Sitting of 9 November 1978

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Mr. Speaker: With the agreement of the House, and in accordance with recent practice, I propose to call the Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means to move all nine of his motions for unopposed returns together.

respecting application of Standing Order No. 30 (Closure of Debate) during Session 1977–78, (1) in the House and in Committee of the whole House, under the following heads:—

1

2

3

4

5

6

Date when Closure claimed, and by whom

Question before House or Committee when claimed

Whether in House or Committee

Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by the Chair

Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion

Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Return ordered,
of the number of Instruments considered in Session 1977–78 by the Joint Committee and the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments respectively pursuant to their orders of reference, showing in each case the numbers of Instruments subject to the different forms of Parliamentary procedure and of those within the committee's orders of reference for which no Parliamentary procedure is prescribed by statute, and the numbers drawn to the special attention of the House or of both Houses distinguishing the ground in the committees' orders of reference upon which such attention was invited; and of the numbers of Instruments considered by a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments and by the House respectively, in Session 1977–78 showing the number where the question on the proceedings relating thereto was put forthwith under

ADJOURNMENT MOTIONS UNDER STANDING ORDER NO. 9
Return ordered,
of motions for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9, showing the date of such Motion, the name of the Member proposing the specific and important matter and the result of any Division taken thereon, during Session 1977–78. —[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

CLOSURE OF DEBATE (STANDING ORDER NO. 30)
Return ordered,
Standing Order No. 73A(5).—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

PRIVATE BILLS AND PRIVATE BUSINESS
Return ordered,
of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders introduced into this House and brought from the House of Lords, and of Acts passed in Session 1977–78:
Of all Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which in Session 1977–78 were reported on by Committees on Opposed Bills or by Committees nominated partly by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection, together with the names of the selected Members who served on each Committee; the first and also the last day of the sitting of each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; the number of days on which each selected

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Member served; the number of days occupied by each Bill in Committee; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been proved; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been not proved; and, in the case of Bills for confirming Provisional Orders whether the Provisional Orders ought or ought not to be confirmed:
Of all Private Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which, in Session 1977–78 were referred by the Committee of Selection to the Committee on Unopposed Bills, together with the names of the Members who served on the Committee; the number of days in which the Committee sat; and the number of days on which each Member attended:
And, of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders withdrawn or not proceeded with by the parties, those Bills being specified which were referred to Committees and dropped during the sittings of the Committee.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

PUBLIC BILLS
Return ordered,
of the number of Public Bills, distinguishing Government from other Bills, introduced into this House, or brought from the House of Lords, during Session 1977–78, showing:

(1) the number which received the Royal Assent, and

(2) the number which did not receive the Royal Assent, indicating those which were introduced into but not passed by this House, those passed by this House but not by the House of Lords, those passed by the House of Lords but not by this House, those passed by both Houses but Amendments not agreed to; and distinguishing the stages at which such Bills were dropped, postponed or rejected in either House of Parliament, or the stages which such Bills had reached by the time of the Prorogation or Dissolution.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

SELECT COMMITTEES
Return ordered,
of Select Committees in Session 1977–78 with the Sub-Committees appointed by them; the names of the Members appointed to serve on each, and the Chairman of each; the number of days each met, and the number of days each Member attended; the number of meetings held by each Select Committee and Sub-Committee, and the number of meetings each Member attended; the total expenses of the attendances of witnesses at each Select Committee and Sub-Committee; and the total number of Members who served on Select Committees; together with so much of the same information as is relevant to the Chairmen's Panel and the Court of Referees.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE AND BUSINESS OF SUPPLY
Return ordered,
of (1) the days on which the House sat in Session 1977–78 stating for each day the day
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of the month and day of the week, the hour of the meeting, and the hour of the adjournment; and the total number of hours occupied in the Sittings of the House, and the average time; and showing the number of hours on which the House sat each day, and the number of hours after the time appointed for the interruption of business; and (2) the days on which Business of Supply was considered.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

STANDING COMMITTEES
Return ordered,
for Session 1977–78, of (1) the total number and the names of all Members (including and distinguishing Chairmen) who have been appointed to serve on one or more of the Standing Committees showing, with regard to each of such Members, the number of sittings to which he was summoned and at which he was present; (2) the number of Bills, Estimates Matters and other items referred to Standing Committees pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c. considered by all and by each of the Standing Committees, the number of sittings of each Committee and the titles of all Bills, Estimates, Matters and other items as above considered by a Committee, distinguishing where a Bill was a Government Bill or was brought from the House of Lords, and showing in the case of each Bill Estimate, Matter and other item, the particular Committee by whom it was considered, the number of sittings at which it was considered and the number of Members present at each of those sittings.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

SPECIAL PROCEDURE ORDERS
Return ordered,
of the number of Special Procedure Orders presented in Session 1977–78; the number withdrawn; the number against which Petitions or copies of Petitions were deposited; the number of Petitions of General Objection and for Amendment respectively considered by the Chairmen; the number of such Petitions certified by the Chairmen as proper to be received, and the number certified by them as being petitions of General Objection and for Amendment respectively; the number referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses; the number reported with Amendments by a Joint Committee, and the number in relation to which a Joint Committee reported that the Order be not approved; and the number of Bills introduced for the confirmation of Special Procedure Orders:
Of Special Procedure Orders which, in Session 1977–78, were referred to a Joint Committee, together with the names of the Commons Members who served on each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; and the number of days on which each such Member attended.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  NORTHERN IRELAND

    Belfast
    Mr. Woodallasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will bring forward proposals to bring life back into the city of Belfast.
    The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Roy Mason): I am very much aware of the problems which Belfast faces as a result of severe unemployment and acute social deprivation, together with the many physical scars of the recent civil unrest. In addition, Belfast, like most other British cities, has inherited a legacy of roads, houses and infrastructure designed to meet needs quite different from those of today.
    The Government have already demonstrated their determination to improve the appearance of the city and to rejuvenate its social and commercial life. Tenders have been invited from consultants for a new shopping complex for the city centre, and a range of other current and potential initiatives is now being pursued. Special efforts are being made in the most deprived areas under the Belfast areas of need programme.
    I have also set up a working party to consider what is required to make the centre of Belfast a lively centre of social entertainment for citizens and visitors.
    Mr. Woodall: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply, but can he at this stage give an indication of what amount of money the Government have allocated for the revitalisation of the city of Belfast? Has he any idea of how the money will be used, and of any projects and priorities?
    Mr. Mason: At this stage we have allocated over £17 million to help with the social, economic and physical problems of the city. I am pleased to say that the new Lord Mayor of Belfast is very closely involved in this drive and is personally involved in the development.
    Mr. Kilfedder: Since this Government and their predecessors, and the planners, have torn apart areas of Belfast more so,
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    perhaps, than the provisional IRA, and dispersed closely-knit communities in the Shankill, Ballymacarrett and other areas, may we have an assurance that action will be taken by the Government to rebuild the houses, schools and factories in those areas for the same number of people who previously lived there? The people of Northern Ireland will not be satisfied with the original answer given by the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Mason: The hon. Gentleman is harking back to what happened in the past. He must admit that the 10 years of troubles have certainly left their scars on the city of Belfast. There are now plans to build 5,000 new homes in the redevelopment areas that we have designated in Belfast.

    De Lorean Motor Company
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the financial arrangements entered into with the De Lorean company for the manufacture of cars in Northern Ireland.
    The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. J. D. Concannon): The financial arrangements entered into with the De Lorean Motor Company consist of the provision of equity and loan capital by the Northern Ireland Development Agency and of grants and loans by the Department of Commerce for Northern Ireland. It would not be appropriate to give the details now, as these remain confidential between the parties concerned. However, I understand that the company will have to file information in the United States which will become publicly known, and I intend to consult the company about the extent to which the Government may, by agreement, make known the basis of the assistance provided in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: But it is intolerable for the Minister of State to spend at least £52 million of taxpayers' money and refuse to tell the House the total extent of that expenditure, how much has been given by way of grant, and how much by loan. Will he say here and now specifically to the House, and therefore to the taxpayer, just what involvement he has entered into and how open-ended is the commitment to Mr. De Lorean in the

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    event of his company requiring more money for this somewhat doubtful project?
    Mr. Concannon: I am in continual consultation with quite a number of companies througout the world. Many of the negotiations are extremely delicate and are treated as confidential. If I were now openly to go against the confidentiality of one firm without that firm's permission I should put at risk quite a few other projects that I have in mind.
    The hon. Gentleman mentioned £52 million. He is responsible for that figure, because it is not a figure I have mentioned.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the Minister inform the House approximately how much per job is to go into the company?
    Mr. Concannon: That is impossible at present, and the hon. Gentleman knows it. I am delighted to have secured this project and I hope that the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, especially in those areas where it is needed, will also welcome it.
    When I have the agreement of the company, I shall publish the figures, but I shall do so only with the agreement of the company, because I do not want to put at risk any of our other negotiations with many other companies to come and bring jobs to Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Fitt: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there are many thousands of people, particularly in Belfast, who welcome the enthusiasm and endeavour that he has put into attracting the industry to Belfast? It has given hope to thousands of people who had no hope before. Does he deprecate the view of those who are trying to knock this project—those in the media and those on the Conservative Benches? It appears that there are many people who do not want to see this much-needed undertaking in Belfast.
    Mr. Concannon: I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks and for giving me the opportunity of doing so. I have wondered whether as a result of all the bashing that we have taken in Northern Ireland we are frightened of success. This is one of the worrying aspects, in my view. But we have to make this a success, because the prizes for Northern Ireland are so great.
    Mr. Freud: If the Minister is not to give figures—I am sure that he is right in not wishing to publish them—will he at least tell the House what percentage of the total equity is provided by the parent company?
    Mr. Concannon: Again, I cannot do that now, because the company spent considerable amounts of money before even coming to Northern Ireland. I ask the hon. Gentleman to await what I shall do with the consent of the company when the opportunity arises. If I do otherwise, I shall be putting at risk many other negotiations that we are pursuing at present.
    Mr. Hal Miller: As the proposed vehicle uses a French engine, as the French engine makers put it into their own car, which is not selling, and as the planned output equals that of Porsche and is six times that of Lotus, can the Minister continue to say that the project has been thoroughly vetted and is soundly based? What provision has been made for the losses to be shared between the public purse and the private promoter?
    Mr. Concannon: That is pessimism in the extreme. I do not expect losses. I expect success. For the people of Northern Ireland this is a great opportunity. I do not think that it would be wise to go any further into the matter. The opportunities are there in Northern Ireland for numbers of firms. All sorts of pessimistic papers can be waved at me, but I am not filled with pessimism about this project. I am going forward with success in mind.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I intend to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible date.

    Political Talks
    Mr. Flanneryasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he has any plans to hold discussions with the various political groupings in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Ron Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he has any plans to meet the leaders of the main political groupings in Northern Ireland in the immediate future.
    Mr. Watkinsonasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the political situation in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Mason: The political situation has not changed much in recent months. Since I last reported to the House, I have had informal discussions with the leaders of three of the Northern Ireland parties, and I hope that I shall soon be able to meet their counterparts in the other main parties.
    Mr. Flannery: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, although the security situation in Northern Ireland has eased considerably, there do not seem to be—at least to me—any parallel political developments alongside that relaxation? Did my right hon. Friend notice that at last weekend's national conference of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) is the leader, a resolution was passed that I am sure caused a great deal of feeling among everybody who is interested in this situation? Can my right hon. Friend comment on that and any similar developments that he has in mind?
    Mr. Mason: My hon. Friend is right. We are making good progress on the security front. Certainly, we are introducing more social reform. We are active in promoting industrial investment in the Province. But we are not making the same progress in political change. The first three matters are well within my own orbit of operations.
    On the fourth, political change, I must get the parties in Northern Ireland to be prepared to talk together and eventually work together. I am now going through the second major round of political talks with the parties. I still have to meet the Democratic Unionist Party and the Official Unionist Party. I hope that thereafter we shall be able to make some political progress.
    Several Hon. Members rose
    Mr. Speaker: I must call first those hon. Members whose Questions are being answered.
    Mr. Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a number of my hon. Friends feel that his statements on Tuesday were not conducive to the kind of political
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    settlement that he now says he has in mind? May I also suggest that many of my hon. Friends feel that we ought to inject some democracy into Northern Ireland before we talk of giving additional seats to that part of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Mason: I am sorry if my hon. Friend feels strongly about what I said on Tuesday. I referred to the fact that most of the people in question in Northern Ireland were being charged with offences—and I repeated that at least four times towards the end of my statement. Secondly, I am concerned about security in the Province and about law and order. I am sorry that the prison officers' dispute is tending to affect law and order and that solicitors and barristers feel slighted by what I said on Tuesday. If they do, I am sorry, but no slight was meant.
    As for political progress, my hon. Friend must recognise that within Northern Ireland there are still 26 district councils electing 526 district councillors. Therefore, because the Macrory gap between the district councils and Westminster is not filled, there has to be direct rule of the Province, administered by a Secretary of State and four Ministers.
    Mr. Watkinson: My right hon. Friend acknowledges that the recently introduced emergency order has caused political trouble in Northern Ireland. Is he contemplating any emendations to the order so as to ensure that in some way or other the magistrates actually see the prisoners?
    Mr. Mason: As I told my hon. Friend the other day, I am prepared to consider his suggestion of prisoners being visited. I have also quite clearly stated that the order is just as distasteful and repugnant to me as it is to the lawyers in Northern Ireland. As soon as the prison officers' dispute is at an end I shall take urgent steps to rescind that order.
    Mr. Neave: Does not the Secretary of State agree that those who say that an urgent political initiative is needed in Northern Ireland at present to avoid a political vacuum are quite right? One way is to close the Macrory gap, as he suggested. Will the Secretary of State invite Sir Patrick Macrory to update and review his recommendations of 1970, as

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    he has agreed that he would not have made the same proposals if he had known the circumstances that followed in later years?
    Mr. Mason: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that Macrory's view would have been different if he had known that Stormont would be abolished. However, it is too soon to call for that kind of review. I would rather hold consultations with the rest of the political parties before I take the hon. Gentleman up on that.
    Mr. Molyneaux: Is the Secretary of State aware that we agree with his recent statement in Socialist Commentary, where he said:
    "we want to see established in Northern Ireland a new elected regional authority that can take responsibility for the great majority of those matters which affect the daily lives of the people who live there"
    Is he further aware that he can count on our co-operation in the fulfilment of that objective?
    Mr. Mason: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. Although qualifications and reservations were omitted from that short statement, generally we are in league. But the matter has to be dealt with on the basis of acceptability to this House, and the major parties in the House have said that if there is to be a regional authority, on which I concur, it has to be on the basis of partnership between the sections of the communities in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. McNamara: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that there has been a radical alteration in the political situation? Yesterday we saw the introduction of the Bill providing for extra seats in this House. Last Saturday there was the resolution at the SDLP conference which was a direct result of what was known was to be presented yesterday. Does not my right hon. Friend think that we are drifting into a position of integration and that the Unionists have no need to concede anything because under direct rule they are getting everything and the minority nothing in a political sense?
    Mr. Mason: I should be very sorry if my hon. Friend, and indeed the House, felt that we were rapidly moving towards integration. That is not so. Regarding the extra seats, Scotland and Wales are likely to get their own devolved Assem-
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    blies and will keep their parliamentary seats on the same percentage thereafter. This compounded the difference between Northern Ireland and England, Scotland and Wales. In fairness and equity, it must be admitted that there has been injustice and it ought to be remedied. Therefore, we intend to give Northern Ireland equal parliamentary representation with Scotland, England and Wales. I do not believe, as some people do, that the extra seats will all be Unionist seats. Of the 17, it is quite likely that four or five could be anti-Unionist seats.
    Mr. McCusker: Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity in the near future to have further talks with the Republican Clubs, the workers' party representatives, who in recent weeks in a by-election in my constituency showed, by defeating the present chairman of the SDLP, that they have more support than the SDLP has in the Roman Catholic community?
    Mr. Mason: It is very difficult for me—and, I am sure, for my hon. Friends—to understand how political parties mushroom in the spring and die at the first frost. They are always growing and dying. The hon. Gentleman will know that at the last local government elections eight major parties stood and only four withstood the storm, four being wiped out. Since then, the Republican Clubs Party has begun to grow in strength, the Irish Independence Party has come on the scene, and, naturally, they are going for the same electorate as that led by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). Therefore, politically in the Catholic population there is certainly competition among the parties.
    Ms. Colquhoun: When will my right hon. Friend accept that the Irish prisoners of whom he speaks so scathingly are really prisoners of war? When will he take a real political initiative to bring about a phased withdrawal of the troops in Northern Ireland, in accordance with the wish of the majority of British people?
    Mr. Mason: I am sorry to inform my hon. Friend that I do not agree that those in Her Majesty's Prison Maze should be regarded as political prisoners or as prisoners of war. As far as I am concerned, they are criminals. They have been guilty of criminal acts. They have

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    killed, murdered, bombed and massacred and have been responsible for major terrorism in the Province in past years. Now, because we are treating them as criminals and they are being sentenced to gaol, much of the terrorist activity in Northern Ireland is on the wane.

    Criminal Jurisdiction Act 1975 (Cases)
    Mr. Stanbrookasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many cases have been instituted under the provisions of the Criminal Jurisdiction Act 1975 on each side of the border, respectively, and with what result.
    Mr. Mason: Prosecution under the extra-territorial legislation is a matter for the legal authorities in whose jurisdiction the suspect is located. Three persons have been charged in Northern Ireland under the Criminal Jurisdiction Act, and I understand that one person has been convicted in the Republic of Ireland by virtue of certain provisions of the Irish Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Act.
    Mr. Stanbrook: Is the Secretary of State aware that his reply means that there has been virtually no progress under this Act? Does he not agree that those figures illustrate that it is not any inadequacy in the law, or in the administration of justice, but the lack of a will to co-operate which holds up progress towards a settlement in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Mason: One of the problems is that the Act deals only with cases since June 1976. I hope that he will not damn the co-operation that is building up. Co-operation is forthcoming. For example, Captain Nairac's death is now subject to court proceedings in Northern Ireland and the Garda are helping in the North at present.
    The main difficulty is that there are two jurisdictions responsible for the operation of the Act, and, if a suspect is located in the South, it is difficult for the RUC to interrogate that suspect; they are allowed to attend but not to interrogate.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the ideal situation would be a proper extradition treaty, and will he continue to press for that?
    Mr. Mason: Of course, the hon. Gentleman knows quite well our position. We have signed the Council of Europe's convention on the suppression of terrorism. The Republic and Malta have not yet done so. However, I think that they are likely to sign an associated agreement—perhaps with reservations. But the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that extradition is really the best answer to the problem.

    Nursery Education
    Mr. Freudasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for what percentage of children under the age of 5 years there is now nursery provision.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Ray Carter): About 43 per cent. of all children between the ages of 3 and 5 years receive some playgroup or educational provision, mostly 4-year-olds in primary schools.
    Mr. Freud: I am sure that the whole House welcomed the report about preschool education in Ulster. Will the Minister use his best endeavours to ensure that existing and future nursery education are integrated so that there is at least a basis for integration in the earliest stage of primary education?
    Mr. Carter: We have said that nursery school places will be doubled between now and 1983. As in other aspects of education in Northern Ireland, those facilities will be at the disposal of every section of the community. Indeed, we want to encourage integration, where possible.
    Mr. Powell: As the Under-Secretary has pointed out that much of this education is carried out in primary schools, will the Government hasten the reconsideration of present policy regarding the admission of 4-year-olds, especially in the case of small village schools, where it is important to have suitable sizes of class throughout the years of attendance?
    Mr. Carter: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, in Northern Ireland there is probably a somewhat higher percentage of 4-year-olds in primary schools than in other parts of the United Kingdom. The Question relates to nursery education, and there we are trying to step up the numbers of places available. But, of

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    course, where we can get more 4-year-olds into primary schools, we shall do so.
    Mr. Kilfedder: Is it not a fact that the Under-Secretary's reply is an admission of failure to provide nursery places for all the 26,000 infants, as promised by the Government four years ago, within this four-year period? Will he take steps to talk to the Churches about ending sectarian education?
    Mr. Carter: All that the Government have to answer for, according to the hon. Gentleman, is failure on almost every subject. But the pre-school group of children in Northern Ireland is as well served as pre-school groups in any other part of the United Kingdom. However, we have admitted that we can improve that aspect of education, and we are hoping to double the number of nursery school places between now and 1983.

    Building and Construction Industry
    Mr. Craigasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will set up an inquiry into the building and construction industry in Northern Ireland with a view to improving its efficiency and providing greater stability and better opportunities for growth.
    Mr. Concannon: The Northern Ireland construction industry advisory council meets regularly under the chairmanship of a Minister, mostly to advise the Government on these matters. There are 23 members, nominated by professional and trade organisations, plus, of course, the relevant Government Departments.
    Mr. Craig: Does the Minister agree that there is reason for concern that costs in Northern Ireland are much higher than in comparable regions in Great Britain—on average, 40 per cent. higher? Is that not a cause for an independent assessment? Do we need to examine the effect of a single authority in public sector housing on the industry? Do we need to look at the planning decisions and the availability of development land? The industry is not giving a good service to Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Concannon: Those are matters which we discuss and for which we have working parties within the group. Every professional group and trade group in
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    Northern Ireland is represented in this committee. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we do some hard work, and some of our recommendations are worked upon and acted upon. I shall, of course, make sure that anything the right hon. Gentleman says in this respect goes forward to the next meeting of the group.
    Mr. Thorne: Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that there is an overwhelming case in Northern Ireland for public ownership of the building industry?
    Mr. Concannon: What I am concerned about in Northern Ireland is the creation of employment. If I were told that public ownership would create another job in Northern Ireland, I should consider it.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the Minister continue to look at the cement supply in Northern Ireland? Has he any further announcement to make about the supply of cement to the building industry?
    Mr. Concannon: This is one of the recommendations that came from the group on which we were working. The groups in Northern Ireland asked us to put forward a programme which would make us self-sufficient in cement. That is what is happening now. I have a further meeting with the Blue Circle Group and I shall probably be able to say more after that.
    Mr. Heffer: In view of the reply of my right hon. Friend to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South (Mr. (Thorne), will my right hon. Friend look at the Labour Party's construction programme "Building for Britain", where he will find some extremely good proposals which could well be applied to Northern Ireland for the benefit of both the operatives and the employers in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Concannon: I have looked at the document and will do so again on the recommendation of my hon. Friend. If there is any way in which Northern Ireland can lead the rest of the United Kingdom, we shall certainly do so.

    Gas Industry
    Mr. McCuskerasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the future of the gas industry in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Concannon: I hope to make the Government's proposals known early in the new year, but I cannot commit myself to a date. All the relevant factors must be considered thoroughly first.
    Mr. McCusker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the continuing delay in giving access to natural gas to Northern Ireland is having a very detrimental effect on the industry and is putting in jeopardy the 2,000 jobs of the people employed in it? Can the Minister say what success he has had in discussing this problem with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy?
    Mr. Concannon: I shall answer the second question first. I am keeping the Department of Energy well informed. It is well informed of the problems of the gas industry—perhaps I should say the energy industry—in Northern Ireland.
    It has been often said that I am deliberately delaying giving access to natural gas in Northern Ireland, but I can only tell the hon. Gentleman that the decision I am being accused of prejudging would have been easier some time ago.
    Mr. Skinner: Will the Minister confirm that more than 1 million tons of solid fuel is used in Northern Ireland? It is one of our best markets in the British regions for selling coal. Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that, whatever happens with the gas negotiations, that market will be maintained in order to ensure that British pits are not closed if markets are lost?
    Mr. Concannon: I can confirm that 1 million tons of coal is exported to Northern Ireland. I can also tell my hon. Friend that these exports were increased by 13·2 per cent. in the previous year.
    There is a problem in Northern Ireland, which has no indigenous resources of energy, and we shall have to look at that in the complete context of energy. The problem is causing us great concern.
    Mr. Goodhart: Does the Minister recall that the chairman of the Northern Ireland Labour Party has just said that, if Ministers continue to dither over the gas pipeline, they will have to accept full personal responsibility for the destruction of the gas industry in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Concannon: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman knows how the gas industry is organised in Northern Ireland. I do not run the gas industry in Northern Ireland. That is done by seven or eight local councils and a few private enterprises. Furthermore, it covers only one-third of the population of Northern Ireland.
    Many people have been to see me about this matter. It is important, and it is not an easy question to answer when we have a surplus of energy in Northern Ireland. If one is providing another source of energy which will only add to that surplus, some of the industries there will also suffer.
    Mr. John Ellis: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, whether in Northern Ireland or in this country, the national considerations concerned with fuel energy are likely to be that natural gas will be increasingly used as a feedstock. To some extent it is a waste to burn natural gas in people's fires. Is that not a consideration that the Minister should bear in mind? There will be changes of policy in this country as well as in Northern Ireland and we ought to use coal for heat-creating purposes rather than waste it up chimneys.
    Mr. Concannon: This is another of the problems I am facing under this review. We do not have to provide energy just for next year. I shall have to think about the supply of natural gas in the year 2000 and what will be happening to the gas industry then.
    All the questions thrown at me today—and I hope that the people in Northern Ireland will read and study this—show that the problem is not an easy one to solve.

    Army Casualties
    Mr. Pardoeasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the number of British troops killed and wounded in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years and so far this year.
    Mr. Mason: I will, with permission, publish full details in the Official Report. In summary, the number of deaths has dropped from 58 in 1973 to nine so far this year, and woundings from 278 to 25.
    Mr. Pardoe: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, although that information will be regarded as good news by both sides of the House, British

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    troops were sent to Northern Ireland in large numbers and these men have died in order to buy the time in which politicians could create a political settlement? Does he recognise that, although there has been a welcome improvement in the security situation, we are as far as ever from procuring a political settlement in which Northern Ireland can live at peace without a veritable army of occupation? How many more soldiers' lives does he think have to be lost before the politicians in Northern Ireland play their part?
    Mr. Mason: Despite the fact that the so-called political solution has not been found, the security forces, with determination, courage and skill, have managed to get on top of terrorism in Northern Ireland. The figures that I have just given are an indication of how well they have been doing their job. In the past year or so, nearly 1,000 troops have been withdrawn. As the situation improves and in keeping with security in the Province, we shall have to consider step-by-step withdrawal. However, I will not condone the precipitate withdrawal which the hon. Gentleman has suggested. Indeed, that is just the language that the Provisional IRA love to hear. They are his friends in Northern Ireland. He is giving them joy and causing despair among the people. During the past weekend the Social Democratic and Labour Party, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), has suggested that withdrawal is desirable and necessary but that it must be in keeping with a political solution.
    Mr. Neave: Is the Secretary of State aware that he will have the full support of the Conservative Party for what he has just said? Is he aware that what the deputy leader of the Liberal Party has been urging involves much more than a withdrawal of soldiers from Northern Ireland? It would involve the removal of Northern Ireland as an entity from the United Kingdom. Is not it also somewhat naive of the deputy leader of the Liberal Party to link demands for political settlement to the killing of British soldiers? Is that not just what encourages the terrorists?
    Mr. Mason: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The policy enunciated by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe)—he is, I think, on his own in his
    1176
    party in doing so—is a policy for despair. We are not prepared to accept that.
    Mr. Fitt: Allied to the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland and the fact that, so far as anyone can see at the moment, there is no possibility of a political solution being found, would my right hon. Friend take it from me, with all honesty, that the proposal to increase the number of seats in Northern Ireland will make it all the more difficult to find any sort of agreement? Will he accept that, contrary to what he said earlier, the seats will be created within the city of Belfast and will almost inevitably go to Unionists unless there is deliberate gerrymandering? In that situation when politicians are desperately trying to find a means of success, would my right hon. Friend consider implementing PR for the elections to this House?
    Mr. Mason: My hon. Friend will have a full opportunity to express his point of view on the Second Reading of the Bill and in Committee. He will also be aware that, during the course of the Speaker's Conference, Mr. Speaker ruled that the method of election would be ruled out of the Conference's deliberations. Therefore, PR was not discussed in the Speaker's Conference and is not before us in the Bill.
    Mr. Powell: If the people of Cornwall were under attack by a terrorist organisation of which the object was, by violence, to detach Cornwall from the rest of the United Kingdom, does the right hon. Gentleman think that the Government or the House would withdraw the assistance of the Army from those people?
    Mr. Mason: In those circumstances the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe), as the Member for a constituency there, would be clamouring for military assistance. No doubt those in his area are pretty well ashamed of what he has been saying recently.
    Following are the details:

    ARMY DEATHS AND WOUNDING IN THE REGULAR ARMY ARISING FROM TERRORIST ACTIVITY SINCE 1973

    Deaths

    Woundings

    1973

    58

    278

    1974

    28

    205

    1975

    14

    44

    1976

    14

    143

    1977

    15

    75

    1978 (to 31st October)

    9

    25

    138

    770

    Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act 1976
    Mr. Litterickasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he is satisfied with the operation of the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act 1976.
    Mr. Concannon: Yes, Sir. I shall not however be completely satisfied until the objectives of the Act are fully realised.
    Mr. Litterick: I thank the Minister for that answer, but how can he give it confidently? In answer to 48 Questions tabled by me about the operation of the Act as it applied to municipalities, Government Departments and the Armed Services, including the Royal Ulster Constabulary, only the Ulster Defence Regiment was able to say that, of its total recruitment last year, 3 per cent. were Catholics. The Department made clear that all the others either kept no records or, for other reasons, did not know. Therefore, how can the Minister have any idea whether the Act is effective or ineffective?
    Mr. Concannon: We certainly have an idea of its effectiveness. If my hon. Friend found out that I was keeping records of who was Catholic and who was Protestant, I think that he would be the first to complain. That is not the way I act in Northern Ireland and I certainly do not intend to do so.
    I am very pleased at the response to this legislation and by the signatures to the declaration of intent which over 80 per cent. have signed. Within a month of my decreasing the qualification as to the minimum number employed from 25 to 10, 35 per cent. of those eligible signed the declaration.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: Does not the Minister agree that this fair employment agency cannot act except when there is a breakdown on figures? Surely if people sign this agreement they are under an obligation to be able to supply figures.
    Mr. Concannon: Those concerned are under certain obligations, but these will take time to percolate through the system. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that in certain factories and establishments over a period of years the only people employed come from a certain area. One can be 90 per cent. sure of
    1178
    people's denomination just by knowing where they live in Northern Ireland.

