Sitting of 5 May 1976

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

  BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS (FELIXSTOWE) BILL
  Order for consideration read.
  To be considered tomorrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ENVIRONMENT

    British Rail (Transport Policy Submissions)
    Mr. Sainsburyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will publish all the papers submitted to his Department by the British Railways Board prior to the publication of the consultation document on transport.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Shore): No, Sir. It will be for the board to decide how much it wishes to publish of the information it submits in its response to the consultation document.
    Mr. Sainsbury: Does the Minister agree that the long-suffering commuter is entitled to know rather more about the plans of British Rail to improve its efficiency?
    Mr. Shore: I hope that it will be possible for the commuter and for all of us to know of the plans, proposals and thoughts of British Rail, but we have only recently published the consultation document. I hope very much that I shall soon have the opportunity of discussing it with the British Railways Board.
    Mr. Norman Fowler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are not prepared to see commuters discriminated against? Will he confirm that the Government's policy document says that there is considerable scope for better productivity and manpower savings? Does he agree that a policy that raised fares but did not tackle the question of efficiency would be totally unacceptable?
    Mr. Shore: I am certain that increased efficiency is one of the factors that come into the whole equation of costs and subsidies affecting rail services, but it would be wrong for us to isolate one element. We must look at the whole matter in context. That is what the document has done. It will enable a more rational discussion to take place.
    Mr. Ronald Atkins: Does my right hon. Friend agree that while commuters are not discriminated against, since they are merely asked—as Conservative Members often ask—to pay their way, the commuter services into the cities are very important? They are socially necessary in order to prevent congestion and pollution in the cities.
    Mr. Shore: I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. I think that the services into London and other major urban centres particularly are essential on social and environmental grounds. It is inconceivable that there could be any serious substitute for them. Therefore, what has been proposed is not any savage reduction in those services but rather the recognition that they are, unhappily, high-cost services and that we must look very carefully at the present relationship between subsidy and charges.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: I warmly welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has just said about commuter services and urban areas, but will he comment on the report in this morning's Daily Telegraph that the Government have approached British Rail and that there are strong possibilities of swingeing cuts not only in the commuter services but in the very thin rail network in the rural areas?
    Mr. Shore: I read that account with some surprise. I have issued no instructions to British Rail, and I have no proposals for closure under consideration. Whether there are proposals for them, or

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    whether options have reached the British Railways Board, I cannot say.
    Mr. Moate: Do we take the Minister's original answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) to mean that he intends to publish considerably more information about British Rail finances—particularly with regard to individual commuter lines, as promised by the Minister for Transport some time ago—and British Rail's intentions?
    Mr. Shore: We had better wait until we see how the consultations go. I have no fixed view on the matter, but it is my intention to give the House and the public as much information as possible, to help them as well as us to come to reasonable conclusions about what options are available.
    Mr. Dempsey: When my right hon. Friend discusses the matter with the British Railways Board, will he draw its attention to the fact that inordinate fare increases in Scotland will result in savage cuts, loss of employment and the diminution of services essential to maintain productivity in that part of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Shore: I understand my hon. Friend's anxieties, but I do not envisage savage cuts. Therefore, the dire consequences which he predicts for Scotland are hypothetical and, I hope, unreal.

    Council Housing
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what survey has been made of council housing left vacant because of administrative and other delays.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): The Department's annual relets survey collects information about council housing revenue account dwellings which are vacant and available for letting at the end of each year and those undergoing modernisation, repairs or conversion.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the figure for empty council houses still 56,000, and does it include short-life properties? Is the percentage on GLC estates in Essex still 2 per cent., as stated last year? Whatever the precise figures are, do they not argue that what is needed is not
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    requisitioning powers but a proper survey and occupation of council property?
    Mr. Armstrong: About half of 1 per cent. of local authority housing revenue account dwellings were vacant at our last inquiry and just under three-quarters of 1 per cent. were vacant for modernisation, repair or conversion. The figures that I gave the hon. Member in previous answers are about the percentage at present.
    Mr. Loyden: Is my hon. Friend aware, however, that in Liverpool the situation in respect of empty council dwellings has now reached scandalous proportions, and that in my constituency and other places there is a great deal of squatting going on, which will greatly increase if this sort of thing continues? People will simply not accept that they should be homeless while properties are empty.
    Mr. Heffer: Under the Liberals.
    Mr. Loyden: Yes, under the Liberals.
    Mr. Armstrong: Any dwellings that remain empty longer than necessary are of great concern and are contributing to housing stress, so we are concerned about the situation. It varies from place to place, but the picture for local authority housing is that local housing authorities are very eager to use their stock to the best advantage. If my hon. Friend has any particular examples in mind, we shall do our best to help.
    Mr. Rossi: May I go back to the original Question and press the Minister to say whether short-life properties awaiting redevelopment are included in the official figure of 56,000 empty council houses under the annual relet survey—yes or no? In view of what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) said about the scandalous number of empty properties, will the Minister oppose requisitioning powers while thousands of council properties remain empty—[Interruption]—and instead ensure that a proper survey of every empty council property, in whatever condition, is made, with reasons given by local councils why they are empty?
    Mr. Armstrong—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We are letting questions run amok again. Hon. Members—this applies to both sides—are

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    making speeches. I hope that all hon. Members will bear that in mind.
    Mr. Armstrong: The collection of information is a great concern of ours, but that is not an answer to all the problems. We believe that local authorities know their own circumstances best. We are not anxious to dictate to them how they should allocate their stock.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: Will the Minister accept that one answer to the problem of short-life houses is to pass them on to housing associations, which can do them up far more cheaply than local authorities and which should be encouraged to do just that in places like Liverpool?
    Mr. Armstrong: Our experience in the country is that, under our municipalisation programme, authorities are buying property that is below standard, improving it and improving the general housing condition of their tenants.
    Mr. Ward: Does my hon. Friend not agree that although some authorities, like Liverpool, may be inefficient, in many cases these delays are caused by councils giving tenants a real choice in the properties available? Should he not therefore turn his attention to dealing with large empty houses, such as, for instance, the one at Totteridge, connected with the Pricerite chain?
    Mr. Armstrong: The second part of that question is due for answer later in today's Question Time. It is true that extra choice is being given, and many of the houses that are empty are empty for good reasons.

    Transport Policy (Consultation Document)
    Dr. Glynasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what legislative proposals he has arising out of the consultative document on transport.
    Mr. MacGregorasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he envisages any legislation following his consultation document on transport.
    Sir George Youngasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what legislative proposals he has arising out of the consultation document on transport.
    Mr. Shore: A number of proposals discussed in the consultation document would, if adopted, require legislation. I cannot, however, announce legislative proposals on them until I have considered the response to the document.
    Dr. Glyn: Does the Secretary of State nevertheless agree that the vital thing is efficiency on road, rail, water and all services and the necessary restriction of heavy lorries? Does he equally agree, as my hon. Friends have already said, that there is a real problem with regard to the burden borne by the commuter travelling to work? The Minister has himself said that he is not prepared to subsidise the services, so can he twist the arm of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor to get him to allow travel to work as an expense against income tax?
    Mr. Shore: On the first point, of course I agree that one of the aims must be to get the right balance among all the different transport services, including those mentioned by the hon. Member. On the second question, I do not wish to sound unsympathetic, but I believe that an Opposition who are constantly asking the Government to cut down and retrench on public expenditure should show more concern for the broad public expenditure restraints within which we are bound to operate. That does not mean—nor has it been suggested—that subsidies as a whole will be slashed, let alone abolished. We have not said that. What we have asked, however, is that there should be a limit on them and that we should make the best use of them among the different claims upon them.
    Mr. MacGregor: Can the Secretary of State give any more details of the legislation referred to in the consultation document for modest relaxations of the bus licensing system in rural areas? When will it come before the House? This is a matter of great concern to hon. Members representing rural areas. Will any of the experimental transport schemes referred to in the same paragraph be undertaken in Norfolk?
    Mr. Shore:I cannot answer the last question without notice. I must repeat that it is not right for me, at the moment, to try to itemise those conclusions arising out of the policy review that would lead to

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    legislation. Of course, one of these proposals is that there could be a reorganisation of the bus industry and changes in the licensing system, and so on, but I would not wish to pronounce upon these things until, as I said, the consultations have proceeded.
    Mr. Skinner: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the average railway-man, as distinct from railway union leader, may be asking himself why he should support the Government's central economic strategy while the Government have plans, which they could bring into action next year and beyond, to take away his job and those of his comrades?
    Mr. Shore: I hope that the average members of the railway unions, just like the leaders of the unions as a whole, will not put the question to themselves in that form. What I hope they will wish to do is, first, recognise the overall national advantage of the agreement that my right hon. Friend has been negotiating and, second, understand the contribution that today and in the future, just as in the past, an efficient railway industry can make to our national prosperity.
    Sir G. Young: Will the present Secretary of State dissociate himself entirely from the negative comments that his predecessor inserted in page 79 of the document, about the bicycle? Will he, instead, take this oportunity to make it absolutely clear that he and his Government will do all they can to promote this healthy, efficient and non-polluting form of transport?
    Mr. Shore: I reply to that question as an ex-cyclist rather than a practising one. I have always felt that we should make it possible for people who wish to use the cycle to use it to the maximum possible extent, consistent with safety. That is the real problem that faces so many would-be users of bicycles, particularly in our cities. I understand that there are one or two schemes relating to this matter. I am thinking of the one in Portsmouth, which has been tried out by the council, to encourage the use of cycles and to make their use safer. I shall be interested to see what the results are.
    Mr. Clemitson: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the proposals contained in the consultation document will achieve
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    the best use of resources and the best co-ordination of the different forms of transport?
    Mr. Shore: No, Sir, I am not convinced yet. I look upon the consultation document as being—I think this is how we describe it—a well-researched and serious analysis of the total transport situation in Great Britain. These proposals are half proposals and the whole emphasis is that they should be the basis for consultations. I shall not be persuaded of any particular proposal until I have had that consultation and have heard everyone's views.
    Mr. Raison: In spite of what the Minister has just said, the consultative document does include a very firm statement of Government policy. Does he accept that the flavour of that statement is that the massive transfer from road to rail, talked about in both the 1974 manifestos, is no longer possible? Does he propose to stand by the manifesto or the consultative document?
    Mr. Shore: That is an unreal over-simplification. I do not think any serious person on either side of the House would wish other than to see the maximum possible transfer of freight from the roads to the railways. Of course we want to see that. All that the document says, and says repeatedly, is that on the evidence before it a massive transfer may well be impossible.
    Mr. Neubertasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what further consultations he intends to have on matters arising out of the consultation document on transport.
    Mr. Shore: I have specifically invited comments from over 100 organisations with a direct interest in transport; either I or my hon. Friends intend to meet representatives of those that are principally involved. We would welcome constructive comments from other interested organisations and individuals
    Mr. Neubert: Is it not misconceived that strategic long-distance bus services should be allowed to be dependent for their survival on grants from different local authorities operating competing subsidised local services on sections of the same routes? In advance of an agreed and coherent policy on public transport.

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    will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that long-distance services are not run down and dismantled to the detriment, in particular, of those who have no car and who are not likely to have one for some time ahead?
    Mr. Shore: I shall watch out for the problem in the interim period, but in terms of consultation we envisage the sort of considerations that the hon. Gentleman has put forward, which are properly matters for discussion in the framework of the general discussions for which we have asked.
    Mr. Ronald Atkins: Will the consultations on the existing proposed policy include consultations with the unions, hon. Members and others who supported the 1968 Act and the Railways Act 1974. the implementation of which we have not seen and which contradict to some extent the present policy as expressed in the consultation document?
    Mr. Shore: I am not absolutely certain to which groups my hon. Friend is referring. As I have already made clear, we shall be most anxious to hear the views of the railway unions, the unions generally and the various statutory corporations that are operative in the railway and bus industries.
    Mr. Thompson: Will the right hon. Gentleman have consultations about shipping services, and specifically about the urgent need for a second run at Stranraer Harbour, to cater for the British Rail steamers that ply to Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Shore: I do not promise the hon. Gentleman specifically that I shall turn my mind to the question of Stranraer, but I hope that the shipping services will be included in the consultation.

    Layfield Report
    Mr. Durantasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to publish the Layfield Report on Local Government Finance.
    Mr. Peter Bottomleyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is causing delay in the publication of the Layfield Report on Local Government Finance.
    The Minister for Planning aad Local Government (Mr. John Silkin): The size and complexity of the Layfield Report, which runs to 733 pages of typescript, has meant that publication was bound to take some time. However, I hope that, subject to any possible printing delays. the report will be published by the end of this month.
    Mr. Durant: Does the Minister agree that there has been an appalling delay in publishing this very important document? We have been waiting for it for a long time. Is there something in it that needs to be hidden? Are the Government nervous of publishing it before the local elections? When the document is published, will the Minister see that there is the widest possible consultation':
    Mr. Silkin: I shall take the most serious part of the question first. Yes, there will be the widest possible consultation. The lion. Member is not being fair to the chairman and members of the panel, including people from his own party as well as mine, and trade unionists, who did an enormous amount of work and put tremendous efforts into this document. From a fairly narrow electoral advantage point of view, I would rather the document had been published already.
    Mr. Heffer: Whatever the Layfield Report recommends, it is high time there was a reform of housing finance. It is absolutely stupid that local authorities of the size of Liverpool and Birmingham, for example, should have to pay more than, or as much as, they paid previously in interest charges in order to borrow money now to build houses. This is an absurd situation, and I hope that the Minister will look into it.
    Mr. Speaker: In view of the long supplementary questions I propose to call fewer for the rest of Question Time.
    Mr. Silkin: I do not know whether this arises directly out of the report, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is continuing the housing finance review. He and I and the Under-Secretary responsible for housing are all very concerned about the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has made, and these matters will have to be considered.
    Mr. Graham Page: Has the Minister any programme in mind for implementing the report—I imagine he will wish to consult local authorities—and bringing it before the House? How long will it be before we see the results in any legislation, if this is needed?
    Mr. Silkin: The short answer is "As speedily as possible" The right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) occupied my position with distinction, and he is aware that, if there are to be meaningful consultations, the thing has to be done properly, and as much time as possible has to be allowed. When we publish the report which I hope will be by the end of the month, I shall acquaint the House with the arrangements that will follow the consultation period.

    Greater London Development Plan
    Mr. Atkinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will now make a statement about the Greater London Development Plan and any further modifications he intends to make; and if he will announce the future population size he intends to use as a guideline.
    Mr. John Silkin: It is too early to make a further statement on the Greater London Development Plan. The objection period expired on 10th March 1976 and I cannot yet comment on the plan. But, more generally, any view of the future of London must include a considered assessment of the future population and development of south-eastern England.
    Mr. Atkinson: My right hon. Friend must be aware that he is merely repeating the views expressed by many Ministers before him. He must be aware of the urgency of this matter and the need to reach a conclusion in order to co-ordinate London authorities and the Government. It is time to state clearly the principle that more industry is needed in the outer areas of London. We need an exchange of people whereby those living in the centre of London can move out to jobs outside the capital, while those living outside can come into London to work.
    Mr. Silkin: I think that my hon. Friend is—unusually—being a little unfair. A number of objections have been made
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    to the plan and these need to be studied. Because there is a necessary process to be gone through, I hope that my hon. Friend will not press me to consider matters that need to be studied and then commented on. I share his concern—I am a Member for a London constituency, as he is—and what he has said is. in broad terms, absolutely right.
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Does the Minister agree that much of the planning assumption that went into the plan is inaccurate, because no one has yet any assumption of population figures? This is the most important thing for the Government to decide on.
    Mr. Silkin: While I understand the question that the hon. Member is putting, I think it is rather an attempt to get me to make an unsuitable reply when a reply should be given in the proper form. The best thing I can do is refer to a statement made by the previous Secretary of State—who is now the Foreign Secretary—in October 1975, and say that the matter is being adequately dealt with.

    Construction Industry (Research)
    Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress he is making with his review of the present arrangements for preventive research into the causes of failures of design, components or construction work; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Armstrong: The review is not yet complete. We shall make a statement as soon as possible.
    Mr. Latham: Does the Minister share the uneasy view that there have been far too many such failures in recent years? Is he satisfied that the Building Research Establishment devotes sufficient time to exploring new technologies before they are used, instead of finding out why they failed afterwards?
    Mr. Armstrong: I share my hon. Friend's concern about failures. Construction methods are changing and new materials are being used all the time, so there are bound to be potential hazards. I am satisfied that everything is being done to remove the potential hazards and to make sure that failures do not occur.

    Roads (Parking Restrictions)
    Mr. Martenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many draft orders for waiting restrictions on car parking on trunk roads have been withdrawn during the last year as the result of objections.
    The Minister for Transport (Dr. John Gilbert): In the year ending 13th April 1976, two such orders have been with-drawn as the result of objections, one completely and the other to be amended and republished.
    Mr. Marten: In order to avoid that sort of thing happening—as happened in Woodstock in my constituency—may I suggest that more consultation takes place with organisations such as chambers of commerce and local shopkeepers, so that everyone of importance is consulted before an crder is finally made?
    Dr. Gilbert: I am aware of the difficulties that existed in the hon. Member's constituency. However, the fact that it has been necessary to withdraw only two orders in a year is pretty good evidence that we are doing a reasonable job on consultation.

    Transport Policy Review
    Mr. Newtonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many representations he has received from the public concerning his transport policy review; and what have been the main themes of these representations.
    Mr. Shore: I have so far received about 50 representations, mostly from the public, related specifically to the consultation document. The main theme has been concern over the future and cost of public transport.
    Mr. Newton: Will the Secretary of State accept that there is very great concern, especially among young married couples who were encouraged to move out of London and now find that they are in a vice—a money trap—with rising commuter fares? Will he further accept that there is a general feeling that the policy for commuter fares has not been properly related to social and planning considerations in the whole area around London? Will he take another look at that?
    Mr. Shore: I promise to give serious thought to the whole connection between —as the hon. Member puts it—broad social environmental policy and the allocation of subsidies that are available for passenger transport.
    Mr. Robin F. Cook: How many members of my right hon. Friend's Department who are involved in preparing the consultation document have first-hand knowledge of running a railway system or, for that matter, any other transport industry?
    Mr. Shore: I cannot help my hon. Friend on that point. In producing a review of this kind we have to strike a balance between those who have professional experience in running a transport service and those who have the advantage of being able to take a broader and overall view of all the different kinds of transport services.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Does the Minister agree that the emphasis in the consultation document is on transferring from rail to road? Will he bear in mind the article in the Daily Telegraph concerning possible closure of those lines which are receiving a social subsidy? Will he give an undertaking that he will put before the House, before they are implemented, any proposals by British Rail concerning possible closures of these services?
    Mr. Shore: The hon. Member is entering into hypothetical questions, beginning with his opening remarks about action to transfer from rail to road, which he says we envisage. I do not necessarily agree with that at all.
    Mr. Robin F. Cookasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will meet leaders of the rail unions to discuss the conclusions of the transport policy review.
    Dr. Gilbert: My right hon. Friend and I hope soon to meet the leaders of the railway trade unions to discuss the consultation document.
    Mr. Cook: Does my hon. Friend accept that, despite a reduction of over half of the manpower of British Rail, many rail workers remain anxious to achieve even greater productivity in the railway system, but they find it difficult to reconcile the greater output that that would require with the policy of higher fares, reduced

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    frequencies, lower investment in electrification and advanced passenger trains and other aspects of the policy?
    Dr. Gilbert: As my hon. Friend will be aware, the investment level for British Rail under the Public Expenditure Survey Committee is at a higher level than it has been since 1962, in real terms, after allowing for inflation. We are intending to continue that level of investment throughout the PESC period. I am sure that my hon. Friend will appreciate that it is really for British Rail to decide how it meets the financial disciplines that we are imposing upon it. As the consultation document says, to the extent that one solution is forsworn, the burden will fall that much more heavily on the other possible options.
    I conclude by congratulating my hon. Friend on his recent sponsorship by the National Union of Railwaymen.
    Mr. Fry: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the rail union leaders clearly whether he agrees with the commitment in the October 1974 manifesto that there should be a major transfer of freight from road to rail, or with the consultation document that his Department has produced, which describes this as a pipe dream? Surely the rail union leaders deserve to know where he stands on this issue.
    Dr. Gilbert: We always made it clear that the transfer of freight from road to rail was our objective where it made economic and environmental sense. That is still the formula in the consultation document.

    Council House Sales (Lincolnshire)
    Mr. Brothertonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many council houses in Lincolnshire have been sold to sitting tenants since January 1974.
    Mr. Armstrong: Five dwellings, not built specifically for sale, have been reported sold.
    Mr. Brotherton: Does the Minister agree that that is a disgracefully low figure? Will he press his right hon. Friend to reverse the Government's policy and to make sure that sitting tenants in council houses who wish to purchase their properties may do so?
    Mr. Armstrong: I do not agree with the hon. Member. It is for the local
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    authority concerned, which knows the circumstances, to make such decisions. As for the general policy, I refer the hon. Member to the statement by my right hon. Friend in Hansard on 28th April, at column 416.
    Mr. Ward: Does my hon. Friend not agree that the earlier remarks by the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton) about young couples being caught in a trap demonstrate that owner-occupation has been forced down the throats of some young people, and that it is important to keep a pool of rented accommodation for those who need it?
    Mr. Armstrong: I agree that there are those living in intolerable circumstances who are completely dependent upon local authority housing. A doctrinaire approach to this matter does not help them.
    Mr. Rossi: Is the Minister aware of the survey carried out by the British Market Research Bureau, which showed that nearly 80 per cent. of those in the 20 to 24 age group wished to buy a house if they could? Will he encourage local councils to build in partnership with private builders and sell council houses, so that the desire of these young people may be satisfied?
    Mr. Armstrong: In a recent debate my right hon. Friend outlined very fully and clearly the Government's policy on the sale of council houses. Many of those who are living in the most difficult circumstances are completely dependent on local authorities for decent dwellings, and we have to pay regard to that.

    Housing (Owner-Occupation)
    Mr. McCrindleasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the current proportion of owner-occupied properties to the total of the housing stock.
    Mr. Armstrong: It is estimated that about 55 per cent. of the total stock of dwellings in England were owner-occupied at the end of 1975.
    Mr. McCrindle: That is a reasonable advance towards what I would call a property-owning democracy, but has the Minister any further suggestions about how we may advance to the 70 per cent. to 80 per cent. levels of Australia and

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    the United States? Will he consider, in spite of his last answer, the controlled sale of council houses on the one hand and the restoration of tax relief on mortgages over £25,000 on the other?
    Mr. Armstrong: The hon. Member should bear in mind that when the Government came to office in February 1974 we inherited a mortgage famine, and house prices had gone through the roof. Our policy to stabilise building society funds has enabled many more families to own their own homes.
    Mr. George Cunningham: Is my hon. Friend aware that the most important and influential action ever taken to assist more people to own their own homes was the introduction of the option mortgage scheme—and that was introduced by a Labour Government?
    Mr. Armstrong: I have pleasure in reaffirming that that excellent advance was made by a Labour Government.

    Skiing
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has for supporting the development of skiing among young people in Great Britain; and if he will make a grant towards the costs of the first English Junior Ski Championships.
    Mr. John Silkin: I welcome the excellent work being done by the National Ski Federation of Great Britain to promote skiing among young people. The Sports Council is responsible for allocating grants to sport from the Government's annual grant in aid, but I understand that the federation has not applied for grant aid for the First English Junior Ski Championships as it has found a commercial sponsor for this event.
    Mr. Roberts: The achievements of the National Ski Federation, the local authorities and the Government have been impressive in this respect, but is my right hon. Friend aware that although a great many working-class children are interested in skiing the great majority of those who participate, particularly in championship events, are upper-class children? Does he not accept that there is a great deal to be done if we are to move towards the old Socialist doctrine that we should all live at the Ritz?
    Mr. Silkin: I am glad that my hon. Friend has paid full and fair tribute to the work of the Ski Federation of Great Britain. I am very impressed that it is starting children off very young, with competitions for the under-elevens. I believe that it has managed to train about 60,000 children and that on this May Day—or very near it—high in our ideals must be the provision of ski facilities for the whole community.
    Mr. Budgen: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the ridiculous suggestion that there should be a subsidy for skiing is indicative of the philosophy which gives us a public sector borrowing requirement of £12 billion and puts us on the slippery slopes not of skiing but of hyper-inflation?
    Mr. Silkin: I doubt whether even my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would put inflation down totally to the increase in skiing in Great Britain. I cannot help thinking that in the use of his mixed metaphor the hon. Gentleman was a bit ambivalent. Skiing is a splendid sport, which I like to watch on television.
    Mr. Monro: Is the Minister confident that the resources available to the Sports Council to encourage skiing, particularly in international competitions abroad, are adequate, in view of our performance at the Olympic Games?
    Mr. Silkin: I think that the hon. Gentleman is leading me into paths in which I have an invincible ignorance, but I know that the work that the federation has been putting in hand has greatly increased the interest in skiing in this country. Therefore, one hopes for better results in future. As regards subsidies, I said in my original answer that, rather fortunately, there was a commercial sponsor for this event, and hope that there will be many more.

    M23 (Surrey)
    Mr. Formanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent representations he has had from the residents of Beddington and Wallington, in Surrey, about the proposed route for the M23 north of Hooley.
    Dr. Gilbert: In the past six months the Department has received five letters from local residents or associations representing their interests.
    Mr. Forman: Is the Minister aware that, although he may have received only five representations, I have received a much larger number from residents in Beddington and Wallington who are worried not so much about the possibility of traffic congestion resulting from the M23 ending at Hooley as about property blight that continues because of the uncertainty that still exists? Will he take an early and unambiguous decision not to extend the motorway north of Hooley?
    Dr. Gilbert: I am aware of the degree of public concern that has persisted over many years. I have had discussions with hon. Members who represent constituencies bordering on the hon. Gentleman's division. Property blight is a very serious matter. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman appreciates that, as a result of the decision that I took on the northern terminal, we recently lifted blight from 1,400 houses. Unfortunately, I shall not be in a position to make an unambiguous statement until the GLC has reported to us and we have had final discussions.

    Rural Transport
    Mr. Lawrenceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what new measures he proposes to take to improve rural transport.
    Mr. Nicholas Wintertonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what new measures he proposes to take to improve rural transport.
    Dr. Gilbert: I refer the hon. Members to chapter 6 of the consultation document on transport policy, and in particular to paragraphs 1, 7 and 8 of that chapter.
    Mr. Lawrence: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the financial difficulties now facing bus companies, county councils and car owners make the problem of rural bus services extremely urgent, especially for the elderly? A month ago the hon. Gentleman said that he intended to promote a number of experiments. What are those experiments to be, where are they to be held, and when does he intend to promote them?
    Dr. Gilbert: I cannot answer the specific questions that the hon. Gentleman puts to me. However, I can tell him that we are already arranging a first
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    meeting of the commission, on which will be represented local authorities, trade unions and the operators of rural bus services. The commission will consider the terms of the Bill, which we are hoping to introduce as soon as may be. The intention is to have three or four areas in which experiments will take place. That will relate to the relaxation of present licensing arrangements, but there is a need for safeguards for those who work in the industry and for public safety.
    Mr. Winterton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in my constituency there are many retired people and low-wage earners living in rural areas where no public transport exists? Is he further aware that they find it difficult to continue to run their cars? Will he introduce legislation to relax the public service licensing laws in rural areas?
    Dr. Gilbert: I do not think there is anything I can add to what I said in reply to the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). The relaxation of public service licensing is a sensitive and delicate matter. The system exists for the protection of those who work in the industry and for the protection of the general public. We must proceed cautiously before moving to relax the arrangements. Clearly there is a fundamental need to consider the problem of rural transport, including the sort of problem to which the hon. Gentleman refers and from which his constituents suffer. Part of the difficulty has been the explosion of private car ownership, which has made it difficult to run public services in rural areas.
    Mr. Norman Fowler: Is not the problem far more urgent than the Government have so far recognised? Do they think that a modest relaxation of licensing and a couple of experiments amount to an adequate response to this urgent situation? Do they not recognise the strength of feeling of my hon. Friend? Will they not make speedier progress?
    Dr. Gilbert: I have no intention of dismantling the public service licensing system overnight merely to suit some of the doctrinaire prejudices of the hon. Gentleman. The matter is much more serious than that. Nothing whatever was done by the hon. Gentlemen's party when in power, although its members are now

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    claiming that they want dramatic changes overnight. This is a matter that must be approached with considerable caution. The advantages and disadvantages must be weighed very carefully.

    Earth Tremors (Stoke-on-Trent)
    Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what further steps he proposes to take to investigate the causes of earth tremors in Stoke-on-Trent.
    Mr. Shore: Monitoring and analysis of these tremors have been conducted and funded locally since they began in 1975, and work will continue on this basis until October. Arrangements are now being discussed with the Institute of Geological Sciences for the further continuance of work in the Stoke area directed towards establishing causation in the context of broader analysis of earth movements in sensitive areas in and around the Midlands.
    Mr. Ashley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in an Adjournment debate, following unsatisfactory answers, the Minister of State gave me a categorical assurance that the experts and equipment would remain in Stoke-on-Trent until the cause of these earth tremors had been found? The Secretary of State is now talking about October and discussions. I appreciate the way in which he has handled the matter so far, but if there is to be any dilution of the categorical assurance that the equipment and experts will remain in Stoke-on-Trent until the cause is found my right hon. Friend is due for a very interesting time.
    Mr. Shore: I understand my hon. Friend's proper and legitimate concern. I am happy to repeat the assurance that the equipment will remain in the Stoke-on-Trent area until the cause of the tremors has been established. Further, we are working out proposals with the IGS for a broader coverage of the Midlands area, including Stoke, to see whether we can throw further light on the causes of these occurrences.
    Mr. Hugh Fraser: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his clearer response to his hon. Friend, because his first response appeared to mean that the equipment was to be withdrawn. Will he ensure that something is published by
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    the end of the year to reassure people living in that part of the West Midlands?
    Mr. Shore: I shall certainly consider the right hon. Gentleman's proposal. I am most anxious, as I am sure that both he and the whole House are, to get to the bottom of this problem and to find out the causes. As soon as we can reach a point where we feel reasonably confident that we have the answer, I shall arrange for an appropriate statement or publication to be made.

    Housing Statistics
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what the latest housing statistics are in the public and private sectors; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Shore: House building figures for the first quarter of 1976 were published on 27th April. They show that in the public sector starts were up by 25 per cent. on the first quarter of 1975, and completions by 12 per cent. On the same comparison in the private sector, starts and completions were up by 28 per cent. and 8 per cent. respectively. These are encouraging figures and show that the improvement we achieved last year is being maintained.
    Mr. Skinner: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that the figures for public sector dwellings would have been even better had it not been for the fact that the 60-year loan period for borrowing the money is reduced? For instance, does he agree that more than 80 per cent. of the total cost of any new council dwelling goes to the moneylenders, and that we ought to do something about that? Will he take up the suggestion that I made to his predecessor of trying to find ways of reducing the 60-year loan period and, in the process, making the necessary compensatory payments to local authorities because of the extra payments that will be incurred over the shorter repayment period?
    Mr. Shore: I certainly note what my hon. Friend said about the 60-year loan period. Indeed, that point was alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller) in an earlier supplementary question. I think that I should be well advised—as it were, advising myself—to say no more than that I am happy to look into that suggestion.
    Mr. George Rodgers: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in practicaly every area in the country there is an abundance of private houses available for sale? In those circumstances, and as every local authority responsible for housing has a huge waiting list, should not greater attention be concentrated on the provision of houses in the public sector?
    Mr. Shore: I think that my hon. Friend will agree that there is satisfactory information of a growing provision of houses in the public sector. In addition, there are the municipalisation proposals on which we are concentrating in respect of areas of great housing stress.

    British Railways Board (Chairman)
    Mr. Cryerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he next expects to meet the Chairman of British Rail.
    Mr. Shore: I shall be meeting the Chairman and members of the British Railways Board towards the end of this month.
    Mr. Cryer: When my right hon. Friend meets the Chairman of the British Railways Board, will he ensure that he understands that British Rail should enter into the fullest possible consultations when withdrawing freight traffic? In particular, will my right hon. Friend ask him to review his decision to withdraw the carriage of pigeons, which provides revenue of up to £2 million per year? Does my right hon. Friend agree that Britain Rail seems too easily disposed to get rid of freight traffic? Does he also agree that legislation similar to the TUCC system regarding passenger service withdrawals should be brought in to deal with freight?
    Mr. Shore: I shall consider what my hon. Friend said about consultation procedures. I think that what he has in mind—at least, this is what I have in mind, listening to his supplementary question—is that passenger services are subject to statutory consultative procedures whereas freight services are not. It does not necessarily mean that there are no informal consultative procedures affecting particular freight services. I promise to look into the matter further. I shall also give most anxious thought to the question of the carriage of pigeons.
    Mr. Raison: When the Secretary of State meets the Chairman of British Rail, will he discuss with him the fact that the consultation document states that the railways could not at present cope with a substantial increase in peak traffic? In view of that statement, is it not nonsense for bodies such as the GLC to talk of imposing penal charges on motorists? Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that if the GLC imposes a £3 parking charge that charge will apply also to those who use the GLC's car park?
    Mr. Shore: I cannot accept that suggestion. We must consider charging not only for public car parks but for private parking facilities. This subject is dealt with in the consultation document.
    Mrs. Winifred Ewing—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The House should welcome a little colour.
    Mrs. Ewing: When the Secretary of State meets the Chairman of British Rail, will he tell him that the staff in Scotland are aggrieved at the fact that Scotland is the dumping ground for old rolling stock? Will he also tell him that the Scots noticed that, when the flow of North Sea oil was opened, Scotland suddenly got marvellous rolling stock from England for that special occasion, so that English passengers would not know about the rotten old rolling stock that it normally gets?
    Mr. Shore: I am delighted to hear evidence of an improvement in the quality of the rolling stock that has appeared on Scottish rail track in recent years. I shall ensure that the attention of the Chairman of British Rail is drawn to what the hon. Lady said about the age and type of stock in Scotland.

    Building Contracts (EEC Advertising Requirement)
    Mr. Joseph Deanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what additional costs are being borne in the public building and construction sector due to the necessity of having to advertise all contracts above £450,000 in the EEC in accordance with the terms of membership of that organisation.
    Mr. Armstrong: The additional cost of advertising contracts above £415,000 is not known, but it is likely to be

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    extremely small in relation to the expenses necessarily incurred in designing projects and placing contracts for their construction.
    Mr. Dean: Is my hon. Friend aware that I do not accept that answer? I have reason to believe that substantial costs, of between £40 million and £50 million, are being incurred in public sector house building contracts by having to comply with that nonsensical condition of membership of the EEC. If my hon. Friend wishes it, I can furnish him with the details on which I base that calculation—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. That is enough.
    Mr. Armstrong: The British Government have tried to raise the threshold. If my hon. Friend has any such evidence, I shall be very glad to have it and consider it very carefully.
    Mr. Marten: Is the Minister aware that since January 1973 2,500 British public works contracts have been put out to tender in the Common Market and that not one has been taken up or accepted? If we cannot raise the thres-hold, is not the answer really to ignore this useless, fussy and time-wasting procedure?
    Mr. Armstrong: I am aware of the information that the hon. Gentleman has given. We are making representations.

ICELAND (FISHERIES DISPUTE)
Mr. Pym(by Private Notice )asked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the protection of the British fishing fleet in the seas around Iceland.
The Minister of State for Defence (Mr. William Rodgers): As the House knows, the Royal Navy was first sent to the fishing grounds off Iceland last November. Royal Navy and RAF protection was then withdrawn for a short period during the discussions between my right hon. Friend the former Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Iceland at the end of January. It was resumed when no settlement was reached and harassment by Icelandic gunboats continued.
For the most part, Royal Navy protection has proved very effective. No
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trawlers have been arrested and in the period 28th February to 21st April, for example, only one trawler had its warps cut.
However, Icelandic gunboats have recently adopted new and particularly dangerous tactics, resulting in serious damage to a number of Royal Navy ships and a much increased prospect of loss of life. For the first time there have been as many as six gunboats deployed on the grounds simultaneously, and they have been particularly favoured by weather conditions. In responding to their aggressive and dangerous behaviour we have had to bear in mind our wish to avoid escalatory action which might prejudice the chances of a peaceful settlement or increase the risk to both British and Icelandic lives.
We believe that the present level of protection continues to be of value to our trawlers, but in view of representations received from the industry we are considering whether further steps should now be taken.
Mr. Pym: I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he accept that the House and the whole industry have been unstinting in their praise for the Royal Navy's work in enabling our fishermen to go about their legitimate work? Does the Minister's answer mean that from the point of view of the Navy there has been no change and no reduction in the level of naval protection but that the change has come wholly on the Icelandic side?
Are the fishermen being kept fully informed of the position and what the Navy is doing, and are they entirely happy about the protection arrangements at present? What exactly was the decision that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food yesterday said would be taken in the next 24 or 48 hours? I do not think that the House is clear about that.
Will the Minister say something about the present state of negotiations to settle the position, which clearly is the desire of the whole House? Does he realise that what the House wants is to be satisfied about the adequacy of protection and its continuation for the safety of our fishermen fishing in those waters?
Mr. Rodgers: First, I am sure that the Royal Navy will greatly appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman has said about

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its efforts since it first went in, in November. The industry has made clear to myself and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, for example, that, far from having any criticism of the Royal Navy, the trawlermen are very pleased indeed and fully appreciate the very hazardous circumstances in which the Royal Navy has been operating.
On the right hon. Gentleman's last point, the answer is "Yes". Indeed, we accept that the House is and must be deeply concerned with the level and effectiveness of protection and that we have an obligation to seek to provide it for our fishermen fishing quite legally off Iceland at present.
As to the right hon. Gentleman's particular questions, there is certainly no reduction in the level of Royal Navy protection, nor has there been any change in the rules of engagement, but in view of the changed Icelandic tactics it was necessary to consider how best to protect lives and to enable our frigates to continue a useful protection rôle. It is that change which has given rise to the situation that we see now.
The fishermen off Iceland have been kept informed. I think it would be true to say that there is very close integration on the ground between the trawler-men and the Royal Navy. To say that they are happy about the present level of protection would be untrue. They are concerned by the fact that their catches in recent times have been small. It was for that reason that the industry made representations to my right hon. Friend and to myself and colleagues yesterday.
As for the decision within 48 hours, the burden of what the industry said was that, whereas it fully appreciated the protection that the Navy had given and it understood present problems, it wished us to consider again whether the level of protection—I am thinking in terms not mainly of numbers but of tactics also—could be raised. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture told the trawler-men on the fields yesterday that within 48 hours—in other words, by the end of tomorrow—a decision on the level of protection would be made.
As for the negotiations, the negotiations in Brussels yesterday that were carried out by my right hon. Friend the
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Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs were concerned with the broader issues of fisheries policies. He made a statement there, which was widely reported this morning, and I am sure that he would be willing to place a copy in the Library.
Mr. James Johnson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the fleet must stay there and fish, otherwise our case inevitably must go by default? Speaking personally, I do not want Iceland to win its "phony" case, but, even more so as the Hull Member of Parliament, I do not want my constituents in a dole queue outside the Hull exchange. Finally, does my right. hon. Friend agree that while the vessel owners may be losing money, the possibilities are that men could lose their lives? Therefore, will he give the House, clearly and unequivocally, an assurance on behalf of himself and his colleagues that the Government will give as much protection as possible at this time and no less protection than they gave to our men a month ago?
Mr. Rodgers: My hon. Friend very fairly sums up the situation. I entirely agree with him that it is very important that our fishing fleet should stay off Iceland. My latest information is that the trawlers that were there yesterday are still in the area. I hope very much that they will remain there until we are able to send them a further message by the end of tomorrow.
My hon. Friend draws attention to the importance of the fishing industry and to fishing off Iceland to very many people in Britain at present. This is an extremely difficult question of finding a balance between affording adequate protection and trying to avoid the loss of human life. The Royal Navy has succeeded in this, but we are considering whether some changes in the form or level of protection might enable the balance to be struck perhaps rather more effectively than it seems to have been struck in recent weeks.
Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the Minister aware that the case for using the Royal Navy in Icelandic waters is extremely weak and that in view of the Government's virtual acceptance of an extension of the limits it becomes almost indefensible? If he has vessels to use in

1303
that way. why are they not used in protecting Scottish waters, where the protection fleet has been cut by half in recent years?
Mr. Rodgers: I am aware of the hon. Gentleman's views, and on this and many others matters his case is weak and very unrepresentative of the feeling in the House. I wish that he would be less small-minded and would recognise how important this fishing is to the people of other parts of the United Kingdom. believe that we would all be ready to afford as much necessary protection to the fishermen of Scotland as I hope he believes we should afford to our fishermen off Iceland today.
Mr. Amery: Is the Minister aware that there is a widespread impression growing, and reflected in the Press this morning, that the Royal Navy is no longer able to assure, for technical reasons, the protection of our trawler-men? Does he appreciate how serious it would be if this proved to be so? Can he say that that is not the case?
Mr. Rodgers: It is not the case that the Royal Navy is failing to afford a protection rôle to our trawlers off Iceland. There has always been great difficulty in finding a balance between the form and level of protection and avoiding loss of life and the escalation of what is a very delicate and dangerous situation. In so far as our protection may be thought to have been less in the last few weeks, that is the matter Ministers are collectively considering today.
Mr. Brotherton: Bearing in mind that many of my constituents are going about their lawful occasions on the high seas in northern waters, can the Minister repeat the guarantee given to me in this House in February by his right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) that the Navy will continue to defend our mariners who are going about their lawful occasions on the high seas until an arrangement or agreement is reached with the Icelandic Government?
Mr. Rodgers: I can certainly give the House that undertaking, but I hope the hon. Member will allow that these problems are highly complex. Apart from
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protecting trawlermen pursuing their lawful occasions, we must also seek to protect the lives of sailors in the Royal Navy in particularly difficult circumstances.

