioned costs. I do not wish to weary the House with details of the extreme difficulty of calculating the true cost of conversion. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, the immediate cost can be defined, but the ultimate benefit, which is spread over a very long period—possibly to infinity—is much more difficult to calculate. If one tries to estimate any global figure for this change it must be remembered that it has been the common experience of all countries which have attempted this exercise that it just cannot be rationally undertaken. I might refer the noble Lord, or any other noble Lords who are in any doubt on this point, to the experience of the Australians and the Canadians, and in particular to the very thorough study made in the United States before that country finally took the decision. The United States report to Congress on "A metric America", made plain that those responsible would very much have liked to be able to estimate the cost. They went to considerable trouble in their endeavours so to do. As was said in the report:
" The ideal outcome of the procedure would have been a simple aggregate figure representing the net benefit or cost to the nation of going metric under a co-ordinated national plan. This conceptually simple approach was not feasible. Virtually all the costs would be incurred during the transition period at a time when benefits were only just beginning. Many of the benefits would come after the transition, and some are intangible: others cannot be attributed purely to metric change."
All I can say is that those of us who have studied this problem over many years have come to the conclusion that the costs
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of not going metric are difficult to calculate, but are very considerable indeed—more particularly the costs of maintaining two systems. That is really the final folly: to try to continue with two systems, with all the work and effort of accounting, of stock keeping, of thinking in two systems, as well as the delays and hesitations that obviously must arise from that situation. So the arguments in favour of a more rapid change are irrefutable. In the past few months, in fact from the moment when in another place the Minister, Mrs. Williams, under pressure from conservatives (I say that with a small c ") on both sides of the House, withdrew the Bill—so that we are now handling a No. 2 Bill in this House—the expressions of dismay which were received from every consumer organisation, except the one represented by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips—
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, would the noble Baroness forgive me if I intervene briefly? I wonder why she assumes that anyone who happens to have a slightly different opinion from hers is either sour or conservative?
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Baroness thinks that perhaps she is both. I think she must know that the majority of consumer organisations in this country were very much disturbed by the statements made by the organisation which she represents, which has been in the business for rather less time than most of the others. My noble friend Lord Oram referred to a number of the organisations with which the Metrication Board has been in constant consultation, year in, year out, as the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, can testify. There is the Consumer Association, publishers of Which?, which is extremely well known, the Housewives' Trust, the Women's Institutes. One could go on indefinitely listing such organisations of people with whom we have discussed the very genuine problems of dealing with consumer protection. Not least among them is Age Concern. At the Metrication Board we went to the most considerable trouble and expense to commission a special study of the particular needs of older persons. Not everyone is such a robust nonagenarian as my noble friend Lord Shinwell, but obviously even he finds metrication a little difficult.

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We recognise that there are difficulties, but may we look at the other end of the age spectrum, the young people? This is something which concerns me more than almost any other aspect of the delay in this change. In this country, in the past six or seven years at least, we have had a process of education based, so far as arithmetic is concerned, very largely on the metric system; and in many schools it has been based exclusively on the metric system. Among those who were most dismayed at the thought that the Bill which we are now discussing might be postponed or even abandoned were the educational organisations in this country. We reckon that by now 15 million of our population of children and young persons have been brought up in familiarity with the metric system and find our old imperial system—not the metric system—the difficult one. The metric system, when it is conjoined with decimal currency, which we now have, is infinitely simpler on its own merits. It is a failure to recognise that which leads me to despair of certain noble Lords and others who fail to see that we are really damaging the younger generation, and the efficiency of that generation, by our slowness, as an older generation, in consummating this change.
I have here pages of comments from all the main teachers' organisations in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, protesting at the possibility of any further delay in bringing the world outside the school into line with the teaching which has been carried on, with great devotion and assiduity in most cases, within the school. The National Association of Head Teachers writes:
" Most serious would be the waste of human resources. A whole generation of young people now thinks metrically, and for the less gifted child, school mathematics are now a great deal less irksome."
This is extremely important. The National Union of Teachers wrote last month:
"The union therefore reiterates its general support for the proposals which have already produced great benefits in our schools and strongly opposes the postponement of existing plans. Important developments have already taken place in the majority of schools and to defer the full implementations of metrication is an indefensible waste of valuable time and resources and could create problems in future educational planning."
I could give your Lordships a number of further quotations—although I shall
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not—from the Headmasters' Association, the Association of Colleges for Further and Higher Education, and so on. Surely the message is clear: those who delay this change further are responsible for undermining the efficiency of our industry, for adding to the costs of our industry, our exports, and our commerce, and also for undermining the confidence of young people, who have been brought up to face a modern international world and to look outward and onward and not inward and backward.
My Lords, I appreciate that there are, as I have said, very genuine difficulties for many consumers, and that they are entitled to all the assistance which can be given them by Government, by voluntary organisations, by the retailers and shopkeepers, and by anyone else concerned; but one must be rational about this. For example, I understand that the National Consumer Council suggested at the weekend that goods in certain categories should be allowed to change to metric only if, in the previous six months, their prices have gone up by less than 5 per cent. My Lords, how unpractical can one be? When such a body makes a statement of that kind it can only mean that their natural and very proper concern for the consumer has completely blinded them to the practicalities of the case. No one who has weestied, as I and my colleagues on the Metrication Board have had to wrestle, with the individual problems of different industries, and who knows how important it is for them to have some kind of certainty as to timetable and how frustrated they are when they cannot have a point of time by which they can be assured that the change will take place in an orderly fashion, could for one moment be so irresponsible as to suggest that a factor of uncertainty of this nature should be built in.
It really is incredible that an organisation of public standing like the National Consumer Council should have been responsible for such a proposition, which can only mean that they have not studied what goes on before you change to metric in any particular sector. If you knew what had to go on before you could make the change you would never suggest anything of the kind. That is one reason why I greatly welcome the provisions in this Bill which will give the Government the power—not the duty, but the power—

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after due consultation and with proper discrimination, where necessary, and where it is fully agreed with the trade concerned, to have a cut-off date after which, for purposes of trade (and I emphasise that: only for purposes of trade), it will he illegal to continue to use the imperial system. This does not mean that you cannot go on using your old cook books or your old pattern books, or whatever, in private; this is purely in the trading situation.
I did my very utmost, in one particular sector of fabrics, furnishing materials and carpets, to go as far as I could on a purely voluntary basis, and I should like to pay tribute to those who co-operated to the full in this process. We had a date—February of last year—when the change was to take place. The large retailers, the major stores, the large consortia, took considerable pains. The Metrication Board did what it could to help them, but it was primarily their effort. We very largely succeeded, only to find that a considerable number of their competitors in smaller shops, who were of course under no compulsion whatever to change, decided that it would be simpler for them not to, and did not. The result of this was endless confusion for the consumer, for the shopper, and a gradual disillusionment on the part of those who had gone to such trouble to effect the change.
It was this experience, among others, which convinced the Government and also the retail organisations concerned that the only sensible thing to do was, after due consideration, as I say, and with full concern for the interests and conditions in any particular section of the trade, for the Government then to say, Look—from such-and-such a time all trading must now be done on a uniform basis; in other words, in the new metric system." It is really the only intelligent way to tackle this problem; and, therefore, I am very glad indeed that the Government have had the good sense to include such a provision in the Bill.
Finally, my Lords, I should like to refer again to the problem that we all face in educating the consumer. This is one of the most difficult things. The Metrication Board has a certain sum of money, and can spend it on advertising in the public Press, on leaflets, on conversion tables, on various aids in the shops and
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so forth, and ultimately, I suppose, if it was given enough money, it could go into some television advertising. I believe an even greater effort is needed—something which would be impossible for the Metrication Board even if it were more munificently financed and impossible for the voluntary organisations, on whose co-operation, for which we are all so extremely grateful, we have so greatly depended. It seems to me that this is something which should be tackled as a long-term national problem by our broadcasting system, particularly television. The BBC has done an absolutely magnificent job. I think, in tackling a quite different problem—that of illiteracy. Their " On the Move " programme has, I think, won tremendous renown.
It seems to me that, to help the consumer over the next year or two with the problems of shopping in metric, a comparable effort is needed, and I would hope very much that the Metrication Board, with the Government Department concerned, would have consultations with the BBC to see whether they could not take up this challenge. I think it is needed, not by means of one or two programmes here and there but as a sustained effort over a period, may be this coming winter and perhaps the winter after, so that people can adapt to the new system with confidence. We have made tremendous progress on the industrial front, and we are making substantial progress on the commercial and retail front. I do not think that any one organisation can really tackle the problem on the consumer front, and I would therefore hope that, in co-operation with the Government Department, with the Metrication Board and with all the voluntary organisations which have been so helpful up to now, not least with the educational establishment and the teachers' organisations, we should now pull ourselves together and, with the cooperation of our national broadcasting and television system, say, " Look—we have two years. Let us get through with it, let us get it done; let us face the problem, tackle it and win through ".
4.39 p.m.
The Earl of HALSBURY: My Lords, for I think the first time in my career in your Lordships' House I must preface my remarks with an apology for not being able to attend the whole of this

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debate this afternoon. This is not by my wish at all, but I have inescapable obligations to third parties; and I shall read the rest of the debate in Hansard with the greatest interest and attention tomorrow. I am sure anybody who knows how closely I have been associated with these matters in the past will exculpate me from any voluntary wish to absent myself.
It is difficult to conceive how to make a Second Reading speech on what is rather a Committee stage type Bill. But those who preceded me succeeded in doing so and f shall try to do the same. The most general aspect of the Bill is to empower the Minister to get a move on and this I thoroughly endorse. But getting a move on with what? Essentially a work of altruism. At a certain measure of inconvenience to ourselves, which should neither be overestimated nor underestimated, we can simplify the educational and arithmetical work for children for ever—for our children, our grandchildren, their children and their grandchildren, for as long as language has its present form; because our language is a decimal language and metrication involves learning the practical units in which we carry out our transactions within the structure of the language that we speak.
We count from nought to nine and then ten; and ten times ten is one hundred. Ten hundreds are a thousand and we have a word for it. The Greeks had a word for ten thousand, a myriad. The Hindus had a word for 100,000, a lakh. We have a million, a billion and a trillion. This is true of all the sophisticated languages. I am not talking about the primitive bush languages which have words for " one " and " two " and then nothing more except " many ". This applies to all sophisticated language: the Indo-European, the Turco-Tartar languages, the Semitic languages—all are based on decimilisation. The advice Jethro gave Moses about delegated authority in the Book of Exodus is a decimalised scheme: to divide the children of Israel into tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands. So metrication goes back far into a time to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
We must retrace this system of language in order to describe practical units. At the
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time of the French Revolution, European units of measurement were just a chaos. It has been my professional responsibility at one time to do my homework on the history of currency; and a long dreary tale of muddle it is. Every attempt to reform it always landed into deeper and deeper arithmetical difficulties for one reason or another until the French Revolution, when some theorists decided to make a new beginning with a decimal system. At the Treaty of Amiens in 1809 we had the opportunity to get aboard the band wagon. If only we had done so then, it would have been so easy. As time goes on, our society gets more and more complex and more and more interlocking interests need to be reconciled and they become more various and the operation of reform becomes more difficult. Therefore the job which is started earliest gets finished earliest.
I am at one with the noble Baroness, Lady White, in the need to get a move on. I think there tends to be a certain amount of misunderstanding between the units specified as legal units and the shopping module. You do not go into a wine and spirit merchants and ask for 26⅔ fluid ounces of whisky. I would take a bet that the majority of your Lordships do not know that a bottle of whisky contains 26⅔ fluid ounces. Whoever cooked up that extraordinary sum? It is quite simple. The unit in the wholesale trade is a two-gallon case of 12 bottles: and if you divide 12 bottles into two gallons you get 26⅔ fluid ounces. But you do not ask for that in the shop. You say, " Give me a bottle of whisky!" When we go decimal—and I shall declare an interest as a director of the Distillers Company—it happens, conveniently for us, that 26⅔ fluid ounces is almost exactly 750 millilitres, which is three-quarters of a litre. We are not going to one-litre bottles; we are not going to scrap our bottling plants and our commercial arrangements. We shall simply re-label: " 750 ml " or " three quarters litre " and we shall carry on selling just the same.
Again, if I go into a grocer's to do my weekend shopping—I sometimes do this to help my wife—I say, " Give me half a pound of cheese! " What I do not get is half a pound of cheese. I get a lump of cheese which the grocer holding the cutting-wire judges to be approximately half a pound. That is put on a 'price-calculating scale and I am given exactly

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the weight by price per unit and I pay the amount. I could ask for a " small half pound " and the grocer can wield the string or wire and say, " Like that? I say, " Yes ". That is how people do their shopping. That is why in France you buy cheese by the livre which is half a kilo. In fact, our pound is not half a kilo. A kilo is rather more than 2 lbs; but I have no doubt that in due course we shall modify the concept of the pound to mean half a kilo; so that the word will remain in the language after having changed its meaning.
It seems to me that people tend to make confusion over this. You do not necessarily buy things by the unit but by the bottle—and a bottle of soya bean sauce need not necessarily contain the same cubic centimetres as does a bottle of Tabasco sauce. This will have been settled by the marketing manager of the people who sell it. You buy a bottle.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is not here. I do not suppose that he is sorry, because he has got it hot and strong continuously and much as I should like to let him off the hook I must even in absentia give him a wigging over the special pleading that he indulged in. Let us take the first matter. This was the lady who was down to her last 50p piece so that she could not buy something which was priced at 55p. But you are always down to whatever sum of money happens to be in your pocket. There is always something that you are not able to buy. It does not matter whether it is 50p or 45p or £1.55p —whatever it is, there is still something costing £1.56 that you must either put " on the slate " (if you can) or go without.
To speak as though this situation is going to be transformed as a result of metrication is special pleading, the finding of bad reasons to justify your not doing what you had made up your mind in advance that you were not going to do. Then there was the question of resentment. People are continually suspicious that somebody is doing them down. Some people are. Some people always have to grumble. If they do not grumble about decimalisation they will grumble about metrication or they will grumble about the weather. If we were never going to take forcible executive action for fear that people might grumble, we
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should do nothing. Therefore it is time that we got a move on and I endorse the reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Oram, gave for getting on with this Bill.
It is a mistake to go on shivering on the brink and putting off the jump into the water. You indulge in this in the belief that the water is very cold. My experience is that even if it is cold there is an even colder wind outside and the water feels warm when you get into it. I think we should get a move on and push this through as quickly as possible. I have two experiences of metrication in companies with which I was associated. In one, we had a large export order where we had to quote everything in metric. We said: " Do not let us take two bites at the cherry; let us go metric now. Bang!—this year ". We did it and it did not cost much. That is all ancient history now and we are metric. In the other case, we decided to metricate all new models and to keep the old system going side by side on old models and their spare parts. Then I listened to the special pleading by those who argued about holding spare parts in two standards, and what it would cost. But the old models would still have to be held, and the jigs and tools to make them. And the new models would have had to have spares held, too. So the special pleading was false and we metricated in stages. I believe that we should take no counsel of our fears but jump in and get a move on.
4.50 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I was going to start my speech in exactly the same way as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, because I ought to be somewhere else, and might, in that case, be deprived of the pleasure of listening to the noble Lord, Lord Oram, winding up. I hope that he will forgive me if I cannot stay until the end of the debate. May I congratulate him on the lucidity of his speech. I envied him being able to declare the Government's position in this matter. Six years ago when I spoke from the Box, then before the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury (who said just now some things with which I did not disagree), I was not in exactly the same position of clarity of position as are the Government. It was only a year after the Metrication Board had come into being, and it was early days at that time so far as metrication was concerned.

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For my part, I welcome wholeheartedly the Government's measure; in fact, I can say that for years now I have been waiting for it in Government and out of Government. The changes which have been made are really very simple. I do not think I have come across a Bill before where the real " guts " of it are in the repeals provision—that is to say, Schedule 4. What that does is to remove the last few words in particular of Section 10 of the Weights and Measures Act 1963 which says:
" … but the Board shall not so exercise their powers under this subsection "—
that is to add or remove any measures, or measurements or weights from Schedule 1 or Schedule 3 of that Act—
" as to cause the exclusion from use for trade of imperial in favour of metric units of measurement, weights and measures."
We will never get to the end of this business until the Government do just that. I regard this as the real " guts " of the Bill. The sooner we get there and do it, the better.
Metrication has been going on ever since 1965. Then Mr. Douglas Jay told Parliament of the intention of the Government that this country should go metric. The interesting thing about this is that it was before any question of our going into the EEC, and of course Mr. Douglas Jay was not in favour of going into the EEC in any case. I say this merely to illustrate the fact that metrication at the present time is nothing to do essentially with our going into the EEC. Of course, the EEC are making rules now that we are there. This was done in the interests of our international trade before this question really arose, or at any rate came to a climax. At the time when I came on the scene and stood at the Dispatch Box and made a speech, in 1970, the CBI had just said this:
" After five years' intensive preparation, industry is irrevocably committed to metrication ".
That was in 1970. Yet there are still some slaggards, laggards and recalcitrants who are still talking as if metrication were an open question.
My next point has been made clear by the noble Baroness, Lady White, and the noble Lord, Lord Oram. Industry committed themselves because our so-called system of weights and measures was complicated and irrational, and
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because, apart from the United States of America, all the major trading countries in the world were either already using the metric system or were well on the way to metrication. Now the United States of America, after seven years of study during which some metrication has been going on, has committed itself to metrication. Clearly, international trade is going to be conducted in the future in metric weights and measures, so whatever happens we are going to have to use metric weights and measures to a very large extent.
As the House knows, we are entitled to use either form of measurement at the present time under our present law. But is it really sensible for this country alone to carry on with imperial weights and measures for its own internal purposes? Would not this he a form of self-indulgence that we certainly could not afford? May I put it in another way. Those of us who I served in the Board of Trade (as it then was) found ourselves urging this country and others at all costs to remove non-tariff barriers as much as possible. Could one imagine a greater non-tariff barrier than our requiring all imports into this country to be marked in imperial weights and measures which were not being used anywhere else in the world except Burma, Brunei and one or two other places?
Australia started metrication after we did, in June 1970. As in this country, it is being carried out on a voluntary basis, and as in this country the aim was to complete metrication in 10 years. In five years 60 per cent. has already been completed there. Here in 10 years we have not got so far. It has been said that the costs of not going metric entirely are very considerable. That is true. There is the obvious savings in not having to keep double sets of stocks, in not having double sets of machinery, marking and all the rest of it, some for overseas and some for here. The savings for industry in terms of stocking are undoubtedly very considerable. I should like to take an example of fasteners which is contained in an Australian bulletin which was sent to me by Dr. F. T. Pearce of the University of Birmingham. I was very glad to see it. Marconi (U.K.) by adopting international fasteners have been able to reduce the numbers of types of screw used from 7,000 to 180. In Australia hinge

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manufacturers were producing 153 variations of imperial sizes for the building industry. They are now producing 11. They have reduced the number of sizes of fan belts from 1,000 to 100.
This is not only metrication; it is the opportunity that metrication gives for rationalisation. But it is a very important factor. Metrication is vital for industry and training. No doubt it is less important for road signs, speed limits and road distances. It would be silly in the long run not to express road distances in terms of kilometres once all the maps are being published in metric measurement. Metrication is a " must " both in manufacture and in commerce for us. Gradually it is becoming more acceptable for the consumer. An indication has been given of the progress which has been made in fabrics, carpets, hardware, and so on, and metric packs are already being introduced under recent regulations for pasta, salt, cornflakes and washing powder.
It has always been recognised that there were two main obstacles to progress in the consumer field. First of all, there are the requirements in Parts VIII and IX of the Weights and Measures Act that certain common foods— for example, butter, tea, coffee, jam, salt, sugar, flour, and so on—should only be packed in certain quantities. The second obstacle is the one to which I have already referred, the last words of Section 10 of the 1963 Act. These are the two main things that the Bill does—and high time, too! I congratulate the Government in doing this, even if the second major obstacle is removed in the obscure way which I have indicated.
My Lords, may I turn now to the question of the interim period. I hope that the Government will not allow dual marking to continue too long. The Australians, who are perhaps in some ways tougher and more realistic than we are in these matters, took the following line. I should like to quote to the House what they said:
" Experience has shown that sole metric marking of goods is an important part of consumer education rather than a phase to be introduced only after the education of the consumer. The Board believe that the dual marking serves little purpose in consumer education and merely extends the period over which reassurance must be given."
Given the climate of opinion in this country and the great sensitivity to the
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consumer, I would agree that it is better to have dual marking for a time, even though it is likely to slow up, rather than hasten, the education of the consumer. So long as the BBC gave expected temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Centigrade, people only registered the measure they were accustomed to, and it is only by ruthlessly refusing to give temperatures in Fahrenheit that people who are more familiar with Fahrenheit will bother to learn the Centigrade equivalents.
Of course, many difficulties will be involved for all of us. I can never remember my collar measurement in metric, but I daresay I shall learn it in the future and shall at least jot it down in my diary. It is a case of " thinking metric ", just as it was a case of " thinking decimal " when the currency was changed. But do not let us keep dual marking longer than is really required. I fully agree with the noble Baroness, Lady White, when she spoke about cut-off dates which would be arranged for particular groups of products. But we are coming to the stage, if we have not already reached it, where a cut-off date should be provided for converting scales and balances used in the course of trade. Until that is done, some loose goods will still be sold under the old system; but sooner or later that decision has to be taken and it would be a good thing to have it done as soon as possible. The first thing is to mark with metric equivalents all goods which are prepacked in certain quantities. Then we must require them to be marked in metric quantities with the imperial equivalents; and, finally, the imperial measurement must be dropped altogether. This can be done for each product in accordance with the pre-planned time, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, said, when the manufacturers and packers need to change their machinery and equipment to metric weights and measures. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, referred to loose goods sold by weight. Incidentally, I am not sure that I share his general experience, because when I buy cheese it is usually in a horrible little bit of transparent paper and of pre-packed weight, and of course you cannot smell it so you do not know what it is like and I would much prefer to have it cut for me. In selling goods by weight it seems essential to lay down a fixed date by which scales in shops must be converted to metric weights.

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I am sorry that this is not in the Bill and perhaps the noble Lord will be able to explain why it is not there.
It is also sensible to provide in the Bill for occasions when it proves impossible to meet deadlines without causing shortages, as is done under Clause 8. It also is sensible to provide for consultation as and when time permits, and not to tic the Government down to a definite amount of consultation. I am sure it is wise to provide for consultation with consumers as well as with distributors' and manufacturers' organisations, even though decisions must be taken on logistics rather than on what consumers would like to happen. Certainly consumer consultations on price, when local shortages appear, would he desirable.
Lastly, I would ask, as I did in my earlier intervention—and I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way—why it is thought necessary to give powers to make orders prescribing the descriptions of containers to be used for particular goods and the material from which such containers are to be made. I can understand the reasons for prescribing the size and capacity of a container, though there are good practical reasons for not doing so in certain cases. If a container is clearly marked with the quantity of the contents, the fact that one container looks taller than another seems to me irrelevant. Surely the consumer should be expected to read details of the weight or volume of competitive packs, whatever their dimensions. As to the material from which containers are made, I would suggest to the noble Lord that the provision seems rather unnecessarily inflexible. It will tend to handicap and delay innovation. It is also bound to discriminate against some manufacturers. I take it that the Government will apply this to imported as well as to home goods and to goods imported from countries other than EEC countries as well as to EEC countries.
I hope the noble Lord will be able to say a little more about this when we come to the Committee stage. Personally, I am absolutely convinced that this Bill is in the national interest. I believe that the noble Lord was absolutely right in saying that we must have an orderly and planned transition and as speedy a one as is practicable. I would assure the noble
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Lord that I personally would certainly not oppose this Bill.
5.6 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, from the various murmurings I have heard, I seem to be cast as the villain of the piece this evening. If I am described as a crank, as irrational or non-intellectual, it does not bother me in the least because, so far as I can recall, from time immemorial anyone who dared to go against the mainstream was always described as " a crank ". One can read that even about Louis Pasteur.
We have been told that metrication is inevitable. So is death, my Lords, but one need not hasten the process unless one is convinced that it is to one's advantage. Metrication was first started in its more formal stages in this country in 1963, with the Metrication Board being set up under the Conservative Government of the time in 1971.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I beg the noble Baroness's pardon, but the Metrication Board was not set up in 1963.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I did not say 1963. It would help if some noble Lords would really listen.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: I was trying to.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I said that metrication was started in a formal state in this country in 1963. As I am surrounded by so many chairmen and ex-chairmen of the Metrication Board, I shall have to be careful about this. But I would suggest that even since 1969 the state of the nation has changed. I am not opposed in principle to metrication, but I am concerned that it might be introduced before inflation has really been brought under control. We have heard a great deal about what people believed happened during decimalisation. They believed that hidden costs were added because of decimalisation. I would be the first to agree that we have a very responsible distributive trade, and the industry certainly was not guilty of that, but the mere fact that people thought such a thing was happening means that we do not want to have the same belief arising again.

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When we get the metric size packs, they are larger, as the noble Lord pointed out. Let us take the kilo, for example, which is 2¼ lb. Therefore even half a kilo will be more than a pound, and when somebody goes to buy a larger pack inevitably it will be more expensive. Therefore people will relate a higher shopping bill to metrication. No matter what kind of education people are given, somebody will have to think of a very clever way to get round that difficulty. We have been given various reasons about the introduction of metrication—for example. it has been on the stocks for a long time now and we ought to carry it forward —but only at the end of his speech did the Minister mention the European Community. When I heard one of the Ministers at the Department of Prices and Incomes speaking to the National Consumer Council, of which I am a member, he mentioned this first; and those of us who are on the Select Committee on the Harmonisation of Instruments, which is sitting in this House, know that at this very moment there are two Directives before us on the changeover to metrication. So it would be fatuous to suggest that there is not some correlation—I put it no higher than that.
I would correct one detail of the statement that was attributed to me. I said on the radio that one of the British Members of the European Parliament, who is related to me, spoke about this subject at Strasbourg and pointed out that if people are to be convinced of the reality of these harmonisation proposals they must not be railroaded into decisions which they deeply suspect may add to their cost of living. They deeply suspect that this will add to their cost of living, and I am delighted to see that following discussions the Government have made changes in the original Bill and it is only fair to pay tribute to them. It is equally fair to pay tribute to the people who made the points which enabled the Government to embody those changes.
However, in Committee I shall be seeking further changes; first—which one of your Lordships did not like—to get general inflation under control before the orders are laid. The figure of 5 per cent. has been mentioned and that is near the target of the Government for 1977, so we shall not be doing anything different. So it is reasonable for orders not to be
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laid before we have an annual increase which is down to the level of 5 per cent.
Secondly, I shall be trying to introduce a compulsory six months' price freeze on each food product as it is metricated. That suggestion was put forward by a Minister at the Department. He is not row there, and has been promoted or moved sideways, but he suggested it as a possibility. So that this is not something which the National Consumer Council has just pulled out of the air. Of course, I recognise that chaos can result if we do not move in a tidy fashion, but I am not certain why we have to move in the way we are doing.
I shall give your Lordships a little gardening sum which I saw in the Sunday Telegraph, and which some of you may also have seen. In reply to a letter in a South African newspaper, the gardening expert said:
" I think your soil is a bit too acid. Try adding 1.3 kg. of lime on 7.28 square metres."
It seems to me that there is a simple way of putting over a proposition of that kind, and while it may not be an argument for opposing the Bill it is an argument for making certain that every consumer understands what is happening, and recognises that prices are not going up because of yet another change.
5.14 p.m.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, I think that most of the arguments in favour of this Bill have already been put forward far better than I can do it myself. I cannot really appreciate the arguments against, and I am afraid that what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said shocked me. I have great admiration for his ability, and I can only conclude that he may have been speaking on behalf of some other opinion, as is often done by those on the Front Bench, and hope that he was not representing the Conservative Party as a whole.
I do not think anybody has gone so far as to say that we should not have metrication, but there are two other alternatives. First, we can slow down the pace; and, secondly, we can have both imperial and metric units lasting for some time. As regards slowing down the pace, I think that nearly every consumer organisation, apart from the National Consumer Council—which does not surprise me—has said that the sooner we get over this slightly

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traumatic experience the better. There is no doubt that for some years we have been dragging our feet unnecessarily on metrication. It is bound to come, it is coming fairly quickly and it will not be very long—I think 1978—before metricised packs from abroad begin to come on the market here. So if we are to have a proper phased programme, and see that it works in the best possible way for consumers, it behoves us to get on with the job at a reasonable pace taking all the difficulties and factors into account.
One of the maxims in life that I have always believed in is that if a certain course of action has been decided on one should pursue it with resolution, because only if one does so will the full benefits result. But in Britain today—and this is just one more example—there seems to be a dither syndrome, which may well be the reason why we are in our present position. One of the most important factors is our gross national product and there is no doubt that metrication will help there, but it depends on our manufacturers and duality of goods is far more expensive for them and makes life far more difficult. So let us, just for once, press forward with a little more resolution and a little less looking backwards.
What have the National Consumer Council said? They have said, " Delay, certainly on food, until we get down to inflation of 5 per cent." That would be a wrecking Amendment, because it looks as if our imports—and we must not forget that we are dependent upon our imports of food to an immense degree—will not get down to 5 per cent. for many years. Furthermore, it has been argued that it is better not to wait until there is no inflation. I do not know why, because, if even some people try to make a profit out of the changeover, with our present rate of inflation it will be only a month or two before it evens out. At the very worst, they will have put up the prices two months early and with our present rate of inflation that will not make much difference.
This Bill is not a charter for unreasonable haste. It is a charter so that we can move at a reasonable pace in the interests of the consumer. I shall be very sorry if people put their ears to the ground and find excuses and reasons of little weight for delaying our changeover to metrication.
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It is not popular, and those who like to play to the gallery will no doubt have their ears to the ground.
5.19 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I have to declare an interest and air a grievance. Your Lordships will already have had drawn to your attention the interest which I have to declare, that I was the first chairman of the Metrication Board; and my grievance is that I have been waiting ever since for this Bill. I do not know how much this has cost me in litres of beer because at my last Press conference in 1972 when I handed over to my successor, the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, I rashly wagered to sceptical Pressmen that Britain, for all practical purposes, would be metric by 1975. The sceptics were right and I was wrong because successive Governments have failed to remove the road block which would have made that possible.
As a word of personal explanation, may I say that in 1969 I undertook to introduce metrication by voluntary consent because I believed that that was the proper way to go about it and that in preparation for the acceptance and development of metrication in this country there was not much of an alternative. I ought to point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips (who is not here at the moment), that what happened was not a rushed job. As has been pointed out already, we have been on our way to metrication since 1875; we have had permission to use the metric system since 1897 and we have been operating through the interested parties—that is not a pejorative term because the people who undertook and demanded metrication were doing so in the best interests not only of themselves but of this country—who were already in action by 1965.
As has been pointed out, the Government at that time, with Douglas Jay at the Board of Trade, agreed to phase metrication over 10 years. When I came into the picture in 1969 I found—as I think we all found—that there was an impressively growing concern in terms of the British Standards Institution, the CBI and the big trading and industrial concerns who themselves were undertaking this process. However, I took on the job in 1969 on the clear understanding that

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when the black list of reluctants had become the white list of co-operating industries, commercial firms, schools, et cetera, the Government would amend the statutory Weights and Measures Act to make the conversion progressively complete.
As I have pointed out, since 1897 the use of metric weights and measures has been authorised as an alternative system. The amendment of the Act is necessary to extend the permitted uses until the alternative system becomes the primary system. Throughout one must bear in mind what has been reiterated: that however much we do this progressively, in the various sectors and circumstances we must have a very well conceived cut-off, otherwise if we wait for everything merely to converge, almost by accident, we shall not get very far. I once described the Metrication Board as a marshalling yard—that our function was to bring together all the programmes of all the sectors and despatch them in the right direction. The only trouble is that we have got the signals fouled up by the Government's failure to give us the all clear.
I want to pay a heartfelt tribute, and I feel that it ought to be done in this House —my noble friend Lord Oram has mentioned the Metrication Board and I want to be even more forthcoming in terms of that Board—to my former colleagues on the Board: to the long suffering members of the Board and the staff, to the deputy chairman, the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, who was my first vice-chairman, and to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, who joined the Metrication Board. We are very good at making converts when we get them inside and work upon them, although both noble Lords brought their convictions with them.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the noble Lord had only 10 days in which to educate me.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: Yes, my Lords, but what a 10 days! We did the job. Then the noble Lord went on to become our Minister. That is the point. I want also to pay tribute to the then Director General, Gordon Bowen, and to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and his Deputy-Chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady White. I say this with great feeling
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because they have gone through, as I was beginning to go through. an enormous sense of official frustration: but they have, kept metrication going forward, despite everything. I think that those who have been involved will support me in paying tribute to the members of the steering committees dealing with the various sectors of the economy, whose job it has been to provide the liaison, the instruction and the persuasion among their colleagues —because they are drawn from these sectors—and who have given the drive which has produced the voluntary changes. It was a very effective structure that we created and it has been very effective in its operation.
As has been mentioned by my noble friend Lady Phillips, we have much to answer for—and by " we " I mean the Government and everybody else, including myself and the Metrication Board—because we ought to he concerned, as I am, about the 15 million school children who have already been taught metric. We had the early support of the Schools Council, and we had no difficulty whatever in persuading children to go metric because it is so much easier. It has been reckoned that a thousand hours per school life are saved simply by teaching the metric system and forgetting all the rote—I was going to say " rot " but I am deliberately putting an " e " on the end—of the imperial system. If you work it out. that means that we have saved 15,000 million school hours by metrication. We did not have any difficulty with the class teachers. At that time my daughter was a teacher and when she left to take her class every morning she always said. not " Goodbye " but " Go metric ". We had difficulty with certain head teachers in England but not in Scotland—there was no difficulty there whatever—to whom the discretion was left and who, we found, could be as cranky as some other people.
As has been stressed today, all the teachers' organisations have declared their support and growing disappointment at the present delay in going over to metric as the primary system. Therefore, I repeat that this may well be because they, we and successive Governments have betrayed their pupils who have emerged into a confused world, which we promised —at least I did—that they would not, of imperial measures. One must remember that as a result of this they have now to

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learn imperial as a second language of numeracy.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord for a moment, can he say whether he thinks that the whole of English literature ought to be re-written for the benefit of the children to whom he has referred, who in future are apparently to be deprived of any instruction in the use of imperial measurements upon which so much of our Anglo-Saxon heritage is based, or does he think that such children should no longer read our literature?
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I have not quite grasped what the question means but I gather it means that because we are going metric, children will not understand Chaucer since a great deal of it is in imperial measurements—which even we would not understand. What I accept is that in teaching literature or any subject we have a function to make people aware of the folklore we are introducing. During my term I had to contend with two contradictory obstacles: folklore and the Common Market.
The vociferous critics—and there were fewer than the Government had thought—joined forces. There were those who saw the hallowed pint going to be threatened and those who were then opposing the Market who saw metrication as a kind of hi-jacking conspiracy to get us into the Common Market. I may say here that for other reasons my attitude to the Common Market should not have given that impression. It is really ironical now because whatever the fate of the Bill we shall be compelled to accept metric measurements by April 1978, as has been pointed out, under our EEC obligations, and we have to allow the free circulation of goods in metric quantities.
With regard to folklore, I am addicted to folklore myself, even when it accepts the length of a Viking's hug as the measure of a fathom or the stretch from the tip of a king's nose to the tip of his outstretched middle finger as the length of the yard. I am all for it. I would go into literature in these terms but I would not go into numeracy on the same terms.
When I was speaking as chairman to an audience of Scottish farmers and their wives I told them that I was in the
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invidious position of rewriting Robert Burns:
"Go bring to me 0·56827 cubic decilitres of wine
And fill it in a silver tassie
That I may drink before I go
A tribute to my bonny lassie."
But I also reminded them that Burns wrote in To a Mouse:
" A daimon icker in a thrave's a sma' request ".
I asked them what that meant and one farmer's bright wife said that a " daimon " was an odd piece, and somebody else said that an " icker " was a head of corn, but no Scottish farmer there knew what a " thrave " was. So I said that if a farmer met a thrave he would run a kilometre but the fact is that a thrave is 24 sheaves of corn, and if anyone can catch up with that and put it into the literature, he is welcome! In measurement terms it makes no sense at all.
The point which raised temperatures by degrees celcius in this discussion was of course the pint, but I used to tell people that my job was not to abolish the pint but to liberate the litre. We discussed the possibilities of the " metric pint " or 500 millilitres. That was too little, but 600 millilitres would have given them six teaspoonsful more of either milk or beer. One of the loudest opponents of the metric system once said to me on television that he would go to the barricades to defend the pint. I pointed out to him that I had not seen him tearing up the kerbstones to oppose the 15½ fluid ounces of beer which is what he gets in the tins in his refrigerator. It seems to me it is the physical exercise of pulling the pint which is at issue, and not the quantity itself.
As has been pointed out, when we start to calculate the advantages of metrication as regards costs, they are practically incalculable. You cannot do it; it is a once and for all in actual cost. One of the great things which have been demonstrated (and this is why the years which the locusts have eaten have not been completely devoured) is the fact that in all the processes of going metric we have reminded people that just the fact that we have to think about changing the nature of the unit means that you have to think about processes and the rationalisation; the clearing out of the lumber is one of the biggest factors in it. In fact, one firm in Scotland called themselves " MacMetric " and their slogan was " MacMetric, MacMoney."

