Sitting of 11 May 1977

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

    White Paper
    Mr. Moateasked the Secretary of State for Transport when he now expects to publish his White Paper on Transport.
    Mr. Muddasked the Secretary of State for Transport when he intends to publish his White Paper on Transport.
    Mr. Newtonasked the Secretary of State for Transport when he intends to publish his White Paper on Transport.
    The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Wiliam Rodgers): Shortly.
    Mr. Moate: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that the foreword to the consulation paper led us to believe that his White Paper would have the same momentous significance as the invention of the wheel and the introduction of the camel into Africa? Having laboured for three years to produce a White Paper, let alone a policy, does he expect any significant change in the trend of the past three years, namely, that of massively increasing subsidies in return for a rapid deterioration of public transport services?
    Mr. Rodgers: The hon. Gentleman must await the publication of the White Paper. I shall not make the rather lurid comparisons that have been made by others, but I think that it will be interesting.
    Mr. Mudd: Would the Minster care to hazard a guess whether his White Paper will give consolation to those of us who
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    are opposed to the further curtailment of the rail transport network?
    Mr. Rodgers: I think that it will give consolation to some, joy to others and disappointment, perhaps, to a third group. I do not think that I can anticipate what will be an excellent White Paper, which the House should judge for itself when it sees it.
    Mr. Newton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the White Paper will deal in a clear and open way with the problem of commuter services? Specifically, will it spell out in a clear-cut fashion the implication of the Government's policy for future fare increases?
    Mr. Rodgers: I am reluctant to say "Wait and see" to the hon. Gentleman. I prefer to say that I understand his point entirely. I hope that the White Paper will be as explicit as possible, given the changing circumstances. We know that, in transport, what is the case today may not be the case tomorrow. The White Paper will be as explicit as possible, within a reasonable length. It is getting rather long even now.
    Mr. Ioan Evans: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind in the White Paper the suggestion made by the TUC about the setting up of a national transport planning authority? Will he also bear in mind the need to maintain public transport, which is essential to get people back and forth from work, because private transport cannot meet their needs?
    Mr. Rodgers: Yes. I totally agree with what my hon. Friend says about public transport and its importance. I have been giving careful consideration to the proposals that have been made by the TUC and others about the best way of ensuring an effective transport policy.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: Without anticipating details, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any reference in the White Paper to the acceptance of the principle that rural and distant areas should have a fair chance of survival with a fair transport system?
    Mr. Rodgers: The right hon. Gentleman will find that particular attention is given to the problems of rural areas. As he will know, we debated the matter last

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    week. At that stage I tried to give an indication of the direction of my thinking. I agree that it is important to give some new help to the rural areas, and I shall do my best in the White Paper.
    Mr. Russell Kerr: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the long-awaited report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries on the rail industry is being published tomorrow? Therefore, he has no further reason for continuing to delay the publication of his White Paper.
    Mr. Rodgers: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling me that the report of the Sub-Committee of which he has been a distinguished chairman will be available tomorrow. I shall read it with great interest. I shall wish to take account of it, as far as possible, in the White Paper. However, as my hon. Friend and the House will know, it is the normal practice for the Government to give due and full consideration to a report of a Select Committee before giving a formal reply.
    Mr. Norman Fowler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable concern in the transport industry about the future of Freightliners and the suggestion that majority control should no longer rest with the National Freight Corporation? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the most important people who will be affected by the decision are those who work for Freightliners and those who are its customers, who are overwhelmingly opposed to any change in control?
    Mr. Rodgers: I agree that Freightliners has an important function and that it must be an effective and efficient part of the public sector transport system and pay its way. There have been arguments about where the ownership should lie—for example, whether it should remain with the National Freight Corporation or lie with British Railways. As the hon. Gentleman knows, this is only a part of the problem of the whole future of the National Freight Corporation. I shall take account of everything that is said, including what the hon. Gentleman has said today.

    Parking (City Centres)
    Mr. Durantasked the Secretary of State for Transport what representations
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    he has received in the last six months about the problem of private nonresidential parking in city centres.
    Mr. William Rodgers: None, apart from the response to the consultation document issued on private non-residential parking in July last year.
    Mr. Durant: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the results in the recent local elections were in part votes against the rather stupid and harsh policies of certain cities in squeezing the motorists out of city centres? Does he accept that it is necessary to encourage short-term parking for shopkeepers and housewives? Will he give more encouragement in this direction?
    Mr. Rodgers: I agree with the second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. But, although it might be nice to believe that we could attribute responsibility for election results to local decision-making, they are more likely to be an indicator of the general mood of the country mid-term. I do not, therefore, think that the second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question follows from the first.
    My view, irrespective of political control, is that local authorities should have very wide discretion. I believe that they are best able to judge what is required in their localities for parking purposes and for any other action, and that, by and large, Parliament should seek to provide enabling powers. As the hon. Gentleman implied, there is always the redress that the electorate can exercise if local authorities make unpopular decisions.
    Mr. MacKay: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that residents in many of our suburbs are grossly inconvenienced by non-residential parking, particularly those living adjacent to factories, as is the case in my constituency? Is there any possibility of having residents-only parking sectors?
    Mr. Rodgers: This is a complicated matter. Some areas have inadequate parking, but it is fair to say that the extent of non-residential private parking creates problems of traffic management. In my judgment, what the hon. Gentleman has said is further reason why Parliament should provide enabling powers. But discretion should lie at local level.

    Rural Transport
    Mr. Temple-Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has for improving rural transport; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Wakehamasked the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has for improving rural transport; and whether he will make a statement.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): During the debate on rural transport on 2nd May, my right hon. Friend announced that the forthcoming White Paper will provide a new charter for the rural are as. Meanwhile, the Government's rural experiments, relying on the Passenger Vehicles (Experimental Areas) Bill, are exploring what can be done by community self-help.
    Mr. Temple-Morris: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the last Conservative Government were beginning to deal, and deal well, with rural transport problems in their 1973–74 measure, which fell with the February 1974 General Election and has not been revived by the Labour Government? Apart from four proposed experiments which are still before the House and have not yet begun, what have the present Government done for rural transport in their three years of office?
    Mr. Horam: The last Conservative Government achieved nothing in three and a half years. Not only that, but the previous Conservative Governments throughout 13 wasted years achieved nothing either, part from one small change in 1956. Since the war, Conservative Governments have made no substantial alteration to bus licensing of any kind. I think that we shall improve on that.
    Mr. George Rodgers: Does my hon. Friend agree that since January 1974 the cost of motoring and motor cycling has increased by 79 per cent. whereas the cost of travelling by public transport has increased by 104 per cent? As the rural areas are particularly dependent on public transport, will my hon. Friend focus his attention on this issue?
    Mr. Horam: I think that my hon. Friend is on the right point. Fares in rural areas have gone up steeply in the
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    last two or three years, partly because they were held down artificially in the early 1970s. There has, therefore, been a catching-up process, for otherwise the subsidies would have been even larger. We have tried to ease the problem by helping to raise subsidies for those services which could be helped in no other way.
    Mr. Wigley: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that increased bus costs in rural areas hit particularly hard pensioners, disabled people and others on fixed incomes? Good schemes are available in inner city areas to help pensioners with their bus travel costs, but, by and large, they are not available in rural areas. Will the hon. Gentleman examine the possibility of such schemes being made available in rural areas?
    Mr. Horam: It is true that the rural areas—by and large, Tory-controlled—have not the same generous concessionary fare schemes as are widespread in metropolitan areas controlled by Labour local authorities. We intend to deal with this aspect in the White Paper.
    Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I look forward to the Secretary of State's new deal for the rural areas with great interest. Will the hon. Gentleman accept that in many places there is now a bus desert, with large numbers of people marooned, and that what is required—I hope that it will be forthcoming in the White Paper—is a practical programme to allow people to help themselves by reducing some of the restrictions which exist, quite unnecessarily, on the part of the traffic commissioners?
    Mr. Horam: The hon. Gentleman has put that point, which is often put to me by the Opposition, in the best way I have yet heard, if I may say so, and I entirely agree with him.

    Buses (Licensing Laws)
    Mr. Hal Millerasked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he has plans for relaxing licensing laws for buses.
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he has plans for relaxing licensing laws for buses.
    Mr. Horam: During the debate on rural transport on 2nd May, my right hon. Friend indicated that the forthcoming White Paper will include proposals for changes to the bus licensing system. Meanwhile, the Passenger Vehicles (Experimental Areas) Bill includes modifications to the present licensing law.
    Mr. Miller: Is there any recognition by Ministers that the most efficient and effective form of public transport, particularly in rural areas, is not necessarily a heavily-subsidised 32-seater bus, and that there are other forms which should be allowed to show that they can produce the service that the public requires?
    Mr. Horam: Yes, Sir. In the debate on rural transport, the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) made precisely that point. We are aware that subsidies are not the whole answer to the problem, although at the moment they are an inescapable part of it. If subsidies are sliced, as has been done in some parts, to the great detriment of rural bus services, there is a speedy effect on fares and the level of services. Some support is inescapable. Nevertheless, I agree that we must look anew at the responsibilities of the traffic commissioners and the licensing system.
    Mr. Shepherd: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many of us from the rural areas will be pleased to have heard what he said? Will he recognise the extreme urgency of tackling this problem, because the lack of flexibility available to county councils makes their life difficult? Will he undertake to bring forward his proposals as early as possible, and give them the maximum possible flexibility, to tackle the question of rural transport?
    Mr. Horam: We are anxious that local authorities should have the maximum power and flexibility to tackle these problems, which, fundamentally, are best solved by local people because they know them best. We accept that action is urgently needed.
    Mr. Roy Hughes: Will my hon. Friend direct his attention to the number of serious accidents involving buses that have taken place in recent months? In the light of that figure, does he not agree that there must be no lowering of safety standards which would endanger the public or the employees?
    Mr. Horam: I accept that point. The safety check must be preserved—that is accepted on both sides of the House. Indeed, the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) referred to it in his speech in the rural transport debate.
    Mr. Norman Fowler: Is not the only reason why the licensing revisions of the Conservative Government are not on the statute book now that the incoming Government, in March 1974, disreputably scrapped proposals which, only a few months previously, they had supported when in opposition? The next Conservative Government will reintroduce these revisions—and, following the local elections, nothing is more certain than that there will soon be a Conservative Government.
    Mr. Horam: The hon. Gentleman is indulging in some wishful thinking. I find his explanation of what the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), who was the Minister then, was doing somewhat curious, to say the least. The fact is that the Conservative Government themselves had grave misgivings about their 1973 Bill, which itself was a heavily modified form of the consultation document, and even after Second Reading the right hon. Gentleman announced that he would have further consultations. All we got in three and a half years was the promise of more consultations. I assure the House that we will take some action.
    Mr. Ronald Atkins: Will my hon. Friend beware of allowing flexibility to destroy existing public services, particularly stage services? It would be folly to allow existing services to be destroyed, thus creating the transport desert to which the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) referred.
    Mr. Horam: My right hon. Friend is right. The whole point of policy here must be to strike a balance between preserving existing stage services, including protecting them by the bus licensing system and adequate levels of subsidy, and getting a reasonable degree of flexibility whereby unconventional means of transport can be used in those areas where they are most right for people's needs.
    Sir A. Meyer: Will the hon. Gentleman exert his considerable powers of persuasion on the large bus companies to try

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    to get them to accept that it is far better to provide really cheap fares in the middle of the day than to run large buses which are completely empty?
    Mr. Horam: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point. We shall be coming to this later when the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) has a Question about the National Bus Company. I think that the hon. Gentleman is on to a very fair point. If we can utilise capacity in off-peak periods in a more imaginative way—this is true of the railways as well as buses—we can make some considerable progress.

    British Railways (Chairman)
    Mr. Tim Rentonasked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will make a statement on his last meeting with the Chairman of British Railways.
    Mr. William Rodgers: Not unless pressed.
    Mr. Renton: I press the right hon. Gentleman to make a statement. Further, will he please now answer the Question, which he totally dodged when he last answered Questions on 6th April, and state whether he and the Chairman of British Rail will ensure that British Rail does nothing to obstruct the granting of licences to commuters who now seek to travel to work by coach?
    Mr. Rodgers: If I wanted to obstruct them I could not do so, because it is not within my statutory power. I am all for encouraging endeavour and I think that British Railways provide excellent services, including their service to commuters, and could face the sort of competition that the hon. Gentleman has in mind. Certainly the Chairman of British Railways has not raised this as a matter that causes him anxiety.
    Mr. Robin F. Cook: Will my right hon. Friend tell the House whether he has given any reply to the Chairman and Board of British Railways in their request for the investment programme to be put on a rolling basis, which would give British Railways better value for money and more security to the supplying industries? When can we expect a response to this reasonable and realistic request?
    Mr. Rodgers: There is a later Question on the Order Paper about investment and
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    it may be more appropriate to give a full reply then. But, of course, investment is one of the matters that I discuss with the chairman. It is difficult to make regular statements to the House, because the House would get bored with them. I have what I think the popular jargon calls an ongoing relationship with the chairman. For that reason, questions of investment are regularly discussed. I hope that my White Paper will help deal with the question that my hon. Friend clearly implies is a very important one both for the Board and for those who work on the railways.
    Mr. Adley: When the Secretary of State next sees the Chairman of British Railways—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The Question deals with the right hon. Gentleman's last meeting with the chairman. I think I had better call the next Question.
    Mr. Renton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the totally unsatisfactory nature of the reply from the Secretary of State, I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.
    Mr. Martenasked the Secretary of State for Transport when he will next meet the Chairman of British Railways.
    Mr. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Transport when he next intends to meet the Chairman of British Railways.
    Mr. Arthur Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Transport when he next intends to meet the Chairman of British Railways.
    Mr. William Rodgers: Soon.
    Mr. Marten: Good. In that case, in one of his ongoing meetings, will the right hon. Gentleman raise with the chairman the fact that many passengers are rather browned off with diesel engines constantly breaking down, and will he therefore raise the question of equipment or repair of these machines? [Interruption.] No, not expenditure. Will the right hon. Gentleman also draw the chairman's attention to the long time that he has taken over coming to a decision about pigeons and the carriage thereof?
    Mr. Rodgers: Certainly I have discussed the first matter with the chairman

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    from time to time. Indeed, the chairman is very anxious to run an efficient railway within the cost limits allowed to him to meet the needs of passengers so far as he possibly can. I am very impressed by what he and the reconstituted Board are seeking to do.
    I know the hon. Gentleman's particular interest in pigeons. As he knows, and as I told him, the matter has now been discussed by the Central Transport Consultative Committee, and I am sure that decisions will be made by the Board as soon as it gets a reply.
    Mr. Henderson: Will the Secretary of State convey to the chairman that there is considerable concern about British Railways' attitude towards the increase in charges for unaccompanied livestock, such as pigeons and puppies, which is regarded as a mean, spiteful and vindictive retaliation following the thwarting of the Board's efforts to stop this traffic altogether? Will he ask the Chairman of British Railways whether he is willing to open his cost accounts to independent inspection, since he claims that he requires to put up the charges to this extent?
    Mr. Rodgers: I know that this is one of the matters that have perhaps caused disproportionate concern from time to time. It has been well aired in the House, and the Chairman of British Railways was as surprised as I was at the strength of feeling on the matter. I do not think that there is anything vindictive about his action and I would like to believe that the hon. Gentleman is not endorsing such ungenerous thoughts. The chairman is aware of these matters, and if information can be made available to the House to enable it to see how the Board arrives at its figures I shall certainly make clear to the chairman and the Board that this is what the House would like to know.
    Mr. Jones: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has got some useful ideas for his agenda when he goes to see Mr. Peter Parker. May I suggest that he raises also the question of double manning on the footplate, particularly on diesel engines, which I know, from my own observations, is widespread? The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the publication of "Railway Rescue", referred to in the Press on 18th April,
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    suggesting that the manning of footplates could be reduced by over 50 per cent. Does he think that is a useful matter to discuss with the Chairman of British Railways?
    Mr. Rodgers: Questions of manning are ones that come up from time to time. I see no reason why, if this is something that is worth discussing, we should not discuss it. I must make it absolutely clear, and I repeat, that I do not believe it is the right course of the responsible Minister to get himself involved in detailed day-to-day matters. Equally, I think that the chairman is quite capable of dealing with matters raised by the public on, for example, the question of manning.
    As the hon. Gentleman will know, the chairman does make a point of seeing that the great majority of trains are no longer double manned. He is anxious to improve productivity, and so are the unions. If there can be discussions, and if there can be changes, so be it.
    Mr. Heifer: When my right hon. Friend next meets the chairman, will he explain that some of us believe that the time has come for some experimentation with regard to fares? For example, on the inner city runs we would like to see the reduction of fares for a period of time in order to see precisely how this works out. Many of us believe that if there were a real reduction for a period we would see people coming back to the railways rather than using their own transport or other forms of transport.
    Mr. Rodgers: My hon. Friend may know that I made clear some time ago that I would welcome experiments in reducing fares on British Railways. That would have my blessing. I have also said that to the trade unions involved and I have said that it seems to me to be a proper business risk to try to reduce fares to attract traffic back to the railways. As my hon. Friend will also know, the Chairman of British Railways has recently announced a very interesting scheme for main lines between London and Scotland, and we must hope that it succeeds.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: As my representations have failed elsewhere, I wonder whether the Secretary of State will be kind enough to make a plea to the Chairman of British Railways to treat rather

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    better than they do at present passengers who unfortunately have to travel on Sundays. People who unfortunately have to use the Portsmouth line are regularly unloaded half-way down the track and put into totally unsuitable carriages. Many of them are old ladies with heavy bags. That is no way to attract people back to the railways.
    Mr. Rodgers: I shall draw the chairman's attention to the hon. Gentleman's point. We have all been victims of the delays from time to time involved in Sunday travel, but most are due to essential engineering work. To be fair, if we are to maintain the track we must close it at some time.
    Mr. Adley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on the Southern Region—the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) mentioned the Portsmouth line—the recent timetable changes appear to have been introduced without consultation with either passengers or staff? In the circumstances, is he surprised that some of the staff have threatened industrial action? Does not he agree that British Rail—indeed, all the nationalised industries—should set the best example of discussions between staff and management? When he sees Mr. Parker, will he ask for assurances that in future, before major timetable changes are made, the outline of the proposed changes is discussed with regular customers and with the staff concerned?
    Mr. Rodgers: I agree that the public sector should set an example in consultations with the trade unions and customers. However, this is very much the case. The level of consultation between the unions and the British Railways Board today is better than it has ever been. I do not know the details of the case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman but I shall make sure that the Chairman of British Rail looks into it.

    Preston Docks (Report)
    Mr. Ronald Atkinsasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the report on Preston Docks by the National Ports Council.
    Mr. William Rodgers: I have seen a copy of the National Ports Council's report to the Preston Borough Council about the port of Preston. It appears
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    to make a number of useful suggestions which I hope that Preston Borough Council will consider carefully.
    Mr. Atkins: In view of the fact that the report contradicts the assessment on the viability of Preston Docks by the Preston Borough Council, which still wants to close the docks, what action is the Secretary of State prepared to take to keep this valuable national asset open?
    Mr. William Rodgers: As my hon. Friend knows, the port of Preston is and must remain the responsibility of the Preston Borough Council. I have no powers in this respect. I agree, however, that the report from the National Ports Council is significant and indicates that there could be advantage to the ratepayers of Preston if it was adopted. It is not for me to take an initiative at this stage, but I shall be interested to know whether the borough council feels able to adopt the proposal of the National Ports Council.
    Mr. George Rodgers: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the survival of the docks at Preston is of consequence to people far removed from the Conservative-controlled council and that the economic welfare of the North-West generally is tied up with the docks? Will he take an initiative in this matter?
    Mr. William Rodgers: The interest in maintaining the port goes very wide, and this is a factor which the Preston Borough Council should take into account. But I must work within my statutory powers. The port is the responsibility of Preston Borough Council. I think that it would be wise to discover whether the council intends to take an intiative and act upon the advice which it appears to have been given.

    South Humberside (Road Construction)
    Mr. Brothertonasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement about the road construction programme on the south bank of the Humber.
    Mr. Horam: The whole of the M180 South Humberside motorway from Thorne to east of Brigg is now under construction and is expected to be completed early in 1979 in time for the

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    opening of the Humber Bridge. A preferred route for the extension of this road to Grimsby was announced last summer and, subject to completion to the statutory processes and the availability of funds, it is planned to complete it by the end of 1981. With regard to the associated county road improvements, the link between the M180 and the Humber Bridge is at an advanced stage of construction and preparatory works are continuing on the remaining projects.
    Mr. Brotherton: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that that is a totally unsatisfactory reply? What is required on the south bank of the Humber for the port of Immingham in my constituency, which is the sixth largest port in the United Kingdom, and for the port of Grimsby, which is smaller but very important, is a decent east-west road system. The money wasted on the Humber Bridge would have been better spent on building a decent east-west road system on the south bank of the Humber.
    Mr. Horam: My reply, far from being inadequate, was over-generous, certainly in its length. It indicated the massive amount of road building which is now in progress on both banks of the Humber in an east-west direction as well as in a north-south direction. I was on the M18 last Saturday, and I can say from my own knowledge how rapid the progress is.
    Mr. John Ellis: Does my hon. Friend accept that, although we are grateful for the extent of this motorway which has been completed right across my constituency, the granting of development area status to Grimsby means that to capitalise on the investment that has taken place it would be as well to complete the motorway network through to Grimsby and allow the county council to build a spur road through my constituency, thus giving relief to the villages of Ulceby and Ulceby Skitter, to Immingham?
    Mr. Horam: I refer my hon. Friend to my original reply, in which I said that a preferred route for an extension of the road to Grimsby was announced last summer. We are making rapid progress on that, so we are going right to the heart of the area about which my hon. Friend is concerned, although I cannot comment on his second point.

    Railways (Investment)
    Mr. Robin F. Cookasked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he has received any representations from the British Railways Board on the need for increased investment in the railways over the next five years.
    Mr. William Rodgers: Yes, Sir. Investment levels are among the matters I have discussed with the Board.
    Mr. Cook: Has my right hon. Friend seen the paper from the Board stating that the present level of investment means that it will have higher maintenance in the future, speed restrictions on perhaps as much as one-quarter of the track, and fewer high-speed trains—in other words, a less reliable service covering a smaller part of the country? Does my right hon. Friend have any basis for rejecting the professional judgment of British Rail management?
    Mr. Rodgers: I have seen the paper to which my hon. Friend refers. There has to be a sense of proportion both about the extent to which there is bound to be a dialogue between the Board and the Government over matters like investment and about the Board making its best case. We also have to look for a cost-effective railway. Obviously, we have to have a higher level of investment in it. But we must not assume that it can in every way and at every point be maintained to the standards which may be appropriate on certain lines.
    Mrs. Winifred Ewing: In considering the investment programme, will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the plans for the provision of food on journeys lasting a considerable number of hours? Is he aware that, on recent journeys which my hon. Friends have made from Scotland to England, there has been no food—not even a mini-buffet and not even a glass of lemonade for thirsty children?
    Mr. Rodgers: I am sorry if there has been neither lemonade nor any other refreshment on trains recently leaving Scotland. They must be very poverty-stricken if they are not able to provide the minimum sustenance for their people leaving the country to come to happier places. That having been said, although we can all criticise food on British Railways—and I do it regularly—and although there are occasional lapses, the

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    Board is doing its very best. But I am sure that the chairman will note what the hon. Lady said. Indeed, if she and her hon. Friends care to send a letter to the chairman of the Board setting out exactly where the railway is falling short, I am sure that he will take action on it.
    Mr. Noble: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the lack of investment on many branch lines, especially the one up the Calder Valley, is seriously damaging the morale of employees and seriously inconveniencing the public? Will he ensure that in the next investment programme many of these branch lines are brought up to scratch, and will he secure in that programme a guarantee that the line to which I have referred will remain open?
    Mr. Rodgers: This is not the occasion to give a specific undertaking about any one line. I note what my hon. Friend said, and I appreciate the importance attached by his constituents to that line, as I do the importance attached to many lines of British Railways throughout the United Kingdom. I have not doubted the need for a high level of investment. On 26th April I announced very important new plans for high-speed trains to the West Country and for new electric multiple units for the London commuter area. The level of investment in British Railways is high. It could be higher. This is a matter which I discuss regularly with the Chairman of British Rail, and I shall continue to do so.

    Railways (Electrification)
    Mr. Tom McMillanasked the Secretary of State for Transport what is his policy towards trunk route electrification on British Railways.
    Mr. William Rodgers: I look at any schemes the Railways Board submits to me on their merits.
    Mr. McMillan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Britain ranks only sixteenth in Europe in terms of rail network electrification? Is there not a lesson to be learned from this about the better use of scarce oil resources?
    Mr. Rodgers: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We must, in all our responsibility, consider the energy problems as a background to the decisions which have to be made. I would only say that there are no proposals for
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    electrification before me at present. I think my hon. Friend will agree that electrification is not always necessarily the best formula. The British Railways Board should be free to make proposals in the light of its own judgment and experience.
    Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Does not the Secretary of State agree that British Rail faces a painful dilemma in building what it believes to be an operationally and financially secure base for the railways with the pressures of the public and Parliament to go on spending money on uneconomic services? Would it not be much more realistic for him to say that if we want electrification, the advanced passenger train and better rolling stock, we shall not be able to continue to support wholly unremunerative branch lines or continue with overmanning?
    Mr. Rodgers: I do not think that I agree with the hon. Gentleman, although he tries to put his question in a persuasive way. The whole House has agreed that it is important to maintain a national rail network. That is the starting point, and to do that we must rely on support out of the public purse as well as support from fares. There are choices and the British Railways Board must face them. Unless we are able to spend much more than we are spending now, which means spending less in some other areas, the only way to increase revenue is to increase fares. Either we increase fares or we increase taxes. If we do not do that, at the end of the day there will have to be a reduction in the present standards or, alternatively, in some way in the quality of services.
    Mr. Thompson: Does the Secretary of State realise that the electrification of a route gives one at least the possibility of a decent service? Will he take care that in future electrification plans we do not get daft mistakes such as that in the South of Scotland when the line from Glasgow through Beattock to Carlisle was electrified in order to suit the inter-city whizz kids while neglecting the line through Kilmarnock and Dumfries to Carlisle, which goes through many more centres of population and which would have served many more people in the South of Scotland?
    Mr. Rodgers: I am not entirely sure what conclusions I draw from the hon.

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    Gentleman's question, whether he thinks that investment went into the wrong place or whether he thinks that there should have been more of it. We must, however, keep a sense of perspective about this. There are some first-class main lines which are not electrified. I enjoy one up to the East Coast. Electrification is not the be-all and end-all of an efficient system. My hon. Friend was right to ask his Question, but let us retain a sense of perspective and leave it to British Rail to bring forward proposals that it can make within the ceiling available to it.
    Mr. Spriggs: When my right hon. Friend meets the chairman of the Board, will he refer to the question of the second man on a locomotive? Several hon. Members have today criticised overmanning. Will my right hon. Friend inform the chairman that the second man plays a very important part in preventing accidents when the train is moving?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I allowed the hon. Member to ask his question, but really it was related to another Question on the Order Paper.

    Motorway Network
    Mr. Edwin Wainwrightasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make certain the network of motorways planned for the 1980s will include a motorway between Sheffield and Manchester; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Horam: No, Sir. On 18th February my right hon. Friend announced that proposals to build up an entirely new road linking Manchester and Sheffield could not be justified economically. I am satisfied that bypasses of Mottram, Hollingworth and Tintwistle to the west and Stockbridge and Deepcar to the east, together with selective and limited improvements to the existing A628 between the western and eastern bypasses, will be sufficient to meet traffic needs for the foreseeable future.
    Mr. Wainwright: Is my hon. Friend aware that that is a most disappointing reply? Many people are unhappy with his Department and British Rail about the railway system across the Pennines. Has he ever driven a car or a lorry or
    1322
    even walked along this tortuous road across the Pennines? Will he consider including in the next programme the building of this motorway, and will he include in that consideration the provision of a good service station with a large car park so that people using the road can take advantage of the beautiful country around there?
    Mr. Horam: I thought that the people who supported the rail line were in favour of the decision made by my right hon. Friend. I understood that they argued that a decision to provide a road system where a rail system already existed would have been a strange one. As for the beauty of the countryside, the whole point is that the section where a motorway will not be built includes a national park. That was one of the factors that my right hon. Friend took into account, and rightly so.
    Mr. Giles Shaw: Does the Minister recognise that not all of us in Yorkshire disapprove of some of his recent decisions about motorway planning? On the point raised by the hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright), will the Minister bear in mind that, when he says that we should not have a motorway through a national park, it is equally worth preserving a green belt area between two metropolitan areas? Perhaps he will bear that in mind in relation to Pudsey and Dishforth.
    Mr. Horam: I visited the interesting area between Bradford and Leeds, which is so important to the hon. Member, electorally and otherwise, and I looked at the whole alternative to the east-west route connecting the A1 and the M1, so I know the problems.
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Is my hon. Friend aware that many people, certainly on the Manchester side, were delighted with my right hon. Friend's original announcement and were very pleased that he decided not to allow a national park to be spoiled by the intrusion of a motorway?
    Mr. Wainwright: Bunkum!
    Mr. Horam: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) for his restrained support, and I shall ignore seated interruptions.

    M25 (Micklefield Green—South Mimms)
    Mr. Dodsworthasked the Secretary of State for Transport when he anticipates that up-to-date road traffic information will be available for a decision to be taken on the choice of route for the Micklefield Green to South Mimms section of the M25 motorway.
    Mr. Horam: We hope that preliminary traffic information for this section of the M25 will be available before the end of the year.
    Mr. Dodsworth: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. May I have his assurance that he will make sure that any information that is published appears after the completion of any remedial roadworks but certainly before any public inquiry, to make sure that the greatest possible accurate information is available to the public? Will he bear in mind the problems that have arisen on the existing section of the A405, between Maple Cross and Hunton Bridge, in view of the effect that that will have in altering the traffic flows?
    Mr. Horam: I undertake to take into account the traffic flows when the A405 and the A41 have been improved before the other section of the M25 begins to be constructed.
    Mr. Raphael Tuck: Will my hon. Friend resist any siren voices of persuasion to the contrary and appreciate the urgent need for this road to be built, because of the misery being caused to the people of Watford? Will he bear in mind that my request has nothing to do with my being the Member of Parliament for the area but refers exclusively to the discomfort suffered by these people because of the traffic conditions?
    Mr. Horam: Whenever I think of my hon. Friend, I also think of the M25 between Micklefield Green and South Mimms. I know of the extreme importance of this to my hon. Friend's constituents and of his personal campaign in support of the building of that road. I am sure that he will deeply appreciate the misery that such a road will certainly alleviate.

    Railway Accidents
    Mr. Buchananasked the Secretary of State for Transport in how many railway
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    accidents, in each of the last five years, locomotive failure has been the cause or a contributing factor.
    Mr. Horam: The number of train accidents, excluding fires, caused by the failure of locomotives or multiple units over the five most recent years for which confirmed figures are available was: 1971, 28; 1972, 11; 1973, 21; 1974, 16; 1975, 15.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is my hon. Friend aware that the figures that he has just given are a tribute to the skill and dedication of the people who care for and maintain the rolling stock on British Rail? The ageing nature of that rolling stock is presenting grave problems to these people. I appreciate the significance of my hon. Friend's announcement last month, but will he seek further to improve the rolling stock?
    Mr. Horam: I support my hon. Friend's tribute to the efforts that have obviously led to the reduction in the number of accidents involving engines. The figures are a tribute to British Rail, in view of the existing state of its rolling stock. My hon. Friend will have noted my right hon. Friend's remarks about the importance of rolling programmes and investment levels generally. We take that to be an extremely important point.
    Mr. Flannery: I compliment the dedication of British Rail and its splendid record on having so few accidents, but may I call my hon. Friend's attention to a central line, not a branch line, up to Sheffield, with its increasing deterioration of rolling stock? It has more breakdowns of engines than it should have and has had in the past. Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that more investment is necessary for that line in order to improve its whole service?
    Mr. Horam: Yes, indeed. I think that there will be some electrification on that line in the near future. I believe that there are plans for electrification, and my hon. Friend will then see some improvement.

    Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre
    Mr. Rhodes Jamesasked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he is satisfied with the efficiency of the Swansea Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Eyreasked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he is satisfied with the efficiency of the Swansea Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Horam: There has been a substantial improvement over the past year—though all concerned at the centre would readily admit that there is still room for further improvement.
    Mr. Rhodes James: I thank the Minister for that reply and accept that there has been a considerable improvement, but is he aware that I continue to receive a considerable number of complaints from my constituents about the work of the centre, and that there is clearly room for considerable further improvement?
    Mr. Horam: The hon. Gentleman has raised three cases since he came to the House and in only one was the centre at fault.
    Mr. Eyre: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he should not brush aside complaints, as they are widespread, repeated, and received by many hon. Members? Is he further aware that he will not satisfy the public criticism of the operation of the centre unless he orders an immediate independent—and I stress "independent"—inquiry into the working of the centre to try to make good these faults?
    Mr. Horam: I am aware of the complaints, because I have to answer them. I am constantly aware in detail and in depth of the sort of problems that have been caused. We take this matter seriously, but, given the volume of work that the centre deals with, the improvement has been quite marked over the last 12 months, and rather than our setting up an inquiry it would be better for the improvement to continue. If it does not, I shall look at the matter again.
    Mr. Penhaligon: Does the hon. Gentleman agree, on reflection, that the whole concept of this centralised Government bureaucracy was a disaster?
    Mr. Horam: The Government of the day believed that the system in operation at that time—a system that was popular—of the local taxation offices handling these matters could not continue because of the increasing number of motor cars
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    and the additional licensing involved. A decision had to be taken on that basis, and whatever the merits of the previous system we cannot go back to it.
    Mr. Hodgson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there have been a number of cases of people applying to Swansea for provisional licences and being issued with full driving licences? Can he tell us how many such cases there have been and how many people are now driving on the roads without ever having taken a driving test?
    Mr. Horam: This is a new one on me. I thought that I had seen everything in the way of complaints about the centre. I shall certainly look into this matter if the hon. Gentleman will write to me, or perhaps I can speak to him about it later.

    Lorry Drivers (Working Hours)
    Mr. Goodladasked the Secretary of State for Transport what discussions he has had with the EEC Transport Ministers on the question of drivers' hours and distances.
    Mr. William Rodgers: Since the last meeting of the EEC Council of Transport Ministers on 16th December I have had informal meetings with several colleagues. There have been regular discussions at official level in preparation for the next Council meeting, which is planned for next month.
    Mr. Goodlad: At the next meeting of EEC Transport Ministers, will the right hon. Gentleman impress upon his fellow Ministers the fact that implementation by this country of Community Regulations 534 and 642 is liable to cause substantial disruption to freight transportation and a substantial increase in rail fares? Will he urge that there should be considerable changes made to these orders and urge upon the Leader of the House that we should debate the matter soon?
    Mr. Rodgers: My right hon. Friend will have heard the hon. Gentleman's question. We had a discussion on 4th April on various matters relating to drivers' hours in the EEC and there may not be a great deal of parliamentary time in the immediate future in which to discuss the matter again. I agree with what the hon. Gentleman said. This is a matter of

    1327
    great concern to our road haulage industry and it is something on which we shall have to negotiate to get the best possible deal. I shall be acting in the spirit suggested by the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Raphael Tuck: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the introduction of tachographs, and if I were persuaded that accidents? Will he consider their introduction, despite the opposition from certain quarters?
    Mr. Rodgers: My hon. Friend is not referring to the regulations affecting drivers' hours and distances travelled. There are many arguments concerning tachographs, and if I were persuaded that they would have a significant effect on road safety I might have dealt with the matter in different terms. I am not convinced that they are more central to road safety than are many other matters to which we could give much higher priority.
    Mr. Moate: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what is the Government's estimate of the total cost that would be likely to fall on our bus and road haulage industries if the Community requirements on drivers' hours were implemented in full?
    Mr. Rodgers: It is difficult to say. I have tried to get estimates that convince me, and the industry has its own views. It could be more than£100 million.

    Concessionary Bus Fares
    Mr. Adleyasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on his discussions with the National Bus Company on the question of concessionary fares for the elderly.
    Mr. Horam: I am told that the National Bus Company's studies will necessarily take some months to complete; therefore, I cannot yet add to the reply that my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member on 21st March 1977.
    Mr. Adley: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, although he has tried to make the difference between rural and urban areas a matter of party politics, this has nothing to do with the problem, and that it is related to the fact that in many urban areas the municipal bus services are run by local authorities which are free to make their own arrangements, and that Bournemouth, which is not, I
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    think, a Labour-controlled area, has a scheme for concessionary fares? Does he agree that my suggestion that the National Bus Company should sell bus passes on a similar basis to the scheme operated by British Rail would not involve extra public expenditure and that it would help to eliminate the unfairnesses that exist among ratepayers in adjacent local authorities served by the same bus company where some enjoy concessionary fares while others do not?
    Mr. Horam: I can confirm what the hon. Gentleman said about such a scheme not adding to public expenditure. If we could get a sensible scheme within the overall financial regime of the NBC, that would help. I am anxious to encourage it, as the hon. Gentleman knows because we have talked about this. Indeed, the initiative that the NBC is taking arose partly from our discussions.
    Mr. Skinner: When discussing concessionary fares for the elderly, will my hon. Friend also bear in mind those at the other end of the age scale, namely, schoolchildren over 14 and up to 17 or 18 who are being charged the full adult fare by most bus companies, both public and private? Does he agree that there is a widespread wish in the House and outside that a concession should be granted to these schoolchildren?
    Mr. Horam: My hon. Friend is right. As a result of the raising of the school leaving age, a problem has been created for schoolchildren, who do not benefit because the age limit for concessionary fares has not been raised. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science is looking into the matter, and local authorities have discretionary power to help children who have to travel more than three miles.
    Mr. Emery: Will the hon. Gentleman encourage the public enterprise bus services to introduce, before the report, concessionary fares on certain days when some country buses travel all but empty during mid-morning and mid-afternoon? Would this not be of great assistance to elderly people living a long way from towns, and should it not be done immediately?
    Mr. Horam: The NBC has taken this point on board. That is why it is undertaking the study. It is an important

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    matter, and I am sure that the whole House would urge the NBC to do something about it.

    Railways (Productivity)
    Mr. Spriggsasked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he is satisfied with current levels of productivity on British Railways.
    Mr. William Rodgers: I always welcome improved productivity in transport, as we must all do, throughout British industry.
    Mr. Spriggs: Has my right hon. Friend read the recent Press reports about the claim of Railway Rescue that British Railways are paying railwaymen for doing nothing? This is a load of rubbish. Let me assure my right hon. Friend that the railway trade unions are co-operating with the Board on productivity deals. I can assure the House that railwaymen are working rest days and—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the Minister wish to answer?
    Mr. Rodgers: I certainly saw the report to which my hon. Friend referred. I think it is important to say that there is a great deal of unfair comment about moves towards productivity on the railways. My hon. Friend is quite right to draw attention to the co-operation that has existed between the rail unions and the British Railways Board on important productivity agreements, including those related to signalling. The record is a good one. That is without prejudice to whether it could be better.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS
Mr. Pym Mr. Pym (by Private Notice) asked the Leader of the House whether he will make a statement about the present state of the printing of parliamentary papers.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): The printing of parliamentary papers has been disrupted because of a dispute about flexibility and overtime working involving the National Graphical Association and NATSOPA machine room staff at the Parliamentary press. Discussions between officials of Her Majesty's Stationery Office and
1330
representatives of the staff concerned have taken place and are continuing. Existing arrangements will ensure that essential parliamentary papers continue to be available. I naturally very greatly regret the inconvenience which is still being caused to Members in all parts of the House.
Mr. Pym: Obviously the Leader of the House is aware of the great inconvenience and the seriousness of any interruption of the normal supply of parliamentary papers. Will he agree that it seems to some of us that these disputes have become rather more frequent in recent years, which is extremely unfortunate? Can he hold out any hope that there will be an early settlement to this particular dispute, and can he hold out any hope that there will be a more lasting settlement, so that the House of Commons and Parliament do not suffer from the interruption in the supply of papers in the future?
Mr. Foot: I agree with everything the right hon. Gentleman has said about the seriousness of the interruption in the supply of papers for the House. I do not think that anybody in the House can doubt that. But let us try to settle this dispute, and then we can see how we can prepare for the future. The most immediate concern is to try to get a settlement of this dispute.
Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend explain to the House precisely who are the people doing the copying in the House? Are they members of a trade union? Have they been accepted to do the job by the trade union in dispute? Have they been checked for security? Are they issued with security passes? What is the cost of using these people in comparison with a settlement with the trade union concerned?
Further, is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us are most disturbed that hon. Members are not allowed to use the rooms downstairs while they are being used by people whom we might well consider to be blacklegs?
Mr. Foot: I fully acknowledge the inconvenience for Members of the House arising from the use of these rooms, but the general arrangements for the operation that is required to deal with the situation were announced in the House

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by my predecessor and the House was able to consider all aspects of the matter then.
I do not think that any question of blacklegging arises. Certainly the question has not been raised at all in any of the discussions which have arisen in the last day between my hon. Friend from the Civil Service Department and the representatives of those working here. Since they have not raised the issue, I do not think, therefore, that it is wise for the House to raise it.
Mr. Thorpe: Is the Leader of the House aware that we are very grateful to those downstairs who have produced our Order Papers, whether they have had fingerprints taken or blood tests, or any other tests that hon. Members might think relevant?
Will the Leader of the House, in view of the exchanges yesterday—this is a serious point—consider whether it might be possible for at least one copy of the proceedings of this House to be made available in typed or duplicated form in the Library so that right hon. Members who wish to refer with greater accuracy to the events of the previous day can do so?
Mr. Foot: The right hon. Gentleman will see that we have done our best under these operations which are now in effect and which have been used on previous occasions to produce a form of the reportwhich is available to the House. Many copies of that were available yesterday, not merely in the Library but for the House generally.
Mr. Loyden: I support the statement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) concerning the uneasiness felt by hon. Members on the Government side about the present printing arrangements. Will my right hon. Friend not agree that had the questions asked by my hon. Friend been answered, it might well have been possible to remove some of the fears that we have about the alternative printing arrangements used in the House at the moment?
Mr. Foot: There has been no complaint by any of those working here about the emergency measures which the House has put into operation. I think it is therefore unwise for us to raise those questions. We are seeking a settlement
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of the dispute. In the meantime, the measures which were put to the House and explained to the House by my predecessor are now in operation.
Mr. Emery: Will the Leader of the House convey to those who are concerned with the printing of parliamentary papers that they normally do a most excellent job in frequently very difficult and time-limited conditions? Because of that, this House should be the best possible employer of any in the country.
The statement that the Leader of the House made to the House is very similar to that which has been made by many Leaders of the House previously—in other words, "Let us settle this dispute and then deal with the overall problem". The overall problem has not been dealt with. May we have an absolute assurance from the Leader of the House that he really will now deal with the problem on a longterm basis?
Mr. Foot: There is a difference between saying that anyone standing at this Dispatch Box, or any Leader of the House, will try to find a long-term solution and in seeing that it is put into operation.
I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman said about the very great skills used by those who produce the papers for this House and the speed with which they are normally produced. I pay the highest tribute to those who are engaged in these operations. But I think it is essential that the papers for this House are supplied. That is why the emergency operation system was described to the House earlier, and why occasionally, unfortunately, it has had to be brought into existence.
Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I have your guidance on this matter? Hon. Members, when they put serious questions, which they are entitled to ask, as to who is doing the printing, whether these people are members of the trade union, what is their pay, and so on, ought surely—[Interruption.] I am not asking Opposition Members for their advice. I am asking Mr. Speaker for his guidance. Are we or are we not entitled to an answer to these serious questions? Many of us on the Government side, if not on the Conservative side, would like to know the answers.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman well knows that I am not responsible for the content of answers.
Mr. Steen: I had Interview Room H booked for 4 p.m. today for a meeting to discuss pre-school education. I have received a note from the Serjeant at Arms telling me that the meeting room has now been lost. There is nowhere to go. Will you advise me, Mr. Speaker, where such a meeting could take place?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I was afraid that the hon. Gentleman was about to ask me to tell him where to go. It is obvious that, with the difficulties facing us, special steps have to be taken. This House must be allowed to function.

RHODESIA
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Dr. David Owen): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I shall make a statement about Rhodesia.
Discussions of the Rhodesian question have taken place with the United States Government over the past three weeks. I met Mr. Secretary Vance on 6th May. We were in full agreement on the best way to carry matters forward.
Both Governments wish to reiterate their determination to work for the independence of Rhodesia under majority rule in 1978. They have been encouraged by their contacts so far to believe that detailed consultations about an independence constitution and the necessary transitional arrangements could be a satisfactory way to achieve this. They have therefore agreed that Britain and the United States should now enter into a phase of intensive consultations with the parties.
For this purpose, Her Majesty's Government have decided to establish a consultative group to make contact with the parties, which will visit the area as necessary, including Salisbury. It will be headed by J. A. N. Graham, Deputy Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He will leave for Africa next week.
Mr. Vance has agreed to appoint a senior United States official to work with the head of the British consultative group.
Mr. John Davies: While not wishing to take an unduly "told you so" attitude, may I congratulate the Secretary of State on step-by-step moving closer to the views which we on this side have expressed for a considerable time past? I assure the right hon. Gentleman—I am sure that he will understand this—that we welcome the setting up of the consultative group and the proposed United States participation in it, which we have long thought desirable in any such event. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to say more about its precise terms of reference and the time scale which he has laid down for its work?
Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that, as part of this system, the presence of a mission in Salisbury on a resident basis to keep the group and the Foreign Secretary himself fully informed seems to us to be continuingly desirable? Further, may we have an assurance that the setting up of this group will in no way lessen the right hon. Gentleman's personal involvement in the solution of these matters, to which also we attach importance?
Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, in the way they have handled these matters from the time of the Kissinger initiative, the Government have seemed to us too frequently to accept the reality of events rather late and to react to them rather late? We have had to refer to this already. We hope that the right hon. Gentleman is aware of the extreme urgency which we now believe surrounds this problem. Will he be able to tell the House soon how he means to consult the whole people of Rhodesia, in accordance with the fifth principle, to which both the Government and the Opposition are deeply attached?
Dr. Owen: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome. As to the precise terms of reference. I have deliberately not set precise terms of reference, and I do not think that to do so would help at this stage. As to the time scale of the consultative group's activity, I certainly attach a great deal of urgency to the matter—the right hon. Gentleman emphasised that—and that is why it is starting next week. It will stay in Africa and hope to report back to me in early June.
As to when or whether we should establish a mission in Salisbury, I have made

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clear to the House throughout that I have been open-minded on the matter. I do not judge it the right moment to do so at present, but the consultative group will be visiting Salisbury. As for my own personal involvement, I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the House that I still stand ready to chair any conference were it to be decided that that was the right way of proceeding, and I shall also stay very closely involved in the whole issue.
I recognise that the House has always wished to be satisfied as regard consulting the whole people of Rhodesia. Again, I think that it is too early to decide the precise arrangements—whether they would be through a General Election or some mechanism such as a Pearce mechanism, or whether the House might be satisfied by the sort of activity done through the consultative group. I recognise, however, that the House will wish to be satisfied that any solution commands majority support inside Rhodesia.
Mr. Thorpe: Will the Foreign Secretary take it that we welcome the Government's continuing efforts to achieve a peaceful solution of this problem? Can he say a little more about the consultative group? Will it be all-British or will it be multinational? Will the Americans be there on purely a consultative basis or will they be members? Where will this body be based, and will it merely report to the Government or have powers to negotiate?
Dr. Owen: The British representatives on the consultative group will work under my authority and will be answering to me, and if it makes any major decisions they will be decisions which I shall make on behalf of the Government in consultation with the whole of the Government. Those members of the consultative group who come from the United States will operate under the same arrangement. Throughout this procedure there has been and will continue to be the closest working relationship between Mr. Vance and myself and between Her Majesty's Government and the American Administration, as well as the close involvement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Carter also. It is a joint enterprise.
What we are trying to do is to sound out opinion. We shall be putting forward suggestions, but we shall also be listening
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and trying to reach a consensus about a peaceful transition to majority rule under a constitution and a method of election which will give an independent Zimbabwe in 1978.
Mr. Faulds: Does my right hon. Friend agree that he is talking not about the independence of Rhodesia but about the independence of Zimbabwe, and will he confirm that the requirement of "one man, one vote" for majority rule remains the core of any settlement?
Dr. Owen: I have made clear on a number of occasions that I think that the franchise should be on the widest possible basis, and I have indicated also that it is not just one man who might wish to vote. There are also women in Africa. The question of the franchise is obviously an issue which will have to be discussed in the negotiations. As to my hon. Friend's reference to Zimbabwe, in fact, Zimbabwe is the name which most black nationalist leaders and most black Africans think of for an independent country, but, of course, it will be for the people of that independent country to decide its name, and traditionally that has usually been one of the issues which have been decided on the first day of independence.
Sir Bernard Braine: Is it not unrealistic to think that much progress can be made in this direction unless there is a guarantee of an underpinning of the Rhodesian economy during the transition to majority rule? I find it surprising that the Foreign Secretary made no mention of that in his statement today. Could he give any details of what he has in mind?
Dr. Owen: What is often referred to as the Zimbabwe development fund, which was initially suggested by Dr. Kissinger, is still very much part of the package of proposals which we should wish to discuss. This is one of the many reasons, though one of the central reasons, why I think that United States involvement with Britain is necessary. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is important to ensure the independence of Zimbabwe in economic prosperity and stability, and in the sense that a development fund could make a contribution to that, I believe that it would be extremely important.
Mr. Flannery: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that when the American Kissinger proposals were forthcoming the front-line Presidents categorically rejected the involvement of America in anything to do with Rhodesia, and does he not realise also that, on the last occasion, for the second time the front-line Presidents again made clear that they did not want the involvement of the United States of America in Africa? Does not my right hon. Friend recognise, therefore, that the attempted involvement of America now, implying that we cannot go ahead on our own, is definitely slowing down the whole process of democratising Rhodesia, and that, if the Americans were to come in, undoubtedly the Soviet Union also would want to come in?
Dr. Owen: There was undoubtedly some misunderstanding on the proposals put forward by Dr. Kissinger between what he appreciated and what the frontline Presidents appreciated, but even at that stage there was the closest co-operation.
Mr. Flannery: What about Vietnam?
Dr. Owen: My hon. Friend must recognise that there is a new Administration in the United States, an Administration which, I believe, is extremely committed to the whole concept of no racial discrimination and a freedom for the nationalist movement in Southern Africa. My hon. Friend suggests that the frontline Presidents object to the proposals which I have put forward. That is not the case. I went and spoke personally to all the front-line Presidents. I visited President Machel in Mozambique, and I went also to Angola and talked personally to President Neto. That is not what they told me. They said that they would continue to support the Patriotic Front, but they wished my initiative well. They wanted a peaceful transition to majority rule. They expressed scepticism about the intentions of the Rhodesian Front, but they did not object to the proposals; in fact, they positively supported them.
Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: Will the right hon. Gentleman take it that many of us on this side are extremely concerned at the increasing escalation of violence in Rhodesia and that we wish to be assured that he will treat these necessary negotiations with great urgency? Can he say
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when he expects the mission to report to him so that he can begin to take some of the essential decisions which have to be made if further violence is to be avoided?
Dr. Owen: Of course I wish that the existing level of violence would stop and certainly that it would not escalate, but unfortunately there is a tragic history surrounding the whole issue of Rhodesia and there is no way in which we can wave a magic wand and stop the violence. We must have a considerable measure of urgency, but at the same time we must move at a pace which will ensure that we get the support of all parties involved. That is extremely difficult. As I said before, I hope to have a report back from the consultative group early in June, and I shall keep the House informed from time to time.
Mr. MacFarquhar: Will the Foreign Secretary explain more fully the attitude of black Africans to the question of American involvement, in view of the reported statement by Mr. Nkomo? Is it the case that the United States, in the light of his representations, has made any step backwards in its involvement with our Government?
Dr. Owen: No. The United States is still firmly committed to joint action on this problem. There has been some confusion here, because some black nationalist leaders thought that American involvement meant co-chairmanship of the conference. That was never suggested. Also there have been certain misunderstandings, which I can well understand, over the constitution. The constitutional proposals always would have to come to this House. They would have to be presented by the Government and would be subject to amendment or revision by the House. In these circumstances the British Government would, of course, take a central lead.
There are other aspects—not least the development fund, and the whole question of democracy in the transitional period—where the United States' involvement is very helpful, and broadly speaking most black nationalist leaders have supported that involvement.
Mr. Walters: The Foreign Secretary has confirmed that he remains in close touch with the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Cyrus Vance. Will he bear

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in mind that one of the main reasons for the failure of the original Kissinger initiative was that we did not involve the United States in the subsequent negotiations? Will he ensure that the Americans are involved fully now, and will he not agree that it is regrettable that the United States will not be co-chairman of the conference?
Dr. Owen: We discussed this with the United States and we jointly agreed that co-chairmanship would be wrong. The exact form and the means by which and when the conference can be called are issues that must be discussed, but that is something that comes later down the track. I assure the hon. Member and the House that the United States is fully and firmly involved in this. This has been shown in the last few days by the close conversations and involvements.
Miss Joan Lestor: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that, despite his play on words about men and women voting in Rhodesia, he has left a distinct impression that he may be thinking in terms of a limited franchise? Will he confirm or deny this?
Dr. Owen: I have already supported women voting. I emphasised it because, while we all support the case for "one man, one vote", there is also a strong case for "one man, one woman, one vote". I think that some women think that they should have two votes and men should only have one.
This is a new venture in many African countries, as my hon. Friend knows, and it is an issue which must be discussed. I have made it clear that I believe that the franchise should be on the widest possible basis. I must accept that this will be one of the issues to be discussed. If and when it is necessary to give some safeguards for minority opinion, we are prepared to discuss the matter at that stage. It is easier to see it against a complete and open franchise, and I have expressed that opinion many times to Mr. Smith, to the Rhodesian Front and on Rhodesian television.
Mr. Blaker: Will the Foreign Secretary make it clear to the front-line Presidents that it is inconsistent with the practice that we have adopted in giving independence to 30 countries over 30 years
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for them to think that they can nominate the future rulers of Rhodesia as they were purporting to do a few weeks ago? Is that point accepted by them?
Dr. Owen: I do not quite understand the hon. Member's question. The whole purpose is that future leaders of an independent Zimbabwe will come as a result of elections fairly held inside Rhodesia, and supervised to make sure that they are fair. The leaders will be chosen by the people living under the new constitution.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Will the Foreign Secretary recognise that the question of the franchise is crucial but that in any settlement, unless the agreement is accepted by the people of Zimbabwe as a whole, it does not matter at all whether it is accepted by this House, by the whites or by the five front-line Presidents? It is essential to know whether they have accepted that the franchise must be based on "one man, one vote" in order to ensure that the people of Zimbabwe have accepted the settlement.
Dr. Owen: Of course the franchise is central to the discussion, and the widest franchise will win the widest acceptance. Any attempt to limit it will run into severe problems and will raise doubts whether the settlement has been acceptable overall to the people of Zimbabwe.
Mr. Luce: Will the Foreign Secretary agree that we should be grateful to the United States for providing practical economic aid to facilitate a peaceful transition in Rhodesia, and is this not in sharp contrast to the activities of the Soviet Union in this area?
Dr. Owen: This is one challenge which the Western democracies have to face. They have to be prepared to stand up for democracy and democratic values and the peaceful transition to majority rule in Africa and other areas. It is noticeable that the Soviet Union's involvement in Africa has been largely confined to supplying arms.
Mrs. Castle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his repeated reference to "the widest possible franchise" is increasing anxiety on this side of the House? We believe that the right to universal suffrage for both men and women is quite a separate matter from the protection of minority rights, which can be dealt

1341
with in other ways. Will my right hon. Friend tell us categorically that there will be no qualification in any way of the principle of "one man, or one woman, one vote"?
Dr. Owen: My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) is an experienced negotiator and she knows that it is unwise to enter discussions laying down the criteria before starting. I have made it clear that I believe that the ingredient for a successful settlement is the widest possible franchise. In the past this House has often given independence on a restricted franchise, and that has usually been shown to be wrong by history, and has soon been changed. I agree with my right hon. Friend that the whole climate of world opinion at the moment believes that each individual above a certain age has the right to choose the Government under which he or she lives.
Mr. Michael Latham: Has the latest initiative been discussed in advance with parties in and around Rhodesia, and, if so, with what result? Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that the purpose of the initiative is to take soundings and not to negotiate on the Richard plan?
Dr. Owen: The purpose is to take soundings and to produce proposals and ideas and to reach a consensus. Having made the decision, with the American Secretary of State, Mr. Vance, we thought it right to inform the many interested parties who will be visited by the consultative group of our intentions. This has been done throughout Africa.
Mr. Ioan Evans: In view of the fact that the illegal Rhodesian régime has been sustained by the support of South Africa, what representations have been made by the Americans to the South Africans to stop giving support to the Rhodesian régime? The Rhodesian régime would collapse without South African support.
Dr. Owen: I have made my views about this very clear to Prime Minister Vorster in Cape Town, and the United States has repeatedly made its views clear. In fact, Vice-President Mondale has made it known that he will reinforce these views and himself make the position clear.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: I propose to call two more hon. Members from either side. We have a lot of business to do today.
Mr. Brotherton: If the Government really want a peaceful solution in Rhodesia will they do two things to show that they are in earnest? Will they go to the United Nations and say that sanctions have failed and should be dropped; and will they cease giving aid to the Government of Mozambique, which harbours guerrillas who are murdering Rhodesians—black and white?
Dr. Owen: The first matter is a decision which is primarily for the United Nations. I have made it clear that I think it unrealistic to attempt to lift sanctions while there is any question about the practicability of and total commitment to the transition to majority rule. We shall not get the support of the United Nations for lifting sanctions until it is clear that irreversible procedures are under way for majority rule.
In relation to aid to Mozambique, it does not serve the interests which the hon. Member espouses to drive Mozambique or any other country ever increasingly into the arms of the Soviet Union. Many of these countries are ruled by nationalist movements which have fought bitter battles against repressive colonial rule. They want to be genuinely unaligned, and it is in our interests to restore good relations with them, and that includes Angola as well as Mozambique.
Mr. Clemitson: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that we would not be having a statement like this today if sanctions had been properly and effectively applied in the first place? Given that oil supplies have been vital to the survival of the Smith regime, what progress is being made with the inquiry into alleged sanctions-busting by oil companies, especially by British Petroleum?
Dr. Owen: Mr. Bingham has been appointed and I believe has started work. I have explained to him the importance and the urgency that I attach to the inquiry, but it is, of course, a very complicated issue.
I totally agree with my hon. Friend: had sanctions been applied in the full intention of the United Nations, there would not have been this tragic history

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and loss of life and we should not now still be debating the possibility of achieving a transition to majority rule in 1978.
Mr. Temple-Morris: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's initiative and I wish him well, as I think will many hon. Members in all parts of the House. But one of the main difficulties that the Foreign Secretary has is that the Rhodesian nationalist movements have all to agree upon reasonable demands by Mr. Smith. One of those points of agreement has to be the willingness—we have heard a lot about a ballot, a referendum or an election—to stand for elections on a "one man, one woman, one vote"—or "two votes"—basis. Has the right hon. Gentleman had any indication that the Patriotic Front at the moment, in its component parts, is more willing than it has been recently to stand in such elections?
Dr. Owen: I put that issue straight to Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Nkomo. They both said that they would be prepared to take part in democratic elections and saw democratic elections as a way of achieving a transition peacefully to majority rule.
Mr. James Johnson: Since on the Government Benches below the Gangway there still appears to be some confusion about the status of the Americans in the African continent, can my right hon. Friend sincerely and clearly say what is the attitude of the front-line Presidents? Do Seretse Khama, Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere and Jomo Kenyatta—all these Commonwealth men—support the Anglo-American initiative in this matter?
Dr. Owen: Yes, I think that, in the form in which I have announced it, it will get their full co-operation. A variety of differing opinions have been expressed about some aspects of the constitution. Many of them, of course, got their independence through a constitutional Lancaster House-type procedure, and I think that many of them would
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wish to see that play a part, particularly in respect of the constitution. It should be possible to meet that anxiety, but there is no doubt that the broad outlines of this initiative, as I explained it to them myself, are supported by them. The procedure which I have just announced to the House will, I think, have their ready support and their full co-operation.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 27TH MAY
Mr. Graham Page: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We are about to draw a Ballot for Private Members' motions on 27th May. The Leader of the House has announced that he hopes that the House will rise on that day. Clearly, of course, that would be the day for Adjournment debates, when Back Benchers have an opportunity to raise their own subjects in debate. It seems that, unless the Government move to alter the day for the Private Members' motions, Back Benchers will be deprived of one day of business. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I ask through you whether the Government are prepared to restore that day to Private Members.
Mr. Speaker: I believe that discussions are under way on this matter, but it is not, of course, a point of order for me. I am fulfilling the instruction of the House to hold a Ballot today.
Members successful in the Ballot were:

Mr. Michael Brotherton.

Mr. Spencer Le Marchant.

Mr. Donald Stewart.

WELSH AFFAIRS
Ordered,
That the matter of Small Businesses in Wales, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales, be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for their consideration.—[Mr. Harper.]

FISHERY LIMITS (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS)
4.5 p.m.
Mr. A. J. Beith: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision for the protection of fish stocks within fifty miles of the coast of the United Kingdom.
By seeking leave to introduce this Bill, I seek the clear and visible support of this House for a 50-mile British fishery limit within the EEC.
Less than a year ago Parliament passed the Fishery Limits Act, which set a 200-mile limit around Britain's coasts, with great and unusual urgency. The emergency leading to that Act has not ended and will not end until the job is completed, and the job cannot be completed unless there is some real safeguarding of British interests in waters within those 200 miles.
Our real fishery limits, so far as our neighbours in the EEC are concerned—they represent most of our neighbours with fishing fleets—are not 200 miles at all. Our real fishing limits in practice are only 12 miles, and in some cases, including my own constituency, only six miles. In 1982, unless a new common fisheries policy is negotiated, there will be no limits at all. In the absence of any new provision, the right would exist to fish right up to our beaches, but even the limits of 12 miles and six miles, which are all that we have now, are totally inadequate.
The common fisheries policy was concocted on the eve of British and Irish entry of the EEC to suit the needs of the then member countries, which had for the most part fished out the resources in their own waters and would like to deploy their catching fleet in our waters. Britain has the biggest food fish market of any of the EEC countries. It has the biggest fishing fleet of any of the EEC countries. It has many more communities dependent on fishing than have other countries in the EEC, and whether one considers the small inshore fishing ports of a constituency like mine or the large fishing ports of the deep sea industry on the Humber Estuary, at Fleetwood and elsewhere, one sees communities with a heavy degree of dependence on the fishing industry. Perhaps most
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important, more than half of the EEC's total fish stocks are within the 200 miles of waters which surround the coasts of the United Kingdom.
I deplore, of course, the fact that the common fisheries policy was ever agreed to in the first place and was not either the subject of a stronger stand at the time or made a part of renegotiation, as I believe it should have been. I say to those hon. Members who share my strong feelings on the subject that all that has all happened now. The original negotiations have passed, the renegotiations have passed and events have overtaken us, and 200-mile limits of the kind now in existence were scarcely thought of then.
Mr. John Mendelson: The hon. Gentleman has a nerve.
Mr. Beith: We must work together—I hope that all hon. Members will agree with this—to secure a decent settlement for Britain, even at this admittedly very late hour.
The member countries of the EEC do not recognise that we mean business in getting a realistic fisheries policy. That is why the House must act. The fishing industry, after all, has not been extreme in its demands for what exclusive British control should extend to. The general cry for a long time was for 100 miles, but now a limit of only 50 miles is being sought. Hon. Members who do not know the fishing industry well should take something of the measure of the frustration which is felt.
I should like to quote from a statement made by the British Fishing Federation and quoted recently in the Trawling Times:
"It's the indignity of it that hurts most. Fishermen are proud people and one can understand their frustration when, through the failure of the EEC to sort out fisheries problems and no fault of their own, they see foreigners walking off with their pockets stuffed full of our money, while our own vessels head for the scrapyard and some of the world's finest fishermen are made idle. The fact that, with the EEC's blessing, the Icelanders are thumbing their nose at us makes it even harder to bear. Lunacy is the only word to describe it. Talk about food from our own resources! As far as fish are concerned, they're being carved up for the benefit of the rest of the EEC, while we fork out badly-needed sterling to buy from third countries."
My Bill is an emergency Bill. I shall explain why. Fish is a superb protein

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source that is self-sustaining. Fish stocks replace themselves, but they must be given a chance to do so. They have no chance of being self-sustaining if there is no adequate conservation. There is no chance of adequate conservation at present.
The conservation record of many EEC countries is poor. That is why they want to be in our waters. They have few fish in their own waters. The present activities of some EEC countries give every reason to fear for the future. If hon. Members do not know what is going on off Shetland they should consult my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and The Shetland Times. The situation there is apparent to all who know what can happen when a massive industrial fishing effort is allowed to continue.
I quote from an article in The ShetlandTime:
"Foreign fishing fleets are robbing the Shetland fishing grounds of stock of haddock and whiting—and doing it quite legally. That is the evidence brought to light by an experiment carried out this week by the Whalsay boat 'Langdale'
The 'Langdale' made a two hour tow off Balta on Tuesday night, on the fishing grounds where the foreign industrial boats are working at present, and took about six tons of fish. Of the catch, about one ton was pout, and most of the rest mature haddock and whiting and other species suitable for human consumption.
The 'Langdale' was using a 16 mm net, the same as that used by foreign boats. The only check on what these boats catch is a by-catch limit of 10 per cent. of under-sized haddock and whiting."
A spokesman for the Shetland Fishermen's Association said:
"When a boat returns to port after nine or 10 days the catch is like soup and there is no way of saying what proportion of haddock or whiting, or anything else, has gone to make up the catch.
The only thing that can eliminate this kind of thing is an exclusive 50 mile limit for Britain, so that we can work out our own plan of conservation."
The EEC's own ideas about conservation show that it has no grasp of the situation. It puts forward proposals for catch quotas that every fisherman knows are impossible to enforce. Catch quotas have been shown to be ineffective. Some EEC member nations have demonstrated how easy it is to avoid them.
Conservation needs national enforcement. It is likely to work effectively only
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if it is being enforced by British authorities on British vessels landing fish in British ports. Only then can the catch be tested. That is one of the greatest difficulties. British fishermen will accept conservation if they can see that it is effective and if they do not have to stand by and watch other people defying it.
An emergency exists in another sense. We have a crisis in our own fishing industry. Many vessels are tied up. We cannot accept a situation in which our own distant-water and inshore vessels are fighting it out over a mere 12 or six miles of coastal waters. It is reasonable to ask for a 50-mile limit. We should still be making a massive contribution to the EEC "pond" with the rest of our 200 miles. We could meet the needs of our own industry within the 50-mile zone, even allowing for the contraction of distant-water fishing. The other EEC nations would still have access to the outer 150 miles.
The Bill would amend section 2 of the Fishery Limits Act 1976 so that full control of access to the 50-mile zone is assumed by the British Government. Access within 50 miles by vessels of EEC States would be restricted in the same way as that by vessels of other countries into the whole 200-mile zone. If passed, the Bill would be annually renewable until such time as the EEC incorporates provisions of this nature into a new common fisheries policy. Of course, legal clashes may well arise, just as they have over Ireland. We must be prepared to face that.
The industry supports the Bill. It also has the support of local authorities and hon. Members of all parties. I see no reason why, if the stalemate continues, the Government should not give time for the Bill. Even the passing of this preliminary stage today would be a clear indication that the House is serious about the future of fish stocks and our fishing industry. I hope that the Bill will meet the approval of the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. A. J. Beith, Mr. J. Grimond, Mr. James Johnson., Mr. Walter Clegg, Mr. Hamish Watt, Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith, Mr. Austin Mitchell, Mr. Douglas Henderson and Mr. Russell Johnston.