PAY POLICY (DISCUSSIONS)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Denis Healey): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to report to the House on the outcome of the discussions between the Government and the Trade Union Congress on pay and on the wider operation of the social contract during the year from the beginning of next August. The House will already have heard about the conclusion reached by the General Council of the TUC at its meeting this morning.
In my Budget speech I said that, in order to end next year with an inflation rate at least in line with our foreign competitors, we should aim at a further halving of our inflation rate by December 1977, and that this would require that, in the next pay round, the nation's money wage bill should rise by under half as much as it is likely to rise in this pay round. I went on to say that the tax reliefs I was describing were based on the assumption that the pay limit in the next round would be in the area of 3 per cent. but that much would depend on the way in which the new policy was structured.
Early this morning, the Government reached agreement with TUC representatives on recommendations they would make to the TUC General Council to implement the Government's counter-inflation policy in the 12 months beginning 1st August 1976. The General Council has now endorsed these recommendations by a very large and representative majority and will commend them to a special conference called for 16th June.
On pay, the Government's discussions with the TUC concentrated on two main questions. They were the structure of a new pay limit for the year from 1st August 1976; and the level of the limit and its impact on the nation's pay bill. On structure, the discussions produced an increasingly strict and tight form of limit, reducing progressively the risk of extra earnings increases through exceptions or leakage. On the level of the limit, both sides were concerned to reach a conclusion

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which met the Government's counter-inflation requirements; which protected the low paid, but at the same time gave more room for differentials than the £6 limit; and which, above all, would command the support of the trade union movement at all levels because there is no basis on which any incomes policy is likely to succeed in practice other than the understanding and support of those on the shop floor.
The result was a pay limit which, if approved by the TUC special conference, can be expected to add, on average, about 4½per cent. to wages and salaries. This increase of about 4½per cent. is well under half the increase represented by the £6 limit. That limit was equivalent to about 101 per cent. and the effect of equal pay and certain transitional provisions was to add upwards of 1 per cent. to that.
The new limit permits a maximum weekly increase of £4 and a minimum of £2.50, with a 5 per cent. limit on increases for those in the middle band of earnings. The effect of the low upper limit is to reduce the impact of the new agreement on the pay bill to about 4½per cent.
I attach the highest importance to the clear and straightforward structure of this new pay limit. It was widely expected that there would be more exceptions and complexities in this second year of the policy and I myself assumed that this would be so at the time of the Budget. In fact, the structure of the new limit is in some respects even simpler than it has been for the £6.
We do not on this occasion have to provide for large equal pay increases or for transitional exceptions outside the pay limit, which, in the current year, have added appreciably to the pay bill. Next, there is no question of consolidating pay increases under the £6 policy into basic rates: this alone could have added as much as 2 per cent. to the total pay bill.
No special exceptions are proposed for productivity bargains. There is no loophole for rectifying what people may see as anomalies.
The calculation of pay increases during the year from 1st August is quite unambiguous and avoids the uncertainties of the pay bill for a group. The increase will take the form of a supplement to the pay of the individual, calculated week
1306
by week or month by month as 5 per cent. of his total earnings, subject to a floor of £2·50 and a ceiling of £4, which will apply to incomes at all levels above £80 a week.
Apart from the changed form of the limit, the rules for the £6 limit will continue to apply, subject to a minor exception to permit the negotiation of occupational pension schemes up to the level required by law to permit contracting out of the State scheme, which the Government announced last July.
This 4½per cent. level of pay increase is likely to be below that in practically all the Western developed countries this year. Even the Germans, with their excellent record, are seeing a rate of increase of about 5½per cent.
The Government regard these proposals, like the £6 proposals before them, as a thoroughly responsible and states-manlike response by the TUC to the needs of the counter-inflation programme.
The recent discussions have not been confined to pay alone. The TUC has naturally stressed the vital importance of keeping the rise in prices to the minimum during the period of the new pay policy. Price controls must not be swept aside while an incomes policy is in operation. The Government therefore believe that price controls on both profits and costs must continue at this time, but that the price control regime must be so modified as to encourage investment and jobs in our economy.
My right hon. Friend will be discussing current price controls and the essential changes that we believe must be made to ensure economic growth with the CBI, the TUC and all other interested parties. As soon as these discussions have been concluded, a further statement will be made to the House and a consultative document will be issued in the normal way.
In order to contain the effect of price increases on those with growing families I propose not to proceed with next September's 5p increase in school meal charges. This will cost £35 million in the current year. It is something to which the TUC representatives attached great importance in our talks.
The TUC has, of course, been equally concerned with jobs and training. As

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recent surveys have shown, demand from exports and investment is now expected to increase rapidly and the prospects for employment are much brighter in consequence.
Since the last TUC Annual Congress I have brought forward four separate sets of selective measures, in September, December and February and again in my recent Budget, to improve the prospects for employment, both directly, as through the introduction and improvement of the temporary employment subsidy, and indirectly, for example, through the additional expenditure on industry schemes and to extend facilities for industrial training. The full effect of these measures has not yet come through, but we estimate that more than 100,000 people already have jobs or training places as a result of them. I now propose to allocate an additional £15 million for training and job creation by the Manpower Services Commission.
The total additional expenditure of £50 million will be charged against the contingency reserve and will not add to the expenditure totals announced in the Public Expenditure White Paper.
The Government are satisfied that the new agreement, if approved by the TUC special conference, will, as I have explained, meet the requirements of the counter-inflation policy. When that has happened, we therefore propose to recommend to Parliament the enactment in full of the conditional tax reliefs specified in the Budget.
Sir G. Howe: The Chancellor has made a long and important statement. The House will wish to have an opportunity for an early and separate debate on the matters disclosed in it, but there are a number of questions that I ought to ask today.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the House will welcome the extent to which the figures now being discussed introduce a far greater sense of realism than prevailed during the disastrous era of the social contract, when the entire nation was taken for a ride? Can the right hon. Gentleman also give the House an absolutely candid assurance that he has entered into no kind of undisclosed or secret undertakings with the TUC that might restrict his freedom and his
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duty to the country to take whatever steps may be necessary still further to reduce public spending in the year that lies ahead?
Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the figures he has outlined are matters for negotiation or are an entitlement? If people are to be entitled to the minimum of £2·50, is that consistent with the rest of the policy? Can he tell us whether those on incremental scales, particularly in the public sector, are to be covered by this limit, or are they to remain in a privileged position?
Mr. George Cunningham: Have the grace to say "Well done".
Sir G. Howe: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the Pay Research Unit will remain in suspension or will resume its work?
The House will be surprised that
"the area of 3 per cent."
is wide enough to include a figure of 4½per cent. It will also have been surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that this agreement is more simple than the £6 limit. Can he give us an indication of the effect of these proposals on the level of demand in the economy, and an assurance that they will not add to the risks of reflationary pressures later in the year? [HON. MEMBERS: "Too long"] The leaders of the TUC have had days in which to consider these matters, and this House is entitled to have a few minutes at least to consider them today. [HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Chancellor was heard in silence. I know that the arguments are provocative, but the House must listen.
Sir G. Howe: Is the Chancellor aware that we also attach the highest importance to the relaxations proposed in price control which he himself described in his Budget Statement as crucial to the restoration of business confidence? Does he also appreciate that the most serious aspect of what he has outlined is the severity of the top limit of £4 a week—less than half the £7 cut-off under stage 3, which was so fiercely denounced by the Labour Party at the time? Does he appreciate that that can pose a very great danger to the whole policy and the whole economy? All those skilled workers and

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managers about whom he said so much earlier in the year, all those earning more than £80 a week, all those who have made the greatest sacrifice, are to be still further penalised.
Finally, but by no means least important, there is the position of Parliament itself. Why did the Chancellor choose to announce these matters to a Press conference this morning instead of in this House this afternoon? As the TUC and its constituent unions are to have many opportunities to consider these matters beyond those opportunities they have had already, will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the Government will consider the views and representations of this House on these vital matters? Otherwise, he must recognise that he has done grave damage to the pattern of parliamentary democracy.
Mr. Healey: First, I think I should congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) on choking back his disappointment at our success to the extent that he found it possible, very reluctantly and under pressure, to congratulate the Government on their success in these negotiations. I look forward to the debate which he wishes to have possibly with more enthusiasm than he does.
First, there are no undisclosed commitments in this agreement to the TUC or to anyone else. Secondly, as with the £6 limit, the limits set this time provide a limit for negotiation and not entitlement. Thirdly, as I have made clear, the rules are the same as they were for the £6 limit, including increments: for the same reason, the PRU will, of course, be in suspension for the duration of the new limits. Fourthly, the effect on demand of the total package, including tax reliefs, as I said in my Budget Statement, will be to add about one-third of 1 per cent. to the gross domestic product.
I was interested to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman say that the new pay limits were far too severe, at least on that section of the population which is better off than the rest of the population. I remind him that among the tax reliefs is an increase of £500 in the first five of the higher rate thresholds.
Finally, we shall certainly take account of the views of the House of Commons. I hope that when we debate these mat-
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ters the Conservative Front Bench will make it clear, as it so lamentably failed to do in our last debate, whether it is in favour of an incomes policy or not.
Mr. Mellish: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the nation and the vast majority of this House will be grateful for what has been said? Does he not agree that the trade union movement has demonstrated once again that when the nation is in crisis it is prepared to show statesmanship and genuine patriotism?
My one question is about price control. I understand, as I am sure we all do, the problems involved, but what is so difficult for ordinary people outside to understand is that many of the increases come from those over whom the Government have a measure of control—for example, the railways and the Post Office [Interruption.] Nothing can be said by the Tory Party on this matter because it does not believe in subsidies in any form for State-owned industries and the rest, so hon. Members opposite can shut up. My right hon. Friend must make it abundantly clear to the public —[HON. MEMBERS: "Question.")—at least it is intelligent—[Interruption.]—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Of course it is, as I would expect, but we are not going to debate the matter today.
Mr. Mellish: I am simply asking my right hon. Friend to make it abundantly clear that the Government are not only aware of the problem of the rising costs of State-owned industry and the danger of this sabotaging what he is trying to do but will deal with the matter, since most people accept that we must get on top of the problem. May I end on this note.
Mr. Speaker: Order. If it is an interrogatory note.
Mr. Mellish: Is my right hon. Friend aware that our personal thanks for this agreement are due to him and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House?
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If speeches are to be made in the guise of asking questions, will you allow interventions in the speeches?
Mr. Speaker: I hope that hon. Members will be fair to their colleagues. A

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great many hon. Members wish to ask questions. Unless they are reasonably brief, many of them will be disappointed.
Mr. Healey: First, let me thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) for his congratulations.
On nationalised industry price increases, the whole House agrees that it is desirable that the nationalised industries should be able to pay their way. This is certainly the view of all the trade unions in the nationalised industries themselves. Where increases in nationalised industry prices have been necessary, they have been due largely either to increases in oil prices in the energy industries or to increases in wages. We must enable the nationalised industries to make a contribution to the national economy on the same basis as any other industry.
Mr. Pardoe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some hon. Members on the Opposition side always hoped that agreement would be reached and are glad that it has been reached? Nevertheless, will the right hon. Gentleman state clearly that, however satisfactory 4½per cent. may be as a result of these negotiations, it is 4½per cent. more than the country can afford and that it will have to be either borrowed or printed? By how much does he expect this deal to affect the rate of inflation by the end of 1977, and by how much will it add to the total of public sector salaries and wages?
Mr. Healey: Let me first thank the hon. Gentleman for his words about the Government's success.
The hon. Gentleman asked me about the effect of the 4½per cent. on public sector salaries. It is not likely to have a significant effect beyond what was already included in the cash limits which, as he will know, assumed an increase of between 5 per cent. and 10 per cent. This is slightly below the lower end of that.
The effect of the deal on the rate of inflation, given the increase in output and productivity which is now under way—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] Those hon. Members who ask where might well read the surveys by the Financial Times
1312
or the CBI. The wage increases here will add to the RPI by the end of next year only about 2 per cent. But there is likely to be a hardening of import and commodity prices over the coming year, and the recent depreciation in sterling will also increase our import prices.
Mr. Ford: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the nation as a whole will recognise the importance and ingenuity of the agreement that he has reached today and will congratulate all those involved on both the Government and the trade union sides? Is he aware, further, that we hope that the market will take note of the agreement, which could have been reached only in a free bargaining position? Will he accept that all his right hon. and hon. Friends will support him as necessary in the conclusion of the agreement? However, can he enlarge upon the position with regard to productivity bargaining? Does he understand that the lack of provision for productivity bargaining could lead to some damping down of investment?
Mr. Healey: I thank my hon. Friend. I am grateful for what he said about the markets taking note of this agreement. It is very important that all concerned with the performance of the British economy should also note the unprecedented large majority of the TUC General Council which supported this agreement. It was very much larger than that last year, and it includes some very large and important unions which last year found it impossible at a similar stage to support the £6 limit.
On productivity bargaining, my hon. Friend will realise that inevitably there will be some penalty to be paid through the exclusion of productivity bargaining. But to allow productivity bargaining to produce increases above the limits that we set would have been to open a breach in the firmness of the ring fence round the limits, which would have destroyed the very tightness of the policy which has made it possible to give the tax reliefs.
Sir John Hall: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the effect of the pay agreement on skilled workers and those in middle management may be more serious than he has led us to believe? When those in middle management and skilled workers suffer a real fall in their

1313
incomes for the second year in succession because of the operation of this pay code, allied to the fact that the proposed tax benefits will be very largely offset by increases in national insurance contributions, this can have a disincentive effect on middle management as a whole and be serious for the future of our industries. Cannot he give some encouragement to this class of people in the future?
Mr. Healey: I am conscious of the problems to which the hon. Gentleman referred. But I remind him that the raising of the threshold for the higher rate of tax will be of substantial benefit to those in middle management, as will the tax reliefs which I am now able to give in full. Moreover, on this occasion there is no cut-off point on salaries beyond which no increase will be paid. The £4 increase will be available at all levels.
Mr. Atkinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the fall in the value of sterling was brought about to pressurise the negotiators on this occasion? Does he think that there is any truth in the statements in the financial Press, and, if there is, does he not agree that it is totally wrong that currency dealings should be used for political purposes?
Mr. Healey: I have not read all the statements in the financial Press, but I have read a great many. With some, I agree. With others, I do not. I have not seen any of the nature suggested by my hon. Friend. He must realise that the pressure on sterling is exerted not by citizens of this country but by people 3,000, 6,000 and 12,000 miles away who look at the news in their newspapers—very often extremely tendentious and misrepresented—and take action accordingly.
Mr. Crawford: Since family incomes in Scotland are lower than those in England—[Hors. MEMBERS: "They are not."]—will not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the imposition of a blanket 4½per cent, is a disgraceful and positive discrimination against Scotland?
Mr. Healey: As one of the representatives of the distinguished city of Leeds in West Yorkshire. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the level of incomes in my part of the country is lower than that in Scotland.
Mr. Hordern: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that in his Budget speech he said that if there were any increase in the pay norm above 3 per cent. there would have to be corresponding reductions in the tax concessions? How can he justify the fact that there are to be no reductions in the tax concessions when the pay norm is to be 50 per cent. above the level which he set? What will be the effect on the public sector borrowing requirement?
Mr. Healey: The hon. Gentleman cannot have listened to my statement and my answers to subsequent questions. The reason why I am able to give these tax reliefs in full is that the new limit has been drawn so strictly that it is very much tighter even than the £6 limit itself. The hon. Gentleman will know that the general expectation was that the new limit was bound to be very much slacker than the £6 limit. This is not in fact the case.
To answer the hon. Gentleman's second question about the effect on the PSBR, I refer him to my statement. If he was unable to hear it earlier, he will be able to read it in Hansard tomorrow.
Sir G. de Freitas: Since these negotiations have received a great deal of publicity abroad, especially on the Continent, what steps can the Government take through our diplomatic missions to bring to the attention of people abroad the fact that they have been so very successful?
Mr. Healey: I was able to listen on "The World at One" radio programme today to a member of the European Commission giving unstinted praise to the nature of the agreement that we had reached and pointing out that our rate of wage increase in the coming year would be by far the lowest in Europe.
Mr. Lawson: Can the Chancellor confirm that he has agreed—will he please pay attention to the question—with the TUC representatives that as a result of this deal public expenditure will be higher and price and profits controls tighter than they would otherwise have been?
Mr. Healey: No. The hon. Gentleman, as so often, is rather wide of the mark. In respect of price control, the

1315
Prime Minister himself made clear yesterday, before agreement had been reached, that the situation would be as I have stated it today, namely, that profit and costs control will remain but that we shall seek to discuss the amendments, or changes, in the price regime which are necessary to promote more jobs and to stimulate investment.
Mr. Canavan: In view of the fact that, at least on paper, the higher income groups will get a bit more than those on low incomes, would this not be the ideal time to introduce some form of national minimum wage, together with tighter controls on the perks, and other allowances, which allow overpaid business executives and tycoons to escape from any incomes restrictions?
Mr. Healey: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In respect of a national minimum wage, he should recognise that on many occasions attempts to produce exceptionally favourable terms for the low paid have led to an increase in the pay of juveniles and part-time workers very much larger than increases in the pay of full-time adult males. That is one of the factors which have led to excessive juvenile unemployment. On the question of fringe benefits, I would refer my hon. Friend to my Budget speech and to the interchange I had with the Conservative Opposition during the Second Reading of the Finance Bill on Monday.
Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I would like to congratulate the Chancellor if only on making it clear why public expenditure debates in this House are so thinly attended. They are redundant because, apparently, he is settling the matter else-where. I would like to ask him three questions. Can he tell the House what proportion of the total labour force, including middle and junior management, which will get 5 per cent. is earning between £50 and £80 a week; what proportion is earning below £50 a week; and what proportion is earning above £80 a week? That is my first question.
My second question is, how does the Chancellor expect people to invest in expensive machinery if his proposals discourage rewarding the higher paid and the more skilled and also discourage any attempt to end overmanning? My third question—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman should know that I had it in mind to allow but another five minutes on this, which will be 40 minutes we have spent on this subject. There is other business to follow. Perhaps he might consider the rest of the House.
Mr. Macmillan: I will gladly forgo my third question, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Healey: May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his somewhat opaque and obscure congratulations? His main question was in respect of the rough proportion of wage earners who fall into the categories which will get the floor cash payment, the percentage payment and ceiling payment. The numbers will shift throughout the year because as earnings rise, those who are caught by the ceiling will tend to increase as a proportion of the total labour force towards the end of the pay round. Broadly speaking, those who will receive the 5 per cent. are 40 per cent.; those who will receive the cash ceiling will be somewhat more than one quarter at the beginning of the year, rising to about one-third at the end of the pay run; those receiving the floor payment will move accordingly.
Mr. Jay: While warmly congratulating both the Government and the TUC on this very valuable agreement might I ask the Chancellor what authority will now give final rulings on whether an individual pay settlement is within the terms of this agreement?
Mr. Healey: The enforcement or monitoring machinery will be exactly the same under this round as under the current pay round, that is to say, in the public sector it will be the responsibility of the relevant public authority to monitor the agreement. I can assure my right hon. Friend that the Treasury, operating the new system of cash limits on public expenditure, will make sure that the agreements are honoured. In the private sector the main machinery of enforcement will be applications for price increases under the Price Code as it has been up to the present time.
Mr. Norman Lamont: Is it not the case that the vast majority of incremental scale payments are in the public sector? Can the Chancellor explain by what criterion the scale payments in the Civil

1317
Service and the public sector will once again be exempted from the burdens placed on the rest of the community?
Mr. Healey: We discussed this at very great length in the debates last year. I would not deny that the problem of incremental payments has been a problem for all pay policies although, as far as I am aware, all pay policies—including this one—which were supported at the time by members of the Conservative Front Bench allowed for incremental payments within the limits, on the principle that incremental payments arc permitted provided that they go to the group as a whole, in other words, as people move up the incremental scale, others are coming in at the bottom.
Mr. Cryer: Can my right hon. Friend enlarge slightly on the question of price control and say how he proposes to ensure that the resulting investment is actually channelled where it is needed—into the manufacturing industries? Can he say whether the TUC had any reservations about only £15 million to combat unemployment? Would he say—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Be fair.
Mr. Cryer: Would he say—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Chancellor.
Mr. Healey: Currency speculation was not raised with me at all. On the question whether the TUC would like more money to combat unemployment, of course it would have liked it for hundreds of other worthy causes, too, but the TUC accepted, as do the Government, that in a period such as the present Government have to give priorities for public expenditure and, to observe them closely. I was asked about price control and investment relief. We have investment relief in price control at the present time and it is carefully monitored. My hon. Friend would agree with the TUC Economic Review, paragraph 193, which says that it is not desirable that price control should operate in a way which deprives companies of capital for investment or of working capital or capital for stock building. The discussions which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection will be having with all concerned will be designed to ensure that price control does not operate in such a way as to reduce the number of jobs in the country.
Mr. Anthony Grant: Is this arrangement intended to apply to the miners of South Wales who, I understand, have already rejected it? If so, how does the Chancellor expect it to be observed?
Mr. Healey: The miners' union representatives supported these proposals strongly at the General Council this morning. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that fact. May I be a little more precise in answering the question put to me a moment ago? There is no way of enforcing an incomes policy. The Government will rely in the next phase, as it has in this phase, on the support of working people. I would point out that 7½million people have settled within the £6 limit and there has not been one breach to our knowledge. Support for the present agreement is more widespread, at this stage, than support for the last agreement. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will remember enough about the confrontation between his own party's Government and the NUM not to follow down that road.
Let me try to be more precise on the subject of proportions. I have already explained that overtime next year will tend to shift as activity increases. The proportion on the minimum is likely to be about 34 per cent., on the percentage about 43 per cent., and on the maximum about 23 per cent.—roughly in line with the figures I gave.
Mr. Cant: Will my right hon. Friend say whether he was able to respond to the massive realism of the TUC by giving any assurances about the trend of money supply in the next 15 months?
Mr. Healey: This was not a matter which the "massive realists" of the TUC made the centre of their preoccupations during our discussions. My hon. Friend no doubt noted the remarks on money supply contained in my Budget speech, and I have no doubt that he also will have noted with approval the money supply figures in the last month.
Sir P. Bryan: The right hon. Gentleman said that his limitations were tightly drawn. Will he say how many people are immune from those limitations, either through incremental arrangements or through the fact that their pay is tied to the cost of living?
Mr. Healey: I cannot answer that question without notice, but I shall be glad to look into it. One of the most worrying areas of immunity relates to professional people, such as lawyers, with their very high salaries, whom it has always proved difficult to control, as the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) will no doubt confirm.
Mr. Clemitson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in regard to the question of low pay an important provision to be considered is Schedule 11 of the Employment Protection Act? Will he say whether any increases under that schedule will be exempt from the limits?
Mr. Healey: There are no exceptions to the rules I have stated, other than the matter of bringing occupational pension up to contracting-out level. However, if my hon. Friend tables a Question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, no doubt he will be given further information.
Mr. Fairgrieve: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it might be more practicable for the Government to make some safe Labour seats available to certain leaders in the trade union movement so that they could state policy decisions directly to the House instead of through the mouths of the Government Front Bench?
Mr. Healey: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will have a word with his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to see whether she can oblige in that regard.
Mr. Robert Hughes: Since limits, once negotiated, will not be consolidated in the basic overtime rates, and since the £6 limit is also not to be consolidated, is my right hon. Friend aware that he is storing up trouble for the future? Will he take the TUC and the Labour Party into his confidence in any future planning so that we do not again suffer the frenetic activity in the last few days of the wage round?
Mr. Healey: My hon. Friend must recognise that we have not yet completed the first round under the £6 arrangements. We have just negotiated an agreement to cover the second round, which will operate up to August 1977.
1320
Active as I am in these matters, and indeed anxious as I am to anticipate events, it is a little early to ask me this afternoon to begin negotiating the third round.
Mr. Hall-Davis: Is it not a fact that every section of the community will have to cut back on real spending in the next year? Therefore, is it not even more important that the Government should make at least proportionate cuts in their own spending, otherwise individuals will be denied the benefits of the sacrifices which they are being called upon to make?
Mr. Healey: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that this matter has been the "small change" of the discussions between Front Benches for at least a year. I should be more concerned about his attachment to the cause he appears to espouse if the Conservative Front Bench were to say that it was in favour of cutting rent subsidies and subsidies to commuters—and to make those statements before tomorrow's local elections rather than the day after them.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. No doubt this matter will come up in the House again.

MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS (RESTRICTION OF RIGHT TO PRESCRIBE)
4.26 p.m.
Mr. Mike Thomas (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East): I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to restrict the right of medical practitioners to prescribe drugs unless certain conditions have been met; and for connected purposes.
There have been many benefits to society from new and powerful drugs developed in recent years, but there has been increasing concern at the adverse effects associated with many of these drugs and at the increasingly casual way in which they are sometimes prescribed by doctors.
In preparing my remarks for this occasion, I discovered that in the year from October 1973 to October 1974 general practitioners issued nearly 17 million prescriptions for hypnotics, nearly 20 million for tranquillisers, almost 8 million for antidepressants, nearly 5 million for

1321
vitamins. Are we in such a situation that people need that level of prescription—indeed, the almost routine, mindless prescription—of drugs many of which have adverse effects?
We know that almost 3 per cent. of all admissions to hospital are due to adverse drug reactions, and we also know that another 2 per cent. or more of admissions to hospital can be traced to drug overdosage. However, even those figures probably understate the problem. We have yet to discover the proportion of patients who recover not from the effects of any drug which they have been prescribed but simply because those drugs are taken away from them once they have been admitted to hospital. In addition, 10 to 15 per cent. of patients develop adverse reactions to drugs during their stay in hospital. In respect of some drugs, particularly those used to treat heart disease, adverse effects can be seen is as many as 30 per cent. of patients receiving treatment in hospital. The drug that most frequently appears to cause adverse reactions is digoxin, a digitalis derivative.
Those effects are avoidable if doctors are made fully aware of the problems. I do not want to overdramatise the situation, but I should like to mention the case of one of my constituents who for over 10 years was prescribed one of the most potent steroids. She developed gross muscle-wasting and weakness, skin atrophy of such a severity that sheets of skin sheared off with a stroke of the hand, and severe bone atrophy resulting in a fractured thigh bone which required a surgical pinning operation for its repair. The patient also suffered high blood pressure and diabetes, and there were no therapeutic benefits whatever in respect of the arthritis from which she was suffering.
There is increasing concern at the cost of drugs and at the waste of many drugs. I believe that Parliament should take steps to control this area of public spending. Perhaps I could offer one further statistic to the House. It is now more expensive to pay for a general practitioner's drug prescriptions than it is to pay the general practitioner his salary. From the last figures I have unearthed, it appears that on average each practi-
1322
tioner is prescribing drugs worth about £12,000 per year.
In this area of activity, public education is important. My Bill aims to increase the level of education among the medical profession itself because I believe that that is an important consideration which is often forgotten. After all, it is the doctors who are supposed to know about these matters and who, in turn, should safeguard the public.
I should like to see doctors undertaking more drug related education. In recent years there has been a greater development of the specialism of clinical pharmacology. I am glad to see present in the Chamber my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security, because I wish to draw attention to the report on this topic by the Royal College of Surgeons, on which we are awaiting with interest the Department's reactions.
There has been an increase in the number of journals available and in the amount of academic interest which is shown in this matter. My Bill aims to capitalise on that expertise by making it more readily available, in particular to general practitioners but also to medical practitioners in the round. My Bill would restrict the prescribing of medicines by fully registered medical practitioners to a small list of relatively safe, innocuous substances drawn up by the Medicines Commission. The medical practitioners would be restricted to providing those drugs and those drugs only, unless they fulfilled certain criteria.
The two main criteria are these. First, medical practitioners should attend a minimum of four full sessions a year on drug-related topics—under Section 63 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968—as approved by a postgraduate dean. Secondly, they should make their patients' records available for scrutiny by professional medical audit panels appointed by the regional boards so that any dangerous trends in their prescribing practices could be picked up and discussed with their professional colleagues.
I do not want to go into the routine detail which is set out in the Bill, but if we were to insist that, in addition to the 10 sessions that medical practitioners currently have to do to qualify for

1323
seniority payments, they should also attend four additional sessions on drug-related topics substantial benefits could be derived.
Each regional medical audit panel should consist, possibly, of four doctors—one clinical pharmacologist, one specialist in the discipline in question, one nominee from the regional medical committee and one nominee from the regional health authority—and two nonprofessionals, perhaps members of the community health councils in the area.
In addition to this educational provision, the Bill contains one further major provision. It provides that no doctor may prescribe for any patient whom he or his partners have not seen for three months previous to the writing of the prescription. The repeat prescription game is in danger of getting substantially out of hand. There are patients who receive the same medication month in, month out, year in, year out, without ever seeing a doctor. That sometimes suits the patients and it sometimes suits the doctor.
I have heard it said, although I have no concrete evidence of it, that some doctors even pre-sign their prescription forms and allow the receptionist to fill out the prescriptions. That may or may not be so, but it is not in a patient's interest to continue to receive a drug or series of drugs, sometimes one drug overlaid on another, often without proper instruction, unless the medical practitioner has thoroughly reviewed the case within the last three months.
I know that there will be concern in the medical profession about my proposals. The profession has already looked at itself in a number of these areas. Last year the BMA conference debated the question of the use of barbiturates but, against the wish of its executive, came down against any form of voluntary ban on the prescribing of barbiturates.
I am not proposing any bureaucratic interference in the rights of doctors to treat their patients as they think best, but the doctors will be criticised if they do not develop further educational provision. I he audit which I have suggested would be carried out not by civil servants but by professional colleagues.
1324
It is Parliament's duty to stop what is in danger of becoming a national scandal, and I hope that the medical profession will realise that unless a halt is called soon in this area the profession itself will be damaged by the developments that result.
4.34 p.m.
Mr. Robert Adley: I was concerned when I saw on the Order Paper a proposal to restrict the right of medical practitioners to prescribe drugs. I ask the House to think carefully and to reject the proposal put forward by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Thomas). With respect to him, it sounds like another piece of dogmatic, theoretic, Socialist nonsense.
I do not dispute that too many drugs are being prescribed in this way. But that has more to do with the level of prescription charges than anything else, and the thought of audit panels being set up fills me with alarm. The hon. Gentleman referred to a small list of relatively safe drugs. What he proposes is a dangerous practice which would put even more power into the hands of the administrators. Since the reorganisation of the National Health Service, many hon. Members on both sides of the House feel that it is the over-burdening of the administration of the medical profession which is the greatest problem. The setting up of audit panels on which doctors would serve—rather than treating their patients—strikes me as an unhelpful method of cutting down on administration.
The idea of setting up audit panels to scrutinise patients' needs smacks of "1984". We already have from the Government State-only health proposals. If the hon. Gentleman's proposal were to see the light of day we should end up with State-only prescriptions. I suppose the next step is State-only illness and a person will not be allowed to be ill unless he is suffering from an illness laid down by a panel and agreed to be a proper illness.
Like the hon. Gentleman, I am not medically qualified, but I had a chance this morning to do a little homework on the subject. I looked up Practitioner

1325
for October 1974, in which Dr. Hamilton states:
"It is, of course, impossible to be dogmatic as to the most suitable choice of drug for the individual patient, but certain principles obtain. The most effective drug is usually the one with which the doctor is most familiar."
My understanding of the position is that no two doctors use the same medicine in exactly the same way and that they find from experience which medicines produce the best results in their hands. Any attempt to restrict the doctor in his choice of medicines would prevent the individual practitioner from using his optimum therapy, which would not be in the interests of patients.
There is also the problem of side effects from the drugs which would be administered in the way suggested by the hon. Gentleman. Emergencies often occur from side effects, and side effects themselves presuppose that the individual circumstances of the patient have caused the side effects. What would follow the introduction of such a proposal? Would litigation follow the administration to a patient of a drug that happened to be unsuitable for him although it had been declared to be suitable by the audit panel and the regional health authority? Would the Secretary of State for Social Services be facing a charge of being responsible for administering the wrong treatment on the basis of the audit panel and the arrangements laid down by Parliament?
I am glad that the Minister of State is present, because I have had an opportunity of looking briefly at some of his words, which I imagine are of considerable importance, because the Minister of State has more experience than I or the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East in this matter. At Question Time the Minister said:
"the cry often goes up about clinical freedom, and we must accept that that is a valid argument."—[Official Report, 24th February 1976; Vol. 906, c. 177.]
In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, North-West (Mr. Grylls), who asked about drug prescription, the Minister of State said:
"I believe that we should carry the medical profession with us on this."—[Official Report, 24th February 1976; Vol. 906, c. 178.]
The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East produced no evidence that he was asking to introduce the Bill specifically at the request of a responsible body of the medical profession. The medical profession has taken a sufficient bashing in the past two years without having its freedom further restricted in this way. Doctors are finding that their skills are not being rewarded financially and they are emigrating. Doctors are disgruntled about the Government's attitude over pay-beds.
The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), who, mercifully, has been relieved of her position, could not be considered to be leading us towards a happy doctor-patient relationship. No one would prescribe her as a cure for anything. She could guarantee only high blood pressure, conflict and confrontation.
However well intentioned the Bill may be, it is nevertheless a bad Bill. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The Government's rent legislation resulted in shortages of rented accommodation and people staying in hotels at Gatwick Airport costing £600 a week. That was an example of well-intentioned legislation resulting in unfortunate side effects. This Bill would also have unfortunate side effects.
Whilst not doubting the hon. Gentleman's motives, I appeal to the House to take no action until more evidence is produced that this is what the medical profession wants. I ask the House not to give the hon. Gentleman leave to bring in a Bill which would remove from doctors the freedom to practise medicine to the best of their ability.
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 105, Noes 104.

Division No. 122.]

AYES

[4.43 p. m.

Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

Buchanan, Richard

Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

Atkinson, Norman

Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

Cohen, Stanley

Bates, Alf

Cant, R. B.

Concannon, J. D.

Beith, A. J.

Carmichael, Neil

Conlan, Bernard

Bidwell, Sydney

Cartwright, John

Corbett, Robin

Buchan, Norman

Clemitson, Ivor

Crawshaw, Richard

Cryer,Bob

Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

Perry, Ernest

Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

Richardson, Miss Jo

Dempsey, James

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Robinson, Geoffrey

Doig, Peter

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Roderick Caerwyn

Dormand, J. D.

Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

Rodgers, George (Chorley)

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

Rooker, J. W.

Dunn, James A.

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

Dunnett, Jack

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Sandelson, Neville

Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Sedgemore, Brian

Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

Lamond, James

Selby, Harry

Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

Silverman, Julius

Evans, loan (Aberdare)

Lipton, Marcus

Skinner, Dennis

Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

Loyden, Eddie

Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

Flannery, Martin

Macfarquhar, Roderick

Snape, Peter

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Mackenzie, Gregor

Spearing, Nigel

Forrester, John

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

Stallard, A. W.

Freeson, Reginald

Marks, Kenneth

Stoddart, David

Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

Stott, Roger

George, Bruce

Mikardo, Ian

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Golding, John

Molloy, William

Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)

Graham, Ted

Moonman, Eric

Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

Grant, George (Morpeth)

Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

Torney, Tom

Grant, John (Islington C)

Noble, Mike

Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

Grocott, Bruce

O'Halloran, Michael

White, Frank R. (Bury)

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Orbach, Maurice

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Harper, Joseph

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Young, David (Bolton E)

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Ovenden, John

Hayman, Mrs Helene

Pardoe, John

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Heffer, Eric S.

Parker, John

Mr. Christopher Price and

Hooson, Emyln

Pavitt, Laurie

Mr. Michael Ward.

Horam, John

NOES

Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

Gray, Hamish

Prior. Rt Hon James

Baker, Kenneth

Hall, Sir John

Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

Bell, Ronald

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Ridley, Hon Nicholas

Benyon, W.

Hannam, John

Rif kind, Malcolm

Berry, Hon Anthony

Harvle Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

Biggs-Davison, John

Hicks, Robert

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Hordern, Peter

Sainsbury, Tim

Bottomley, Peter

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Scott-Hopkins, James

Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

Howell, David (Guildford)

Skeet, T. H. H.

Brotherton, Michael

Hurd, Douglas

Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Sproat, lain

Buchanan-Smith, Alick

Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd)

Stanley, John

Budgen, Nick

Jones. Arthur (Daventry)

Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

Clerk, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Stradling Thomas, J.

Clegg, Walter

Lawrence, Ivan

Tapsell, Peter

Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

Le Marchant, Spencer

Tebbit, Norman

Cope, John

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

Corrie, John

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Thompson, George

Crawford, Douglas

McCusker, H.

Townsend, Cyril D.

Crouch, David

Macfarlane, Neil

Vaughan, Dr Gerard

Davies, Pt Hon J. (Knutslord)

Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

Wakeham, John

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Marten, Neil

Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

Drayson, Burnaby

Mather, Carol

Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

Dunlop, John

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Walters, Dennis

Durant, Tony

Mayhew, Patrick

Watt, Hamish

Dykes, Hugh

Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

Weatherill, Bernard

Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)

Mills, Peter

Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

Fairgrieve, Russell

Moate, Roger

Wiggin, Jerry

Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)

Mudd, David

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

Neave, Airey

Winterton, Nicholas

Fry, Peter

Neubert, Michael

Wood, Rt Hon Richard

Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

Onslow, Cranley

Glyn, Dr Alan

Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Goodhart, Philip

Penhaligon, David

Mrs. Jill Knight and

Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

Peyton, Rt Hon John

Sir George Young.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mike Thomas, Mr. Laurie Pavitt, Mr. John Horam, Mr. John Cartwright, Mr. Roger Stott, Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann, Mr. W. E. Garrett and Mr. Brian Gould.

MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS (RESTRICTION OF RIGHT TO PRESCRIBE)
Mr. Mike Thomasaccordingly presented a Bill to restrict the right of medical practitioners to precribe drugs unless certain conditions have been met; and for connected purposes; and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 18th June and to be printed. [Bill 134.]
ORDERS OF TH DAY
  AGRICULTURE (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
New Clause 1

  APPLICATION BY NOT FULLY ELIGIBLE PERSON TO BE TREADTED AS ELIGIBLE
  '(1) This section applies to any survivor of the deceased who for some part of the seven years ending with the date of death engaged (whether full-time or part-time) in agricultural work on the holding, being a person in whose case—

  (a ) the conditions specified in paragraphs (a )and (c )of the definition of "eligible person" in section 17(3) of this Act are satisfied; and

  (b ) the condition specified in paragraph (b )of that definition, though not fully satisfied, is satisfied to some extent.

  (2) A person to whom this section applies may within the relevant period apply to the Tribunal for a determination that he is to be treated as an eligibile person for the purposes of this Part of this Act.
  (3) If on an application under this section—

  (a ) the Tribunal is satisfied that the applicant is a person to whom this section applies; and

  (b ) it appears to the Tribunal that in all the circumstances it would be fair and reasonable for the applicant to be able to apply under section 19 of this Act for a direction entitling him to a tenancy of the holding,

  the Tribunal shall determine that he is to be treated as an eligibile person for the purposes of this Part of this Act, but shall otherwise dismiss the application.
  (4) In relation to a person in respect of whom the Tribunal have determined as mentioned in subsection (3) above this Part of this Act shall apply as if he were an eligible person, but not so as to require the Tribunal, in making a determination under subsection (2) of section 19 of this Act in his case or a determination under subsection (6) of that section as between him and one or more other applicants under that section, to treat the condition mentioned in subsection (1)(b ) above as satisfied in his case to a greater extent than it is in fact satisfied.
  (5) A person to whom this section applies may make an application under section 19 of this Act as well as an application under this section; and if the Tribunal determine as mentioned in subsection (3) above in respect of a person who has made an application under, that section, the application under that section shall (without prejudice to subsection (4) above, be treated as made by an eligible person.
  (6) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1)(b ) above, cases where the condi-
  1330
  tion mentioned in subsection (1)(b ) above might be less than fully satisfied include cases where the survivor's agricultural work on the holding fell short of providing him with his principal source of livelihood because the holding was too small.'.'—[Mr. Strang.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  4.52 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Gavin Strang): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): With the new clause we are to discuss Government Amendments Nos. 23 and 24.
  Mr. Strang: The purpose of the clause is to provide the Agricultural Land Tribunal with discretionary power for the relaxation of the eligibility test, as defined in Clause 17(3)(b ), in certain limited circumstances.
  It became clear during the discussions in Committee that the eligibility requirement as to an applicant's work on the deceased tenant's holding was too inflexible and might become a legal ban to applications when in fact it is mainly intended as a guide. The views expressed in the debate ranged from support for retaining the rigid requirement to proposals for departing from the essential link with the holding. Neither of those extremes was acceptable.
  We felt that in order to meet two different types of case where potential hardship might arise it would be necessary to introduce a discretionary power, if we could do so without departing from the essential link with the holding, and to leave the matter to the good sense of the tribunal to determine when considering an applicant's agricultural training and experience.
  The first type of case which the new conditions are intended to meet is where the father dies before the son has had time to put in five years' work on the holding. The second is that of the near relative who works on the holding but cannot derive his principal source of livelihood from it because it is too small to support him as well as the tenant.
  There was a great deal of interest in the Committee particularly in the smaller holding. My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Roderick)

  1331
  and the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) both urged that there should be an element of relaxation to account for the situation in which one could not reasonably expect the son to derive a full-time living from the farm, though he had a closer link with it than, say, the son of a tenant with a larger unit who worked on the holding and his intention to succeed was as strong as that of the son with the larger holding. That point is obviously particularly important in Wales, where there are smaller units.
  The details of the clause are as follows. Subsection (1) applies the clause to an eligible person as defined in Clause 17(3)(a) and (c ) but who satisfies the principal livelihood test under subsection (3)(b ) only to some extent. Subsection (2) enables a person who meets the requirements of subsection (1) to apply to the tribunal for a determination that he is to be treated as an eligible person for the purposes of Part II.
  Subsection (3) enables the tribunal in the case of a person who applies to it under subsection (2) to determine that he is to be treated as an eligible person if it appears to it that
  "in all the circumstances it would be fair and reasonable for the applicant to be able to apply under section 19 …for a direction entitling him to a tenancy of the holding".
  Subsection (4) ensures that a person subject to a determination under subsection (3) is not to be treated as having satisfied the principal source-of-livelihood test to a greater extent than is the case. For example, it will prevent an applicant who has worked on the holding for only two years out of the past seven from claiming that because of a determination by the tribunal under subsection (3) he is to be regarded as having worked there for at least five years. This has particular relevance to the application of the suitability test under Clause 19(8). In the relatively rare circumstances in which there might be more than one applicant, it is naturally critical that the person who does not fully meet the five-year requirement will, all other matters being considered, be at a disadvantage compared with the other applicant.
  Subsection (5) ensures that, without prejudice to subsection (4), an application under Clause 19 which is made by a person to whom this clause applies is to
  1332
  be treated as made by an eligible person. It is envisaged that the doubtful-case applicant will make simultaneous application to the tribunal for a determination as to his eligibility and a direction entitling him to the tenancy.
  Subsection (6) gives as an example, for the guidance of the tribunal, the case of the holding which is too small to allow an applicant to have derived his principal source of livelihood from it. This case is the most likely to arise under these provisions, but it might not be readily apparent to the tribunal without guidance.
  Mr. Francis Pym: The House is already aware that we on the Opposition benches believe that as a generality Part II is already drawn too wide, in regard to the range of relations of the deceased whom it covers. We have felt that it is wide in its provisions for eligibility, and we still have reservations about that part of Clause 17 which deals with the nature of a training course that an applicant may have undertaken or be undertaking.
  The clause widens even further the eligibility element, and we are not in favour of that, although we recognise that there is a problem that has not been considered previously in regard to the relative, the son or other possible successor, of a deceased tenant who is working on a holding that does not employ two people or could not sustain two people working in it full time. That matter should certainly be considered.
  I am not sure that I think that the case of the relative of the deceased tenant who had not had the chance to fulfil the five-year requirement is strong. Obviously, that would be very bad luck on a relative, but, after all, Part II is already widening opportunities in a way never previously envisaged.
  5.0 p.m.
  In the original consultation document which the Minister was kind enough to send me in confidence just before the new clauses were published, nothing like this new clause was considered. Indeed, at that time, one of the conditions for eligibility was that the applicant should have worked on the holding for not less than five years, and there followed in brackets the words "full time". Both the National Farmers' Union and the

  1333
  Country Landowners Association thought that the word should have been "included" so as not to widen the eligibility clause too far. At any rate it is reasonable to suggest that some special consideration should be given to the type of holding on which two full-time men cannot be provided for out of the earnings.
  My hon. Friends and I do not feel that new Clause 1 is satisfactorily drafted or the right way of proceeding, if only because it is very widely worded. The first line refers to any survivor of the deceased who for "some part" of the seven years, has been employed. But it does not define whether that period can be in one part or two parts or more, or what part of the seven years would be adequate to fulfil that condition.
  In brackets in the second line is the phrase "whether full-time or part-time". In the case cited by the Minister, "part-time" is the only possible phrase; if they were full-time, the holding would be one which could sustain two full-time people. That is a vague and indeterminate way of phrasing.
  Subsection (1)(b) uses the words:
  "though not fully satisfied, is satisfied to some extent."
  What is "some extent"? Clearly, opinions can vary on a reasonable interpretation of those words. It is our view that this is altogether too vague a direction to give to the Agricultural Land Tribunal for determining cases of this kind. It opens the door too wide to a variety of interpretations and therefore goes far beyond what the Government themselves originally envisaged and certainly beyond what was envisaged by the interested parties with whom the Government discussed this matter. Both the NFU and the NLA feel that the new clause goes too wide.
  It is unsatisfactory in a matter of this kind to give the land tribunal such an uncertain remit. After all, clause 17(3) is pretty specific. It will be simple and straightforward for the tribunal to identify and establish whether the conditions in paragraphs (a ), (b )and (c )have been fulfilled. But that is not the position with this new clause. People will have to go to a judgment in these matters and clearly there will be different judgments in different cases.
  1334
  This category of relations of a deceased tenant should have some consideration, but the new clause is too vague and too wide. I ask the Government to take it away and think about it in the light of what other hon. Members will say, and to bring forward a new clause to deal with the matter in a more specific way. We can reconsider it when it returns to this House.
  I think that the House will feel that, although reasonable in its intention, the new clause is unsatisfactory in its drafting and will open the gate too wide and be too loose in capability of interpretation by the tribunal. I ask the Government to take the new clause away and to bring forward another to deal with the point.
  Mr. Norman Buchan: I hope that the Government will do nothing of the sort. We on this side have pressed for consideration of the possibility of death occurring before the eligibility criteria had been fulfilled. I hope that the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) is not suggesting that that is an unnecessary case. If death occurs before the end of the seven years, we think it is only just that the son and the other people who qualify should be so considered. A discretionary clause is the only answer.
  There is another reason for such a clause. Having set up a tribunal and given it fairly good guidelines under the major Act, we should give it the task of deciding on these issues. That is the point of arbitration.
  Also, we support the concept that a problem faces us when a holding is too small to maintain two full-time workers. This leads to all sorts of structural and amalgamation problems, but it is manifestly correct as a principle of social justice to cover the situation in this Bill. This applies particularly to the situation in Wales. I am surprised that no member of Plaid Cymru is here. If anything, this is to the benefit of the small farmer in Wales more than to that of anyone else.
  The definition of "survivor of the deceased" is covered in Clause 17, which does not define survivor but does define "eligible person". The eligible person is the wife or husband, brother or sister, child and so on of the deceased.

  1335
  We raised in Committee the question of the farm worker who had been working on the holding over a length of time and whose whole livelihood depended on the continuation of his employment. We asked for consideration of the relationships which spring up, especially between a single worker and a family on a holding. It may be that, in general law, a survivor of the deceased means a relative. Perhaps it is a legalised kind of relative, like a foster child.
  Mr. Emlyn Hooson: He could marry the farmer's daughter.
  Mr. Buchan: I understand that they do legalise the association sometimes.
  Mr. Hooson: It is an old Welsh method.
  Mr. Buchan: I had hoped that the question of the farm worker might have been reconsidered. If "survivor" is not defined but "eligible person" is, perhaps the Bill should be more closely defined in the other place. I urge the Government to do so. It is important to secure the good will of the entire agricultural community.
  I do not accept what the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire said. The wording is not too wide. I am doubtful about line 18, which says that the tribunal
  "… shall determine that he is to be treated as an eligible person for the purposes of this Part of this Act, but shall otherwise dismiss the application."
  There is a certain ambivalence in that wording, which suggests that, having been treated as eligible, they shall then be dismissed. But the clause is not too wide. On the contrary, some of us believe that it is too narrow and that the problem of the farm worker should have been considered. Otherwise I welcome it.
  Sir David Renton: I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) about the drafting of the clause—not so much from the point of view of the substance as from the point of view of the form and style, which must be reconsidered. Some extremely vague expressions are used. How they will be regarded in the Fens or in the Welsh hill country, the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) may be able to tell us. I should have
  1336
  thought that this is essentially the kind of matter in which Parliament should try to get its meaning clear and clearly expressed.
  In this new clause there are expressions which, to say the least, are rather unusual in any statute. For example:
  "Being a person in whose case the condition specified in paragraph (b )of that definition, though not fully satisfied, is satisfied to some extent".
  There is the same kind of vagueness in the last lines of subsection (4):
  "To treat the condition mentioned in subsection (1)(b ) above as satisfied in his case to a greater extent than it is in fact satisfied".
  In the last three lines we find this expression, which may cause the mind to boggle a bit:
  "Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1)(b ) above cases where the condition mentiond in sub-section (1)(b ) above might be less than fully satisfied include cases where the survivor's agricultural work on the holding fell short of providing him with his principal source of livelihood because the holding was too small."
  I have no doubt that the Government have in mind the substance of what they intend. But while the last words of that quotation are perfectly plain, the lead up to them is unnecessarily verbose. We find three places where in the circumstances envisaged in this new clause the person to whom the section applies is to be "treated as an eligible person".
  We are being asked to make an artificial assumption. A legal fiction is being set up. In discussions and in some of the evidence given to the Committee on the Preparation of Legislation, it was said that artificial assumption, or using the words "may be treated as" or "deemed to be" and so on, should be avoided because they are artificial and give rise to difficulties of interpretation.
  Having made that somewhat destructive criticism of the new clause, I shall make a more constructive suggestion for overcoming these difficulties. I doubt seriously whether the Government need this as a new clause at all to carry out the intentions they have in mind. I am not a parliamentary draftsman and I am not pretending to draft, but I think that if the Minister will alter or add to the definition of eligible persons in Clause 17(3) he might very well be able to arrive at the substance of the new clause, and do so in a much briefer way.