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There is a limit to our nostalgia. We must not treat young people as though we were persuading children to give up their comforter—an imperial dummy. This is nonsense, rubbish. The rational arguments are now completely and totally overthrown. I particularly resent the delays in this country when I recall how we at the Metrication Board were the tutors of our Commonwealth cousins and the Americans who came to learn from us how to go metric painlessly—Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and the United States. All of them are now ahead of us. I was invited to give evidence before a committee of the United States Congress. I reminded them that their last symbol of allegiance to George Ill was the imperial system of weights and measures. They did not take that too well and I found out afterwards that they altered it to conventional measures. I recalled that in the age of reason—and I say this to those who think we are hurrying metrication—Jefferson gave the United States the first decimal coinage, well ahead of the French, but stopped short of metrication because he lost his nerve when they transferred what was to be the length of the pendulum at the Equator, which was to be the length of the metre and then somebody started to work it out on the length of the quadrant of the meridian. That really foxed him so he gave it up. They did not go metric then. Quincey Adams as Secretary of State 40 years later put forward to Congress all the arguments for the metric system and then advised against introducing it ahead of the United States' main customer—Britain. Over a century later the argument was being turned the other way: Britain should not go metric ahead of the United States. In this Bicentennial year the United States are now going metric, and going metric in the way in which perhaps we should have done, because they have done the clearance Bill before they started. The rest is how far one can get the co-operation, which has gone quite far in the United States.
Canada had the same hesitation as the United States about going metric. As Trudeau said:
"When you are in bed with an elephant you have to be careful which way it turns ".
Well, the United States has turned and Canada is going metric fast. Last week in Canada I was amused to find that the
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cigarette packages now provide a ready reckoner for conversion to metric units. They also have the compulsory notice about the danger of cigarettes to health, so now with the help of the cigarette manufacturers you can convert the size of your coffin into centimetres.
As so many other people here think, I believe that dual marking will he very dangerous and very expensive. People can play the " find the lady sort of game, and now we are really at the end of the road from which we are hoping to get through, because what we are doing here is to alter the locks, which I hoped we would do so many years ago, merely to open the door and let us go through and join the rest of the human race.
5.39 p.m.
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, unlike Mr. Patrick Hutber who wrote in the Economic Opinion column of the Sunday Telegraph on 13th June last as follows:
" Baulked in the Commons, the Government is trying to sneak in compulsory metrication by introducing the Weights and Measures (No. 2) Bill into the Lords ".
For my part, I welcome the Bill, and therefore do not share his views. In effect it is an overdue measure, for I understand that for a number of years now, industry has been urging Labour and Conservative Governments alike—this was mentioned to some extent by the Minister in his opening—to repeal Section 10(10) of the 1963 Weights and Measures Act. One can understand this on the part of industry, on account of the intrinsic merits of the metric system itself: for instance,its simplicity and rational internal relationships. In this context, I was interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, refer to 1·3 kilos of dolomitic lime having to be spread over 9.28 square metres of soil. I should have thought it was fairly easy to spread 1300 grammes of this lime over land which was a fraction over 3 metres by 3 metres.
My Lords, secondly, what more frustrating when, in 1965, the case for a changeover to metrication was accepted by the Government of the day (with so many of our major imperial trading partners following suit) and still at that time no positive action being taken, especially taking into account the fact—which remains relevant today—that

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industry has to import, transform, export. British industry has also to contend with the fact that increasingly, countries wishing to buy our goods are refusing to permit entry to non-metric goods. This is an important aspect relevant to this debate.
Also, which foreign markets remain which have no plans whatsoever at the moment to change to the metric system? They are very small indeed. So far as I can ascertain, they are Brunei, Burma, Liberia and the Two Yemens, negligible in the context of the other countries in the world. For a small island like Britain which produces almost exclusively manufactured goods, every detail of whose dimensions and performance, components and fittings can be prescribed in purchaser's specifications, external trade considerations surely cannot be ignored in a debate such as this. I understand, too, that all the various inquiries that have taken place here and abroad which preceded the decisions to change over to metrication, stressed that the worst of all possible worlds would be a mixed, half-and-half situation.
In his opening remarks, the noble Lord the Minister referred in this context to the Hodgson Report. Perhaps in this instance we might look to Australia, to take one country which is a member of the Commonwealth, and referred to by the noble Lord who spoke before me. Australia is metricating positively, quickly and successfully. With your Lordships' permission I should like to quote what was said earlier this year by Mr. J. D. Norgard, chairman of the Metric Conversion Board. He wrote:
" All sections of the community had cooperated particularly well with the introduction of what, for most, was an entirely new system of measurement. This achievement could not be underestimated because metric conversion affected every man, woman and child in the country.
" The quickly expanding metric environment, together with the impetus the conversion program now had, indicated that Australia should be almost completely metric within the next couple of years, well ahead of schedule."
Mr. Norgard said—and this would apply to this country as well—that metric conversion affected every man, woman and child in the country. Would those who advocate stopping the change in its tracks consider the penalties which such a decision would incur, and the disadvan-
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tages? So far as I can gather, these same advocates who are for stopping any change say, " Save the shopping public from this unnecessary doctrinaire decision ". On the other hand, Dr. F. T. Pearce of the University of Birmingham said in a paper that came out this month:
" A whole series of retail bodies, speaking for their members, have set their faces against voluntary metrication ".
According to Dr. Pearce these would include butchers, grocers, dairies, bakers, chemists, voluntary groups, large multiples, departmental stores and coal merchants, all actually demanding mandatory terminal dates for imperial measures. Perhaps the noble Lord the Minister, when he winds up, could confirm that I am right in this. In opening he mentioned that the retail trade—and he did not state which areas of the retail trade—thought that cut-off dates were desirable, but he did not go beyond that.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, sits down, could he tell us which products he is referring to? This is a very important point. As I understood him, the noble Lord said that countries were refusing certain goods which were not in metricated sizes. Is any food included in that? Do we actually export food which has been refused because it is not metricated?
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, I was quoting from a report by Dr. Pearce, and I was asking for the Minister's confirmation on this. In his report, Dr. Pearce took a wider view of United Kingdom metrication. For instance, he quotes grocers, but he does not specify which food products in the grocer's are concerned. But this is a valid point, to give details of the grocers and foodstuffs and such things; but I am giving a general attitude at the moment.
My Lords, to come back to the remarks last Sunday of Mr. Patrick Hutber, to which the noble Baroness referred, one would assume he is an advocate in favour of stopping the change in its tracks. I am not criticising him, but I wonder whether his remarks are totally unbiased when he refers to the Amendments of the previous Bill as being trivial Amendments. As the noble Baroness will know, a consultation with consumer organisations is not trivial; a display of conversion tables is not trivial, and priorities as outlined in a

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Ministerial letter are not trivial. So I think that Mr. Hutber has been rather sweeping in his criticism of this Bill. Has he considered sufficiently these two facts?— that industry, for its part, has had to support the burden of working, stockholding and selling in two systems for long enough, and secondly, that after all, industry produces a substantial proportion of its output directly for the shopping public. Therefore, I should have thought it reasonable that industry should soon reach—the sooner the better so far as I can see—a situation in which these products are equally acceptable in home and export markets. So, in conclusion, although I have not referred to it earlier, I do not feel that membership of the European Community —and I am in favour of membership is a central issue in this present metrication debate, although I would agree that we must, as a member of the Community, heed its Directives.
The Minister referred to an April 1978 deadline, but we have a certain amount of latitude. I feel, on the other hand, that the two overriding considerations are the merits of a more rational system and our ability to trade worldwide. I think those are the primary considerations we should bear in mind. As Dr. Pearce said in his June 1976 report:
" Consultation and planning need to come to quick completion in the food industry and in retail trades. Metric periods or days need to be set to give the necessary manufacturing lead time, for …"
and I agree with him; I hope he is right—
"… it is possible to complete metrication by 1980, but time is possibly no longer on our side".
5.52 p.m.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I should like, first, to apologise to the Minister, in that I am afraid that because of an engagement I had entered into before I knew the date of this debate I will not be able to stay for the winding up. I am not this evening speaking primarily as a member of the Liberal Party but in my position as President of the British Standards Institution. The British Standards Institution, working as it does on both a national and an international basis, has developed standards on a metricated basis, and worked early in this field, so that by as early as 1970 it had prepared standards ready for metrication. Since 1970 it has not in fact worked out any standards in
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any form except a metricated form, and the message from the British Standards Institution is to say to the Government: " Go forward as fast as you possibly can with metrication. The delay is damaging us in a number of very important areas ".
My Lords, when one looks at the main arguments which have gone on in this field they surely boil down to the effect on industry and the effect on the consumer. So far as industry is concerned, the evidence that has come forward from industry, to a point, at any rate, speaks for itself. Overwhelmingly, industrial opinion is in favour of going metric and going metric quickly. May I say here that from the point of view of industry nothing can he worse than the indecision in which once again it finds itself. Industry's complaint about so many Governmental policies is not that Governments do the wrong thing—though no doubt they frequently think that Governments do the wrong thing—but that industry is left in a state of uncertainty because Governments cannot commit themselves to a line of action and follow that line of action to a logical conclusion.
I sometimes wonder whether politicians and civil servants fully appreciate the costs in money, in time, in manpower and in morale—and all are important—that are involved when industry embarks on a change of this sort. If metrication is to be introduced up and down the country, individual men and women in scores, no, in thousands of' offices, in hundreds of factories, have a very great deal of work to do, and they have embarked on that work in the expectation that metrication will be introduced. Indeed, they began on this work, as did the British Standards Institution, in the days of 1969 when the Metrication Board was set up, because that was surely taken by industry and by organisations working in the industrial area as an indication that it was intended that we should go metric.
Of course, it is quite impossible for industry to go metric at the drop of a hat. They have to make this investment of effort if they are going to be ready when the legislation is passed. And to be informed that the House of Commons has decided to drop this Bill is yet another example of the unreliability of Governments. and the extent to which industry,

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already frustrated and angered by the treatment it gets from politicians, is again saying " What do you expect? They have not the slightest idea of what running our businesses in fact involves." So to come to a conclusion, and to put this conclusion into action as soon as possible, can only be the desire of those very large number of industries and industrial organisations which have registered their approval of the idea of metrication, and have laid their plans and laid out their money on the anticipation that it is going to come about.
Surely, it must be self-evident that it is in industry's interest to go metric. Something like 99 per cent. of our export trade, our so precious export trade, is now with countries which either already are, or are in the process of going, metric. It cannot but damage our trade if we are not producing goods to the same standards and the same system of measurement as the countries to which we wish to sell. it was, I think, the noble Lord. Lord Drumalbyn, who pointed out also that metrication has meant that it is possible I to have a greater degree of standardisation,. and, therefore, to reduce the number of parts and the variations which have to be produced in a whole variety of different articles. This saves money. The more you have to have a wide variety, far beyond what is necessary to meet reasonable choice of variations, of the same article basically, the greater are the costs. The more you can standardise, when it is not a matter of taste that comes into it, the more you can cut your costs. The more you can make articles in the sizes that your consumers overseas want, the better will be your export trade. So, of course, industry sees that this is going to add to its profitability, and, of course, for that reason, they want to go ahead with it.
There are other examples of the way in which metrication will make for greater efficiency in industry. In the steel manufacturing industry it has been estimated that where the staff are working to all-metric standards there is a saving of 15 per cent. in both design time and manufacturing time, because the measurements are easier to use and a greater efficiency arises from this. So clearly it is, for all these reasons, and no doubt many others I have not quoted, in industry's interest to go metric.
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That, of course, links with the second argument, the argument with regard to consumers, because what really benefits consumers in the long run is for industry to cut its costs, for industry to be able to produce more cheaply. If metrication is going to enable us to improve our export position, to cut our costs and produce more cheaply, this in the long run is overwhelmingly more important from the point of view of the consumers than any temporary inconvenience they may experience, or the result of any temporary little fiddle that it may be possible for some manufacturers and retailers to pull off during the actual stage of moving from Imperial to metricated standards.
So the consumer surely has to gain from the improved trading of industry, and it is up to all those other organisations, including indeed the National Consumer Council, to see that the benefits of that improved export trade, and the benefits of the improved efficiency which will come when we are metricated, are genuinely reflected in reduced prices to the consumer. But that is the point at which the National Consumer Council ought to be intervening, not to stop the process of metrication which can, in itself, so greatly benefit consumers.
I was, I must say, amazed, and other speakers have been amazed, that the National Consumer Council could seriously suggest that metrication should be delayed until inflation has fallen to only 5 per cent. I do not wish to add to those who are knocking the pound, but if we are to wait until inflation falls to 5 per cent., I fear that we shall wait for a very long time indeed. With the fall in the value of the pound, does anybody seriously consider, even the Government—except when they are doing their most shiny public relations act—that next year, the year after, or the year after that, that we are really going to get inflation down to 5 per cent.? That can be, as other speakers have said, nothing but a wrecking Amendment; a determination to see that metrication is put off until the Greek Kalends.
It is indeed the greatest disservice that the National Consumer Council could have done to put that Amendment in that particular form. If they had said, " Stop metrication now, and never bring the issue up again ", then at least the people concerned with metrication, the

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whole range of industry, would know where they stand. But they are saying: " Delay. Do it one day. Of course we are not really against the principle. The time will come when it will be right to introduce metrication, but not now. " It is the old cry of St. Augustine: " Make us pure, O Lord, but not yet. " The argument of 5 per cent. inflation is so naïve that surely they cannot really have expected that any of us would believe it.
Nor can I really accept the point made in the evidence that they produced in which they line up the effect of decimalisation on increasing prices. They have compared this with the effect of inflation and the expectation of how metrication will increase prices because of what will happen in the retail trade with the changeover. They compare this, in its effect on prices, with inflation. These are elements of such a totally different order that it is disingenuous in the extreme to mention them in the same breath. Nobody can seriously believe that whatever happens at the time of decimalisation, whatever could happen at the retail level at the time of metrication, could begin to be comparable with the rise in prices which has resulted from all the other reasons—which obviously we do not want to go into—for inflation in this country. The two things are simply not in the same world at all, and should not have been mentioned in the same paragraphs in the publications brought forward from the National Consumer Council.
Further, I would say that metrication, even for the consumer, after a very little while makes life easier, not more difficult, for the consumer. True, you have to learn the new measures, but most of us—and I am no great mathematician; far from it—find it easier to deal in units of ten than to deal with these extraordinary Anglo-Saxon figures which we have inherited from the misty past. I always find it difficult to remember whether there are 16 ounces in a pound, and 14 lbs in a stone, or whether it is the other way round, because there is no logic whatsoever in the relationship between ounces and pounds and pounds and stones. You have to memorise the whole thing and keep writing it in your pocket book, like the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, if you want to know when you are told how many pounds you weigh whether your weight in stones has gone up or gone down. When
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it is in kilos one will know the worst all the time.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, would my noble friend allow me to present her with a BSI conversion slide, which allows you to make this change very simply?
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, it cannot be all that difficult if, as we are told on very widespread advice, that the primary schools are advanced at it. I know that it is easier to learn some things when you are seven than when you are 70, but if the primary schools can do it I cannot accept that it is beyond your Lordships on either side of this House. Of course, there are one or two things in the Bill which, at Committee stage, one might like to look at again. My noble friend Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran has asked me to say that he is worried about Clause 4(2)(3A) where it says something about the method of closing a container. The method of closing a container is something which is perhaps best not included in an Act of Parliament. But that, surely, is a Committee stage matter and one which really ought not to be raised this evening.
I should like to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Elton. At least I would like to if everybody else had not done so. I am beginning to feel rather sorry for the noble Lord, Lord Elton, who has been ticked off by everybody from every Bench so far—from in front of him, from across the passage, and from behind him. But at the same time I must say that I find it extraordinary that he should have advocated incentives for industry to do something which is so preeminently in their own interest. The way in which the Tory Party deviates from the pure gospel of free enterprise surprises me again and again. If it is in their interests, then why in Heavens name should public money be spent on encouraging them to do it? It is in their interest, and it is not a matter for extra expense, especially at a time when we are all urging the Government to spend less and less. The case against this Bill is the case that comes again and again from people who believe that the Continent is cut off by fog, and who really want to make the fog thicker and thicker: and the people who do not accept that if we are to hold our own in a world which can get on very nicely without us, then we have got to get in

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line with the way in which they do their thing, and not expect that, against all the evidence, they are going on tolerating our old-fashioned ways.
6.8 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I count myself fortunate in replying to a debate such as we have had on this subject, not only because of the almost unanimous support that the Bill has received—I think that only my noble friend Lady Phillips was an outright opponent of the Bill—but also because I am fortunate in having had the support of the first chairman of the Metrication Board in my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder and the lately resigned vice-chairman, my noble friend Lady White. Not only did we all listen with great interest to what they had to say, but I found, particularly from the speech by my noble friend Lady White, that she was enabling me to say less in winding up than I might otherwise have needed to. I gather that even the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was endeavouring to express support for the Bill although, to coin a phrase, he could have fooled me, and I think he almost did fool quite a number of your Lordships. At least he said that he was not proposing to obstruct the Bill, and 1 took comfort from that. I found it difficult to know whether he wanted the Government to do more or less in this matter—whether he wanted us to move more quickly or more slowly—but no doubt on this point we shall have further opportunities to clarify his mind. or at least for him to clarify our minds.
However, Lord Elton produced some important points to which I want to respond. He emphasised the importance of timing; presumably he meant in the timetable as the orders come forward. On that, I entirely agree with him, and that is why we have put such stress on the need for my right honourable friend to consult with all the interests, and in particular now with the interests representing consumers, at each stage when an order is made. Although the noble Lord expressed some anxiety about a lack of consultation in other matters, I hope he recognises that we do intend there to be, and have provided for, the fullest consultation in working out the timetable under the Bill. I am grateful to Lord Elton for having given me notice of the
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questions he raised relating to Europe and our obligations as a Member of the EEC. He will recognise that I included in my opening remarks at least an outline of the position, and although it may not in detail fully satisfy him. I feel sure that he can raise other points in Committee. I was grateful that he recognised that points about the Schedules were better dealt with in Committee.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I ask him to answer my query about whether the draft Amendment of the Directive to which I referred is still in draft, as it was when the version which I have was printed, and, if not, whether it was discussed in another place or here before it was tabled with the Community?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I was about to deal with that point. As I understand it, the draft Directive was prepared by the Commission. The noble Lord was quoting from a document which he said seemed to have been drafted by the Minister of State. It was in fact an explanatory memorandum on the draft Directive and was prepared by my honourable friend in order to help Parliament in its discussions; indeed, it has been dealt with already by the Scrutiny Committee of this House. Thus, while the noble Lord may not be entirely satisfied that every opportunity has been afforded for discussion of it, there has been that opportunity at any rate and if there is any further difficulty I am sure that we will be able to clear it up at a later stage.
I have already referred to the most helpful series of speeches made this afternoon. In particular 1 thank my noble friend Lady White for dealing so effectively with the question raised by a number of noble Lords as to the cost of the transfer to the metric system, and I entirely endorse what she said about it being up to us to avoid the cost of not proceeding with metrication. This could indeed be a serious cost, but experience shows that the actual cost of conversion is not nearly so dramatic as it is sometimes represented to be. She dealt also, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, very stringently with the proposal by the National Consumer Council that metrication should be postponed until some point indicated by a 5 per cent. inflation

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rate. I would not go so far as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, did in suggesting that this would be the Greek Kalens, but I think that this proposal would introduce a sad note of uncertainty into a field which has been ridden all too much with uncertainty and delay; and therefore, as other noble Lords have said, I do not think that this is a proposal which we can seriously look at.
Lord Elton and a number of other noble Lords pointed to the importance of information and education in all these matters, and I particularly noted what my noble friend Lady White said about hoping that the BBC would take this up. I entirely agree with what she said about the programme " On the Move in relation to illiteracy, and if someting of that kind could be done in this field it would be of enormous benefit. I am sure that we all enjoyed the intervention of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and similar points made by my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder in their historical references, which enlivened our debate, as indeed did the practical shopping illustrations which the noble Earl brought forward; I rather gathered that his diet consisted largely of whisky and cheese, an interesting combination.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, quoted Section 10(10) of the 1963 Act and I tend to agree with him that if one were to pick out a point more important than any other in this Bill, that is probably i it, although I welcomed his support for a number of the other provisions in the Bill. I had a great deal of sympathy with his suggestion that we should not be too long about dual marking: he did not oppose this and I am sure that he would not wish to. I regard it as an educational method, or an explanatory method: in other words, something like a crutch when one has had an accident—it is needed for a temporary period but one does not want to use it unduly long. I think that that is a parallel which we would put forward in this connection. I was grateful to him for spelling out the point in connection with Clause 4, a point which he had already made in an intervention while I was speaking. I assure him, as I assured him then, that discussions have taken place already on this point. The issue was also raised on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. We fully anticipate that we will
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be able to meet the points about materials and closures of containers, and I have no doubt that the matter will be raised in Committee.
I come to the only opposition speech, that from my noble friend Lady Phillips, who feared that she would be called all sorts of unpleasant names, including a crank. I do not want to engage in any such name-calling, except to suggest that as she is a member of the Distribution and Consumer Committee of the Metrication Board, and as she is also, I believe, proud to have helped found the Housewives Trust, she would take the views of those organisations into account as well as the views of the National Consumer Council, of which she is also a member. May I suggest that she has tended to develop a split personality in these matters? That is the extent to which I shall go in name-calling, and I express the hope that her charming personality will soon be restored to its accustomed shape. I see that my noble friend is about to leave but there are one or two other points which I should like to make.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, which part of me would my noble friend like to remain?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, my noble friend quoted some awkward bits of arithmetic. One can play that kind of game in this transition period, but I suggest that this is not a very constructive approach to the problem. What she and the letter writers whom she quoted should do is not to think of funny or difficult correlations between different tables, but to point out how simple all this can be if we can only get along the road of metrication at a reasonable pace.
Baroness PHILLIPS: For the record, my Lords, my quotation was not intended as something funny. It was an actual reply from a gardening correspondent in a South African paper.
Lord ORAM: I am sure that gardening correspondents in South African papers are quite capable of trying to be funny and this one may have been trying to be funny. However, whether it was put forward seriously or jocularly, I feel that this sort of thing should be avoided. Let us all get on to the possibility of good

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education on the simplification of these things. On that, I would urge not only my noble friend but, if I may, the National Consumer Council and the Conservative Party to get on with this. I believe that we are embarking upon a very important transition in the matter of weights and measures. In my judgment, the case is overwhelming. I believe that the support that we have received from the debate confirms that. It would be far better if, instead of introducing unneccessary complications, we—the Parties in this House and another place, and the media—all got together and, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, sought to improve the measure. We will join in that. We shall seek to improve it, and improvements have been pointed to. But, for goodness sake! let us deal with the Bill in a constructive way so that its passage through this House and another place is made as smooth and as rapid as possible.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

FOOD AND DRUGS (CONTROL OF FOOD PREMISES) BILL
6.24 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill he read a second time. The Bill is a Private Member's Bill. It was introduced in another place by the Member for Brighton, Kemptown, Mr. Andrew Bowden. It has a trouble-free passage in another place. Indeed, it was welcomed on all sides and I hope that your Lordships in turn will be able to give it an equally warm welcome here. It is quite a small and simple Bill. Nevertheless, it is an important one. It has one objective. It seeks to close a loophole in the law by which premises which may be in a filthy state can nevertheless continue to sell food to the public. On the whole, the catering trade has a very high standard and I am sure that the Bill will be welcomed by the trade as it will affect only a very few recalcitrant members of the trade and will improve the reputation of the trade as a whole.
The Bill gives the environmental health officer an additional weapon to take quick action against the very few people who run filthy, unhygienic restaurants or who
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sell food from premises which arc so unclean as to be a danger to public health. Mercifully, there are not many of them, but there are some. As an example, I give the case where an environmental health officer went into an establishment and found the floor filthy with, among other things, the droppings of vermin. He opened a refrigerator and a cockroach jumped out at him, and the bottles of soda water and other soft drinks which were on the shelves had the tops rusted on to them, not by water but by the urine of rats and mice. I am quite certain that your Lordships will agree that food should not continue to be sold from premises such as that.
At present, an environmental health officer who finds such a state of affairs can issue a stack of summonses against the proprietor, but the practice of the courts is such that there may he a delay of six or even 12 weeks before the case is heard and it is only after a successful prosecution that a court order can be obtained to close down the premises. So, from the time when the inspector first found the filthy premises to the time when the prosecution is obtained—and, as I say, that could be up to 12 weeks—the owner of the premises could continue to sell food to the public with an attendant health hazard and no one can stop it. On top of this, the operator, on receiving a summons, can at present quite legally transfer the premises into somebody else's name. He might possibly transfer it into his wife's name and the business can continue in the same way until yet another prosecution is brought.
So the Bill seeks to make a few simple but specific alterations to the law. First, the Bill is directed to premises, not proprietors. Although it is the proprietor who may he prosecuted for keeping a disgusting kitchen, it is the premises which may he closed, irrespective of who is the proprietor. Secondly, the Bill refers to all premises which sell food, including butchers, market stalls, greengrocers, cafés, grocers' shops, hotels and so on. It does not refer simply to restaurants. Thirdly, the procedure for terminating a closure order is simplified. At present, a closure order, when it is applied to some premises found to he in a filthy state, lasts for six months and the proprietor must apply to the court to be allowed to reopen his premises. Under the provisions of the present Bill, the closure order must specify

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the points which must he remedied in order to make the place fit to sell food from it again. Once the proprietor has satisfied the environmental health officer that he has remedied the defects, he may get a certificate from the local authority to permit him to reopen the premises and he does not have to go back to the court for that permission. So this should simplify the courts' procedures.
However, the real power in the Bill comes in Clause 2, which enables the environmental health officer to apply to the magistrates for an emergency order to close the premises. He has to give at least three days' notice of his intention to apply for an emergency order. If the court, on hearing the environmental health officer's view, grants that order the premises will be closed down forthwith. However, the fact that the officer must give at least three days' clear notice of his intention to apply will give the proprietor time to remedy the defect, and it is anticipated that in the vast majority of cases the defects will he remedied within the three days and before the application ever gets to the court. This is the vital part of this provision because it is in fact a deterrent.
What in effect the environmental health officer will be saying is, " Your kitchen is foul, or your store cupboard is full of cockroaches, and if you do not clean it up within three days, I will apply to the court for your premises to be closed—and to be closed immediately—and the premises will remain closed until such time as you have put right that which is 'wrong." Your Lordships may he thinking that the more enthusiastic environmental health officers might go around slapping emergency closure orders on all premises, even in those cases where there are doubts, and so I should refer to one important limitation which might curb such officers. The limitation is that the emergency order for closing can be applied for only if legal proceedings for 'prosecution for an offence under the Food and Hygiene regulations have already been initiated. In other words, the condition of the premises has to he so bad that the proprietor is to be prosecuted for breaking the regulations before the environmental health officer can say, " And what is more, the condition of the premises is so bad and so insanitary as to constitute
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an immediate risk or danger to health, and so will the court please close down the premises forthwith? "
The only other point to which I should draw your Lordships' attention is that the same provisions also apply to ships, boats and pleasure craft, on which a food business is carried on, which are moored on, or which go on, inland waterways, which have trips not exceeding 24 hours, and which do not go abroad. This covers, for example, boats which go up and down the Thames carrying day trippers and boats which leave ports to go around the coasts, with day trippers. Not for one moment do I suggest that these boats are at all likely candidates for action under the Bill; it is merely the case that the provisions of the Bill cover those vessels as well as ordinary premises. But of course the Bill does not cover ocean going or naval vessels.
There are one or two local government Acts which provide to local areas similar protection to that which is given in the Bill. These areas include the London boroughs, Derby, Port Talbot, Rhondda, Salford, and others. This Bill gives to the whole country the protection which these areas enjoy under local Acts. I hope that I have given your Lordships sufficient indication of the reasons which have prompted the introduction of the Bill, as well as sufficient explanation of its contents. I hope that your Lordships will agree that this Bill will help to protect the public from the very few premises which purvey food from unhygienic places, and I hope, too, that your Lordships will welcome the Bill and give it your approval. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Earl Ferrers.)
6.34 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, as we have come to expect, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, has put this matter very clearly and very simply, and so no one can be in any doubt at all as to what the Bill seeks to do. Therefore, I propose to say only a few words about it. I had come prepared to spend some time in explaining it in some detail, but that is no longer necessary. I want to make clear the Government's attitude towards the Bill, which is that they give

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it wholehearted support and hope that it will reach the Statute Book this Session. The noble Earl pointed out that there are certain defects in the Drugs Act 1955. He listed them. I may not have heard one of those which he mentioned, but it is important to remember that the Bill will deal also with " take-away " food shops, and many of us regard this as very important.
I do not want to detain your Lordships unnecessarily, but one point about the Bill that I must make is that the Government do not envisage any increase in public or local authority expenditure or in local authority staff as a direct consequence of the Bill. The Government think that this is a very vital and necessary measure, and they ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading.
6.36 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord WellsPestell, for having given the Government's wholehearted approval in an even more succinct fashion than that in which I was able to describe the Bill. The noble Lord is entirely right—the Bill covers " takeaway " food, as well as all barrow stalls. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord say that he did not anticipate any increase in Government or local authority expenditure as a consequence of the Bill, and that alone must commend itself to everyone on all sides of both Houses of Parliament. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his welcome to the Bill and to his Department, too, for the help they have given myself and others in regard to details of the Bill. I hope that your Lordships will give the Bill your approval.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

DANGEROUS WILD ANIMALS BILL
6.37 p.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I am one of those people who feel that on the whole there is too much legislation, not too little. None the less, I am convinced that there is an
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unanswerable case for this Bill. The Bill received a Second Reading on the nod in the other place, despite the fact that it had drawn only 20th place in the Ballot. That was unusual, and it showed that the Bill was not of a controversial character. It had a fairly detailed Committee and Report stage, and is now in fairly good shape. I have not myself received a single verbal or written criticism of this measure. It is down for its Committee stage on 2nd July, when any suggestions for improving it will naturally be considered most carefully. I should like to thank the Home Office very much for the help they have given me personally over this measure, on which much work was done by Mr. Temple-Morris in another place, although in the end it was introduced by Mr. Peter Thomas, who had drawn 20th place in the Ballot.
Noble Lords will all agree that it is wrong that any animal should be kept in cruel and unsuitable conditions and it is wrong, too, that dangerous animals should be kept so that they can he a risk to other people. I believe that in quite a straightforward way this Bill avoids both these risks. The purpose of the Bill is
" to regulate the keeping of certain … dangerous wild animals ".
In view of the absence hitherto of any general debate on the principles of the Bill, it may be convenient in introducing it today if I detain your Lordships rather longer than might otherwise have been appropriate, and I apologise for having to do this.
In recent years there has been a great surge of interest in all aspects of wild life, both here and abroad. This is shown in many ways, by all the conservation societies and their growing membership, and by the fact that the words " conservation " and " ecology " are both in common parlance now, whereas 10 or 15 years ago we seldom heard them. This fact has brought one problem in its train: the keeping by private individuals of exotic wild animals—as pets or for other reasons—in conditions which may he highly unsuitable for the animals concerned and may quite easily create a serious threat to the general public. There have been a number of recent incidents, generally involving the larger cats, which have been widely publicised. Some of your Lordships will