    European Monetary System
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what discussions he is having with leaders of industry and commerce in Northern Ireland about the possible implications of the United Kingdom joining the proposed European monetary system.
    Mr. Mason: I am in close touch with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other colleagues on this matter, and I will, as always, ensure that full account is taken of Northern Ireland's interests. However, I have not discussed the specific implications of joining the European monetary system with leaders of commerce and industry.
    Mr. Goodhart: As many experts think that it is probable that there will be a substantial dislocation of trade in Northern Ireland if the Republic joins the EMS and the United Kingdom does not, would it not be wiser for Ministers to give some thought to this problem now?
    Mr. Mason: The hon. Gentleman will understand that I have given a great deal of thought to this matter. But I think that it is too soon to involve the industrial and commercial leaders in Northern Ireland, because the terms of entry into the EMS are still very unclear.
    Mr. Dykes: In addition to the advantage outlined by my hon. Friend, does not the Secretary of State agree, too, that there is every possibility that the Province would get even more Community resources and aid than at present?
    Mr. Mason: It is difficult to say because we do not know whether the Irish Republic will join or whether the United Kingdom will stay out. These are all hypothetical questions at this stage and much of the future in this respect is unclear.

    Maze Prison
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what recent representation he has received about conditions in the H-blocks at the Maze prison; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Concannon: Over recent months, I have received various representations

    1179
    from individuals and interested organisations about conditions in the cell blocks where the protest against the refusal of special category status for convicted prisoners is taking place.
    Some 330 prisoners are still fouling their cells as part of their protest. The cells are cleaned regularly but are promptly dirtied again. I must continue to make it clear that neither this bizarre protest in the prison, nor any other form of protest action, will deflect us from our determination to phase out special category status and to treat all convicted criminals alike.
    Mr. Canavan: In view of the representations which Members of this House have received, especially the allegations of maltreatment, including beatings and deprivation of adequate food, and the fact that the European Court of Human Rights has agreed to consider certain complaints, will my right hon. Friend conduct an urgent inquiry into this matter and allow an all-party delegation of Members of Parliament to visit the prison to see conditions for themselves? Failure to do so will lead to further allegations of a massive cover-up.
    Mr. Concannon: I am sorry that my hon. Friend thinks like that. He must understand from my original answer that the conditions referred to are self-imposed by the prisoners and could be put in the class of self-inflicted wounds. It is a propaganda exercise, not about the conditions in the cells but about the abandoning of our policy of ending special category status. I keep under review the question of visits to the prisons but at present, while this propaganda exercise is being perpetrated, I do not intend to give the prisoners concerned that satisfaction.
    Mr. Molyneaux: Will the Minister of State discourage even piecemeal attempts to extend any degree of special status to convicted criminals?
    Mr. Concannon: There is no piecemeal attempt. There is nothing piecemeal about this at all. I can only repeat, and shall go on repeating at every opportunity, that we are not going back to special category status. These prisoners are criminals, and will be treated as such.

    TUC AND CBI
    Mr. Gouldasked the Prime Minister when he intends next to meet the TUC and CBI.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I meet representatives of the TUC and CBI from time to time, at NEDC and on other occasions. Further meetings will be arranged as necessary.
    Mr. Gould: Will my right hon. Friend discuss with the TUC and the CBI the severe misgivings which they have both expressed about the European monetary system—misgivings which must surely have been intensified by today's increase in the minimum lending rate, which is surely a foretaste of the sort of policies that would be necessary if we were to join an EMS or, indeed, pursue policies parallel to it?
    The Prime Minister: We discussed with the TUC on 30th October the proposals for a European monetary system. It was a useful and valuable discussion. The TUC set out the kind of conditions that it thought would need to be observed if we were to join, and we shall continue to bear those and other representations in mind, including the evidence that the Expenditure Sub-Committee is now taking.
    Mrs. Thatcher: Does the Prime Minister recall that the last time the minimum lending rate went up, in June, to 10 per cent., the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House that he expected it to come down within—at most—a few weeks? What went wrong this time?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, it certainly was our expectation at that time that MLR would come down within a matter of weeks, and I regret very much that world conditions have prevented it from doing so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It may have escaped the notice of Conservative hon. Members that there has been a certain turbulence in the position of the dollar, and a general rise in short-term interest rates. The increase in the MLR reflects that but goes a little further, because we are determined to keep inflation under control. I hope that we have the right hon. Lady's support in that.
    Mrs. Thatcher: As the American rate went up 1 per cent. to 9½ per cent., the Prime Minister can hardly claim that the cause of the increase to 12½ per cent. is what has happened to the dollar. Why does he not accept cause and effect—namely, that the reason that MLR has gone up to 12½ per cent. is that he is borrowing far too much and trying to take far too much out of the economy for Government spending, and that those who will bear the increase to 12½ per cent. are the home owners and the small businesses—the very businesses that are trying to expand and make more jobs, which he also wants?
    The Prime Minister: I partly agree with the right hon. Lady—that it is our borrowing requirement that determines to some extent the level of interest rates. But the corollary of that, as the right hon. Lady has always said, is that we should cut down public expenditure—items such as education and the social services. As is well known, old age pensions and child benefit are going up next week. Perhaps the right hon. Lady would care to choose which of those she would like to reduce.
    Mr. Kinnock: Given that the pound is rather too strong to suit our international trade convenience and that it is difficult to understand why a rise of 2½ per cent. in the MLR will assist in stabilising the turbulence of which my right hon. Friend speaks, will he tell us whether this change has anything to do with conformity to a possible European monetary system, or whether it is in order to enforce, by indirect means, the 5 per cent. wage policy?
    The Prime Minister: The change does not enforce a 5 per cent. wage policy, because we are in a period of free collective bargaining. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If we were not, I promise that some of the settlements would be a lot different from what they look likely to be. We cannot enforce anything there.
    But I am sure that my hon. Friend will have studied what I have said consistently on many occasions. We have three legs to this tripod. We intend to use them all to keep inflation down. The country will have to make up its mind whether it prefers these short-term mea-
    1182
    sures, as I trust they will be short-term, in order to keep inflation down to prevent unemployment from soaring, or whether it is ready to let inflation rip. The Government are not ready to do that. I have said more than once, and say again, that we shall take all the necessary measures.
    Mr. David Steel: The Prime Minister told the House last week about the three-legged stool. He told us that if the leg of pay policy were weakened the other two legs would have to be strengthened. But surely his principle of carpentry is wrong. If that one leg is weak it is that one that should be strengthened. Otherwise, the stool will collapse. Therefore, in talking to the CBI and the TUC will the Prime Minister discuss with them, particularly in the context of the Ford pay claim, the fact that the Ford company in America has a very sophisticated profit-sharing scheme, whereas in Britain there is no way in which the Ford employees can share in the increased profitability of the company in the past year?
    The Prime Minister: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I dare say that in logic he is right but, alas, logic does not always cover all political decisions. Let me add that when it is strictly applied one always comes a cropper.
    I am still waiting to hear from Ford. I cannot really believe it when its spokesman says that it does not know what effect the impact of the proposed wage settlement would have on the price of its cars. It seems to me very unlikely that a company of that size should take decisions about pay without knowing in advance how they will feed through to its prices.

    EUROPEAN COMMUNITY HEADS OF GOVERNMENT
    Mr. Ron Thomasasked the Prime Minister when he intends next to meet the Prime Ministers of other EEC Governments.
    The Prime Minister: I shall be meeting EEC Heads of Government at the European Council in Brussels on 4th and 5th December. I shall also be meeting Signor Andreotti in London on 22nd November and President Giscard d'Estaing in Paris on 24th November.
    Mr. Thomas: Apart from telling the Prime Ministers of the other EEC countries by what recondite reasoning putting up interest rates brings inflation down, will my right hon. Friend tell them that the majority on the Labour Benches and the party we represent are opposed to joining a European monetary system that will mean an erosion of our economic sovereignty? Will he ensure that we have a free vote on this matter, and that all relevant documents that will assist us to make the decision are made available in the interests of open government?
    The Prime Minister: I take it that my hon. Friend will want a free vote even if the Government come down against joining.
    I think that the subject of erosion of sovereignty is getting a little moth-eaten. The power of Governments to control their rates of exchange has been severely eroded in recent years. I should not have thought we had much control over the rate of sterling in the autumn of 1976, and I have not noticed that the American authorities have had much control over the value of the dollar during recent weeks. I beg my hon. Friend and others who think like him to consider whether a zone of monetary stability, irrespective of the merits of any particular scheme, would not have advantages that are denied when the speculators have a free run.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: Regardless of what may be happening over the German pressures for the system of EMS, will the Prime Minister undertake to discuss with his colleagues the whole question of managed exchanges, as it is becoming clearer and clearer that since the breakdown of Bretton Woods the world may be facing monetary chaos by the middle of next year?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in every respect. Indeed, it seems to me that when the EMS was conceived the dollar was not in the difficulties that it has recently passed through. I hope that this will give us an opportunity of beginning discussions for a new world monetary system, although I would not want to advance that if my colleagues in Europe thought that it was merely a means of ditching their
    1184
    EMS which we may or may not decide to join.
    Sir G. de Freitas: Will my right hon. Friend also take the opportunity of discussing with his fellow Prime Ministers the fact that it is very inefficient and expensive for the Nine to insist that the European Parliament meets in rotation in different cities? Surely it is time that the Nine Governments reached agreement on one city whether Brussels, Strasbourg or Luxembourg.
    The Prime MinisterThat matter has been discussed in the past, but the powers of the European Ministers are limited in deciding the issue.

    TUC
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Prime Minister when he expects next to meet the TUC.
    The Prime Minister: I meet representatives of the TUC from time to time, at NEDC and on other occasions. Further meetings will be arranged as necessary.
    Mr. Skinner: I wonder whether the Prime Minister will tell the TUC that his pay policy will be kept in respect of those who proliferate on the housing market—estate agents, property solicitors and the rest of the speculators who have just made a killing out of the 25 per cent. increase in house prices in a year. Instead of supplying us with this rickety three-legged stool that he keeps talking about, why does not he add another stave and call it controlling prices?
    The Prime Minister: Talks are going on between the TUC and the Chancellor, and I should like to thank my colleagues who are conducting them and the representatives of the TUC for those thorough discussions. The question of prices will be covered in their debates. My hon. Friend will recognise that the elements about which we have been talking today all form constituents of prices. We shall certainly be ready to strengthen price controls if it seems likely that they would have the effect that my hon. Friend described. But if I may say so—indeed, my hon. Friend has said it himself on many occasions—we have had considerable success in keeping prices down as a result of our policies over the past 12 months.
    Mr. Budgen: When the Prime Minister next meets members of the TUC, will he tell them that the massive increase in MLR announced this morning is the beginning of the end of the pre-election boom which was so conveniently arranged in anticipation of the October election which did not take place?
    The Prime Minister: No. I would not tell them that because I would not want to rub salt into the wounds of those who really thought that there was a pre-election boom. The simple fact is, and I hope that some day the hon. Gentleman will recognise it, that this country's position is such that the Government ought, whether there is an election ahead or not, to take the appropriate decision that will keep inflation down and prevent unemployment from soaring. Nothing will deter us from those objectives.
    Mr. Swain: Does my right hon. Friend remember the answer of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in 1968 that it was impossible to control prices and that the Government must retain control over the part of the economy which they already controlled? Is that the policy of this Government?
    The Prime Minister: I do not recall the exact occasion on which that was said, but certainly it is not impossible to control prices. The work of the Price Commission has reduced price increases, that would otherwise have taken place, to the tune of well over £100 million a year. A control is taking place and my hon. Friend may take it for granted that we shall use every means to prevent unwarranted price increases. What we cannot prevent, if industry is to remain healthy, are price increases that arise out of cost increases. Therefore, costs must also be kept down.
    Mr. Higgins: Will the Prime Minister tell us what the increase in American interest rates has been, what the increase in British interest rates has been and, in the light of what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, what has changed since the Chancellor made his statement some time ago?
    The Prime Minister: I cannot answer about the American rates off-hand, but if the hon. Gentleman puts a Question down to the Chancellor I am sure he will receive a detailed reply. But it is
    1186
    known, even to the hon. Gentleman, that American rates have gone up during the past few months, which is the general point that I was making. What has changed are the fears of the market about certain consequences that might arise during the winter. Those fears arise out of a number of different considerations. They do not know which way to go. If we enter the EMS, will it make sterling weaker? [Interruption.] We know where we are going. The point is that the market do not know where they are going. Let us see the result of the vote tonight, and then see what the country has to say if it goes the wrong way.
    There are, as I think the hon. Member knows in his more rational moments, a number of uncertainties. The Government do not intend to be caught by those uncertainties and we are therefore taking steps in anticipation of them, in order to prevent their developing into reality.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mrs. Thatcher: May I ask the Lord President to state the business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 13TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Bill. Proceedings on the Pensioners Payments Bill.
TUESDAY 14TH NOVEMBER—Motions on EEC documents S/763/78, S/911/78 and addendum 1 on enlargement, on R/1277/77 and R/1131/78 on display and pricing of foodstuffs and on R/236/78 on groundwater pollution.
WEDNESDAY 15TH NOVEMBER—Supply [1st Allotted Day]: debate on a motion to take note of developments in the European Communities January to June 1978, Command No. 7361. Motion on EEC document R/1123/78 on mutual assistance.
THURSDAY 16TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Estate Agents Bill. Motion on the Assistance for House Purchase and Improvement (Variation of Subsidy) Order. Motion on EEC document on

1187
R/511/78 on misleading and unfair advertising.
FRIDAY 17TH NOVEMBER—Debate on the report of the Royal Commission on civil liability and compensation for personal injury, Command No. 7054.
MONDAY 20TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Companies Bill.
Mrs. Thatcher: May I put one or two points to the Leader of the House? First, can he say when the Boundary Commission's report on European constituencies will be available? It was expected in October but has not been published.
Secondly, can he say what is the present state of the strikes affecting this House? He will know that the public find it impossible to get copies of Bills which may affect the way in which they conduct their business. We shall have the Companies Bill shortly, and companies simply cannot obtain copies unless hon. Members send them or unless members of the public come here for them.
Thirdly, when are we to have a debate on the European monetary system? It seems that decisions are close at hand and there has been precious little debate officially in the House and practically no official documentation from the Government on the very big issues at stake and whether we go in or stay out.
Mr. Foot: I certainly appreciate the importance of all the points that the right hon. Lady has raised. On her second question concerning the hold-up of papers I fully acknowledge the great inconvenience that has been caused to the House and to members of the public resulting from the industrial dispute in Her Majesty's Stationery Office publishing and bookselling activities section which has been continued since the beginning of September. Every effort is being made to overcome it. I fully acknowledge what the right hon. Lady has said and I certainly hope that it will be brought to an end as soon as possible.
The Boundary Commission's report and the draft order will be laid before the House as soon as possible. I hope that it may be next week.
Regarding the third question, about a debate on the European monetary system, the Government have already given an undertaking to the House that we shall
1188
have such a full debate before any decisions are taken. I cannot give the House the exact date now, but I agree that it should be very soon.
Mr. English: I have always believed in the cock-up rather than the conspiracy theory of history. Will my right hon. Friend reconsider the business for next week? It seems that the EMS debate is now likely to take place, unintentionally, after the decisions have been taken. When the General Sub-Committee, or some members of it, yesterday visited the Commission in Brussels, we were told that the crucial decisions were likely to be taken on Monday, 20th November at a meeting of the Council of Finance Ministers. If that is true, we ought to have the debate this coming week.
Mr. Foot: Apart from the two theories to which my hon. Friend has referred, there is also the misapprehension theory. I think he is under the misapprehension that the decision will be made before the debate.
That is not so. We shall have the debate before the decisions.
Mr. du Cann: On the assumption that the Treasury minute will be published within the next 14 days, can the Leader of the House tell us how soon thereafter he thinks we shall be able to have a day for a debate on the reports of the Public Accounts Committee?
Secondly, does the right hon. Gentleman remember the several occasions on which a wish has been expressed by both sides of the House that more time should be allocated whenever possible for debates on reports of Select Committees? As the Government do not have as heavy a timetable and programme as is sometimes the case, will he see whether he can allocate more time to this purpose now—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—and, in particular, to a debate upon the report which many of us, inside and outside the House, regard as being of fundamental importance—the report of the Select Committee on Procedure?
Mr. Foot: I said last week in response to a question that I regarded the report of the Select Committee on Procedure as a major report to the House, and, of course, there must be a full debate upon it. I hope that we shall have a debate on the subject before Christmas.

1189
As to the first of the other matters mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, I hope that I may be able to make at any rate, a reference to it in the Business Statement next week, although I do not absolutely guarantee it. Of course, I have taken into account also the representations that he and others have made for fuller opportunities for debates on these subjects. I have also to take account of the representations that he and others have made for fuller and earlier debates on many questions affecting EEC business. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will have noticed that in next week's business I am helping to fulfil that obligation.
Mr. Ashton: With regard to the Pensioners Payments Bill to be debated on Monday night, a Bill which I presume relates to the £10 Christmas increase for pensioners, will my right hon. Friend confirm that if the Government are defeated tonight by the Tories and the minority parties there will be no £10 bonus for pensioners this Christmas?
Mr. Foot: If in my reply to my hon. Friend I were to give all the reasons why we should not make a mistake about the vote tonight, I should be at the Dispatch Box for many hours on end, but I am glad to confirm the general idea behind my hon. Friend's question.
Mr. Aitken: In view of the publication this week of the "Directory of Paid Public Appointments made by Ministers", which I think has aroused concern in all parts of the House, showing as it does that there are now over 5,600 salaried jobs in the gift of Ministers and over 360 quangos, could we not now have an early debate on the uses and abuses of ministerial patronage?
Mr. Foot: I should be very happy to have such a debate, although I know that there are many other pressures for debate, and to discuss all the proposed quangos, if that is the proper name for them. But when I arrived at the Department of Employment in 1974 I discovered that some of those who feature in the document were already fixed by the previous Government, and there was no greater collator of so-called quangos than the previous Government.
Mr. Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the concern in the country about
1190
the inability of the House to find time to discuss the question of the export of live animals? As over half the Back-Benchers in the House signed an early-day motion calling for such a debate many months ago, will he now find time for it?
[That this House considers that the contents of the report by agriculture departments of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that was issued in March 1978 under the title "The Export Trade in Live Animals for Slaughter or Further Fattening" are of great interest and concern to honourable Members of this House, to animal welfare organisations, the farming industry and the general public; and asks Her Majesty's Government to set aside time for an early debate.]
Mr. Foot: I will look afresh at all the representations that were made on this subject. I know very well that at the end of the last Session many representations were made about it, and I will see what opportunity there may be or whether private Members should seek to claim time for it.
Mr. Powell: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the Order in Council on remand procedure in Northern Ireland is brought forward as soon as possible for the approval of the House, since it is in the public interest that there should be an early debate upon it?
Mr. Foot: I accept what the right hon. Gentleman said about the desirability of having a debate in the House on the subject. That was made clear by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State when he made the statement to the House. We will consider when such an affirmative order can be brought forward.
Mr. Greville Janner: Will my right hon. Friend provide time soon for a debate on the disgraceful dismissal by the South African Government of Mr. Justice Mostert? Meanwhile, will he express unequivocal condemnation of that dismissal?
Mr. Foot: I do not believe that That is necessarily a matter which calls for a debate in the House, although hon. Members such as my hon. and learned Friend are fully capable of expressing our views about it, and I certainly share the view which he has expressed.
Mr. Wigley: With regard to Friday's debate on personal injury and civil compensation, will the Leader of the House give an assurance that the Government will bring forward in that debate their proposals for compensating slate quarrymen suffering from silicosis?
Mr. Foot: I cannot guarantee that the Government will bring forward the detailed proposals on that subject in the debate, but, of course, the Government will listen most carefully to the representations that are made on that subject and others in the debate. It would be in order for discussion then. The Government have already given a commitment in the Queen's Speech on this subject, and we have every intention of fulfilling it.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: The Lord President will have heard the Prime Minister say earlier how we are controlling prices. I am particularly pleased to hear of the Government's effort to control the price of bread. However, since rail fares are to rise by 10 per cent. in January, will he ask the responsible Minister to control that increase, at least within 5 per cent., which seems to be the magic figure for wages and salaries?
Mr. Foot: No doubt all these questions of how the Government seek to control prices and how nationalised industries have contributed to that—and they have made a considerable contribution to the solution of the problem—are open for debate in the House this afternoon.
Mr. Michael Latham: Since it was reported the other day in The Guardian that the Prime Minister is taking a personal interest in the affair of the Select Committee's report on the National Land Fund, may we have an early Government decision and debate on this?
Mr. Foot: I note what the hon. Gentleman says, but obviously I am not making any promise about next week.
Mr. Loyden: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a full debate during the present Session of Parliament on unemployment? This is one of the country's major problems and there is no evidence that the steps so far taken by the Government are dramatically reducing unemployment.
Mr. Foot: There are persistently continuing debates in the House at different
1192
times, as I am sure my hon. Friend will acknowledge, on different aspects of the unemployment problem. Many of these matters were open for debate during the debates we had on the Queen's Speech, but I will certainly look afresh at the suggestion which my hon. Friend is making that we should have debates on unemployment affecting particular areas. There are some areas, such as Merseyside, which are more deeply and harshly afflicted than almost any other, so I will take into account what my hon. Friend has said.
Mr. Kershaw: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is now some two years since an inquiry made its pronouncements about the Stroud inner ring road and that I have been promised a decision every month since May? In view of the great inconvenience and expense, will he ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to make an announcement during the coming week?
Mr. Foot: The point about the Stroud motorway had escaped my attention for a moment—I cannot understand how this could have occurred—but I shall discuss it with my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Spearing: In view of the visibly ever-rising tide of EEC legislation, including demands for even more debates, is it not even more important that the Government should discharge their undertaking of 28th November last year to have a debate on the procedure for EEC legislation, particularly in view of the report of the Scrutiny Committee, House of Commons Paper 642, which remarks on the Lord President's withdrawal of the undertaking, and the report of the Select Committee on Procedure on EEC legislation? May we have an early opportunity to deal with this matter?
Mr. Foot: I freely acknowledge that the House must return afresh to this matter. That was understood when we had references to the subject in July, and the necessity to deal with it has been underlined by the two reports to which my hon. Friend refers. Last week I indicated to the House that I thought that perhaps we should deal with that part of the procedure report in a different way from the rest of the report. I am fully conscious of my hon. Friend's point.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: I have a very long list of Members who hope to catch my eye today. There is a statement to follow after business questions, so I propose to take four more Questions from either side and then move on to the statement.
Sir Frederic Bennett: The Leader of the House will recall that during the recess another Select Committee reported on the consequences of oil spillage. I drew this to the right hon. Gentleman's attention and received a courteous reply. He said that he realised the importance of a debate on that report but suggested that we should wait until the Government's comments were available. Will those comments be available before Christmas, and when will a debate follow?
Mr. Foot: I have nothing further to say to the hon. Gentleman now, but I may be able to make a further statement on the matter next week.
Mr. Skinner: When the Leader of the House has information about the Stationery Office strike, especially about the Boundary Commission report, will he give an early warning to those of us on both sides of the House who are anti-Marketeers so that we can ensure that that very important strike continues? We are thinking of setting up a fighting fund to keep these reports from being produced in order that these gallant men can prevent Britain from being dragged even further into the European mire.
Mr. Foot: With the best of good will towards my hon. Friend, I must say that I feel we have enough industrial strikes affecting the supply of documents to the House without any assistance from him.
Mr. Baker: Will the Leader of the House ensure that debates on the report of the Select Committee on Procedure take place before the Government publish their findings on that report? This is essentially a matter for the House of Commons, and all hon. Members want to express their views. As some of the recommendations are fundamental and controversial, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it may be necessary for such a debate to stretch over more than one day?
Mr. Foot: I am not sure about the length of time that should be allocated, but I fully concur with what the hon. Gentleman said during the first part of his remarks—indeed, I think I said as much last week.
Mr. Hooley: In view of the Bingham report, it is not even more urgent that the House should pay serious attention to its own procedures, with capacity to scrutinise the activitives or non-activities of the Executive, and will my right hon. Friend make this the top priority in formulating the business of the House before Christmas?
Mr. Foot: I repeat to my hon. Friend what I have already said to the House as a whole. I do not deny that this is a report of major importance, and obviously the House will want a full opportunity to discuss it. As my hon. Friend has just indicated, the best way may be for the House to discuss it before the Government reach any conclusions. I believe that that is the right way to proceed.
Mr. Bulmer: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the House has a chance to debate the findings of the Select Committee's report on the National Land Fund before any decision is taken to reject it?
Mr. Foot: We have to watch these matters closely. If it were the practice that all reports had to be discussed before Governments gave their views, I believe that we would make the procedures of the House extraordinarily cumbersome in many respects. I do not believe that it would be for the convenience of the House. There are special occasions when reports such as the procedure report should be subject to a debate before the Government have presented their view, but I do not believe that it is normally the best practice to have debates on reports on which the Government have not expressed any opinion.
Mr. Ioan Evans: Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on early-day motion no. 33 relating to the coal industry in Wales—or, if not specifically on the coal industry, may we have a general energy debate?
[That this House, mindful of the essential part which the coal industry plays in the energy requirements of the United Kingdom, deplores the proposal to close

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further pits in South Wales other than those exhausted; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government with all its powers to sustain and protect the industry as a vital part of its energy policy.]
Mr. Foot: I accept the importance of the subject raised by my hon. Friend, and I am certainly aware of the considerable concern in South Wales on the subject, although I see that my hon. Friend is raising this subject himself in an Adjournment debate next week.
Mr. Burden: Since there is a growth in the number of criminals who are prepared to use guns to shoot down people in order to escape arrest—I suggest that there has been a considerable increase in the number of murders recently—will the Lord President give time for an early debate on the whole question of capital punishment?
Mr. Foot: I do not believe that that is the best way for the House to proceed. The House of Commons made its view clear during the previous debate and decision on the matter. I do not believe that there is a requirement for another such debate.
Mr. Rooker: Will my right hon. Friend bring forward a motion next week, which is a rather busy week, to give the House an opportunity to remove from all Select Committees those hon. Members who are Ministers, because they are clearly in no position to do the job that this House expects them to do?
Mr. Foot: I do not agree with what my hon. Friend said about the composition of Select Committees. Indeed, in the case which occurred this week the member of that Select Committee is just as able to perform his functions on it during the coming week as he has in the past week. I do not, therefore, believe that any such question arises.
Later—
Mr. English: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the House, in answer to my earlier question, referred to misapprehensions. I have been out of the Chamber to check with the local office of the European Commission and I am again informed by that office that the Council of European Finance Ministers will meet on 20th November—not after,
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but before the debate. As I understand it, that is the occasion when the crucial decisions will be taken.
Mr. Foot: Further to that point of order. My hon. Friend most uncharacteristically has again misapprehended the situation. There is no proposal that there should be a decision at that meeting. Therefore, the undertaking that I gave to the House is absolutely clear. The debate will take place in this House before there is any decision.

QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE
Mr. Speaker: I have to inform the House that I have received a letter from the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) on a question concerning the privileges of this House. In accordance with the procedure for dealing with such matters which was brought into effect on 6th February this year, the hon. Member has made a submission to me in writing which I have duly considered.
The hon. Gentleman informs me that use has been made in the case of Regina v. Aubrey, Berry and Campbell, now proceeding at the Central Criminal Court, of passages in the Official Report of our debates and of other proceedings of the House without the prior leave of the House being obtained. In the light of this information, I give precedence over the Orders of the Day tomorrow to a motion relating to the hon. Gentleman's complaint. No debate can arise now.

SMALL FIRMS (EMPLOYMENT SUBSIDY)
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Secretary Booth—statement.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Albert Booth): As the House is aware, the Government have introduced during the last two or three years a range of measures for promoting employment and training which have had as their object a reduction in the high level of unemployment. In the current financial year, the expenditure on these measures is likely to be between £450 million and £500 million, and they are making a substantial contribution to bringing down the level of unemployment. Most of these

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measures run to 31st March 1979, and we are at present considering what needs to be done in the year which will commence on 1st April 1979. Meanwhile, we have decided to extend further from 1st January 1979 the scope of the small firms employment subsidy.
Under the scheme a subsidy of £20 a week for six months is paid for each additional full-time worker taken on in a manufacturing firm with fewer than 200 employees.
There has been an encouraging response to the present scheme, which was extended from the special development areas to the assisted areas generally and inner city partnership areas on 1st July 1978. Since 1st July, about 5,000 firms have applied to join, and we would have expected some 10,000 new jobs to be created in a full year.
From 1st January 1979, the present scheme will be extended to small manufacturing firms throughout Great Britain. Furthermore, the subsidy will be available to small non-manufacturing firms in the special development areas, development areas and inner city partnership areas. The new scheme will be open for applications to 31st March 1980. The changes have been notified to the EEC Commission. I estimate that these changes will more than treble the number of new jobs created by the scheme.
Mr. Prior: If the right hon. Gentleman can estimate the number of jobs that will be created by the scheme, can he give an estimate of the number of jobs that will be lost as a result of the increase in the minimum lending rate to 12½ per cent.? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are becoming a subsidised society, constantly propping up small firms by subsidies? If he made sensible changes to the Employment Protection Act, he could get the employment without any additional subsidies.
Is the Secretary of State aware that in so far as we believe that these schemes have any part to play in solving our unemployment problem—and we believe it is a small part—we are glad that the scheme has been extended to the country as a whole, which seems sensible? Generally speaking, we believe that the Government show an incompetence in the running of the economy which is matched
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only by the kind of scheme produced today.
Mr. Booth: That is not the warmest welcome I have heard the hon. Gentleman give to a measure designed to assist in solving the unemployment problem.
We can measure our ability to estimate the effect of this extension, compared with the effect of MLR, because we ran a pilot scheme in special development areas prior to July, which I understood had the approval of the House. I acknowledge that it will play only a small part, but it is only one of a great many measures which, added together, are having a considerable impact on levels of employment. As to our being a country which is dependent upon the help of subsidies, I would have thought that the benefit that we are reaping—with more people being employed as a result of those subsidies—would be welcomed in all parts of the House.
Mr. Dewar: Does my right hon. Friend accept that despite the rather grumpy remarks from the Opposition Front Bench there will be a warm welcome in special development areas for the extension to the non-manufacturing sector, which has been the Cinderella in the past? I hope that it will set a trend of more assistance in the form of grants for the service industries, which are important in areas such as Scotland.
Mr. Booth: I welcome my hon. Friend's comments. We have received an increasing number of representations of the view that to pay a subsidy to small manufacturing firms but to deny it to firms servicing those manufacturing firms is not the best way to aid the development of small firms in the special development areas.
Mr. Cyril Smith: I give a warm welcome to the Minister's statement. Does he accept that perhaps all the jobs being subsidised under the scheme are jobs which would have occurred anyway, without the subsidy—not all of them but some of them—and therefore that it is not strictly true to say that every job being subsidised is a job created as a consequence of the scheme?
Does the Minister also accept that while some of us do not accept that the Employment Protection Act has had the major effect on employment that the

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official Opposition Front Bench make out, we agree that there is a vast amount of form filling—particularly for the statistics office at Cardiff—which small companies are called upon to complete? Many of us who have to complete those forms take the view that they are an utter waste of time.
Mr. Booth: The problem of form filling by small firms runs much wider than the Employment Protection Act, as the hon. Gentleman appreciates. It is a matter to which the Government are giving attention.
I do not claim that every subsidy paid under the small firms employment subsidy scheme represents an additional job but when, as an experiment, we ran a small firms employment subsidy in special development areas for manufacturing firms employing fewer than 50 people, and compared what was happening in those areas with others as comparable as it was possible to find, we found that 40 per cent. more jobs came about in the small manufacturing firms in the areas in receipt of the subsidy.
Mr. Molloy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he should not be discouraged by the nit-picking attitude of the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), because if this country had adopted his policies another 1 million could have been added to the unemployed? The important thing for my right hon. Friend to understand is that what will help to make his proposals a real success will be his ensuring that local organisations such as employers' organisations and trades councils are brought into a full understanding of, and discussion on, how the scheme should operate. It is at this level that its success can be assured.
Mr. Booth: I agree with my hon. Friend that an understanding of this and many other employment schemes by local organisations is essential to the success of the schemes. Having introduced so many schemes during the past few years, I find that it is often six or 12 months before their availability is realised by the people whom they are intended to assist.
Mr. Henderson: Does the Secretary of State accept that by extending this scheme throughout Great Britain, he is eroding regional policy by failing to give the
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development areas special incentives? Will he qualify further the example of non-manufacturing firms? Will that description apply to agricultural partnerships, to professional offices and to retailing?
Mr. Booth: To take the last point first, certainly "non-manufacturing" for this purpose covers agriculture as it covers the construction industry. These are both areas in which there are many small firms. That is why I expect that in areas where this wider definition will be used it will have a much wider impact. But, by the same test, I do not consider the hon. Member to be justified in saying that it will put these areas at a disadvantage, because it is in special development areas, development areas, and inner city partnership areas that the scheme will apply to non-manufacturing firms, not to the remainder of the country.
Mr, Dalyell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that any help to non-manufacturing firms is particularly welcome? Has he noticed that small firms, officially, have strongly opposed the devolution proposals? Can he say what good small firms can expect from an Assembly in Edinburgh?
Mr. Booth: I bow to the views of my hon. Friend, who has posed the question of the particular merits or demerits of devolution as applied to small firms. All I can say is that when considering Wales and Scotland for the application of the small firm employment subsidy, I took the view that development and special development areas in both countries should have maximum benefit from the scheme.
Mr. David Mitchell: Is the Secretary of State aware that a survey published recently by his Department showed that 24 per cent. of small firms would have taken on more employees had it not been for the employment protection legislation? Is he aware that this indicates that about 300,000 jobs have been lost as a result, and can he indicate whether the subsidy announced today will create more or fewer jobs than that number?
Mr. Booth: I am not aware that the survey undertaken by my Department indicates anything like what the hon. Gentleman suggests. I have read that

1201
report, as I have read the wider survey. Certainly the scheme that I have announced today is of the order that I have indicated. If the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members go around the country suggesting to small employers that they should not take on additional labour because we are operating a measure that protects employees in all firms equally, whether they be the employees of large or small firms, they will do considerable damage to employment prospects.
Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his proposal will be much welcomed on Merseyside, particularly in the construction industry? It is bound to help construction workers considerably. Will he emphasise the point that it maintains regional policy, contrary to what was said by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson)?
Mr. Booth: Certainly it gives preference to the development areas and special development areas of the regions. That is not to say, if we find that this extension to services is a particularly good way of increasing employment, that we shall not have to consider a wider application of our proposal. I agree with my hon. Friend that its application to the construction industry will be most helpful, and I hope that, particularly on Merseyside, not only will it result in additional people being employed in an industry in which there is terribly high unemployment, but that some firms will expand sooner than they would have done otherwise.
Mr. David Mitchell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for a Back Bencher to pass to a Minister a copy of the circular—produced by his own Department—the existence of which he has just denied?
Mr. Speaker: Order. It could be dangerous.
Mr. Warren: I welcome measures which will create new jobs, and I should like to ask the Minister whether he will examine previous measures which were introduced relating to the construction and engineering industries training boards, the only result of which was that those boards locked up tens of millions of pounds in cash which is not being
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used to create jobs. Indeed, in the case of one training board, the return on its investments is now more than £1 million a year. Surely, that is not the way the Secretary of State would want to create jobs.
Mr. Booth: Certainly I do not imagine that industrial training boards locking up money is a way of creating jobs. In my view, the overall effect of our support for industrial training boards, particularly in the engineering industry, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, has been to sustain and increase the intake of apprentices since 1974—something which, as far as I know, has never previously happened in a recession.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call those Members who have been rising to their feet, but I hope that they will co-operate by asking brief questions.
Mr. William Clark: May I come back to the question of the circular which was put out by the Secretary of State's Department? Is it not quite wrong for a Minister to deny a piece of paper which has come from his Department, and which clearly states that according to the Gallup poll that his Department carried out 24 per cent. of employers would have taken on more labour had it not been for the Employment Protection Act? It deliberately hits at the rights of Back Benchers for a Minister deliberately to deny the existence of a piece of paper that has originated from his Department.
Mr. Booth: I do not deny the existence of the piece of paper. I do not deny what employers say. They say many things, particularly when they are urged to participate in a campaign against the Employment Protection Act. But if the official Opposition believe that it is better to do away with the Employment Protection Act than to assist small firms in employing people, I profoundly disagree.
Mr. Skinner: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that this new scheme, like the last, enables the Conservative Central Office to take part in it? Is he aware that the Conservative Central Office had £11,000 from the job creation scheme in 1978 to employ six people to go round Kensington and Chelsea counting the shop windows? May we have a guarantee that, despite its objection in principle, Conservative

1203
Central Office will take the money if it has half a chance?
Mr. Booth: It is certainly true that the Conservative Central Office put up a proposal for a job creation programme which was approved by the MSC, but I do not believe that at the moment it qualifies as a small firm. I hope that that situation will soon arise.
Mr. Bulmer: What estimate has the Secretary of State made of the number of jobs that might be forthcoming in the small business sector if small businesses in this country operated against a background rather closer, in terms of taxation and industrial relations, to that enjoyed in Germany and France?
Mr. Booth: In Germany there is a higher proportion of total employment in small firms than in this country. I do not know that that is entirely due to the practice that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, but I think that it is a reason why he should join with me in seeking to ensure that this scheme succeeds in building up the size of our small firms.
Mrs. Dunwoody: Is my right hon. Friend aware that neither Germany nor France has constructive measures such as that which he has just announced? Will he make it clear to the Commissioners when he is talking to them that we shall not accept Commissioner Vouel taking a negative view of the only methods that have been suggested anywhere in the Community which will help to create new jobs?
Mr. Booth: I shall certainly make clear to Commissioner Vouel the extent to which such measures have been successful in creating jobs. Whether I shall succeed in convincing him that all the measures we have run should be allowed to continue remains to be seen.
Mr. Cope: If the Secretary of State does not agree with the survey published by his Department, will he publish separately his own opinion of the effect on small firms' employment of the Employment Protection Act?
Mr. Booth: I certainly agree that my Department should publish the results of this survey. I was able to provide the House only with a survey which covered larger firms. When we first discussed the
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effect of the Employment Protection Act I could not provide a survey. I have taken steps to ensure that such a survey can be provided for the House. It is published and is available. I issued it in the hope that among those who would read it would be hon. Members with an interest in the issue, and I am glad to see that some hon. Gentlemen have already done so.
I do not suggest that one should take every answer provided by an employer to questions put in that survey as representing a basis on which to calculate employment effects.
Mr. Sever: My right hon. Friend's announcement today will be welcomed by the small business men operating the inner city partnership areas in Birmingham and other cities. Will he undertake to do what he can to encourage those small groups of ethnic minority business men who are now trying to put small businesses together, particularly in the big cities, to take note of the measures announced today, and to do whatever he can to encourage them to augment their small businesses in this way?
Mr. Booth: I certainly appreciate that among those who are keenest to found small businesses in this country are some members of the ethnic minorities. I therefore hope that they, as everyone else who can benefit from this scheme, can be made aware of it as quickly as possible.
Mr. Burden: Does the Minister agree that if a company believes that it can make more profit and increase production by taking someone on, it does not need any spur so to do? Does he further agree that the small subsidy to encourage the company to do so is infinitesimal and will have no real effect upon the employment situation? Does it not, however, show, as the Minister said, the parlous condition to which our industry has descended under this Government?
Mr. Booth: I believe that in calculating whether it is right in certain circumstances to expand a small firm the management must take into account, among a range of other factors, the initial labour costs, including those incurred over the six-months period. This scheme gives the employer a considerable advantage in dealing with high initial labour

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costs when he seeks to increase the size of his small firm.
Mr. George Rodgers: May I, too, express appreciation that the scheme is to be extended? What proportion of the subsidy has been directed towards the North-West region, and how many jobs have been created as a consequence?
Mr. Booth: Since 1st July, when the scheme was expanded to its present coverage, more than one-quarter of all the applications in Great Britain have come from firms in the North-West—a total of 1,442 of the 5,038 applications. About 6,000 jobs in the North-West are covered by the small firms employment subsidy.
Mr. Andrew MacKay: Is it true that the increase in jobs created by this scheme will be dramatically and tragically offset by the redundancies that small businesses will experience in the next few days as a result of the dramatic increase in MLR? Is it not ironic that on the day that the right hon. Gentleman has announced measures to try to help small businesses and create jobs there has also been this panic measure by the Bank of England?
Mr. Booth: No.
Mr. Tilley: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the welcome from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Sever) is echoed by representatives of the inner city areas of London, where we have been pressing for some time that the opportunities for the expansion of small firms and worker co-operatives lie in the distributive and service sector? Will my right hon. Friend consider increasing the flexibility of the scheme, particularly in terms of the amount and period of the subsidy, for the special problems that these non-manufacturing firms meet in the inner city?
Mr. Booth: I gave careful consideration to the possibility of extending the period, rather than the scope, of the scheme, but I believe that it is better to apply the scheme to a wider range of firms over a six-month period in which they will face the heaviest initial costs of establishing additional jobs rather than to a smaller number of firms—which I am sure would not be the wish of my hon. Friend—and paying them for a longer period.
Mr. Raison: Is it not absolute bunk to talk of employment problems in areas such as Wandsworth when it is well known that there is a grave shortage of workers for the public transport services in London? Given that the country's main problems are overmanning and inefficient use of labour, does it really make sense to spend money on subsidising overmanning rather than on spending the money, if it is available, on genuine public sector work in the Health Service, defence, or on tax reductions to encourage investment?
Mr. Booth: There are not serious problems of overmanning in any of the firms that are likely to apply for the subsidy. If we have an overmanning problem. I cannot see that it is particularly located in small firms. As to the application of the scheme in certain inner city partnership areas, I have found that in very large cities one can have pockets of unemployment which represent as serious a social problem as exists on the wider scale in some of the development areas.
Mr. Swain: Will my right hon. Friend draw to the attention of his colleagues in the Cabinet the fact that they could reduce unemployment by at least 4,000 tomorrow if they had a fairer system of sharing out quango jobs—one man or woman, one quango?
Mr. Booth: I have never thought that quango jobs were the best form of job creation.
Mr. Nelson: What is the Secretary of State's estimate of the cost of the extension of this scheme? Is it not a fact that if one is anxious to try to increase the number of people in employment, far greater job security could be provided by applying that money to reducing national insurance contributions, as the companies that would take up the employment would be more able to justify their extra employment on commercial grounds?
Mr. Booth: The answer to the first of the hon. Gentleman's questions is also the answer to the other. The extension of the scheme from 1st January 1979 to 31st March 1980 will cost £130 million gross and about £36 million net. The net cost of continuing our present scheme from 1st July 1978 to 31st March 1979 is £6 million. Obviously, spreading those two sums

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across the total range of national insurance contributions would bring about a very small reduction in the contributions.

THE HON. MEMBER FOR LUTON, WEST
Mr. Sedgemore: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you will be aware, yesterday, 8th November, I wrote you a letter on the privileges of Parliament and pressure from the Executive, and you replied to me today, 9th November. I want to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your prompt reply and to thank you and your staff for the courtesy shown to me over this matter.
May I also ask for your permission to make the correspondence public and to place copies in the Library? I ask this for two reasons. First, the suggestion has been made, which I find particularly offensive, that I should leak the correspondence. Secondly, the matter has aroused some public interest, and in my view the methods of proceedings of the House raise a genuine problem.
Under the new procedure whereby hon. Members write to you, Mr. Speaker, more often than not, because you are unable to give the matter precedence over the Orders of the Day, you will, in effect, turn down the application. Therefore, unless the correspondence is published, many serious matters concerning privilege will not be known to the House and the House will not know the way you are thinking.
Mr. Speaker: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has presented his point of order. Let me first make the point to the House that correspondence between Mr. Speaker and right hon. and hon. Members is usually regarded as written in confidence. In general, when right hon. and hon. Members write to me I treat the correspondence on that basis, and so do the right hon. and hon. Members. However, in this case half the correspondence has already been published. Before I received the hon. Gentleman's letter, I learnt on the radio that I was to receive it, and I knew the substance of it. But it is up to him to decide whether he wishes to publish the letter. There is no question of my giving permission. It is up to the
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hon. Gentleman, who must reach his own decision.
Mr. Onslow: Without in any way commenting upon the propriety of the course that the hon. Member wishes to take in this case, I wish to put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that it adds much to the importance of parliamentary proceedings for the original matter to be fully reported to the House at the earliest possible opportunity, so that a submission may be made to you on the circumstances in which confidential information was leaked in this way and the action which the House might seek to take against those responsible.
Mr. Speaker: I cannot go into that matter now. As the House knows, the House itself decided in February last that when an application for privilege is made to me, if I do not afford it precedence, it cannot be referred to in the House afterwards. That was the decision of the House itself as recently as February.
Mr. Ridley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker—
Mr. Mellish: Sit down!
Mr. Speaker: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not referring to me. Let me say that I shall listen to the hon. Member's point of order, but I know that he is too old a parliamentary hand to want to refer to the question of privilege with which I have been dealing.
Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am a member of the same Sub-Committee as the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore), and the other members of that Sub-Committee have been placed in great difficulty because this confidential document was available to the hon. Gentleman but was not available to the other seven members of the Sub-Committee. It would seem only right, Mr. Speaker, that you should ponder whether the hon. Gentleman could be asked to distribute copies of the document at least to his colleagues so that we may share the confidential information which he has shared with the press.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The House knows that what happens in a Committee is not my business but is that of the Chairman of the Committee.
Mr. Onslow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I thank you for your forbearance, but, as you have reminded us, we are operating under a novel procedure with which the House is not yet totally familiar, and I put it to you respectfully that we may not fully have understood all its implications.
May I ask you this, Mr. Speaker. Does the fact that an aspect of this matter has been raised as a purported matter of privilege mean that it would be out of order for the Prime Minister to seek to make a statement on other aspects of it, such as, specifically, the circumstances in which a confidential document was leaked to, and published by, the hon. Member?
Mr. Speaker: All I can say is that I always give special consideration to any representations made to me for someone to make a statement, whether by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition or anyone else.

BILLS PRESENTED

  BANKING
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Mr. Secretary Millan, Mr. Secretary Dell, Mr. Joel Barnett, Mr. Robert Sheldon, and Mr. Denzil Davies, presented a Bill to regulate the acceptance of deposits in the course of a business; to confer functions on the Bank of England
  1210
  with respect to the control of institutions carrying on deposit-taking businesses; to give further protection to persons who are depositors with such institutions; to make provision with respect to advertisements inviting the making of deposits; to restrict the use of names and descriptions associated with banks and banking; to prohibit fraudulent inducement to make a deposit; to repeal certain enactments relating to banks and banking, and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed [Bill 7].

SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Secretary Ennals, supported by Mr. Secretary Millan, Mr. Secretary Morris, Mr. Secretary Booth, Mr. Stanley Orme, Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Charles Morris, Mr. Alfred Morris, and Mr. Eric Deakins, presented a Bill to amend the law relating to social security: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed [Bill 8].

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Ordered,
That the Distribution of Footwear (Prices) Order 1978 (S.I., 1978, No. 1307) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Foot.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS
  [SEVENTH DAY]
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [1st November].
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:—
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.—[Mr. Cledwyn Hughey.]
  Question again proposed.

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition.
4.25 p.m.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add:
But humbly regret that the policies set out in the Gracious Speech are totally inadequate to deal with the serious economic problems of the country, and that Your Majesty's Government have denied the British people the opportunity to elect a new administration capable of creating a lasting prosperity in which all can share.
When this amendment was drafted, my right hon. Friends and I referred to
"the serious economic problems of the country",
but we did not know, of course, of the new dimension that was to be added to those problems by the announcement made today that the minimum lending rate has been raised to 12½ per cent. We look forward to hearing what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to say about that important matter.
The House has not had the privilege of hearing from the Chancellor for quite some time. Some other audiences have had that privilege. In the Mansion House on 19th October, he told that distinguished audience of
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"The sustained improvement…in our economic performance"
which, he said had arisen because he had
"created the fiscal and monetary conditions for faster growth in the real economy."
At the Labour Party conference, which some Labour Members may have had the privilege of attending, the Chancellor was not even as modest as that. In his speech from the floor to the conference, he spoke as follows—and the House may be a little surprised by this:
"The fact is that whoever wins the next election is going to inherit the best balanced economy, the best economic prospects, of any country since the war."
To both audiences he unloaded masses of statistics to justify those extravagant claims. It is no wonder that he added, in his speech at the Mansion House, a sentence that sits in his mouth better than in most others:
"One must never take statistics entirely at their face value".
The Chancellor should know better than most other people about that.
The House will look forward to hearing how those triumphant claims at the conference and the Mansion House are to be reconciled with the fact that today we hear that minimum lending rate has been raised to a higher level than at any time in this Parliament except for the three months following the Chancellor's triumphant appearance at the Labour Party conference in 1976, when he decided to go there instead of to the International Monetary Fund.
How are the economic prospects of the construction industry to be improved by a minimum lending rate at this level? How are the prospects of industrial investment on Merseyside, in Wales, in Scotland or anywhere else to be improved by it? How are the prospects for employment on Merseyside, in Wales, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland to he improved by a minimum lending rate at this level?
The truth is that the consumer pseudo-boom that the Chancellor so carefully designed for the election that never was has now been killed stone dead. The Prime Minister decided in September that he would not take advantage of the boat that had been designed for him by the Chancellor. He decided to miss it because he did not trust it. How right the

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Prime Minister was. The boat will not come in again.
The reality of the boom was always transparently clear and transparently "phoney". The Chancellor is fond of quoting sometimes from Mr. Samuel Brittan, the well-known contributor to the Financial Times. On occasions they compliment each other.
On 23rd September Mr. Sam Brittan wrote about the subject "Why the Economy is Booming". He described the dramatic apparent growth in the economic statistics at that time. He included this comment:
"even Mr. Healey thought my growth estimates exaggerated.…The optimistic features I have been discussing relate entirely to short-term variations of a business cycle stop-go kind. Any politician who cites them should be immediately reminded that underlying performance continues to deteriorate. Despite the present boom total output this year is unlikely to be more than 4 per cent. above the previous peak of 1973 even on the new re-based index. Without North Sea oil the rise would have been 2 per cent.—or less than½per cent. per annum."
That is the reality on which the Chancellor has been seeking to present this picture of euphoria and boom.
If one looks at the record of this Government over the whole of their period in office, one sees that the figures are as dismal as they possibly can be. If one looks at the trade weighted value of the pound, it is almost as low as at any time—it has lost a quarter of its value. A couple of years ago, the Chancellor was looking forward to the balance of payments being in credit to the tune of 2 billion or £3 billion. That was what he told the International Monetary Fund in 1976. He will be lucky if the balance of payments shows any surplus at all in the current year.
Production and living standards have barely crept back to the level of the three-day-week and are far behind those achieved in every other Western country without North Sea oil. Ten years ago, steel imports were 2 million tons a year. Today, with massive unemployment throughout the British steel industry, imports are 4 million tons a year. Five years ago, one-quarter of the cars supplied to this country came from abroad. Now 50 per cent. of our cars are supplied from abroad. Last year, manufactured
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goods made up three-fifths of our total imports. In every sense, the boom has indeed collapsed—the boom that never was. There are even more visible signs than this.
The Government—the House may scarcely remember it now—were elected on a programme of tranquility, prosperity, social peace and harmony, which was then described to the electorate as the social contract. Yet today we live in a society in which Parliament is to be required to discuss Bills which are not even available to the public who are to be affected by them. We live in a society in which prisoners are being denied the right to be brought to trial; where the Government are introducing legislation to set aside the right of habeas corpus; where patients or seriously ill people are being denied the right to treatment.
Is that the kind of society that the social contract was meant to introduce—a society in which standards in every sense, let alone standards of living and standards of wealth, have been allowed to collapse with scarcely a voice of protest at any of those things being raised by the members of the Government who are responsible for this state of affairs?
The acid test of the prosperity of this magnificent society over which the Government preside can be seen in the subject we shall be debating fully in a week or two's time—the attitude of the Government to the European monetary system. Only a moment or so ago the Prime Minister was saying "We know where we are going." Is it not time that he told us where they are going on that point?
However, the reality for the Government is that there is only one question to be decided about the response to that system. Because of the weakness of the economy over which they have presided, the only question is whether the economy will suffer more through that weakness by being left outside than it will suffer through that weakness by joining the system. Why else should they be so anxious to deny the House and the country the facts that we ought to have to decide this question?
The reality of our problems still remains very serious. Inflation and production, of course, have to be taken together. Inflation, of course, is of fundamental importance, but it is one half