FISHERY LIMITS (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS)
Mr. A. J. Beith Mr. A. J. Beith accordingly presented a Bill to make further provision for the protection of fish stocks within fifty miles of the coast of the United Kingdom: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 17th June and to be printed. [Bill 118.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [17TH ALLOTTED DAY]—Considered

  CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1977–78
  CLASS III, VOTE 7, CENTRAL AND MISCELLANEOUS SERVICES (MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That a sum, not exceeding£78,519,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1978 for expenditure by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on central administration including land management and small holdings, Royal Botanic Gardens, land drainage and flood protection and certain other services including subscriptions to certain international organisations.

  AGRICULTURE
  Mr. Speaker: Before I call any hon. Members to speak, may I tell the House my usual story when there is an agriculture debate? There is a very long list of hon. Members who wish to speak. We can fit everybody in if hon. Members exercise self-discipline. The only weapon that I have is a good memory about those who do not.
  Mr. Thomas Torrey: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I refer you to the Order Paper and the motion standing in the name of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition and a number of her right hon. and hon. Friends. The motion calls for a reduction in the salary of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and others. You may not be aware, Mr. Speaker, that the present Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food does not receive a salary as Minister of Agriculture. He is paid as an ordinary Member of Parliament, as I am. Therefore, how can a salary that does not exist be reduced?
  Mr. Speaker: The whole world knows the poor state of the right hon. Gentle-man and sympathises with him.

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  I have selected the motion in the name of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition.
  4.16 p.m.
  Mr. John Peyton: I beg to move,
  That Subhead A1(1) (Salaries &c., of Ministers) be reduced by£6,500.
  I was already aware that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister slaves in the national interest for no reward. This must be taken as evidence of our lack of malice towards him. Perhaps it is also a reflection of the rather quaint procedures of the House.
  The Government should have initiated this debate. I regret that they did not do so. I also regret that they did not offer a supplement to the White Paper produced early in January to round off the tale of events since then. That would have helped the House to bring the events into focus and into a reasonable relationship with each other. It would have shed more light on the Minister's views of the present situation and of his intentions. We offer this opportunity to him to reconcile the hopes and aspirations which were expressed in "Food from our own Resources" with the present situation and with what looks likely to happen in the future.
  The right hon. Gentleman has been most punctilious about informing the House of what has happened in Brussels—but whether the content of his reports was acceptable is another matter. The sporadic, serial-story nature of the way in which the tale has unfolded leaves much to be desired and has many disadvantages.
  In January an interesting White Paper revealed the present state of the industry. It was slightly unworldly because it did not say anything about future prices. In March we had an announcement about sheep meat and wool prices. In April, after a few hiccups, we had the EEC prices. In May, with such discretion and in almost a whisper, we had the late announcement about milk and potatoes—on a Friday. News of that has not yet penetrated through to the pages of Hansard. That is unsatisfactory. I hope that the Government will not think that that conduct is acceptable.
  I do not wish to underrate the Minister's difficulties. He faces many, both in
  1352
  Brussels and here. I have the impression that during this saga of events the Minister has almost gone out of his way to add to his difficulties. We joined the EEC after much thought and almost endless debate. We then undertook certain serious treaty obligations. I do not believe that it is particularly suitable or worthy for us now always to seek—or as the Minister does—to blame the CAP for all our ills, many of which arise from causes much nearer home. I quite understand that the Minister does not want to talk about the errors and shortcomings of his colleagues and that perhaps it is nice to seize upon the CAP as a scapegoat.
  Mr. John Mendelson: Complete rubbish.
  Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman is a specialist in rubbish. We all know that.
  Mr. John Mendelson: I am listening to one.
  Mr. Peyton: I believe that it is unworthy to seek to blame the CAP for all the ills that come upon us, when we know very well that most of them derive directly from the economic mismanagement of the present Government.
  Mr. Nicholas Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) has been shouting loudly from a sedentary position in a most offensive and off-putting way. As I am extremely interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), will you protect the House from the bad manners of the hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): The Chair is always ready to afford its protection when it is needed.
  Mr. Peyton: I am the last person to underrate the capacity of the Chair to do such things, but I am sure that the Chair would be very unwilling to take upon itself the responsibilities for performing miracles.
  I should like to remind the Minister and the House of what the original purposes of the CAP were. When one looks at them, one finds that they are not at all unacceptable. There is, first, the intention to increase production by means of

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  technical improvements and rationalisation. There is then the aim to provide a decent standard of life for the agricultural population. [Interruption.] There is the aim to create stable markets and the aims to ensure secure supply and to provide goods at reasonable prices. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. What the Chair said earlier the Chair meant seriously. The hon. Member for Penis-tone (Mr. Mendelson) may have the opportunity to make his own speech should he catch the eye of the Chair, but I should be grateful if he would not interrupt from a sedentary position.
  Mr. John Mendelson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is within the recollection of the House and the Chair that there have been many debates when right hon. and hon. Members of the Opposition have interrupted the Minister much more often than I am doing now. We have a right to hear the truth.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is a matter for the Chair's decision. I ask the hon. Gentleman to await his turn.
  Mr. Peyton: What upsets speakers in this place more than anything else is being surprised. If the hon. Member for Penistone were to start to behave with courtesy and sit in his place in silence—
  Mr. Mendelson: We want the truth.
  Mr. Peyton:—I am bound to say that I would be considerably upset by the shock. As it is, the hon. Gentleman's present conduct tells more about himself than it worries me.
  I am sure that I take the right hon. Gentleman the Minister with me when I say that if one criticises something like the CAP, it is only right to acknowledge the progress that it has made. Over the 20 years since the treaty was signed, the agricultural population of the original Six has been just about halved. Over the past eight years the added value per man employed by the agricultural industry has risen in real terms by 28 per cent. I do not think that that sort of thing should be ignored. Nor, also, should we ignore the fact, before we hasten in to blame the CAP for everything, that it would be decent and courteous
  1354
  if we were to acknowledge that we in this country have been receiving from out of its purse£1 million a day in subsidy over a period of months. It is hardly surprising if a combination of new entrants, the rocketing of commodity prices, the spiralling upwards of oil prices and the mere passing of time has thrown up some problems and revealed some defects.
  I think that most of the difficulties derive from the fact that the original purposes of the CAP have tended to be overlaid by what has happened since, and this has made it harder to move forward and easier to slip back into bad habits, to adopt unsatisfactory devices and to allow horse trading to prevail over statesmanship. I draw attention to the article that Mr. David Wood wrote in The Times this morning:
  "Therefore, as this year, the pattern of negotiation developed in the Council of Ministers shows minister X consistently accepting substantial price increases for particular products of special concern to minister Y, 'so long as minister Y similarly concedes substantial rises for the products which most acutely worry minister X'."
  That is a very good description of horse trading. I think that it is most undesirable because, as I have said, it overlays the statesmanship that we require. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) should not worry about the hon. Member for Penistone. He cannot help it.
  A considerable bureaucracy has been built up in Brussels, and like other bureaucracies it tends to be insensitive and very hard of hearing. It acts again and again in an arbitrary way. It takes little account of existing commercial practices and agreements, and its decisions are promulgated without much warning and with the minimum of consultation and do harm to the very trading that could build up the prosperity of the Community—for, I think, no useful purpose.
  The green currencies were not introduced to facilitate trade, and in effect they have protected strong economies and exposed weak ones. They have, in fact, in my view, caused more problems than they solve, and I think that we have to look very seriously at how long they can usefully be continued.
  The fact that food and agriculture are handled separately by the Commission

  1355
  and in the Community seems to me to be wrong. It makes it very difficult to judge agricultural policy against the background of the market place, and it makes it much more difficult to recognise and deal with the problem of structural surpluses.
  It seems to me that those who frame policy in Brussels have not always remembered that the Rome Treaty requires them to promote efficiency and to ensure reasonable prices as well as to sustain producers. They do not seem to give adequate attention to the question of how much food we need or can sell. They seem more willing to face the symptom of unmarketable surpluses than the root cause—that they are producing too much. They put up with the embarrassment of too much butter, but they turn aside from the source of the trouble, which is that they have too many cows.
  The Minister himself, in the last exchange that we had on this subject, on 27th April, showed that he was a little confused about what was a structural surplus. If he cares to look at column 1242 of Hansard, he will see what I mean.
  I believe that too large a share of the total FEOGA budget, which itself absorbs 73 per cent. of the Community's expenditure, is applied to propping up the market; in other words, in encouraging the production of surpluses.
  Mr. John Lee: I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman's flow of humour, which is giving the Government side of the House a great deal of entertainment, but he was a member of the Government who negotiated on the original entry. Although he did not have portfolio reponsibility for it, can he tell us whether it was ever seriously suggested in those negotiations that the EEC should approximate to our agricultural system, under the 1947 Act, rather than the other way around?
  Mr. Peyton: I am not saying that at all. I see little point in taking up the matter with the hon. Gentleman, who is always dipping his hands into antiquity to find a rather outworn argument. I am concerned now with how we are to face some very difficult problems.
  Mr. Norman Buchan Mr. Norman Buchan(Renfrewshire, West) rose—
  Mr. Peyton: I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have learned my lesson about giving way. If the hon. Gentleman cares to try again in a few minutes, when I have recovered from the last intervention, I may then be more inclined to let him intervene.
  As I was saying, in my view too large a share of the total FEOGA budget, which absorbs 73 per cent. of the Community's expenditure, is applied to propping up the market, and that in itself encourages the production of surpluses. In 1975—and this is the serious point—only 5 per cent. of the budget was applied to the remedying of structural imbalance, to persuading and making it possible for the inefficient to go. Too much money and effort are expended in enabling the weak to totter on, too little in securing progress from which both producers and consumers can expect to see enduring benefit. The farmer in this country should remember that he has a great deal to fear from policies which keep the inefficient in business and much to gain from policies which make efficiency profitable.
  The Minister has spent a good deal of his time lamenting the existence of the common agricultural policy. We blame him for the fact that he does not appear to have faced, or used his time in the Chair to persuade others to face, the real difficulties of structural surpluses. His preoccupation with what he supposes to be the consumer's interest has hidden the consequences of his policies from even himself.
  Certainly, it has confirmed our partners in Europe in the belief that we are just bargain hunters, on the look out for cheap food whenever and wherever it is available. Even bargains go wrong. The right hon. Gentleman came home with his penny a pound for butter the other day. I do not know whether he was then aware that this would cost the Exchequer£23 million in levelling off the price of New Zealand imports. We should very much like to hear from him on this point when he replies.
  We believe that the right hon. Gentleman has failed to make clear to the Community that we are just as concerned as the Community is to sustain food industries in this country which are vital to us. The weakening of these

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  industries would impose an insupportable burden on our balance of payments.
  The fact that we are the biggest single buyer of food in the world, and certainly in the Community, does not mean that we are a slop-pail available to take everything that others produce but do not themselves want. We criticise the Minister for his failure to stake out a claim for British farmers to be recognised in Europe as highly efficient producers. Moreover, we believe that in all this process he has attracted and generated much which will only add to our difficulties and must considerably have added to his.
  I should like to refer briefly to some particular sectors. I know that the Minister will not be surprised if I deal first with pigs. He has on many occasions protested his concern, but many people feel that, at least at the beginning, he has not been all that unhappy to see imports pour in. His mind was closed for too long to the dangers which were building up.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Will my right hon. Friend emphasise that the Minister's present policies are as damaging to the pigmeat consumer as they are to the producer? Will he also accept from me that his own visit the other day to the most important pig-producing area in the country—West Suffolk—was received with great warmth, because he at least has an open mind, while the Minister's is totally closed?
  Mr. Peyton: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for his advice and for what he was kind enough to say about me.
  Mr. John Mendelson: Dear, oh dear.
  Mr. Peyton: I should like to say a word to the hon. Gentleman. I wonder whether he thinks that he is a good advertisement for himself or the House of Commons. I shall be delighted to give way if he would like to intervene.
  Mr. John Mendelson: If the right hon. Gentleman had started on his first serious point earlier I should have listened with great respect, especially if he had cut out all the cheap propaganda and untruths about my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Peyton: When it comes to cheap propaganda and humbug, I could not possibly instruct the hon. Gentleman, who is a real expert.
  The relief which the right hon. Gentleman finally brought to the pig industry was, when it came, insufficient. The manner in which he brought it obviously created considerable difficulties for himself in his relations with the Council of Ministers and aroused doubts as to how long that relief could endure. I should particularly like to ask him this afternoon to say what he can about how long that subsidy will remain in operation and whether he intends to increase it, bearing in mind the state of collapse which the industry now faces.
  The symptoms of what is happening are all too well known. The breeding herd has been reduced by 10 per cent. in six months and more menacing is what is happening in the young end of the herd. In-pig gilts are down by 19 per cent. on a year ago. I should very much like to know what the right hon. Gentleman thinks the consequences of these developments will be upon pork and bacon prices in the autumn. He has told us again and again—I think 10 times in the House—that the industry, which is one of high investment and very great skill, must wait for its problems to be solved at next month's meeting of the Council of Ministers. With repetition, the message to wait for next month is a pretty meagre comfort.
  Mr. Buchan: The right hon. Gentleman has made an extraordinary speech so far and has convinced me about the Common Market. On a more serious point, concerning pigs, the right hon. Gentleman said that the subsidy was insufficient and created opposition in Europe. Is he therefore suggesting that a bigger subsidy would have caused less opposition, or is he saying that he would have introduced a bigger subsidy despite that greater opposition, or that there is an alternative way of dealing with the matter, simply by putting the price on to the consumer?
  Mr. Peyton: I said that I thought that action should have been taken earlier.
  Mr. Buchan: What action?
  Mr. Peyton: The introduction of the subsidy—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—or

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  efforts in the Council of Ministers to persuade the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues, as I believe could have been done at that time, that the whole basis of the MCAs should be revised. That is the real cause of the trouble.
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Silkin): The right hon. Gentleman and I understand the gravity of the situation. The right hon. Gentleman said that in the autumn when I was first appointed I should have done something in the Council of Ministers which would have brought about a great change in the situation. Will he be more explicit and say what I should have done?
  Mr. Peyton: Yes. What we have said all along is that he should have agreed to a marginal devaluation of the green pound—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The right hon. Gentleman has now taken that course himself. He has recognised the facts—and obviously many Labour Members find facts unpalatable. If he had taken that step, we believe—and there is some evidence to indicate this—he would have had a reasonable chance of securing a total renegotiation of the basis on which the MCAs for pig meat are calculated. It would have saved the industry a great deal of anguish. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the subsidy will be continued. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will answer that question and say what he thinks are his prospects when he gets to court.
  I turn to the subject of beef. Production this year is expected to be down by 12 per cent. Again, we face the threatening figure relating to the developments among young stock, because the in-calf heifers of normal breed for beef purposes are down by 19 per cent. against the situation a year ago. The discrepancy between the Irish green pound and our own has opened the door wide to a flood of imports which are highly damaging to our beef industry.
  I turn to the subject of milk. I have already commented on the way in which the price announcement was made. It leaked out, with proper modesty last Friday. It was an announcement that came late. It covers an incomplete year and does not begin to cover the increased costs of the industry. Will the right hon. Gentleman say what will happen after
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  January, because the industry would like to know that as a matter of urgency?
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will my right hon. Friend highlight the point that dairy farmers have had a 5 per cent. increase when they have had to meet a 20 per cent. increase in costs? How long can that situation continue? If that situation continues, how are we to maintain the supply of fresh liquid milk for the consumer?
  Mr. Peyton: I thank my hon. Friend for his help. I was just about to make that point, and my hon. Friend has saved me the trouble of repeating it.
  We have the same menacing message in regard to young stock. In-calf heifers in terms of milk are down by 14 per cent. against the figure a year ago. Time prevents my going into the subject of potatoes, but I regard it as a little shabby that there was an announcement about price when 85 or 90 per cent. of the crop had been sold.
  The confidence in this important industry is now at a low ebb, as are its resources. The consumer has been, and is being, encouraged to live, as do the Government, from day to day. In our view the Minister has shown an inadequate understanding of the situation and little sign of anxiety. I suggest that he should be more forthcoming with agriculture and with the food manufacturing and processing industries. I hope that he will take them into his confidence and see whether it is possible, even at this late hour, to combine with them to form a sensible food strategy for this country. If the right hon. Gentleman will not do it, we shall do so at the earliest possible moment.
  4.44 p.m.
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Silkin): I was a a little relieved to hear that the motion was framed as it was for procedural reasons—I suppose I can do without a ministerial salary. However, at one point I thought that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) wanted me to pay to do this job.
  In a debate such as this it is agreeable to start on common ground. Both the right hon. Member for Yeovil and I, in our respective ways, have a responsibility

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  for the future of one of the most important industries in our economy. It is one of our greatest primary industries with an output of well over£6,000 million this year. By producing food efficiently, it helps the whole of our society and the economy. It helps to support employment in other sectors, such as food processing, fertiliser manufacture, transport and retailing, and it can make a growing contribution to our balance of payments.
  British farmers already supply us with over half of our food supplies and this contribution has grown over the years. The availability of the resources for agricultural expansion is being studied by the Agriculture EDC and I look forward to hearing its views shortly, but in any event my policy as the Minister responsible for this industry must surely be to help it to expand, to increase its import saving, and to sustain the part that it plays in our economy generally.
  I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that a vital ingredient in the industry is confidence. The right hon. Gentleman's view was somewhat doom-laden. However, confidence is judged not by the words of politicians, or even by the words of farmers—it is judged by deeds.
  Mr. Michael Jopling: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Silkin: I gather that I have the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) with me on that point—a very unusual situation in which to find oneself. If the hon. Gentleman intends to wind up the debate, I should like him to answer why the applications for capital grants and farm development schemes have increased so sharply in the last year. Does this denote a lack of cash to invest, or a lack of confidence in the future? Perhaps he could tell the House why the price of replacement dairy animals and of cattle and sheep for fattening is so buoyant. Does this suggest that farmers are uncertain about the future of the livestock sector?
  The fact is that, despite the right hon. Gentleman, our farmers are making their own judgment about the future in the most practical way they can, and they can see that they have good reason to feel confident.
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a survey conducted in Aberdeenshire by the NFU showed that farmers were showing their confidence by cutting back on animal numbers? Does that not plainly show that they are not confident about the future?
  Mr. Silkin: It is for that reason that changes have been made in the guaranteed milk price. I shall come to that matter in due course, and to the subject of beef.
  Last week I announced guaranteed prices for milk and potatoes because those were not covered by the Luxembourg agreement. The full list of new prices for the farmer gives substantial increases for all main commodities.
  Let me deal with the subject of milk. This is a central feature of United Kingdom agriculture, as was recognised in "Food from Our Own Resources", as also is the expansion of efficient dairy farming. Our aim must be to ensure profitability at a level that will encourage the expansion we want. Production was expanding rapidly before last summer's drought and the price was increased last October to offset the drought's effects on costs. Incidentally, agriculture was the only section of the economy to receive any reimbursement in respect of drought.
  Lack of confidence, did the right hon. Gentleman say? If the House requires an objective test of the real effect of the milk guarantee, I would remind hon. Members that there has been a 13·5 per cent. increase in United Kingdom milk production between March 1974, when the Conservative Government went out, and March 1977. After taking full account of the subsequent rise in prices, the guarantee is now 3 per cent. higher than that determined by the Conservative Government in February 1974. Of course, that was a significant date: they knew that an election was coming at the time.
  Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that milk producers in Anglesey and other parts of the country are concerned not only about the cost of feed, which has risen and has not been covered, but about the uncertainty of their position from 1st January 1978? I appreciate the strength

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  of the case that he is making, but if today, or at a fairly early date, he will make a statement that amounts to the milk producer being given some assurance in respect of his position next year, that will strengthen the confidence of the milk sector.
  Mr. Silkin: My right hon. Friend is on to a valid point. By 1st January 1978 transition will have ended. Clearly, the milk producer wants to know where we are going. The answer is that I am already having consultations with all the various interests. I hope to be in a position to make an early announcement after I have consulted all the various interests and come to a conclusion. Obviously, the sooner that I can make it, the more reassurance there will be in the milk sector.
  There was a difficult decision to make this year on potatoes. I suppose that the circumstances were exceptional in every way. Costs have been sharply distorted by the abnormally high seed prices and consumption has been reduced because of high shop prices. There is the probability of unrestricted imports from the EEC after 1st January 1978.
  With potatoes, however, it is the market rather than the guarantee that provides the main incentive to producers. That was borne out by last year's planting figures, which reflected the previous forward trend and achieved the target. The guarantee that we have given is about 16 per cent. above this season's level. It maintains, therefore, the value of the current guarantee in real terms.
  In March I announced guarantees in respect of sheep and wool. For fat sheep there has been an increase in the guarantee of 24 per cent.—and for wool an increase of 31 per cent.—over the figures announced after the last review. Sheep production underlines the excellent market prospects for the coming year.
  Farmers have also had a good deal for commodities covered by the CAP. For arable farmers the aplication of the transitional steps will mean that support prices for cereals are a substantial improvement. The intervention price for wheat from January 1978 will be about 23 per cent. higher than in the previous year. For barley the increase is about 24 per cent. For sugar, where the transitional steps do not apply, the price for the coming
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  season was settled by the BSC before the CAP price negotiations. The contract price is about 12½ per cent. higher than last year.
  The right hon. Gentleman expressed some anxiety about beef. The dual support system for premiums underpinned by intervention is to continue throughout the whole of the marketing year. That will enable producers to plan forward with full confidence. The average target price over the year will be nearly 14 per cent. higher than the published average target price for 1976–77.
  We have adjusted the seasonal scales to provide the maximum incentive to over-wintering. By March 1978 the weekly target price will have reached£32 per live cwt. As a test, and as with the guarantee for milk, our present guarantee for beef is 9 per cent. higher in real terms than the 1972–73 guarantee obtained by the Conservative Government.
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Has the Minister received the representations sent to his colleague, the Secretary of State for Scotland, from the Scottish National Farmers Union on all commodities, including beef, to the effect that another£4 per cwt. on top of the£32 will be necessary to cover costs?
  Mr. Silkin: I do not accept that figure. I shall deal quickly with the point made by the right hon. Member for Yeovil, which has some bearing on the matter. The right hon. Gentleman was worried about the difference between the level of the United Kingdom green pound and the Irish green pound. He felt that it might have its effect in future on beef production within the United Kingdom. I tried to explain that I did not accept that as a basis for altering the level of the United Kingdom green pound. I thought that the whole point of the Irish devaluation in respect of beef was to enable the Irish to play their part in the markets of the Continent, especially in Germany and the Benelux countries. So far as I can see, everything seems to be leading that way.
  Mr. John Farr: There is no doubt that the difference in the green pounds has eroded the British beef industry. However, will the right hon. Gentleman look into the situation that

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  we have in the North of Ireland, where cattle are coming across the border from the South at a rate of 5,000 a week and where importers in the North are in receipt of the slaughter subsidy that the British Government are now providing to the extent of£400,000 weekly? That all tends to weaken the market for the British home producer.
  Mr. Silkin: I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is watching the situation carefully. The hon. Gentleman has raised a specific matter and it was one that required to be dealt with specifically last year, as he knows.
  The right hon. Gentleman mentioned two areas of his concern. The first was pig meat. It was rather interesting that when pressed on what should be done the right hon. Gentleman took refuge in generalities. He gave no specifics. I shall deal with the specifics that he did mention. Perhaps I am doing him an injustice—if I am, no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will correct me—but he said, first, that I should have put on the subsidy earlier, although I am being challenged in the courts on that very point. If I am asked to give a judgment, I am bound to say that I always believe that whenever we go to court we must win. However, as the textbooks tell me, there is always a plaintiff and a defendant. Presumably, every plaintiff and every defendant thinks that he will win. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, there was no doubt about the reaction of others when I introduced the pig subsidy.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that the alternative—he was rather vague on the matter—was to act on the basis of the good will of my colleagues in Europe, a marginal devaluation of the green pound and the use of any charm of influence that I might have. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to suggest that that course might have affected my colleagues in the Council of Agricultural Ministers.
  Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I approve entirely of the basis on which the right hon. Gentleman goes to court, namely, that he intends to win. He must have taken legal advice. It appears that he has been advised that he will win and I believe that advice to be right. If that is so, why cannot the right hon. Gentleman
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  increase the pig subsidy now and so relieve the position of many British pig farmers?
  Mr. Silkin: That is a very fair point to make. However, the fact is that the European Court differs in some respects, as the hon. and learned Gentleman well knows, from the courts with which he and I are more familiar in this country. It has a slightly political colour to it as well as a judicial colour. That is bound to be so. The court's terms show that that is to be so. When a matter of this consequence is put to it, namely, that a subsidy that the United Kingdom has imposed is illegal, I cannot believe that it would take the friendliest view if the United Kingdom increased the subsidy before the case had been heard.
  The right hon. Gentleman gave the impression that I was not concerned about the pigmeat situation. He said that I must have been glad to see greater imports coming in. That is against the whole tenor of everything that I have been saying.
  Mr. Peyton: I said that many people in the industry thought that the right hon. Gentleman was behaving as though he was not all that unhappy in the earlier stages to see a flood of cheap imports coming in.
  Mr. Silkin: I take it that the right hon. Gentleman will correct them. He can do so if he dissociates himself from them. Since last September, I have been pressing for changes in the way in which mcas are calculated so as to stop the totally unfair competition in pigmeat. The right hon. Gentleman said that no progress had been made. He has forgotten that progress was made initially in October. At that time, when the Commission implicitly recognised the justice of our case, it agreed to the 8 per cent. reduction in mcas. That was the maximum that it could do under its own steam. It was equivalent to a reduction—not very much, I agree—of£28 per tonne on the bacon mca.
  Of course we were concerned, and when, having pressed for a change in mcas in September, there appeared to be no movement in the Council, I announced the temporary subsidy at the end of January because the state of the industry

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  had become extremely serious. This subsidy amounted to the equivalent of over£50 per tonne on pigmeat. I was taken to the European Court. Now, in the Luxembourg package the change in the green pound as far as pigmeat is concerned—the change for cereals comes in the autumn—is equivalent to a reduction of a further£22 per tonne on the bacon mca. So, since October we have reduced the bacon mca by more than£50 per tonne and have in addition provided our own national aid, worth rather more than another£50 per tonne, through the temporary subsidy on pigmeat.
  I intend to go on fighting to get the whole basis of the pigmeat mca recalculated. I have never said that at the next meeting of the Council it will be done—I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to say where he got that from. I have said that I am under no illusions about the difficulty of the task.
  But the House must recognise that the market prices in other member States have also fallen. In West Germany, for example, market prices are 10·5 per cent. below the level of a year ago, and in Denmark they are 5·6 per cent. down, compared with a fall in the United Kingdom of 4 per cent. That, of course, is the reason why other member States said at the outset that they would oppose any change in the way pigmeat mcas are calculated.
  The right hon. Gentleman knows that such a change has to be agreed unanimously in the Council. He said that all I had to do last time was agree to a small devaluation of the green pound, wave a magic wand, and everyone would have agreed to recalculate the mcas. I am afraid that that one must take its place with many others in the Peyton books of fairy stories for tiny Tories.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Is it not true that last autumn the situation was very much better for changing the basis upon which pigmeat prices were decided, because the Danish bacon market was at a much higher level then and the Danes would have been more amenable to the change, which should have been made last October?
  Mr. Silkin: I am always grateful for the hon. Gentleman's friendship. I am always grateful for the ease with which he walks into every trap laid for him.
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  Following our proposal that the mcas should be recalculated in September last, the Danish representative in London wrote to us saying:
  "The British proposal, under no circumstances, could be accepted by the Danish government as it is a question of vital economic and political importance to Denmark."
  The wording is clear and carefully considered. There is no qualification. There is not a single hint that at that time the Danes would think again if we made even a substantial devaluation of the green pound. On the contrary, there was just total opposition.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I did not walk into it. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he believed that the Danes' first word was their final word and that he was not prepared then to press the matter somewhat harder than he did? My understanding of the situation on both sides of the sea is that perhaps if he had pushed harder he might have got what the pig farmers wanted.
  Mr. Silkin: The hon. Gentleman may get the Danish representative into some trouble. That gentleman was clear and unequivocal. There was no doubt about the view he expressed.
  If I am asked whether I think that there might be a change in the future, my reply is that it will not happen immediately but that we shall continue pressing. There are factors which might help—for example, a favourable judgment in the European Court—and other countries, particularly France, have become aware of the difficulties of the situation of which they were not aware at the time.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: One appreciates the very great difficulties with which the right hon. Gentleman is confronted in negotiations in Europe, but would he also address himself—and I speak as one who has produced a large number of pigs—to the reality that a large number of our farmers are humping ever-more expensive grain to their pigs, which are converting that grain more efficiently than ever before, but that those farmers are still losing between£3 and£6 on each pig produced? That is the unacceptable situation. I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman is doing to help, but, with respect, he is not doing enough.
  Mr. Silkin: I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman said up to his last sentence, when I had expected him to tell me what I should be doing other than what I am doing—that is, to press as hard as I can for the change, to look for allies who can help, and to rely in the meantime on what may happen in the European Court. I shall put our case as robustly as possible.
  Mr. Fairbairn: Does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that, if he cannot really hold out much hope for the pig industry—which is losing money on every pig produced—he should say so in frank terms, so that the farmers can make an assessment, and, if necessary, cut their losses?
  Mr. Silkin: I think that the pig producers are well aware of two things—first, of the seriousness of the position, which I have never tried to disguise, and secondly, of the difficulties of making the change. It is an assessment that they must make themselves, and they must do so in plain economic terms. I am certainly not going either to boast, which I cannot do, or give up hope and give up fighting before the game is finished.
  The second point of concern of the right hon. Member for Yeovil was connected with the green pound itself. I thought that he was on rather dangerous ground. I do not know how far he has developed his own thinking on the matter, but it seemed to imply a total end to the green currency, at any rate in the near future.
  I cannot imagine anything that would throw both British agriculture and probably the whole of European agriculture into more disarray than a speedy end to the green currency system. That system came into being long before we joined the EEC. I believe that it was introduced in the late 1960s as a result of the difficulties that the French were experiencing, and to my mind it is the only thing that makes it possible to continue at this moment with the common agricultural policy as it is, because it means that there are national cushions and, therefore, the ability to make nation decisions, which are very important in this matter.
  I have said that any change in the value of the green pound was not a matter that I regarded as of any great
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  ideological significance either one way or the other. But I have said also that every change should be dependent upon getting more for it than the change itself, and, secondly, that the extent of any change should be what we deem to be necessary and not a penny more. I believe that we achieved both those objectives at Luxembourg.
  A larger devaluation would have greatly increased food prices—and this is something that the right hon. Gentleman had better face. A further 10 per cent. devaluation, for example, of the green pound would have added another lip in the pound to the cost of the shopping basket. Is the right hon. Gentleman really advocating that? It is worth noting that we import a large proportion of our food, so that the net benefit of a green pound devaluation to our own producers is only about 60p out of each pound paid out by the housewife.
  There are certain sectors of agriculture which hardly benefit or do not benefit at all by any change in the green pound. For example, it does not affect horticulture at all. Again, the livestock producer is merely faced with higher feed bills for his product. So on this occasion we did all that we could to make the green pound devaluation suit our own interests.
  The devaluation has been brought forward for pigmeat to 1st May, thus making a small reduction in MCAs immediately, as I pointed out to the House. We have deferred the devaluation for milk producers so that half takes effect from this September and the other half not until April next year. That has the effect of delaying the consumer price increases flowing from it.
  Is the right hon. Member for Yeovil, either now or at some other time, really advocating larger further prices for the housewife? Does he not think that the two increases we have had to make, which his Government ensured when they signed the Treaty of Accession, are enough for the moment?
  I must also say that the right hon. Gentleman is a welcome convert—we seem to get a lot of converts these days. Let us forget the polemics and ill-will that I am supposed to have caused among my European partners. I have not noticed that or good will makes a button of difference when it comes to

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  negotiating. They are very hard gentlemen, indeed. I hope and trust that ill-will and good will will not affect their view of their own countries' convenience and requirements.
  Mr. Hooson: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is not going to end his speech without dealing with the future of the Milk Marketing Boards. In my part of the world farmers have a total and justified faith in the future of the boards. Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that he will fight all the way to maintain all the powers, including the statutory powers, of the Milk Marketing Boards after 1st January next year?
  Mr. Silkin: The list of converts is getting larger and larger.
  Mr. Hooson: I have always said that.
  Mr. Silkin: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me to come to this in my own good time. I can understand his impatience at my coming to the end of this speech, but I had intended to deal with that matter.
  The right hon. Member for Yeovil made a serious point when he asked what we shall do about the CAP in future. He felt we should set out to achieve what we have in mind. I entirely agree. My basis has always been, and this has been the view of my right hon. Friends right from the start, that the CAP should operate for producer and consumer alike. That is why the latest price settlement in Luxembourg was not, as the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) said, a holding operation. It was much more than that. It was the beginning of a radical change in the whole of the CAP. I believe more changes are needed. Incidentally, if one is talking about there was no personal I am sure that the controversy engendered did a great deal to focus attention upon what changes must be necessary. Let us have a look at what these changes are.
  First, food must be produced for people and not for stores. In the end this comes down to a question of prices. We must try to hold down CAP prices to as low a level as possible, particularly for commodities in surplus. This was the theme of the United Kingdom approach to the CAP price negotiations.
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  This year's price increase of 3½ per cent. is the lowest for years and the lowest since we joined the EEC. It represents a considerable reduction in prices in real terms. There will be a considerable disincentive, particularly when we take into account the co-responsibility levy of 1½ per cent., which begins in the autumn, to the production of milk in parts of the EEC where farmers are inefficient.
  One must also look at the butter subsidy in the light of that, because the butter subsidy of 8½p a lb. has caused a much greater reduction in the level of food prices—a very significant fact—than the subsidy itself. That subsidy goes on until March and then a subsidy continues until 1st January 1979 at a level still to be decided. We must look at this in the context of the surpluses and the mountains, because this represents more sensible use of the funds of the EEC than sales at even greater cut prices to Russia, or anywhere else outside the Community. It will result, and is already beginning to result, in a considerable increase in consumption by British consumers.
  Incidentally, there was nothing nationalistic in my approach. My original suggestion to the Nine was that it should include any other country which felt it could increase its consumption of butter, particularly the Irish. I was therefore disappointed when the Irish initially rejected that suggestion but later they asked to have the subsidy and were given a smaller and different subsidy.
  It is worth comparing the increase in the common milk price with the effect of the butter subsidy itself. If there had been no increase in the common milk and butter price the consumer of this country would have been saved about£25 million over the year. But the butter subsidy is worth at least three or four times that figure. The fact that we got such a low increase in prices and a butter subsidy was one of the great achievements of this price negotiation.
  The third point is that we must aim for greater flexibility, and this flexibility applies in particular to intervention. With regard to cereals, bread-making wheat is no longer subject to automatic intervention from 1st August 1977. That is an

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  example where we have been able to take the rigidity of the old intervention system and change it.
  The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) asked about the Milk Marketing Boards. I shall also tell him a little about other marketing boards as well. With regard to the Milk Marketing Boards, I am well aware of the concern of the House. I myself share it. I need not go into the reasons why we want to preserve the Milk Marketing Boards, beyond the fact that we, above all countries, rely upon liquid milk consumption and, as was pointed out by Mr. Jack Jones only the other day, the social effects of the milkman's daily round. This is a vital question to us.
  We have discussed this matter with Commissioner Gundelach on more than one occasion. I am glad to say that he has notified me that he is studying how the functions of the boards can be maintained and I am more hopeful—more hopeful than I was a month or two ago—that we can preserve the Milk Marketing Boards without the tremendous fight that at one time I thought we should have. I feel that the Milk Marketing Boards, and other boards as well, could be of great use in the Community as a whole.
  While we were about it we managed to preserve the Hops Marketing Board. Perhaps because this is such a wide price package, the House did not notice that fact. But what has happened is that the Hops Marketing Board is, by a curious alchemy, recognised as a producer group for the next four years and, rather than destroyed, as was the fear at one time, is eligible for the grants of the producer group.
  The third thing we managed to do, because this also affects United Kingdom institutions and methods, is to keep the beef premium. This had in fact been in doubt and perhaps could have been destroyed in July of this year. We have now managed to get it for the whole of the year and it looks as though it will become permanent. Again, this is something which we believe could be used in other countries, and perhaps for other commodities as well.
  The next thing we should do is to get a more liberal importation of foodstuffs. I would have thought that the House
  1374
  would have a great deal of sympathy for this. It is a feature that is traditional to us and it preserves some of the links in trade, aid and kinship that this country has had for centuries.
  The right hon. Member for Yeovil asked me about the£23 million cost to the Exchequer, as he put it, of the butter subsidy because of the New Zealand levies. Of course we knew that the effect of going for the butter subsidy would be to cut the levies on New Zealand imports. It happens to be a matter of accountancy that this was done, instead of a straight cut in levies, by applying the same amount of levy and a subsidy which balanced it. But it is exactly the same, and my colleagues and I were aware of it.
  I have never disguised from the House—and I hope that I carry a great deal of support in the House on this—my view that the levies were too high and that it was our job to bring them down. That is what we have been trying to do in Brussels. I have reported to the House on a number of occasions such changes as there have been. The right hon. Member for Yeovil rather gracefully paid tribute to my reports to the House and acknowledged that I was talking about levies and their reduction. We do not find this odious or irksome. On the contrary, it is part of our programme.
  So what should our programme be for the future? First, we should expand British agriculture. I have tried to say so.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: The Government are not doing so.
  Mr. Silkin: The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) says that we are not doing so. I did not notice his objecting to my bringing back from Brussels the end of the suggestion that we should suspend national aids in dairy farming. The only purpose of that when we are dealing with a contraction of milk production throughout the Community as a whole is that the Community has had to recognise that there are areas which are efficient, where the climate is good in this country, and where such aids are in this country, and where such aids are of help—in other words, where there may be expansion in one area and contraction in another.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: If that is the situation, why in Italy, for example, do dairy farmers get up to 80p a gallon whereas in this country they get less than 50p? Is that fair? Is not the right hon. Gentleman seeking to give our dairy farmers a fairer return for their labour and for what they produce? They are highly efficient producers.
  Mr. Silkin: I am not mentioning which country, but the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has put his finger on one of the basic defects of the common agricultural policy as it is, which is that it rewards the most inefficient farmer and does not reward the most efficient.
  Perhaps I might take that argument a little further and mention another objective for which we must aim. Prices should not be burdened with the effects of social needs. High prices on the Continent of Europe are very often due to the fact, understandably, that there are poor farmers and that one does not want to destroy them or to treat them as brutally as perhaps we did 100 years ago, or even less. But we do not want to burden the price of food with that, either. This should be a national concern, and not one which goes on the European farm budget. Therefore, we must apply constant pressure on price levels.
  Finally, as I have tried to show, we must end the rigidity of the present system. I have tried to show how we have moved a little in that direction. I do not claim that we have done anything so remarkable that it ranks as a revolution, but it is the beginning of a radical change.
  The Opposition have chosen to move a motion calling for a reduction in, I suppose, the salaries of all the Ministers in my Department, although primarily they mean my own. Therefore, this is not merely an academic debate about agriculture. It is what might be described as a life or death debate about the competence of the Government in their handling of the price negotiations in Europe.
  Let me remind the House of the advice which we received from the Opposition Front Bench before the March meeting of the Council of Ministers. We were advised that, despite the fact that the Opposition objected to this or that in
  1376
  the proposals—and they fairly set out those to which they objected—nevertheless we should accept the Commission's proposals in their entirety as a package.
  Let me remind the House what that would have meant. It would have meant a 6 per cent. devaluation of the green pound, a food price rise of 1¼p in the pound and not the ⅓p which we obtained, no butter subsidy, an end to the variable beef premium in July, a penal levy of as much as twice on isoglucose, a margarine tax of 2·5 per cent., exclusive use proposals on milk coming into force, and a ban on investment aid for dairy farmers. That was the Opposition's policy. It is that policy which I hope the House will censure today.
  5.26 p.m.
  Mr. Colin Shepherd: The Secretary of State made light of the achievements of the common agricultural policy over the last few years. There is no doubt that the CAP has acted as a highly stabilising influence in Europe for 20 years and that for many years it provided a stable basis for intra-Community trade and for predictability among the farming population. The CAP has laudable aims, it has succeeded, and it can succeed again.
  The CAP was not designed to deal with the circumstances which are pertinent today. It has become imbued with stresses which are being used for national gain rather than for Community gain and to the long-term benefit of Community producers.
  The real nuts and bolts of this issue are that this Government inherited a situation whereby the pound sterling stood at approximately $2·40, with equivalent ratios to the other European currencies. Today, we have an exchange rate of $0·70 to the pound, representing a monumental drop over a period of three years, the greater part of its having occurred in the past 18 months. This is the mechanism which has set up the stresses that the common agricultural policy is trying to beat.
  Some time back, the discrepancy between the green pound and the pound sterling was as much as 42·5 per cent. That was a monumental discrepancy due entirely to Government policies, principally the policy of pursuing cheap food at

  1377
  any price to try to overcome the difficulties which the Government were experiencing in other directions.
  It may be laudable to go for cheap food at any price. I cannot see that it is laudable to do it for the benefit of one sector of the population rather than for the whole population. If the Government are to act for the benefit of all, they must take account of the producer as well as the consumer.
  In October 1974, the Labour Party said in its manifesto:
  "Labour will encourage the maximum economic production of food by the farming and fisheries industries."
  That is a laudable intention, but I cannot see any evidence of this having occurred in the farming sector. Food production has dropped while this Government have been in office. The source of my information is Economic Trends 1976. During the period of the Labour Government from 1964–70 there was a 1·6 per annum increase in food production. So far so good. During the Conservative Government of 1970–74 there was a 3·6 per cent. increase per annum. During the Labour Government 1974–76 there has been a 4·5 per cent. per annum drop. The decline in livestock over the past two years has been cattle at 8 per cent., sheep at 1 per cent. and pigs at 7½ per cent.
  Mr. Robin Corbett: Let me get this straight. Is the hon. Gentleman blaming my right hon. Friend or his predecessor for the drought? Is he also asking my right hon. Friend to volunteer to accept responsibility for little hiccups, for example in the pig industry, which go under the name of the pig cycle?
  Mr. Shepherd: I am not taking account of the drought, just as the Minister did not take it into account in his remarks. The drought does not happen every year. It happened last year and it is only since then that there have been circumstances to be overcome. The pig cycle has its effect. Many people invested on the wrong side of the pig cycle and failed accurately to predict it. I am not taking account of bad commercial judgments among certain elements of the pig sector. I am making a plea for recognition of
  1378
  the fact that many people in the pig and beef sectors are trying to make an honest living in circumstances and in a climate which have been set by the Government.
  In their White Paper "Food from Our Own Resources" the Government make certain analyses and commitments. One of these is that
  "the objective of Government policy will be to provide farmers with a prospect of stability in their returns at levels encouraging the greater home production which would give the country an insurance against periods of shortage and higher prices"
  The Government's own figures set out in the annual review and in Economic Trends show that this is not happening. The Government deduce in their White Paper that
  "The likely levels of world and Community prices for major foodstuffs between now and the early 1980s, and the risks of possible shortages and sharp price fluctuations justify a policy of expansion of food production in the United Kingdom"
  They say also,
  "The net product of the agricultural industry should be capable of a continuing expansion of about 2½ per cent. a year on average, and this is the objective at which the Government and industry should aim".
  Will the Minister reaffirm his commitment to that White Paper? It might not be his personal document, but the whole agricultural industry is awaiting his reaffirmation of its intentions. He mentioned it in his speech, but I do not think his words constituted a firm commitment.
  Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that it is a matter of considerable concern to the farmers of Herefordshire, whom he and I both represent, that the marketing boards, particularly for potatoes and milk, should be preserved? Bearing in mind what the Minister has told the House, will my hon. Friend seek an assurance from the Minister that he will at the end of the day take a firmer stand on this issue than he seemed to indicate? He seemed to indicate that there was a battle to come, but he did not show how far he would fight that battle.
  Mr. Shepherd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for demonstrating the concern felt in Herefordshire farming circles about the continued existence of the Milk, Potato and Hops Marketing Boards. I had overlooked the Minister's comments about the future prospects for the Hops

  1379
  Marketing Board. Herefordshire is a major hop-growing area, and we were pleased to hear what he had to say. May he continue his work towards ensuring that at the end of the four-year period the Hops Marketing Board will have a secure future.
  The Milk Marketing Board is of specific and particular interest to the county of Herefordshire. Its milk production facilities include one of the largest dairy units in the country, and there has been great worry about that. We should all like to see the Milk Marketing Board strengthened, but I recognise the difficulties that the Minister has faced under the terms of the Treaty of Rome.
  The Government have to create a climate of confidence in which the farmer can work. If they do not create that climate the industry will not provide the goodies which we, the consumers, need. I should like an explanation for the delay in announcing the potato guarantees. The Minister should not allow such a delay to occur again. What sort of an Administration is it that announces the guarantees after the potatoes have been planted for the year?
  Such action by the Government calls for an act of true confidence in them by the industry, but that confidence has not been expressed to me in farming circles. It is wrong that farmers should be expected to take such a step when they do not know what the form will be later. Perhaps the Government are prepared to take a gamble on a potato shortage and on high prices. If there is a surplus this year, however, the potato industry will find itself in difficulties. That industry trembles at the prospect of a potato surplus. Production costs are up substantially more than the 16 per cent. which the Minister has added to last year's price of£40.
  Many of the calf pens in Herefordshire are empty on those farms which are heavily committed to beef production. The producers cannot see the end of the tunnel. There is no confidence or predictability in that sector, and it is therefore not surprising that they are holding off from buying calves.
  The pig sector gives rise to great concern. The pigman recognises the pig cycle, but he is in business to produce pigs for tomorrow and he must know that
  1380
  he will be in business tomorrow when his pigs come to maturity. I asked the Minister at Question Time whether he would have himself hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. He accused me of being frivolous, but I was not being frivolous. If the Minister is to do the job, let him do it properly. Let him go to the European Court, because the case for£l is at least as good as the case for 50p, and if he acts in that way at least we shall have a pig sector in the future.
  I have tried to indicate some of the points of concern, points which cannot be taken in isolation from the Government's total policy. The Government's policy is at fault, and agriculture cannot be regarded separately from their overall policy.
  If the Minister does not persuade his colleagues that this country must come to terms with reality, that it must pay the going price for food, that it can no longer treat the green pound as a cushion or a lever, and that the Government must recognise that there is a proper price to pay, the industry will find itself in the same position as the railways in which higher prices will create a lower demand. He will find that there is less home production. The trends are showing that now. This will lead to less efficient production and higher unit costs which, in turn, will lead to lower demands and higher imports and will negate the whole policy contained in "Food from Our Own Resources".
  Mr. Buchan: The flaw in the hon. Gentleman's argument that the Minister should ensure that the country faces up to paying the going price for food is that this price is an artificial creation of the nonsensical policies of the CAP, which artificially inflates prices.
  Mr. Shepherd: That argument is fallacious. When Community prices were below the level of world prices, the hon. Gentleman was not complaining so much. He wants to eat his cake and have it. He does not want stability of supplies. He wants to catch as catch can and is playing with the future of our food supplies. He ought to follow a steady line.
  The Minister has a responsibility to ensure continued supplies. He should give us stronger affirmations and actions and a better performance in Cabinet

  1381
  against his colleagues who put the price of food first.
  5.42 p.m.
  Mr. Thomas Torney: I was surprised at the early remarks of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). I am sorry that he is not here because I should like to remind him that although I agreed with his criticisms of the CAP, he was a member of the Government that took us into the Common Market and accepted carte blanche the policy that he is now criticising. He must have forgotten that.
  The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) expressed concern about the marketing boards. I can assure him that he need have no fear about the views of hon. Members on this side of the House. We are behind the Minister in demanding the retention of our marketing boards. Only today, the Back-Bench group of which I am chairman, has been to Thames Ditton to see the work of the Milk Marketing Board. We gave the people there an assurance that we would do all that we could to ensure the continuation of that Board and we assured them that our view was shared by hon. Members opposite.
  If it were not for the pressures and commitments of our entry into the EEC and the operation of the CAP, there would be no need to worry about the future of the marketing boards. The Government are not causing the fear. The Minister will not discontinue the boards. It is the possibility of action by the EEC that we have to fight.
  Mr. Temple-Morris: The hon. Gentleman has spoken about retaining the marketing boards, but the Minister has not yet said that he will retain them. He did not even mention the Potato Marketing Board.
  Mr. Torney: No doubt that point will be dealt with in the ministerial reply. The Back-Bench group and I have had discussions with the Minister and we are satisfied that he intends to retain the marketing boards, but my right hon. Friend can answer for himself.
  Mr. Anthony Nelson: The right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head.
  Mr. John Silkin: I was shaking my head at the apparent deafness of hon. Members opposite and wondering whether anything could be done to assist them to hear what I say.
  Mr. Torney: The Minister has to work under difficult conditions that are not of his or the Government's making. My criticisms are not levelled at my right hon. Friend or the Government. The acceptance of the Treaty of Rome and the CAP was nothing short of treason against our nation. Let no one forget—least of all the Opposition Front Bench—that a Tory Government accepted impossible terms and took us into the EEC.
  The NFU should remember that it campaigned for our entry and continued membership and it must also accept some of the responsibility for the chaos that the CAP causes for British farming. Even today, the union clings to the outworn argument of a world food shortage as the reason for our paying food prices that are greatly in excess of world prices. This argument was a gimmick designed by those on both sides of the House and outside to hoodwink the electorate into voting "Yes" in the referendum.
  Mr. Welsh: In his catalogue of interest groups, will the hon. Gentleman mention that the one political party to oppose entry to the Common Market was the Scottish National Party?
  Mr. Torney: The mass of the rank and file of the Labour Party and of Back Benchers on this side of the House were opposed to our entry and to our continued membership. The hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) knows that I campaigned actively at the time of the referendum to keep this country out of the EEC. The hon. Gentleman and I met across the floor of television stations many times.
  Mr. Buchan: The hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Welsh) is wrong. Although the Government were not opposed to our entry into the Common Market, the Labour Party was. The SNP did not oppose the EEC. It came up with the crooked slogan: "No entry on anyone else's terms."
  Mr. Torney: Let us look at the facts on commodity prices. Last year, wheat in the Community cost between 25 per cent.

  1383
  and 45 per cent. more than the world price. Is it suggested that this is a minor difficulty that can be ironed out soon? The price of maize, a major foodstuff, was 28 per cent. higher in the Community than outside. The Community price for beef and veal was 58 per cent. more than the world price, and milk powder prices in the Community were 166 per cent. of world prices. The price of butter—if one dare mention that again—was 220 per cent. more than the world price. The price that we pay in the Community is three times the world price. Is that a sensible and proper way of conducting our farm and food policies? These are the Commission's own figures, on page 98 of the agriculture report for 1975–76.
  We all know of the butter scandal. New Zealand, if she were allowed to do so, could land butter here to sell at 26p a lb. The common agricultural policy prevents New Zealand from doing this and forces us to pay upwards of 50p a lb. By the end of the year or by early next year the EEC will force us to charge anything up to 70p a lb. for our butter.
  All this takes place while mountains build up, and to clear away the stocks the EEC has to sell outside the Community at give-away prices, while the French farmer continues to be subsidised for his inefficiency. He is partly subsidised by the British taxpayer. We pay fantastic, high prices in the shops, and we make up the difference in price by taxation, although the surplus can be sold outside the EEC at 17p a lb.
  I did not intervene when my right hon. Friend was speaking. I thought it would not be fair to do so as I was hoping to catch Mr. Deputy Speaker's eye. But I ask my right hon. Friend why we are importing butter from France and Germany when we have many tons of British-made butter which has been put into store because it cannot be sold.
  My right hon. Friend is fully aware that we produce only a very small portion of our butter needs. Why, in Heaven's name, can we not at least consume the small amount that we produce, and thus save a little of our vital foreign currency? I do not expect my right hon. Friend to give the answer to that off the cuff, but could it he that there is some kind of racket here, with butter being stored away while prices go up, so that there is more
  1384
  profit made? I do not know. That is why I ask the question. At least we should be able to consume the 20 per cent. of butter that we are producing here, thereby saving some of our foreign currency.
  The position with regard to other foodstuffs is equally grim. Australian and New Zealand cheese is taxed to the extent of 60 or 70 per cent. We pay a tax of over 50 per cent. on Canadian wheat. That is as high as it ever rose under the old Corn Laws. Maize could be landed in this country now at£74 a ton. The present EEC levy is£30 a ton, and it will go up to£49 a ton later this year, making a tax of 70 per cent. on maize.
  These phenomenally high taxes on food, forced upon us by the Common Market, are higher than the value added tax on the general range of our inessential goods. Beef carries a 20 per cent. import duty plus a levy. The EEC forces the housewife to pay double the price that she would pay if we were outside the EEC. Beef is now a luxury on our Sunday lunch tables. The surpluses—250,000 tons of beef, 250,000 tons of butter, and phenomenal quantities of skimmed milk powder—are the result of prohibitive prices.
  The consumption of beef, lamb, butter and milk has actually fallen in the United Kingdom in the past year. Some figures of consumption have fallen to the level of rationing which we were told was such a miserably low standard 30 years ago. This is what membership of the EEC means—a real fall in the standard of living for a large section of our people.
  Outside the EEC, prices fell in the past year. In America they rose by only 1·5 per cent., whereas in the EEC as a whole they rose by 14·6 per cent., and in the United Kingdom by 20 per cent. Our food prices have risen by 16½ per cent. since last August, and half of that rise was directly due to the common agricultural policy. This is absolutely ridiculous.
  This year the mad escapades of the Commission authorities with dairy products alone mean that£1,100 million is being spent from the EEC budget, to which we contribute, on buying up EEC surpluses. According to the Commission's own figures, the estimated extra cost of importing our food at EEC prices rather than at world prices amounted in 1976 to about£900 million on our balance of

  1385
  payments. By means of mcas and the green pound we got back£400 million.
  The net burden, therefore, was an additional£500 million, purely because of the ridiculous common agricultural policy. This is in addition to the£1,000 million deficit on trade with the rest of the EEC in non-food goods. Our net payment to the EEC budget in the current financial year is£447 million. If we add that to the other figures I have given, this means that we have a deficit of£2,000 million on our balance of payments because of this stupid policy.
  I was very glad indeed to hear my right hon. Friend list the things that we need to do to change the common agricultural policy, for the benefit not just of the British consumer, who needs these changes, but of the farmer as well. How much better it would be if the Minister were able to subsidise the pig farmer in the way in which I am sure he would like to do. My right hon. Friend is put into court by the EEC because he wants to do what he knows has to be done but cannot do because the common agricultural policy and our membership of the EEC forbid it.
  Let the Conservative Party and the National Farmers Union, who are criticising the Minister and the Government, remember that they wanted the EEC. They wanted the common agricultural policy. Maybe they did not think it out properly—I do not know—but the NFU told its members to support it. The Tory Party took us into the EEC in the first place and then said that we should stay in. It must bear a large percentage of the responsibility for the fact that we are in this mess.
  The trouble that the farmers are in is due to a large degree to the common agricultural policy. How much better it would be if we were able to operate as we operated before we went into the EEC and to buy our food in the best possible markets of the world. If there were unfair competition with our own home food producers, we could subsidise our farmers and help them with deficiency payments. That system worked well then and it would work well today.
  I do not believe that my right hon. Friend will meet with a great deal of success in pressing for the demands that he
  1386
  rightfully puts forward. I support him in these demands, but I believe that the only way forward is for the Government very quickly to press for the complete abolition of the common agricultural policy. If we cannot get it, let us get out of the EEC.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before calling the next hon. Member, may I remind the House of Mr. Speaker's statement at the beginning of the debate about the length of speeches?
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. Geraint Howells: Once again, I declare my interest. I am a farmer, and I am vice-chairman of one of our marketing boards, the British Wool Marketing Board.
  I have listened with interest to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides. I respect the views of the hon. Members for Bradford, South (Mr. Torney), and I know that he always respects mine. However, I hope that during the rest of the debate, whether we are in favour of the common agricultural policy or not, and whether we are pro-Europe or anti-Europe, we shall recognise that it is our duty to look ahead and to create an agricultural policy which will be of benefit to consumer and producer alike. In doing that, we shall, I am sure, strengthen the Minister's hand when he is negotiating in Brussels.
  When the Government published their White Paper, "Food From Our Own Resources", some time ago, they were aiming to encourage the British farmer to increase production and thus make his contribution towards an improved balance of payments. I remember what was said at the time by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson):
  "The Government's policy is to establish a framework which can give confidence for the future—for the consumer and for the producer so that he can plan and invest."
  I have to say that since those words were spoken some two years ago I have not seen the increased confidence which was promised or the increased production which is so necessary.
  The figures for the past year or so have shown that agricultural production is decreasing. On the other hand, our import bill for food and feeding stuffs is escalating rapidly. It has risen by about 400

  1387
  per cent. over the past 15 years. The aim of any Government, therefore, should be to reverse this trend both for the sake of agriculture and for the sake of the country as a whole.
  Over the past few years agriculture has suffered greatly as a result of what one may call short-sighted planning. No Government over the past few years have put forward a long-term plan, and it is my belief that this is the basic weakness of present policy. The farmer is never able to plan beyond the next price review. If we are to produce more of our own food we must have a programme for 10 years ahead, so that the farmer may plan ahead, invest and expand with confidence.
  It is important to provide proper incentives for producers so that more food is readily available in this country and we can avoid the need to bring in expensive imports.
  To judge from the letters and telephone calls that I have received from farmers since last week, they feel at present that nothing has been done to encourage their productivity. Time will tell.
  It is my wish to see the industry stabilised on the basis of a 10-year programme, which should encourage forward planning on the part of the farmer, cause production to rise and eventually contribute to a steadying of prices in the shops.
  We must continue to urge our Common Market partners to see the wisdom of improving the common agricultural policy so that it is more acceptable to the various participants. We shall continue to encourage the Minister to affirm the wisdom of keeping our support system in this country and maintaining our marketing boards. We must stand firm on that.
  Without doubt, it is in the nation's best interest to have a thriving agriculture making a vital contribution to a stable economy. It is essential that the nation be aware of this and make every effort to encourage it.
  I suggest to the Minister, and to others, that we should have a Select Committee on Agriculture, similar to the one set up under the Chairmanship of Lord Watkins, then the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor, in the late 1960s. Such a committee could work out a long-term policy for the benefit of the
  1388
  industry, and I stress that long-term planning is essential. I am one of those farmers who respect Lord Watkins and the members of that Select Committee for the good work they did in the service of agriculture in the late 1960s.
  I put in a plea also on behalf of those who wish to enter the industry but cannot do so largely for lack of capital. Many advantages would flow from action in this regard, and I urge the Government to study the system in France where farmers are able to borrow at advantageous rates of interest. On several occasions in the House I have stressed—I am a strong advocate of a land bank—that there are many young farmers in Wales and elsewhere in Great Britain who, if capital were made available to them, could be the farmers of the future. I know that we have an excellent capital grants scheme under the common agricultural policy, but, if a particular scheme would cost£10,000 or£20,000, the farmer has to find the first 50 per cent. If capital were made available, it would, I am sure, help many who are in dire trouble, and who are unable to find the capital.
  I admit that the low bank interest rate has helped farming this year. For example, a farmer with an overdraft or a mortgage loan of£50,000 will now save about£50 a week in interest charges. That is a step in the right direction, but many farmers are afraid to invest. They are worried lest the interest rate should rise again within six or 12 months.
  I turn now to this year's price review and, first, to the position of the sheep farmer. I always believe in giving praise to anyone who has done good work for that sector of the industry, and here I congratulate the Minister. I speak as a sheep farmer, and I have declared my interest. I believe that this year's price review is the best we have ever had for the sheep farmer—an increase of 31 per cent. on wool and 24 per cent. on lamb.
  Some hon. Members may argue that increasing the price on lamb by 24 per cent. in this year's price review will not cost the Government a penny, but the price in the market this week is declining rapidly and it may well be down to the guarantee price of 50p within the next fortnight.
  I ask the Minister to look at the system now operating in France. The French