  1337
  It may be possible to do this. It is an alternative which should be considered.
  In any event I feel most unhappy about the way in which the clause is drafted—quite apart from the substance of it, as to which I agree with the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire—and I urge the Government to reconsider it.
  5.15 p.m.
  Mr. Hooson: I support the principle behind the new clause, although I share to a considerable extent the criticisms of its drafting made by the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir David Renton). I agree with the suggestion that it might be possible to have a much simpler and neater way of including these two particular categories in the eligible persons provision by extending the definition provision. However, I certainly intend to support the clause in the hope that the Minister, who is always sensible about these matters, will have it looked at by the parliamentary draftsman with a view to simplifying the matter in another place. In that sense the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire made a valuable contribution to the debate.
  In the new clause the Minister has met basically the criticism made in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) and the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Roderick) who, together with me, represent an area with many small farms. I remember a public inquiry some years ago in our area, held to consider the eligibility of certain farms for help by the Rural Development Board, and rural man-days came into it. It was amazing how many farms supported only one man instead of two, even though they needed more help.
  It is quite common in my constituency for a young man to leave school and stay at home to help his father on the farm for a couple of years, then to do other work such as agricultural contracting, working on another farm or working in a garage as a mechanic, and helping at home on the farm in the evenings. Therefore I appreciate the need for the words "whether full-time or part-time" in the second sentence of the new clause. This is perfectly understandable and is necessary to meet the situation.
  1338
  We are dealing with a relatively small number of people—the number of persons whose fathers die before fulfilling the five-year requirement will be relatively small. But it would be unjust if they were not included under the umbrella of the provisions. If legislation can provide for succession, it should do so.
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): The Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister of State, who will wind up the debate, will give sympathetic consideration to what the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) has said. I am grateful for his support. We are trying to help. We are not trying to be penal in our approach. I welcome his constructive suggestion.
  Mr. Hooson: Generally, I am in favour of such provisions as would enable the tribunal to have regard to all the circumstances and to decide whether the case is fair and reasonable. I do not think we entrust to our judges and tribunals of this kind sufficient discretion. The pride of this country has been the common law, worked out by precedent following principle, and people do not act in an arbitrary way—either judges or laymen—when they are entrusted with the job of deciding something such as the circumstances outlined here. They will be very careful to be fair and reasonable, and they are not likely to be taken for a ride by someone who is trying to use the provisions.
  I am grateful to the Minister for taking the trouble to see that justice is done for a relatively small number of people. In my part of the world that number will, of course, be much higher than in other parts. I am very glad the Minister is going to look at the clause again. Nevertheless, we support him in principle.
  Mr. Caerwyn E. Roderick: We seem to have had a number of new clauses in the course of our debates on the Bill. It is difficult to count them, and I was astonished to see another on the Amendment Paper today. It shows, however, that the Minister and the Department have been responsive to the persuasion brought upon them, and that is as it should be. The Minister has been criticised from the Opposition Benches for having weakened, but that is

  1339
  not so. This is the way in which legislation should proceed so that where a need can be proved it can be taken into account.
  The right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) said that the clause was drafted to widely, but he did not explain why and he is overlooking the fact that we are seeking only to give a person the right to be considered by an agricultural lands tribunal, not an absolute right of succession. The final judgment will rest with the tribunal, contrary to the view of many hon. Members. Hardship has to be proven and the tribunal will consider that.
  The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) and I represent many holdings in our part of Wales which are too small to support two working persons, male or female, and too small to have a second residence on the holding. People have written to me, many of them the sons of those who operate the holdings. asking whether they will be eligible. Without the new clause many would not have been eligible. They are living away from the holding because these is no accommodation for them upon it, and they are working only part-time upon it. They have another full-time occupation. They cannot qualify under the minimum five-year rule, but their part-time hours may well total in excess of five years. Thanks to the clause they will be considered. The clause will introduce more flexibility, and it is right not to draw the line to hard and fast.
  I should like to see the Minister issue fairly comprehensive guidelines to the agricultural land tribunals to ensure that there is a fairly consistent approach to decisions throughout the country. Now that the clause has introduced an element of flexibility a fall-back position can be offered by which guidance could be given to the tribunals.
  Sir David Renton: In asking for guidelines to be issued to a tribunal, has the hon. Member overlooked the fact that it is an independent judicial body which should not act in accordance with directives from Ministers? The nearest one could get to that would be some kind of statutory instrument laid before Parliament, and in that case Parliament would be amplifying its instructions to the tribunal on how it should exercise its
  1340
  jurisdiction. On reflection does the hon. Member think it would be wise to press that point?
  Mr. Roderick: Yes, I do. My intention is that any guidelines should be submitted to Parliament. The Minister will certainly not issue them independently. He would express the spirit of what he is seeking to do and would certainly indicate to the tribunals the approach that he would hope they would take. Without that I can foresee a great disparity in the approach by tribunals in various parts of the country.
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Has the hon. Member considered that the disparities that might occur throughout the country may well be a reflection of local conditions? The would be immensely important.
  Mr. Roderick: The disparities could also reflect a different outlook on the part of the tribunal, and that might not simply be due to local conditions. I am most anxious about local conditions. We have been seeking to insert certain provisions in the Bill but have been told that they would be unsuitable for certain parts of the country. I maintain, however, that we should respond to the various needs in different parts of the country. That approach is important in the case of Mid-Wales. The clause will not destroy these relationships but will give us a fall-back position in these areas.
  The hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) was critical not so much of the principle of the clause as of the drafting. I hope that if the Minister can give an assurance that he will tighten up on the drafting, the clause will be universally accepted and added to the Bill.
  Mr. W. Benyon: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman). It is not a variation in the different parts of the country which will produce the situation to which the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Roderick) referred but the complications of the Bill. It proves that when Parliament embarks upon legislation such as this, it will run into great difficulties. The most important thing about landlord and tenant law is that it should be clearly understood by all concerned. The trouble with the clause is that it makes the position even

  1341
  more vague and encourages expectations which may not be fulfilled. That will pay a bad dividend.
  Mr. Michaael Jopling: I am never too sure how often we are required by the rules of the House to declare our interest, but perhaps it is right that I should say once again that I am a farmer.
  The clause is disappointing. We have felt all along that Part II goes too far and I am disappointed at the extent to which the Government have changed their position in the last few weeks. I am glad that the Minister has been able to be present today because a good deal has happened to affect the way in which this Bill will operate since he first came to the Committee on 3rd February to announce the new clauses.
  We accept the difficulties described by the Parliamentary Secretary. He referred to the son whose father dies before the son is old enough to have put in five years' work on the holding. We understand the difficulty of the holding which cannot provide two jobs. It is right to try to deal with these difficulties, but the clause goes a good deal farther than that. It will bring within the scope of Part II a good many people who do not come under either of these guidelines and who have suffered from the early decease of a father or from a holding which will not provide two jobs. Take the young man of 30 whose father dies and where the holding will provide a good many more than two jobs. Under these arrangements I understand that he would be able to become an eligible person although he had virtually no experience in agriculture. I stress the way in which the qualification has been eroded over the past few weeks.
  Originally, the provision was that the applicant must have worked on the farm for five years of the previous seven. However, three of those years could have been spent on an agriculture course at an educational establishment. That meant that, for example, the young man could have spent three years reading agriculture at university, two years working on the farm and two years doing something quite different from farming.
  5.30 p.m.
  The Government now say that his years at an academic institution need not be
  1342
  for the purpose of reading agriculture. The position is that the young man could have gone to university for three years to read Arabic studies, or something else divorced from agriculture. He could then have done something totally different from agriculture for two years, and then spent two years working on the farm.
  Mr. Peart: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will realise that the young man may have read economics, for example, which could make a useful contribution to farming. Alternatively, as I did, he could have taken a geology degree. That would enable him to understand soil structure rather better. We must not be too dogmatic on this issue.
  Mr. Jopling: The right hon. Gentleman will know that part of my university course, at his university, was involved in reading geology. I understand that part of the right hon. Gentleman's argument. However, a young man could take a course which had nothing remotely to do with agriculture. I suggested Arabic studies as that came immediately to mind.
  Mr. Hooson: The hon. Gentleman must be wrong on this issue. One of the most distinguished young farmers in my constituency, who was featured in the middle pages of The Times a fortnight ago, read history. He is the leader of the young farmers in his area. After reading history he went back to the farm. He is the son not of a tenant farmer but of an owner-occupier. Surely we should not discourage that sort of thing.
  Mr. Jopling: I must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to listen to the rest of my argument. The position has been eroded as regards the academic course, and the Government contemplate yet another erosion. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) will bear in mind that the implication of the clause is that a young man can spend a minimum period, even a part-time period, during the two years that he was supposed to be involving himself in agriculture working on the farm. If we accept the clause the position will be that the young man could have spent two years doing nothing whatever related to agriculture, three years at a university reading something that had nothing to do with agricultural studies or farming management, and the remaining two of

  1343
  the seven years involving himself to some extent in agriculture on a part-time basis. I am sure that the Minister will agree that is a major erosion of the suggestions which he made in Committee on 3rd February.
  Mr. Buchan: Before we decide what weight to put upon the hon. Gentleman's argument, will he tell us whether he accepts the principle of the clause? If not, it is clear that he will attack everything. In order that we may judge his argument on this one issue objectively, will he tell us whether he accepts the principle of the clause?
  Mr. Jopling: The hon. Gentleman has been making similar remarks throughout the course of our discussions. At the beginning of my remarks I said that, in view of the way in which this legislation is now framed, we accept that there is a case for doing something for the young man whose father died prematurely or who is interested in a holding which will not provide two jobs. I have said that before and I do not want to say it again.
  We feel that the clause goes much too far. We tabled an amendment which Mr. Speaker, in his wisdom, has not called, but that does not prevent us referring to its contents. The significance of the amendment is that it had the full support of the Country Landowners' Association and the National Farmers' Union. During the past few months the Minister has spent a good deal of time telling us that these provisions had the support of the NFU. Our amendment has behind it the weight of opinion of both those professional bodies.
  We felt that the Agricultural Land Tribunal should not determine that a person is to be treated as eligible if, in the seven years referred to in Clause 17(2), he was engaged in agricultural work on the holding for fewer than five years. For the purpose of this provision, any period spent by that person attending a course, such as is mentioned in Clause 17(4), shall be treated as time engaged in agricultural work on the holding, but not more than three years in all shall be so treated.
  The Minister in Committee laid down the guidelines which led him to present the new clauses. It is significant and im-
  1344
  portant to remind him of the words that he used on that occasion:
  " It will enable a close relative of a deceased tenant who has the requisite agricultural experience, health and financial standing to run the farm efficiently, and who has worked on the farm for a significant period of years …".—[Official Report, Standing Committee C; 3rd February 1976, c. 420.]
  We have moved a long way since the right hon. Gentleman said that. The Government's position, as a result of their new proposals, is totally different from that which the right hon. Gentleman set out to us only three months ago.
  I agree with a good deal that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery said. I believe that this provision puts the Agricultural Land Tribunal in a difficult position. I do not understand how it will decide what is described in line 14 as "fair and reasonable".
  Mr. Hooson: I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. I am for giving the tribunal discretion. I think it can interpret what is fair and reasonable.
  Mr. Jopling: I am sorry that I misunderstood the hon. and learned Gentleman. I believe that the tribunal will find it extremely difficult to decide what is fair and reasonable. I do not believe any guidelines or procedures have been laid down. What will be the position of the landlord if an applicant claims that he has been working part-time on the farm? It seems to be a terribly vague matter. To what extent will the landlord be able to test the applicant? It seems that a young man who has done no more than help occasionally at harvest, or at weekends to bring in the cows, will be able to claim that he has worked part-time on the holding.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) said that the Government should take away the clause and redraft it with a view to dealing with the two provisos to which the Parliamentary Secretary referred. I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government will take it away and reconsider it in that vein.
  The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): I think that the House has had a useful debate in that it has been an extension of the close consideration which was given

  1345
  to this measure in Committee in 25 sittings.
  In introducing the new clause, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said that the aim was to give the Agricultural Land Tribunal discretion to relax the eligibility test relating to an applicant's principal source of livelihood in Clause 17(3)(b ). The effect would be to allow a near relative who does not fully meet the requirements of the test to apply to the Agricultural Land Tribunal for a determination that he is to be treated as an eligible person for the purposes of Part 2 of the legislation.
  The point was clearly made today, as well as in Committee, that the eligibility requirement regarding an applicant working on the deceased tenant's holding was too inflexible and might become a legal ban to application when it was intended only as a guide. The views expressed today, as well as in Committee, clearly indicate the anxiety of Members on these points.
  The right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym), who made similar criticisms to those made by hon. Members on both sides of the House, said that he agreed with the reasonable intention of the clause, but expressed concern about what he called bad drafting.
  I am not sure whether the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) was against theclause. I suspect that, in a sense, he supported it, except for the drafting. However, he expressed anxiety regarding the flexibility given to the Agricultural Land Tribunal and whether it went beyond the bounds of reason.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) expressed support for the clause but asked us to recognise the need to define it a little more clearly. Again, he was concerned that the problems of the farm worker should be considered. My hon. Friend suggested that we should reconsider some of the drafting aspects as well as the intention of the clause generally.
  The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) said that he supported the clause in principle but expressed anxiety about relatives who were identified with the farm who would suffer hardship and might be excluded under certain aspects where there was a
  1346
  marginal eligibility to continue in succession. I think that point, which was also made by other hon. Members, is in keeping with my right hon. Friend's intention regarding succession which was made clear in Committee. The Government are concerned about succession and hardship.
  Mr. Hooson: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that concern centres upon the definition of part-time working? Is intermittent part-time working sufficient, or must it be sustained or fairly consistent? If the team of Ministers could deal with that problem in another place, I think that would meet the point.
  Mr. Bishop: The hon. and learned Gentleman is making the point which I think justifies the clause. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said, it recognises that the problem of eligibilty must be left to the Agricultural Land Tribunal.
  The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) referred to the legal factors which must be borne in mind when the tribunal takes account of the these aspects. The anxiety of the House, as well as of the Government, is that we should give a degree of flexibility, but that it should not go too far.
  5.45 p.m.
  It is essential, as my right hon. Friend has said on a number of occasions, that we keep the balance of interest between the landlord and tenant.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Roderick) recognised my right hon. Friend's reasonableness in these matters, and he also welcomed the clause. His brief reference to some of his constituents' questions showed the need for the ALT to be able to adjudicate. The point of the clause is that the ALT must have some flexibility without going too far.
  The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) said that the legislation may create certain problems. All legislation creates problems. On the other hand, the aim of legislation should be to lay down guidelines on which judgments may be made.
  We should recognise that good landlords have been behaving in accordance with the principles which have been put

  1347
  into this measure. Many farmers have tenants whose families have been on the holdings for many years. Indeed, in Committee the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) referred to the time during which he and his family had been connected with the farm with which he is now associated.
  There are bound to be areas of uncertainty. There will be cases of sons, relatives, and others who may want or expect to inherit. I think that the industry will welcome the guidelines which have been put into the Bill.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland referred to amendments which were not called and expressed a view which he felt justified the tabling of these amendments.
  In Committee, during our detailed consideration of Clause 17—New Clause 8, as it was—criticisms were made of the inflexibility of the succession provisions because they would not apply where holdings were too small to provide the principal livelihood for two men or where the son had been unable fully to meet the five-year qualifying period at the time of his father's death. Strong pleas were expressed by hon. Members on both
  sides in Committee, and again today, that these two requirements should be relaxed to some extent. As I have explained, the clause seeks to give certain measure of discretion to the ALT to meet those criticisms.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland pointed out that the Country Landowners' Association and the National Farmers' Union are concerned because in the scheme, the underlying concept of which is the alleviation of hardship, the main test of eligibility which establishes the hardship could be weakened to an undesirable extent as no limit is placed on the discretion to be given to the tribunal. That point has been echoed elsewhere. We are willing to consider that point, but we cannot make any commitment at this stage. We shall bear in mind the constructive points which have been made by hon. Members on both sides.
  I hope that the House will support the new clause in view of the assurances which I have given.
  Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 135, Noes 86.

  Division No. 123.]

  AYES

  [5.50 p.m.

  Anderson, Donald

  Dormand, J. D.

  Lamont, Norman

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Dunn, James A.

  Lipton, Marcus

  Atkinson, Norman

  Dunnett, Jack

  Litterick, Tom

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Eadie, Alex

  McElhone, Frank

  Bates, Alf

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Macfarquhar, Roderick

  Beith, A. J.

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Bishop, E. S.

  Evans, loan (Aberdare)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Boardman, H.

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  Millan, Bruce

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Flannery, Martin

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  Molloy, William

  Buchan, Norman

  Freeson, Reginald

  Moonman, Eric

  Buchanan, Richard

  George, Bruce

  Moyle, Roland

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Golding, John

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Campbell, Ian

  Gourlay, Harry

  Noble, Mike

  Carmichael, Neil

  Graham, Ted

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Cartwright, John

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Ovenden, John

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Pardoe, John

  Coleman, Donald

  Harper, Joseph

  Parker, John

  Colquhoun, Ms Maureen

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Concannon, J. D.

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Conlan, Bernard

  Hooson, Emyln

  Penhaligon, David

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Perry, Ernest

  Corbett, Robin

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Cryer,Bob

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Hunter, Adam

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)

  Irvine, RI Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Irving, RI Hon S. (Dartford)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Deakins, Eric

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Ross, RI Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Dempsey, James

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Sandelson, Neville

  Doig, Peter

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Selby, Harry

  Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Tinn, James

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Silverman, Julius

  Tomney, Frank

  Woodall, Alec

  Skinner, Dennis

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Woof, Robert

  Small, William

  Ward, Michael

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Weitzman, David

  Spearing, Nigel

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Stoddart, David

  White, James (Pollok)

  Mr. A. W Stallard and

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Mr. Peter Snape.

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  NOES

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Bell, Ronald

  Grist, Ian

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Benyon, W.

  Hall, Sir John

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Hampson, Dr. Keith

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Body, Richard

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Boacawen, Hon Robert

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Rathbone, Tim

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Hicks, Robert

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Braine,Sir Bernard

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Brotherton, Michael

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Hurd, Douglas

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Budgen, Nick

  Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanel'd & W'df'd)

  Shepherd, Colin

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Jopling, Michael

  Sproat, lain

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Stewart, lan (Hitchin)

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Clegg, Walter

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Tebbit, Norman

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Cope, John

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Welder, David (Clitheroe)

  Drayson, Burnaby

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Dunlop, John

  Marten, Neil

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Durant, Tony

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Moate, Roger

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Mudd, David

  Forman, Nigel

  Heave, Airey

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

  Gow, lan (Eastbourne)

  Neubert, Michael

  Mr. Carol Mather.

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

New Clause 2

  GLEBE LAND
  'This Part (11 ) of this Act shall not apply to glebe land or to tenancies thereof '.—[Sir David Renton.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  6.0 p.m.
  Sir David Renton: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  The purpose of the new clause is to exempt glebe land and tenancies of it from the scope of Part II of the Bill. Glebe land consists of land and buildings which are part of the endowments of a church, but excludes the parsonage and the land and buildings which go with it, such as gardens, garages or stables. Glebe land is owned by the incumbent, the vicar or rector, as a corporation sole. He holds it in trust for himself and his successors.
  There are about 30,000 acres of glebe land in England and much of it is farmed
  1350
  by incumbents. I do not know if there are any statistics—if the Ministry has the figures it would be interesting to hear them—but my guess, from casual observation, is that about two-thirds of glebe land is tenanted.
  There are two good reasons for excluding glebe land from the scope of Part II of the Bill. It is unnecessary to include it because clergy can be relied upon to act compassionately—indeed, in a Christian manner—when a tenant of glebe land dies and there is a suitable member of his family to carry on the farm. I hope this will appeal to the Minister of State who was a Church Commissioner and a pillar of the Anglican Church. This has nothing to do with his surname.
  My second reason for excluding glebe land is that, unfortunately, the law relating to the ownership of glebe land during the time when a benefice is vacant is in an unsatisfactory state. The diocesan board of finance can become the owner, though only if the parish council passes a resolution asking the board to become the owner and the board agrees. The patron of the living or the bishop might

  1351
  become the owner instead. The question of ownership during a vacant benefice can take quite a long time to resolve. There would be the most appalling muddle, probable litigation and hardship if a tenant died when a benefice was vacant and the possibility of Part II of the Bill applying were to arise. We ought to envisage the possibility of such a situation and try to avoid the confusion which would arise.
  Whoever becomes the owner of glebe land during an interregnum is likely to be a person or group of people living at a distance and not knowing the land or the deceased tenant's family well enough to make a decision. It would be very much better if the provisions of Part II did not apply in these circumstances and that the matter were to be left, as it is now, until the living were filled. There is not often a long delay during an interregnum and this would simplify matters considerably.
  My second reason for suggesting that the scope of Part II should not be extended to glebe land is, perhaps, the stronger. If the Bill is to apply to glebe land, it would not be right to leave in its present state the law relating to ownership of glebe land during a vacant benefice. It should be amended to introduce a much quicker procedure for securing ownership of the glebe land, even temporarily, during a vacant benefice. This Bill is not the right place to amend this rather elaborate part of ecclesiastical law. The best way to avoid trouble is to omit glebe land from the scope of the Bill.
  Mr. Bishop: I hope the right hon. and learned Member will forgive me if I say I am a little puzzled about the reason for his amendment, which, I am sure, is meant to be helpful, as was shown by the way in which he moved it. I am grateful for his explanation, but I cannot see why glebe land should be exempted from the family succession scheme.
  Perhaps I should declare an interest, though not a financial or pecuniary interest. I am a Church Commissioner and was at one time Second Estates Commissioner in this House.
  This land is the property of the incumbent of the benefice to which it belongs. I understand that many thousands of acres are let on normal
  1352
  agricultural tenancies. The land is either run by the incumbents themselves or by the diocese, and it may be that the latter arrangement will become more general in future if Parliament accepts certain proposals approved by the Synod. I assume that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is aware of those proposals. The rent from these acres is part of the stipends of the incumbents concerned.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned that the clergy can be relied on to act compassionately, and no one doubts that, but it is also true of many other landowners and also of the Church Commissioners themselves, who have a statutory link with Parliament for exercising their trusteeship for a considerable amount—perhaps 160,000 acres or more —of agricultural land, although here I speak from memory.
  My right hon Friend's intention in the Bill is to regularise the custodianship or the responsible way in which good landlords, including the Church Commissioners, have been exercising their responsibilities for many years, including, of course, their acceptance of family succession. I think that many good landlords have tenants and their families who have been in occupation of their land for a considerable time. I do not see how the provisions of the family succession scheme need interfere with these arrangements in any way. Indeed, I believe that they help the situation by laying down guidelines. They do not alter the ownership of the land—an important point—or its status as tenanted land.
  They are concerned with the succession to the holding. That is the point which matters here. Each succession will be a new tenancy, and provision is made in Clause 22 for arbitration on variations in the terms of the tenancy and a fresh rent. I cannot see, therefore, that the incumbents concerned will be affected by the Bill in any way differently from other landlords, and I regret that I cannot accept that a valid case has been made out for the new clause.
  Sir David Renton: I shall not press the motion to a Division, but I do not retract at all from what I said, although I am grateful to the Minister of State for his explanation, which coincides broadly with my own view of the matter. However, I still cannot see the need for applying the Bill to glebe land, bearing

  1353
  in mind the kind attitude of incumbents. I have discussed this part of the Bill with representatives of farmers in my constituency. They do not see the need for this part of the Bill in general. The complexity of the provisions cannot be doubted, and to impose upon incumbents an obligation to follow them, when they could perfectly well continue as they have done in the past, and give complete satisfaction to tenant farmers, is quite unnecessary. There is no need to compel them in this way. However, in order to make progress and in view of the, no doubt, sincere attitude of the hon. Gentleman, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
  Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 3

  SAVING FOR INHERITANCE (PROVISION FOR FAMILY AND DEPENDANTS) ACT 1975
  'None of the provisions of this Part (II ) of this Act shall adversely affect any person's rights already accrued or which may accrue in future under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, and in the event of a conflict between an Order of the Court made under that Act and a grant or refusal of a tenancy by a landlord, or the failure of an eligible person to claim or to accept a tenancy, or a direction of the Tribunal under this part of this Act, the Order of the Court shall prevail'.—[Sir David Renton.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  6.15 p.m.
  Sir David Renton: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 was passed as the replacement of the Inheritance (Family Provisions) Act 1936. It allows the widow or children and certain other dependants to apply to the High Court or the county court for an order that the estate of a deceased person should be distributed not in accordance with his or her will but so as to secure reasonable financial provision for the dependants. This is one of those cases in which the courts are given discretion by Parliament. It is a branch of the law in which the trust given by Parliament to the courts has been fully justified. They have done good work in securing that the widows, children, and so on. have been provided for even where the testator had turned "bloody-minded", to use an expression which was used in Standing Committee.
  1354.
  There could easily be a conflict, in spite of what the Minister of State said in Committee, between the provisions of the will, or the action taken or not taken under the Bill, and an order made by the court under the 1975 Act. In order to convince the Minister I will deal with that point a little more fully, but meanwhile I point out that, if there were such a conflict, confusion, and indeed hardship, could arise which would most probably have to be resolved by litigation or further litigation between members of the same family. That is the situation which we ought to try to avoid if we can possibly do so. Indeed, we have a duty to try.
  The simplest way of avoiding it is to say that, where there is such a conflict, the order of the court made under the 1975 Act shall prevail. I am not a trained legislative draftsman; I do not claim to have the drafting of the new clause right in detail; but I suggest that the principle is clear enough, in the way I have expressed it, and I hope that the Government will not dare to reject the new clause merely because it is technically defective in drafting. If the principle is accepted, the drafting can be improved in another place.
  In Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge (Mr. Stainton) proposed a similar clause, but he was told by the Minister of State that there is no conflict between the 1975 Act and the provisions of the Bill because the Act applies only to the deceased's estate and the tenancy of a farm is not part of the deceased's estate. That point of view is maintained by the hon. Gentleman in spite of the provisions of Clause 19, especially subsection (4), which is very important in relation to this matter. It says:
  "If the applicants under this section include a person validly designated by the deceased in his will as the person he wished to succeed him as tenant of the holding, the Tribunal shall first make a determination under subsection (2) above as regards that person,"—
  that is merely the determination that the person is an eligible person—
  "and shall do so as regards the other applicant or each of the other applicants only if the Tribunal determine that the person so designated is not in their opinion a suitable person to become the tenant of the holding"—
  We reach this simple position, therefore. There is no question of what is

  1355
  "fair and reasonable", as there was in the case of the Government's clause earlier. If the person designated in the will is eligible and suitable, under Clause 19(5) the tribunal must make a direction in his favour.
  Mr. Mark Hughes: As I understood it, the tribunal must make a direction in his favour vis-à-vis alternative claimants to the tenancy to be considered by it at a later stage. It is not that the tribunal must make a decision in his favour vis-à-vis the tenancy itself. Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman clarify my mind about that?
  Sir David Renton: It is the Bill that will clarify the hon. Gentleman's mind. In Clause 19(5), we find these words:
  "If under the preceding provisions of this section only one applicant is determined by the Tribunal to be in their opinion a suitable person to become the tenant of the holding"—
  and one must add, and that applicant has been designated by will—
  "the Tribunal shall …subject to section 20 of this Act, give a direction entitling that applicant to a tenancy of the holding".
  I must also point out the contents of subsections (11) and (12), because they endorse the position that I am describing. Subsection (11) says:
  "For the purposes of subsection (10)"—
  that is the one which mentions the making of a will or codicil—
  "a statement which is framed so as to designate as mentioned in paragraph (b )of that subsection different persons in different circumstances"—
  this is the point which the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) was making—
  "shall be taken to satisfy that paragraph if, in the events which have happened, the statement exclusively designates a particular person."
  Subsection (12) reads:
  "A direction under this section given in favour of a person by reason of his being a person validly designated by the deceased as mentioned in subsection (4) above shall be valid"—
  here is where a conflict can arise with the 1975 Act—
  "even if the probate or administration by virtue of which he was such a person at the giving of the direction is subsequently revoked or varied"
  What is more, it can only be subsequently revoked or varied by an order
  1356
  of the court, and that order of the court is likely to be made under the 1975 Act rather than under any other legislation.
  It means that when the Minister was advised, as apparently he was in Committee, and when he wrote afterwards to my hon. Friend the Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge that there was no conflict, that point appears to have been overlooked. Whether it is overlooked or not, I suggest that the opportunity to farm, say, 500 acres is a much more valuable asset for a tenant to bequeath than an estate of even £20,000 or £30,000.
  By this part of the Bill Parliament is being asked to create an entirely new right. It has never come into our law before. I am not challenging that right, whatever may be my views about the creation of a new inherited right of this kind, but the Government, having created that new right, should consider more carefully than they have the consequences of doing so. They should either amend the 1975 Act so as to treat the inheritance of a tenancy as part of the deceased's estate or acknowledge that a conflict can arise in the way that I have mentioned. Surely, one or other of those steps should be taken, and conceivably both.
  There is an obvious disadvantage, which I concede at once, in providing that inherited tenancies should be regarded as assets in the ordinary way. They might then attract capital transfer tax, which, we have been assured, the provisions of Part II of the Bill would not do. I do not wish to walk into that trap or to invite anyone else to do so.
  I have, therefore, opted for the easier of the two solutions to deal with this conflict. Where there is a conflict, the order of the court, made under the 1975 Act shall prevail, and it shall prevail over the grant or refusal of a tenancy by a landlord under Part II or the failure of an eligible person to claim or to accept a tenancy or a direction of the tribunal under Part II That seems to be a simple, sensible and easy way out of the dilemma from the legislative point of view which gives no rise to trouble and which avoids the doubts that could arise and might have to be resolved by litigation within the family if we did nothing about it.

  1357
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge pointed out that a widow or other dependant of the deceased might suffer. I think that he had in mind an example which the Minister gave of the eldest son who might be the only eligible person within the family and who failed to take advantage of the opportunity which Part II gave him and the opportunity which he was given by being designated by his father's will as the person to succeed under the tenancy: My hon. Friend's expression was "let go" his rights under the Bill. I appreciate what my hon. Friend had in mind, but I think that there is a difficulty about solving it. I am prepared to concede that we could not very well write into the Bill mandatory provisions requiring the son to take up the tenancy if he did not wish to, even though that would mean that a valuable right within the family would be rejected. That would be an unnecessary interference with freedom. We cannot force people into occupations that they do not wish to have, or make them suffer if they will not enter into those occupations.
  With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge, therefore, I do not make part of my case the point which he advanced in Committee. I base my case on the fact that the Government are creating an important and valuable new right which is of tremendous value.
  There is no question of the tribunal having to decide what is fair and reasonable. The tribunal must give a decision if the simple conditions under Clause 19 are satisfied. That could leave the widow in a difficult position. It could cause trouble within the family. It could cause conflicts between the decision of the tribunal and that of the court. I think that it is far better for all concerned to try to anticipate that and to resolve it by saying that in such circumstances the order of the court shall prevail.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Mark Hughes: I listened with great interest to what the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) has just said. Perhaps the Minister of State, not this evening but, if necessary, by correspondence, could address his mind to the possibility of what in the tax law became known as
  1358
  the "Franco System" of avoiding capital transfer tax.
  Under this new clause, if I were a tenant of a holding, and I made out a will, in a moment of mental aberration, leaving the holding to the Chief Whip of the Labour Party, I should like to feel my natural heirs could, under the terms of the 1975 Act, go to the High Court and claim a prior right over the Chief Whip of my party.
  What worries me is that the new clause as drafted, would immediately negate the whole of Part II of the Bill, because it would be open to any tenant, in collusion with his landlord, to overturn the whole intention of these provisions. He could make a foolish will, and it could then be overturned in the certain knowledge that the heir designated, in time, by the court would not care to take up the inheritance. This is the area in which there is a risk of a very complex legal loophole which would enable collusive action to be taken by a landlord and testator to prevent alternative heirs from having a reasonable case considered by the tribunal, for if he made a will which was subject to the family provisions of the 1975 Act, and it was overturned in favour of a single individual, my suspicion is that any alternative heirs, under the provisions as currently drafted in the Bill, could find themselves ruled out of the provisions in the new clause, not just as drafted but as intended. I think a coach and horses could potentially be driven through the whole of Part II of the Bill. I might be totally misinformed and misadvised, but I would be grateful to have the Minister's views on this.
  Sir David Renton: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman with great interest. My intention was exactly the opposite to what he stated.
  Mr. Pym: This shows what unexpected and complicated possibilities can emerge if one starts legislating in a matter of this kind, which is certainly, in intention, seeking to alleviate hardships which were thought, on both sides of the House, to exist in a very few cases where sons or relations of the tenant were not given the tenancy of the farm. Dabbling with such complicated legislation as this automatically creates other hardships. The speech of the hon. Member for

  1359
  Durham (Mr. Hughes) indicated an area where we could get into considerable difficulties. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) was on a substantive point.
  I speak very much as a layman in legal matters, but the House will remember that during Second Reading I expressed, rather strongly, some grave doubts about whether the Agricultural Land Tribunal was, in all the circumstances, wholly and fitly the appropriate body to take such difficult decisions. It will be dealing with real family problems, and having to make judgments between different people, possibly as to who should succeed, as well as taking into account the relative hardship of the tenant's family and the relation's family, although the latter, unfortunately, in a rather circumscribed way.
  I expressed the view, as the Minister will remember, that I thought it might possibly be right for the courts of the land to be involved in taking the decisions rather than the Agricultural Land Tribunal.
  In subsequent discussions among the interested bodies outside this House, and my hon. Friends and other hon. Members, the general consensus of view was that in all the circumstances it was right for the Agricultural Land Tirbunal to be responsible for these decisions. That is why it was not challenged to any degree in Committee.
  Here, however, we come to a difficulty which might arise, and which was described in detail by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire. That was the possibility of a conflict between members of the same family, and that it might result as a consequence of how a tenant drew his will. That is a perfectly possible situation. A tenant might say, under this Bill, that he wished his son—it could be his daughter —to be his eligible and rightful successor. It might well be that his widow would rather have carried on the holding herself. There would, therefore, be conflict. This is a tragic situation which could happen in a very few cases. As this Bill is designed to try to iron out hardship, even if in a very few cases, it is entirely right that this matter should be thoroughly considered at this stage.
  1360
  One can visualise that such situations will happen in a few cases if only because the value of the right of succession is considerable these days. It is not an absolutely automatic right. We know that certain conditions have to be fulfilled, but we also know, from the way the Bill has been presented by the Government and from what has been said about it, that there will be cases where, one can see clearly beforehand, some member of the tenant's family will be able to enjoy these rights when there will not be any hardship on the other side. One can imagine all sorts of situations, but it will be fairly certain that some members of the tenant's family will be able to take over the holding when he dies and, one can imagine that, however unfortunate the circumstances, there could be a conflict in the family.
  Mr. Jerry Wiggin (Weston-superMare): I entirely accept my right hon. Friend's use of the word "value" but would he also take the point that this is a value of desire, rather than of money, for the simple reason that once the incoming person becomes a tenant he is paying a current market rent, or at least will be, within three years. The prospect of the value of a tenancy being eligible for taxation would possibly be damaged under the concept of this Bill, not to mention all the damage it will do to a tenant's family.
  Mr. Pym: I take my hon. Friend's point and I am grateful to him. The value is that some member of the family will enjoy being able to farm the holding for the rest of his life. This is where the value lies. It is not a money value, but involves the earning capability on the value of assets belonging to somebody else.
  In these circumstances, if there is some kind of conflict within a family, I feel strongly that it would be right for a court to be involved in this matter. As worthy as are the members of agricultural land tribunals, I hope that the decision of the court will be overriding. Therefore, I support all my right hon. and learned Friend said.
  Mr. Bishop: The House is indebted to the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) for the constructive way in which he dealt with the clause. We are dealing with a possible

  1361
  conflict between the succession provisions of the present Bill and the provisions of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. This matter was raised in Committee by the hon. Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge (Mr. Stain-ton) and it is now, in a somewhat different form, being raised again. I shall in a moment refer to a letter which I sent to the hon. Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge on this topic.
  I wish to emphasise that this matter has been carefully considered, and I must reiterate that the Government feel that no such conflict need be feared. The rights of a person to whom the Inheritance Act applies are basically to apply for an order of the court for further provision from the estate of a deceased person and to receive payments or property out of the estate of the deceased should the court so order. I wish to stress the words "estate of the deceased" The new tenancy which a successful applicant may obtain under the succession provision does not derive from the estate of the deceased. I think that answers the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes), who asked whether a relative could overturn a tenancy through the provisions of the 1975 Act. The point is that the tenancy is not part of the deceased person's estate.
  The grant or refusal of a tenancy by a landlord cannot conflict with an order of the court under the Inheritance Act in relation to this part of this Bill, any more than the action of a landlord in voluntarily granting a new tenancy outside the provisions of the Bill can conflict with such an order. That is the position that would apply at present. This is an action of a third party outside the scope of the order.
  It is true to say that the failure of an eligible person to claim or accept a tenancy cannot conflict with an Inheritance Act order. Such action naturally is open to an eligible person. Nobody can be compelled to take up a farming tenancy if he does not wish to do so and no court order will require this.
  I wish to refer briefly to the points I made to the hon. Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge in Standing Committee on 8th April. I said:
  "The aim of the Act is to enable a close relative of a deceased person who considers
  1362
  that he or she has not been reasonably provided for in the deceased's will to enter a claim through the county court or the High Court against the deceased person's estate. I stress the word 'estate'."
  I said a little later:
  "An applicant for a deceased person's tenancy, on the other hand, is applying to take over the tenancy when the deceased person's lease expires, by which time the estate ought in normal circumstances to have been wound up. The two sets of legislation therefore carry on regardless of each other."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C, 8th April 1976; c. 1144.]
  6.45 p.m.
  Finally, I wish to stress that a direction of the tribunal will not cause a conflict since the subject matter of that direction does not derive from the estate of the deceased and is not subject to any order of the court under the Inheritance Act.
  It is valid to make the point that the succession of a beneficiary to a farming tenancy, either under this Bill or by the voluntary act of a landlord, is a circumstance which could be considered by the court in deciding whether an order should be made under the Inheritance Act, and the extent of that order. This is as it should be, but this is not a circumstance which will be affected or obstructed by the operation of the succession provisions.
  I understand the concern expressed by the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire and also by the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym). I would inform them that I wrote a letter to the hon. Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge in which I sought to clarify some of these points. I hope that the assurance contained in that letter will be acceptable to the House. I said in the letter:
  "You may find some reassurance in the fact that the family succession clauses were prepared in close consultation with officials from the Lord Chancellor's Department who were responsible for the promotion of the 1975 Act. There is no question of the 1975 Act provisions having been overlooked when our scheme was drawn up. Quite the contrary. Any positive area of potential conflict no doubt would have come to light in our consultations"
  I hope that that assurance will prove acceptable and I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman's proposal will not be pressed.
  Sir David Renton: I am exceedingly disappointed by the negative character of the Minister's reply. I do not doubt that

  1363
  careful consideration has been given to the matter by those advising the Minister, and indeed by those advising the Lord Chancellor. However, I do not agreee with the conclusions reached. I am not being arrogant when I say that 1 am as entitled to my opinion as are those eminent people who advise the Government, and I am not entirely without legal and legislative experience.
  What is so strange about the situation is the conclusion which has been reached—namely, that the two sets of legislation "carry on regardless of each other". In my opinion that is just what they should not be allowed to do. I agree that under the present definition of "the estate of the deceased" the designation by will of a tenancy is not part of that estate. That point is clear. But we can-not get away from the fact that some-thing which is often much more valuable than the estate of deceased farmers is being created, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) has so vividly pointed out, by the provisions of Part II. It is not good enough for the Government merely to fall back on the law as it was before the Government introduced this new concept and ask Parliament to accept it.
  Clause 19(12) gives away the Government's case. It provides that:
  "A direction. given in favour of a person … validly designated by the deceased …"
  —that is, by will—
  "shall be valid even if the probate or administration by virtue of which he was such a person at the giving of the direction is subsequently revoked or varied."

  Division No. 124.]

  AYES

  6.53 p.m.

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Bell, Ronald

  Forman, Nigel

  Le Merchant Spencer

  Benyon, W.

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  Lester. Jim (Beeston)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Body, Richard

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Grist, Ian

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Hall, Sir John

  Mayhew, Patriot

  Braine,Sir Bernard

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Hampson, Dr. Keith

  Moate, Roger

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Neave, Airey

  Budgen, Nick

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Nelson, Anthony

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Hicks, Robert

  Onslow, Cranley

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Hurd, Douglas

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Clegg, Walter

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Cope, John

  Jopling, Michael

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Kimball, Marcus

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Durant, Tony

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Shepherd, Colin

  The Government should welcome the clarity which the new clause would give. The matter is left in some doubt in my mind as the result of subsection (12) alone. We cannot deny that there is conflict of interest. There may not be a conflict of legislative expression, but there could be a conflict of interest resulting from the legislative expression. Where there is such a conflict of interest we have a duty to consider it and to try to resolve it. The easy way to resolve it is by saying that an order of the court under the 1975 Act shall prevail.
  I feel so strongly about this matter that I must ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to join me in the Division Lobby. If the Government had shown any sign of taking the point I should naturally have agreed to its being considered further in another place, but there is no sign that the Government have taken the point. They seem to be prepared to allow con-fusion to prevail, which is regrettable. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire said, the Bill in any event can apply only to relatively few cases, and the number of cases of possible conflict between the decision of the court under the 1975 Act and the position under the Bill will be fewer still.
  I am very disappointed. If, even now, the Minister of State says that he will consider the point further I shall not press for a Division but, failing that, I must.
  Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 81, Noes 127.

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Young, Sir G. (Ealling, Acton)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Welder, David (Clitheroe)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Weatherill, Bernard

  TFELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Tebbit, Norman

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Mr. Carol Mather and

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  NOES

  Anderson, Donald

  Ellis, John (Bragg & Scun)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Evans, Fred (Caerphl)ly)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Evans, loan (Aberdare)

  Ovenden, John

  Atkinson, Norman

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Pardoe, John

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Parker, John

  Bates, Alf

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Beath, A. J.

  Freeson, Reginald

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Freud, Clement

  Pendry, Tom

  Bishop, E. S.

  Golding, John

  Penhaligon, David

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Gourlay, Harry

  Perry, Ernest

  Boardman, H.

  Graham, Ted

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Rooker, J. W.

  Buchan, Norman

  Harper, Joseph

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Buchanan, Richard

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Hefter, Eric S.

  Sandelson, Neville

  Campbell, Ian

  Hooson, Emyln

  Selby, Harry

  Carmichael, Neil

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Carson, John

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Silverman, Julius

  Cartwright, John

  Hunter, Adam

  Skinner, Dennis

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Small, William

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Snape, Peter

  Coleman, Donald

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Concannon, J. D.

  Kerr, Russell

  Stallard, A. W.

  Conlan, Bernard

  Lamble, David

  Stoddart, David

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Lamond, James

  Strang, Gavin

  Corbett, Robin

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Tinn, James

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Tomney, Frank

  Cryer,Bob

  Lipton, Marcus

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Litterick, Tom

  Ward, Michael

  Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)

  McElhone, Frank

  Weitzman, David

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  White, James (Pollok)

  Deakins, Eric

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Dempsey, James

  Millan, Bruce

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Doig, Peter

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Dormand, J. D.

  Molloy, William

  Woodall, Alec

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Moonman, Eric

  Woof, Robert

  Dunn, James A.

  Moyle, Roland

  Dunnett, Jack

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Eadie, Alex

  Noble, Mike

  Mr. James Hamilton and

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Mr. Frank R. White.

  Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 4

  ENFRANCHISEMENT OF COUNTY COUNCIL TENANTS
  'A tenant of a holding provided by a county council on land purchased by the council, who has been in occupation thereof for a period of not less than six years, shall, on notice of his desire to purchase the holding being given to the council at any time before the tenant has received notice to quit the holding, be entitled to require the sale to him of the holding at the expiration of six months from the date of the notice at the then value of the holding, exclusive of any increase of the value thereof due to any improvement executed thereon by and at the expense of the tenant, and there-upon the council shall sell the holding to the tenant accordingly .—[Mr. Wiggin.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. Wiggin: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  The purpose here is to deal with the old concept of county council smallholdings. It goes back to 1892. In the aftermath of the First World War the Government, in 1919, passed the Land Settlement Facilities Act and, starting from an initial investment in about 20,000 acres, built up a vast agricultural holding extending today to over 427,000 acres of land which is held by county councils and let to individual smallholders.
  If my new clause is acceptable it should be further extended to include land held in the name of the Secretary of State, particularly land in parts of Lincolnshire and elsewhere where small-holdings are developed from estuarial deposits and then let in small blocks.

  1367
  The Government's decision to preclude them from their legislation drew my attention to the present state of county council smallholdings. The latest report available is that for the year ending 31st March 1974. I believe that the 1975 report will be available shortly. The 1974 report shows that at that time there were 10,319 holdings in England and Wales covering 427,650 acres, and that the total rental received was £4,012,612.
  The working of the agricultural small-holdings Acts on the whole have been successful. I do not doubt that in those days considerable thought was given to the large sums of money used for the purchase of smallholdings at above market value, over-capitalised and costing more than their rents would bear. The concept was that an individual could go into a county council smallholding, learn about the responsibilities and problems of being a farmer, build up some capital and stock of his own, and progress to be a tenant of a private landlord on a larger and perhaps more commercially viable holding. That system worked reasonably satisfactorily between the wars and up to the middle 1950s and early 1960s.
  In the three years ending 31st March 1974 only 526 new tenancies were granted—an average of 175 a year. By no stretch of the imagination can the scheme be now considered a first step on the ladder because new tenancies represent only 1·6 per cent. of the holdings. That means that tenants will be locked into the system, with the county council as their landlords for life. Their prospects of moving on are non-existent. The statistics prove that.
  It is also accepted, and statistics prove it, that the number of farms to let, who- ever is the landlord, has now been reduced to such a trickle as to be virtually non-existent. We are talking here about the annual letting by public tender of less than 2 per cent. of all smallholdings. Even if the county councils were offering a flow of tenancies, perhaps by buying the land for letting, the next step would not be open to these small- holders. I ask the House to consider what must be the value of 427,000 acres in public ownership—by which I mean the county councils.
  1368
  I have had a chance briefly to study some of the original debates on this matter. The then Minister, acting with the Board of Agriculture, emphasised the necessity for seeking above-average farms. He said that because of the size of those holdings and the public investment in them, they should be of good-quality land. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the value of all county council smallholdings in England and Wales could exceed £200 million at today's prices. Perhaps if they are let to tenants the figure might be half that, but it is certainly an astonishing sum tied up for an annual return of £4,012,000, not taking into account the cost of administering those 427,000 acres and 10,300 holdings. I am told—perhaps the Minister can give me the exact facts —that the cost of administration in some counties is as much as 25 per cent. of the rental, simply because the holdings are small and numerous and the inevitable bureacracy of local government means that there is a rather top-heavy administration in many cases.
  But that is not the main point of my argument. My objection is that under the 1919 and 1926 Acts, county councils are permitted to sell their smallholdings to the tenant, but that almost no county council has instituted that policy. We have heard the same arguments in other spheres. I think particularly of the sale of council houses to sitting tenants. The county councils have argued that it is easy to administer an estate that is a block and that to start breaking up estates would be bad estate management, and so on. But it is equally bad estate management to create an estate especially for the purpose of having tenants in a transitory stage of their careers and then circumstances so altering that they are tied into those holdings for the whole of their working lives. The Government partly recognised this problem in 1971, when in the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of that year they allowed county councils certain special powers for the amalgamation of holdings, but that has had the effect of reducing the number available for letting.
  There is an easy and logical approach —to return to the original provision in the 1919 Act. The clause is word for word most of a subsection of that Act.

  1369
  The only omission is the final words relating to the consent of the Board of Agriculture. In those days the Minister had to monitor county councils selling to smallholders because the market price was well below what the county councils paid for those holdings. The position is now totally reversed. Their value is many times in excess of their book cost. It would be good business for many county councils to sell their smallholdings. I should like to make it mandatory on them at least to offer their tenants of more than six years' standing the right to purchase their freeholds.
  We should not be depriving people of any opportunities to farm but should be encouraging the possession of property. On 16th July 1926, the then Minister, Mr. Guinness, proposing an amendment on this matter, said:
  "The Chaplin Act of 1892 showed that the Conservative Party at that time were already convinced of the truth of the old maxim,'The magic of ownership turns sand into gold', and this Bill seeks to encourage smallholdings on a freehold basis by new methods"—[Official Report, 16th July 1926; Vol. 198, c. 783.]
  It may be that the Minister who is to answer this debate does not accept that maxim, but many county council smallholders would, and would believe it right and proper that they should pay a little more and end up with freehold property.
  I accept that there are complications. For example, how would the capital be found? That is a problem faced by all small farmers making the transition from tenancy to ownership. Some assistance with the initial mortgages might have to be provided, but there is nothing new in that. When we look back through the legislation we find that provisions were made in those days for helping in that way.
  7.15 p.m.
  I could also quote at some length from the speech of Sir Arthur Boscawen, I believe a relative of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen), who spoke in those days of the merits of the transition from tenancy to ownership. He said on Second Reading of the Land Settlement (Facilities) Bill:
  "It is quite natural that many men should look not merely to getting a bit of land as tenants, but to own a bit of land, and we give them opportunity under Clause 15 with certain limitations … but we say if a man
  1370
  comes as a tenant at the reasonable rent 1 have suggested, he may have the option to buy after the seven years' period at the then value".—[Official Report, 14th April 1919; Vol. 114, c. 2587.]
  The problems then were quite different, but the principle remains the same.
  When local authorities are crying out for resources and complaining that they do not have the capital for schools, roads and other facilities, it is reasonable to suggest that they might release the capital invested in good agricultural land by selling to the individual tenants of the present day.
  Mr. Geraint Howells: There is a great deal of merit in what the hon. Gentleman has just said, but if we pursued that type of policy what legislation would the hon. Gentleman introduce to help youngsters to start on the agricultural ladder?
  Mr. Wiggin: That point is highly relevant. I am saying that the present system does not set them on the ladder and that we should therefore dismantle it. I entirely accept that in a country whose agricultural land is shrinking at the rate of 50,000 acres a year, when education has improved and it is the ambition of many more people to go into farming, there continues to be a problem, but it is different from that of the 1920s, when the county council smallholdings were set up.
  However, when people wish to do many things today—such as manufacturing articles or entering retail trade—the sheer capital requirement and lack of opportunity makes many of them go into employment instead of starting on their own. I accept that to some extent farming is different, but as it becomes more modern it will inevitably be harder for people to enter it. The legislation with which we are dealing today will make it much harder still. The hon. Gentleman knows full well that there will be no more tenancies offered on the open market. In the interests of good estate management, there should be none. I can conceive of no professional adviser telling his clients, except for the handful of estates held by institutions, "Let your farm". I should be drawn into a whole new area that we shall be covering later if I pursued the matter, but in Committee the hon. Gentleman consistently supported legislation that has

  1371
  shut down the supply in a totally different area.
  The case for the new clause, unlike some of those with which we have already dealt, is very simple. It is that the resources invested in land held in public ownership should be released to those who are now enjoying that land. This should be done at a fair price. I am not saying that it should not be at market value. It should be released to them so that they may become property owners and see something for the lifetime of labour which so many smallholders put into their holdings, thus releasing assests badly needed elsewhere for more useful purposes.
  Mr. Strang: I assume, although it is not clear as the clause is drafted—I am not absolutely certain even after the speech of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin)—that he intends it to be restricted to statutory smallholdings let by county councils under Part III of the Agriculture Act 1970. That part of the Act gives effect to the policy on smallholdings following the report of the Wise Committee on statutory smallholdings. The committee advised that they should be used as a gateway for new entrants to farming, and Section 39(1) provides that, in the performance of their functions under Part III, smallholdings authorities shall make it their general aim to provide opportunities for persons with the necessary agricultural experience to be farmers on their own acount by letting holding to them.
  The operative words are "by letting". To compel a local authority to sell a holding at the request of the tenant would strike at the heart of the national policy on holdings. The demand for holdings to let is keen, and there is no lack of suitable applicants. The standard is high, but they are persons of limited capital who would stand no chance of getting into farming if this traditional gateway were closed.
  The hon. Member has made a pertinent point about the numbers of people who are moving through these smallholdings. It is fair to say that we originally spoke in terms of smallholdings being the bottom rung of the farming ladder. It is significant that we now use the phrase "gateway to farming". In practice, the movement is not on the scale which, I
  1372
  am sure, people envisaged when we started this scheme many years ago. Indeed, it is, perhaps, not on the scale that it was in its early stages. It is now much harder to enter farming this way.
  Well-managed, intensively-farmed smallholdings can give a good living to people who are naturally content to increase the productivity and efficiency of their holding and thereby increase their income, rather than to move on to another holding, but one must accept that the holdings become available for letting and that if one took them away and made the tenants owner-occupiers one would close this gateway to farming. That statement is still valid.
  The hon. Member talks about these people being "locked in". Presumably they are locked in either of their own choice or because they do not have sufficient capital to move on to buying another holding. Holdings are still coming on to the market. I take his point that the number of holdings to let has been falling sharply over the years. Indeed, it can be argued that some of the new clauses to the Bill might add to that process, although I believe that the effect would be marginal, on the basis of our experience in Scotland.
  The hon. Member has partly acknowledged that, since smallholdings are comprised in estates, and each one has its place in securing the balanced structure of the estate, if some smallholdings were sold to the individual occupier management would be made much harder. The change would not provide for such sensible estate management of local authority smallholdings.
  I was interested that the hon. Member should say that the cost of administration was 25 per cent. of the rental income. If he is right, that is a staggering and disturbing figure. I cannot confirm or deny the figure, but hon. Members might be interested to consider it in relation to their own local authorities.
  Perhaps the heart of the matter is that, basically, the hon. Member is in principle against the idea of anything being owned by the community. I suppose that he wants to minimise the likelihood of anything being held collectively. He overstates the case, perhaps on the basis of his own political philosophy, for someone actually owning the holding he farms

  1373
  and the satisfaction to be derived from building up the capital value. To a large extent, the capital value built up has not been the product of the investment of these people but is the result of the rise in land values, which has occurred regardless of individual investment in holdings. The hon. Member exaggerates that point of view.
  Partly because of my background in tenant farming, but also because of my political philosophy, I see nothing wrong or inferior about renting a farm and running it well on a well-managed estate on which the landlord invests adequately in the infrastructure and plays his part in investing in the holding.
  It is a pertinent point that the Association of County Councils is opposed to the new clause. As I have explained, the new clause is unacceptable, for policy and practical reasons, and I hope that the House will reject it.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I want to take up the point with which the Minister ended—the position of the Association of County Councils. I do so because, for six years, I served as a member of a county council. Although I was not a member of the smallholdings committee, I took some interest in its activities and functions. I am very much in sympathy with the case so well put to the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin). The Association of County Councils, as the Minister rightly said, is strongly against the new clause and has been consistently against this sort of clause since we began our deliberations on the Bill.
  In a letter which the association has, no doubt, sent to selected Members of Parliament, dated 5th May, it says:
  "One of the principal objectives of smallholdings is to provide an entry into farming for those with the required experience and qualifications"
  The association, through the good offices of its secretary, Mr. A. C. Hetherington, adds:
  "Unfortunately, the numbers of those wishing to take holdings are greater than the vacancies that arise"
  That may be the case, Perhaps the Government should look at other ways of enabling the new generation to go into farming. It is true that the capital required by a young person to enter farm-
  1374
  ing today is very great, that that money cannot be found at this time from virtually any sources, and that, therefore, the county councils, through their smallholdings, at least offer an opportunity, however small, to new entrants. That is certainly good for the farming industry, but the association goes on to say that the shortage of smallholdings
  "would be exacerbated if counties could be required to sell holdings, because the pool of holdings for letting would get smaller and smaller"
  Mr. Hetherington goes further:
  "…counties' smallholdings reorganisation plans under the Agriculture Act 1970 envisaged the amalgamation of many of the smallholdings over a period of years, in order to produce units that are more economically viable"
  I think that he feels strongly what he says in the next sentence:
  "The implementation of the new clause on enfranchisement would produce a patchwork of ownerships of county smallholdings estates which would prevent reasonable amalgamation"
  The Minister did not mention that point. I should be glad if he would elaborate slightly on his remarks.
  Very few tenancies of agricultural holdings are available each year, and therefore the philosophy behind the new clause is worthy of full consideration. The number of vacancies each year is minute. Therefore, is the whole infrastructure involved in smallholdings still really worth while?
  I have tried to put both sides of the case. There is much more to the new clause than, perhaps, the short debate today would suggest. I believe that my hon. Friend has highlighted an important point. I have tried to tempt the Minister to rise again to deal with this matter, but it seems, without success.
  Mr. Geraint Howells: The hon. Member has quoted Mr. Hetherington's letter, except for the last sentence. That says:
  "We hope you will oppose the clause"
  7.30 p.m.
  Mr. Winterton: The hon. Member has anticipated me. I was about to come to that point. I felt that I should present the case as I have because I did not feel that the Minister did justice to my hon. Friend's case.