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of the problems that face us. When one considers inflation, as the Prime Minister has invited us to do, one has to look both at the implications of monetary policy and at the attitudes that this House or society ought to have towards pay and pay bargaining. Monetary policy is essential. It is essential, too, that it should be properly understood. Its necessary effect, if it is to work properly, on expectations and on the habits and behaviour of people in the community should be properly explained.
One of the issues that worries the Opposition most about the presentation by the Government is why they spend half their time not explaining their monetary policy and the effect that it is intended to have but misrepresenting it as though it were some form of vulgar abuse by suggesting that monetary policy is likely to do huge damage and is something to be touched only with the utmost care. Of course, if monetary policy was the only aspect of the economic policy that we need, and if it was to be applied in a sudden shock halt, the consequences would be intolerable. But no one is suggesting that it should be used in that way.
The Chancellor understands perfectly well—this is what we have been arguing for a long time—that monetary growth should be reduced gradually, steadily and inexorably so that it takes effect in the way that it should. Why do the Government misrepresent it? Why does the Prime Minister tend so often to brandish it as a kind of alternative punishment—if people do not behave, then we shall have to use this dreadful weapon? Although it may not be much understood by their colleagues, it is their policy, and it seems to me to be extremely foolish to destroy the effectiveness and credibility of it in that way.
It is equally essential for the policy to be properly applied. The Chancellor will remember what he said on 14th June on this matter. He quoted from the Financial Times:
"the market expects that the first of what is usually a long series of cuts in the lending rate can be expected in a matter of days or, at most, a few weeks".
The Chancellor added:
"I believe that to be true."—[Official Report, 14th June 1978; Vol. 951, c. 1030–31.]
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At that time the lending rate was 10 per cent. We waited month after month for the Chancellor's forecast to be fulfilled like the weeks that were meant to follow the imposition of sanctions in Rhodesia. The reduction in the MLR never happened. Today it is up to 12½ per cent.
We look forward to hearing—as we have already heard from the Prime Minister—some of the excuses that will be offered for this change of affairs. United States interest rates have gone up. But by how much? By 1 per cent. to 9½ per cent. How does that justify an escalation in this country by 2½ per cent. to 12½ per cent.?
No doubt it will be said that the Government have been blown off course—a familiar excuse—by the bakers' strike, by the Ford strike, by the Vauxhall strike. There is only one reason—which the Chancellor ought to acknowledge—for the increase in minimum lending rate. It is that this Government, throughout their existence, have continued to spend and to borrow too much and to drive interest rates up in order to raise that money.
It is characteristic, of course, that the Chancellor has tried to take credit even for that as well, because, at the same time as he was telling the Labour Party conference about the success he had had in controlling the economy he also said—with that personal modesty we know so well—that he had put £3 billion into the economy this year, and that we should think what that would do for us.
The right hon. Gentleman may have put it in. He may have "increased" the resources of the economy in that way, but now other people, through higher interest rates, higher mortgage rates and the loss of jobs, will have to pay for the very thing that the Chancellor was boasting about at the Labour Party conference.
The Opposition want to know whether there will be other consequences and what else the Chancellor might be offering by way of fiscal or monetary penalty for the consequences of his own earlier incompetence. Will another, fuller package of that kind be announced today? If not today, will it be announced on a future occasion? When is the interest rate likely to move again?
Will the Chancellor offer any predictions this time? He told his hon. Friends

1217
in June that the rate was likely to come down within weeks from 10 per cent., and, not for the first time, they have seen it going up to 12½ per cent. How many more times will he promise his hon. Friends one thing and proceed to do exactly the opposite and continue to expect his hon. Friends to support him? How many more times will the Labour Party go on obliging the Chancellor in this way?
There was a time when the Chancellor made some rather unfriendly observations about some of his hon. Friends and said that he thought some of them were out of their "tiny Chinese minds". They might be asking themselves now, "Who is out of whose Chinese mind?" It seems to us that the Chancellor is the man who, more than most patients who consult the psychiatrist, seems increasingly to lack a true insight into his condition.
Pay is the other half of what we have to consider on inflation, and it is much too simple to argue that pay increasing faster than production is, over a long period of time, the cause of inflation. In a healthy economy, there must be a close relationship between the rate of growth of money supply and the average general total level of earnings. If one moves out of line with the other, unemployment will rise as workers price themselves out of their jobs. Or profits will fall and investment will be destroyed as companies are cleaned out of their resources. Or the public sector pay bill will expand beyond the capacity of the ratepayer and taxpayer to finance it and become destructively high. If all that happens, the political pressures on the money supply can threaten to overwhelm the political will that is seeking to control it.
It is essential that the monetary imperatives should be understood, all the more so when the Government are seeking to reduce the rate of monetary expansion. It is essential that that understanding should be reflected in a declining average rate of growth in earnings. Therefore, in that sense, we need a policy for pay. But in what sense and in what kind?
Does that conclusion—which I think nobody would challenge, as I hope it is common ground on both sides of the
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House—imply that a Government must intervene and fix, apart from their own employees, particular pay settlements at particular levels? Does it imply that Governments should be intervening even more fundamentally to fix the level of every settlement at the same figure as is happening today? The most sensible conclusion comes from a description of the West German economy—which the Chancellor is fond of admiring—a description given by the Federal Government:
"wage freezes or the fixing or limiting of wage increases are not included amongst the instruments employed in evolving the State's economic policy."
That is what can be done.
In our collective past, there is scarcely a Member of this House who has not argued for exactly the same conclusion. In the manifestos on which the Labour Party was elected in 1974 and on which we were elected in 1970, we all argued for the conclusion that there should not be intervention by Government in that kind of pay bargaining, and no one, I may say, more eloquently than the present Leader of the House. I give one representative but all-embracing quotation from him:
"I am bitterly opposed to the idea that you can settle wages by some high and mighty authority from London, be it Downing Street, the Pay Board or anything else."
How the high and mighty is fallen now that he is one of the authorities.
The Chancellor, indeed, has understood this lesson too, because in July 1977, when he announced what was then known as stage 3, his announcement was welcomed by everyone in the House, from the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) to his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), and the Chancellor said that we now had to set about the business of an orderly return to normal collective bargaining. Surely there is no real doubt that that is the objective which we would like to arrive at, as we know that the pattern of intervention, whether blanket, rigid or selective, has all the effects we have all experienced several times.
Differentials are increasingly destroyed. Businesses that are short of skilled workers are unable to recruit them because they cannot pay them. A target is set up for militants to attack and, more fundamentally, employers up and down

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the country are conniving with their work people in signing contracts with the Government saying "We have complied with this policy" when they have done no
such thing in arriving at agreements which they know are outside the policy. So where are we going now, and where do the Government think they are?
The Prime Minister was in full flood last week saying that 5 per cent. was the figure that had to be applied across the country, banging away at the Dispatch Box. This afternoon he was back here again saying "We are back in a world of free collective bargaining".
What is the present position? The White Paper made it clear that the settlement for any group of workers should not exceed 5 per cent. and that the Government would exercise their discretion to see whether that was happening. Will they or will they not? When, and at what figure, will they seek to exercise that discretion? What exceptions will they make, if any? What authority will they seek to exercise? Will Ford be the subject of this nameless series of sanctions, or British Oxygen or British Leyland or the bakers—and when? Is this policy to linger for ever somewhere between the Prime Minister's hand on the Dispatch Box being brandished but never used? How are people conducting collective bargaining up and down the country to know where they stand?
Is this the way in which we are to expect our society to be conducted for ever and a day? Of course, Governments should be prepared to consider the use of every weapon, but what if the weapon, as successive Governments have seen, turns out, as I suspect the Prime Minister is finding, not to work but sometimes to recoil and do more damage to the person wielding the weapon than to those against whom the discharge is directed? Is it not wise to agree, and have we not all at different stages reached this conclusion, that we ought to try to discard that weapon and discard it—because it is a very difficult task—with the utmost care? Was that not the task on which the Government embarked in July last year—namely, to return to normal collective bargaining? Is not the real tragedy the fact that the Government, having set their hand to that course in July 1977, have abdicated the responsibility and, under the guise of great strength,
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are now brandishing a norm up and down the country, although believing that it will not work?
The way in which this task is carried out will not be easy to follow. It should not be presented, as the Prime Minister seeks to present it, as a return to free collective bargaining, but as a difficult but necessary return to what I still insist on describing as realistic and responsible collective bargaining. The two words are important. In one sense the bargainers must be responsible for the consequences to themselves. But if bargaining is irresponsible it has savage consequences on innocent people well outside those who are party to the negotiations.
The search for responsibility implies a role for the Government. If the Government are applying the monetary policy, they must seek to inform and influence those who are to respond to that. They must consider what institutions to use, whether the NEDC or those which have worked in Germany. But they must seek not to dictate but to guide those who are following this painful path back to collective bargaining. They should not be brandishing a norm; they should be brandishing guidance and the idea of an average figure. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The Prime Minister is right to recognise the dangers in mentioning a single figure, whether it is an average or anything else. The pity is that the Prime Minister himself did not do more to minimise the damage that would follow from that.
How can one expect people to bargain responsibly and to understand the difficulties they are facing in a nation whose wealth is not growing if the Prime Minister and the Chancellor stalk up and down the country all the time talking about the "golden decade" that lies ahead, with the Chancellor at the Labour Party conference borrowing a phrase from Chairman Mao and referring to the "great leap forward" on which this nation was about to embark? Instead of presenting a single figure, it is the Government's duty to promote a discussion of the realities. They have been more concerned, unhappily, to build a short-life platform for the election that never was than to give true guidance to the people of this country.
Much more must be done if we are to get back to good sense and a sense of

1221
responsibility and to have a chance of making collective bargaining work sensibly. One thing we do not need is a return to a tighter form of price control. It is odd that the tighter price control has been, the faster prices have actually risen. If we were now to return to price control in a tightened form, it would do great damage to the job prospects of the people of this country.
Let me put to the House some ways in which we could seek to increase responsibility. I take three examples with which the House will be familiar—the disputes taking place at Ford, at Vauxhall and in the baking industry. In two out of three of those cases, the strike commenced weeks before the expiry of the agreement being renegotiated. How is that compatible with responsibility? Why was not a single voice, so far as I am aware, raised from within the trade unions or from the Government to ask "Why are you infringing agreements weeks before they run out?" In each one of those three cases the strike decision was taken not by ballot, however conducted, but at mass meetings. At those meetings the case for responsibility was scarcely even given a hearing. At some of those meetings, as we have seen on television and reported in the press, those who tried to argue the case for responsibility, either by claiming a ballot or by seeking to go to work, faced threats and intimidation of various kinds. Even now they are being faced with the threat of the loss of their jobs.
Mr. Ronald Atkins: The right hon. and learned Gentleman was not there.
Sir G. Howe: I did not need to be there. One may look at what is in today's newspapers, attributed to Mr. Samuel Maddox, general secretary of the Bakers' Union. We know that there are people in that industry who have not been entitled to have a secret ballot and who are seeking to go back to work. Mr. Maddox says:
"Any member who works will be dealt with after the strike. They will have their cards taken off them, there is no doubt about that."
Yet all that people have done—and again I quote—is to say:
"We asked the union to put the strike issue to a ballot but they didn't think it
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necessary. Perhaps our return to work will make them realise that it would have been a more democratic way to handle matters."
What kind of a contribution is that to the running of a responsible, collective bargaining system? Yet, from the other side, in the union movement and outside it and in the Labour Government, none of the people who have preached to us over the years about the fundamental democratic nature of the trade union movement has raised a voice in favour of the democratic issue of a ballot in such a situation.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman not aware that each union has its own particular rules, that some unions have ballots and some give their national executives the power to take actions? Is he not aware that quite often in the old days, when national executives took powers not to take strike action, they were regarded as being absolutely moderate, first-class, responsible people when the membership was clamouring that there should be a ballot because they actually wanted a strike? The right hon. and learned Gentleman really ought to know a bit more about trade union organisation before making statements of that kind.
Sir G. Howe: I do not need the hon. Gentleman to remind me—I know that he knows and cares a great deal about this matter—that trade unions have different rules regulating these matters. I do not, nor does anybody else in this House, need to be told that we cannot predict the outcome of ballots of this kind, but we say that it is very odd that the situation should continue to be accepted, without comment from Labour Members, that men who wish to have ballots in situations of this sort do not even have the right to require such ballots.
Mr. Ronald Atkins: What would the right hon. and learned Gentleman do about it?
Sir G. Howe: I am not suggesting—it is important that the House should understand this—that the House should begin to legislate by law about this issue. It is also true—the Government ought to learn this—that the House ought not to begin legislating about employee consultation in company law. In neither area should

1223
legislation be embarked upon without discussion and consultation, so at this stage I am not proposing change by law.
But I say to the Government, who seek to take their stand on democracy, on participation and on the right of people to be consulted about the conditions affecting their lives, that they ought not—as the Prime Minister was last week—to be waiting submissively for the trade union movement to make a request for legslation but should be leading a great national debate, as the Prime Minister has attempted on other issues, about why there should or should not be ballots on these matters.
After all, the Prime Minister said that he was reluctant to discuss these matters with the trade union movement for fear of causing offence. He has not been reluctant to lay down for the entire trade union movement a single pay norm to exclude the unions altogether from pay bargaining. If he is prepared to do that, should he not address himself to this?
The irony is shown in a quotation from the Gracious Speech, which states:
"Government are resolved to strengthen our democracy by providing new opportunities for citizens to take part in the decisions that affect their lives."
Who could believe that? What decisions more affect the life of a citizen than the decision to break a contract, to go out on strike, to forgo his wages of £80 a week for the sake of a gain of £200 when it will perhaps take him years to recover his lost earnings?
Is it not time for us to hear from trade union leaders and Labour Members why people in the trade union movement should not be given opportunities, whether the rules do or do not so provide, for taking part in a secret ballot, fairly conducted? Would that not be a better method, a method worth trying, of promoting the responsibility that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor rightly say we need and that, for heaven's sake, we do need if we are to get this country back to a pattern of responsible collective bargaining?
I suspect that many Labour Members agree with what I am saying. Some of them voiced those feelings in the debates on "In Place of Strife" early in 1969. Why do they not say so? Why is there almost a conspiracy of silence on such
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issues? Is this not just one example of the malign influence over our economy and many aspects of our society of the Left, an example of the extent to which the mythology of the Left has in many respects become entrenched as the road block to the economic progress which everyone in the House wants? It is a road block maintained by a craven alliance—I use the word deliberately—between the Parliamentary Labour Party, many of whose Members understand the realities which I am talking about, and the economically blind but sometimes obstructive minority which wields such disproportionate influence in the Labour movement.
I am not against trade unions. I say without any fear of contradiction that the Opposition would fight a great deal more effectively for a free trade union movement than, for example, Mr. Alex Kitson, who has such an adoration for the system on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
These myths, which the Prime Minister and the Chancellor know just as well as I do, must be challenged: the myths that resources are somehow limitless; that someone else can always be coerced into paying; that industrial action, for whatever cause, is presumed to be right; that it is better to share today's work than to create tomorrow's jobs; that it is better to defend yesterday's jobs than to take part in helping to create the jobs of tomorrow.
Mr. Norman Atkinson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is out of his depth when speaking of ballots. He must have a very short memory, because night after night the House debated the issues involved in ballots during industrial disputes. Apart from the coal mining industry, where there is a single product and it is therefore possible to have a coalfield ballot prior to strike action, in all other industries, where negotiations are about a multiplicity of products, it is not possible to bargain by ballot. The employers themselves are, therefore, the first opponents of balloting because they fear—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant God-man Irvine): Order. If the hon. Gentleman intends to make a speech, perhaps he will take a suitable opportunity of seeking to catch the eye of the Chair.
Mr. Atkinson: My point is, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the employers themselves fear the idea of balloting because the return to work must also be decided by ballot, in the same way as the ballot is used to decide disputes—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. An intervention must be reasonably brief.
Sir G. Howe: I am delighted to have at last drawn the hon. Gentleman, with his distinguished experience of the trade union movement, into discussing the merits of this matter. If the House and the country are to get back to sanity on this sort of issue, let us at least regard the subject as no longer holy ground not to be discussed but to be resolved by slogans.
The introduction of balloting must be looked at within the rules of each union and within the work situation. Of course, there will be disadvantages as well as advantages. But let us recognise that there are now many responsible people in this country who feel that they are denied rights to participate in decisions that affect them because they do not have the opportunity of balloting. That opportunity is being denied by threats of depriving them of their jobs through the closed shop. That is what we must get away from.
This is all part of the mythology to which we have been shackled by this link within the Labour Party. The great majority of people know that many of the myths are nonsense. The great majority of Labour voters know that many of the myths are nonsense. Yet the Labour Party—this is the saddest and most serious matter for the country at present— has all too often allowed itself to become a means of imposing these views of the madcap Left upon our economy and society as a whole. It is still doing so today.
As a result, there is no trade union movement in the West that has a greater political influence than the trade union movement in this country. There is no trade union movement in the West that is more militant and more firmly entrenched at the seats of power, and yet no trade union movement in the West whose members have done less well in improving living standards in the last 15 years.
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We therefore have a society which is in many senses immobilised when it ought not to be. We have a mountain of institutional savings, far too much of it being consumed by Government for subsidising the present and shoring up the past. We have a tax system almost uniquely designed to be hostile to the people upon whom the enterprise of our society depends. We have a marginal rate that is still almost 5p higher than it was when the present Government came to office, and a tax threshold that has fallen from 50 per cent. of average earnings to one third of average earnings since the present Government came to office. It is a tax system that is still taking £2,500 million more in income tax out of the pockets of ordinary wage earners than it was when the present Government came to office.
As a result, we have a steady emigration of talent from the shores of this country. We have lost 5 per cent. of our population in the last decade, and almost certainly the people we can ill afford to lose. As a consequence, we have a larger and less usefully employed pool of labour at lower wages than that in any other Western economy.
What else have the Government done to change that? Since they have been in office, we have had the development land tax, the Community Land Act and a mountain of legislation in that field. Net return: a cost of £28 million, a revenue of £13 million, and proceeds of land for sale for redevelopment of about 150 acres—about one-third of one Wimpey housing estate, at the cost of huge obstructions to enterprise.
The oil industry is a blessing which we could ill afford to do without, and the Government's attitude to the North Sea oil industry ever since it has existed has been one of hostility, of regulation and of taxation.
Finally, we have the ultimate lunacy that this great responsible Labour Party conference that met in Blackpool last October voted with no dissentient for nationalising the production of North Sea oil. Why should we wonder if the oil companies of the world are taking fright at the prospect of another Labour Government in charge of this country?

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Then there is the nationalisation of almost everything else that the Government can think of. What has it done for the steel industry? What has it done for British Leyland, or even for the shipbuilding industry? The Lord President would be interested to read a newspaper to which he is normally well disposed and which is not normally very critical of him—The Guardian—describing what has happened at Austin and Pickersgill since it has been nationalised. The Guardian article says:
"A profitable and highly efficient yard employing some 3,000 men churning out bestselling standardised cargo ships..has degenerated…into a demoralised mess in the 46 weeks since nationalisation. Productivity has slumped by 26 per cent., delivery dates are being missed, and commercial good will is being eroded…Workers…are less happy and less productive than they were a year ago. In no sense has Austin and Pickersgill become 'their' company."
That is the kind of policy which the present Governement wish to go on imposing upon the people of Britain.
What else of that kind is in this Queen's Speech? The most outstanding example is the proposal to subsidise a shorter working week. The present Government were elected to office on the denunciation of the three-day working week. They are now positively planning to reduce us to a four-day working week, and paying for it. It might be legitimate in economies such as those of Germany and Japan, where it is a short-term measure for the retention of skilled labour, but in this country that kind of approach panders to all that is worst in our attitudes—less work for the same pay, more men for less output, and higher costs on the future to sustain the past. There is £500 million a year to go in that direction to save the past. Think how much better we could do if that kind of resources was being voted in tax relief and encouragement for the jobs, industries and firms of the future.
The reality is that the present Government, in every sense, have reached the end of the road. They are following a clutch of policies which make no kind of sense even to them. One policy that they are offering is the policy of monetarism. At least the Chancellor and the Prime Minister claim to understand that. None of their colleagues supports it. Their colleagues would denounce it at the first opportunity. In some ways it is not sur-
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prising, for the Chancellor is conducting his monetary policy almost as though he was intending to give monetarism a bad name.
The second policy is one in which neither the Chancellor nor any of his colleagues believes, but it is one to which they are committed. It is a policy of universal wage control. In the end, they have neither the skill nor the courage to undertake the difficult task of getting away from it.
The third policy in which they believe with great enthusiasm is a multiplication of the regulations applied to our society and an increase in the burden of tax applied to our society, to such an extent that the enterprise and talent of our people are almost near to being destroyed.
Those policies were rejected by an insultingly large majority at the Labour Party conference. The Chancellor received his come-uppance there, and rightly so. They surely deserve to be condemned out of hand by this House tonight.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Did the right hon. and learned Gentleman move an amendment?
Sir G. Howe indicated assent.
5.5 p.m.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Denis Healey): I do not think that any of us was surprised that the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) did not have the nerve to move his amendment, after a speech such as that.
I propose to deal with the two elements in the amendment. The first part criticises the Government on economic policy and says nothing whatever about what the Opposition would do in its place. The second part makes some criticism of the fact that there was not a General Election last month.
When I addressed the House in the debate on the Gracious Speech a year ago, I was able to report a dramatic transformation in Britain's financial position. Inflation was beginning to fall. The pound was strong and rising steadily. The balance of payments was moving into surplus. This year I am able to report an improvement in the real economy which I then predicted was bound to follow the improvement in our financial situation.

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I was a little surprised at the mournful bleating of the right hon. and learned Gentleman about the economy, because it makes such an extremely interesting comparison with what is being said by his friends in industry and his friends in the newspapers. The economics correspondent of The Daily Telegraph had to admit the other day:
"Fleet Street Jeremiahs like myself are finding it remarkably difficult to find any horror stories to write about the economy at present."
He was followed by a leading article in the Financial Times which said:
"Each successive economic indicator makes it clearer that in real terms the United Kingdom economy is performing better than for a long time past."
On Monday of this week, the Financial Times monthly survey of business opinion showed that the recovery was spreading to more sectors of industry every month and that the improvement in business confidence was being sustained. Last week's survey by the CBI told the same story. It is a very different picture from the partisan twaddle we had from the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
The record is encouraging. We have maintained the financial gains that we made last year. The pound remains firm. We are paying our way in the world. We have now repaid $2 billion worth of debt to the IMF ahead of time. Inflation has been reduced dramatically to under 8 per cent.—half what it was a year ago and lower than the inflation rate in the United States or in France. Because of this and the substantial cuts in income tax during the year, the real living standard of the average family in Britain has improved by 7 per cent.—one of the fastest increases in a single year since the war.
And we have seen the improvement in the real economy which I predicted a year ago. Unemployment has fallen by 90,000 in the last 12 months. Output has been rising this year at a rate well over 3 per cent. a year. Incidentally, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was quite wrong in saying that the output this year is only 4 per cent. above what it was in 1973. In fact, last year it was already 1 per cent. above that level. In the second quarter of this year it was 4 per cent. above that of last year, and it is still rising fast.
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According to the European Commission, growth in this country will be higher this year than in any other country in the Community except Ireland. As was to be hoped at this stage of the recovery, productivity has been growing fast and so has manufacturing investment. Private manufacturing investment rose in volume by about 13 per cent. last year, and looks like rising about as fast this year, too. That is twice as fast as in Germany, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is always quoting to us as an example. Moreover, the CBI is expecting a further increase in private manufacturing investment next year as well. It is essential that that should continue if our recovery is to be sustained.
The reason that we have been able to achieve these substantial improvements in the real economy at the same time as we have cut inflation by half is, as the Prime Minister told the House last week, that we have combined the right fiscal and monetary policies with an effective policy for pay.
Our fiscal policy has been firm and responsible. We have maintained cash limits for most programmes in the public sector and have kept tight control of the contigency reserve so that public spending is within the plans in last January's White Paper. The increase in public spending on our priority social programmes during the present year is bringing real benefits for ordinary families and enabling us to make a start on dealing with some of the problems in our social services, especially the Health Service.
Next week the increase in the old-age pension will bring the pension for a married couple up to £31·20. It will be followed on 4th December by a £10 Christmas bonus for over 10 million retirement pensioners, widows and the chronically sick and disabled. The child benefit is being raised to £3 next week, and a further increase will bring it to £4 for every child next April. The annual White Paper on public expenditure will show how we intend to distribute the increase of 2 per cent. in public expenditure programmes next year.
Mr. F. A. Burden: Is the recovery so great and has production increased so much when the Government have to tell us this afternoon that they are

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subsidising small companies to get them to take on one extra person?
Mr. Healey: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is in favour of my right hon. Friend's proposal. However, every Government in Europe is now giving that type of assistance, although very few of them are offering it on such a generous scale. I am proud that we are doing so.
Our monetary policy has been equally successful. In our four and a half years of office the rate of growth of sterling M3 has averaged 9½ per cent. a year. That is only a third as high as in the last two years when the Conservative Party was in power.
We had very little from the right hon. and learned Gentleman about the profligate increase in the money supply when he and the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, as she is now, were members of the Conservative Government. At that time the right hon. and learned Gentleman was busy introducing legal curbs on the trade unions. He told us this afternoon that he has learned his lesson and that he has not the slightest intention of introducing curbs again if ever, God forbid, he has the opportunity to do so. Domestic credit expansion has been kept well within the limits which I set in my letter of intent to the IMF.
In the first two years that we had some form of target for sterling M3, we undershot in the first year—8 per cent. compared with 12 per cent.—and overshot in the second—16 per cent. compared with a target range of 9 per cent. to 13 per cent. As I have emphasised several times, it is the underlying rate of growth over a period that matters rather than the absolute level on a particular day, or the figure for a particular month or two. For example, the German M3 has been increasing at an annual rate of 16 per cent. for the past three months. That is almost as profligate as the increase in the money supply under the previous Conservative Government. I have no doubt that the German M3 will soon return to a more normal situation just as ours has, as I shall show in a moment.
One of the reasons for my deciding at Budget time to switch to a system of annual targets rolled forward every six months was to be able to take account of the fluctuations that we inevitably get
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over a period of months in the underlying rate of money supply. At Budget time I said that 8 per cent. to 12 per cent. was the target range for the growth of sterling M3 in the 12 months ending with banking April 1979.
Full figures for banking October will not be available until next week, but it is already clear from the preliminary figures, including those published on Tuesday, that the rate of growth of sterling M3 in the first six months was below the bottom end of the target range —probably nearer to 7 per cent. than 8 per cent. This lower rate of growth in the past six months has offset the higher growth in the last months of the preceding banking year.
I have now decided that the target range for the 12 months to the end of banking October 1979 should also be 8 per cent. to 12 per cent. Although the numbers are the same, this represents a slight tightening compared with the existing range because the starting level is below the range then envisaged.
As the House knows, the Bank of England, with my approval, announced today an increase in minimum lending rate to 12½ per cent. A significant part of the increase merely validates the recent increase in short-term market interest rates in the face of uncertainties about the foreign exchange markets and United States interest rates and about pay settlements in Britain. Given those uncertainties, the Government thought it right and prudent to err on the side of caution by establishing a level of short-term interest rates somewhat higher than at present. I expect short-term market rates to rise on average by about three-quarters of a per cent., some more and some less. These decisions were necessary and they will allow for the essential financing needs of the economy and help to keep inflation at its present level.
There were many questions earlier this afternoon about the likely effect on employment of the increase in interest rates. In the past, hon. Members on both sides of the House and many economists have grossly exaggerated the effect of changes in interest rates on the real economy. It is worth noting that, although we have had a steady creep-up in interest rates over the whole of the past 12 months, we have also seen a

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steady increase in growth, an exceptionally high increase in investment and a fall of 90,000 in the number unemployed.
Mr. Robert Mellish: Surely it follows that tomorrow the building societies will take a decision to increase—we do not know by how much—mortgage rates. If that is so, that will have an enormous impact on millions of our people within weeks. When the Government are talking—rightly, in my view—of restraint on the wages front, it must be accepted that for many people one of the most important budgets, and one of the hardest to balance, is the repayment of loans, which will be subject to dramatic change.
Mr. Healey: If that were the position, I should regret it, as my right hon. Friend knows. However, a number of the leading representatives of the building societies have been saying for some weeks that they believe an increase in their rates is justified. The only question is how much and when.
If the Government were to follow the precedent set by the Conservative Government, fail to take timely action when necessary and lose control of the money supply, the sufferings of the whole of the British people, whether mortgages or not, would be infinitely more serious than suffering brought about by increases in mortgage rates that may at some stage, either tomorrow or perhaps in two months' time, be decided by the building societies.
Sir G. Howe: Does the Chancellor recognise that there is no point in his trying to preach that message by references to the Conservative Government? His own performance in allowing the money supply to go out of control in September 1976 gave us the best possible demonstration, when he had to jack up interest rates to 15 per cent. Will he not use his own incompetence as the lesson for the future? Will he recognise that the underlying reason why he has to increase interest rates to this extent and in this way is that he is insisting on spending and borrowing too much?
Mr. Healey: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is, as always when he attempts to animadvert on monetary policy, totally
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wrong and totally mistaken. The small increase in money supply that took place at the end of the last banking year, or in 1976, was the sort of fluctuation that occurs in all countries. For example, in Switzerland the money supply is running at three times the rate that the Government set themselves as a target. It is running at 16 per cent., although the inflation rate is scarcely 1 per cent. and the balance of payments is in balance.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman must accept, as everyone does, who has studied these matters, that fluctuations over a month, or a number of months, are quite normal. Those who pay excessive attention to them are giving monetarism a bad name.
It is in the light of our commitment to a firm fiscal and monetary policy that we are now discussing with our Community partners proposals to establish a zone of greater monetary stability in Europe. I gave evidence at length on the European monetary system to a Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on Public Expenditure last week. However, it may be convenient if I tell the House the main features of our approach.
The Government believe that the turbulence of international financial markets has been an important obstacle to growth throughout the world over the last few years, and particularly since the weakening of the dollar which began in the summer of 1977. That is why the Prime Minister included monetary stabilisation in his five-point plan for the Bonn summit.
We believe that the measures announced by President Carter last week will make an important contribution towards greater stability in the dollar exchange rate, and will thereby help to reduce the turbulence of currencies worldwide. But, as the Prime Minister said last week, we must use the time gained by President Carter's measures to produce a better system of monetary order worldwide, because the weakness of the international system is an important factor in the recent currency instability inside Europe.
It is the effect of weakness of the dollar on the external value of the deutschemark which has been mainly responsible for the divergence between exchange rates in the European Community in the last year or