  1389
  Government have the right to close the market if it is their wish. For the sake of argument, I give the example of a farmer with a flock of 500 ewes who had 100 per cent. lambing. If he sold the lambs when the market was open he would get£22 per lamb. If the market closed the following week, there would be a fall in the price of the market of about£2 or more per head. Therefore, the farmer who had worked hard for 12 months would lose about£1,000.
  As I say, I hope that the Minister will look at the situation in France and consider whether we could have a market open to which we could send our carcases during 12 months of the year.
  Two years ago I divided the House on the subject of the plight of the small hill farmer. While speaking of sheep farming, I think it right to mention this also. Under the common agricultural policy rules many small hill farmers were deprived of their hill sheep subsidy. The maximum was about£50 or£60, but to the small part-time farmer that£50 can be useful at the end of the year.
  It is a great shame that the hill compensatory allowance was taken away from the small part-time farmer on the hills of Scotland, England and Wales. Has the Minister considered increasing the hill compensatory allowance for hill sheep this year? At present hill farmers are being paid at the rate of£3·60 and the Minister has the right, with the consent of the Chancellor, to increase that subsidy to£4·20 or£4·25. I hope that he will have a look at the plight of the hill farmers.
  Many pig producers have come to see me recently about their plight and their fight for survival. Many are in dire financial difficulties. I hope that the Minister will do everything that he can to give them further assistance—by mcas or some other method. He has clarified the position on mcas and other means in a letter to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) about the pig subsidy.
  I have been told by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) that there is a pig farmer in his constituency who is losing more than£2 on every pig that he has sold since last October. That farmer is a particularly efficient pig
  1390
  producer. In this regard I shall suggest something completely different. I have been told that there is a waiting market for our store pigs on the Continent. The market is closed, but it is claimed that British regulations are too stringent to export pigs. Under the EEC rules, which have been agreed by all the member nations, we can start exporting today. I am sure that if the Minister looked at our regulations and brought them into line with those of the EEC we would have a buoyant pig industry overnight.
  In relation to the dairy industry, I think that the guarantee price for milk for the next six months is too low. Many of our producers will not be able to recoup their costs, especially the small family farm unit. As a nation we are very dependent on family farms—both socially and economically. Nearly all of them are very efficient or they would not have survived for so long. As politicians we must make sure that their survival is secured for generations to come. Let us stand up to the challenge together. When we argue they suffer.
  I was disappointed to learn that the Government have done away with the consumer subsidy. I have stressed that the subsidy should be phased out during the year, but it was not to be. The price of milk to the consumer will go up by 2p a pint during this year. It is still cheap in comparison with other drinks, but milk consumption has gone down and is continuing to fall.
  According to the latest figures quoted by the Milk Marketing Board, liquid milk sales in the year ending 31st March 1977 totalled 6,802 million litres—161 million litres lower than the year ending 31st March 1976. That is the first time since the 1960s that sales have declined year on year.
  We know that the guarantee price system for milk ends on 31st December this year. I am worried, and so are many dairy farmers, about their future. The future of the Milk Marketing Board and the guarantee price system has been pressed in the House already. Having done away with the guarantee price system, does this mean that eventually we shall lose our Milk Marketing Board with its statutory powers? How on earth can our farmers have any confidence to invest unless they know how much they will get for milk next year and what will happen

  1391
  to their marketing board? Can the Minister give the dairy industry an assurance today that the retail price for milk will stay at the same level next year? If it does not, and there is no guarantee price system either, the industry will find itself in dire trouble.
  The majority of beef producers are pleased that the variable premium scheme has been extended for another year. Can the Minister assure us that it can be extended for another period of five years or so? I am delighted that he has secured the existence of the variable premium for another year at least. Personally I would like to go back to a guarantee price system, but that is not to be. Beef producers are very worried about their production costs escalating faster than the price they can get in the market for store and fat cattle.
  The beef cow herd has gone down in Wales by 8 per cent. and many more hill farmers will be keeping fewer cows next winter. The Minister will have to give urgent consideration to the plight of marginal hill farmers if we are to produce more beef from these areas. I urge the Minister to consider the plight of marginal hill farmers. It is very difficult to explain to farmers who live in an area of Wales, England or Scotland where one farmer may qualify for a hill compensatory allowance in full and his neighbour down the road, who farms just across the river, does not qualify. It is difficult to explain to farmers why one qualifies and the other does not.
  On the subject of the green pound, I have a news letter from the Farmers' Union of Wales, which was released on 5th May 1977. It reads:
  "EEC Agriculture Commissioner Finn Gundelach has told the President of the Farmers' Union of Wales, Mr. T. Myrddin Evans, that he intends to revive a Commission proposal to secure automatic readjustments of the Green Pound.
  "In a letter to Mr. Evans, Mr. Gundelach states: The proposal is still on the table of the Council and it is my hope that the member States will later this year reach an agreement on a system along the lines proposed by the Commission.'
  "Mr. Gundelach's comments are in reply to representations made by the Union regarding the problems created by monetary instability and inflation and the inadequacies of the green rates."
  1392
  This part is most important:
  "Mr. Gundelach said he was well aware of the Union's views on the outcome of the EEC Price Review and particularly its concern about insufficient profit margins for Welsh farmers."
  I hope that in winding up the Minister will comment on the green pound, and say whether it will be automatically readjusted every month or year as the case may be.
  Finally, I must advise my colleagues to vote against the Government tonight as a protest because we, as a party, are not satisfied that the Government are pursuing a long-term policy that will bring confidence to the industry. This year's price review is only a holding review. For the future we believe that the only way to reform the common agriculture policy for the benefit of consumers and producers alike. I assure the Minister that if the Conservatives were in government, we should vote against their present proposals, which are not acceptable to the majority of farmers. We need to pursue a long-term programme. That is Liberal policy for agriculture.
  6.20 p.m.
  Mr. Hugh Fraser: I have great pleasure in following the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells), who has shown his political ambivalence by always voting in the national interest. I must apologise to the Minister for not having been here for his speech because of the confused arrangements in the House today.
  I join the hon. Member for Cardigan in saying that the thing which must most worry us is not "CAP or no CAP" but the long-term use of our land for agricultural and forestry interests. This is not a question of making party points. The Minister seems to have cultivated, even more than the late Mr. Whistler, the gentle art of making apparently profound enemies, but they are very much enemies on the surface, whether his co-Ministers in Brussels, his opponents on the Common Market or hon. Members.
  The argument which is now emerging is not whether one is for the Market or not. The real problem is that we do not have a certain long-term policy for agriculture, as the French, the Germans and even to some extent the Italians have. This is the problem which besets

  1393
  the industry more than anything else—the lack of a sense of continuity. It is totally essential for agriculture that there should be proper investment.
  Among my farmers in the West Midlands, perhaps especially in Staffordshire, the lack of confidence in the livestock industry is now at a high pitch. Investment is not taking place. I hope that what the Minister said about the Milk Marketing Board will reassure them, but next year there will be the grave problem of what the milk price will be. I have my own doubts about the milk policy in Europe. At one moment we in this country ask our farmers to build up the herd; at another in Europe they try to reduce the size of the farming herd. That makes little sense; these actions are difficult to reconcile.
  Therefore, I give not three loud cheers for the CAP but two rather muted ones and hope that we can improve it. But whichever party is in power must now make it clear to the farming community that there is a long-term policy.
  The Labour Party is essentially an urban party, with urban interests, and some of its trade union friends have a naturally emotional attitude towards landowners, and so on. That is not the issue before the House. The issue is how we make use of our only certain remaining asset, which is land. It is this question of land use, rather than land ownership, that we must face. I am sure that the Minister, who is extremely intelligent, will be facing it.
  One of the great fears today—I am sure that this must be in the back of the Minister's mind—is the weakness of the position of the Minister of Agriculture in the British Cabinet. I have felt since it was created that the Department of the Environment was a bogus Department, which talks a great deal but achieves little except in its separate portions.
  This country has to import over£4,000 million-worth of food and nearly£2,500 million worth of timber a year, and there is a danger that in future our land will not be put to proper use. Till we get these priorities right there can be no security and no real determination among the farming community to go ahead. The figures for the last few years are alarming.
  1394
  Offhand, I believe that the level of agricultural production, which stood at 120 in 1974, had dropped to 97 last year.
  There are one or two technical economic points that I should like to put to the right hon. Gentleman and then a much broader proposition. First, there is no way of achieving the sort of increase proposed in the 1975 White Paper, "Food From our Own Resources". The estimate of a 2½ per cent. increase per annum was too high. That will be difficult to achieve for a variety of reasons, which are recognised by well-known agronomists in the House.
  However, there must be a big investment if only a 1½ per cent. increase is to be achieved, and that can come only from the profits of the industry. They have dropped disastrously in the last two years.
  But the biggest issue facing the right hon. Gentleman and the Cabinet is the danger that siren voices will say that, with the impending improvement of our balance of payments because of the inflow and export of oil, we need not pay so much attention to producing timber and food from our own land. I regard that as much the most serious question, whether the right hon. Gentleman be in office or my right hon. Friend. Unless we get it right, we are storing up disaster for this country. Far too many people—not at the Ministry of Agriculture, but in the Treasury—are beginning to think that if we go for an export-led boom and sell our oil at high world prices we shall not need to bother so much about developing agriculture and forestry. That is the height of folly, because the oil boom will be short.
  As for the suggestion of an all-party commission or a group of distinguished people to consider investment in an export-led boom, it is questionable, from the national economic long-term point of view, whether that investment would not be better put into agriculture and forestry. Many of the so-called investment-led booms will be based on loans which will never be repaid. That is what is happening today. We should seriously consider whether the overall Treasury policy for agriculture, forestry and fisheries is correct.
  I have a few short suggestions for the Minister. Although we are attempting

  1395
  to reduce his salary, my suggestions will increase his importance. If he does not lose his head, and when my right hon. Friend succeeds him, these suggestions should be borne in mind.
  I believe that the Minister of Agriculture should be given much more power in Cabinet, that he should be on the major economic committees headed up by the Treasury, and that he and they should pay more attention to forestry. These are vital considerations, because he is more responsible than anyone else for our correct land use in a country with a third of the acreage of France—much of it Welsh and Scottish mountain.
  There must be a restatement of the Government's aims on a more realistic basis than that put forward in the 1975 White Paper. It should be put before Parliament as soon as possible. There must be an acceptance by the Government that at least£1,000 million has to be put into investment in agriculture and forestry over the next five years if there is to be any movement forward.
  There should be a proper assessment, especially in the hill areas, about the future development of forestry and hill fanning. I do not know about world prices, but I am certain that world prices of timber for this country will go up at an alarming rate over the next 10 years.
  The final requirement is the proper use of land. If one looks at projections such as those made by the Rothschild Committee and Reading University, whatever level of population is considered, whether it is the low projection or the high projection to the end of the century, one finds that there are between 750,000 and 1,200,000 acres of land required—unless checked—for urban use. I do not mean for housing and playing fields alone but for railways and motorways. At the same time, there are enormous areas of derelict land which could be used for proper development.
  These are the real problems of any Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, from wherever he comes—even if he comes from the Liberal Party. This is the essential condition for the maintenance of the only certain asset that we have in this country—the land, not just the Welsh land of their fathers, but of Scotland and England, too.
  6.33 p.m.
  Mr. Norman Buchan: I agree with some of the final arguments of the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser). I agree with him about the importance of continuity and planning. Land is of key importance. I agreed with the right hon. Member about enhancing the importance of the Minister so that he is seen in a more central position in Government and the economy. One way of achieving that aim would be to make him Minister of Food.
  The right hon. Member also mentioned the expansion of the hill sheep industry. That subject was included in my remit when I was a Minister and when I was involved with the central planning unit. With the world population doubling over the next 25 years, without planned protection and forward stability for the fanner we shall not achieve the necessary progress. The nonsense of annual price reviews must be ended. We must bring in a five-year rolling programme. That would give stability to the farming industry and could be operated within a certain range beyond which we would not go.
  The right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone said that land use is more important than land ownership. I disagree. Land is too important to be left as it is. Land is a national asset. We must plan its use properly. That must affect ownership.
  I turn to the main aspect of the debate—the common agriculture policy. I want to look ahead. Some surprising statements have been made in the debate. I object to the Common Market because of the amount of horse trading and the massive bureaucracy. Too large a share of the FEOGA budget is used to prop up the market. The Ministers involved tend to forget the protection of the consumer in favour of the producers. Too little is spent on the protection of the consumer and too much on propping up the market. Those are my reasons for opposing the Market. Those are the reasons given by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). That is how he opened his speech. I welcome his confession.
  Mr. Peyton: The hon. Member is grossly misinterpreting what I said. The

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  hon. Member took out only part of what I said. I spoke of the aims of the CAP, which seemed to me to be unexceptionable. I objected to the practices and developments to which the hon. Member referred.
  Mr. Buchan: I, too, am against sin. There is nothing wrong with the Market itself; it is what the Market is that matters. The right hon. Member for Yeovil rejects categories of sin.
  When hon. Members take on agricultural responsibilities they get into certain habits. With the start made by my right hon. Friend, I am anxious in case he goes the same way. I hope that we shall have an assurance that he will not.
  I do not want to spend too much time on current matters, but I shall deal with the specific point made by the right hon. Member for Yeovil about pigs. When pushed by hon. Members the right hon. Member for Yeovil said that he had a suggestion to make. We do not know what the suggestion was.
  He said that the pig subsidy was too low. Does he want a bigger subsidy? Would he have given a bigger subsidy had he been in office? Would that subsidy have come too late, or would he have given a bigger subsidy earlier? He also said that there should be a marginal devaluation of the green pound. But the argument has been that the value of the green pound has been insufficient to help the industry. The Minister is on bail about that and the argument is empty to the point of ineptitude.
  The British Farmer & Stock-breeder states:
  "The UK's two EEC transition steps alone are expected to increase food costs by around£9 a tonne…Since cereals, together with derivatives like middlings, account for around 80 per cent. of a typical baconer ration and feed accounts for 70 per cent. of production costs, it would require a£60 a tonne increase in the wholesale bacon price just to keep pace with the cereal cost increases brought about by the two transitional steps."
  The situation causes a dilemma which is not felt by the rest of the Common Market countries because they have a background of a dear food policy. The main problem is that a CAP that could protect consumers would hurt the producers.
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  That is because the policy is based upon end prices.
  One of the problems is that a policy that will support, develop and expand the farming industry is one that will also harm our peoples. That contradiction cannot be avoided. It is the basic contradiction which poses the dilemma for us in relation to "Food from Our Own Resources". This was a programme designed not to plan expansion but at least to say that expansion is what we should like to achieve.
  The trouble is that as long as we have an end price policy, the cost of producing that expansion is one that we are not entitled to ask our people to bear. Therefore, we have to alter drastically the running of the CAP. If that fails, the time will have come when we must say "We shall go it alone. In or out of the Market, we shall administer our own agricultural policy".
  Whatever else may be said for the political or social advantages of the larger agricultural communities of Europe, this is a situation that over the past few years has increased our difficulties. It is increasing our difficulties. They are not being diminished. That is why we have now reached the stage—it has been dramatically highlighted over the last few weeks in the comparisons of the by-election results—when the British people, too, are seriously reconsidering their decision in the referendum.
  When we hear such a speech as that from the right hon. Member for Yeovil, with his wholesale attack on and rejection of the Common Market, while saying that he approved of its aims—[Interruption.] But that was his correction when interrupting me. He was saying that the aims were good but that the thing was rotten in practice. He might have said that during the referendum campaign. I have no doubt that this speech today will have given encouragement not only to those of us who argue on that basis then but those who thought that they could do no other than vote for entry and who now think that they have been hoodwinked when they hear the kind of speeches being made today.
  That is the dilemma and that is the political situation. The consequences are that if we cannot now strengthen our fight and if that cannot be done by the

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  Minister of Agriculture alone—he has put up a major battle to try to achieve what he can in the working of the Common Market—the Government must act to use their strength and to say "We can see little gain".
  What have the Government to lose? We know what the Market was. It was a deal between French agriculture and West German industry. We said that we should lose on both counts—that we should lose on the agricultural side because we are not suitable and on the industrial side because German industry was poised to come in with its manufactures. That is what has happened. There has been nothing gained. We have ended with massive food price increases and massive balance of payments problems. Neither on the economic and industrial side nor on the agricultural side has gain been proved, and there is no indication that that will be altered unless we scrap the CAP and its application to us.
  Having said that about the CAP, I want to look at the implications that it has for Britain. The first is that as long as we have an end price policy, whether inside or outside the Common Market, certain things follow. Someone talked about the going rate for food. What a nonsense that is. The cost of food is artificially created throughout the world, let alone inside the Market, where it is monstrously so created. The cost of an end price policy will lead to consumer resistance. I recommend the brief issued by the Consumers Association, in which it spells that out. That would be the cost to the consumer, and the effect upon producers would be the resistance.
  To farming it has an additional cost. If farm land is a national asset, as the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone said, the problem of an end price policy is not only that it increases costs in the absolute sense, as I have been saying, but it brings in another cost, and that is the cost in relation to the asset of land. It distorts our agricultural policy.
  As soon as farmers are paid to produce that which gets the best cash return, they will be getting like business men—they will be producing that which gets the best cash return. There is very often no relationship between the best cash return and that which is neded by the community
  1400
  or that which is most suitable to be farmed on our land. Therefore, it distorts good husbandry, it distorts agriculture and it distorts planning, because when we then reach the situation that I have described, with the world's population doubling, we shall not find commodities abroad quite so easy to obtain.
  The obvious point in this, for example, is the question of moving over to grass—the question of beef. What a nonsense it is that we should be producing so much cereals for beef production! When we have so much grassland and potentially improvable and marginal land which has not properly been brought into grazing use, that is what the money should be spent on instead of artificially increasing the return to the cereal farmer in order to feed livestock. This begins to be a sane agricultural policy.
  In Europe itself the problem is not so great. In the first place, it is more self-sufficient than we are. Secondly, it is an area of traditionally high food prices. Thirdly—and this is all-important—Europe has a greater agricultural population than we have, for which that kind of policy has a certain political value, though not one that I welcome, and a certain social value. But it is not true of our situation.
  Thirdly, an end price policy distorts in another way if we need to expand correctly livestock and grass. If at some point we have to take a decision to say that cereals are too valuable to be used in this way, that they should not be used in order to have 10 tons of cereal for 1 ton of meat, we must move over to grass. This costs money.
  Throughout the Highlands and many areas of England there is waste land and marginal land which could be brought into production, but that will be expensive. It is nonsense for the SNP to say that in the Highlands there is land that would be easy to bring into use. It will not be easy. If an individual farmer has marginal land, why does he not bring it into production for grazing? It is because the costs to him are not of a kind which can be returned to him within 10, 15 or 20 years.
  Therefore, this is of immense importance to the nation and it should be a

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  national cost. The money that we are using artificially to prop up an end price policy pushes up the price of cash props uselessly, because at the end of the day it does not produce one more ear of barley. It merely costs more. The money used for this purpose should be used in the way that I have suggested, and£1,000 million investment should be seen in this way in future, as well as in reorienting our agricultural policy.
  The third point on this additional broader cost is the effect that it has on our national industrial economy, because it distorts our trading position in relation to our other imports. What a nonsense it is that we should have hooked ourselves up inside the Common Market on the arguments of economic benefits with people who are basically like ourselves and are natural competitors for our own products when of course we should be looking abroad in order to get the kind of trading pattern that suits both our industrial policy and our agricultural economy.
  Mr. Geraint Howells: I have been interested in the hon. Gentleman's comments on hill farmers and marginal land farmers. Does he agree with me that the present Government should pursue a policy of making capital available or that a land bank should be set up in Britain to help marginal and hill farmers?
  Mr. Buchan: I have no objection to that mechanism. One way of doing it would be a land bank, but the important decision would be that the nation should go into this in a large way and that we should spend the money in doing it. It is the decision of principle that should be taken first.
  I am concerned about the producer. My speech is as much about the producer as it is about the consumer. I am concerned with agriculture and not just consumers who will benefit.
  There is one point on the tax side. One simple thing that I should like to see the Government doing now is averaging out farmers' tax. The present system is nonsense, especially with the vagaries in the climate over the last three years. The curious period of climate that we have had over the last two or three years makes a nonsense of the present system of doing it on an annual basis.
  1402
  It will not lose anything to the Exchequer. The Exchequer will still get the return in exactly the same way when it is averaged out. More important, however, is that it will lead to intelligent investment by the farmer, because instead of saying "My money will be paid in tax unless I invest it", he will have the security. One possibility is a bank in relation to that so that investment reserves can be built up for the individual farmer.
  Clearly, there is now understanding of the cost and stupidity of a policy which encourages people to produce food in order to buy into intervention the surpluses built up. Most people in this country now understand that that is nonsense. Those of us who are concerned to achieve a sane agricultural policy must also now turn our attention to the levies. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Torney) gave a complete list of prices that grossly exceeded world prices. It is a nonsense that we should be faced with fiddling on the pig side, when every time we try to devalue the green pound to help our own producers that pushes up the cost to us, and cheaper cereals that could be brought from abroad are increased in price by levies. It is nonsense that there is a levy of about 40 per cent. on wheat. We must pay a great deal more attention to this matter.
  I want also to say something about some of the cruder aspects. Someone asked where we should obtain the cheap food. Of course, there is not and will not now be the kind of cheap food policy that we have seen in the past—and thank God for that! We do not want it. The cheap food policy was based on a Third World in poverty. But there can be a policy of cheaper food imports.
  We should now set up commodity commissions to plan. First, we should estimate our needs and capacity and the possibilities of expanding home production, estimating from that the kind of long-term deals we should be making for imports. We should not suck in imports at the farmers' expense but seek, as a planned adjunct to national production, to achieve the necessary balance. There should be another look at the old planning suggestion that I made in 1974.

  1403
  Nobody in the Ministry paid any attention to it then, but I hope that attention will be paid to it now.
  We should also look at the boards' practice to learn the lesson of how to plan such production. My right hon. Friend referred to the Milk Marketing Boards. There will be unanimity in the House about the necessity for our fighting for those boards for consumer reasons as well as those of the industry. We should also look at the operation of the Potato Marketing Board, to which the EEC is not particularly favourably inclined. That is an interesting project. The board says "Let us try to examine what we expect the consumption of potatoes to be and then decide the acreage that we think can meet that, given the seasons of the year, because there will be early imports".
  Mr. W. Benyon: What about the weather?
  Mr. Buchan: I shall talk about the weather later. Of course, it will go wrong one year in X number of years. The board will never get it right, but it will set a target which can be coped with. In other words, if we are 100,000 tons short, we import 100,000 tons, and if we are 100,000 tons over, there is a guaranteed purchase of feeding stuff.
  To those who object to the Potato Marketing Board because it has intervention implications, I say that there is a world of difference between an intervention purchase because people have been encouraged to produce too much and intervention because we have gone wrong in our national planning and must support the industry. There is a massive difference. One is unproductive, agriculturally monstrous and immoral, in that it encourages people into pointless surplus merely to intervene. The other is saying that we are planning our production and that when we go over the top we have another use in the form of feedingstuff. I hope that we shall not reject this element of planning in the board and that it will be understood.
  I should like to make a final comment on the immediate situation. In Scotland we are apprehensive on the beef side and the milk side. Like other hon. Members, I have received telegrams about the matter. My local farmers in Renfrewshire
  1404
  are concerned about the increased cost to the producer compared with the return he receives from the milk award of last year. In the long run we must push more money into the dairy industry, but the method is not to put it on to the end price.
  My right hon. Friend, in his rôle as Minister of Food, should demand the restoration of food subsidies. We want the dairy industry for the sake of the nation, not for the sake of the dairy farmer, and therefore the nation must be prepared to pay for it. The right way to prevent an end price policy leading to a loss of consumption of liquid milk, which happens as soon as we increase prices, is to bring food subsidies back into the forefront of our thinking. By no means the least advantage is their effect on the argument about the social contract.
  The Opposition proposal is an impertinence not only because it is wrong in that the poor old Minister does not receive a salary to be reduced. The Conservative Party surrendered the interests of the British people and British agriculture in 1971 and 1972. We ourselves failed to renegotiate the common agricultural policy, if we ever attempted it, in 1974, and I make no excuse. But it is hypocrisy and impertinence for the Conservatives to attack the first Minister over the past five or six years properly to defend British interests in the Common Market and remember that his duty is also to the nation, and not only to the Tory Party. I hope that the amendment is rejected with the contempt it deserves.
  Several HON. Members Several HON. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpem): At the beginning of the debate Mr. Speaker appealed for brevity because of the large number of hon. Members who wished to take part in the debate. I heard him say that he thought that he could accommodate them all. There has been a subsequent appeal for brevity. A speech lasting 24 or 25 minutes does not show brevity, in my opinion. There are still 20 hon. Members who are anxious to take part in the debate in the remaining two hours, and I should welcome any suggestions from the Floor on how I should discharge Mr. Speaker's undertaking to accommodate everyone.
  I call Mr. Welsh.
  Mr. John Wells: I shall endeavour to follow Mr. Speaker's request for brevity—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I called Mr. Welsh.
  6.57 p.m.
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: shall try to heed your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in my usual fashion and with my usual speed.
  I welcome today's debate as another important occasion on which we can look in detail at agriculture. Sometimes I wonder whether the Government appreciate the value and status of our agriculture industry. It is important to recognise the place and stature of agriculture in Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole. One recent estimate is that the production, processing and distribution of food in the United Kingdom account for 10 per cent. of the gross national product, with a total value of about£8,000 million a year, and the industry employs 15 per cent. of our total manpower. Those figures show agriculture to be a major industry.
  If this is true of the United Kingdom as a whole, it is even truer of Scotland, where a larger proportion of the population earn their living from agriculture. Agriculture is a crucial sector of the economy, and deserves a far better deal than has been forthcoming so far from recent United Kingdom Governments, whether Labour or Conservative. There has been a failure to recognise and to take proper account of the basic problems and the very nature of the industry. By definition, agriculture is beset with unknown factors of all kinds, such as weather conditions or international markets. These are formidable problems at the best of times, but added to them there are now the problems created by Government policies.
  For example, rightly or wrongly, the Minister has become known as the Minister of Food, not the Minister of Agriculture. His action in delaying the EEC price review has added fuel to that contention. His failure to act realistically over the green pound has further made farmers suspicious. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept reality, which he will have to do sooner or later, and bring about a further reasonable adjustment of the green pound by gradual steps as a
  1406
  matter of urgency. This can for example be done in 1 per cent. steps with minimum disruption for the consumer and producer. In total agriculture is now facing a loss of confidence. It does not know where it stands or what is being asked of it. The question before the Government is quite straightforward—do they want home-produced food or do they not?
  My colleague the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) has passed to me the fears expressed to her by small farmers in her constituency. They coincide with the fears of hill farmers and others in my constituency in South Angus. They are all worried by the Government's recent price agreements. Some of the farmers actually believed the White Paper "Food from Our Own Resources". They actually believed that the Government meant what they said. Many are now sadly disillusioned.
  Agriculture, by definition, is an industry which works on a long time scale., Its turnover is slow and its capital investment is both highly specialised and heavy in volume to meet the specialised needs of the industry, I ask the Minister to produce what United Kingdom Governments have so far failed to produce, namely, a clearly worded long-term farming policy. We have never had a real agriculture policy and it is about time that some basic, assured, long-term plan for agriculture was produced.
  The industry is a success story in terms of investment, productivity and modernisation and, if given the right treatment by Government, it will respond. But it can only fully respond if it knows where it is going. Farmers desperately need a much clearer view of the way ahead. The document "Food from Our Own Resources" was a completely inadequate publication in that it was a series of projections based on past production figures. It was not a concerted, viable agricultural policy, which is what we need as a matter of top priority.
  The Government, naturally and understandably, have an enormous obligation to keep food prices as low as possible, but at the same time that consideration does not release them from their obligations to an agriculture industry which has not let them down in the past. Present Government price policies are little more than

  1407
  short-term expediences which will have serious long-term results for us all.
  Examination of individual sectors of the industry shows this immediately. On the subject of the milk sector, farmers are being asked to cope with the twin evils of rising costs and inadequate returns. I hope that Ministers will comment on the accusation that, although all sides are agreed on the exact extent of costs, the actual price rise given in no way matches cost increases. The Minister is asking the industry to meet a 20 per cent. rise in basic costs with only a 5 per cent. increase in price levels. This is no way to treat the milk sector. Already drought and inflation have upset the April price calculation for an industry which has undergone an expensive winter feeding programme.
  The Minister must know the dangers ahead. Unless the industry is further assisted, this cost spiral and insufficient income situation will lead to a further exodus from the dairy sector later in the year when farmers, tempted by the EEC dairy to beef schemes, may reduce dairy herds, with all that means for the cereal market and beef supplies, as well as the effect on increased imports with their consequent effects on the balance of payments. The housewife and the farmer will eventually have to pay the long-term price for the Government's present short-term policy.
  The Government should remember earlier examples in 1974–75 when a 50 per cent. increase in imports of milk products took place following a shortfall in our market. The Government in a sense are gambling that this summer's weather will not let them down. Because of the past long winter, I am told that there is little or no stored fodder available for the coming season. If we have a dry summer, such drought problems will lead to massive food price increases and a consequent strain on the balance of payments. Those short-term gains will be paid for dearly in the long term.
  A glance at the price of Coca-Cola or beer sometimes makes me wonder what value our society places on the food we eat. The Government surely have a good case to put to the people of this country on the subject of milk, which, even after a few pence price increase, remains one of the cheapest and most nutritious foods available. The
  1408
  Government must give a lead in these matters and back our home producers if they really mean what they said in "Food from Our Own Resources".
  I turn to the potato industry, which is especially important to Scotland and certainly to South Angus. I assure the Minister that the Government's present guaranteed price proposals are looked upon by growers as little short of an insult. It leaves the Minister open to the accusation that its level is designed more to suit the Treasury than to encourage or in the long term to protect the potato industry.
  The present guaranteed price level is of no help to growers with an expensive crop already in their fields and with some planting still to be decided. This year planting costs have been higher than normal because seed has been relatively scarce, and growers will face a tough time when they approach their bankers in the coming months.
  I ask the Government to consider the special circumstances of the Scottish seed potato industry. I hope that they will consider the possible implementation of a separate guaranteed price for Scottish seed potatoes. A little foresight could give great rewards in terms of exports and our balance of payments. If the cards are played properly, this could be an export market winner.
  I wish to put directly to the Minister the fears of South Angus farmers in the beef sector. In the past two months they have been selling fat cattle at virtually the same price as those beasts were originally purchased at the store market last autumn.
  Mr. Paul Hawkins: I do not know the hon. Gentleman's opinion about the sales in his area, but he might be interested to learn that in my area practically every farmer who bought store cattle in the autumn has now, having fattened those cattle, lost£30 to£40 per head.
  Mr. Welsh: I accept that, and the hon. Gentleman contradicts the Minister's remarks about confidence. Confidence is seeping from the beef trade. If the present decline in cattle numbers is allowed to continue, the housewife will pay the eventual price when the consequent shortfall occurs.

  1409
  I wish to remind the Government that 75 per cent. of Scottish agriculture is in livestock and livestock products. That leaves us vulnerable to the Government's price agreements after a long winter involving heavy feed costs. I hope that the Minister will give further thought and will try to meet these acute sector problems.
  Much has been said about the pig industry. I plead with the Government to act and act now in mcas and the extra financial assistance which is urgently needed to save the pig industry. I would remind the Government that half Scotland's pig production comes from the North-East of Scotland by farmers who are now losing an estimated£6 on each pig produced. I would also remind the Government that the pig industry provides 10,000 jobs. I ask the Government to remember that they bear a heavy responsibility for the future of that industry.
  If we are to obtain a secure future for agriculture, the SNP believes that Scottish agriculture must concern itself with those commodities which it is good at producing and with those which it can produce more efficiently than can our European competitors. This means maintaining liquid milk production, increasing the beef and lamb sectors, plus the grain that is needed to feed them; it means maintaining a fair-sized pig industry and expansion of the horticultural sector. If we are to achieve those aims, the domestic food supply must be better safeguarded than it has been up to now. If that is not the case, over-dependence on Europe in certain sectors of the industry can only lead with increasing frequency to commodity shortages should adverse conditions affect European supplies.
  The SNP regards Scottish agriculture as a long-term priority investment, as an industry with a permanent export potential that can be realised only through expansion plans set against a determined Government policy of sustaining its growth through unavoidable periods of fluctuation. In that respect there is a worrying shortfall in the Government's attitude. The Government's present policy package will not achieve our policy goals. Therefore, they must be altered. That is why I will urge my colleagues to vote against the Government tonight.
  7.11 p.m.
  Mr. Gwynfor Evans: It is a pleasure for me to follow the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Welsh) as we have a great deal in common. One of the things that we have in common is our anxiety to defend our traditional way of life.
  As a rule agriculture is discussed solely from the economic standpoint, but we should not forget its social importance. In Wales its social importance is very great. For generations we have been fighting against depopulation. We have been fighting for the retention of the family farm, which is the basic unit. Today in Wales it is sad to see family farms finding their stock being reduced. Family farmers are very concerned about the decrease.
  Surely the authors of "Food from Our Own Resources" must be unhappy about the direction that affairs have been taking during the past year or two. Far from the development that is set out in "Food from Our Own Resources", we have seen decline.
  The beef herd has declined by 2·9 per cent. The pig herd has declined by 7 per cent. in six months. Gilts are down by 18 per cent. The drop for the year was 29 per cent. Especially distressing and disturbing was the drop in young stock. That is a matter that I stress because it is upon the young stock that our future depends.
  In 1976 heifers in calf mainly for milk were down 10 per cent. in 1976. Heifers in calf mainly for beef were down 12 per cent. in 1976. Cows in calf mainly for beef were down 9 per cent. in 1976. I ask the Minister to take the figures seriously and to consider their consequences. This is not the way to any sort of self-sufficiency.
  Many references have been made to beef prices. Fortunately in Wales they have been maintained on the whole by the market. If they had fallen to the guaranteed price level, we should have been in a bad way. Most people will recognise that farmers cannot possibly invest as they should in their industry unless they receive a proper return for their work. As the terms of trade go against the farmer, his position is bound to become more difficult. It is realised by only very few that investment in

  1411
  agriculture on a per worker basis is now as high as it is in the capital intensive steel industry.
  Welsh agriculture, like agriculture throughout the countries of Britain, is now controlled more from Brussels than from London. That is why it is so important for us in Wales to be directly represented on the Brussels institutions and committees.
  The EEC situation is normally called the Common Market situation, with freedom of movement for all produce between all the countries of the EEC. From the Welsh standpoint one of the most stringent tests of that free movement is that of Welsh lamb into France. As lamb is so important in Welsh agriculture, especially on the hill and marginal or less favoured land, we should be fighting alongside Ireland in Brussels for the freedom to sell our lamb to all parts of the EEC at all times of the year.
  In Wales 80 per cent. to 90 per cent. of our land comes into the category of marginal or less favoured land. It is livestock farming only that is found on that land. The Minister said recently that help might be available in the coming autumn for land of that sort. I hope that we shall hear his observations on his considerations of this, and on his reconsideration, I hope, of the present arbitrary subsidy line.
  As so much Welsh land is less favoured land it could possibly be easier to regard the whole of Wales as one special area for this purpose and then to withdraw the parts that are obviously not fit to be included. Only 2 per cent. of the land in Wales is in the grade 1 category. Much of the nutrients have been washed out of the better land because of the heavy rainfall in Wales.
  French farmers have added to the category of less favoured land and the development programme that has taken place in France could be carried out in the United Kingdom without adding unduly to the agriculture budget and without increasing prices at all. It would keep many family farms in being that would otherwise go out of existence. What is needed is the political will to act.
  We are approaching the end of the transitional period and there are some
  1412
  great difficulties looming ahead. In particular, there is a great deal of nervousness about the future of the marketing boards. We are all agreed that the boards must be retained. Perhaps the Milk Marketing Boards are the most important. In my constituency we have unused expensive machinery for making butter and it does not seem as if it will ever be used.
  But what of the marketing of milk itself? I do not refer only to the door-to-door distributor, although there is a danger that that form of distribution will disappear. Indeed, it is disappearing with every year that passes. I am referring to the Milk Marketing Boards themselves.
  Obviously there is a stiff fight ahead. Every marketing board cuts across the essential feature of a common market, namely, freedom of movement for produce from one country to another without hindrance.
  It is interesting that this afternoon we should find that those who have been so enthusiastic about entering the Common Market and staying in it are equally enthusiastic about retaining our national marketing boards. I hope that we can succeed in the fight. I hope that their support for the Minister will be enough for him to win the battle. However, I have my doubts because he has stern enemies. The right hon. Gentleman has to face them in Brussels when he meets the members of the Commission. He has to face the bureaucrats whose Bible is the Treaty of Rome. He deserves, and he should get, all the help that we can give him to keep the marketing boards in existence.
  7.18 p.m.
  Mr. Caerwyn E. Roderick: Obviously the Common Market has featured to a large extent in this debate. The common agricultural policy, being a central theme of the Common Market, must figure completely throughout the debate.
  I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Evans). Surely one of the most fascinating aspects of the debate has been the support that has come for breaking the rules of the Common Market from those who were so energetically trying to get us into the Market and persuading us to stay in it. They have helped form the rules, but

  1413
  they have been insistent at every stage that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food, who, I recall, was not very enthusiastic about remaining in the Common Market, should now bend the rules, break them or do anything he can to destroy the CAP.
  I am with them on that aspect of their speeches because I want to break the rules as well. I want to break the CAP. I want to see us not improve it but completely to re-organise it and to have a new set of rules.
  The CAP was never intended to lower prices. That is why there was such fury when my right hon. Friend managed to lower the price of butter. It was never intended to do anything like that. It was designed to protect the farmer, as I hope we should protect him without the CAP.
  Mr. Nelson: The hon. Gentleman says that the farmers would be protected if the Common Market did not exist, but would he not accept that, with the development of new markets by non-EEC food-producing countries and with the inevitable tendency of European countries to pursue independent incentives to production and the restraint of production, if we were not members of a common agricultural policy the position with regard to surpluses and deficits of food production in Europe would be substantially worse, and, therefore, the interests of neither the producer nor the consumer would be served if we were to return to the position of a few years ago?
  Mr. Roderick: I do not agree. We managed to protect our farmers long before the common agricultural policy, and I see no reason why we should not adopt such policies now. They were designed not to create surpluses. Indeed, there is something immoral about creating and subsidising surpluses and a system whereby the benefits of the investment by our own people, amongst others, go to other countries outside the EEC. There has been some success in getting the investment back to us—the butter subsidy, for example. But that could be done without the CAP as it stands.
  I am in favour of the deficiency payments that we used to have for livestock, and also of guaranteed prices. I am not in favour of the target pricing that
  1414
  we have in the present system. There is a conflict in the policy of supporting the CAP. The CAP will inevitably go for self-sufficiency for Europe in agricultural products, but in a membership of nine countries instead of the national self-sufficiency that we seek in the United Kingdom. We should be aiming for self-sufficiency in this country. We may never achieve it, but we should work more towards it.
  The danger of aiming for self-sufficiency within a membership of nine countries is that if one country produces something better than any other, that product will come wholly from that country and be abandoned in the others. There is room for variety in each member country. We have built up a European protectionism which is detrimental to the long-term interest of agriculture. If we continue to go for an increasing upward spiral of prices, the consumer will one day inevitably rebel, and that will not do the farmer any good. We have to try to achieve a meeting of the two, and we can do it outside the CAP.
  Our aim in agriculture should be as far as possible to remove uncertainty and fluctuations from the incomes of those employed in the industry. It is a pity that we cannot have longer-term agreements than we have. Having price agreements for a year only is not sufficient, because it means an annual period of uncertainty and lack of confidence. I would go for longer-term agreements wherever possible.
  There is a crisis in the pigmeat industry. I am aware of the concern about it of some of the farmers in my constituency who are pig producers. There is no question that they are in very serious trouble. I applaud my right hon. Friend for the assistance that he has given to the industry, but I urge him to go further. I urge him to keep the pressure up for changing the mca further.
  I appreciate my right hon. Friend's dilemma in having to go to the European Court and his argument that he does not want to disturb things too much until we get a settlement there. But, assuming that we get a settlement in our favour, I hope that he will do more in subsidisation. In this context I welcome to our ranks those pro-Marketeers who want him to increase subsidies, something that

  1415
  he should not be doing according to the rules. I hope that they will stay with us in the argument. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) was for breaking the rules. What a law-abiding citizen! We hear a lot about law and order from hon. Members opposite, but here they want to break rules that they themselves helped to make.
  A problem is also arising in the beet sector, and again many of my farmers are worried about it. They are concerned that next year they will not get the full reward they need. There is evidence already that farmers in the beef sector are drawing in. It would be tragic if we ended up next year with a shortage of beef. We are efficient beef producers and we should continue to be so, so we must bend our efforts towards ensuring that confidence is gained in the beef sector. Anything that my right hon. Friend can do to reassure the beef farmers on this matter will be greatly appreciated, because fears have been expressed to me by my constituents about it.
  We owe my right hon. Friend a debt of gratitude for his success with the sheep industry. Sheep farmers have told me that they are quite satisfied with the situation at present in terms both of prices for wool and of prices for lamb. We have a good guarantee, and we are grateful for it.
  One constituent has expressed concern to me about the situation in potato marketing, in that prices are very high at the moment. In potato marketing we have experienced fluctuations more than in any other sector. We should try to level off if we can.
  One possibility worrying potato producers is that if the transition period comes to an end soon, we may be open to a flood of potatoes from other European countries. It has been represented to me that we should therefore have an extension of the transition period for potatoes.
  I agree with those right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in favour of the retention of our Milk Marketing Boards. That is essential to a properly co-ordinated milk industry. We cannot allow our boards to be abolished at the dictates of Europe.
  Since this debate can be fairly broad, I want to return to a subject that we
  1416
  dealt with in detail last year—the plight of the tenant farmer. We put through legislation to protect the rights of succession of tenant farmers and to protect the tenant farmer in his holding as at present. But I was disturbed to read recently in British Farmer & Stock-breeder about the eviction of a tenant farmer as the result of an arbitration. We may think "arbitration is fair, and that is final". But I ask my right hon. Friend to consider whether it is not right for the tenant or the landlord himself to have the right of appeal against the decision of an arbitrator.
  Why should he not have such right? We have appeals in other courts, and it would be right and proper to do so in these circumstances because, good though the arbitrators may be, the judgment of one man alone often decides the issue. A second opinion must be available. I was disturbed that this tenant farmer had no right of appeal.
  I must repeat that there is a lack of confidence in the system of arbitration as it is. There is also fear of expense. The tenant farmer is afraid to go to arbitration because of the expense that he may incur—and such people are not usually among the wealthiest of farmers. There is a case for seeing that the service is provided without any of these fears attached to it. Many of my tenant farmers are agreeing to new rents which have escalated beyond all reason because of their fear of going to arbitration in order to get a reasonable settlement. I hope that this will be looked at.
  Finally, I agree that "big" is not necessarily "beautiful". I do not want my right hon. Friend to be carried away by the idea that "big" and "efficient" necessarily equate. We do not necessarily find high productivity on the bigger farms. Very often, efficiency and productivity are to be found on the smaller farms. I am not so irresponsible as to suggest that we do want smaller units to the extent of being so small that they do not supply a living, but there is certainly a case for retaining medium-sized farms on social as well as economic grounds. It is essential that we do not get carried away with amalgamations willy-nilly.
  I would finally ask when we shall see a fundamental change in the CAP. We were promised that we were going to alter it fundamentally. Does my right

  1417
  hon. Friend see a chink of light? Can we expect not just minor revisions, as we are getting from his efforts, but a complete revision of the CAP?
  There is much in the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) about a Select Committee on agriculture. We could certainly air a lot of these points in such a Committee. The House owes a debt of gratitude to my predecessor who chaired that Committee and produced some good reports. We could go through the exercise again: the time is ripe.
  7.31 p.m.
  Mr. W. Benyon: I declare my interests as a farmer and pig producer. I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) start his speech by restating the aims—not necessarily the practice—of the CAP. They are worthy aims and it is quite right to restate them.
  They are to raise the standard of living of the agricultural population to the level of its brothers and sisters in industry, to produce different varieties of food in the areas of Europe where they are best produced, and to ensure, so far as possible, self-sufficiency in what is increasingly becoming an unfriendly world with regard to trading.
  A number of critics speak disparagingly of surpluses, mountains, lakes and the rest. Yet in the same breath they want us to produce food stocks to combat world shortages and enter into commodity agreements to lessen price fluctuations. It is about time that people realised that Europe is a very good place to grow food. It could become and should become one of the world's great larders.
  The consumer and producer are not at war with each other. They are basically fighting on the same side. Continuity of supplies are far preferable to the consumer than peaks and troughs. Those who say "Let us revert to a version of the old United Kingdom deficiency payments system" are really saying that they want a depressed agriculture and a Europe dependent on the vagaries of world supplies. If they do not mean that, then they are asking for a burden of taxation that will be wasteful and totally unacceptable to the vast majority.
  1418
  I admit that the prophets of doom have been proved wrong in the past and that the projected shortages in the world have not materialised. But that is not because the estimates of the world population, and therefore the world's needs, have been underestimated. It is simply that the world, or a large part of it, cannot afford to purchase the food that it needs.
  I agree with the Minister on only one point that if prices are too high, consumption drops. But the solution surely lies not in destroying the CAP but in a series of measures designed to increase consumption both at home and overseas. Here in the United Kingdom we are within sight of the end of the transitional arrangements. All the producers are asking for now is full and fair competition. That is what we have not got, particularly in the pig industry. I cannot reconcile what the Minister said about the wonderful state of British agriculture with the pile of letters that has landed on my desk in the last two or three days. I cannot reconcile that with the brief that has been put out by the NFU.
  Farmers are reasonable people. They gave the Minister the benefit of the doubt. They wanted to see the colour of his money. But now they are totally disillusioned. They sense that he is not really their friend. Farm after farm is preparing for a siege. Labour is being cut down; investment is being curtailed. The statistics quoted by the Minister are totally false, because in certain parts of the agricultural industry, such as potatoes, people who had large profits last year are now applying for grants. Production has slumped and imports are increasing. The future looks very grim, indeed. It is a tragedy—there is no other word for it—and it will take months and months to recoup the position.
  In the mistaken view that they are protecting the consumer, the Government are hell-bent on increasing imports and unemployment. Let me give one constituency example—not from the farm but from the factory. I have in my constituency one of the largest producers of pig-meat products in the country—Scot Meat Products Ltd. The Minister knows all about this because he kindly received a delegation two days ago from both the management and the unions in the company.

  1419
  The company employs 1,800 people and the business produces about 24,000 tons of cooked and cured meat products annually, almost exclusively from pigs produced in the United Kingdom. This enterprise is increasingly suffering from imports of processed ham from Holland and Belgium. These imports have been assisted by restitutions under the mcas, which have now reached the point where they represent more than 50 per cent. of the price asked of the United Kingdom importer and more than one-third of the income of the Dutch exporter. That is an enormous figure. No enterprise can for long face a situation where its customers are able to buy a commodity from a competitor at a price somewhere between 30 per cent. and 40 per cent. below the cost of production in the United Kingdom factory.
  Yet this is not some lame duck but a modern, highly efficient industry with a high level of capital investment. I emphasise as strongly as I can that if this situation is allowed to continue for much longer, without any remedial measures being taken, there will be no processing industry in the United Kingdom at all. That is the upshot of it. We cannot wait until July, or the autumn, or the end of the year. If action is not taken quickly there will be no processing industry in the United Kingdom.
  Imports are already soaring and if firms like this cease production, the extra bill will be tremendous. Then prices will start to rise and the consumer will not benefit.
  Mr. Jopling: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend but may I draw his attention, and that of the House, to an answer which my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Bulmer) got a few days ago in which he was told:
  "Between February 1974 and February 1977, the latest date for which information is available, the number of employees in employment in the bacon curing, meat and fish products industry in Great Britain decreased by about 11,500. This figure is provisional."?
  That is a staggering figure and bears out exactly what my hon. Friend is saying. I think it is right to draw his attention to it.
  Mr. Benyon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for supplying that information, because I missed that reply.
  1420
  In the meantime—this is the important point I wish to make—these jobs will be lost, and this is not an industry which can be recreated quickly. We shall be wide open to competition from abroad.
  This example highlights the seriousness of the situation. This is not a case of fair competition; this is not how the CAP was meant to operate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] It is as a result of the economic difficulties which this country has got into that we find ourselves in this position. It is because the green pound valuation is at the level it is at the moment that this distortion is created.
  I urge the Minister to be robust with regard to this matter. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil has said, he has strong cards to play. We are one of the major users of food in the Common Market and in the world. The interests of producers, consumers and the nation as a whole require a prosperous and efficient agriculture and a prosperous and efficient agricultural industry.
  7.40 p.m.
  Mr. Robin Corbett: With respect to the hon. Members for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) and Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) and their right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), one of the tragedies of these debates is that it is so very easy to try to score cheap points. It is all very well for Opposition Members now to try to berate my right hon. Friend about the iniquities of the common agricultural policy. However, we have to remember that it was a Conservative Government who signed on the dotted line to put this millstone round the necks not just of those in the agriculture industry but of all consumers.
  I say that in quite a hard way, but it is a statement of fact. It is no good, having signed that contract and accepted it behind the backs of the British people, saying four or five years later "We never expected it to work out in this way".
  How the right hon. Member for Yeovil can tell my right hon. Friend that Britain has some strong cards to play, I do not know. If that is right today, was not it right when his Government were conducting these negotiations? The strength and efficiency of British agriculture were exactly the same.

  1421
  I confess to being staggered to learn that the National Farmers' Union and the Opposition are saying to my right hon. Friend, in a situation where he has been taken to court and charged with driving at 70 mph, "Forget all about that. Get in your car and go at 80 mph." We cannot brush off these facts. The Opposition signed this piece of paper, and it is no good their pretending, in a bid for some cheap and instant popularity, that there is any easy answer.
  The Opposition misled the pig producers. With some of my hon. Friends, I met 400 pig producers recently, so we do not need any lessons about how angry they are. The villain of this pantomime, which is what it is, is not my right hon. Friend. Nor is it the Government. It is the eight other Community members, who do not share our view about the basis on which the pigmeat mcas are calculated.
  It has been very interesting in this debate to hear right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House talking about the attention that we should be paying to our farmland. I have felt for a long time that we should separate land from farming. That may sound a little odd. But one of the enormous problems for many owner-occupiers is servicing the money that they have had to borrow to invest in their land. That is a big strain on them.
  The House will know that the Labour Party has been discussing, although it is not yet our policy, setting up some kind of land commission so that, instead of imposing capital taxation, the State should become the landlord and not the farmer—[Interruption.] I expected Opposition Members to laugh when I said that. The idea is that the State should become the landlord, thus enabling the farmer to concentrate on farming. That will be described immediately as a State land grab. However, I was interested to see that Bernard Thorpe and Partners, who, so far as I know, are not subscribers to the Labour Party, placed advertisements in a number of papers last Friday urging readers:
  "Are you aware of the benefits of the sale and leaseback of agricultural land?"
  That could be an advertisement for the kind of Labour Party policy on land in which I am interested. It reads:
  1422
  "An opportunity to expand your farming acreage",
  and that is quite right.
  "Better use of existing capital at present invested in the freehold",
  and that is quite right.
  "Possible alternative to long-term finance which can be costly",
  and that is quite right.
  "Availability of further capital for improvements (subject to landlord's approval)",
  and that is absolutely right.
  The tragedy is that it is presented in the context of agricultural investment. It is nothing of the sort, of course. It has nothing to do with farming. It has to do with investment in land, and this has been one of the major distortions with which agriculture has had to cope in the last few years.
  Mr. Nelson: Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to accept in all objectivity that there is a fundamental difference between a farmer raising capital by a possible leaseback or by borrowing secured against the value of his land and a compulsory system, whether it be taxation such as capital transfer tax or the one proposed by the Labour Party committee to which he referred where, instead of paying tax, a farmer should be allowed to subvent part of his land to the State holding company and rent it back? That is an added cost of rent payable by the farmer on unencumbered land. That is fundamentally different from a farmer raising money secured against his own property.
  Mr. Corbett: Since the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) shows such an interest, I had better see whether I can get him a copy of the relevant document. There is no compulsion involved at all. It is an alternative scheme. It may be that some of us would like to see some compulsion The TUC Economic Review shows that 35·9 per cent. of all privately owned land in this country, stolen from our forefathers, incidentally, is owned by just 0·15 per cent. of the population.
  The other aspect of the problem is that, if the situation is so bad right across the agricultural industry—and I know that the pig sector is in trouble—and if on the day after the election of a Labour Government there is a massive withering away of confidence, which is what we are told, one barometer of this surely is the

  1423
  price of agricultural land with vacant possession.
  Recently a survey has been carried out by ADAS and the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation showing that over the past three years the price per acre of agricultural land with vacant possession has returned to its 1973 level. Some of us may say that that is good. Others may say that it is bad. That is not an argument which I am making. I am saying that this must be one barometer of profitability overall. The land price is back to where it was. What is more, since January 1976, when the average price was£507 per acre, it has moved to reach the figure in January 1977 of£721 an acre. That says something about the industry's view of itself. It is not my view and it is not that of the Opposition.
  We must remember that three-quarters of the purchases of land included in this survey have been made by farmers themselves. That is saying something else.
  It seems that, after the rash statements in this House about the impact of capital taxation on the industry, that message has not been believed. In practice, it has been found not to be true. The industry's initial fears about the impact of capital taxation have not been justified. Especially after the further reliefs introduced in last year's Finance Act, it is clear that farmers themselves now believe that they should be able to meet their capital taxation liabilities without significant disruption to their farming businesses.
  My final point concerns the increasing importance of the industry being aware of what consumers are thinking and saying and what they are doing with their money. There are some worrying signs. I have a document issued by the Bromley Area Health Authority and paid for by a body known as the Flora Group for Health Education, which some hon. Members will recognise as Van Den Berghs, the margarine manufacturers. It is concerned with this argument about cholesterol levels. It says to the good citizens of Bromley:
  "Use low-fat yoghurt instead of cream or soured cream. Discard the cream on top of the milk. Eat cottage cheese, curd cheese and medium-fat cheese such as Edam"—
  of which, of course, we make a great deal in this country—
  1424
  "in place of the full-fat cheeses such as Cheddar, Cheshire, Stilton and cream cheese"—
  which are the ones which we import.
  If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were trying to affect your cholesterol level, you would have to eat at least 40 eggs a day regularly to have any marginal effect—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am not worried about the number of eggs. I thought possibly that the hon. Gentleman would produce a cheese board.
  Mr. Corbett: You would have to drink regularly about four gallons of milk a day. However, there is no time now to go into that argument.
  These are factors for which everyone in the industry must have regard. The Ministers and everyone else involved must take note of them, because fundamental changes are taking place in the pattern of consumer spending. I am sure that this is recognised. Everyone understands the pressure from the industry for a higher end price, particularly in view of inflation and fast-rising costs. But there could be a perilous consequence to all this in the High Street if it means that the people of this country are to spend a diminishing proportion of their money on what this great industry produces.
  7.50 p.m.
  Mr. John Wells: I wish to deal with the horticultural aspects of agriculture and I declare an interest as a horticulturalist.
  One third of the nation's food is of a horticultural nature, and about one third of that is imported. If agricultural costs are up some 20 per cent., horticultural costs are up much more. The bulk of today's debate is concentrated around the Common Market and the iniquitous antics of the Minister in Brussels. The fact must remain however that the horticultural section of the industry is in particular peril because of its rising costs. It is the labour-intensive sector of the agriculture industry.
  In the recent Budget the Government put up fuel oil prices. Horticulture is more transport intensive than the rest of agriculture. Greenhouse heating oil has gone up in price and the complicated machinery used in horticulture is getting even more costly. The horticulturalist uses more chemicals than the

  1425
  mixed farmer and therefore all of his costs have gone up.
  There are one or two simple things that the Government can do to assist him. There has been a very welcome grant for reservoirs at higher levels, but for only one year. Many horticulturalists who are contemplating putting in reservoirs cannot complete them within the one year. An extension of the time limit would be very welcome.
  The NFU brief that has been sent to us all makes great play about fluctuations of taxation and the problems of the general farming community. But the problems of the horticulturalist are even greater. In one year he might make very large profits but then might make nothing for two or three years. This current year will be an extremely bad year for top fruit. Who knows what next year will bring? The wet followed by the continued drought and then the wet winter last year caused great problems for the soft fruit grower.
  Many horticulturalists have the taxation problems of the ordinary farmer, but multiplied many times. It is essential that the Ministry should press this point upon the Treasury. Several hon. Members have implied that the Minister of Agriculture is a weak voice in the Cabinet. Let us hope that he will acquire greater strength when dealing with taxation.
  I wish to turn now to the question of the Covent Garden Market Authority. The Bill has gone through and a great deal of taxpayers' money is being spent.
  I see that the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) is now engaged in conversation with the Parliamentary Secretary. He made his own speech a few moments ago. I wish he would now leave the Parliamentary Secretary alone so that due attention may be given to the points I am making. I am anxious to avoid tedious repetition, but I am making a number of specific requests to the Parliamentary Secretary and it would be agreeable if I could have his attention.
  The tenants at Covent Garden Market are very worried about the Minister's intentions. They want to know what he plans to do. They are negotiating with the Authority, but if they are to be forced to make a greater contribution, the
  1426
  sooner they know about that, the better. When we were debating the Bill some weeks ago hon. Members from other parts of the country claimed that Birmingham and other more remote markets had been neglected in terms of national taxation. We all know that the municipal markets get ratepayers' money and that they are supported from the public purse. I believe, however, that the Ministry must rethink its policy towards markets in general.
  I return to the question of the complicated machinery now used in horticulture and in particular to the question of increased safety regulations which are drawn up by worthy people sitting in an office with no experience of servicing complicated equipment in a muddy field. I can assure the Minister that a great many of these safety regulations are completely impracticable.
  I am the last person to want to make machinery more dangerous. We are all acutely aware of dangers on the farm, especially to children, but the regulations covering complicated horticultural machinery are sometimes stupid. I hope that the Ministry will look at the representations by the horticultural section of the NFU, particularly on the questions of tractor cabs and roll bars for work in orchards.
  The EEC grading standards on flowers are not part of the compulsory legal system. I hope they never become so. I hope that the Ministry will, however, promulgate them. These standards have had no publicity at the moment, and if they can become universally known that would be a great help to the industry. Flowers are the only perishable commodity subject to VAT. I hope that the Department can look sympathetically at some of the problems of the flower industry.
  7.58 p.m.
  Mr. John Lee: Some months ago members of the Warwickshire branch of the National Farmers Union came to see me. I thought it gratifying that they should consider it worth while to see an urban Member of Parliament. Among the problems that they mentioned was the problem of taxation. They made the case for tax-averaging over a period of time. They suggested a period of five years, and I find that acceptable.

  1427
  One needs to consider only the vagaries of the weather over the last few years to realise how vulnerable farmers, particularly those on the margin, are. Though my right hon. Friend the Minister can claim among his numerous achievements in his brief but impressive time in office that he was the Minister to give financial reparation to offset the effects of the drought, I do not think that that in itself is the answer, and there is a case for action to be taken on the question of taxation.
  This is about the only issue on which I can agree with the NFU, but it is one more thing on which I can agree with the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). His speech was extraordinary. He has a capacity for wit. He can be vinegary without malice. Many of us who have been at the receiving end of his jibes have quite enjoyed them. But today his humour was unconscious and unintentional. It amounted to an extraordinary attack upon the CAP, but that system was implemented by a Government of which he was a member. If we took his advice on that point—and I hope we shall—we should end up by busting the system altogether.
  He claims that the aims were right. Even if that assumption were correct, the Community since its inception has been able to cut the number of high-cost peasant farmers by only half, and that is not an impressive record. Nor is it a matter that we should be called upon to finance.
  One of the strangest aspects of the negotiating saga, even allowing for the unbridled enthusiasm for the mystique of a united Europe among those taking part in the negotiations, is that no serious attempt was made to sell our deficiency payments system and financial structure based on the 1947 Act to the Europeans. The good reason for this was that there was not the slightest chance of their accepting it, because their agricultural economic circumstances are entirely different. We are an enormous net importer and have a modern farming system. Most EEC countries do not come in either of those categories.
  If I criticise my right hon. Friend, it is against the background of his being quite the most promising Minister of Agriculture that we have had since Tom
  1428
  Williams. He is certainly the only Minister of Agriculture in recent years who has made a serious attempt to come to terms with the difficulties arising from this absurd system.
  I think that my right hon. Friend is being too optimistic in thinking that the system can be radically altered. I do not see how that can be done. We heard about the beef premium, the survival of the Milk Marketing Boards and milk prices, but the system is still fundamentally dependent on a financial set-up that is geared to the preservation of high-cost farms.
  Even my right hon. Friend has been unable, except in minor respects, to stave off the transitional stages that will gratuitously increase our food prices by 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. on top of anything that may result from devaluation of the green pound. That devaluation should not take place at all. The fact that it is only limited must be welcomed, but it is still a move towards fueling inflation, and, whether one accepts the basis of the social contract or not, that is surely something that we should all wish to avoid if possible. Yet we are landed with a system that unnecessarily and gratuitously increases one aspect of our cost of living.
  I wish to concentrate on the legal aspects arising out of the Minister being arraigned by the Commission for what he has done for the pig sector. I find my right hon. Friend's reasoning difficult to follow. He has deliberately broken the rules, and all credit to him for doing so. He has recognised that if the green pound is devalued further, it will not help the pig producers because it will merely increase their feeding costs and it will increase the cost of bacon to the consumer. My right hon. Friend has therefore paid a 5·5 pence per kilogram temporary subsidy. The Commission, in all its bureaucratic pomposity, has declared that action to be illegal and has taken the matter to the Community.
  My right hon. Friend's brother is bringing an action in the opposite direction as a counter-claim. If the two actions are consolidated, we shall have a determination some time in July. If we do not have the consolidation, there will be no determination before November, with the result that we shall be left in the air for several months.

  1429
  It has been suggested to my right hon. Friend that he should increase the temporary subsidy, but he has refused to do so on the ground that it would be considered provocative. To change the metaphor, I suggest that he may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. If we are to be declared to be acting illegally, it is not the amount of the subsidy, but the fact that it is in existence in defiance of the Commission that will cause the problem. I should be delighted if my right hon. Friend told the Commission and the court to jump in the lake.
  Mr. Corbett: The wine lake.
  Mr. Lee: That would be better still. The Italians got away with activity against the French that would be thought illegal, and I do not see why we should not do something similar.
  I hope that the court case goes against us. Some hon. Members believe that it may favour us. I do not share that view, because, as the Minister pointed out delicately, but clearly, it is a political court.
  I hope that it goes against us, because the sooner we have a showdown with the Commission, the better. The sooner we have a showdown, the sooner we shall be able to burst out of this system before it finally engulfs us and we find ourselves in the worst of all worlds with consumers dissatisfied because prices are too high and farmers dissatisfied because we cannot make adjustments for those who are disadvantaged by the system—and we know that some of them are. The sooner this ridiculous charade is brought to a final determination, the better.
  The Minister will need strong nerves in the next few months and not all his Cabinet colleagues share his views. I wish that the Ministry of Agriculture was more senior in the Cabinet pecking order and that the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection were amalgamated. I have nothing but a high regard for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, but I know which of the two Ministers I should like to see at the head of the new Ministry. The Minister of Agriculture is one of the few people we can trust to take a strong
  1430
  line with the EEC and to do his best to rescue us from the absurd situation for which he is the last person to be blamed.
  8.8. p.m.
  Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: I shall obey Mr. Speaker's instruction to be brief. I hope that the decision of the Luxembourg court on the special aid that the Government are giving to pig producers will not be unduly delayed. July has been mentioned as a possible date for a decision, but a lot of pigs will be produced before then and the industry will have to go through a period of great uncertainty.
  I appreciate what the Minister said about not wanting to provoke his colleagues in Europe, but I hope that everything possible will be done to bring forward the date of the hearing. If a conclusion is not reached I hope that the Minister will reconsider what he said about not being prepared to do something to help in the interim period.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) said that if we adjusted the mcas, pig producers would be relatively little better off. That is true if we look at it in relation to imported grains, but we have to remember that in this country a very large number of the pigs are produced on home-grown grain and that pigs are produced on the same farms on which the grain is grown. Producers in that situation might be better off if they sold their grain rather than using it to produce pigs. Those producers are not necessarily affected by adjustment in the mcas in relation to cereal costs, yet they would benefit from an adjustment in the mcas by the higher price they would get. It is simply not true to say that if the mcas were adjusted, there would be a countervailing increase in costs in regard to many pig producers.
  I was disappointed particularly in relation to three things that the Minister said. First, when he came to the end of his speech he said that he thought British agriculture should expand. I was worried about that very conditional use of the word "should". If we look back to the White Paper of his predecessor, we see that it was very much more than "should". It should be noted from what the Minister said this afternoon that in his stewardship of the agricultural industry

  1431
  he is making everything much more conditional in regard to the future prosperity and expansion of the industry.
  Secondly, the Minister said, as on other occasions, that he must balance the price the consumer has to pay against the price the producer gets. I accept that every Minister of Agriculture has to say that, but I beg the Minister not to get the balance wrong. If he does, producers will not be able to go on producing at a loss. If producers are producing at a loss for any length of time, it is the consumer who suffers at the end of the day. Let us remember that there is an identity of interest between the producer and the consumer in this country. Let not the Minister or any other hon. Member on either side of the House try to drive a wedge in any way between the producer and the consumer, because their interests are identical.
  The third point to which I took exception was when the Minister spoke of the confidence of deeds. He mentioned particularly the farm capital grant scheme, and he indicated that there was confidence in the agricultural industry. I refer to the recent survey carried out by the National Farmers Union in my own area of Scotland, in Aberdeen and Kincardine, to which in a very short space of time there was a 50 per cent. response, with 1,300 replies. Considering that this was from only two counties in Scotland, it is extremely significant.
  With regard to beef cow and in-calf heifer numbers, we see that, compared with last June, when the survey was carried out in April there was a drop in numbers of 8·4 per cent. With regard to sows and in-pig gilts, we see a drop of over 3 per cent. in numbers for breeding. There is quite clearly a trend towards reduction there.
  But there are two much more worrying matters.
  Mr. Hamish Watt Mr. Hamish Watt (Banff) rose—
  Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The hon. Gentleman has only just come into the Chamber, and others of my colleagues want to speak. Therefore, I would rather not give way.
  These bare statistics hide two rather frightening things. With regard to beef cows and in-calf heifers, I believe that the beef industry more than any other is more representative of confidence than
  1432
  anything else because of the long period of gestation, fattening and so on. It is a much better barometer than anything else of the state of confidence in the agricultural industry. What is significant is that, while there was a decrease in beef and in-calf heifer numbers generally of 8·4 per cent., the decrease in hill areas was 20 per cent. This is very serious.
  HON. Members on both sides have talked of making more use of our land resources. I am increasingly worried that in the hill areas there is a more than proportionate decrease and decline in the numbers of breeding stock.
  With regard to the sow herd, it is significant that in the smaller herds, whereas the total reduction over the nine-month period was just over 3 per cent., in herds of under 50 sows the decline was 17 per cent. There are reasons for this and I shall not go into them now, but let the Government realise that it is the small man in particular who is suffering. It is the small man who is being forced out by the Government's present policies. I hope they will take this into account.
  With regard to dairy cows, I ask the Minister to realise the desperate uncertainty that there will be after 31st December this year. The president of the Scottish NFU and his two vice-presidents came here yesterday. One of them is a very prominent dairy-farmer from Wigtownshire, with a great knowledge of the industry. He made clear, as I know the Minister realises, how desperately anxious the dairy industry is, with food costs representing a major part of total costs. The Minister fairly said that he realised this and would make an announcement as soon as possible. I hope that the Minister genuinely fulfils that hope and makes an announcement otherwise we shall see the same decline in the dairy industry as we have seen in the beef herd and the pig herd.
  With regard to potatoes, I repeat that the Minister says that he has kept the value of the guarantee at its real value. That may be so if he regards the original starting point as fair, but it can be questioned whether that guarantee propery reflects the industry's costs. It is thoroughly cynical, in regard to something over which we have our own control, to delay the announcement of the guarantee until after planting has taken place.