  1375
  I am very open-minded on this matter. In the near future the need for smallholdings as they are today is going to disappear. I think that they should be abolished because the cost of maintaining them is now a waste of resources and manpower, both of which could be put to better use. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare is going to divide the House on this new clause. This has been an important debate, and I hope the Government will, in the future, give consideration to the case put forward by my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Richard Body: I thought that the Parliamentary Secretary in his speech a few minutes ago leaned too heavily on the Wise Report. I think that most people recognise that the report is now almost out of date. It was published seven or eight years ago when smallholdings were still spoken of as a step up the farming ladder, and that situation has now ceased to exist. No one can say that smallholdings are even a gateway to farming today—a phrase used in the Wise Report and adopted tonight by the Parliamentary Secretary.
  Today there are so few holdings available, particularly to provide opportunities for young people, that once a tenant gets in, he stays in. That is not a gateway, but a cul-de-sac. Nothing is to be gained from having young farmers aged up to 30 beginning a farming career in one of these holdings, and ending it there. Many farmers remain there throughout their careers. That is the general pattern and we all should regret it. But in regretting it we must ask whether it is right to continue this system as it is.
  One way out of this would be to vary the rent from year to year so that in the early days of tenancy a farmer would be able to pay less than the economic rent. This could continue for seven or eight years, and each year thereafter the rent could be increased until there came a time when it was not worth while for the farmer to stay in that holding. He would then have to make way for some other young man.
  The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) is making sounds which indicate that he totally disapproves of what
  1376
  I am saying. But when middle-aged farmers become old-aged pensioners on smallholdings, that is not doing any good for agriculture or offering any opportunities for young men coming into farming. If we are `to have a true gateway—and these holdings should give young men opportunities to learn the skills of management and to acquire extra capital in order to advance—then there must be an incentive for older farmers to move on elsewhere, once they have had an opportunity to succeed. If they cannot make a success of it after 10 years or so, they should quit. It is utterly selfish for old, old men to continue on in these holdings long after the age of retirement.
  I support the new clause wholeheartedly, and I am disappointed that the Parliamentary Secretary has not gone further. I think that eventually the Government will be driven to a more radical view about the future of these holdings. On this side of the House we believe that it is not for county councils to go into the business of being agricultural landlords. I hope that Members of the Liberal Party will agree with us that there should be a little more private endeavour. I know that this is anti-collectivist, but we on this side of the House are anti-collectivist.
  Mr. Hooson: The hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) is a member of my chambers and I have a warm regard for him. However, I totally disagree with his sentiments.
  I represent an agricultural county where there is a large area with a considerable number of smallholding estates. Virtually the only chance a young man has to get a tenancy of a farm in my county is to get one of these smallholdings. This is because there are relatively few agricultural estates. The farms tend to be on much larger sized estates, and they come on to the market for letting relatively rarely. Therefore smallholdings are the only rung on the ladder for most people who want to enter the agricultural industry as farmers.
  The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) is proposing, in this new clause, to wipe out that gateway altogether. He has extolled the virtues of the landlord-tenant relationship— apparently that is all right if the landlord owns the property privately. From

  1377
  the Conservative Benches many tears have been shed over the fact that it is becoming more and more difficult for landlords to continue their estates and that there are fewer and fewer farms to be let. Yet in this new clause the hon. Member is proposing that in certain areas, such as mine, the only chance for a young man to get a farm which is being let is to be abolished.
  I do not agree with him, obviously, but he has done a service to the House in that he has underlined the fact that we should consider anew the functions of the smallholdings and how land should be held in this country. I have no regrets that land is held by the community. I am a firm believer in private ownership, but this is not incompatible with having a wide area owned by the public as well. Have Conservative Members opposed the Forestry Commission, which owns so much land? In an area such as mine there have been Economic Forestry and Fountain Forestry which have bought great tracts of land. The Commission is taking land out of private ownership, in its strict sense into some form of public ownership. Whether the land is owned by a public corporation or a public company does not seem to matter in this context. Even now I would like to see the county councils competing with the Forestry Commission and public companies in buying marginal land and setting up holdings of considerably larger acreage than that available for small holdings, and making them available for letting to young farmers.
  Mr. Wiggin: Much as I would like to debate the problems of forestry in Montgomery I will refrain from doing so and point out that the land which the hon. and learned Member talks about is today farmed by somebody. If it is taken into public ownership it will be farmed by someone else. I hope that no one would interpret my new clause as closing a gateway to farming. The gateway is already shut for other reasons.
  Mr. Hooson: I do not accept that the gateway is shut. Because of policies introduced in 1970 I know of more people in the older age group who have moved from small to larger holdings than in the younger age group of tenants. It is more difficult today for other reasons. I accept that.
  1378
  We have also been wrong in amalgamating smallholdings to such an extent that the smallholder does not want to move but is satisfied with his holding and regards it as the fulfilment of his economic desires. When a smallholding becomes available it is not unusual for there to be more than 100 applicants for it. Often the number is far in excess of that and the applicants are well qualified to run the holding successfully.
  In Montgomery our policy is to charge an economic rent for smallholdings. The rents for smallholdings are often higher than would be charged by private landlords. The vast majority of such applicants do not otherwise have the chance to start in farming. If the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare has his way he will close to future generations what is already a very narrow gateway, and I am dead against that.
  The House should embark upon a much wider debate about how land should be held. It is difficult for a man to find money to buy his farm and to run it properly. He has to find both tenant's capital and landlord's capital. Inevitably we face the prospect, therefore, of greater public ownership of farm land. This has been the case with the Forestry Commission, and the social consequences of that are a matter for concern. In an area such as mine great tracts of land are taken over for forestry and are completely depopulated. It would be better if smaller areas were taken for forestry so that proper, well-equipped holdings could be set up in that kind of area. The correct relationship there would be of landlord and tenant.
  The reality of economics today makes it impossible for a private landlord to do that. He would have neither the resources nor the incentive. The task could be taken on only by the county council. The county I represent went in for smallholdings in a big way and my only regret is that we did not go in for them on an even larger scale, but that would not have been allowed by the Government, who prohibited the purchase of land in marginal areas which we could have rehabilitated.
  I can appreciate some of the fears expressed by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare. The reason for the

  1379
  clause is, I suspect, to underline the problems which surround the use to be made of smallholdings, to stress that smallholdings are a stepping stone and not an end in themselves, and that perhaps we should produce larger holdings. In my county we have tried to grade the holdings so that a man on a smallholding can apply to move on to a larger holding.
  Mr. Winterton: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman know how many smallholdings in his constituency came up for re-letting in, say, the last 12 or 24 months?
  Mr. Hooson: I do not know, but I have seen at least a dozen applicants who have told me of various holdings that they think will be coming on to the market. They have asked for my advice—
  Mr. Jopling: Were they all referring to the same holding?
  Mr. Hooson: No, they were not. I know the difference between one holding and another even if the hon. Member might not.
  For these reasons the Government are right to oppose the clause. Everyone concerned with agriculture appreciates that we should have a much broader and deeper discussion of the whole strategy of land holding, of the functions which are to be performed by the farm to be let, and of who is to provide the farms to be let.
  7.45 pm.
  Mr. Buchan: I had not intended to take part in the debate because I thought that not many hon. Members would wish to buttress the case advanced by the hon. Member for Weston-uper-Mare (Mr. Wiggin). It is worth making clear that and some of my hon. Friends who may not have supported the Government throughout on the Bill do so on this subject, and share the views expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson).
  We would be blinding ourselves to reality to ignore that the new clause springs from the same source as opposition to the new clauses on security of tenancy. It is said by Conservative Members that since there is not a very wide gateway there is little point in con-
  1380
  tinuing its existence. That is an extraordinary argument. If the gate is not open wide enough it should be our job to open it wider, not close it.
  I agree with the hon. and learned Member that we should take a much more detailed look at public ownership, not in a dogmatic sense, but upon the approach that he adopted, which was, that since private landlords are unable to create the situation in which tenants move on to marginal land in this way, it is the job of the State or the local authorities to do so. We should be encouraging that initiative. Of course, I would prefer to go even further, but I shall not tread that road tonight.
  One of the problems is that the scheme has been too limited. Our task is surely to extend the scheme, and I would welcome a wider discussion of proposals to that end.
  We face the situation in which private forestry can take over land, but where a local authority is unable to do so. That will prevent any proper development of existing holdings by local authorities, because one of the problems is that, in general, the holdings are small, sometimes too small. A few years ago we thought that the task should be to assist in improving small holdings by allowing for amalgamation, but if the holdings are to go into private hands, that will prevent proper development of a land holding policy.
  My hon. Friend the Minister was, therefore, right to reject the proposal. We have learned from this debate that a fuller discussion of the question would be useful, but in the meantime we should assist local authorities to extend their activities in this sphere, and allow a policy of amalgamation to go forward in order to improve the structure of these holdings.
  Mr. Wiggin: With the leave of the House, may I say how grateful I am to my hon. Friends for supporting me? My proposal received less criticism on political and dogmatic grounds than I had anticipated, but the Minister is a kind man and sometimes sees the other point of view and argues accordingly.
  I strongly question the open door philosophy. The rate of letting of county council smallholdings is pretty much in line with the death rate of tenants, and,

  1381
  therefore, the new tenants move into dead men's shoes. If the farms were owned and not let they would go on to the market at almost the same rate.
  I must pursue the point that has been made about the need for a complete review of the landlord and tenant relationship, whoever the landlord may be. I am glad to hear that said, and especially by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan). That was the basis of the new clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) regarding the term of years letting. Such a review could go a long way to opening the door very much wider, making it possible for agriculture to be considered in a truly commercial light. I have in mind a situation in which a young man could go into agriculture, take a chance and, if he proved successful, make a career of it. However, I believe that the Bill will finally slam the door shut rather than open it wider.
  Mr. Buchan: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why he fought throughout Committee to determine the right of the landlord to say who shall be the tenant, whereas in this clause he is seeking to prevent a socially responsible body, namely, the local authority, from doing so?
  Mr. Wiggin: The hon. Gentleman twists my words. If he does not know by now why I was opposed to the new provisions, I am sorry; but it would be tedious to repeat my objections. I believe that my position is abundantly clear.
  On many occasions I have been among 200 or 300 tenants tendering for farms at ridiculous rents in an attempt to expand my business. There is a decreasing amount of agricultural land, and the supply cannot be increased. As long as we have a reducing supply of land, the demand will inevitably increase. That is so simple an economic fact that it has probably not percolated through and been recognised by Labour Members. But perhaps I am altering the tone of what has been a friendly debate.
  As the clause raises a major matter involving hundreds of millions of pounds, perhaps the Bill is not the appropriate vehicle. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
  Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1

  DISSOLUTION OF SUGAR BOARD
  Mr. Bishop: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 26 at end insert—
  '(8) Any gain accruing to the Board in consequence of subsection (1) above shall not be a chargeable gain for the purposes of corporation tax on chargeable gains.'
  The amendment provides for the exemption of the Sugar Board from the liability to pay corporation tax on chargeable gains when its assets are transferred to my right hon. Friend, as provided for under Clause 1(1).
  It will be known that the purpose of the clause is to transfer to the Minister the assets and liabilities of the board, and to provide for the dissolution of the board on a day to be appointed by the Minister. Such a transfer would normally be a chargeable gain liable to corporation tax. That would generate a significant tax liability.
  The major asset to be transferred is the board's holding of 2½million shares in the British Sugar Corporation. As the board's liabilities will be transferred to the Minister at the same time as the assets, any tax liability would fall upon the Exchequer.
  The point I am making is that the Exchequer would pay the Minister so that he could pay the Inland Revenue tax which would then return to the Exchequer. On these grounds it is proposed that there should be no liability to pay corporation tax on chargeable gains on the transfer of shares.
  This would not be the first occasion on which a public body has been granted exemption from corporation tax on chargeable gains. The exemption was given to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in 1970.
  Mr. Wiggin: Like many other hon. Members I have been privileged on many occasions to waste a considerable amount of time on the Floor of the House, but to be debating an amendment that precludes a Government Department from charging itself tax is the height of Gilbert and Sullivan.
  In Committee the Minister said:
  "As I have made quite clear, the orders under the clause will not authorise any new

  1383
  Exchequer expenditure"—[Official Report, Standing Committee C; 16th December 1976. c. 76.]
  It is true that the hon. Gentleman was then talking about something slightly different, but we did not imagine that there would be a tax liability to his Department that would have to go back to the Treasury.
  I have not had the privilege of being in Her Majesty's Government, but I understand from my hon. Friends and colleagues who have that in all circumstances the Treasury should be kept at bay. We shall gladly join in such an exercise with the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. We have no intention of opposing this minor amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 3

  DUTIES OF MEAT AND LIVESTOCK COMMISSION AS REGARDS CONSULTATION
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I beg to move Amendment No. 9, in page 4, line 20 at end insert—"Qualified Veterinary Surgeons".
  In Committee we had a short but useful debate on this topic. I remind the Minister of State that on Thursday 22nd January he gave various assurances to the Opposition. He said:
  "However, I take the point made by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) that the 1967 Act is not a table of Moses coming down from the mountain. It is something which has been the basis for our consideration. However, the 1967 Act, as well as representations and consultations with the MLC and others, should be taken into account. The Veterinary Association has written to us on this matter and I assure the Committee that we will take another look at this in relation to the MLC to see whether there is adequate representation of vets".
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge (Mr. Stainton) interjected and asked whether that would be done by Report. The Minister continued:
  "Yes. There are, however, certain dangers, because one may get a whole crowd of other people saying that other categories have an interest as well as vets. I do not want to name them because it may tempt them. Once we start that, we get duplication."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C; 22nd January 1976, c. 259.]
  1384
  I ask the Minister of State to study the Bill as amended in Committee. I remind him that in page 3 Section 1A, headed
  "Commission's duty to consult representative organisations",
  provides
  "If it appears to the Commission that any matter arising or likely to arise out of the exercise of the Commission's functions has or is likely to have a substantial effect on the interests of one or more classes of persons mentioned in Part IIA of Schedule 1 to this Act, the Commission shall consult the relevant organisation or each of the relevant organisations about that matter".
  I refer the House to page 4 and to the classes of persons for the purposes of Section 1A. The first section is cattle, pig and sheep producers. I am sure that the Minister will agree that the qualified veterinary service has a considerable interest in this sphere. The second category listed are those persons employed in livestock production. Qualified veterinary surgeons have an important part to play in that sector as well.
  8.0 p.m.
  I could go on. There is no doubt that livestock traders have close dealings with qualified veterinary surgeons, a qualified group which provides a vital service in livestock trading.
  I know from my experience of livestock auctioneering that there is always a qualified veterinary surgeon in attendance at an auction yard. Again, this professional body has a great deal to do with all the activities listed here.
  Perhaps it is right to pick out
  "Local authorities operating slaughterhouses and livestock and meat markets."
  The qualified veterinary surgeon has a vital part to play in those activities.
  The last class of persons detailed is:
  "Persons employed in the marketing and distribution of livestock or the production, processing, manufacture, marketing and distribution of livestock products."
  Again, the qualified veterinary surgeon is closely involved in all those acivities—and rightly so.
  Maybe I am being a little unfair in going over some of the ground which has been covered before in Committee. I hope that the Minister will be sensitive to this amendment. There are no party politics behind it. The amendment genuinely seeks to give a group of people who are not listed here the statutory

  1385
  right to be consulted when their interests are involved.
  I remind the Minister that the functions of the Meat and Livestock Commission include promoting breeding programmes, progeny testing, registration of herds, and so on. I am delighted to have the support of the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells). Qualified veterinary surgeons are rightly deeply involved in all these matters. Therefore, it is right that they should be listed in this part of the Bill. It is for that reason that I am promoting this straightforward amendment.
  It is a shame that we are unable to have a slightly wider debate on the whole subject of consultation. A number of bodies are deeply concerned about the lack of consultation which may or may not occur. For instance, I know that the NFU is deeply concerned that there could be a reduction in the level of consultation between the MLC and the industry's organisations following the abolition of the Production and Distribution committees of the MLC. I do not propose to go over that ground again. The NFU, like other organisations—the Association of Fresh Meat Wholesalers, the Meat Manufacturers' Association, the Smithfield Market Fresh Meat Traders Association and others—is not convinced that the procedures so far indicated by the MLC will prove much better than those provided by the Agriculture Act 1967. I am not reassured by the reassertion of the MLC's independence contained in the introduction to the Commission's recently published annual report. I need not quote the extract from the report to which I have just referred.
  This is a fairly straightforward amendment, but it would be wrong for me to miss the opportunity of quoting the reaction of my hon. Friend the Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge. In Committee, he said:
  "I, for one, am disappointed with the Minister's reply. It is the classic argument for maintaining the status quo—'We have got along all right so far. We did a bit on a previous clause regarding the machinery of consultation, and there is nothing to preclude the Commission from having consultations with qualified veterinary surgeons, or whomsoever; so let us not embark on any further amendments.'"
  1386
  That was my hon. Friend's summing up of the Minister's position in Committee. He continued:
  "In the list of specified parties on page 4 of the Bill there is
  'Persons engaged in animal by-products trades.'
  which I interpret to mean people who produce such articles as tripe, pig trotters or gut sausage-skins. If the Minister and those who inspire him in the Ministry can go to extremes in specifying such categories—I would think quite rightly—then why not veterinary surgeons? He has undertaken to look at this matter again, but not, I feel, with a very good heart."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C, 22nd January 1976; c. 256.]
  I did not agree with my hon. Friend on that occasion that the Minister did not give assurances with a good heart. I think that he did give assurances with a good heart in Committee. I hope that he will now, on Report, accept this straightforward amendment which I believe will be of considerable benefit to the Bill.
  I suspect that, as in Committee, the Minister may say that veterinary surgeons are represented on the livestock and other committees of the Meat and Livestock Commission, including the Research Advisory Committee. I am trying to anticipate what he will say. However, I feel sure that the Minister will now agree, from the modest and moderate way in which the amendment has been moved—and on this occasion we have the Liberal Party with us—that we believe that it will benefit the Bill.
  I am sure that I shall have wholehearted support for this amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), whose interest in animal welfare is known throughout the country. There is no doubt that in the export of live animals the qualified veterinary surgeon at virtually every port of call of those animals, including the final port of call, the abattoir, on the other side of the English Channel or the North Sea, plays a vital part guaranteeing animal health and welfare. I speak from experience.
  Sir Bernard Braine Sir Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East) rose—
  Mr. Winterton: am delighted to have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine), whose interest in animal exports and

  1387
  other matters of that kind is extremely well known. I hope that he will intervene a little later. I do not believe that there would be any point in giving way to him at this stage, but, if he insists, I am happy to do so.
  Qualified veterinary surgeons play a vital part in livestock matters. They should have the right to be independently consulted, irrespective of the positions which they hold on various committees within the MLC. Therefore, we put forward this amendment, which would have the effect of adding qualified veterinary surgeons to the classes of persons listed.
  Mr. F. A. Burden: I give unqualified support to this amendment. The only point I should like to make is that veterinary surgeons in their relationships with animals are comparable with the medical profession in its relationships with human beings. Running through this schedule in the categories named is an association which should not be denied the right of consultation. Therefore, the Government should accept the amendment.
  Mr. Bishop: I recognise the importance of veterinary surgeons in the context of this debate. However, this proposal applies to other categories of people involved in the industry. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and others engaged in an extensive discussion when this matter was debated in Committee. Indeed, the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) proposed an amendment to include qualified veterinary surgeons in the classes of persons to be consulted by the MLC. The arguments for the specific reference to the veterinary profession seemed to relate to its role in breeding developments and disease prevention and cure, and its responsibility for meat inspection. I ought to emphasise that meat inspection is not, however, a function of the MLC. That is just a passing point, but it should not be overlooked. The amendment was not satisfactory in that regard. However, as the hon. Gentleman reminded the House, I assured the Committee that by Report I would consider the spirit of it further.
  Mr. Geraint Howells: As producers, we pay a levy, do we not? I take it that that money goes to the MLC?
  Mr. Bishop: The hon. Gentleman has a point. However, I should not like to go too deeply into the direct or indirect contributions of the industry which help to maintain the MLC. The hon. Gentleman will know as well as I do the composition of the MLC and its responsibilities.
  However, I assured the Committee that I would consider the spirit of the amendment to see whether there might be more that could be done by the commission, through its own arrangements, to involve veterinary interests. The hon. Member for Macclesfield has rightly reminded us of the list in Clause 3(2), which defines "relevant organisation" as an organisation designated by Ministers as being capable of representing the interests of a class of persons mentioned in subsection (3). He has rightly drawn the attention of the House to the first three categories, apart from others. These include livestock traders, livestock auctioneers and others, and, of course, persons employed in livestock production. The classes of person set out in Clause 3(2) are designed to cover all persons who have a commercial role in meat production, marketing and distribution, and who might be affected by the exercise of the commission's functions.
  They do not extend to professional bodies whose members might be consulted by those directly concerned with the production and distribution of meat and livestock. In Committee the amendment was described as a probing amendment. The arguments for a specific reference to the veterinary profession related to its role in breeding development, and disease prevention and cure. The commission already consults the veterinary profession on an ad hoc basis.
  Following discussion in Committee the Ministry asked the commission to consider what more it could do through its own arrangements to involve the profession, and the commission proposes to set up a panel of representatives of the profession to advise it on veterinary matters, as part of its non-statutory consultation arrangements. The spirit of the amendment has been carefully considered. It is not possible to identify separately any function or interest of the profession that requires statutory consultation. However,

  1389
  I am pleased to report that the commission has considered what more it can do through its own arrangements to involve the profession, and has decided to establish a veterinary panel to advise it on veterinary matters as part of its non-statutory consultation arrangements. That is part of the consequences of the points made in the Committee.
  I am satisfied that it is right to meet the Opposition's purpose in this way rather than to give one ancillary profession favoured treatment under the legislation. I assure the hon. Member for Macclesfield and his hon. Friends that we have thought this matter to be one of some importance. I hope that the assurance I have given to the House will enable him not to press the amendment.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: When the Minister of State started his speech I thought that once again he would be putting up a brick wall and that the reasoned argument that we presented, as it was presented to the Committee, would go unheard. However, later in his short speech we saw a chink as he developed his argument. I believe that the information that he has provided—I speak on behalf of the main Opposition party, but I think that the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) will take the same view as I am about to express—is highly satisfactory. I am delighted that the consultations that he has had since the Committee have produced this result, which, I believe, will be of considerable benefit to the MLC and to all companies and people involved in the meat and livestock industry. Therefore, I thank the Minister for meeting our point, not only on behalf of the Opposition but on behalf of the industry.
  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5

  MEASURES TO RESTRICT THE GROWING OF MALE HOP PLANTS
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. Bishop: I beg to move Amendment No. 10, in page 5, line 30, after 'with', insert '(a)'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): With this amendment it will
  1390
  be convenient to discuss Government Amendments Nos. 11, 12 and 13.
  Mr. Bishop: I am glad that the House has recognised that I am not always an iron lady in some of these matters, and that, after vetting the suggestions put forward, we sometimes come to agreeable conclusions.
  The Opposition's Amendment No. 25 in Committee sought to ensure that specific provision would be made for consultation with commercial hop growers in any area to be designated for the growing of seedless hops. Although provision is already made in the clause for individuals to object to a proposed order, we fully understand and sympathise with the concern for individual hop growers and we accepted the amendment in principle. I think that the amendment I am now putting forward fully meets the Opposition's point. In saying that I am, referring particularly to Amendments Nos. 10 and 11.
  With regard to Amendment No. 12, this includes the words,
  "In this subsection 'the relevant area' means the current area or, if the proposed order would add any area to the current area, the area consisting of the current area and the area proposed to be added."
  During the debate in Committee, the hon. Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge (Mr. Stainton) questioned whether the procedure to be followed before making revocation and variation orders was the same as for orders first establishing designated areas. Further consideration has indicated that there was. some basis for his doubts, and I am. grateful for his helpful comment. It was always our intention that the same procedures should be followed for all orders, and this amendment will ensure that that is so.
  Amendment No. 13 is consequent upon, the previous amendment, which sets out in a new subsection the procedure to be followed before making revocation and' variation orders. Reference to such orders is, therefore, no longer necessary in that subsection.
  Mr. Jopling: We seem to be in a stage of the consideration of the Bill where the Minister of State seems to be earning for himself our congratulations and thanks. This group of amendments is another

  1391
  example exactly on those lines. This follows on from the helpful statement he made on the previous amendment. As he said, Amendments No. 10 and 11 meet a point that began, I think, in a remark that I made on Second Reading, when I think I suggested that it was extremely important that where these designation areas are made, where there is to be freedom from the growing of male hops, they should be made with very great care to ensure the maximum support of growers in the area.
  As originally drafted, the Bill ensured that Ministers would consult only with organisations which appeared to represent groups of people. As we have learned, many hop growers are great individualists and it is right that the Minister should also consult individual growers.
  I am sure that when a Minister designates areas where seedless crops are grown, these amendments will make his job much easier. I congratulate him on Amendments Nos. 10 and 11, which we heartily endorse.
  Amendment No. 12 refers to an Order which may be made to revoke or vary a previous Order. A Minister may wish to vary an Order by extending the area in which male hops are not to be grown. I can understand that the Minister, having designated an area, may feel the exercise has been a great success and the production of seedless hops in the area may have such a ready home or international market that growers wish the Order to be extended. Alternatively, a Minister may feel he can identify an adjoining area which is a source of pollination by male hops.
  We want to ensure that if there is an Order to extend the size of an area, the provisions of Clause 5 will be fully implemented. For instance, can we be certain that the period of notice and the opportunities for objections will be the same as those given when the original Order was made? It is essential that growers in an area which is to be extended should have exactly the same rights as were available to growers when the original Order was made. May we take it that the Orders envisaged in Amendment No. 12 will be laid before the House for consideration in the same way as the original Orders?
  1392
  If we can have these assurances, I can do nothing but congratulate the Government on the amendments, which meet in full the points which we raised in Committee.
  Mr. Bishop: The answer to both the questions asked by the hon. Member is "Yes".
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendments made:No. 11, in page 5, line 32, after 'hops', insert
  '; and
  (b)such persons as are known to him to be carrying on that business in the area,'.
  No. 12, in page 5, line 33, at end insert—
  '(3) Where this section is in force in any area ("the current area") by virtue of an order under this section ("the current order"), the Minister may by order revoke or vary the current order if, after consultation with—

  (a)such organisations as appear to him appropriate as representing persons carrying on in the relevant area the business of producing hops; and

  (b) such persons as are known to him to be carrying on that business in the relevant area,

  he is satisfied that it is reasonable to make the order.
  In this subsection "the relevant area" means the current area or, if the proposed order would add any area to the current area, the area consisting of the current area and the area proposed to be added'.
  No. 13, in page 6, line 7, leave out from 'Parliament' to end of line 8.—[Mr. Bishop.]

Clause 8

  POWER TO REGULATE THE EXPORTATION OF ANIMALS IN THE INTERESTS OF THEIR WELFARE.
  Sir Bernard Braine: I beg to move Amendment No. 14, in page 9, line 20, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.
  This is a simple amendment but one concerned with an important issue of principle. Moreover, it reflects the views of many people in this country who feel strongly that the export of food animals for slaughter abroad is both morally wrong and economically unnecessary and who remain unconvinced by the assurances Ministers are obliged, under pressure, to give from time to time that such animals are now exported under controlled, civilised and humane conditions.

  1393
  This is not just the view of people who are emotional about poor dumb creatures. A leading article in the journal of the British Veterinary Association in October 1974—that is during the temporary ban on the export of live food animals—asserted that many veterinary surgeons, especially those with experience in this trade, fervently hoped that it would not be re-started. Indeed, our respected veterinary profession has always argued that food animals should be slaughtered as close as possible to the farm.
  I recall that the authors of the European Convention for Protection of Animals during International Transport said in the preamble to their report in 1969 that the ideal arrangement would be to restrict international traffic in food animals to carcase meat so that slaughtering took place in the country of origin. Unfortunately, it was outside their terms of reference to recommend that, and they said so.
  What is ironic is that the United Kingdom has sufficiently approved slaughterhouses and adequate modern refrigerated transport to ensure a viable carcase trade. It is also ironic that in 1973 the value of our carcase trade was four times that of our trade in live animals.
  The assurances given by Ministers from time to time do not carry conviction. Let us consider the record. Assurances about the export of live cattle were freely given after the Balfour Committee of 1957, but the RSPCA assures me that it found 130 breaches of those assurances within a period of just four weeks. In 1964, evidence provided by British animal welfare organisations about the revolting treatment of British sheep exported across the Channel or in some cases across the Mediterranean led to the Balfour safe-guards being extended to sheep and pigs, though the French declined to give any such assurances.
  It was no wonder then that in July 1973 the House compelled the Government to impose a partial ban on exports pending the report of the O'Brien Committee. Again we know only too well what happened. The O'Brien Report was published in March 1974. It had to admit that since the mid-1960s, despite the new controls, there had been increasing public disquiet. It stated:
  "Incidents had been reported that the Balfour assurances had been circumvented or
  1394
  wholly ignored and the welfare of animals exported from the country was not being adequately safeguarded."
  That was an understatement, if ever there was one. The evidence of the continuing mistreatment of exported food animals was overwhelming and shameful.
  8.30 p.m.
  The essence of the O'Brien Report was that a permanent ban on the export of livestock for slaughter would not be justified on welfare or economic grounds, although exports ought not to re-start until the welfare of the animals could be safeguarded with greater certainty. The report, however, put its ultimate faith in future comprehensive international agreements.
  Clearly, the O'Brien Committee could not carry out its inquiries incognito. It would have been seen coming many miles away. Some investigation was undertaken abroad, but at that time few animals were being exported and the export of sheep had stopped. Nevertheless, on 16th January 1975 the Minister told us that he accepted the findings of the O'Brien Report, and, in view of the progress which was being made in establishing international welfare safeguards across the board, he urged the House to agree to the lifting of the ban on exports to Community countries and any others which would satisfy us with regard to safeguards. Despite many misgivings on both sides of the House, he had his way. He secured a majority for his point of view.
  There were, I think, three reasons for that. First, the Minister gave us explicit assurances about safeguards; secondly, he said that there would be close scrutiny of applications for licences; thirdly—and most telling of all was the fact that he uttered no word upon it—there was a letter from the President of the NFU in The Times pointing out that we had 14½million livestock in this country but only enough feed for 13 million. Better then to export the poor beasts for slaughter than to starve on British farms. What an argument that was!
  Let us consider the quality of the assurances. The French animal welfare society, OABA, subsequently reported, after the assurances which had been given to the House and the votes of hon. Members had been secured, despite their misgivings, that the O'Brien Committee's

  1395
  investigations in France had been worthless. One of the two French slaughterhouses visited had been forced to toe the line following OABA's complaints supported by a French Press campaign. The other, at Fountainbleau, continued to disregard the French animal welfare regulations before and after the O'Brien Committee's visit. The OABA report said:
  "Sheep and calves during ordinary non-ritual slaughter were being cut and bled without pre-stunning"—
  I hope that I have the Minister's attention. I am talking about assurances that he and his colleagues have given from time to time. The Minister is under test, and we shall expect a careful answer to this debate. The report said:
  "Sheep and calves during ordinary non-ritual slaughter were being cut and bled without pre-stunning and full-grown cattle were being suspended upside down by a leg fully conscious."
  A pretty sight that must have been.
  Even at the large Vauginand abattoir in Paris, where one would have expected proper supervision, the OABA found welfare regulations being broken. Remember that was after the decision to end the ban on exports from this country. It found at many other abattoirs that it was the habitual policy to ignore not only French welfare legislation but also the EEC's Humane Slaughter Directive.
  Since the raising of the ban, we have reverted to our former annual average of about 400,000 live food animals sent abroad every year, excluding breeding stock, going mainly to France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Southern Ireland. Their final destinations are unknown in many cases.
  Moreover, the Balfour assurances no longer apply. I invite the Minister to tell us whether we have any powers—I do not believe we have—to prevent the Community countries from re-exporting our animals to places outside the Community, where the safeguards which we are told are desirable do not apply, such as North Africa and the Middle East.
  Within the Community itself, there is evidence that the situation in Italy is bad. Certainly a few years ago, a distinguished British veterinary surgeon, Dr. Carding, the Director of the World
  1396
  Federation for the Protection of Animals, summarised the position in that country by saying:
  "one can say that at least a third of all animals officially slaughtered in Italy are not effectively stunned before being cut and bled. Many others are improperly slaughtered un-officially and illegally."
  It is true that that was perhaps two or three years ago. Last year, after the lifting of the ban, we exported more than 20,000 cattle to Italy, not for breeding purposes. Since then there has been a massive increase of cattle exports to Italy. My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), who knows more about animal welfare matters than any other hon. Member of this House, is in command of the facts about slaughter practices in Italy and, I hope, will catch your eye shortly, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  We want to know whether the Italians have altered their practices since Doctor Carding's condemnation a few short years ago. It will be very interesting to hear what the Minister has to say. I think that he knows in his heart, and I think that his advisers know, that the position in Italy and a great many other countries is still far from satisfactory. The paper assurances exist; the directives are there. But what actually happens on the ground is very different.
  This amendment is not concerned with the resumption of the ban on exports. That is a subject that will have to be argued on some other occasion. Indeed, I believe that in the end common sense, true economic interest and compassion for the creatures which we raise for our own use and profit will combine and put an end to this dubious traffic.
  It may be argued that, since last April, the Government have required exporters to declare in writing the exact final destination of each consignment of animals when applying for a veterinary inspector's certificate. How exporters can certify the exact final destination against the background that I have described is very difficult for the layman to grasp. No doubt the veil will be torn away by the Minister, the mystery will be resolved, and we shall be told that the Ministry is quite satisfied with these certificates as to the final destinations of animals exported and that the animals will be transported and slaughtered at a place where humane conditions obtain.

  1397
  If, therefore, the system is effective, if the Minister claims that it is effective—it has been in operation since April last year—why is Parliament asked to approve the word "may"? Why "may" and not "shall"? "Shall" has been the practice since last April. May we take it that the Minister is completely satisfied with the assurances, that all is sweetness and light, and that these terrible abuses which only a short time ago were taking place are taking place no longer; that the final destinations of these animals are known? If the Minister is satisfied why not insert in the statute the word "shall" and make it mandatory? Why is not it mandatory? Is not the truth that the information which has been acquired since last April is nothing more than a farce in a good many cases?
  Consider the realities. In Committee on 3rd February the Minister referred to certain happenings in France and told my hon. Friend, the Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge (Mr. Stainton):
  "But the hon. Gentleman knows better than I that we are not responsible for what happens on French soil. We can only seek to influence the veterinary profession and the authorities in other countries."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C,3rd February 1976; c. 401.]
  Let us take that a little further. On 1st December the Parliamentary Secretary who is now concerned with the state of public opinion, said during the Second Reading of this Bill:
  "We regarded it as imperative that when livestock are exported to Community or other countries with satisfactory arrangements we should know in advance the precise destination, so that we can communicate with the receiving country to ensure that the authorities will look out for the consignment of livestock and be able to monitor and minimise, if not eliminate completely, any hardship on the animals. I may say that the French authorities are co-operating extremely well with the Government on these matters."—[Official Report,1st December 1975; Vol. 901, c. 1347.]
  Mr. Burden: Why is there reluctance now to retain the obligatory "shall"? In future we shall just know the number of animals exported without knowing where they are going and with no possibility of knowing the manner in which they are treated in particular countries.
  Sir B. Braine: My hon. Friend, with his usual perspicacity, has put his finger on the crux of the matter. We do not know. We have not been told. The purpose of this debate is to elicit
  1398
  the information, but the point I want to make is that the very day the hon. Gentleman was telling the House that they were going
  "to monitor and minimise, if not eliminate completely, any hardship on the animals."
  and that
  "the French authorities are co-operating extremely well with the Government on these matters."
  the Minister of Agriculture in a Written Answer, said in regard to a statement made on 11th April last year concerning the export of live sheep to France,
  "I have now been informed by the French authorities that in a hearing before an examining magistrate it has been decided that there is insufficient evidence to justify further proceeding in the case to which I referred on 11th April 1975."—[Official Report,1st December 1975; Vol. 901, c. 350.]
  Of course the hon. Gentleman was absolutely right. Neither he nor the right hon. Gentleman has the slightest control over what happens in France or in other countries when animals are further transported on to Algeria, Greece or the Middle East. He does not know where they go. How can any trader, exporting genuinely to France or Holland or Belgium, certify that that is the final destination of the animals in question?
  It is clear, is it not, that the Government are not in control of this situation, although they have pretended for too long that they are in control of it? It is in the nature of things that they cannot be in control. They are unsure and uneasy about this situation. It is no use their telling us that they will introduce an Order within 12 months, as the hon. Gentleman told the Committee. It should be introduced now. The provision should be made in the Bill so that they should introduce an Order as soon as the Bill becomes law. The provision in Clause 8 should be mandatory. Logic, common sense and humanity combine to urge this course upon them.
  Delay begs some questions. I ask the hon. Gentleman to address himself to the the answers when he rises to reply. Are the Government sincere about the welfare of animals exported for slaughter? Are the Government genuinely sincere on this matter. No economic considerations are involved because it is more profitable to export carcase meat than to

  1399
  export meat on the hoof. Have the Government a genuine feeling of compassion for these living creatures? Do they understand the difficulties involved in regulating such traffic? Do they understand the difference between directives being issued at the top of the tree and being implemented by the people at the bottom—by people, that is, who for years have disregarded the laws of their own land? If the answers to those questions are an unequivocal "Yes", I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment.
  8.45 p.m.
  Mr. Burden: The Government must recognise that for many years a great deal of concern has been expressed over the methods employed in the slaughtering of animals as well as over their transportation abroad for purposes of slaughter. This matter cuts across party boundaries. Concern about conditions has been expressed by the public in general rather than merely by those who are actively engaged in animal welfare. If the Government relax controls in ensuring the reasonable transportation of animals for slaughter they will experience strong feelings of public revulsion. If the Government seek to claim that they are taking such steps to fit in with EEC requirements there will certainly be a reaction, on grounds of common humanity, against our membership of the Common Market.
  Concern on this topic goes back over a period of 20 years to 1957, the year in which the Balfour Committee was set up. Following public disquiet, that committee was set up to examine the main reasons for concern. First, it investigated a situation in which animals were unfit to stand the journey abroad. Secondly, it investigated whether there was lack of adequate care and attention before embarkation. Thirdly, in those days the fact that animals had to undergo long train journeys—today, of course, most animals are carried by road—without food or water, after disembarkation on the Continent, caused the committee to express great dismay. Fourthly, the deprivation of the United Kingdom legislation governing the slaughtering of animals.
  It is true to say that we have dealt reasonably successfully with the export of animals which are unfit to travel and
  1400
  have covered the situation of their being given adequate attention before embarkation. I shall not pursue many of the points mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) because I hope that he has persuaded the Minister by the force of his eloquence. Following the report of the Balfour Committee, the House decided that animals for immediate slaughter should go only to those countries whose Governments had signed an agreement covering humane slaughter and transportation. I understand that that agreement has never been rescinded by the House.
  We are told that because we are now members of the EEC the Balfour requirements no longer apply. We should like to know what will replace those requirements. Belgium, Holland, Italy and West Germany agreed to abide by Balfour for sheep, pigs and cattle, but France agreed only for cattle. It is incumbent upon us to ensure that, till there is an end to the export of live animals for slaughter, the countries to which they are sent comply with the Balfour Agreements.
  Concern has been expressed by Labour Members about this traffic. The hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan), a former Minister in the Scottish office responsible for agriculture, made an excellent and forceful speech on this subject.
  We must ensure that animals which are sent abroad are humanely transported and are stunned before slaughter.
  In 1972 the Government gave an assurance that no cattle or sheep would be exported to the Middle East countries, because they carry out ritual slaughter. In 1973 the Conservative Government banned the export of sheep to France. My right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber), the then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, was instrumental in bringing about the ban. On 16th January 1975 he stated that he did so not under pressure, but because there was evidence of cruelty that he knew to be true. Subsequently there was a ban imposed on the export of cattle. The ban was lifted after the present Minister of Agriculture gave solemn undertakings in the House.

  1401
  There was a strong body of opinion in the House against the resumption of the trade, despite the Minister's undertakings. Events have shown that those under-takings were practically worthless, because shortly afterwards there was evidence that in France the transport and slaughter of sheep were carried out in the same manner that had revolted people and led to the ban imposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham.
  There is no less strong concern today. Hon. Members and the public want to know the destination of future shipments of store cattle and cattle for immediate slaughter sent abroad. Unless the destination of these animals is known, how can the conditions in which they are transported and slaughtered be questioned? Knowledge of the destination is a guide to hon. Members, animal welfare societies and individuals who wish to follow up the consignment, as they are entitled to do, to make sure that the regulations are carried out.
  In Committee the Parliamentary Secretary said:
  "There are, of course, differing views as to whether we should export livestock for slaughter at all, but it is common ground that if we are to export livestock, we have a duty to ensure, as far as is possible, that they are properly treated."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C, 3rd February 1976; c. 391.]
  The Government cannot wriggle out of their responsibility if anything goes wrong by saying "We did what we could as far as possible". The Government are ultimately responsible for what happens to the animals because they allow them to go to places abroad where they may be transported and slaughtered in an inhumane way.
  The hon. Gentleman went on:
  "We do not allowed the export of animals for slaughter to any countries where humane slaughter is not practised."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C,3rd February 1976; c. 392.]
  I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will now say that we shall not allow the export of animals for slaughter to any country where humane slaughter is not obligatory. We need to know the destination of these animals.
  In our debate on 16th January 1975 I referred to the O'Brien Report, which was then only a year old. It was a dis-
  1402
  quieting report and I shall quote from it again. O'Brien said:
  "In Italy enervation is permitted provided that it is carried out by trained personnel acting under the authority of the director of the abattoir."
  That is slaughter by means of a very sharp, short, three-edged dagger, which is thrust into the base of the animal's skull. It severs the vertebra and destroys the rapport between the nervous system and the legs so that the animal becomes absolutely immobilised but remains fully conscious. Its throat is then cut and it is bled to death. That method of slaughter was being carried out in Italy a year prior to the debate, and the O'Brien Report confirmed that. Is that still the practice in Italy? The Minister has a responsibility to say whether it is. Does he maintain that that is humane slaughter?
  9.0 p.m.
  The hon. Gentleman said that no animals are exported to countries where there is not humane slaughter consistent with our views, but only yesterday I was told in a Written Reply to my Question
  "how many store cattle and cattle for slaughter, respectively, have been exported to Italy in each of the years 1971 to 1976 "[Official Report,4th May 1976; Vol. 910, c. 353.]
  that in 1972 there was none and in 1973 and 1974 very few. But in 1975, 20,108 store cattle were exported to Italy, all of them for subsequent slaughter. In the period January-March this year 15,362 store cattle were exported to Italy and 14 for immediate slaughter.
  We know where they are going. That is a very good reason for "shall" being inserted in the Bill, so that the destination shall be known. Today we can describe the conditions in which we know animals were being slaughtered in Italy until 1974. If the Minister means what he says, he must tell us today that unless he has a firm undertaking from the Italian Government that enervation is not practised, that animals are pre-stunned and there is humane slaughter, the export of cattle to Italy must, on his own undertaking to the Committee, be stopped forthwith.
  This is a serious matter, and we are having a serious debate. We are told that the Government intend to introduce

  1403
  within a year new regulations and orders to give further protection to animals for slaughter. The fact that in the meantime there is a continued insistence upon the destination of the animals being shown on all licences will in no way impede any legislation that the Government may introduce to protect animals exported for slaughter.
  I welcome the statement that there is a better understanding between the Ministry of Agriculture and the French Government about the way in which animals shall be treated in France, but things are still far from satisfactory.
  It is no good the Minister coming here with pious words and smooth hopes. We want to know tonight that the Government are prepared to accept this small, simple amendment. If they will not, I am sure that they will reap a wind of change towards them from animal lovers who now support them, a wind which, I hope, will cause them a considerable fright.
  It is not a satisfactory situation. The Minister made certain observations in Committee and gave undertakings. He must now say that he will reinforce the Bill immediately by inserting the one word "shall", or he will be condemned by the House and the people of this country as someone who does not really care for animals but is more concerned with expediency and what happens in the EEC.
  Mr. Buchan: I shall be very brief, despite what the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) said. I thank him for his words.
  I have no intention of following the overall arguments already advanced on this amendment, nor of trying to emulate the passion with which both hon. Members have spoken. I want to deal with the practical problem of trying to get the best from this Report stage of the Bill. I know from sad experience that we are not likely to get the best necessarily by voting against what is in the Bill. Nor do I accept that the attitudes of hon. Members would be as they have been described if the Minister rejected the views expressed.
  However, I am surprised on two counts. There are two instances of the word "may"—in page 9, line 12, as well as in
  1404
  page 9, line 20. In Committee I argued that the Minister should change the first "may" and that the consequence would be to change the second. I was told that "shall" was not necessary in the first place because the Government intended to bring in regulations. In that case there is no reason for not having "shall". I cannot see any Government who wish to bring in regulations objecting to the House of Commons telling them to do so. That change might have been made by the Government in view of the discussion in Committee, and I hope that it can still be considered in another place. The argument for changing the second "may" is that, if we say that it "shall" be done, we should also say that that provision "shall" be included.
  The only possible objection would be based on a consideration of whether an exporter could specify the exact destination. It is a genuine difficulty. For agriculture as well as humanitarian reasons, I prefer the carcase trade to the live trade. However, we all annually fill in forms in which we testify that the facts in the forms, to the best of our knowledge, are accurate. It would be no more difficult for an exporter to say that, to the best of his knowledge, what he stated was true.
  So if the Government's problem is that they cannot see how the exporter can specify the exact destination because someone might make a switch of trade in Italy or France, they should allow the regulations to provide that this should be stated merely to the best of the exporter's knowledge—or some such form of words. What we are seeking is the maximum information. It is no argument to say that if we cannot get complete and absolutely certain information, we should not bother to seek the maximum we can. We should move forward as far as we can, which is all that human beings can do.
  So I hope that the Minister will consider changing the word to "shall" in both places—the first because it is in line with what they propose, and the second because it connotes that the information is the best available to the exporter. I know that this will not satisfy the hon. Members for Gillingham and for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine), but they will have to carry their crusade into many other countries before they achieve their goal.