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have read of these incidents in the papers, but there are signs that these are only side effects of a growing trend. There have been many examples of advertisements for the sale of cubs, especially of the cat species, and I have brought along with me one or two advertisements in which these animals are advertised for sale at all kinds of prices. In one example lion cubs were advertised for sale and there were more than 30 applicants for them.
The production of a surplus by the natural breeding of these animals in safari parks has itself created one source of supply. It has been matched by a comparable demand, often on the part of people who, through thoughtlessness, bring young animals into an environment where, as they mature, they give rise to serious problems. The object of the Bill, therefore, is to deal with this situation and to introduce a system of control which will protect both the public and the animals themselves, to avoid the matter getting out of hand.
My Lords, although some features of the Bill may appear a bit complex, in essence the proposals it contains are simple. The animals to which it applies will in future be allowed to be kept by private individuals only if they obtain a licence from the local authority and comply with the conditions imposed by that licence. Before a local authority may grant a licence, it must be satisfied that there will be no risk to the public, that the applicant is a suitable person and that the animal's own welfare will be properly catered for. These are stringent requirements, and the general policy of the Bill is quite clear. It is that in future the keeping of dangerous wild animals by private individuals should be made a wholly exceptional circumstance.
The Bill does not attempt any general definition of a dangerous wild animal, which would indeed be difficult. In certain circumstances it is possible to regard almost any animal, I should say, even the small rodents, as having dangerous characteristics; but it would not be right to introduce a system of control which constituted a wide-ranging interference with the keeping of species which, with the observance of sensible precautions, present no threat in normal circumstances. That is why, my Lords, the procedure adopted in this measure
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has been to specify in the Schedule to the Bill those species which are so self-evidently dangerous that the application to them of the restraints imposed by the Bill can be seen to be manifestly justifiable.
This principle on which the Schedule is based is subject to two minor qualifications. One is that, in the interests of keeping the Schedule as short as possible, which is, I think important, certain species have been omitted which, despite their dangerous character, are never likely to be attempted to be kept privately. The rhinoceros is an example which springs to my mind, and I can think of others: for instance, the buffalo and the hippopotamus. Noble Lords will be able to think of others as well. One could even think of some insects. Secondly, I am advised that the only satisfactory way to identify the animals in question is by their scientific classification. This has meant that one or two rare kinds, or kinds which are perhaps marginally less dangerous than others in the same family, have had to be included. No satisfactory alternative exists, I think, where this particular matter is concerned.
When the Bill was first introduced in another place, it listed only the scientific names of the animals, and there was pressure for the common names to be given to make it easier for everyone likely to be affected by the Bill to understand it. I am certainly strongly opposed to legislation which the ordinary person cannot understand as easily as possible. So, in response to that, this was done: the Schedule was amended. I think it will be agreed that in its present form the Schedule is much more informative, and the change was generally welcomed in another place. Even so, my Lords, there were still some who would have liked the common names to be given even greater significance, instead of being relegated to the status of serving merely as examples, which is all they do. The difficulty, however, is that common names cannot be relied on alone without introducing serious ambiguities, and I do not think there is any doubt about that.
However the Schedule to the Bill does not represent the last word, as it will be seen that Clause 7 gives the Home Secretary power by order, exercisable by Statutory instrument, subject to the Negative Resolution procedure, to add to or to subtract from the kinds of animals

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included in the Schedule so as to cater for any unforeseen contingency. In another place there was a proposal that the family of snakes known as boidae, which includes such snakes as boa constrictors, pythons and anacondas, should be added to the Schedule. This was withdrawn, however, on an undertaking that the matter would be considered further. Although there may be some grounds which would justify the inclusion of this family, at the same time its members were less self-evidently dangerous than the other families of snakes which are included in the Schedule. This may well he a subject to which your Lordships will wish to return when we reach the Committee Stage
Before leaving the subject of the animals with which the Bill deals, which is no doubt the most colourful feature of this measure, I should perhaps touch on one other question of definition or, rather, the lack of it. The Bill contains no definition of the word " animal". Noble Lords will he familiar with many definitions of this word which can he found in the Statute Book, and which give it unexpectedly narrow meanings or definitions which seem to involve strange confusions of species. It may he asked whether, in the absence of a definition, the meaning of the word in the Bill is wide enough to embrace any dangerous creature a Home Secretary may wish to add to the Schedule. There is a good precedent for the use of the word " animal " in the widest sense, as it is in fact described in the Oxford English Dictionary, which I shall not bother your Lordships by reading, and this precedent is in the Animals Act 1971. which makes comprehensive provision in respect of civil proceedings arising out of damage or injury caused by animals.
My Lords, I have, I hope, sufficiently indicated the circumstances to which the Bill applies, so may I now turn to those to which it does not apply? There are two kinds of exemption conferred by the Bill: those which might be described as " permanent " exemptions under Clause 4, and the " temporary " exemptions under Clause 6(2). The Clause 4 exemptions comprise zoos, circuses, pet shops and research laboratories. The reason for the exemption of pet shops and research laboratories is that these, as the clause
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itself indicates, are already subject to statutory systems of control. The exemption of zoos and circuses is based on a very different reason. These are activities, in some cases of a scientific character, in others of a commercial one organised for the education or entertainment of the public, where it is quite proper, however much many people may deplore it, that under suitable conditions of security the animals to which this Bill applies should be kept.
Surprisingly—surprisingly to me, that is, my Lords—I find that zoos and safari parks are not at present subject to statutory control of any kind, although there is, I am sure, a growing case, and a strong one, for such control. It might therefore be asked why the opportunity has not been taken to use this Bill to achieve this end as well. I think the answer is fairly obvious. It is that it is not really appropriate to try to control two such very different activities by the same machinery. As it happens, I understand that the two associations concerned with zoos and safari parks are currently working on proposals for introducing a licensing system for these establishments. This is of course a matter which has already been the subject of a Bill in your Lordships' House, introduced a number of years ago, which encountered a great deal of opposition and failed to make any progress. But I think there is something on the stocks which will make a good deal of sense and he widely accepted. This is perhaps something about which the Government Front Bench may be able to tell your Lordships.
The other exemptions conferred by Clause 6(2) are, 1 think, self-explanatory. Their purpose is to ensure that when a dangerous wild animal comes temporarily into the possession of a vet, of a person who has recaptured an escaped animal or of someone who is simply transporting the animal, possession will not constitute an offence against Clause 1(1) of the Bill and will not require a licence.
My Lords, I think that now, as briefly as possible, I should say a few words about the more technical aspects of the Bill, because although this is of itself a small measure dealing with quite a small problem, it is inevitably a little complicated, and it became rather more complicated as time went by in another

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place and it was amended at Report stage. The activity which is made an offence by Clause 1(1) is keeping a dangerous wild animal. " Keeping " is defined by Clause 6(I) in terms of possession. The number of licences granted under this Bill will, I hope and expect, be small, but the variety of situations that may need to be catered for is considerable. The owner of an animal, for example, may be helped by members of his staff or his family who Will from time to time be in possession of the animal. Alternatively, he may on occasion entrust it to his manager while he is away abroad. The Bill seeks to cover these situations and at the same time to avoid the need for a multiplicity of licences by the provisions contained in Clause 1.
The effect of these is to require the licensing authority at the outset to investigate all the proposed circumstances of the application. The authority is required to refuse the application unless it is satisfied that there is no risk to the public. That is the first necessity. Secondly, that the applicant is a suitable person. Thirdly, that the conditions of the keeping will be satisfactory in all respects. The inquiries made by the local authority may often lead it to reject an application; and, I think, will do so. In such cases the authority may or may not exercise the power conferred by Clause 2 to arrange for an inspection of the premises involved by a vet. If it is minded to grant an application, then, before doing so, it must obtain a vet's report.
The licensing authority is expected to grant a licence normally only to the owner of the animal although it may, exceptionally, depart from this. This is in accordance with the idea of " keeping " on which the Bill is based. The intention is that in those cases in which a licence is granted the licensee should be the person who has the most comprehensive control of the animal and of the circumstances in which it will be kept, and can be expected to exercise the greatest degree of responsibility and to be held answerable for that exercise. All other " keepers " of that animai will, in effect, be the licence holder's agents or servants.
My Lords, one other aspect of this question of who is to be the " keeper " is that minors are now disqualified from applying for a licence. As the Bill was
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originally drafted, it sought to allow minors to hold licences; but this proved excessively complicated and so, on consideration, it was thought preferable—and, I think, rightly—as a matter of policy to exclude minors so that the 16-year-old who is passionately keen on keeping a dangerous snake must persuade a responsible adult to assume the obligations of a licence holder imposed under the Bill. That seems to me to be sensible.
If a licence is granted, the licensing authority is required to impose a number of mandatory conditions. The effect of these is, first, to define in the licence the person or persons who, and who alone, may be the " keepers " of the animals in question and the places where they are to be kept; secondly, to require satisfactory insurance cover to be obtained; thirdly, to impose any necessary restrictions on the species or numbers of animals that may be kept: fourthly, to ensure that the conditions are brought to the notice of all those who will be " keepers " under it; and, lastly, to safeguard the animal's welfare. If the licence conditions permit an animal to be moved to a place outside the area of the licensing authority for a period longer than 72 hours, the authority must consult the authority for the other area involved.
Licences will normally run for one year and provision is made for variation of the conditions in appropriate circumstances. Clause 5 gives a court power to cancel a licence in the event of certain convictions. There is provision for an appeal against a refusal to grant a licence or against conditions imposed or varied. Breach of the conditions of the licence may make the licence holder himself, or any other " keeper " under the licence, guilty of an offence the penalty for which is a maximum fine of £400. This penalty also applies to the offence of keeping a dangerous wild animal without a licence, contrary to the provisions of Clause 1(1). Originally, in the Bill there was a minimum line for a first offence of £200, and for second and subsequent offences of £400. In either case, there could also be a prison sentence of three months; but on due consideration it was thought in another place that this was wrong and not consistent with modern practice, and so there is simply a maximum fine of £400 for any offence.
My Lords, the remaining provisions are technical. Clause 2 provides the licensing

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authority with power to order the inspection of any relevant premises at the expense of the person applying for or holding a licence. Clause 3 empowers the local authority to seize and dispose of any animal in an emergency, the cost again being recoverable from the licence holder or the person unlawfully keeping the animal. I have already dealt with the provisions of Clause 4, containing the main exemptions. Clause 5 covers penalties; Clause 6, interpretations; and Clause 7 the power to vary the Schedule. Clause 8 is a transitional provision and gives any person keeping a dangerous wild animal when the Act comes into force 90 days to apply for a licence. This, too, seems reasonable. Clause 9 deals with the Short Title and extent and provides for the Bill to come into force three months after it has been passed.
My Lords, in conclusion may I say that this is a modest but a useful and practical measure. I apologise for taking up more of your Lordships' time than I would normally have done, but this was because there was no Second Reading or Third Reading debate in another place and therefore nothing in Hansard for the ordinary person to read so as to know what this measure is all about. This Bill deals in a timely way with a mischief which has already become apparent and which, without provision of this kind, definitely threatens to grow larger. Its main purpose is to discourage the keeping of dangerous wild animals as pets but it is sufficiently flexible to allow for exceptional circumstances. The number of licences issued is likely to be small and the administrative burden imposed on local authorities will, I think, be negligible. In accordance, I gather, with current practice since 1972, local authorities are given discretion to charge a fee sufficient to cover their administration costs in full; and provision is made for any other expenses which may arise to be recovered. I think that I can safely say, therefore, that without any addition to the manpower or financial requirements of local authorities, this measure will effect an improvement and fill a gap in the law which will increase the safeguards afforded both to the security of the general public and to the welfare of the animals themselves. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Chellwood.)
6.57 p.m.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, there is no doubt that we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, for giving such a clear explanation of the Bill which will do so much to improve the safety of the public who are sometimes subjected to frightening experiences from involuntary meetings with wild animals—like the lady in the street the other day who was set upon by a lion while she was wearing a leopard skin coat. This was widely reported in the Press and mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood. Fortunately, the lady in question sank to the ground without a sound. This probably saved her from a worse fate than a little anxiety. Whether it would have been a case for a fine under this Bill is another matter; but it might have made the owner more careful if the Bill had already been passed.
My Lords, since Noah rescued the world population of animals, the human being has kept many and various live objects as pets. Although some of them have become fairly domesticated, we are now trying to limit the dangers to the public and to the animals themselves from those who are unable to adapt to the year 1976. As was also mentioned, now that advertisements for potentially dangerous animals are appearing in the Press, it is evident that licensing is becoming essential before too many have escaped and turned the whole country into one enormous safari park. We do not mind wild animals tearing their owners to pieces—that is their owners' affair—but not the general public. We do want these somewhat defenceless but dangerous animals to be kept in reasonably happy surrounds. For that reason we welcome this Bill.
However, there are some parts of the Bill which are not absolutely clear to me. I should like to mention them briefly. It appears that a hippopotamus in the herbaceous border is quite acceptable while an ostrich in the orangery is not. I wonder if there are so many ostriches in captivity that are not in zoos to make them specified. Perhaps a baby elephant should be included—surely a very attractive playmate when small and useful for hosing down the car—but he is not listed and on weight alone he must be considered just a little dangerous. I confess that this is probably a matter for

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debate in Committee. But there are obviously also many other very small and dangerous animals, and even insects, from different parts of the world which might more easily escape and cause danger to the public. There is one other question which springs to mind and that is the apparent lack of a clear dividing line between a large garden and a small zoo. After all, so long as occasional people are asked to contribute the difference does not really exist. Maybe this will be covered in the new laws being thought about regarding safari parks and zoos.
Finally, my Lords, I am not a little worried by the likelihood of different councils charging widely different fees for licensing. There could be many reasons for this and I hope that the Government will consider either imposing a maximum fee or issuing clear guidelines to local councils as to the fees they should be charging. I do not think that any precedent for allowing councils to determine levels of fees has very much to do with this particular Bill and I would ask the Government, not necessarily now but before Committee, to look at this very carefully indeed.
So, my Lords, with those reservations regarding some details of the Bill, we on this side of the House wish the Bill every success, and if there are any anomalies we shall ferret them out in Committee, although I accept the fact that we cannot anticipate every problem. After all, as Frederick the Great said in a letter to Voltaire,
" Every man has a wild beast within him ".
7.2 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I also should like to join with my noble friend in welcoming this Bill which has been so ably moved. It is a most necessary Bill. Some wild animals have been kept in some extraordinary circumstances: there was a widely reported case of a gentleman who did not wish to keep an animal subject to the Guard Dogs Act so he used a lion as a guard dog. It was very suitable because it did some rather naughty things to his neighbour who came over the wall to see if it was a guard dog. I should like to ask my noble friend to give some thoughts to certain details. Like my noble friend Lord Newall, I should like this subject of fees looked at with some care. Local
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authorities nowadays are more and more burdened with things which they were not normally asked to deal with. The licensing of a back garden for wild animals appears completely outside their scope. After our experience with the Breeding of Dogs Act they would undoubtedly have to call in experts from the veterinary profession or perhaps from safari parks, or suchlike. One of the principles we must agree is that the charges for people who wish to keep wild animals in their own private grounds must not be permitted to fall on the rates. I also feel that the charges for the licence must be kept as reasonable as possible and not be made prohibitive. I would ask my noble friend to look at that aspect.
I am not happy about licensing. I have read the proceedings of another place and I have read this Bill. I am not a hit happy that someone can take out a licence to keep one of the animals in these places and immediately hand over the keeping of it to some person who is not mentioned in the licence but ultimately is the keeper. The man or woman who takes this licence out has to be justified as suitable. There appears to be nothing in the Bill to ensure that anyone who likes to act as a keeper need necessarily be suitable until such time as it is discovered that he is not suitable by something happening. I have a feeling that it may be advisable to think about this and if the actual man who applies for the licence, and is issued with it, is not going to be the person to look after the animal, then the person who is might also be included on the licence as being the person authorised to look after the animal under the licence, apart from owning it. That sounds extremely complicated, but I trust your Lordships may understand me.
I feel very sorry for district councils under this Bill. The interpretation is going to be extremely difficult by them. As I have said, with the Breeding of Dogs ! Act they had some considerable difficulty in a small way in licensing breeding kennels. There is going to be some difficulty in issuing licences of suitability with these wild animals. Regarding insurance, the Bill says, if I understand it correctly, that an insurance must be taken out to cover injury to any person caused by the animal, and that the local authority shall be satisfied. Are we to say that that covers the holder of the licence and his family. or is it merely to be the public in

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general? Is that insurance not only to cover any injury that might happen to the person, but to cover any damage to clothing, property or such things as that? If the interpretation of this subsection is not that, I feel that in Committee we must extend it to make quite sure that any wild animal held under licence should be insured to cover all the possibilities.
In Clause 2 we come to inspection. One of the things which those of us interested in the licensing of such things as pet shops, boarding kennels and the Breeding of Dogs Act, are always very worried about is inspection. Under the various Acts there has to be an inspection once a year. It is very much like an army inspection. The local authority says, " We have to inspect this place; we will ring up the man ". The man says, " Do not come this week; come next week ". By that time he has tidied up and the place is shining. And that is the last the man sees of the inspectors for a year. Regarding this Bill, there should be more than one inspection annually to see that the provisions of a licence are being complied with. A casual inspection at least once or twice a year, to make quite sure that these wild animals are being kept in accordance with the terms of the licence, would be essential.
Once again, we come to the question of costs regarding these inspections. I am assuming that the costs of the licence and inspections will be as low as is reasonable. But I feel that if a man is determined to keep such an animal in his garden then he, as the owner, should pay for the cost of any inspection which may be needed. Such a cost must, of course, be reasonable and based on the actual cost to the council, so that no extra burden is placed on the rates or on the ratepayer.
A small point came to mind on Clause 3. The local authority is given powers under this clause to seize an animal and then it may either keep it in its possession or otherwise dispose of it. The mind boggles. I can hardly imagine that any authority, having decided to seize a lion, for example, would have any place at its disposal where it could he kept. I agree that it should seize the animal, but would the words, " or otherwise dispose of it " cover the parking of that animal in a zoo or safari park? Will the council
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be permitted to charge the owner of the licence for the cost of the animal's keep until it is either destroyed or otherwise disposed of? That is a point to which I think some consideration should he given.
I was very pleased to see that there is an appeal to a court against the refusal of the licence. I think it is vitally important that a person should have such a right of appeal, even though one may not altogether like what he is doing.
I am a little worried about the methods people may use in order to avoid paying for a licence. It is extraordinary that as soon as it is necessary to obtain a licence for something people will go to endless lengths in order to avoid doing so, and they will make use of whatever little crack there may be in an Act of Parliament in order to avoid getting a licence. hope the noble Lord will be able to give an assurance that there is no loophole in the definition of " zoological garden ", which is quoted as being—
"…any place, other than a circus or deer-park, where wild animals not living in their natural surroundings are kept for the purpose of being regularly exhibited to members of the public for gain."
While we have not got licensing of safari parks and deer-parks, how shall we get round that, if a gentleman says: " Every Wednesday from three o'clock to six o'clock you can come and look at my pet lion, and so on, in my back garden throughout the year for a charge, perhaps of £10 "? Surely that means that his animal or animals are regularly exhibited, and such a thing would completely defeat the purpose of the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will also be able to reassure me about that. Perhaps we may be able to clarify the words " regularly exhibited " at a later stage.
Then, does the noble Lord think that three months will be long enough, following the passing of this Act, for the local authority to collect sufficient expertise and knowledge to operate the Act fully? I should like to mention one further point. Shall we be in the same position over this Bill as we are with the Breeding of Dogs Act—that if a person does not apply for a licence there is no power of entry to inspect the premises? While it is blatantly obvious with large and fierce animals, some of the smaller

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ones which are mentioned in the Schedule, such as the alligator, may be kept without a licence and without anyone's knowledge, except through sheer chance. Is there to be a power of entry in the event of somebody suspecting that such animals are being kept, under strict limitations, of course, to make sure there has not been a breach of the law?
I must apologise if I seem to be taking up a great deal of time about these matters, but these were points which occurred to me and so I felt it right to refer to them. Incidentally, I was delighted to see the common names inserted in the Schedule, but I found one which I did not know, and I still do not know what it is. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would kindly tell me, under " Canidae", what a " fennec " is?
7.17 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the Government fully support this measure, which sets out to curb and control the hazardous and increasingly widespread practice of keeping dangerous wild animals as pets—a practice, as recent incidents have shown, which has at times been carried out with little regard for the safety of the public or for the welfare of the animal concerned. The timeliness of this measure, if I may say so, can he judged by the fact that it has received widespread support and has encountered no opposition at all in another place.
The noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, has already explained the provisions of the Bill in some detail, and I do not think there is any need for me to cover all the ground with which he has dealt so adequately. The noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, has referred to some of the exemptions conferred by the Bill. Although zoos, safari parks and circuses are exempt from the Bill, the Government fully recognise that dangerous wild animals kept in these places are capable on occasion of representing a threat to public safety if the highest standards of care and security are not scrupulously observed. The fact that the Government support this measure, from which they are excluded, does not mean that it is the Government's view that they are not in need of some form of control.
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Noble Lords will be well aware that there have been some recent attempts in your Lordships' House to introduce legislative control over zoos and safari parks. These failed largely, I understand, because of disagreement between the two organisations which represent the interests of zoos and safari parks—the Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the National Zoological Association. However, I understand that the difficulties which the earlier proposals encountered are in the process of being overcome and that a new Bill which dispenses with the features which earlier gave rise to disagreement is at present being prepared.
My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department indicated in another place that the Government's view is that the better course of action is to wait for these proposals, which are likely to offer an appropriate system of control of these establishments which exhibit exotic animals to the public, rather than attempt to widen the scope of the present Bill. It might appear at first sight that, since the present Bill deals with the control of dangerous wild animals, it will therefore be a suitable vehicle for bringing zoos and safari parks speedily under statutory control. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, has indicated, the policy which lies behind this Bill is that licences for private persons to keep dangerous wild animals as pets will he granted only in wholly exceptional circumstances. Meanwhile, I will content myself with underlining the general proposition that, given the basic philosophy of the Bill as the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, has so cogently set it forth, and the existence of the power to amend the Schedule in the light of experience, I think Parliament should be reluctant to enlarge the Schedule at this stage.
In conclusion, it may be asked what steps will he taken to bring the provisions of this Bill to the notice of all those likely to be affected. Assuming it continues its smooth passage—I now have some doubt—I understand that my right honourable friend's Department will issue an explanatory circular to local authorities and police forces explaining its provisions in detail, so that the Bill can he brought effectively into action at the appropriate time, which seems likely to be October or November this year. In addition, the

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Department will be issuing a Press notice and will be taking particular care to bring it to the attention of the specialised Press. The Government believe that this will be a useful measure to deal with a real and growing mischief, and are glad to give it their support and to join the Promoters in commending it to your Lordships.
Having heard what the noble Lords, Lord Newall and Lord de Clifford, have said, perhaps it is not for me to make any suggestion to the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood. But a number of quite serious points have been raised and 1 find myself in the position in which I found myself some time ago in regard to guard dogs, where we could not effect an agreement during the Committee stage. If the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, does not think it impertinent on my part, I am wondering whether some useful purpose would be served if we got together with anyone else involved—presumably the mover in another place—and met with appropriate advisers from the Home Office. It may be that we could then resolve a good many of the matters which have been raised, which it would not be fair to expect the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, to deal with in detail this afternoon, and that the Bill would then find a smooth passage through your Lordships' House.
7.25 p.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for what he has said and for giving the blessing of the Government to this measure. I take up with alacrity the suggestion he has just made, that there might be a meeting between some of us who have expressed interest in your Lordships' House and the Promoter of the Bill, together with some of the noble Lord's officials who have been so very helpful, in order to try to provide the most satisfactory possible answers to the interesting points that have been raised in this short debate. As I think was bound to be the case, the most interesting point of all arose because of what is or is not in the Schedule. One could have quite a lot of fun with this, but I am sure that the right course is to keep it as short as possible. I am sorry that I cannot answer my noble friend Lord de Clifford who asked about the fennec, although I am told that it is a
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small and very rare fox with rather large ears.
Lord BROUGHAM and VAUX: My Lords, as my mother has one I know something about these animals. There are some fennec foxes loose in the African desert. It is a very small animal which stands nine inches to a foot high, and is about the same in length. It has very long ears, comes out only at night and is very timid. There are only half a dozen pairs in the United Kingdom, three of which are in the London Zoo.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, is not that proof, once again, that in this House one can find knowledge on every conceivable subject, without any question?
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am very grateful indeed to both my noble friends. This problem arose—I must not go into too much detail now, because this is a Committee point—because by using a scientific name one covers a whole species. If the fennec is not there, then it can probably be taken away without any difficulty at all. I confess that there are a number of animals in the Schedule which I have never heard of, not being a zoologist. But I will make sure when we get to the Committee stage that if I am asked any further very difficult questions I will have the right answers. It has been suggested to me that the tarantula and the scorpion should both be in the Schedule, though I have not heard that they make particularly good pets. For that matter, I do not know any reason why the hyena is not there; it ought to be under the canidae, I suppose, but for some reason it is not. Perhaps a little tidying up is still necessary, and I fully accept that.
As regards the second point raised by my noble friend Lord Newall about councils having absolute latitude to charge different fees for licences, I have checked this carefully and it is a fact that, rightly or wrongly, under the Conservative Administration of 1972 this principle was established, and, rightly or wrongly, the same principle is also in the Local Government Act 1974. I confess that I am not entirely happy about it and it might be better—f only say " might "—to give some guidance here, certainly where the maximum licence fee is concerned, so we will look most carefully into this point, too.

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My noble friend Lord de Clifford raised a large variety of points showing what great interst he has taken in the measure but I have to admit that I cannot give him proper answers to all of them. Some of them were undoubtedly Committee points to which we shall come later, but I will look at them all with great care which is my duty, having agreed to sponsor this measure in your Lordships' House.
I will look into the question of the suitability of the temporary keeper who may be covered by a local authority licence, as well as into the important questions of insurance and the powers of search if there appears to have been a breach of the law. I will also look most carefully into the inspection of premises, because I very much see the point of an occasional snap or casual inspection. I remember so well, in the short time that I was an undistinguished Regular soldier, that on the day of the brigadier's inspection everything was polished up or covered in blanco, even the stones, and in Cairo we used to sweep the parade ground so that it looked very tidy. But if the brigadier had turned up a week earlier it would not have been the same. So there is obviously a point here.
Another point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford—I think again it was a personal view—that 90 days is not a reasonable period to allow for existing owners of dangerous animals listed in the Schedule to apply for a licence. However, that is a matter of opinion which we could discuss again. We could also look at the question of how local authorities should dispose of a dangerous animal. Presumably the last thing that they would wish to do with a dangerous animal, which might have some value to a zoo or safari park, would be to put it down. I hope that that would be the last thing they would do, but they might be forced to put the animal down, with some professional help, if the animal was running amok. I do not know; I am only thinking aloud.
Going on from there, the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, raised another important point which caused me a little further anxiety: whether there may be a loophole in the drafting of the Bill arising out of the words " regularly exhibited ". By having two or three monkeys, keeping them in perfectly good conditions in
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your back yard, opening it to the public and charging them to see these monkeys every weekend, the point is whether you would be regularly exhibiting them, and whether, therefore, that back yard would be classed as a zoo. It might be a matter for interpretation by the courts, but we cannot be too careful in making sure that any legislation we pass is as sensible and as easy to understand as possible. Therefore, I give your Lordships an absolute assurance that I will look with the very greatest care at all the points which have been raised and at any others which are raised with me.
I should like to conclude by thanking your Lordships for taking such an interest in this Bill. I began my Second Reading speech by saying that on the whole I thought we had too much, rather than too little, legislation in this country. In other words, if people want to butt their heads into brick walls, by all means let them do so. I would not want to take any part in passing a law that stopped them from doing so, so long as it was their own brick wall. However, I think that there is a clear need for this measure. My noble friend Lord Newall mentioned the case of the lady who was wearing a leopard skin coat, around whom a lion put its arms—if a lion has arms! Perhaps I should say its front legs.
Several noble Lords: Paws!
Lord CHELWOOD: Well, my Lords, paws are on the ends of legs, surely. Anyhow, this lady was embraced by the lion, and perhaps that taught her a lesson. I am glad to say that she did not get hurt but perhaps she should not have been wearing a leopard skin coat. But never mind. There are other examples of this. I could not find this note when I made my opening speech, but quite recently two other lions were kept in a back garden in Wolverhampton, one of which, for the second time in six months, seriously mauled a man. The keeper of the lion had defied a court order to keep the animal securely locked up at his home. Then there was the case of a puma which was kept at the bottom of a back garden in East Acton and terrified the neighbourhood. I have found other examples, all of which I understand are accurate: of wolves being kept in a back yard in Streatham, of alligators being kept in a Surbiton cellar, of a bear being kept in a

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Surrey garage. So the risks are real; we arc not imagining them.
It is quite easy to obtain these animals. This was something else which I mentioned but which I forgot to support with facts. Quite recently I looked at Horse and Hound and Exchange and Mart and found in the former this advertisement:
" Magnificent nine-week-old tame lion cubs; house and car trained; very reasonable to good homes ".
And in Exchange and Mart:
" Lion cubs, tame, £220 each. Male lions, one-year old, £100. Tigers, £900 ".
I am sure that there is a need for this small, modest measure. I hope that it now has a fair wind and that before we have finished with the measure it will be in perfect shape.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down may I ask him to remember that my mother once kept a jerboa. Before the noble Lord decides to add jerboas to the Schedule, I shall be very glad to give him all the information I can about the vices and virtues of the jerboa.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I have such respect for my noble friend that I always remember everything that he says. In particular shall I remember that.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (ARMED FORCES) BILL
7.34 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. First of all, may I be allowed to congratulate the honourable Member for Woking who piloted this Bill through the House of Commons, the 16 Members of Parliament who served on the Committee and supported him, and those who supported him at the Report stage. I know only too well how difficult it is to get Bills through the House of Commons. I remember, too, my fate on two occasions—the first being when I got to Committee stage and three
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Labour and three Conservative Members sat in the passage in order not to give me my quorum; the second when I was slightly more successful and got the Bill to Report stage, when 40 Amendments were put down and the Bill was talked out. However, both of these Bills are now on the Statute Book because they were taken over by the Government, so if this Bill has an unfortunate fate, I hope that this Government will remember that ultimately they generally take over my Bills.
I hope that I shall have your Lordships' support for what I consider is a Bill to give fairer opportunities to Her Majesty's Services. I want them to take part in Elections. We have to remember that the Services support any Government, irrespective of Party, and that they serve them very well. I think it is a very important point that whatever their feelings and whatever the result of an Election, the Services serve the Government to the best of their ability.
I understand that there has been a separate system of registration for the Services since 1918. While I was looking up past history, one interesting fact that I found was that in 1918 the men serving in Her Majesty's Services after that war were given the vote at the age of 18 because it was considered—and this was the first and only time it has happened—that if they were old enough to tight for their country they were old enough to have a vote for their future. Since that date special provisions have been made. I understand that they were originally made to serve those who were not Regular Servicemen and it was agreed to continue this practice until the Representation of the People Act 1969. Previously this had meant that once a Serviceman registered himself he did not have to reregister until he left the Service or cancelled his registration. As from 1918, it was the duty of the commanding officer to notify the Serviceman each year of his electoral rights. New voters were declared each year and then attested at their units, checked, and, together with previous voters, forwarded to the constituencies for the electoral registration officers. Voting then could take place by post or by proxy. Also it was possible for them to opt out of the system. If they had a civilian residence, then they could vote in that neighbourhood.