  1433
  Far too often recently these debates—I want to be as objective as possible—have dissolved into an argument, or descended into acrimony, between those who are in favour of the EEC and those who are against it, between those who happen to like the CAP and support it, and those who do not. This is a common feature of these debates.
  I ask those who want to attack the CAP whether they can really put their hands on their hearts and say that deficiency payments were all that good. When we had deficiency payments, there was anxiety on both sides of the House—this is not a party political point—at the amount they were costing the taxpayer. The costs are still there with the taxpayer instead of the consumer, but they still have to be paid.
  There was worry, too, about low incomes from agricuture and about shortages of commodities. I remind those who criticise the Common Market that there were also problems of surpluses. I remember that in the early 1960s what were called standard quantities had to be introduced in order to cope with surpluses which had arisen under the deficiency payments system.
  Let us get away from this pathological opposition to the CAP or, for that matter, pathological support for the CAP. Unless we do that we are simply blind to common sense. We should avoid the entirely barren argument that we have if the debate is conducted simply on the basis of pro- or anti-EEC. We must avoid prejudice and dogma. As long as we persist in prejudice and dogma it is the producer and the consumer who suffer and whom we are sacrificing at the end of the day.
  It is true that the CAP is not working as we should like it to work. It is not common and it is not fair. What worries me most of all is that it is not being reformed in the way that we should like to see it reformed. We should not blame either producer or consumer for this. We as politicians should take the blame and get down to the job, as the Government and the other Governments in the EEC should do, of working out a new policy.
  The CAP has been criticised for creating surpluses, but surpluses themselves are not intrinsically wrong. We cannot
  1434
  predict accurately in agriculture, because of the weather and so on, what production will be. We are dealing with nature. At the same time, let us remember in regard to surpluses that in many cases it is a matter simply of good housekeeping. What housewife does not keep a certain amount of food on her shelves? It assures the availability of food for the consumer.
  I should like in conclusion to suggest two things which have to be done. First, given a surplus, we have to distinguish between what I would call a housekeeping surplus and a structural surplus. Current thinking is muddling these two. Structural surpluses must be dealt with firmly and with courage.
  Secondly, having arrived at a surpuus, we must examine the best way of dealing with it. We must realise that the best way of doing so is not necessarily by intervention buying.
  Finally, as regards reform of the policy itself, again I say that we should not be dogmatic or prejudiced on one side or the other. Let us in the EEC see whether we can marry the best features of both systems. For example, we might have intervention buying and market support for products which are storable, such as cereals and so on, but for perishable commodities we might give consumers in the EEC countries the benefit of those perishable commodities instead of exporting them to, say, Russia. Could we, perhaps, have a deficiency payments system for these?
  I believe that if we get down to it and approach the matter with common sense and reason, trying to marry the two systems, we shall be doing our duty in the House not only to the consumer but to the producer as well.
  8.20 p.m.
  Mr. Wm. Ross: First, I declare an interest as the owner of a farm, although I have not had an opportunity to farm it during the past three years.
  As what one might call an outside observer looking at the agricultural scene throughout the United Kingdom over the past two or three years, I have been struck by the way we are still greatly dependent upon the vagaries of the weather, and at no time more so than

  1435
  during the dreadful weather we have had this spring.
  Second, during my period in the House I have constantly been struck by the continuing difficulty we have in trying to reconcile our policy of the cheapest possible food with the EEC policy, which is basically a dear food policy with the return coming directly from the market place.
  Without doubt, all right hon. and hon. Members would wish to have a fairly large home production of food in order to cushion ourselves against price changes abroad, especially when we wish to go out and buy food. At the same time, we are trying to use the common agricultural policy to our national advantage. I think that the Minister has been trying, not unsuccessfully, to put the British people in the position of being able to have their cake and eat it. The trouble is that no one will complain about that so long as it lasts, but the day of reckoning will come. It cannot be avoided for ever. The Government must, therefore, remember the producers' interests in these matters.
  In that connection I draw attention to the way in which the Government responded to the problem of the meat sector in Northern Ireland, with the introduction of the meat industry employment scheme to counteract the effect of the green pound rate, especially since the green pound rate is the means used in the Common Market to get national advantage for producers—or, rather, in our case, for consumers.
  I ask the Government to take a long hard look at the milk package which the Minister brought back in the context of conditions which prevail in the milk sector in Northern Ireland, conditions totally different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom. In Great Britain 65 per cent. of all milk produced goes to the liquid market. In Northern Ireland less than 25 per cent. goes to the liquid market. Since the package depends for its efficiency on the market return from the amount of milk sold on the liquid market, this means that farmers in Northern Ireland are coming off very badly.
  Under the former policy, the relationship to which I have just referred meant
  1436
  that Northern Ireland provided a good part of what I have called the cushion in the production of milk-based products. However, as a result of the package, when the present milk arrangements, that is the milk fund ends on 31st December this year, Northern Ireland producers will be about 8p per gallon worse off than milk producers in Great Britain. In simple terms, that means the difference between profit and loss—indeed, very serious loss. I understand, according to present figures, that the price in Great Britain, is to be about 53p a gallon. In Northern Ireland it will be 45p. I know that we are efficient farmers, but I do not think we are all that much better than farmers in the rest of the United Kingdom.
  If the green pound were at par, we could, no doubt, survive. Indeed, we could compete very well in those circumstances. But in present circumstances we cannot, as the operation of mcas on imports determines the end price of milk products in this country. We therefore find ourselves with the price of milk products kept down. It is evident from past policy statements that neither the Government nor the House has any intention of getting rid of the green pound. In fact, I understand that the Minister said as much today.
  In passing, I must apologise for missing the right hon. Gentleman's speech and the speech of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), who opened for the Opposition. Some of us were at that time cloistered with the hon. Gentleman who looks after agriculture in Northern Ireland, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) and several representatives of the Ulster Farmers Union. We are grateful for the time which the hon. Gentleman gave us to discuss our farmers' problems in regard to milk.
  If the Government wish to continue with a policy of twisting the green pound rate to the advantage of our people, to extract the maximum advantage from the CAP, they will do well to realise that if this is to be national policy, the end result must be equitable throughout the United Kingdom and not bear heavily upon one region or one section of our national farming community. I believe that the Government have recognised that requirement in the past in Northern

  1437
  Ireland. They must take it into consideration again now and do something about it.
  I know that the Minister said that he would soon announce the price of milk in the United Kingdom for the period after the end of 1977. In my view, it should not just be done soon. It should, if possible, be done at once, because it is essential that the people concerned with milk production and milk sales in Northern Ireland have that information so that they can determine their future pricing policy.
  We hope that the Minister will take on board what we are putting to him so plainly today. If farm production in Northern Ireland is to expand, it is vital that the dairy sector, which is the basis of agriculture in a grass growing province such as ours, shall prosper and that we continue to have a good and large dairy herd, since so much of the rest of agricultural production in Northern Ireland depends upon it.
  One could say much more in this debate, especially about taxation, both capital taxation and taxation on incomes, in Northern Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom. However, those matters have already been referred to by other hon. Members and, since the problem of milk pricing in Northern Ireland is so important, I have restricted myself to that one issue in the hope that the Minister will note what I have said and take the necessary action.
  8.27 p.m.
  Miss Joan Maynard: I shall confine myself to speaking about an important group of people who have not so far been mentioned in the debate. We have heard a lot about the farmers' problems, there has been reference to land owners and to the key importance of land, but of equal importance is the worker to work the land.
  The farm worker is an essential and integral part of the industry. The 50 per cent of our food which we produce in this country could not be produced without our farm workers, with their skills and adaptability. They have adapted to the most mechanised agriculture in the world. I am sure that all hon. Members will agree that the farm worker is hard working, conscientious and loyal.
  1438
  Moreover, in my opinion, he has the right kind of humility, which is a rare quality indeed.
  Despite the good qualities of our farm workers, they are still paid a wage that is far too low. We have EEC prices without EEC wages. The basic rate today for a farm worker is£39 for a 40-hour week top line. Some hon. Members will say that some of the workers get over the basic rate. But that depends to some extent on the kind of job the worker does, the kind of area in which he works and the kind of competition there is for his labour. The dairymen and the farm managers get the highest rates but their average earnings are running at£20 a week below those in industry.
  The main cause of this is that the farm worker is still not as organised as many other workers. Some people think that if the industry is doing well the farm worker does well as a result. They think that there is an identity of interest between the farmer and the farm worker. But all the facts disprove that.
  One can look at the deep South of America where the farmers in Carolina at one time were the richest in the world. They got rich with slave labour and they fought a bitter and bloody war to retain it. Then one can look at the situation much nearer home—our own industry in the 1950s. Farming was booming, but the farm workers received wage increases of four shillings, six shillings and eight shillings. All the facts disprove the argument of an identity of interest.
  Government policy and the farm workers' loyalty to the social contract mean that the farm worker has made considerable sacrifices. The Chancellor gave certain tax concessions in 1976, but these were worth only 28p to 31p a weeek to farm workers. No farm worker's net pay has increased by more than 6·8 per cent. above the 1976 figures, but inflation during the same period has run at 16·6 per cent. That gives us an idea of the cut in living standards of these workers.
  From January 1973 to January 1977 tax and national insurance deductions have increased as a percentage of gross pay from 19 per cent. to 28 per cent. A single person earning the minimum rate suffered an 8·3 per cent. fall in real take home pay in the 12 months to January 1977. Not only are the basic rates intolerable for the farm workers, their wives and

  1439
  families, but they cannot be good for the industry. It is no wonder that we have an ageing labour force and that the farmers wanted to hang on to the tied cottage system in order to bring labour into the industry. They wanted to hold this labour through the tied cottage system and pay low rates for it. [HON. MEMBERS: Rubbish!"] It is not rubbish. The facts are there for everyone to see. During the passage of the Rent (Agriculture) Act, a Conservative Member raised the point that the catering industry often provided accommodation in order to bring people in. This is yet another low-paid industry.
  The new Rent (Agriculture) Act has not been working long enough to make an assessment of it, but I am rather perturbed about the way in which the ADAC committees are working. They have supported the farmers' applications in nearly 100 per cent. of cases, and their claims that they need the cottages to run the industry. In fact, one result of this may be that there will be a bypassing of the ADACs altogether and people will go straight to the local authority. If the ADACs always support the farmers' applications it would be quicker to go straight to the local authorities.
  The important point about the Act is that it gives our people security of tenure, and this gives them a new dignity and sense of security. I believe that it will also help them on the wages front. The farm workers will be less inhibited and freer to fight for a decent wage now that they enjoy security of tenure for themselves, their wives and their families.
  The question of safety is important in every industry and particularly so in agriculture. There is much still to be done on the safety front. We think of the mining industry as being very dangerous, but if we look at the figures for 1975—the last year for which they are available—they show that more people were killed and injured in farming than in mining. This gives some indication of the dangers of working in this mechanised industry. We need more safety inspectors and more safety inspections.
  One of the things that our people are demanding is that the tractors that they have to use daily should go through an MOT test in the same way as other vehicles. The long trailers and tractors
  1440
  which they have to drive on busy roads today should have flashing indicators to indicate to other road users what the drivers are about to do. [Laughter.] An hon. Member laughs, but I would remind him that farmers also die because of accidents.
  Mr. Peter Mills: It all has to be paid for.
  Miss Maynard: No one denies that, but if safety and people's lives are not worth paying for, not many things are. In view of all the traffic on our roads today, when someone is driving a slow-moving vehicle like a tractor with a long trailer, it should be possible to indicate properly to those behind what he is going to do. If that is not possible, there are likely to be considerably more accidents.
  The farm labour force has fallen dramatically over the years and it is now ageing and badly paid.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Why?
  Miss Maynard: I have already explained why. My view is that they are badly paid because they are less well-organised than other workers.
  Mr. Winterton: No. It is a cheap food policy.
  Miss Maynard: These things will be put right first and foremost by a strong union. If we can recruit more people into the union and use that union's strength, we shall be able to win better wages and conditions.
  We hear a lot of talk about the good labour relations in the industry. They may have been good for farmers, but they have not been good for my people. We hear a lot about co-operation in the industry, but all the co-operation has been from the side of the workers and it is not they who have benefited from it.
  I hope that the Minister will consider the composition of the Agricultural Wages Board and its appointed members. The present appointed members have little understanding of the real situation that our members face or of their wages, conditions and living standards. They come from an entirely different stratum of society. I hope that the Minister will

  1441
  consider this matter at the first opportunity and appoint some people more in touch with reality, with a real sense of justice. When he does that, I hope that those people will make some more realistic decisions on the wages board than have been made in the past.
  8.38 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Boscawen: I wish that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Miss Maynard) had come with me and some other hon. Members from both sides of the House a few days ago to visit a collective farm in the Soviet Union. We saw the high standard of living of those who had the privilege to work there and how well off they were. Then we went into the towns and saw the food queues. We then knew who actually paid in that country—the consumer. We cannot achieve the high rate of production and the high wages that we want to see in the countryside, both for the farm workers and for the food-processors and producers, if the producers do not get a reasonable end price for what they produce.
  The Minister did not answer any of the questions that the ordinary sensible producers, farm workers and processors that I meet are asking. He did not say why he took so long in making the announcement about milk. That created a lack of confidence for a start. Now that he has finally announced it, why has he not said what will happen after 31st December? How can anyone plan a dairy business and the future of his herd when he does not know what his end price will be after 31st December? I hope that the Minister of State will look at that again. These questions have not been answered.
  Why was so little said in the debate about the difficulties of producing food against the increased costs of machinery, fuel, fertiliser and feedingstuffs? Why did the Minister not explain to the House why those goods have gone up so much in price? Was not the enormous and devastating devaluation of the real pound—not the green pound—last autumn the cause of these troubles? My constituents want explanations.
  Why are people such as farm workers, producers and processors—who are the most efficient in the world—receiving so
  1442
  little advantage from their increased efficiency? They want to know the answer to that question. What has the Minister to say about the increasing consumer reluctance to pay high prices for food? That is a natural reluctance because consumers do not have the money in their pockets.
  What is the solution to the high input costs and the reluctance of the housewife to pay enough to cover those costs at the other end? We have heard nothing about consumer resistance to pigmeat nor about consumer resistance to British cheeses and other dairy products.
  Let us hear more about how the Minister is to find a solution to that problem. Let us have a down-to-earth, practical suggestion to help the farmer improve his sales and marketing. Marketing must receive more attention in this country. With consumer resistance building up because of higher prices an improvement in marketing is essential.
  I welcome what the Minister said about the hopeful signs for the future of the marketing boards within the EEC. A firm message should go from this House that the producer marketing boards must stay. They have been the foundation of our successful, efficient agricultural industry over the past 30 years. That is particularly true of the Milk Marketing Boards.
  We must have practical answers to the problems. Farmers do not all understand the highly complex problems and calculations that the Secretary of State discussed. They do not understand about mcas and the green pound. One can spend time attempting to explain to one's local NFU about the difficult calculations, but they really want to know the practical answers that effect them on the farm and in the food processing industry. Let us have some of those answers. Without them confidence will not be built up on the land. We must have some sensible answers to the questions that have been asked.
  The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): We have been asked many questions, but what would the hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) recommend for the pig industry? We all know the problems but we have heard little from the Opposition about what they would do if they were in power.
  8.45 p.m.
  Mr. John Watkinson: The hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) touched on one of the major problems that confront the agricultural industry when he referred to the fact of consumer resistance. He said that his farmers were not interested in the complex economic realities of the British economy at present and the complex realities of the CAP. Nevertheless, it is vitally important that the debate is widened in economic terms so that we can look at the other side of the equation concerning the food processing industry and can confront ourselves with the problems that arise on the demand front.
  The simple fact of the matter is that as a result of the very high prices existing at present, there is, as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, considerable consumer resistance. Accepting that thesis, I cannot altogether follow the argument that then says that the answer to consumer resistance is to increase prices. That seems to be what Opposition Members are asking for, and it seems to be counterproductive.
  The survey published by the Ministry of Agriculture a few weeks ago illustrates the fact that the housewife in Britain is buying consistently less of a whole range of products. That has been emphasised in an article by Mr. Simon Harris in Farmers Weekly. The article refers to the fact that there will be a slump in the United Kingdom beef consumption in the coming year It also says that there will be a fall-back in consumption over a wide range of products.
  The question that cannot be escaped is this: in these circumstances, is the solution to raise prices? The Minister himself visited Smithfield recently. The workers at Smithfield were demanding that prices should be brought down in order to lift the meat products off the market.
  It is vital that in this general debate on agriculture, while we acknowledge the problem of the producer and accept the difficulties that he confronts and the enormous increase in costs, we must look seriously at the other side of the equation—namely, the housewife, and the consumer. We must see whether we can seriously put forward policies that will involve yet a further increase in prices.
  1444
  One of the reasons why I am opposed to the CAP is that the essence of that policy, as has been pointed out very eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan), is to produce higher end prices. The farmer has to look at the high prices of the market place in order to get his return. However, the central argument that I am putting forward is that at present it would he counter-productive in a whole range of sectors of the agricultural industry to increase prices. I do not think that one can escape from that reality.
  In an intervention, one of my hon. Friends referred to the pigmeat industry. I must say that the situation among pig farmers in my constituency is extremely serious. Pig farmers came to lobby the House of Commons in a delegation from my constituency. I notice that the Minister has just returned to the Chamber. I pay tribute to him for the fact that he met pig farmers from my constituency, and gave a subsidy, as we know. However, my right hon. Friend, or his colleagues, must return to Europe and say there that it is not his business to preside over the destruction of an industry. If nothing can be yielded on mcas, we shall seriously have to consider increasing the subsidy, because we cannot stand idly by and watch an industry being destroyed.
  Pig farmers in my constituency have pointed out to me the enormous organisation behind the sales of Danish produce in this country. I think that although we claim to be one of the most efficient agricultural units in the world we need a much more developed sense of marketing. I should like to see a rationalisation of the farmers' co-operatives in this country. We must wake up to the fact that in a European context we are now dealing with very big business interests and our small co-operatives are not sufficient to counterbalance the weight and influence of, say, the Danish pigmeat producers.
  Finally, I wish to repeat the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West about the taxation of farmers. The point has already been pressed from both sides of the House. All of us who are involved in agriculture and interested in it seem to be agreed that a change would be beneficial to the farmer. We had high hopes that there might

  1445
  be something in the Finance Bill, which is now in the House. I do not know whether it is too late to do anything. It is an area in which my right hon. Friend the Minister could give direct assistance to our hard-pressed agricultural industry. I hope that he can lean on my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to do something about it.
  8.51 p.m.
  Mr. John Farr: The Minister did his best to reassure the House with regard to some of the fears expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), but there is no doubt in the minds of many people that the right hon. Gentleman has recently very much inclined to one side of his dual responsibility. He has a very difficult job, almost unique in Europe, being responsible for agriculture, fisheries and food. Such a job is not at all what is to be found in the EEC. It seems to me that in recent months the right hon. Gentleman has come down very much on the side of his responsibility for providing food at reasonable prices to the consumer, and as a result the producer has tended to suffer.
  We are on the side of the consumers, but I urge the right hon. Gentleman to remember that the best way in which he can help the consumers in Britain is not to do what he appears to be doing now but to encourage home producers to expand their output. In the long run that will prove to be in the interests of British consumers.
  I want to speak briefly about the points raised with me by constituents who have troubles relating to agriculture. The first concerns pigs, a subject discussed at length in the House. The Minister explained very fully how he is in the process of being taken to the European Court for an alleged contravention of the regulations. I would say to him and the House "Don't be so naïve about these things." Let us consider how the others do it. Instead of giving a straightforward subsidy which can be read fairly easily as being against the rules of the club, the French give a subsidy but write into the terms of the contract, when it is passed in the domestic Parliament, a clause saying that, as and when the producer's financial situation improves, he will return the subsidy to the Government. It is then
  1446
  regarded as a loan and, I understand, does not conflict with Community laws.
  We must wake up to such ideas. Forthright and open people such as the Minister and myself, and probably most hon. Members, feel that they conflict with our natural way of doing things. We like to call a spade a spade and say what we think. The man who speaks openly is often taken for a mug. If I were a Minister I should consider acceding to any ruling laid down by the European Court, and I should begin again with a greater subsidy and include a provision to allow the subsidy to be returned by the producer when the financial situation improves. That would obviate the difficulty.
  Something must be done for pig producers. Breeding herds and output are going down. The House heard an interesting speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon), who dealt with the processing of pig products. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) emphasised the effect of the loss of 11,000 jobs in meat processing plants. The writing is on the wall, and it is up to the Minister to take some action.
  The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Roderick) referred to the common agricultural policy, and it is clear that he and a number of his hon. Friends blame that policy for our present troubles. The hon. Gentleman suggested that we should go back to the old guaranteed price system and import cheap foods. I disagree with that point of view. I opposed our application to join the Common Market and indeed I still do, although I accepted the result of the referendum. However, as an agriculturist, I thought that the one feature that would benefit the United Kingdom in the Common Market was the strength of the CAP. I felt that, if it were properly administered, it could assist British agriculture, and hence European agriculture.
  I believe that the CAP system is a good one, but that it requires considerable amendment. [Interruption.] I wish to say to those Labour Members who make sedentary comments that the days of cheap foods are gone for ever. Time has moved on since the days of the Commonwealth sugar agreement, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) is such

  1447
  an expert. In the five or six years since we abandoned the old guaranteed price system the amount of cheap food has declined.
  However, food production has grown at a slower rate than has the world's population. By the time we reach the year 2000, the world as a whole will be short of food. Whether we like it or not, the days of cheap surpluses of food available in vast quantities are dead and gone. I do not like the situation, but we must accept it as a fact. We must accept that the common agricultural policy is not working well, and it is up to the Government to make it work more efficiently. It is essential that we achieve greater self-sufficiency.
  A few years ago the Government produced a wonderful document entitled Food from Our Own Resources". The drought pushed them off target but the variance between the different commodity projections for 1977 and the results that we have arrived at are alarmingly great. The achievements in 1977 are nowhere near the steady 2½per cent. expansion annually that was projected in "Food from Our Own Resources". That is a worrying feature. I note that the Minister is nodding his head in agreement. Surely the whole House will agree that we must concentrate on increasing our self-sufficiency in all commodities in the interests of the producer and in the interests of the consumer.
  9.1 p.m.
  Mr. Richard Body: We are talking about the plight of the livestock industry, and much of that plight can be attributed to our pursuit of self-sufficiency in cereals.
  I often drive through the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), and I note that the green fields are disappearing. In their place are acres and acres of winter wheat. My hon. Friend must be familiar with the old farming saying "Up corn, down horn". It is an old saying and very true.
  It is right to say that not for very many years has horn in the form of milk and meat producers been feeling so down. However, there is no complaint from those who are growing corn. I can vouch for that, because in my constituency we grow most profitably many acres of excellent corn and gain high
  1448
  yields. This is the dilemma in which we find ourselves.
  I am not sure whether the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food appreciates the seriousness of the position. I refer him to the 1977 annual review, table 26, page 42, which contains perhaps the most startling of all the facts in the review and perhaps the one most relevant to the debate, namely, that feedingstuffs have increased in price by£459 million in one year. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman appreciates the gravity of that. That represents an increase of 35 per cent. in one year.
  There are about 180,000 farmers using compound feedingstuffs. The increase means that the average farmer is now having to pay£2,500 more this year than last year. As many of them are small farmers, that£2,500 last year was their net income. It follows from that that very many of them have had no net income this year. It has already been said that about 75 per cent. of the cost of pig production is in feedingstuffs. The proportion is considerably less for dairy farmers.
  Naturally the proportion varies with the quantity and quality of the grass, but feedingstuffs are still a major item. The fact is that we have produced in our countryside a very efficient form of livestock production, but it has been based upon a premise that we had access to cheap cereals. For year after year we had tons of cereals coming to our farms. That enabled us to go over to feeding our livestock in a way that Continental farmers have never sought to do.
  We have pursued the policy of self-sufficiency in wheat, growing more and more wheat but at a high cost. We know exactly what that cost is when we look at the import levy. We notice straight away that there is a difference between the world price for wheat and the price at home. I ascertained from the Intervention Board today that the present levy on wheat coming into the country is no less than£34·15 a tonne. That is very much more than the price of wheat a few years ago. It is a direct tax not only upon the housewife but upon every livestock farmer. Those who want self-sufficiency and more and more wheat production at a high cost much ask themselves whether they are justified in imposing

  1449
  a tax upon food coming into this country of no less than£34 a tonne. That represents some 39 per cent. of the total price of the wheat coming in.
  Feedingstuffs have gone up in price as as result. No one can dispute now that feedingstuffs in this country would be cut in price by£20 to£25 a tonne were it not for these import duties. That is a fact. If there were such a cut in the price of our feedingstuffs, there would be a veritable bonanza for our pig producers and dairy farmers because of the present retail price of food. There is no escaping these facts.
  If the right hon. Gentleman accepts that these import duties have put a savage burden on our livestock producers, I hope that he will make use of his time in the Council of Ministers to fight for a reduction. It is no use squealing or bleating about mcas or more subsidies. The root of the matter is in the artificial increase in the price of feedingstuffs. These import duties are no more and no less a tax on food and cannot be justified at their present level. They should be brought down, and the livestock industry, when it realises the facts, will look to the right hon. Gentleman to see that they are.
  9.6 p.m.
  Mr. William Hamilton: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) for allowing me two or three minutes to give some facts about the common agricultural policy and the anxiety among some European politicians. I want to put on record some views arrived at by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, reached after many hours and days of debate on the CAP. The Socialist Group is the biggest in the European Parliament. It is the only group which has representatives from all nine countries. On it is a considerable number of agricultural experts and farmers from virtually every member State. I shall not develop the arguments on the CAP because they have been developed enough.
  One of the main criticisms of the CAP has been over-production of various commodities, such as wine, beef and butter. The conclusions of the Socialist Group are:
  "In cases of overproduction, restrictions should be placed on the marketing guarantees
  1450
  or on the obligation to intervene. Intervention measures should be confined to small, temporary surpluses, and the margin between guide and intervention prices should be increased. Products should only be bought in according to clearly established quantitative criteria; in disposing of any surpluses, priority should be given to food aid for poor countries and to improverished groups in the Community, not to countries outside the Community which are not poor.
  While recognising certain advantages of the CAP, notably the reasonable guarantee of adequate supplies of food at a time when all the signs point to increasing world shortages and widespread malnutrition in many parts of the globe, as international Socialists we believe the EEC agricultural policies must be more outward looking, more efficient, fairer to the consumer and defensible in both international political and economic terms.
  In the Socialist view, the CAP as at present operating is inefficient, wasteful, inward looking, unduly costly, of too little benefit to the consumer and often, too, to the smaller producers.
  The Socialist Group considers that the implementation of the proposals contained this document will contribute more effectively to the realisation of the aims of the common agricultural policy, and would involve less expense than some of the existing measures."
  That sums up the crux of the criticism of those who are pro-European but very anti-CAP.
  In conclusion, I must say that over the last hour or so I have been suffering from anger at the recently announced ambassadorial appointment to Washington. Mr. Peter Jay recently wrote a strong article against the farmer in The Times. I do not know whether that has led to his appointment in Washington, but I hope that he will serve the country better there than he served the farmers in his article in The Times.
  9.10 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Jopling: I do not intend to follow the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) on his last point. But I am glad that time was found for the hon. Gentleman to speak, because, unfortunately, the whole debate on the Labour Back Benches has been totally dominated by the speeches—most of which we have heard before—from those who spend a great part of their time decrying both the concept of the European Community and the CAP in particular.
  I hope very much that the Government will take to heart what has been said from this side of the House during the debate. I now feel very pleased that the

  1451
  Opposition decided to spend their time today debating agricultural matters. What has emerged from the debate is that, certainly in the view of this side of the House, we have seen a radical shift in the Government's agricultural policies over the past few months. It would not be unfair to say that the date on which this shift occurred was exactly the date when Lord Peart of blessed memory was dispatched to another place.
  That event brought to us, for the first time since the war, a Minister who represents an urban seat and has no constituency knowledge of agriculture of which I am aware and, as far as I know, no other outside personal interest in agriculture. However, I think the Minister will agree that he was welcomed by farmers and by both sides of the House with courtesy and good will. Farmers in particular showed that they were prepared to work with him on the assumption that the good will they showed to him was shared. But that is not quite how it has worked out.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) suggested in his speech, the honeymoon is now over. Farmers have seen that the Government are prepared to put other issues before the need for an expanding and prosperous food-producing industry in this country. The Government are prepared to put before that a continuation of the old anti-EEC campaign, of which we have heard so much in this House over the years. Second, they have been prepared to put before a prosperous and expanding agriculture a short-term and short-sighted policy of setting themselves up as the consumer's champion without regard to the fact that, as a result of these new policies, the housewife will in the long run be forced to pay through the nose because of the short-sighted nature of those policies.
  What saddens me most is the way in which the Government have conducted themselves in Brussels. I was at the Commission just before Easter and I was immensely struck by the widespread disillusion and anger at the way in which the British Government have been conducting their negotiations over there. This was summed up by the chance remark, which perhaps the Minister has already conic to regret, when he told us during his opening speech—I think I wrote it down properly—that good will does not matter a button in negotiations. To me that
  1452
  seems a very funny way of conducting negotiations.
  I fear very much that as a consequence of this new mood in Brussels, as a result of the attitudes of the Government, our chances of negotiating other vital issues will be seriously damaged. We believe that the Government should be prepared to use the green pound as a weapon to get agriculture in this country on an expansionist path.
  The Minister gave an illustration of the 10 per cent. devaluation. There is no need for a 10 per cent. devaluation if we could now and again have a devaluation of a much more modest nature and get in return some of the things that we badly want. That is the way we believe the Minister should be implementing his strategy to help farmers in this country.
  But farmers are at least entitled to fair competition now that we have joined the Community. If they are to do what the Minister asks in terms of expansion, they should be able to compete on a fair basis knowing that there is not this immense green pound disparity for ever stacked against them.
  The other matter of which farmers are only too painfully aware—and this was drawn attention to by my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen)—is that, basically, what farmers suffer from today is this Government's inability to control inflation. This is the basic central reason why we have got ourselves into our present difficulties.
  In this debate we have heard speeches from various parts of the House—and I have in mind especially those of the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells), the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Roderick) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee)—suggesting that it would be a good idea to return to the old system of deficiency payments and guaranteed prices which we knew from the end of the war until the early 1970s.
  I beg hon. Members who are attracted by a return to the old deficiency payments scheme to think again before they take up that argument. I was very pleased that so many of my hon. Friends, including the hon. Member for Buckingham the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) and the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr),

  1453
  made the point that the old system of deficiency payments was running out of steam very badly when we got towards the end of the 1960s.
  Throughout the 1960s agricultural expansion and vigour were slowing down sharply. I can remember the period when the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) was Minister. It was then that it became apparent that the deficiency payments system was running out of steam. It was also that famous time when we had to creep out of the back door at a meeting in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Mr. Mills).
  We have to remember that throughout the 1960s the deficiency payments scheme was having to be supplemented and buttressed by other devices, including standard quantities, minimum import prices, quotas and intervention—all the other devices to support the agricultural market which we now know so much better as full members of the system. If we were to return to the old system of deficiency payments, the cost of supporting agricultural prices would be astronomical and totally prohibitive financially. I cannot believe that it is politically practical today.
  If we are to support an agricultural market, we have to use all the techniques available to us. These techniques cut across party philosophy. Most of them were used by the Labour Government in the late 1960s—basically, the system of import levies, the use of quotas in certain areas, the deficiency payments system in a modified form, and intervention as well to back up a glut in the market.
  Mr. Geraint Howells: Let us assume for a moment that the hon. Gentleman becomes Minister of Agriculture. When he takes office, will he do away with the deficiency payment for lamb?
  Mr. Jopling: I think that the hon. Gentleman means for beef.
  Mr. Howells: No. I mean for lamb.
  Mr. Jopling: The short answer is "No". Let me take the hon. Gentleman back to the summer of 1974, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) recommended to the Minister's predecessor that he take up a deficiency payment system for beef.
  1454
  This was long before the Government took up the present variable premium system. It was our idea that this should be done. That shows that we are perfectly prepared to consider any deficiency payments system. But we are not prepared to consider a support system based totally on a system that did not work and that is outdated.
  That is the way in which the CAP works now. All those techniques are used within the CAP. That is the right way to support an agricultural industry. But Labour Members make the huge mistake of attacking the system when they should be criticising the way it is being implemented in certain respects.
  It is perfectly legitimate to attack the Community and criticise the Commission when they do not take sufficient action to stop surpluses, when they do not dispose of surpluses as we would wish, when they introduce rather foolish proposals such as the margarine levy, and when they do not seem to give sufficient support to the cult of efficiency. We can attack them when they do not seem to appreciate the value of marketing boards, which we in the Conservative Party favour so strongly. It is, however, a mistake for Labour Members to attack the principle of the CAP.
  Let me sum up the position of British agriculture. We have heard throughout the debate of declining confidence, and we must consider what evidence there is for that. Incomes reached their peak in real terms in 1973–74 when my right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) was in charge. We have seen since then a drop in farm incomes of 20 per cent. in real terms. That hardly provides a base from which to view the future with confidence.
  I was astonished to hear the Minister call in aid the fact that there were now more applications for capital grants. Has he forgotten, however, that a short time ago higher rates of grant and a simplified form of application were introduced, and does he not realise that that naturally boosted the number of applications? The Minister was on a totally bogus point. The industry now finds itself short of cash and with a declining investment programme.
  Against this background what are the prospects for the year ahead? As a

  1455
  result of the price review package the industry will get a prices increase of around 10 per cent. when costs have gone up 20 per cent. It is hardly surprising that people are speaking of cutting back. I cannot understand why the Minister did not refer to this point
  In smooth and soothing terms the Minister said at his Press conference the other day that the package represented a good outcome for the farming industry and that it should help production to expand. I cannot think of a less realistic attitude. When he uses such sentiments the Minister reminds me of the dentist saying reassuring words as he gives the patient the gas and starts to take all his teeth out. This approach merely adds cold water to the cold comfort approach from which the industry is already suffering.
  I was surprised that the Minister told us that all is well in the agricultural industry because prices for cattle and sheep are buoyant. Has he not heard of inflation? Does he not realise that as a consequence of Government policies, all prices are up in every sector? Has he not been told about what is going on in the beef sector? Plenty of hon. Members have told him today that, solely as a result of the Government's failure to deal with inflation, we have a vast discrepancy over the Irish green pound and a flood of beef coming into this country and causing heavy losses for our beef farmers.
  I am particularly concerned about what is happening to the young stock in the industry. The number of heifers in calf for beef is down by 19 per cent. in the past year and the Meat and Livestock Commission has forecast that beef production this year will be 12 per cent. down on last year.
  I was disappointed that when the right hon. Member for Anglesey asked the Minister whether he would make an announcement today about milk prices after 1st January next year, the Minister was not able to give any sort of answer. We cannot expect the milk sector to have confidence when it does not know where it will be the early part of next year. Even if autumn price is held, that will not give the levels of profitability to which the Minister has been referring.
  1456
  He said in a Written Answer on 6th May:
  "As a result of the guarantee determination, I estimate that dairy production should be more profitable this year in real terms than it has been for several years and I hope that dairy farmers will now feel able to look forward with confidence and expand their production in line with the objectives set out in 'Food From Our Own Resources'."
  At this time, the Milk Marketing Board put out a statement referring to the price up to the end of the year and saying:
  "It is reasonable to assume that the price will be maintained at this increased level during January to March. This additional return which could be had from the period January to March will be needed if the average producer margin is to be held at the levels of the last 2 years in real terms."
  That means that until farmers know that they are going to get the same price after 1st January as before that date, there is no question of their being financially better off. I cannot understand why the Minister should have made such a statement.
  We see little prospect of expansion for the dairy industry. On the contrary, we see, as with beef, a cut-back in the young breeding animals joining the dairy herd. Dairy heifers in calf with first calves are down by 14 per cent. on last year. This shows the cut-back right across the cattle sector. When the young breeding cattle are so badly affected, we are bound to see worse figures later in the year.
  The Minister's greatest failure lies in the pig sector. He has presided over a tragic decline in the pig herd, with losses ranging from£2 to£8 per pig. There has been a reduction in the breeding herd of 10 per cent. in six months and a sharp decline in the number of young animals. The number of gilts in pig is down by 19 per cent. while the number of barren sows for fattening has increased by 43 per cent. Sows are not being put back into the herd but are being killed because they are unprofitable.
  Mr. Buchan: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question that his right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) did not answer? What would he do? Would he introduce another subsidy, accept a revaluation of the green pound, or what?
  Mr. Jopling: The Minister is constantly telling us what he has done so far. He has referred to the action he took in

  1457
  October last year, to the 50p subsidy and to the latest green pound devaluation. He keeps telling us that he will be taken to court, as though this is some sort of a joke, but the truth, as my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) said, is that the Minister's efforts have not worked, and his policy on pigs is a total shambles. He knows that the best step would be to recalculate the mcas, and we all know that he missed the boat last October.
  The Minister has now suddenly started saying in the past few months that he was not able to renegotiate the mcas in return for the green pound devaluation last autumn. He has not been saying this very long and he has produced this rabbit out of the hat quite recently. It is probably no coincidence that it was after Commissioner Lardinois had left the scene. We have been accusing him of this for many months, and only very lately has he said that the Danes wrote a letter saying that they would not accept it.
  The Minister has put himself forward as the great negotiator, the "tough guy", but if he was put off the negotiations merely by a letter from somebody in the Danish Embassy in London, I fear very much for the course of our negotiations, and I cannot help feeling that we are right in putting down this motion tonight.
  Mr. Buchan: What is the answer?
  Mr. Jopling: I have explained it. I am perfectly certain that we should never have got into this situation.
  To sum up, there are few people who will say today that agriculture is in good heart. One of those happens to be the Minister, who still goes round talking about the White Paper and the targets set out in that. He has told us today that we must get back to expansion. The White Paper "Food from Our Own Resources" provided some sort of longterm policy.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser), in what I thought was a notable speech, asked for a long-term policy. He should be forgiven for forgetting that we have a long-term policy in the White Paper. But the fact is that we are miles out on our targets and that we must have an expansion
  1458
  of about 11 per cent. a year over the next three years if we are to get back to those targets.
  I quite understand that the drought has set the Government back, but what I did not understand—I do not know where the Minister gets his figures—was when he told us that before the drought agriculture was expanding. I do not know who writes the Minister's speeches—I assume that he must write them himself—because the return for June 1976 shows what happened to livestock numbers over the previous two years. In the two years up to the start of the drought last June cattle numbers were down by 8 per cent., sheep by 1 per cent. and pigs by 7½ per cent. Who can have told him to say that the industry was expanding at that time I cannot imagine.
  The Minister does not yet seem to have learned that food production cannot be turned on and off like a bath tap. The Government have been far too concerned with posturing over short-term food prices rather than concentrating on ensuring that we have the food over a longer period. The Government do not yet seem to have realised that it is highly speculative to rely on world markets as the bais of our food supplies. I should have thought there were enough painful reminders and evidence to show what a dangerous policy that is.
  We have only to look back to the years after the last war when we were short of beef, or to a few years ago when there was a shortage of fish meal on the world market. We recall the position two years ago over the shortage of sugar, and the position today over the price of tea and coffee, and perhaps soya meal in the next year. We have only to recall these things to see how dangerous the Minister's policy is today.
  Surely with our balance of payments problem, with the strategic advantages in supporting home food production and with the volatility of world food supplies an expanding home food industry is the housewife's best bet in the long run. What a tragedy it is that, for the first time since the war, we have a Government who have turned their backs on that philosophy.
  In the past the Labour Party had always understood that policy and accepted it. I believe that the way this

  1459
  Government are pursuing their agricultural policy would make Tom Williams, to whom one hon. Member referred, turn in his grave.
  It is tragic that the Government have moved away from that policy for reasons of short-term vote catching and long-term antagonism to the European concept. We intend to show tonight that we do not turn our backs on this concept, and I invite all those who oppose the Government's policies to join us in the Lobby.
  9.35 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Gavin Strang): We have had a useful and predominantly constructive debate. I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) made such a hysterical speech in winding up for the Opposition, making many wild assertions which he cannot substantiate. The remarkable feature of the debate—this has been clear to those of us who have sat through most of it—is that although it was supposed to be a censure debate, there has not been much sign of censure. The two dominant themes of the debate have been the state of agriculture and the overall working and future development of the common agricultural policy, and I shall address myself to both those general issues.
  In considering the state of the industry today, I shall quickly deal with the various commodities. Milk, of course, is the dominant commodity. It is the commodity which accounts for a large proportion of agricultural gross national product, and it is also the commodity production of which, the Government believe, ought to be expanded in the national interest.
  Perhaps I should point out at once that that was the central objective of the analysis which went into the White Paper, "Food from Our Own Resources". It was not a plan setting out specific targets. It was a document based on a headed assessment of where our national interest lay with regard to the future level of agricultural expansion and production. The sums clearly showed that it was in our interest above all to expand milk production and to reduce our dependence on imported dairy products.
  The Opposition have patently failed to make their charge stick that we are not
  1460
  providing the industry with the assurance and confidence which it needs for the future. I take, for example, the position following the end of this year, an important matter which has been discussed by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew-shire, West (Mr. Buchan). Naturally, producers are concerned that when we reach the end of transition we shall be moving into a quite different situation when the traditional arrangements will no longer apply as they did.
  The new arrangements will have to operate from 1st January. and they are being urgently considered with all the interests involved. I assure the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) in this connection that we are very much aware of the particular circumstances and pattern of consumption of milk and milk products in Northern Ireland.
  The likely return to producers in the period January to March 1978 will obviously depend on the details of the arrangements, but the Milk Marketing Boards will obtain funds from the sale of manufacturing milk which will be related closely to the level of intervention prices which are already known and from sales of milk for liquid consumption. If the retail price of milk were to stay at 12½p a pint—decisions on this have not yet been taken—the returns to the boards would average about 52p per gallon. This is an arithmetical calculation and the actual return will depend on decisions to be taken. However, it provides an indication for the producers that there is a prospect of rising returns as one looks ahead.
  Mr. Peter Mills: I do not understand the Minister's thinking at all. Does he realise that dairy farmers have to plan a year ahead, and therefore they must know now. Also it takes nine months to produce a calf. If one wants a calf to produce milk later on, one must take action now. The Minister must realise that dairy farmers have to plan things now. It is no good consultations going on if farmers are not aware of what they will be getting. The decision must be made now.
  Mr. Strang: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, but I must point out that no Government have announced guaranteed milk prices for more than a

  1461
  year ahead. We are talking about the last three months of the year. The industry wants to see this Government fight for the retention of a basic system of controlled retail prices and controlled prices for producers through the Milk Marketing Board. If anyone can protect these boards—and we are more than confident that we can—it is my right hon. Friend. Let us have no more of this nonsense and talking the industry down. The prospects for the industry are good. At the turn of the year I think that we shall see that the Opposition's statements were very far from the mark indeed.
  On the question of cereals, is anyone seriously suggesting that the support arrangements that we are providing throughout the marketing year for cereals are not adequate? Is any one suggesting that the increases in support prices of 23 per cent. and 24 per cent. are not an adequate and proper basis of support for cereals?
  On the question of beef, the guaranteed prices of over£30, rising to£32, are realistic if one looks at the cost of beef production. If hon. Members claim that farmers paid very high prices for stores in the autumn and must be compensated for this, they are carrying it a bit far. The hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Welsh) argues that because of the fantastically high prices the farmers got for ware and seed potatoes, these prices were reflected in the fantastically high prices farmers had to pay for seed potatoes. He then said that they should get fantastically high prices to compensate them for what they paid for the seed potatoes out of which they originally made vast profits. Who can believe that it is realistic to argue that when store beef prices are high—and I am not criticising that, producers have had a tough time in recent years and it is time that they got a better share from the profits of beef production—or when seed potato prices are high, farmers should automatically have their guaranteed prices jacked up to a relatively artificially high level the following year.
  Mr. Jerry Wiggin Mr. Jerry Wiggin (Weston-super-Mare) rose—
  Mr. Strang: No I will not give way, I want to get through my speech quickly.
  1462
  On the question of pigmeat, I do not wish to go over the details again. Of course the Government recognise the seriousness of the situation. We have pointed out clearly that we got the most that the Commission had within its power to give us in the autumn. We secured a phasing of the devaluation of the green pound of further benefit to producers. We cannot secure a change in the basic method of calculating MCAs without achieving the support of the Council of Ministers. I do not think that a single hon. Member in this Chamber really believes that anyone could have tried harder than my right hon. Friend—and I am glad to see that hon. Members on the Liberal Benches are nodding their heads in assent. We have taken the almost unprecedented step of introducing a subsidy which the Community has deemed illegal in its eyes.
  Conservative Members have not talked much about sheep tonight, because the Government provided substantial increases in the guarantee prices for lamb and wool. That was adequately acknowledged by the respective National Farmers Unions. The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) made a number of important points in this respect. Like him, I am in favour of deficiency payments arrangements for lamb. If we have a common régime for sheep meat, as we probably will in due course, we must try to maintain that deficiency payments system.
  Also like the hon. Member for Cardigan, I want to see the French market opened not just to his Welsh producers but to English and above all to Scottish producers so that they can look ahead and plan on the basis of regular supplies to the French market. We must also get a sheepmeat régime which protects our consumers from enormous price increases—which in turn would reduce the demand at home for lamb—and we must have one which adequately incorporates sensible support arrangements for our producers. Thus, I can assure hon. Members that the Government are on the same wavelength as producers over the achievement of a sheepmeat régime.
  I have dealt with potatoes already. The main point is that once again we are affected by the end of transition and these arrangements are still being considered by the Community. The

  1463
  initial proposals were sent back to the Commission for reconsideration by the Council of Ministers, but we are absolutely determined that the arrangements which are agreed will strike a sensible balance between the interests of producers and consumers.
  Mr. Wiggin: Earlier, when he refused to give way, the Minister was justifying the case for dealing with farmers' costs. On the last occasion that he spoke he admitted that the costs had risen by 20 per cent. but that the return to the farmer had risen by only 10 per cent. What should we tell our constituents about that?
  Mr. Strang: I am sorry, but one cannot generalise in these matters.
  Mr. Wiggin: The hon. Member said it.
  Mr. Strang: My point was that there are costs and costs—[Laughter.] Of course there are: let me explain it. If fertiliser costs rise as a consequence of the increase in oil prices and the general energy situation, people realise that that price rise is rather more permanent than a price rise which seed potato growers had because of the fantastic and enormous prices for potatoes brought about last year by the climate. I am therefore saying that cost increases which are a consequence of a drought such as we have not experienced for many decades—hon. Members will see from the White Paper that the drought accounted for the vast bulk of cost increases last year—must be seen in perspective.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West, among others, referred to taxation, explaining—the Government accept this—that many farmers were keenly disappointed by the absence from the Budget of any reference to the averaging of profits for taxation. The Government are fully aware of the tax difficulties which farmers can face because of their widely fluctuating incomes, and the problem has been discussed among Ministers. It has to be recognised, however, that there are difficulties about introducing special tax rules for one group of taxpayers. Moreover, averaging does not invariably operate to the taxpayers' advantage and would be complicated and expensive to administer. However, the matter remains under active consideration.
  1464
  My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Roderick) raised important points about tenant farmers. Some of them were detailed, and I shall reply to him in writing. However, I would make the general point that he rightly wants to see the important benefits to tenant farmers which arise from this Government's legislation effected as soon as possible. Because of our concern for tenant farmers, in the preparation of the necessary orders and administrative arrangements we have been anxious to push ahead with the succession arrangements which affect many people in my hon. Friend's constituency. I assure him that we are seized of the need to get these measures operative at the earliest opportunity to give tenant farmers the protection to which they are entitled.
  Mr. Nelson: Will the Government recognise that farmers throughout the country will be disappointed with the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary about tax averaging? Will the Government bear in mind that inflation has a particular impact on a tax r régime for farmers which does not take account of the vagaries or cycle of production? Will the Minister give us some hope that this situation will be reviewed as soon as possible?
  Mr. Strang: I do not recall agriculture Ministers in the previous Tory Government saying that this issue was under active consideration. It ill becomes the Opposition to criticise my right hon. Friend, who has been in office for only a few months, for failing to take action that would be of great importance to the agriculture industry.
  I return to the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Bright-side (Miss Maynard). When the Opposition referred to agricultural producers I had the impression that they equated the words "agricultural producers" with farmers. When we talk of agricultural producers we are also talking about farm workers. We must not forget that we could not achieve our present level of efficiency and expansion without skilled agricultural workers.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bright-side refered to the operation of the tied cottage legislation. I am glad that she acknowledged that this legislation provides farm workers and their families with

  1465
  security equivalent to Rent Act security for ordinary rented accommodation. We have removed, once and for all, the fear of eviction from farm workers and their families.
  Not long ago we were told by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who was active in the Standing Committee, that if we were to remove the fear of eviction from farm workers and their families, the whole livestock industry would collapse and the dairy industry would go into immediate decline. It is remarkable that four or five months since the Act became operative, not one Opposition Member has made a reference to the operation of that legislation. The reason for that is understandable. We always recognised that the Act, as we drafted it, adequately met the real needs of the industry. That is why we provided the system of Agricultural Dwelling House Advisory Committees.
  Reports have appeared in the Press which may have confused some farm workers. These committees are purely advisory. They advise whether a local authority should provide an offer of alternative accommodation to a farm worker and his family. They do not require a farm worker to move out of his house and to accept that offer of accommodation.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Brightside was right to say that in the majority of cases which have gone to ADHACs it was decided that there was agricultural need. By the end of March, 145 out of 150 cases were found to be those of agricultural need. Farmers are being fairly cautious about the cases that they put forward. Over 80 per cent. of the cases applied to livestock farming.
  On the basis of discussions that I have had with members of my hon. Friend's union, who are involved in this and who have attended many of the committees, it appears that farmers have confidence in the operation of the ADHAC system. If we can retain the confidence of farm workers in these arrangements, they must be operating in the way in which we intended.
  My hon. Friend made a number of additional points. We shall naturally note her observations about the Agri-
  1466
  ccultura Wages Board. I want to make one final point about farm workers. It must be accepted that farm workers are underpaid compared with equivalent men with equal skills in manufacturing industry. However, the fact of the matter is that when we gradually return to free collective bargaining, the security that we have provided for farm workers with this legislation will help them to secure the wages that they deserve.
  In the last five minutes at my disposal, let me make some reference to the CAP. I regret that I do not have more time to answer some of the very interesting arguments that have been advanced, particularly by Labour Members, in relation to the future reform of the CAP
  My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) criticised my right hon. Friend the Minister for being too optimistic about the reform of the CAP. There are two examples of changes that I see as useful straws in the wind. I take, for example, the directive on less favoured areas. That is a directive that incorporates the headage payment system that we have traditionally paid to hill farmers in those areas. The importance of that is not merely that we have secured a modification of the CAP to meet special needs of hill and marginal farmers, who cannot expect to cope with the same prices as other producers, and no other help, but also we have the principle, to which my right hon. Friend was referring, of nationally financed direct headage payments to these producers, 75 per cent. financed from the national Exchequer.
  In the variable beef premium we have a policy that we have secured as a result of free negotiation, by which we combine the benefits of support buying, but limit the cost to the Exchequer, with the deficiency payment, to avoid full-scale intervention and to give the consumer the benefit of lower prices.
  Finally, I want to comment on the last price settlement in relation to the reform of the CAP. Perhaps that, in a sense, was the most important achievement of British Ministers in the Council of Agricultural Ministers. With respect to the future of the CAP, this is probably the aspect for which the British presidency will best be remembered, because my right hon. Friend injected the interests of

  1467
  the consumer into the Council of Agricultural Ministers in a way that has never been done previously.
  Through the butter subsidy, we have achieved a real step forward in the direction of getting an understanding that when there are surpluses—and of course, even if we get the levels of production roughly right, there will always be occasional surpluses—these should be used to the benefit of Community consumers and not sold willy-nilly at ridiculous prices to third countries.
  Above all—and this is not adequately recognised—the central thrust of the British position throughout the whole negotiations was to hold down common prices. When I read in today's edition of The Times the statement by Mr. Tugendha't, I find that the attitude of the British delegation was precisely the same as his. We were not indulging in horse trading, saying" You give us an increased price and you can have an
  increased price. "We were the one member State backing the commission in holding down prices.
  Of course, we should have liked to see some common prices lower, in particular the common milk price—but it is very much lower than it would have been had it not been for the constant demand of the British delegation. This settlement is much lower than it has ever been in the past. These increases in prices, when translated into the other green currencies, represent falls in real terms for their milk producers. Let us not lose sight of the achievements that have been made.
  The Opposition have completely failed to make a case. There is no basis for their criticism of my right hon. Friend.
  Question put, That Subhead A1(1) (Salaries, &c., of Ministers) be reduced by£6,500:—
  The House divided: Ayes 271. Noes 273.

  Division No. 133]

  AYES

  [10. p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Cordle, John H.

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Cormack, Patrick

  Gray, Hamish

  Alison, Michael

  Costain, A P.

  Griffiths, Eldon

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast E)

  Grimond, Rt Hon J,

  Arnold, Tom

  Crawford, Douglas

  Grist, Ian

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spellhorne)

  Crouch, David

  Hall, Sir John

  Awdry, Daniel

  Crowder, F. P.

  Hall-Davis A.G.F.

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Kmitsford)

  Hamllton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Baker, Kenneth

  Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Banks, Robert

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Hannam, John

  Beith, A. J.

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Bell, Ronald

  Drayson, Burnaby

  Hastings, Stephen

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Benyon, W.

  Durant, Tony

  Hawkins, Paul

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Dykes, Hugh

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Biffen, Jonn

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Henderson, Douglas

  Biggs-Davison, Jonn

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Hicks, Robert

  Blaker, Peter

  Elliott, Sir William

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Body, Richard

  Emery, Peter

  Hodgson, Robin

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Holland, Philip

  Bottomley, Peter

  Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)

  Hooson, Emlyn

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Hordern, Peter

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Fan, John

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Brittan, Leon

  Fell, Anthony

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Brooke, Peter

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Hunt, John (Bromley)

  Brotherton, Michael

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Hurd, Douglas

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Forman, Nigel

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Fox, Marcus

  James, David

  Buck, Antony

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

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

  Budgen, Nick

  Freud, Clement

  Jessel, Toby

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Fry, Peter

  Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)

  Burden, F. A.

  Galbraith, Hon T.G.D.

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Gardiner, George (Relgate)

  Jopling, Michael

  Carlisle, Mark

  Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian (Chesham)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Channon, Paul

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Churchill, W. S.

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Kilfedder, James

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Goodhart, Philip

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Goodhew, Victor

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Clegg, Walter

  Gorst, John

  Knox, David

  Cockcroft, John

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Lamont, Norman

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Latham, Michael (Melton)

  Cop, John

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Nott, John

  Spence, John

  Lawson, Nigel

  Onslow, Cranley

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Sproat, lain

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Page, John (Harrow West)

  Stainton, Keith

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Lloyd, Ian

  Page, Richard (Workington)

  Stanley, John

  Loveridge, John

  Pardoe, John

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Luce, Richard

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Penhaligon, David

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald

  MacCormick, Iain

  Percival, Ian

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  McCrindle, Robert

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Stokes, John

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  MacGregor, John

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Tapsell, Peter

  MacKay, Andrew James

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Tebbit, Norman

  McNair-Wilson, p. (New Forest)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Madel, David

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Marten, Neil

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)

  Mates, Michael

  Reid, George

  Thompson, George

  Maude, Angus

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald

  Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Mawby, Ray

  Rhodes James, R.

  Trotter, Neville

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Viggers, Peter

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Wakeham, John

  Mills, Peter

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Walters, Dennis

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Watt, Hamish

  Moate, Roger

  Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Monro, Hector

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Wells, John

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Welsh, Andrew

  Moore, John (Croydon C)

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Scott, Nicholas

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Morgan, Geraint

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

  Shepherd, Colin

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Shersby, Michael

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Morrison, Hon peter (Chester)

  Silvester, Fred

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Mudd, David

  Sims, Roger

  Younger, Hon George

  Neave, Airey

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Nelson, Anthony

  Skeet, T.H.H.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Neubert, Michael

  Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

  Mr. Carol Mather and

  Newton, Tony

  Smith, Timothy John (Ashfield)

  Mr. Michael Roberts.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Cartwright, John

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Allaun, Frank

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Flannery, Martin

  Archer, Peter

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Ashley, Jack

  Cohen, Stanley

  Ford, Ben

  Ashton, Joe

  Coleman, Donald

  Forrester, John

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Colquhoun, Ms Maureen

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Atkinson, Norman

  Conlan, Bernard

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

  Bagler, Gordon A. T.

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Corbett, Robin

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Barnettm Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Cowans, Harry

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Bates, Alt

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  George, Bruce

  Bean, R. E.

  Craigen, Jim (Maryhill)

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Ginsburg, David

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)

  Golding, John

  Bishop, E. S.

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Gould, Bryan

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Davidson, Arthur

  Gourlay, Harry

  Boardman, H.

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Graham, Ted

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Bradley, Tom

  Deakins, Eric

  Hardy, Peter

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Dempsey, James

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Dolg, Peter

  Hatton, Frank

  Buchan, Norman

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Hayman, Mrs Helene

  Buchanan, Richard

  Dunnett, Jack

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)

  Eadie, Alex

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

  Edge, Geoff

  Hooley, Frank

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

  Horam, John

  Campbell, Ian

  English, Michael

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (B'ham, Sm H)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Ennals, David

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Cant, R. B.

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Huckfield, Les

  Carmichael, Nell

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Highes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Carter, Ray

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Faulds, Andrew

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  1470

  1471

  Hunter, Adam

  Mendelson, John

  Sillars, James

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Silverman, Julius

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Skinner, Dennis

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Small, William

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Janner, Greville

  Mitchell, Austin Vernon (Grimsby)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Molloy, William

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Moonman, Eric

  Stallard, A. W.

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

  John, Brynmor

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Stoddart, David

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Stott, Roger

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Moyle, Roland

  Strang, Gavin

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Swain, Thomas

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Newens, Stanley

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Judd, Frank

  Noble, Mike

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Oakes, Gordon

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)

  Keiley, Richard

  Ogden, Eric

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Kerr, Russell

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Orbach, Maurice

  Tierney, Sydney

  Kinnock, Nell

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Tinn, James

  Lambie, David

  Ovenden, John

  Tomney, Frank

  Lamborn, Harry

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Torney, Tom

  Lamond, James

  Padley, Walter

  Tuck, Raphael

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Urwin, T. W.

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Park, George

  Variey, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Lee, John

  Parker, John

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  Lever, Rt Hon Harold

  Pendry, Tom

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Perry, Ernest

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Ward, Michael

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Watkins, David

  Loyden, Eddie

  Radice, Giles

  Weetch, Ken

  Luard, Evan

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Weitzman, David

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Wellbeloved, James

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  White, James (Pollok)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Whitehead, Phillip

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Whitlock, William

  McElhone, Frank

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton)

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  MacKenzie, Gregor

  Rooker, J. W.

  Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

  Mackintosh, John P,

  Rose, Paul B.

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Rowlands, Ted

  Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

  Madden, Max

  Ryman, John

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Magee, Bryan

  Sandelson, Neville

  Woodall, Alec

  Mahon, Simon

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Woof, Robert

  Mallalieu, J. P. W

  Selby, Harry

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Marks, Kenneth

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Mr. Joseph Harper and

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Short, Mrs Renee (Wolv NE)

  Mr. James Hamilton.

  Meacher, Michael

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Original Question again proposed.
  It being after Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That the motion in the name of the Prime Minister for the Adjournment of the House may he proceeded with at this day's sitting, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock or for one and a half hours after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later.—[Mr. Coleman.]