  1405
  What I suggest would give a great deal of comfort, in two ways. First, none of us can say how the Government could act to refuse a licence unless they have the necessary information. We should compel that information on which the Government make their decision to be given. Secondly, there are many people in this country who want the assurance, not merely as statement of intention, but legislative assurances that what they desire is being understood and fulfilled by this House.
  Mr. Burden: Although the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) does not go the whole way with us, surely he would agree that the Government should carry out the undertaking given by the Parliamentary Secretary? Where they know that animals are being treated in a manner which is not acceptable, they should not allow the export of animals to any country where humane slaughter is not practised. That undertaking was given in Committee by the Minister. Surely the hon. Member will go that far with us—that it should be carried out.
  Mr. Buchan: I am sure that the Minister will repeat that assurance. We must ensure that the intention of the Government is carried out in legislative terms here. I hope that the Government will look at these points rather than force Conservatives to push the amendment to a vote. I must warn them that if one cannot win a battle before a vote one will not win it in a vote.
  Mr. Body: I declare an interest in that over the years I have exported a number of livestock, happily for breeding purposes. I have also been in the carcase trade through a farming co-operative.
  I rebut the assertion often made that the farming industry is in favour of this trade. There is a great deal of disquiet among almost all livestock producers about the trade. Those who are trying to breed good quality cattle, sheep and pigs are concerned about this matter.
  In my constituency many thousands of cattle pass through the port—perhaps more than through any other port. I repeat the assertion that no cruelty takes place in the port, or on the journey across to Rotterdam. Great efforts are made to rest the cattle and sheep before they travel and conditions on the ship are as satisfactory as they can be. The question is, what
  1406
  happens beyond Rotterdam? We may pass regulations and change the law, but the policing of these regulations beyond Rotterdam is well-nigh impossible. I hope the whole House has been persuaded by the appalling facts given by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) about the terrible way in which many thousands of our cattle have been slaughtered in Italy in the past few months. The picture he painted was a horrible picture.
  What we are proposing in this amendment is a modest matter—a question of priorities. When the Parliamentary Secretary replied to a similar debate in Committee he said that the existing arrangements were working satisfactorily. He is not a complacent man but he did seem rather complacent in making that assertion in view of all the evidence we have seen. I do not think anyone could say that the export of these cattle and sheep is satisfactory now. Up to Rotterdam it is all right, but beyond there it gets worse and worse as the journey progresses across France to Italy and perhaps on to North Africa. Therefore, the time has come to pass the most stringent regulations to govern this trade. Nobody would support that more than those who are trying in their way to improve livestock standards in this country.
  9.15 p.m.
  Therefore all we ask of the Minister is that he should accept the need to insert the word "shall", which means that he must get on immediately with the task of consulting the interests affected. He has undertaken to do that, and he must do so before the regulations are passed. That requires immediate action. I appreciate that he gave an undertaking in the Standing Committee that these regulations would be passed in 12 months. If that is to happen he will have to get on with holding the consultations and drafting the regulations without further delay. In other words, the subject must be at the top of his tray. If he accepts that, as he must, being a humane man, he will, I am sure, accept the amendment.
  Mr. Strang: Not surprisingly hon. Members have used this opportunity to go somewhat wider than the amendment and, quite rightly, to draw attention to their deep concern about these matters

  1407
  and their continued objection in principle to the export of live animals, with the possible exception of breeding animals. If accepted, the amendment would oblige Ministers to include in any Order a provision requiring exporters to furnish information about the transportation arrangements for, and the final destination of, all animals for export without exception, and irrespective of whether this information was considered necessary in order to safeguard the welfare of the animals concerned.
  I have every sympathy with the intention of this amendment and the objective that hon. Members believe they will achieve by it. However, substituting "shall" for "may" in subsection (2) of the proposed Section 36B would have the result that, whatever its particular purpose or however limited that purpose might be, every Order made under the section, even an amending Order. would have to contain a provision requiring the furnishing by persons exporting animals of information as to their final destination.
  I am not sure what the sponsors of the amendment wish to achieve. The Government included this clause in the Bill primarily to give Ministers specific legal powers to require exporters to disclose the final destination of exported food animals. Let me repeat the assurance I gave in Committee. We shall not allow the export of live food animals unless we can be fully assured that they will be well treated in transit and at their final destination. It follows, therefore, that any Order made under this clause will require exporters of live food animals to declare their final destination. I gave an assurance to this effect in Committee, and I can repeat it now. The clause allows Orders to be made related to any species of animals or birds exported for any purpose. Hon. Members have addressed themselves specifically to live food animals. Although the Government accept the need for very strict controls on exports of live food animals, it is not necessary on welfare grounds to be so restrictive in the case of high-value animals. I have in mind here racehorses and high-value animals intended for breeding or exhibition purposes. The very fact that these animals are so valuable helps to ensure
  1408
  that they are well treated. A specific example of what I have in mind is the private owner who is taking a horse overseas to jump in various international competitions possibly in several different countries. The effect of the proposed amendment would make it illegal to do that unless the owner could say in advance to which country the animal was finally going.
  It is for such reasons that we wish to have the flexibility that "may" instead of "shall" will give to enable us to provide welfare safeguards on the basis of all the relevant considerations relating to the type, standard, condition, and purpose for which animals are to be exported.
  Mr. Buchan: I do not know whether this answers the point made by Conservative Members. Surely the owner of the racehorse would be required to provide full details and the Government would then come to a decision. There is no problem about that. The owner would say what he considered to be the animal's ultimate destination, and the Government, or the appropriate authorities, would decide whether they had sufficient information to allow the grant of a licence.
  Mr. Strang: I agree with my hon. Friend. I do not want to make too much of the racehorse point, but I do not think it would add one whit to the welfare of a racehorse for us to introduce new bureaucracy. We are giving the categorical assurance that we shall require to know the final destinations of all food animals that are exported. That is what I understand hon. Members are concerned about. I accept what my hon. Friend has said.
  This may not be an overwhelming argument, but if the Opposition force us to introduce further red tape and bureaucracy as regards racehorses, birds and other animals, we shall be doing nothing further to safeguard the welfare of those animals.
  It is natural that Conservative Members should say that they want the Government to be sincere, but if at the end of the day they are suggesting that the Government are not prepared to stand by their assurances, that they do not want to improve animal welfare safeguards, they are flying in the face of all the available evidence.
  Sir Bernard Braine: The Minister understands the purpose behind the amendment perfectly well It has nothing to do with racehorses. It is concerned with the fulfilment under the law of an assurance given by Ministers not once but many times that food animals exported from this country for slaughter abroad will be treated humanely in transit and humanely in the slaughterhouse.
  If the amendment that I and my hon. Friends have tabled is technically defective because it will somehow catch racehorses or goldfish, we expect the Minister to say" I accept wholeheartedly the spirit in which the amendment has been moved, and I undertake on behalf of the Government that in another place an amendment will be moved to cover the point that has been made." That is what the House wants to hear.
  Mr. Strang: I think that the hon. Gentleman is forgetting that this is a measure to give us power to require that exporters of live animals state the final destination of their exports. Bearing in mind what some Conservative Members have said, it might well be thought that we are seeking to open up a loophole. On the contrary, the Government want to have all the legal means that they need to fulfil their assurances. That is why we are seeking to obtain the passage of the Bill.
  The hon. Gentleman says that this matter has nothing to do with racehorses. I accept that, but surely it is right and proper that I should explain why we cannot accept the amendment. We should get credit for the categorical assurances that we have given. I do not want to embarrass Opposition Front Bench spokesman, but we had a full debate in Committee.
  What advantage would there be to the Government by being insincere? The word "sincere" has been repeated many times. Why should the Government want to facilitate the export of live food animals in a way which would subject them to cruelty? I think that hon. Gentlemen will accept, although they have not made the point, that in all the international councils of the world the British Government are a force for increasing standards —for example, in the EEC directive on
  1410
  humane slaughter, to which I shall come later.
  Sir Bernard Braine: I accept the spirit of what the hon. Gentleman said about it being the Government's intention to require that the final destination of the animal should be stated. Will he address himself to the question which I put to him? Italy is a member State of the EEC. The figures quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) showed that the exports of live food animals to Italy this year will be treble what they were last year. Is the Parliamentary Secretary satisfied that within that Community country methods of slaughter are such that he can lay his hand on his heart and say "We shall permit the export of such animals to Italy where that is stated to be the final country of destination"? Can he assure the House categorically that this huge increase in exports does not mean that British cattle are going on from Italy to other destinations? We want to know the facts.
  Mr. Strang: I shall address myself specifically to Italy later in my remarks. Perhaps I may complete my remarks on the amendment and then deal with the wider issues.
  I understand and appreciate the motives for the amendment. I assure hon. Members that, although in our opinion there is a genuine need for flexibility in the making of Orders relating to the obtaining of information, that will in no way weaken our resolve to ensure that the welfare of all exported animals is adequately safeguarded. We shall not allow animals to go if we are not satisfied that their welfare will be protected. In order to establish that their welfare is protected, we shall insist on all the information necessary for that purpose. That will definitely include the final destination of all live food animals.
  I turn now to the point made by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) regarding Italy. There has been an increase in the export of cattle to Italy. That increase is almost totally accounted for by calves which are being exported to Italy to be reared for slaughter.
  Turning to the important point made by the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), which was repeated by the hon.

  1411
  Members for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) and Essex, South-East, since 1st July stunning by humane slaughter methods has been obligatory in all EEC countries. The Italian Government have confirmed that enervation is no longer used. Almost all the animals sent to Italy in recent months have been calves for further fattening.
  Mr. Burden: The Minister said that the vast majority of animals sent to Italy were calves. Will he tell the House how many were calves and how many were store cattle? The figures which I obtained from the Ministry showed that for the period January to March 1976 there were 15,362 designated as store cattle and calves and 14 as cattle for slaughter. The Minister should know how many were calves and how many were cattle.
  Mr. Strang: If the hon. Gentleman wants the precise statistics on the age at which an animal ceases to be a calf, I shall be happy to provide them—[Interruption.]—but I cannot, off the cuff, give the number of calves and store cattle exported to Italy.
  I want to come to some of the more general points, because there is no argument between us. We want to increase animal welfare. We want to reduce the possibility that any animals whatsoever will suffer in transit.
  9.30 p.m.
  Mr. Stephen Ross: I have a great interest in the debate. I declare that as a former agricultural auctioneer, and I think that I know a little about the trade. Is the Minister satisfied with the fact that we are sending 15,000 calves all the way to Italy? That is an alarming figure. I should have thought that it was a matter of great concern to the industry as to what happens when they get there, because it is a long distance and we have even been worried about the journeys from Scotland to England. To send calves to Italy seems frightening, and I am wondering whether the Minister is absolutely satisfied about it.
  Mr. Strang: I think that the best way to address myself to this question is to say that our policy is based on the O'Brien Report. Everyone knows
  1412
  the details and the undertakings that we have given. All store and slaughter animals go to countries whose welfare standards are generaly similar to ours. The Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Animals in International Transport and the EEC Directive on Humane Slaughter are both there to help safeguard animals in transit and at slaughter-houses. We could go over the old argument and use this debate as a means of rehearsing the precise arguments on the Floor of the House.
  Mr. Stephen Ross: It is a new trade.
  Mr. Strang: The hon. Gentleman says "It is a new trade", but the undertaking we gave was that animals would go only to countries which pursued humane slaughtering standards. Countries within the EEC come into that category.
  Hon. Members can exaggerate the danger of re-export. We check up on these things. We are getting good cooperation from the international authorities on these matters. I suspect that one of the reasons for this is that the people in the countries concerned—who, after all, make money out of this trade ; it is a commerce—recognise that if these abuses are not stamped out, the trade will cease. I think that most hon. Members recognise that there are only very isolated instances of real cruelty affecting these animals.
  Mr. Pym: The Parliamentary Secretary is being very generous in giving way and is being helpful to the House. I want to put two points to him. In starting his reply, he referred to the red tape that might apply to the export of certain horses. He referred to the requirements and details of destination, and so on, applying to food animals. As he knows, mention of food animals does not appear in the clause, and I wonder whether he would clarify that point, because in referring to racehorses he seemed to imply that the clause would apply to all animals, yet he seemed also to imply that we wanted the clause to apply to food animals only.
  Secondly, we are discussing an amendment to leave out the word "may" and to insert "shall". The Parliamentary Secretary argued in favour of leaving the Bill as it is on the grounds of flexibility.

  1413
  Can he identify accurately the circumstances in which he would use that flexibility and would apply the provisions of this clause, and in which circumstances he would not apply them, because obviously, if the amendment were carried, he would have to do it in every single case? He does not want to do it in every case because he has argued that in some cases that is not necessary or desirable. It would help the House if he could answer on those two aspects.
  Mr. Strang: I shall try to answer those points. The point we make is that the clause applies right across the board to animals which can be exported and it is not confined merely to food animals. It also applies to breeding animals. I think that hon. Members have always accepted—certainly the Front Benches have accepted it—that there is no danger of cruelty or adverse treatment of high-valued breeding stock. I see hon. Members nodding their heads in assent. I am grateful to them. All that we are saying is that we think that it is undesirable and unnecessary that we should be required, as we would be if the amendments were accepted, to write in this requirement in every future Order we made under the clause, whether it applied to racehorses—that is only one example I have given—or to breeding animals.
  Mr. Burden: Can the Minister give an undertaking that in all cases where food animals for export are involved, the Government will require the destination to be stated?
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: He has said so.
  Mr. Strang: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). As he has commented from his sedentary position, I said so in Committee and have said so again twice on the Floor of the House. My undertaking applies to all food animals for export.
  This has been a useful debate and there is no more pleasing note on which to finish it than with the agreement of the hon. Member for Gillingham who feels very deeply on these matters, and who has mounted a sustained and effective campaign on an issue in which he believes very strongly.
  I am pleased that we now agree that it is right and proper that the Govern-
  1414
  ment should make this requirement in respect of all food animals which are to be exported. I have given the House the assurance yet again. I hope hon. Members will not find it necessary to press the amendment to Division.
  Mr. Pym: This has been an important debate on a subject about which many hon. Members are extremely concerned. It went much wider than the amendment might have justified, but that was no surprise. Nor was it unreasonable in view of the concern on this matter.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) and Gillingham (Mr. Burden) rehearsed the history of this matter, the debates we have had in the House, and some of the incidents which have caused anxiety in all parts of the House. The desire of my hon. Friends to ensure the maximum degree of protection and care for animals while this trade continues is shared on both sides of the House.
  The Minister is to be congratulated because Clause 8 is designed to improve the welfare of animals. We must be fair, and I do not think my hon. Friends were altogether fair. If it was not for the desire to improve the welfare of animals the clause would not have been included in the Bill.
  However, I wish it had been drafted in a different way. It would have been a help if the clause had said that in all cases where food animals are to be exported the undertaking requirement would be obligatory. We accept that this is what the Government will do, but it might have saved the time of the House and satisfied hon. Members if we had known that the undertaking would be given in respect of all cases.
  The hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) was right when he said there is no certainty in every case that the destination will be what the exporter thinks it will be. The clause refers to "the intended ultimate destination". Clearly this is an undertaking given by business men with good will on both sides, and in the vast majority of cases, though presumably not in 100 per cent. of cases, what is thought to be the ultimate destination will, in fact, be the ultimate destination, and arrangements

  1415
  for transport will be supervised as carefully as possible.
  The House will have taken some comfort from the fact that proper slaughtering arrangements in the EEC are now obligatory, which was not the case when we debated this matter more than a year ago. One of the anxieties was that the new regulations should apply throughout the Community, and the fact is that they do so apply. The House will take some comfort from that.
  I believe that the Government are genuine in bringing forward, of their own volition, a positive new method, and should be given credit for it in view of the great difficulties, but I wish that this provision could have been phrased differently so that its true meaning, and the way it is to be interpreted and handled, was plain for all to see. Everyone would have been happier then. It would be helpful if the Government decided to adjust the provision in that sense when the Bill goes to another place. I do not see why that should not be possible, because the Parliamentary Secretary has said what many hon. Members wish to hear. On that basis, and in the knowledge that the Government are no less anxious than others to help the welfare of animals, I hope that they will consider adjusting the clause in another place. But I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary's assurance can be accepted now.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that our veterinary officers have an important part to play in the export trade, and are in attendance at virtually every stage of the journey, including the ultimate call—the abattoir on the other side of the North Sea or the English Channel—and are hardly likely to allow ill-treatment to occur? Is that not a further guarantee of the treatment and welfare of animals being exported?
  Mr. Pym: Yes, I think my hon. Friend is right. It is a further guarantee, but I hazard the opinion that unless and until we have had a run of several years, when everything from the point of view of animal welfare has worked as we want it to, there will still be anxiety. If these regulations and controls can be demonstrated over a period to be work-
  1416
  ing as we want them to, we can say "Yes, the vets have played their part, the system is working and we are satisfied with it." I think that Clause 8 is intended to be a further strengthening of the structure to protect the welfare of animals.
  Sir Bernard Braine: With the permission of the House, I would like to say that I have listened carefully to the Parliamentary Secretary, and in large measure he has disappointed me.
  I did not understand the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). It has always been my understanding that the honourable veterinary profession of this country disliked very much the export of live food animals for slaughter abroad. I still persist in my view that common sense, logic and humanity, as well as economic advanage, will require in the end that this traffic cease altogether and that we export carcase meat only.
  I understand the technical difficulty which the Parliamentary Secretary put to us. I have been a Minister. We all know that often an amendment is put down that would be technically difficult to implement. The hon. Gentleman explained that, but I was astonished that, having made the point, he did not go on to say that the Government fully understood the motives behind the amendment and that these were in line with their own feelings. It is not our fault that the Bill is drafted as it is and, therefore, does not permit our intentions to be assimilated into it easily. We have advanced our anxieties and concern, which the Minister says he shares, but the hon. Gentleman did not say a word about the possibility, at a later stage in the Bill—we are not at the end of proceedings on the Bill, after all—
  Mr. Burden: Wring it out of him.
  9.45 p.m.
  Sir Bernard Braine: We have to do that. If we want any assurance about the welfare of animals in this traffic, it has to be wrung out of Ministers. That is why I speak with such feeling.
  My amendment is clearly seen by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) and other hon. Members on both sides of the House as logical and sensible. We have a situation already

  1417
  where exporters are required to provide certain information about ultimate destinations. Why not write that requirement into the statute?
  We were expecting the Minister to say, "This amendment makes for technical difficulties, but we give the House the undertaking that the assurances that we ourselves have been giving all along will be implemented in statutory form when the Bill reaches another place." That is all that we were asking from the Minister. I still hope that he will say that "The Government share the anxieties of hon. Members on both sides, and we therefore undertake to look at the possibility in another place of amending the clause to ensure that there shall be no misunderstanding about the Government's intention to see to it that licences for the export of British food animals for slaughter abroad will be given only in circumstances where we are completely satisfied that the conditions of transport and slaughter will be humane and civilised." Even at this eleventh hour, I beg the Minister to give the House that assurance.
  Mr. Strang: I made it clear that it was the Government's intention that licensing the export of food animals should be carried out on the basis of their destinations having been conveyed in advance to the Ministry, but I am happy to undertake to see whether it is possible to alter the wording of the Bill to make that mandatory upon the Government. I cannot give any undertaking about the outcome, but I give that assurance.
  Sir Bernard Braine: The Minister has been very reasonable. I accept what he says—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Gentleman seeking to address the House or to withdraw his amendment?
  Sir Bernard Braine: I was seeking, Mr. Speaker, to ask you whether, in view of the assurance now given, I might withdraw the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 10

  POWERS OF ENTRY ETC. IN CONNECTION WITH SECTION 9
  Mr. Bishop: I beg to move Amendment No. 15, in page 12, line 18, after 'investigations', insert 'which he considers necessary'.
  Clause 10 deals with powers of entry in connection with Clause 9 which deals with the power to provide for the destruction of wild life in cases of disease, and so forth.
  This is a drafting amendment designed to clarify that only investigations considered necessary for the purpose of determining whether an order should be made are carried out. It is similar to an amendment moved in Committee by the Opposition and which we agreed to consider between the Committee and Report.
  In Committee the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) sought some assurances, which were given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, to look into the matter again. This amendment is designed to make it clear that the investigations to be carried out under Clause 10(2)(b) are restricted solely to those which an authorised officer considers necessary to determine whether an order under Clause 9 should be made.
  Since the amendment is the result of the consideration given to the matter following my hon. Friend's undertaking in Committee, I hope that it will commend itself to the House.
  Mr. Jopling: It is a pleasure to respond to the amendment which the Minister of State has moved. As he says, the amendment which the Government have proposed follows the amendment which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) moved, as reported in column 510 of our Committee proceedings on 10th February. It is perhaps a lesson for all of us to note that the debate on that amendment took less than two columns in Hansard but it has met with a happy result as the Government's amendment entirely meets the point which my hon. Friend raised.
  The only point I would make about it is that both my hon. Friend and the Minister described the amendment as "drafting". It is slightly more than that because, as the Minister knows, the

  1419
  Opposition had some reservations about the impact of Clause 10 where an authorised officer of the Minister was allowed to enter on land where he merely suspected that there might be animals which were passing on disease. We debated this at some length in Committee and I do not propose to go any further tonight. However, I believe that to add these words means that an authorised officer must, in his mind, consider these investigations to be necessary—that is what the amendment says—and if there were an argument about it afterwards, the authorised officer of the Minister must be answerable for his actions. That will mean that an authorised officer, where he merely suspected there might be wild life passing on diseases which concern us all, would have to be careful in his own mind in order to justify his actions rather more than if we left the Bill as it is.
  The Opposition welcome the Government's amendment and hope that the House will accept it.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 11

  AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS IN ENGLAND AND WALES; POWER TO ENABLE NOTICES TO DO WORK TO BE MODIFIED ON ARBITRATION.
  Mr. Strang: I beg to move Amendment No. 16, in page 14, line 9, at end insert
  'where, having regard to the purpose which that item or part is intended to achieve, the arbitrator is satisfied that the last-mentioned method or material would involve undue difficulty or expense, that the first-mentioned method or material would be substantially as effective for that purpose, and that in all the circumstances the substitution is justified.".'
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With it we may also discuss Amendment No. 18, in page 16, line 27, at end insert
  'where, having regard to the purpose which that item or part is intended to achieve, the arbiter is satisfied that the last-mentioned method or material would involve undue difficulty or expense, that the first-mentioned method of material would be substantially as effective for that purpose, and that in all the circumstances the substitution is justified.
  Mr. Strang: We are introducing this amendment to meet the point raised by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) during the debate in Com-
  1420
  mittee on Amendment No. 60 that criteria should be provided for the guidance of the arbitrator when exercising his powers under sub-paragraph (ii). The amendment, which the hon. Member had tabled, was unsuitable for reasons which I explained at the time but, nevertheless, had sympathy with his view that the arbitrators' tasks would be made easier if they knew the parameters within which they have to arbitrate. We have looked at the matter again, in consultation with the Country Landowners' Association and the NFU, and have reached agreement on what we believe to be suitable criteria.
  Before substituting a different method, or material, from those set out in the notice to do work the arbitrator will have to be satisfied on each, and all, of three counts. First, that the specified method, or materials, would involve undue difficulty or expense for the tenant. Second, that the method, or material, to be substituted would be substantially as effective for the purpose as the original one and, finally, that in all the circumstances the substitution is justified.
  I hope that this formula will be acceptable to hon. Members. It has an added advantage in regard to the difficulties which the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) envisaged would arise if the arbitrator's modification of a notice clashed with planning requirements, in a national park, for example. Apart from limiting the circumstances generally in which the arbitrator's power is to be used, the formula requires the substitution to be justified in all circumstances. I do not consider that a substitution would be justified if it involved either an actual, or a potential, conflict with the planning legislation.
  Amendment No. 18 seeks simply to provide for similar provisions in the Scottish legislation.
  Mr. Wiggin: I have seen the letter to which the Minister referred and I accept the point which has been made. The matter was well worth raising in the context of the national parks, and I consider that the Government have dealt with the point adequately. It would be ungenerous not to thank the Minister for taking account of this delicate point.
  These provisions involve consideration whether Parliament should seek to dictate

  1421
  to an arbitrator. There were some difference of view in Committee about how far we should try in legislation to specify the circumstances of substitute materials. The same point applies to Clause 13 and its relationship to Scotland. To those who are not as in favour of devolution as are others, it might be noted that for the word "arbitrator" has been substituted the word "arbiter". Therefore, it might appear that the two sides of the border have more in common than some people think.
  We welcome the fact that the Government have accepted our suggestion, and we only wish that they had taken on board some other matters which are as important as, if not more important than, this proposal.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 13

  AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS IN SCOTLAND: POWER TO ENABLE DEMAND TO REMEDY A BREACH TO BE MODIFIED ON ARBITRATION
  Amendment made: No. 18, in page 16, line 27, at end insert:
  'where, having regard to the purpose which that item or part is intended to achieve, the arbiter is satisfied that the last-mentioned method or material would involve undue difficulty or expense, that the first-mentioned method or material would be substantially as effective for that purpose, and that in all the circumstances the substitution is justified'.—[Mr. Strang.]

Clause 17

  APPLICATION OF FOLLOWING SECTIONS OF PART II
  Mr. Jopling: I beg to move Amendment No. 21, in page 20, line 18, at end insert:
  'who worked in a farming partnership on the holding, with the deceased'.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we we shall also take Amendment No. 22, in page 20, line 23, at end insert:
  'who worked in a farming partnership on the the holding. with the deceased'.
  Mr. Jopling: We now move to Part II of the Bill which deals with those clauses tabled by the Government in Committee dealing with agricultural holdings and the provision for succession on the death of
  1422
  the tenant. In Committee there were long and thorough debates on various aspects of Part II. Clause 17 provided the guts of these provisions, and this amendment seeks to deal with the early provisions of that clause.
  Subsection (1) deals with the different relations who are survivors of a deceased tenant. It envisages people who have the right to apply to the Agricultural Land Tribunal for the purpose of inheritance of the tenancy. There was no argument in Committee about the categories laid down in paragraphs (a)and (c). Those paragraphs relate to the wife or husband of a deceased tenant, and to a child of the deceased. An adopted child comes within paragraph (c) as a child of the deceased tenant. Regardless of the legal position, I am sure it is right that an adopted child should be treated in every way as a child of the deceased.
  We were unhappy about the provision in Clause 17 which allowed the brother or sister of the deceased on the one hand and a treated child on the other hand to inherit the tenancy. We had many debates in Committee—
  It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill, as amended, stood adjourned.
  Ordered,
  That the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour. —[Mr. Frank R. White.]
  Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
  Mr. Jopling: We were defeated in our attempt to omit from the Bill the provision that the brother, sister or the treated child of the deceased tenant could inherit the tenancy. The Government made out the case that these two categories should be included. I do not wish to go over all the arguments, but I still think that it is basically wrong that, for example, a land girl who worked on the farm during the war when she was a minor and has lived with the family and worked on the farm until now should be classified as a treated child, but I accept the Committee's decision and hope that the alternative amendment will commend itself to the Government and the House.
  The case was put to us by Ministers that if we removed the provision which

  1423
  allowed the brother, sister or treated child to inherit, hardship might be caused if they were partners in a farming business and, in view of the objections which were put to our case, we thought it better to try to rationalise their position. We accept the Committee's decision that the brother, sister or the treated child should be allowed to apply to inherit the tenancy but we say that that should occur only if they were working in a farming partnership on the holding with the deceased tenant. The argument was repeatedly put to us that these people should not be excluded because they could be working in partnership with the deceased tenant. The amendment seeks to secure that these more distant relatives can qualify only when they have a business interest in the holding.
  The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) took a great interest in this matter in Committee, and I hope that he and his hon. Friends will see the strength of our argument. We accept the decision over categories (b) and (d) and I hope the hon. Member for Cardigan and his hon. Friends will support us if we have to press the matter to a Division. I hope that we shall not have to do that and that the Government will accept our amendments, because they represent a reasonable effort to compromise in a difficult situation.
  It is right that these people should have a more tenuous right to inherit the tenancy than a spouse or child, and that they should have to put up a stronger case to prove that they have an interest in the business. If any hon. Member opposes that view I hope that he will explain what hardships are likely to arise to those people who are not in partnership and are not involved in the business. Little hardship will arise for such people by excluding them from the right to be applicants for the tenancy.
  I believe that my case is fair. During debates on Government amendments Ministers have made a distinction between categories (a) and (c). That shows that the Government wish to distinguish between close relatives under those categories and more distant relatives under categories (b) and (d). It is, therefore, logical to say that more distant relatives should have to make a slightly stronger claim, and that only if they can
  1424
  prove that they have interest in the business should they be allowed to apply for the tenancy.
  Mr. Bishop: The purpose of the amendment is to add a condition to the definition of the eligible person in Clause 17(1)(b). The effect of the amendment would be that a brother or sister of a deceased tenant would be excluded from the designated categories of close relatives unless he or she had worked in close partnership on the holding of the deceased. To find a brother and sister working together on the family farm is common. Hardship could occur if, on the death of the one who was the tenant the landlord was unwilling to grant the tenancy to the surviving brother or sister. That is what the Bill is about—succession and hardship. It could apply in cases other than father and son, and that is why we included the brother and sister in the scheme. The amendment would require that the brother or sister should also have worked in farming partnership on the holding of the deceased. That introduces an unnecessary and undesirable legal complication.
  Under the Bill the brother or sister, like other relatives, will have to satisfy tests as to their eligibility and suitability, so it is not an automatic situation. It would be inappropriate for him or her to have to meet such further conditions.
  The purpose of amendment No. 22 is to add a condition to the definition of eligible persons in paragraph (d). The effect would be that a treated child of the tenant would be excluded from the designated categories unless he or she worked in farming partnership on the holding of the deceased.
  This category of close relatives follows a similar provision in the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. A treated child can include a stepchild, foster child or a child taken in without formal adoption, provided the child was treated by the deceased for any length of time as a child of the family in relation to any marriage of the deceased. The treated child's position is like that of a son or daughter. The amendment, which requires that the treated child should have worked in farming partnership on the holding with the deceased, introduces an unnecessary and undesirable legal complication and restriction.

  1425
  The treated child, like other close relatives in the designated categories, will also have to satisfy other tests as to his eligibility and suitability to become the tenant of the holding. This is desirable. The process of checking eligibility must be gone through just the same.
  The whole of this part of the Bill is about succession and hardship. We believe that the categories designated in the clause include people who normally without any legislation, often have some consideration in the succession to the tenancy. We believe that all these categories can suffer hardship.
  The amendment, which would limit the range of people to continue as tenants, would increase the hardship which the clause seeks to reduce or eliminate. There-fore, I cannot recommend that the House should accept the amendment. It goes against the spirit of what we have tried to do in introducing this legislation.
  Mr. Jopling: I am deeply disappointed by the Minister's reply, which has shown no sympathy for our reasonable attitude on this matter in previous debates in Committee and again tonight. I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman
  should resort to the nebulous matter of hardship. I asked him to say what hard-ship would result in the event of people in categories (b) and (d) having to show that they were within the farming partner-ship. Apart from saying that there might be hardship, the Minister has not been specific.
  In debates in Committee, when we raised the question of hardship, the Government said that it had nothing to do with the considerations. They sought to vote down our amendments which dealt particularly with the hardship point. We shall remember what the Minister has just said when we come to later amendments concerned with hardship.
  The Government are playing fast and loose with us, using the matter of hard-ship only when it suits them. When we raise it, they pooh-pooh it. In view of the Minister's most disappointing reply to this reasonable amendment I have no alternative but to ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote for the amendment.
  Question put,That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 69, Noes 106.

  Eadie, Alex

  Kerr, Russell

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Lambie, David

  Selby, Harry

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Lamond, James

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Silkin, Rt. Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Flannery, Martin

  Lipton, Marcus

  Skinner, Dennis

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  McElhone, Frank

  Small, William

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Marks Kenneth

  Snape, Peter

  Freud, Clement

  Mikardo, Ian

  Spearing, Nigel

  George, Bruce

  Milian, Bruce

  Stoddart, David

  Golding, John

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Strang, Gavin

  Gourlay, Harry

  Molloy, William

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Graham, Ted

  Moyle, Roland

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Tinn, James

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Noble, Mike

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Ward, Michael

  Harper, Joseph

  Orbach, Maurice

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  White, James (Pollok)

  Hooson, Emyln

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Woodall, Alec

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Penhaligon, David

  Woof, Robert

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Hunter, Adam

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Mr. Donald Coleman and

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Mr. A. W. Stallard.

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Amendments made: No. 23, in page 20, line 32 after '19', insert
  'or (Application by not fully eligible person to be treated as eligible)'.
  No. 24, in page 21, line 3 at end insert
  'and without prejudice to section (Application by not fully eligible person to be treated as eligible) of this Act'.—[Mr. Strang.]
  Mr. Strang: I beg to move Amendment No. 25, in page 21, line 13 after 'holding', insert
  'or on an agricultural unit of which the holding forms part'.
  The need for the amendment was drawn to our attention by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. As previously drafted a difficulty might arise in the application of the principal source of livelihood test in Clause 17 3(b) where the deceased tenant's holding comprised areas of land tenanted from different land-lords. This entails separate applications to the Agricultural Land Tribunal in respect of each area.
  There is a possibility, to put it no stronger, that owners of the smaller areas of land might successfully object to the eligibility of applicants by claiming that the applicants could not possibly have derived their principal source of livelihood from their particular land. The test is, of course, intended to apply to the complete holding. It is important to clarify this point because a considerable number of holdings are known to be in multiple ownership or to be part-owned and part-
  1428
  rented. We are grateful to the RICS for bringing this matter to our notice and I hope that hon. Members will agree that it is desirable that the amendment, which is self-explanatory, should be made.
  Mr. Jopling: We have no objection to the amendment. I say only that I wish that in Committee the Government had paid a good deal more attention to the views of the RIGS. If they had, this would have been a far better Bill.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Strang: I beg to move Amendment ment No. 26, in page 21, line 17, at end insert—
  '"the relevant period" means—

  (a) except where the following paragraph applies, the period of three months beginning with the day after the date of death;

  (b) if the deceased died between the passing of this Act and the end of 1976, the period of three months beginning with 1st January 1977 or with such later date as may be prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph by order under section 73(3) of the Agriculture Act 1947 (procedure of Agricultural Land Tribunals);'.

  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): With it we may also take Government Amendments Nos. 41 and 42.
  Mr. Strang: These are drafting amendments. The definition of "relevant period" for making application to the Agricultural Land Tribunal for the tenancy of the holding is at present contained in Clause 18(2) because the "relevant period" appears only in Clause 18 and

  1429
  Clause 19 immediately following. Now that the term relevant period "also appears in the new clause it becomes more appropriate to place it in Clause 17(3) along with the other general definitions relating to Part II. This definition therefore is placed in Clause 17 by Amendment No. 26 and removed from its present position by Amendment No. 41. Amendment No. 42 is a consequential amendment.
  Mr. Jopling: Although we are unhappy with the new clause we agree absolutely that it is a good idea to put all the definitions in the same clause, and therefore we are perfectly happy with the amendments.
  Amendment agreed to.
  10.30 p.m.
  Mr. Strang: I beg to move Amendment No. 27, in page 21, line 26, after 'his', insert 'agricultural'.
  This is a drafting amendment which has become necessary following an amendment agreed to in Committee. That amendment, for which we are indebted to the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), tightened up the definition of "eligible person" in subsection (3)(b) so as to make it clear that the applicant's
  1430
  work on the holding had to be agricultural work. In consequence the applicant's period of formal education which, by virtue of subsection (4) may count as the equivalent of work on the holding, must also be equated with agricultural work.
  Mr. Jopling: We are grateful to the Government for picking up an amendment which became necessary following an amendment which we moved in Committee. In fact, it was the only amendment of ours which the Government, in their charity, were able to accept throughout our proceedings in Committee. We were then thankful for small mercies, but we are sorry that we were not sufficiently vigilant to realise that we should have moved the same amendment at a different stage. We are grateful to the Government for spotting the need for this amendment and for putting our earlier amendment in order.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further consideration of the Bill, as amended, adjourned.—[Mr. Frank R. White.]
  Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered tomorrow.

  MENTALLY SICK AND HANDICAPPED PERSONS
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Frank R. White.]
  10.32 p.m.
  Mrs. Lynda Chalker: I am especially grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of the community care of the mentally sick and handicapped. It is a very special issue, and it is only the second time this year that we have debated mental health and the mentally handicapped. Indeed, it is only the second time that we have done so for the two years and more that I have been a Member.
  This debate comes at the commencement of the MIND campaign, whose slogan is
  "Help a healthy mind leave hospital".
  At the outset I must declare an interest. I am a member of the MIND General Council. For some years I have had a close interest in the problems of the mentally handicapped and in mental health. Many people have asked why I should try to deal with both the mentally ill and the handicapped in the one debate. I do so because I am concentrating on the community care aspect, which allows them to go back to the community to live as normal a life as possible in view of their previous history.
  There are about 50,000 mentally handicapped still in hospital, and the Government estimate that between one-third and one-half of them need not be in hospital but could live in the community with support. The most terrifying figure of all is that about 6,000 mentally handicapped out of the 50,000 are children who could most certainly live in the community to a greater extent than is presently possible if there were additional aids.
  The Under-Secretary of State will be aware that I am interested in supporting the payment of the attendance allowance to foster parents who are prepared to take mentally handicapped children into their homes. I was delighted by the chink of light which appeared last week in the Chamber when the Government said that
  1432
  they are actively considering the 300 mentally handicapped children who are looked after by foster parents. I hope that that chink of light will soon be the beam of the full attendance allowance for those foster parents.
  There are some 600,000 people receiving psychiatric help every year. We know that by the time they are 45–50 years of age, one in six women and one in nine men will have benefited from some psychiatric help. A large and increasing number seem to be needing longer care and greater support back in the community. Over 70,000 have spent more than two years in a mental illness hospital, and 32,000 have spent at least 20 years in such hospitals, often in large units of 1,000 beds or more. Comparing all these figures, I must ask, why is it that many of these people remain?
  During the last year I have spent some time looking round the mental hospitals in the North-West. I found that many people—including a former constituent of my predecessor—are there because they have no homes to go to and none can be provided. Having found the first case, one then finds an increasing number of people who have no need of psychiatric hospital care but just need a home and support within the community.
  A comparison of our spending in 1973–74 of £300 million on hospital care of the mentally ill against £15 million on personal social services and £6·5 million on day care tells us that our priorities seem to be in the wrong direction.
  In 1960 the then Conservative Government made a firm commitment to bring back into the community people who no longer needed institutional care. In 1971 we had a Command Paper about the care of the mentally handicapped. In 1975 we had another Command Paper on better services for the mentally ill. But all this time there has been minute progress in selected areas towards giving these people the chance to start to re-live life, which is what we are talking about.
  We have made great advances. Nobody denies that 1½ million out-patients per annum and 2 million attendances per annum at day psychiatric centres is an advance. But we have a problem. The

  1433
  growing number of psychiatric nurses is only in certain areas. People are not encouraged in their nursing careers to go into psychiatric nursing in anything like the numbers that we need, particularly when we consider the community psychiatric nursing sphere.
  The second reason for tackling these two areas together is that the community support required for someone who has been in an institution does not differ immensely between the handicapped and the ill. There are great similarities. The main requirement is to relieve the relations or the family with whom the person becoming rehabilitated is now living, to give personal support, and to help to create the one-to-one relationships from which that person has been severed for so long.
  We know the money situation only too well. It is not for me to call for further Government expenditure, but I call for a reallocation of finances. I particularly welcome the consultative paper on joint financing. I have only one fear. If anything, it is a bit tentative.
  I look forward to seeing how the Under-Secretary of State, with his right hon. Friend, will impress not only on area health authorities but also on local authorities the importance of being able to utilise buildings which are no longer needed in the hospital service for the community service and how funds currently allocated for the hospital service can be better deployed in providing greater community support for those who should have the right and chance to live at home.
  In this context I should like to place a few figures before the House. The cost of hospital places in psychiatric care, on the estimates which I have been able to achieve, is now upwards of £46 per week, without including the drug therapy cost. The cost of hostel accommodation. by comparison, ranges between approximately £25 and £30 per week—again, without the drug cost. The cost of accommodation in small group homes, which a few local authorities have already begun, ranges between £15 and £20 per week.
  I am concerned that we should be cost effective in our deployment of the mini-
  1434
  mal resources which we have at present. But I must remind the House that the proportion of expenditure on the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill will have to increase in the community sector. We have been decreasing capital expenditure in the National Health Service field at a time when revenue in the community sector actually requires to be increased. It is that sort of deliberation that is not spelled out clearly enough in our paper on joint financing, which is coming before local authorities, community health councils and area health authorities at present.
  We have some very severe problems on both handicap and mental illness, and it is to deal with these that we have to adjust the financial resources. I mention but one in the mentally handicapped field to which I seriously ask the Under-Secretary and his colleagues in the Department of Employment and other relevant Departments to turn their attention. What happens to a mentally handicapped person at the age of 16 when he has received a special education and is suddenly plunged back on to the resources of the family alone? He may not get an adult training centre place, because many of these people suffer from double incontinance—and we are still not coping with that problem well enough. Therefore, suddenly, after 11 years of special schooling, the family is forced to cope with an adult who has had little training, who has little chance of even sheltered workshop occupation and who does not know what to do with his time, whom the family are desperate to help but do not know how to help. It is in this regard that support services for the mentally handicapped are perhaps the most pressing need.
  I commend to the Under-Secretary the sort of schemes—perhaps he will take them up with his hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Employment—that are operating in other countries, such as Holland and Germany. In Holland there are sheltered workshops alongside factories. Philips is one example. Colour television components are made in sheltered workshops by mentally handicapped persons for assembly on the Philips television production line. This works very well. There are small beginnings in this country. Firms such as Belling and Lee, in Enfield, have sheltered workshops.

  1435
  However, I have been able to find only three examples in the United Kingdom.
  I turn from the mentally handicapped to the mentally ill. I remind the House of some relevant figures. Of the 180,000 who leave hospital each year, some are short-stay patients. However, the transfer back into the community is beset with problems—as we have seen with various Press exposes in Birmingham, Margate and other places; and they have not yet all come to light, by many means, and we know greater problems. We have a problem because there is a willingness in the mental health field to discharge patients back into the community, but the difficulty is that support services from the local authority are not there, or if they are there for the first week, they do not continue beyond that first week.
  Frankly, I feel that it is necessary to say to consultants "Unless you are satisfied that there will be adequate community support, you are doing a disservice by discharge at this time to that particular patient." It is a hard thing to say because many patients are well and truly ready to come back into the community, but to leave them, as some men and women are often left, in both city centres and coastal resorts is more cruel than to keep them for a few more months in our hospitals.
  The last thing we want to encourage is the revolving door syndrome. The best way to avoid people having to go in and out of hospital—and two-thirds of admissions to all mental illness hospitals are re-admissions; only one-third are first-time admissions—is to ensure that grants to excellent organisations such as the Richmond Fellowship, and some of the others working to give support to and put a roof over the heads of ex-mental patients, are not cut by local authorities. I do not know the best way of doing that. It is certainly something that I am examining, but I do not have the resources of the Civil Service behind me to help me to do it. I hope that the Government are already examining how we can make the best use of the 120 social clubs that MIND and local health organisations run, and the 20 day centres, too, and how we support the Richmond Fellowship which provides many of the hostel places for the mentally sick. There are only 45,000 hostel places in England and Wales and about 35 per cent. of them are provided by voluntary organisations. Yet, be-
  1436
  cause of our other problems, it is the grants to these organisations which are the easiest to cut.
  There are many organisations in this field deserving of the highest praise. I call them the sharp end charities. Groups such as CHAR, SHAC, SHARP in Liverpool and the Cyrenians do excellent work, but they cannot do it all. They seek to share the problems of the mental patients, to give them guidance, to teach them to mix with other people and to look after themselves.
  A local authority in my constituency has turned what used to be an ordinary hostel, which fed, clothed and looked after patients, into a rehabilitation hostel. The lady who runs it teaches mental patients to cook, clean, shop and sew and the ladies to do their hair. In short, she teaches them to live again.
  This is the sort of small project which I want the Government and local authorities to encourage on a far wider scale. We can make a start in preparing patients for discharge into the community by making their nurses into teachers, friends and counsellors. When they move to the first stage of a discharge—for example, a hostel—they will learn far more quickly how to cope with the rigours of everyday life.
  We must try to persuade local authorities to provide more homes where four or five patients can live together and form their own family group with support from local organisations for mental health and from social service departments.
  It would be wrong for me to go on for too long. I want to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South (Mr. Parkinson) to say a few words and for the Minister to reply.
  Above all, I suggest that the Minister must know that many false economies are being made and that grants are being cut to organisations which are doing productive work. Let the Minister look very carefully at the situation so that we may make the MIND campaign of bringing a healthy mind home from hospital more than just a catch phrase. Let us make it a reality. It will take determination and purpose to do so, but I am convinced that we can do it by pulling together. I hope that, with the joint

  1437
  financing document and good will on all sides, this can be done in the next five years.
  10.48 p.m.
  Mr. Cecil Parkinson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) on her choice of subject for this debate, thank her for allowing me to intervene and congratulate her on an excellent speech.
  I shall be brief because I want to leave the Minister time to reply. The biggest job we all have is to persuade local authorities that the provision of places for the mentally handicapped i. not an option but a necessity.
  We know that the Minister is not responsible for housing and that he will have to work through hundreds of local authorities. Housing is the key shortage. There is a desperate shortage of buildings into which patients can be discharged and roofs under which they can live after leaving hospital. Our biggest task is to persuade local authorities to face up to the scale of the problem and to their responsibilities.
  I should like to say a great deal more, but I must allow the Minister to reply.
  10.50 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins): I welcome this opportunity to discuss our plans for the development of services for the care of the mentally handicapped and mentally ill outside hospital, and I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) for raising the matter. I found her speech and that of the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South (Mr. Parkinson) in the debate in January very interesting. I have read them in the Official Report, as I was not present because I was then working in another Department.
  The Government's long-term strategy and their commitment to increasing community services in this area is already well known. It was stated in detail in the two White Papers to which the hon. Lady referred, published in 1971 and last year. Both make clear that in our view mentally handicapped and mentally ill people should be cared for as far as is practicable within the community, that
  1438
  when hospital treatment is needed it should be available locally, near the patient's home and family, and that people should not have to remain in hospital if they do not need the medical and nursing care provided there but should be encouraged to return to as normal a life as possible outside in the community.
  I say "our view" advisedly. This is not a party matter. The former White Paper was published by a Conservative Government and the latter by a Labour Government, and both had been set in train by previous Governments.
  But, as my colleagues have emphasised again and again, discharge policy must be realistic and must take account of the availability of facilities outside hospital for the continuing care and support of the patient. This is particularly important for people who have spent a long period, even many years, in hospital, who are likely to need some help in adjusting to life outside at least for a short time after discharge and in some cases—both with the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped—for an indefinite period.
  We have made it clear that although it is primarily for the responsible consultant to determine when a patient is ready to leave hospital, good practice requires that before any patient is discharged the consultant should satisfy himself that there are adequate support facilities—this does not just mean a place to stay—outside the hospital.
  The two White Papers spell out in some detail the range of services that will be needed if this pattern of community-based care is to become a practical reality. Residential accommodation, domiciliary services, day care and training, employment rehabilitation services, sheltered employment and social work support all need to be developed.
  At the moment it has to be admitted that we have a long way to go, and community services, for the mentally ill in particular, are far short of what is estimated to be required. As recently as March 1975, for example, nine local authorities in England had no residential accommodation and 27 no day care facilities for the mentally ill. As a result it must be confessed that there are still considerable numbers of people in mental illness and mental handicap hospitals

  1439
  who do not need hospital in-patient care and treatment but who had little alternative but to stay there because there are no facilities for their accommodation and continuing support outside.
  Even in favourable economic circumstances there is so much to be done that it would take many years of effort to build up community services for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped to the level that is needed. Given the present financial situation and the restrictions of local authority spending, we must face the fact that progress is bound to be more difficult. The rate at which progress can be made will depend not only on the overall level of resources that can be made available but on the degree of priority that can be given to the development of services for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped in the light of other pressing needs.
  Mrs Elaine Kellett-Bowman rose—
  Mr. Deakins: I shall not be able to answer all the points raised if I do not continue. I much regret not being able to give way.
  The consultative document, published in March this year, attempted to establish rational and systematic priorities throughout the health and social services for the next few years up to 1980. In it we made clear that in our view services for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped, should be regarded as a major priority and suggested an increased allocation of both current and capital expenditure towards meeting the needs of these groups so that progress can be made.
  The consultative document lays particular emphasis on the need to shift the balance of expenditure between hospital and community and to develop community services, both for day care and residential accommodation. For the mentally ill it proposes increased local authority capital expenditure totalling £7 million a year—£4 million on day centres and £3 million for residential care. In the mental handicap field we have been able to suggest an allocation which will mean the local authority capital development programme envisaged by "Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped" being maintained with an additional 2,400 adult training centre and 1,000 residential places being provided annually.
  1440
  The document also emphasises the importance of making the most of existing resources by concentrating on relatively inexpensive, though nevertheless effective, solutions such as using adapted rather than expensive purpose-built premises, boarding out and supervised lodgings schemes, group homes and other kinds of sheltered accommodation and the use of voluntary effort, particularly in befriending and support schemes, to supplement the hard pressed statutory services.
  There are already a number of examples of schemes, in this country and elsewhere, which illustrate how successful this kind of approach can be if handled in the right way, with the full co-operation of the health and social services. One such successful and lone-established scheme has been in operation in some form for several hundred years in the town of Geel in Belgium, where a large-scale fostering or boarding-out scheme, with supporting day care and social work facilities, enables large numbers of mentally ill and mentally handicapped people to live in private households as members of the family. Attempts to establish similar schemes on a smaller scale, in this country, have also been successful, one recent example being a project in Salisbury which enabled over 100 patients who had been in hospital for many years to be discharged to private homes.
  Group homes, where five or six people can live together as a family, organising their own finances and household chores, with no residential staff, and only occasional visits from a social worker or voluntary worker, have also been developed most successfully, by local authorities and by voluntary organisations, to provide accommodation for people who have been in hospital for some years and who cannot manage to live entirely on their own. I am thinking, for example, of the scheme established in Dorset for patients from Herrison Hospital, of MIND's many group homes and of those set up in the Midlands under the auspices of the Guideposts Trust. These are examples in the mental illness field, but similar initiatives have taken place in respect of mental handicap.
  I have already mentioned the valuable part that voluntary organisations can play

  1441
  in the care of the mentally ill and mentally handicapped. This is fully recognised in the White Papers and the consultative document on priorities. MIND's "Home from Hospital" scheme is an excellent example of the approach that we have been urging. The campaign will aim to make full use of MIND's extensive network of local groups to set up group homes, befriending schemes, boarding-out arrangements and day care and social club facilities to help some of the large number of people at present in mental illness hospitals to return to the community. My Department has made a grant of £20,000 to help launch this scheme and I am confident that it will make a considerable impact on the present severe shortage of community facilities, especially for the mentally ill.
  For this, and similar schemes, to be successful it will be essential that there should be full collaboration with all concerned, and I was particularly pleased to see that MIND has laid considerable emphasis on this aspect of its campaign.
  However, if we are to see real improvement in the level of services for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped we must not rely entirely on voluntary effort, valuable as this is. Joint planning and collaboration between health authorities and local authorities will be of crucial importance and is an aspect which we have repeatedly emphasised. We have just issued a consultative circular outlining for local authority and health interests our proposals for joint planning and for the joint financing of agreed projects which both the health and local authorities regard as of high priority. Of course, this arrangement cannot be expected to solve all the problems which have arisen as a result of the acute shortage of community facilities, but we hope that it will at least go some way towards providing more much needed care and support for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped.
  Finally, I should like to say a brief word about the provision of adult training centres for mentally handicapped people. This is a subject about which there has been a great deal of current
  1442
  interest, as the hon. Lady mentioned in her speech.
  This afternoon an all-party meeting of Members of Parliament, parents, and representatives of the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children has been discussing the provision made for education and training of mentally handicapped young people over 16 years of age.
  Most mentally handicapped children leaving special schools who live at home and are unable to enter open or sheltered employment go to adult training centres. In recent years the number of these centres has grown rapidly and nationally the target levels set in the White Paper "Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped" are close to being met. National figures hide local deficiencies, and I am aware that the demand for special facilities for the severely mentally handicapped, who are probably physically handicapped as well or have severe behaviour disorders, is not being met. This is unfortunate, but it is for local authorities to decide their own priorities in their programme for development of their personal social services, although my Department does what it can to influence their selections.
  In the past adult training centres gave perhaps undue emphasis to the work and occupation element of their task, but this emphasis is rapidly being changed, with education and social training assuming a much greater importance. Not all 16-year-olds transfer to the ATCs since some local education authorities allow them to remain at school after this age if there are useful educational reasons for them to do so, and provided places are available. For those who do not stay on some authorities arrange courses at further and adult education colleges.
  These are problems which are well known, and it is one of the priority tasks of the National Development Group for the Mentally Handicapped which has been set up to advise on the development and implementation of policy to examine them.
  The provision of sheltered employment is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for

  1443
  Employment, but I know that he wishes to promote sheltered employment where-ever there is adequate evidence of sufficient need. These workshops are run under similar disciplines and conditions as those found in open industry and cater for all kinds of handicapped people, including mentally handicapped and mentally ill people. The work undertaken by trainees in adult training centres does not usually compare with the consistently high standard demanded in open and sheltered employment, but the National Development Group is also considering
  1444
  whether some intermediate provision is necessary.
  I hope that these remarks will satisfy the hon. Lady that the Government are very much aware of the need to develop community services for both mentally ill and mentally handicapped people—and not only aware, but actively seeking to bring the necessary improvement about just as fast as we reasonably can. I can assure her that we intend to succeed.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Eleven o'clock.