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so. Sterling has remained relatively stable throughout the turbulent conditions of recent months. In terms of the effective rate for sterling, which is the measure of sterling's overall external value, the pound has for the most part moved within a relatively narrow range between 61·5 and 63. The dollar rate has fluctuated sharply, but we have been far less subject to pressure in this respect than the deutschemark.
Mr. Nicholas Ridley: The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the Government believe that the turbulence caused by the instability of the dollar in the last year had been inimical to growth. Will he explain why we had absolutely no growth at all in this country until the dollar started to be turbulent, since when we have had 4 per cent. growth, on his own figure?
Mr. Healey: We have had 4 per cent. growth over the last year because of the excellent mix of policies of the present Government, which I have been describing to the House. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing my attention, and the attention of the House, to the achievement of the Government.
As I explained in my speech at the Mansion House, the recent stability of sterling has contributed to the success of our counter-inflation policy and has reflected it. We aim to maintain this stability in our exchange rate whether or not we join the European monetary system. That means that we must keep inflation under control. We have shown many times—and again in our decisions today—that we are prepared to use the whole range of economic policies for this purpose.
If we in the European Community are able to create a zone of greater monetary stability among ourselves, we can make an important contribution to the better international monetary order at which we aim.
But an essential condition of exchange rate stability inside the Community is compatibility in the economic performance of the members of the system. Therefore, a concerted strategy for economic convergence is the key to the success of a European monetary system.
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Earlier this year the Community carried out valuable studies on such a concerted strategy, and these studies formed a basis for commitments entered into at the Bonn summit. We believe that this concerted strategy for growth without inflation must be further developed in the coming years, and Britain intends to play her full part in formulating and carrying out such a strategy as the necessary foundation for a successful European monetary system.
It is also necessary, if such a system is to be durable, that the financial flows arising from the Community mechanisms should help towards this convergence in the economic performance of its members. At present, the net flows of resources brought about by the Community Budget and the common agricultural policy do not reflect the relative prosperity of the countries concerned. That is why the Heads of Government in Bremen agreed to study means of producing a less perverse flow of resources within the Community concurrent with discussions on the monetary aspects of the EMS.
It is against the need for concerted action to produce convergence in our economic performance, and for progress towards a more rational flow of resources within the Community that we approach the question of guidelines and techniques for intervention in a possible European monetary system. Intervention is worse than useless if the underlying economic conditions are not right, and it is fair to say that this was a view which was generally held by members of the Select Committee whom I addressed last Friday.
We start from the firm belief that a European monetary system must not have a built-in deflationary bias, and that for this reason the economic and financial obligations it entails must fall on the stronger countries no less than on the weaker ones otherwise a greater stability in exchange rates will be achieved only by compelling the weaker countries to adopt unnecessarily deflationary policies, so reducing growth in the Community and, indeed, in the world as a whole.
If the proposed arrangement is to be durable, it must be significantly different from the existing European joint float or snake. The present snake system performs a useful function for Germany and four of her smaller neighbours, one of

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which, Norway, is outside the Community. But it has proved incapable of containing the three larger Community countries—Britain, France and Italy. All of them were compelled to leave the snake, France on two occasions and Britain after seven weeks, under the previous Government. In most cases they left after heavy losses of reserves. It would not be in the interest of either currency stability or of the wider aims of the European Community to repeat that unhappy experience.
Another lesson of the snake is that the existing procedures through which realignments of parities within the system must take place tend to mean that realignments are preceded by heavy intervention, which produces a massive inflation of the money supply in the stronger countries and a damaging loss of reserves in the weaker countries. Dr. Emminger of the German Bundesbank has drawn particular attention to this problem, and rightly so.
We are at present discussing with our Community partners possible ways of avoiding these dangers. These discussions inevitably involve considerations of highly technical matters such as parity grids and ECU baskets. Discussions which affect exchange rates must be conducted in private if they are not to provide speculators with an instruction book on how to get rich quick at our expense.
I cannot conceal from the House that we have serious doubts about the wisdom and durability of the arrangements at present favoured by some of our European colleagues. I hope that we shall be able to resolve these problems in the coming weeks, and I look forward to debating the matter in the House before the summit meeting takes place on 4th December, but I think I should make two elements in our position absolutely clear now.
First, the reason that we oppose some of the technical proposals for intervention which have been made is that we believe they might break down in practice and produce greater turbulence rather than greater stability in the exchange markets. We do not, however, regard the intervention mechanism as the beginning and end of a European monetary system. If it were, the system would not survive for
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long, as I have explained. We believe that the concept of developing the ECU into a new reserve asset should be, as suggested at Bremen, the centre of the system, and that existing credit mechanisms in the Community should be further developed to support it. Moreover, we believe that recent experience has shown that far more attention should be given to relationships between the Community system and the wider international system if we are to achieve a zone of monetary stability in Europe.
The second point that I should like to make at this stage is that, because we regard the control of inflation as a precondition for higher growth and lower unemployment, we aim at stability in our external rate, in or out of an EMS. We do not regard depreciation as a soft option or as a cure for our economic and industrial problems.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: Is my right hon. Friend aware that yesterday Lord Goronwy-Roberts, in another place, talked about a further Government statement on EMS and possibly a Green Paper? Can my right hon. Friend say whether the statement he has made is the statement which the Government had in mind, or will there be a Green Paper on this prior to the debate? Secondly, he refers to the decision of the summit on 4th December. Is it not the case that this meeting of Heads of Government is extra-treaty? Can we assume from that that, some decision having been come to, there will be a further meeting of Finance Ministers finally to agree the details? If that is the case, can my right hon. Friend say when that will be?
Mr. Healey: The Government propose to publish a Green Paper in good time for the debate. It is too early to be certain of what decisions, if any, will be reached on 4th December. Each Head of Government will attend that meeting with the constitutional powers which he holds as Head of Government. In our case, no decision could be taken which required legislation or which had important implications unless it were later put to the House for approval. Whether there would be further decisions required following any decision in December it is too early to say. It may be possible for me to throw more light on that when we

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debate this point before the summit meeting on 4th December. I hope that that answers my lion. Friend's questions.
Mr. Ron Thomas: Will the Green Paper contain a detailed evaluation of the areas of economic sovereignty which will be eroded if we join a scheme of this kind? Is my right hon. Friend aware that all that the press seems to talk about is bringing about a stability of exchange rates, without taking into account the fact that monetary policy, public expenditure and a whole range of other economic variables as well as economic sovereignty will be affected?
Mr. Healey: The Government and the House will have to make up their minds and come to a decision as to the extent to which their freedom to act in the economic sphere will be greater or less as a result of joining the system. The only point that I make at this stage is that no one should imagine that any British Government—indeed, these days, any Government in the world—have total freedom or total sovereignty in these matters. We are now members of an extremely complicated commercial, financial and trading system. This inevitably imposes all manner of limitations on our freedom of action which we are prepared to organise in discussion with foreign countries—as, for example, we are seeking to do now in the Tokyo round—to try to reach agreement on a freer world trading system. This Government, like every government, will have to make up their mind ultimately whether they gain or lose more, either in sovereignty or in other areas, as a result of joining whatever system emerges from the discussions. I know that the House will expect the Government to form their judgment on that basis, and I expect that the House will do so, too.
I come now to the question of pay on which the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East spent some part of his speech. Fiscal and monetary policy alone are not likely to control inflation or to lead to a fall in unemployment unless they are accompanied by moderation in pay settlements. That is why we regard pay policy as the essential third leg of the stool, to use the Prime Minister's analogy. It is no accident that Britain is almost the only country which in the
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past 12 months has achieved not only a dramatic fall in its inflation rate but a significant drop in unemployment. Most of our European partners have achieved a reduction in their inflation rates, but at the cost of some increase in unemployment. The United States has cut unemployment at the cost of an increase in inflation.
Pay policy is the factor which has enabled us to halve our inflation rate and cut unemployment at the same time. It is because there is a livelier perception of this fact developing all over the world that the Governments of the United States, Belgium, Holland, France and Italy are now considering, with their trade union movements, how they can develop effective policies for pay.
So far as I can see, the Opposition do not contest the truth of what I say, namely, that fiscal and monetary policy alone—although they may in the long run reduce inflation—cannot reduce unemployment. The Opposition accept that by relying on fiscal and monetary policies alone they would increase unemployment. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has admitted that the £5 billion worth of cuts he proposes in public expenditure are bound to lead to an increase in unemployment, at least in the short run.
The sort of monetary policies which the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) continually espouse would be certain to produce unemployment on a far greater scale than we see today. In reviewing the prospects for Britain to December 1979 the economic review published by James Capel and Company in August—I am happy to see the hon. Member for Horn-castle (Mr. Tapsell) in his seat—pointed out that if the monetarist policies of the Opposition were adopted
"in the second half of 1979 rising inflation together with an attempt to reduce simultaneously the increase in the money supply could produce a monetary squeeze which, combined with cuts in public expenditure, would lead to a recession. Sole reliance upon the control of the money supply, albeit with a consistent fiscal policy, could lead either to the abandonment of the monetary guidelines themselves or to an attempt to come to some accommodation with the trade unions over incomes policy."
I have quoted this forecast because it appears under the name of one of the

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Opposition's official spokesmen on economic policy, the hon. Member for Horn-castle, whose eloquence in attacking the policies of the majority of the leadership of his party was illustrated by another quotation by the Prime Minister last week.
Mr. Peter Tapsell: Has the right hon. Gentleman so lost confidence in his own case that he now has to fall back on the scribblings of teenage City analysts?
Mr. Healey: The hon. Gentleman is being a little unkind to himself. If he does not like that quotation, let me read a quotation directly ascribed to him in the Official Report of 6th July 1976 when the hon. Member said:
"Those people who wish to rely solely on control of the money supply and do not wish to have an incomes policy are entitled to say that it could stop inflation. I do not doubt that if we pursued a sufficiently rigorous control of the money supply we would bring inflation virtually to a standstill, and that would be a very desirable result to achieve, but the price we should have to pay for that would be very high. The price in terms of the level of unemployment and the level of bankruptcies in industry, the City and agriculture would be an intolerable price."—[Official Report, 6th July 1976; Vol. 914, c. 1238.]
I do not regard that as an adolescent remark. I regard it as pregnant with economic wisdom. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should denigrate his intellect in the way that he sought to do a moment ago—even if he might curry favour with his right hon. Friend by doing so.
Mr. Tapsell: As the right hon. Gentleman may recollect, the Prime Minister has already done me the honour of quoting that remark of two years ago during the first day's debate on the Gracious Speech. The fact is, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) made clear in his speech today, that no one on the Tory Benches is advocating an immediate and abrupt cut in the money supply. If it is done gradually and steadily over a period of years, the dangers to which I was pointing then would not arise.
Mr. Healey: I apologise for embarrassing the hon. Gentleman. If he wants to remain a member of the Shadow Cabinet—which is a precarious role these
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days, I understand—he will have to watch his words as carefully as some of his hon. Friends have had to watch their votes. The hon. Gentleman is quite right. The Opposition's policies are a recipe for recession.
The Government's mix of fiscal, monetary and pay policies is best for Britain because it is the only way in which we can hope to reduce inflation and unemployment at the same time. That is why the Government felt it necessary to lay down a guideline for pay settlements in the White Paper last July. That is why the Government are determined to do everything in their power to see that the guideline is observed, We chose 5 per cent. as our guideline because, as the Prime Minister told the House last week, if the general level of settlements comes out at significantly more than 5 per cent., the level of inflation will not go down. Moreover, any excess will throw people out of work as well as raising prices. It is because the overwhelming majority of the British people now know that this is a fact that our pay policy has their overwhelming support. If anyone doubts that, let him ask the electors of Berwick and East Lothian.
Nobody knows better than I the disadvantages of laying down a single figure as a guideline for individual settlements even when, as is the case this year, we provide for flexibility through use of the kitty principle, through self-financing productivity deals, and so on.
So far as I can detect the latest policy of the right hon. and learned Gentleman—we discover him in a different posture every time the fog surrounding his opinions clears for a moment or so—this week he, like his right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), believes that 5 per cent. is the average which the country can afford, but that it should not be treated as a guideline for individual settlements. The right hon. and learned Gentleman does not confirm that. The fog has descended once again. No doubt we shall see him sitting there like a wounded boar the next time it clears.
Mr. Ridley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Healey: If I may finish with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I shall be glad to defer to the hon. Gentleman.

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I understand this approach which the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East has espoused—that 5 per cent. is right as an average, but not for individual settlements—because I hoped last year, with the rest of the Government, that we might be able to achieve the necessary responsibility in collective bargaining simply by making clear what increase in earnings the nation as a whole could afford. Indeed, as Opposition Members have often pointed out, I expressed this view in an exchange of letters with the right hon. Member for Lowestoft. But we learned from hard experience that any figure which is published—whether described as an average increase for earnings or wage rates or as a guideline for individual settlements—is likely to be treated by negotiators as a minimum which they must aim to achieve.
As this became clear during the early negotiations in the last pay round, we found ourselves compelled to treat 10 per cent. not. as we had hoped, as an average around which individual settlements should cluster—some higher, some lower—but as a maximum limit for all settlements. When we did so, we found it necessary to answer the questions which had been put to me in August by the right hon. Member for Lowestoft. In his letter to me on 7th August 1977, he had said that
"without early knowledge of the answers to these questions, bargainers will be thrown increasingly into confusion and so will the fight against inflation"
I readily admit that on that occasion he was right and I was wrong. But we have learned from our experience while he, having failed to convince his colleagues that he was right, has now moved to the position which he criticised me for adopting 15 months ago.
The question which the Government are now considering with the TUC is whether it will be possible to introduce more flexibility into the 5 per cent. limit without jeopardising our overriding objective, which is to keep inflation from rising once again. On this objective there is no difference whatever between the Government and the TUC.
Our discussions are still proceeding, and I will, of course, inform the House as soon as they are concluded. They have not been easy. The Government remain convinced that the policy they
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have adopted in the White Paper is the best means of keeping inflation under control.
The TUC, for its part, remains committed not only to the process of voluntary collective bargaining but to the belief that, properly conducted, such bargaining will result in settlements consistent with our agreed inflation objective. But our discussions have been marked by a continuing and, I think, growing determination on both sides to discover and define areas of agreement which are consistent both with this difference in our approaches and with our common determination to keep inflation down. That is why we trust that they will soon be crowned with success.
Mr. Ridley: The Ford settlement is likely to be over the 16 per cent. plus which has already been offered by the Ford Motor Company. Will the Chancellor apply sanctions against Ford? If so, what will they be? If he does not apply sanctions, does it mean that the 5 per cent. has now become 16 per cent. plus? Will he tell us how this situation is conceivably compatible with the policy that he had two months ago?
Mr. Healey: I hesitate to apply to the hon. Gentleman the epithets that the hon. Member for Horncastle applied to himself. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that no Government will take a decision on this matter before knowing what the final settlement is. When the settlement is reached, we shall announce our decision to the House, to the country and to the Ford Motor Company.
I turn finally to that part of the Opposition's amendment which concerns the deferment of the election. The amendment as a whole, as the newspapers pointed out, was skilfully drafted to conceal divisions in the Conservative Party and to tempt members of other parties to join the Conservative Party in the Lobby, although they detest everything that it stands for. It attacks the Government for not holding the election in October. I know that it means what it says on that. I suppose it did not very much like seeing all the money that it had spent on its advertising campaign pouring down the drain. But I wonder how sincere its regret is now in the light of the Berwick and East Lothian by-election and the latest Gallup poll.

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The Conservative Opposition describe the purposes of an election in the amendment as being
"to elect a new administration capable of creating a lasting prospertity in which all can share."
I can only conclude that the meaning of that is a new Labour Government with an overall majority in the House. It cannot mean a Conservative Government, because the Opposition are committed to policies which would reduce prosperity and prevent it from being shared fairly.
I have already quoted official Conservative spokesmen as saying that their policies would increase unemployment and produce recession. The policies of the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East and the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, with their attacks on the very concept of equality, the concept of entitlement to social security benefits, public expenditure cuts, which would include massive increase in council rents, cuts in the National Health Service, payment for hospital beds and enormous increases in school meal charges will not contribute towards equality and better sharing whatever prosperity the country is still allowed if the Conservative Party ever achieved power. These will be the admitted results—admitted by them—of those policies which they have allowed us to know something about.
The real problem is that there is an enormous area of total obscurity about the Conservative Opposition's policy on some of the major issues facing the nation. That area of obscurity conceals violent disagreements inside the Conservative Party. I am talking now of disagreements not between the hon. Members for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) or Oswestry (Mr. Biffen), on the one side, or Moby Dick—the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath)—on the other, but between members of the Shadow Cabinet, and never was the word "Shadow" more richly deserved. The fact is that they tried to conceal their intentions and divisions in what way they thought was the run-up to the election by an expensive advertising campaign characterised mainly by dishonesty and outright deceit.
For example, two years ago the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East told us that
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"to use the present…unemployment figures as a stick with which to make political capital "
was something with which the
"Conservative Party would have nothing to do with".
Then we get Saatchi & Saatchi producing a queue of unemployed who turn out to be not real unemployed but layabouts from the North Hendon Conservative Association.
We then had one of the most delightful episodes in recent political history—the saga of Sarah Cramp. I quote from the Daily Mail:
"Pensioner Sarah Cramp revealed today how she was tricked into playing the part of a hard up widow called Annie for a Conservative Party political broadcast…Mrs. Cramp said today: 'That was all nonsense. The film crew deceived me.…I don't blame the Labour Government for inflation. And if the Labour Party asked me to do a film for them I would agree'."
I can understand the dismay of the Conservatives at the thought of all that money pouring down the drain. Now, of course, they face the run-up to the real election—not the "phoney" one they tried to force us into—and they will face, in every debate in this House between now and whatever is the date of the election, the need to define their policies on the central problems facing the nation today.
The right hon. Member for Lowestoft told the television viewers the other day that a statutory pay policy might well have to happen under certain circumstances. But his right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East was nervous at the Brighton conference of his party even about the policy designed in "The Right Approach". I am not surprised that he was nervous about that, because the reference to the pay policy in "The Right Approach" was a pretty uncertain trumpet. It said:
"Experience does not suggest that (a prices and incomes policy) is the best way of finding a long-term solution to the problem. The same experience demonstrates the unwisdom of flatly and permanently rejecting the idea."
What a magnificent prospectus for the people who claim the right to govern the country to put before the electorate.
Mr. Angus Maude (Stratford-on-Avon): It occurs to us to wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would take a little time off from creating imaginary divisions in our ranks to explain how his

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own party conference rejected by a two-to-one majority the policy that the Prime Minister said was essential to the success of the Labour Government.
Mr. Healey: That was a pretty feeble intervention. Let us consider the major issue facing the country in foreign affairs, Rhodesia, which was debated over the past two days. The only positive idea for solving the Rhodesia problem put forward on Tuesday was a request to the Prime Minister to use his unique skill and authority to solve the problem. That was the only thing the Opposition had to suggest. When it came to the question of sanctions, members of the Shadow Cabinet opted out of a decision entirely. They sat huddled in a nervous neutrality while a third of their party voted against the Whip they had imposed.
There has been an interesting change in political fortunes in the last few months. Only a week or two ago the Leader of the Opposition was presenting herself as a sort of Good Queen Bess who would launch us on a new Elizabethan age. She now resembles nothing so much as the last Empress of the Manchus, raging and impotent in the ruins of her summer palace while her empire crumbles into dust around her.
I ask the House to reject the Opposition amendment.
5.54 p.m.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Towards the end of his speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer did pay some attention to the terms of the amendment to the Address. I think it is right that the House should do so, since, after all, it is upon that proposition that the House will come to a decision at the termination of the debate. He passed lightly over a phrase in that amendment on which I think we should dwell a little longer. It refers to the opportunity to elect an Administration
"capable of creating a lasting prosperity".
When I read those words, it occurred to me that the Greeks had a word for it. To assert that an Administration can create lasting prosperity is an assertion that no self-respecting politician ought to allow himself to make. Least of all should such an assertion come from a party which once had some affiliation with Toryism. It is indeed possible for
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Administrations to assist to some extent the endeavours of a people. It is certainly possible for Administrations more seriously to hamper them. But to suggest to the House and to the people that an Administration is capable of "creating a lasting prosperity" falls under the definition of hubris; that is, arrogance which brings upon itself its own downfall. We are not entitled to pretend that we in this House can create lasting prosperity; but it is our business as far as possible to ensure that what we do takes us in that direction rather than carries us further away from it.
It was no accident that the greater part of both the two speeches with which this debate opened was concerned with the subject of incomes policy or control of wages—give it what label one pleases. If one were to ask most members of the public what they apprehend as the most worrying aspect of our life they would point to the intersection between inflation and industrial relations, to the incessant disturbance and anxiety created by that intersection.
There is a paradox here. The paradox is that if one looks at the statistics, whether they be statistics of days lost or numbers on strike and so on, one does not find that this country is at all high in the league table. We do not appear to be suffering from difficulties of industrial relations or interruptions of production more than many other nations. Yet the fact is that our industrial relations stand at the centre of our anxieties in a way that they do not in most other countries. We have so contrived it—we have arrived at such a state—that every negotiation, every interruption of production, every bargain—I do not need to say every strike—is front-page headline news, is seen as a crisis in the relations between Government and governed, as an event upon which the outcome of the fortunes of this country turn.
I do not believe that the paradox is an unreal one. I do not believe that it is simply due to misapprehension on our part, something febrile in our constitution whereby we take excessively seriously things which are shrugged off in other countries. Still less do I believe that it is due to some obliquity of the British media, which causes them to publicise that which in other countries is not

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regarded as having anything like the same news rating.
Mr. Ronald Atkins: Could the right hon. Gentleman not argue from a different premise—that, in fact, the organs of publicity create this feeling? He is surely speaking in a subjective way when he compares this country with other countries in assuming that basically feeling is less concerned about industrial relations in other countries than this one.
Mr. Powell: That is indeed a different premise from the one upon which I was arguing; and I hope that the hon. Member will suffer me to proceed upon my own premise. I do believe that the media are not mistaken in what they regard as newsworthy. What they regard as newsworthy we have made newsworthy by our policies over the years, by the legislation of this House and by the behaviour of successive Administrations. We have contrived that every industrial dispute, every bargain, every discussion over wages, every alteration in differentials shall be not merely represented but openly seen as a direct clash of authority and of wills between the State and the citizen.
That is the truth of this paradox. This is a damaging reality: it is not just a minor worry at the breakfast table which passes away as people get down to their daily work. It damages our industrial morale. Certainly it damages the views which others and we ourselves take of our situation. It embattles one section of the community against another and the citizens against the State. It creates deep division where there ought to be harmony—by "harmony" I do not mean agreement, but there can still be harmony where people are arriving by bargaining, by industrial processes, at a conclusion which somehow has to be reached.
If this evil could be banished, if somehow we could be rid of this paradox which has darkened our affairs for many years and does so to this very day—one can take the newspapers on any day and see that the news still conforms to my description—we might claim that we had done something to help and not to hinder.
There has been a change—and a helpful change for the purposes of this de-1250
Bate—in the assumptions with which the relationship between inflation and industrial relations is approached. It is generally accepted now that there cannot be a general increase in earnings unless additional money has been previously created to finance that general increase. I can remember times when that was disputed. I do not think that it is disputed today. Everyone understands today that it is not possible for one wage increase to be followed by another until the whole gamut is complete unless the prior condition is fulfilled that there shall be additional money to enable those increased wages to be paid. Sometimes I think that even the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) has received some intimations of this truth.
But still people say—and I want to ask why this is—that nevertheless we cannot let the natural consequences follow, namely, that the increase in wages will accommodate itself to the money supply available for paying it. It is that refusal which lies at the heart of the struggles which go on year after year and are going on in boardrooms and in factories at this very moment.
There are two alternative reasons which, so far as I can see, are produced. The first is that the level of inflation can be reduced not only by preventing the increase in the money supply which would finance it but through large numbers of recipients of income voluntarily declining to accept money which is on the table and available to be had; that, as it were, the trade unions and the great processes of industrial bargaining can bring about a fall in the velocity of circulation, so that, for the same increase in the quantity of money, there is a lesser final effect upon the prices of goods and services.
Theoretically, that would probably stand up. Theoretically, the proposition makes sense. But I have only two comments to make about it. The first is that I do not think anyone seriously believes it. I do not think anyone seriously believes that it is possible to have a wages policy which will succeed in neutralising the actual rate of increase in the supply of money, or that there exists that degree of self-restraint and altruism in the collective breast of millions of our fellow human beings.