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (BEEF AND VEAL QUOTAS)
  10.18 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): I beg to move,
  That this House takes note of Commission Documents Nos. R/2021/76, R/2614/76 and R/2109/76 on financial matters under the EAGGF and tariff quotas for frozen beef and veal, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's explanatory memorandum dated 9th May on Commission Document No. R/2614/76.
  The House has just had—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Would hon. Members who feel that they have to leave the Chamber do so quickly and quietly, please?
  Mr. Bishop: The House has just had a very full discussion on agriculture, and I welcome this opportunity to continue by considering some EEC documents which the Scrutiny Committee has recommended for debate.
  I should like first to turn to the two financial items, R/2021/76 and R/2614/76 which, as the Scrutiny Committee has indicated, go very much together. I am particularly pleased that the Scrutiny Committee has suggested these two items for discussion.
  The Cheysson Report, R/2021/76, reflects the importance which we have attached to the need for budgetary and financial control in the EEC, a theme that we have pursued constantly in Brussels and elsewhere. I need only recall the initiative of my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) when, as Prime Minister, he spoke of his desire to see applied in the EEC methods of financial control com-
  1474
  parable to those developed over the years in the United Kingdom.
  The Cheysson Committee, named after Monsieur Cheysson, who was Commissioner for Budgets and Financial Control in 1973, when the work was put in hand, has already produced reports on the olive oil and oilseed and milk and milk products sectors. The committee, which reports directly to the Commission, is made up of senior officials from member States who have special knowledge and experience of auditing and financial control. Their work is not only done by the study of legal texts, of papers submitted to them by the Commission services, and of answers to questionnaires sent to member States, but also by visits for on-the-spot inspections including one made eighteen months ago to the United Kingdom in connection with this report on beef and veal.
  The report contains a number of proposals. In general terms, there is the simplification and standardisation of Community rules and the avoidance of measures which could give rise to opportunities for speculative operations such as the carousel trade. The report also recommends improvements in co-operation between member States, better understanding of each other's systems, and standardisation of procedures to some extent. In addition, there are many detailed technical and operational recommendations relating specifically to beef and veal.
  We have already expressed our appreciation in Brussels of the Committee's work. Many of the report's recommendations are already in effect in this country. There is close contact between officials of the various departments responsible for administering measures under the CAP and similar co-operation between those officials here and in other countries.
  On the other hand, we do have doubts about some of these recommendations. The proposal that in the short term the concept of abuse of law should be used to enable member States to refuse payment to traders runs counter to United Kingdom legal concepts and practice, and more thought will be needed before we can decide how best to deal with this recommendation.
  The EAGGF Financial Report, R/2614/76, on the other hand, is an

  1475
  essentially factual document covering the operation of the farm fund during 1975 and, as the title indicates, it is the fifth of its kind. As such, it is a welcome addition to the available information on the operation of the CAP. The supplementary memorandum which the Ministry has just submitted sets out the content of the report in some detail, and I would merely draw the House's attention to the fact that the report is presented in four parts. There are chapters on guarantee and guidance, which cover the financing of these sectors; there is a chapter in which inspections and irregularities are analysed, which records the development of audit methods by the Commission's services in this field, and summarises reports of irregularities made by member States under Regulation 283/72; and the remaining part of the report deals with the financing of Community food aid.
  It might be helpful to the House if I explain at this stage exactly what is meant by irregularities. These are not, of course, necessarily frauds. An irregularity occurs when there is a breach of Community rules. For instance, in the guidance section, a farmer may agree to farm in a certain way for five years and be prevented by death or ill health from doing so. This was a feature of a recent debate in this House. Community rules are not complied with and an irregularity occurs and is reported, but in that case it may not be called fraud.
  As for the scale of irregularities, in 1975 irregularities in the guarantee section totaling£1 million were reported out of total expenditure in that section of over£2,000 million. I give these figures in order that the House can get a sense of perspective of the situation. The report shows us that, from previous experience, more than half the money is likely to be recovered within five years.
  About 20 per cent. of the Communities' guarantee section expenditure in 1975, or about£400 million, was on beef and veal, About 11 per cent. of guarantee sector irregularities, or about£80,000, fell in the beef and veal sector.
  Reports such as these before us help us to evaluate the progress being made by the Community and by member States in the operation and control of Community funds, and to this extent both are welcome documents.
  1476
  Finally, I will say a few words about the other document before us, namely R/2109/76, dealing with arrangements for the allocation of a Community quota for the import of frozen beef, free of the variable levy which is otherwise applied to imports.
  This is a subject that has already been thoroughly aired in the House—when we adopted the Agriculture Levy Reliefs (Frozen Beef and Veal) Order 1977 on 8th March. Consequently, although I shall of course be pleased to deal in my winding-up speech with any points hon. Members may wish to raise tonight, I will merely remind the House of two points at this stage. The first is that the instrument to which the Council agreed in December provides an increased share of the quota for the United Kingdom compared with the original proposal submitted by the Commission. The second is that our share of 12,750 tonnes in 1977—of a Community proposal of 38,500 tonnes—provides a useful source of supplies of the kind of beef that cannot be produced in the Community, and makes an important contribution even allowing for the generally more flexible import arrangements that came into force in this sector at the beginning of April.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Will the hon. Gentleman make one matter clear about the instrument? It is before us as a draft instrument. He said that it was approved by the Council last December. Are we to understand that since then it has been in force and in operation? If so, are we considering a draft instrument which has already been effective in this country for the last five months?
  Mr. Bishop: I understand that that is the position. The matter was agreed by the Council in December. The House debated this on a motion to annul the order moved on 8th March, and the motion was withdrawn. We are now debating this matter because, before that, I understand that the Scrutiny Committee recommended that it should be a matter for debate. But this has already been debated in the House. The other two documents—the FEOGA Fifth Annual Report and the Cheysson Report and recommendations—are still matters for consideration in Brussels.
  I have not gone into very much detail on the three documents before us today.

  1477
  The last item has already, in effect, been discussed and approved by the House. The other two documents are factual and informative rather than legislative.
  Mr. Neil Marten: The hon. Gentleman used the word "approved". Was it approved?
  Mr. Powell: The motion was withdrawn.
  Mr. Bishop: The instrument came before the House and, on 8th March, there was a motion for its annulment. After a debate, that motion was withdrawn. So the matter has been debated by the House.
  Mr. Marten: But not approved.
  Mr. Bishop: The two other documents are matters still for consideration in Brussels. The debate will give the House an opportunity tonight of expressing a view on these documents and that can be taken into account subsequently.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: Was my hon. Friend strictly accurate in saying that the order had been approved by the House? As I understand it, there was a motion to annul the order, and that motion was withdrawn.
  Mr. Bishop: The Scrutiny Committee recommended the item for debate but said that that should not hold up the agreement.
  10.31 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Joplin: I suppose that I should begin by congratulating the Minister—although I regret having to do so—on having saved his shirt by such a narrow margin in the Division a few moments ago. We would all personally have felt some sorrow for him if he had had to reduce his standard of living as a result of the vote. I am sorry that in the event there were not enough Members of other parties to support our motion. With their support we could have sounded a signal success against the Government.
  Of the three documents, the first, R/2021/76, deals with irregularities in the beef and veal sector. All systems of agricultural support create opportunities for abuse and dishonesty. In our own system of grants and deficiency payments the
  1478
  same situation applied. Wherever government intervenes to provide cash and support such irregularities are bound to occur.
  Publicity has been given to incidents in the Common Market. I am glad that a paper has been produced dealing particularly with this matter because we are naturally happier to know that something is being done about it. When huge payments such as those involved in mcas on agricultural produce are passing between member States it is inevitable, with green pound discrepancies, that temptations to cheat should arise. That makes it all the more important for the Community to be vigilant.
  Mr. Hamish Watt: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that inter-Community trade is so lucrative for many people who are shipping meat across borders that there is no need for them to be dishonest? They can make a fortune legitimately.
  Mr. Jopling: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman knows more about that than I, but I agree that over the years stories of various practices have arisen. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that the numbers involved in questionable activities are small. I should be surprised if it were more than a very tiny minority of those engaged in the trade.
  I turn to Document R/2614/76. On page 71 there is a list of new fraudulent practices which were notified during 1975. It covers a wide range. The last item refers to seeds, but the others refer to the beef and veal sector. It is alarming that all these new practices have been discovered. I suspect that this arises from the large monetary compensatory amounts that are paid as a result of the green pound discrepancies.
  Returning to what the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) said, many of us have heard such rumours and I have heard the practice called "roundabout beef". There is a considerable amount of such trade across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and I hope that the Minister can tell us what steps are being taken to stop this abuse. One hears about the wholesale smuggling of cattle across the border.
  Mr. Peter Mills: I have actually seen the smuggling. When I was

  1479
  a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office, I sent out Army helicopters to take photographs of cattle being moved across the border.
  Mr. Jopling: I know that my hon. Friend used to sell cattle and I am glad to hear that he has seen the smuggling in his capacity as a Minister rather than as a dealer in cattle. No doubt the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) will wish to say something about this practice later.
  Can the Minister tell us how many cases of fraud have been discovered? I think he said that 11 per cent. of fraud cases were in the beef and veal sector. It may be distasteful to the Minister, but it is important that the House should know which countries were involved. I am sure that we all wish to see such irregularities stamped out.
  Document R/2109/76 deals with boneless frozen beef. It is proposed to import 38,500 tonnes of this meat from third countries this year. I know of the demand from meat manufacturers for this sort of beef, but I have never understood why they cannot find it in the domestic market. They say that they like cow beef that has been bred on the pampas and do not like beef that has fat within the lean parts, and I suspect that the imports under this document are to help that part of the manufactured meat trade. I cannot see why some manufacturers cannot make contracts to buy thin, unfattened cows on the home market. Although the price may look low, it would be a more profitable venture than fattening up cows for many of our farmers.
  I apologise for forgetting to declare my interest in the last debate, and I do so now.
  I hope that the greatest care will be taken not to depress further the beef market in this country. The Government have probably realised from our last debate that there is serious disquiet about the position of beef producers and that this would not be a good time to depress the market further by introducing greater imports of beef from any source.
  Finally, I come to Document No. R/2614/76, and, before asking any questions, I must express a certain irritation. The expanded explanatory memorandum came to the Vote Office only last night.
  1480
  It was not there yesterday morning, and I hope that the Minister of State will tell us why. I can think of no reason for our having to wait until about 24 hours before the debate before we have the expanded memorandum on the matter.
  The document itself was dated 5th November 1976, and it was deposited with Parliament on 11th November 1976. The memorandum tells us that the document is
  "a factual report which has no policy implications".
  It refers to matters as far back as 1975. In fact, there is nothing recent in it. It is 140 pages long. Having looked through the expanded memorandum which the Government have deposited in the Vote Office, I cannot see anything written there which could not have been written a good many months ago.
  This is an intolerable way to treat the House and I hope that we shall have an explanation and at least an undertaking that that sort of thing will not happen again. This is a case in which an explanatory memorandum can help the House, but unless it arrives in good time it is too late and does not help us at all.
  Document No. R/2614, which, as I say, is 140 pages long, is interesting and extremely helpful. It sets out a good many of the facts and figures about the Community. Having looked quickly through the expanded memorandum on a day when we had a major debate, I have not been able to go into the document in the depth I should have wished because the Government deposited their paper far too late in the day. I shall study it later and, if any matters occur to me on which I wish to ask questions, I shall write to the Minister of State. But I must protest at this very bad way of treating the House, and I hope that it will not occur again.
  10.42 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: I wish to ask some questions arising out of Document No. R/2109/76, which refers to the levy-free quota for beef imports into the Community in 1977. As I understand the explanatory memorandum, the Community is to admit 38,000 tonnes of beef of this type from outside the Community to be imported into the Community as a whole in 1977, and of that about 12,000 tonnes will come to the United Kingdom.

  1481
  These are derisory figures for beet imports compared with either United Kingdom consumption or, much more relevantly, the quantities of beef which this country imported from producing countries such as Australia, Brazil and Argentina before we entered the Market. I put this question to my hon. Friend the Minister of State. Taking a year such as 1970, or perhaps 1971, before we entered the Market, what were the imports of beef into the United Kingdom from, say, Australia, Argentina and Brazil? I imagine that they were much nearer 100,000 tons than 12,000 tons.
  It is, of course, the exclusion of beef from these efficient low-cost producing countries—which now have considerable quantities of surplus beef available at much lower prices than those within the EEC—that has kept the price of beef in the United Kingdom at a level that the consumer would have considered prohibitive until quite recently.
  I was surprised to hear the speech by the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling). We are told that the Conservatives are opposed to import controls. In the case of beef we have a system of import controls, amounting to very nearly total exclusion, imposed by the Community. It is surprising that this should be accepted and welcomed by the Opposition. Perhaps the hon. Member for Westmorland should consult his Leader and his Shadow Cabinet on whether he has the right party line.
  I remind the Minister that the recent Summit declaration, which we all cheered, pronounced firmly against protectionism of all kinds. If we exclude prime food stuffs from the most efficient producer countries, surely this is protectionism to an indefensible degree.
  If I am wrong in my figures I should like to hear it from the Minister. I urge him to tell us the figures for actual imports in the year preceding our entry into the EEC as compared with the 12,000 tonnes we are committed to import from outside the EEC.
  10.47 p.m.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I rise principally to put on the record an emphatic protest against the form of the motion before the House tonight. I believe that it is a breach of the spirit, if not precisely of the terms, of the agreement
  1482
  between all sides of the House on the handling of EEC documents which are recommended for the attention of the House by the Scrutiny Committee. The general principle is that in the case of such documents, before a final decision is taken, unless the Scrutiny Committee specifically recommends otherwise, the House should have the opportunity to see that its opinion on the matter is expressed, either by a debate or, alternatively, by coming to a conclusion on it.
  If two or more such documents dealing with substantially separate matters are to be combined in one motion and disposed of in one and a half hours under the Standing Order, that fundamental agreement on the handling of EEC legislation is, in effect, nullified. Even if the agreement is only that these documents should be debated, it is absurd to suggest that, with ministerial explanations in opening, it is possible for two or three separate subjects to be debated in any natural sense of the term in the space of one and a half hours.
  This linking of documents in a single motion frustrates even the minimal sense of the understanding on which these proceedings are based. It also brings another matter of frustration. It has been the custom, sanctified by Mr. Speaker from time to time, that where the House wishes to come to a conclusion on such a document, the Chair will call an amendment to the motion to take note. But it will be perfectly obvious that if such a procedure is desired in respect of one of a number of documents before the House combined in a single motion, it is making a nonsense of our procedure to attempt to debate an amendment to the "take note" motion—which would take the full one and a half hours—in respect of one of several matters comprised in the motion.
  The matter is worse than I originally suggested. It not merely frustrates debate; it frustrates decision—even if the House is anxious to come to a decision, if necessary, by way of vote. This is a precedent of extreme danger, not only in the context of EEC legislation but in wider matters even than that. For if there is no Standing Order of the House which prevents this kind of motion—I take it that there is not, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as otherwise it would not be standing on the Order Paper—there is

  1483
  no reason why the Government should not link together in a single motion the approval of two or more draft Orders in Council.
  I will not dwell at length on this matter, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I am sure that you are aware that the part of the Kingdom in which I represent a constituency is legislated for at present to some extent by Order in Council, and consequently the ability to debate the draft Orders in Council is a precious vestige of our representational rights. If this precedent is to be followed in future, no doubt we shall have motions which invite the House to approve "the following orders" which are set out in the terms of the motion.
  Mr. Jay: Does the right hon. Gentleman think perhaps that if we are to start down this road, before long we shall have a motion to approve the Second Readings of three or four Bills in one motion?
  Mr. Powell: The right hon. Gentleman is wise to observe, if I may say so, that once we allow a procedure to override what is the clear understanding and intention of the House in dealing with its business, no man can set limits to the extent to which that precedent will be followed. The well-known appetite of Governments for time, combined with the well-known propensity of the Whips' Office to minimise time, acting as the upper and the nether millstones, can very soon grind to powder the opportunities of the House for doing its duty. Therefore, I hope that I shall not be alone in placing radical dissatisfaction with this motion upon the record of tonight's debate.
  There are only two or three other minimal matters—relatively to that—to which I should like to allude. First, we have a complete nonsense in dealing with R/2109 in the way in which we are doing tonight. The Minister says that this draft instrument was implemented by an order, that we debated that order implementing this draft instrument upon a Prayer to annul it and that now it arrives as one of three topics for joint debate in this one-and-a-half-hour debate, presumably because the word "beef" happens to be mentioned in this draft instrument as well as in one or two of the other draft instruments linked with it.
  1484
  I should have thought that the natural procedure, and one which would have satisfied the requirements of the Scrutiny Committee, was that when the Prayer against the implementing order was taken it should have been taken, as is often the case, in connection with the draft instrument R/2109. That would have satisfactorily disposed of that matter in one debate.
  Then, coming to R/2021, I was challenged by the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) to refer to the well-known and lucrative but not always legal traffic across the frontier between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. Of course there is always smuggling across the frontier between nations which have different fiscal regimes; that is in human nature and will last as long as human nature is unchanged.
  But what is special is that the Common Market and its provisions, including particularly the provisions for the mcas and the green pound, might have been specially devised to create the ideal conditions in which the propensity of human nature to smuggling was absolutely maximised. Therefore, on that order, I have to say that although smuggling was indeed endemic, it is one of the facts that illustrate the nonsensicality of the artificial regime of the CAP that we in this country have to pay out millions of pounds per quarter in order to neutralise the nonsense effect across the frontier between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom which is created by the working of the CAP.
  I want to draw attention to paragraph 9 of the explanatory memorandum to that same instrument where it says:
  "A recommendation that will require particularly careful examination is that for harmonisation of penalties, as the administrative penalties used in some Member States are in the United Kingdom employed only to a very limited extent"
  We indeed welcome the confirmation that administrative penalties are employed in this country to "a very limited extent". It will be the determination of most of us that they should always be used in this country to "a very limited extent."
  We would, I am therefore sure, be glad to hear from the Minister a little more of what lies behind that rather ominous sentence and to have assurances that there will be a new and full opportunity for consideration if there is any question of a harmonisation of penalties, which alters

  1485
  the form of penalties which are thought appropriate in the United Kingdom.
  10.56 p.m.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: The aspect of the documents before us tonight which I shall draw to the attention of the House relates to storage and the consequent investigation into irregularities. These are contained in Document R/2021/76 which we are told is
  "for the purpose of examining the possibilities of fraud and irregularities in the management of Community funds."
  This document deals only with the beef and veal sector. I wish to deal with the matter as a whole because it is also dealt with in the 1975 report. It is not easy to find out how much money is spent on storage. I am talking not of intervention buying or selling out of intervention at a subsidy but of keeping the goods in store.
  Volume IV of the 1977 Budget, pages 144 to 168, sets out the appropriations made in 1976 for this purpose. I wish to put on record how much was spent in millions of units of account for each of the major items. About 61 million units of account were spent on cereal storage and 469 million on milk powder storage and special sales. Unfortunately, the two are not separated so it is impossible to compute from that information what relates to storage and what to sales.
  About 151 million units of account were spent on the storage of butter; 11 million on cheese; 1·5 million on olive oil, colza and sunflower oil; 131 million on sugar; 393 million on beef; and 50 million on wine. Incidentally, an extra 134 million was spent on distilling wine.
  About 8 million units of account were spent on tobacco storage, although the total expenditure on tobacco was 228 million units of account. One million units of account were spent on fish. That totals about 1,281 million units of account.
  Perhaps in my somewhat amateur researches I have made an error in the figures. If I have, I hope that my hon. Friend will let me know in correspondence at a later date. I guarantee to ask him a Question so that he can correct me if I have made a mistake.
  The expenditure amounts to about£500 million or more, according to how one calculates the rates of exchange.
  1486
  That sum represents 15 per cent. of expenditure on agriculture.
  Mr. Jay: My hon. Friend has done a very valuable piece of research in unearthing these figures for the cost of storage. Is he absolutely certain that he has the noughts right? If he is not, perhaps the Minister could confirm it. If it is true that on top of everything else some such sum as£500 million is being spent this year on storage, in addition to intervention and sales and so on, that in itself seems to me a condemnation of the CAP without any further evidence.
  Mr. Spearing: I am very willing to be corrected on this matter if correction is necessary. However, it is only fair to myself to add that it is not always easy, as anyone knows in relation to almost anything relating to the Common Market, to dig out very important figures because they are spread and scattered in all sorts of directions.
  Mr. Jay: Deliberately.
  Mr. Spearing: That may well be. Therefore, I am putting forward these figures tentatively, and for later correction if necessary. If I am wrong, I can only claim that these matters are not set out in EEC documents with the relative clarity of papers relating to Her Majesty's Government. Perhaps we can leave the matter at that.
  However, what I can say quite clearly is that in the budget statement for 1976, which we debated on 19th July last, there appears in the EEC report this very important qualification of the accounts of the EAGGF. I quoted it in that debate and I quote it again tonight, because it is a quotation that has not had the attention that it deserves. This is a report of the Audit Board of the Community, Document R/118/76. It says,
  "only very limited examination by the Audit Board of the operations of the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF has been possible. As in previous years, the Board has not been in a position to form its own judgment of the manner in which the operations have been conducted or to give an opinion on the reliability of the financial management of this sector of expenditure."
  I have said previously and I say again: if that qualification appeared on the accounts of even the smallest firm in the City, the Board of Trade would be down on it almost immediately. That is the background to the document before us,

  1487
  which is attempting to get rid of some of these irregularities.
  I draw attention to page 31 of Document R/2021/76, where it talks about control problems. It says,
  "Because of lack of staff the intervention agencies are not always able to carry out under satisfactory conditions the many checks which should be made at time various stages of the private storage operation, namely"
  —and it goes on to mention one or two things. In other words, there is an admission in this document that the proper inspections cannot be carried out. Towards the end of the document, on page 107—it is no small document—it refers to the use of false or forged T1 and T3 documents. In other words, it is not only a question of people not, perhaps, inspecting the storage places, but it is also, apparently, a matter of the deliberate forging of documents. That, too, should be put on the record.
  In the annual report of the EAGGF for 1975—R/2614/76, which is the big annual report—there is reference to the question of inspection. Section 6.2 on page 61 deals with visits in connection with the 1971 and 1972 accounts. It says,
  "Visits undertaken between April and July 1974 in connection with the clearance of accounts for the 1971 and 1972 financial years were supplemented by a further 42 days work in 1975"
  It appears that auditing of the accounts for the 1971 and 1972 financial years was still being carried on in 1975. That is not an unknown occurrence in firms, but it seems rather strange. It goes on to say—as though it is a good thing—
  "42 days work in 1975, bringing to 165 days the number of days of work done in the six Member States by the Commission staff."
  On its own, that is meaningless. Is it 165 man-days or woman-days or is it one person for 165 days? There is a boast that everything is under control, with that massive number of days, but no real indication of the amount of work done. It is not a reassuring statement. The quality of the statement itself needs auditing, apparently.
  The Community is spending a large sum—£500 million, it appears, but still a large sum even if it is half that; and it may be£750 million—purely on the storage of surplus foods. It appears from the documents before us, and the Audit
  1488
  Board report which I quoted previously, that there is no proper system of checking the documentation and payment for goods that may or may not be there, goods that may have come in and been taken away on the round-about routes.
  In the past the House, through its powers over the Executive, required proper accounts of public moneys. It seems that we do not have that direct control over what happens in the Community. I have asked the Treasury and Ministers to examine this matter. My right hon. Friends bear responsibility in the Council of Ministers, and I hope that they will now begin to take steps to see not only that the Audit Board produces more reports but that the reports are more satisfactory, giving the House some indication that there is a minimal amount of fraud and deception involved in these very large sums which the papers before us do not and cannot show.
  11.7 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Mills: I have the privilege of being on the Select Committee on European Legislation, and I think that these are documents which should have been brought before the House. I wish that more hon. Members were present to discuss them, because they are very important.
  I should like to say a few words about the guarantee section. The more one looks at the sums of money that are spent in guaranteeing certain sections of the Community's agricultural production, the more one must come to the opinion that something should be done about production, particularly of milk, simply for the intervention prices. There seems to me to be little responsibility in marketing. The whole business of co-responsibility, with all that it means, should be very much to the fore in the Community's thinking.
  The dairy farmers in this country have acted responsibly over many years, through the Milk Marketing Board, bearing the costs of the sale and distribution of milk, of advertising and so on, but within the Community there are people who simply produce milk for intervention, with no thought for marketing and no responsibility for it. The Minister should press that point very strongly in Brussels.
  Much more should be done to have lower intervention levels for certain

  1489
  products, particularly skim milk powder, and there should be variable intervention levels in different countries. This is what is needed, and it would go a long way to reduce the butter and milk powder mountains. The disciplines involved in lowering intervention levels would get back to the farmers who produce without any thoughts about marketing but simply for intervention purposes. A much stricter policy should be brought in by lowering the intervention level for skim milk powder. This must be done in the coming months, and it would help to reduce the sums of money in the guarantee section. No responsible farmer would object to that policy.
  I am somewhat confused by Annex GIII. I may even have lost three noughts. I hope that the Minister will clarify the situation. Not only am I getting old and dim, but I cannot even read the figures. They appear to be far from clear. They refer to units of account, but they do not say whether those units are to be taken in thousands. I hope that the Minister will clarify the situation. If one looks at milk production and the total expended in guaranteed prices, one sees exactly who will obtain the money. It can be seen that Great Britain has 70,107 units of account. It may even be 70,107,000 units of account, but it does not seem to matter whether those three noughts are added. It appears to show the United Kingdom as representing 70,000 units of account, the Netherlands as 215,000 units of account, France 296,000 units of account, and Germany 275,000 units of account.
  Those figures appear to back up my argument. In other words, we in this country appear to be using out of the guarantee funds only 70,000 units of account, when other countries appear to be using three or four times as many. It illustrates the irresponsibility in those countries to marketing, discipline and co-responsibility. Perhaps the Minister when replying will say whether I have missed out the three noughts, but the trend is there and shows the picture.
  Mr. Marten: We are subsidising them.
  Mr. Mills: We shall listen with great interest to what the Minister has to say on that score.
  We then come to the guidance section. There is no doubt that there is something radically wrong in that respect. We are
  1490
  obviously not taking advantage of all we should be doing in restructuring agriculture. We see from the figures that we in the United Kingdom have obtained from the Community only 5,644,000 units of account. When Germany has obtained 42,000,000 and France 33,000,000, it seems a pity that British agriculture and the various companies which process our food here are not taking advantage of these grants. I believe in getting all we can out of the Community. If we put a lot in, we should take out as much as possible.
  Mr. Spearing Mr. Spearing rose—
  Mr. Mills: Of course, it is not for me to answer for the Government. Any questions must be directed to the Government. It is for the Government to say why they are not taking greater advantage. I should like to see much greater use made of that which is available.
  Mr. Spearing: A possible reason for the lack of applications is that British agriculture, for reasons that the hon. Gentleman will understand, does not stand in the same need of the restructuring as is constantly referred to in Germany, France and Belgium.
  Mr. Mills: The hon. Gentleman will find that most of the money is being used to build storage plants and for the modernising of processing plants, for example. I remember fighting hard to obtain better facilities in Northern Ireland so as to take advantage of the grants when I had the privilege to be a Northern Ireland Minister. We are in the Community and I believe that we want to take advantage of that which is available. I hope that there will be far more effort on the part of the Ministry to encourage our food industry and agriculture to take advantage of the grants.
  I return to the guidance section. I feel that much of the money is not being directed to the right methods of dealing with the problems within the Community. I want to see funds diverted to improve the regional structure of many of the countries concerned. Money must be diverted so that very small farmers may find other employment opportunities. The Community as a whole must turn its attention to dealing with the regional structure more than the structural problems of agriculture. Far more money

  1491
  should be diverted within the Community to deal with these problems.
  Mr. Marten: Would my hon. Friend have that done by agricultural financing or regional financing?
  Mr. Mills: My own view is that there should be less money in the agricultural fund and that more money should be diverted to the structural funding of the regions. In the long term that is the only way to deal with surpluses within the Community. Alternative work must be found for many of the small farmers. Considerable emphasis should be placed on dealing with the problem of surpluses within the Community. I want to see money diverted so that there is a proper regional programme.
  I welcome increased activity in dealing with irregularities. It is only human nature that we shall find dealers and farmers seeking to take advantage. There must be far greater activity in ensuring that many of the irregularities do not continue.
  Reference is made to the difficulties that are experienced in carrying out checks. I have never heard weaker arguments in my life. It is said that there are difficulties in carrying out physical checks owing to the way in which goods are presented—for example, meat being placed in refrigerated containers and the possible risk of deterioration of goods when the doors are opened.
  What nonsense that is! There is nothing to stop a person taking out a piece of meat. I have done it at meat plants in this country when making a check. There is nothing to stop anyone taking out a piece of meat. A piece of meat can be cut off in no time with a power saw, even though the meat is frozen solid. Of course samples can be taken and checks made. I sometimes wonder whether those who produce these documents have ever been to a meat plant and whether they have any experience in these matters. It is sad that they make such excuses. We need some practical people. These excuses merely give ammunition to the critics who are all around us, those who are anti-Common Market.
  11.20 p.m.
  Mr. Hamish Watt: There is a great deal in these documents that requires
  1492
  comment, but I shall confine myself to three aspects. The first is the tremendous amount of swindling—I use the word advisedly—that goes on in the movement of meat across the borders. The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) mentioned the tremendous sums being wasted by provision for the storage of meat in the Community. That amount is minuscule compared with the money being milked off by certain sections of the meat trade as the meat crosses the borders.
  It is not good enough for the Commission to say that it cannot afford to police this trade. I quote an example of the sort of thing that happens, although this case is not to do with meat. Could the Minister explain why shiploads of barley from Peterhead to Bristol go via Hamburg? It is because restitution payments can be obtained by going that way round. Is there any sense in the Commission putting£6 or£7 a ton on such cereals? Yet the mishandling of the cereal trade is minuscule compared with the mishandling of the meat trade. I am referring to the trade not across the Irish border but between European countries.
  Secondly, I am desperately disappointed to see that the Minister has acceded to the import of meat from Argentina once again. In 1973, this country was no less than 84 per cent. self-sufficient in the production of beef and veal—a very short step from 100 per cent. self-sufficiency. Had there been any encouragement to the beef industry, we could by now have been totally self-sufficient. It is too bad that, for the sake of 12,000 tons of meat from Argentina, the Minister should put our entire livestock industry at risk.
  In 1970, we had in Cheshire the last outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The source was tracked back to meat from Argentina. It is too bad, in our wonderful island, where we could virtually have the status of a quarantine station, that the Minister should put all the animals in the country at risk by allowing the importation of even the small amount of 12,000 tons of beef from Argentina, where foot and mouth disease is endemic and often reaches epidemic proportions. It is too had that we cannot deliberately, through the health regulations, keep that meat out. It is virtually criminal to put our breeding livestock at risk in this irresponsible way.

  1493
  Thirdly, there is the question of the export of live lambs from Britain to Europe. There has been for many years a legitimate, lucrative and reasonable export trade of lamb carcases from England and Scotland to France. We find now, however, that large quantities of live lambs are being exported to Belgium and Germany, where they are slaughtered—which, incidentally, deprives our own slaughtermen of work. The moment these lambs are slaughtered in Belgium and Germany they become Belgian or German lamb and they get into the French market by the back door, where they pay no levy.
  It is little wonder that the French Government are getting particularly annoyed at what amounts to tax evasion by this means. The French Government impose a levy on lamb that comes from Britain but do not do so in respect of lamb that supposedly has its origins in Belgium or Germany. I fear for the legitimate side of the trade because unless this anomaly is cleared up quickly the French Government may close the door on all trade in lamb, both live and dead.
  I would ask the Minister and his colleagues in the Commission to pay a great deal more attention to what the men in the meat trade are saying. I have never known them to be as frustrated as they are just now. Like many other people, these men are coming firmly to the conclusion that the CAP is one unholy bundle and that it can never work efficiently. It is obvious that the cost of running the CAP is going up year by year. We heard earlier that the Commission has not yet managed to square the books for 1972–73. Many fiddles are obviously taking place that will never be detected. I doubt whether we shall ever manage to get the books squared, but we shall no doubt be expected to fork out more and more cash as the years go by in order to pay for the many anomalies that exist.
  It is not good enough for the Minister and his colleagues in the Commission to say that this matter is difficult to police. If it is impossible to police, he should tell the House so that hon. Members can come to a decision about allowing the CAP to continue. There is a strong case for this country remaining in Europe, but there is little or no case for the continuation of the monstrous CAP.
  11.27 p.m.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I shall be brief. I was interested in the comments of the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) about fiddles and swindles taking place in the transportation of beasts and meat across borders. If I understand SNP policy correctly, the hon. Gentleman is trying to establish yet another border over which perhaps these fiddles and swindles would occur. I hope that he is not successful in his objectives.
  I was tempted to make a brief contribution because of the interesting speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Mr. Mills). It is always a pleasure to listen to my hon. Friend's contributions, not only in agricultural debates but also his observations on the numerous EEC documents that are brought before the House late at night. It is a pity that more hon. Members on both sides do not participate because the contents of many of these documents are very important indeed. They will have long-term effects upon the way that this country is run.
  The document we are discussing tonight is a particularly heavyweight document, which I have only briefly glanced through, relating to guidance verification, irregularities, food aid and so on in the guarantee scheme, which is of particular importance. There is one point I should like the Minister to comment upon when he winds up. He and I will be sharing a platform in his constituency on Saturday and, with his permission, I look forward to a visit to his most delightful constituency.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West highlighted the huge differentials in the sums of money being taken from the appropriate EEC accounts or funds by the various member countries of the EEC. From the facts that my hon. Friend presented to the House there was no doubt whatever that the meat processing industry, and the agricultural industry as a whole, in this country were taking far less than any other major country within the EEC. My hon. Friend mentioned France and Germany in particular.
  Will the Minister say whether this is because we have a very damaging system of taxation in this country, combined with the Price Code and price restraints imposed by successive Governments, but increasingly by the present Government?

  1495
  Because of the situation of high taxation and low profit margins, are companies, farmers and producers in this country not in a position to take advantage of the grants that my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West rightly drew to the attention of the House?
  If that is the case, all that I can say is that the Government have the Finance Bill in Committee at the moment and I hope that they will have second thoughts about some of their proposals or add new clauses to enable food producers, manufacturers and farmers to take advantage of the very generous grants which exist within the EEC. It is ridiculous that we should be making the massive contributions that we are making, and how right my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten), the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) and the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) are to draw attention to them again and again.
  I am not anti-Market, although I see a great deal wrong with it, and certainly the CAP is not a common agricultural policy at all. When dairy producers in Italy can draw 80p a gallon for milk and our own farmers are to get only 48½p in a week or so until the end of the year, there is nothing common about it.
  Our farmers are suffering. Are the Government aware of the situation? Have they analysed why we are not drawing the necessary funds from the EEC, along with the other major agricultural countries? I hope that the Minister will give some attention to this and provide some explanations.
  11.32 p.m.
  Mr. Bishop: In the brief time available to me, I shall try to deal with some of the matters raised in the debate.
  The hon. Members for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and Devon, West (Mr. Mills) asked about the contribution to the Community and what we get from it. My information is that, in 1975, the United Kingdom's net benefit from guarantee section expenditure by the EAGGF was about£70 million. But, in 1976, the United Kingdom made a net contribution of about£200,000 to CAP expenditure. In 1975, we gained greatly from large receipts from mcas on United Kingdom imports paid in the United
  1496
  Kingdom. In 1976, arrangements for paying mcas were changed and, since then, most of these payments have been made in other member States. This reduced United Kingdom receipts from the EEC budget without diminishing the benefits which the United Kingdom derived from mcas and should not increase consumer prices. This change, plus increases in the share of the Communities' budget resulting from the Treaty of Accession, largely accounts for the difference between 1975 and 1976.
  The hon. Member for Macclesfield is right that we make a very substantial contribution to Community funds. Speaking from memory, our contribution to the overall budget is about 19·2 per cent. which, out of nine member States, is not an insignificant contribution. Surely this justifies the stand which my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who wound up the previous debate so well to get that two-vote majority, are taking in Brussels to ensure that we get not the kind of charity to which the Opposition so often refer in the green pound but some return for our contribution.
  The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) made allegations about fraudulent shipments from Peterhead to Bristol via Hamburg. If he will write to me about it, I shall be pleased to look into it.
  The hon. Member for Devon, West asked about Table GIII on page 95 of the fifth EAGGF Report. The figures in the table are in millions of units of account and the United Kingdom figure is 70·107 million units of account.
  The beef carousel trade applies not only to Europe but to Northern Ireland. It is almost inevitable that any system of trading arrangements will provide some scope for profits to be made out of irregular or artificial but not necessarily illegal trading activities. There have been one or two examples in the beef sector, and the so-called carousel trade between the United Kingdom and the Continent has attracted special attention.
  I assure the House that a special watch is being kept for new irregularities, and when they are detected the attention of the verifiers and the auditors is directed towards establishing whether there are distortions of trade. Good co-operation has been developed among the customs

  1497
  authorities and it is a feature of the EEC system that regulations can generally be rapidly changed to close loopholes. The United Kingdom is taking every opportunity to ensure that Community legislation is drafted so as to reduce the scope for irregular trading to a minimum.
  Hon. Members have referred to the United Kingdom's share of the beef and veal sector. In 1975 the United Kingdom received just under a fifth, or 18 per cent., of the total EEC expenditure on the beef and veal sector. I regret to say that later figures are not yet available.
  There have been references to the Cheysson Committee and the intervention system. Some criticisms of that committee apply to the whole range of support measures currently in operation. On page 98 of its report the Cheysson Committee recommends:
  "As far as possible no regulations should be adopted which make for excessive administrative work or complicated inspection procedures…This recommendation effectively applies to all forms of support in the sector of beef and veal."
  I merely pass on that information, and hon. Members will note it.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) and the hon. Member for Devon, West spoke about the number of frauds in each country. The Commission does not report irregularities divided by country. It will be appreciated that many instances arise in trade between countries and it would be invidious to attribute them to the country that discovered them and reported them. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] It is a matter not of apportioning blame but of finding out what has gone wrong and putting it right as soon as possible.
  I was asked about the number of instances of irregularities. In 1975 it was reported that there were six instances with beef and 18 involving mcas, of which 14 related to the beef and veal sector. We must keep this matter in perspective. In 1975 the irregularities reported in the guarantee sector totalled£1 million out of a total expenditure of£2,000 million. That is a small percentage, but it is serious and certainly gives no justification for us to let up on the necessary safeguards.
  The hon. Member for Devon, West referred to discipline. The Cheysson Committee is looking into this matter.
  1498
  The committee was disturbed by the variation in the rules of administration and even the types of support schemes among member States. For instance, in the United Kingdom we pay a premium on the slaughter of fat cattle, whereas in Italy a premium is paid on the retention of calves. In our view, some variation in methods of support must be tolerated, and the committee has overlooked that there is less than complete uniformity in the ways in which the intervention system is operated. We accept that if variations are allowed it is most important to have effective co-operation and an exchange of information between the enforcement agencies, and I can assure the House that we have played a full part in this matter.
  I come to points raised about the beef and veal sector. This matter was referred by the Scrutiny Committee to the House. The Committee suggested in its report, which was ordered to be printed last October, that in its opinion the instrument raised
  "questions of political importance and recommended that it be further considered by the House during any future debate concerning beef and veal",
  but it did not consider that further consideration need delay its adoption by the Council.
  This was the subject of an order introduced under the negative resolution procedure. There was a debate on an annulment motion, which was withdrawn, on 8th March.
  I have been asked about the date of the explanatory memorandum. It is usual practice for self-explanatory reports of this kind to be deposited with a short formal covering note. However, in view of the size of the report I thought it would be helpful to hon. Members if they had an explanatory memorandum of the kind used in Bills, summarising the contents of the report. The matter has been before the House and so the House was well aware of the situation.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland raised one or two questions about the debate on 8th March and about the kind of beef used. He asked why manufacturers needed to use imported beef. They require lean, tough beef for many of their processes. That type of beef is produced in the dry grasslands of the Southern hemisphere. In the EEC, where

  1499
  cattle are fed predominantly on richer grazing, this type of beef is not produced. Frozen beef from intervention stores is not always suitable for manufacturing purposes and could not replace this import requirement.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) asked what third country imports there were in the year before entry into the EEC. I can tell him that the Community, including the United Kingdom, is nearer to self-sufficiency now than it was in the 1960s. We must continue to offer home producers adequate protection in order to ensure a stable supply to consumers. That is in line with the policy spelled out in our White Paper "Food from Our Own Resources".
  Mr. Jay: Will my hon. Friend answer the question? What were those imports before entry?
  Mr. Bishop: That is a matter upon which I must write to my right hon. Friend.
  The other question about the import of beef referred to the quota. I reiterate the point that I made in the debate on 8th March that the overall size of the quota is hardly significant in relation to the total production, either here or in the Community as a whole. I hope that hon. Members will be reassured on this point. The figure of 38,500 tonnes compares with annual production in the EEC of 6 million to 6·5 million tonnes. Our own production is about 1 million tonnes. Our quota share is 1·3 per cent. of that. Because of the Community's GATT obligations, imports under the quota have been allowed to continue uninterrupted over the past three years, even though there have been some general restrictions on the import of beef in the period.
  The hon. Member for Banff asked about imports. I am sure that he will appreciate that there is good reason for some liberalisation of trade with third countries. This need not in any way create unfair competition for home-produced food.
  I think that I have covered the main points raised in the debate.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I asked the Minister to explain why there was a huge difference in the sums granted from Euro-
  1500
  pean sources to meat manufacturing and agricultural interests in this country compared with the sums granted to Germany and France, for example. It seems that we are not in a position to take advantage of the funds that are available. Why is this?
  Mr. Bishop: I should like notice of that question.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) mentioned administrative penalties and I was pleased that in his comments on policy implications he accepted that there is a recommendation, that will require careful examination, for the harmonisation of penalties, since administrative penalties in some member States apply to only a limited extent in the United Kingdom.
  There is a reference in the report to the possibility of introducing administrative sanctions in regulations governing the CAP. We envisage this as the provision of controls by the Commission of the sort that already exist in the sphere of competition and it may include such things as the withdrawal or refusal of licences and the withholding of benefits.
  There have already been discussions between the Ministers of Justice of the member States with a view to establishing procedural rules to be applied to administrative sanctions, particularly with a view to securing, as far as possible, that the rules reflect existing rules for the protection of the individual in EEC States.
  Mr. Spearing: I understand that my hon. Friend cannot confirm now the figures that I gave, but will he undertake to write to me confirming my figures or, if they are not correct, giving me the right figures?
  Mr. Bishop: I should prefer to be accurate rather than hopeful so I shall write to my hon. Friend about the allegations that he has made.
  The debate has been useful. One of the three documents before us has been debated and approved by the House. The other two are still being considered by the Commission. It has been helpful to have as the basis of our discussion not only the fifth annual report of FEOGA but the recommendations of the Cheysson Committee that are detailed so well in the reports. I can assure the House that the views of hon. Members will be borne in

  1501
  mind in the further consideration in Brussels.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House takes note of Commission documents Nos. R/2021/76, R/2614/76 and R/2109/76 on financial matters under the EAGGF and tariff quotas for frozen beef and veal, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's explanatory memorandum dated 9th May on Commission Document No. R/2614/76.

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (ANIMAL HEALTH)
  [Commission documents Nos. R/1668/76 and R/2578/76.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed,That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Tinn.]
  11.49 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Gavin Strang): The health of our farm livestock is of great importance, and I am sure that the Scrutiny Committee was fully aware of that when it recommended this debate. Animal health is a difficult subject, and I am sure that the House will want to know that we are integrating our health requirements with those of the Community in a way that fully meets the needs of our livestock industries.
  Looking back a few years to the negotiations that preceded our membership of the EEC, hon. Members will recall that animal health was one of the subjects which could not be resolved from the start. As a result, derogations were agreed which enabled Great Britain and Denmark to continue their national rules—to 31st December 1976 for imports of meat and to 31st December 1977 for imports of cattle and pigs. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland could continue national rules on imports of both meat and live cattle and pigs to the end of 1977. The Treaty of Accession also provided that by 1st July 1976 the Commission would submit to the Council a report on the animal health situation in the Community as a whole.
  Those who have studied the Commission's report, published on 7th July under
  1502
  reference R/1668/76, will agree that it includes a valuable summary of the varying disease patterns across the Community. It shows in particular that while the United Kingdom and Ireland have made most progress in the eradication of foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever, other countries have moved faster on brucellosis and tuberculosis.
  Mr. Hamish Watt: Do I understand the Minister to say that we have not yet eliminated tuberculosis? I understood that we had eliminated it many years ago.
  Mr. Strang: I regret to have to inform the hon. Gentleman that we have a small problem in this respect, in the South-West of England in particular, though his general observation as it relates to Scotland is fair.
  We were, however, less satisfied with some of the detail in the original proposals for implementing these measures put forward by the Commission. In particular, we wanted to see a firm and progressive policy for foot-and-mouth disease control built into Community law. We also wanted to ensure that the proposed Community action against swine fever was soundly based and that we should not have to introduce methods for eradicating bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis which were different from those we already use, other than for sound scientific reasons. We have made good progress on each of these fronts, as I believe hon. Members will agree if they have studied the paper that we placed in the Library on 21st March. I should add in parenthesis that that is the basic document for this debate, since it provides a very useful and full summary of the current position.
  I shall deal first with foot-and-mouth disease, a disease of which we have bitter memories and from which Great Britain has been free since 1968. We now have a Community directive, No. 77/98, which gives us the working basis that we considered essential. For intra-Community trade in fresh meat on the bone and offals, we have an agreement that will enable us, whenever there is an outbreak of disease, to require the same safeguards as we have imposed hitherto: the holding from which the animals came and the slaughterhouse concerned must be at least 10 kilometres from any disease outbreak

  1503
  within the previous 28 days, the herd of origin must have been free of the disease during the previous three months, and a clinical examination for foot-and-mouth disease must have been carried out both before and after slaughter.
  Similarly, for imports of live cattle and pigs, the new directive contains valuable safeguards for countries such as Britain which are free of foot-and-mouth disease and do not allow vaccination against it. When importing from member States which have not yet reached this highest category of disease freedom, we shall be able to require quarantine and isolation of the animals both in the exporting country and after they arrive here. We shall also be able to specify that cattle and pigs shall pass a serological test, which determines that they have not been vaccinated, and that cattle shall pass a probang test for the presence of live virus. These are valuable defences against the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease, and we have every confidence in them.
  Full cognisance was also taken by the Council of Ministers of Northern Ireland's stringent import régime, and recognition was given to the major rôle which exports of meat and livestock play in the Province's economy. Consequently, Northern Ireland has been given an extension for a further five years of the existing derogation to apply national rules against foot-and-mouth disease to imports of meat and livestock. In addition, the Commission has undertaken to examine the extent to which Northern Ireland's present export markets might be jeopardised if Community measures were applied from 1982 onwards when the newly extended derogation expires.
  As I have already said, we want to see the proposed scheme for eradicating swine fever in the Community develop on sound lines. It would not have been possible to achieve this against the deadline of 31st December 1976. We therefore obtained agreement to the continuance of our national rules on imported fresh pigmeat for a further year, in line with the arrangements for imports of live pigs. During this time we can help to draw up an effective plan to deal with the remaining pockets of disease in other parts of the Community. Moreover, it was agreed that the eradication plan should contain adequate safeguards for those areas—such as the United Kingdom
  1504
  —where swine fever has already been eradicated.
  Turning to bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis, the ultimate aim is that all cattle breedings herds in the Community should reach the status of "officially brucellosis-free" and "official tuberculosis-free' 'as defined in Comunity law. Without that status, animals cannot be exported for breding or store purposes to other Member Staes unless specific derogations have been granted by the importing country. We in Great Britain still have some way to go before a substantial proportion of our herds can be certified as "officially brucellosis-free", but we are making encouraging progress and a small nucleus of herds has already achieved this status. Our first aim must be to ensure that during the remainder of our eradication programme we do not havce to change the methods we are already adopting to deal with the disease unless theer is clear scientific or economic reason for doing so.
  These are matters we are currently discussing in depth at Brussels. Similarly, we want to see the comparative tuberculin test accepted for purposes of recognising a herd as officially tuberculosis-free". This is the test we have used for many years and we consider it to be fully effective. It will be some time yet before the detailed technical issues on brucellosis and tuberculosis have been resolved. I believe that it will be time well spent.
  Finally, there is the question of imports of cattle and pigs and of meat from third countries. The Commission paper R/2578/76 which was before the Scrutiny Committee is relevant to these considerations. I think we can claim to have more experience of importing meat from third countries than have other members of the Community, and we know how important it is to lay down conditions that will minimise any animal and public health risk from such sources. We intend to play a full part in overseas missions—such as the Community mission to South America—and to see that the Community conditions which will gradually be introduced will provide as good a protection as the national conditions that they will replace.
  Throughout the discussions in Brussels on the Commission's proposals we maintained close and continuous contact with the farmers' union and the veterinary

  1505
  organisations, and we shall continue to consult them as further developments take place.
  In this brief summary I have tried to concentrate on the main points that were agreed at the November and December meetings of the Council of Ministers. The Government believe that the outcome was good for Britain and good for the Community. The House may be assured that we intend to build on this solid foundation.
  11.58 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Jopling: We are grateful to the Minister for explaining the contents of these documents. We should also thank the Scrutiny Committee, which has brought them to our attention. The Committee does a great deal of work, and customarily we thank it for its work, which has been done in a very heartfelt way.
  I declare an interest as one who breeds cattle and is interested in farming. We welcome the efforts to safeguard animal health, both in this country and throughout the EEC.
  The thing that occurs to us is that we have huge advantages in this country by virtue of the fact that we are an island. The fact that rabies and foot-and-mouth disease are not endemic in this country is mainly due to our island status, and it is absurd to agree to any regulations that would sweep away that advantage if we are to merge our animal health regulations, as the Parliamentary Secretary has said we will.
  It is crucial to keep our advantages. Certainly I am attracted to the summary which is printed in document R/1668 on the third page, which says:
  "The solutions proposed by the Commission may be summarised as follows: assure the free trade of animals and meat within the Community without compromising the animal health status already achieved by some countries"
  I also like the final paragraph:
  "The measures thus proposed will at a later stage be completed by initiatives aiming at eradication of certain contagious animal diseases, financially supported by the Community."
  Basically, the Community is on the proper lines. I like the fact that the Community is making a point of trying to combat rabies, about which the Minister did not say too much.
  1506
  I am concerned about some parts of these proposals, particularly the proposal that regulations on intra-Community trade should be decided by majority voting on the Standing Veterinary Committee. That would or could be a dangerous move forward. Perhaps the Minister can say how far that has gone and to what extent it could be blocked. He referred to this in the explanatory document.
  Those who negotiate on our behalf in Brussels must jealously guard our advantages. It is crucial to keep out foot-and-mouth disease and rabies. But these papers have an air which suggests that our partners have not yet become fully aware of our advantages. There is still talk about transitional periods and other matters which give one that feeling. I am not discouraged by what the Minister said, and I hope that the Government will understand that we must not compromise on our animal health advantages. They must be defended. They are almost as important as the marketing boards which we discussed earlier.
  Document R/2578 deals with the possibility of imports from third countries and is published following a visit by veterinary experts from the Community to various countries which might wish to export meat to us. In some ways this document is even more crucial than R/1668. We are concerned here with the importation through meat of foot-and-mouth disease. In the last 10 years it has been spectacularly demonstrated how the control of meat imported particularly from South America can have a spectacular effect on the incidence of foot and mouth.
  Since we have banned "bone-in" meat, by which I mean meat on the bone from South America, I believe that we have had no outbreak of foot and mouth. I am somewhat alarmed to see on page 8 of this document that the experts recommend that boned meat—meat without the bone—should be allowed in from zones 1 and 2 of Argentina, but that meat on the bone could be allowed in from zone 3.
  That brings me back to what we discussed earlier—the anomalies and possible cheating. As the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said, human nature being what it is, this will happen where it is possible. One area of

  1507
  Argentina is to be allowed to send beef on the hone to this country. That is a cheaper, simpler and more convenient way of exporting beef because it involves less processing, but inevitably it will put a temptation in the way of those who live in zones 1 and 2 to move beef into zone 3 and to send it here on the bone. We should examine that possibility carefully. Perhaps the Minister can tell us something about this. I view the proposal with considerable alarm, and I should like to hear more about it from him.
  12.6 a.m.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: I should like to know from my hon. Friend the Minister why this debate is on a motion for the Adjournment. All previous discussions on EEC documents have taken place on a motion to take note which is capable of amendment. There must be a special reason why we have, for the first time, a motion that the House should adjourn. What is that special reason?
  12.7 a.m.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I did not intend to participate in this short debate, but I am concerned about some of the Minister's remarks and about what he left unsaid. I want to put a direct question to him. I am deeply worried. The United Kingdom is in a unique situation. It is an island. Foot-and-mouth disease is not endemic. Our standard of animal health and hygiene is as high as, if not higher than, that of other member States. The only area in which we fall behind, perhaps, is in brucellosis, and we are making steady progress in that.
  Will the proposals which the Minister has undoubtedly recommended to the House give us the same safeguards as those which we have had to date? Will the United Kingdom be as protected from foot-and-mouth disease as it has been under our own regulations?
  I find it somewhat difficult to comprehend the documents which pour into the House from the EEC. There are far more documents to read than any hon. Member could physically read, even if he worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 52 weeks a year. We therefore rely upon explanatory memoranda and on the integrity and honesty of Ministers and Shadow spokesmen who make careful studies of the documents.
  1508
  I am worried that we might be allowing back into this country from Argentina the cause of the last devastating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. I had experience of that outbreak. I never again want to see the scenes that I witnessed then. Perhaps it brought considerable sums of money to the firm for which I then worked, because it hired out excavators to dig huge holes in which to bury the burnt carcases. It was a very sad sight. Many prize herds up and down the country were destroyed because of that disease.
  I do not want the mania about harmonisation, which regrettably seems to be part of the EEC mentality, to envelop this country and to erode what has been a fine system of safeguards in Britain where foot-and-mouth disease is concerned—perhaps rabies, too. Can the Minister stand at the Dispatch Box tonight and tell the House, and through this House the people of this country, including farmers, that no safeguard that we have had in the past is being eroded and that the proposals that he is putting to the House tonight are as good as the safeguards that we have had in the past?
  12.10 a.m.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: The first debate that we had after 10 o'clock tonight involved a procedural question which was enunciated by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), and in this debate my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) has raised a similar and related matter. I press upon the Minister the fact that it is perhaps rather more serious than he might think at first sight.
  I shall not go into the merits of the matter, because I am not qualified to do so, but am I to understand that if we do not adjourn the House tonight and vote to that effect, or find that not enough Members are present if a Division is called, the House will have discussed the directive, in accordance with the guarantee given by the Government, and we shall then be bound by it? The directive, in the words of the document, is a
  "Proposal for a Council Directive amending Directives 64/432 of 26th June 1964, 712/461 of 12th December 1972 and 72/462 of 12th December 1972 on health and veterinary problems."
  It is a specific directive. It is not a regulation, as I think the hon. Member for

  1509
  Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) said—in perhaps justifiable and understandable error. It is something which is an undertaking, which in this debate we are presumably taking for the House.
  The questions that the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has asked the Minister are very relevant. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to say "Yes" to them, but I rather fear that he may not, because the answer that should be available is partly available in the explanatory memorandum. In the "policy implications", paragraph 8 says that the
  "requirements should be aimed towards the highest standards reached by individual member States."
  Then it goes on to say:
  "On a preliminary examination it seems doubtful whether the United Kingdom's animal health status would be fully safeguarded, but a detailed assessment cannot be made until the Commission's attitude to foot and mouth disease has been clarified and their future proposals for common action in relation to the eradication of swine fever and the acceleration of the eradication of brucellosis and tuberculosis are known."
  It may be that, not being technically involved, I did not listen sufficiently closely to what my hon. Friend said in opening the debate. It may well be that what he told the House incorporated what I have just read. Even if it did, it surely means that the House cannot know and does not know tonight whether, in the view of Ministers, the position of this country will be safeguarded, because the Minister's own explanatory memorandum says that it cannot until the Commission's attitude is known. It may be that it has been known since 13th August 1976. Perhaps that is one of the points I missed. However, why this point has arisen and I am a little suspicious is that we are entrusting the matter to the Adjournment. If the matter was procedurally regular, to get the confidence of the House in the Government's handling of these documents it would have been taken on a "take note" motion.
  The coupling of these apparent inconsistencies—I hope that my hon. Friend will clarify the matter—together with this highly questionable motion on the Adjournment, and not to "take note", at least raises some questions, on which I hope that the Minister will be able to satisfy the House.
  12.14 a.m.
  Mr. Strang: I should perhaps start by addressing myself to the question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) and my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). I understood that they were concerned, I think understandably, at the original suggestion, which was to take together all the EEC matters which we have discussed tonight, the regulations on isoglucose and the butter subsidy. I am rather at a loss, because I was under the impression that the new arrangements—for the debate which my hon. Friend the Minister of State opened and the debate on these items on the Adjournment, with the isoglucose and butter subsidy being debated subsequently—had been agreed with my right hon. and hon. Friends. I regret any misunderstanding on my part.
  I believe that there should be no concern that this debate is taking place on the motion for the Adjournment, because there is no controversy about the matter. The Scrutiny Committee accepted that we had protected the situation. The highest veterinary advice available to us—all the veterinary authorities, all the farming unions and the whole industry—has agreed that we have done so. This is a success story in that the proposals which came from the Commission last August have been transformed. Therefore, I think that I can completely remove the slightest suspicion that somehow we chose to have the debate on the Adjournment because it was a controversial issue and we did not want to face an amendment.
  Mr. Jay: It is true that representations were made to the Government against taking all these different issues in one debate, but representations were not made in favour of having a debate on the motion for the Adjournment. Even if these matters are not controversial, about which I do not feel fully sure, that is no reason for not having the usual "take note" motion.
  Mr. Strang: That is perfectly fair. I shall have to take these points to the appropriate Ministers and we shall have to have the matter clarified. If hon. Members desire that in no circumstances should any EEC matters be taken on the Adjournment, that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the

  1511
  House. I may be wrong, but I have a suspicion that there have been occasions when such a debate has been taken on the Adjournment. I think I recall my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South raising the matter at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party after it had happened.
  Mr. Spearing: I think that I raised it on the Floor of the House, which is the right place. I understood that what had happened then would not be repeated, because it was recognised to be a questionable procedure, at least for regulations, draft regulations and draft directives. My hon. Friend has satisfied the House at least in explaining the Adjournment question, but the explanatory memorandum that he placed before us said that the Commission's attitude on foot-and-mouth disease had yet to be clarified. If it has been clarified, should we not have had another memorandum? My hon. Friend has not made clear to what extent his explanatory memorandum shows that there is doubt. If there is not, what has happened since, and why was not a new explanatory memorandum issued to tell us that it had been changed?
  Mr. Strang: My hon. Friend may not be aware of the Written Answer we gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Miss Maynard) on 21st March, which pointed out that we had produced and placed in the Library for the benefit of hon. Members a statement explaining what had been decided. If my hon. Friend studies it, he will find that all the points he has raised are adequately met.
  Whatever the position with regard to taking these items on the Adjournment, perhaps in some respects it is a good thing that it has happened on a basically non-controversial item such as this. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will note the points that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend have made, and no doubt a satisfactory understanding can be reached for the future to avoid any feeling that these matters are not being handled in the way that hon. Members would like.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Why was not the Written Answer which was given to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Miss Maynard) on 21st March more
  1512
  widely publicised to hon. Members? Why was it merely put in the Library?
  Mr. Strang: If hon. Members are interested in a subject such as animal health and the Government answer by a Written Question, that answer is printed in Hansard. Therefore, we are hardly culpable on the ground that we are not drawing such matters to the attention of hon. Members. The directive, agreed in November and December, was published in the normal way in January.
  Perhaps I may now seek to answer some of the other points raised in this debate. We must see these measures in the context of the changing situation at disease throughout the Community and, indeed, throughout the world. It is striking that a tremendous improvement in the eradication of animal diseases and of foot-and-mouth disease in particular has taken place in other Community countries. If we examine recent data on reported outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in some of the member States and compare them with the data for 10 years ago, we see that the situation has been transformed. In France, for example, no outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease were reported in 1976, compared with 59 outbreaks a decade earlier. In Holland, reported foot-and-mouth outbreaks were down from 2,194 to nil in the same 10-year period. The trend has been similar in other countries of the Community, and, of course, Denmark has been free of the disease for several years and the Irish Republic has been free for a very long time. We must bear in mind that the national rules for importation which we have been operating hitherto were drawn up to cope with a much greater prevalence of the disease incidence on mainland Europe than that which we now face.
  The situation as regards swine fever shows the same general trend of reduction in numbers of outbreaks. Denmark and the Republic of Ireland have both been free of this disease for many years, considerably longer than we have in Great Britain. Although on a much reduced level of incidence, the disease continues to occur in other continental member States. I can cite the recent problems connected with it in the Netherlands. Therefore, we must support moves by the Commission to draw up agreed plans for the eradication of this disease, but

  1513
  at the same time we must ensure our own protection against it.
  The hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) mentioned the Standing Veterinary Committee. Its terms of reference are very limited, and it is clear that any important measure, such as swine fever eradication or safeguards against imports, must come before the Council.
  Hon. Members rightly mentioned the situation in regard to the Argentine. I have discussed this matter with my officials, because it sticks out like a sore thumb. Veterinary experts went to the Argentine and studied the situation there very carefully. I can probably write to those concerned on the technical matters because they are somewhat involved, but it is true to say that there are buffer zones between zones 1 and 2 and the situation still has to be worked out. We shall play a full part in that process. We have no intention in any of the areas of increasing the risk of foot-and-mouth disease.
  I assure the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) that Ministers have been fully aware of the importance of this issue, which has been raised time and again in Council discussions. I must admit that we got everything we asked for in the Council. We are dealing here not with a national matter but with a Community aspect.
  It would patently be nonsense if for the sacred cow of removing tariff barriers we were in any way to undermine or threaten the status of any member State, the United Kingdom included. Of course, the United Kingdom and Ireland are in a special position. We are islands, and that is of benefit to us. That becomes a corresponding benefit to the Community as a whole. There can be no question but that these circumstances and considerations have been put forcibly to our colleagues in the Council and have been accepted.
  All the best advice available in the country is unanimous that these arrangements adequately protect our national interest.
  Mr. Frank R. White: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  UNFAIR DISMISSAL ALLEGATION
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Frank R. White.]
  12.26 a.m.
  Mr. David Mitchell: I am glad to see the Minister of State on the Front Bench even at this somewhat late hour. First, there is a technical matter that I am sure he will understand. The terms under which I asked for this Adjournment debate refer to "wrongful dismissal". Technically the correct words are "unfair dismissal". However, the Minister and I will both be talking about the same thing.
  The law provides a procedure for dealing with cases in which people feel that they have been wrongly dismissed. This is not a party matter. It was introduced in the Conservative Industrial Relations Act 1971 and was re-enacted in the Labour Government's subsequent legislation.
  It is important that we should have a system whereby a man may have the means of appeal if he feels that he has been wrongfully dismisesd. If we do not provide such a procedure, we virtually create a situation in which a man's workmates who are uneasy or are convinced that he has been wrongfully dismissed have almost no alternative but to go on strike to secure him justice. Surely everyone will agree that a situation in which there is no redress other than the solidarity of workmates coming out on strike is wholly unsatisfactory and that the House was right to introduce the concept of a right of appeal against unfair dismissal.
  The intention of Parliament was quite clear. It was that if someone was unfairly dismissed there should be a procedure for reinstatement or compensation. What Parliament never intended was that if someone had been properly and fairly dismissed he should also get compensation. The problem which I raise tonight is that the legislation is not working out in the way expected by Ministers, Opposition spokesmen and Members in all parts of the House who follow matters of industrial relations with care and interest.
  This matter has been raised with me by the Smaller Businesses Association,

  1515
  now known as the Association of Independent Businesses. I have been approached by its president, Patrick de Laszlo, who has been involved in a case of such a nature. I have also been approached by its chairman, Colin Davris, and its secretary, Miss Ingram. Their attention has been brought to the sequence of events that I shall spell out to the Minister.
  In addition the Small Business Bureau, which has been advising the Conservative Parliamentary Party's Small Business Committee, has arranged a series of meetings throughout the country so that we can consult on the problems facing small businesses. I have to tell the Minister that the whole question of the Employment Protection Act and this aspect of it is one of the subjects most often raised with us. However, I do not want to stray into the generality of that. I shall turn now to the sequence of events which broadly occurs, although the phraseology may be different from one case to another.
  A man is dismissed. He signs on at the employment exchange and seeks unemployment benefit. If he lost his job because of misconduct, he is barred from unemployment benefit for six weeks under the very old-established rule that if one is responsible oneself for being unemployed one is not able to claim. Therefore, the first question which arises at this early stage is "Were you fairly dismissed? If you were, you have six weeks to wait".
  It is rather a leading question, and the answer very often, quite inevitably, is "No. It was unfair". I put it to the Minister of State that if the electors of Doncaster should decide to dispense with his services at the next General Election and he were asked such a question, he would reply "It was very unfair".
  The point having been established that the man feels that it is all rather unfair, a stack of leaflets is made available to him, explaining to him how to make a complaint, and he is given a form to fill in. Simple inquiry will reveal rapidly to the man that it costs him nothing to fill in the form and that he does not have to be very precise in explaining the reasons for his complaint.
  He learns that if he gets as far as a tribunal it is simply a case of telling his side of the story, and someone is there
  1516
  to help him. But the employer must tell his side of the story first, which makes it that much easier for the man. Of course, the case might be settled before it gets to the tribunal—another fact which the man can easily learn. He will also be told that he may withdraw the case if he does not want to bother any further. With all this knowledge, a very large number of people decide to fill in the complaints form. They also know that their only chance of getting six weeks' benefit is if the officer specially allows the benefit, which he is unlikely to do if they have not bothered to challenge their dismissal.
  All this is not a criticism of the Department or its officers. It is right that they should point out to people what their rights are. They would he failing in their duty if they did not give such information.
  Great latitude is allowed to an individual in filling in the complaints form. Again, that is quite right, because we do not want to penalise an ordinary working man for not being a good form-filler. The employer gets a copy and tries to fathom it out. Sometimes it is clear, but in many cases it is not, and I have examples with me.
  We have a situation in which it is very easy for an employee to arrive at the point where he makes a claim. The employer then has to decide whether to go to the hearing. At this point a conciliation officer appears and offers his services. He goes over the ground. Either the employer has committed some very small technical infringement, which it is extremely easy to do, and then he is in the wrong, or it is all correct.
  Suppose that a conciliation officer finds that everything which should have been done has been done in the correct way. That is not the end of it, because we then come to the question of what it will cost the employer to go to the hearing. He has to decide whether he will take his manager to give evidence of dismissal or whether he is prepared for any number of other allegations of reasons for dismissal because of the vagueness of the form.
  The employer might want to be there, in which case he might want to take along half a dozen or more witnesses. I know of a case in which the employer had 14 witnesses, only three of whom were

  1517
  called. A lot of time, and cost in terms of time, is involved for the employer.
  I now turn to the question of costs, because in the course of one of the consultation meetings to which I have referred I consulted a solicitor who handled a recent case which occupied a day and a half in court and numerous conferences, and his account amounted to£234. That is in addition to the cost falling on the employer in having to take time off work, as well as taking other people from work as witnesses and the like. We come to the dilemma facing the employer. He has a cast-iron case. He has done everything he should have done. He is entirely within his rights. Nevertheless, it will cost him between£200 and£400 to prove it.
  I want to quote from actual cases drawn to my attention by the Smaller Businesses Association. One person says:
  "We have, over the past two years, been approached by the ACAS on several occasions where ex staff have claimed unfair dismissal. In every case the official tried to coerce this company into paying extra money which the company negotiated and eventually paid a modified sum which averaged out at£75 on the three cases. However, it was decided last year to carry a case through to the courts, and we were successful in having the claim squashed, only to be told that our costs for our staff attending court would not be met, their personal transport costs would not be met, meal expenses would not be met, and above all, although the plaintiff was given legal aid, our solicitors' costs were to be stood by us. We feel that all this is fine were we to lose the case. My conclusion to this is quite simple: it is cheaper to be blackmailed even if you're right."
  In another case an employee had sought to change his terms of employment to terms which the company found unacceptable. The employee therefore left. When he went to sign on at the employment exchange, a clerk, following what is believed to be common practice, encouraged him to complete a wrongful dismissal form claiming that he had been dismissed unfairly, with an assurance that he would not be bothered further. The conciliation officer visited the firm for a day and verified that the employee had not been wrongfully dismissed and that all the forms had been kept correctly. He suggested that the company should pay£50 to the employee because that would be cheaper than instructing lawyers and fighting the case at an industrial tribunal.
  1518
  The association knows of several other cases which follow the same pattern. This seems to reveal a very serious situation in which, in effect, people are being blackmailed to pay money to people who have been quite properly dismissed from their employment, who have no case whatever and who are being handed cash on a plate.
  I asked the Department about this, and the Minister of State himself replied to my Question some time ago indicating that in about 3,000 cases a year "out-of-tribunal" settlements are being made in which the payments were less than£100. These are cases where the former employees have no grounds for complaint but where it is cheaper to give them the cash—in other words, to accept the blackmail—than to fight the cases before tribunals.
  This has been confirmed by independent research carried out by Ian Murray of the Daily Express, who made an investigation and wrote:
  "Thousands of firms say that they have been blackmailed by the State into paying compensation to people who have been perfectly fairly dismissed from their jobs."
  I put it to the Minister that that is not the intention of Parliament. I trust that it is not his intention. I am certain that he will assure us that it is not. It was never the intention of Parliament at the time the legislation was put on the statute book. I hope that, in the light of my raising the matter in this short debate, he will instruct his Department to look into it and see whether there is some action which should be taken.
  I make a simple suggestion about how it might be done. Since no costs fall on the employee, whereas substantial costs fall on the employer, the right and proper way would be for the ACAS representative to certify that there was a case to answer. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I make no criticism of the staff of ACAS. What they are doing is obvious and logical: it is cheaper to accept blackmail than it is to take a case to court. One does not have to be a genius to realise that. If, however, we introduced a procedure whereby, before a case went to court, the conciliation officer had to certify that there was a case to answer, that in itself would prevent this problem arising.