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The system lasted until 1944. The Vivian Committee on Electoral Machinery produced a White Paper in December 1942 and recommended the setting up of controlling machinery in the form of a central index on the lines available for the National Registration Central Index, in the same manner as for civilians. In 1946 there was another Committee on electoral registration, the Oliver Committee, which recommended the transfer of responsibility from the Central National Registry Office to the record offices of the three Services. However, this was not considered practical as the CNRO was working well and, I am glad to say, was economical. Therefore, it was not considered necessary to change.
One remembers the period in 1945 when it was considered that Servicemen should have the vote. There were three weeks between civilians voting and the Service votes coming in, because the Servicemen were stationed all over the world. In 1968, the Speaker's Conference to which the matter had been referred made the recommendation that the continuous registration of members of the Forces and their wives should cease, and that annual registration should continue. In 1948–49 the Representation of the People Act was revived, so 1949 was the first occasion when wives were able to vote if a residin overseas with their husbands. In February 1968 there was another Speaker's Conference, which again made recommendations. The report said:
" The present arrangements for continuous registration of members of the Forces and their wives should cease."
This is the point that I want to change in the Bill which is before your Lordships today.
The Service authorities should in future be required to obtain information for the purpose of registration from any member of the Forces who appears to be qualified to be registered whenever similar information is required to be given by a civilian householder, in other words, they have the same type of registration then as civilians. I want to underline the point that it should be the duty of the commanding officer of each unit to see that this is carried out and that an entry is made in the ordinary register.
As your Lordships will realise, this is not a very practical suggestion so the
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legislation recommended was not carried out as then intended. Forms were just handed out to individuals and they were supposed to send them to the appropriate registration office, and there was no compulsion on the officer to issue the forms. This has been one of the difficulties. Many people did not want to go to their officers for forms; many officers perhaps were too busy to remember the forms in time, and this has meant that many people did not get on the register because there was no compulsion for the officer to issue the forms or for the Serviceman to take any action.
I understand that in the latest figures available it is stated that out of 400,000 only about 300,000 were registered, for various reasons. I can understand it, because for those serving in Sabah or Sarawak, for example, during the confrontation, or those serving in Belize there was a gap between enlistment and the opportunity to sign a Service declaration. This shows some of the difficulties; being in overseas areas it was difficult to obtain information if they had not actually been registered. On the other hand, it might have been considered that those who had left the Service might still have their names on the Service register. However, as civilians they would be required to register yearly once they had left the Service, and to my mind that would be a correction as no one could have two votes.
In 1973 there was another Speaker's Conference which reconsidered the whole matter, and they found that the eligible voters registered had fallen to between 20 and 30 per cent., and they recommended that:
"The present arrangements for annual registration of members of the Forces should cease ".
Each Serviceman and new recruit should be registered, but he can still declare each year if he wants to make a change or have his name taken off. The wives of Servicemen also should be registered as Service voters, and no military offence is created if, for example, the Serviceman or Servicewoman does not want to vote.
I understand too that when an honourable Member of another place raised this matter in 1975 the then Minister stated that the Government considered the question suitable for Government legislation and hoped to introduce legislation at

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an early opportunity. So I hope noble Lords on all sides of the House will be prepared to support this Bill, as it went through the other House at Third Reading " on the nod ".
If I may, I shall explain briefly the effect of one or two clauses because, regrettably, there are very few noble Lords in the House and I hope that perhaps they may read in Hansard what has been said tonight and therefore when we come to the Committee stage we shall not be worried with a lot of useless Amendments. The effect of Clause 1—and I shall only sketch it because the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, knows this much better than I do—provides that, in future, members of the Forces, and their wives or husbands, once registered in pursuance of a Service declaration, shall remain registered without the necessity of making a fresh declaration each year. That covers the point I have already made. A declaration would remain valid until cancelled or the declaration ceases to be in force on a change in the circumstances giving the Service qualification.
Under the existing law members of the Forces have a Service qualification whether they are in the United Kingdom or abroad. Their wives or husbands—and quite a number of women in the Services have husbands—have such qualifications only when residing abroad with their spouse. Clause 2 of the Bill would confer on them the same qualification as a member of the Forces; namely, they would have the qualification whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.
As I mentioned before, there is an obvious risk that under the once-for-all registration system the register will become out of date because of the inclusion as Service voters of persons who have in fact left the Forces. However, I understand that the Ministry of Defence intend to overcome this by making arrangements which will ensure that registration officers are informed as soon as a Serviceman leaves the Forces. The existing provisions for annual Service declarations will be retained for Crown servants and their wives and husbands and the members of the British Council and their wives and husbands. All these have Service qualifications only when serving abroad or when
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residing abroad with their husbands or wives.
I regret that this clause cannot affect this category of persons and they cannot make the Service declaration. I sincerely hope that a new Speaker's Conference will consider such matters as whether voting facilities should be extended to such persons as international civil servants, especially as there are now so many working in the EEC, and there are also Red Cross and NAAFI employees, businessmen and other British subjects temporarily residing abroad.
Subsection (1) of Clause 1 is designed to clarify the whole purpose of the Bill. It refers to the existing provision of Section 2(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1969, that a Service declaration shall be made only with a view to registration in the register of electors for that particular year. The effect of this is that at the expiry of a particular year the person who declares will get on the new register only if he or she has made a fresh Service declaration.
Subsection (3) of this clause provides that a Service declaration made by a member of the Forces (defined in Section 46(l) of the Act of 1949) or the wife or husband of such a member shall, if not cancelled, continue in force so long as he or she has a Service qualification. This means that a member of the Forces who has made such a Service declaration and transmitted it to the appropriate registration officer will remain on the register for that electoral area indefinitely without the need to make a fresh declaration each year. I understand that the qualifying dates for this after the Bill becomes an Act will be the 10th October in the United Kingdom and 15th September in Northern Ireland.
The purpose of Clause 2 is to confer on the wives and husbands of members of the Forces the same right to register in pursuance of a Service declaration as their spouses already have. The right to make a Service declaration depends on whether one has a Service qualification. Servicemen and Servicewomen have such a qualification, whether in the United Kingdom or abroad, by virtue of their membership of the Forces. They thus fall outside the arrangements for registration via the ordinary civilian canvass

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but may, if they wish, register after making a Service declaration. Their wives or husbands, if in the United Kingdom, are subject to the normal civilian arrangements. If they leave the United Kingdom to reside abroad with their spouses they acquire a Service qualification for the time of their residence abroad. This clause will enable them to register, after making a Service declaration, in the same way as their husbands or wives.
I realise that there are drawbacks to the present system for the majority of Service wives. They frequently move house as a result of their husbands' postings. This may mean that it is difficult for them to acquire a permanent address. This in turn means that, regrettably, they may not become registered. Even if registered, they may well have moved away from their constituency by the time of an election. They would then in effect be confined to a postal vote. This may be difficult to arrange or to cast in the short time available between the announcement of a General Election and polling day. I understand that the Ministry of Defence, after consultation with the three branches of the Armed Forces, have therefore concluded—and I hope their conclusions will he regarded as correct—that the interests of the great majority of Service wives would be best served by the change. This would confer on them a Service qualification while in the United Kingdom as well as while abroad.
So in future a Service wife will be able to appoint a proxy whose appointment will remain in force at her convenience or until her Service qualification lapses. She will still, of course, like other Service voters now, be able to vote by post or in person if circumstances permit. But if the exigencies of her husband's Service career make this difficult or impossible, her proxy vote will remain safe. This is her husband's position now, and it will be strengthened by the new system, if it goes through the House tonight, of the once-for-all registration created by the rest of the I believe it is right we should give the wives of Servicemen the same safeguard of their right to franchise.
My Lords, I should like to emphasise that this will not put anyone at a disadvantage. There are wives, although it is considered they are in the minority, who are perfectly well served by the normal
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civilian arrangements. There is no question of disenfranchising these. They will simply get on the register by different means than existed before. There may be the odd case where the elector resents being compelled to take one route to registration rather than another, but I understand that the Secretary of State for Defence believes it will be for the benefit of the great majority of Service wives to make this change.
My Lords, Clause 3 covers consequential Amendments and repeals previous Acts of Parliament. Clause 4 covers the Short Title, Citation and Commencement. Subsection (2) of Clause 4 provides that the Act shall come into force on such a date as the Secretary of State may order, and the order may be made by Statutory Instrument. I hope that tonight your Lordships will give this small but important Bill a Second Reading, and that the Secretary of State will then be able to take action at the earliest possible date.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. (Baroness Vickers.)
7.52 p.m.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I think the whole House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, for introducing this Bill, and also for the very full way in which she has explained all the provisions, and the purpose of the Bill. I am sure the House will be aware that the main part of the Bill seeks merely to bring electoral law as it affects Servicemen back to the position it was in before the Representation of the People Act of 1969 altered the rules of registration.
Various estimates have been made of the number of Service voters registered as such. The figure of 100,000 has been mentioned in another place in an earlier debate, and we must remember that this total is numbered among approximately 400,000 Service voters who would be eligible to vote as such. The 300,000 Service men and women, together with their spouses, are not disenfranchised, hut it is often difficult for them to ensure that they are on the register somewhere within the United Kingdom.
I believe that it is indeed encouraging to read of the Government's views on this when the Bill was given a Second Reading in another place. It was admitted that

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there are powerful reasons for supporting the Bill: first and foremost because it will lead to a substantial increase in the Servicemen's vote: secondly, because the Government in another place admitted that the situation was unclear whereby the onus of registration lies with the Servicemen (they admitted it is not necessarily for the best), and lastly, because the Government cannot find enough of their own Parliamentary time to permit orderly discussion and, we hope, the passage of the Bill. Yet the Government admit that the number of Servicemen who will be affected is substantial. I think the noble Lord. Lord Harris of Greenwich, would agree that this figure is in the region of 400,000.
In the course of the Second Reading debate in another place the Government pointed out that the position of the Service voters before 1969 had become totally out of date, since each Serviceman was registered at his last known address before he enlisted in the Armed Forces. In several cases this resulted in Servicemen having a vote, and being registered at a street or particular area in towns, cities, or even in the countryside, which no longer even existed. But it was admitted in another place that, as a result of the Representation of the People Act 1969, the Service vote, registered on the non-perennial system whereby each Serviceman is responsible for ensuring that he is registered each year in the same way as civilians, this vote fell to a figure as low as 30 per cent. of the eligible voters. Surely this cannot have been intended, in spite of the benefits to the electoral registers. In cases I have already mentioned, there were benefits.
There was a Speaker's Conference in 1973, which discussed the problems of the Service voters. This Conference recommended that the present position should be maintained, and also that each Commanding Officer or Commander of a particular unit should have to accept the obligation of ensuring that all Servicemen and women under his command were correctly registered each year. Above all, the Conference considered that Service voters should have the same rights and obligations as their civilian counterparts. While this may be a laudable concept, I really cannot say that it seems entirely appropriate to the position of Service
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voters and to the necessity that they should be enabled to vote at each and every General Election.
One word, frequently mentioned by several speakers in the Second Reading debate in another place, was the " turbulence " of Service life. Your Lordships will be aware that the exigencies of Service in the Armed Forces takes Servicemen and women all over the United Kingdom and Western Europe as well as to Malaysia, Singapore and Belize, as we have heard this afternoon from the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers. Often, there is not the time to arrange for adequate or reasonable proxy votes, and the often scattered units overseas may have more urgent messages to transmit from any desert, swamp or jungle than one which is somewhat administrative to us. Of course it is important, because it ensures that each and every member of that unit has been duly registered as a voter on a particular day. Naturally, we accept that civilians have a continuing legal obligation to see that they and their dependants are duly registered, but I am sure that the House will agree with me that the Servicemen and their dependants, by the nature of their duties and obligations, cannot be regarded for these purposes as mere citizens, nor, indeed, as servants of the Crown.
We have only to consider the problems of soldiers performing their four-month tours of duty in Northern Ireland. Quite possibly the soldier who is going to Northern Ireland will have his wife and his place of residence in BAOR. There are also the United Kingdom Mobile Reserve Forces who are ready to move to any part of the world within 24 hours. Noble Lords will admit that the modern defence Forces indeed are well able to carry out all the essential documentation. But it seems to me that all this Bill seeks to do is to enable some of the nonessential documentation to be laid aside, to bring the position of Service voters and their spouses to what it was before 1969. The position of being registered as a Service voter on entering the Armed Forces, and of remaining as such until such time as the voter leaves the Armed Forces, I believe is more important than bringing Servicemen into line with their civilian counterparts.
My Lords, in conclusion, I am glad that the Government have undertaken

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to render this Bill all available assistance. We all look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will have to say. while at the same time thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, for bringing this Bill before the House.
7.58 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, the Government welcome this Bill. I would certainly want to take this opportunity of congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, and her honourable friend in another place for having sponsored this measure, and for having put it forward with a very substantial degree of vigour. I know that only too well from having had discussions on this Bill with the honourable gentleman. Although the noble Baroness is quite right in saying that our numbers tonight are fairly limited, it is appropriate that she should put forward this measure, given the very distinguished career she has had in another place when she was the Member for a Division which had a very substantial proportion of Service voters. It is also appropriate that we have with us this evening the noble Lord, Lord Alport, who also had a substantial number of Service constituents when he was a Member of another place.
I think there is no doubt that this is a measure which will be of substantial significance to Service voters. As the noble Baroness said at one stage, it is certainly unusual to proceed by way of Private Members' legislation in the area of electoral law. Indeed, for that reason, the Government, I think quite properly, have taken a very close interest in this Bill in order to ensure that it is technically sound.
As the noble Baroness has said, the aims of the Bill are straightforward. Members of the forces have a Service qualification. This entitles them to make a declaration as a result of which they may be put on the register for elections. Under existing legislation, Service declarations are only valid for the lifetime of the register and so a fresh declaration is required each year. This Bill allows members of the Forces, and their wives or husbands who make a Service declaration, to remain registered for the duration of their
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Service qualification. Servicemen generally are compelled to move house far more frequently than the remainder of the population. It was because of the disruption this causes that the Speakers Conference of 1972–74 recommended that the system of annual registration be abandoned in favour of the system of once-for-all registration which had already operated between 1949 and 1969.
The Speaker's Conference also recommended that this system of Service registration be applied to the wives of members of the Forces. At present the wives and husbands of members of the Forces have a Service qualification only if they are residing abroad to be with their spouse. The Bill seeks to confer on wives and husbands of members of the Forces a Service qualification wherever they may be, that is to say, whether they are in the United Kingdom or abroad. There has also been full consultation about this proposal with the Services, and it seems clear that the change will be to the advantage of the majority of Service wives in this country. As I have indicated, there is nothing new in once for-all registration for members of the Forces. The system was criticised when it was last used because the register became out of date from the inclusion of names of those who no longer had a Service qualification. It will clearly be important to do what we can to avoid this happening again. The Ministry of Defence intend to make arrangements which should ensure that registration officers are informed as soon as a person leaves the Forces. The precise nature of these arrangements is still under discussion.
I know that some of your Lordships will he disappointed that this Bill cannot be brought into force this year. But there are, I think, reasonable grounds for this. A new system of registration for members of the Forces, their wives and husbands, will necessitate some amendments to the existing Representation of the People Regulations. More importantly, amendments to and reprints of the relevant forms of Service declaration will be required. I am afraid that this cannot be done in time for the next register because the Service authorities have already distributed the existing forms in preparation for this year's registration programme.

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A more serious problem arises on the registration of the wives and husbands of members of the Forces. To implement the Bill it will be necessary to amend the prescribed electoral canvass form (Form A) and its Welsh counterpart; but the forms for this autumn's canvass have already been printed and distributed to registration officers. There is no statutory authority for the withdrawal or replacement of these forms. The Government have considered a suggestion that the Bill should contain a transitional provision that a Service declaration made this year by a member of the Forces should be deemed to have a continuing effect as if made under the Bill. We are convinced, however, that this proposal is more likely to cause confusion than to achieve its purpose. In our view, the safer and more effective course is to avoid adding complexity, by waiting until the whole Bill can be brought into force at once. We intend to try to achieve this in time for the register after next. I would emphasise that no disfranchisement will occur from the delayed implementation of the Bill. All those eligible to be registered can be registered this autumn under the present arrangements. The beneficial effects of once-for-all registration are cumulative and long term, and a year's delay will not, I hope, make much difference.
In conclusion, I would simply say that I hope this Bill achieves its purpose of greatly increasing the proportion of members of the Forces who are able to exercise the franchise. This is at present very low—most estimates put it at about 20–25 per cent. as opposed to the 60–70 per cent. before 1969. I am sure we should do all we can to remedy this situation and it is for this reason above all that I commend the Bill to your Lordships' House.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his gracious and generous reply. and I am grateful to know that this Bill will be implemented as soon as possible. May I also thank the civil servants for the aid they have given me in preparation of these rather difficult details in some cases.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

LEGAL AID AND LEGAL SERVICES
8.6 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD rose to call attention to the future provision of legal aid and legal services in the light of current restraints on public expenditure; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. This is in no way a disguised formula for launching a critical attack, but is genuinely aimed at eliciting information on a subject of some public concern. As we have had intimations from my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor that he is intending to afford us such information, we are all looking forward to hearing from him, and I will not detain your Lordships for more than a few brief moments. Perhaps, however, I might be permitted, very briefly, to sketch in the background and add one or two comments which seem to me deserving of consideration.
Before the Legal Aid Act 1949, the provision of legal services for those without means, or without adequate means, was a mockery which fully justified the jibe of a well-known Victorian judge, who said that, " The law, like the Ritz Hotel, is open to rich and poor alike ". The Act which introduced the structure of a comprehensive system of legal aid was an immense step forward. It was, I think, basically sound in principle and was capable of developing into the finest system of legal aid in any country. Unfortunately, due to lack of funds, it started on a very limited basis, though it has been gradually extended over the years, all too slowly as some may think, as more money has become available. It is fair to say that in this structure there is nothing that money cannot put right. But, on the other hand, it needs no emphasis that this is hardly the time when we can reasonably expect my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to extract additional funds from his colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
There are, I would suggest, two areas in particular which represent grave gaps in the functioning of the present system. First, the financial limits up to which legal aid is made available are absurdly low, and here inflation has, of course, inflicted

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its familiar toll. The result is that legal aid is available at present to much too narrow a section of the community, and thereby the purpose of a comprehensive service has been defeated. Secondly, in recent years it has become increasingly apparent that legal services are not being made available to the poor and deprived sections of the public in those fields such as housing and welfare where help is most needed. On this, it is well known that the Lord Chancellor instituted some time ago a review of the extent of such needs. Perhaps he will now be able to tell us something of what has resulted from that inquiry. Most valuable attempts have been made by voluntary effort to meet these needs, by the setting up of law centres in areas where the deficiency is particularly felt. I know that this is a cause which is particularly dear to the heart of our present Lord Chancellor, and one to which he has given his most energetic and warm support. The fact remains, however, as I think he would be the first to acknowledge, that so far only the fringe of the problem has been touched.
Without more money, is there nothing to be done but to express pious hopes for a better future when economic pressures are eventually relaxed? I would suggest that even under present conditions Her Majesty's Government are not powerless to effect some improvements. At a time of financial stringency, what does every Department, body or organisation, public or private, have to do? Surely to apply a keen and critical mind to every aspect of its affairs and attempt to construct an order of priorities within which the best possible use can be made of its existing resources.
So I will conclude by asking whether the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has carried out such a review, and whether he is satisfied that present resources, inadequate as they are, are being put to the best possible use. Are there, for instance, economies which could be effected that could make additional funds available to improve deficiencies in the two areas to which I have just referred? Is he satisfied, just to take one example, that the large proportion of legal aid which is now deployed in matrimonial causes could not be put to better use in a world of intensely competing priorities? I will not take up time by
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attempting a catalogue of possible adjustments or retrenchments, as we are all eager to hear the Lord Chancellor's own assessment and the statement of his policy in these matters. In these circumstances, I shall not detain your Lordships' House a moment longer. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
8.12 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, on this particular occasion I have thought it right to intervene at this stage as I have certain proposals to announce which I think noble Lords may think are important, and which those taking part in the debate might like to hear about at this stage. First, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead for moving his Motion and for his valuable speech, which has pointed out some of the areas where progress, in spite of economic difficulty, can still be made, and asking me some questions which I shall endeavour to answer in the course of my observations.
Your Lordships may recall that in my first speech in this House in March 1974 ventured to express the view that the part of the field of provision of legal services where advance was most urgently needed was in the extension and improvement of legal services for the deprived sections of our community. Shortly afterwards we had a full and useful debate in the House on a Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Gifford. Then in July 1974 I informed the House that I was proposing to ask my office to undertake an urgent examination of the nature and extent of the need for legal services for those sections of the community who most need legal help and are not getting it.
Before I tell your Lordships of the principal findings and recommendations in the report I have now received from my officials, I should like to set the whole problem against its wider background. It is important to remember that, in spite of the deficiencies in the arrangements for the provision of legal services to which the Legal Aid Advisory Committee drew attention more than two years ago—and I am delighted to see that its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, has his name on the list of speakers—the legal aid scheme, which celebrated its first 25 years last summer has, in general,

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I believe been an outstanding success. Indeed, legal aid both in the civil and in the criminal courts is now one of our essential social services.
But we have to recognise, I fear, that expenditure on legal aid has risen steadily and substantially over the years. So far as civil cases are concerned—and these are the ones for which, as Lord Chancellor, I am responsible; criminal legal aid is the responsibility of the Home Secretary—there has been an immense increase, as my noble friend has just indicated, in the divorce rate, and accordingly in expenditure in the divorce field. The increase in the divorce rate we deplore and no doubt it is, in part, a reflection of the strains and stresses to which the institution of marriage is subjected in the far from easy times in which we are living—and we may well hear some discussion of these matters tomorrow. Matrimonial cases now represent the large majority of the civil cases in which legal aid is granted, and account for the greater part of the cost of it. Expenditure on civil legal aid has increased from £11·5 million in 1971/72 to an estimated £34·5 million in the current year 1976/77. Although the total cost of civil legal aid is relatively small by comparison with the cost of our other social services, it is unfortunately unavoidable that steps will have to be taken to endeavour to contain it in the years immediately ahead.
The White Paper on Public Expenditure published last February explained the nature of the steps which the Government are being constrained to take to hold hack public expenditure if we are to stop living on borrowed money and if we are to reduce the public sector deficit and defeat the menace of inflation, as we are determined to do. In this battle for economic survival, which is what it is, every Department will have to play its part, and mine unhappily can be no exception. I have already had to accept a radical postponement of my plans for providing the new court accommodation which is so badly needed at many places throughout the country, as two of my predecessors who are in the House will so well know. The House will remember that the Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions emphasised the need to build new courts to replace many of the existing buildings whose inadequacies
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they described so vividly—indeed, they said they were a disgrace. But I am afraid that here too we are having to cut our coat according to the amount of cloth that is available and I have had to slash my building programme.
I should now like to tell the House briefly of the nature of the advice I have received in regard to the present need for the expansion of legal services. The survey I commissioned just over 18 months ago confirms that the Legal Aid Advisory Committee was broadly correct in what it said in its Twenty-Third Report. It found that there were many people whose legal rights were, for a variety of reasons, at present going by default, that there was an overall shortage of solicitors throughout the country, and that their geographical distribution was ill-suited to serve many of the poorer sections of the community, and that there were considerable areas of the law, notably those relating to housing, landlord and tenant matters, and welfare benefits, where advice and assistance was urgently needed but often hard to come by.
The report I have received identifies the areas of greatest need. These include, in the North-East a number of places on Tyneside; in the North-West, Liverpool, Salford and several other places; in Yorkshire and Humberside, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull; in the Midlands, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leicester and Nottingham. In London the report identifies, in particular, Hammersmith and Southwark and would have listed other areas too but for the fact that their needs are now met, to a greater or lesser degree, by the law centres which have sprung up in recent years. The report confirms the Legal Aid Advisory Committee's view that the geographical distribution of solicitors is very uneven and that there are many parts of the country with virtually no solicitors available to do legal aid work. In parenthesis, I may add here that the position is made worse than it ought to be by reason of inflation to which my noble friend referred, so that the financial conditions governing entitlement to legal aid are now seriously out of date.
The advice I have received is that there is an urgent need for the setting-up of more law centres and for doing whatever is possible to put the finances of some of the existing centres on a less precarious

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footing, and this I have sought to do in the last year or two. There is no doubt that the law centres are playing a vital part in making legal advice available in the areas of greatest need and on matters on which the poorer sections of the community most strongly feel the need for legal assistance. Even in areas where there are sufficient solicitors available to undertake legal aid work, they tend to confine themselves to matrimonial and criminal matters.
There is plainly a case for one central authority being entrusted with the responsibility for co-ordinating the arrangements for the provision of legal services throughout England and Wales. The advice I have received is to the effect that the Lord Chancellor should be that authority and that he should operate through a revivified and strengthened legal aid and advice administration under the superintendence of the Law Society. I should like here to pay my tribute to the immense value of the work which the Law Society has done over the past 25 years in the organisation and administration of the legal aid scheme. I have no doubt at all that the scheme, which has been so effective, in spite of certain shortcomings, in making legal aid and advice available to the poor and to people of moderate means, owes a great deal to the Law Society and to the many members of both branches of the legal profession up and down the country who have served on, the local and area committees which have to decide on applications for legal aid. It is true, none the less, that the present legal aid administration is criticised as being too much in the hands of the lawyers and I think there is indeed room for the injection of a strong lay element into it.
I have come to the conclusion, however, that now is not the time to seek to reorganise the administrative structure of the legal aid system. This would in any event need legislation and frankly I do not know how we would find time for that; and I do not believe that it would be in any event appropriate to introduce such legislation at a time when we are setting up a Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Benson to look into the provision for legal services and indeed to review the whole basis of the legal profession. I believe that we should be far better served and perform a far better service at this juncture by using the admittedly scarce resources that are
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available, to strengthen the law centres and to extend the coverage of the statutory legal aid scheme by raising the financial limits for legal aid as soon as we can properly do so. Then, again, we need as soon as we can to consider the extension of legal aid to certain of the administrative tribunals which now play such a very important part in the administration of J justice in this country. I am aware of course that there is a powerful school of thought which believes that people appearing before these tribunals are no worse off without legal assistance and that in the absence of lawyers, it is claimed, the proceedings are dealt with more quickly, more informally and more effectively. This is something which we shall no doubt have to consider when sufficient financial resources are available, but I fear that this is not yet the case.
At the present time, as I indicated earlier, the financial stringency is such that we have no option but, I fear, to limit the rate at which expenditure on legal aid is growing. I have therefore had to consider in what ways the money can he saved and found and I have conic to the conclusion that in my sphere of responsibility this can be done only by withdrawing legal aid from undefended divorce cases. Certainly, unless this is done, there will be no money available for assistance on even the most modest scale for law centres and for the improvement of the financial limits for legal aid. The withdrawal of legal aid from undefended divorce may at first sight strike your Lordships as a somewhat draconian proposal and I hope that the House will bear with me while I explain why venture to think that this will not be so.
The state of the divorce law was transformed by the Divorce Reform Act which Parliament passed in 1969. It is now possible for an undefended divorce petition based on the respondent's adultery or desertion, or the fact that the parties have been separated for five years, or for no more than two years if the respondent consents to a decree, to be disposed of without the need for the petitioner to appear in court at all, provided always that there are no children of the family under the age of 16. All that the petitioner needs to do is to file affidavit evidence in support of the petition and if the registrar is satisfied, on the papers that he sees and studies that the case is made out, he will

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refer it to a judge who will pronounce a decree nisi in open court as a matter of course.
This is the effect of the so-called " special procedure " which was first introduced by the Matrimonial Causes Rule Committee at the instance of my predecessor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone. It is only when there are children under 16 or where the petition is based on the respondent's unreasonable behaviour that the petitioner has to appear and prove his or her case in court. There is no doubt that this simplified procedure has been of considerable benefit. It has saved many thousands of people from what they regard as the useless and sometimes humiliating experience of having to appear in court to obtain the decree to which the law entitles them once the marriage can be shown irretrievably to have broken down. It has helped to reduce the costs falling on the legal aid fund because, even where the petitioner is legally aided, the procedure is much simpler than it otherwise would have been and the costs are proportionately less. The fact is, however, that the procedure is so straightforward that, provided a petitioner can obtain the necessary preliminary help and legal advice which is available from a solicitor under the so-called £25 scheme, and will continue to be available if what I have in mind takes effect, there is really no reason why, nor is there any necessity that, in the normal case the petitioner should receive legal aid in the presentation of the petition.
My Lords, I think the time has come to take the further steps which, I fear, are required. First of all, I should like to see the special procedure extended to all cases, including those based on unreasonable behaviour and including also those where there are children under 16, although I would leave to the judge the consideration of the arrangements for the children.
Your Lordships may well think that it is the latter class of case which provides the greatest cause for concern and the real difficulty and if I thought that there would be anything in my proposal which detracted from such protection as the law already gives to children in this unhappy situation I should not be putting it forward today.
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Under the law as it stands at present, it is the duty of the court—which in this context means the Judge—to satisfy itself before a decree is made absolute that the arrangements for the welfare of the children are satisfactory or the best that can be devised in the circumstances. Inevitably, it is very difficult for the Judge to do more than approve whatever arrangements the petitioner proposes, but I attach considerable importance to the duty of the Judges in this respect and to their ability to discuss, as they will of course do, the proposed arrangements with petitioners. They do this at present at the hearing of the petition. Under the new procedure which I envisage, it will be done by the Judge in his private room on a subsequent occasion and not in open court, and it may well be that most petitioners will welcome this change, but in the normal case I see no reason why it should call for representation by counsel or a solicitor, although, clearly, the responsibility placed upon the Judges and the task which they will have to carry out may become the heavier.
What I propose therefore, my Lords, is to invite the Rule Committee to approve the extension of the special procedure I have described to all undefended cases. The Registrar would continue to have the right, as he does at present, to require the case to be dealt with in open court by the Judge in the ordinary way if he is not satisfied on the papers that the petitioner has sufficiently proved the contents of the petition.
My Lords, I do not believe that in present conditions we can justify the continued expenditure of the very large sum of money I have mentioned on legal aid in undefended cases to which the special procedure applies. I have it in mind, therefore, once the procedure has been extended to all classes of undefended cases in the way I have described, to ask Parliament to approve orders withdrawing legal aid from these cases. I would propose, however, that it should continue to be possible to grant legal aid in exceptional cases if the certifying committee were satisfied that the petitioner would suffer hardship if this were not done, though I should expect the number of cases to which this dispensation applied to be comparatively small. I should also emphasise that the withdrawal of legal aid would apply only to the proceedings

1219
for the granting of a decree: it would continue to be available—and I emphasise this—when necessary in the so-called ancillary proceedings in chambers, where questions relating to the custody of children and the financial provision to be made for the petitioner are decided. These are the areas of real contest between the parties to divorce proceedings today, not the question whether the petitioner should get a decree.
The withdrawal of legal aid from undefended divorce cases in this way would enable a substantial saving to be made. Not all of this saving will be realised immediately, for inevitably there will continue for some time to be a large number of bills coming forward for payment. Nevertheless, I hope that within two years or so after the withdrawal of legal aid the money so saved will enable me to make a significant contribution towards the cost of new law centres and also to raise the financial limits for eligibility for legal aid in the cases in which it will still be available.
I must also make it clear to your Lordships that the withdrawal of legal aid from undefended divorce cases will not mean any reduction in the overall expenditure on civil and criminal legal aid, which will in fact, on present expectations, continue to increase because of the rising volume of business, and the inevitable increase in costs which are a feature of our times. I recognise however that what I am proposing will be unwelcome to, and may create serious problems for, many of those in both branches of the legal profession who have become accustomed to relying on legal aid work in matrimonial cases as an important part of their practices. Nevertheless, I believe the legal profession will accept these changes as necessary, and indeed reasonable, if the procedure is made sufficiently simple, with the safeguards I have mentioned, for the ordinary individual to conduct his or her case without the intervention of a lawyer.
My Lords, I recognise that the progress report which I have given the House will be thought by many people to be disappointing and possibly even be regarded as something of a backward step. I cannot pretend that I myself view with pleasure the withdrawal of any existing facilities for legal aid, but we have got
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to face for at any rate some years ahead the painful realities of the present economic situation. However, if the withdrawal of legal aid from undefended divorce proceedings means, as I hope it will, that money w ill be released to raise the financial limits for civil legal aid and to extend legal services in those areas in which an extension is most urgently required, then I believe that we shall be seen to be making real progress in this field and building on the foundations which were laid by the Labour Government when they passed the first Legal Aid and Advice Act in 1949.
8.38 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords: the very late hour compels me to cut short a great number of the agreeable things which f should have liked to say about the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, and about my successor, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. I shall therefore be acquitted of discourtesy either to the House or to them if I go to what I think to be the heart of this difficult matter. What the noble and learned Lord is proposing to do is to take away legal aid in the field in which it is most commonly used—that is, in matrimonial troubles where the case is undefended. I gather, although the speech of the noble and learned Lord seemed to me to include two ambiguous passages which were slightly contradictory of one another, that this will be done even where the financial provision particularly for the the wife may be in question and even where arrangements may have to be made for the custody, care and education of children.
The noble and learned Lord wishes in addition to remove legal aid from the granting of the decree in cases where the allegation is that the respondent spouse has been guilty of unreasonable behaviour. The noble and learned Lord proposes to transfer the money which he saves by these proposals to the creation, inter alia, of a number of law centres in various parts of the country and, in addition, to enlarge the financial limitations on the grant of civil legal aid generally. I must tell the noble and learned Lord that, unless he reassures me, I regard this central decision with something like dismay and that I do so not in the least in the interest of the legal profession.