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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough.
The Lord Elibank—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

DISABLED: PROVISION OF INVALID VEHICLES
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will reconsider the rule whereby disabled people, who are provided with invalid vehicles while in full-time paid employment, have those vehicles withdrawn when they lose their job or retire.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, vehicles are withdrawn in these circumstances only from people who were not so disabled as to qualify, by virtue of their disability alone. During last Wednesday's debate on the Social Services the noble Baroness drew my attention to a particular case which had prompted her to table this Question. People in this category were issued with a vehicle specifically to enable them to remain in employment, on the strict understanding that the vehicle was liable to he withdrawn when no longer needed for that purpose. This is a feature of the old arrangements which, as the noble Baroness will appreciate, will for-tunately disappear now that the present Government have ended the old scheme. Eligibility under our new mobility allow-ance scheme is based solely on medical criteria of disability.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether somebody who becomes of pensionable age is able to get the mobility allowance?
526
Further, is it Government policy to downgrade people so that they become less mobile and less independent? Is the noble Lord not aware that many people, when they reach 65, become more arthritic and bronchitic?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, at the present moment it is not possible for people of pensionable age to get the mobility allowance. The noble Baroness knows only too well what the system is. The system at the present moment is that the Government have brought in a regulation whereby people can claim, if they are eligible, a mobility allowance of £5 a week. At the present moment it is being phased in for the 15 to 25 year old age group; from the 1st April this year we are phasing in those between the ages of 25 and 50; the next group will be of 5 to 15; and the next group will be those from 50 to 65.
With regard to the second point the noble Baroness raised, I want to make it perfectly clear that the matter to which she is referring is in relation to what was known as Category 3, those suffering from a slightly less severe disability which limits walking to the extent that personal trans-port is needed to get to full-time work and home again. So that although persons are given the vehicle, when they cease to be employed they are not immobile—they have a fair degree of mobility—and then the vehicle must be withdrawn. Before that is done the Department undertakes a medical investigation to see whether that action is justified.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us who are interested in the cause of the disabled, including the limbless ex-Servicemen, appreciate the new disability allowances which this Government have brought in, but think that it is a cruel hardship to take this vehicle from a disabled man the moment he leaves the work for which the vehicle was provided in order to get him there? Will the noble Lord look at this matter very carefully?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: No, my Lords, I cannot give any undertaking that we will look at it very carefully because we have already done so over a long period of time. This particular category has been in existence for a number of years. This

527
is no new thing. It is not that the person is incapable of mobility but that his mobility is restricted, and in order to help such people to overcome the strain on them when they have to go from A to B to work and from B home again, they are given a vehicle. When they no longer need it for that purpose, it seems perfectly reasonable that it should be taken back.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, having listened to my noble friend, am I right in assuming that some amelioration of this position has taken place? Never-theless, can he tell us what it would cost were this regulation withdrawn completely? It has existed between all Govern-ments, Conservative and Labour. In my own period in the Ministry it was there. Finally, how does a man who is immobile enough to have a chair but who loses his job, look for another job if he does not get a chair to do so?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I cannot answer the first question about the question of cost. If a person at some stage has been eligible for a vehicle, and the person gives up work or loses work and ultimately goes back to work, the very fact that the person had an entitle-ment at one particular period means that he or she retains that entitlement.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, arising from the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, may I ask whether the noble Lord agrees that there is a group of people who have had withdrawn some-thing to which they have been entitled, and who will in fact wait for a very long period of time indeed before the Government's proposals are applicable to them? There is a gap.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: The noble Baroness is on an entirely different point, my Lords. I think I know the case she has in mind. We have discussed it and she will know that it is not applicable to the Question which is before the House.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, in view of the fact that there is undoubted suffering caused to a number of those who lose their employment, may I ask my noble friend if the Ministry will take steps to secure wide publicity of their new pro-posals so that disabled persons may be aware of them?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL:I think that we have already done so, my Lords, but I will pass on my noble friend' s comment to my right honourable friend.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord further on this matter because I was not referring to the case to which he referred and on which he has been most helpful? Would the noble Lord not agree that there is a very serious gap in the proposals between the phasing out in a case such as is directly relevant to the Question and the applica-tion of the new mobility allowance? May I further ask what happens to the vehicles after they are taken away from the individuals concerned and what people are expected to do?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not for a moment accept that there is an enormous gap. The category which we are discussing is perfectly clear and there is nothing I can say that will add anything to what I have already said.
The EARL of ONSLOW: My Lords, with the amount of unemployment that exists and with the given difficulties of people who are physically handicapped in trying to find a job, may I ask the noble Lord why it is right that when they have a job they get the vehicle con-cerned, yet when they do not have a job they have to look for work, which is diffi-cult in the present unemployment position, without this vehicle? How many people fall into this category? Will the noble Lord please try to find out what the cost of rectifying this anomaly would be? The noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, has shown me some correspondence on this subject and I think the noble Lord is aware of the particular case to which she is referring.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I will study what the noble Earl has said and see whether I can get any information along the lines he has suggested. If I can, I will certainly write to him.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, is it not the case that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, recommended in her 1974 Report that in cases where disabled people are likely otherwise to lose their vehicles when they lose their job, they should be given the opportunity to purchase the vehicles on favourable terms?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am aware of the Report of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. I do not think I can express an opinion because I have not taken advice on the point raised by the noble Lord.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to answer the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Young: what happens to the vehicles after they are taken away from these unfortunate people?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, they go into stock and ultimately they are reissued to others.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, did this co-called injustice exist under the previous Conservative Government? If so, what action did they take to remedy it? Apropos of the present Government's granting of a disability allowance, may I ask whether similar disability allowances were granted by that Conservative Government?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not want to involve a previous Administration other than to say that these categories have been in existence for some years. The mobility allowance is entirely new and was introduced by the present Government.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the mobility allowance could be capitalised so that a person who wanted to get a vehicle would be able to use the mobility allowance for, say, the interest on the money he expended to buy a vehicle because one was not available through the mobility policy?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, that is something I should have to look into. I hope the noble Baroness will not mind my saying that her supplementary question goes rather wide of the main Question and would involve a good deal of calculation.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, the House is enormously interested in this matter; that is quite obvious from all the supplementary questions that have been put. I waited until the noble Baroness, Lady
530
Elliot of Harwood, had asked her question because I knew that she had been trying to get in for some time. However, we have spent more than 10 minutes on this one and I suggest that we now move on to the next Question.

ACAS AND DOCK DISPUTE
2. 49 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: 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 the Secretary of State for Employment still considers the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service is the appropriate body to give such assistance as the parties concerned may require to resolve the difficulties caused by the unofficial action of some dock workers which led to the withdrawal of the BACAT service between Rotterdam and the Humber.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service was established as an independent body by the Government in order to help the parties resolve industrial disputes. The Government have every confidence in the capacity of the Service to carry out its duties.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, according to my information, several weeks prior to my first Question on 15th March the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service made it clear to the British Waterways Board that it has no locus to assist in this dispute, which was not a dispute between the British Waterways Board and its own employees? Has the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service been in touch with the noble Lord to inform him that it could make no contribution to the resolution of a dispute, not between the British Waterways Board and its employees, but concerning the employees of the British Transport Docks Board? In view of the fact that the British Waterways Board first tried to introduce this backup service in June 1974, and it has been held up ever since, does he consider that it is about time that the Secretary of State for Employment took some notice of it?
Lord JACQUES: The Service has been and still is in touch with the parties. Presumably it is still of the opinion that it would not assist to have a court of inquiry. The Government have confidence in the judgment of the Service. I would ask the noble Lord to bear in mind the background to this matter. At Hull and Goole, the number of registered dockers has declined from 4,600 to 2,300 in the space of a decade. Looking round this House, I can see many noble Lords who, had they been dockers at Hull, would have been somewhat hot under the collar.
The EARL of ONSLOW: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us whether that has anything to do with the introduction of the BACAT service? We very much need to increase our exports and I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware that we very much need to increase the competitiveness of those exports. There are other industries in which there has been a similar shift in labour. I felt that the noble Lord's last answer was not 100 per cent. satisfactory.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, most of the reduction at Hull and Goole—and remember the size of that reduction—has been due to new methods. The labour force has gone a long way to accommodate the introduction of these new methods. I believe that, within a very short period of time, this further new method will be introduced. However, your Lordships should bear in mind that, if one is to introduce methods which reduce the demand for labour, the timing must be right. Do it in a period of unemployment and you will generate resistance. Do it in a period of boom and you may well generate confidence. Timing is vital.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, is it not true that there has been a considerable investment of public money in this new method of carrying goods on our waterways which will relieve both our roads and our railways? Also, as two years have already passed and as the action is being taken by a very small number of militants who are threatening unofficial strike action, would it not be a good idea to set up an inquiry so that we can get on with improved methods of transporting goods?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the question of whether or not there should
532
be an inquiry is primarily a matter for the Service. The Service has the power to hold inquiries and, if the noble Lord will look at page 17 of the annual report, he will see that ACAS held three courts of inquiry last year. If he looks at Schedule C of the report, he will see the results of those inquiries. However, it is difficult to see what good an inquiry would do. The facts are well known. The shop stewards concerned have been instructed by their union to cease the industrial action concerned. Furthermore, I understand that the shop stewards, following their refusal to give an undertaking to abide by the union's constitution and the decisions of its regional committee, have had their credentials withdrawn. There has, therefore, been full co-operation from the trade unions. The employer concerned—the Port Authority at Hull—does not wish to push the matter to a confrontation.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, speaking of the employment situation, did not the employers make an offer to pay £75 a week for doing nothing to the six persons who were to be made redundant? Also, can the noble Lord please reply to my previous question as to whether ACAS made it clear to the Board that it had no locus to intervene in this dispute because it was not one between the Board and its employees? Why has this information not been conveyed to the Secretary of State?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, if I may answer the last question first, I am not here speaking for ACAS, nor am I able to do so. I am speaking for Her Majesty's Government. I have no knowledge of the point which the noble Lord has raised because it is a matter between an independent authority and the British Waterways Board. As to the first question, I have no information on any offer of £25.
Several Noble Lords: £75!
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord on this point? I said that ACAS had notified the employers that it had no locus to intervene in the dispute, but the Minister still insists that ACAS is the appropriate organisation to sort it out. Am I to believe the Minister or the information which I have received indirectly from ACAS?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I believe that there is some confusion here. This is an industrial dispute and ACAS therefore has the authority to intervene. My —information—received this morning—is that it has been and is still in touch with the parties.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, are the Government aware that they are continually exhorting people to invest in industry of every kind and that the object of investment is mostly to decrease unemployment? How does that tally with one or two of the answers which the noble Lord has given?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, it tallies very well with a previous answer which I gave. Time those innovations properly and you will probably get the right response.
Lord HAWKE: But, my Lords, we are being exhorted to invest now.
Lord CARR of HADLEY: My Lords, if I may bring the noble Lord back to the real point of this Question, I do not wish to comment on the merits of this dispute, but is or is not the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service empowered by its terms of reference to deal with this kind of dispute which is not the ordinary dispute between employees and their employers? If it is not within its power to do so, is it not up to the Secretary of State personally to take responsibility?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, there is confusion here because there are two disputes. First, there is a dispute between the dockers and the Port Authority. That is the real dispute. Settle that and one will have settled everything. There is a subsidiary dispute, in that the dockers asked for an undertaking from the British Waterways Board that it would not provide berthing for schemes such as BACAT. The Board refused to give that undertaking and, in consequence, all the goods going on to the barges of the British Waterways Board at the Humber have been blacked. So there is a subsidiary dispute in which the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service may not be directly involved. However, it is certainly directly involved in the main dispute.

MACKEREL FISHING BY PURSE-SEINERS
2.58 p.m.
Lord VERNON: 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 accept that large purseseiners fishing for mackerel are accustomed to reject several nets of fish before obtaining a net of the quality desired, that up to 50 per cent. of the fish rejected can die in the process and that as a result, over 100 tons of saleable fish can be destroyed as the result of a single rejection.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, sampling of shoals of fish to determine whether they meet market requirements is undoubtedly carried out by both purse-seiners and conventional trawlers. The problem of rejection and slipping of catches is one of the issues which Her Majesty's Government are currently pursuing in connection with general provisions for the conservation of mackerel stocks which the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission is soon to consider.
Lord VERNON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply and for saying that an investigation is to be carried out. Is he aware that qualified observers in the fishing industry have considerable evidence that large quantities of mackerel are being destroyed in the way suggested? If the result of the investigation bears this out, will the Government take very firm action to prevent this really shocking waste of valuable protein?
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords, we shall certainly take note of what the noble Lord has said. There is reason to suppose that the biology of mackerel would lead to a lower survival rate than is normal in such circumstances. My right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is seeking scientific advice on this point. Until then, if the noble Lord does not mind, I would rather not comment on the figures which he has given in his Question.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this problem was raised in my debate on

535
the problems of the far South-West? Is he further aware that these dead fish which are dumped by the purse seiners—and in this case it was the trawlers which came from Scotland—cause great difficulty for those who are legitimately fishing for bottom-feeding fish? Can he tell us when we shall have an agreement to divide the Channel between ourselves and the French so as to keep the Scots and the Russians out and conserve our stocks?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, as a spokesman for the Scottish Office, I should like to say that our policy is not to discriminate between United Kingdom fishermen. When there is a proven conservation need, it should apply fully and fairly to all our fishermen. However, I am glad to tell the noble Lord that officials are holding meetings with the producers' organisations concerned to consider how best the points made can be met.
Lord HOY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this complaint has been going on for a considerable time? I am sure that what the fishing industry want is an assurance that these inquiries will be expedited to prevent any further deterioration and waste in this respect. If my noble friend can give an assurance that the matter will be expedited, I am sure that this will bring satisfaction to all concerned.
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords; I am happy to give my noble friend that assurance.
Lord LOVAT: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that not only mackerel but herring, in immature stages of their life, are ground into fish meal which is very wasteful, bearing in mind both the dumping and the shortage of both types of fish in the sea?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, although that is a different question, I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, that past indiscriminate fishing, in the absence of quota controls, has been responsible for the decline in herring stocks. But I am sure that he and other noble Lords will agree that regulating the total quantity of fish taken is more important than discriminating against particular methods of fishing.

HEALTH CENTRE LAVATORIES FOR THE DISABLED
3.1 p.m.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will ensure that public lavatories in health centres are suitable for disabled people.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the provision in health centres of at least one lavatory suitable for elderly, disabled and wheelchair patients of either sex was expressly recommended in a draft design guide on health centres distributed to health authorities and other bodies in 1974.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that much more encouraging reply. Is he aware that as a member of a community health council in my district, I have not yet found one health centre or one health clinic where this facility applies? Can the Government encourage existing centres to make this facility available? Is the noble Lord aware that it would be better if the door to the lavatory were made to slide rather than open inwards?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am grateful for what the noble Baroness has said. There are approximately 600 health centres in England and I can assure the House that officials of my Department have visited almost all of them and have not yet found a health centre which does not provide a lavatory for elderly, disabled or wheelchair patients. If the noble Baroness has information on specific health centres we should be very glad to have details. As I say, we have visited most of the 600 or so health centres, which is quite an undertaking. With regard to the point concerning the sliding door, the leading architectural authority on design for the disabled, Selwyn Goldsmith, advises against the sliding door because very few people who use a wheelchair have sufficient strength, or are at the correct level, to be able to move the door right back. We understand that it is preferable that the door should open so that there is a direct passage in, and

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it is much easier from the point of view of the disabled person to have that type of door.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Lord for the action which has been taken. Would it not be helpful if the names of those authorities which have taken action as a result of the guidance given were published? This would make people aware that there are some local authorities who are still not taking action. It is a very good idea to congratulate the people who take action. I think the noble Lord will agree that this matter involves a different psychology. The more that people follow the guidance, when it is reasonable, and the more that those people are known to the public, then the more likely it will be that the advice will be accepted by everyone.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it causes some surprise that it is claimed that there appears to be a widescale disregard of the guidance, bearing in mind that officials have visited almost all of the 600 health centres and have not found one without proper facilities. The noble Baroness speaks about local authorities, but we are concerned with lavatories in health centres, and we are under the impression, as a result of personal visitation, that this need is being met.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: I apologise, my Lords, for not saying "health centres". There are so many names for everything that sometimes one becomes a little mixed up.

PAY AGREEMENT
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3. 30 my noble friend the Leader of the House will repeat a Statement on the pay agreement.
ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY (SPECIAL CONSTABLES) BILL
Brought from the Commons, read 1a; and to be printed.
AUSTRALIAN ESTATES COMPANIES BILL
Read 3a, and passed.

STANDARD LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
3. 7 p. m.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND AND WALES
Lord BANKS Lord BANKS rose to call attention to the present state of local government in England and Wales; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I do so because it seemed to us on these Benches that now that two years have passed since the Local Government Act 1972 came into force, we ought to have a look at the way in which local government in England and Wales, in its reorganised structure, is working out. It is perhaps not inappropriate to do so when attention is focused on local government in view of the district elections taking place throughout the country tomorrow.
The first factor we have to grasp is the size and the scope of local government today. Local authority expenditure on goods and services, including staff, has taken an increasing share of the gross domestic product over the past 25 years, rising from about 8½ per cent. in 1949 to about 9½ per cent. in 1964, to over 12 per cent. in 1974, and to about 13 per cent. last year. Over 2 million people are employed in local government, if we include teachers, school meals staff, and other people working in education. The total expenditure of local government is around £13, 000 million, or about one quarter of total Government expenditure, both central and local. Education takes nearly half of all current local government expenditure, and just over half the number of employees in local government are involved in education.
As the Minister for Planning and Local Government pointed out in another place on 9th April, there has been a particularly rapid growth in local government overall

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current expenditure in recent years. In the decade to 1963 the average annual growth rate in volume terms was just under 5 per cent. However, in the two years 1973–74 and 1974–75 the rate of growth was 9 per cent. and 10 per cent. respectively. In 1975–76 the rate has been reduced to about 5 per cent., and in 1976–77, as part of the general economy measures, a complete standstill is being sought. As the right honourable gentleman the Foreign Secretary remarked when he was still the Secretary of State for the Environment, "the party is over."
So we see that local government is now big business, but it is Parliament that has made it so. In the post-war period very considerable responsibilities have been placed on local government in the fields of education, housing, and the social services. In recent years of course extra duties have been laid on local authorities in respect of, for example, chronically sick and disabled persons legislation, safety and health at work legislation, consumer credit legislation and, most recently, the Community Land Bill.
The first conclusion I come to is that we have to give much greater thought to the potential further development of local government responsibility. There is much to be said for the maximum degree of decentralisation and, providing we get value for money, there is no reason why the local government share of total Government expenditure should not be higher than one quarter. But we need genuine decentralisation, not a duplication of activity. There would have to be a parallel decrease in central Government expenditure in real terms.
The flood of legislation placing new burdens on both central and local government must be abated; and we need to ensure that we preserve for local government an independent decision-making role. Local government must not be reduced to being nothing more than the local agent for central Government. And to the extent that they do have to act as the agents of the central Government, the local authorities must be fully consulted when policy is being formulated as to the impact on them and their resources which proposed legislation will have. It is no good leaving the consultation until legislation is before Parliament or on the
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Statute Book. Perhaps the machinery of the Consultative Committee on Local Government Finance could be used for this purpose.
Secondly, we must recognise that in many fields, but particularly perhaps in the field of the social services, the local authorities cannot provide the services they are already supposed to provide on their present budgets. There will inevitably be heavy pressure for increased expenditure as soon as circumstances permit. But if the expanding service which they are expected to provide is one reason for increased expenditure on the part of local authorities, then inflation of course is another and an obvious one. A third has undoubtedly been reorganisation itself which has involved the employment of 110, 000 extra staff and cost a great deal. The local Government Act 1972 was of course the product of the last Conservative Administration, and it is rather ironic to find the last Conservative Government cast in the role of encouraging the big spenders, and the present Labour Government forced today by economic circumstances to play the miser.
My Lords, we on the Liberal Benches rejected both the reorganisation proposals of the last Labour Government, following on the recommendations of the Redcliffe-Maud Commission, and the subsequent proposals of the Conservative Government. While we recognise the need for a degree of rationalisation and amalgamation, we felt the district councils in the Conservative proposals were too large and would take local government further from the people rather than nearer. We felt that the county councils were too large to be local and too small to be regional. We would have preferred rather smaller district councils, with neighbourhood councils below, operating under a regional umbrella. We called for 12 such regions in England.
In the Dissenting Memorandum to the Kilbrandon Commission Report, the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, and Professor Peacock suggest five regional Assemblies for England and I think we have been sufficiently impressed by the case they present to feel that that number may well be right. All that has happened in the past two years has confirmed us in our views. The introduction of regional government has unfortunately been made

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more difficult because of the multiplication of the tiers of local government and a natural desire not to have another upheaval too soon after the last. Yet the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, and Professor Peacock have shown very clearly that there is a regional tier of government in operation at the moment but it is not subject to democratic control. However, we are shortly, I understand, to have a White Paper on Regionalism in England and I will say no more about that subject today.
My Lords, it has been impressed upon me by councillors throughout the country whom I have consulted prior to this debate that local government since reorganisation has become more remote from the people; that constituents' problems now take longer to sort out than they did; that there is wasteful duplication between the county and district, particularly in the field of planning; and that the amount of paper in use has vastly increased. It is significant that while the number of staff has increased the number of elected councillors has decreased under reorganisation from 37, 510 to 23, 950 through the replacing of 1, 390 old authorities by 422 new ones.
If local government, albeit with a structure which is far from perfect, is to carry out the tasks already allotted to it, and perhaps to take on others, there will, as I said a few minutes ago, be pressures for increased spending. When we take this into account, and bear in mind the financial stringency of the moment, the need to get value for money and to eliminate waste is very clear. We can all give examples of waste in local government which have come to our notice: expensive new civic centres, property bought by a council and standing empty month after month. In one authority £8, 250 was spent in postage to send pay packets to school meal ladies. Another authority spent £100, 000 on producing a glossy magazine three times a year. A local authority paid £125, 000 two years ago for extra office space" as a matter of urgency" and it is still empty. And so one could go on.
The Islington Gazette on 13th February asked its readers this question:
" Did you know that if the borough' s population continues falling as fast as Islington Council continues recruiting extra staff, then by 1984 everyone in Islington will work for the council?"
I cannot vouch for the validity for that prediction but it would appear that 700 extra staff have been taken on in four years and, even allowing for the extra burdens placed on local government, one is bound to ask whether they are all really necessary. While it is important, if we are to get the right staff, that they should be well paid, nevertheless there are many misgivings today about the level of some of the salaries offered in local government in the wake of reorganisation. Manchester University appointments board recently drew attention to the fact that among its graduates last year it found that some local authorities were prepared to pay about double what the same type of graduate was getting for the same type of job in the private sector.
However, we not only need to eliminate waste, we need to reform the whole system of financing local government expenditure. Far too high a burden is placed on the rates, a system of raising revenue which takes no account of ability to pay. The protests about the size of rate increases in the past two years were fully justified. Even so, local government is being forced to rely more and more on central Government grant. New sources of local government revenue must be found. The rating system, with very much less revenue required from it, should be reformed so that the rate is levied on the site value alone, which, incidentally, would mean that those who improve their property would no longer be penalised. But the Layfield Report, which I understand is already in the hands of the Government, will deal with all this, and we must wait till it is published before we can tackle local government finance in depth.
One final word on finance. Careful attention should be given to the better promotion of council facilities. In one district council which I know one-third of the gross expenditure is covered by income from council facilities. If these were marketed better, an even higher proportion of the gross expenditure could be covered in this way.
My Lords, following the publication of the Bains Report on management structures for the new authorities many authorities have sought to implement the recommendations; and, as a result, most councils now have a policy and resources committee. The Bains Report envisaged

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such a committee aiding the authority in setting objectives and priorities, coordinating and controlling the implementation of those objectives and, through a special sub-committee, monitoring and reviewing performance. In some instances, however, the policy and resources committee, faced with the need to econo-mise, merely asks each departmental committee to cut its proposals by a given percentage. There is thus no real overall choice between options related to different subjects. There is merely choice within each departmental area and no overall determining of priorities. Also, there is often a reluctance to appoint the crucial performance review sub-committee, which should examine the unit cost of each service to help determine effectiveness and identify areas for further attention. The possibility of having committees of the council constituted on an area basis covering all services, instead of having committees on a departmental basis, is worth researching thoroughly.
For the successful running of the local authority it is essential to secure the co-operation of both staff and public. Staff should be encouraged to offer suggestions for the improvement of the services provided. The provision of suggestion boxes for the use of all grades, manual workers as well as office workers, can be a very fruitful source of new ideas. The first step towards gaining the confidence of the public is the reduction of secrecy in council affairs to the absolute minimum. In Liverpool, Liberals have made committees and sub-committees open to the Press, radio and public alike except for a few restricted areas where, for example, people's private affairs are involved. Then, again, Liberals, who form the largest group on the Newbury District Council, have ensured that all full council meetings, committee meetings and subcommittee meetings are open to the public and the Press; and, of course, similar steps have been taken elsewhere.
We are all concerned with the problem of apathy about local government, and one way to combat it is through the promotion of greater participation by the public in the work of the council. In Liverpool, the education committee tours the city, meeting in different schools, with a particular invitation to parents and teachers to attend. Ways and means of enrolling
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the public to help with particular projects should be explored, and I have in mind such projects as clearing up footpaths, looking after grass verges, cleaning up children' s play areas and maintaining open spaces. Another important avenue to participation is through housing co-operatives for tenants of local authority houses. By this means tenants are enabled to participate collectively in decisions which affect them. I very much welcome the circular on this subject issued by the Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office in January of this year, and the encouragement which it gave.
With regard to participation in the meetings of the council, some councils are experimenting with a question-time at the beginning of their meeting when members of the public may put questions to councillors. The Liberals at Newbury have written into the standing orders of the council the right of members of the public to speak to the council when a resolution to suspend standing orders to enable them to do so is moved by a councillor and passed. A deputation of any seven ratepayers can request a meeting with any committee, and if the committee refuse the meeting they must state their reasons to the next full council meeting. A deputation of any 20 ratepayers can request a meeting with the full council, subject to the approval of the policy and resources committee.
Finally, may I say a brief word about standards of conduct in local government —a subject which has given rise to some anxiety in recent years? I believe that, in addition to the oral disclosure of an interest at the time the subject concerned is discussed, there should be a statutory register of councillors' pecuniary interests, as recommended by the Prime Minister' s Committee on Local Government Rules of Conduct in 1974; and this register should be open to inspection by any elector for that particular authority. I further believe that one of the best safeguards against corruption and the possibility of corruption is a vigorous opposition to the ruling Party. When opposition is weak because the electoral system grossly under-represents the opposition, or does not represent it at all, as sometimes happens, temptation is greatest. This is, of course, a strong argument for proportional representation to be used in the election of local authorities.
To sum up, local government is big business. With genuine decentralisation, as I was saying earlier, it may become even bigger business, although for the moment, due to the economic situation, a curb must be placed on its growth. In these circumstances, we need to get value for money, to eliminate waste and to overhaul the traditional committee approach. The whole method of local government financing must be reformed, and in this connection we wait for Layfield. To operate satisfactorily, the fullest co-operation must be obtained from the staff and the public. A whole new range of ways to invite the public to participate in the work of the council must be explored. We must take further steps to safeguard the standards of conduct, and we must also safeguard the independence of local government from central Government control and dictation. Finally, may I say how much we all owe, though we may criticise them from time to time—and criticise them sometimes vigorously—to the hard-working councillors of all Parties and of none, and to the staff, who keep our local government functioning. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.28 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, this is the time of year, the season of the rate demand, when everybody is agreed that local government costs too much. It is usually quite a short season of a few weeks, and for the rest of the year we are all, in turn, calling on local government to do more: to implement the health and safety legislation, to step up the reorganisation of secondary education and to get busy and busier with the Community Land Act. Even this afternoon we have been urging them to do more for the disabled. Can any of your Lordships recall anyone, after May, asking Her Majesty' s Government why the county councils are not doing less? Or moving a Motion that the districts should slow down or cut back their services? Of course, it never happens. But perhaps this year it will be different, because certainly the ratepayers' feelings are exceptional in their intensity, and, as they can be analysed correctly, it might enable some positive and permanent remedies to be introduced.
I should like to say straight away that I do not think there is any truth in the
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suspicion that the present higher costs of local government are due to reorgan-isation. Local government in Greater London was not reorganised two years ago; but were the London ratepayers spared the rate rises? —not a hit of it! They went up marginally more in Greater London than elsewhere. All local government costs were pushed up over the country by high inflation on top of steadily expanding and extending services. Is the cost of local government services really all that unreasonable? What do our average weekly bills look like? When John Citizen and his household spend £3·40 a week on drinking and smoking, £5·50 on travelling around and £3 on the HP of their consumer durables, what does he pay in rates for his schools, social services and all the other city services put together? —£1·50. I do not believe that that is unreasonable. I believe that that is very good value for money; but the demand conies in one nasty dollop and it hurts.
We have now reached a point, nevertheless, where the citizen has been led to expect a higher scale of local government services either than he likes to afford or the country can afford. My hope is that this year the intensity of the mood of the rate demand season will last long enough for us to work out the implications henceforward of a low-growth or no-growth state of affairs for local government after a generation of continuous and sometimes very rapid expansion and increase in costs.
We in Parliament must restrain ourselves and restrain our Ministers—and this afternoon was a case in point—from urging yet further functions and expenses on local government; and local councils and their officers must turn from for ever asking for more resources to thinking much more carefully about how to get the best from the resources they already have. My belief is that manpower training is now probably the most fruitful field for attention, and it is already getting it, and, particularly, management training on how to adjust to a new era of little or no growth in resources, an era of the raising of quality from the expansion of paid professional staff to the involvement of community and voluntary effort, to get more things done and to provide more on a do-it-yourself basis. I repudiate the charge that the cost of local govern-

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ment services is unreasonably high or that the value we get for our money is low. But I am certain that the costs can go no higher and that better value can still be obtained; especially if we learn to do more for ourselves and our neighbours and expect less to be done for us.
I turn to the structure of local government. Whatever we may feel about the changes made two years ago, there are two points on which I hope we can all agree; namely, that the inherited pattern of no fewer than 1, 390 separate local authorities could continue no longer, that there had to be reform to reduce such fragmentation. The second point on which I hope we can all agree—and I am relieved to hear nothing of it in the moving of the Liberal Motion—is that, now reform has taken place, the existing structure of two main spheres, district and county, must remain unchanged for some years to come. I would suggest that it is far too early to come to a judgment of the new system, although there is no harm in our having a debate today about it, and far too early to contemplate any further fundamental changes.
The right approach at this stage is to give the new districts and the new counties time to settle down—for, after all, the climate in which they were asked to start their work could hardly have been more difficult—and, so far as possible, to use the counties and districts that have been elected, their members and their staff, to fulfil as many as possible of the local responsibilities that fall to be discharged. My belief is that the two basic types of authority, district and county, with adaptations and adjustments but not fundamental changes, can find patterns of co-operation in standing conferences, agency arrangements, joint committees which, however awkward they may seem to be, are preferable to the introduction and election of further authorities to carry out local functions and to take over responsibilities from central Government. I believe that the present weakness or fault, if there is one, is not that of the local authorities being unequal to the responsibilities that Whitehall would like to decentralise upon them, but rather that Ministers and their Departments are unwilling to give local authorities the wider responsibilities and
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freedoms that they should have and are now so much more capable of discharging.
This brings me to the relationship between central Government and local government which Ministers in another place were last week at pains to describe as a partnership. A partnership is certainly the right way to express the proper constitutional relationship between central Government and local government; but it was not the way in which it came across when, for example, Ministers were explaining how the Community Land Act would be made to work. The local authorities then were in many respects required to behave and to be treated as agents of central Government; and to a large extent they are still by many Whitehall Departments, particularly the DES and the DHSS who exercise far too much detailed control over their extensive programmes and their expenditures in the key sectors. Now that the reorganisation of local government is two years behind us, the most urgent and pressing item on the agenda is a critical overhaul of the way in which central Government controls local government and how the so-called partnership is working. In that connection I specially welcome a reference to the Joint Consultative Council on Local Government Finances. I believe that that is one of the most constructive developments affecting local government for many years, but is is only a first step in a process which must go much further and be more firmly established if the relationship is really to deserve the title of a partnership.
One pattern which deserves to be extended into other fields is that adopted by the DOE and local authorities for the administration of transport and highways; the allocation of finance by way of a supplementary block grant based on Ministerial broad approval of local plans stretching five years ahead, approval of a more precise programme for the year to come and a review of the achievements of the year past and a renunciation of further detailed approval and scrutiny of individual items for the year ahead. I should be glad to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, of anything more she can tell us of other proposals in this field of the relationship between central Government and local government which can indicate to us that the good start made with this Consultative Council and with the TPPs is to be

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continued so as to make the partnership with local government more realistic and their autonomy more real. Without this autonomy, local government cannot possibly be said to be democratic in any real sense.
This brings me to my last point. Democracy is supposed to mean government by the people. The theory is that it is exercised by each of us casting each of our three votes every three or four years for our Member of Parliament, our county councillor and our district councillor and by paying taxes and rates for large numbers of paid hands to do various things for us under the control of our representatives. It is widely felt that this works out in practice very different from the theory, and indeed is getting further from the theory, and that the theory itself needs reviewing. I believe it is a total illusion to think that three more votes on top of the three we already have—one for representatives in Europe, another for representatives in the regions and another for representatives in the neighbourhood—will really do much to stem the tide of dissatisfaction. I believe that lower and lower polls in these six elections and greater and greater protest are more likely results.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, may I stop the noble Lord at this point in his interesting and constructive speech to say that this is the philosophical problem. The noble Lord spoke about the "hitherto fragmentation of local government". One of the things I see now in all this is the problem of remoteness. Of course, I do not know the answer to this, but it is certainly one of the problems. I am very interested in what the noble Lord is proposing, but can he give an answer to it?
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, it is a difficult problem, but it is the one to which my few remaining remarks will be addressed. The fact is, as I was going on to say, that we have an electorate which is capable of and, I believe, desiring to do much more than cast three, four, five or six votes every three or four years. I believe the electors want positively and personally to participate not just in the statutory planning process but in all planning for their future and in taking many of their own decisions, setting up many of their
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own services and helping to keep them going.
Six tiers of Government—Europe, the United Kingdom, the region, the county, the district and the parish—trying to run our lives for us is, I believe, a burden of administration which is too great to be borne and so far from giving us more scope for real democracy it is in grave danger of imposing further constraints on personal freedom and responsibility too suffocating to be endured. I believe that our energies and, even more, our imagination should be turned elsewhere—to transform the swelling tide of negative protest at the system into a more positive contribution towards helping it, and away from fitting the real, live, local pressures and issues into the dull and insensitive moulds of statutory provision and party political dogma. Let us be like Ezekiel and see some new life breathed into these bare and barren bones.
Plenty of things can be done, Take, for example, public participation in planning and deciding things. With a few exceptions in the statutory planning field, the proper process of participation in local government is nowhere defined. The right time for the electorate to have their say is not specified. Everyone tries to participate all the time and no one knows when to give up participating. The present process is exhausting for the councillors, irritating for the citizens, time consuming for the officers, and it invites militancy.
Take another aspect of the proper democracy, that is to say, direct personal involvement in setting up and running things. There are large untapped resources in our communities today capable of meeting and managing many community needs. Good neighbour schemes, environmental clean up campaigns and voluntary play groups for children are just some of those with which we are already familiar. But there could be many more. By encouraging and fostering more of these, the level of many local government services could be raised and their range extended at no extra cost. But, of course, it is no good expecting the citizen and community involvement to happen unless the policies of Whitehall Departments and those of the political Parties are adaptable and adapted to the wishes of local people;

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and they are not so at present. I hope we are approaching the stage when the factor that most commends a councillor to the ward that elects him is his skill in stimulating and guiding of the communities he represents positively to influence and to provide for themselves more of the services they want and need. I hope we are also approaching the stage when proven skill in promoting and aiding community involvement is a qualification sought after by officers as an essential to advancement to the higher ranks in local government.
It has to be said that the traditional patterns of strong, hierarchical, centralised, professional departments in local government do not help this development in civic democracy. But area management is one recent development that does. This possibility has emerged from the inner area studies set up by the Department of the Environment three or four years ago under my right honourable friend the then Secretary of State, especially in Liverpool. I understand it has been adopted wholesale in Stockport and is being tested by the Department of the Environment and monitored by the Institute of Local Government in at least six other places.
Area management has four possible elements in it. There are area committees, made up of councillors of the area—a distinct and, in many areas, a novel political unit; area staff teams of officers exposed to local as well as departmental influences, and schemes for the decentra-lisation of various local government services nearer to the people for whom they are provided. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Banks, that that is desirable. Fourthly, there are the conduct of studies and surveys and the allocation of resources geared more specifically to the needs of an area. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, finds something there to bite on. I think we all need to give more attention to those last points and to add some flesh to the bare idea of local democracy.
I should therefore like to conclude by summarising four points. Let us commend rather than criticise local government for what they do for us, but henceforward let us be very wary of piling on to them
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many more jobs and adding to their costs and our own rates. Let us allow the basic structure to settle down; make central Government and local government partnership a reality and harness protest to positive purposes.

PAY AGREEMENT
3. 48 p.m.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I will repeat a Statement now being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His words are as follows:
"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to report to the House on the outcome of the discussions between the Government and the TUC on pay and on the wider operation of the social contract during the year from the beginning of next August. The House will already have heard about the conclusion reached by the General Council of the TUC at their meeting this morning.
"In my Budget speech I said that, in order to end next year with an inflation rate at least in line with our foreign competitors, we should aim at a further halving of our inflation rate by December 1977; and that this would require that in the next pay round the nation's money wage bill should rise by under half as much as it is likely to rise in this pay round.
"I went on to say that the tax reliefs I was describing were based on the assumption that the pay limit in the next round would be in the area of 3 per cent., but that much would depend on the way in which the new policy was structured.
"Early this morning the Government reached agreement with TUC representatives on recommendations they would make to the TUC General Council to implement the Government' s counter-inflation policy in the twelve months beginning on 1st August 1976. The General Council have now endorsed these recommendations by a very large majority and will commend them to a Special Conference called for 16th June.