  1519
  If the Minister does not like that, some relatively minor cost—say,£10 or£20—could be imposed on the employee if it was found that there was no case to answer. I have no strong feelings about the figure, but I suggest that we need something sufficient to make him think twice before embarking on the rosy path which leads very easily from one point to another.
  I take this opportunity of saying in all seriousness to the Minister that I know that he shares my concern about unemployment. He will recognise, I hope, that although some parts of the employment protection legislation help to protect those in work, they are causing very real concern. The legislation is extremely complex, and it is creating costs and liabilities for small employers to the extent that they are becoming very wary of taking on new people. We must be careful about erecting barriers to the taking on of employees and the creation of new jobs.
  12.43 a.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Harold Walker): The issues raised by the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell) have been the subject of several letters which I have received from hon. Members in recent months.
  Before dealing with the specific matters dealt with by the hon. Gentleman, perhaps I should follow his lead and say a little about the origin, nature and importance of the statutory arrangements for dealing with unfair dismissal, so that we may see in perspective the criticisms which have been made.
  As the hon. Gentleman fairly reminded us, the statutory right not to be dismissed unfairly has been supported by both major political parties since it was first recommended by the Donovan Report. It was first included in the Labour Government's abortive Industrial Relations Bill in 1970. Subsequently it appeared in the Conservative Government's Industrial Relations Act, which was swept away in 1974. But, of course, the unfair dismissal provisions were preserved. It is important, therefore, to recognise at the outset that both major parties are agreed on the importance of this statutory safeguard.
  The arrangements have, I think, three features which are particularly relevant
  1520
  to this evening's debate. First, the legislation is rightly built on the proposition that employers must be prepared to justify a dismissal, if necessary, to an impartial and informed tribunal. In the Act the onus is placed on the employer to show why he dismissed the employee, to demonstrate that he did so for a fair reason and to show that in dismissing the employee for that reason he acted reasonably.
  Good employers have always appreciated that an employee should not be dismissed unless these conditions have been fulfilled. But since 1971 employers generally have known that they may be publicly accountable for their actions in this way. This is salutary knowledge, and it is important that these statutory rights should apply to employees in small firms in just the same way as they do to those in larger firms. All employees deserve this measure of job security. The Government attach particular importance to the provision in the Employment Protection Act, now in operation, which extended to small firms the right not to be unfairly dismissed.
  Mr. David Mitchell Mr. David Mitchell rose—
  Mr. Walker: I prefer not to give way. I do not blame him for it, but the hon. Member took rather longer that is normal.
  Secondly, employees' statutory rights are backed by effective enforcement arrangements. As hon. Members know, industrial tribunals can order reinstatement or re-engagement by the employer if that is practicable and the employee so wishes it. Alternatively, the tribunal may award compensation. The Employment Protection Act has given the tribunals the power to order reinstatement or re-engagement, as distinct from their previous power merely to recommend these remedies, and thus greater emphasis has, quite rightly, been placed on job retention than on compensation for loss of a job. Nevertheless, I am bound to say that, perhaps for understandable reasons, only a small percentage of cases result in reinstatement or re-engagement. The vast majority of cases result in compensation.
  Thirdly, a major and essential feature in the statutory arrangements is the accessibility of the industrial tribunals and the relative informality of their proceedings. Dismissed employees are

  1521
  obviously in a vulnerable position. There would be little point in a system of tribunals which employees found difficult to reach or whose procedures they could not understand. There has been recently an increasing tendency, more marked amongst employers than employees, for parties to be legally represented at tribunal hearings. This causes me some concern.
  Lawyers, of course, may have a rôle to play at the tribunals. But, with the greatest of respect for their profession, I hope that the increasing tendency for them to appear at hearings will not—as it might—lead to a more cumbersome and legalistic procedure concerned overmuch with legal proprieties and less with the merits of the case and to a situation where both employers and employees find it difficult to understand the language used at the hearings. I have heard it suggested that the industrial tribunals offer palm-tree justice. But palm trees offer convenient and simple shade when the heat is too much.
  The value of these provisions to employees can hardly be exaggerated. The number of applications to industrial tribunals involving alleged unfair dismissal has increased steadily since the legislation was introduced—from 5,000 in 1972 to 34,000 in 1976. There could hardly be more graphic proof of the importance to workers of this legislation. It is significant that since 1971 the proportion of industrial stoppages caused by dismissal has declined.
  Against that background, let me turn to the criticisms which have been made of the present arrangements. They can, I think, conveniently be divided into two classes—criticisms of the rules under which the tribunals operate, or the way their rules are administered, and criticisms of the rôle played by the conciliation officers of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service.
  As to the first kind of criticism, it is, as I have already emphasised, fundamental that every employee should have ready access to machinery for settling his grievance. On the other hand, it is, of course, important that employers should be protected against groundless complaints where the employee knows that he has no case and where he makes the complaint from perhaps malicious
  1522
  motives, which waste time and money. There is a difficult balance here to be struck. But I believe that we have got it about right. I do not think that a case has been made for tipping the scales any further against a dismissed employee.
  The main deterrent against malicious complaints lies, of course, in the powers of the industrial tribunals to award costs against either party if they consider a complaint to be frivolous or vexatious. This power is sparingly used, but it is used and it acts as a deterrent. It has been suggested that the power should be widened, but I cannot accept that such a change would be justifiable. A wider power might well deter applicants who were sincerely convinced of the merits of their cases. In passing, let me emphasise that it is not only employees who can insist on arguing groundless cases before tribunals. Employers may do it too.
  Another important aspect of the present arrangements is the procedures operated by the tribunals for trying to ensure that complaints that are out of scope are not proceeded with. Great care is taken to explain to applicants whose complaints seem to be out of scope that a tribunal is likely to have no power to consider their application and that it should therefore be withdrawn.
  If, nevertheless, such a case comes forward for a hearing, the tribunals are prepared to hold preliminary hearings, without witnesses in order to save the parties and their witnesses unnecessary trouble and expense, to consider the question of scope. I hope that this will become more widely known. It has been suggested that modified and more effective vetting procedures should be introduced. I am, however, yet to be convinced that this would be practicable or desirable when it is borne in mind that it is often difficult to be sure whether an application is or is not within scope.
  I am not claiming that the present procedures are perfect. We are always ready to consider representations on ways of improving them. In recent months officials of my Department have discussed with the CBI and the Institute of Personnel Management ideas put forward by those bodies for tightening up the procedures for dealing with what they consider to be groundless complaints. So far, however, the discussions have not

  1523
  persuaded me that the present arrangements need to be changed.
  Let me now turn to the rôle of the conciliation officers. As the hon. Gentleman recognised, all complaints of unfair dismissal go to a conciliation officer in the first place. These officers play a valuable rôle—the hon. Gentleman fairly recognised this—in setting nearly 60 per cent. of complaints. It is the task of a conciliation officer to try to settle complaints by conciliation between the individual and the employer. If the parties do not want conciliation, or do not reach a settlement, the case goes forward to a tribunal for hearing, unless the complainant withdraws it. Twenty per cent. of cases are withdrawn in this way without any settlement having been made at all.
  The conciliation officer gives his assistance only if both parties are willing to accept conciliation. He talks to employer and employee separately to try to clarify their point of view, and may also offer advice about the legislation.
  Last July the CBI raised with my Department the rôle of the conciliation officer and complained that he frequently proposes an instant solution which involved the payment of a sum by the employer to the former employee. This criticism was carefully considered by ACAS and the chairman subsequently met representatives of the CBI to discuss the matter.
  ACAS accepted that small conciliated settlements occur quite frequently, but it emphasised that it is not ACAS policy to press employers to offer small sums to settle complaints. The conciliation officer tries to help the parties to reach agreement, but he does not attempt to act as an arbitrator on the merits of the case. Nor does he seek to impose, or even to recommend, a particular settlement. ACAS appreciates that settlements are the responsibility of the parties concerned.
  1524
  ACAS pointed out, however, that conciliation officers find that in discussion with employers on what seems to be a complaint without much substance the employer may ask the conciliation officer whether there is a way of settling the complaint without going to the tribunal. In these circumstances the conciliation officer may suggest paying compensation. But he will be careful to point out to the employer at the same time the possible dangers of setting a precedent by doing so.
  ACAS also pointed out that its conciliation officers are also finding that where solicitors represent employers they overwhelmingly advise employers to settle complaints with a small sum of compensation. "Nuisance money", I am told, is the description which applied here.
  Following the meeting with the CBI, the Chairman of ACAS took a number of steps to ensure that the rôle of the conciliation officer was fully understood within and, as far as this was possible, outside ACAS, and that effective machinery was available for dealing with complaints. In this respect, regional directors were asked to discuss these matters and a leaflet was prepared describing the rôle of the conciliation officer and emphasising that he is not an arbitrator. We are considering other ways of publicising the conciliation officer's rôle.
  I shall look carefully at what the hon. Gentleman said about the complexity and lack of clarity of the appropriate forms.
  In conclusion, I should like to emphasise two points—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Wednesday evening, and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at four minutes to One 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 Carlisle.

NAVAL PERSONNEL: TAXATION
Baroness VICKERS: 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 will explain why members of the Royal Navy who work overseas for more than 30 days in a year will not receive tax relief whereas merchant seamen and those manning the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers and supply ships who do so will receive tax relief.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, members of the Royal Navy, like other Crown servants, are treated for tax purposes as performing their duties in the United Kingdom wherever they are serving and cannot therefore qualify for tax relief on overseas earnings. Unlike merchant seamen and those manning Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels, they are entitled to tax-free allowances which represent compensation for the extra cost of having to live outside the United Kingdom.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will look into this matter again? Does he not consider it rather unfair that the crews of the Admiralty Fleet Auxiliary tankers, civil servants overseas and British merchant seamen should get this credit, which amounts to a great deal of money? For example, merchant seamen have tax relief of between £500 and £1,000 a year; even a cadet in the merchant service gets £200. It is expected, when the Navy goes overseas, that they will visit ports, entertain people and mix with them. At the moment they cannot afford to do this. I understand that only the captain gets a very small entertainment allowance.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, although an apparent unfairness exists, and while it is true that the Merchant Navy has benefited very substantially from this concession, the position is not completely one-sided. The situation of serving soldiers, like other civil servants, brings substantial advantages. Although they have been asked, they are not willing to exchange those advantages for the alternative now offered to those serving in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, have they been asked whether they would like to have this privilege? If so, what form did the offer take? This is comparatively new. Would the Government look at the situation much more closely and examine whether they are being wholly fair to the servants of the Crown who are not civil servants but serving officers and men?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I understand that consultations took place prior to the announcement of this new tax concession. It must be remembered that one of the advantages that servants of the Crown possess is that they are not taxed abroad. They receive substantial tax-free foreign service allowances. In a sense, these allowances perform the same purpose as the rebates that are given to merchant seamen.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, if there is any suggestion of giving sailors, members of the Fleet, a tax rebate because they spend 30 days overseas, will the noble Lord make this scheme retroactive, so that those of us who spent four years overseas in the First World War can put in an application for a tax rebate?
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, the noble Lord said that, on the face of it, an apparent unfairness exists. If, as he said later, consultations took place, and those concerned chose not to take up this offer as an alternative, then no apparent unfairness exists. What consultations took place? This is in order to remove the feeling that there was unfairness.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, there were the usual consultations that take place on these occasions.

RUDOLPH HESS
2.42 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the result of the recent medical examination of Rudolph Hess and whether further consideration will now be given to his release from Spandau.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, it is not, I am afraid, possible for me to reveal the medical findings, which are confidential. I can, however, assure the noble Baroness that Hess's condition does not at present give cause for concern. The Joint Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mr. Judd, summoned the Soviet Ambassador on 29th April to ask him to persuade the Soviet Government to agree to Hess's immediate release. The French and United States Governments have recently acted similarly. We await the Soviet response to these latest approaches.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for a little encouragement in this matter, may I ask him whether he really thinks that the representations that we make are as firm as they could be? Could we have the representations that we make published in order that it may be absolutely certain that we are supporting —whatever the Russians may say—the release of this old and very ill man?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I can assure the House that our representations are firm and persistent. Of course we must act in concert with our fellow signatories of the Quadripartite Agreement. As to further publicity on what is being done, that is well worth considering; but I would repeat that we act as far as possible in concert with our fellow signatories, the French and the Americans.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, may I ask whether consideration might be given to release on parole
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rather than complete release, to which the Russians would never agree? Would the noble Lord not agree that release on parole might be possible and that we should pursue that side rather than the other?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we certainly include that possibility in our representations on this matter. We could not, of course, undertake unilateral action in this matter. That would be seen, rightly I think, as an infringement of the Four-Power Agreement.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that sometimes it might be a good thing to say to the Russians: "If you are not going to help to do what we think is right in this case, we shall oppose you on other matters: tit for tat"?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I can only reply that we shall certainly take seriously the advice given by the noble Baroness.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether any consideration has been given to the putting of pressure on the Russians to release Hess under the general terms of the Belgrade Meeting in June? Surely that would be a humane act which would be welcomed by all parts of the world, and it might put the Russians in a more favourable perspective on that occasion.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: That, my Lords, is a possible avenue of approach. Of course, there is nothing specifically related to this case in the Final Act; but no possibility of acting in a humane way in regard to this case will be overlooked by Her Majesty's Government.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether there is any truth in the theory that the real reason why the Russians do not want to release Hess is that he is one of the few surviving individuals to possess embarrassing inside information—possibly about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact—which the Russians do not wish to be revealed to the world at large?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think it would be inadvisable for

239
me to speculate upon Russian motivation beyond what I have already said to the House as to their attitude.

NAMIBIA: SECURITY COUNCIL NOTE
2.45 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the five Western members of the United Nations Security Council (the United Kingdom, the United States of America, France, West Germany and Canada) have presented a joint note to the Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa stating their view on the constitutional future of Namibia (South West Africa), and if so, what were the contents of the note.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the Five Western members of the Security Council delivered a joint démarche on Namibia to the South African Prime Minister on 7th April. The text of this démarche remains confidential, but in general it concentrated on the urgent need to fulfil the requirements for an early and peaceful settlement which will lead to independence for Namibia on a basis which will meet international acceptance.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, did the note include the proposal that there should be a general election in Namibia before an interim Government is established, with the United Nations given power to supervise? Also, in view of the report of the discussion in Namibia yesterday, is there not now the hope of a solution being reached along those lines?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I would join with my noble friend in the hope expressed towards the end of his supplementary. As to the first part, the requirements laid down in the Security Council Resolution 385 of January 1976 were adopted unanimously. We acted on that basis. They include, as my noble friend reminds us, territory-wide free elections to be carried out under international supervision in which all
240
political Parties, including the South-West Africa Peoples Organisation (SWAPO), can participate.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY POLICY
2.47 p.m.
Lord HYLTON: 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 when and how they intend to respond to the questions raised in the Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the letter from Justice published in The Times on 31st March 1977, having regard in particular to the new policy about plutonium announced by the President of the United States of America on 7th April 1977.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the Royal Commission's report raises issues of major national importance on which the Government will give their views as quickly as possible, in the form which then seems most appropriate. A number of subjects raised in the report have international dimensions, and the United Kingdom is continuing to participate positively and constructively in the discussion of such subjects, including those stemming from President Carter's announcement.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for what she has said. Could she say to what extent the Government understand and appreciate the fears, which are widespread in the country, that irreversible decisions may soon be taken about atomic power? Do the Government realise the extent of the concern felt in certain parts of the United Kingdom, such as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which are not directly represented in another place?
Baroness STEDMAN: Yes, my Lords; we realise the extent of those fears, and I am quite sure that when the report is published it will be realised that they have been taken into consideration.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, is it not a fact that, as stated in the letter to The Times, to which reference was made in the Question the police of the Atomic Energy Authority are armed with machine guns, that they have wide powers of search and that they are not responsible to Parliament or to any Government Department? Does that not raise real questions about civil liberties?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the police are special constables who are duly appointed under the Special Constables Act 1923. In the Atomic Energy Authority (Special Constables) Act which was approved by this House in the last Session, there were specific provisions to place special constables in the same position as regular police in relation to the possession and use of firearms, and to allow them to operate more than 15 miles from their station. These police officers are responsible to the Authority, and the Authority answers in Parliament through my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that to say that the Government will respond as quickly as possible to the important recommendations of the Flowers Report is not good enough—bearing in mind that your Lordships' House debated that report before Christmas and there has been plenty of opportunity for the Government to look into these matters? In response to President Carter's initiative, cannot the Government at least request BNFL to withdraw the application which they have made for reprocessing nuclear oxide fuels at Windscale?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, our report will be published. I cannot say that it will be published in advance of the Windscale inquiry, but it will be published and I cannot commit the Government until that report is available.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government bear in mind that it is very much safer to have the processing of fuel carried out in one or two places under international control than to have proliferation around the world such as has been started in other countries not adhering to the nonproliferation treaty?
Baroness STEDMAN: Yes, my Lords; we agree with my noble friend, and the Government share President Carter's concern about the importance of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, while enabling civil nuclear power to play its part in meeting world energy needs. We have played an active and constructive part in international discussion; on these matters. We shall continue to do so, and we are re-examining British nonproliferation policy in a way that will give weight to non-proliferation considerations, as well as to commercial considerations.
Lord SANDHURST: My Lords, for those of us who live in the Channel Islands, is there a possibility in the near future of any reassurance on the subject of the large development taking place at Cap de la Hague? We are very much afraid of pollution from both airborne and seaborne sources, and Cap de la Hague is only 15 miles from Alderney.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, that is a more specific question. I do not have the answer with me, but I will obtain some information and will advise the noble Lord in writing.

RHODESIA
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts will make a Statement on Rhodesia.

FURTHER EDUCATION AND THE VENABLES REPORT
2.52 p.m.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE rose to call attention to the present state of further education with special reference to the Venables Report; and to move for Papers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I have brought with me not only the final official report of the Venables Committee, but also an interim report which was published almost a year earlier. I have done so, because I am most anxious that the type of misunderstanding which surrounded a Venables Report almost 10 years ago, when the planning

243
committee of the Open University was set up, should not be repeated on this occasion. Anyone who looks at the interim report will find the statement that was sent out to the other universities, technical colleges, WEAs, extra-murals and the rest, asking for their views and advice on the proposals in this report on continuing education.
To begin with, I should like to get rid of any idea that the present Venables Report is a bit of empire building on the part of an Open University seeking to belittle or replace the marvellous work that has been done by so many people over the wide field of adult education. That is not its purpose. Indeed, the report clearly states that none of its present funds, which of course are used to promote graduate, post-graduate and research studies, could possibly be diverted to financing continuing education on a lower level. I hope that the Department of Education and Science and the whole educational establishment will consider and accept this Venables Report, which lays down the ground plan for an open college to follow the Open University. It is not even asked that the Open University should do this work itself. It is simply seeking to give the benefit of its experience gained during the last eight years in the techniques of mass communication to those who are working on a less demanding level.
I should also like to clear up another misunderstanding. Many of my own Labour and trade union colleagues were resentful about 10 years ago, because they said "What nonsense this is! Why put the cart before the horse? Why establish a university, when there is a crying need for more money to be given to adult education, to the extra-murals and technical colleges?" I want to say to them, quite frankly: first, that I was not asked to take over the work of other Ministers who were dealing with adult education; and, secondly, that from my experience in dealing with senior civil servants, and with my own senior colleagues, I was quite certain that there could be no real breakthrough if I had surrendered to the very considerable pressures that I was under to lower my standards and abandon the concept of an independent university. I was driven to this conclusion, because we are all the
244
prisoners of our early education, our early home life and our early schooling, and there was not the slightest sympathy among senior officials in the Treasury or in the Department of Education and Science for the concept of an Open University—with one wonderful exception.
Almost the only person I did not quote at that time, whom I wanted to involve in the experiment with the Open University, was Sir William Armstrong—as he then was, now Lord Armstrong. Of his own accord, he came along to Belgrave Square, where we had got ourselves into respectable accommodation away from the Curzon Street slum where the Department of Education and Science was then functioning, because he wanted to know whether it might be possible to have some courses related to the work of the Civil Service. It may have been because of his early Salvation Army beginnings—I do not know. But he helped me to shepherd five Parmanent Secretaries around the hospitable dining table of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in order that, in that grey twilight, they might appreciate that we were serious people. The main function of that dinner was to try to ensure that as much as possible of the profits, which I was sure would one day be made both at home and abroad from the sale of technical equipment, books and the rest, should go to the University or the Treasury, and only a minimum should go into private pockets. But on the educational side, I must also make an exception of Mr. Ted Short, as he then was, now a Member of your Lordships' House. It may be that he was influenced by the fact that he had been a secondary schoolmaster, and had got his degree by the long and lonely way of the London University external course.
It is very important at this stage that there should not be any renewal of the old resentments between the adult education establishment and the Open University. By its Charter, the Open University is asked not only to give degree courses, but also to help in a wider sense. If I may respectfully ask your Lordships to read this Venables Report and to come to your decisions on what it actually says, not on secondhand or third-hand reports that you may have of what it is supposed to be saying, I hope that you will agree with me that

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we can now make a dramatic advance in continuing education, which has always been called the Cinderella of the education world. Those of us who have any knowledge of the matter know of the inferior accommodation, the badly-paid staff and the heroic work which has been done. I have just had a note from the noble Lord, Lord Fulton, who says that he will be here for a short time but will have to leave, reminding me that he was a member of the original Tawney Committee on Adult Education.
Nobody is trying to take away from dedicated men and women the credit which is their clue. However, the time comes, whether you are dealing with Oxbridge, the red brick universities or with other kinds of adult education, when we have to summon up enough courage and imagination to take a fresh look at what is happening. If noble Lords study the membership of the present Venables Committee on Further Education, they will see that it has upon it representatives from the trade union side, industry and commercial colleges. It is not, in any sense, a group only of Open University people.
I should like to clear up another misunderstanding. The original Venables Committee had upon it representatives from areas of activity far outside those covered by the conventional universities. I was told that I had packed the committee with Vice-Chancellors. It was very useful having Lord Annan, Lord Fulton, and Lord Briggs upon it, as well as a few more of that kind. It was very useful indeed to have the help of some of the leading teachers and administrators in the older universities on the original planning committee of the Open University. But in addition, Sir William Alexander, as he then was, now a Member of your Lordships' House, very gallantly accepted my invitation to be a member of the planning committee, and later on he helped us in many ways. Dr. Roy Shaw, who is now Secretary General of the Arts Council, was the Professor of Adult Education at Keele University. He did a wonderful job. Most of his colleagues were scared stiff, but he and I went around the country speaking to ice cold meetings of university people. They thought that the Open University was going to take away their jobs. Now, of course, we are the greatest of friends. They have dis-
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covered that the Open University needed them and that it has enlarged their opportunities. Indeed, one cannot operate an Open University without the help of the staff of other universities. Therefore we have won our spurs; that is, our academic acceptance. It is from a position of strength that the Open University can now venture to advise and offer to cooperate with others in order to find out whether the techniques which they learned in those years can be applied.
There was a time when the Open University was almost strangled at birth. I want to express my thanks to Mrs. Margaret Thatcher for the rescue job which she did at that time. As Shadow Minister of Education, she went out to Walton Hall, where she saw that she was dealing with serious, responsible people. They had a marvellous argument with one another. She came away not entirely convinced but knowing that this was a serious proposition. That visit stood us in good stead. When there was a change of Government in 1970, Mr. Iain Macleod became Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had the axe ready for execution when Mrs. Thatcher stayed his hand. Regarding the tragic early loss of Mr. Macleod, I want to say how generous he was to my husband when he became Minister of Health. He said, "I can't find anything much here to change", or wows to that effect. They were good friends. Neither of them was of the stuff that good Lobby fodder is made of, and very often they paired. If Mr. Macleod had had more time and could have visited Walton Hall to meet the people who were working there, I feel certain that he would have come around to an acceptance of its value. But, alas! his life was tragically cut off. Mrs. Thatcher was a very good friend indeed at that time, because she knew about it, although did not agree with everything.
As I have mentioned the Leader of the Opposition, may I say a word about the Leader of the Government, Mr. Harold Wilson, as he then was, in the 1964 to 1970 Parliament. However much they may disagree with him on other issues, it is too discreditable for people nowadays to try to take from him his pride in the fact that without his obstinate, steadfast insistence there would have been no Open University.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: My Lords, that happens to be the truth. Mr. Wilson, as he then was, had little or no support among his colleagues, although one of the exceptions to the rule who will address your Lordships later is sitting in front of me. It was very cold, windy weather, but Mr. Wilson held out for the Open University and was incredibly generous towards me. He had a few other matters to attend to, so I was given a free hand. He gulped a little when I said that I did not like the consortium idea: that the Open University had to establish its academic credentials as an independent university, taking second place to no other university, otherwise we had no right to ask students to undertake a long, hard road of study.
I should like to continue my roll of honour, but time forbids. Too many are involved. However, again we were fortunate in having Sir Hugh Greene as head of the BBC. I hope that the present good relations between the BBC and the Open University academics will continue. While a College of the Air dealing with people who left school at 15 or 16, people of any age, sex or colour, will not be doing exactly the same work as the Open University or applying the same techniques as the Open University, very much can be learned from the success of the older establishments.
Also it is true that we have technical colleges all over the country, although some parts are better served than others. There are many people who simply cannot leave their homes to go to a central place of education. There can be the intelligent young wife with young children, who simply cannot go out in the evening. There can be the invalids. As noble Lords know, the Open University has done more for invalids, who are natural students, than all of the other universities put together, because it is able to get through to them in their own homes. Then there are people who simply do not want to go out again at the end of a day's work. Also, they would find it very difficult to go out again for reasons of travel, expense, and distance. Instead they have the facilities which the Open University provides. They have their correspondence courses, their counsellors and advisers. Also, they have the oppor-
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tunity of meeting one another now and again at summer schools. There is not a single part of the old, established field of adult education which needs to be left out.
However, we do need to get rid of a certain dowdiness that is caused, if you like, by poverty. If the adult education system has been called the Cinderella of the educational world, I hope that Sir Peter Venables will be regarded as the Prince Charming who is waiting to take her to the ball, because that is what the Open University is seeking to do. We were fortunate beyond words to have Sir Peter Venables, that distinguished teacher and administrator, as chairman of the original planning committee of the Open University. We have been doubly lucky in persuading him to be chairman of this Committee on Continuing Education. If his committee has its way—and I repeat that the committee is not composed solely of Open University people—then I believe we can put fresh currents of enthusiasm and opportunity over this whole field.
I know just how bitterly some people, like my good friend Michael Young, felt when they could not persuade me to abandon my type of university and help with the work they were doing at a lower level. Michael Young is a very distinguished worker in adult education; indeed, he was one of the first to be given an honorary degree by the Open University. But I was not acting out of caprice. I said that senior civil servants and Ministers were prisoners of their early days—I was a prisoner too; I did not quite see myself in that role at the time but, looking back, I realise that I, too, was completely the product of my early youth. Could anyone come to me and tell me that because a man earns his living digging coal, or assembling cars, or running a lorry, or delivering letters, or emptying dustbins, he is intrinsically intellectually inferior to another man who earns his living in a lawyer's office, or in the pulpit, or in a doctor's surgery? Your Lordships cannot tell that to me because I have the advantage of knowing both worlds, and there are the natural students in both worlds and also the natural non-students.
All that we are seeking to do is something that I think any country must do that

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wants to be called civilised. What we are seeking to do is to bring the best in the Arts and the best in education within reach of the entire population. In most fields of government it is laws and regulations and restrictions; but in this magic world you do not have to go to a technical college, you do not have to go to a concert hall, you do not have to go to a theatre, museum or gallery: you are absolutely free to choose—why should you go if you do not want to? But if you have the wish or the need they ought all to be brought within your reach much more so than at present.
So in those early days of the Open University I saw it as a continuation of the work that I was asked to do in promoting the Arts; and, in conclusion, I should like to say that when I was first doing the work as Minister responsible for the Arts I received a great deal more support and encouragement from your Lordships' House than I got from the other place—maybe because more of your Lordships were involved. The noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, came a-courting; he was delighted—we wiped out the debt at Covent Garden, and they were getting more money than they had before. Why should not your Lordships show more interest, with so many people who have the time and opportunity and public concern to help to look after the great museums, galleries, theatres and the rest? Why should you not be delighted? The other House, which is more important —if your Lordships will forgive me—than your Lordships' House because it is the elected Chamber, was overwhelmed with economic and other problems and therefore it had not the same time to give to the Arts. I am appealing to your Lordships to do the same job again over the whole field of adult education. Read the Venables Report; read the Interim Report. I have checked that there are some copies available in the Printed Paper Office. I would also respectfully ask your Lordships to read the book that our distinguished Vice-Chancellor, Sir Walter Perry, has written because this tells in great detail the early story.
So I end as I began, my Lords, by saying that the Open University had a long period of gestation and a difficult birth. There is no reason why the College of the Air should go through all
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those difficulties and misunderstandings again. The Open University now, out of strength, is able to hold out a helping hand to the whole field of adult education, and I hope that hand will be grasped as warmly as is now done in the relationship between the newest of our universities and the oldest. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.16 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of DURHAM: My Lords, I am sure all Member!, of your Lordships' House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, for giving us an opportunity to debate this report. I am only sorry that the list of speakers appears to be so thin, not least because this leaves me in a somewhat exposed position. I also greatly welcome the initiative taken by the Open University in commissioning the report. I am afraid I am not able to follow the noble Baroness in commenting on the internal political complexities which lie behind the relationship between the Open University and other bodies, but I should like to take this opportunity of registering satisfaction that the Open University exists, expressing thanks for those who worked so hard to set it up, and also to see this report as evidence of its continuing liveliness.
I wish to make only three brief points, but I believe the first two points go to the heart of the general section of the report, which is about the concept of continuing education rather than about the particular contribution made to it by the Open University. The first point I wish to make is to commend the very broad understanding of the objectives of continuing education which the report spells out. I do not believe that we in this country have yet really latched on to the concept of continuing education or seen its importance, not only for individuals but for the health of our society as a whole.
It is good to see the end of the old distinction between vocational and non-vocational education, particularly since this can so easily lead to bias against so-called non-vocational education in times of financial stringency. I am sure the report is absolutely right when it emphasises the need to help individuals to grow, to widen their experience and to become more responsive to change. I

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should like to quote a few sentences from paragraph 127 of the report, in which I believe this is set out extremely well. That paragraph says:
"Education enables individuals to cope with change and also provides the means to influence and effect change. Continuing education must enable individuals to grow and develop so that they have greater powers of choice, and are able effectively to participate in influencing the course of future changes, which may concern them not only as individuals but also as members of groups, and as part of a social structure. A main purpose of continuing education may thus be seen as enabling individual citizens in a democratic society more freely and constructively to change and sustain that society".
I regard that as an extremely important statement of aims. Perhaps one might sum it up in terms of flexibility, critical awareness, balance, and a broad perspective. These are the qualities needed in a changing society by very many of its citizens—qualities, I dare to say, needed even more than technical expertise. But I also want to add to that list the word "integration". Integration seems to me of fundamental importance in an era of cultural fragmentation. If I dare to put in one piece of jargon from some American philosophers of education, may I slip in the word "synoptics", which, in case noble Lords are mistaken, in this context has nothing to do with the Gospels. "Synoptics" is used of those subjects in the educational curriculum whose aim is to integrate and relate other skills and realms of meaning to one another.
The aim of synoptics, broadly, is to raise the large questions about meaning which can easily be ignored or by-passed in the various specialisms. In terms of the curriculum, typical examples of synoptic subjects are history, philosophy, and, of course, religion. But just because they have this broad function, they can too easily be overlooked in educational programmes geared to more immediate practical concerns. I would say that it is when human beings learn to integrate that they begin to grow. Education is not a straight line progression up a narrow one-way track. It is at its most exciting and productive precisely when different areas of knowledge are brought together, and this can most easily happen in those who are adult or at least relatively mature.
I believe that the qualities of flexibility, balance, breadth of perspective, that I
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have earlier referred to, arise out of this kind of experience. That is why I very much hope that the integrative subjects will not be overlooked in the field of continuing education, and why I was a little disturbed that page 104 of this report, where there is a list of suggested adult concern courses, is rather thin on that kind of topic. For example, even with a very wide selection of problems which adults are supposed to encounter, I see no whisper at all of anything to do with ethics, which seems very odd indeed, but that nevertheless you can, if you like, learn how to run a local pressure group. I suppose it is a sign of the times that we should have the one without the other.
My second point concerns the availability of continuing education, and in particular the difficulty of trying to ensure that the people who most need it are encouraged to make use of it. I think there are some very helpful practical recommendations in the report, which I hope the Government will take note of. In particular I draw attention to the suggestion of positive discrimination in favour of those who have not had a higher education in any form up to the point of wishing to join a course. I also hope that what is said about paid educational leave will be taken extremely seriously. But even recommendations of this kind, I believe, are not going to help very much in the crucial period of two or three years after the 16 year old has left school, when attitudes towards further education are becoming set. It is not uncommon to find 17 or 18 year olds in this category who, tragically, have deeply resented and deliberately wasted their last year at school, who are now ready to see the point of further education and yet do not know how to get back into the educational stream. I believe that much more attention needs to be given to that crucial period. Perhaps we need to think of a much more gradual transition between the world of education and the world of work from the age of 15 onwards. Ideally, I believe, work should become an accepted part of school experience around this time, and, conversely, further education an accepted part of work experience. This, of course, would mean national planning of continuing education as a whole, not hiving it off as something quite separate from what is done through schools.

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While on the subject of availability and motivation, I should just like to add that the voluntary agencies, including the Churches, have an enormous network of contacts, often among the very people who would not spontaneously think of making use of the educational facilities which are available; and it seems to me that there is a very fruitful area of cooperation here between the voluntary and the statutory authorities which ought to be exploited more than it is.
That leads to my final point, a very brief one, which is simply to remind your Lordships' House that the Churches are among the oldest protagonists of continued education, and, within the voluntary sector, are still among the largest agencies in providing it. The British Council of Churches in particular has tried to do some forward thinking on the subject and has recently launched a National Ecumenical Project in Further Education, for which it is hoping to appoint an executive officer. In a way the project reflects the traditional interests of the Churches, investigating the relationship between further education and the 1944 Act, looking critically at some of the values being transmitted through further education, being concerned with the personal and pastoral aspects of the whole educational enterprise; but also, and very significantly—and I have not seen mention of this anywhere else—developing multiracial inter-faith and international awareness in further education. This seems to me a highly important aim in today's society.
The Church of England greatly welcomes the Government's initiative in agreeing to set up a National Advisory Council for Adult and Continuing Education, and I would end by saying that, in view of the Churches' close concern with the subject and the new work which it is hoped to begin, we believe it is important that the Churches should be represented on any such council, at national and at local level, preferably through the British Council of Churches. We also hope that in this and other ways the existing work being done in the voluntary sector will be recognised and supported.
3.29 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank
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the noble Baroness for initiating this debate and allowing us to range over the whole field of further education, with special reference to the Venables Report, of course, but looking at further education as a whole. It is about this that I want to make one major point. Before I do so, I should like to thank the right reverend Prelate for his extremely thoughtful, and in some ways provocative, speech, which helps us to think in terms of the wider issues in which this question is set.
In particular, I should like to refer to the question of work experience and the possibility of placing it earlier in the curriculum, which is absolutely right. However, we must aim at something even more far-reaching than that. We must work out a whole system of education in which school and future adult working life are not as divorced as they are at the moment. In the great book The Need for Roots that the French writer and secular martyr, Simone Weill, wrote for France at the request of General de Gaulle's Government in exile, there is a remarkable passage where she tries to sketch out a scheme which involves learning what work is about at a very early age. It starts in the home, as still happens in a great many homes where children start to learn about work by helping their mothers about the house, or in farms, small businesses or workshops. Unfortunately, it cannot be applied to large factories and that was one of Simone Weill's complaints. She worked out, very roughly, a scheme as to how, throughout education, work and schooling can be kept in touch. It would be most difficult in our highly complex and industrialised society but I am sure that we should have it at the back of our minds as a goal at which to aim.
That goes further and wider than the one main point which I wish to make this afternoon—that is, the need in this area for a strategy, and for a machinery to carry out that strategy. We are seeing the beginnings of this with the acceptance of the National Council for Adult and Continuing Education. However, I should like to see a very strong organisation—a very strong machinery—for coordinating a strategy for all education beyond the age of 16. It may be right to make the boundary 18 years, or any other age, but I cannot help feeling—and this is my Party's point of view—that the

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proper moment at which to start pulling all further education together (and I mean "further" with a small "f") is the moment when compulsory schooling finishes.
That strategy, which would deal with all education beyond that stage, should have several guidelines—several words which define our objectives. The first is unity. All these forms of education—vocational and non-vocational, further, higher, permanent, recurrent, whatever we like to call them, down to the sixth form colleges and the colleges for further education—should be treated and looked at as one. Within that unity we must, of course, have diversity. By unity I do not mean by any manner of means that we should look for uniformity. On the contrary, we should look for as many different forms as possible. I think that the merging of the lines between the treatment of vocational and non-vocational training is long overdue. After all, we have always had fairly odd ideas about this. A great deal of the highest of high education is merely vocational training for dons and there is no real dividing line for the future.
That means that we must do our utmost to diversify forms of education, particularly in the country where people can reach it without having to travel too far. Of course, the Open University and an open college are wonderful institutions, but I wonder whether we are right in closing some of our country education colleges, such as those at Hereford and Alnwich, instead of using them as more diversified colleges for further education of different kinds.
The third guideline is mobility. We must try as much as possible to have modular courses and credit systems so that students and staff can cross as easily as possible from one sector to another. There has been far too much watertight departmentalising in the past, and we must work away from that. Fourthly, there is the necessity for communication —for a good advisory careers service. We already have one, but it should go much further back into school life, just as work experience may go further back into school life. It should have an overall strategy for telling people much more and getting across to them all of
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the choices open to them, both in work and in education, at all phases of their careers.
Fifthly, we should aim for universality —that is, we should hope that no one will slip through the net. Of course, after a certain age it must all be voluntary but even before that the question of day release must be considered. I do not think that we have concentrated enough on trying to ensure that every boy or girl who leaves school at the age of 16 can have day release if he or she wishes it. In small firms it is often extremely difficult, and there are various other situations. Of course, it is not uniformly welcomed, even by the pupils themselves, but there is a real problem here which should be tackled and which can best be tackled by an overall view of the whole situation.
More help needs to be given to older students. On previous occasions I have raised in your Lordships' House the question of assistance with travel and the discrimination that seems to exist in favour of students under the age of 26 who can obtain various rebates on this, that and the other, as opposed to older students who may be just as badly off—indeed, if they have given up a job and have several children to support they may be worse off. I fully accept that the answers which I received to my questions are all that one can expect at present and with the present structure. However, we need to take an overall look at this whole area and we need a body which will produce this kind of strategy and machinery.
I am also delighted that there will be a National Council. It will be much better than the welter of nominated advisory committees that we have tended to have in the past. What we really need is what only it can give us and that can be achieved only if it is set up wholeheartedly and given real power to take initiatives and to plan. We have the vast body of the Department of Education and Science, which has often been criticised for lack of strategy. In one sense that is a totally fair criticism: in another sense it is unfair because I am not sure that it is for Government Departments in their Civil Service sense to develop strategy. That is something that must come at the will of politicians. However, in the educational field, it does not necessarily come from politicians. Secretaries of State for Education come and go. Not all that long

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ago we had a period where they came and went rapidly. Let us hope that that is not the case now. We have had good ones and bad ones—I think that now we have a very good one. We have had ones who have known nothing about education whatsoever and some who have known quite a lot—and the present one is one of those. What I am saying is that the system is not geared to producing an overall strategy and producing the machinery which will apply it.
On the one hand, you have a change of Secretaries of State who may, or may not, know something about the subject, and underneath a machinery which is there and ready to be used but which cannot work without political instigation. I think that that is what needs to be produced, and I think that that can be produced only by a national, independent body which is really given power to look at the whole area and to start things moving under way, subject of course to political control. What we need to do is to put a soul and a heart into this great machinery of the DES to produce something to improve and increase all the educational possibilities from the age of 16 on, from the end of compulsory schooling. I cannot think of anything which would be more healthy and more useful to the whole of our national life than that.

RHODESIA
3.41 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement on Rhodesia made this afternoon in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will make a Statement about Rhodesia.
"Discussions of the Rhodesian question have taken place with the US Government over the past three weeks. I met Mr. Vance on 6th May. We were in full agreement on the best way to carry matters forward.
"Both Governments wish to reiterate their determination to work for the independence of Rhodesia under
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majority rule in 1978. They have been encouraged by their contacts so far to believe that detailed consultations about an independence constitution and the necessary transitional arrangements could be a satisfactory way to achieve this. They have therefore agreed that Britian and the United States should now enter into a phase of intensive consultations with the parties.
"For this purpose, Her Majesty's Government have decided to establish a Consultative Group to make contact with the parties, which will visit the area as necessary, including Salisbury. It will be headed by Mr. J. A. N. Graham, Deputy Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He will leave for Africa next week.
"Mr. Vance has agreed to appoint a senior United States official to work with the Head of the British Consultative Group."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends, I should like to thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for this somewhat brief but nevertheless important and constructive Statement. We certainly welcome the realisation by the Government of the advisability and, indeed, the necessity of organising a Consultative Group to visit Rhodesia itself. We hope that this will imply, and at any rate allow for, some resident mission which will be able to stay in Salisbury under the auspices of, or within this particular group. We also welcome the co-operation of the American Government in this initiative; one which we have always regarded as imperative if some peaceful transfer to majority rule is to be achieved.
I wonder whether, when he replies, the Minister would give some assurance that the appointment of Mr. Graham, obviously a very distinguished Foreign Office official and one certainly to whom we wish every success in his task, in no way indicates that the personal involvement of the Foreign Secretary will be reduced in the question of settlement in Rhodesia, particularly of course following on his own visit to Southern Rhodesia which was an initiative that we welcomed on this side of the House.

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We are concerned with the continued delay in reaching a settlement but realise that it is not a question of settling any fixed date. This is one that must work itself out. But we are very concerned with the continuing guerrilla attacks and the horrible destruction by all sides of innocent civilians in reaching a settlement. So, obviously, we hope for as speedy a conclusion as possible, although we do not say that any fixed time must be laid down. On this side of the House we certainly welcome the setting up of this Consultative Group. I wonder whether the Minister could also say in replying if it is possible at this stage to make any comment as to the powers of the Consultative Group, when there is reference to the "necessary transitional arrangements". As the noble Lord will be aware, we on this side of the House, and indeed I believe most noble Lords, are anxious that there should be some form of general consultation with all the peoples of Rhodesia in the setting up of any Government. I would therefore ask whether this Consultative Group would be able to make such a recommendation.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the Minister for repeating this Statement, which undoubtedly is encouraging so far as it goes. I have only two questions to ask. Is it still the objective to reconvene if possible, and when possible, the Geneva Conference? If that is so, is it still the intention, or is it not the intention, that when we convene there should be an American co-chairman, or has that idea been dropped?
Secondly, who exactly would be the parties referred to in the third paragraph of the Statement. It says that there shall be "intensive consultations with the parties". Would that be the so-called front line Presidents, on the one hand, and all political Parties in Rhodesia, including Mr. Mugabe? Or would it be impossible to rope in Mr. Mugabe in view of his attitude? Those are the only two positive questions I should like to ask.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and to the noble Lord for the support they have given to this Statement and its objectives. In reference to what the noble Baroness said, the possibility of an outpost
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in Salisbury emanating, as it were, from the Consultative Group is one for consideration in the light of the circumstances as they develop during the consultations. We certainly do not rule it out. We shall be glad to consider it. The question at the moment is perhaps somewhat premature, but it certainly has potential value. On the assurance the noble Baroness sought about the continued personal involvement of my right honourable friend, of course I can give that assurance without reservation. Mr. Graham is a high-ranking official of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who works directly under the Secretary of State.
As to the powers of the Consultative Group, they are of course consultative. They have functions rather than powers. I would say they have the important function of conducting consultations with a wide range of interests so that they can report to my right honourable friend, and equally the American appointee will no doubt report pail passu to his own Minister. Finally, on the question of the transitional arrangements, certainly the consultations will seek to clarify what are the most hopeful bases for the transitional arrangements as well as for the establishment of majority rule in the sense that we have always pursued it.
May I briefly refer to Lord Gladwyn's two points. As to the objective to proceed by conference, whether or not in Geneva, or on the analogy of the Geneva Conference, I think this might wisely be left to the results of the Consultative Group's experience and report. No possibility of a follow-up is ruled out. As he asked which parties would be consulted, perhaps I might put it like this: certainly all parties and interests in Rhodesia, black and white—and by "parties" one does not necessarily restrict the term to political Parties—would be the first tier, as it were, of consultation. But beyond that, as a kind of second tier, there are important interests as I would call them—front line Presidents, Dr. Vorster and others outside Rhodesia—with whom it would be not only useful but necessary to conduct consultations, but in the first instance "parties" refers to those in Rhodesia.
3.50 p.m.
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, I wish to add to the welcome which

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my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, have given to the appointment of this Consultative Group. The lesson of past events, and particularly of the Geneva Conference, has been that we must carry with us the opinion of the various sections inside Rhodesia; if there is to be a settlement, it must be a settlement endorsed by Rhodesians. From my personal knowledge, Mr. Graham will be of great help in these kind of negotiations.
In this context, of course, the co-operation of the United States, which was absent in the past, is an enormous strengthening factor and very much to be welcomed. Obvious questions remain. When will the guerrilla warfare be called off in order to enable any interim Administration which emerges through any agreement that is arrived at, really to take peaceful charge of operations for the future leading to independence? But such matters are not for today, and I should just like to add to the support which has been expressed by my noble friend and Lord Gladwyn.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I wish in turn warmly to thank the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, for his contribution, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, described the other night, is always statesmanlike.
Lord GLADWYN: I certainly did, my Lords!
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Indeed the noble Lord did, my Lords, and I nodded in warm agreement. I strongly agree that a settlement can only be one endorsed in the first place by the peoples of Rhodesia. The consultative process is designed in the first instance to ensure that basis for settlement. I equally warmly welcome what Lord Home said about the immense value, indeed the necessity, of the fullest United States co-operation, in this as in so many other matters of a constructive character, and I am glad to say to the House that we are assured of their fullest co-operation.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether, until the African leaders have welcomed both the objective and this committee which is to be set up, it will ever get off the ground?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my information is that this move, this Consultative Group, will be accepted and even welcomed by the wide range of African opinion. It has indeed been sufficient for my right honourable friend to make the Statement of Intention to set up this group, which will leave next week.

FURTHER EDUCATION AND THE VENABLES REPORT
Debate resumed.
3.54 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, returning to the Venables Report, although Chancellor of the Open University, I have never considered myself an expert on education and I shall therefore not detain your Lordships for long.
Sir Peter Venables is a remarkable man —a former Vice-Chancellor of Aston University, Birmingham, and the first chairman of the original planning committee of the Open University. I have never quite understood how that committee sat down and considered this question: Supposing we had a university where students did not attend in lecture halls, but had long-distance teaching—correspondence courses, set books, local counsellors and tutors and a residential summer school. The degree would be at least as difficult to get as at a conventional university and they would have to pay between £500 and £1,000 for it. How many men and women between 21 and 90 would wish to apply?" Today, the present figures of 50,000 students are within the forecasts of the original Venables Committee.
Now he and another committee have turned their attention to continuing education as a whole, asking themselves, "What would be in the national interest in this field, and what can the Open University do to help?" I think rightly that what they called "continuing education" meant education of all kinds after compulsory school leaving age, this embracing the universities, conventional universities, the Open University, the polytechnics, colleges of further education, classes conducted by local education authorities, the WEA and so on.

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I suggest that in the age in which we live continuing education deserves to be met, not only where it is vocational but also where it is not vocational. Owing to the advances of modern knowledge and the speed of change, there are a great many men who had intended to spend their lives in a particular occupation but who are going to have to change that occupation in middle age because of changes in technology. Perhaps even more, there are many whose knowledge was sufficient to qualify them for a professional qualification when they left university but who are now quite out of date unless they bring themselves up to date by further educational courses.
I suppose that any doctor who studied chemistry 20 years ago knows that very few of the number of drugs of which he learnt then exist today, and that he has no knowledge unless he brings himself up to date with the incredible number of new ones. This applies just as much in the field of law as in any other sphere; indeed, the professional organisations themselves conduct courses, quite expensive ones, at least to try to bring the lawyer up to date with his law. Apart from vocational education, I would agree with the right reverend Prelate that there is also a need for further education which is not vocational, and I may cheer him up a little when I say that a new course is shortly starting on the Open University called "Man's Religious Quest", of which I am sure he would approve.
Professor Galbraith recently said, "Democracy is based on education". That, he said, did not mean that everybody should have a degree, but that democracy implied choice and that choice demanded the ability to discriminate. There are many men doing eight-hour shifts in factories who in the course of a day never have to take a decision of any kind at all; but in a democracy education, even if it has to be at a distance, is essential, and this goes on so long as anybody feels that he would better himself as a citizen by further education. At the Open University we have one student who was a miner until he was 65, and for years after he retired he applied himself to 0 and A levels and is now qualified to go to a conventional university, but at 79 he has become a student of the Open University.
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If one seeks to ask what it is the wish of the Venables Committee to see—indeed, this applies to the Russell Committee before it—I thought the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, rightly expressed it when he said that what we want is a Government decision; what is lacking is what he called a "strategy" and "machinery" as a whole. This is the main message of both the Russell Committee and of this committee—there is a lack of direction and a lack of organisation—and what the Russell Committee recommended and what the Venables Committee is recommending have very much in common. After all, the main recommendations of the Russell Committee were the institution of a National Council for Adult and Continuing Education, a National Development Council for Adult Education and similar local councils in every local education authority, while the Venables Committee recommends a National Council for Adult and Continuing Education, a National Education Advisory Council and a national network of resource centres. I shall not go into the details, but I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Lee of Asheridge for introducing this debate this afternoon because, apart from anything else, we shall very much hope to learn the decisions of the Government and what are their views.
I believe that it was my noble friend Lady White who introduced the debate on the Russell Report. In reply to questions as to what was the Government's decision, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said for the then Government:
"It is of course essential to discuss with the representatives of the local education authorities and the other main interests concerned how they view the recommendations of the report. Progress is substantial and will continue to be so. An exchange of views about this rate of growth in relation to the terms of the report and in the context of further education generally is a necessary step, and it is to this end that our preparatory work is now going forward."—(Official Report, 23/5/73; col. 1220.)
It is almost exactly four years since that was said. I hope very much that we shall not be told that, after four years, the negotiations are still going on. What, as both the Russell Committee and the Venables Committee thought, is really wanted is will on the part of the Government in the whole field of continuing education, the provision of what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, called

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a "strategy"—that is, really deciding whether the recommendations of the Russell Committee and the Venables Committee are right—and, if so, the setting up of what the noble Lord called the "machinery"; that is, the organisation to that end.
4.3 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Gardiner asked how one set about looking at the problems of something called a university when one was doing it by remote control. In my tribute to Sir Peter Venables, the chairman of the planning committee, I want to point out what a remarkable job he did. I greatly stress his personal role, but I also want to pay tribute to what the planning committee did in stripping the university system down to its chassis, having a look at it and putting all the upholstery and so on aside in case we needed it. Sir Peter's was a remarkable chairmanship—I think that he is the most remarkable chairman I have ever sat under, and I always said that he wrote the minutes of the meetings in advance. He played a most valuable role in the committee and also during the formative years of the university itself, and he has now produced what I think is a major contribution to all our thinking on continuing education.
As my noble friend Lady Lee has pointed out, the status of the report is that it is still very much a consultative document. It is there to he discussed by all the interested parties, including your Lordships, and it was set up by the Council of the Open University because we had to consider the implications of the objects of our Charter, which laid down that:
"The objects of the University shall be the advancement and dissemination of learning and knowledge by teaching and research, by a diversity of means such as broadcasting and technological devices appropriate to higher education, by correspondence tuition, residential courses and seminars and in other relevant ways, and shall provide education of University and professional standards for its students and—
and this is what we are really talking about here—
"to promote the educational well-being of the community generally."
That is the operative phrase in terms of what we are talking about today, because I will go so far as to say that, in terms of the first part of the objectives—the
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setting-up of the University and its functions—the Open University has done a remarkable job.
The success of the Open University undergraduate programme has, without question, been spectacular. The courses and teaching techniques are world famous. Wherever I go in the world, in the advanced countries with their sophisticated university systems and in the less developed countries which are seeking to develop higher education, the Open University of Great Britain is recognised as the outstanding educational experiment of the second half of the 20th century. Indeed, it is no longer an experiment. It has acquired a wealth of experience and has evolved techniques both of learning at a distance and of face-to-face tutorials and has produced teaching materials of I he highest quality which can be adapted elsewhere. I say "adapted" intentionally because I feel that everyone will agree that education is something that must come out of the idiom and the felt needs of the various cultures.
In terms of the countries which are now taking advantage of the Open University's facilities, that is certainly true. We said very firmly that the materials that we were producing were only relevant in so far as they had any constancy; that is to say, we were not trying to develop education for the developing countries—they must develop their education themselves—bui that with all our experience and our facilities and the lessons that we had to teach on methods we were making a big contribution. We certainly are.
My noble friend Lady Lee, in her charge to the planning committee, insisted that the acquired experience should be made available to the Third World, and the consultation services of the Open University are now heavily in demand and are certainly helping to fulfil that requirement. I hope that my noble friend will give us credit for having carried out her instructions.
Beyond the undergraduate programme leading to degrees and beyond the post-experience courses which are available for professional enhancement there is the further commitment—and I quote again from our Charter—
"to promote the educational well-being of the community generally".

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That was what the Venables Committee was asked to look at—continuing education. I want to emphasise, as my noble friend Lady Lee has done, that this is not—and I repeat that—a take-over bid by the Open University. The Open University does not presume that it can cater for the diversity of interests which constitute the wide field of continuing education. It has never presumed to do so. I recall the misgivings of the Workers' Educational Association, when I was Vice-President and was at the same time on the planning committee of the Open University. The WEA feared that the imperium of the Open University would displace its courses and expropriate the available funds which, in adult education, have never been big enough. However, your Lordships will see from Table 2 of the Report that the WEA now provides over 9,000 classes for an accumulated enrolment of 167,000 students, so, so far from impairing the work of the extra-mural classes of the universities or the voluntary organisations such as the WEA, we have in fact increased the numbers of students and encouraged people to take up these classes.
What the eight triumphal years of the Open University have proved—and this must be a rebuttal of the Jeremiads about the decadent, non-participating British people—is that there is a vast and still unsatisfied hunger for learning in this country. This is not just vocational or wage-packet learning, but there is a desire for a widening of horizons and a concern to know and better to cope with the complexities of our society. This should mean mobilising all the means in our possession in the continuing education field in which, I would remind your Lordships, Britain has been in the lead for over a century—since the early days of the extra-mural courses at Oxford and elsewhere—as in the development of the voluntary organisations, like the Workers' Educational Association. What is being proposed in the report is a collective, extensive and intensive endeavour.
What the Open University has to offer is its demonstration that people who have been deprived of opportunities in the conventional stream of higher education are, through to the University, in fact eminently capable of using their second chance to acquire degrees. But on the planning committee and on the general
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council, I have always felt that the degrees were almost the least important of what we were trying to do. I do not denigrate the degrees—on the contrary—but I still think that what we were doing, and what we will continue to do even more so, has been to see that people have opportunities to find the satisfactions of learning, along the road to the degrees, if that is a recognition that they want. And that is what is meant by continuing education, by creating or encouraging the eternal student.
On the Open University we have always recognised that fact, because we had to establish—and we have done—the genuine currency of our degrees. To make our degrees certainly equitable with degrees anywhere, in our undergraduate programme, in that kind of concentration, we have opened up in the post-career courses and in many other fields. But there is a great opportunity for the University itself, not in its degree giving, or indeed in its university sense, but rather in the sense that we are talking about now: that is, what we can contribute to an open college. It is true that we have now these very remarkable resources of materials. We can recycle for other purposes a great deal of what is being produced for higher learning in university courses. One of the points on which I feel very frustrated in these times is that we are not able to do more for, say, the unemployed, for whom we should be doing more. By the "unemployed" I mean the non-worker section of our community, which will go on being non-worker. I am not just talking about the unemployment figures, but the fact that in our society there will be shorter hours, and longer periods of leisure, as well as, regrettably, unemployment. But I think that either we, or somebody else, should be providing the unemployed, the people who are deprived of work, with the opportunities for developing interests which would be valuable and which we hope might introduce them to the university courses themselves. We certainly could do this.
The Venables Report is spelling out the needs and the opportunities—not the expansion of the domain of the Open University—and is offering the unique insights and resources which the Open University has developed in its eight functional years. As a member of the Open University general council, which

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is still waiting for the reactions and the inputs from all the other interested bodies, I, of course, must keep an open mind. But I, personally, should like to see the National Council for Adult and Continuing Education fulfilling the kind of role which the University Grants Committee has in relation to the conventional universities; namely, seeing that the diversified means of adult education are properly encouraged and safeguarded.
As has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and supported by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, I want to see the strategy developed which will enable us to mobilise the interest and the resources for our continuing education. I also want to see an Educational Advisory Service, which I believe is very necessary when I think of the tens of thousands who apply for admission to the Open University and who, if they cannot get a place—because we are limited to 50,000 students; and we have an application list already for nearly 50,000 again this year, apart from the people going through the university—or cannot afford the costs or meet the exacting demands (and they really are exacting demands) in terms of study-time, might very well be directed into alternative and satisfying courses in other branches of adult education.
I realise that we shall be told that this is scarcely the time to be proposing extensions of our educational services. But, my Lords, this investment in human resources is a real investment. This is the "Fulfilment State" beyond the Welfare State. When material necessities are met there is still the need to release the human personality and to enrich the country with the innate qualities of our people. These qualities, as the Open University has demonstrated beyond a peradventure, are abundant.
We hear moanings about the lack of initiative, the decline of British creativity, the lack of adaptability to change. These are exaggerated complaints and charges but, my Lords, if we want to generate a new national impulse it must be through educational facilities. If we want to avoid the dangers which are ahead of us, we have to educate our people. As H. G. Wells said:
"The race is between education and catastrophe."
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I would say to the Government and to local authorities, in their efforts to economise, that they should not regard grants to continued education as indulgencies, but as an investment which will pay handsome dividends and will equip this country for the challenges of the last quarter of this century, for the technological changes which will be sterile, frustrating and positively dangerous unless we stimulate the imagination, the ingenuity, the cultural satisfactions and the judgments which will make those changes meaningful. That is what the Venables Report asks us to consider.
4.17 p.m.
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, I apologise for not having my name on the list of speakers, but I was not certain that I could be present this afternoon. However I have given the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, warning that I intended to speak, assuming that he was willing to allow me to do so. There are only two points that I want to make. I have always entirely agreed with the noble Baroness about the Open University. The only thing I have disagreed with her about concerns the financing of it. I believe that in the generosity of her heart she has always believed that the Open University could be expanded without cutting anything else, but I have taken a more pessimistic view. I think that probably something has to be cut in education in order to allow the Open University to expand.
Why do I give the Open University this priority? The answer is very simple: I am so old-fashioned and conservative in my views that I believe in examinations. I think that the great thing about the Open University is the way in which it tests whether the people who go in for the courses actually understand what they are being taught—and they have to give proof of this. The noble Baroness will remember that that was a grand old principle in the WEA. I recall that when I was a WEA tutor there was an insistence upon written work. Of course there were no examinations, but written work was insisted upon, and until one actually puts something down on paper one never knows whether or not one has understood the matter in hand. Very often I find that until I have written something I do not realise what nonsense it is. This is

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the way in which one educates people, and this is one of the things for which the Open University is to be applauded.
Now there are other forms of extramural studies; and of course I noted the point of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, that the Open University should expand without affecting these other forms of extra-mural study. Yet I ask myself whether we should not have some retrenchment. The other day I tried to find out how much was spent in the University of London on extra-mural studies. The accounts of the University of London are arranged in such a way that it is impossible for anybody who is not actually concerned with the arrangement of those accounts to understand them. This is a very fine principle in all educational establishments, and keeps a lot of prying eyes out of the way. But when I did get to the bottom of it I found—and I think this is true—that £900,000 is being spent by the University of London on these extra-mural studies. Is it right that such a sum should still be being spent? Of course it was right that the equivalent of that sum, the fall in the value of money having been taken account of, should have been spent in the 1920s and the 1930s, but I ask myself: should such an effort as that really be necessary?
What I should like, of course, is for the noble Baroness and I to have a deal on this. I would say to her, "Look here—you can take half a million for the Open University if you let me keep £450,000 for the things which are being cut in the University of London at the moment". Of course, it is not as simple as that because in fact that £900,000 represents the salaries of the staff in the extra-mural department, and one cannot throw people on the scrap-heap. I am not suggesting for one moment that that should be done, though I should very much like to see transfers to areas which need them from areas in which I think there is less need. You can never plead a case that there is no need where education is concerned. Almost any extra-mural activity is worth while in some sense, but there are some which I think are more worth while than others.
There is another reason why I think it is important that the Open University
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should get some extra financial support, and it is this. The new studio at Milton Keynes is likely to be open very soon, and somehow we must find funds for the numerous television programmes which are going to come out of that studio. I understand from the vice-chancellor that a great deal of the new courses which the Open University hope to offer are in fact dependent upon extra television facilities. I do not want to anticipate the debate which we are to have next week on the report of the Committee on the Future of Broadcasting, but because it may not get a very prominent mention (shall I say?) in the debate on Thursday of next week I should like to draw attention to the fact that we say that one of the areas in which you can expand the television output of the Open University is through having it on a fourth channel, and that unless you keep that fourth channel, or a part of it, at any rate, for such programmes you are in danger of denying the Open University their chance to expand their activities. I hope that that point will be borne in mind; and with that I should like to thank the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene, and conclude by saying how much I hope we shall be able to go ahead on the Venables principles, bearing in mind, however, that we may have to retrench in one area in order that the Open University gets the go-ahead.
4.24 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I should like to start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, on her success in the ballot, giving her another opportunity to put the Parliamentary spotlight, as it were, on her favourite tele-teaching institution once again, and giving us an opportunity to debate this very interesting report on the role that the Open University should play in continuing education. It was helpful to have their definition at the outset, on page 6, of what it was that they were talking about. They exclude (I think properly) education of the 16- and 17-year-olds, and do not regard their present undergraduate programme as forming any part of this. What they choose is to focus attention on education for adults, which is normally resumed after a break or an interruption. That, I think we would all agree, is the right area on which they should concentrate.