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The other observation which I have to make—and it is very pertinent to the exchanges which occurred between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the hon. Member for Horncastle (Mr. Tapsell)—is that if a given fall in the rate of inflation, say a fall of 50 per cent. in one year, was achieved partly by restraint and only partly by control of the money supply, the effects of that sudden fall upon employment would be exactly the same as if it had been achieved wholly by control of the money supply. It is the sudden change in the rate of inflation which causes the unemployment, and not the causes, whatever they may be, by which that change in the rate of inflation is brought about.
However, I leave on one side that explanation and theoretical base of wages policy because I do not believe that people have really accepted it sufficiently to have ever been willing to argue it through. At least, I have never heard the theory of it argued through in this House.
So I turn to the alternative theory which is voiced. This one we hear from all and sundry, and it was referred to earlier in both the Front Bench speeches. It is that if inflation is to fall from 10 per cent. to 5 per cent., if the growth of the money supply is to be such that overall no more than the 5 per cent. increase in earnings is to be payable but some trade unions, industries and firms obtain exorbitant wages for those whom they represent or employ, the result will be that they will push either those persons or other workers somewhere else out of employment.
There is a bifurcation in this alternative. The argument either goes on "When the Government see that happening, when they see large wage increases being given for large numbers of persons, they will betake themselves to inflation in order to neutralise the consequences", or else "If the Government let the consequences follow, those consequences will be an increase in unemployment". I dismiss the former fork of the bifurcation by saying that at any rate I have never belonged to any Administration and I have never heard tell of any Administration where at a meeting of the Cabinet, upon the Secretary of State for Employment announcing that there had been what
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he would call an "inflationary" pay settlement in this or that industry, the members of the Cabinet all said with one accord "We must ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to create some more inflation." It just does not happen in that way. It does not happen that Governments deliberately set out to create inflation in order to neutralise either a particular wage settlement or a whole series of wage settlements.
So we come to the proposition in its most naked form, namely, that unless wages are controlled or guided—controlled in some sense of the word "control"—the trade unions will bargain their members and other workers out of their jobs. That is what it comes down to in the end. It is no more than that. The proposition is that the unions will insist on obtaining settlements which are inconsistent with what is actually going to be the supply of money during the period ahead.
I do not know whether that proposition is more insulting to the trade union leadership or to the rank and file. It is insulting to the trade union leadership because, to say the worst one can about them, at least this is a class of men who have been trained, specialised and selected in a hard school to do one thing—to ascertain with reasonable accuracy the maximum earnings which will be obtainable in their firm or industry without putting their members out of a job. If they cannot do that, if they cannot perform that specialised function, it is unlikely that we can create an organ of the State that can do their job for them better than they do it themselves.
The alternative hypothesis and the alternative insult is just as gross. That is to say that 95 per cent. of 97 per cent. of the workers are such mute, dumb sheep that they will follow those who are demonstrably bargaining them and their fellow workers into unemployment. Of course, there are cases when a bargain goes wrong. The essence of all estimates is that sometimes one gets the estimate wrong. However, what is beyond all belief is that as a general rule, overall and year by year, the workers follow trade unions which are bargaining them into unemployment.
So the last logical basis for control of wages disappears. There is no rational basis for it whatsoever, unless we are

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prepared to make the assumption that we are dealing with men—either the leaders or the rank and file of the trade unions—who, year after year, apparently happily and with total satisfaction, engage in self-destructive folly. If one checks back at the experience of previous years, one will not often find a case, even in the most contentious settlements, where it turned out afterwards that the settlement was very far from the relativity which could, as proved by after events, be maintained.
Yet, after all these years, we continue, upon no rational ground, to court and enforce this daily, weekly clash between authority and the citizen. We go on erecting into a divisive force in our society and industry the perfectly ordinary process of continuous reassessment of the relative remuneration and value of the different skills and tasks.
One might well exclaim with St. Paul
"Oh miserable us! Who will deliver us from this body of doctrine?"
If the Conservative Party and the Opposition Front Bench could indeed perform that function, whatever other considerations there were, one might be inclined to forgive them for the hubris in their amendment, give them the benefit of the doubt, and support it
Mr. John Watkinson: I have been following the right hon. Gentleman's argument closely. He has intimated that in the private sector there are clear limitations to what the trade unions can bargain. Against what do the trade unions bargain in the public sector? Is it the money supply limit which has been determined, and does that not then become a form of incomes policy?
Mr. Powell: Bargaining in the public sector is in the context of the total economy. If one wishes to recruit nurses for the hospital service, one has to find what price one needs to pay for that job to compete with the relative attractions of all the other jobs in the community. Of course there must be a budget in the National Health Service. Of course the Secretary of State has to decide within that budget—this is his only creative function and he can only do so to a slight extent year by year—where he will put the emphasis. He has to decide whether
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he will put it on strengthening the nursing side or some other sides of the Service. But it is a fallacy to suppose that the State, as employer, is in an essentially different situation from the private employer in the fixing of remuneration.
I return to the question whether we have been offered any escape, any answer, to this predicament with which we have been tormented for so many years—this intersection of the problem of inflation with industrial relations.
I have not only listened intently this afternoon to the speech by the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), I have been an addicted reader of the Leader of the Opposition's speeches and other sources of illumination on Conservative thinking. I detected one formulation in recent weeks. It came from the Leader of the Opposition. She said that the Government were quite wrong and rigid in fixing a norm. She said that it would not work. What one had to do instead, she said, was to fix an average.
There seems to have been some thought going on since then. I held my breath as the word "norm" was uttered by the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East. He used the word "brandishing". For a moment I thought that he was going on to say "brandishing an average"; but no, he was "brandishing guidance".
Let us, however, return to the attempt by the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition. Her's was a valiant attempt. It is true that a norm will fail because one cannot select—and if one tries to select, one will be wrong—which cases are to be above and which below the norm. It is the old problem of who are to be the exceptions, and nobody wants to be the exception. So nowadays the Government have a norm which is a maximum, hoping that people will arrange themselves below that ceiling.
But the Leader of the Opposition's average will not work at all. All average is ex post facto. One can arrive at an average only when one finds out what the increases have been in a period of time and then averages them out. While the events are rolling—while Ford is on strike—no one can predict what average will be the outcome of a 16 per cent.

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settlement for Ford, 5 per cent. for somebody else, nought per cent. for somebody else and minus 5 per cent. for another group of workers. It is a counsel of despair.
If we have embraced the truth—as I hope we have at last—of the relationship between monetary policy—monetary behaviour—and inflation, we have in our hands the key to free collective bargaining; that is, we have the means to take the State out of these industrial relations and to allow the people occasionally to make their own mistakes, but usually to make the right assessments.
Mr. Dan Jones: Dare we do that?
Mr. Powell: I do not know whether the Labour Party dare and it is obvious that the Opposition do not dare. They are like the members of a heathen tribe who have been converted to Christianity but are not quite sure about its truth. So they think they had better continue worshipping the old gods on Saturday as well as going to church on Sunday.
There is no justification of an overwhelming national interest in substituting an average in preference to a norm for the mistaken policy of confrontation—a skilful form of confrontation but nevertheless confrontation—which is still being pursued by the Government. On the ground of that general consideration one would not feel obliged to support this amendment.
But my hon. Friends and I have also to look at the amendment from a more particular point of view, a point of view more directly germane—peculiarly germane—to the responsibilities with which we were charged when we were sent to this House. There was published today the Bill to give full representation in this House—to give justice, as the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said earlier—to the Province which we represent. That act of justice was one of the major tasks which we were instructed to fulfil, if we could, when we were sent to this Parliament.
In what I am about to say I mean to cast no aspersion upon any other party, for it is of the utmost importance for the future of Northern Ireland that that act of justice is going to be performed with the almost unanimous consent of
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the House of Commons, first, in the Conference of Mr. Speaker, in which there was only one dissenting voice and, secondly, by the agreement of all but one of the political parties, and that one an individual hon. Member. That is something of too much value for me to discount it.
Nevertheless, I say that, presented in this Session of Parliament with the achievement of that legislative act, an act which we believe in all conscience will be beneficial and peaceable to all classes and persons in Northern Ireland. it must be a compelling duty upon us to see it through on to the statute book. We are duty bound not to suffer, so far as in us lies, this Session of Parliament to be brought to an end until that act of justice of the House of Commons has been enshrined in a statute
Fortunately, there has been no painful dilemma which we have had to resolve between the national interest as a whole and our own peculiar duty. Neither in the general nor in the particular would we feel justified in supporting the amendment which is before the House tonight.
6.24 p.m.
Mr. John Home Robertson: I do not see how I can adequately follow the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) in his expert demolition of the case presented by the Front Bench of the Conservative Opposition, but in rising for this first time to address the House I am bound to refer to my great predecessor, John Mackintosh, the former Member for Berwick and East Lothian.
This House, and the country as a whole, can ill-afford to lose men of his stature. He was an inspiration to many of us, not least his constituents. I well remember how only 12 years ago I, like many young people at that time, was a cynical youth convinced that all politicians were by definition liars. Nevertheless, I went along to the election meetings of the various parties in my local village school at Paxton and that was when I first heard and saw John Mackintosh. He impressed me then, and he continued to do so right up to his death, with his eloquence, learning, wit, hard work and, above all, his integrity. The great quality which he possessed of saying and doing what he thought was right, rather than what might have

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seemed convenient, earned him the respect and the affection of people of all political persuasions throughout the constituency.
Many hon. Members must have been impressed during the run-up to the by-election by the genuine sense of loss and distress expressed by so many people throughout Berwickshire and East Lothian, both at meetings and on the doorstep, at the loss of their former Member of Parliament. There is a lesson for all of us in this. If we are always open and stick to what we believe in we may not always be able to satisfy our Whips, but in the end we shall earn the respect of our constituents. I believe that they are the people who really matter to us.
John Mackintosh was one of the great pioneers in the argument for devolved power for Scotland. He was also one of the main advocates of British participation in the European Community. It is extremely sad that he has not lived to see the democratic elections to the Scottish and European Asemblies, things in which he always believed and which will take place not so very long from now. I am no academic, and it will take me a long time to achieve any level of eloquence, but I am determined to stick to John Mackintosh's tradition of political integrity.
I understand that at this stage in a maiden speech it is traditional to make some reference to one's constituency. In the circumstances this is a little superfluous, because practically every hon. Member, for one reason or another, must have been in my constituency during the run-up to the by-election. But so far as I know you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were not, so I shall refer briefly to the two counties which I now represent.
Berwick and East Lothian is a diverse constituency. It is also a big one. Agriculture, together with its associated services, constitutes our main industry. There are also mining communities, a cement works, a brewery which makes real ale and, largely thanks to the Scottish Development Agency, an increasing amount of light engineering, food processing industries and other small new industries have been brought into many of the communities in the area. Berwick and East Lothian must also be one of the most beautiful constituencies in Britain.
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We have the Lammermuir Hills, the Bass Rock, a stretch of the River Tweed and about 100 miles of coastline. It is also unquestionably one of the most politically astute constituencies in the land.
I think that I should now refer to the Gracious Speech because I should hate to be ruled out of order at this stage in my career. I am particularly pleased to be able to contribute to this debate while we are discussing the economy, because that was the main issue in the by-election. I believe that that was an issue on which we won the argument hands down. It would perhaps be churlish of me not to make reference to the fact that the right hon. Member for Sid-cup (Mr. Heath) also did very well in that argument, but then, of course, he was speaking from a position of experience and wisdom which left many Tories in my constituency rather perplexed, to put it mildly.
My constituency is an area of low wages because the bulk of the people work either in agriculture and related industries or in the public sector. It is also an area of high costs because it is a remote, sparsely populated piece of the country which obviously has high distribution costs. I believe that in such an area of low wages and high costs it is imperative that inflation is kept under control. I urge the Government to stick to their guns on their strategy for controlling inflation. Let us have price controls and let us have the guts to stick to the incomes policy. I believe that we as Socialists are seeking to plan the economy and to protect the weak. I cannot see how we can achieve either of those aims if we leave either prices or incomes out of our calculations.
Our incomes policy must be fair for everyone. It must be fair for the low paid and the badly organised as well as for everyone else. It must also be flexible and voluntary, but above all it has to work. The Government can certainly rely on my support in their fight against inflation. Indeed, as one who has perhaps had more recent experience than have most hon. Members of the wishes of the ordinary people of this country I can safely say that the Government have the support of the ordinary people of the whole country and certainly of those in Scotland.

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My constituency is predominantly agricultural, and as a farmer I particularly welcome the references in the Gracious Speech to the expansion of home food production and the conservation of tish stocks. I look forward to seeing the detailed proposals on those subjects. If the proposals are effective they are bound to be helpful to all my constituents. Moves to improve home production of food are also bound to be good for the economy of the whole country because they will reduce the level of unnecessary food imports that we face at present.
In passing I express the pious hope that many of our farmers—who are doing extremely well despite protestations to the contrary and who will do even better with the Government's proposed measures —will pass on some of the additional benefits and greater profits that they will receive to the highly skilled but shockingly underpaid workers in agriculture.
The Scottish Development Agency, which I have already mentioned, has contributed a great deal to the restructuring of industry and to the creation and preservation of jobs in Berwick and East Lothian, not only in the bigger towns but in some of the more remote communities. I welcome the proposal in the Gracious Speech to provide additional finance for the SDA. The Agency is doing valuable, positive and constructive work throughout Scotland, especially in places where private investors abdicated their responsibilities a long time ago. The SDA's work must not be curtailed.
I also welcome the announcement today by the Secretary of State for Employment about extending grants to small businesses and service industries. This is bound to be helpful in many parts of the country. My constituency stands to gain a great deal from items of projected public expenditure of one kind or another, not only through the SDA but through local authorities' spending on roads and housing, through the health boards' spending on new hospital buildings and health centres, through the National Coal Board and its workings at Musselburgh, through the South of Scotland Electricity Board with the new Torness power station and through increased pensions for our old people.
The Conservative Party has not yet divulged whether any or all of those
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schemes will be scrapped under its proposed comprehensive attack on public expenditure. Also, the Scottish National Party has a particularly confusing standpoint on the Torness nuclear power station issue. In Berwickshire and East Lothian the SNP is against the use of nuclear power. In Caithness, where there is already a nuclear power station, the party is in favour of it. In Renfrewshire, where the boilers for power stations are made, the SNP is in favour of nuclear power. It is small wonder that the people do not take that party seriously any more.
I am disappointed at the bigotry being shown by the Scottish National Party. I was listening to a speech the other night from the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Welsh). He was making a perfectly valid point about the state of communications and roads to Aberdeen where the oil industry is creating so much activity, but he spoiled the whole effect of it by making out that this was some kind of a sinister conspiracy by the English to do down the Scots. I do not think that anybody takes that seriously any more.
People in Scotland know that Labour's plans for the economy are good for them. They are scared stiff by the Tories plans for a free-for-all. They can see that the SNP is now utterly irrelevant. That, in a nutshell, is why I am here instead of any of my opponents.
The right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) made a brave speech at the beginning of the debate, but I must remind him that only two weeks ago today the voters of Berwick and East Lothian—supposedly a marginal seat—gave me the biggest majority that anyone has had in that constituency since the Labour landslide of 1945. On behalf of those voters in my constituency I shall be supporting the Government in the Lobby tonight.
6.36 p.m.
Mr. Donald Stewart: I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on his maiden speech. I believe that it also fell to me to follow the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) when he made his maiden speech. I cannot describe the hon. Gentleman's speech today as non-controversial, but nevertheless it was enjoyable. I am

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sure that the House welcomed it and will look forward to further contributions from him to enliven our debates.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his eloquent and well-deserved tribute to his predecessor, John Mackintosh, who was a friend to all of us in all sections of the House. I detected in the hon. Gentleman's speech some suggestion that he is a man of independent mind, like his predecessor. I do not know whether that will be very good news for the Whips. Anyway, he had a signal victory in his by-election which caused great joy in his own party. It is not surprising that that joy is not shared throughout the House, but the whole House will join me in wishing the hon. Gentleman well and thanking him for a felicitous and witty maiden speech.
It would be surprising to have a Gracious Speech which did not contain the promise of certain measures with which one can heartily agree. This Speech is no exception. That is not surprising at a time when we have a minority Government and we are in the last Session before a General Election. It would be impossible for the Government to put through any serious measures of nationalisation. Therefore circumstances dictate that the Gracious Speech should be broadly in favour of "longer holidays and sunnier days".
We in the SNP welcome the promise of a measure to extend benefits for the disabled. I acknowledge that some useful advances have been made in recent years in this respect, but there is still a long way to go. Governments here, whatever their colour, often underestimate the desire of the community to see the disabled, old-age pensioners and people in similar under-privileged categories being properly looked after. People would be willing to sacrifice something to achieve that end, but they must be sure that any increase in contributions will be earmarked and used for such purposes and will not disappear into the Treasury's coffers.
We in the SNP welcome the promised legislation to provide additional finance for the SDA. In view of oil revenues, to which I shall return later, the finance allowed to the SDA so far has been ludicrously inadequate. We have heard
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noises from the Conservatives about the SDA, and they should tell both the House and Scotland what they will do if they are ever in a position of power.
We support the promise to give full support to strengthening the police service and to ensuring that respect for the law is maintained. We shall give our full backing to such measures.
We welcome the establishment of a system of registration of title to land in Scotland. I hope that this will be an early measure in the Government's programme.
We support fully grants to be made in Wales towards the cost of bilingual education but regret and resent the fact that there is no mention of any similar aid for bilingual education in Scotland. Most Governments accept their responsibility for helping minority cultures, but aid for Gaelic from successive Governments has fallen disgracefully short of what it should be.
We regret also that there is no mention of any means to alleviate the high cost of transport to the Scottish Islands by means of a road-equivalent tariff. This must come, but it is sad that in the meantime the Islands will be existing in the face of these transport burdens.
I turn now to the Scottish economy. On recent occasions I have drawn attention to the figures of Scottish unemployment, which the Government undertook to deal with as a first priority when they came to office in 1974. On 12th October Scottish unemployment was 7·9 per cent., against the United Kingdom figure of 6 per cent. At the end of September the international comparisons were: Scotland 8·1 per pent., United Kingdom 5·8 per cent., and Holland, Belgium, France, Japan and the United States all lower. Even Italy was lower at 7·5 per cent. That is the situation that my hon. Friends and I are determined to correct in so far as it lies within our powers to do so.
Manufacturing industry's share of total employment in Scotland is falling steadily at a time when oil revenues are bringing in fantastic wealth to the Treasury. It is clear that Scotland can expect major improvements in its economy only when oil revenues are invested at home. I am, of course, aware that there have been

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gloom and doom recently from the oil companies. This is not new. The House will recall similar gloomy forecasts not unconnected with the Oil Taxation Bill, when the oil companies said they could lose interest in the North Sea if taxes were raised.
Although decisions were taken as recently as last year to develop the oilfields, the prospect of an increase in petroleum revenue tax again produced a fit of the blues among the oil companies. We have only to read the recent report about oil sanctions against Rhodesia to realise that not everything the oil companies say can be regarded as gospel.
The SNP has been right all along on the question of oil. We were derided by the Tories when we declared at an early stage that the oil would be worth £800 million. They accused us of gross exaggeration However, as they were busy giving away the licences to the oil companies for peanuts they doubtless thought that they could get away with that sort of approach.
We have been derided by he Labour Party for demanding a more moderate rate of extraction. Our views are now backed by the right hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Mabon), the Minister of State for Energy. In a radio programme on 18th October it was put to him by Mr. Robin Wylie:
"It's not the case, is it, that too much oil has been extracted too fast and you are having to slow down?"
The right hon. Gentleman replied:
"In a way it is. In a way we can see ourselves getting to self-sufficiency in 1980 quite fast, and also getting into a surplus in the eighties quite fast. We are not, therefore, necessarily all that anxious to open up new fields, or, if we are going to open up new fields, it will be at a slower pace than before."
I turn for proof of the correctness of the SNP attitude on Scottish oil and gas to the study "The Economic impact of North Sea Oil on Scotland". This report was compiled for the Scottish economic planning department by Professors Gaskin and Mackay, and on page 34 it states:
"the contributions also make it clear that the contribution of North Sea oil activities to Scottish national income, whilst far from negligible, is not sufficient to transform Scottish living standards or the dominance of the traditional industrial structure. In short, the direct impact of North Sea oil activities, either in terms of employment opportunities or in terms of income generation provides a welcome relief from short-run difficulties rather than a solu-
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tion to the long-run problems of building a more efficient and prosperous economy."
The report ends with striking words on page 99:
"In other words, North Sea oil and gas have so far done little to transform the industrial base and the long-run economic prospects of the Scottish economy. Nevertheless, they have the potential to do so and this potential rests largely on the use the Central Government will make of oil revenues. The test of Government policy will be whether they can use the breathing space provided to build a more secure foundation for economic prosperity."
The evidence of the Government's own economic experts is that so far they have totally failed to do so.
The SNP makes no distinction between the Unionist, Labour and Tory Parties here. They have all failed Scotland in the past. The sad record is there for all to see. My hon. Friends and I came to this House with two objectives. The first was to assist in the beginnings of a Scottish Parliament. As Mr. Neal Ascherson said in The Scotsman,
"Labour provided the Bill, but the SNP gave the orders."
That objective has now been achieved. An Assembly for Scotland is now in the bag. The Scotland Act requires Labour and Conservative Parties to hold a referendum, and both are pledged to hold it in March.
The second objective was to bring maximum pressure to bear on the Government of the day to expand the Scottish economy The Government have totally failed to do that. Our objective must be to give a lead, as we gave a lead before, and to force this Parliament to return to Scotland the oil revenues which have been filched away. The Government took a deliberate decision not to set up an oil fund. Just as the weight of public opinion in Scotland drove them to an Assembly, so it is only a matter of time before the weight of public opinion in Scotland forces them to adopt an oil fund.
As before, the SNP is the only vehicle by which justice will be made available to Scotland. In tonight's Division we shall be voting to begin exerting pressure on United Kingdom Governments to establish a Scottish oil fund and to give Scotland true economic justice at last.
Mr. Dennis Canavan (West Stirling-shire): I am grateful to the hon Gentleman for giving way. I am sorry. I should

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have said the right hon. Gentleman. I had forgotten for a moment that he is one of the grateful recipients of the wee bit of English patronage that is going in this place. Is he saying—I gather that he is—that the criterion by which the SNP makes up its mind about how to vote tonight is "What is good for Scotland?" How can the right hon. Gentleman justify that when he knows that in the unlikely event of the Government being defeated tonight he and his hon. Friends will be contributing to that defeat, and that if the Conservatives were returned to power that would lessen the chances of the Scottish Assembly coming about? There would be no guarantee of a Government who would campaign vociferously for a Scottish Assembly in the coming referendum. Does that not prove that the SNP's slogan about it being "good for Scotland" is nothing but a lie, and that It is good for nothing?
Mr. Stewart: I repudiate that suggestion entirely. The Scotland Act binds the Conservative and Labour Parties. It guarantees that there will be a referendum and nothing can turn that back, regardless of what happens tonight.
Our amendment regrets
"that the Gracious Speech contains no proposals to reduce unemployment in Scotland and fails to implement the main recommendation of the Scottish Office Report…that only the investment of oil revenues within Scotland can bring about any long-term structural improvement in the Scottish economy."
That is why my hon. Friends and I will be voting for the Opposition amendment tonight.
6.48 p.m.
Mr. James Sillars: It is not traditional, but I should certainly like to associate myself with the remarks about the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson). It could not have been easy for him to make a maiden speech after the powerful intervention by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I am a great reader of the columns of The Scotsman, and I have noticed that among the whole plethora of letters someone has criticised my hon. Friend as being a wobbly Member of Parliament. That was before we had the privilege of hearing him address
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this House. I think that everyone will join me in saying that his contribution was far from being a maiden speech by any wobbly Member of Parliament. It was one of great wit and eloquence, and I for one look forward to hearing him again.
One aspect of his speech was ironic. Most hon. Members on the Labour Benches and certainly on the Treasury Bench were elected to Parliament on a programme condemning the policies of the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath). It is an ironic commentary on how far the Labour Party has veered away from the basis of its election victory to hear my hon. Friend praise the right hon. Gentleman's intervention in my hon. Friend's by-election.
This Parliament started with severe criticism of norms and authoritarian attitudes to pay. Anybody who does not believe me should dip into the speeches of my right hon. Friend the Lord President. The early attitudes were by no means accidental. They arose out of the manifesto on which the Labour Party fought the elections of February and October 1974. That manifesto did not say that the idea of free collective bargaining or of workers seeking a good rise from a multinational motor company—one of the richest in the world—was a danger to the national well-being. What the manifesto said in its introduction was:
"Injustice is the enemy of national unity".
At present there are workers who are unemployed in numbers hitherto unprecedented in post-war years. The extent of poverty—I know that some of my hon. Friends will deny this—has increased, not decreased, over the last four years, and also the extent of human unhappiness among working-class people has increased rather than decreased in that period. There is still a great deal of ostentation around to rub home the injustice which four years ago the Labour Party said was the enemy of national unity. While shipyards have shed men and steelworks and pits have closed in areas hitherto prosperous, we all know that there has been no rush of bankruptcies among the owners of five-star hotels.
This Parliament came about because of the promotion of one single basic idea

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called the social contract. It figured prominently in Labour's election manifesto. This is what it said about the social contract:
"It is not concerned solely or even primarily with wages. It covers the whole range of national policies."
The manifesto goes on to expand its meaning:
"Labour describes…the firm and detailed commitments which will be fulfilled in the field of social policy, in the fairer sharing of the nation's wealth, in the determination to restore and sustain full employment. The unions in response confirm how they will seek to exercise the newly restored right of free collective bargaining."
Therefore, in the grand strategy to regenerate British industry and revitalise economic life wages were properly in-included, because one cannot exclude the consumption power and expenditure patterns of 25 million insured workers. Wages were properly included—but so were all the other crucial factors in the working parts of a modern economy. I refer to pricing, manpower planning, research and development, training, retraining, the spread of wealth, the right to work with its attendant benefits in relaxed attitudes to change and demarcation, planning and the control and direction of investment. They were all inherent in the arguments that led to the compilation of the social contract.
That was all part of a comprehensive attack on the inherent weaknesses of our economy for the Socialist purpose
"to cause an irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power to working people and their families."
The original social contract rested correctly on the analysis of the inherent weaknesses of the British economy. Between losing office in June 1970 and the resumption of responsibility in February 1974, there was a fundamental debate inside the Labour movement about where it had gone wrong between 1964 and 1970—an analysis of the problems of capitalism moving into a new crisis.
I remember one purple patch upstairs at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party when the present Chancellor of the Exchequer regaled us with an analysis of the problems and crises thrown up by international capitalism. At the end of it all, we emerged with "Labour's Programme for Britain" in 1973 which gave
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rise to the manifesto which incorporated the social contract. That gave fuller recognition to the post-Empire decline, with its inevitable loss of captive markets, with nothing basically to replace them, the erosion of our resource base by staying east of Suez far too long, the loss of our capital stock by constant massive investment overseas, and the serious lack of any planned strategy for an investment-led recovery.
The result of that internal debate was what was widely recognised as the most Socialist manifesto on which the Labour Party had ever fought an election since 1945. The great tragedy came in July 1975 when we were faced with the inevitable difficulties that always arise at the end of a statutory or non-statutory wages policy, because Labour allowed itself to be panicked by the Treasury into a further round of wages policy. From then on the gift of Socialist analysis which had brought forth the manifesto was put aside. Our Chancellor of the Exchequer swallowed capitalist thinking and practice as a man born to it, namely, that when capitalism is in trouble one blames the working people and attacks their wages —and it is even better if one is in the City of London when the Labour Government are putting their boot into trade unionists.
In four years we have been in full retreat from the platform on which the Labour Party was elected and from the concept of a comprehensive regenerative approach. The results for working people are appalling. Unemployment is at post-war levels but perhaps the major condemnation of the Government on employment lies in the position of our young people. By definition, they are the most dynamic and vital part of our society; they are the most optimistic of our inhabitants and their vision is undimmed and their optimism has not come up against the problems that life inevitably brings. Yet these young people, whom we have encouraged to take part in the education system, and whom we have groomed to take the advantages that can be offered for a good life, are now totally frustrated in the dole queues and on street corners. They are turning sour. Inevitably, there will be social problems and consequences arising out of a deliberate policy to maintain high levels of unemployment.