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"On pay, the Government's discussions with the TUC concentrated on two main questions. They were the structure of a new pay limit for the year from 1st August 1976; and the level of the limit and its impact on the nation's pay bill. On structure, the discussions produced an increasingly strict and tight form of limit, reducing progressively the risk of extra earnings increases through exceptions or leakage.
"On the level of the limit, both sides were concerned to reach a conclusion which met the Government' s counter-inflation requirements; which protected the low paid but at the same time gave more room for differentials than the £6 limit; and which, above all, would command the support of the trade union movement at all levels; there is no basis on which any incomes policy is likely to succeed in practice other than the understanding and support of those on the shop floor.
"The result was a pay limit which, if approved by the TUC Special Conference, can be expected to add on average about 4½ per cent. to wages and salaries. This increase of about 4½ per cent. is well under half the increase represented by the £6 limit. That limit was equivalent to about 10½ per cent. and the effect of equal pay and certain transitional provisions was to add upwards of I per cent. to that.
"The new limit permits a maximum weekly increase of £4 and a minimum of £2.50, with a 5 per cent. limit on increases for those in the middle band of earnings. The effect of the low upper limit is to reduce the impact of the new agreement on the pay bill to about 4½ percent. I attach the highest importance to the clear and straightforward structure of this new pay limit. It was widely expected that there would be more exceptions and complexities in this second year of the policy, and I myself assumed that this would be so at the time of the Budget.
"In fact the structure of the new limit is in some respects even simpler than it has been for the £6. We do not on this occasion have to provide for large equal pay increases or transitional exceptions outside the pay limit, which in the current year have added appreciably to the pay bill. Next, there is no
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question of consolidating pay increases under the £6 policy into basic rates: this alone could have added as much as 2 per cent. to the total pay bill.
"No special exceptions are proposed for productivity bargains. There is no loophole for rectifying what people may see as anomalies. The calculation of pay increases during the year from 1st August is quite unambiguous, and avoids the uncertainties of the pay bill for a group. The increase will take the form of a supplement to the pay of the individual, calculated week by week or month by month as 5 per cent. of his total earnings, subject to a floor of £2. 50 and a ceiling of £4, which will apply to incomes at all levels above £80 a week.
"Apart from the changed form of the limit, the rules for the £6 limit will continue to apply, subject to a minor exception to permit the negotiation of occupational pension schemes up to the level required by law to permit contracting out of the State scheme, which the Government announced last July.
"This 4½ per cent. level of pay increase is likely to be below that in practically all the Western developed countries this year; even the Germans, with their excellent record, are seeing a rate of increase of about 5½ per cent.
"The Government regard these proposals, like the £6 proposals before them, as a thoroughly responsible and statesmanlike response by the TUC to the needs of the counter-inflation programme.
"The recent discussions have not been confined to pay alone. The TUC have naturally stressed the vital importance of keeping the rise in prices to the minimum during the period of the new pay policy. Price controls must not be swept aside while an incomes policy is in operation. The Government therefore believe that price controls on both profits and costs must continue at this time but that the price control regime must be so modified as to encourage investment and jobs in our economy. My right honourable friend will be discussing current price controls and the essential changes that we believe must be made to ensure

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economic growth with the CBI, the TUC and all other interested parties. As soon as these discussions have been concluded, a further Statement will be made to the House and a Consultative Document will be issued in the normal way.
"In order to contain the effect of price increases on those with growing families, I propose not to proceed with next September's 5p increase in school meal charges. This will cost £35 million in the current year. It is something to which the TUC representatives attached great importance in our talks.
"The TUC have of course been equally concerned with jobs and training. As recent surveys have shown, demand from exports and investment is now expected to increase rapidly and the prospects for employment are much brighter in consequence. Since the last TUC Annual Congress I have brought forward four separate sets of selective measures, in September, December and February and again in my recent Budget, to improve the prospects for employment, both directly, as through the introduction and improvement of the Temporary Employment Subsidy, and indirectly, for example through the additional expenditure on industry schemes and to extend facilities for industrial training.
"The full effect of these measures has not yet come through but we estimate that over 100, 000 people already have jobs or training places as a result of them. I now propose to allocate an additional £15 million for training and job creation by the Manpower Services Commission.
"The additional expenditure of £50 million will be charged against the contingency reserve and will not add to the expenditure totals announced in the Public Expenditure White Paper.
"The Government are satisfied that the new agreement, if approved by the TUC Special Conference, will, as I have explained, meet the requirements of the counter-inflation policy. When that has happened, they will recommend to Parliament the enactment in full of the conditional tax reliefs specified in the Budget."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.58 p.m.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think it is arguable, and perhaps even more than arguable, in commenting on this Statement, for which we are grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House, that the country really cannot afford an increase of incomes at all. If we look around at our competitors and compare their situation to ours, it certainly is not very reassuring. Though, of course, 4½per cent. is a great deal better than nothing, it is not as good as the 3 per cent. which the Government themselves said was all that they felt could be afforded. Nevertheless, it is much better than nothing. At the same time, one ought to remember that the difficulties are of the Government's making. In March 1974, as a result of their Election promises, which I think were foolish, and as a result of abandoning the Conservative Government's incomes policy, wage settlements were sometimes running at nearly 30 per cent. Nobody can say that the £6 a week, and now the 4½ per cent., is not a great deal better than that.
I hope very much, too, that the noble Lord the Leader of the House can elaborate a little—although perhaps it is not fair to ask him to do so—on what seems to be a contradictory statement in what he has said about the need to keep price controls, and, at the same time, to get rid of them. One thing is absolutely certain, that if business and industry in this country are not allowed to make a good and sufficient profit then we shall not get investment; they will not get their cash flow and we shall not get the resurgence of business interest in this country.
May I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House one or two questions. First, may I ask him whether the £2.50 is going to be a right, as the £6 limit grew up to be? Secondly, may I ask him whether, as I take it to be, although there is no mention of it in the Statement, the tax concessions will take place? If that is so, could the noble Lord tell the House what the 4½ per cent., plus the tax concession, means in terms of net demand on the economy? Thirdly, may I ask the noble Lord whether any consideration at all has been given by the Government to the problems which this agreement will bring to middle management—and not just to middle management, but to skilled craftsmen? There

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are other people working in this country who are not members of trade unions and they have to be considered as well. There is no doubt that that class of person has suffered a considerable decline in his real standard of life over the last few years while those who have been earning less have, in point of fact, had an increase in their standard of life. I think that the noble Lord will know of the frustration, the demoralisation and, indeed, the determination of some of those whom we can least afford to lose, to leave this country if there is no light at the end of what has been for them a very unpleasant tunnel.
Lastly, I would say this to the noble Lord. I think that the people of this country are becoming very confused about the economic situation. I do not necessarily lay the blame for that entirely at the Government's door. One morning we hear on the radio a statement from the retailers that in two years' time everything is going to be all right; the next morning we have a statement from some Cambridge economist that doom is around the corner. Everything is contradicted from one day to the next. I think that the people of this country are becoming thoroughly bewildered about the economic situation. I hope very much that this agreement, which I welcome, will not be taken by the Government and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as an excuse for euphoria about the economy, because it deals only with part of the trouble. Not least, the agreement does not deal with the enormous borrowing requirements of the Government. Therefore, while welcoming this agreement I hope that we can keep a sense of proportion about what difficulties lie ahead.
4.3 p.m.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, from these Benches I, too, should like to express a welcome to this agreement, particularly if it ends the uncertainty about this country which has prevailed both here and abroad since the Budget speech, which left so much in the air. May I put three questions to the noble Lord the Leader of the House. First, can the noble Lord say by how much this new formula is likely to reduce inflation? Secondly, can the noble Lord say how it is proposed to ensure that public expenditure is contained within the
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£50 million and whether that figure includes expenditure on pay in local government? Thirdly, there was reference in the Statement to occupational pensions, and I wonder whether the noble Lord the Leader of the House could clarify that point. Ts this a new exemption or is it, as I think it is, a restatement of the existing position, in which nothing can be negotiated which exceeds the minimum required to contract out? Nothing more than that can be given. If this is so, do the Government recognise that these restrictions will make it virtually impossible to implement in April 1978 the new Pensions Act, to the detriment of many millions of workers, most of whom are in the manual and female categories? I hope that the Government will look again at the matter because we are getting too close to the December 1977 date by which all the decisions must be made by employers.
4.4 p.m.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Byers, for the welcome he has given to the contents of this Statement and also, although rather belatedly, at the very end, for the welcome given to it by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. I take the view that the agreement that has been reached with the Government by the TUC negotiating team is a major advance not only for dealing with inflation but, I believe, in the long term for dealing with the way in which we conduct negotiations on pay and general conditions. These negotiations have been conducted under the constraints and the threat of the consequences of inflation. When one considers that in July of last year the pay bill was increasing at an annual rate of 29 per cent. and that now the TUC have given an undertaking to the Government that they will try to persuade their members to accept a pay policy of 4½ per cent., this is indeed remarkable and very great credit is, I think, due to the TUC negotiating team. Clearly anything is better than nothing, but this is a very major advance.
Turning to price controls, clearly these need to be retained but modified and, as the Statement says, it is the Government's intention to undertake immediate discussions with the CBI, the TUC and any other interested organisation to find

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out what changes should be made—particularly, as the Statement says, in order to deal with investment. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that without profit there can be no investment. That point, therefore, must be very much in the minds of those who are looking into the matter.
Under the £6 procedure, the lower limit of £2. 50 is not a right but the lower limit. It may be that some companies will not be able to afford it but this is something which the unions, or the workers' representatives, will have to negotiate with their own employers.
So far as the tax concessions and their consequences upon the national demand are concerned, in his Budget Statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that if one made these concessions the consequences would be marginal. The Chancellor's Statement was based upon 3 per cent., but for reasons which one could go into—it is a very complex discussion—the difference between the 3 per cent. and the 4½ per cent. now proposed is not so great as would appear, because on the 3 per cent. basis we were considering a policy where the constraints and the limitations might well have been less. Therefore, I take the view that the demand on the economy still remains marginal or, perhaps, less marginal than it was when the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his Statement.
With regard to middle management, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that they in particular have been affected not only by this pay policy but by that of the noble Lord's own Government. This is one of the greatest difficulties in seeking a national policy during our present economic constraints and I fully appreciate the very great hardship, frustration and, in some cases, downright despair that has been caused. But when one is seeking a policy of this sort in these conditions, one of the greatest dangers is to seek to create exceptions—because where does one draw the line? The Government will shortly need to consider and discuss the way in which we can ensure that we have the right middle management in both the private and the public sector. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said that when he reads the newspapers and listens to the media he is confused about what is the present economic situation
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of this country and what its prospects are.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am not confused!
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is certain about what it is, and he may be one of the very few exceptions in your Lordships' House. I must say that I am confused when I read the Press and listen to the media. They do not seem to say the same thing from one day to the next. I will say only this to the noble Lord. I believe that we have made some progress during the last nine and twelve months. We see exports beginning to move forward—and heaven knows! the pound is so undervalued that here is a heaven-sent opportunity for industry really to exploit the export market. I think we have now a real opportunity, if we are prepared to seize it, but I would assure the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that there is no sense of euphoria in the Government. There is a realisation that although some progress has been made down the right road, the road is still very long for us and we shall only reach the end of it if we genuinely believe in ourselves and have the determination to fulfil these policies. I believe that what the TUC have offered today is a realisation by the TUC—the representatives of the workers of this country—that they too recognise what is at stake and they are determined to see the country through.
The noble Lord, Lord Byers, asked about pensions. This is really a restatement of the present position and we are not anticipating any change, certainly not at this moment. The noble Lord also asked me two other questions: first, about the Contingency Fund—the extra £50 million. I assure the House that the Government are firmly bound by the White Paper proposals on public expenditure and that this sum of £50 million will be taken out of the Contingency Fund and therefore must be at the expense of any other claims that there may be upon it. We do not intend to see the Contingency Fund exceeded. With regard to the first question put by the noble Lord, I do not have the details. It is a complex matter but I will write to him within the next day and provide him with that information.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, can my noble Leader tell me

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this? The £6 limit stopped dead at a salary of £8,500—is there any equivalent ceiling to the present proposals?
Lord SHEPHERD: No, my Lords. The limit of £8,500 is abolished but any increases will be contained within the £4 upper limit.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that some of us would wish to congratulate both the Government and the TUC negotiators on their very statesmanlike answer to the problems which they faced? Is he further aware that unless we can make this a productivity, prices and income arrangement, any increase will be inflationary and will not in fact reduce the levels of inflation at which this is aimed? Will he therefore say whether we are each year to subject ourselves to the kind of agonies which we have had in the last few weeks, while speculators play ducks and drakes with the pound on the pretext that they do not know whether or not an agreement will be made? Will the noble Lord agree that it would be far better if we were now to accept the need for a permanent incomes policy rather than go on with the kind of nonsense we have had to endure recently?
Further, will the noble Lord say whether the 4½ per cent. will he paid on the standard working week or on all hours worked? In other words, in industries which are working on overtime will the overtime rate be enhanced as well as the standard work week, which we know is to be improved? The long period of collective bargaining based on economic power has produced a mal-distribution of income throughout industry and it will not be sufficient for long simply to have a standard percentage increase; rather would it be better if we could allocate certain sums of money to each industry within which they could do their negotiating. I think that would help to iron out the mal-distribution which we now see in so many of our industries.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I very much agree with my noble friend on the question of productivity. A pay policy of this sort clearly does not produce a stimulus for improvement in productivity, although I might suggest to my noble friend that the risk to jobs today, which is very much in people' s minds, is in itself a stimulus, or ought to be a stimulus, to productivity.
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In regard to the question of overtime, this agreement would mean that if an individual with his basic pay plus overtime was to exceed (shall we say?) £80 a week, then the limit of £4 immediately applies. Overtime is included in the general income to which this limit will be applicable.
As to the future, I am sufficiently—if I may use the term—an old-fashioned Socialist to believe that one cannot seek to plan the national economy in terms of investment and other fields without having some plan for pay, which is a major part of the cost of industry. However, I am sure my noble friend will recognise that a second year of pay policy is always harder to achieve than the first year. I hope that the TUC and the CBI and the Government, through the NEDDY would, once we have this policy well entrenched and fully supported, give consideration as to what it should be for the next year and what should be permanent. But this is a matter which I suggest we need to approach with a little delicacy, recognising the different conflicting views which exist not only within the trade union movement but also within management and throughout industry. I personally believe that one day we shall have to go to a more sensible way of achieving pay settlements than the continual friction that we have had in the past.
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, I have listened with admiration to the explanation given by the noble Lord the Leader of the House as to how the figure of 4½ per cent. is very like the figure of 3 per cent. which was originally adumbrated by the Chancellor, but what I failed to hear is this. In the pre-Budget deliberations of the Treasury, when the Chancellor fixed a figure of 3 per cent., he no doubt had in mind a stable pound, but since that time the pound has declined by some 8 or 9 per cent. This figure surely is in addition to inflation and it is for this reason that one doubts whether the settlement of 4½ per cent. is in fact identical with 3 per cent. I wonder whether the noble Lord can explain this?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, this is something which we could clearly debate, although a debate on the Floor of the House on a technical and complex matter is not necessarily the way in which we can achieve agreement. I could explain to

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the noble Lord on another occasion that the figure is not as far removed as is believed. It is true that the loss in the value of the pound in recent months must be a contributory factor to inflation in the coming 12 months. It is a great credit to the TUC negotiators that they were prepared to recommend this settlement in the light of the pressures and the problems which are going to be placed on their members in the next 12 months.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I welcome the Statement; however I have one question to put. The noble Lord the Leader of the House said there would be no exceptions. Does this mean that those who are on salaries with an incremental scale cannot get those increments and the 4½ per cent.? If that is so, it is extremely unfair as between the private and public sectors, the public sector being largely on incremental scales.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I can give a very snap answer. I do not believe that incrementals are excluded, but I should like to check on it and I will write to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. I would only say to him that in all cases there are anomalies and hardships, as we heard at Question Time yesterday.
Lord ROBERTHALL: My Lords, the Government are to be congratulated on this settlement, which is much better than seemed possible a short time ago. I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord the Leader of the House on telling us that the Government are not in a state of euphoria. The difficulty about the economic situation is that it has been very bad indeed. A year ago we were on the brink of disaster. The situation is now much better than it was. So everybody is inclined, when the team wins a match, to throw their hats in the air and forget about the relegation which was so near. The more the right honourable gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and members of the Government go on pointing out how far we are from being out of the wood, the more hope we have later on. I congratulate them.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I say that the only time I shall have any euphoria is when this country is like Liverpool, top of the League. Until that
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moment, there will be no sense of euphoria. But being serious for a moment, we have made some progress. We are far from safe, but I believe that at least the ship is being pointed in the right direction. My Lords, 35 minutes for an important Statement is, perhaps, right, but I think we might now be encouraged to move on to the debate.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, may I ask just one question? Would the noble Lord the Leader of the House agree that, if inflation is to be conquered, the sensible way to do it would be to tie any wage rise to any increase in the gross national product? For instance, if the gross national product is 3 per cent., then the wage rise would be 3 per cent.; if the GNP were 5 per cent., the wage rise would be 5 per cent. Surely that is the only rational way to defeat inflation.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, rational, but not necessarily realistic. People have to live; people still have to buy things. Therefore, we must seek the right balance between those legitimate demands and what the nation, in effect, can afford.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND AND WALES
4. 23.p.m.
Debate resumed.
The EARL of LONGFORD: My Lords, I acknowledge with gratitude my exalted position in the order of speakers; it is not as high as I have been when I used to play some part in allocating the positions. I take it as a compliment to the old Oxford City Labour Party, of which I was once an ardent member under the leadership of the late Richard Crossman. He was not restrained in those days by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, because that was long before her time, and not even by the Dame, as she came to be called in his diaries, but by the aunt by marriage of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, Lady Townsend. Those were exhilarating times.
Of course, it is possible to discuss this topic under the heading of constitutional structure and procedure or under the heading of the issues that divide the parties —I will not say of Party politics; we never

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think of them nowadays in this House—or again from the point of view of the social reformer and social worker. I shall be mainly concerned with that last aspect. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Banks, for introducing this subject, and refer to the thoughtful speeches of the noble Lord who dealt mainly with the structure, and of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, who dealt with structure and some of the Party issues.
With the greatest respect, I must ask the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, to realise that when he felt he was speaking in a very non-Party way and quite dispassionately, he was in fact making a speech that could not possibly have been made from this side of the House, except by someone about to cross the Floor. He was putting forward all these matters from a Conservative point of view. For example, the noble Lord alluded to what seemed to be the rather dangerous demand to increase facilities for the disabled. He mentioned them as topics having been raised at Question Time. Of course, he is entitled to his outlook, and he has stressed the fact that the cost to local government must not be allowed to increase. The noble Lord is entitled to say that we on this side of the House, and the leadership under the Prime Minister and the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Healey, have accepted officially, as a Party at any rate, the need for very considerable restraint on local government spending. But without pursuing that topic, if I may put the matter simply and I hope not unfairly, the noble Lord sees this as a kind of permanent restriction. We see it as a temporary restriction, and regard with the greatest possible regret the fact that in the years ahead, owing to the crisis we have just been discussing, we must have this unwelcome restraint. The noble Lord seemed to be laying down a kind of absolute principle that local government costs are not increased, but I do not want to pursue that aspect this afternoon.
As regards the constitutional structure, one of the many achievements of the late Mr. Richard Crossman was to set up the Redcliffe-Maud Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Recicliffe-Maud, and his colleagues produced a report widely favoured on this side of the House, but which has met with little favour by and large, from the other side of the House.
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I am an unrepentant supporter of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, perhaps on personal grounds. There is nobody, in my own generation anyway, who seems to me to have done more public service, one way and another, than the noble Lord, so I would be biased in favour of any report of his. But, again, I will not pursue the topic of the virtues of the Redcliffe-Maud Report, or the proposal of the Labour Party that we are now bringing forward as compared with what we have now got.
I agree that we, or whoever is in power, must make the best of the existing structure, but that does not mean we cannot hope to alter it. If the Labour Party are in power for a long time, I am sure it will be altered quite fundamentally. I have no doubt about that. Having said that, I want to concern myself with how we can make the greatest possible increase in the social services during this period of financial stringency, which I must accept as a fact for our purposes this afternoon—a temporary fact, I hope, but a fact. I should like to lay the greatest stress on what I am going to say—I have given the noble Baroness some notice of this—about the difficulties that arise from the discrepancy between the standards provided in each particular service by the best local authorities and the not-so-good ones, or if you like the bad ones. I shall be dealing mainly with that discrepancy.
If we are to talk about improving the general standards slightly, we must realise that in some cases a large increase is necessary before anything like a tolerable standard is attained. I should like to take three services, all of which depend considerably on assistance derived from the local authorities. In the first place, let us take the mentally handicapped. The phrase, "the Cinderella of the social services" is rather worn out, so I will try to avoid it, but no one is likely to deny that we, as a nation, have spent far too little on the mentally handicapped hitherto. There has been some small but steady progress in recent years.
Let us take two examples, the local authority adult training centres and the local authority hostels for children. The figures that I give are maybe not the latest, but they are the latest available. Of course, the reconstruction has affected the

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situation but not the underlying point. The number of places in local authority adult training centres rose from 22, 000 to over 34, 000 between 1970 and 1975. That was a steady progress in those five years of more than 50 per cent. But it was still below the target set in the White Paper of 1971, which mentioned 72, 000 places. And the same was true about the figures for hostels. So there is no possible ground for satisfaction, let alone complacency, with the position as it is now.
How can we make sure that this limited rise, this trickle, continues under the conditions that we are all now aware of, the conditions of stringency? I am not accusing the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, of being in any way less compassionate than I am, and everyone will agree that this small increase ought to continue, but will it continue in the world of the next few years, in the Britain of the next few years? A disquieting feature arises in all the social services, but is nowhere more noticeable than in this. This is the factor that I mentioned earlier I was going to stress, this sharp discrepancy between the good authorities and the backward ones. Take the adult training centres. There are 91 places per 100, 000, I am told, or there were, according to the last count, in Dorset; down to 40, less than half, in Cornwall. In regard to hostels and homes for children, taking county by county, we find that Staffordshire in 1975 had 77 places, and no places at all had then been provided—I may be told otherwise by the Minister, although she has not been given notice of these details—in Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Devon, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. So there are these very great diversities between the good places and the bad.
The general point I want to raise, having given notice to the Minister, is this. What leverage are we going to exert on the retrograde authorities to bring them up to the level of the good ones at a time when we are in a general sense saying there must be an attitude of restraint? I would urge, of course, that the mentally handicapped in general should receive a higher priority than they have had or seems to be likely. But may I concentrate on the question I have just put: how can the retrograde authorities in particular be levered up to the level of the good ones?
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Of course, I realise and all of us who have been involved in local government know, that we cannot have it all ways. We know it is of the essence of local government that there should be a large element of discretion, and that discretion will be used in various ways; some people will use it more generously than others. But in what I have called the age of stringency the need for reducing these variations, or at any rate making sure that the minimum is provided, is ever greater and ever more obvious.
I would say a few words about the physically disabled. I am still thinking of all this from the point of view of the local authorities, who are our concern today. The main point that I have just been making applies equally here; there is a sharp contrast between the good and the bad. The Disablement Income Group circulated recently all directors of social services, to ask what the position was likely to be in the coming years in view of the threatened retrenchment. I have the answers available here. They certainly provide an astonishing variety. Many of the authorities consider themselves unable to continue—and I think it is true of most of the authorities—with previously planned rates of growth. Some are actually cutting back services. This is all the more serious in view of the backlog in recent years. In some cases, of course, it is not a question of just prodding someone who has fallen far behind, but of trying to encourage the average authority to follow the best ones. The Disablement Income Group attach particular importance to the Crossroads scheme, which has been in operation in the Rugby area since 1974, and perhaps elsewhere. Under this scheme, which represents co-operation between an enlightened authority and a charitable body, the local authority provides care attendance for severely disabled persons who have no relatives to look after them. They are thus enabled to remain at home. That not only saves money, but may make the difference between the break-up of many marriages and their preservation. Here the point I am making is that somehow or other we must induce the average authority, somehow or other we must stimulate them, to emulate their enlightened brethren. Once again, have the Government any ideas as to how this can be achieved?

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Finally, I would say a few words about the homeless, in whom many other noble Lords besides myself take a special interest. The variation between the different local authorities is just as blatant here as in the other cases. The Minister revealed in a reply given last December that, for example, to take only one point, about three-quarters of all authorities restrict their help to those who have connections with their area. Anyone who knows the problem knows that that is quite inadequate. One could give many other examples of the discrepancies. The Government's objective, the Minister said at the end of last year, will be to secure the wider observance of the best practices, which, in his own words, an increasing number of authorities are adopting. Here, again, we come back to the familiar problem. How do we raise the standards of all the authorities; how do we induce them, to use a neutral word, to move in the direction of the best ones?
This becomes more and more important the more the stringency operates. In the case of the homeless, it seems that in principle we have the Government on our side. I have given the noble Baroness notice of this question. The obvious need is for legislation to set out clearly the minimum obligations of district councils towards the homeless. Last November Mr. Crosland, then the Minister for the Environment, indicated that he intended to place the statutory responsibility for accommodating the homeless on the housing authorities. Well, that was what was said last December, and here we are in May and, so far as I know, we have not heard any more. I beg the noble Baroness, whose heart is very much in all these matters, to say that this legislation will be brought forward at the beginning of the next Session of Parliament. The noble Baroness's own sympathies are not in doubt, but is she in a position to make an official statement?
There are, of course, endless other disparities and anomalies in the social service provision of the various local authorities. To some extent, as I have said, they are an essential ingredient of the local autonomy that we all prize highly. But at this time, when local authorities which have not been doing at all well are being given an excuse by the general need for economy to continue in their sluggish ways, it becomes more and more imperative
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to watch them closely and to guide them gently but firmly into better paths.
4.40 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I, too, would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Banks, for introducing this Motion this afternoon, and in following the noble Earl, Lord Longford, I think I should declare an interest as president of a county association of local councils, because much of what I will have to say this afternoon refers to the lowest tier of the local authorities. I was very much interested in what the noble Earl said, because we both share a great interest in the operation of the social services.
The noble Earl asked your Lordships a number of rhetorical questions. If I may be allowed to interpolate, I think he asked, how can we ensure that this limited trickle of expenditure will continue? In the course of my remarks I hope to demonstrate ways in which economies can indeed sustain the social services and perhaps improve them, though I agree it is in a limited way. Of one thing I am absolutely certain, and that is that the Local Government Act 1972 was both necessary and desirable in the way that it introduced two, or, in effect, three tiers of local authority. It is interesting, looking back on the speeches on Second Reading on 31st July 1972, to see how things have fallen out. I must say that I was wholly in agreement with my noble friend Lord Sandford in what he said on that day. I entirely agree with his comments today, and especially his four closing points on how we should address ourselves to this subject.
I must say that I find it difficult in many ways to follow the coherent pattern of the Liberal Party in this particular field. While I agree to some limited extent that even at the present moment the size of some districts is a little large, nevertheless on Second Reading of the Local Government Bill in 1972, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, mentioned particularly both provincial and regional authorities. Of course this is very much part and parcel of the Liberal concept of very large regional groupings.
So we come to the state of local government as it is today with, in effect, three tiers. As I said a little earlier, I wish to address myself to the lowest tier, the local councils. We have a large barrage of

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criticism addressed to local government, and we first ought to clarify this criticism in two categories. Are these criticisms of inflation, or are they criticisms of the two tier system? A number of us would agree that many of the criticisms relate to inflation and the results of inflation rather than to the structure itself. Had it been decided to adopt the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, it may have been possible to demonstrate that the results would have been even worse so far as the inflation cost of local government services is concerned. However, it should be in the forefront of our minds to consider the present need to economise and cut down waste, as both my noble friend Lord Sandford and the noble Lord, Lord Banks, have said. Let us look, therefore, at the field of concurrent functions between the district and local councils. Here is a fruitful field for your Lordships to examine because quite substantial savings can be made in the cost of administration.
The overheads of managing matters of detail from a rather distant centre are disproportionately high. This can be demonstrated in a quite recent example from Leicestershire. The problem was how to care for 26 churchyards. The district council were initially asked to estimate the cost of looking after them. They proposed an estimate of £16, 000. The same project was offered to local councils, and they estimated on precisely the same terms of reference and achieved a saving of £10, 000 by offering a budget of £6, 000. This they achieved in the use of direct labour. This demonstrates both a need and a readiness of local and district councils to work together, and to see how often things can be done more effectively, efficiently, and cheaply without lowering standards. This surely is what my noble friend Lord Sandford was saying in regard to partnership. I know that he related it to the partnership between local authorities and central Government. Nevertheless, in our estimation, there should be a similar sense of partnership between the different tiers between the local authority. Taking the matter of local government finance one stage further, I should mention that the National Association of Local Councils has given both written and oral evidence to the Layfield Committee, whose report we now await.
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I refer now to the question of local government boundaries, and the two different systems for England and Wales which were enshrined in the 1972 Act. The two different systems were the two different systems of organisation and rearrangement, because in Wales an initial Community Review concerned with geography is now complete. In Wales they are better able to proceed with the district electoral arrangements, whereas in England the system was reversed; the review of electoral arrangements came first, with no intention of starting to review parish boundaries until 1979. The underlying reason for reversing these two processes may have been administrative, because of the shortage of commissioners to act in this important capacity. Nevertheless, I think it can be said that Wales has quite a head start on England in this particular field. This means a risk in the organisation of parish boundaries in England because the shape of parishes is likely to be contrived for electoral reasons and not by the natural features of geography—in other words, the computer wins. This is a source of anxiety to the National Association of Local Councils, and perhaps it may be possible to confound this and to reassure those concerned. I offer this as a present anxiety to your Lordships for consideration.
One of the more important aspects of the Local Government Act 1972, so far as local councils are concerned, was a new right enshrined in that Act for local councils to be shown plans. I should like to address your Lordships in regard to the question of planning, and planning permission. Nearly 30 years have passed since the 1947 Act, and perhaps it is appropriate to cast our minds in this direction for a few moments. Clearly it was in the mind of Dr. Alice Coleman earlier this week, when addressing the Royal Geographic Society on this subject. On Monday evening Dr. Alice Coleman suggested three serious defects in the planning concept. She suggested that ribbon development has in fact increased, whereas the 1947 Act aimed at its reduction. She suggested, as most of us are only too well aware, that farmland is disappearing at a very high rate indeed; and, thirdly, that in the past 30 years we have seen an ever increasing loss of our cultivatable acreage. Dr. Coleman is in a very good

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position to assess this because she has been measuring and analysing the first utilisation study by Professor Dudley Stamp in 1933.
There are really four main causes of present anxieties. Local authorities are overloaded with vague and differing criteria of land use; secondly, local authorities are using computers instead of using their feet and maps; thirdly, derelict land is being used in insufficient quantities and, fourthly, official planning ideas very often conflict with local planning considerations. This field in which that lowest tier, the local council, can operate can, in our view, be extremely beneficial on environmental grounds. If Dr. Coleman's criticism that an insufficient use of local knowledge is being made, surely the local council can bring to bear with great benefit its intimate knowledge of a district. We discussed a few weeks ago the question of allotments, a matter of great consideration among many residents both in the Greater London Council area and throughout the United Kingdom. Once again, the knowledge within the local area is very much in the hands of the local council and can be brought to bear with value.
I wish to comment on the point my noble friend Lord Sandford made, about breathing on the dry bones. No body other than that lowest tier of local authority is able to breath with such benefit. It is possible to have a much more intimate relationship with the electorate through local councils. Had there been unitary authorities, the sense of remoteness from the electorate by the elected representatives would be enormous, and I suggest that the local council can, in present circumstances, benefit democracy enormously. The things which really count to so many people in this country are relatively simple matters, but they are, nevertheless, immensely important. For example, over 8 million people every week wish to collect their pensions, a difficult task in remote areas. Here is a field in which the local council and local representatives can help those in rural areas. An efficient prescription service can very often be assisted by a local council. The health and social services, to which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred, can benefit very greatly from an association between voluntary bodies and the local council. It is almost
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certain that in the next few years, as unfortunately the stringency may last for more than 12 months, local authorities will be calling on, and indeed expecting, voluntary bodies to help them in these very important fields, as they are doing most helpfully now.
I end by referring to the subject of partnership. I am sure that a sense of partnership and association between the tiers of local authority and voluntary bodies will greatly benefit local government in England and Wales today.
The Earl of LYTTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a simple and elementary question? Has he been applying the term "local councils" to what other speakers have referred to as district councils, in other words, parish councils?
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that I have been carefully referring to "local councils" since the term "parish councils" was changed in 1972. Now the organisation is the National Association of Local Councils. I beg the noble Lord's pardon if I misled him, and I certainly did not intend to mislead him or the House. I have been referring to the parish or local council.
4.55p.m.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, I must start by redisclosing an interest because I still have the honour to be president of the Association of County Councils. There are presidents and presidents, and they have very different powers. I have no doubt that my noble friend Lord Sandys, who is a very powerful character, has powers equivalent to his character. In the case of my Association, which has the most kindly and benevolent relations with its president, I am never instructed what I am to say and, so far as I know, no member of it ever reads what I have said. I must also apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Banks, for my absence, owing to another engagement during the first part of his speech.
The new—if they can still so be called —local authorities come in for more than their fair share of criticism, much of it ill-informed, and I want today, as my noble friend Lord Sandford has, to commend the new authorities for the

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increasing success with which they are grappling with their very formidable current problems. Most of them seem to be settling down well and adapting themselves with notable success, getting the measure of those problems and, more important, building up new loyalties and giving an increasingly efficient service, and this after only two years of the new system.
Because some people are now questioning whether there was ever a need for reorganisation in 1972—I am glad that Lord Sandford referred to that—it is as well to recall why reorganisation was undertaken. During nearly 90 years of their existence there had been dramatic changes in the work of local authorities; the quantum and the complications of the services had grown out of all knowledge. Whitehall had to deal directly with 1, 400 local authorities, and this at a time when the proportion of the local authorities' expenditure that was being met by central funds had grown to more than half. In some cases new services involved technical aspects which were beyond the powers of the small staffs of the smaller authorities. There was, therefore, general agreement that some reorganisation was necessary. As noble Lords will remember, the Royal Commission reported in favour of unitary authorities, broadly on a county basis and that was accepted in principle by the Government of thè day. Eventually the succeeding Government preferred a system of two main tiers; as Lord Sandys said, there are three tiers of local government. That was adopted and personally I think that it was the right choice. I could not agree with the noble Earl, Lord Longford, in his preference for the unitary system. Had unitary authorities been adopted, the current criticisms of remoteness would, it seems to me, be bound to have been more vigorous and more justified.
Local government expenditure has increased rapidly in recent years. What are the main reasons for this, so far as one can sort them out? They are not, in the main, as a result of local government reorganisation. I am sure that Lord Sandford was right on that. In fact, as he said, it is some confirmation of this that the expenditure of authorities which were not reorganised has increased pro rata, in fact at a slightly higher rate. Nor was it
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because local authorities had taken the bit between their teeth, so to speak, and rushed off to initiate new projects on their own. The chief reasons were unquestionably, first, inflation—as Lord Sandys said —secondly, the additional responsibilities that have been continuously laid by Parliament on local authorities without any very accurate costing having been done at the time; and, thirdly, the higher standards and remuneration which have been current in the public service since that day.
As an example of what I mean—I will not weary the House with other examples because noble Lords will knowwhat I mean when I say that they have been continuously loaded with new functions—in 1974 under the heading of "Consumer protection "that Department was faced with five Acts of Parliament, eights sets of regulations, nine orders, two sets of rules and one direction, all of which necessitated extra work and more staff. I am not criticising that. It is a statement of fact illustrating what I mean. There are some cases in which the new structure is proving more expensive. Perhaps the best example is in the planning field. Reorganisation provided that the responsibilities for planning should be shared between the counties and districts and that has unquestionably caused a need for more technical staff—who are hard to find—and this is a source of additional expenditure. In some cases, it is quite feasible to argue that the scales of remuneration at the time of reorganisation may have been on the high side but the overriding reason is without doubt the general expansion in all national social services which have received the approval of the electorate and the public at large and which of course cost money. That is a point which is never made as clearly as it should be when the legislation is passed. As I have said before, I never remember a case of a Bill where the financial memorandum estimate bore any relation to what the measure ultimately cost.
We are shortly to have an authoritative report on local government finance from Mr. Layfield's Committee. This will be an important report. Few people are expecting any dramatic or revolutionary recommendations and, in particular, I believe that the chance of a feasible and workable new source of local finance will

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prove a very difficult search. Certainly, the increase in local rates over the past few years has been very painful. Some people say that rates as a source of local government revenue should be entirely eliminated. I imagine that most people believe that that would not be possible even if it were desirable. I believe that rates are a sensible, entirely practicable and fair basis for some parts of local government expenditure. However, bearing in mind the manifold functions of local authorities today, rates do not provide a fair or reasonable source for the major part of that expenditure. We must await the Layfield report and must not expect too much from it, though it will be an authoritative report from very know-ledgable people.
I turn to the policies of devolution for Scotland and Wales. There is some renewed talk about a new tier of local government for the rest of the United Kingdom. As regards Wales, I do not wish to say more than that prevailing Welsh opinion seems quite strongly to feel that if the proposed policies of devolution were in force, local government in Wales would not be brought nearer to the citizen but rather would be further off. Everybody who talks about Wales with the greatest knowledge insists that the problem is entirely different from the Scottish problem. I therefore trust that we shall have a separate Bill for Wales if one is brought forward, rather than having one Bill for the two countries or two Bills brought forward at the same moment. If that were done, I believe that we should get into a real mess. My own opinion is clear: it is that if there were to be a new, additional tier superimposed on what we have at present and based on regions, it would be certain to destroy local government as we have it, and to result, as I believe my noble friend Lord Sandys suggested, in our having six tiers of government; that is, the lowest level, the district councils, the county councils, the regional level, Parliament and the EEC. We should be far and away the most overgoverned country in the world, and the most expensively governed, too.
It is true that, if any powers given to a regional tier were to be delegated entirely by central Government, that would be a different thing. However, none of us who knows anything about local government believes for a moment that that would
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be the situation. Some of the powers would not be delegated from the centre but would be brought up from local authority level to the new regional body. I should like to declare my own view; that is, that if one looks at the rest of the United Kingdom and considers each region, one will find that in many parts of the United Kingdom there is no real homogeneity and no identifiable regional loyalties which would be strong enough to justify a separate and additional tier of government. I speak with special knowledge of my own area in the South-West, where the distances are large. We have thought much about this and we cannot look forward with enthusiasm to regional government even in an area which many people might think of as being ideal for that purpose. On another occasion, I may tell your Lordships more about the differences between Devonians and Cornishmen, but perhaps I should not do so now.
I believe that there has never been a time in local government when more consideration has been given to questions of efficient management, manpower use and the standard of conduct of members. I am sure that it would be wrong to think that our new authorities have any complacency whatever about these important matters. I suppose that the major problem at present facing local authorities is how to reconcile diminished revenue in real terms with the maintenance of their services and standards. With continuing inflation, it is clear that these things cannot be completely reconciled. Perhaps understandably, central Government, while appreciating the problem, have not been eager to suggest where cuts should be made. Local government does not quarrel with that because the last thing we want is detailed directions from the centre as to how our resources should be disposed. I am sure that in the present situation some reduction of services and standards is unavoidable. I hope—and I go as far as that with the noble Earl, Lord Longford—that such reductions will be temporary and not permanent, but I am afraid that they cannot be avoided altogether. However, I hope that, whether the reductions be permanent or temporary, Parliament will never again load so many new responsibilities on to local government or do so precipitately as was done during the past 10 years.

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Since reorganisation, there has undoubtedly been some increase in Party politics at county and, perhaps, district level. On some issues, this is not inappropriate if apathy is not to be the alternative. However, in other cases it is surely unproductive and will be kept, one hopes, within reasonable limits. Those of us who have sat on local authority bodies know that so often the best work is done when there is a general consensus as to what will be acceptable and in accordance with the desires of local people. The noble Earl, Lord Longford—and I am not in a particularly critical mood this afternoon— referred to discrepancies in standards between various local authorities. One understands that. But we really have to decide whether we are in favour of local autonomy, discretion and choice. If so, I am sure that we must accept some lack of uniformity as a necessary price for that autonomy. In my opinion, it is a price which is well worth paying. If we try to get both, we shall somehow fall between two stools.
My Lords, the greatest practical need at present is to give the new local authorities time to settle down and to get the measure of their recently imposed responsibilities and functions. Most of them are doing well and making real progress. Ministers have recently testified to the energetic efforts which local authorities are making to cope with the current financial restrictions and stringencies, and I believe that Ministers are right to pay that tribute. The new arrangements by which Ministers are consulting representatives of the local authorities, through their Associations, are working, from the angle of my association at any rate, extremely well. We believe that that is a tremendous step forward and we hope that successive Secretaries of State will keep up the momentum and show that they believe in this method, as the Secretary of State has since this has been started. We have to start training a new Secretary of State now, but we shall take that in our stride.
May I say on behalf of our Association that we believe in this and appreciate it, and the meetings held so far have been encouraging. My Lords, let us give these new Authorities—and they are new, because they have only two years operating experience behind them—a reasonable time
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to show what they can do. Their members and their staffs have skills, experience and adaptability. They justify our confidence.
5.11 p.m.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Banks, for introducing this subject and by apologising to your Lordships for not speaking on local government in general but rather confining myself to speaking about London. There are three reasons for so doing. The first is that I know something about London, having been a local councillor first on the London County Council, and then on the Greater London Council, for a total of 15 years. Furthermore, it is my view that the problems of London are the problems of metropolitan authorities writ large. It is also my view that Parliament should not be allowed to continue to forget the problems of London. London suffers from two problems in particular, and they are to some extent interrelated. One is size; the other is deprivation. I say that these problems are interrelated because most large cities have their deprived areas due to the fact that such cities are uneven in their development.
As your Lordships know, London extends to 610 square miles and has a density of 12, 800 residents in each square mile. It is an old city which was not planned; it grew up. The consequence of this is that there are many high cost problems in London. There are the high costs of operating here. One reason why costs are high is that there are only limited options for solutions to problems.
Let us consider transport. The Greater London Council is the traffic authority, and a week or so ago Members were taking us to task for our parking restrictions. There is a great demand for movement in London, and peak hour journeys by road and rail are at a premium. There is a sharp interaction of public and private transport in London. There is multiplicity of both destinations and networks in terms of transport. There are 8, 000 miles of roads and 680 miles of passenger railway track. When taken together with the fact that there is a high concentration of employment in central London—1, 250, 000 jobs—the length of work journeys in London is, on average, a 100 per cent. greater than the national

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average. The demands at any one time leave the London authorities no option, and that is why we do not apologise for the fact that we place public transport first and foremost. While we have some sympathy for the private road user, we feel that public transport must have priority in this city.
The density of traffic in London is 10 times greater than the national average, and in peak hours the density is 50 times greater. Altogether London has 4 per cent. of the road mileage of Great Britain, concentrated in 0·7 per cent. of its area, and it carries 10 per cent. of all the traffic. Your Lordships can recognise the inevitable consequence: there is congestion, and congestion increases costs of all public and private services which are dependent on road usage. But that is not all. It also slows down construction, and it impedes maintenance on both roads and buildings. London, as a capital city and as the cultural, administrative and financial heart of this nation, maintains a considerable number of special facilities and attracts a large number of tourists and visitors from home and abroad. Of course, in London it costs much more to acquire land or property, or to build, or to employ labour, than it does anywhere else in Britain.
Let us take housing. London's housing problems are of the same scale as the transport problems we have been talking about. There is a preponderance of old and decaying Victorian dwellings in London, and many of them suffer from a lack of exclusive basic amenities, such as hot water, a bath and indoor lavatory. The rents are high and over crowding and share accommodation abounds. There is considerable homelessness. I have figures for 1974, though not for 1975. In 1974 half the total number of people who sought assistance in this country because of homelessness were in London, and the same holds good for squatters. London has more than half the total number of this country's squatters.
The 1971 Census showed that while London contained only 16 per cent. of all households in England and Wales, it contained nearly 35 per cent. of those households living at a density of more than 1·5 persons per room. That same Census showed that, while 14 per cent. of London' s households shared accommodation, the national average was only
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4 per cent. I may add that in fact in the case of inner London it was 21 per cent. Again, that Census showed that 22 per cent. of London' s households lacked or shared one of the basic amenities I mentioned earlier. The national average was 14 per cent.; and Liverpool, which was the next highest, was 16 per cent. London houses 10 per cent. of its population in half the country' s furnished tenancies; and, of course, as your Lordships know only too well, London' s privately-rented sector—that is, both furnished and unfurnished—has been dwindling quite sharply. In fact, it declined by 24 per cent. in the ten years from 1961 to 1971. I have already mentioned the rapid increase in the cost of everything. The consequence of that, of course, is that the cost of building houses in London has also increased tremendously. In fact, in 1974–75 the cost of building a GLC dwelling was £15, 300, and it is estimated that it will be £17, 000 this year.
Then—and this, today, is our biggest worry—there is the question of employment. There has been a rapid decline in the availability of skilled jobs in London near workers' homes. That is tied up with the first topic I mentioned—transport. At the same time, there has been a growth in the service industries, and many of the jobs in the service industries are, in fact, low paid. There is a higher rate of drift from job to job, as your Lordships would expect; and there are hard-core pockets of unemployment, particularly among the young. I mentioned that jobs have been declining in London. I can give your Lordships a figure. Jobs in manufacturing industry, which is where the number of jobs is in fact declining, fell by 550, 000 between 1961 and 1973; and in percentage terms that works out at 34 per cent. That is the drop in the number of jobs in manufacturing industry in London.
At the same time, however, between 1961 and 1971 some 80 per cent. of the jobs that were lost were in firms which were reducing the scale of their operations or closing down altogether, and 20 per cent. were in firms that moved out of London. In other words, not only were we losing a lot of jobs because people moved out of London, which is what one talks about frequently, but also many of the jobs were in firms which closed down

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altogether; in fact, the majority were. Of course, during this same period when we lost all these manufacturing jobs there was an increase of 80, 000 jobs in the service industries; and, as I said earlier, those jobs are low paid—not all of them, but many of them are.
In addition to the present predicament, as we see it much of London's existing employment is also threatened. More than 55 per cent. of the South-East Region' s small firms—that is, those which are employing, 100 workers or fewer—are in inner London. I do not know what my noble friend the Minister will say, but Government policy—it has been so under the Governments of both Parties—restricts the growth of employment in industry in London. It has been impossible, so far, to get the Government of either Party to recognise that, while London as a whole may be prosperous, there are certain areas of London which are as deprived as any of the deprived areas for which special provisions are made by statute. For example, unemployment in Stepney is over 10 per cent. —it is 10·2 per cent. So it is in Poplar. It is not quite that in Canning Town, but it is 7·1 per cent. It is 6·3 per cent. in Brixton, and 5·8 per cent. in Deptford. Therefore, in some of these places it is much more than the 7 per cent. which qualifies for special attention. So we do have these deprived areas, and we in London should like the Government to recognise that fact. They are not areas in which there are 10, 000 people with 10 per cent. unemployed, because most of the boroughs in London are boroughs with a quarter of a million people. Therefore, these unemployment figures one gives amount to quite a lot of people.
To turn to education, many of our primary and secondary schools—and here I am speaking more about inner London—were built in the last century. We have a very high turnover of teachers. The reason for that, of course, is the high cost of living here in London, and also the stress of living in London. There is an easier life if you move out of the stress areas of London. There is a considerable gap between the number of children under the age of five in inner London and the number of places available in private and State nurseries; and, of course, as your Lordships know only too well, economic
584
pressure makes it necessary for many of our mothers to go out to work. The consequence is that they go out to work and leave their children at home with untrained child-minders.
Of course, it is not only employment which has gone out of London: the population has gone, too. The population of London has dropped tremendously. The figures that I have show that for inner London, in the sixty years between 1911 and 1971, the population dropped from 4½ million to 2½ million. In the case of outer London, I have not the figures for such a long period; I have them only from 1951. The drop is not so large, but it is still a drop—from 5 million to 4½ million. The population of London today is only 7¼ million, and the projections are that by 1981 it will be 6·4 million to 6·7 million and by 1991 it will be 5½ million to 6½ million.
My Lords, having just pointed out the necessity for mothers to go to work, perhaps I can move on to the question of low incomes; because I have been speaking about the high cost of living in London. The problem facing low income families is accentuated in London by the high cost of living. There are many groups who are particularly vulnerable, groups such as the old, the sick, the unemployed, the one-parent family of which we have many and the service workers I have mentioned earlier because their pay is so low.
I have painted a difficult picture. I wanted your Lordships to look at the picture of London and to recognise the problems that face London government. In London, we have had two-tier government for ten years or more. The boroughs are the main organs of local government and the GLC has strategic powers over London as a whole and is responsible for the services for London as a whole. Incidentally, when listening to the noble Lord, Lord Banks, I thought that he would regard the GLC as an ideal council in that all the things he mentioned we have been doing for a long time. We opened our committees to the public long before it was the law to do so. We have had tenants on our local housing management committees for some time. We have had a register of councillors' pecuniary interests for some time. For those who have been talking in terms of seething expenditure, I may point out that, in spite of the picture I

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have just painted, the GLC was able to keep its rates steady this year, the same as it was last year.
The point about London government is that there is a great deal of co-operation between the GLC and the boroughs; in fact, London government could not work if there were not that degree of co-operation. I would say that the best example, because it is the most recent, of how well we co-operate is the fact that the GLC and the London Boroughs Association agreed on a land acquisition and development scheme under the Community Land Act, and there was such complete agreement that, in effect, it is that scheme which the Secretary of State is now to propound as the scheme for London. I thought I would give your Lordships that information because that is an example of the scale at which we co-operate.
That brings me to another field in which we are co-operating which is also a field of opportunity. The GLC and the riparian boroughs are co-operating in the Joint Docklands Committee to try to develop the docklands. The dock-lands is an important example of the opportunities you can have and the need to make sure you use them to the full. I would say that one major issue which is common to London and to other older cities is that there is much dereliction caused by the movement of population and economic activity from the central city areas. I am not saying that it is only London that suffers this, but merely that London suffers it worse than any other city because it is very much larger.
This particular picture is exemplified in the docklands. As a consequence of changing port technologies, there has been a progressive decline in the trade in the enclosed docks and river wharves and at the same time there has occurred the loss of industrial activity which I mentioned earlier. The consequence of that is that you have an area of decline in the docklands. There is obviously an urgent need to channel resources into such an area so that revitalisation can take place. The opportunity, as I said earlier, is a great one. Much of the basic infrastructure already exists. Land, unused, is close to a large population with varied skills and aptitudes. We need new and better homes to replace some of the
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outworn buildings in that area and we need to improve the services and the general wellbeing of the area in order to provide some happiness to the people who live there and to the additional population that it can now carry.
The Docklands Joint Committee have produced a strategy for meeting the necessary reconstruction; and they need to be complimented in that they have also approved a substantial commercial project in Surrey Docks, and are also initiating a steadily expanding housing programme. As I said earlier, it is imperative that they should be supported in developing this particular area. Your Lordships will gather from the story I have been telling that I am making a plea for additional financial resources for London—and I make no apology for making that plea. We are all awaiting the report of the Layfield Committee. In so far as the GLC is concerned, we made certain recommendations because we thought the best thing would be a mix of several taxes. In effect, a local authority can choose which mix it wants: for example, rates plus a local income tax, plus a sales tax, plus a tourist tax, plus a tax on motor spirit. In fact, we suggested that if the Government could rethink their policy on motor vehicle licensing, it might be a good idea if authorities like the GLC and the larger metropolitan authorities (who are the people who up to now have collected the tax) also kept the tax since they are in most instances also the traffic authority.
We also suggested a lottery. I will not go into that again. Your Lordships know that when the Lotteries Bill was going through this House, I tried to persuade the Government to accept Amendments which would make a lottery worth while to local authorities of the size of the GLC. They would not play and we had better leave that alone. Of course, whatever the Layfield recommendations are, they will require legislation and therefore will take time. So we are still back to where we always have been in London—that is, the rate support grant.
Our plea, and the plea I am making, is we should get our fair share of the rate support grant. We have never had our fair share of the rate support grant. For example, in 1974–75 London accounted for 19 per cent. of all relevant local authority