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My own view is that we can welcome the proposals in this report for a number of reasons, and I welcome them mainly for one which is almost as old-fashioned as that of the noble Lord, Lord Annan; namely, that the Open University gives us extremely good value for money. I say that because I believe that, by the Open University expanding its contribution from degree work into this field of continuing education, and giving very proper priority, as they say, "to the early stages"—by which I take it they mean quite elementary things like courses on improving your home; that comes from Appendix VII on page 104—more adults, more parents, more householders, more citizens, more neighbours, more workers, employees, technicians, professionals and businessmen of all kinds will be introduced and gain access to more education, training and enlightenment in the areas in which they need it, with the least dislocation, inconvenience and cost to themselves, their friends, their families and their firms.
It seems to me that that hope will certainly be fulfilled if the Open University stick firmly to the economic academic principles which they have followed from the beginning, by which I mean concentrating their tele-teaching expertise—teaching at a distance—on the subject, on the courses and on the methods in which they have such overwhelming advantages over the institutions which must continue, and will continue, conventional methods of face-to-face tutorials, lectures and classroom teaching.
Nevertheless, on page 14 of the report —and the noble Baroness spent some time on this—the Venables Committee mentioned, and mentioned with very proper candour, the sense of threat which some of their correspondents—in fact, many of their correspondents—have expressed in responding to this report and in giving evidence to the committee. Personally, I think "threat" is the wrong word, but I think that the Open University's proposals, which I want to support, pose a challenge—and it is a very proper challenge—to all other institutions working in the broad field of continuing education, to adjust their outlook, to adjust their programmes and to adjust their provision (I think this is what the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has just been saying to us) in ways which acknowledge and, as time goes on, accept more and more the existence
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of the Open University and the very great direct contribution that its courses can make in this field, and in some cases will make to the exclusion of courses hitherto put on locally and put across by conventional means. I think that has to be faced, and we shall not be getting value for money unless we accept it.
However, I very much agree that the proposals also constitute a most interesting and worthwhile offer to other institutions to allow the Open University to export its expertise to them, and that is something which is set out very fully at paragraph 67—this expertise in tele-teaching, so that other regional and local institutions, with other regional and local broadcasting media, can adapt their own resources and their own efforts to meet the needs of their own local clients with the help of the systems which the Open University has pioneered.
Here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, who I think has left us. Why limit this expansion to the regions of this country, of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Because, with adaptation, the pioneering work of the Open University can be carried out into the rest of Europe with language adjustments; all over the Commonwealth with adjustments for local climate, and so on: and certainly could be useful in the Third World. It seems to me that the Open University's proposals in this report can also serve to encourage thousands of people who are at present happy to sit beside a radio or in front of a television but who have never before been happy to sit in a classroom to give education another go, first by accepting it into their own sitting room and then, in the light of what we hope may be a happier experience, extending it into a classroom in their own locality.
My Lords, turning to the content of the courses and starting with what they describe as "Adult concern", which is covered in paragraph 63 onwards, I should like to support the welcome for this new broad approach which was first voiced in this debate by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I agree with him that some of the greatest possibilities are in this field of integration, integration of a specialist subject in which somebody has already been trained and thoroughly grasped, with other specialist academic subjects which relate to it but

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which were excluded from his initial training; and integration also of continuing education with work experience. The list that is given in Appendix 7 is an interesting one but, I think, hardly broad enough as it stands.
I have said that I welcome things like courses on improving your home—and with both political Parties now dedicated to the idea of a property-owning democracy, that is a useful thing to have. With the great education debate going on, a course on the choice of your child's school is another useful one; but that will be much better if it is adapted to a local situation than if it is put on a national basis. It would be hard to see how you could go very far in helping parents without giving them some insight as to the precise local situation in their own area.
My Lords, "participation" is another interesting group. We could not but agree with the right reverend Prelate that it would be a serious lack if these courses in the technique, for instance, of running a local pressure group did not have something to indicate what was the purpose of it all. One of its purposes is to try to help people contribute to the planning and execution of proposals and schemes for raising the quality of life in their own area, not least in the inner cities—and I hope that Mr. Shore is giving some thoughts to this area.
My Lords, I think that the next significant area is the in-service courses, the scope and possibility of courses either run directly or engineered with the guidance and help of the Open University, covering in-service courses for particular categories of people in the professions, in particular industries, or serving in local government in particular areas. At various stages in people's careers—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has just confirmed that this is certainly needed in the profession of the law; but in many others, too—it will be necessary, and it is necessary, if industry is to be efficient and if local government is to be sensitive and if the professions are to be adaptable, that people have the opportunity of receiving further training which they did not get in their degree courses and in their initial professional training. There is need for updating, for integrating and for broadening; and I think that perhaps of all those integration is the most important.
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The other aspect which I believe nobody has yet mentioned but which is covered in this report, is that mentioned in paragraph 89 where the very good point is made that the Open University could do much to supplement courses and programmes put out initially by the main broadcasting companies, ITV and BBC; but with people in mind, particularly families, whose curiosity and interest in a particular subject have been aroused by seeing a programme or a series of programmes and who would then like to pursue it in more detail in their own locality. This is the kind of thing which is particularly valuable, attractive and interesting if it can be put forward in a form which can be pursued by the family as a whole.
Finally, I should like to take up a point that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, first introduced into this debate; namely, that a strategy and framework for the development of continuing education is still needed—even if there is not much to put in the tank when we have got it. But I venture to think that the decisions that need to be taken will be all the better for having been delayed until, with the help of this report, we can see more clearly how the Open University's pioneering experience in tele-teaching might be best exploited in continuing education. For that we chiefly owe our thanks to this report.
4.36 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, may I begin by issuing an unqualified apology to the House, and particularly to my noble friend, for being late for the beginning of this debate. I allowed an hour for a journey which takes 20 minutes but I got involved in a demonstration, I regret to say, against educational cuts; and that is why I failed to be in my place at the right moment. I hope that I may be forgiven for it is not something which is acceptable.
My Lords, everybody has said how grateful we are to my noble friend for raising this debate. I am particularly grateful to her for two or three reasons: first, because I think that the Open University is the only great success that this country has had in the educational field in the last 20 years. I think that

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we have been singularly lacking in success in education. We have spread it and we may or may not have improved it; but there is very little certainty that we have had any real success. But that this venture is a great success, everybody will agree. I am also grateful that she mentioned Mr. Macleod, Mrs. Thatcher and my late leader and her late leader Sir Harold Wilson, and gave them credit for the immense power which they, Sir Harold particularly, put behind her arm to get this much-opposed and rather difficult concept going. Of course, basically, as the whole House knows, it was (if I may put it in the crudest possible way) "Jenny's baby", and as such benefited enormously and could never have got off the ground without her.
My Lords, my personal interest in this is not an educational one; it is a social service one. It is the value that it had for the sick, the handicapped and, in my particular field of interest, the prisoners. It is having a remarkable effect within prisons. A large number of prisoners are taking degrees in the Open University who could never have done so otherwise. The noble Baroness said that she hoped that noble Lords would read the Venables Report. I can claim to have read it twice, although there are parts of it that I still find difficult to understand fully. We are grateful for the opportunity of discussing it in detail in this House before decisions are finally made in various directions.
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate struck a chord with me when he looked at the list of "adult concern" ventures. It is a curious term; it is what I might describe as educational jargon. Everything in the world concerns adults. I would understand it to mean those things which concern adults rather than children. Certainly, the absence of ethics is noticeable and regrettable. In fact, this is one of the most agreeable subjects that any adult can study. There is so much marvellous writing obtainable on the subject that I hope that the Open University will make it available to its students.
The right reverend Prelate said something about paid educational leave. We are, and always have been, strongly in favour of paid educational leave. There is a good deal of it already. The Govern-
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ment's attitude is that it should be based on the voluntary principle and collective bargaining between those in Industry, as it always has been. I do not think it is something which requires a direct Government subsidy. I was interested in his suggestion of a multiracial inquiry into faith in general. This seems a difficult thing to do. I was interested that he mentioned it, and I shall read with care in Hansard what he said.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, mentioned day release. The trouble about day release is that to do it on any scale is enormously expensive. Everybody wants to see it done, but it is a question of cash, unless employers will stand it. He spoke also of the overall look required in regard to the whole subject. We can look to the Advisory Council—to which I will refer later—to achieve this. He spoke of putting soul and heart in the Department of Education and Science. This is rather rhetorical. The truth is that the public servants who work on these things have just as much soul and heart as anybody in this House. The difficulty is to get past the financial problems which hold us back. I am all for putting soul and heart into everything but my own feeling is that there is a good deal there already.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, no strictures were intended on civil servants. An institution can lack soul and heart, whereas all the members in it can have lots of both. I am certain that civil servants have lots of soul and heart. I doubt whether the institution has much.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I think we will leave it there. My noble and learned friend pointed out the technical reasons for the importance of continuing education, and it is just as well to state them: what you learned 20 years ago is completely different from the learning of today; and many people want to change from one kind of occupation to another. This is what continuing education of a vocational kind is about; there are plenty of other kinds of continuing education. He said that what we want is the will. My Lords, I think that what we want is money. The will is there, but the money is not always available.

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My noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder praised Sir Peter Venables for the only reason that I would not praise him, as a chairman who wrote the minutes in advance. I have worked under chairmen who did that, and that does not involve being a good chairman. Very often it can involve being an extremely bad one. Sir Peter was a brilliant chairman, even though he may have written the minutes in advance. The point which chiefly interested me in my noble friend's speech was his ambition to see the Open University make a contribution to the developing countries. More than one noble Lord has referred to this. This is a very important matter which is clearly mentioned in the report. The fact that the Workers' Educational Association has 167,000 customers shows that the Open University has not worked against it, and in fact works very well with it. He referred, in a phrase that I will refer to later, to the vast unsatisfied hunger for learning, which I believe to be something of which most of us are conscious in this population.
My noble friend Lord Annan brought a very sane and careful view to bear on the cash side of this business. What he said was extremely interesting. I will not get involved in what is spent on his side and what might be spent on the noble Baroness's side, but it is very interesting. It is not only educational reports which try and make their accounts unintelligible; it is true of all accountants, and that is a great pity.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on making an absolutely nonpolitical speech on an absolutely non-political subject. We do not always get this courtesy, and I am very grateful for it. He said that decisions will have to be delayed until the Open University has had time to consider this report, and this of course is true.
My Lords, when the Open University decided to set-up a committee to advise on the University's contribution to continuing education, it was seen first as a contribution to the debate on recurrent education which was going on all over the Western world. This had various terms: "continuing education" or "education permanente", et cetera. But what it meant, and what it means, is the
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relatively new idea—new to me, at any rate—that every citizen should be able to resume his education at different stages of his career—as indeed the present Chairman of the Open University himself has done at an age not far short of 77, and as I am proud to say has my driver, who is now 51 and is learning Russian—and with varying degrees of State assistance. It is an interesting conception. Twenty years ago nobody would have thought that if an individual aged 40, 50, 60 or 70 wished to undergo a course of study, he should get State assistance for it; but today that is what happens and it is very interesting.
The Committee was seen as a timely and necessary measure to ensure the soundness and relevance of the University's own development. In early 1975, when the Committee was set up, the University had only completed four full teaching years, but it had already established the quality and potential of its undergraduate programme. It had also gained an international reputation for research into teaching and learning at a distance. It was admirably fulfilling the hopes of its founders, including my noble friend Lady Lee, and of its many well-wishers. It was thus an appropriate moment for the University to take stock and to turn its attention to the wider issues of the well-being of the community generally. It was able to draw on its experience—which had been so successful—of under-graduate courses and its significant and growing programme of shorter "post-experience" courses at university level, commissioned for certain professions such as teachers and social workers, or to provide for special areas of interest such as courses on "computing and computers" or "industrial relations".
Sir Peter Venables was a brilliant chairman, as has been said already; and we must all be grateful to him and his colleagues, and also to the Open University for commissioning this report. The Committee was asked to make recommendations on the nature and scale of the Open University's future contribution to the national development of continuing education and to suggest the plan, resources and structure required for its implementation.
The Committee approached its task by considering the Open University as

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only one of the many bodies concerned with continuing education. Others included the maintained and non-maintained sectors of higher and further education, libraries, broadcasting authorities and professional institutions. Its thorough working methods and the wide spectrum of opinion taken into account are to be applauded, though one could have wished that a report with such wide implications for the maintained sector of education had included evidence from the local authority associations.
The Venables Report has been widely acclaimed and, while there may be room for differences of opinion on some of its assumptions, I have no doubt that it will be closely studied. The report is primarily a report to the University's Council. While copies of the report have come to my Department for information, they have not as yet been formally submitted with the University Council's own comments. Indeed, the report is still the subject of consultations within the University, nor does the Council expect to complete its consultations on the report until this coming September. Therefore your Lordships will not expect a pronouncement from me today as to what action the Government feel should follow the report.
The interdependence of further and adult education increases as the concept of continuing education grows, and it is no longer easy to make clear-cut distinctions between them. Students attending an evening class in foreign languages, for instance, may have a variety of motives —from pure intellectual satisfaction, through the desire to get more out of holiday travel, to the urgent need to qualify for a better job. And the class itself may meet in a college of further education, a school used as an evening institute or even a village hall.
For all its close interdependence with the wider field of further education, however, adult education does have certain distinguishing features. We must never forget, my Lords, that these students are volunteers, taking part of their own free will, and for a variety of motives, in an enormously varied programme of education, often at their own expense and with no thought of material reward for their efforts.
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For this reason, one must regret the very real difficulties which adult education now faces as a result of the inevitable economies forced on local education authorities by the crucial need to contain public expenditure. This financial pressure has been twofold: a reduction in that part of authorities' budgets earmarked for adult education, and an increase in fee levels which, while in absolute terms it cannot be regarded as unreasonable, in terms of proportionate increases has, in some areas, been severe enough to lead to a marked reduction in student numbers. Our first indications are that numbers, which had climbed steadily over the past few years to nearly 3 million in 1975–76, may have declined by some 10 per cent. in the current academic year. These figures are susceptible of more than one explanation, and it is too early to be dogmatic about a trend. Obviously, any falling off is a pity, but adult education, along with other branches of the education service, cannot be exempt from bearing its share—though I would hope not more than its fair share—of the necessary economies which we are subject to at the moment.
The beginning of our present cycle of economic difficulties coincided with the publication of the Russell Report, and I suppose that there has never been a more unfortunate example of timing for a report drawn up in the latter years of a period of educational expansion, and itself confidently looking forward to similar expansion and development in the field of adult education. But if circumstances have inhibited Government from adopting the Russell Report in toto, they have not prevented some significant developments along the lines recommended.
First, let me take the question of financial support for the adult continuing his education. Older students returning to full-time education after a break are eligible for the mandatory awards which are available for students on first degree and similar courses, just as younger students going straight from school. But there are also special provisions. No parental contribution is required for such students—provided they are either 25 or over or have supported themselves for three years. Moveover, they may qualify for an older student's allowance in recognition of additional commitments which, bearing in mind their age, they may well have taken on in the meantime.

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In addition, there have been a number of changes in recent years which demonstrate this Government's determination to do all they can within the financial resources available to ensure that mature people who wish to continue their education have the financial support necessary to do so. For example, the conditions for mandatory awards relating to previous study have been significantly eased for mature students. Awards for under-graduates are no longer dependent on the possession of two A-level passes. It is left to the academic authorities to decide whether a student has reached the standard necessary to take the course. In addition, as recommended in the Russell Report, adult education bursaries, payable by my Department, have been introduced so as to ensure that students at long-term residential adult education colleges have a grant.
So far as discretionary awards are concerned, the local authority associations recommended to their members over two years ago that discretionary awards made to students taking advanced courses, or to students over 19 taking non-advanced courses, should be payable at the same rates as for mandatory awards.
The Russell Report, as your Lordships will recall, also laid stress on the need to remedy the grave evil of adult illiteracy. The Government are glad to have been able to play a part, together with the National Institute of Adult Education, the BBC and the local education authorities, in the adult literacy campaign. Some £3 million over a three-year period have been provided from Government funds for this and the number of students receiving literacy tuition has risen from less than 10,000 in 1975 to more than 100,000 today. The 45,000 volunteer tutors, as well as full-time tutors and organisers, have played a crucial part in the success of this venture.
In March my right honourable friend announced increased grant and more flexible grant arrangements for the Workers' Educational Association. This will enable the Association to shift the emphasis of its work towards certain priority areas—education for the socially and educationally deprived, work in an industrial context and education in the nature and functioning of our political and social system. I feel sure your
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Lordships would agree on the vital importance of educating people at every level of industry and in all sections of society in the economic and political structure of our industrial and social system. The Government have welcomed the WEA's initiative in this matter, as well as the efforts of the trade unions to increase the provision of education for their members in these, as well as more specialised, industrial fields. It is a measure of my right honourable friend's concern that the initial grant of £400,000 to the TUC (made jointly with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment) is to be continued at a somewhat higher level in the current financial year.
The Russell Committee, like the Venables Committee, also recommended the setting up of a national advisory and development council for adult and continuing education. Only yesterday my honourable friend the Minister of State met representatives of the organisations most closely concerned to discuss the details of the proposal announced by my right honourable friend on 6th April.
The proposed Council, we hope, will provide an effective forum for the collaborative approach to adult education needed in our diverse and decentralised system. It is not, however, as ambitious as that suggested by the Venables Committee, nor will it have at its disposal funds approaching the £20 million per annum which the Committee thinks should be available by 1984—itself a fundamentally different approach from that recommended by the Russell Committee. Indeed, even were funds of that magnitude available—and in present circumstances they could be found only at the expense of existing provision—we, and, I believe, many others, would have grave reservations about channelling all funds for the development of adult and continuing education through one central agency. The Council will advise on matters relating to the provision of education for adults and, in particular, promote co-operation between the various organisations in that field, not only with a view to the best use of the resources now but also to plan a strategy for future development. I think that goes a long way towards meeting the requests made by various noble Lords.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord before he leaves that point? He slightly misunderstood what I was saying at the end of my speech. I was hoping that we should hear today whether or not the Government are going to wait until they have formally received this report before coming to their conclusions that he has just mentioned. I know the noble Lord has just said that his right honourable friend had a meeting yesterday to take the first few tentative steps towards setting up this National Council. But I think that those of us who have been taking part in this debate—certainly, the noble Baroness, Lady Lee—would not want to feel that those tentative steps had reached their conclusion until this report had been fully grasped, comprehended and digested by the Department. Can the noble Lord be a little clearer about that?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, my understanding is that my honourable friend the Minister of State is setting up the council. This does not mean that if the Open University's report made a number of recommendations they could not be dealt with at a later stage. But the council will exist, and it is being made to exist now.
There was one passage in the Venables Report which was particularly interesting to me. The provision of public libraries is a field in which I think we have substantial achievements to our credit, and for which I have special responsibility. Even during the past three very difficult years, capital expenditure on libraries has totalled £50 million and although, regrettably, it cannot continue at quite the same rate, it nevertheless represents a major addition to our national resources.
The Venables Committee were concerned that independent students in continuing education should also be able to make use of other library facilities, particularly the libraries of universities, polytechnics and colleges. The report advocates strong support for the integrated development and use of these services, but I must not prejudge the views of the Council of the Open University. Others in recent years, influenced by current financial problems as well as by such matters as the development of the British Library, have called for a re-examination
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of library services and questions of co-ordination are under consideration by a number of national bodies, including the Standing Conference for National and University Libraries, the Library Association and the Library Advisory Council. In other words, something is already happening along these lines.
There is a long tradition in this country of voluntary, and mainly informal, co-operation between libraries; a great deal is already being done to take advantage of such opportunities. The DES has a part to play in this respect through its responsibility for the British Library, for public libraries provided by local authorities and for libraries in educational institutions, but the main effort must come from those who actually provide the service. In going around libraries this year, I visited three brand new ones; I was interested that two of them claimed an increase in borrowings of over 63 per cent. over the past two years, and the third an increase of some 50 per cent. It seems that if new facilities are provided they will be well used, and I think that this applies to the whole background of this debate.
If it were possible to provide the resources envisaged by the report, I can think of no institution better equipped than the Open University, academically and otherwise, to undertake the tasks envisaged by the Venables Committee. Its distinctive team approach to course preparation, involving collaboration with other institutions; its skill in the preparation, presentation and publication of multimedia courses; and its resources for research into both teaching and learning at a distance are all witness to this. Its methods have never been confined to distance teaching: through its summer schools, post-experience courses, and its regional and local tuition centres it practices the conventional teaching arts, including pastoral aid, and has gained a deep knowledge of the needs and problems of the part-time adult student. It should be remembered that most of its 5,000 part-time tutors and counsellors are drawn from other universities and the maintained sector of further and higher education, so that there is a continuing cross-fertilisation between the Open University and the other educational institutions. Some of the recommendations in the Venables Report are, of

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course, within the Open University's capacity without reference. I shall not refer to those. It is the ones which require outside help which will have to be considered most deeply.
If I may say a final word on finance, though the Committee acknowledged that a national policy was first required regarding resources, and appreciated the economic difficulties confronting the Government, their report sets out a phased programme for the commitment of additional public money. No commitment can be given by the Government to an expansion of continuing education on the scale envisaged by Venables, which would involve additional expenditure of over £2 million by 1984 on the Open University alone, and some £20 million overall. However, I would remind your Lordships of the very substantial contribution of this Government to the development of continuing education through their commitment to the Open University to the point where it is now an internationally recognised institution and a major addition to our cultural heritage. In addition, there are the funds already being made available through direct grant to the responsible bodies, the increased grant to the Workers' Educational Association, the widening of the students' award regulations, improvements to the library services, and now the launching of the new Advisory Council on Adult and Continuing Education. All these are evidence of the Government's commitment to the concept of continuing education.
This has been a most helpful discussion. The Venables Report contains many extremely good suggestions, and I look forward to the stimulus which it will certainly provide to further thinking and developments in the whole field of adult and continuing education.
5.6 p.m.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: My Lords, I am deeply appreciative of the contributions that have been made in this debate. I know that we have other colleagues waiting to take over, so I do not wish to take up more of your Lordships' time other than to thank those who have taken part, and to ask our Minister not to be too cautious on the financial side, because where there is a will, there is a way and one can always find the money
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for some things. What we have to decide is priorities and, obviously, all of us who have taken part in this debate today place the highest possible priority on bringing further educational opportunities within the reach of all. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

TRADE UNIONS AND THE MEDIA
5.7 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING Lord ORR-EWING rose to call attention to the role of the trade unions in relation to the freedom of the Press and broadcasting; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Fourteen months ago, Parliament finally passed the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Act. There were several clauses and features which caused grave disquiet, particularly in this House. This led to the use of the Parliamentary Act so that the Bill, originally introduced by Mr. Michael Foot in 1975, took over a year to reach the Statute Book. It finally did so on 25th March 1976.
Your Lordships will remember the considerable contributions made to our debates by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, from the Opposition Front Bench, by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, from the Liberal Benches, by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, from the Labour Benches and by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, from the Cross-Benches. Incidentally, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has offered his apologies; he is on his way from Oxford and hopes to join the debate fairly soon. They were all concerned, as were so many of us, with the effect of the closed shop on editorial and journalistic freedom, and the Government strongly hoped that an agreed Press Charter would alleviate many of these fears.
The Bill allowed one year for agreement to be achieved; that year was up on 25th March, 1977. Unfortunately, all these hopes have not been fulfilled. The Committee working on the Press Charter, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearce, representing all sides of the industry, failed to agree and the noble and learned Lord reported

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to the Minister—now Mr. Albert Booth—a failure to agree. He asked that members of his Committee write within three weeks to the Minister, giving their reasons for dissenting on various clauses. The Minister now has a statutory, difficult and unenviable task, after consulting the Press Council and other interested bodies, of writing his own Charter and then presenting it for approval to both Houses of Parliament.
Meanwhile, things have not stood still and some of the fears expressed have, I think, been justified. I thought that in this sensitive matter of Press and broadcasting freedom, it might be timely to have a short debate in your Lordships' House. It seemed more appropriate to have this debate here, where we are less politically polarised and where there is a wealth of talent with a lifetime of experience in the newspaper industry. I am so glad that the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, will follow me and that the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, is also to speak. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Briginshaw, has not put his name down, because I should like to hear him make the case of the National Society of Operative Printers, Graphical and Media Personnel—more conveniently known as NATSOPA. When I learned that I had been fortunate in the ballot for Motions and contacted many of the large number of bodies and individuals most closely concerned, I had a tremendous and helpful response. I am deeply grateful to them. If I do not do justice to the wealth of material, about 30 centimetres high, which arrived, it is because I do not want to hog all the time in a relatively short debate.
There are many ways in which direct and indirect pressures can apply a form of censorship to newspapers and also in broadcasting. Today we are reminded that even a Parliamentary democracy can sometimes be gravely affected by the unions, because the printers of HMSO refuse to print our Parliamentary Order Papers and therefore are inconveniencing our working. These pressures, whether they are applied to newspapers, broadcasting or even in Parliament, can be applied at all levels and I shall attempt to deal with some of them.
First, may I deal with the editorial side. I readily concede that there is editorial
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policy. The influence this has is considerable on the balance and importance of items in individual papers. My generation will always remember the Beaverbrook Press in the 1930s. We vividly recall the campaigns against Stanley Baldwin, as he then was, and the brilliant cartoons drawn by David Lowe of Lord Sealed Lips. After the war, there were other targets for the Beaverbrook Press, like the British Council. I think that Lord Mountbatten had his share, too. Provided that enough newspapers remain economically viable and also free, the public can probably absorb and judge for themselves such bias as exists. Nowadays, of course, they have the added advantage of television news on two alternative channels to produce a balance.
Now I turn to the journalists and unions. At present the journalists are dominated by their big union, the National Union of Journalists, and also by the smaller one, the IOJ, which represents a somewhat different sector. In recent years, aided and abetted by recent Labour legislation and, I cannot help suspecting, a certain amount of dogma, the closed shop has in effect had to be acknowledged, certainly in the mass circulation papers like the Mirror, I think the Sun and parts of the Beaverbrook Press. I say "in effect", because not to give way means so much unpleasantness and so much disruption that many people have had to how to the closed shop.
Perhaps in the past journalists have been pushed down the hierarchical ladder of this industry as compared with the powerful monopoly enjoyed by the print unions. This may be the belated cause of the current wave of militancy in journalistic circles. I cannot help feeling that it is ironical that Lord Beaverbrook, who always believed in paying journalists handsomely and giving young men early responsibility, should now be suffering from difficulties with the NUJ. One has only to think of the opportunities given to people like Michael Foot, Tom Driberg, Dick Crossman and many others when they were in their early twenties, to realise how that policy was acting in those days.
There is a powerful and dedicated group in the NUJ which is constantly pressing for a rigid application of the closed shop, and who are testing their strength with attempts at political censorship. At the

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NUJ conference from 19th to 22nd April, typical motions tried to rule that their members should not report on National Front activities, nor on organisations which they judged racist, nor even on the football match between Chile and Scotland. At any time the militant Left might rule that journalists should not report on events in South Africa or Rhodesia; or there could be a conspiracy of silence about the murders in Mozambique or the 1 million people who have been killed by the Marxist regime now ruling in Cambodia. What is disturbing is that all this could happen without we, the public, knowing. Surely clandestine censorship is in some ways the most pernicious censorship of all. Bernard Levin's articles in The Times recently showed just how the Left Wing had worked to control the 2,000 strong freelance branch of the NUJ.
As long ago as 1926—incidentally, at the time of the national rail strike—an agreement was made between the NPA and the unions that there would be no censorship by the unions of the Press. It is fair to state that the number of attempts to circumvent this policy is increasing, for 20 years ago attempts were practically unheard of; 10 years ago they were very rare. Today there is always a potential threat in the background, and such attempts have been made with the Daily Telegraph, the Observer and The Times.
I now turn to a number of instances, in their way each of them small but still significant. I will give examples of actual and potential threats, all of which I suggest are totally contrary to the spirit and letter of the NUJ code of conduct. Some of your Lordships may have seen a letter in The Times of 29th April from Martin Webster of the National Front. Your Lordships will know that I have absolutely no sympathy for that organisation. Like the majority of Members of your Lordships' House, I spent the period from 1939 to 1946 fighting every single thing for which that organisation stands. This letter to The Times quoted from a recommendation to NUJ members of their North London organisation. Here are some of the points concerning journalists reporting on National Front activities. First:
"Feel free to act according to conscience, either by refusing to attend or in deliberately writing a report that is extremely brief or highly critical".
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Secondly:
"Enthusiastically take up issues like immigration and deportation. … Don't shirk confronting your management even if it means taking industrial action".
All genuine democrats will deplore such recommendations.
I remember very vividly in the middle of the war, when we were fighting for our lives against the Fascist threat, that Mr. Herbert Morrison, then Home Secretary, decided to release Oswald Mosley from detention. When there was a storm of protest from the Left Wing, with their traditional intolerance, he pointed out that we were fighting a war specifically to maintain the freedom to express contrary views and, I may say, he stuck to his guns with tremendous guts. Last Friday, for the first time that I can recall, there were NUJ pickets at the entrance as I came into New Palace Yard. I had never seen them there before. I gather that they were in sympathy with the NUJ pressure for a closed shop in the Kettering Evening News, where there has been a strike lasting over 22 weeks because some nine NUJ members want to join the Institute of Journalists. We must be thankful that efforts to spread that strike to the PA and prevent the printing of the local election results were prevented by those who were vigilant and who value democracy and the freedom of the Press.
As I have said, it is true that the NUJ have a code of conduct. I have a copy here. However, this could be changed at any time by the militants now serving on the executive committee. It is always easier for an annual conference to endorse changes than it is to vote against its own executive's actions. Let us remember that if deprived of a union card, a journalist is unemployed and unemployable in his chosen and trained profession. A closed shop in the media is an open invitation, I suggest, to a union to steer newspapers and broadcasting into disseminating the Left Wing views in which the militants currently believe.
A closed shop NUJ will lead to a disturbing position in regard to special reports and special articles in the Press. We see instances of this starting in the sporting field, in which I take a special interest. It so happens that a number of sportsmen are also excellent writers. Your Lordships will remember Peter

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Robbins, that second row rugby forward for England, Ted Dexter, Colin Cowdray and Danny Blanchflower, while others come to mind. It would be a sad day if they were blacked, and that happened to Peter Robbins, a correspondent of the Financial Times. He had tried to join the NUJ but had been rejected on the grounds—and I quote,
"that journalism was not his principal source of income".
Therefore he could not be made a member.
If sportsmen are to be banned as part-time contributors, how serious it will be if the same principle applies to musicians who want to write about music, to artists who want to write about paintings or exhibitions, to actors who want to write about the theatre or films or television, to economists—of whom we have several in this House—who want to write about their theories in regard to the economy, and even politicians who will not be allowed to write because they are certainly part-timers; as it would not be their main source of income they would have to cease writing about politics. Once the principle is established that a man is not going to be given a card unless it is his full-time, main manner of earning his keep, one is on a dangerous slope which can go very far.
I would mention that the advertising side, which is so frightfully important to the economic survival of our newspapers at this time, is not free from some indirect censorship. There have been several examples when print unions have refused to set type or have asked for modifications. Small companies and the self-employed preparing advertisement material—and I am referring to companies with one or three or four people—are having their work blacked unless those individuals immediately join either the NGA or Slade. A recent ballot has shown that 80 per cent. of these people do not want to be unionised, so we are having a very forceful application and your Lordships may notice that occasionally our newspapers are printed with blanks where pictures should have been but they have not been produced by the union concerned. In some ways I prefer to have a blank because at least one knows what has happened whereas if something is substituted in its place one is totally unaware of any form of indirect censorship.
I turn now to the other side of the coin, to the print unions. A form of indirect censorship can also be exercised by those unions. At present this sometimes takes the form of a reluctance to print news of their own quarrels. How many of us know what has happened at the HMSO at the moment? Certainly they seem a little reluctant to publish details of their earnings, the degree of overmanning and the rules of working, and if the editor tries to explain to his readers the reasons why they are not printing or why there has been a short print, censorship prevails and very often the print is stopped.
The Royal Commission on the Press published an interim report in March 1976 which showed very large earnings by the linotype operators of up to £240 a week. Therefore, one can understand their reluctance not to disturb the present arrangements or to publicise them too fully.
Last week on a television programme I saw Percy Roberts, now the chairman and chief executive of the Mirror group, and he said that in one department there were 40 people earning over £10,000 a year. Those are very big wages indeed. He also said that that newspaper had spent no less than £5 million in redundancy pay during the last year in an effort to reduce overmanning. I do not recall those figures being emblazoned in the Press.
New typesetting and printing methods are making tremendous progress all over the world. Their introduction into the United Kingdom unfortunately is well behind the practice of the USA and Canada. We are even behind the prosperous countries of Western Europe and in some cases the London produced papers are, in their methods, behind our provincial Press, where they have made more progress. Year after year the print unions prevent the introduction of modern technology and I regret to say that recently that attitude has also been endorsed by a resolution of the NUJ.
David Astor, in his article published in Index in January 1977, pointed out just how easy it was to delay printing and thus prevent editions catching trains. Incidentally, reports on this article, which talked of "the threat and use of sabotage" by the print unions, were unacceptable

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to the unions and could not be printed and there were serious stoppages and amendments. In a commodity as perishable as news, such tactics are not only a form of censorship but they lead straight and inevitably to financial suicide. Almost all our newspapers are now in serious financial straits, not only because of the unions but—and I want to be absolutely fair here—because of the soaring cost of newsprint, which is a crippling burden. Since 1973 newsprint costs have risen from £77 a ton to £238 a ton. Thirty-five per cent. of total outgoings is spent on raw materials, principally paper, and about the same amount on remuneration. It is difficult to do much about a world commodity like newsprint which is much in demand, but there are actions which can be taken in the field of overmanning and new technology.
Let us consider the depth of the present newspaper financial position. Last week it was published in The Times that they had made a loss for the year; but for profits from other activities within the Thomson group it might have ceased publication. The Daily Telegraph is making such slender profits that if it had been a public company with debts to service it would have been in real financial trouble. The Observer would have gone out of business recently but for the financial assistance of an oil company, Atlantic Richfield. The financial problems of the Beaverbrook Press can be read in the columns of our newspapers almost daily. Associated Newspapers have difficulties with their London newspapers and but for their diversification into other industries they, too, would be financially embarrassed. The Sun is perhaps financially the strongest and a cynic might suggest that is the reason why it is under such strong attack by the unions.
The interim report of the Royal Commission has shown that in this great and vital industry, with a sales turnover in 1974 of £300 million, 17 papers together lost £4 million. The following year, in 1975, with a turnover of £354 million they made a slender profit of £4 million. That is just 1·23 per cent. My Lords, we are near censorship by closure.
In this financial climate, the loss of vast sales through industrial disruption can so easily turn a slender profit into near bankruptcy. In the last six months of
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1976 the Sun lost over 20 million copies; the Daily Mirror over 15 million copies; the Daily Telegraph nearly 5 million copies; the Daily Mail over 2½ million copies and nearly all national newspapers were affected by stoppages. I turn now to broadcasting. Financial difficulties may force the quality and quantity of our newspapers to fall. If costs go on rising each family will increasingly read only one paper. It then becomes even more important to preserve and encourage different television and sound broadcasting sources of news, documentaries, discussion and comment.
So far, in replies I have received from the BBC and the IBA it seems there has been only a limited number of occasions when the unions sought to exert pressure on editorial decisions about programmes. The IBA point out, and I think wisely, that they have a statutory requirement to provide political impartiality and this may be helpful in restraining pressure from the unions, which appreciate that their employers would be in breach of the Act if they gave way to pressure. They report pressure on one or two occasions, one of which was an effort by the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians to prevent their members working in South Africa. The BBC's most recent example was at their local station, Radio Sheffield, when the NUJ objected to a non-journalist sports reporter reporting on football. I think he was either a teacher or a potato merchant; I am not sure which. The strike lasted seven and a half weeks and I am glad to say that reporter is still being used. A few years ago the ACTT tried to stop the BBC filming in Crete for a very popular programme called "The Lotus Eaters". They objected because of the colonels' regime. On that occasion, the BBC obtained an injunction and the filming went ahead. Equity continues to oppose the sale of all BBC television programmes to South Africa.
Peter Hain and his anti-apartheid movement are trying to stop the relay of the England-Australia Test series to that country. There are other examples. Again, it is difficult for the public to appreciate to what extent direct and indirect censorship or pressure is occurring. Clearly, this has to be carefully watched, and I am glad that the BBC seems fully awake to the dangers.
On the other hand, David Astor in his article, after referring to Fleet Street silence about their own methods and difficulties, goes on:
"But what is more surprising is that the BBC and ITN cravenly give the news that so many thousand copies of a newspaper have been 'lost through industrial action' without ever explaining what the industrial action is, i.e. organised sabotage, either active or passive. The reason may be a wish by the broadcasting organisations not to offend the susceptibilities of their own unions; it is difficult to think of any other."
My Lords, to summarise and conclude, Lord Justice Scarman said earlier this year:
"There are certain rights, for example, personal liberty, freedom of speech and thought, equality before the law, which are so fundamental that not even the democratically elected majority should be allowed to destroy them."
Just over a year ago this House reluctantly let through the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act. Mr. Michael Foot had refused our Amendments to build in appeal procedures and sanctions against those who did not keep to the Code. The Government had assured Parliament that a voluntary agreement would be reached on the Charter of Press Freedom. These hopes were ill-founded, unfortunately. Now we await the Minister's own Code, which will be presented for approval to each House. My Lords, we will need to examine this Code most carefully. During the last year numerous pressure groups have continued their efforts to inhibit Press freedom. These pressures on broadcasting may at present be less disturbing, but if the militants gain their goals with the Press, broadcasting is bound to be the next main area to come under attack.
My Lords, I have sought to show that economic pressure can so easily close newspapers and reduce choice. This is indirect censorship, and it is dangerous. Surely in this House we have a special duty to discuss and publicise this insidious effort to inhibit freedom in all forms of media. That is why I am grateful to all those who are here today, and especially to those who are speaking. By doing so I hope we are helping to answer Milton's appeal:
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.33 p.m.
Lord JACOBSON: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, for giving us an opportunity to debate this disturbing and serious matter. I should begin with a statement that I have been throughout my working life a member of the National Union of Journalists; I am a life member still. In my earlier years I was a father of the chapel. I was regarded at that time perhaps as a rather militant father of the chapel, but I think by present-day standards I would probably be described as a reactionary crocodile. As the noble Lord pointed out, it is also true, that until the National Union of Journalists began to act as a militant trade union rather than a professional organisation the salaries and working conditions of journalists fell very far behind. In some newspaper offices they were treated in a niggardly and sometimes a disgraceful fashion compared to the rising wages in other parts of the industry and in industry generally. They had to resort to militant chapel action in the first place, and national action later, to get this put right. I think we should remember this when we deplore, as I do, some of the more extreme activities of the militants nowadays.
Interference with the freedom of the Press is rather like evil; we are all against it, but many of us—some of us—practise it. It does not only come from trade unions; politicians intervene in the freedom of the Press through their attempts at news management—politicians of all Parties. Prime Ministers get first editions of the London dailies delivered to 10 Downing Street or Chequers, and it has not been unknown in the past—I do not think it happens now—for a Prime Minister to ring up the editor or senior executive of a newspaper to complain about something that is in the early editions and to try to get it taken out or amended.
There is the law; the law places restrictions on the freedom of the Press. We have the laws of defamation and the laws on contempt of court. Both, I think, are necessary, for the protection of the individual and the courts, but they are out of date; they remain unreformed despite long and learned inquiries and recommendations that they should be brought up to date. We have the ludicrous Official Secrets Acts, of course, still in force, and we have the D notice system.

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The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, spoke a great deal about trade union interference with the freedom of the Press, but he had less to say about proprietorial and managerial interference. I think that politicians and the public sometimes exaggerate the extent to which proprietors, publishers, chairmen, interfere with the editorial running of their papers. But that there is such interference in some places on some newspapers is absolutely clear to all working journalists. It exists in the power of a newspaper proprietor or a chairman arbitrarily to dismiss the editor with whose political judgment he disagrees. I see my noble friend Lord Castle is sitting there. He and I well remember the abrupt and unjust dismissal of the editor of Picture Post, Mr. Tom Hopkinson, by Sir Edward Hulton because he disagreed with an article about the atrocities being committed in South Korea during the Korean war. There have been other instances. So when we talk about trade union interference let us not imagine that this is the only form of interference, or even the most dangerous form.
There is another form of interference with the Press, which is the steady pressure of managements, understandably, for more profits, higher sales, more space for advertising, particularly in the present economic climate. This sometimesmakes it very difficult for editors to resist lowering the standards of their paper, perhaps giving less space, cutting editorial costs, and in my experience this is something harder to fight than outright attempts at intervention in content either by politicians or trade unions. So let us keep this matter in perspective.
Lord Orr-Ewing quoted a number of instances. I agree with him that many of them are disturbing and some of them are quite deplorable. So let us ask ourselves how do these arise in the day-to-day working of the newspaper and what should be done about it. In my experience, interference by trade unions within the newspaper industry in the contents of a newspaper is very seldom directly political. It does not arise out of conflict over policies, the policies of publishers of newspapers or the policies of the Government or anything like that. It arises out of an industrial situation within that
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particular newspaper or within the newspaper industry in general.
What happens, in my experience, is this: someone on the paper, a chapel official or a member of the chapel, reads a proof or sees a piece of copy in which he thinks the attitude of his union, the views of his union or the views of his members, are not being fairly or accurately reported. He goes to see the editor about this. On daily newspapers, of course, this tends to happen rather late at night. The editor or the night editor has to deal with it at once, and he has to deal with it quickly because he has to get the paper to press. He cannot rely on branch officials of the union or the National Executive officers of the union, he cannot rely on the Newspaper Publishers' Association, he cannot rely on the Press Council. These gentlemen are probably at home in bed by then. He has to make up his mind and he has to make up his mind quickly. What the chapel officials, again in my experience, usually ask for is either that the piece should be left out while the matter is sorted out or that a statement on their side of the case should be published simultaneously in the same edition. The argument on which they base this is that, as they are part of the newspaper, they have a greater right than readers to put their side of the case before the paper is published.
In other words, if a newspaper reader reads something with which he disagrees, he sees it only the next day; these people see it that night. It is an understandable argument but I do not think it is a valid one. There is only one way in which editors can deal with such a situation. They must say, "If your union wishes to write or make a statement tomorrow putting its side of the case and correcting what it thinks is an unfairness, then of course we shall consider it and if we think it is fair to the union to do so we shall publish it, but we cannot do so tonight and we shall not take the article about which you complain out of the paper".
In my experience that nearly always works. In the end the chapel officials agree and work continues. However, if they do not agree, if they say that they will not print the paper with that article in it, there is only one thing for the editor to do and that is to say, "Right, we shall close down the paper rather than

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take the piece out". It is very hard for an editor to say that. No journalist or editor likes to lose an issue of his newspaper, particularly in these hard, competitive times. However, I believe that that is the right thing to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, quoted the Observer and mentioned its editor, Mr. David Astor. I know Mr. Astor and have great admiration for his long and brilliant editing of that newspaper. However, there have been occasions on the Observer when this robust attitude of closing down the paper rather than giving way to what is considered to be an unreasonable demand has not been carried out.
Before I mention the matter of the closed shop I should like to deal with one or two points raised by the noble Lord. He reported the motion of the annual conference of the National Union of Journalists instructing members not to report National Front activities, football matches and so on. I believe that in fact that motion was defeated. There is now a growing reaction against extreme militancy within the union. It is strong in the freelance branch and in the central London branch. I believe that the National Union of Journalists can eventually he left to sort this out for itself. I do not entertain some of the worst fears that the noble Lord expressed.
I do not believe that the noble Lord was quite right in his view of sports journalists. There is no objection to a full-time former sportsman who is now working full-time as a journalist writing for a paper, such as Denis Compton or Baxter, who writes for the Sunday Mirror. The objection was—and this was a fight that went on for a long time—that papers began to be filled with articles allegedly written by football managers or football professionals which were in fact, ghosted for them by members of the staff. As an interim measure the National Union insisted that in small type at the end of such articles the phrase "As told to …" or "As narrated to a member of the staff" should be included. This seemed to be quite a ludicrous state of affairs, particularly as any intelligent follower of football would far rather read what a professional journalist had to say about a match than what a football manager had to say about it. I sympathised with the NUJ when it stopped this practice. There is no objection in the
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NUJ to former sportsmen who have become full-time sports journalists. Why do they have an NUJ card when I believe that the earnings rule no longer exists?
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I could quote an incident where that has occurred within the last month. Therefore, it certainly exists in some areas.
Lord JACOBSON: My Lords, possibly; but I think I am right in saying that it is NUJ policy as a whole and that in most newspaper offices these relations work perfectly amicably. Such people are regarded as working journalists.
I do not want to comment too much on the Kettering dispute—it is an unhappy situation. It began as an argument about a house agreement; it has developed into a closed shop dispute. The nub of the matter now seems to be that the nine journalists who left the NUJ and joined the Institute of Journalists are regarded as having broken the union rules by leaving in the course of a dispute. It is on that that some eventual settlement may arise, as I hope will be the case soon.
I turn to the closed shop. It is no secret that many ex-newspaper people on this side of the House had great pangs of conscience during the debates to which the noble Lord referred. In the end I voted reluctantly for the Government because it seemed that we could not deny the National Union of Journalists rights which were being granted to other unions and which, in effect, existed in most newspaper offices anyway. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, is quite right in saying that there is a de facto closed shop, a post-entry closed shop, whereby people who join the paper are expected to join the union.
I very much regret the bitterness that has grown up between the National Union of Journalists and the Institute of Journalists. I hope that when the present troubles are over they may be able to restore amicable relations and perhaps even get back, as they did some years ago, to talking about an eventual amalgamation, which would be healthy for the profession.
I regret the breakdown of the talks on the Press charter and I certainly do not envy the Minister of Employment his task of now drawing one up. But I

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warn the House not to expect too much from any Press charter, however it is arrived at. It is worth having something on paper, but what matters in the end are the relations between the editor and his staff. That is the only way in which the situation will work properly. Where the relations between the editor and his editorial staff are good, I prophesy that there will be no trouble because both sides are genuinely concerned to maintain the freedom of the Press, on which so much depends.
5.48 p.m.
Lord ROCHESTER: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, will not think me discourteous if I confess that the more I have reflected on the terms of the Motion he has introduced in your Lordships' House this afternoon, the less happy I have felt about speaking on it. This is partly because its terms are drawn so widely as to mean that it is very difficult, in what is necessarily a short debate, adequately to cover all the issues that it raises. But it is also because Motions of this kind can so easily be perceived to be—and I certainly do not accuse the noble Lord of having any intention of this kind—contentious, selective, and even partisan in their treatment of problems, that I am sure he will be the first to agree they are of a highly complex kind. In my experience, at best they then fail to solve the problem to which they call attention, and at worst they actually prove to be counter-productive.
However, it would clearly be inappropriate in a debate of this kind if there was no contribution from these Benches, and I am therefore speaking on this Motion. I shall do so briefly. I shall do so in what might, I think, be called a low key and with even more diffidence than usual, because although I have some practical experience of negotiating with trade unions, even to a small extent with printing unions, I have little or none of broadcasting, journalism, or the law. I feel even more reluctant after listening to the speech which has just been made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, with all his evident knowledge and first-hand experience of the newspaper industry.
As has already been said, in the last few weeks there have been a number of events which are significant in the context
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of this Motion, and like the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, I should like to make some reference to two or three of them. There was first the report which he mentioned of the Press Charter Group published towards the end of March. He has reminded your Lordships that that group, representative of employers, editors, and trade unions representing journalists, failed to reach agreement as to a Press charter and on some pretty fundamental points, including the freedom of trade unions to negotiate post-entry closed shops, the disciplining of journalists, and the definition of editors.
As the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, has just said, it now falls to the Secretary of State to draft his own charter, as it were. We, on these Benches, take some comfort from the fact that that charter has to be presented to both Houses of Parliament for approval before it can take effect. But in a political situation which is now very different from that in which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, first made the proposal, I think in your Lordships' House, that there should be a Press charter, like the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, I do not suppose that the Secretary of State views this prospect with any great relish.
I should make our position clear (and certainly this is how I myself feel about it) as to the charter. We remain determined, as my noble friend Lord Wigoder put it when the matter was last discussed in this House rather more than a year ago, that any charter should give adequate protection to the rights of individual journalists, of editors, and of outside contributors, and to the rights of the Institute of Journalists to retain a separate existence. Speaking for myself, but again like the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, I note, I now wonder more than ever if the existence of such a charter might not do more harm than good. But I do not think that that is a sufficient reason to refrain from asking the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, when he comes to wind up the debate, whether he can tell us anything more as to the Government's intentions on this point.
No doubt many of your Lordships would now agree that, so far as possible, it is best that the law and codes of practice, or charters, which depend for their approval on Parliament and are admissible in

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evidence, should be kept out of industrial relations. We have had too many unhappy experiences of the reverse in recent years. Our differences in this House, as I recall them, a year or two ago centred round the question of whether, in the case of the Press, there were one or two basic liberties, such as the right of an individual not to join a union at all on grounds of conscience and the need to maintain complete freedom of expression, that were of such overriding importance as to mean that they should be safeguarded in some way by statutory sanctions.
This leads me to the second recent series of events on which I should like to comment briefly, and which is relevant to this Motion; that is, the strike by the Kettering journalists. I think it has now lasted for five months. As the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, said, it has now become a dispute involving the closed shop principle. It culminated last week in the instruction from the National Union of Journalists to its members that they should black newscopy and pictures emanating from the Press Association at just the time when the local election results were being published.
In my experience, it is usually unhelpful for people not having close knowledge of the precise circumstances surrounding such disputes to air their views upon them; but in this case I would go so far as to offer the opinion that a hopeful sign for the future was the widespread interest and the active expression of conflicting opinions which that instruction evoked among journalists throughout the country. In my view, and I think there was some general support for this feeling of optimism in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, the more widely there is discussion of this difficult problem of the closed shop the more likely it is that the problem will eventually be resolved in practice in a moderate, level-headed and democratic way, without recourse to Parliamentary intervention. Certainly that is my sincere hope, and I would leave it at that.
The third and last point to which I think I must refer in a debate of this kind is the future of the newspaper industry, and particularly that of Associated Newspapers and the Beaverbrook Press. In my limited experience of it, overmanning and restrictive practices
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are more prevalent in the printing industry than in almost any other. On the face of it, this reflects poorly on the unions concerned. However, doubtless equally critical remarks could be made of employers, and especially in the case of the negotiations affecting the London Evening News and Evening Standard regarding the apparent failure of newspaper employers in that case adequately to inform in a sufficiently timely way their own employees about what was going on before they learned of it from other sources.
Nevertheless, it is to the role of trade unions that this Motion calls attention, and whether the attitudes of the printing unions stem primarily from habit, fear, or sheer short-sighted selfishness, on the one hand, or reflect, primarily, bad management, on the other, they certainly afford evidence of considerable lack of trust and of failure of communication between the unions and the employers concerned. As the annual report of the Thomson Organisation published only last week underlines, unless progress is made—in this case unless computer technology is introduced—the future even of The Times could be in jeopardy and the loss of that newspaper would indeed be a national tragedy.
Whatever the underlying causes of these problems, it seems to me that the basic point is that management and unions should come together to identify the problems more closely and, indeed, to solve them if newspapers are to survive in their present numbers; for we must not forget—on this point I agree very much with Lord Orr-Ewing—that the fewer newspapers there are the less freedom there will be for views to be expressed which are truly representative of all shades of opinion among us.
6.2 p.m.
Lord GIBSON: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, for raising this subject at this time. It is, as he said, about a year since we last discussed this matter in your Lordships' House and during that year there have been the discussions on the charter which have broken down, and the matter now rests with the Secretary of State for Employment. It is in my view an appalling situation that a Government Minister should be required

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to draft a charter of Press freedom. I do not rate very highly his chances of producing a charter which will be acceptable to either House, and I take the view that it is likely to do more harm than good, if it is finally approved, but one must wait and see what he comes up with.
I must declare an interest in that I am chairman of a publishing group which includes the Financial Times, of which paper I am also chairman. Before I had anything to do with the Financial Times I worked on the Westminster Press, which is a group of provincial newspapers, for some 15 years after the war. I have had the opportunity therefore of observing some of the trends which have led to the present situation and I shall confine myself to the issue of the closed shop, because in my view that is the overwhelmingly important one.
I remember very well that during the 'fifties and early 'sixties there was a very different attitude among journalists from that which has gained some ground today and I have the utmost sympathy with them in the change which has in many ways been forced on them. They saw their colleagues in the production unions obtaining advantages through solidarity which they were unable to obtain for themselves and they saw their own standard of living fall in relation to that of their colleagues; the differential was eroded.
There was of course another reason why they did not always push their strength as far as they might have, and that was because of a genuine professional approach to their work. There is a great disinclination on the part of journalists to see the paper not come out, and I believe that had something to do with the fact that it was not until 10 years ago, or even less, that militancy began to gain ground, and it was only through militancy that ground was made up. Therefore, I have great sympathy with them in this change of approach, although I deplore it. They have this in common with other professional groups—doctors, teachers, nurses—all of whom are reluctant to use the weapon of withholding their labour because of their professional attitude to their work.
It would be wrong to underestimate the present bargaining strength of the NUJ; I do not think it is possible to imagine a
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large newspaper coming out for any length of time without their consent. Situations such as that which, sadly, obtain at Kettering would I think be impossible on a large scale; it must be a very exceptional editor who can bring out 100 issues without any of his NUJ members' assistance. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it may be, the fact is that journalists attribute the fact that they fell behind in their living standards to weakness, and this is the reason for their support of the closed shop. Thus, while I am saddened by their change in approach, the reasons for it are not far to seek.
It is easy if one wants power for a litigimate purpose, such as industrial bargaining, to convince oneself that it will not be used for an illegitimate purpose, but neither journalists nor anyone else should fall into that obvious trap, as I think it to be, in the case of the Press. If the militant minority persuade their fellow journalists that this power is necessary for industrial bargaining purposes, that militant minority will certainly contain some who are determined to use it for political purposes. In the hands of such people, if they obtain power on the Executive of the NUJ, this power will amount to a power to determine that some ideas shall find expression and some shall not if a closed shop is established.
If one ever thought it was fanciful to imagine that this might happen, the case of the North London area branch of the NUJ, which was quoted by Lord Orr-Ewing, shows that it can happen. I do not think it has been denied, following the letter to The Times which he quoted, that it did happen; to recommend the distortion or suppression of fact in pursuit of what they call a constructive policy on race reporting is a concept which entirely subverts the idea of a free Press. The idea that power over a union with a closed shop should pass to people who might use it in this way will be abhorrent to your Lordships, and certainly will be abhorrent to the vast majority of journalists; yet that is the power which a closed shop would certainly confer if newspaper managements were weak enough to concede it to a central body like the NUJ.
If they were to concede it, possession of the NUJ card would amount to a licence to write in the Press; we should

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have a licensed Press with the NUJ issuing the licences. In my view we have to conclude that the NUJ's need for a closed shop for bargaining strength—I have already said that I have great sympathy for the reasons—must yield to the greater public need of free access to the Press. It is no good saying that in practice the power to affect Press freedom conferred by the closed shop would not be abused. The danger would be there and it must not be tolerated.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, is right to say that the danger is equally there and has indeed been much more frequently used in the past by proprietors. What he said was absolutely fair. I thought his speech was a model of good sense, and I was very interested and glad to hear his advice to editors to be robust in refusing pressures from workers who, because they are part of the production process, feel they should have some influence on the contents and have a right to have their views represented before the paper comes out. Weakness on the part of editors on occasions has been deplorable.
Of course it is true that proprietors have exerted this influence in the past, but the basic difference is that there is a variety of proprietors. Furthermore, the supply of those willing to serve as proprietors does not appear to be drying up. As The Economist said last week—and I think it hit the nail on the head—
"Only rich men, it seems, are foolish enough to keep as many newspapers going as a democratic country deserves. They distort news and comment, but keep a greater variety of both. So long as there are enough newspapers around, the distortion does not matter too much. The Beaver himself discovered that propaganda and manipulation of news in a free market for ideas can be counter-productive".
Proprietors have misused their power in the past and they will do so in the future, but experience shows—and we should take some comfort from this—that it is much harder for proprietors to put pressure on editors today than it used to be, especially if a paper is successful. It is much easier if it is not a successful paper, but then there is perhaps some excuse for it. A successful editor need not and will not tolerate interference, and the proprietor fortunate enough to have a successful editor in charge of his paper would be foolish to put his good fortune at risk by intervening.
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Perhaps I may be permitted to assure your Lordships, if such an assurance is needed, that Pearsons have not in 20 years' ownership of the Financial Times ever attempted to put pressure on the editor in any way. I am glad to see the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, in his place, for I think that he would confirm that. I am not sure that we can claim any great virtue. The fact is that the Financial Times is a very successful paper and we should have been foolish to try to influence it in any way. However, whatever the sins, actual or potential, of proprietors there are several of the latter. They do not monopolise the Press, whereas a powerful union without whose good will or licence no one can write for the Press regularly, if at all, could do so and this seems potentially 10 times more harmful than any individual proprietor.
That brings me to the last point that I want to make. There can be no freedom without diversity. We need mere newspapers, more outlets for points of view, not fewer. More newspapers are perfectly possible if the costs of production can be reduced, as they can be if the technology now available is introduced at economic manning levels. As your Lordships know, a joint committee of the employers and trade union leaders in the newspaper industry has worked out proposals for the introduction of new technical processes in a way which it was hoped was both realistic and generous, taking full account of the social and human factors, no less than the economic. I am sorry to say that the proposals were voted down by the membership of most of the unions concerned, though not by the NUJ. The NUJ voted for it, even if not by a very large majority.
One can sympathise only too well with the anxieties of people whose existing interests are threatened. We all tend to react in exactly the same way when our interests are threatened. I have great sympathy with the people who voted down these proposals, but the plain fact is that the threat of unemployment is not averted by saving old jobs which are uneconomic. It is averted by creating new ones. This truth will ultimately force us to change. I have complete confidence in that outcome; I am sure that resistance to change will be overcome with understanding and after a lot of hard bargaining, and that we shall eventually get a larger number

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of newspapers in both Fleet Street and elsewhere. I believe that the trends towards closing down will be reversed, but we have a long way to go before that process matures.
That is the prescription for a free Press and, let me emphasise, for the prosperity of journalists. The imposition of a closed shop is not. I conclude by assuring your Lordships that I believe this issue to be so important that, though I am not particularly anxious for the assistance of the law—that is another matter—no management with which I am connected will concede that principle. If it were conceded in principle, I should cease to have anything to do with it.
6.15 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I have to declare an interest because, like my noble friend Lord Jacobson, I am a card-carrying NUJ member and have been all my adult life. In fact, I think that I was the 350th member of the Central London branch, which puts me way back with Adam and Eve.
I am intervening today not from any strong purpose except that I was waiting to hear what on earth the debate was all about. I suspected that it would take the form that it has taken. We have had the repetition of most of the things that we have heard before from both sides, and we are still no clearer as to what should be the answers to this problem. I suspect that, like my other colleagues—and I may say that the NUJ is probably the strongest union in the House of Lords—I have regarded a job as a profession. I certainly did not regard myself as part of an industry until quite late in my career. Then, you realise that, in the editorial or journalistic side, you are a quite insignificant part of an industry and that the whole of your capacity for expression, which is what most journalists want, apart from salary—they want to read themselves in the newspapers and they want people to know what they think—can be cut off by the man who ties the string on the parcels at the despatch point. We are all part of a very cumbrous system and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, that we are a long way behind the technological capacity which could make this industry of ours effective and prosperous.
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I remember in 1929 the editor of the Daily News asking me to write an article on the future of newspapers. I described the fatuous situation that existed as a result of which I wrote something on a piece of paper, handed it to a sub-editor, who put a heading on it, the heading was approved and so on; it then went to the compositors, who set the type and handed it to the "mat" maker, who handed it to the stereo man. Ultimately, it got to the point where it was tied up by the gentleman with the piece of string, thrown into a van and taken to a railway station, put on a train, thrown off the train at Grantham or wherever it might be, dismantled by a wholesaler and rewrapped for the retailer, unwrapped by the retailer and handed to the newsboy who even today brings it to me up 75 stairs in the city of Edinburgh.
That was a newspaper. To me, it was completely and utterly nonsensical, and we realised that. In fact, I did a description of how one could deliver a newspaper directly into the home. In those days, we only had telephoto, but I made the most of that and assumed that we could deliver straight into the home. NATSOPA refused to print the article. That was in 1929. They have now been overtaken by events in the shape of all the potential technological changes that exist and that are highly efficient, as we can see elsewhere. Therefore, what we are struggling for and talking about is not just the closed shop or how we are to work out a charter for editors or journalists; it is the survival of an industry, the survival of the printed word. This is one of the tragic things that I see happening all over the world. There is the possibility that we shall rely on our ears and eyes and forget how to read or forget what we ought to read. So we are really struggling for even more than just the relationships of journalists or the question of a charter.
On the question of the charter, I agree with my noble friend Lord Jacobson and the noble Lord, Lord Gibson; I cannot imagine anything more futile than for the Minister to sit down and try to work out a charter of this kind. Such a matter shows a great unreality about our discussions. I think that this was felt by us journalists in this House, and no doubt those in another place. I welcomed the valiant efforts of my noble friend Lord Houghton of

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Sowerby to try to find a meaningful solution, but at the same time I, and I believe all of us, realise that this is not the way things work in newspapers. There is no way—a long way short of stopping a paper altogether—in which to achieve the effective production of a newspaper that does not involve a strict and genuine relationship between the editor on the job and the people who produce the paper.
Never in my experience did I find myself in such great disagreement with my editor that we could not come to some agreement as to how we should behave like grown-ups. I am not talking now of Party politics. Further, I cannot remember any time in my experience of the NUJ chapels when we did not come to settlements and agreements. We had our disputes with the editor, but I assure your Lordships that these were never on a Party political line, but rather they basically and genuinely involved the concern of professional people engaged in a professional job— producing what is called a newspaper. We had considerable feelings about the kind of newspaper for which we ought to be working, but that did not lead to confrontation or the kind of troubles which we are talking about now.
To me it is absolutely inconceivable ever to have a legal charter which would simply determine what sensible people ought to do and how they ought to think in the fairly drastic and fierce business of producing a newspaper on time. As has been pointed out, one of the weak points of our craft or our industry is this urgency of beating the clock, which gives so many opportunities for putting a spanner in the works. Let us be quite clear about that.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, for having raised this question. At least it reminds us that there is a body of people—my profession, journalism—who are genuinely concerned to produce the kind of newspapers which should be a credit to this country. The people who are degrading—and I use that word deliberately—our newspapers are not the journalists who are writing for them, but the people who are commercialising them in the way that is happening now, and which I find quite indefensible. We are not producing newspapers nowadays; we are producing magazines with as much sex as can possibly be packed into them.
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We get very hot around the collar about freedom of speech and defence of liberty. I am all for this. But the fact is that the people who will help to maintain this freedom and liberty, and justify it, are the working journalists. I assure your Lordships that the working journalists are most concerned about the freedom of speech and the freedom to write and to be read. It is their job; and it is their hope and their aspiration to be read. I can assure your Lordships that the journalists are not the people in this bogy which has been built up and which we are talking about this evening.
6.24 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I do not think it possible to overstate the importance of the matter raised by my noble friend, Lord Orr-Ewing, and the speeches of all noble Lords who have spoken so far this evening in this debate have reinforced that view. The House will therefore be particularly grateful to my noble friend for raising this matter tonight. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, who has just spoken, complained about the commercialism of modern, latter-day newspaper proprietors. But given the commercial circumstances in which we live, do you wonder at it, my Lords? I was particularly impressed, as I think we all were, by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, who gave views which clearly were based on sound and long experience. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, complained that the Press charter might do more harm than good. When the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was pressing his Amendments a year or so ago we all, certainly on this side of the House, wondered about the effect that the charter would have; but that was the best solution that we could get, and even that we were not very happy about, and indeed the Government were obliged to use the Parliament Act to bring that solution into force. But at the time it was advanced, at least in some quarters, as a compromise.
Owing to the fact that this is a short debate I do not propose to embark upon a long philosophical dissertation, but rather to consider some of the more practical risks to which we are exposed by allowing unions the licence end freedom which has been so aptly described already by so many noble Lords. I

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should like to start by saying that I believe that the role of the trade unions, whether in the newspaper business or in the broadcasting industry, or indeed in any other, is to promote and foster the wellbeing of their members—all of their members. I think that, on the whole, they do that task very well. Many noble Lords tonight have claimed membership of the National Union of Journalists. I cannot claim membership of that union, but I am a member of another union. Of course it is right that in pursuit of these aims the unions should be entitled to consult management or Government, or indeed among themselves, but in the media industries which concern us tonight the alarm bells have begun to ring because it is said that the unions are now stepping beyond the bounds of what we regard as acceptable.
Is this a false alarm, my Lords, or can the problems be handled by the industry itself? First, the National Union of Journalists is now actively enforcing a closed shop throughout almost all the national and provincial newspapers. That alone would have caused hardly a ripple, for closed shops exist in many industries, both public and private. As I have said previously, this topic was exhaustively discussed when we were considering the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill a few months ago. But the burden of our complaint tonight is not the simple desire of the NUJ to achieve a closed shop, but rather the lengths to which that union will go to enforce it, and, above all, the regime which is implemented once a closed shop has been created.
My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing has given us some very serious examples of the action of the NUJ taken to enforce a closed shop; but grave though these are, I myself attach even greater importance to the actions taken on instructions issued by the union members as to the line that they should take when reporting matters on which the union has a particular view. Clearly this is to be deplored. I hope and believe that the examples described by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing, particularly those stories about the National Front, are merely cases of over-enthusiasm by local officials, rather than the considered view of the union itself.
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I do not yet think that we have reached the point where the unions, in particular the NUJ and the printing unions, are exercising a totally unreasonable control over the editorial prerogative, but the NUJ themselves are certainly influencing, if not controlling, the selection of those who contribute to our papers and broadcasts, and I believe this is unhealthy. It is to be hoped that the Minister's Press charter, when it appears, will nip this undesirable trend in the bud.
Many of your Lordships have spoken about the closed shop, and I think it right that I should state quite clearly where we on this side of the House stand on the closed shop, not only in the printing and newspaper industries but really right across the spectrum. First of all, we believe that closed shops should not be created without the consent of the workforce involved. We secondly believe that existing employees should not be forced to join a union against their will. Thirdly, individuals who have strong personal convictions, perhaps of a religious nature, which make it impossible for them to join a union should be exempted. It is also important that any closed shop agreement should protect the rights of members of professions whose codes of conduct forbid them to take part in industrial action. Finally, we believe that an independent tribunal ought to be available to consider the cases of people who have strong personal convictions against trade union membership, or who are arbitrarily excluded or expelled from particular unions.
My Lords, there is another area where there is considerable cause for concern. It is widely believed that the financial straits in which the newspaper industry, particularly the national newspaper industry, now finds itself is the result of chronic overmanning which has continued for a good many years. The lengths to which the printing uions are prepared to go, in particular, to preserve the number of jobs, often very highly paid jobs, is really a scandal. It is no exaggeration to say that the impending (as we believe) reduction in the number of London evening newspapers from two to one is an indirect but clear result of this problem. The unions do not seem to understand that by forcing uneconomic manning levels on newspapers, closures I will result and the total number of jobs

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available will be reduced. I should have thought that that was as clear as a pikestaff, but it has not appprently dawned on the men themselves.
The industrial muscle available to unions in all spheres is also a matter giving cause for concern. I refer in particular to their power to influence matters quite divorced from their own sphere of activities. My noble friend Lord Ferrier, who had hoped to speak tonight but who unfortunately has been called away, reminds me of how the reporting of Parliamentary matters has declined in quantity, in particular, over the years, to the point where nowadays only two, or at most three, national dailies include any appreciable coverage of our proceedings—and that, too, is sometimes very sketchy. As pressure mounts upon editors to include only commercial copy, it is not inconceivable that papers will begin to edit political views with which they do not agree even more sharply than hitherto. I believe that my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing has introduced an important and vital topic this evening, and we are grateful to him for it. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister's reply.
6.34 p.m.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I must apologise to the House for a tardy arrival and for the disadvantage of not having heard most of the previous speakers, but I want to make only two relatively brief points and I think they are probably points unlikely to have been affected by observations previously made because of their essential character. The first point I should like to make is this. I think it is important to review the situation since the very protracted and corrosive battle we had last year and the year before on this issue, but I think it would be unfortunate, in some ways, to reopen it in all its aspects at this moment. I think that at this moment, when efforts are being made to determine what a Press Charter ought to be, and when, if I may venture to say so, the electoral situation must leave it uncertain whether there will be a Press Charter at all, detailed discussion on the matters of dispute between us cannot, probably, be very helpful.
I can bring to the House a report of the current situation in so far as your Lordships may not have received it, because I
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participated in the Press Charter discussions; and I think that, if it has not already been done (and even if it has been done it would be right to repeat it), a tribute should be paid to Lord Pearce for the way in which he struggled to achieve an agreement against impossible odds. It was evident from the outset that to attain an agreement where there was such a deep cleavage of opinion on the matter would require powers even exceeding his, but his efforts were so wise, so tenacious and really so perceptive that one felt one almost owed it to him to reach an agreement, and it was certainly a personal sadness to me that the negotiations collapsed, as I thought they would have to collapse, in circumstances where he did not get his reward of having achieved such an agreement. I think it is right that we should send a tribute to him from this House for the efforts that he made, and, on the whole, for the extraordinarily conciliatory atmosphere that he contrived to provide, which I think will reap benefits in the future. I think he did remove some of the heat, some of the corrosion, some of the elements of distrust that have made the position more difficult and which, removed, will make it easier.
My Lords, the second point I should like to make is on the question of a closed shop. What do we mean by a closed shop? On the question of a closed shop designed to protect the industrial negotiations of people to maintain the proper wage level, to ensure that no single member can jettison the negotiations or damage them so that they cannot earn a proper wage, I think there would be very little disagreement in this House that that was by no means an improper thing; that no single person should have the power to disrupt and destroy negotiations being conducted by other people which related purely to industrial considerations. But that was not what this was about. What this was about was that some of us, in an increasing number, recognised that industrial considerations had no place in relation to creative activity; and one has to accept that there are certain aspects of human behaviour, certain activities, where it is impossible to permit the fullest and freest industrial negotiation because that is impairing freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom to produce what a man has a right to produce in the way of an intellectual exercise.