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Perhaps the greatest crime of all that we can level against the Treasury Bench is that it has introduced for the first time ever in the Socialist movement the idea that there is an acceptable level of unemployment.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot)indicated dissent.
Mr. Sillars: I see that my right hon. Friend disagrees with that statement. I have heard him say ad nauseam that these levels of unemployment are unacceptable, but unemployment has almost doubled since Labour came to office. Therefore, statements to the effect that such levels are unacceptable do not reduce the dole queues.
What Labour has done is to ease the anger which used to emerge from working-class people when unemployment started to rise. When last was there a TUC demonstration of the magnitude we used to see when unemployment was rife? The last demonstration I attended in Scotland was organised by the Scottish TUC. A total of 4,000 of us marched through Glasgow in the morning like a defeated army. On the next occasion that we tried to organise a demonstration against unemployment involving the Clyde confederation, the Scottish TUC and Glasgow trades council we were lucky to see 300 people turn up at the demonstration. That shows how demoralised working-class people have become about unemployment.
When we persuade people collectively to accept high levels of unemployment, we also persuade them collectively to accept a permanently socially submerged section of our society. Each technical leap forward in a modern economy will leave more and more people in the category of permanent uemployment. It will leave them easy prey to people such as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat). That is the legacy of four years of retreat. The double tragedy is that all these sacrifices have been in vain. I have never understood how one is supposed to promote expansion or create full employment by first creating mass unemployment. That kind of argument is absurd. There has been no fundamental turn-round in the state of the economy of the United Kingdom. Oil has partly saved the day, but only temporarily, be-
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cause there is more myth than reality surrounding the value of the oil revenues.
Like the right hon. Member for Down, South, I would put my finger on the main problem as being the obsession with wages policy, which has meant that everything else has been taken out of focus. We have become almost sick in the mind about the contribution of wages and apparently cannot understand that other matters are involved in the production of policies for curing, or contributing towards a cure of. economic malaise.
When have we seen in the Labour movement over the past four year the promotion of planning agreements being made compulsory rather than voluntary? When have we seen the arguments about the need to control the flow of capital? Where has there been the same agony as we have seen over wages over the constant loss of our industrial capacity? Because of the obsession with wages policy, the Labour movement has not presented the public with the other factors that matter.
I find it incredible that the obsession with wages policy should continue to possess the minds of Ministers and others. I do not think that there can be any question about the disastrous effects of wages policy, both in diverting attention from other more substantial economic issues and in wreaking havoc in industrial relations.
I should like to take up the point made by the right hon. Gentleman, who spoke about the skill that is employed in industrial negotiations, about how men in the trade union movement come up through a very hard school and learn their craft as they go. When they finally emerge in front of an employer, they are capable of a whole series of very subtle but important judgments valuable in negotiation.
One of the great tragedies about statutory and non-statutory "statutory" wages policies is that we are quickly producing a generation of trade union officials and management who know nothing about negotiations. We are destroying the ability to negotiate.
I give the House an example from my own experience. A couple of years ago I served on an arbitration panel as

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the teachers' nominee. We were discussing problems in phase 2. We discovered that they arose from the fact that in phase 1 negotiations took exactly 30 seconds. One side came in and said, "It is phase 1 on offer" and the other side said "We shall take it". There was no attempt to analyse the anomalies and the problems that would arise. We discovered later that the problems did arise. The negotiating skill was not there, as it had been previously. We are not training apprentices now in industrial negotiations.
Wages policy is not new. I can recall being caught in the first wages policy trap in 1961, when I was a serving fireman. From then to the present date on and off—more on than off—we have had almost constant wages policy.
The proponents of wages policy cannot claim that it has not worked, by their definition, given that one of their definitions—an important one—is worker acceptability. I have sat here for about eight years and seen three Prime Ministers argue with critics that X million workers have accepted phase 1, phase 2, phase 3 or whatever. For example, last year there were constant arguments between my right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) about who genuinely spoke for the working-class movement. My right hon. Friend would say that X million workers, 11 million in the TUC, had all happily and satisfactorily accepted a particular norm. Therefore, by the Government's own definition, it has worked. If that is so, why has there not been a turn-round in the economy?
Mr. Giles Radice:Three has.
Mr. Sillars: My hon. Friend says that on the day that the Government have produced a 12½ per cent. minimum lending rate. I shall remember that "There has" in about two months' time, when we meet the next crisis. There has been no fundamental turn-round in the economy. If wages policy was the magic key, it has been put in the door for nearly 17 years, so why has the door not swung open to what the Tories call "lasting prosperity"? We are chasing a holy grail that we shall never get our hands on, while the real world goes in exactly the opposite direction.
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We are like the medical men of old. It is not unusual for the orthodox mind at any given point in a society's history to claim that it is absolutely right and to say that it is a lot of nonsense for critics to criticise a certain policy. The proponents of wages policy today are like the medical men of mediaeval times who believed that the main way of solving some problems was to bleed the patient. When he did not get better, they bled him again, and when he died their diagnosis was that whatever else he died of it was certainly not bleeding. It is the same with the proponents of wages policy today. They say that whatever else the British economy ails of it is not the repetitive dose of wages policy. I disagree.
My right hon. and hon. Friends have tried Heathism and monetarism. I believe that it is time for them to try a fair degree of Socialism.
Finally, I want to speak about the position of the Scottish National Party. When the right hon. Member for Down, South finally told us the exact position about the vote tonight, I did not look at the Government Front Bench to see how the Whips were reacting. I looked at those on the SNP Bench, and I was not at all surprised to see more than a ripple of relief spread among them. It would have been a laugh if tonight at ten o'clock, as in the First World War, everyone had mobilised for something he did not want and finally got it.
I do not think that anyone here, or certainly inside Scotland, is unaware of the tactics of the SNP, which wants to keep this Labour Government in office for a period yet, but whose Members nevertheless want to go back to what they believe are basically Conservative constituencies and say "We have clean hands. We voted against the Government. Do not blame us ", and then add sotto voce "Thank God for the Ulster Unionists."
I stand open to correction on this, but I think that the following is a fair point. Twice in recent Scottish political history two groups have come from Scotland to Westminster with a fund of good will drawn from almost the whole of Scotland, including many who did not vote for them. The first group was the Clydesiders, and they proved worth sending. The quality of their speeches, the clarity of their thought and ideas, and the purposeful,

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principled action that they took, based on a clear strategy, made them and all that they stood for renowned in every part of the United Kingdom and well outside its boundaries. They did not achieve all that they came to achieve, but they laid a foundation for considerable advance and were an inspiration for generations to come.
The second group was the SNP, which came in February 1974 billed as "The Magnificent Seven" and then in October 1974 as Scotland's team. I can only conclude that that is the lot that Ally McLeod played in Argentina. I think that it is fair to say that those SNP Members carried a great deal of good will from people in Scotland. I remember a woman in my constituency telling me that, although she had voted for me and the Labour Party, she was nevertheless delighted that SNP Members were here in a group, because she thought that that would be, to quote that interesting phrase, "good for Scotland".
The fact is that when we examine their performance we see that the SNP Members have never won a debate or an argument, even when the facts were on their side. They are renowned for one significant action here in regard to the working class in the West of Scotland—tearing up telegrams from Scottish shipyard workers and workers in Scottish Aviation at Prestwick. They are also renowned for voting against public ownership.
I can recall that when I addressed Clydeside shipyard workers at Yarrow's yard during the Garscadden by-election I said that I was not there to attack the SNP candidate, Keith Bovey, for his pacifism. In West Scotland pacifism is a most honourable tradition. All the men nodded. I said "I am here to attack him and his parliamentary group for their vote in relation to the public ownership of shipbuilding, which we do not say guarantees your job but guarantees the ability to bring your pressure to bear on the people who will decide about your job."
Throughout the last four years that SNP Members have sat in this House they have lacked cohesion and strategy and they are—as they have shown themselves to be today, and there will be problems
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when they go back to Scotland at the weekend—hopeless tacticians.
The right hon. Gentleman the leader of the SNP says that he judges things on the basis of "good for Scotland." He has demanded certain guarantees from the Government. I say in relation to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. Privy Council Office, that I have found him to be most receptive to the ideas that we have put to him for the Government engaging, quite properly, in the referendum within declared Government policy.
What about the Conservative Party? The political reality is that if there is an election on 6th December, we shall have either a Tory Government or a Labour Government. What guarantees has the right hon. Gentleman sought from the Tories in the time up until now about the Scottish Assembly? It is not enough to say that they will have a referendum. There is a mighty difference between having a Government who favour an Act and having a Government who disfavour that Act and who will actively campaign against it.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: I can quite imagine the hon. Gentleman's interest in the SNP, as he is speaking as a leader without a party and is probably quite desperate to find some followers somewhere and is having great difficulty. However, does he not accept that within the Labour Party there is a very substantial number of people against a Scottish Assembly, and they will vote against it and do nothing to help it? Equally within the Conservative Party, which will be campaigning against it, some people will be voting for it.
In those circumstances, bearing in mind that the Government have refused to commit any resources in response to the hon. Gentleman's request or, indeed, even to issue a leaflet of explanation, as was done prior to the EEC referendum, why is he taking such a supine view? Is it really the case that he is desperately afraid of losing his seat in a by-election?
Mr. Sillars: I would rather be in my party with no members than be a member of the hon. Gentleman's party. But I will take the hon. Gentleman up on a point. Nobody is better able or more proper to intervene than the hon. Gentleman, because in the very last debate that

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we had in this House on the Scotland Act, or the Scotland Bill at that time, he and I were in the Chamber along with my right hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor), when the Tory Front Bench spokesman was asked to declare whether the Tories would not use the power of the Government machine to campaign if they were the Government before the referendum took place. The hon. Gentleman will remember very clearly that in no way did they give that commitment.
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) earlier in our debate on the Address. One of her most bitter complaints was against the hon. Member for Cathcart on Radio Clyde, in "Clyde Comment", when she claimed that he did nothing but waffle while he was put on the spot in relation to what a Conservative Government would do. What guarantees has the hon. Gentleman got from the Tories?
What guarantees has the leader of the SNP got from the Tories in relation to the function of the Scottish Development Agency and the level of its budget? The SNP has been complaining about the Conservative Party not spelling out in detail how it would cut public expenditure. I am not asking the Conservative Party. I am asking the right hon. Gentleman whether he asked the Conservative Party and if he got a satisfactory answer which would meet the test, "Is it good for Scotland?"
The right hon. Gentleman is in a bit of difficulty. That is understandable. It was not in his prepared notes.
Let us move ahead to the other two much more major issues, from the SNP point of view, and they are oil and independence. That is what the right hon. Gentleman came here in relation to—not an Assembly, but independence. I checked the manifesto yesterday. Will it be easier or more difficult to extract from Westminster at least a share of that oil, with or without an Assembly? If there is a Tory Government here, there is no chance of that happening, especially if we have no Assembly north of the border. If we have an Assembly north of the border, for the first time in Scotland's history the people of Scotland will have an institution through which they can
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come and talk to Westminster not in a partisan, party-political sense but in an institutional sense, with the Scottish Administration meeting the British Administration, putting together and placing before the latter a comprehensive case for a share of the oil based on justice.
I would think that tactically, indeed strategically—
Mr. Gordon Wilson: The hon. Gentleman is living in cloud-cuckoo-land.
Mr. Sillars: Well, the hon. Gentleman has actually got to argue with me that if the Conservative Party came into office and there was no Assembly that would mean oil for Scotland and would bring independence much more quickly than seems to be the case at the moment.
I believe that the SNP is absolutely cynical about the vote tonight. I do not think that at the end of the day anything will save SNP Members from the consequences of their own folly. One must go back a very considerable period in the history of Scotland to find the Scottish people so badly served by a group of self-appointed generals. The only time that I can think of is Flodden. The best description of the Scottish National Party is that if they had been in charge at Flodden we Scots would have lost even if the English Army had been on our side.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. In the interests of the 17 hon. Members who are anxious to take part in the debate in the two hours, roughly, remaining, I feel compelled to say that some brevity should be exercised. If we have half-hour speeches we shall be able to fit in only four speakers during the rest of the evening before the winding-up speeches. Hon. Members should try to accommodate each other by being as brief as possible.
7.17 p.m.
Mr. John Pardoe: It is nice to break the Scottish run and almost a Scottish monopoly. Nevertheless, although it is not actual tradition, I, too, pay my respects and offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on his delightful and witty maiden speech. I hope that he will be

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with us for a long time and will make many such amusing speeches in the House.
I shall follow the arguments of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) in a moment when I come to deal with the question of pay policy. However, although this is primarily an economic debate, I want to deal first with what is essentially a political matter, and that is the vote tonight.
Some surprise seems to have been expressed in certain quarters, some on the Labour Benches and some even in the always correct British press, that the Liberal Party should be going to vote against the Government tonight. The starting point, I suppose, is a curious article which appeared in The Guardian yesterday by Mr. Ian Aitken, for whom I normally have great respect. On this occasion he wrote a load of rubbish. He said:
"Thanks to some skilful tactical footwork by Mrs. Thatcher, the 13 Liberal MPs seem certain to be forced to join the Conservatives after all in the Division Lobbies."
He went on to say:
"Tempted by Mr. David Steel's weekend declaration that the Liberal Party would not vote in favour of Tory economic policies but would have been ready to vote for an early general election, Mrs. Thatcher and her Shadow Cabinet colleagues sensibly decided to put the Liberal Party to the test. As soon as the amendment went down Liberal MPs were in no doubt that they had been out-manoeuvered."
That really is standing the argument completely on its head. The fact is that there has never been any doubt in my mind or in the minds of all but one of my colleagues that we would be voting against the Government at the end of these days of debate on the Queen's Speech.
My right hon. Friend the leader of the Liberal Party has made it clear that as we ended the agreement with the Government in the summer we believe that a General Election is now appropriate and timely. Of course we were not going to say that we would be voting against the Queen's Speech willy-nilly whatever was in it, any more than the official Opposition would say that. That would be a ridiculous stance to take. We have said on several occasions—I have said it myself and my right hon. Friend the Mem-
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ber for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) has said it—that it would be hard to imagine a Queen's Speech that would persuade us that it was in the national interest to postpone a General Election any longer.
That is a reasonable formula. Anyone, even those in the press, should be able to understand it. It means that we shall vote for a General Election. That is what we shall do today. Our problem on this occasion, as on others, is that, unfortunately, there are only two Lobbies. That is a great disaster in terms of parliamentary democracy. However, that is with us and we can do little about it. Votes are always seen by the press and the two party dinosaurs in the House as either for the Government or for the Conservatives. We do not accept that grotesque limitation of choice. We realised that the amendment on which the vote would take place would be crucial. Having announced our intention to vote for a General Election, we had to ensure that the amendment enabled us to do so.
The vote at the end of the Queen's Speech debate is bound to be on an amendment tabled by the Official Opposition. That is another of the disasters in this place. That is another indication that the House is ruled by dinosaurs. We were somewhat afraid that the Conservative Opposition would bungle the amendment. We tabled our own amendment not because we thought that it would be selected—we knew that it would not—but to give hints to those who needed them. My right hon. Friend followed that up by a weekend speech in which he told the Conservative leadership what to write or, more importantly, what not to write. Never have so many hints been dropped.
Even the brain of the dinosaur proved capable of absorbing some sensation. The Opposition amendment reads as though it was written by someone who had our amendment on his desk. It does not call upon the House to support a lot of old Tory rubbish. If it had, it would have been impossible for us to vote for it. It does not even ask for the return of a Tory Administration. O, modesty!
The vote tonight is for a General Election. It is not a vote for a Conservative Government. It is certainly not a vote for Conservative policies. It is a vote for a General Election, when all parties in the

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House and all politicians may put their respective policies before the British people and let them decide. That has always been our intention, and I do not know why there should have been any doubt about it.
At the beginning of the debate the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition made an extremely important speech about Conservative attitudes to incomes policy. I shall take up one or two of her remarks. She said:
"All Governments from time to time have had incomes policies".
The right hon. Lady listed the dates. I fundamentally disagree with her. Britain has never had an incomes policy. It has had a series of incomes freezes at temperatures rather less than freezing. In other words, we have had a series of nil-plus-something norms. If we say that a freeze is at zero, zero plus one is a freeze rather than an incomes policy. We have not had an incomes policy from any Government.
The right hon. Lady was right to attack a rigid national norm. She accepted that any Government had to take a view of the general level of wage settlements commensurate with the projected growth rate. She said:
"The dispute arises, I think, over whether that view is an average or whether it becomes a norm. I must say very strongly indeed that in our view that figure is an average and can never be a norm except in conditions of emergency."
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has had some fun with that. I am not surprised. It is pretty easy to have fun with it. However, without a sophisticated pay policy it is impossible to distinguish between a norm and an average. Having taken a view about a desirable average, how will a Conservative Government go about achieving it? If that is not to be done by making it a norm, who will decide who is to have more than the average and who is to have less?
Having picked up what might have been an extremely interesting piece of speculation, the right hon. Lady dropped it like a hot brick. Instead of following it through and declaring what sort of incomes policy would enable a Conservative Government to distinguish between the two factors and impose some sort of average on the country, she reintroduced
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the dreaded cure-all of responsible collective bargaining.
Speaking of the breakdown of the Conservative Government's pay policy—she called it a breakdown, I did not—she said:
"It broke because after one has had a certain number of rigid phases, one must in fact return to responsible collective bargaining."
Was not the reason for the rigid phases of pay policy that she was castigating the fact that responsible collective bargaining had broken down? All Governments tried responsible collective bargaining, and under all Governments responsible collective bargaining broke down and failed. It was only when responsible collective bargaining failed that Governments turned to some form of rigid pay policy.
The right hon. Lady says that the reason for the return to responsible collective bargaining is that rigid phases of pay policy have broken down. Where does that lead us? It seems that we can have neither rigid pay policy nor collective bargaining. It may be that I have the right hon. Lady's argument slightly wrong. It may be that she believes that the trouble with the collective bargaining that we had in the past was that it was not responsible. That begs a vital question about the three words "responsible collective bargaining" Who will decide what is responsible? If the Government make a decision, they become as firmly entrenched in pay policy under the right hon. Lady's proposals as ever they have been.
The right hon. Lady referred to one fundamental factor, namely, the effect of the monopoly power in the labour market. On 1st November she referred to
"whether trade unions have so much power that they will abuse that power."—[Official Report, 1st November 1978, Vol. 957, c. 27–30.]
She said that the Prime Minister should be addressing himself to that issue, but so should she; so should we all. Some of us have been addressing ourselves to it for many years. The only conclusion that we can draw is that most of our modern inflation has been caused by the interaction of two factors. There is the Keynesian commitment to full employment, which I wholeheartedly share, and there is the monopoly bargaining power of trade unions, which has increased enormously in Britain.

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The right hon. Member for Down, South made a sophisticated, argumentative and seemingly logical speech. I remind hon. Members on the Left wing of the Labour Party, whose heads were nodding so vigorously throughout that splendid deployment of the argument, that the right hon. Gentleman's argument on immigration controls sounds just as logical in his mouth. It is extremely dangerous to be led along these subterranean logicians' paths by the right hon. Gentleman. The fact is that today the right hon. Gentleman was virtually denying that monopoly power in any market can ever have any effect on prices. That is a nonsensical conclusion at which to arrive.
In the long term we must reduce the monopoly bargaining power of trade unions. We cannot do that by measures such as the Industrial Relations Act. That measure would have centralised trade union power. That was its purpose. Its aim was to give more of the power to the hierarchies in the trade unions and less to the shop floor. We can tackle the problem of monopoly bargaining power only by diffusing power to the shop floor by means of a radical change to industrial democracy at plant level. That will take time, and meanwhile we shall have to continue to control the price that monopoly suppliers of labour can charge through an incomes policy. That means an incomes policy that will last not from year to year, but for at least five years. Such a policy must be flexible but enforceable.
That can be done only by having regard to the labour force's share of the wealth which the enterprise in which they work creates. I get a bit sick of hearing trade union negotiators at Ford saying that the company can afford to pay because the company has made profits. I dare suggest that never at any time in the negotiations over the years have the trade union negotiators on behalf of the Ford workers asked the company seriously for a profit-sharing scheme, yet as a result of the Finance Act 1978 they could, if they put pressure on the Ford company, ensure that every member of the Ford labour force could have up to £500 a year this year, tax-free, in the form of shares in the company. They would have real assets in the company
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and a share of the wealth, which I believe some Labour Members want. But the trade union negotiators have never asked for that. Of course the Ford company will not give away its American wealth in that way to mere British workers, but I believe that if the trade unions were to negotiate for it that they could get it and solve a large number of their problems.
We need a pay policy based on the principle that for a five-year period labour costs must stay constant as a proportion of the added value of the enterprise. That cannot be inflationary. If its added value increases its labour costs can increase. Where an enterprise increases its labour costs as a percentage of added value it and its employees must incur a penalty, and the best penalty, in our view, is an increased tax burden on the individual firm and its employees.
I know that many Members on both sides of the House will disagree fundamentally with that kind of argument, but many of those who disagree with that sort of pay policy believe in what they call incomes policy. It is up to them to come up with a flexible but enforceable incomes policy, because that is what everybody in this House who believes in incomes policy is trying to find.
I do not believe that we can do without pay policy. The right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) played with words this afternoon when he said that he was in favour of something called a policy for pay. I do not know how a policy for pay differs from a pay policy. I think that it is just a question of rearranging the words to make it sound a little less awful to some of the monetarists behind him. The question is not whether we have incomes restraint, but what kind of incomes restraint we have. The Government are now incapable of devising, or are unwilling to devise, an effective pay policy. That is one good reason for having a General Election as soon as possible.
The Government are also incapable of coming to a decision on the European monetary system, and again we are in great danger of missing the European bus. We have had to go into Europe cap in hand—a Europe fashioned by other hands long before we got there and long before we were able to influence its shape.

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If we are not very careful we shall be the only EEC country which will be so weak and have so infirm an economy that we shall not dare to put our feet into the European monetary system. Have we really reached the stage where we cannot go even where Italy dares to tread? Is that what the Government have brought us to?
Mr. Russell Fairgrieve: Yes.
Mr. Pardoe: This is a nonsensical argument. The fact is that there are technical arguments one way and the other about European monetary stability. We can enter into all those arguments, but the basic political imperative is that we must be there in shaping the future institutions of Europe, just as we should have been there in shaping the foundations of Europe. It is a tragedy that we were not there, and it will be even more of a tragedy if we are not there shaping the European monetary system in the future. The reason that the Labour Government cannot come to a conclusion on this is that they are bargaining from the weakness of a total and utter split within the Cabinet over the very first principles of European policy.
The immediate economic outlook has not been improved in the mind of any of us by the action of the Bank of England and the Treasury today on interest rates. Three months ago it seemed that the world's view of Britain had changed for the better. There was certainly a new confidence about. The Prime Minister was even heard to claim that somehow his great contribution to Britain was that he had made this country governable again. That has all changed. One of the most worrying things in recent weeks when talking to investment analysts, business men and bankers from abroad has been to hear them ask "What has happened to Britain?" They refer to the strikes and to the excessive wage increases.
Who will say that the Ford claim is responsible? Does it appear responsible to the Conservative leader? What about the bakers' claim? The cost of bread has gone up by 23 per cent. since the beginning of this year and the workers are now asking for a 26 per cent. increase in wages. It is a totally irresponsible claim by any standards and it must not
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be allowed to go through, but what will the Government do about it?
Mr. Tom Litterick: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned bread prices. We know that the world has had two successive bumper grain crops. We know that the basic prices of producing bread have fallen to rock bottom. We also know that the price of bread in the shops will not fall. That has nothing to do with wages. I suggest to the hon. Member that it is irresponsible even to suggest that it has anything to do with wages. It has to do with the kinds of market mechanisms that the world's people have to face.
Mr. Pardoe: It has everything to do with monopoly. The major part of the bread industry in this country is now in the hands of two companies and the union has the labour side tied up. Where capitalists and union are working a monopoly together they are able to squeeze the last ounce out of the consumer, and that is what is happening in the bread market. It has to do with wages, but it has to do primarily with the monopoly—
Mr. Litterick: No.
Mr. Pardoe: —in the bread market. It is a question of the power that collusive monopoly gives to a trade union, as in the case of this particular trade union. It is that which has enabled the prices to be raised.
Mr. Roy Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has talked about the trade unions squeezing the orange dry. The trade unions do not seem to have been squeezing very hard in this case, as I think the hon. Gentleman will agree, because the workers in the industry get only £41 for a 40-hour week.
Mr. Pardoe: It is a pity that some Labour Members have not read a letter that was written by a rather better Socialist, Frank Field of the Child Poverty Action Group, in The Guardian yesterday. Talking of the sorts of increases now being claimed by, for instance, the printers on The Times and the Ford workers, he went on to say:
"These are just some of the differences in rewards which result from free collective bargaining. Free collective bargaining, however responsible, does not help the agricultural

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workers, the nurses or the millions of other low paid workers who are not covered by trade unions. Moreover, they are witnessing a determined attempt by the powerful unions to break incomes policy."
That is as good a Socialist view as any that will come from the Labour Benches.
Mr. Norman Atkinson: What did he say about the bakers?
Mr. Pardoe: The man whose main responsibility is to look after the interests of the low paid in Britain believes that free collective bargaining is one of his worst enemies, and one of the worst enemies of the low paid. So it is.
The virtual collapse of pay policy that we are now witnessing and the obvious inability of a lame-duck Government to do anything about it are in my view good enough reasons for holding a General Election. The sooner we hold it, the better.
7.40 p.m.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: In view of your request to limit our remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall try to be as brief as possible. I make one comment on the speech of the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe). We have been here before. It is rather like a nightmare which returns every two or three years. Each time it comes back it is more intense than it was on the previous occasion. The interesting thing about the low paid is that every time we have an incomes policy we are told that it is necessary to help the low paid. Yet at the end of each incomes policy we discover that the low paid are still the low paid. They are still at the bottom of the pile. Their position is worse than it was before. I remind the House that low pay does not stop being low pay because of an incomes policy.
Look at what happened to the former Leader of the Tory Party, the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), who occupies—when he is here—the Bench below the Gangway. Let us look at what happened in 1973, after periods of statutory incomes policy. We did not introduce a statutory incomes policy. Well, we did and we did not. It was and was not. The truth is that it has been an incomes policy for three years and it is remarkable that the trade union movement has been willing to go along with it
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for that time. However, the unions have now said quite categorically that they are at the end of the road.
The other day the Prime Minister said that 5 per cent. was the Government's policy and that they were not moving from it—rather like King Canute as he went beneath the waves. Yet today he says that there is to be free collective bargaining. That is the case. The trade unions are no longer prepared to accept an incomes policy of the type we have had, or to accept a 5 per cent. norm. The Labour Party is not prepared to accept that either.
My hon. Friend for South Ayrshire, (Mr. Sillars) made an absolutely marvellous speech, particularly his devastating remarks about the Scottish National Party. I hope that every one of those remarks is reported back in Scotland. I particularly like the reference he made to the battle of Flodden, when he said that the Scottish nationalists would not have won even if the English had been on their side. I am not surprised that this is the view taken by himself and others in Scotland.
My hon. Friend is quite wrong on one point. He talked about the retreat of the Labour Party. I would like to make it quite clear that the Labour Party has not retreated. We have not gone back on our manifesto. The Labour Party has been having a discussion with its right hon. and hon. Friends who make up the Labour Government. The Labour Party is not entirely the Labour Government. It is not exactly the same thing. The Labour Party conference passed a resolution calling for an end to incomes policy, to any suggestion of a 5 per cent. norm. Let us be clear. It is not the Labour Party which has retreated; it is my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench who have tended to depart from some of their policies.
A great deal of our manifesto has been carried through and this has been beneficial for the ordinary working people. I am not ashamed of any of the progressive measures that have been enacted by the Government, supported by the Labour Party. We may, however, have objected to certain policies when there has been a retreat on the part of my right hon. and hon. Friends. We are at the end of the road for the incomes policy. That