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expenditure and received 13·9 per cent. of the grant pool. That is typical. Last year we did better because of the ex-Secretary of State for the Environment who was supported by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. They saw the point, a point that I was making earlier in my speech, that although London's problems are great, their problems are of the same character though not as great as ours. They supported us in seeing that London had a more equitable share of the rate support grant. We received £102 million more than we otherwise would have done. Having obtained that, the Government insisted that they should claw back some of the amount that would have been London's proper share if the rate support grant had been distributed according to the national distribution formula. In other words, although we have moved forward, we are still not there because we feel that, if we are responsible for 19 per cent. of the expenditure, we should get 19 per cent. of the grant.
The argument of course has always been that London's resources are so great that in effect London can take care of its own problems. But I hope I have succeeded in convincing your Lordships that our problems are a lot greater than people seem to think. Even if we have increased resources, we need those resources in order to cope with our increased problems. If I may give another figure to illustrate what I am talking about, when Government says that we have these improved resources, what they really mean is that Londoners are privileged in that they pay higher rates. I will illustrate this by giving the figure for the year 1975–76 where the average domestic rate in London was £130·87p; for non-metropolitan districts in England it was £87·93p and for Wales it was £53·68p. So the difference, what is called London' s additional resources, is in fact that Londoners have to pay higher rates. I hope from what I have said earlier, your Lordships will see that in forcing Londoners to pay these higher rates we are imposing a lot of hardship on a lot of people.
I hope it will be borne in mind that London is not just one homogeneous place; that London, being a large area, has prosperous areas and also deprived areas. I wanted to make a suggestion
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which I am sure the Minister herself can take on board. But it is something I hope the Prime Minister will take on board because it is my view that what we need is a Minister for urban affairs who will be high enough in the hierarchy of Government to be able to defend the metropolitan authorities and secure from the Treasury adequate resources to enable them to do their job. That is something I would throw out to my noble friend, and I hope she can let it drop in the right ears at the right time. It is my view that that is really what is required in so far as the metropolitan authorities are concerned. I also agree with much of what was said by the noble Lords, Lord Banks and Lord Sandford, about making additional use of the Consultative Council for Local Government Finance. I am sure that the Council can be made to do a lot more useful work than it is being used for at the moment. One would hope the Government will take that on board, too, and proceed to make much more use of the Council than is being done at the moment.
Several noble Lords have spoken about devolution. In so far as London is concerned, the general view of the London authorities—and it is not just the GLC, but also the boroughs, too—is that any devolution which will take place can be accommodated within the present structure. Whatever form of devolution from central Government is agreed upon, it should be within the present structure that exists in Greater London at the present time.
Finally, I want to make some points about democracy. One is the extent to which local authorities, particularly large ones, like the GLC, need to have public participation. The GLC does this to a tremendous extent. I do not want to take much more of your Lordships' time to dilate on that—I have taken long enough. The point about public participation is that it takes time. If you are going to allow people to discuss these issues and, finally, to come to an agreed decision, the decisions cannot be made quickly. It is also more expensive; and do not let us run away from that, either. In terms of its value to the community, it is worth both the cost and the delay.
The other point I want to make in terms of democracy is with regard to neighbourhood councils. We have two

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in London, one in North Kensington and the other in Hammersmith. This is something which needs to be pursued more. It is a valuable adjunct to bringing ordinary people into an activity concerning what is taking place in their area. In the GLC we have been experimenting with a couple of projects on what we call the mass attack on deprivation. We have picked two areas, one in Spitalfields and the other in North Islington, where the GLC, the local council, plus all the local voluntary organisations, are being brought together to see whether by co-operating and using collective influences something can be done about the deprivation in those areas. Those are additional suggestions. These last three matters are (shall I say?) pets of mine and therefore I thought I should not sit down without putting them to your Lordships.
My Lords, I apologise for having spoken for so long, but I thought I ought to make the case for remembering London, recognising London' s problems and making sure that London has the resources in order to deal with her problems. Always remember, my Lords, that London is the capital of this country.
5.50 p.m.
Baroness ROBSON of KIDDINGTON:My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of joining everybody else in thanking my noble friend Lord Banks for having raised this subject for our discussion today. I think it follows admirably the discussion we had last Wednesday on the priorities for social services. My noble friend opened the debate in a very balanced manner, and concentrated largely on the structure of local government as we find it today. He was followed by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and there was a great deal of agreement between the two noble Lords in what they said. There were two important aspects, over and above everything else, on which they agreed. One of these was that for the time being, as the noble Lord, Lord Banks, said, there must be an abatement of the spate of legislation putting extra burdens on local authorities, and that the ultimate aim must be greater devolution and more power in the hands of the local authorities, as reconstituted.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, did not quite understand the Liberal attitude of
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mind on local authority regionalism and councils generally. May I remind him that we have always been quite consistent in what we have said. We were, at the time of the discussion on reorganisation, always in favour of regionalism with smaller district councils than the ones we have now under the umbrella of the regional authority. I think we were right, and all of us on these Benches believe we were right. From experience in a large number of districts of the feeling of remoteness of the elector, especially in the size of district that we have now since reorganisation, I think we were right and we should not dream, any more than I believe anyone else in this House would dream, of attempting to reorganise something yet again. The same arguments apply to the organisation of the Health Service in this country. We may all think there are too many tiers in that organisation as well, but both reorganisations were too traumatic an experience for anybody to attempt such a reorganisation yet again, not only for the staff involved but because of the momentary impact on services.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, used the debate in a way which I welcome very much. He decided to talk on one subject; in other words, about one of the responsibilities of local government. I should like to do very much the same. The noble Earl chose the social services as the greatest priority handled by local government, and the one which he felt to be the most pressing to raise in this debate. I would challenge the noble Earl on that, and say that I believe the most important issue in the hands of local government is that of housing. I believe that many of the problems mentioned by the noble Earl concerning the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped and deprived people in society, could be solved if housing conditions in all our communities were correct. Certainly, they would form much less of a problem. An enormous number of problems about which the noble Earl was telling us are created by bad environmental conditions; so I would say that, above all else, housing is the problem which local authorities need to concentrate upon.
We have spent an enormous amount of money on housing. I believe the subsidy bill is at least £2 billion, or £125 per year per family. Therefore it is right that we

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should stop and think and see, as both noble Lords, Lord Banks and Lord Sandford, said, whether we are getting value for money. Another interesting fact is that the housing expenditure rose in volume terms by 77 per cent. between 1973 and 1975, but in cost terms it rose by 119 per cent. I think we should increasingly direct our minds and the minds of local authorities to the question of whether these increases were inevitable or whether they were partly due to other factors, including the clash of interest between central Government and local government.
I believe that to an increasing extent the Government are using both local government and social policies as instruments of economic policy. In other words, I think the Government have been using a housing policy in order to assist in keeping down the wage demands of the nation. I believe we should look at this to see whether we have succeeded, because if it has been successful there is perhaps something to be said for that kind of policy. But I believe that we have not succeeded in containing wage inflation by the policies introduced by central Government.
The second question one must ask is: Why has the increase in public expenditure on housing been so enormous, together with the fall in income on the housing account? The fall in income from rents is an example of the Government's attempt to keep down costs; and this cost the local authorities of this country £90 million in 1974 and 1975 alone. That money has to be found from somewhere else. Then, equally because of inflation, there was a fall in the sale of council houses because of the high mortgage rate, together with an increase in the running cost covering repairs and maintenance, partly because of the failure of wage restraint—and in this regard I should be happy to argue that the £6 pay limit and its influence was not as steadying an influence as sometimes we have been led to believe.
Even if, with these enormous sums, the cost was right, it would be right only if we had satisfied or were in the process of satisfying the needs of the nation. Most people think that we do not have enough housing and that the housing lists are too long. On the other hand, we read in
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the Press estimates of bodies outside Government circles, claiming that we have an overall surplus of housing in the country. There was a leading article in The Times claiming just that. It can be argued whether or not we have enough, but what I think is generally agreed is that we do not have a balanced housing stock and we do not have a housing stock that has taken into account the demographic change in the population.
It seems to me, therefore, that local authorities must begin to look at the problem completely afresh. With the kind of economic difficulties the nation is facing, we cannot possibly go on without thinking of more economical ways of dealing with our housing problem. I think it is generally agreed that to rehabilitate or convert housing is much cheaper than to build new housing.
The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, spoke about London and the cost of building here. I have some 1971 figures which show that a one-bedroom dwelling cost £4,500 to build, and rehabilitation of older accommodation of the same size cost only £1,100, while the conversion of a larger, older building cost £3,200. One does not have to be an economist to see in which direction we should move. There is an abundance of property available for conversion. Therefore, I am amazed at the Government's cut in the grant for home improvement from 1975 to 1976. We must get our priorities right, and it seems to me that, economically, it is sounder to concentrate on the improvement grant.
That has the secondary benefit, in many cases, of avoiding the terrible result of rebuilding; that is, the destruction of communities. We have to look at our cities and villages as living communities and use our resources as economically and as humanely as possible. Also, we have not made use of our existing housing in a balanced fashion, between large and small families. There is not enough incentive and opportunity for a single person, living in a reasonably priced house which is too large to maintain, to move into more suitable accommodation, where he or she would be happier and would free accommodation for young couples with families who are more in need of larger houses.
I have been talking about all these points for one reason. Every county

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council and district council must look in a thorough-going fashion at the kind of priorities they are to set themselves for the next five or 10 years. We talk all too glibly about the fact that we want more housing, but we have not even set out properly the criteria and objectives that will govern the kind of housing we hope to provide. I believe that a real investigation, area by area, into the housing supply of this nation is necessary, and when that is done the Consultative Council for Local Government Finance can make a contribution towards a solution of the financial problem. A two-fold inquiry is necessary, one medium-term and one longterm. If a medium-term inquiry was undertaken, it would give a certain amount of security and guarantee to the construction industry in regard to their commitment to local authority housing work. We all know the problems of the construction industry. We all know how in a boom period it is impossible to get anything built at a reasonable price, and how in a slump period it is equally impossible because the labour has disappeared. In the long run all these things must happen in regard to housing, but that is no reason why a district council or a county council should sit back and wait for instructions from central Government.
I was delighted that there were so many references to some of the Liberal councils in Great Britain, including Liverpool. Liverpool has really tackled the housing problem, because of the tremendous need that exists there, and has done so in two ways. It provides an adequate number of council houses every year, amounting to about 2,000. But the cost of council housing is enormously high today; even in Liverpool each house costs £ 13,000 and, with the interest charges over a period of 60 years, this amounts to an enormous sum and becomes a great burden on the ratepayer. If it is right for everyone to have a decent house, whether rented or not, then it is even more right that everyone who is capable of achieving home ownership should have his own home; so every encouragement should be given by local authorities and by Government to help people to own their own homes. This is what Liverpool has done, and the amazing fact is that it is cheaper both to the nation and to the house buyer for private people to own their houses. What is also important
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is that Liverpool council has used the derelict centre part of the city and is building new communities, which is one of the most heartening things I have read about for a long time.
There are other councils which have taken different steps. We all know that the Rent Act created housing problems, because of the landlord's fear of letting in case he could not get rid of a bad tenant. In Berkshire, Newbury district council has entered into agreements with landlords who have housing to let, with a guarantee that the house will be returned at a certain time. Action of that kind has an impact on the housing problem, but I still believe that we must as a nation undertake a proper housing analysis, area by area, district by district, so that we know we are spending our money in the right way and are getting value for it. Unless we do that, there will not be money left over, in present conditions of local government finance, for other services, such as social services. It seems inevitable that housing and education will have the first call on the finance available to local government, and the social services, about which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, spoke, will inevitably suffer. Therefore, it is important that we get our housing priorities right, so that we do not waste money on building unwanted houses and build according to a proper plan which will, in the end, give this nation a decent home for everyone to live in.
That is a tremendous responsibility for local government to undertake but, in addition, it is all the time being given more new responsibilities by central Government. I should like to back all the speakers who have said that we must resist further instructions from central Government, so blocking the workings of district councils and county councils within the foreseeable future, because they will not function properly unless they are left alone to work in their own way towards a proper policy of priorities.
6.10 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Banks, very much for introducing this debate this afternoon, and I listened with great interest as he ranged so clearly over a wide variety of local government topics. Having

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said this, I hope that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, will accept my apologies. Most unfortunately, I have to attend a meeting at which I should have been 10 minutes ago, and if I disappear after I have spoken I shall read with great care what both the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Lord, Lord Banks, say at the conclusion of this debate.
I am glad that the subject has been introduced because I regard local government as important and interesting. It is disappointing that there have not been more speakers this afternoon. Nevertheless, we have been very fortunate that all of those who have spoken have spoken from great experience and with very great knowledge. I suspect that one of the reasons that some people have been unable to take part in the debate this afternoon is that she local government district elections are to take place tomorrow, coupled with the fact that for some authorities this is the beginning of the local government year. My noble friend Lord Ridley has asked me to say how sorry he is that for that reason he has been unable to take part in the debate today.
Local government is important for the influence that it has on our lives. Far too many people still do not realise how great its influence is, for it suffers from either had publicity or no publicity at all. When it is not considered extravagant or too mean, it is frequently considered dull. Perhaps one of the reasons for this lack of understanding is that despite the fact that local government has changed and developed—and developed very rapidly indeed since 1972—it is still a world peculiarly of its own. Those who have been in local government understand it. When they were in local government they had the comfortable knowledge that they could open their diary and see that on 3rd October they would be on the education committee, or the planning committee, or whatever it might be. But alas! once one translates oneself from local to central Government one discovers, as I have discovered today, that one is very lucky if one knows what one is doing tomorrow morning, let alone any further ahead than that.
Those who have been in local government understand it. Local government quite transcends Party political differences and appears to be strange to the outsider,
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not only because of the complexity of its functions and problems but because of the complexity of its finance and the complexity of the relationships between central and local government. Local government has another great characteristic: the loyalty of its members to their authorities. Now that I travel quite a lot around the country, I never cease to be impressed by the people who say to me, "Of course, we are a pioneering authority in this particular service". And w hat authority has not been a pioneering authority? Then one listens to sombody like the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, who spoke this afternoon with such tremendous knowledge of his own authority and its problems and, indeed, of the problems of large towns.
Local government has come very much to terms with ways to deal with many of these problems. I believe that the new local government structure has produced management structures within local authorities which follow very much the lines of the Bains Report and has given to them at least a way of beginning to cope with the problems which they face. I should like to think that central Government had as much corporate planning as has local government. When I look at how central Government works, I am bound to say that I feel it could well read some of its own circulars on this matter to local government. However, at the end of the day local government is as good as the people in it, both elected members and officers, make it. I believe that one of the most important tasks facing anyone in public life is to encourage good people to come forward to take part in local government. For my part, I welcome the system of allowances to members which was introduced in 1972. This system has been quite unjustly criticised, but if for no other reason it has been of enormous benefit to women entering local government often when they could not face the extra expense that public life demanded, although they had no particular wish to earn a lot of money from it.
The fact is that local government is an extremely complex world and I sym-pathise with those who undertake its responsibilities. Many of your Lordships have referred already to the work that has been put on to local government. I believe that there have been something like a thousand Acts of Parliament since

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1945 which are directly relevant to local government, and it would be impossible to name the Government circulars that have been issued about those Acts. To draw the distinction between what is mandatory, permissive and advisory is not always very easy. It is small wonder that some people in local government find that it is becoming an increasingly esoteric world that they have entered, one in which they find it very difficult to deal both with the complexity of the problems and the need to understand the importance of dealing with their electorate.
One of the important points that has been raised this afternoon is that of regional government. We do not know what the Government have in mind for devolution in England, but I am bound to say that my sympathies lie entirely with those who are opposed to yet another tier of government. I listened with great interest to what my noble friend Lord Amory had to say about the artificiality of these geographical areas. The fact remains that the larger they are the more remote they become from individuals. Anybody serving in regional government, if it were at all a powerful tier of local government, would have to make it virtually a full-time occupation. If he or she did this, they would be unable to do any other job. Therefore, they would be cutting themselves off from the communities that they were serving. However, the key question would be whether devolution would mean that the powers were to be taken from Westminster or whether they were to be taken from local government.
I have very great sympathy with what has been said about the difficulties for Wales. I believe that they are justified in feeling that powers are to be taken from local government and given to the Assembly. This will not help the question of the remoteness nowadays of government. It will not give to the Welsh people a greater feeling of participating in their own affairs. Our worst fears could be justified: that it would not necessarily mean that the powers would be taken from Westminster and given directly to Wales. Therefore, I think that we need—at any rate at this stage—to view with some suspicion the idea of yet another tier of government in an already over-governed society.
The next major issue which must remain at the centre of all our discussions is that of
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finance. My I ask the noble Baroness whether she can tell us when we can expect the report of the Layfield Committee to be published. I understand that it is with the Government now and I hope that we shall be able to see it quite soon. After all, last year we had a Bill which prevented revaluation on the grounds that the Layfield Committee was sitting and that the whole of the rating system was to be questioned. If, as is widely rumoured, the Layfield Committee are likely to say that some form of rating should be kept, we could well find ourselves in an increasingly anomalous position—and, of course, the rates are still with us. It is extremely important for local government that is should know where it is going on this matter of finance.
The dilemma of local government finance was very well illustrated by what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. He picked on one subject and said—I think I am quoting him correctly—that in the case of the social services it should be the object of the Government to make the recalcitrant authorities raise their standards to those of the best authorities.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, I may have given that impression. meant towards that level. If the noble Baroness will read what I have said, I think she will see that I did say that. At the same time, you could not raise them exactly to that level, but they should be raised in that direction. There should be a minimum which is not at present achieved.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I apologise if I have misquoted the noble Earl. My point is that if, as many people would like, there should be similar standards of service in local government, one could not at the same time ask for local authority discretion on other services. Either you can have uniformity or you can have choice. You cannot have both. Therefore, we have to decide which, as a matter of principle, we prefer. I think it is far better to give to local authorities the discretion to do what they think is right rather than to try to insist upon a uniformity of service. After all, unless we have gone into all the details of the matter, we do not know why one authority has chosen to do one thing or another, but we do know that if we give discretion

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to local authorities we give them the opportunity to experiment.
If I might show the other side of this coin, if we take a good authority, such as the Kent County Council, and look, for example, at their special family placement project and what they have done to pioneer experiments in the fostering of difficult children, we will see that it is possible, by not having uniformity of service but giving discretion to local authorities, to provide a scheme which not only produces better care for very difficult children but in fact proves to be cheaper as well. It seems to me that this is a better line to take and the right one.
On finance, I would say that local government is put into a very difficult position when it is asked to produce so many services without any extra money and I hope—and this is the second question that I should like to ask—that when she replies, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, will explain who is going to pay the extra £35 million on school dinners which arises from the Government Statement this afternoon. As I understand it, next September's 5p increase in school meals is no longer to be made. Does the £35 million fall as an extra charge to local authorities, and in particular to education committees? Does it come out of the £50 million that the Government have set aside, as I understand it, for extra expenses? In any event, has this matter been discussed with the local authority associations, or is it in fact simply an arrangement between the Government and the TUC without any consultation with the people who will actually have to pay it? I think nothing could illustrate better the dilemma of local government than when they are suddenly confronted with something like this, because at the end of the day they will have to pay the bill for the school dinners.
I think that our objective on local government finance should be getting value for money, and one of our objections, not only as a matter of principle, to the Community Land Act has been its excessive cost, both in terms of extra civil servants and, on the Government's own estimation, that it will still cost £300 million on the land account by 1980. All the prospects that were held out to us of enormous sums of money that were
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going to be made out of land speculation by local authorities prove, in the cold light of dawn, to have come to nothing. Nor do we believe that there is any point in adding to local authority burdens by increasing direct labour forces or indeed taking over many functions that are far better performed by private business, as was proposed under the West Midlands Metropolitan County Bill—now, I am glad to say, dropped from another place.
Surely the point of local government finance must be how we get the money to those who really need it. I very much sympathise with the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, about helping the mentally handicapped, the homeless, the old, the young and the sick, and all those who need it. One of the ways we do it is by giving the money to those who really need it and not in indiscriminate subsidies. I listened with enormous interest to what the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, said about housing. As she made so many of the points that I intended to make I will not repeat them, except to say that I agree with almost everything she said. I could only wish that her Party had said the same when the Local Government Finance Bill was going through this House in 1972. Nevertheless, I am very pleased that even at this hour so many of the principles which we have propounded over the years are in fact the same as those that the Liberals now agree with, and I hope that may continue.
The fact remains that the cost of housing is enormous. It is estimated that in 1978–1979 the cost of housing will be something like £1, 500 million a year more than it was said to be in 1973. If we look at the proportion of the cost of housing covered by rents, we discover that in 1971–72 rents contributed about 73 per cent. of the income towards local authority costs of housing. The figure is now 43 per cent. and at the end of the White Paper projections up to 1980 it will have risen to 50 per cent. In the meantime, the average council house rent as a percentage of income will have fallen from 7 per cent. to 5 per cent. At the same time, the average initial mortgage repayment as a percentage of income will have risen from 25 per cent. to 40 per cent.
I quote these figures only to show that if we are looking for savings in local government there is surely ample room for

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saving here. The important point about savings is that it is not to take something away from somebody; it is to give it to those who really need it. I think we need to take a good, hard, long look at housing so that we see that every family that needs a house gets one, and that we are not offering indiscriminate subsidies to those who are quite able to afford to stand on their own feet.
I was very struck by the figures that I saw in the Financial Times earlier this week as to the cost of a council house in London, which it is now said costs £20,000 to build. To service the interest and the management and maintenance cost comes to £2,900 per year and the local authority receives by way of rent £450, leaving £2,400 to be found from the ratepayer and the taxpayer. It may well be that it is essential for some. I am not saying that it is not, but I cannot believe that it is essential for all, and that is the crux of the argument.
I conclude where I began. I think local government is an extremely important subject. I believe it has often been maligned in the Press and misunderstood by those outside. It has a very difficult job to do and I believe it is doing it very well indeed. Above all, I believe it needs the support of all its friends, particularly at a time of economic crisis when above all we are going to want higher standards at a time when we have ever less money to provide them. It is not my purpose in any of the remarks that I have made, or that we have made from this side of the House, to criticise local government. In everything that we have said we aim to be constructive and, above all, to make quite sure that the very necessary services provided by local government go first to those who need them most.
6.28 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, we had an interesting and strangely muted debate until the noble Baroness opposite stood up. I am extremely sorry that I shall be answering some of the points she made without her being here. It is much better to hit hard at somebody when they are in front of you than at the space which they occupied. The debate was initiated in a most reasonable manner by the noble
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Lord, Lord Banks. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, from the point of view of the elections, put his finger on the admirable timing of this debate and on the tremendous upsurge of interest that takes place around this time of the year. We personally also have an interest here, depending on where we live, because while we are still debarred from voting in General Elections we can at least, as Peers, vote in local elections.
A debate of this sort offers an opportunity to touch on an infinite variety of topics, ranging from issues of broad principle to items of local detail. Although we have had a fairly limited range of speakers in terms of numbers, nevertheless the topics that have been covered have been enormously wide-ranging and numerous. Noble Lords will bear with me, I hope, because they will not want me to delay them too long, so if I do not answer all the points made, or if I should even miss out some of the more important ones, I shall write to noble Lords. I shall read Hansard very carefully tomorrow to see that I have not left anything out by mistake.
My Lords, in the debate this afternoon, local government has been put on the analyst's couch, and I suspect that some people would not recognise themselves or their problems. But this is a time of stress for local authorities, for members and officers, and also for the local authority associations, which we should not forget, which act as important clearing banks of local authority opinion. Local authorities are still coping with the aftermath of the reorganisation which took effect two years ago. That reorganisation was strongly opposed by my Party, but we have to live with it, and I accept that it would be quite wrong to enter into another era of reorganisation at this time. It does not transform what is bad into what is good.
The noble Viscount, Lord Amory, referred to what was said, at the time of the introduction of the Act, about its effect on finance and staff. I agree to a large extent with all the points the noble Viscount made, with the exception of his comment on this Act. The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum at the time said the Bill would have little direct effect on either overall local authority finance or expenditure, and:

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"Reorganisation of local government will, in the long run, enable staff to be more effectively and economically deployed".
We have certainly seen the effect it has had on finance. A great many of the strictures obliquely made on the question of staffing, not only in the Chamber this afternoon, but generally outside, are partly due to the fact that although there are fewer authorities, they are bigger. This means that since some of the same people are responsible for a far greater proportion of the public living within their areas, the numbers of staff have risen, and also the amount that they are being paid.
Concern was expressed, particularly by the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, about the consequences of the regional devolution proposals, particularly on Wales. I can say at this moment that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales is currently having consultations with representatives of the Welsh local authorities. Although it would not be prudent of me to trespass further into these Welsh fields, the fact that these consultations are taking place, and that my right honourable friend is receiving deputations I hope will make them feel that action is being taken in this quarter.
As has been pointed out by ail noble Lords who have spoken, local authorities are under great pressures. These pressures come from contrary directions. Local authorities are under pressure to expand services, to provide a wider range of services, and higher standards. I can remember many years ago when I was a borough councillor myself, there was a tremendous difference in the services for which we were responsible, compared with the huge expansion of today. I am quite sure so many of the really horrendous things that are being highlighted today, such as the plight of battered babies and battered wives, are things which have not suddenly occurred, but which were hidden from us and were missed by those who could bring them to public and social attention. There is an increased awareness today. There is a great deal more research in all these spheres. Research reports very often implement and step up the pressures for action. We have seen a vast expansion in the social services, in transport, and in
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fact in the whole area which I like to feel is the raison d'etre of my Department; that is, trying to improve and enhance the quality of life.
These pressures have been continuously exerted by the public, by successive Governments, as the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, pointed out. These are the main reasons why local government expenditure and manpower have been increasing ever since the war. At the same time, local authorities are under pressure, through the current economic circumstances, to slow down or to halt expansion, to achieve a standstill in both spending and staff. This is a formidable task, and often appears to be an almost impossible one in a period when rising costs and rising wage levels bear so heavily on local authorities, especially as it means postponing the improvement of services which many authorities wish to achieve.
It is in this period of stress that I believe the difference in philosophy between the Government and those sitting on the Benches opposite shows itself with even sharper clarity. This was pointed out pungently by my noble friend Lord Longford. Our approach is certainly not to "knock" local government. Our approach is to work in partnership and co-operation in helping local authorities to maintain and improve services by efficient and good management, and, when it is economically possible, to expand services. Again, I believe there is a very great difference in approach and opinion, as my noble friend Long Longford also pointed out. It is one thing to want to expand services and to do whatever you can during a time of economic stress, but looking forward to a time when you will in fact be spending more money on those services; and it is quite another thing when one is saying, "Yes, there are certain things we should do", but not really wanting to look forward to a really fullhearted expansion.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, I thought rather exposed this difference, as, indeed, has been done outside the Chamber, in the country, and in the various political broadcasts of the Tory Party. The word "selective" is used all the time. What on earth do they think is happening at the moment? Everybody is not getting a pay-out all the time. Those of us who, fortunately, are not in

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need of all these services, and particularly the social services and personal services, are not automatically getting them. They are selective. They are selected on the basis of people's need. This overall phrase which trips so easily off Tory tongues I find to be a cloak, a camouflage, a cloud of rationalisation, a fundamental dislike for the expansion of expenditure in these areas.
Apart from the rather more technical points on housing made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Robson of Kiddington and Lady Young, there was a very, very dead silence on what cuts should be made. Yet in another place, and also in propoganda leading up to the elections tomorrow, we hear cries about public expenditure of the Labour central Government and Labour authorities. It is quite impossible, however, to learn if there were to be cuts, where in fact the cuts should be made. I think it is about time, when people talk about this profligacy, that they should say what they want to do. Fortunately, a more reasonable attitude was taken this afternoon. Do they really want to cut down housing? Do they really want to cut down personal services, the social services? Do they really want education cuts? Do they want concessionary fares to old people to be cut? All these cost a great deal of money.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I wonder whether I might interrupt the noble Baroness for a moment. I do not think my noble friend Lady Young or I suggested any cuts at all. I think it would be helpful if the noble Baroness would keep to the debate. What my noble friend said, and what I would have said if I had been dealing with the same topic, is that we like to see the expenditure going to those people who need it and not being wasted on people capable of standing on their own feet.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, this is exactly what I said myself, and all the noble Lord is doing is repeating what I call these generalisations. If all he is saying is that we have individuals from time to time and from place to place who are abusing the system, this applies to anything and everything everywhere, not just to local government or central Government. If the noble Lord is picking me up on the basis that I am dealing with a very
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fundamental point that is being discussed all the time, the question of too great expenditure and where the cuts should come, I am certainly not going to be put in my place by his saying that it is not relevant to the debate. The debate, as I understand it, is on a Motion dealing with local government in England and Wales today. We have had three speakers from the Opposition Front Bench, although the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, took himself to the second Bench to deliver his speech. When we have three speakers who presumably are putting Opposition policy, and they, either through lapse of memory or in order to keep the debate as cool as possible, do not use the sort of arguments which are being used all the time by them, and certainly by their colleagues in the Party to which they belong, and which represent the policy to which they subscribe, I still think I have a right to take this point up. If they wish to dissociate themselves from everything said by their colleagues in another place and outside, to say that they would not dream of having any cuts in anything at all, that they think the expenditure we have now is right, and that the local authorities should be left to work out their own priorities, even if some of the things they spend money on may seem slightly strange to them, that the local authorities must follow their own route and be at the mercy or receive the thanks of the electorate, then this is fine. But I am really not going to stand up and pretend that there are no forked tongues about, even if noble Lords feel they are not in this Chamber.
My Lords, to return to the theme of what I really want to talk about—the liaison between central and local government—we set up, as many noble Lords mentioned, the Consultative Council on Local Government Finance in May 1975. The Council consists of representatives of central Government and representatives of the local authority associations. Even in the first year of its existence it has shown what a valuable forum of consultation it is, with great future potential. I do not think my noble friend Lord Pitt needs to worry that we are not aware of the extraordinarily good start it has made and also of the great need for it to expand its activities and development in the future. Indeed, I would say that this is a landmark in the evolution of local government and does more solid good for the relations between

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central and local government than many of the volumes of verbiage which are poured out on the subject.
Through the Consultative Council local authorities are involved in the negotiation about the level of rate support grant at a much earlier stage than before, and from this year they will be brought into the public expenditure survey process, which really brings them right into the middle of the financial negotiation and discussion. The Council have also discussed ways of ensuring the right overall priorities in government spending and that the money available is used to the best possible effect. It is in this area, in this Council and through this exchange, that one hopes we shall get a movement towards a certain overall agreement on priorities, but at the same time local authorities retaining their own autonomy.
The local authority associations, through the Council, are fully committed to the objective deriving from the current economic climate; that is, there must be a standstill not only in expenditure but also in total manpower. The noble Lord, Lord Banks, asked whether there were any other exercises in this area which were promoting this very essential co-ordination. We have agreed on a joint exercise to watch and examine manpower in local government. This joint watch already shows a stabilisation of local government manpower. I think this was a point also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. It is one example of co-operation between central and local government. Another is the joint manpower study which was recently launched to make sure that advice was available to local authorities on management decisions involving manpower.
Both employers and employees in local government have staunchly observed not only the current pay policy but also the Social Contract which preceded it. And this has been an enormously powerful contribution to the success of the present counter-inflation policy. I feel quite sure that we in the Government have very good reason to believe that the Government will have the full co-operation of local government and the local government associations in the next stage of the pay policy, the Statement on which was made this afternoon.
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The noble Lord, Lord Banks, referred to the experience of the Manchester University appointments board in relation to local government salaries. These salaries, it is claimed, are out of line with those paid for comparable work in the private sector. Though I would not wish to convey that the Government are unmindful of these criticisms, knocking the public service does seem, unfortunately, to be a favourite pastime in some quarters at the present time, although I am happy to say that this did not come forth today. As I have already mentioned, local government are competing for people in other work outside, in industry. As the areas have become bigger and the amount of responsibility greater, it is essential that people should be offered salaries which will both encourage them to come into local government and to stay there. It is true, as I think all noble Lords will agree, that we are still going through the teething stages of this reorganisation, and obviously again on the manpower side this also needs to be sorted out. But local government is a big business, responsible nationally for very important services and a very large slice of the economic cake.
Noble Lords have referred to the burden of rates, and the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, spoke particularly of the London situation. It is true, of course, that the twin grim problems of inflation and tile difficulties that local authorities have experienced over achieving necessary reduction of high rate of expenditure have led to high rate increases. Last year, 1975–76, domestic rates increased by some 34 per cent., but this year the indications are that the domestic rate will increase by less than 10 per cent. and the increase in non-domestic rate will be even smaller, about 7 per cent., thanks to the fact that the Government, by keeping the domestic element constant in money terms, gave proportionately more relief to the commercial ratepayer.
I am quite aware that this figure of less than 10 per cent. is only an average, and there have been considerable swings around this so that some ratepayers have been faced with increases which are much higher. But there has been—and the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, admitted this when he was speaking—bias in favour of certain authorities by way of the rate support grant. As he said,

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London, for example, came in that category. Incidentally, in this debate I cannot comment on unemployment in London, although the noble Lord asked me to, because I think he will agree that that is a subject for a different debate on a different occasion.
The noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, referred to Liverpool. Again, I do not want to take credit from the work done by Liberals in Liverpool, but nevertheless the rate in Liverpool has been kept down not entirely by the work of the Liberal administration but because in 1974–75 they were in receipt of over £43 million from central Government funds, and for 1975–76 that was increased by nearly £10 million; an increase of over 21 per cent. This is really what kept the rates down in Liverpool. To take some of these individual cases for comparison is a rather more intricate matter than it seems on the surface. Nevertheless, as many responsible local authority commentators have acknowledged, the major difficulties experienced in 1974–75 and 1975–76 in connection with rate increases have been eased by the Government' s success in their counter-inflation programme, and also by the willingness of local authorities to curb their expenditure.
The trouble with rates is that they have a bad name and everybody hates them when they have to pay them, which is an understandable reaction. But rates today represent no greater proportion of the income of the average household than they did before the war—and the rates we pay certainly do not vanish into some bottomless bureaucratic pocket; they are translated into services, houses, roads, amenities which we use and benefit from. But it has long been agreed that a good hard look at the local financial structure is required. Hence the advent of the Layfield Committee, which was set up by the Labour Government. I can now tell those several noble Lords who inquired that we hope to publish this very large report later this month.
One other point so far as rates are concerned. I would agree that they are an intolerable hardship to some people, but, by a considerable extension of the rate rebate scheme, essential relief has been given to those most in need. The take-up of the rebates, which has always been such an enormous and worrying problem, has, due to an effective recent
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publicity campaign, now become remarkably high—some 70 per cent. of eligible households—and the rate rebate scheme benefits 2½ million households, with a total of £90 million granted in 1974–75.
Value for money is certainly something which has been stressed during this debate, and it is what every ratepayer and every citizen rightly expects; but the current financial situation, I agree, makes the need for it even more vital. The first essential is that each authority should settle its own priorities. This means that resources may well have to be diverted from highly desirable programmes to preserve essential priority areas of spending. The Government set minimum standards of provision of services, but beyond these statutory levels it is for local authorities to decide their order of priorities. My noble friend Lord Longford raised the point of the physically handicapped and the mentally handicapped. I am afraid that the way in which it works is that the central Government have very clear views on priorities for public spending, and in the area about which he was talking, personal and social services and health, the Department of Health and Social Security has made proposals about these priorities in a document which was published in March, Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England, which is a Consultative Document which I expect several noble Lords have seen. It sets out national priorities for the whole range of health and personal social services in the context of the White Paper on Public Expenditure. It is a Consultative Document and the Department hopes that it will be the start of a constructive dialogue on priorities between central and local government. I have a feeling at the back of my head that statements have been made in another place about money possibly being made available for housing authorities to integrate people into the community. However, if my noble friend will allow me, I should like to have this thoroughly checked and I shall write to him about it.
On the other side of the picture, on housing for the disabled, my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Construction made a Statement in the other place on 14th April when he reported on the results of the first twelve months of a special drive for housing for the disabled, and the response was encouraging. However, I am afraid there is no room for

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complacency. It would not be any good my pretending, or anybody else pretending, that economies in local authority services are not needed and that the effects will not be felt. Contemporary local authority accounting has to be harsh, and authorities have to streamline their operations with efficiency and economy and, above all, avoid waste—especially waste of manpower.
Nevertheless, they are running a wide range of important services: they are managing massive capital and current budgets with an annual expenditure of about £14,000 million; they employ about 2 million people; and do all of this with a high degree of expertise. Therefore, it would be wrong to give the impression that efficiency and value for money are not already the constant concern of most local authorities; for management and efficiency are primarily the responsibility of local authorities themselves. They employ their own staff; they arrange their own internal organisation, and they monitor their own performance. Indeed, the Government have no power, or even desire, to intervene in these matters. It is quite true that what is one authority's high priority might be seen by other people, and other authorities, as something very much lower down the list. Different circumstances make for different cases and, as I think has been said by several noble Lords, this is one of the prices that we pay for democracy.
With 450 major authorities it would be unrealistic to expect total social and financial perfection. Similar examples of where things have slipped up or gone wrong could be quoted in many big business organisations. In fact, we see the results daily. I think that it is unfair to expect more of management of local authorities—certainly at this stage when they are trying to work a new structure, and people are not perhaps yet used to working on a scale as big as this and are having to work themselves into it—and expect them to perform in a consistently perfectionist way, which we neither get nor expect from industry.
The noble Lord, Lord Banks, mentioned the need for a register of pecuniary interests, as recommended in the Redcliffe-Maud Report. These matters are being considered now by the Royal Commission
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on the standards of conduct in public life under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Salmon. When he reports, as I understand from him he hopes to do soon, the Government will consider the matter. However, I understand that voluntarily a number of authorities have their own registers, and there is nothing to stop them from doing so.
I come to the question of housing, on which a great deal has been said, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to whom, to avoid delaying your Lordships, I will write. Housing is, of course, a major responsibility, particularly of the metropolitan and non-metropolitan district councils. There are certain things which none of us finds particularly satisfactory; I do not think that anyone could be satisfied with any housing situation unless everybody who needs a home has one. The noble Baroness, Lady Robson, spoke of the numbers—whether there were more houses than people needing them—and here the big problem is that one can have houses in the wrong places for those who need them. It is a question of finding the right balance and taking demographic changes more directly into account, and these particular themes were included in Circular 24/75, Housing Needs and Actions, which was issued last year.
I am entirely in agreement with the stress that has been placed on rehabilitation because it is economic, it makes use of houses that are there and, from my own conservation point of view, lone is able to add to the housing stock buildings which one would like to keep for their historic and aesthetic value. We must, nevertheless, have a policy which continues to add urgently to both the stock of new and rehabilitated houses. So far as rehabilitation is concerned, an increase on the original expenditure has been made available for 1976–77, with additional resources, as part of the measures to relieve unemployment. In 1974, when we returned to power, we had to act urgently. Housing was in a terrible state. Immediately an increase in the public expenditure provision for housing was made and that is now yielding results. In 1974 public housing starts were 30 per cent. up on the previous years, and in 1975 they

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improved by a further 19 per cent. Last year the total number of houses built in the public and private sectors was 312, 000, which speaks for itself.
On the question of the sale of council houses, this subject was touched on and was, I think, inherent in what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said when she was making various criticisms of the present housing policy. There are, of course, circumstances in which authorities can sensibly sell council houses to sitting tenants, but many people who seem to support the idea of selling them in an extremely wholesale way ignore the fact that council houses have been provided to meet the housing need as a whole and not just for the benefit of the individual tenants who are living in them at the present time. Thus, it is the whole local housing situation which must be looked at before a view is taken on whether or not a housing policy makes sense. When one looked at the Conservative Party political broadcast last night one would not have thought that there was anybody in need of rented accommodation and that everybody was willing and able to buy his own home. That is quite untrue and socially inequitable.
Regarding some of the other points made on housing by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, my Department is undertaking a housing finance review which will cover many of the points that have arisen on the financial side—rents and so on—but I will not delay the House by going into that now. I certainly do not need to be persuaded of the wretchedness of homelessness and the fearful consequences on the family and the individual, a subject that is rightly raised constantly in this House. The increase in house building which we are achieving will help the situation, but I readily admit that that is not enough in itself.
My noble friend Lord Longford will be glad to hear that the Government are completely committed to introduce legislation, as soon as that is legislatively possible, to place the statutory responsibility for the accommodation of the homeless on housing authorities. I can only say, for what it is worth, that I am doing everything I can to see that it is brought forward, as he asked, in the
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next Session, but I cannot speak on behalf of the Lord President of the Council or the Cabinet. I assure him that my Department is well aware of the need for this as a high priority in the list of Government legislation across the board. This would, of course, make housing and social sense, and I am sure that local authorities will approach it with energy and compassion.
On the question of planning, the use of land, a matter to which Lord Sandys referred, I am aware of Dr. Coleman's views. I am also concerned about the conclusions to which she came in her article in the Sunday Times. The noble Lord will understand that it is difficult for me to comment in detail when we have not had an opportunity to study the data on which the observations were based. I will only say that I dread to contemplate the state we would be in if we did not have the planning controls we have. They compare very favourably with other countries which have no planning legislation, one of which I visited recently. That does not mean that ours is perfect and does not need improving. I also assure him that the local authorities are well aware of the need to minimise encroachment on good agricultural land and to curtail their ribbon development. Lord Sandys will be aware of one problem and that is the great cost of the infrastructure of filling in and building in urban areas.
On what is becoming well-trodden ground, the Community Land Bill, I will not say more. I seem to have said a good deal about it in the last few months. It seems that we shall never get agreement on that between noble Lords on the Benches opposite and my noble friend. I will only say that it is not a burden on the rates and that because of fits concentration on positive planning it should, given a chance, a chance which it needs, improve planning, the economy and the whole areas within which we have been discussing all the needs of local authorities.
I was pleased to see the stress that was given by many noble Lords—Lord Banks, Lord Sandys and Lord Sandford, among them—to the whole question of communications, a subject which I feel very strongly is tremendously important. It is even more important now than it ever was because of the increased size of

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authorities and the far greater need to make positive efforts to get channels of communication between councillors and constituents, councillors and officers, officers and members of the public—all the way through. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment issued a circular to local authorities in April of last year in which he stressed the need for local government to take positive action to ensure the maximum degree of openness in the conduct of public business. This of course leaves a very great area of manoeuvre because the statutory provisions set are the minimum, and it is up to the local authorities themselves to extend them.
The relationship which exists between local councils and the Press is, I believe, healthy. It is improving and certainly a healthy democracy depends on this relationship being maintained and improved. Some of the experiments which were mentioned, such as question time, are extremely interesting. There is also the question of participation—that people should participate and voice their views—and in practical terms there are such matters as the dual use of local authority buildings. This is being looked into and in fact carried out by many local authorities, and this is a way of both public participation and a sensible use of resources.
The part of the voluntary worker and the voluntary effort which enriches all other effort—it cannot be a substitute for the skilled work that we now require and demand in our social services—is of enormous benefit. I should hate, both for the sake of the recipients of that work and for the sake of the people who are doing it, to see the day when voluntary work in this country withered away. I believe that it would take something away from them.
Finally, what we have to avoid—and I believe that we are all in agreement on this—is confrontation between central and local government. We must develop a full partnership based on consultation and a proper understanding of each other' s interests and problems. Apart from the very strong political differences that divide us, I feel that the need for understanding and consultation is something which has been accepted by all sides of
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the House. It has made this debate an extremely useful one.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Banks, would bear with me if I raised one point with the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, before she sits down. She did not seem to want to be interrupted again in the middle of her speech, so I have left it until now. I agree with her that there are political differences between us, but it is just as well to analyse them and understand precisely what they are. The noble Baroness seemed to have the impression that my noble friends and I had been advocating cuts in local government expenditure. That is quite unrealistic and it would be quite irresponsible to do such a thing, and none of us did. However, if she has a record of such a statement being made by any of my honourable or right honourable friends in Parliament on which she bases her assumption, perhaps she will let me know and I shall know what she is talking about.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, whether he feels that he is in order? He is raising a question following a speech, but he appears to be making another speech.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I am not really making another speech. I am just dealing with a point which I began to raise in the middle of the speech of the noble Baroness. She did not seem to want me to pursue it then.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, I believe this to be quite out of order. My opinion is worth no more than anyone else' s, but the noble Lord feels that he was shut out when my noble friend was speaking and therefore feels entitled to "deal with the point", as he calls it. I submit with the utmost deference that that is quite out of order.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, it would be out of order if I were making a tremendous speech, but it is no more than common practice just to raise a minor point before a noble Lord sits down at the end of a speech. That is all I am seeking to do. Both Parties are agreed that we want to cut out waste. The difference between us is that we regard it as waste to offer indiscriminate subsidies to everybody

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by way of housing subsidies, whereas the Party of the noble Baroness does not. That is the only difference between us.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I do not propose to answer because I consider that I answered the point before. Although I feel that one should be generous on these occasions, I must agree with my noble friend Lord Longford because, after the first interruption, I again explained exactly what I meant. There is therefore no point in my repeating it again. The noble Lord can read it in Hansard tomorrow.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, all I want is for the noble Baroness to write to me if she has these particular statements in mind.
7 13 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, we have this afternoon had a very useful and interesting debate. Of course I am greatly tempted to I take up many of the points which have been raised and to expand on them at length, but this would not be the moment to do so. However, I should like to thank all those who have taken part in the debate, and to thank them most sincerely. They have, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, spoken with a wealth of experience. I should like particularly to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for her comprehensive reply on behalf of the Government.
I am left at the end of the debate with a feeling that we shall in the near future be returning to at least four of the themes which we have been discussing this afternoon. One is the theme of structure and, while I believe that we all agree that any immediate reorganisation would be unfortunate, I nevertheless share the view of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that in due course there will be some modification. I believe that it will be a modification to accommodate regionalism.
Secondly, I believe that we shall return to the whole subject of the balance of tasks between central and local government, the possibilities of decentralisation and the possibilities of co-operation. I am sure that we shall have to develop further the question of participation which I mentioned in my remarks at the beginning and to which other noble Lords have referred. The noble Baroness,
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Lady Birk, also dealt with this towards the conclusion of her speech. Finally, I have no doubt that we shall very soon be plunged into a discussion of local government finance. So we shall be returning to all these themes before very long. In the meantime, however, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

ANGLIAN WATER AUTHORITY BILL [H.L.]
The Lord Segal, Chairman of the Select Committee, reported that the Committee continued to sit this day in the absence of the Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, all parties consenting thereto; and that with the consent of all parties, the Committee will sit in his absence for the remainder of the proceedings.
NATIONAL EXHIBITION CENTRE AND BIRMINGHAM MUNICIPAL BANK BILL [H.L.]
Reported with Amendments.
LAND DRAINAGE (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments; the said Amendments to be printed.
ADOPTION BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee with Amendments and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House; Bill to be printed as amended.
WRITTEN ANSWERS

  BEEF PREMIUM PAYMENT AND INTERVENTION QUALIFICATIONS
  Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY asked Her Majesty's Government:
  Whether all beasts which qualify for the Beef Premium Payment will also qualify for acceptance into intervention; and if not what extra quality standards will apply.
  Lord STRABOLGI: In the beef support arrangements that we operate in the United Kingdom intervention and premiums have different, though complementary, purposes and the standards are different. In Great Britain the current minimum qualifying weight for intervention is 661 lbs. dressed carcase weight for steers and 476 lbs. for heifers compared with minima of 434 lbs. and 374 lbs. respectively for beef premium scheme. Carcases accepted into intervention must have a smoother and more even fat cover than is required for the been premium scheme and must be of superior conformation. The surface of the carcase must not be damaged by bruising or warbles or by any other defect which might affect its value after freezing and storage.
  In Northern Ireland minimum qualifying weights are the same for both schemes but the general fleshing standards are higher for intervention than the minimum required for the beef premium scheme. Furthermore carcases with a rather thicker fat covering can qualify for beef premium scheme but not for intervention.
  Lord STANLEY of ALDER LEY Lord STANLEY of ALDER LEY asked Her Majesty's Government:
  Whether it is true that Intervention Centres in the United Kingdom will only accept complete sides of beef and will not accept deliveries of one metric tonne of forequarters or hindquarters, as stated in the Intervention Board' s Explanatory Leaflet (Support Buying for Beef) of March 1975; and if so—

  (a) when the arrangements were so changed;

  (b) how much notice was given of such a change;

  (c) who authorised such a change; and

  (d) why Parliament was not informed, since the change affected the Beef Premium (Protection of Payments) Order 1975.

  Lord STRABOLGI: It is true that the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce is not currently permitted to accept offers of beef consisting wholly of hindquarters or forequarters. The minimum quantity which may be purchased is 2 metric tonnes of carcases, sides or compensated quarters. Purchase of hindquarters was suspended on 26th May 1975 and forequarters on 1st November 1975. The suspension of purchases of hindquarters was announced in the EEC Regulation Number 1315/75 of 23rd May 1975 published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 24th May 1975 (OJ No. L133 pp. 44–47) and on 14th May 1975 the Intervention Board gave notice of this development. The suspension of purchases of forequarters was announced in the EEC Regulation No. 2823/75 of 30th October 1975 published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 31st October 1975 (OJ No. L280 pp. 38–40). The Intervention Board informed all those who subsequently inquired about offers into intervention and on 10th December 1975 an amendment to the explanatory leaflet was issued. These changes were authorised by the Commission of the European Communities with the agreement of the Management Committee for Beef and Veal. I am unaware that the changes had any impact on the Beef Premiums (Protection of Payments) Order 1975.

  CLOMIPHENE AND MULTIPLE BIRTHS
  Lord AVEBURY Lord AVEBURY asked Her Majesty's Government:
  What information they have on the incidence of multiple births following treatment with clomiphene.
  Lord WELLS-PESTELL: Figures showing the number of women for whom fertility drugs have been prescribed are not available. I propose to seek expert advice about whether there is a need for further study of these preparations.
  House adjourned at a quarter past seven o' clock.