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That really was the cleavage, and I said time and time again that if someone would come forward with a proposal for allowing the fullest and freest industrial negotiation unimpaired or undamaged by questions of a closed shop, I am quite sure that a method could have been found for dealing with it. But what had to be dealt with was that this legislation permitted and permits the possibility that once a closed shop is introduced a man may not be able to write for a newspaper, and ultimately write for a publisher, because he can be excluded from a union or expelled from a union without any appropriate legal redress. That was what the issue was about and that is what it is about. It is not about anything else; and it is to restore that situation that I hope this House and the other place will one day set their minds with the knowledge of what the real issue is: not in order to provoke industrial discord, not in order to attack trade unions—because one of the things that needs to be said here really relates to the terms of this Motion. I think we ought to be very indebted to Lord Orr-Ewing for having brought the matter to the attention of the House at a moment, I think, when it is quite useful that there should be a discussion, if perhaps not too protracted a discussion; and his Motion talks about "the trade unions".
On the whole, this is a matter which relates to journalists. I do not think, with very few exceptions, that one has to excite oneself about the possibility of the print unions in this connection. It is of course the case that the print unions have occasionally misbehaved, that they have sought to intervene and to prevent something being published; but, on the whole their concern is purely with industrial matters. Over recent months when I have had dealings with them—I have had dealings with them over the years—I do not think anyone need sense a danger to freedom of speech or to liberty from their activities, although obviously there are small elements in all the unions who seek to turn to advantage any kind of legislation which enables them to disrupt the sort of society that we want, that we enjoy and that we think is right. That is quite a different question. It is how we deal with those elements in unions, small but powerful,
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which can take command and do irreparable damage if allowed to take command. But that is a different question.
On the question of the problem of free speech, this is something which relates almost entirely to journalists. It also relates to a relatively limited number of journalists. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, when he said that most journalists are as concerned about the freedom of speech as I am and as your Lordships are. But that is not the point. The point is that, led by industrial considerations, led, I think, by advice and recommendations which did not bring the real issue into relief, they have failed to see a danger which other people perceive only too clearly: that if you allow any union the right to say who shall be a member of that union, in circumstances where if a man is not a member of the union he may not write, he may not express his thoughts, he may not express his opinions or divulge what he has learned, that is the end of true democracy if it is permitted to happen without restraint and control.
My Lords, we discussed this subject at very great length. The situation has now been reached where the important thing is to see what sort of Press charter will be brought before Parliament for consideration. I have deep misgivings that the sort of Press charter that we might possibly have negotiated, with a slightly more conciliatory attitude on all sides, and certainly through no fault of the distinguished judge who presided, will not be the charter that will now emerge from the Minister. I think that one should repeat how obnoxious is the notion of a Press charter which is imposed upon a free Press by a governmental Minister in circumstances where, so far as I know, there is no parallel in the Free World for such a thing having been done. I think it is unfortunate that such a charter should emerge in this way but I think that, equally, we should not prejudge it. It may be that some of the dangers and problems that we have apprehended and are concerned about will be dealt with in a liberal and even a constructive fashion. One hopes that this may be so. One must wait and see.
I think that it is important to emphasise that what we are concerned with is not in any way to trammel upon or restrict the

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trade unions activities in regard to industrial negotiations or the right of a man to demand the best possible wage that he can. That is not the issue. It has never been the issue. Time and time again it has been alleged against me and against the publishers that our concern is to tread into the dust the faces of these poor, infirm, weak workers, having no industrial power and with no muscle, in order to ensure that they receive minimum wages. This is a burlesque in the way that I am presenting it; but it is also a burlesque of the facts to any extent at all. It is not the desire, nor has it ever been the desire, of anyone I represent or for whom I speak to become involved in any way in any curtailment of the right of the workers to earn the best wages that they can. But in so far as the possibility of doing this involves the concession of a right to exclude a man from the practice and profession of writing, that is totally unacceptable. I hope that it will remain so and that it will be the subject of revising legislation at the earliest possible opportunity.
This brings me—and I do not intend to keep your Lordships for very long—to the very important question of what is to be done to preserve a free Press where papers are endangered, as they are today, by financial threats and similar curtailments operating on all fronts. The observation was made by the last speaker, and rightly made, that new technology might enable new papers to appear and might remove some of the grave economic threats that prevent the publication of newspapers because of costs. It may be so.
This will not be easily negotiated unless there is determined intervention on the part of the Government. I do not think that this matter can he dealt with by private negotiation. I know that my colleagues in the Newspaper Proprietors' Association, almost without exception, viewed with horror and repugnance any suggestion that there might be governmental assistance in relation to the publication of newspapers. This is not a horror or a repugnance that I share. I think that it behoves a free society to see that newspapers are published, free of control and free of interference, but in a fashion to enable as many as possible to appear; and that where the financial necessity involves some governmental assistance,
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then, under proper circumstances and under proper control, it should be given.
I was for seven years Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. I may say that I am perhaps better able than most to judge the likelihood of a man who writes anything regarding himself beholden to a Government grant or Government subsidy. I have never met greater alacrity or enthusiam in biting the hand that feeds them than I found among the people that we supported with subsidies. And I think that it is right and proper that it should be so.
It is a fanciful apprehension that you cannot devise a way to subsidise newsprint or to provide some independent organisation to ensure that papers in great trouble can have some governmental assistance. I can suggest one way in which it might be done at no cost to the public purse. The Annan Report, about which I may say one word in a moment, recommends that there should be a single programme journal published throughout the country and containing both sets of programmes. This is so wise and so overdue that it requires no comment. If the copyright in that journal can be vested in some independent body, for the proceeds to be used to sustain newspapers which are threatened by television, that would be a wise move. It would enable money to come in without further encroaching on the taxpayers' pocket and would enable independent-minded people to decide how much should be allocated. This is too big a question to be opened or discussed at this hour; but it is right that it should be touched upon.
When I consider the tragic consequences of there being no form of Government assistance when I think of the vital nature of newspapers in a modern society and, really, its total disregard in so many areas by people who ought to realise its vital nature, what are we to do if we had no newspapers containing, for example, theatrical criticisms, film criticism, or art and literary criticism; where would we find that adequately dealt with in television? I would not utter a word of criticism against television programmes unless very slightly provoked; but, as things are, it must be clear to those people concerned with the welfare of our society that newspapers must be preserved. There is so much they supply which is not supplied by any other means.

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The preservation of our newspapers is crucial and vital yet we accept with composure the possibility that they can disappear one after the other—and, may I say, nobody is more concerned about the disappearance of good and important newspapers than I am and nobody is more concerned about the disappearance of bad, unimportant and vulgar newspapers than I am. To have a free Press you must have newspapers with opinions right across the board. You must have every kind of newspaper to supply every kind of need. This is not an élitist conception; you do not want newspapers dealing only with matters of artistic or literary criticism; you need newspapers to cater for every taste. It is an intellectual, constitutional and democratic disaster when those newspapers disappear—as they will unless something is done.
I hesitate to refer to the Royal Commission on the Press because it would be difficult to refer to it without seeming to be impolite to it; and this I would not want to do at all. But the fact remains that this Commission has now been sitting for a very long time. I do not know what report will emerge from it. It may possibly produce recommendations that will save us all and perhaps we shall go down on our knees in gratitude for the wonderful, imaginative devices that they have suggested to save newspapers and to keep them in publication.
What I do know is that they did produce an interim report, and produced it at a time when I was chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association. They came to us in advance and they said, "We are going to publish an interim report. Will you associate yourselves with it?" We answered, "Certainly. If there is any prospect of getting any relief, we will do so, with enthusiasm" One question we asked, to which we got an honourable reply, was, "Are you sure that if you make recommendations of financial character that are moderate and reasonable these will be implemented by the Government?" The answer was an emphatic, "Yes" I do not believe that they or anyone deceived us but I can only say that, literally within minutes of the recommendation they made to provide very modest assistance in the way of lower-interest loans, those proposals were rejected by the Government; or for
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practical purposes rejected because they said, "We will allow them to come into operation when total agreement has been reached in Fleet Street; we will allow them to come into operation with the introduction of agreed tariffs," or, "We will allow them to come into operation when the Messiah comes!" That, in effect, was what they said.
It was a very unfortunate approach to all of us that we should have been asked to co-operate in this situation with an outcome of the sort that eventuated. Nothing was done, and an enormous amount of time was wasted. I do not know what they are doing at the moment. I do not know what they are deliberating; they are burrowing away and, no doubt, will produce recommendations of the most startling and valuable character. So far as I am concerned, I can only say that I will view those recommendations against the background and the context of their interim report. They will have to be very effective recommendations indeed to atone for the total failure of that interim report and the sad waste of time and money it involved.
I would conclude by saying this: I believe a free Press means the widest possible distribution of newspapers that can be achieved. I have never believed the free Press is some abstract conception; it is the publication of as many papers as can be contrived, having the right to say what the man who controls, owns or has the say in the paper wishes to say. The only way in which there is an effective free Press is that there should be enough of these each contradicting, each commenting on, each interpolating what the others are saying. That can only be done by having enough newspapers to make it a possibility. If we do not have enough newspapers to make it a possibility, we shall be in appalling danger from the point of view of communications to the public at large and the right of people to know what is happening.
A man is astonishingly loyal to his newspapers. I remember in my home we first started by buying the Daily News, then we went over to the News Chronicle. We did not go over, I hasten to say, to the —Daily Mail. We then went to the.Daily Telegraph. We remained with each paper while it was in publication. The loyalty of people to their newspapers is one

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of the most remarkable phenomena in this country. On the whole, a man who buys the Daily Whatever-it-is, at birth—assuming that he can buy it at birth—will probably have the same newspaper, if it survives, on the day of his death. He reads it and he trusts it. He likes it; he is not wholly affected by it. The degree of propaganda that newspapers can achieve is strictly limited, as people acquainted with political matters well know.
But what it does is to enable the man to receive news through a medium that he trusts, respects and likes, using an idiom that is familiar to him, which he regards as honourable and in which he has faith. If we curtail this, if we create a situation where a man will know that what he is reading is being edited by unions, edited by an editor in the sense that he is not allowing a particular newspaper to appear, that there is no free passage of news, if he knows that there is a reduction in the number of newspapers to the point where the truth cannot emerge, we are living in a lesser society; we are living in a society where there is great danger to the things that we value.
I personally am very indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, that he has made this debate a possibility. It is an interim debate; it is a debate that needs to be renewed, and renewed in extenso when we know what the Press charter is designed to contain, and when we have an opportunity of discussing that in detail. We cannot assert the proposition too often that in the society in which we want to live we must enable everyone to publish and express their views free from interference from any quarter whatsoever, except that quarter where it contrives to be some infraction of the law. Except where it is an infraction of the law, people must be entitled to publish what they want to say. Any artificial restriction relating to industrial negotiations or anything else is in our view—and in the view of all of us, if we think about it—an abomination.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, before my noble friend replies, would he allow me to add two sentences to this interesting debate? Several speakers have been outraged that the NUJ tried to stop the coverage about the National Front. I think that there is much too much
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coverage about the National Front, both on radio, television and even in the Press. My Lords, that is all I wish to say.
6.54 p.m.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I and my right honourable friend the Minister are grateful for the opportunity afforded to us by Lord Orr-Ewing's Motion today. I can assure all noble Lords that the speeches will be carefully considered by my right honourable friend. As has been indicated, he has the tremendous task of getting the negotiations about the charter, for which he is now responsible, into operation. It is not easy, as has been rightly indicated. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, overdid a little the sinister approach, in many directions. On the other hand, I thank him for his extreme courtesy in giving me a very comprehensive indication of what his speech would contain. I deeply appreciate that.
Many noble Lords have referred to the various industrial disputes that are taking place at the present time, particularly the Kettering dispute. I do not think that any right-minded noble Lord would expect me to make any contribution or express a point of view on these industrial disputes. So far as the Kettering dispute is concerned, I understand that certain negotiations are going on at the present moment which might possibly lead to an agreement. In those circumstances, it would be very wrong indeed to pass any comment. Noble Lords have also referred to what is a difficult question to some people regarding outside contributors—sporting personalities—being barred from making contributions to the Press. This is a matter for the Press charter. This will be negotiated along with other matters.
Praise has already been given to my noble friend Lord Jacobson; but I do not think that it is any exaggeration to say that all noble Lords, whether they are present or read the debate in Hansard, should pay close attention to the remarks made by somebody who has had a definite, positive, personal and distinguished career in the Press over many years. He brought the debate into its proper perspective and balance. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, made a similar contribution. I note his insistence on the Liberal attitude and the

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rights of the individual. He made reference also to the Kettering dispute.
The noble Lord, Lord Gibson, said emphatically that he will not accept the closed shop and will depart from the Financial Times if that occurs. I am not going to pass any comment about that. Personally, I am not a regular reader of the Financial Times; my financial situation does not warrant me doing so. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, made a constructive speech for which I thank him. Manning and other issues are matters for unions and management. The Royal Commission on the Press and the negotiations on the charter no doubt will ensure discussion on this matter.
My Lords, let us face the fact—this goes back a long time—that naturally, men in employment want to preserve their jobs, that is only human nature. We need to have a little understanding before we start so readily to condemn. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, made his usual brilliant contribution, firing words of wisdom at me at a machine gun rate. I fully appreciate them, particularly as noble Lords may not know that he has made a long journey to make his contribution to the debate. The House expresses gratitude to him for his attendance. I am grateful for his attitude towards the negotiations now being undertaken on the charter. He is prepared to wait and see and make a contribution. That is fair and reasonable.
We have had a debate of this character before, and at some length. The final outcome of the lengthy debate we had on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, which was eventually agreed by both Houses of Parliament, was the inclusion in the Bill of provision for the preparation of a voluntary charter on Press freedom to cover the issues of particular concern which have been identified. That provision is now firmly on the Statute Book and I do not wish to enter into what inevitably would be a fruitless debate about its merits. Parliament has agreed that a charter on the lines provided for under the Act is the most suitable way of meeting the concerns that have been expressed about Press freedom. We must give those provisions a fair trial before considering whether anything further is required, and I fervently hope that noble Lords will accept this.
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Nevertheless, a number of concerns were expressed in the original discussions on the charter, and they have been repeated today. I do not complain about that, but before I talk specifically about the present state of play as regards the charter I feel I should revert to the general issues which the House debated at some length, and to explain again the general view expressed by Government spokesmen during the course of the debates. It is a view which I may say, has not changed significantly in the intervening period.
Clearly, the independence and freedom of the Press must be a matter of continuing concern to all Members of both Houses of Parliament. There was no disagreement about that when the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act was debated, and there is none now. The debate about the charter was, in the first place, not about whether Press freedom should be safeguarded but rather about the nature of the dangers to the Press that might arise and the best means of safeguarding its freedom. Moreover, a variety of people and factors in certain circumstances can pose a threat to the diversity of opinion and freedom of speech which, I am sure, we all want our Press to be able to continue to reflect. It should not be assumed that the actions of trade unions pose the only, and even the main, potential threat to the freedom of the Press. It remains the case that proprietors and editors still exercise the main control over who has access to the Press and what is printed. In their hands rests the greatest power to censor and distort and, therefore, the greatest responsibility for ensuring that there is no censorship and distortion. Who is prepared to assert in this Chamber tonight that they have always exercised that responsibility fairly and wisely?
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but I think it is quite wrong that this assertion should continue to be made day after day and year after year. An editor or proprietor controls one newspaper. He can say what he likes or be told what he likes in one newspaper. Another editor and another proprietor control another; and so we have in this country 1,500 newspapers, most of them under different control. It is quite wrong that encouragement should be given to the

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nation that, because there is an alleged censorship of this kind, the type of censorship to which this debate has been addressed can in any way be tolerable.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, should have been here—of course understand the reason for his absence—to listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, said on this subject. In any case, we must accept that, as trade unions and members of trade unions have responsibility, so editors and proprietors have a greater degree of responsibility, because they can close a newspaper, they can negotiate its sale to somebody else, and, consequently, have the paper closed down with a threat of unemployment to the workers involved. I would say quite definitely—I am not expressing the Government's view, but I do not think they would disagree—that this question of the death or departure of newspapers is not new. I could go back many years. I would list to the House the papers I used to read and for which I had great affection—and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and others have stated that one can feel affection for a newspaper —the News Chronicle the Star (for which I had a deep affection), the Daily Herald, Reynolds News and others.
In fact, the political viewpoint of papers today in this country is almost like the representation in your Lordships' House: it is rather overwhelming on the part of the Opposition. Your Lordships' House, of course, can be adjusted no doubt by common agreement, but I am not going to get involved in the adjustment of the Press in this debate. But it is a fact that over the years newspapers have tended to disappear, and gradually and surely one particular broad Right Wing approach has developed. And where are the others who have interests? Many people, of course, take the Guardian, but I am not going to advertise the Guardian tonight. And, of course, there are the Party papers. The Conservative Party own a paper, but on this side of the House Party members own a paper in Labour Weekly, an excellent journal. Having got that free commercial in, may I turn to the activities of trade unions, the principal topic of today's debate. There is something of a dilemma. Trade unions
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representing those who work in the newspaper industry clearly have the power to restrict the flow of information if they so wish, as transport workers have the power to restrict the flow of goods. However, Parliament has accepted that trade union action aimed at securing better terms and conditions of employment and over such matters, for example, as union membership, is generally legitimate and that the law should not attempt to interfere.
The question is, therefore, whether the law and the general freedom that the law permits to trade unions generally poses such a threat to Press freedom that a particular group of trade unions operating in the newspaper industry should be denied certain rights available to all other trade unions. Of course, the issue of Press freedom extends well outside the traditional ambit of industrial relations, but industrial relations issues which bear on Press freedom cannot altogether be extracted from the industrial relations situation in which they arise, and be dealt with on a basis which ignores industrial relations realities.
The Government have consistently said that they did not believe that the threat to Press freedom was such as to justify any statutory special prohibitions relating to the Press alone. The retention of something along the lines of certain provisions of the Industrial Relations Act, complete with penal sanctions, perhaps, for a small group of unions would be anomalous and would prove unenforceable. So far as I know, there have been few recent suggestions that other laws affecting the operations of other elements in the newspaper industry should in any way be modified or extended because of the particular importance of Press freedom and independence.
In assessing the potential threat that the activities of trade unions are alleged to pose to freedom of the Press, I think that this House ought to take into account several further points. First, since much of the debate has centred inevitably on the implications of closed shop agreements, it is worth noting that such agreements have existed in the production areas of most newspapers for many years and that, at least on some newspapers, a de facto closed shop appears to exist for journalists now without apparently any harmful consequences. Secondly, the law relating

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to the closed shop and other matters of concern that have been raised is now broadly the same as that which existed before 1971. In fact, closed shops are now lawful again. Thirdly, although of course industrial action on the part of trade unions in the newspaper industry may result in the temporary disruption in the flow of information, there have been few examples that I can find of actions taken by trade unions primarily designed to distort or suppress information, though interference with the flow of information as an industrial tactic has, of course, been employed on several occasions.
Against that background, the Government's view was and is that only something acceptable to all the parties concerned in the industry provides an effective means of protecting the freedom of the Press. The Government, therefore, encouraged talks within the industry on this subject and were eventually prepared, in the context of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, to give their support to the idea of a voluntary charter for Press freedom. We had hoped, of course, that the industry would be able to agree such a charter itself in the period, without outside involvement or assistance. We are therefore extremely sorry that, at the end of the 12 months' period provided under the Act, no such agreed charter has emerged.
Nevertheless, I should like at this point to pay tribute, both on my own behalf and on behalf of the Secretary of State, to the effort of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearce, who chaired the talks with the industry, to try to secure an agreed charter. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has already indicated, the whole House must be very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearce, for the great efforts that he has made—efforts which have not so far been completely successful. But we may hope that when the Minister negotiates with the noble and learned Lord, the Royal Commission on the Press and many others, we shall achieve something which we all desire.
But we must remember that agreement was reached on a number of points; in particular, the definition of what constitutes "improper pressure", and an agreement both not to exert such improper pressure and to resist it when exerted by others. Agreement was also reached that
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newspaper editors should be excluded from the provisions of any union membership agreements—a matter of particular concern in the original Parliamentary discussion of the charter. But I must remind your Lordships that there remains some disagreement as to the exact definition of an "editor". No definite agreement was reached on the question of access for outside contributors, which has been referred to in this debate, and on the vexed question of the application to journalists of closed shop agreements. That, more or less, summarises the attitude taken in this debate by most speakers.
Therefore, the task falls to the Secretary of State for Employment to draft the charter. He will in due course be undertaking extensive further consultations with those concerned within the industry, and with others, to see whether further progress can be made towards securing an agreed charter on the lines required under the terms of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act. He and his Department have, in the meantime, been considering the report submitted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearce, and the further submissions from individual parties on points of disagreement, which Lord Pearce himself requested. As a first step, I understand that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will shortly be meeting Lord Pearce to discuss his report and plans for future consultations.
Naturally, however, the Secretary of State will not wish to embark on a programme of further consultations until he has received the report of the Royal Commission on the Press, which is due in the early summer, since the Commission will, as we understand it, quite properly be commenting on the issues relevant to the charter. The Secretary of State wishes to have a chance to consider the Royal Commission's views carefully before taking any steps towards preparing a draft charter for submission to Parliament. Naturally, this House will not expect me to say anything this evening about the contents of the charter. It would, of course, be undesirable for me in any way to prejudice or pre-empt the outcome of the delicate consultations which the Secretary of State will have to set in train.
There were, when the charter provisions were drawn up, certain criticisms of the

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role of the Secretary of State in this exercise. In this context, there are two points that I should like to make. First, the Secretary of State is required, under the terms of the legislation, to incorporate any points that have been agreed between the parties in any charter which he submits to Parliament, and to consult all those concerned before he submits such a draft charter. He will thus be required to hear and take note of the views of the industry itself. Secondly, the approval of the charter is, of course, ultimately not a matter for the Secretary of State but for Parliament. Both Houses of Parliament will have an opportunity to express their views on the merits of the charter in which they have taken such an interest, and they will have the final say.
I have not referred to broadcasting. As has been stated, the BBC have a Charter and, by and large, they are safeguarded. So far, we have had no real grounds for serious concern over the issue. They will have an opportunity, through the Annan Report, together with other opportunities, to make a contribution on the Press charter if they so wish. I should like to express the view that, so far as news broadcasting is concerned—and I include radio: most of your Lordships have referred to television—it is of a standard which is equal to, if not better than, that anywhere else in the world. I think that we should recognise that fact and be grateful for it; other countries are not so fortunate.
Finally, I should like to say a few words specifically about the NUJ, although I do not want to cause trouble. I had originally thought that it was better to avoid commenting on the activities of the NUJ—which I should explain stands for the National Union of Journalists—and of other organisations in the newspaper industry. However, so much has been said about the NUJ this afternoon, some of it slightly exaggerated, that I feel I must correct some misconceptions. I hold no brief for the NUJ. From time to time, like many other democratic bodies, they have taken decisions which were unwise and ill-considered. I recall that on at least one occasion Ministers of the present Administration saw fit to express the view that a particular decision of the union had implications for Press freedom which the union ought to have considered before acting. However, I cannot believe
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that the NUJ pose the kind of threat to Press freedom that has been suggested in one or two quarters of this House today.
I know that the NUJ remain committed to the principle of Press freedom. The NUJ's own Code of Professional Conduct, to which reference has been made, reads as follows:
"Freedom in the honest collection and publication of news facts and the rights of fair comment and criticism are principles which every journalist should defend. Journalists should strive to eliminate distortion, news suppression and censorship."
Although they may not always be able to live up to that very high standard, it seems to me to be a most commendable objective to which I should have thought everyone here and outside could willingly subscribe.
Of course, we all wish to ensure the freedom and independence of the British Press which we value so much, and that freedom is not threatened from any quarter. But I think noble Lords should not be so pessimistic about the ability of the kind of voluntary and non-enforceable charter envisaged in the legislation to counter threats to the freedom of the Press from the unions or from any other quarter. Although the fact that the various parties represented at the talks on the Press charter were not able to reach agreement, and this represents a set-back to such hopes, the Government still hope that it will nevertheless be possible for a charter to be produced which can be accepted and adhered to by all sides, and which will ensure that the threats to Press freedom which many noble Lords foresee do not, in fact, materialise. In the event that such a measure does not prove adequate, then I am sure that Parliament, and indeed the Government themselves, will wish to consider further action. But that time has not yet come.
7.19 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I think that it has, inadvertently, been my privilege to act as a catalyst. As a result of this debate, we have heard some outstanding speeches from all parts of the House by many of those who have spent all their working lives in the newspaper industry. This is typical of the type of debate when your Lordships' House is

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at its very best. Certainly, in my 20 years' service in the House of Commons I never heard such a well-informed debate, with so much experience behind each speech.
I have sought to outline how our free Press might be endangered, and of course I admit that the examples which I gave, where the NUJ fell below the high standards of their code of conduct, were generated by the small but dedicated minority, and not of course by the tolerant majority of the NUJ who set very high standards indeed. However, we know what a dedicated minority can produce these days. It can produce quite alarming results. The best safeguard, as the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, have so wisely said, is a multiplication of sources of information —national papers, local papers, weekly papers, television and radio stations—all contributing so that one may choose and obtain a balanced view.
I have some knowledge of new computer technology. I believe that for the first time for several decades newspaper production could again become economically viable and profitable. The task is not to hold on to old and outdated jobs but to create new papers and new jobs. If this is done, the industry thereby will help to preserve the democracy which we all try to serve. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SOCIAL WORKERS: TRAINING BUDGET
7.20 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL Baroness FAITHFULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government by what method it is proposed to fund the training of social workers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Unstarred Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. This Unstarred Question has been set down, first because there is an immediate crisis over the lack of funding of those who are seeking to train as social workers on the one- and two-year courses at universities and polytechnics in the academic year starting October 1977. Secondly, there is a need for long-term planning, either with a method
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different from the present method of funding social work students or with a different attitude to the present method. Thirdly, only 40 per cent. of field social workers are qualified, and only 4 per cent. of residential workers are qualified. The present unsatisfactory condition is highlighted by inflation and the necessary cutbacks in local government expenditure.
In order to understand the present crisis and complex system, may I touch briefly on the immediate past history and the present structure. Prior to the reorganisation of the local authority social services departments in 1970, following the Seebohm Committee Report, there were three bodies responsible for the organisation of the training of social workers. First, there was the Central Training Council in Child Care, an independent body based on the Home Office. This council dealt with both the organisation and funding of those wishing to take the two year course leading to the certificate in child care or the residential certificate in child care. This work was funded centrally by the Home Office.
The Social Work Training Council, set up as a result of the Younghusband Report, was the second council for the training of social workers in the health and welfare departments of local authorities dealing with the needs of the elderly, the mentally ill and the physically and mentally handicapped. This course led to the certificate in social work and the certificate in residential social work and was funded by local authorities. The Home Office were responsible for the training of probation officers who were seconded on their salaries. No overall provision was made at that time for the training of those who were then termed education welfare officers—the old school attendance officers—who are now called, I believe, school social workers. Their salaries have been negotiated on social work salary scales. Many of the big voluntary organisations had their own training schemes.
After 1970, these various bodies were amalgamated to form the present Council for Education and Training in Social Work, with Sir Dermon Christophersen, the Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, as chairman. The Council is an independent body whose offices are situated in Derbyshire House, St. Chad's Street,

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London. The different, varying qualifications have been amalgamated into the certificate of qualification in social work, a two year course at a polytechnic or university. Indeed, some courses provide not only for field workers but, rightly, for residential social workers.
In 1972 a committee was set up to consider the funding of social work students. The then exceptional and diverse arrangements were not in line with the funding of other types of training which were conducted by local education authorities. Eventually, in July 1973 a circular was issued outlining the following arrangements, which obtain today. I was present at these discussions, and at the time it was stated that if the arrangements proved to be unsatisfactory they would be reviewed.
Under the new system which appertains today. probation officers continue, as before, to be seconded on salary. Postgraduate social work students are funded through the Department of Health and Social Security. Non-graduate students on the one- and two-year courses either are given a discretionary grant by their local education authority or are seconded on salary from their social services departments. And therein lies the rub. As a result of the cutback in expenditure, local authority social services departments and their councils either must choose to curtail their services to those in need—the elderly, the handicapped, children in trouble and in need—or must cut back on grants to untrained staff, enabling them to be seconded to courses. It is a cruel dilemma which faces the social services departments, committees and directors. Education departments likewise must cut back and are economising in the making of discretionary grants to social work students.
The position of the social work service is different from that of education and medicine where 100 per cent. of the personnel are trained; indeed, they cannot be appointed without training. As I said earlier, only 40 per cent. of field social workers are qualified, while only 4 per cent. of social workers in residential establishments are qualified, yet they are offering a service to the most vulnerable in society, particularly to delinquents. The Department of Health and Social Security's Manpower and Training Board recommended that one member of staff
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with a certificate of qualification in social work should he available to each residential establishment.
There are 140 two-year social work courses in universities and polytechnics, with an available intake of 4,000 students per year. There has been a drop of 36 per cent. in intake, which means a loss of 600 places in the area of local authority social services departments secondments. However, the Association of Directors estimate a drop of 1,000 places, as 400 students in England and Wales may well not be given discretionary grants by their local education departments in the next academic year. A drop of 1,000 represents 25 per cent, of the total intake of students in an already low-trained service.
Current courses are on target. The crisis arises next October. The drop of between 600 to 1,000 social work students will mean, first, that more mature, older, untrained staff now working in departments or, indeed, not yet working in departments but wanting to take up social work, may not be able to obtain a discretionary grant or be seconded. Senior staff working in residential work may not be able to be seconded on a discretionary grant. Thirdly, governing bodies of polytechnics and universities will not be able to sustain the under-subscribed course. There are also difficulties in re-establishing courses once they have closed down, staff dispersed and accommodation is taken up by other activities. Representation has been made to the Minister in another place and it is reported that a grant of £500,000 has been made as an emergency measure to fund 300 graduate students, their grants being paid through the Department of Health and Social Security. This means, therefore, that there is still a short-fall of 300 to 700. Therefore a minimum of £500,000 is required for the funding of non-graduate students on the one- or two-year courses.
My own experience in local authority social services departments leads me to value the mix of graduate and non-graduate social workers. Social workers with knowledge and skill acquired through training and experience can offer a more effective service and can work as colleagues with teachers, doctors, nurses and other trained personnel. Furthermore, both adult and juvenile courts have a right to expect social work service from trained

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and, as far as possible, mature staff. Statutory duties are laid on the local authority social services departments by Parliament to offer a service to the disabled in need under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, to the elderly in need under the Public Health Act, to the mentally handicapped, and all in the community under the Mental Health Act and to children in trouble and in need and to their families under the various Children Acts and Children and Young Persons Acts. To offer a skilled service in the field of adoption is also part of their duties. Many non-statutory duties inevitably come the way of the departments. Both the probation and social service departments work in partnership with voluntary organisations and many departments use volunteers where that is appropriate. Furthermore, communities are encouraged to assist and help their own neighbours.
A word should be said about the social workers in schools. The staff that used to be called the education welfare officers are now entitled to apply for training as social workers and a few have already done so, but the figures that I have given have not included the school social workers.
I thank noble Lords who have agreed to take part in this debate on an Unstarred Question today, and I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, whether concern is experienced by Her Majesty's Government over the estimated future lack of funding for social work students and to speak on the cases which will arise in October 1977 when grants will not be available and what long-term plans are envisaged by his right honourable friend the Minister in another place concerning the long-term funding of social work students.
7.34 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, I am sure the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, for raising this important question this evening of the way in which we are to find the money for the training of social workers. She has explained very thoroughly the background to the problem and the nature of the problem itself. In recent years there has been an unprecedented growth in the personal social services, a growth of about
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10 per cent. per annum, but the Government have decreed that this rate of expansion cannot continue in present economic conditions. The Consultative Document Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England, which was published last year by the Government, spoke of a growth rate of 2 per cent. for the personal social services. I am not quite sure whether that still remains as the Government's target, or whether we are now faced with a nil growth rate. But the need to expand staff to cope with the demands made by the social service departments and local authorities established under the 1970 Act has resulted in a large proportion of today's staff being unqualified.
The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has pointed out the figures: that 40 per cent. of those engaged in field work are qualified and the remainder are not, and that only 4 per cent. to 5 per cent. of those in the field of residential care are qualified. Clearly there is a crying need for trained staff, even with the proposed reduction in the rate of growth. The Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work have said that they believe that a growth rate in training of 5 per cent. could be achieved. Even so, they point out that it will be the mid-1980s before half the substantive grade staff hold either the CQSW or the CCSS qualification, and that is on the basis of a nil growth rate in the personal social services. The date will be the late 1980s if in fact we have the 2 per cent. expansion in the personal and social services which was mentioned in the Consultative Document.
That document said, at page 14:
"It would be a false economy to make any general cutback in training programmes"
It said on page 15:
"For social workers and other social services personnel an expansion of training is a particularly important priority as is recognised in the Report of the Working Party on Manpower and Training."
At page 72 it said:
"We propose that a key element in the general strategy for personal social services should be to increase the level of training and to improve the use made of skilled manpower."
The White Paper on Public Expenditure 1979–80 said that there should also be room for some expenditure on the training recommendations of the Working Party; that is, the Working Party on Manpower and Training.

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So the need is recognised, the priority is established and financial assistance is committed. In view of that it is alarming to read the predictions—predictions which were referred to by the noble Baroness—that next year there could be up to 1,000 training places out of 4,000 unfilled; to learn also that training on secondment is said to be down by 36 per cent. Discretionary grants are cut, Home Office support is cut and tuition fees are up. The system for student finance appears to be breaking down as different providing bodies seek to restrict expenditure.
I welcome the fact that extra funds have been made available by the Government for students on post-graduate courses. These will provide some 300 places, but it is clearly not enough and it is for one year only. On that basis there will still be a shortfall of at least 700 places. Yet there is no shortage of people wanting to become qualified social workers, nor of social workers seeking qualification. What is missing is the money to enable them to do so.
So I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, in asking how the Government propose to meet the shortfall. Will the Government consider making the local authority grants for training in social work mandatory instead of discretionary? The Working Party on Manpower and Training for the Social Services recommended a central fund drawn from both central and local sources to underwrite certain key aspects of training. Can the Government adopt this concept of a central fund to provide funds to he channelled partly through the local authorities in order to meet the shortfall—funds which would be used to provide grants, whether discretionary or mandatory, and to help the poorer authorities to afford secondments? After all, we are only asking the Government to act up to their own statement, when they said in the Consultative Document:
"The expansion of training is a particularly important priority".
7.40 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I am sure the whole House is grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithful', for raising this evening this matter of the funding of the training of social workers. It is a matter which she has raised before in
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your Lordships' House during the Committee stage of the passage of the Education Act. On rereading what was said on that occasion, I think it is a great relief that none of us is going to have to argue for the need for training, and I think there will be a great deal of agreement among us on what the problem is.
One of the important reasons for having this debate this evening is that it is timely. There has been, I think, considerable concern among the social work profession, whose members often feel under threat today. A great deal has been asked of the social work profession, and very great public expectations have been raised about the fulfilment of social work departments. When something goes wrong, as inevitably it will in any human institution, social workers are blamed. It is in their interests that they should be trained to do a job which requires very great skills. They are asked to do highly responsible work, and it is grossly unfair to them to send them into it untrained to do it effectively.
The second reason why this debate is timely is that, in the present economic climate, it is far more difficult than it has been for a very long time to make out a case for any form of public expenditure. It is, therefore, all the more important that, as a case for expending money on training, it should not go by default. I was very grateful indeed to hear the evidence given by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, from the Government's own paper on priorities for the health and personal social services and their White Paper, that they, too, remain committed to find money for training.
Nothing, I believe, could be more damaging than that the present low proportion of qualified social workers should fall further still. The figures have already been given; only 40 per cent. of field workers are at present qualified, and, I believe, between 4 and 5 per cent. only of those in residential homes. Indeed, if there is to be nil growth of social service departments, or at any rate a very much slower rate of expansion, it seems to me all the more important that those social workers we do have should be qualified.
The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has set out most clearly the different courses that are available for students, both for young students entering the

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profession, and, I believe even more important, for those mature students who enter the profession and wish to become qualified. She has also explained the complexity facing those who wish to qualify themselves. It seems to me important above all—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, will be able to say something about this when he replies—that those Government Departments that are responsible for social work training should get together for discussions, and I hope decisions, about the future of the funding of social work students. It would appear that the DHSS is involved, the Department of Education and Science is involved, the Home Office is involved and the local authorities are involved. The consequence seems to be that, because so many Government Departments are concerned about this, it is very difficult to ensure that adequate funding of training is available.
It seems to me a tragedy that the number of students seconded for training from local authorities is down, or will be down, by about 36 per cent. next year. Although this is understandable, because secondment is a very expensive form of training and local authorities are required to cut hack, it means, however, that there will be fewer qualified students. It is sad that discretionary grants have been cut and that Home Office grants have been cut, so that, as the noble Baroness said, perhaps up to 1,000 places out of the total of 4,000 available for training could remain unfilled. I cannot believe that it is impossible to work out some system of co-ordination between the different Departments. I am interested to see that the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, is to speak in this debate, because he will know far better than I the pressures that were put on local authorities about corporate planning. I sometimes think that the idea of corporate planning ought to apply much more to Government Departments, just as local authorities are constantly asked to apply this principle to themselves. I can think of no better time to start it than on the subject of the funding for social workers.
Let us look at the problems which confront us in the future. In the first place, there has been a substantial rise in the number of children in care. Mr. Roland Moyle, the Minister, gave the
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following statistics in another place: in 1973 there were 88,000 children in care; in 1974 it had risen to just over 91,000; in 1975 to 94,000 children, and in 1976 to nearly 96,000 children in care. These statistics show a steady increase in the numbers of children in care, and yet, as I say, the number of qualified social workers is not increasing. Then we can see for ourselves the very large rise in the figures for delinquency, of which we are all very well aware. Whatever happens the problem of delinquency is not just going to disappear. It will only be solved, I believe, if all the professions involved, the doctors, the teachers, the social workers, not least, of course, the parents, act together. But, so far as the professionals are concerned, it is very hard that those professions, the medical profession, the teachers, should all be qualified, but not the social workers; it makes it more difficult for them to talk on terms of equality.
If we go on to look at the figures given of the number of children in community homes, it is clear that they, too, are increasing. The figures given in reply to the same Parliamentary Question indicate that in 1973 approximately 25 per cent. of the children in care were in community homes, and this proportion has remained approximately the same. But it means that the total number has increased. Probably the most demanding and most important work is the care of these difficult and disturbed children. Yet in residential work, unfortunately, the proportion of qualified staff is only between four and five per cent.
There has been very considerable pressure, often coming from the Magistrates' Association, to make sure that there is more residential accommodation available for children brought before the courts and thought to be in need of this particular kind of treatment. But it is very difficult to see that such treatment would be likely to be effective if so few of the staff are qualified.
Lastly, of course, we have the increasing proportion of the elderly, and, as we are all well aware, the figure of future projected population indicate that those over 75 are the fastest growing group in the population. For all these reasons, the demand for social workers is unlikely to decline. Although it may be asked that

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more volunteers should be used—and I think quite rightly, because I am very much in favour of the use of volunteers—there must always be a core of professionals. I believe very strongly that volunteers need always to be underpinned by the professionals if they are to work effectively.
It seems to me a tragedy that when the other caring professions, doctors, nurses, health visitors, are all qualified, social workers alone are singled out as having so small a proportion of them qualified. The caring professions meet frequently to work together. The social workers frequently have to go to court and report on their cases. It seems to me that they are often asked to do highly responsible and very difficult work. The very least that we can do is to make sure that they are qualified. This evening I shall not argue for mandatory grants which may well be an economic impossibility, although I should like to sec them. However, the Government should get together with the Department of Health and Social Security and other Departments to see whether they cannot work out a scheme whereby a certain number of social workers are trained consistently each year, so that there is some stability and security in the system. To economise on this would be a very short-sighted policy and we might well find that because we have so few qualified staff we have far more, and far more expensive and tragic problems to deal with in the future.
7.51 p.m.
Lord REDCLIFFE-MAUD: My Lords, all of us know that in the noble Lord who will reply to the debate we have someone who is on our side. I pay tribute both to him and his colleagues for the effort that they have made since 1970 to put the social worker in a position to do the immensely important work which we all so respect in the social workers whom we know. I say with pride that two of my children have qualified in that particular area.
None of us doubts that the Government meant what they said in their various White Papers, but of course they have been overtaken by the need for economy and various considerations which we all accept as valid. I salute, in particular, the success in getting 4,000 places made available this coming September for
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trainees in social work both from the universities, through the University Grants Committee, and through the local authority colleges, the polytechnics and the rest. It is an achievement already to have deployed places for 4,000 trainees in social work of one kind or another.
Furthermore, we should congratulate ourselves on knowing that there are 4,000 first-rate candidates for those places if they can be funded. They have been selected from some 8,000 applicants who, through the excellent pooling scheme, have been interviewed and are known to be the kind of people who would admirably serve the purpose of these training courses if they can be funded. That makes it all the more tragic—and one must use the word—that there is at least a possibility that up to, say, 1,000 of those 4,000 places may be removed. I very much hope that, through the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and his colleagues and the little time that remains between now and September-October this year, possible tragedy can be averted. Let us be optimistic and say that, thanks to the excellent £500,000 that has recently been found by the Secretary of State, an additional 300 places will be taken care of. Therefore, we have to find funds only for the remaining 700. It would be an absolute tragedy if the tap, which has been so skilfully turned on in terms of universities and colleges which are ready to train social workers in September, had to be turned off because 500 or 600 places could not be filled.
We all know that universities are very slow to respond even to the most powerful challenge. Polytechnics are better, but even they will not deploy resources if they have no candidates to use those resources. In other words, the tap will be turned off. It is extraordinarily difficult to move back into the action position the following year or the year after that. We are not so concerned tonight with the longer-term question. The excellent Christopherson Council is at work with all the Government Departments concerned. I am quite sure that, for the longer term, ways will be found to solve the problem of the new funding since 1970, whether in graduate or in non-graduate courses.
However, for the moment there is the simple problem of filling the places that will be available in September. That

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involves finding money for them. That can be done in two ways. It can be done through the local authorities seconding unqualified persons on their staff to take these courses. That is expensive, but obviously in the interests of the social services. There is also the possibility that the educational side of the same local authority can deal with this. We cannot blame the 1972 Act in this regard. Under the 1972 Act there is one authority which acts both for social services and for education and, therefore, there is no excuse for those two Departments and the directors and the chairmen of the committees thereof not putting their heads together and regarding this as one problem in each local authority area. They must ensure that these discretionary grants are found for those persons who will be trained, if the places for the courses can be funded by September.
Therefore, I endorse the remarks made by all noble Lords who have spoken so far and say how grateful I am for the chance of having this brief discussion this evening. Central and local government must get together. There is no doubt that the Government have that in mind, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has it in mind. The various Departments in Whitehall face the challenge of putting their heads together so that there is no slip between cup and lip. They must also put their heads together not only with the Christopherson Council but with the local authorities and their associations. I have no doubt that that is also in hand. The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, would be the first to encourage that partnership—that combined operation—which is at stake here between central and local government.
I hope that, whatever is done in the longer run, we shall somehow beat the clock and ensure that the full 1,000 places, which until now are at risk, are taken up in the 100 or so courses that have been arranged by the polytechnics and the universities. We must press forward—and I know that the Government want this as much as anyone—with what I regard as one of the finest things that has happened in my lifetime, namely, the coming of the social worker, the recognition of the professional social worker and all the volunteers, and the fact that at
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least 40 per cent. of them are at present qualified, compared with 100 per cent. of the teachers and the medical profession. However, I hope that the 5 per cent. who are doing the most difficult job in residential work will receive some kind of special priority, even if that means the Government finding further funds—whether from the local government training board, or perhaps the £500,000 that Mr. Ennals managed to get could be increased. By one means or another, we must not renege on these social workers who are already doing the work at great risk to their own reputations and to those of everyone else because they are not qualified—they are anxious to be qualified. There are universities and polytechnics willing to provide the courses to help them qualify.
7.59 p.m.
The Countess of LOUDOUN: My Lords, as I am the last speaker in this debate, most of what I have to say has already been said, but I think it will stand repetition and I hope that your Lordships will bear with me for a few moments. At the moment, the arrangements for funding social work students are unsatisfactory and vary from area to area. Although qualified social workers are desperately needed, there is no shortage of candidates coming forward for training. But my own area of Hastings had to go to America recently to get two qualified social workers.
The basic and qualifying course for social work provides the certificate of qualification in social work, and the new clearing house for these courses has been dealing with applications for the first time this year. So far nearly 8,000 applicants have registered for some 3,500 places. In 1976, out of approximately 3,500 social work students, 212 were unable to take up places through lack of funds. The Minister of State has agreed recently that the Department of Health and Social Security will make available £500,000 which will fund 300 graduate student social workers. This is welcome and may help to keep going several university based CQSW courses which might otherwise have been terminated.
At present, there are four sources of funding available and the source to which students apply depends very much on the course they propose to take. First, under-

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graduates taking a four-year course leading to a degree and certificate of qualification of social work are entitled to a mandatory grant from the local education authority. Secondly, graduates taking one- or two-year post-graduate CQSW courses apply to the Department of Health and Social Security and receive a grant; and until this year all those who obtained a place have received a grant. But a shortfall is anticipated in 1977. The British Association of Social Workers are already receiving many letters from students having difficulties in finding sources of finance.
Then, thirdly, the Home Office sponsors students on one year post-graduate courses, but this year, because of an anticipated reduction in the wastage rates for the Probation Service in the future, it has cut the number of students which it intends to sponsor in 1977, although there does seem to be some expectation that the numbers will return to their former level in 1978. One appreciates that the Home Office may not wish to use its resources to fund students who may then not be employed as probation officers but who may be employed in or change to another setting, such as a local authority social services department. But surely it is in the interests of the personal social services that funds made available from the public purse should allow for, if not encourage, the transferability of knowledge and skill as between the different branches of the Service.
Lastly, there are discretionary awards from local education authorities and secondment from social services departments. The policy varies quite considerably throughout the country both in the availability of discretionary awards and in the elements which are covered in the award as well as the amount. Where a student has been employed in a social work agency, but usually in a social services department, his employer may be willing to second him on salary during the period of training, but in the present climate most social services departments are fighting hard to retain their trainee schemes or secondment budget, not always successfully.
However, all this does nothing to help the mature would-be students who are not graduates. Many of these are already employed as unqualified social workers whom their local authorities cannot afford
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to second to CQSW training because of pressure on the authorities' finances. Others will be older people in other forms of employment who wish to train as social workers; for example, housewives whose children are growing up and who wish to acquire a professional training and competence. Many of these are considered by some to be more appropriately qualified, by reason of their experience and maturity, to be social workers than are young graduates.
In the short run, the in-service training is the only way in which unqualified social workers now in post can be helped to improve their practice. But social workers' education should not stop at the qualifying level. Additional training is essential for those students who wish to work with special groups; with the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped, for example. Here, in-service and further training would be a relatively inexpensive method of providing better equipped social workers who would, in their turn, help to provide a better service for this seriously neglected group and their families. It would also help to close the alarming gap between hospital and community services, which exists at the moment. My Lords, let us endeavour to ensure that ail available funds are used to optimum effect and that no long-term damage is caused by any short-term economies. If we can do this, we shall provide a social service second to none.
8.6 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I find myself in a difficult situation tonight because I cannot disagree with a single word that has been said by any of the speakers this evening. This is perhaps a good thing because the subject which the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has put down for the debate tonight is a matter of supreme importance. Do not let us disguise the fact that it is a matter of supreme importance and one which must exercise the minds of everybody who is even remotely concerned with the needs of the community. It is a frightening thing—let me be quite frank about it—to those of us who are more intimately concerned with the field of professional social work. It does not make my task any easier when every speaker who has participated in the debate tonight speaks from a width and depth of knowledge, and has done so in

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such a delightful, mature way without being aggressive. It always makes life rather more difficult when people do things like that.
I wanted to say something about the present system for funding the training of social work because I wanted those Members of your Lordships' House who have expressed considerable concern to me personally and who cannot be here tonight to read it, as many of them told me they would do, in Hansard tomorrow. But it is quite pointless because the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, dealt with it piece by piece and set it out so clearly that if people are going to read Hansard they will find that information by reading her speech; and so I want to pass over that.
I want to come to some of the problems which face the Government at the present moment. They are problems which are known to most people—certainly those who have spoken this evening. Reference has been made to the Working Party on Manpower and Training for the Social Services, and they noted that fewer than 40 per cent. of field social workers in England and Wales were qualified, and that very few in the residential field held any qualification at all. The Working Party, which issued its report last year, recommended a substantial increase in the number of social workers to he trained with the aim that about half of all the social workers should be qualified by the late 1980s.
I think we have to face the fact that that may not be possible. Let us also face the fact that this is not by any stretch of imagination a new situation. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, years ago said that only 37 per cent. of professional social workers are properly trained. Unfortunately, this situation has been with us—
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I agree with what the Minister is saying, but may I say that there was beginning to be a growth towards implementation of training which has now suddenly stopped, and I think that this is what is worrying us.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: I will come to that shortly, my Lords. But let us
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get the matter into perspective. This situation has gone on almost unchanged for many years, and I think it was Lady Young who pointed to the figure of 4 per cent. as being those properly trained in residential care. This has been the figure for a long time, and while I take no comfort from the fact that the position is no worse and has remained the same, we must keep the matter in perspective.
It was unfortunate that the issue of the Working Party's report coincided with hard economic times so that authorities have not been in a position to embark on a major expansion of training. Indeed, far from being able to expand training, I have to admit that the present inadequate level is threatened. I acknowledge that secondment is expensive, and ninny social services authorities are having to reduce the number of employees whom they send for training. I was not present, but I know that Lady Faithfull drew attention to this on 8th October last when she participated in the Education Bill debate. I have made a note of the figures, and she rightly pointed out that it costs local authorities about £2,300 a year to allow one person to go for training.
Local education authorities are also under great pressure and are reducing the number of discretionary grants they make to those accepted for non-graduate courses. Many graduates who had hoped for secondment are now looking to my Department for a grant instead, and despite a 60 per cent. increase over the last two years in the number of grants we give, we are under even greater pressure this year.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is very concerned about the situation. He has a number of people round him who have been worrying him on the matter and who will continue to worry him. Estimates made by the Central Council for Education and Training and Social Work and the local authority associations have indicated that a substantial number of the 4,000 places on courses starting in September this year might be left unfilled. The figure of about 1,000 has been given. The noble Lord, Lord Banks, pointed out that the grant which the Secretary of State made quite recently will reduce that to 700, but I am not persuaded that the deficiency will be as large as 700. I take

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no comfort from that; it is bad if it is 600 or 500. Nevertheless, we must face the fact that the £500,000 which has been given has at least made a tremendous improvement, although we recognise the seriousness of the situation, as the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, said, not only for the present but for the future; it is bad for this year, but of course it is also bad for the future.
I have seen it argued that social workers need no training—that all that is needed is a heart in the right place and plenty of enthusiasm, and, as noble Lords will be aware, there has been a long correspondence in the Press recently on the subject—but I do not accept that, and I have said so on more than one occasion. It may have been so in the 19th century, but it is certainly not true today in our complex society. Many of those in need—those who cannot cope with the pressures of society—require expert social help, and that expertise—I know I am preaching to the converted—can come not only as a result of thorough training, but there must be going on the whole of the time in-service and further training. I am not decrying the essential part played by other local authority staff or by the volunteer, but the volunteer needs to work under the supervision of a trained social worker, a point which Lord Redcliffe-Maud made. There is a wide and varied area in which the volunteer can play a vital role and, as Lady Young said, we need more of them, but they must work under the supervision of qualified social workers.
There are those who say that if Government place such emphasis on training they should make additional resources available, and on the face of it that does not seem an unreasonable argument. Training is, however, basically the responsibility of the employer, in this case the local authority. The help that Government can give to local authorities through the rate support grant is, we all recognise, strictly limited. Within that help it is for each authority to determine its own priorities, and I was interested to read the following in a recent bulletin issued by the Personal Social Services Council:
"Faced with the stark choice of committing all their resources to meeting increasing demands for service or of deliberately setting aside funds for planned improvement in training, statutory and voluntary agencies should make conscious decisions about the type and quality of the services they aim to provide".
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I say in no sense of criticism that that must be done in some measure by local authorities. In the present economic climate it may not be possible for the social services departments of local authorities to embark on certain schemes at the expense of the sort of work that social workers do in the face-to-face relationship. Thai may, in the last analysis, be much more important than embarking on certain schemes for perhaps a more limited section of the community.
Always assuming that the Government could make additional money available, the Government are in the situation that there would be many competing demands; if one did it for one, one must do it for everybody else, and there immediately comes to mind, say, education, the police, industry and the Armed Forces. I wonder whether we could in all honesty argue in this period that social work training, however important, must have precedence over every other responsibility of central and local government. I do not think we could. In a sense it hurts me to say that because, unashamedly, I have a bias, but one must look at it from the point of view of the Government. The Government must preserve a balance and if they make a grant in this direction, what about the other competing demands? I am surprised that they have got away with £500,000 without anybody questioning that it should have gone in some other direction.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, as to nobody having queried the £500,000, that shows how much they thought it was the right thing to do, although we feel that perhaps it was not quite enough. When the noble Lord refers to other competing fields, I would point out that in education, health and other caring professions all are trained and are working towards being a trained profession. I know that in teaching and medicine they have had a long struggle. It is therefore natural that the social worker should continue to struggle to be skilled in the ways needed to give a good service.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Baroness has no need to convince me of that. That is perfectly true, but the Government are always in an invidious position and, when they give money in one direction, how are they to

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answer the demands from other directions?
After consulting the local authority associations and the Central Council for Education and Training for Social Work, my right honourable friend has done everything to safeguard training for this year. He has, with some difficulty—and I know this to be the case—prized out £500,000 from existing services in order to increase the number of grants given by my Department to graduate students. As I said, this will provide an additional 300 grants this year, which could well completely safeguard the position of graduate CQSW courses. The increase of grants to 300 people means that the proportion of post-graduate CQSW places in England and Wales which will be grant-aided by the DHSS and the Welsh Office has increased the number for graduates from about 37 per cent. to about 56 per cent. That is a substantial increase.
This injection of money will also help in other ways, in that some authorities may consider seconding non-graduates in the place of graduates whom they intend to second and who can now obtain a grant, so this may provide an opening for non-graduates. We are also considering whether some support would he possible to enable certain Certificates for Social Service schemes to get started, and my right honourable friend has urged local authorities to do their best to maintain their support for non-graduates.
So much for this year. What is the situation in the future? Our ultimate aim must be to ensure that, within the requirements of the social services, anyone needing support for training will get it. But, for the present, we are constrained by the resources available. We cannot expect additional resources specifically for training. But we can look at how we can use those that we have to see whether we can employ them to greater effect. To that end, my right honourable friend has already had discussions with the local authority associations, the Association of Metropolitan Areas and the Association of County Councils, and there will be further meetings in the foreseeable future to see whether anything further can be done to ease the present situation.
There is one way in which much better
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use might be made of training resources. The manpower Working Party noted that the practice of seconding staff was generous and suggested that staff under the age of 25 might receive grants instead. This in itself would increase the number of students who could be supported for a given sum of money. It would require the transfer of some funds earmarked by social services authorities for secondment to local education authorities for disbursement as grants, and we hope that the local authorities will consider this. It is part of the present discussions.
There are several ways in which the present system of support for training might be reorganised, and this matter has been touched on by a number of speakers this evening. Again, if I remember correctly, the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, raised the matter of mandatory grants last October. There has been pressure for the grants provided by local education authorities to be mandatory. When the noble Baroness raised the matter, I thought that she was given a reasonable, fair and adequate answer. My right honourable friend has discussed this since then with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The introduction of mandatory grants would require primary legislation, but I do not think that that is at all important. One could deal with that, other things being equal. However, this could not be regarded as a short term solution. Mandatory grants for non-graduate CQSW courses present some difficulties, not the least being that, in practice, it would be very difficult to resist demands to extend the scope of mandatory awards to virtually all students on advanced or special courses, so that we should be back again where we started. Give mandatory grants to a certain group of social workers and immediately one will have a demand that mandatory grants should be given to students for advanced courses in other fields and other disciplines, or some sort of special courses in other disciplines. This, again, is a problem that we cannot at the moment overcome, although it is a matter that will be allowed to lie on the table.
We have also considered the possibility of my Department taking over the provision of grants for non-graduates as it does for graduates. Apart from the administrative problems—and, again I do

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not attach a great deal of importance to those—it would do nothing to resolve the problem of finding the money now, and it is money now that we are concerned with. The formation by local authorities of a central pool of training funds has been suggested and there are a number of ways in which this could be done. However, I think it is a very remote possibility that it could be done in time for next October. On the other hand, it may well be that, as a result of the present crisis, we can come up with something that will take effect in 1978.
I cannot say which of these measures will he found feasible, or whether we can improve upon the present system. I realise that this cannot be much of a comfort to those Members of your Lordships' House who are as deeply concerned about the present position as I am, but this is also a matter which my right honourable friend will be discussing with the various bodies concerned. We recognise that concern and, although I have not been particularly helpful this evening, I do not want your Lordships to go away feeling we are not really concerned about the adequate training of social workers or that we are quite content to leave the situation as it is.
There is a good deal going on behind the scenes at present, and I know that my right honourable friend hopes that something can be done to improve the position beyond what it is at the present moment. For my part, I hope that something can be done, and I know that there are many people who will be constantly pressing my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to do something. I feel that—and this is where I came in—this discussion tonight, by informed people who clearly have not only conviction but a really deep concern for what is happening at present, can only serve a useful purpose and show my right honourable friend the Secretary of State that this is a matter of deep concern to people who are fully informed of the situation and who have some experience in this rather remarkable field of professional social work.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
Third Report from the Select Committee made, and to be printed.
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