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I have some familiarity with the family courts. It was my ill fortune earlier in life to have to go through them myself and so I. know what a traumatic experience this is to the parties. Of course, I recognise that since that unhappy day both the law and the practice relating to divorce are vastly different, as a result partly of changes in procedure (to one of which the noble and learned Lord referred) and partly to the substantive change in the law created by the Act of 1969. None the less, if there is an occasion in one's life when one wants the helping hand of an experienced profession it is when one's whole future prospect as regards matrimonial status and the status of one's children—particularly if one is a wife, concerned with financial arrangements—are at stake. That is what, as I understand it, the noble and learned Lord has decided to put into jeopardy—and to do so for the sake of priorities which I do not believe to be as great as others.
I shall not say very much on the question of decrees based on unreasonable behaviour, except to say that they are the equivalent (although by no means an exact equivalent) of the old cruelty petitions. The task of identifying and specifying the unreasonable behaviour, and of establishing the relevant facts, is not easy, and I do not myself believe that it can be done by making use of the £25 scheme in advance and leaving the unfortunate petitioner to struggle, as best he or she may, in front of the registrar or the judge, as the case may be. I simply do not believe that it can be done without an inordinate waste of time and a considerable measure of injustice.
The noble and learned Lord, in the first of the two ambiguous passages to which I have referred, seems to think that the judge by himself, unaided by counsel or solicitors, will be able to spot the correct financial provision to be made, usually for the wife, as well as the correct arrangement with regard to the children. I believe that this is a perfectly appalling suggestion. I believe that expert professional aid is required in order to go into the financial relations between the parties in great depth and with great care, particularly when the parties belong to the working class and are somewhat inarticulate in
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their approach to difficult and complicated facts.
I consider that it is quite incorrect for the noble and learned Lord to say—as I thought I heard him do—that it was very difficult for the judge to do more than approve whatever arrangements the petitioner proposes. I must tell the noble and learned Lord that when one considers the arrangements which the petitioner proposes are to be proposed under the £25 scheme or put forward by some other means by the petitioner himself or herself, and without being presented in chambers either by a solicitor or a barrister, I simply shudder to think of the mess which will be made of it. I find this a wholly unacceptable suggestion, no matter how good and experienced our county court or High Court judges may he. I recognise that the noble and learned Lord says that in exceptional cases legal aid may still be available. But that does not comfort me, because the purpose of professional help in these cases is precisely to identify what are the real problems and which are the difficult cases and to exclude the irrelevant, and sometimes the mere matrimonial polemics with which they are confused.
The purpose is precisely to guarantee the honesty of the proposals as they are presented: it is precisely to propose responsible, not irresponsible, solutions. Any one of us with experience of matrimonial differences unhappily knows that sometimes even the most otherwise responsible and respectable citizens put forward irresponsible solutions when it comes to the management of their children or their financial affairs after a marriage has broken down. I regard this proposal of the noble and learned Lord with the utmost disquiet, and I hope that instead of simply appealing to the profession to regard it as necessary he will take careful consultation with the registrars and with judges of the circuit courts, the county courts and the High Court and with both the Bar Council and the Law Society as to the wisdom of the very radical step he is now proposing. If the noble and learned Lord finds that the weight of professional opinion is against him, I beg him—from me he will get no reproaches—to think again before he imposes this proposal upon society, because he is taking away a substantial part of legal aid in the very field where it is most commonly used and

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where it is most sincerely and deeply required by the litigant, and giving it to something else.
What he is giving it to has to be spread not merely between the proposed law centres but also in extending the financial limits. I should like to say a word about both these matters. As regards the financial limits, the noble and learned Lord cannot he thinking of any more than a purely trivial increase—I wish he were thinking of more than that. I say this because it seems to me, and it has always seemed to me—I said this to the noble and learned Lord once before and although he differed from me he saw the force of what I was saying—that the main thing which is wrong with our legal aid scheme at bottom, apart from a structural point to which I shall advert in a moment, is precisely that it has bumped along with the financial regulations tied inextricably to the level of supplementary benefit. Therefore practically nobody can get free legal aid apart from those who are entitled to supplementary benefit, and only those who are somewhat within range of supplementary benefit will even get assistance. So this can be only a very small matter which the noble and learned Lord is thinking of.
With regard to law centres, the noble and learned Lord and" I have discussed this matter before in your Lordships' House and therefore I shall not take up a great deal of time in dealing with it. I certainly do not want to appear to be hostile to the idea of law centres: nor would I wish to say a word in depreciation of those who have given a considerable number of ideas and much effort to their promotion. But 1 should like to say two or three things about law centres to the noble Lord. In the first place I have always thought that the priority for them stood a good deal lower than the improvement of the citizens' advice bureaux which are a kind of first aid service and which are, I think, inadequate at present. Secondly, as the noble and learned Lord rightly said, the fundamental problem in this context is the inadequate numbers in this case, particularly of the solicitors' profession, but also to a lesser extent of the barristers' profession. One does not of course add a single solicitor to the profession by introducing a law centre. One may produce some legal services in a place where no, or inadequate, legal services were available
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previously. This is possible. But in doing so one then ensures that there are two types of legal services available to the members of the public: those which one pays for, which are provided by solicitors and counsel in normal practice, and those which one does not pay for, or which one pays less for, which are given at a law centre.
Hitherto, the whole philosophy of our legal aid system has been that the client who is entitled gets the same service as if he was a paying client. In this proposal one goes back on that fundamental principle, and apparently, if all the names mentioned in the speech of the noble and learned Lord are to be the pattern for the future, one will do so right across the country and precisely in those areas where further manning of the legal profession is most required.
It would not he appropriate at this late hour for me to talk about the under-manning of the legal profession or to suggest concrete remedies. Partly, of course, it is due to circumstances which would take us widely outside the ambit of this debate altogether: namely, the difficulty of causing people, in the present social climate, to undergo the long training and the preliminary hardship necessary to enter a learned profession at all. But whatever else may he true, you are not going to cure that by introducing a number of salaried lawyers into the places which are most at risk. On the contrary, you are going to have a two-tier system with discrimination against the poor, and this, I am sure, is not what the noble and learned Lord is really trying to achieve.
My Lords, I am sorry to have been so harsh, and it may be that I shall not be on reconsideration. As the noble Lord knows, I have had only about 24 hours to consider what he said, and I promise him that I will consider it again, and will consider it again most carefully, as I hope he will consider also the first reaction which I have been compelled to give to this proposal. But at the moment I tell the noble and learned Lord frankly that it fills me with dismay.
There is only one thing I want to add, and that has nothing whatever to do with the proposals which the noble Lord has made. I must add, of course, in parenthesis, that I absolutely agree with both

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speakers that the present financial climate constricts the noble Lord almost intolerably. I myself, in a far less severe situation, was grotesquely restricted, and he has my entire sympathy, and no reproach, for being conscious of those restrictions at present. But there is one reform which can be carried out without the cost of any money at all and which might even save a lot of money, and that concerns the, to my mind, grotesque situation by which legal aid is divided into two halves, criminal and civil, one being presided over genially by the Lord Chancellor and the other being sponsored, less genially, by the Home Office. The determination of the Home Office to cling, irrespective of reason, to anything connected remotely with criminal law is one of the great obstacles to law reform at the present time.
I had hoped that in this financial stringency the noble and learned Lord would have taken his courage in both hands and bashed the Home Office on the head, and persuaded them that the legal aid system in criminal affairs is a rich field for reform in one way or another. In saying that, of course, I am perfectly well aware that we had the Widgery Committee some years ago, and I do not want to say a word of disrespect to the Lord Chief Justice, as he now is, whose service to the profession and to the country is beyond praise; but I believe that the findings of that Committee are now obsolescent, and I believe that a visitor from Mars, if he saw our legal aid system, the smallest of all our social services, presided over by two separate senior Ministers, so that the Jews of the Home Office never spoke to the Samaritans of the Lord Chancellor's Department, would be astonished at the irrationality of the human race.
8.54 p.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, I must declare an interest as a practising member of the Bar, although I am happy to say that it is some years since I was instructed in an undefended divorce case. The statement made by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will he received with gloom at the Bar as being yet another of the many blows which the profession has sustained in recent years. Indeed, my Lords, the legal profession is, of
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course, an easy target for cheap sneers and for gross misrepresentation, and I am only sorry that this Government should have decided to bow before a wholly artificially contrived storm and appoint a totally unnecessary and extremely expensive Royal Commission.
My Lords, may I, just for one moment, set this matter against the wider background of which the noble and learned Lord spoke? It is beyond argument, is it not, that since the last war the power of the Executive in this country has increased vastly? It is beyond argument, is it not, that nowadays the real protection for the liberty of the individual lies in a free, fearless, independent Judiciary? And it is beyond argument, is it not, that one will get a Judiciary of that nature only if there is a free, fearless and independent legal profession? That means that there must be a profession where the rewards are sufficient—not excessive, but sufficient —to attract and to retain people of real ability; and f am led to the conclusion that, as a result of the developments in recent years, that situation may not survive indefinitely into the future. I know that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, after his, if I may say so, long and distinguished career at the Bar, would not want to be the occupant of his distinguished position who found himself presiding over the disintegration of the profession.
My Lords, I hope that I am not exaggerating. I believe that the figures will indicate quite clearly that what I have just said is a possibility. I can take in one sentence both criminal and civil legal aid together. The fact is that the current scales, the scales now in operation, with one small exception, for both criminal and civil legal aid, were fixed in January 1972. Since that date, the average earnings of the rest of the community have risen by 104 per cent. Since that date, the retail price index has gone up by 85 per cent. Since that date, the expenses of the profession have soared immeasurably; and yet the income of the profession has gone up by precisely nought per cent. When the noble and learned Lord comes to reply to this debate, perhaps he could indicate whether he knows of any other section of the community whose incomes have remained fixed for the last four years. I said, to be precise, " with one small exception ". The small exception is that

1227
in 1975 the Price Commission permitted a negligible increase in the fees paid for interlocutory work, so that a statement of claim in what might be an important case can now be paid at the rate of £10 instead of £7.
My Lords, that is the position so far as civil and criminal legal aid is concerned. Those of my friends who have had the misfortune to practise in matrimonial work in the county courts, and who are the ones who o will suffer if the proposals put forward today are carried into effect, have received perhaps even more of a raw deal. Their fees, the fees that they at present receive, were fixed in 1967—nine years ago. There has not been one single increase at any time in that period of nine years. There has been proposal after proposal made to the Lord Chancellor's Department. There has been one pathetic and dreary excuse after another over that period denying any sort of compensation for the rapid increases in the cost of living.
My Lords, now this proposal is being put forward today. It will come, I may say, as no surprise to my friends who carry out that sort of work that, once again, they should be made the targets for the cuts that are proposed. May I say only this as to those cuts and to the series of excuses that has been tolerated by the Bar for ten years. I wonder, again, whether the noble and learned Lord could suggest the name of any other professional organisation, or any trade union, which would have endured a situation like that for ten months, let alone a longer period.
One can appreciate in some ways the logic of what is put forward by the noble and learned Lord this evening. At the same time one is bound to say there is force in what is said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and perhaps particular force in the determination to ensure that where children are concerned it should be made abundantly clear that legal aid will be available in order to ensure that their interests are not adversely affected.
Perhaps I could add this. Let us put this into perspective. The sum of money that we are talking about is, frankly, peanuts. If my information is correct, of the total legal aid bill of something over
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£40 million, the total saving that is now envisaged is about £13 million. As against the national expenditure, it is a sum of no consequence. One cannot seriously suppose that foreign speculators are going to rush to buy and hold sterling on hearing the good news that undefended divorces are now to be taken out of the legal aid scheme.
Having indicated, I hope accurately statistically, the position so far as fees are concerned at the Bar over the last four years, may I add one further matter which concerns us? That is the fact that not only have the fees fallen far behind fees in the rest of the community, but we suffer from one complaint which is almost unique; that is, grotesque delays in payment. It is not unusual in criminal legal aid cases for fees to he paid one, two or three years after a case is completed —although I accept that the situation has recently improved as a result of the provisions made for interim payments.
As far as civil cases are concerned, the situation is far worse because in civil cases, where the case, by its nature, might take several years from the time of its inception to the time of disposal, the fees cannot be paid (and are not paid, in the ordinary way) for another nine months to fifteen months after the termination of the case. That means that counsel may not be paid for four, five, six or seven years after they have done the necessary work. Again, might I ask the noble and learned Lord —and I say this in no sense in a personal way—what would be the reaction of Ministers of the Crown, for example, if they were to find their salaries being paid four or five years in arrears and that during that period they were obliged, for financial reasons, to borrow money from the banks at penal interest rates: and that when they were, in due course, paid, the money with which they were paid was worth perhaps half of what it was worth at the time they did the work?
My Lords, I raise this matter on this Motion; and it is clearly relevant, I think, for this reason. As the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is aware, the Law Society, with the agreement of the Bar Council, have put forward proposals recently for interim payments on account of civil legal aid work. That would relieve considerably the burden on the Bar. Obviously, it would not increase the

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total amount that was to he paid, but I accept, of course, that in the present period of financial stringency it might lead, M the short run, to a comparatively small amount having to be paid out which might otherwise not be paid out for several years. I hope that when the noble and learned Lord comes to reply he might be able to indicate that he sympathises with the position. I do not expect him to say that he would adopt the proposals of the Law Society at this stage in the state of the country's economy, but I hope that he might indicate whether he would be prepared to look sympathetically at those proposals at the earliest practicable moment in the future.
My Lords, because I have spoken in a sense in a trade union capacity in this debate, I am bound to add that not only have members of the Bar had to suffer in this way over the last few years but we have seen all around us a totally different picture. We have seen those of our colleagues in other professions, those of our colleagues in Government, those of our colleagues in the Civil Service, receive increase after increase in their salaries, year after year. I have the figures; I do not propose to go into them. Those who have a legal function to perform in the Civil Service have received increases in the last three years of 50 per cent. in almost every single case; circuit judges and magistrates have received increases of nearly 100 per cent; those in the medical profession under the Health Service have received increases, again of over 50 per cent. And, not only have those increases been achieved by those people, but they have achieved this situation and managed to obtain for themselves built-in, handsome pensions at a level that no member of the Bar could ever hope to achieve for himself.
My Lords, I would not want to be regarded as being purely destructive on this occasion. Let me say at once—the noble and learned Lord asked what the reaction of the Bar will be to the proposals—that I have no doubt that most members of the Bar will accept, as most noble Lords accepted last week in the debate on the economic situation, that urgent and stringent financial cuts are drastically necessary in the interests of the community as a whole. I have no doubt that the Bar would be prepared to
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accept those in relation to themselves. I would only add this: they would accept them, first, provided that it was made clear that the cuts were not being imposed simply because it was thought perchance that here was a section of the community not organised for industrial action. I hope that the Government would not want to acquire the reputation of always retreating before the strong and always being prepared to strike against the weak. Secondly, the Bar would, of course, be prepared to accept the sort of reduction in its standards which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has indicated today, if it were made clear that this was part of a general scheme of equality of sacrifice by the community as a whole.
My Lords, I hope that the noble and learned Lord will indicate when he conies to reply that there are imminent proposals emanating from the Government for reductions in salary for Ministers of the Crown, for senior civil servants and for many other people who hold positions comparable to those of the Bar. Finally, may I say that I am sure that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will accept that it is desperately necessary in the interests of our society that we should maintain our standards of the administration of justice. For the reasons I have indicated, I venture to think that if there are further cuts of this nature the very independence and existence of the legal profession will be in danger. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to indicate that for some considerable time to come this is going to be the last of such statements that we shall hear from him.
9.8 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, may I first of all thank my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead for having enabled us to discuss tonight a subject which has always been very dear to my heart. I do not disagree with anything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, said about the Home Office; but, on the whole, I had better confine myself to civil legal aid, for it is that alone for which, at the moment at any rate, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is responsible. All my life I have thought and said, particularly to

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the Labour Party, that it is absolutely useless going on and on passing Acts of Parliament giving rights to poor people if, because of their poverty, they are not able to enforce or defend their rights. If that is the position, they may just as well throw their rights into the wastepaper basket for all the good they are to them.
If I may remind the House, when I was called to the Bar the only form of legal aid was the poor person's action. If you had an income of no more than £2 a week or, in exceptional cases, £4 a week, and if your capital, which included your furniture, was not worth more than £50 or, in exceptional circumstances, £100, then the action would be undertaken for nothing, otherwise there was no help at all. I well remember these poor person's actions. For a young barrister who was finding it difficult to live on the fees he was getting, as a point of honour these actions were always undertaken by young barristers and solicitors. It was not just a matter that you did not get any fee; if you had a two-day poor person case at Derby Assizes, you had to pay your own train fare and your own hotel bill. We all did it because it was the thing to do. This went on until the middle of the war, when the whole thing broke down because young barristers and solicitors were away and there were not the lawyers to go round.
I remember that before I left practice myself during the war the last thing I did when I got to the door of my chambers was to remember something. I went back, sat down and wrote a long letter to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Simon, explaining to him how legal aid had broken down. I called a conference. I do not know why I called it because I was only a junior barrister. However, I called a conference of all the poor person's lawyers' societies in London to try and cope with this problem. We all had different views as to what the perfect legal aid system should be. I begged the Lord Chancellor to do something about this. While I was away, he appointed the Rushcliffe Committee, whose report in 1949 the then Government accepted and enacted in the Bill of that year.
This without doubt was the best legal aid system in the world. It swept away the poor person's action; it provided no help to those who could afford to conduct
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litigation themselves; but everybody had to pay what he could afford, and the State was to make up the difference. This was to apply in the High Court, the county court, domestic- proceedings before magistrates and in every tribunal before which there was a right to representation. In all the local legal aid centres there were to be salaried solicitors giving advice, however difficult the question, for what the people could afford—half a crown, I remember, for old-age pensioners.
The Act received the Royal Assent in July 1949. Being not impartial in these matters, I thought what a splendid Government this was; they had the wisdom and courage to give independence to India, Burma and Ceylon; gone was the great fear of most of our people: what was to happen about paying fees if they were ill? Gone, for that matter, was the worry of the doctors in dunning their patients to try to squeeze out the money which the patients could not really afford. There was the National Health Service. There was this legal aid scheme.
Then came September, devaluation, crisis, cuts all round. The Lord Chancellor was told, " You cannot do any of this now ". It was a year before he was able to bring this scheme into force in the High Court. Then there was a General Election and a change of Government. We then had to battle against Conservative Governments for seven years before it was introduced in the county court; and another three years before it was introduced in domestic proceedings before the magistrates. When 1970 came it had never been applied to any tribunal and none of the salaried solicitors in the local legal aid centres had ever appeared. The real strength of those of us who have been battling for years for legal aid is that we are only trying to get what Parliament agreed to and passed in an Act of Parliament a quarter of a century ago.
After considerable opposition, I managed to get legal aid applied to one tribunal. The opposition was largely because the powers-that-be realised that if it was once applied to one tribunal it was only a question of time before it would be applied to others. It has managed to keep up with the increases necessary in the scale. The fact is that civil legal aid has always been the Cinderella of the social services. I entirely agree with what my

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noble and learned friend on the Woolsack said as to the admirable way in which the Law Society have administered the legal aid service such as it is. I am sure he would agree that all Lord Chancellors also owe a great debt of gratitude to the Legal Aid Advisory Committee for their excellent reports.
Nobody appreciates better than I do the difficulties of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack in the present economic climate. It is the fact, I think, that without his doing anything a good deal will he saved, as compared with what would have been considered necessary, by the changes in our divorce law. It must have been saved already in fact, because so long as you had to prove a matrimonial offence it was very difficult for anyone to argue that this could be done without legal assistance. But now that has gone, and the question is not whether or not a matrimonial offence has been committed, but whether or not a marriage has irretrievably broken down, and where there is no dispute between the parties there is in substance already no hearing, so I should have thought that must already have saved a good deal of money.
How far this should be extended, I am not sure. I should respectfully desire to read and consider what my noble and learned friend has said about those cases where there are still serious disputes at the hearing of the petition about custody of the children or financial provision. I thought it rather sounded —though I may have got it wrong—as though you would still be entitled to legal aid when these matters are considered and a determination made by the registrar, but if one of the parties is not satisfied with that and wants to bring it up at the hearing of the petition, then you would not be. I am not sure that that would be right, but I agree that if there are serious disputes about the custody of the children or financial provision it may not raise any legal point at all, but some people are very bad at putting their case and the mere fact that they are appearing before a judge in his private room does not necessarily enable them to do so. But, as my noble and learned friend has said, to remove legal aid which exists at the moment would require legislation, and therefore we shall all
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have a great deal of time to consider the matter before he is able to bring this into effect. So I apprehend that there will be some saving, though we do not know quite how much. If there is, and if this means that further funds are available, the question arises—and it is a difficult one—with so many unmet needs in this field, which should have priority?
I should have thought that priority should be given to the scales first and I have in my head—though I am not sure where I got it from but my noble and learned friend may be able to tell me in reply—the fact that not long ago 50 per cent. of the families in this country were entitled to legal aid. Of course, that does not mean that if you get legal aid you get the thing done for nothing. That is a silly system: they have to pay what they can afford. To the extent that people could not afford to pay the whole amount themselves, they were entitled to legal aid. Owing to inflation, the people who are now entitled to legal aid at ail represent about 20 per cent. If that is so, there seems to have been a serious reduction in the proportion of our people entitled to legal aid, and I should have thought that the scales ought to come first.
Secondly, there is the question of law centres, of which I gather the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, did not think very much—
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONE: My Lords, I did not say that. I said that I was particularly anxious not to depreciate them, but that there were certain disadvantages inherent in the scheme, especially when the difficulty arises from the shortage of solicitors overall.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, I appreciate that, but I think there can be no doubt that the law centres have made a great contribution at a difficult time—
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: Yes, I said that.
Lord GARDINER: —and while I would uphold as strongly as anyone an independent legal profession—" free, fearless and independent " as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wigoder, has said—I am afraid it is the fact that they very much neglected a field of law which is of

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enormous importance to a large number of people who do not have any money. The lawyers, I am afraid, did not interest themselves because there was not any money to be made out of it. When I was at the Bar, there was not even a single textbook on the Whole field of what pensions people were entitled to or what supplementary benefits were available, and so on. There were insurance appeal tribunals. I had myself to work entirely on an admirable publication called Cans, published by the National Council for Social Service. There was a loose-leaf book which I made up. A very distinguished Lord Justice told me that his cook once asked him at what age she would be entitled to a pension. He did not like to tell her that he did not know, but lie told me that it took him three days and nights, doing nothing else at all, to find Out, because social security law is a little complicated and for the ordinary lawyer it formed no part of the Bar examinations.
I must not start talking about Bar examinations now, but they have never contained any paper on penology or even elementary psychology, and there was also no paper on pensions, supplementary benefits and so on, which mattered to so many people. It is into this gap that the law centres have come and they have been an immense boon to poor people who, otherwise, would have received no legal advice at all. The £25 scheme, so far as it has gone, has also been helpful. But when I heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wigoder, say that £13 million was chicken feed, and thought of the numbers of new law centres which could he started for about one-tenth of that amount, I applauded the intention of my noble and learned friend, among the beneficiaries of such savings as can be made, to increase the number of law centres.
Thirdly, there is the question of tribunals. It may be right to say, and probably is, that if there is money to spare scales may come first and law centres may come second, but I hope that the claims of tribunals will not be forgotten. Here, again, one is asking only for what Parliament agreed to and enacted in 1949. It allowed representation for tribunals to be brought in by order. The only reason it was not in the Act itself, as one can see from reading the reports of the debates, and put on a
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footing with legal aid in the High Court, the county court and before magistrates, was because it was said, " All these will require additional work for lawyers, and until we see how far they have been taxed by legal aid in the High Court, in the county court and in domestic proceedings before magistrates, we had better not apply it to tribunals to start with." But power was given to make an order applying to all tribunals before which there was a right to representation.
My noble and learned friend has mentioned the view that people are no worse off before tribunals if they are not represented. I respectfully suggest that all research work which has been done in this field shows that that is not so. I take as an example what I am afraid I have referred to earlier as the dregs of the tribunals, and which I ventured to criticise in a discussion in your Lordships' House a little time ago on the working of the cohabitation rule: namely, the supplementary benefits appeal tribunal. Since then—in fact, since September last year—Professor Bell's report has been available, upon which she spent some years at the request of the Department of Health and Social Security. I think all the criticisms which many of us then made of the supplementary benefits appeal tribunal have been fully borne out by her report.
One of the things she says is that the overall success rate before that tribunal was 20.6 per cent., but where the appellant attended with a representative it was 42.4 per cent. This is not the only piece of research work which tends to show that where there is representation the success rate is likely to be higher. That does not necessarily mean representation by lawyers; again, research shows that that is not so. In many cases before tribunals there is perfectly successful representation by trade union representatives, by social workers or even by relatives and friends. But there is a great difference according to whether or not there is some representation, and she says in her report that resources should be made available to develop facilities for advice, assistance and representation—and particularly as to representation—so that it would be in only a few cases where there were real legal questions to be decided that the representation of a lawyer would be necessary. As a whole, therefore, I

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welcome what my noble and learned friend has said.
I admired very much the " plug " which the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, got in for the remuneration of the Bar—whether or not directly relevant. sympathise with him because when I was chairman of the Bar Council I spent nearly all my time raising fees for the Bar. It was a time—1950—when the Bar had fallen far behindhand as against the inflation which had taken place during the war. To take divorce as an example, I remember well that the fee for settling a divorce petition was then £2 4s. 6d., because it had been £2 4s. 6d. since 1939, and that the fee for settling an indictment was £1 3s. 6d. because it had been £1 3s. 6d. in 1939. Undoubtedly there are times when the Bar suffers from the fact that it is not a very militant trade union, that unless anybody does anything fees remain the same and that in a time of inflation the Bar may well suffer worse than most people—but not from anything which my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack has proposed.
Therefore I welcome this debate. Legal aid is the Cinderella of the social services and we must appreciate my noble and learned friend's difficulties in not being able to obtain more money from his colleagues. Subject to consideration of what he has said about disputes between children or as to financial provisions, I very much welcome what my noble and learned friend has said about the economies which can properly and inevitably, I think, be made in relation to divorce and the uses to which he would propose to apply such savings as can be made.
9.27 p.m.
Lord HAMILTON of DALZELL: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for the statement he has made and for the outline he has given us of the report which he has received. As chairman of his Advisory Committee on Legal Aid I was pleased to note that the report confirms what we said in our Twenty-Third Report about the present inadequacy of the legal services available to those in need. What we then said was based on the best information which we could obtain. While the state of affairs
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which we described is, of course, deplorable, it is gratifying to be proved right by what I understand to have been an extremely thorough survey that was carried out by officials of the Lord Chancellor's Office, who were detailed especially for that purpose.
My Committee will, of course, want to consider in detail the noble and learned Lord's statement, but I have little doubt that we shall find ourselves in broad agreement with the proposals in that report and with the priorities that the noble and learned Lord has allotted to carrying them out. The implementation of any of these proposals will inevitably cost money, and this is always a powerful argument against doing anything. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, indicated, a perusal of the reports of my Committee over the past 25 years would reveal a continuing story of the failure of the scheme to keep up with rising costs and of missed opportunities for improvements. But no-one can deny that as economic crises go, this one is a special case. As the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, said, we are all well aware of the particular interest taken by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in this field and his urgent desire to make progress, so it is very sad that he should be constrained by the total denial, which is now in force, of new funds.
The difficulty of controlling the cost of legal aid lies in the fact that it is open ended, in the sense that what it costs depends on the number of people who use it. That number increases year by year, even though, as we have pointed out, not so many people are taking advantage of it as properly should. So the only ways in which the cost of the scheme can be curbed are either to make the financial conditions even more stringent than they are already, or to find an area where legal aid can be withdrawn altogether.
The former alternative is clearly out of the question, so the noble and learned Lord has turned to the latter and proposes to withdraw legal aid from undefended divorce cases. This is something which at first sight must cause concern, and indeed we have already seen this evening that it has done so. It is in fact the first time in the 25-year history of the scheme that its scope has been reduced, and it marks a retreat

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from the aspirations for universal coverage which were implicit in the 1949 Act. But one must face facts and I am willing to agree that money saved here could be more usefully spent in other ways. As a layman I hesitate to express views on the intricacies of divorce law, but there are two points about the proposal which I should like to make.
First, I was pleased to hear the noble and learned Lord lay stress on the fact, as I understood it, that legal aid would be withdrawn only for the more or less mechanical proceedings for the granting of a divorce in undefended cases. I did not understand, and it would be most unfortunate if people got the impression, that legal aid was to be withdrawn from the area which continues to be of the greatest importance to the parties and their children—the ancillary proceedings which determine the arrangements for their future. I hope that emphasis will be laid on this when the time comes to give publicity to the new rules, so that no one will be deterred from seeking legal advice on those important aspects of a divorce.
My other point is that it will also be important to ensure that procedure is simplified and court facilities are improved, so as to make matters easy and un-forbidding even for those for whom any contact with the courts is likely to be rather alarming. There will be minor anomalies to take care of, too; for example, under the existing Rules court fees are waived for an assisted person, but anyone not on legal aid has to pay them. This would be a poor reward for someone saving the country money by doing the job himself.
Subject to those points, I believe that this is the best way to achieve economies and to make possible some advance in other directions. I noted the priorities which the noble and learned Lord gave to this: in the first rank, strengthening the law centres, which I hope means encouraging and facilitating the setting tip of some in those areas of greatest need which have been identified in the Report, and also by raising the financial limits. I entirely agree that these are the two areas in which any money available will be best spent, and 1 hope that my committee may be called on to give advice about the most effective way to do it.
Next comes the extension of legal aid to tribunals—something which we recom-
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mended in our 24th Report. Here again I hope that we may be able to make some useful suggestions about the best way to start when the time comes.
I welcome the proposal in the Report that a new form of authority should be set up under the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for the coordination of the provision of legal services under the superintendence of the Law Society, and that this new body should include a substantial lay element. I believe that this would be a sensible and valuable improvement and I was glad to hear the noble and learned Lord accept the idea in principle. I realise that this will probably cost money which in the immediate future could be better used elsewhere and that it should therefore not have a high priority; also that it would involve legislation.
However, my Lords, I was a little disappointed to hear him say that one reason for not proceeding with it was the fact that the Royal Commission had been set up. I do not know how long it will be before the Royal Commission reports, or how long it will be after that before any conclusions are drawn from it, but I hope this will not mean that all progress of this sort will have to be deferred, even if an improvement in the economic situation makes it possible. My Lords, we, the Advisory Committee, have been encouraged by the great interest which the noble and learned Lord takes in our subject and by his keen desire to promote improvements in the legal aid system. I look forward to the opportunities which this statement seems to foreshadow for us to be, I hope, of some service to him.
9.35 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, a number of questions have been addressed to me in this debate, and I ask the leave of the House to speak again. I fully understand the concern expressed in different parts of the House about the proposals that I have made, and I at once give an assurance to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, that of course I will engage in further consultations over the range of people he has mentioned before final action is taken. But there is one thing I want to make clear, which obviously I did not in my speech.

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Frankly, the main purpose of what I propose is to save public money, to save public expenditure. The bulk of the savings that will derive from what is proposed will go towards the reduction of the adverse balance of public expenditure. I have little doubt that this will be the first of a series of debates we shall have in relation to the efforts the Government will make to reduce public expenditure.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, may I make this point to the noble and learned Lord. I understood him to say—and perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong—that so far from saving public expenditure, what he is doing is to transfer the savings to some other form of expenditure, so that the net expenditure will not he less; it is going to be more.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, what I have sought to say is that unless the continuing increase in legal aid expenditure is checked—and it is proposed to check it in this way—then the burden upon the Exchequer will continue to grow in a way which will be unacceptable. By preventing that growth—and it will not take effect for two or three years—we shall make our contribution in my Department to the avoidance of building up mounting public expenditure at a level that we cannot pay for without borrowing more money.
My Lords, when it comes to giving effect to the demands for immediate cuts in public expenditure, which the Opposition make so stridently; when one conies down to measuring where the cuts are felt, if I may say so—and I do not want to be Party political on this—one gets very little support. Some poet has said:
"Though I think all men are brothers
Let the fall out fall on others
That is the tendency, both Departmentally and politically, in considering where this painful medicine is to be taken. It gives me no pleasure to have to make these proposals, but with very great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, for whom, of course, I have the greatest respect, if I may say so I think he has painted a grossly over-coloured picture of what is contemplated. The noble
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Lord seemed to think that the proposals I have made would lead to an absolute cut in expenditure in legal aid; that is to say, the overall remuneration of the legal profession from public funds. As I have said, this is not the case. It will merely keep the rise, which will continue, within acceptable limits.
As to the remuneration of the profession from the Legal Aid Fund, I think it ought to be known, and I think the noble Lord ought to make it known if he does not, that the remuneration of the profession from the Legal Aid Fund has more than doubled in real terms over the last five years. That is a fact which hope that the legal profession will bear in mind. In fact, there has been an increase in the remuneration of the profession for the last four years.
My Lords, if I may say so, in my life at the Bar the financial basis of the legal profession has been transformed: all those years of struggle that one did in the early days are rightly transformed. But in regard to more recent increases, in the last four years. last year solicitors' costs in the High Court for non-discretionary items were increased by 35 per cent.; the discretionary items. and these include counsel's brief fees, have gone up in the exercise of the discretion of the taxing master. In the county court, the scales of costs are related to the size of the claim. This has gone up with the fall in the value of money. In addition, registrars are more free in the exercise of their discretion than they used to be. So it is the case that we have not been idle in doing what could be done within the limits of financial restraint. We have not been indifferent to this profession, to which, if I may say so, I owe such a very great deal in my whole life and which has contributed so much to the happiness of my existence.
We have endeavoured within the limits of availability to help where we can. With very great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, it is not only the legal profession that is going to be asked to make sacrifices now, because the community as a whole, working people, men at work, are agreeing to submit to reductions in their standard of living. This is what is going to happen, in that wages will not rise at the same level, I fear, as prices. The community has got

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to face the fact that for the next two or three years we must suffer a reduction in the standard of living of all of us, and let it he faced that there are poorer working people with a lower standard of living, and for them a reduction in the standard of living is far more painful than it is for those of us in the professions, because it hits most hard, and it may well hit children. That is the reality we are in and that, unfortunately, is the reality we must face.
Of course, now the Royal Commission is going to examine the matters that the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has raised. What he has said is certainly a corrective to the commonly held view that the legal profession is these days living the life of Riley, and indeed the great demand for the Royal Commission has gone in the confident expectation in some quarters that the Bar has feathered its nest, and the solicitors', too well in recent years. We shall await, I with impatience and excitement, the outcome of the examination in depth that the Royal Commission will make into these matters and for the recommendations they may make. Although the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, denounced the very coming into being of the Royal Commission, he was out of step with both the Bar, the legal profession, and the solicitors branch of the profession. which went, at any rate on public record, as welcoming it. So we shall see what emerges.
Coming to the matters of concern as to the area within which legal aid in the matrimonial field will continue to be granted. The withdrawal will only cover the decree proceedings and will not extend to ancillary proceedings if any matter of dispute or difference arises in that field, either in the matter of care and custody of children or in the matter of financial provision. If the registrar or the Judge was to be in the presence of a feeling that there ought to be legal aid in a given case, I have no doubt whatsoever that an indication to that effect communicated to the certifying committee would immediately result in the granting of a legal aid certificate. Then, as I have said, the proposals which will come forward will provide for legal aid in any event in the hardship cases. But I emphasise the fact that the worried, harassed spouse will not be presented with a hopeless position. If I thought that, I would not have anything
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to do with what I am proposing. The £25 legal advice scheme will continue in existence.
It is very interesting, in relation to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, said about the Bell Report, in the matter of legal aid before tribunals (I read from page 23) that:
"The research indicates that priority should be given to development of broadly based and accessible advisory facilities including the services of lawyers but not restricted to them. People on the whole wanted general advice and explanation rather than legal opinion on a precise legal issue. In a small minority of appeals and references legal advice would have been valuable."
This, in the matrimonial field at any rate, will continue and we shall indeed be budgeting for increased expenditure under the green form scheme. I anticipate and intend that in the critically important field of provision for the children, and arrangements for the children, absence of legal aid and advice and representation, if necessary, should not take place where there is any matter in dispute.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, thought that it would be impossible for a petitioner in person to present to the registrar a behaviour case, a total breakdown of the marriage case. What we contemplate is a pro forma affidavit to be provided which will enable a petitioner to set out his or her allegations in a way which will satisfy the requirements of the Act. I ought to say that, so far as children are concerned, it is very unusual for a judge now to decline to accept a petititioner's proposals unless some dissent on the part of the respondent is indicated. The respondent's acknowledgement of service will indicate whether he disagrees. If he does not, the matter can, and will, be dealt with by the judge hearing the petitioner in person. Under the scheme I propose that will be held in the more informal atmosphere of chambers, and indeed that hearing of the petitioner in person by the judge could well he better than the somewhat perfunctory consideration of the arrangements for the children which tends to take place after the hearing of the petition. However, these are matters upon which I shall take further advice and to which I shall give further consideration, but that is the position as I see it.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, put to me the suggestion of the Law Society

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with regard to payment in civil cases on account of fees due in legal aid. My information is that the implementation of the Law Society's proposals would involve a once-for-all increase in expenditure on legal aid of several million pounds in a year. I of course regard the proposal with sympathy, and I suffered myself in waiting, certainly at an earlier time in my career, for the payment of fees. It is always a pleasure three years later to get an unexpected bonus, but it is not something on which one can carry on a living. So I regard the proposals sympathetically, and when we get over this economic hump, as we will—if we work together as a people we will get over it—we shall he able to return to ordinary, reasonable and progressive expectations. But at the present moment of time I cannot give more than express my sympathy, and hope that the time will come when the sympathy will he translated into action.
I have endeavoured to cover the ground. My noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner asked if I had information as to the impact of the decline in the proportion of the population eligible for legal aid since 1960. I am afraid that I do not have the precise figures. There is no doubt that the proportion has fallen very considerably. This, I understand, is, in part at any rate, due to the rise in earnings and it is also due of course to the rise in legal costs since then, and, as I have said, in so far as we can save anything over and above the contribution which I must make from my Department in savings—that is to say, in the reduction in increased expenditure, which is really the accurate way of putting it—then, as I have indicated, my preference at any rate would be in the two directions I have indicated. I was very comforted indeed to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, for that ordering of the priorities. I apologise for detaining your Lordships so late but the matters which were raised were of great importance, and I repeat my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, for having made this debate possible.
9.52 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I wish to thank all noble Lords, and particularly my noble and learned
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friend the Lord Chancellor, for participating in this debate, which I venture to think has been most interesting and informative. That is hardly surprising when three of the participants were the present Lord Chancellor and two of his noble and learned predecessors.
Your Lordships will be gratified to know that I do not intend to make another speech at this stage. I should, however, like to say that I opened my earlier remarks by referring to priorities and my view is that, on the whole, the Lord Chancellor has got his priorities right and that they deserve support. Of course, if I shared the view of the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, that this proposal involved an attack in some way on the independence either of the Judiciary or the Bar, I should be the first to support his view, but it seems to me that there is nothing in this proposal which makes such a threat, and I confess that I was a little surprised to hear him cast aside the prospect of saving £13 million. After all, it is this very situation which has created our present economic problems; nobody can see why any economy should ever he introduced in his own particular field, hut when one adds up all these different sums of £13 million and so on one finds that this is exactly the problem which we face.
I should have thought that my noble and learned friend has shown considerable wisdom and courage in making a proposal of this kind. Of course, if vital safeguards are to be set aside in providing representation in matrimonial causes where representation is really needed, then again one would have hesitations, but it seems to me—though I confess that I have not precisely followed the details, because I have not had time adequately to study the Lord Chancellor's statement—that he has shown his usual and characteristic vigilance in seeking to find all possible safeguards where they are required, and I am glad to note, as one would anticipate, that he is very ready to carry out full consultation with the Judiciary and the profession and with others concerned to ensure that these safeguards are retained. I do not propose—it would he most inappropriate if I were to do so—to detain your Lordships further at this late hour and I conclude by begging leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL RIVER MEDWAY (FLOOD RELIEF) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a and referred to the Examiners.
AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL COMPANY AND SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough.

OVERSEAS PENSIONS
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the present position regarding their undertaking to take over responsibility for the payment of overseas pensions.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government remain as firmly committed as ever to their undertaking to assume responsibility for the payment of overseas pensions. Of the 37 countries concerned, transfer arrangements have now been completed for 17. As the list is rather long I will, with the leave of the House, circulate it in the Official Report. In view of this progress, Her Majesty's Government are optimistic that the takeover programme will be substantially complete by the end of this year.
The countries referred to are as follows:

Sudan

St. Lucia

Gambia

St. Vincent

Burma

Malawi

Lesotho

St. Kitts

Dominica

Fiji

Mauritius

Malta

Swaziland

Ghana

Grenada

Seychelles

Botswana

the last two having been finalised only two weeks ago.
Formal agreements have been concluded with five more countries and the detailed transfer arrangements are being completed as soon as possible.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that reply, may I ask her whether she is aware that her statement this afternoon will give great satisfaction and comfort to overseas pensioners, former servants of the Crown?
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Is the noble Baroness further aware that, as an overseas pensioner myself, and a member of the executive committee of the Overseas Pensioners' Association, I am aware of the hard work of the present Government in this connection to bring these matters to a satisfactory conclusion? Is the noble Baroness aware that we are grateful to the Ministry of Overseas Development and its officers, who at this moment in overseas territories are trying to iron out some of the difficulties which arise? I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply. May I receive an assurance from her that the work will be completed with all despatch?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, for what he has said, in particular about the hard work of the officials. I think the whole House knows of the concern and hard work which the noble Lord himself puts in on these matters. I can assure him that we are proceeding as fast as we possibly can.
Lord BOWDEN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether these pensions are to be indexed? May I further ask her whether she is aware that indexed pensions were first paid to civil servants 700 years ago by Edward I, the great law-giver, and that Mr. Heath, in following that example, did so much more belatedly than he knew?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I am afraid I do not remember 700 years ago, but on the question of indexing, I will write to my noble friend Lord Bowden.
3.8 p.m.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, since it got a little garbled in the pipeline, I do not wish to ask the first Question standing in my name on the Order Paper; namely:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether a person who unknowingly receives a dose of heroin at a hospital as treatment for a heart attack and who subsequently feels better and discharges himself, may in the event of an accident be properly charged with driving under the influence of drugs.

SOVIET RESTRICTIONS ON NAVIGATION
Lord KENNET: 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 what protest, if any, they have made to the Soviet Government against their having closed some 300 square miles of the high seas (in the Barents Sea) to shipping and fishing for six weeks while they carry out weapons testing there.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): None, my Lords.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, are the Government aware that when the Russians close their seas to navigation and shipping on the other side of the earth, in the North Pacific, the Japanese have no inhibitions about protesting, and very often induce the Russians to change their minds about it? If Her Majesty's Government do not intend to protest about this, how close do the Russians have to come to our own shores before the Government will protest?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Kennet is referring to the Barents Sea. The country immediately concerned is Norway, and I am not aware that the Norwegians, so far at least, have protested formally this year or, indeed, last year, when a similar exercise was announced by the Soviets.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, did I understand my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts to say that no protest has been made? Are not our trawlermen being placed in jeopardy because of that? Do they not sometimes fish in the Barents Sea?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Shinwell understood me correctly. So far as I am aware, the Norwegians, who are directly concerned with this area, have not this year, or last year in similar circumstances, made a formal protest. Norway is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty
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Organisation, and that Organisation has neither collectively, individually or bilaterally made a formal protest.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, could I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he has received any official representations from the Chamber of Shipping, or any other body which is very concerned with anything which relates to the shipping industry?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we are in close touch with that body and other bodies concerned with the shipping and fishing industries. But, to my knowledge, we have not received representations on this specific point.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Minister make it clear why the Government, who are so strongly and rightly concerned about freedom of navigation on the high seas, should let an episode of this nature, where about 300 square miles of the high seas are closed, go by without so much as a squeak of protest?
Lord GORONWAY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is not unusual for States, including this country, to carry out exercises of this kind on the high seas so long as, as in this present case, the implementation of such an exercise is derived from the 1958 High Seas Convention and the custom, usage and experience which since then has proved that these exercises can be engaged in with due notification and warning. On the whole, the view of Her Majesty's Government, and that of practically every other Government who have looked at this, is that the present system works well, is generally acceptable and, until experience shows otherwise, it would be well to leave the position as it is.

TYNE AND WEAR BILL [H.L.]
3.12 p.m.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, on behalf of the Chairman of Committees, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Aberdare.)
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, may I say how glad I am

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to hear that this Bill has now got as far as being put to the House for a Third Reading, particularly in view of the fact that the whole area is of tremendous interest, naturally, to me and to those associated with my part of the world. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the Committee who examined the Bill and who have returned it with certain Amendments and certain alterations. We are all very grateful to them for the trouble they have taken. I should also like to put on the record the fact that there are many people in the Tyne and Wear area who believe in private enterprise and there are many people in the area who believe in local authority responsibility. I would say once more that I think the Committee have produced a balanced Bill and I am very grateful to them for it. As we have had to wait a very long time, I am delighted to know that the Bill is now before your Lordships for Third Reading.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

DIVORCE (SCOTLAND) (No. 2) BILL
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, in moving the Third Reading of this Bill, I should like to express my gratitude to the Scottish Law Commission for the help which they have consistently given in its preparation. It has meant a considerable amount of work for them, and I think it is fair to say that they have performed a very valuable service indeed for their fellow countrymen. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, before this Bill passes I think the whole House, and particularly Scotland, owes a debt of gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, for the splendid work he has put in on this valuable Bill.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

POLICE BILL
3.16 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, on this Motion, may I say that I am in favour of the Bill being read a third time, but as since the Report stage we have all read in the papers that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has now referred the Luton murder case to the Court of Appeal for the third time—which I think is a record—I wonder whether on this Motion, or on the Motion that the Bill do now pass, my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich will be able to tell us how his negotiations with chief constables are proceeding.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, for rising to speak, because it enables me to do so without those inhibitions which normally confront me. I had thought of asking the House whether this was the appropriate time for me to speak, if ever, and if there were any unknown Rules of the House which precluded this or made it undesirable—whether they would now forbid the bans or forever hold their peace. However, in view of the fact that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has spoken, with rather more than my usual brevity and certainly with all his normal clarity, there are one or two things I should like to say and will try to say as briefly as I can.
On Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, made a speech which showed not only his normal great interest and ability but also a prophetic appreciation. He said that after the torrent of words that had poured over this Bill, without much effect, in view of the position the House was in, this odd little patch on the body politic, which of course, deals with a matter in isolation which ought to be dealt with under a collective system—
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend

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for giving way. I wonder whether we could discuss both these issues on the Motion, That the Bill do now pass, which I understand is the appropriate time. My noble friend will have the opportunity of making the point he is endeavouring to make on that Motion if he will allow the present Motion to be carried.
Lord HALE: My Lords, certainly. I said that if noble Lords wanted to forbid the bans they could rise and do so.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
3.18 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 10, line 21, leave out subsection (1) and insert:
("(1) Where a member of a police force has been acquitted or convicted of a criminal offence he shall not be liable to be charged with any offence against discipline which is in substance the same as the offence of which he has been acquitted or convicted.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Amendment I should like now to propose to the House is one which arose as a result of the debate at the Committee stage when the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, raised a question on Clause 11 of this Bill. Clause 11(1) is designed to guard against a particular form of double jeopardy; namely, that an officer having been tried for a criminal offence should not then be charged with a disciplinary offence which is in subtance the same as the criminal offence.
During the Committee stage objections were raised to the present form of words, and the purpose of this Amendment is to meet those objections while retaining the original purpose of the subsection. In moving an Amendment to this clause in Committee, the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, expressed his concern that Clause 11(1) perhaps went too far in guarding against double jeopardy, by preventing a chief officer, in a case which had involved criminal proceedings against the officer concerned, from taking action in respect of the disciplinary aspects of the same case, although without prejudice to the principle of no double jeopardy. The noble Viscount gave as an example an officer who, although acquitted on a charge of bribery and corruption, might
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nevertheless have handled money or property by methods which contravened the discipline code.
The noble Viscount's concern was that Clause 11(1) appeared to prevent the chief officer from very properly preferring the disciplinary charge of failing properly to account for, or to make a prompt and true return of, any money or property received by him in the course of his duty. We have no intention of preventing the bringing of a disciplinary charge in the circumstances described, and we have therefore put down this amended form of words to remove any doubt which may have arisen. The main purpose of the Amendment remains the same; namely, to avoid double jeopardy. I would close by thanking the noble Viscount, and indeed the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for having raised this question.
Viscount MONCK: My Lords, I think we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for taking so much trouble over this matter and probing into it so deeply, and for producing something which, quite frankly (and I shall not keep him hanging on any longer) is satisfactory, at any rate to me. I think it is probably satisfactory to my noble friend Lord Colville. I thank him very much indeed, and, in order to remove any anxiety, may I say that I shall not be moving my Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.22 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord HALE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, for indicating that before he speaks I may be permitted to say a few words. I was almost tempted to say "a few more". One is confronted by a situation in which this Bill has gone through without any adequate discussion on one matter. I think the noble Lord is very honest, very able, and realises, and we realise, that there is a dilemma, in that there is an absence of Home Office responsibility at the

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moment. Most of the discussion has gone on on the basis of chief constables—the distinction and the honesty of chief constables. The Royal Commission went round the country trying to suppress the facts about chief constables as far as we could. We not only knew that two were under serious prosecutions at the time, and one or two were under report, but had difficulty in tracing some who had given themselves three months' leave on the Riviera and whose watch committee said, "We didn't know we could stop them".
There was an apocryphal story (not quite apocryphal, but perhaps sufficiently so to permit me to say there is perhaps a touch of doubt about the precise presentation) of the borough in which every Sunday morning the chief constable and most of the senior officers of the police force occupied the first row in the church, and a gang of skilled safebreakers, who contributed lavishly to church charities but always undertook never to break any safes within the borough, occupied the second row. This raised some questions which were in a sense rather outside our terms of reference in detail.
What I am concerned about—and I will try to put it as briefly as I can—is, how is all this now going to be handled? I am told that the noble Lord on the Front Bench will be making regulations. It may be that the Home Office will then be in different hands. But the things we do not know are what are the duties of the police, and what is a breach of duty. We are told that anyone who cares to read Docherty will find in point of fact, in typical English fashion, that everybody who touched Docherty muffed it. Everyone, young and inexperienced police officers, did not apply the rules of examination. A gifted policewoman, who really did make a good job, failed to obey the instructions contained in Home Office Circular No. "What's its name", and when asked why she had not she said she had never heard of it; and nor have I. The solicitor certainly failed to care for his client with that zeal which a solicitor should; the learned counsel admitted that he had to take difficult decisions, and possibly took the wrong ones, and most people agreed with him; the judicial officer refused legal aid—indeed even to the point that the Court of Appeal who did not grant a new trial,
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though not attacked quite so clearly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Devlin, in his brilliant and able report, occasioned some regrets in the minds of the investigating committee that they had remained so closely bound by the procedure adopted soon after the passing of the Act of 1909. I understand that, in spite of the provisions, there is no obligation on the police to investigate an alibi. It is a matter for their judgment. The only obligation is that if they do decide to do it they have to notify the defending solicitor.
May I just give one single case to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to try to explain this, and I put it from memory. If you get a case in which a number of people are arrested for creating a disturbance and finally charged with carrying an offensive weapon on the strength of the fact that they have each got almost mathematically proportioned pieces of brick-ends in their pockets, most of them pacifists; and if they say they never carried brick-ends and these were planted on them by the police at the station; if they are convicted, and if there is then an independent investigation, and finally some of the police officers admit that they planted the pieces of brick-end but say they did it on the instructions of a gifted detective inspector, who is well known, well publicised, a man of dominant, powerful personality with a considerable amount of successful achievements to his credit, what is the procedure for a young policeman when he is told to plant something? To whom does he report it? If it happens to be the detective chief constable who told him to plant it, what does he do then?
When he is brought up before the disciplinary tribunal and is told that he is entirely responsible because it has now been found that this detective inspector is suffering from schizophrenia and has been retired on a full pension in view of his previous distinguished record, what is the procedure for the young police constable then?
In view of the possibility of situations like that happening, will the noble Lord at least give an assurance that when he considers making all the regulations on this he will give very considerable attention to these problems—who is at fault when a policewoman fails to read a document she

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has never heard of and which is necessary for the performance of her duty; and whether it is the person who is in charge of the force or the constable who, in very difficult circumstances today, is called upon from day to day to make decisions. Finally, my Lords, if information comes forward which makes possible the arrest of a suspected very dangerous criminal who is about to board a ship or climb into an aeroplane, who is the officer who takes the decision to arrest without warrant and who is the officer who is normally caned upon to "carry the can"?
3.30 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I am not at all sure that I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, that we should send this Bill further on its way. I cannot recall ever having seen a Bill with so few friends that has got so far as this one; it has no real admirers so far as I am aware, and those who are not against it appear to be supporting it on the well-known principle of preference for the devil they know. That is not a very great recommendation for it. There is no Party difference here, and I think there is agreement in all parts of the House and in the country that if we can find a good way of introducing an independent element into the procedure of dealing with complaints against the police, we should go forward and in the end legislation will be necessary. But in my view it is hardly responsible for the Government at this time to press on with this Bill, bearing in mind its background. To do so would not be responsible at any time, but least of all at times like today when Parliament is so clogged up. Noble Lords will remember the strictures of my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone on Second Reading, and I hope that we will hear from him today. I should like to think that he would feel it proper to lead us into the Lobby against the Motion which is before the House.
I suppose that this is part of the passion for legislation which all Governments tend to share, and this one the worst I have known. Noble Lords will remember that in the debate yesterday the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough mentioned this excess of legislation from which we have suffered recently and from
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which we are still suffering—I think he meant to show how self-defeating it frequently is.
If we reject the Bill we are not, I believe, making it impossible for some form of independent element to be introduced. Here the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, disagrees with my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley, who is a former Home Secretary. They have different views. I admit that when in another place Lord Carr spoke three years ago of introducing some first steps administratively, he had more in mind an Ombudsman-type of procedure than the Board that is written into this Bill. However, I cannot believe that if we could do the one, we could not go some way towards doing the other. In this sort of field, where there is a will there is a way; sadly, it is always possible too to find arguments, both at the start and at the last minute, why things should not be done.
I cannot believe that some such plan for an independent element could not be substituted for the Bill. Lord Harris was kind enough to send me a letter about this, and he will agree that it arrived very late in the day and that I had only nine hours—or nine hours of daylight, anyway—to study it, and that that was not long enough to follow up the various points he made. I still feel that it would not be irresponsible for us this afternoon to reject the Bill, and I base that statement on words used by Lord Carr in another place on a similar Bill in 1973 when, speaking against the desirability of overhasty legislation in this field, he said:
"I am satisfied that I can begin the arrangement on an experimental basis without legislation. The time for legislation will be when we have had the experiment in being for a reasonable time and have learned by experience, but until then we want flexibility."—[0fficial Report, Commons, 23/2/73; col. 1003.]
That is, surely, a more responsible line and I should like to feel that it is not too late to follow it today.
3.35 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, in view of the invitation which has been almost extended to me by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, I will make a few short and impromptu comments. I agreed with a

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very great deal of what he said, and I do not withdraw a word of what I said on Second Reading. I believe that this approaches the problem in a muddled and ill-thought-out way and that it is an unnecessary and undesirable piece of legislation, and even at this stage the Government would be well advised, for the reasons which I gave, to take it away and think through the problem afresh.
However, I could not adhere to my noble friend's conclusion that it would be wise at this stage to reject the Bill. I think that that would be very widely misunderstood; it would he supposed, rightly or wrongly, that we were opposing the principle of an independent element in investigating complaints. Even if one got over that, or did not care about it—and either would be a relevant possibility—I believe that the House should reject a Bill in toto only if important considerations of a very fundamental kind are at stake, and I cannot believe that this Bill comes into that category. We have spent a lot of time on the Bill, though I do not think we have improved it very much. I expressed the view on Second Reading that given the framework which the Government, rightly or wrongly, have adopted, it is almost impossible to improve it. However, I would deprecate an attempt to reject it at this late stage of the Bill, for the reasons I have given, although I thoroughly agree with the strictures on its wisdom which my noble friend pronounced. I certainly take that view and I hope that on reflection my noble friend will not find it necessary independently to press the matter to a Division.
3.37 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I will begin by dealing with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and then I will come to the points of detail which have been made. In Committee, Lord Inglewood, speaking on the Motion, "Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?" proposed an alternative scheme. I suggested to him that, even at that very late stage, if he wished to table an Amendment we should of course consider it, but—and I hope I made it clear at the time—I recognised the very real difficulties of trying to create another, alternative scheme. We have had perhaps dozens of alternative schemes in this matter of dealing with complaints
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against the police, and I was not at all surprised that the noble Lord did not put his Amendment down, although I replied to his letter to me by explaining why I thought the proposals he made in Committee were not appropriate for a Bill of this sort and why the idea which he put forward was objectionable in principle, not only so far as the Government were concerned but from the point of view of a very substantial section of public opinion.
Lord Inglewood said that the Bill had been brought in as a result of some passion for legislation and he described it as one of the worst examples he had ever known. Considering that the noble Lord has been in politics substantially longer than I have, I am surprised that he should take the view that it is the worst example he has ever known. This matter has been debated in Parliament year after year in the last decade. Growing public anxiety has been expressed in both Houses about a system of dealing with complaints against the police where the police are seen to be judges in their own cause. It is appropriate today for us to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carr of Hadley, because when he was Home Secretary he grasped this nettle, albeit as the result of a Private Member's Bill in another place, and set up a Working Party to consider what sort of complaints machinery should be created.
The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said that the real difficulty was that the Bill had very few friends. The trouble is that there are very few friends for any of the alternative groups of schemes that have been assembled by one interested party or another. What I have tried to make clear in our debates is that we have attempted to strike a fair balance between the interests of the public and those of the Police Service—the chief constables, the Superintendents' Association and the Police Federation—and to create a scheme which was just to all concerned. I believe that we have created a scheme which is just to all concerned.
As I pointed out, one of the most important single things—and I must make this quite clear, as I said at Report stage, having dealt with this matter for two years now and having dealt with the Police Service for that time—is that we should bring this debate to a conclusion. It is in nobody's interest that there should be

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continued public unease about the machinery of complaints against the police. As I have said repeatedly and as, I am sure, is the view of the entire House, we have the best Police Service in the world: I want to make quite sure that that reputation is underpinned by a complaints machinery which ends this debate and creates greater public confidence than exists at the moment. I believe that this scheme achieves that.
I should like to make one other point to the noble Lord. This Bill received a Second Reading in the other place without a Division. It achieved a Third Reading by a majority of 74, and the noble Lord will be aware, as are we all, that that is rather larger than the Government's present majority in another place.
So much for the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. I should like to come now to the points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner and by my noble friend Lord Hale. I cannot now recall whether I said in Committee or at Report stage, though I believe that it was at Report stage, that I realised that my noble and learned friend would come back to the charge on the matter of the consultations that we undertook to have on this matter. Certainly, they have not been concluded. It is the intention of my right honourable friend and the Home Office to push on with this matter as rapidly as possible. However, it raises fundamental issues. My noble and learned friend has rightly pointed out that there is a major difference in police practice in this matter between London and many areas outside. It will take some time to resolve these difficulties and, frankly, it has been impossible to do so in the limited time we have had since the Report stage of the Bill. However, we will push on with this as soon as we can.
So far as my noble friend Lord Hale is concerned, he asked what would be the situation following the passage of this scheme. I do not want to go through some of the more fundamental parts of the proposals in the Bill, but the situation once the Bill is on the Statute Book will be the following: if an allegation of criminal conduct is made against a police officer, it will, as now, be considered by an independent authority outside the
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Police Service; namely, the Director of Public Prosecutions. In the case of an allegation that an officer has committed an offence against the disciplinary regulations of the force, the matter will go to an independent board appointed by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
I believe that a scheme of this sort will settle some of the anxieties, though there will undoubtedly be serious problems which will remain. To deal with the specific point raised by my noble friend Lord Hale, if a police officer is invited by a superior to commit an act which is an offence against the criminal law, it seems to me that his way through that particular difficulty is straightforward. He must report the matter to a senior officer. Although I am certain that it is necessary to change the complaints procedure as we are doing, I believe that it would be wrong to allow it to be believed that the Police Service would ignore an allegation of the kind made by my noble friend and would sweep an issue of that sort under the carpet. Of course, there is always a risk of an abuse of power in any disciplined organisation. But I repeat that, though we cannot ignore the fact that there are risks of such abuses of power in the Police Service as in any other aspect of our public life, we have reason to be proud of our Police Service. I am sure that that is the overwhelming view of the entire House and I believe that this Bill will buttress that reputation.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

ARMED FORCES BILL
3.45 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Establishment of Standing Civilian Courts.]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 1 to 4 en bloc:
Page 3, line 40, at end insert ("under subsection (12) below").
Page 4 line 4, leave out ("in") and insert ("for").
Page 4 line 29, leave out ("any") and insert ("the person, or every").
page 4 line 30, leave out ("an") and insert ("the").
The noble Lord said: With the agreement of the House, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 1 to 4 en bloc. In introducing the first Amendments to this Bill, I should like to mention that they and all the other Government Amendments which I shall move during this debate are of a technical and drafting nature, and are designed to clarify and make explicit the way in which the necessary machinery will work in order to give effect to the proposals.
Nearly all the Amendments arise in that area of the Bill which is the most complex and most novel for the Services—that concerning the incorporation into their Discipline Acts of the provisions in Clauses 6 to 9 and Schedules 3, 4 and 9, which introduce powers to deal with Servicemen's families and other civilians overseas in a way which is, as far as possible, similar to that used in the United Kingdom. Fitting such wide-ranging provisions into the complicated and interlocking structure of the Acts is not easy, and work on this, and on the subordinate legislation which will be needed, has been proceeding since the Bill was considered in another place. A number of further such technical points have thus emerged where improvements should be made, but they are all, I believe, uncontentious.
This first group of Amendments is typical of all those that I shall move, being small but useful refinements to the drafting. They concern the jurisdiction in the Standing Civilian Courts of assessors and lay members. Those to Clause 6 are mainly designed to make it clear that an assessor or lay member may sit only in juvenile cases, thus broadly aligning practice for these courts with that of civil courts in the United Kingdom. Amendments Nos. 20, 29 and 30 to pages 16 and 17 give clearer effect to the intentions behind the provisions relating
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to the decision processes of the Standing Civilian Court when it is composed of assessors or lay members (as the case may be) in addition to the magistrate. I beg to move.
Lord LYELL: I thank the noble Lord for explaining in outline the four Amendments en bloc but if he can, there is a point concerning Amendment No. 2 which I should like him to explain. It is a fairly simple Amendment, leaving out the word "in" and inserting the word "for". I assume that this refers to Standing Civilian Courts which might take place outside the United Kingdom, possibly in BAOR, or, it might be, elsewhere overseas. Can the noble Lord be more forthcoming on this very technical point upon which I have not been able to brief myself? Has the noble Lord any further information?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: If I am wrong I shall inform the noble Lord and the Committee. The subsection, as amended, says,
"subsection (13) below shall have effect in relation to trials before Standing Civilian Courts for that area."
The court for that area may be sitting outside that area, not in it; hence the Amendment.
Lord LEATHERLAND: Can my noble friend clear my mind a little with regard to this new Civilian Court? Let us assume that I am the wife of a soldier serving in Germany, that I am an irresponsible kind of person and that I have lost the housekeeping money by playing bingo at the local cinema. Then I do one of two things. First, I might go to the regimental orderly room and steal some money from there. I can quite understand that that might render me liable to prosecution in one of these Civilian Courts which are really part of the Army establishment. Alternatively, I might go along to the local supermarket and steal some goods off the shelves. In that case would I not be brought before a German civilian court? There are two kinds of offence. Perhaps my noble friend can clear up the matter for me?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: This is the situation. If a British civilian commits an offence within the German jurisdiction, obviously he is subject to disciplinary

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action, to trial within the German legal system. But in principle the situation is usually resolved by the police transferring to British jurisdiction responsibility for cases involving civilian dependants of members of the Armed Forces. Up to now we have had the unfortunate position of having to court-martial the wives of serving soldiers or civilians in the employ of the Armed Forces in Germany. This is a proposal to introduce Standing Civilian Courts into the disciplinary structure of the Armed Forces when stationed overseas.
To reply to a point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, I should say that at the moment this position applies only to Germany. In cases of the type described by the two noble Lords, where the court-martial procedure itself is inappropriate, we believe that trying to set up the equivalent of magistrates' courts in the area of Germany as at present enables us to deal with cases of this type in a manner more acceptable to British public opinion, and indeed more acceptable to the Armed Forces themselves.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Jurisdiction of Standing Civilian Courts]:
3.56 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 5, line 19, leave out from ("he") to end of line 23 and insert ("or any person jointly charged with him elects to be tried by court-martial in accordance with the provisions of this Act or of any Order made under this Act").
The noble Lord said: In dealing now with Amendment No. 5 I should like now to speak to, but to move at a later stage in the Schedules, Amendments Nos. 18, 19 and 32. These Amendments are to make explicit that an accused has a right to elect trial by court-martial, which is to be conferred by order of the Secretary of State under paragraph 11 of Schedule 3 to the Bill, and which if exercised by an accused, or a co-accused jointly charged with him, will require steps to be taken for disposal of the case by court-martial. This effect was previously implicit, but is now set out with greater precision and clarity for the
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benefit of users. It is purely a drafting refinement and no change of policy is involved. I beg to move.
Lord LYELL: Perhaps the noble Lord can explain a point which is troubling me. He said that this was merely a drafting matter, but I am not entirely convinced, and I hope that he will he able to explain the position to me. The noble Lord spoke about a court-martial before which more than one person is brought. Can the noble Lord explain to me what will be the result if one of the accused wishes to go on trial before a court-martial but one or more of the other accused do not? It seems to me that some of the soldiers, sailors, or perhaps airmen, might have their rights clipped by what is proposed in the Amendment.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM: I thought that what I said was fairly clear. I should like to re-state it. If these powers are exercised by an accused or a co-accused jointly charged with him, steps will be required to be taken for disposal of the case by court-martial; that is to say, any single individual in a group of individuals charged with committing a single offence can bring the whole affair before a court-martial. That is how I read the Bill as it stands.
Lord LYELL: That is not the point which was entirely in my mind. My mind was troubled by the fact that one of the accused could decide, if he wished, to be brought before a court-martial and this might prejudice the others. What rights do they have?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: The final say in a matter of this kind must lie with the court-martial because this is much closer, I suppose, to a county court trial rather than to a hearing in a magistrates' court. So, if any single individual involved in an incident wishes to be tried at a court at a higher level than that of, say, his commanding officer—summary judgment—then he must, in my view, commit all other members who are charged with committing the same offence. That is how I read this brief, but again, if I am wrong, I shall tell the House at Third Reading.
Lord LYELL: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for that explanation.

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I think that I understand that to he the position, but possibly we may consult on this matter later.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 [Powers of courts in relation to civilians]:
3.58 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 5, line 39, leave out ("pass consecutive sentences") and insert ("award consecutive terms").
The nobe Lord said: This Amendment once again helps to clarify the drafting. As I understand it, these words are used in service judicial proceedings and the word "sentence" is a wider term which can include several punishments or orders. The new wording meets more precisely the intention behind this provision. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9 [Constitution of courts-martial for civilians]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 7 and 8:
Page 6, line 23, leave out ("paragraph") and insert ("paragraphs").
Page 6, line 37, at end insert:
("" (fff) the reference to an officer under instruction in section 93(1) above shall include a reference to a person under instruction who is qualified for membership of courts-martial under paragraph (ff) above;"").
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 together. These Amendments are designed to clairfy procedures at courts-martial where Crown servants are sitting under instruction. They introduce no changes of policy, but help to effect more fully the intentions behind the clause. Under Rule 24 of Rules of Procedure (Army) 1972, an officer may remain with a court-martial throughout the proceedings as an officer under instruction. Section 93(1) provides that an oath shall be administered to such officers. Since references to such officers shall now include references to appropriate Crown servants, the latter will now be required to take an oath as well
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 21 agreed to.
Clause 22 [Citation etc.]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 12, line 36, leave out subsection (7) and insert:
"(7) The following provisions of this Act shall come into force on the day this Act is passed, namely—

section 1;

section 10;

section 17(1);

section 20(a);

section 21;

subsections (1) to (4) and (7) to (8) of this section;
subsection (5) of this section so far as it relates to paragraphs 5, 12 and 21(2), (4) and (5) of Schedule 9; and
subsection (6) of this section so far as it relates to the repeal
of the following, namely—

the Naval Knights of Windsor (Dissolution) Act 1892,

section 1 of the Armed Forces Act 1971,

section 10(4) of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, and

section 5(3) of the Northern Ireland Assembly Disqualification Act 1975.

() Subject to subsection (7) above, this Act shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument appoint."
The noble Lord said: I may have to speak at some greater length on this particular Amendment. As with previous Amendments, it involves no alteration in policy but offers some refinement to details of it. As your Lordships may have observed—my brief says "will have observed", but I am finding it a little difficult to observe even the niceties—it deals with the. commencement of the various provisions in the Bill. Some of the proposals, albeit important ones concerning summary powers and civilians, cannot come into effect immediately upon Royal Assent. A number of time-consuming but essential tasks remain to be completed, among them the laying of subordinate legislation, the consequential amendments to Service Manuals and the training of the personnel concerned with the new procedures. Arrangements for all these matters are under way in the Services, the Ministry of Defence and the other Departments concerned, but they will not be fully resolved until well into 1977. This sort of timetable accords entirely with the usual practices on the

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Service Discipline Acts. The new subsection (7A) therefore provides with the present subsection (8) that most of these provisions shall come into force on such date or dates as the Secretary of State may by order made by Statutory Instrument appoint.
However, there are a few matters which, it is considered, can and should be effected without delay. The new subsection (7) therefore provides for their coming into force on Royal Assent. Apart from the continuation and renewal provisions, these are mainly those proposals which bear particularly on individuals—the new powers in relation to the graver sentences that may be imposed on juveniles, and the application to civilians found guilty under the Service Discipline Acts or the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Your Lordships, I am certain, will agree that it is right that any individuals concerned should benefit from these provisions as soon as possible. I do not believe the coming into force of the various proposals in the Bill is a contentious matter, but these are important details to which I thought it advisable to draw your Lordships' attention. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [QARNNS and WRNS]:
On Question, Whether Schedule 2 shall he the second Schedule to the Bill?
Lord LEATHERLAND: Schedule 2 renders eligible as members of courts-martial the officers of Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service and the Women's Royal Naval Service. It is clear, therefore, that an officer of either of those two services will be eligible to sit as a member of a court-martial. The point to which I should like an answer is this. If a woman serving in either of those two services were court-martialled, would it be obligatory, in constituting the court-martial, to have a woman officer sitting as a member of the court, or would the woman charged appear before a bench composed of men alone?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this point.
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I think it is an entirely valid one. I will, if I may, give an answer at a later stage of the Bill; hut, on the other hand, I would have thought natural justice would have demanded that a woman officer would be a member of the court-martial in circumstances such as my noble friend describes. That is, of course, one of the advantages of bringing the WRNS into line with its two sister services and bringing them under the various Armed Forces Discipline Acts, because it enables an officer of the WRNS to play her full part in the court-martial procedure of that armed force.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Standing Civilian Courts]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 10 to 17:
Page 15, line 8, leave out (""higher authority"") and insert ("" the directing officer"").
Page 15, line 9, at end insert ("or any officer for the time being discharging the functions of that authority").
Page 15, line 19, leave out ("higher authority"), and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 15, line 22, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 15, line 25, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 15, line 26, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("he may").
Page 15, line 27, leave out ("may").
Page 15, line 29, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("he").
The noble Lord said: This is an appalling dog's breakfast which, with the permission of the Committee, I shall move in various blocks. It is not a question of moving them en bloc but of moving them in blocks. With the permission of the Committee I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 10 to 17, 21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 36 and 47 together, but in accordance with procedure we can move only some of these en bloc. They all cover a single point; they can all be grouped together; and, of course, many of them are identical. Their background is that, in the subordinate order drafted under paragraph 11 of Schedule 3, the higher authority who sends a case for trial by the Standing Civilian Court is termed, "the directing officer". These Amendments therefore align the terms that appear in Schedule 3 with the more distinctive label used in the subordinate legislation. With the permission of the Committee, therefore, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 10 to 17 en bloc.
Baroness VICKERS: I hope I am not being tiresome about this, but I should

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like to ask about this term "higher authority", because I should like some explanation. On page 15 it says:
"…'higher authority' means, in relation to a civilian sent for trial by the court, the higher authority who sent him".
Is this God, or who is the higher authority? I really should like to have some explanation, because it says,
"leave out 'higher authority' and insert 'the directing officer'".
Perhaps the noble Lord would be kind enough to give me an explanation.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I rather gather that we are leaving Out "higher authority" and substituting "the directing officer", thus producing greater clarity.
Baroness VICKERS: I am sorry; it does not produce greater clarity to me. I want to know what is the difference between "the directing officer" and "higher authority". They are obviously two different persons, are they? Perhaps the noble Lord could explain to me who they are.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: When I move into legal jargon and the law, I tread with great care. With the permission of the noble Baroness, I will in fact give her an exact definition when we come to a later stage of the Bill. I am afraid I cannot help her more at this moment. I think the point she has made is extremely valid. What is a "higher authority"? I suppose the highest authority is God himself, but I do not think we involve Him in petty pilfering.
Lord LYELL: I was worried about the same point as my noble friend Lady Vickers. It concerns Amendment No. 11. In this case it is not, I think, quite as straightforward as it might appear. It does not substitute "the directing officer" for "higher authority" because, as noble Lords will see, in this particular definition clause the "higher authority" for which we are going to substitute "the directing officer" means,
"… in relation to a civilian sent for trial by the court, the higher authority …",
and then Amendment No. 11 inserts something totally different from, "the directing officer".
It is more wordy. I wonder whether this particular Amendment means some-
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thing different from all the other Amendments which the noble Lord moved en bloc, or in blocks, with which I agree. It seems that they were fairly simple; but Amendment No. 11 requires, if the noble Lord could give it now or later, a little explanation or definition.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: It would have to be later; but it is any officer for the time being acting as a higher authority; say, an acting unpaid higher authority at the time of the situation. But I will clarify these points, which are valid. It is part of the jungle which I mentioned. I will produce light at Third Reading.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
4.10 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 16, line 6, leave out from beginning to ("shall") in line 13 and insert:
("4.—(1) An accused person has a right to elect, before the court commences his trial, that the charges on which he is to be tried shall be tried by court-martial instead of by the court.
(2) Before the court commences a trial, it shall inform the accused in the prescribed manner of the right conferred by sub-paragraph (1) above, whether or not he has already been informed of it.
(3) The court shall proceed with the case unless the accused or, if more than one person is jointly charged, any of the accused, exercises the right so conferred.
(4) If the accused, or any of the accused, exercises that right, the court shall adjourn, and report to the directing officer in the prescribed manner the fact that the election for trial by court-martial has been made.
(5) The directing officer").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 18 I mentioned when speaking to Amendment No. 5. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 16, line 16, leave out from beginning to ("being") in line 17 and insert:
("(b) take the prescribed steps with a view to the accused ").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 16, line 21, after ("matters") insert: (",other than questions of law.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is connected with Amendments Nos. 1to4. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 21 and 22:
Page 16, line 29, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 16, line 30, leave out ("Higher authority shall thereupon") and insert ("The directing officer shall").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 21 and 22 were discussed with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments No 23 and 24:
Page 16, line 33, leave out from beginning to ("with") in line 34 and insert:
("(b) take the prescribed steps").
Page 16, line 37, leave out ("the accused is no longer unfit") and insert ("it appears to the directing officer that the person in question is fit").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee I should like to move Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 together. These Amendments are designed to deal more adequately with instances where an accused may be unfit to stand trial. The wording dealing with the option to direct trial by court-martial is simplified and the practice in this matter is brought generally into line with that for courts-martial. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments No. 25 and 26:
Page 16, line 43, at end insert:
("Re-trial in interests of administration of Justice
6A. The directing officer may direct a re-trial before a Standing Civilian Court in any case where, after the commencement of a trial before such a court, it appears to him necessary or expedient in the interests of the administration of justice.")
Page 17, line 2, leave out ("Higher authority") and insert:
("Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph 6A above, the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: With permission, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 together. I ought briefly to explain to your Lordships the effect of Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 as it introduces a new paragraph into Schedule 3.
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I should first assure your Lordships that despite the weightiness of the sub-heading, there are no changes of substance here.
The Amendment provides for retrial in the interests of the administration of justice: for example, where a court becomes aware—perhaps through the indiscretion of a witness—of any matter (like a previous conviction) prejudicial to the accused. A similar provision with respect to courts-martial exists under Section 95 (1) of the 1955 Acts. No change of policy is involved; the initial intention was to make this provision subordinately, but it is now thought more appropriate for principal legislation: just as, for example, paragraph 7 provides for retrial where the court ceases to be properly constituted. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 27 and 28:
Page 17, line 6, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
Page 17, line 13, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee I should like to move Amendments Nos. 27 and 28 together. I mentioned them earlier in connection with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 29 and 30:
Page 17, line 25, leave out from beginning to ("questions") in line 27 and insert:
("(2) For a trial where section 6(13) above applies, the magistrate shall preside over the court and give rulings on any").
Page 17, line 30, leave out from ("In") to ("casting") in line 31 and insert ("the case of an equality of votes on the sentence, or on any other question before the court, except a question of law or the finding, the magistrate shall have a second or").
The noble Lord said: With permission, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 29 and 30 together. I spoke to them when discussing Amendments Nos. 1 to 4.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
4.16 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 17, line 38, leave out ("The") and insert ("Subject to the provisions of any order made under paragraph 11 below, the").
The noble Lord said: With permission, I should like to move Amendment 31 and to speak to Amendments Nos. 34 and 35. These are technical Amendments concerned with the rules on admissibility of evidence before the Standing Civilian Court. The intention of the first is to prevent any potential ambiguity regarding rules of evidence, and its effect is to emphasise that the provisions of paragraph 10 of Schedule 3 are subject to any relevant modifications introduced by Statutory Instrument under paragraph 11 of that Schedule. The second and third Amendments are designed to give effect more adequately to the intentions concerning the Secretary of State's power to make provisions regarding the procedures of the Standing Civilian Court in this matter, by means of an order made by Statutory Instrument. These Amendments do not in any way, however, affect the intention to model the practices of the Standing Civilian Court so far as possible on the comparable practices of the civil courts in the United Kingdom, consistent with the need to take the Services' practices into account. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 18, line 16, at end insert:
("() An order under this paragraph shall confer a right on a person charged to elect to be tried by court-martial instead of by a standing Civilian Court").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 32 was mentioned when I spoke to Amendment No. 5. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 18, line 37, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: Amendment 33 is linked with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 34 and 35:
Page 19, line 4, leave out from ("section") to ("subject") in line 5 and insert ("99A of the Army Act 1955 (proof at courts-martial by written statement), section 1AAA of the Perjury Act
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(Northern Ireland) 1946 (false written statements at courts-martial) and sections 10 and 11 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 (formal admission and notice of alibi)").
Page 19, line 7, leave out ("that section") and insert ("those sections").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 34 and 35 are linked with Amendment No. 31. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 19, line 14, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 36 was linked with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 19, line 26, leave out ("are amendable by a court-martial") and insert ("which are being tried by court-martial may be amended").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 37 is connected with Amendment No. 48 and, with permission, I should like to speak to both. These Amendments also refine the drafting in relation to definition of charges and offences. The first reflects more accurately the power of amending court-martial charges which exist under the 1955 Acts and which does not lie merely with the court-martial itself but also with higher authority. The second applies the appropriate definitions and concept of an offence under those Acts to the offence in question under this Schedule. I beg to move Amendment No. 37.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 38 to 45:
Page 20, line 36, leave out ("higher authority") and insert ("the prescribed person")
page 20, line 37, after ("form") insert ("and addressed to the directing officer")
Page 20, line 39, leave out ("Where a notice of appeal is lodged, higher authority") and insert ("When the directing officer receives a notice of appeal lodged under sub-paragraph (3) above, he")
Page 20, line 40, leave out ("prescribed steps") and insert ("steps specified in Rules of Procedure under section 103 of the Army Act 1955")
Page 20, line 43, leave out ("but an") and insert—
("(5A) An")
Page 20, line 45, at end insert—

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("(5B) The term of any sentence passed by a court-martial on such an appeal shall, unless the court otherwise directs, begin to run from the time from which it would have begun to run if it had been passed in the proceedings from which the appeal was brought and section 118 of the Army Act 1955 (commencement of sentences) shall accordingly not apply to any such sentence.
(5C) Subject to sub-paragraph (5B) above, a sentence passed on such an appeal shall be treated for the purposes of any enactment as if it had been a sentence passed on a trial by court-martial.")
Page 21, line 10, leave out from ("may") to end of line 11 and insert ("present to the prescribed person a petition against finding or sentence or both in the prescribed form and addressed to a reviewing authority.")
Page 21, line 28, after ("officer") insert ("in relation to the findings and sentences of courts-martial").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee I should like to move Amendments Nos. 38 to 45 en bloc. In view of the proposed framework of the subordinate legislation contemplated, this group of Amendments serves to specify with greater precision and more aptly than before the procedures for initiating an appeal from the Standing Civilian Court or a petition against its finding or sentence. There is also clearer provision for the time from which a term of imprisonment passed by a court-martial on appeal shall be taken to run and the status of such a sentence. No change of policy is involved.
Baroness VICKERS: May I ask the noble Lord for an explanation. We have had the "higher authority" and the "directing officer". Now we have the "higher authority" and the "prescribed person". I should like to know what is the difference between all these individuals.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM: I agree that the noble Baroness's search for precision is absolutely correct and desirable. May I try and give a precise answer at a later stage of the Bill?
Lord LYELL: I was worried about Amendment No. 41 which leaves out a fairly simple term, "prescribed steps" and inserts some other words which seem to me to be just fuzzing the issue. Could the noble Lord explain?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I thought this was clear. "Prescribed steps" means steps specified in the Rules of Procedure
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under Section 103 of the Army Act 1955. The reason for these Amendments is that parallel with the drafting and passage of the main Bill, the drafting of subordinate legislation has been going on. This has thrown up certain imprecisions in the main Bill. This is an Amendment designed to remove an imprecision.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
4.22 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 46:
Page 21, line 41, at end insert—
("(5A) Where, while any sentence is so suspended the person sentenced is sentenced by a Standing Civilian Court or a court-martial under the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 or the Naval Discipline Act 1957 for a fresh offence, the suspension of the earlier sentence may be determined—

(a) by order of any such court on awarding the later sentence, or

(b) by order of the appropriate authority on the review of that sentence.

(5b) In sub-paragraph (5A) above, "the appropriate authority" means—

(a) where the later sentence was awarded by a Standing Civilian Court, the reviewing authority, or

(b) where the later sentence was awarded by a court-martial, the authority conducting its review").

The noble Lord said: This Amendment makes explicit what previously was implicit, by providing precisely both who it is who has power to determine the suspension of a sentence imposed by Standing Civilian Court, and the occasion on which that power may be exercised. It involves no change of policy. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 21, line 47, leave out from ("be") to ("and") in line 49 and insert ("the directing officer").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 47 was referred to in connection with Amendments Nos. 10 to 17. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Orders that may be made on trial of civilians]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 24, line 25, at end insert—
("triable by court-martial.
() Any such offence shall be treated as if it were an offence against a provision of Part II of this Act.")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 48 was linked with Amendment No. 37. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 26, line 8, at end insert—
("( ) Before making a reception order, the court shall consider any report made in respect of the offender by or on behalf of the Secretary of State.
( ) The court shall give a copy of any such report to the offender or any person representing him.")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 49 reflects no change of policy. It serves to align the arrangements concerning reception orders with those provided in respect of custodial orders. I refer noble Lords to subparagraphs 10(2) and (3) of the Schedule. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 50:
Page 26, line 9, leave out ("such an authorisation") and insert ("an authorisation under this paragraph").
The noble Lord said: This is merely a drafting refinement of a provision relating to reception orders. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM Lord WINTER BOTTOM moved Amendment No. 51:
Page 30, line 3, leave out ("by a court-martial").
The noble Lord said: Again this Amendment reflects no change of policy. Subparagraph 12(3) of the Schedule is designed to apply to compensation orders made by court-martial or by Standing Civilian Court; the removal of these words effects this. I beg to move.
Baroness VICKERS: May I ask who is going to take action if we leave out "court-martial"?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I am not a lawyer and I have to consider this. With the benevolence of the noble Baroness, I should like to clarify this at a later stage
464
of the Bill. I thought that by removing "court-martial" it placed the responsibility clearly on the Standing Civilian Court, but this may not be the case.
Lord LYELL: It does not say this in the Act. I should like to support my noble friend in this point because it concerned me as well. The Committee will be grateful to know who will make these orders for compensation.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.25 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 52:
Page 30, line 24, leave out ("prescribed manner") and insert ("manner prescribed by Rules of Procedure under section 103 above or, as the case may be, by an order under paragraph 11 of Schedule to the Armed Forces Act 1976")
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 52, 53 and 56. The effect of these Amendments is to specify more precisely the manner in which a parent or guardian, in certain circumstances, shall be required to attend the Standing Civilian Court. This is done by reference to Rules of Procedure in the case of the Army and the Royal Air Force and the equivalent General Orders for the Royal Navy, and to the relevant provisions in the Bill. I beg to move Amendment No. 52.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 53:
Page 31, line 34, leave out ("prescribed manner") and insert ("manner prescribed by Rules of Procedure under section 103 above or, as the case may be, by an order under paragraph 11 of Schedule 3 to the Armed Forces Act 1976")
On Question, Amendment agred to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 54:
Page 33, line 37, at end insert—
("Indemnity for persons carrying out orders under Schedule
No action shall lie in respect of anything done by any person in pursuance of an order under this Schedule if the doing thereof would have been lawful but for a defect in any instrument made for the purposes of that order.")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 54 is designed to give the same indemnity in relation to orders under

465
Schedule 4 that Section 142 of the 1955 Act gives in relation to a military sentence of imprisonment or detention. No change of substance is involved. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 55:
Page 33, leave out lines 41 to 42 and insert ("provisions supplementary or incidental to the provisions of this Schedule.
( ) The power to make regulations conferred by this paragraph includes power to make provision for specified cases or classes of cases, and for the purpose of any such orders classes of cases may be defined by reference to any circumstances specified in the regulations.")
The noble Lord said: Perhaps I might briefly comment to your Lordships on this Amendment. It is designed to allow regulations to be made in relation to specified cases or classes of cases. Examples of these might well occur in the context of the Community Supervision Order scheme, which, as a simplified amalgam of the Supervision Order, the Community Supervision Order and the Probation Order in the United Kingdom, covers a fairly wide range of ages. We therefore envisage that it will be desirable to be able to make separate provision in regulations to meet the different needs of the different ages and perhaps types of offender. This will enable the Community Supervision Order to be used in a flexible fashion so as to reflect, so far as possible in the circumstances, the practices in dealing with such offenders in the United Kingdom. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 56:
Page 34, line 42, at end insert—
("( ) In paragraphs 13(1)(a) and 14(6)(a), for the words from "Rules" to "1976" there shall be substituted the words "General Orders under section 58 above ".")
The noble Lord said: I spoke to Amendment No. 56 in connection with Amendments Nos. 52 and 53. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Schedule 4, as amended, shall be the Fourth Schedule to the Bill?
Lord LEATHERLAND: This Schedule deals with the sentences that may be imposed by the new civilian courts that are to be set up by the Army. A few minutes ago, when dealing with another aspect of this matter, I asked my noble friend to assume for the moment that I was the wife of a British soldier serving in Germany and we discussed the circumstances under which I might be brought before one of these new civilian courts. Let us assume that I have been a very wicked woman and have been sentenced by one of these courts.
Your Lordships will see from page 32 that a very wide range of sentences is available to these courts, ranging from an absolute discharge to a fine or imprisonment. If I had been convicted before an ordinary civilian court in this country and fined or sentenced to imprisonment, in due course the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act would have come into operation; that is the Act introduced by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, which enables certain sentences to be expunged from the records of offenders after the passage of varying periods of years. The question I want to ask is this: if, in those circumstances, I had been convicted in Germany, would the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act apply to me, just as it would had I been convicted by a civilian court in this country?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: That is an excellent question and I should like to answer it precisely. The intention behind this Standing Civilian Court is that the procedure in Germany, in the circumstances envisaged by my noble friend, should be as close as possible to the treatment of offenders in this country. I assume that this Act would apply, but I will give him a firm answer on Third Reading.
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Schedules 5, 6 and 7 agreed to.
Schedule 8 [Financial penalty enforcement orders]:
4.33 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 57:
Page 40, line 8, leave out ("by or on behalf of the Defence Council") and insert ("on behalf of the Defence Council or by an officer authorised by them")
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment to tie in with the phrase used in the Schedule at page 39, line 21, and page 40, line 32. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 8, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 9 [Miscellaneous amendments]:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 58 and 59:
Page 44, line 10, leave out paragraph 4.
Page 44, line 1, leave out from ("following") to end of paragraph 7 and insert ("subsection shall be inserted after subsection (3) of each of those sections:—
"(3A) In their application to any area for which Standing Civilian Courts are established under the Armed Forces Act 1976—

(a) section 75(2) above shall have effect as if references to the assembling of a court-martial for a person's trial included references to his being brought before a Standing Civilian Court;

(b) section 103(1) above shall have effect—

(i) as if the words "with respect to the hearing by courts-martial of appeals pursuant to paragraph 17 of Schedule 3 to the Armed Forces Act 1976 against findings and sentences of Standing Civilian Courts established under that Act" were inserted after the word "authorities"; and

(ii) as if the words "and may prescribe modifications of sections 76, 77, 79 and 80 above in relation to charges which may be tried by Standing Civilian Courts and which are brought against persons whom such courts may try" were added at the end; and

(c) subsection (3) above shall have effect in relation to charges which may he tried by Standing Civilian Courts and which are brought against persons whom such courts may try, but without prejudice to its effect in relation to other charges, as if the following paragraph were substituted for paragraph (e):—

"(e) sections 76, 77, 79 and 80 above shall apply as they apply to officers and warrant officers subject to such modifications consequential on the establishment of Standing Civilian Courts as may be prescribed by Rules of Procedure and by any order under paragraph 11 of Schedule 3 to the Armed Forces Act 1976.""")
The noble Lord said: with the permission of the Committee, I will move Amendments Nos. 58 and 59 together. They are, of course, of a technical or drafting nature. They concern the way in which it is to be provided that a civilian shall be brought to trial before the Standing Civilian Court. This, apparently, is a most complicated drafting exercise: first, because of the elaborate structure of the 1955 Acts and,
468
secondly, because these new peocedures have to be introduced in a way which does not disturb the provisions concerning the other existing ways of dealing with civilians under these Acts, by court-martial or appropriate superior authority.
No change in policy is involved in these Amendments, which will much more simply and effectively embody the intentions concerning procedures for trial by the new courts by allowing for them to be prescribed within the existing Rules of Procedure and the proposed new order, both of which are Statutory Instruments. This conforms to the general approach elsewhere in the Bill of setting out detailed procedural matters in such instruments, as, for example, in paragraph 11 of Schedule 3. With the permission of your Lordships, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 58 and 59 together.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 45, line 48, at end insert—
("(4B) Section 199 above shall apply to persons such as are mentioned in subsection (1) or (2) above, as it applies to persons subject to military law."")
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 60, 62 and 63 together. The effect of these Amendments is to provide that the sections of the Services Acts which concern the proof of the outcome of a civil trial (Section 199 of the 1955 Act and Section 129B of the 1957 Act) shall apply to civilians liable to trial under those Acts, as they apply to other persons subject to Service law. I beg to move Amendment No. 60.
Lord LYELL: May I ask whether it is in order to raise a matter concerning Amendment No. 62 at this stage? If it is, I should like to say that, as drafted, it did not make a great deal of sense to me when I read it. I should have thought it could have been far better drafted. As I understand the proposed Amendment, it suggests that the word "it" should be inserted after "(a) in paragraph 1". I do not understand why the insertion could not be made in Schedule 4, at line 45. This seems to me to be far simpler, and to make sense, because as this Amendment is at present drafted it does not seem to make sense to me. Perhaps the noble Lord could explain.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: This again is something to which I should like to reply with precision at a later stage. These various drafting Amendments have been put down between the end of Business in another place and the beginning of Business here today. I have not been privy to the whole of the discussions and the negotiations, but I am grateful to the noble Lord for studying the Bill with such care and I shall give him a precise answer on Third Reading.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 46, line 4, after ("(7)") insert ("for the words "Minister of Home Affairs" there shall be substituted the words "Department of Health and Social Services "and")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 61 is, again, a minor drafting Amendment to paragraph 9 of Schedule 9. It brings up to date another reference to Northern Ireland in the 1955 Acts, and simply makes clear the allocation of Departmental responsibilities in that Province. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM Lord WINTER BOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 62 and 63:
Page 46, line 46, after ("it") insert—
("(a) in paragraph 1").
line 3, at end insert (" and
(b) the following paragraph shall be added after paragraph 4:—
"5. Section 129B above shall apply to a person to whom this Act applies by virtue of section 118 above, as it applies to a person subject to this Act."").
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I should like formally to move Amendments Nos. 62 and 63, which I mentioned in connection with Amendment No. 60. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 9, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

LIMITATION (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976
4.40 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge)The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge) rose to move, That the draft Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 24th June, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this order is to amend the Limitation Acts (Northern Ireland) 1958 and 1964. It extends from 12 months to three years the limitation period within which an injured person may institute proceedings for personal injury. The period starts from the plaintiff's "date of knowledge" of the facts on which his action is based. The most likely application of this change is in relation to insidious industrial diseases which may not be easily identifiable at the outset. It places the dependants of an injured person, who sue after his death under Section 14 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1937 or the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, in the same position as the injured person himself would have been; that is, it enables them to sue within three years of their own "date of knowledge".
To resolve the difference of view in the decided cases on what determines the plaintiff's "date of knowledge", it redefines the test for ascertaining the "date of knowledge" so that it applies only to knowledge of facts, not of law. It confers on the court a discretion, exercisable in accordance with guidelines given in the order, to extend the limitation period in any case where it would be fair as between plaintiff and defendant to do so, and removes the existing obligation to make a separate preliminary application to the court for leave to bring the action outside the limitation period. It further abolishes the rule under which time runs against a person under disability while he is in the custody of a parent.
These Amendments will bring the law in Northern Ireland on limitation of actions in personal injury cases into line with that in England and Wales. The order will bring into one place the limitation codes applying to personal

471
injury and fatal accident cases by repealing the relevant provisions of the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 and the Limitation Act (Northern Ireland) 1964, and replacing them with four new sections inserted into the Statute of Limitations (Northern Ireland) 1958.
Before being laid before Parliament, the draft order was published and comment invited. In particular, the explanatory document was widely circulated to interested parties, including the Incorporated Law Society of Northern Ireland. No adverse comments were received. I shall, of course, be glad to give further details on particular points which noble Lords may wish to raise. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 24th June, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HORSE RACING AND BETTING (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976
4.44 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE rose to move, That the draft Horse Racing and Betting (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 22nd June, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships will know that in all, or almost all, of the countries renowned for an interest in horseracing this sport has been unable to survive and prosper without some form of outside support. In Great Britain, this support has been based on the principle of contribution by bookmakers, and this order proposes to extend this principle to Northern Ireland. To this end, the order seeks to establish a fund to be used for the maintenance and development of horseracing in Northern Ireland. The fund will be supported by charges imposed on all bookmakers operating in the Province, and the proceeds will be devoted to one racecourse at Down Royal.
There are, at the moment, two race-courses in Northern Ireland, Down Royal and Downpatrick, and both have received
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a small amount of Government assistance for some time. Although this assistance has been sufficient to keep them open, it has not enabled either of them to develop. In 1972, a Working Party made up of representatives of bookmakers and racecourse managers recommended that a fund should be set up to improve the standard of racing. Your Lordships will realise why it was not possible for the Government to increase this assistance in these times of financial stringency. Therefore, the Government had to make a difficult choice: we had to decide how to raise more money and whether this money was to be spent on one or both racecourses. In 1973, officials of the Jockey Club were asked to inspect both courses and they advised that all available resources should be concentrated at Down Royal, which had much greater potential than Downpatrick.
I should explain that Down Royal, also known as the Maze, is situated about 15 miles South-West of Belfast and was incorporated by Royal Charter of James II in 1685. The course consists of 187 acres of good quality land. It has two tracks, one for steeplechase racing and the other a combined flat and hurdle track. Both are about two miles in length. Although its amenities are much in need of improvement, its potential is considerable and, for these reasons, we agreed with the Jockey Club officials that we should concentrate our efforts and resources on improving Down Royal.
It was for this apparent discrimination in favour of Down Royal that the order was deemed to be hybrid. Your Lordships will be glad to know that no Petitions have been lodged against this order. I can assure this House that these measures have been the subject of lengthy discussions over the past 10 years with bookmakers and the management of both racecourses, and there is general agreement to our proposals.
The order will establish a fund for the purpose of assisting racing at Down Royal, and it will be financed by imposing annual charges of £75 on each bookmaking office and £5 on each on-course bookmaker. This will initially raise about £22,000 per year. The order also permits the Department of Agriculture to alter these charges by subordinate legislation after it has fully consulted the bookmakers.

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Since only one racecourse is involved, the administrative burden will be light and will not warrant the setting up of a statutory board as in Great Britain. This order therefore authorises the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture to administer the fund and to ensure that it will be used only for the authorised purposes.
At the moment, excise duties payable in Northern Ireland by bookmakers on their bookmaking and bookmaking office licences are £5 and £50 per year respectively. In Great Britain, where off-course bookmakers already contribute to racing, both cost £1 per year with an "entrance fee" of £100 for new bookmakers. The order will reduce the duties payable in Northern Ireland to the levels paid in Great Britain. The loss to the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund income will be offset, because the Government will cease to pay the assistance grants to both racecourses.
As a result of this order, bookmakers in Northern Ireland will contribute a substantial sum towards the administration and upkeep of racing at Down Royal. Therefore, the order also gives Northern Ireland bookmakers representation on the management committee of Down Royal so that they will have some influence on how the money is spent. I believe that by placing Down Royal on a sound financial footing, this order will stimulate an already growing interest in horses and horse breeding in Northern Ireland and will, at the same time, facilitate the development of a valuable and sociable amenity. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Horse Racing and Betting (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 22nd June be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge.)
4.49 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, this order is of some importance because, as the noble Lord reminded us in his closing words, Northern Ireland has been a source of first-class bloodstock for horses for many years. I should just like to ask some questions and, if the noble Lord cannot answer them—because I did not give him notice of them—perhaps he will write to me afterwards. That does not
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alter the fact that I shall certainly support the passage of the order. Article 6 refers to the powers to enter on to land, and it occurred to me that I would listen to the noble Lord to hear whether there had been any discussions with the Northern Ireland National Farmers' Union. I wonder whether the noble Lord could give me an answer to that question. He said that there had been lengthy discussions with the bookmakers with regard to the charges to be made on them for the fund, but he did not say whether the bookmakers were in agreement with the introduction of this order.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I think that I did.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I did not hear the noble Lord say whether agreement had been reached with the bookmakers and I should be interested to know whether their agreement has been obtained. I understood from the noble Lord's speech that when the Jockey Club visited Northern Ireland the discussions were with the Government—presumably with—the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland. May I ask whether there were any other discussions? Presumably there were discussions with the Downpatrick racecourse authorities. Finally, the noble Lord referred to the assistance grant which will now cease to be paid so far as both Down Royal and Downpatrick are concerned. Does that mean that the Downpatrick racecourse now receives no outside assistance, and are we to infer that the future of the Downpatrick racecourse is now uncertain?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, if I may take the noble Lord's last point first, the answer is, Yes. We had very long discussions which I myself conducted about 18 months ago. We decided that it was best to concentrate upon having one racecourse which was effective and, very reluctantly, the people at Downpatrick accepted this decision. I do not think that they will necessarily accept the decision for ever. It has been made clear to me that they are not anxious to hold up the legislation we are putting through now on those grounds, although I do not know that they necessarily abandon all

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hope of making Downpatrick viable once more. However, the answer to the noble Lord's question is that by removing the small subsidy which was paid we do not see how Downpatrick can be viable.
With regard to entering upon land, I am not aware that there have been discussions with the Ulster Farmers' Union. All the discussions have been handled by the Department of Agriculture who are very close to the Ulster Farmers' Union, and I do not think any point has arisen which they have thought necessary to discuss with the farmers. If any such point had arisen, certainly they would have done so; there are no inhibitions on that account that I am aware of. The Jockey Club discussions were set up with the agreement of the racecourse owners and took place with all interested parties, including the bookmakers and the Government.
I think that those are the only points which the noble Lord asked me to deal with. I should like to say that I am very happy to see that something has emerged in the form of legislation. Discussions have gone on, and on, and on. For a long time the bookmakers were not prepared to agree, but finally they did so. Let us get through the legislation while the bookmakers still agree.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE: POLICING
4.54 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what naval equipment will be made available for policing the proposed 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Unstarred Question introduces a small debate which I think may range rather wider than might at first appear. All the indications are that within six months we shall have what is called an Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 miles around the shores of these islands where we have the longest coastline in Europe. In addition to fishing activities there, we have other activities like oil extraction and the possibility of searching for nodules. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord
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Ritchie-Calder, will refer to nodules, but I suspect that he might. Also, we have the possibility of fish farming. With an Exclusive Economic Zone—which is an extremely difficult term to keep on referring to, so perhaps I may call it the EEZ from now on—we shall have a number of economic opportunities which we may need to defend. With these opportunities there will go certain responsibilities—above all the protection of our activities, the enforcement of the rules and dealing with any emergencies which take place in these areas.
Today I shall not concern myself with what the policies in the EEZ are going to be. For example, there is the question of our rights under the EEC regulations which are to be debated later in this House. However, this raises the question of who is going to make the regulations, and possibly the noble Lord will be able to say a word or two about that. My point is simply that whatever regulations are made they will have to be enforced in some way, and the purpose of this Unstarred Question is to probe the Government's thoughts on the equipment and the organisation which they envisage setting up to carry out this task.
The difficulties were well illustrated by the humiliations which we suffered in the unhappy cod war. We had the sad sight of expensive and sophisticated but thin-skinned frigates being cast in a role for which they were never designed. Though they were handled with great devotion and brilliance under very arduous conditions, this could not compensate for the fundamental unsuitability of the vessels when they found themselves being, frankly, trounced by the tough Icelandic gunboats in the hands of specialists. I hope that we do not need to envisage a repetition of this type of confrontation, but I think that we have to face the possibility of incursions from some of the more predatory fishing nations, notably Russia and Japan.
It is worth saying in passing that fishery protection in the three-mile limit around these coasts has been a standing joke among fishermen for years. We all know that they come up on the radio the moment the fishery protection vessel appears and that by the time the vessel gets there they are all behaving as they ought. I may add that this has not stopped the fishermen from complaining about the inefficiency

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with which the regulations are being enforced against the vessels which come in from Holland, Belgium and France.
In the face of the probing by critics of some of the vessels which are known to have been ordered, the Government so far have maintained what one can only call an Olympian silence. I hope that this afternoon we shall be able to induce them to draw aside the veil which cloaks their rather sphinx-like inscrutability on these issues. I shall be coming later to the diversity of interests which are involved in the multiplicity of tasks to which I have already alluded, but I should be interested to know from the noble Lord what contribution the Government think can be made by maritime reconnaissance aircraft, such as the Nimrod. Obviously, they could engage in spotting and reporting, but any true enforcement would obviously have to be carried out by surface vessels. This is the equivalent of the argument about bombers and infantry: whether or not these surface vessels should be equipped with helicopters to work with them. This brings us to the ships which the Government have told us that they are ordering. Knowledgeable opinion that I have sounded seems to be unanimous that the ships are unsuitable, late in delivery, and represent poor value for money.
With regard to the matter of costs, frankly the Government only have themselves to blame if wild rumours are rife about the cost of these vessels. In spite of the much discussed open government policy the Ministry of Defence, in the shape of the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, have resolutely refused to disclose either the budget or the actual costs in the case of either the Island class trawlers or the Bird class patrol boats. In the case of the Bird class, in a letter which the noble Lord wrote to me he said that the price was still being negotiated although the vessel was taken into service last year. If there is still an argument on more than a marginal element of the cost, this suggests to me that something is very seriously amiss in the relations between the Navy and the builders.
But, more generally, the Department say that it is not their policy to publish costs, for security reasons. Yet within the Ministry of Defence we find the RAF announcing both the budgeted cost and
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the actual costs of aeroplanes like the multi-role combat aircraft—the Tornado—where we are in the same general region of cost, and I should like to suggest to the noble Lord that perhaps it is about time the Navy pursued the same policy as the RAF.
The vessels most frequently talked about are the five Island or Jura class armed trawlers which are alleged to be costing altogether something in the region of £15 million. These are single-screw ships of 1,250 tons with a design speed—and I emphasise "a design speed"—of 16 knots. But their most glaring deficiency is that they were certainly not originally designed to carry a helicopter. Some of the reference books say that they are being modified to carry a helicopter. This question was asked in another place, but unfortunately the Minister was stopped in his tracks before he was able to answer it. I should be interested to know from the noble Lord whether it is intended to modify them and, if it is, what these modifications will cost, because I suspect that these vessels cannot be adapted for the carrying of helicopters.
The other worry about these boats is the question of their speed and manoeuvre-ability as a single-screw ship. For example, they will look rather silly trying to chase some of the Soviet trawlers, which I believe are capable of something like two knots more than ours are. Their sea-keeping ability is not in question. They have been likened to the policeman on the beat, but without a helicopter I suggest we are talking about a somewhat blind policeman, or certainly a policeman who has not got his bicycle available.
Do we imagine that these few ships scattered about on the ocean will act as a serious deterrent to trespassers? Certainly their range of visual acquisition of information will be very limited by the lack of helicopter equipment, and I think it is fair to say that these shortcomings were well illustrated last year when there was a fire on the Norwegian oil rig. On that occasion the tug HMS "Reward", which had approximately the same performance as the Jura class boats, took 32 hours to get to the rig, and of course what it could do was limited again by not having a helicopter.
Indeed if we wanted armed trawlers, might we not have obtained both quicker

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and cheaper results by converting some of the trawlers which regrettably are being made redundant because of what is happening to our fishing fleet? Then we come to the four Kingfisher or Bird class patrol boats about which I have had correspondence with the noble Lord through the columns of Hansard. These are described in the letter he wrote to me as,
"general purpose vessels designed for patrol and fishery protection tasks in coastal and inshore waters".
From what I hear, I suspect that the less we say about these boats, the better. They are 190 ton vessels with a speed in the region of 18 to 20 knots and they are reputed to be costing £1 million each.
We may continue to be unenlightened on the actualities of this situation, but what is admitted is that the first boat was delivered 18 months late and the remainder will be two years behind schedule. So during the time that we have ordered five armed trawlers, of which we have had one delivered for a sum of £15 million, the Mexicans, who for some time have had a 200 mile EEZ, have taken delivery from yards in the Clyde of 21 Azteca class boats which cost them about the same amount as we are paying for our armed trawlers.
Now we must be careful. These are 130 ton boats, capable of something in the region of 20 to 24 knots, which were originally envisaged for use in the Gulf of Mexico, but I understand that the Mexicans have been so pleased with the performance of these boats and their sea-keeping qualities that they are considering (if they have not already done so) ordering another 40 which they intend to use on the Pacific Coast, where the conditions are rather more severe.
If I may introduce a personal note in the presence of my old colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, I spent many miserable hours some 30-odd years ago in the hard-chined MTBs which were available to us at that time and I would therefore have shared doubts about the sea-keeping qualities of this sort of vessel. However, I have now had two years' experience of operating a 35-ft. pilot boat designed by the designer of the Azteca class boats, and I am bound to say that this experience has very much revised my opinion of what the sea-keeping qualities of a very much bigger version of that sort of boat might be.
But there is a much more exciting possibility; that is, the intention to scale up these 112 ft. boats to 165 ft. in a design which is to be known as the Osprey, which will be capable of carrying a helicopter. It has been confidently predicted that boats of this kind could be delivered within two years from these yards on the Clyde, at the rate of one a month, if required, and at a cost in the region of £2 million each, although of course the cost very much depends upon the amount of equipment which is loaded into the boats.
These would be enormously versatile boats which would not only be suitable for patrol work; they could obviously deal with a number of the emergencies that we are trying to cope with, or indeed they could be armed with missiles which, combined with their helicopters, would enable these boats in numbers to challenge the very much larger and more expensive frigate type of boat.
That there is international recognition of the possibilities of this design is borne out by the fact that the Lurssens yard in Germany—who built the E-boats which were generally conceded to be the best vessels available at the time—I understand are interested in building these vessels under licence because they recognise the enormous appeal that boats of this kind would have to many international customers. It is a truism of the defence sales business that it is much more difficult to sell something which has not been ordered by the home Forces.
I want just in passing to ask the noble Lord whether the report recently in the newspaper that a hydrofoil was being ordered for experimental purposes is indeed, true. I am very glad to hear that we are keeping abreast of both hydrofoil and hovercraft development. But I would suggest it would be at least 10 years before we could expect to see a contribution made from either of these kinds of boats, whereas the Osprey type of vessel represents a wholly manageable and predictable development of vessels which have already been proved in practice. So much for the matter of the equipment.
May I briefly refer now to the matter of organisation, and I do so in a genuine spirit of inquiry, because I think this is a difficult matter, to which I hope the

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Government have given some thought. I think a considerable case could be deployed for not, at least without question, simply assigning a whole host of new jobs to the Navy. The policing role is essentially a very different one from the war role for which the Navy is properly trained and equipped. This point was emphasised to me last night by the commanding officer of a frigate, who said quite simply, "When I am fighting my boat in a war situation, I am tucked away in the bowels of the ship in the operation centre. When I am manoeuvring my vessel in a cod war-type situation, I am doing so from the bridge. The whole situation is fundamentally different".
It is a fact that the United States of American and Norway have chosen what one might call the coastguard pattern for their organisation, clearly because of some of the advantages that they see in terms of easier liaison with the many other civilian organisations which are involved, such as Trinity House, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution the Scottish Office, the Department of Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I believe there is something in the region of 20 civilian organisations involved in the issues of controlling the Exclusive Economic Zone. Of course, it may be said that if you set up a sophisticated coastguard, you are duplicating many of the other facilities which you already have for the naval work. This is the kind of issue on which it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of the Government.
There is one other point. I believe one of the considerations in the Norwegian case was that they were anxious to have an intermediate stage in, for example, a possible confrontation between a Soviet trawler and a patrolling vessel before prematurely playing their last card, and having to call in the full, warlike panoply, in our case, the White Ensign. I think there is political advantage, certainly in the present climate in this country in so far as the export of non-warship designated patrol boats would perhaps be rather easier than if they were designated as war vessels. This is quite a serious issue.
The question of the organisation is really a subject worthy of a complete
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debate to itself; it is quite a large subject. May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, whether there is any possibility of producing a discussion paper which rehearses the issues and indicates Government thinking, and which might possibly be the subject of a debate in this House. Again emphasising that it will not be very long before the Exclusive Economic Zone is liable to burst upon an astonished public in this country, I hope he will be able to dispel any suspicion that we may harbour that Government policies on issues of this kind have not been fully thought through.
I hope the noble Lord will be able to dispel all suspicion that the Admiralty still hankers after the days when Lord Cornwallis floated about for two years at a time off the port of Brest during the Napoleonic Wars, because I do seriously hope we have outgrown what we might call, "the battleship mentality". If I am suggesting that mistakes have been made, it is simply to remind the House that it was no less a person than Winston Churchill who said that the great purpose of examining the lessons of history is to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
5.16 p.m.
Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords in this House are grateful to the noble Lord Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, for bringing up this Unstarred Question this evening. If one goes back to a Question asked in October 1975, the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, stated in answer that by 1977 we should have 20 ships and four aircraft to police the Exclusive Economic Zone. Perhaps the noble Lord can enlighten us on that a little later. At the same time, the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, suggested that possibly the airship or the dirigible might be contemplated as being of use from the point of view of reconnaissance. I believe that the airship industry in this country is making some slow progress. I would have thought that, in the end, a Blimp might do equally as good a job as a Nimrod, and be more economical to run.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, raised the question of hydrofoils from the United States of America. I also read about it in the newspaper with great interest. I realise that in

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this country we do not have a British hydrofoil at present, but there is a firm in Cowes which is very interested in going into the hydrofoil business, or so I have been given to understand. The firm, which the Minister may know, is called Groves and Guttridge Limited. I have been given to understand that they are very keen on producing a hydrofoil which, rightly or wrongly, they think may be very suitable for the type of operation which is envisaged in the 200-mile limit.
One of the points they raise is that they have a hydrofoil which has what is known as "mechanical incidence control foils" which would be infinitely preferable to the more expensive and highly sophisticated sonic system foil. Would the noble Lord consider going into this in the future? If it was possible for us to build in this country a hydrofoil suitable for this task, it would, I hope, not take 10 years as the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, said. But it would be a very good piece of equipment to export and would bring substantial trade back to the maritime tradesmen of Cowes.
No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, remembers that I have asked before, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has also raised the matter, about the possibility of having a Coastguard defence force on the lines of that in America and Canada; and the proverbial policeman on the beat came up again. But it is not just a question of having a policeman on a bicycle on a beat. Is he to be in a fast patrol car?
Since I raised this, not all that long ago, I wonder whether the Minister, like myself; reads the Daily Express, where they have had a cartoon for the last few months called "Ocean Interpol". Ocean Interpol, to my mind, even if it is a figment of somebody's imagination, seems very much the sort of force that we should have in Europe. It would be a multinational force, and it would be composed, one would hope, of Member countries of the EEC, and maybe we could talk Norway into it. I think it would take possibly quite a long time to set this up, but I feel that it is a matter that might be worth the Government pursuing with our friends.
In fact, in October 1975 the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, did say that the Government were working on a regional
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conference involving Holland, Norway, West Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France and Britain; perhaps the Minister could give us any information that may have arisen out of the conference which I believe was held as a result. If we did have an Ocean Interpol force, which would have a variety of ships and aircraft, I am sure it would be a great deterrent to all pirates, illegal fishermen and not least any anarchists who might try not only to hold us to ransom but also the Western World, through the oil rigs in the North Sea and the pipelines, which to this day are still very much our Achilles Heel.
5.22 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I do not want to divert your Lordships' attention from the hardware, but 1 want to come back to what we are talking about, which is the 200-mile EEZ limit. All I have heard, including the explanation by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, of what the Mexicans are ordering in the way of boats and so forth, and what we have failed to do in our own case, only confirms what I have said before in your Lordships' House. Yesterday we had a discussion on the state of the nation, and my noble friend Lord Longford introduced the word "greed" as part of the basic trouble of our time. I can tell your Lordships that there is no greater demonstration of greed that we are seeing demonstrated now in the 200-mile economic zone. Lord Longford said:
"I do not think anyone can avoid the conclusion that a very large proportion of our economic troubles spring from greed, wherever one happens to locate it. I am not saying that we are, as individuals, any more greedy than we used to be before the war. I am submitting, however, that this greed is proving much more dangerous now and is likely to prove fatal unless it is corrected."—[Official Report, 14/7/76, col. 380.]
It seems to me that what we were discussing in the terms of individuals, the greed of people in this country, in the discussion of the state of the nation, is manifestly much more serious and much more aggravated in the case of the international grab. I wonder how many have ever tried to look at the map which demonstrates what 200-mile limits mean. We have the longest coastline in Europe and we are extending that seawards by 200 miles. Taking into consideration the kind of things we are talking about here, a coastline of that length would mean setting up a command such as we had

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during the war to look after the Western Approaches. This is enormous in terms of the world. We have something over 100 less-developed coastal countries, all of whom have claimed 200 miles and all of whom have got to police those 200 miles in the same terms as we are now debating. If we are greedy enough perhaps we can say: "If we can sell ships to the Mexicans we can sell ships to the Gabonese and any others concerned with their EEZ." This is not the issue.
What are we trying to do? I am told that there is still just a hope that the "exclusive" may be removed from the EEZ; that we will have to accept the 200-mile limit but that somehow or other we will get rid of this obsession of the "exclusive", which means that not only do you have to take on all the responsibility we are talking about now, but you have to attempt to develop the resources which are yours exclusively, and, above all, to the exclusion of world concern for what is happening in that economic zone. We are talking now about the problems of the fishing and so forth, not in terms of what you can catch, but in terms of the whole marine biology, the destruction of which would be disastrous. We are talking here about something which has got out of hand because people have not looked at the map; they have not looked to see what a 200-mile commitment really is. They are simply looking at it as something they can grab; an extension of their own property interests. This is frightening.
I am just about to join forces with the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley. This is an international problem. It is not a question of how far you can go on multiplying the constabulary forces of the coastal States, but how far you can multiply ours. How are we going to do it? We are talking about Nimrods, about Blimps. There is only one country in the world at the moment which can look at this adequately, as a 200-mile economic zone, and that is the United States if they use their satellites for that purpose—that is to say, excluding others from taking part. Unless you accept that this is the situation you are going to be faced with areas of a magnitude which have not been contemplated in any constabulary zone at any time in history. It must be an international body.
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We must come back to the point where we all started, where I hope we all started, accepting something which is called "the common heritage of mankind". In the early days, before we all got greedy, the common heritage was the seven-tenths of the earth's surface which is covered by water. We tried to think how this resource might give us the opportunity of doing what we so singularly failed to do on land; so to organise ourselves that we can be collectively responsible and not simply try to exploit it at other people's expense. We have lost that common purpose in the 200-miles EEZ. Everybody is grabbing now. I was asked a question about manganese nodules. I think you will find that there will be very little manganese nodules in the 200-mile zone, but there will be a great deal beyond that which will have to be policed by somebody. If we ever get an effective international seabed authority, we will have to provide them with resources to protect the common interest and the exploitation.
I have been frightened of this from the word "go", because if we do not get an international force we are going to have the most fantastic picture; we are going to have a reversion to the middle ages, to the war lords and the private armies. In many cases, the people who are going out to do the exploitation will be big international corporations—that is, when we are talking about development of mineral resources—and they will in fact be providing their own oceanic marine Securicor. We are going to see a fantastic multiplication of potentially dangerous forces in the world. The answer is not just to have an Interpol operating between ourselves and the EEC countries. In this instance it is the EEC I am talking about, the Common Market, and not the EEZ. It is beyond even NATO commitments.
We have to think of how we can organise—and I mean this very seriously—the collective security system for the entire ocean régime. We need a system on which you can ultimately rely so that you are not competing and not sneaking. The people who are the aberrants will be dealt with, we hope, by the world at large. But in the meantime just to go on multiplying the EEZ Corps of the world is just plumb crazy. I do not see that you can do it by adding little ships; I do not see that you can do it by adding on your Nimrods, and I do not see that

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you can do it by having dirigibles. You might see it as a result of a massive effort like putting up the barrage balloons round the 200-miles zone as we had round London during the war. Perhaps that might represent something which would define the limits which are not limits at all. The 200-miles limits are purely imaginary lines which you have to try to enforce by compulsory measures, by police measures.
Those of us who are concerned about the sea are not only asking for the policeman on the beat; we are asking for genuine inspection, so that people will be constrained not to abuse the sea. If we follow through on the Single Negotiating Text of the Law of the Sea Conference and apply the 200-miles limit, I do not see people carrying out these obligations. The obligations that they would have to accept if they get a 200-miles limit would be: the provision of hydrographic facilities; they have to protect the navigational aids and other installations: protect the cables and pipelines. They have to conserve living resources and permit the free passage of migrant fishes and not just the ones they are catching, or intruders are trying to catch. They have to prevent pollution. They have to prevent the transport of slaves; they have to prevent piracy; they have to prevent the illicit traffic of drugs and psycho-tropic substances, and prevent un-authorised broadcasts. That is a big job, whatever transport you provide them with.
This is the commitment. Is it not manifestly much more satisfactory that we should be looking at this as a collective effort, and not as an attempt just to defeat and reproduce everywhere in the world this kind of thing which we realise is inadequate? We are talking as a naval Power as was, a naval Power which cannot, in terms of your Lordships' House, find even the vessels to start doing the job. We are not even on the job. We have not even started.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him a question? He advocates having an international organisation to control all the oceans of the world so as to have peace and fair play on the oceans. Does the noble
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Lord realise that if you look at the record of the United Nations they have not exactly operated, as they were originally intended to operate, for the peace of the world? Does the noble Lord really think that on the oceans, which are, after all, three times as great in area as the land, an international organisation can ensure fair play, no squabbles and peace?
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord is, "Yes". The fact is that what we are looking at is our failures; at the failure of the nation States who have looked at their problems in terms of the historical land situation. We hoped that the oceans would provide a second chance. We are losing ground, and the noble Viscount may be right; we have lost the ground by now. Maybe there is no hope; there is no way in which you can construct a genuine international body. But the international body we hoped to see, and I shall hope to see, was something which would come de novo from the challenge of the situation. We were dealing with almost a tabula rasa situation in terms of international law, in which you could start to create the real instruments of international co-operation, and, hopefully, we might have done so.
5.35 p.m.
The Earl of GLASGOW: My Lords, it is a rare privilege to follow, if I may say it plainly, my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder. As a simple sailor I shall not try and follow his extremely interesting argument. In fact, it was only last night that was persuaded to speak today. Therefore, if I have not had time to do all the homework I should have wished, I crave your Lordships' indulgence. Nevertheless, I believe that the Question posed by my noble friend Lord Strathcona is of major importance to our defences, and I also have a personal interest.
It must be ten years ago now, during the Malaysia-Indonesia confrontation, that in a defence debate in this House I implored Her Majesty's Government to consider laying down a small, tough, unsophisticated and comparatively cheap class of ship for the Royal Navy. The idea was reinforced by the spectacle of half-a-dozen pirates in a motor launch, or even a sampan, being pursued up an extremely

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tricky river in Borneo by a very expensive modern frigate. By that time we had already had one cod war and we have had two more since. We are now faced with the possibility of policing a 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone, the protection of our fishing fleets, and the defence of oil and gas rigs around our coasts. All too late the Government have decided to act.
As has been shown in the recent cod war, modern frigates are quite unsuitable for these tasks except in the support role. The modern frigate is not much smaller than the light cruiser of another era, but it is immensely more powerful and enormously more expensive. It is thin skinned and designed, quite rightly, for a conventional war at sea should such ever occur again. I should like to add to my noble friend's tribute to the captains of the frigates in the cod war. It was an impossible task they were asked to do, and they did it extremely well and with great skill. It was very difficult indeed. The peacetime role which I have described requires something smaller and tougher and cheaper, so that we can have plenty of them.
My own assessment of the most important requirements for these new ships should be a strong hull, good sea-keeping qualities, and a long endurance. Their armament I would leave to the experts. It would appear that the new Island class fulfil some of these requirements, but I would ask the noble Lord who is replying whether he considers 16 knots maximum to be enough. I should prefer 25. In addition, I think these ships should be capable of carrying a helicopter, which would be able to land on oil rigs as well as on the parent ship and provide reconnaissance as well as possibly an offensive capability. I think also that these ships should be so designed that they could be incorporated with anti-submarine equipment in war, and he used as a supplement to convoy escorts.
I am very unhappy about the new Kingfisher or Bird class, but I will not comment on them at this time except to say that it gives me pleasure to see the names of some of the old Yangtse gunboats, with which I served for two years in the middle 1930s, coming back into service. I think it is most important that, before we go firm on whatever ship we decide to build
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for this purpose, all the possibilities we have heard today should be looked at: the larger version of the Azteca, the hydrofoil, and many others.
As regards the question of control and organisation which has briefly been touched upon, I should naturally prefer to see it left in the hands of the Royal Navy, but I see political advantages in some other arrangement. To sum up, it seems to me essential that we should get this new class of ship right, even if we have to make do with second best for a period. I await with interest the noble Lord's reply.
5.41 p.m.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, if ever there was something which was not a Party matter, I assume that it is this. Therefore, I feel quite happy about associating myself with everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, in raising it. Let us consider for a moment whether it is enough to think of the 200-mile EEZ as that which we have to defend. I believe that we shall have to look wider. I have seen it maintained that there are 23 different jurisdictions for different purposes which we shall have to defend, either now or in the future, as well as the EEZ. I should like briefly to enumerate them to the House.
First, there are the inshore waters, which we all know. Then, there are the territorial waters of 12 miles, which are slightly different in international law. Beyond those, there are the exclusive British fishing limits which we expect will exist within the EEZ. Mr. Hattersley has claimed 50 miles for those and that is another frontier. Beyond that, there will be the European Community fishing limits. They are now asking for 200 miles in the Commission. There will be a report from one of your Lordships' Committees in a couple of weeks' time. That is already four or five. Then there will be whatever is left of the North-East Atlantic Fishery Commission limits. I do not know whether that organisation will continue after the EEC has taken its official fishery zone. Then there is the British Exclusive Economic Zone limit itself, which is the subject of Lord Strathcona's Question.
Then there will probably be the British Continental Shelf limits which, in some cases, will be rather further out than 200 miles at the edge of the Shelf, or maybe

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at the edge of the slope or even of the rise. That has not been settled. There may be a British pollution control frontier. That probably already exists under the Act of 1972 taken through this House by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. There may be a British-based anadromous fish control zone. Salmon which spawn in British rivers are to be found thousands of miles out at sea, and some people maintain that there should be a British responsibility wherever they may be. Alternatively, it might be Canadian, according to which side of the Atlantic the fish start from.
Then there is a kind of disorganised, ink-blot pattern of security zones drawn at 500 metres radius round each of the oil installations in the North Sea and that will come to the Celtic Sea and the Western Approaches. There will be artificial islands springing up which will generate no territorial waters but which will presumably require another ink-blot pattern of security zones around them. They will carry waste disposal facilities, for instance, and nuclear generating plants. The Dutch are already building these. That is another type of frontier for defence. There is already the pipeline protection scheme such as it is, the existence of which I take leave to doubt. There will be dredging areas where particular dredging techniques are permitted and others are not: somebody will have to police that. There will be no-trawling zones under the fisheries control protection scheme of the Community, if we get one; and there will be different zones in which types of gear, catch and vessel are or are not permitted to operate at different times. All these will be part of the fisheries control and each will look a little different on the map of control duties.
There will be dumping grounds for waste materials, each with its own permitted list and prohibited list of materials which may be dumped and each of which will have to be policed. There will be compulsory pilotage areas. I believe that there is no doubt that in no time at all the present voluntary scheme in the Channel will give way to a compulsory rule of the road. Also, as I was arguing in the House recently, there may be special rules and routes for vessels carrying dangerous cargoes, such as nuclear materials and liquid natural and petroleum gases.
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Within each of these very precise areas or volumes of hydrospace, there will have to be a different set of rules to be administered, if necessary by force, if there is an attempt to break them. What have we before us as a proposal to keep the peace and maintain the law in all these 23 different types of regulated area? We have, as we all know, the five Jura boats and the four aeroplanes which are committed. Before starting on them, I should like to draw the attention of the House and the Government to the absence of any underwater control except for sonar surveillance. There is on the market already a French device called "Moana III", and there are others of American manufacture. These are incredible little things which contain three people and can behave as mini-submarines. They walk about the bottom and have pliers and drills and power tools sticking out of them. They have been built by the oil companies for submarine repair work, but they are also perfect offensive weapons if one happens to want to destroy an oil installation without being detected. Their presence would be hard to detect by sonar. They can get away fairly quickly. It seems to me that there would be a case, given the existence of these potential offensive weapons, for the procurement of the same thing as a defensive weapon. They are, in effect, a kind of new sea-bottom tank which we see growing up around us and I do not believe that the Government have thought about this yet.
I turn now to the ships and the areoplanes. The trouble about the Juras, as has already been said, is of course their speed. The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, will remember the bitter paradox of the Short 45-knot motor gunboats in the last war. I served in them and I believe that he did too. There was a great choice before us: if we carried enough armament to hurt the enemy, we could not catch him; if we remained light enough to catch the enemy, we could not hurt him when we did. It was personnel policy to try to keep officers and ratings rotating between the two different types of boat in order that they should get roughly equal shares of the different kinds of demoralisation which ensued. It was my bad luck to spend my whole time in one of the under-armed boats which could catch the enemy. They had a top speed of 48 knots. However, when we had caught

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him there was absolutely nothing we could do except to stay there long enough to satisfy honour and to proclaim our courage and then get the hell out of it as quickly as we could, passing on the way our colleagues in the more heavily armed vessels—they had two-inch guns—who were not going to get anywhere near the enemy at all.
It seems to me that the Juras are condemned to something of the same fate as I put up with during those awful years, with a cruising speed of 12 knots and a maximum speed of 16 knots, when most of the large modern factory trawlers which the Russians, the Poles and the Japanese are likely to deploy have a maximum speed of 20 knots. They are simply not going to get there. As we think we know, though we await confirmation, the Juras will have no helicopter so as to be able to do something about it when they fail to catch the enemy.
Can we compare our effort with the Norwegian effort, and can the Government compare the costs of the two? Here we are, with four aeroplanes and five Jura boats: the Norwegians already have three ships and are commissioning seven, making a total of ten. These ships have a cruising speed of 15 knots and a maximum speed of 25 knots, so they will be able to catch the big trawlers. Moreover, these ships are to carry helicopters, unlike the Juras. The Norwegians are also ordering eight of the appropriate kind of aircraft for air surveillance, compared to our four.
Norway is a very much smaller country than we are, and though I believe that it is right to say that its oil zone in the North Sea is somewhat larger than ours, it is not all that much larger and its population and wealth are smaller. Norway's programme has a capital cost of £115 million, including what they already have. That will be the total from scratch in relation to the ships and the aeroplanes I have mentioned. The annual operating cost of their programme will be £11½ million. Can the Government tell us the comparable figures for ours? It would be of extreme interest to know what a much larger and wealthier country is prepared to spend, and to know the proportion of cost to the number of ships and aeroplanes in each case.
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Lastly, on the question of organisation—the Navy or Coastguard, as one might say—I think I am a partisan of a Coastguard type solution. I say this not only from the well taken point about it being easier to export civilian boats in these days in the current political climate, and it being more defensible, but also because it is less frightening to everybody, especially to trawlers, and it is less of an insult to them to be chased off by a civilian ship than by a warship. This is less likely to give rise to diplomatic tensions. I do not think that the Navy need worry about the personnel implications of this because one could perfectly well have an integrated career structure between the Navy and the new economic protection force (or whatever we like to call it), and people could oscillate in and out at different ranks during their career. The training functions would be very largely the same, only they would wear slightly different cap badges and have the advantage of "civilianity" over the disadvantages of "militality".
5.52 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we have had a very interesting and well-informed debate about a matter of great national importance. The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, said that he has set out to probe the Government's thinking on the problem stated in his Question. The Question he asked relates rather specifically to hardware, and therefore perhaps my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder will forgive me if I do not plunge too deeply into the more philosophical aspects of the situation which he has raised.
What I hope to do this evening, in a comparatively short speech, is to set forth the Government's present approach to the issues which have exercised noble Lords today, and I shall attempt to use this as an opportunity to answer some of the points made. I cannot answer all of them. But if the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, will accept this as an undertaking, I would ask him to regard this as the first chapter of a discussion paper which he would like to have, and which quite clearly your Lordships would like to have, in view of the quite significant contribution to what is basically a minor debate. I have found it a most interesting and enlightening one.

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If we are to talk about hardware, I should like to say a few words about fishery protection. The Royal Navy has been engaged on this work since the 16th century, and the Fishery Protection Squadron is the oldest serving squadron in the Royal Navy. Nelson himself served in the squadron in 1781, which puts the matter into perspective. The main task of this squadron is to look after the interests of British fishermen, and whatever circumstances emerge in the future, this will continue to be the object of its existence. I should like to assure the House that the resources not only of the Royal Navy, but of the Royal Air Force, too, will be available to enforce the new fisheries régime.
In order to illuminate my argument at an early stage, I should like to make this one point, and it might to a certain degree answer the point made by my noble friend Lord Kennet. He raised the question of the difference between the Norwegian attitude to the problems we are facing jointly and our own attitude. It is tempting to conclude that the British and Norwegian requirements coincide, but it is important to remember that although they face similar problems offshore they are not able to call on the kind of back-up forces that are available to us. They have neither comparable frigate force nor the numbers of shore-based helicopters that we have. We shall come back to this question of back-up forces later. But since they have not got these back-up forces, it is more sensible for them to invest in a more sophisticated offshore vessel. But we have those backup forces, and they have this important part to play in our strategy of defending our interests throughout this very wide area of the seas around our country.
The Government are determined to secure a satisfactory revision of the European Economic Community's Common Fisheries Policy to ensure that the industry will be in a position to take advantage of the new opportunities which will arise in waters around our coast. We have made our future requirements clear to members of the Community, especially our need for a reserved coastal belt of not less than 12 miles everywhere and extending in certain parts to 50 miles. I should add that this would cover the coastal areas of particular importance to
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the United Kingdom. We shall also make it clear that we attach considerable importance to early agreement on the conditions under which Britain and other Community countries might continue to fish in the Exclusive Economic Zones of third countries, and the arrangements for phasing out fishing by some third countries in the future EEZ of the Community.
However, until the final shape of the revised Common Fisheries Policy starts to emerge, and until the likely outcome of Community negotiations with third countries can be properly assessed, the exact nature and extent of the new protection task cannot be fully defined. Nevertheless, I do not think that the decisions that the Government took as long ago as 1974, to prepare for the eventual introduction of 200-mile fishing limits, will prove to be very far off the mark. I shall describe those preparations in a moment, but they are relevant also to the protection of oil and gas installations on our Continental Shelf, and I must first say a few words about that task.
Noble Lords are well aware of the measures taken by the Government to protect these installations. The measures that have been taken will not, of course, be affected by the introduction of a British 200-mile EEZ. The measures are based on a policy of deterrent patrolling around the installations themselves and the surveillance of the whole area by ships and aircraft. HMS "Reward" and HMS "Jura" undertake deterrent patrols and other ships of the Royal Navy regularly pass through the oil and gas fields. RAF Nimrod, Shackleton, Vulcan and Buccaneer aircraft fly over each installation area at least once a week. The aircraft provide the overall reconnaissance and the ships provide an on the spot presence. Response to any particular incident on or around the installations, including action requiring explosive ordnance disposal teams, or the deployment of further ships and aircraft (including helicopters), or Royal Marines forces can be mounted at short notice. Regular exercises are held to test the arrangements for protecting the installations and dealing with accidental damage.
I now return to the additional forces that the Government are providing for the protection of installations and for fishery

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protection duties. These were announced in another place on 11th February last year. The measures consist of the acquisition during the course of next year of five new Island class ships and the provision from 1st January next year of four Royal Air Force Nimrod surveillance aircraft. The five new ships are of course additional to the Fishery Protection Squadron's present inshore force of 10 ships and the force of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland of five fishery protection vessels. Three of the latter are suitable for distant water patrols, including HMS "Jura", which is currently on loan from that Department to the Royal Navy.
By the end of 1977, therefore, we shall have a force of about 20 ships, and these, together with the Nimrods, should prove to be adequate for the protection of our fisheries under an internationally agreed regime, and for the protection of our offshore installations, and for the other tasks that go to make up the offshore tapestry. The first of the new Island class ships, HMS "Jersey", should be operational on 1st January 1977; the second, HMS "Orkney", was launched on 29th June of this year. There has been criticism from some quarters—and from your Lordships' House—regarding the speed of the Island class ships. which as noble Lords will know are designed on the lines of HMS "Jura". These criticisms have been answered on more than one occasion by my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy in another place.
In 1974—and perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, will accept our flash of vision—we foresaw the need for reasonably-priced ships with the accent on sea-keeping qualities and endurance, rather than high-speed and sophisticated weaponry, capable of carrying out sustained patrols in all weathers. A number of arguments have been put forward—and they have been put forward tonight—in support of the use of fast patrol boats, which have proved attractive to some other countries and have indeed proved successful; but noble Lords must be aware that fast patrol boats are not suitable for all-weather patrols, specially in the North Sea in winter, because of the inevitable construction limitations of the type of craft and because after a short
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period of operation crew fatigue becomes a critical factor. We want our ships to be where the action is, not sheltering from rough seas, to take advantage of the situation reports provided by Nimrod all-weather flights.
Let me remind the House that their role is that of identifying and confirming the existence of a threat to our rights and interests, and keeping abreast of what is happening on the spot; and, certainly, so far as the protection of offshore installations is concerned, a very important part of their task is to act as the eyes and ears of the maritime headquarters, who can then determine the appropriate response to a threat. It is not necessarily their role to deal themselves with the threat. That is why we do not allocate such expensive vessels as frigates to the task. Even they cannot be equipped to deal with every possible contingency.
May I go back at this point, my Lords, to a point I made earlier? The difference between ourselves and Norway is that we have a substantial back-up force, and in the Nimrods we have reconnaissance aircraft of the highest sophistication and the highest efficiency. The rather slow ships that are capable of remaining on station throughout the worst weather are indeed, my Lords, the local policemen that we have talked about, but the local policeman has a wireless set. He is not tied to 16 knots; he can communicate with maritime headquarters at the speed of light. That is really the role of these ships. We have these extremely sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft—not only the Nimrod, but all the large number of aircraft that pass over the general area—we have the local policeman on the beat in the form of the rather slow but very seaworthy ships; and we have a major back-up force which can be deployed by maritime headquarters, be it with helicopters, marines borne in helicopters, frigates carrying helicopters and the rest.
My Lords, that is really the answer to the question of the helicopter. If it was felt in a certain situation that a helicopter was required, then a helicopter-carrying ship would be available to take it to that point. It is not necessary for the Island class and the other ships I have mentioned in this particular situation to carry helicopters themselves. A helicopter-carrying ship can always be available to

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assist them if necessary. Having said that, may I assure noble Lords that we have not cast aside new ideas. As my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Defence said as long ago as March last year in another place, if experience demands or circumstances recommend some changes of plan, we shall be willing to consider them. That is the case today. I would add that the type of ships that the Royal Navy may require in the future, including those for offshore protection work, is under continuous review.
At this point, perhaps noble Lords might wish for me to comment on one or two suggestions made in the course of our discussion. First, may I touch upon the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, that, instead of having specialist ships within the Royal Navy, we might in fact have an enlarged coastguard force. May I say that the idea of setting up a maritime authority alone on the lines of the US Coastguard is not attractive to us, not only because it would involve substantial additional resources but largely because it would upset what are considered to be existing satisfactory methods of meeting the country's needs. In any case, close liaison with the Armed Forces will continue to be necessary, and it would be wasteful and not conducive to efficient operations if the Government were to establish a separate command and support structure outside and additional to those already existing in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Besides, the RNLI and the Coastguard are but. two examples of the organisations which mariners world-wide hold in truly high esteem. It would not advance our capabilities offshore if these and other bodies were allowed to be swallowed up.
Turning for a moment to hydrofoils, the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, mentioned hydrofoils and suggested that their application was some years in the future. I agree with that, but the Government are naturally keen to evaluate the potential of hydrofoils to undertake offshore tasks, and for this reason we have been considering the possibility of hiring a hydrofoil next winter. Contrary to newspaper reports, however, no firm arrangements have yet been made. Obviously, if it is to be effective, the hydrofoil has got to operate in the same harsh conditions as the Island type boats; hence the testing
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next winter, if it should take place. I think I have also answered the question on helicopters by saying that helicopters will be available on ships if they are necessary. May I say that I am certain that my honourable friend the Under-Secretary for the Navy will take note of the suggestion of the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, about Blimps. It is an interesting suggestion.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, may I interupt the noble Lord if he is leaving the subject of helicopters? I have not had the time to look up one of the reference books, but I think it is said there that the Jura class are being fitted with helicopters. Is the noble Lord saying categorically that that is not intended?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, as I understand it, it is not intended that the Jura class should be fitted with helicopters, but if I am wrong I will inform the House.
I should like to assure the noble Lord who opened the debate, and other noble Lords who have spoken today, that if and when there is an EEZ to police around British shores, or our fishing limits are extended to 200 miles, we shall have the equipment to carry out the policing task effectively, to ensure that our rights in the zone are properly safeguarded. The Government are confident that they have taken all the necessary steps to ensure that we shall not be caught out, and they have also been at pains to secure this preparedness at modest cost to the taxpayer. What we shall have, my Lords, is a mix of protection vessels and aircraft and ancillary equipment, providing a range of capabilities which, between them, will be adequate to meet all likely demands. Furthermore, we have been keeping this matter under continuous review, and shall continue to do so.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, can the Minister tell us anything about the cost of the programme?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: No, my Lords, not at this stage. If my noble friend wishes to put down a Question, I shall endeavour to answer it.

TEES TUNNEL BILL
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn; the order made on the 16th of June last discharged, and Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn; the order made on the 30th of June last discharged, and Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
  CONCORDE PROGRAMME
  CONCORDE PROGRAMME
  INDIA: WORLD BANK AGENCIES AID
  INDIA: WORLD BANK AGENCIES AID
  POLICE FORCES RESIDENTIAL TRAINING COURSES
  POLICE FORCES RESIDENTIAL TRAINING COURSES
  "SOUND SEX EDUCATION"
  "SOUND SEX EDUCATION"
  DEVELOPMENT OF FISHERIES
  DEVELOPMENT OF FISHERIES
  AID TO THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES
  AID TO THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES
  TOTAL OFFICIAL FLOWS FROM UK AND USSR
  TOTAL OFFICIAL FLOWS FROM UK AND USSR