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does not mean that we line up with the Leader of the Opposition or the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). Although one or two of us may have nodded on the odd occasions when the right hon. Gentleman said something about the role of trade unions and trade union officials, we are not accepting the monetarist concept. We do not believe that the answer to our problem is to produce a squeeze, which is bound to create unemployment. That is likely to happen on the right hon. Gentleman's arguments as much as it is if the Opposition's policies were followed.
My right hon. and hon. Friends have to recognise that if we are to make any further progress there cannot be this 5 per cent. figure, like some phallic symbol, as if it were a test of manhood. It is as though we had to prove ourselves. That is not good enough. People will not accept this. It is creating an artificial barrier through which they are bound to break. This is happening and my right hon. Friend does not seem to realise it. Workers are settling above 5 per cent. It is true that my right hon. Friend boasts of those who have settled below 5 per cent. but a lot of others are settling above that figure. The policy is now as dead as the dodo. That ought to be recognised.
If the Government want to concentrate on a wages policy they should concentrate upon something decided by the Labour Party conference, namely, the introduction of minimum national wage legislation. That is the Labour Party's policy, carried at our conference. That is the only thing that we have argued. Beyond that there should be free collective bargaining, based upon the arguments which trade union officials are able to put up and the strength of the workers in relation to their industries.
We were told that, without an incomes policy, there would be an increase in unemployment. The truth is that we have had incomes policies and an increase in unemployment. Some of us said that an incomes policy would not prevent unemployment because unemployment is inherent in the capitalist system. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire. The way to deal with unemployment is to carry through Socialist policies. I do not agree with
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him if he believes that we can carry out such policies in isolation.
We cannot have a nice Socialist Utopia in Britain and nowhere else in the world. That will not work. Whether we like it or not, we are subject to market forces throughout the world. In all of the countries of the Western world controlled by market forces unemployment is high. This is true of all the Western capitalist world. There is no isolated planning of our resources and of the economy in a Socialist direction. We have to move in a Socialist direction, but we must not delude ourselves that we can do so in total isolation.
I will be brief because I know that many of my hon. Friends wish to speak. I had a nicely written-out speech, which I fear would have lasted at least 20 minutes, possibly half an hour. I want now to direct my remarks to my right hon. Friends A small group of people meeting in Downing Street round a table is not necessarily correct about everything. Those people might be correct about many things, but not necessarily all.
My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) made an excellent maiden speech in the tradition of the late John Mackintosh. Incidentally, it was politically on much the same lines. I liked John Mackintosh very much. My hon. Friend said that the Government's policies led to his victory at Berwick. We had just had the Labour Party conference at which there had been a good old dust-up and differences of opinion between the Front Bench and members of the Labour Party. Therefore, it could also be argued with much the same justification that the debate on wages at the Labour Party conference was responsible for our victory at Berwick.
The debate at the Labour Party conference was serious. People there were trying to get to grips with inflation, but with different approaches to how it should be solved. I think that the British people welcomed that serious debate rather than the "phoney" debates that take place at the Tory Party conference.
Mr. Max Madden: What about the Liberal Party conference?
Mr. Heffer: I do not watch the Liberal Party conference, so I do not know what goes on there.
Mr. Madden: It is a good show.
Mr. Heffer: I take my hon. Friend's word for that. Perhaps next time I shall look at it.
The TUC is opposed to the continuation of an incomes policy—particularly the 5 per cent. It wants a return to free collective bargaining. The Labour Party conference was equally opposed to it. Let no one believe for a moment that those delegates who voted were only those with block votes in their pockets. The constituency parties voted by an absolutely overwhelming majority in favour of getting rid of the 5 per cent. I watched the original vote. People try to twist things the way that they see them, but I was watching that vote from the platform. A card vote was called for, and that completely consolidated it.
The British people are fully aware of the Labour Party's stance on incomes policy. I ask my hon. Friends not to be like King Canute. They must not pretend that they can stop the waves from coming in. The waves are not only coming in, but they will overwhelm them.
It is nice being popular on the question of wages no strikes are taking place, when bread is regularly available, when the lights are on and when the trains are running. It is marvellous. The right hon. Member for Sidcup was popular until things began to happen and people got stuck in lifts, the bins were not emptied and the trains did not run. Are we to have a winter of discontent similar to that?
Some of the anger of the people will be turned on trade unionists—it always is—but a great deal of that anger will also be turned on the Labour Government. People will ask "Why did you not act more flexibly? Why did you put up the barrier? Why were you acting in this way, particularly in relation to public services, sewage, water?"
I suggest that we can breathe a little easier tonight and that, as we shall continue in office for a period, there is time to deal with this matter before it is too late. I appeal to my hon. Friends to consider the decisions of the Labour Party and the TUC. They should not believe
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that 12 or so people in Downing Street know best. Perhaps the Labour movement knows better than they do when it comes-to incomes policy.
7.55 p.m.
Mr. Russell Fairgrieve: When we consider what has happened to the British economy over the last four years and then look at our industrial competitors in Western Europe, as well as the position in Japan and America, we are entitled to criticism this Government's handling of our economy. Without going into all the details of productivity, we know that, by any measurement. we are not as efficient as these countries and it is now affecting the standard of living of all our people.
It does not matter whether we take the number of people needed to produce a car in West Germany or the number of hours it takes to produce a television set in Japan, the message is always the same—productivity in Britain is lower. As a result, our standard of living is now lower.
In Western Europe, the working population have better pensions, better benefits, higher wages and shorter hours, and the gap is still widening.
If this is happening under our present policies, surely we should change them. It has never been my habit to mount only a destructive case, but I believe that even this Government should face up to some radical changes. These changes must be in taxation, wage policies and industrial strategy.
It is quite ridiculous that in this country, with our huge unemployment problem, we should have tens of thousands of vacancies for skilled people in, for example, electronics and engineering. But is this not understandable when people can receive virtually as much take-home pay for being under-employed and over-manned in an unskilled job as they would get after years of training to make themselves proficient in skilled careers?
Again, whilst it is absolutely vital that those who are out of work, through no fault of their own, suffer no hardship to their families or themselves, surely the gap between that position and the lowest wage earners should be wider.
All industrial history shows that to preserve jobs in industries where the

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demand for the products has changed may for a short time help employment, but in the long term destroys it. Our competitors seize upon every technological advance because they know that this makes the product cheaper, therefore available to a much larger market, and so the eventual result is more people employed in the industry concerned.
Here the attempt to introduce new technology more often than not leads to manning disputes; attempts are made to retain a higher than necessary work force; productivity drops and the product becomes too expensive for a wider market, with the inevitable consequence of higher unemployment and lower wages for those retained to work the new technology inefficiently.
I see that the chairman of the TUC has now suggested that price rises, not wage rises, are the cause of inflation. How is it possible to hold prices unless every increase in wages is accompanied by better productivity? For how long can a country award itself an annual wage increase without an annual productivity increase?
Again, on taxation, there must be a cutting of rates at all levels and there should be some adjustment between direct and indirect taxation. It is far better, and it gives people far more incentive, to tax spending than to tax earning, and this is what a shift from direct to indirect taxation means.
On the problem of wages, which is currently causing areas of disagreement in both political parties, may I say that some day, somehow, there must be a return to responsible free collective bargaining in industry. If that is agreed and can be accepted by the whole population in the long-term interests of this country, then how should the start be made?
To make this start means moderation in large sectors of earnings so that a start can be made to get real wages and differentials up in other sectors, which can then become the expanding high fliers which will eventually haul up everybody's standard of living in their wake. I suggest that the place to start is in productive manufacturing and particularly exporting industry, which is the area which gives the nation its standard of living. This of course means Government responsibility to hold wage increases
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at a lower overall level in all those sectors where basically the job is administrative. service and governmental.
I end by saying that the measures that I have outlined should be accompanied by movements to start reducing Government expenditure of the GNP from its present 60 per cent. towards 40 per cent. This can be done by putting large parts of the public sector over to more efficient private management. Besides raising the income level at which taxation begins, a start should be made on reducing the present top rate on earned incomes of 80 per cent. towards 60 per cent. The present legislation and bureaucracy should be pruned and savaged to allow enter-price and initiative to flourish and there should be introduced immediately exemptions to many provisions of the destructive Employment Protection Act to firms employing below a certain work force and with turnover below a certain level.
To those who disagree with what I see as ways of making a start on getting the standard of living of the British people catching up with that of our friends across the Channel I would say let them spell out clearly other methods of doing so.
8.1 p.m.
Mr. Giles Radice: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on his outstanding maiden speech and join in his tribute to John Mackintosh, whose eloquence, integrity and courage were an example to many of us. For me at any rate he was one of the outstanding Members of this House.
The trouble with the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) was that it was in two parts and that those two parts did not hang together. First, he criticised the Government for interfering in collective bargaining and then spent a great deal of time telling the unions how to run themselves. He said little that was positive about Tory policy, except that the Tories would brandish guidelines —I think that that is the phrase he used —which was stirring stuff and will, I am sure, bring his party many votes.
I, too, want to discuss incomes policy, which, as the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Fairgrieve) said,

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divides both parties. I do not underrate the problems caused by incomes policies, particularly in their fourth stage. There are arguments over anomalies and differentials and the distortions which they can create in the labour market. There are the problems created for unions by shop stewards who want to go back to what they see, understandably, as their main function of bargaining about pay.
All this causes considerable difficulty, although I do not accept the argument of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that the reason for our industrial relations problems being always highlighted is incomes policy. That is far too simplified an explanation, but I agree that incomes policy causes many difficulties.
Despite those difficulties, however, having looked at the matter for many years, I do not see that there is any alternative. Of course there are many causes of inflation—the price of raw materials, the pricing policies of particular companies and industries and the actions of Government, including taxation policy and control of the money supply; and, as we have seen over the last few years, changes in the international money markets are often beyond our control and have an important effect on prices in this country.
All these factors have to be taken into account in the formulation of policy, but I do not see how one can dismiss pay from price determination, considering all the evidence that we have had, particularly in 1974–75. I can still vividly remember Hugh Scanlon, one of the great supporters of unrestrained collective bargaining, saying, "I looked over the abyss and I did not like what I saw." We should remember what happened in those years before we extol the virtues of unrestrained collective bargaining.
Of course it would be possible, as the Prime Minister has said, for us completely to abandon any form of incomes policy and to rely on fiscal and monetary controls, but in the end that would almost certainly mean much higher unemployment and would certainly be at the expense of growth. The beauty of incomes policy is that it enables one to combine policies for reducing inflation with policies for reducing unemployment. One cannot do that with unrestrained collective bargaining.
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In any case, the phrase is a bit of a myth. When a third of all employees are working, in some form or another, in the public sector, the Government will have to take a view about their pay. Whether one likes it or not, that is one of the facts of life.
I can understand the free market supporters of the Conservative Party being in favour of this kind of bargaining. What I fail to understand and would genuinely like to know is how some of my colleagues who are good Socialists can still believe in the merits of unrestrained collective bargaining. I ask them, what about the impact on fellow workers? What about fellow workers' jobs? What about fellow workers' living standards? What about low pay? It is unrestrained collective bargaining which has to take the major share of the blame for the existence of low pay. What has created the differentials over the years but unrestrained collective bargaining? As Sid Weighell said at the Labour Party conference—
Mr. Litterick: He is a great authority.
Mr. Radice: He is certainly a great authority. As he said, under free collective bargaining, those with the biggest snouts get the biggest share. I do not happen to believe that is a very good Socialist policy.
Mr. Litterick: Is my hon. Friend seriously suggesting that there was no low pay until there was collective bargaining? He must face the logic of his own arguments. If he is asserting that low pay—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that this is an intervention, not a speech. Will he please address the Chair?
Mr. Litterick: Is my hon. Friend seriously suggesting that low pay did not occur until what he has called unrestricted collective bargaining occurred in industrialised economies? If he is not saying that, what is he saying?
Mr. Radice: I am not saying that. What I am saying is that under unrestrained collective bargaining the biggest rewards go to those with the biggest power. It is not a recipe for reducing differentials. It is only under incomes

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policy that any attempt has been made to reduce those differentials. It has not been entirely successful, but it is only under incomes policy that the attempt has been made.
I am often told by my colleagues that once we get to a Socialist society things will be different. But I have never understood how one gets to Socialism by aping the most selfish attitudes in society today. I do not believe that that is the way forward to Socialism. For Socialists, I believe, there is no alternative but some kind of incomes policy.
Of course, I accept the argument that incomes policy, and this stage of incomes policy in particular, can be improved and should be improved. The most important thing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian said, is that incomes policy should be seen to be fair. One key element in fairness is that those who settle within the limit should have at least some guarantee that others will also settle within the limit. That is the major problem at the moment. That indeed was one of the main arguments put for a statutory incomes policy on the lines of that of the Conservative Government.
My own experience of statutory incomes policy on the lines of that of the last Conservative Administration is that it is counter-productive. But the Government must have some weapons in their hands. The sanctions they possess at the moment are patchy and not always credible. There is a case for strengthening the powers of the Price Commission to refuse price increases to companies which deliberately and obviously flout the pay limits.
On issues like low pay, differentials, anomalies and so on, we have had over the past two or three years a plethora of ad hoc inquiries producing all sorts of results. The reason is that they have no consistent policy or view. So I think that there is a case, despite trade union opposition, for a body set up on a voluntary basis and with the participation of the trade unions which could make considered judgments on matters of this kind. Trade union participation is important for two reasons. The first is that collective bargaining is at least partly a bargain between trade unions as well as between employers and trade unions. It is a bar-
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gain about how the cake is to be shared by employees. The second reason is that, if the trade unions do not participate in making policy, they have no right to criticise if the policy is wrong because they have not shared in trying to work out the details.
I also agree with those who say that incomes policy must be seen in a broader context. That is why I believe strongly in the idea of a social contract Prices have to be taken into account. It has to include all kinds of incomes and wealth and it must be seen as part of a move to greater equality. It will also have to be supported by moves towards more industrial democracy. That is why I welcomed the mention of industrial democracy in the Queen's Speech. Many more people are coming to believe that trade unionists must have a greater share in the running of industry. Trade unions have considerable power, but it is a negative power. On the whole, it is a power to stop things happening. I should like trade unionists to have more positive power and much more constructive power.
Finally, I say a word or two about this House. Many of us now agree that Members of Parliament should play a greater role and have greater powers in the surveillance of Government policy, especially economic policy. It will not surprise the House to learn that I am a strong supporter of the proposals of the Procedure Committee to strengthen the Select Committee system as I was a member of that Committee, and I am disappointed that there is no mention of this in the Queen's Speech. I hope very much that over the next few months the Government will make a statement that they support the main proposals in the report of the Procedure Committee. It would be ironic if a Government who in so many other respects have rightly prided themselves on democratic reform did nothing to reform this House.
The Queen's Speech deserves wide support in this House. Once again the Government have shown themselves to be a reforming Administration with policies which they are prepared to see through. It seems that they will secure a majority in the House tonight, and I am certain that, whenever the General Election comes, they will also have the backing of the British people.
8.13 p.m.
Mr. John Biffen: As the first English Conservative to take part in the debate from the Back Benches today, I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on a charming and engaging maiden speech. We liked his references to his predecessor, who had friends in all parts of the House, and I must say that I welcome the hon. Gentleman's arrival as a reinforcement to the dwindling band of patrician land owners in this House. I hope that he will be able to bring his considerable agricultural experience to bear in our debates in the future, if only to correct the obvious misconceptions of the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe), who was able to conduct an inquest upon the recent price of bread without taking account of any of the evidence supplied by the Food and Drink Industry Council that the Common Market levy on wheat was as high as the world price itself.
However, this is not one of those pastoral occasions, and therefore I turn to the economic debate which has preoccupied the House and say how refreshing it was to hear the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) digress a little upon incomes policy.
The hon. Member for Walton is the divine discontent of these debates. Ever since the halcyon days of the 1966 Prices and Incomes Act he has been here, baleful, irritated, hectoring, warning and usually being vindicated about the ineptitude, inadequacies and foolishness of the policy. But I thought that the discontent was that much sharper today because something called "monetarism" seems to have infected many parts of the House hitherto thought to be immune from the disease.
It is one of the fascinations that whether it is experience, fashion, events or conviction, there is no doubt that among many hon. Members—including, for all I know, the Lord President—there is now an acceptance that monetary policy is indispensable in the management of economic affairs, so much so that at one stage today the Chancellor of the Exchequer berated my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) for using arguments which were
"giving monetarism a bad name."
That might be a useful starting point for what contribution I have to make. It
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is that although monetary policy has a central role it is not the exclusive requirement of economic policy. The Prime Minister, who, rather like a mediaeval schoolmarm, is addicted to the three-legged stool, says that he wants a monetary policy but also a tax policy and also, of course, an incomes policy. He rather distanced himself from my right hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench, thinking that he stood for qualified monetarism whereas they stood for some crude, unrefined product.
The Prime Minister is very amiable and I have a great affection for him. However, there is a learning curve, and the truth is that the right hon. Gentleman has arrived at refined monetarism about two years after my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), because in his Stockton lecture of 1976 he said:
"monetarism is not enough; there are other parallel imperatives".
It seems to me that it would be a truly helpful pre-election debate if we could concentrate upon what were the most appropriate supporting policies of monetarism.
The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have made it quite clear that, for them, incomes policy is in a major supporting role. At this point I think that it is always helpful to define for oneself and one's audience just what is meant by "incomes policy". In my mind there is only one definition which is adequate. It is that it is a policy which gives the Government or their agencies the power to identify, select and enforce differential wage movements throughout the whole economy. It really is to that that the present Government have committed themselves, including the Lord President, who is one of the most unhappily reformed characters on the Treasury Bench.
There are many cases which can be made against this policy. They have been made with great force today. I shall not be repetitious, but I want to add four reasons why I think it is a policy which is defective and which in its totality can be profoundly dangerous.
First, it is an absolute illusion to suppose that incomes policy will produce higher productivity. If anything, it will

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lead to marginal distortions which in their cumulative form are damaging.
Secondly, I do not believe that incomes policy will relieve poverty, because the politicisation of wages almost certainly leads to higher unemployment than otherwise for those in low income brackets. In any event, I am inclined to agree with the hon. Member for Walton who said that on the cumulative evidence it did not look as though it was very effective to that end. If this House wants to do something about poverty, which is a legitimate objective, it has to be done through social policy—for example, a policy in respect of child benefits—or through the tax system. That is the way to do it, rather than attempting to politicise wage negotiations.
Thirdly, I do not believe that an incomes policy will disarm trade union power. Eventually, the unions are more likely to try to accommodate it in a corporatist fashion. However, I must dissent from my pair, the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice), because it seems to me that the more he elaborated the role that he was casting for the trade unions the more my analysis seems to be justified.
Mr. Radice: That is not so.
Mr. Biffen: I am glad that the hon. Member has made himself clear. Perhaps we can debate this on another occasion.
Mr. Litterick: We should.
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Litterick) confirms my wisdom and I am worried. Perhaps we can adjourn this debate and continue it on another occasion.
If there is genuine concern about the exercise of trade union power, one should make no mistake. That invites the House to consider the appropriateness of the present law and how it might or might not have to be modified.
Finally, the policy will lead to a deep sense of injustice over a period of time. If I were to have to identify the most likely source of injustice from the present phase of incomes policy it would be the application of the black list. Does anybody seriously suppose that if British Oxygen concludes a settlement outside the 5 per cent. British Steel will be invited
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not to order oxygen from BOC? Does anybody suppose that the same injustice and the same law, enforceability and rigour will be applied to British Oxygen as to some luckless road haulier in the West Midlands? The question has only to be asked to render the answer. Once again it is a demonstration of how the policy teeters between farce and tyranny.
If that is not an appropriate supporting policy for monetarism, what is a preferable alternative? My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East in his Stockton speech said:
"The strict and unflinching control of money supply, though essential, is not enough. We must also have substantial cuts in tax and public spending and bold incentives and encouragements to the wealth creators, without whose renewed efforts we shall all grow poorer."
I should like to test that policy against the Queen's Speech and our immediate situation. I believe that there is a requirement on the House to see that there is a curb on public spending so that it is stabilised in real terms. That is an immediate and attainable objective. In the context of the Queen's Speech it means a rejection of the enhanced role being sought for the National Enterprise Board.
Mr. Michael Morris: Does it not also suggest a rejection of the further reorganisation of local government?
Mr. Biffen: Yes, but I do not wish to make my hon. Friend's speech.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Fair-grieve) that there must be a change in the balance of taxation so that we tax people more in their spending capacity than in their earning capacity. In the present context I believe that the regulator should be used in respect of excise duties on alcohol, tobacco and petrol. I do not believe that we can defer that increase in taxation.
The Government must so arrange their spending and taxation that the borrowing requirement does not necessitate an over-reliance on high interest rates. The present level of borrowing is profoundly unhealthy for the conduct of public finance. That fear is validated by the movement today of the minimum lending rate to 12½ per cent. The balance is inappropriate.

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The only immediate action that can be taken is the use of the regulator as a preliminary to budget estimates which will be converted into public spending of the restrained character to which I have referred.
I turn to the question of trade union reform. The debacle of "In Place of Strife" and the efforts involving the Industrial Relations Act may persuade hon. Members that somehow or other that item has been taken off the agenda. However, I do not think that it has. Again and again there will be growing anxiety that the House should address itself to this delicate, social and political issue.
The Prime Minister said:
"Not crossing the picket line has become an expression of solidarity to a degree which I certainly did not know in my younger days."
I wonder whether he thought of that at the time of Saltley or when he was advising the Leader of the House on what legislation was appropriate for trade unions in the early part of this Parliament. The Prime Minister continued:
"There are a few wild voices today which are seeking to thrust vital groups of workers into the forefront in the belief that the State will not in the end be able to resist a withdrawal of labour by such workers."
We should address ourselves to this subject with considerable delicacy. As a West Country radical I always warm to the Leader of the House in his denunciation of those great established interests in the land which he thinks from time to time need a little verbal discipline. For occasional reference I keep his comments close by me. Some years ago he said:
"Trade union leaders are not a special breed of humanity, always to be shielded from the rough breezes of democracy, rare birds to be protected by special game laws."
That is not the rhetoric that I would recommend when approaching the question of trade union reform. I would rather turn to the Prime Minister, who said of the industrial democracy provisions:
"We hope that as far as possible the arrangements for extending industrial democracy in factories and workshops will be secured through voluntary agreement and through negotiation."—[Official Report, 1st November 1978; Vol. 957, c. 40–53.]
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I should like to see reform within trade unions proceed on a voluntary basis, but we delude ourselves if we think that at the end of the day there is no role that Government, State or Parliament can fulfill.
I turn to tonight's debate. The supporting roles which I should give to monetary policy are to be preferred to the Government's reliance on incomes policy, although ultimately that is clearly an issue to be debated and judged by a wider electorate. I believe that the present economic situation is deteriorating. On the whole I should prefer an early rather than a late election. The county of Shropshire is adequately represented in numbers and exquisitely represented in membership. Therefore the problems do not arise for me as they arise in the Province of Northern Ireland. I appreciate the arguments portrayed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), but I suspect that a pre-election Parliament will simply not be invested with that sense of austerity which our present situation requires. I think that an election will end that situation and at least offer a chance of monetary policies being buttressed by overall liberal actions rather than being buttressed by the steady and debilitating intrusion of the State into every boardroom and on to every shop floor.
8.30 p.m.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Perhaps the House will forgive me for not taking up some of the arguments about which party has done the most somersaults on incomes policy over the last few years, or go down the by-road on the question of trade union reform, because I do not believe that playing with the symptoms solves any problems.
Perhaps I can do what other speakers have done and refer to the programme on which I and my colleagues were elected in 1974. The right hon. Members for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) and Down, South (Mr. Powell) did that, and to some extent so did the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) when he referred to his own recent by-election. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his maiden speech.
We in Plaid Cymru were elected under three main headings. One was constitutional change. Although the proposed

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Welsh Assembly under the Wales Act is far short of what we would like to see, it is something which is worth establishing and we welcome the announcement of the date of the referendum. A number of other problems need to be sorted out in Wales in relation to the referendum, and we believe that in all probability we shall have a somewhat more constructive approach from the present Government than from a possible Conservative Government, because the Conservatives have had nothing but a totally unconstructive approach to the whole question of the referendum and the Welsh Assembly.
The second heading under which we stood for election related to the economic well-being of Wales. For many years we pressed for the setting-up of a development authority. We now have the Welsh Development Agency. In many ways its work is falling short of what we would hope, but at least it is there and it is doing some good work. We also pressed for a development authority in rural Wales. That has been established and is doing excellent work in all directions. We pressed for an economic plan. We do not yet have that, but it is something which we hope will still progress. I suspect that we are marginally more likely to get it from a Labour Government than from a Conservative Government, although both Governments have been sadly lacking in this direction.
The third heading under which we stood election was that of safeguarding the Welsh language. Our language interests are known in this House. This Government have increased contributions to several bodies relevant to the Welsh language and have taken some steps on the most critical question of the establishment of the fourth television channel in Wales. We feel that the delays until 1982 in the timetable announced this summer by the Government are totally unacceptable. We hope that there will be some way of streamlining this critical path. We also hope that funds will be available for the early establishment of more Welsh language television programmes for children. We also welcome the announcement in the Queen's Speech of greater resources for the teaching of the Welsh language.
It is against these three headings that we must measure the Queen's Speech. When the announcement was made that
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we were not to have an election this autumn, Plaid Cymru made its position quite clear in relation to the forthcoming Session. We made it clear that there was no question whatever of our doing what the Liberal Party did—entering any sort of pact agreement or coalition. We also made it clear that there were certain issues for which we would be seeking in the Queen's Speech, and that we would judge the Speech on its merits with particular regard to those issues and to any other relevant matters.
The issues included primarily unemployment, and we stressed the need for additional funds for the Welsh Development Agency in order that it could step up the work which it must undertake to get more jobs for Wales. We referred to the need for compensation for slate quarrymen suffering from silicosis, for those hundreds of people suffering from this terrible disease and for the widows of many hundreds more. We stressed the need to accelerate the fourth television channel as well as the need for a Bill to provide more funds for teaching the language. We stressed the need for leasehold reform—there are several areas in Wales where there is a severe problem in this direction. We pressed for help for young persons going into agriculture who were trying to buy a farm for the first time, something which is virtually impossible these days.
Let us look at what the Queen's Speech contains in relation to these headings and our general programme for the last election. The Financial Times, not a newspaper which I always quote in relation to Welsh interests, spoke of "unprecedented Welsh measures" in the Queen's Speech. The BBC reported it as the "Welsh" Queen's Speech. I am not quite sure whether it was a Welsh Queen or a Welsh speech, but the BBC made the point. Therefore, four of the six issues which we itemised had, to a greater or lesser extent, been included in the speech. Subsequent to the Queen's Speech there have been further announcements. There is the possibility of progress on leasehold reform in this Session. We had the announcement of 1st March—St. David's Day—as the date of the referendum, to encourage agricultural production and we also had welcome steps this afternoon to help small businesses.

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We cannot in all conscience vote against a Gracious Speech with such a massive Welsh content. That is a point that has been recognised not only by ourselves but by the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howell), who will go in a different direction from the rest of his party tonight.
However, we must stress that we are not in any way putting ourselves in a pact with this Government. In the coming months we shall continue to do what we have done in relation to this Queen's Speech—try to measure any proposal on the balance of its content. We shall support items that are of relevance and benefit to Wales and oppose those that are not.
I take this opportunity to warn the Government that if the electricity reorganisation, referred to in the Queen's Speech, follows in detail the lines of the Plowden proposals, we shall most certainly oppose it. I warn the Government even more that if a proposal comes forward to increase the price of petrol by 20p a gallon, with all the serious consequences for the rural areas, we shall do everything we can to stop it.
This brings me to the Conservative amendment tonight. As the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) said, this is really an amendment calling for an election rather than judging the economic content of the Queen's Speech. Personally, I would have been very glad to have had an October election. On the day that the Prime Minister announced that there would be no election, my party won a seat in my constituency on the local council that it had never won before. We achieved 63 per cent. of the vote in a three-cornered contest.
But there was no election and now we must balance against a possible election the consequence of losing this programme for Wales. Would any new Administration, whether Conservative or Labour, go forward with these sort of proposals? The Conservatives would not.
I wrote to the Leader of the Opposition on 15th September to ask what the Conservative Party had in mind for Wales. It was interesting that on two questions I drew an absolute blank. There was no response. I asked a question about the Conservative attitude to reducing
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unemployment and increasing the effectiveness of regional policy, which has been eroded. There was not a word of response on that. I asked what proposals a Tory Government would have for helping those people who were suffering from silicosis and pneumoconiosis, and surprisingly there was not a peep of a reply.
But, then, there is a possibility that Labour would win the next election. However, there is no guarantee at all that we would see these measures forthcoming from a new Labour Administration. There might be new priorities. Other measures that have been excluded from this Queen's Speech might find their way into the next one, in a new Government. Therefore, in the interests of Wales we feel it is necessary to go forward this Session and get these measures accomplished.
That does not mean that we are happy with the unemployment figure which has passed the 100,000 mark in Wales. We have heard this afternoon of the declining unemployment in Britain as a whole, but this has not been the pattern in Wales in recent months. Unemployment has passed the 100,000 mark for the first time in 40 years.
We seek a degree of economic planning that we have not had before in Wales. We want to make sure that we do not underspend against the cash limits that we have as in previous years. Last year we underspent by £57 million in Wales against cash limits. Of this, £17 million was on roads, £14 million on housing and £26 million on water and sewerage services. That £57 million is equivalent to 10,000 jobs. This is something that we want to see avoided next year.
We want to see initiatives on communications—on our air services and roads—in Wales. We believe that there is room to look at the possibility of more stockpiling of certain types of steel, of coal and of coke. In this context particularly the Nantgarw coke ovens most certainly could be kept open within the rules of the ECSC.
We look for an accelerated house building programme. It is ridiculous that there are 16,000 house building workers unemployed in Wales at a time when there are 60,000 people on the waiting lists for council houses and there are

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over 100,000 unfit houses in Wales. This could be done and done quickly.
We look for progress with earlier retirement, cutting unnecessary overtime, the reactivation of regional policy and a restriction on non-essential imports.
We suspect that we would not see any of these measures from an incoming Conservative Administration. Certainly in the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) there was not one positive proposal for overcoming the economic problems of Wales.
Governments are elected to get things done. We look to Governments to respond to the circumstances and the needs of Wales. Of itself, having a Labour rather than a Tory Government is insufficient. We contend that only when we have a Government who are aware of Welsh needs and a group of Welsh MPs who are independent of London party Whips will things get done in Wales. That is the rationale of our existence here. We hope that soon we shall be able to sort out our own problems in our own Parliament. In the meantime, the menu offered by this year's Queen's Speech represents as much as we are likely to get in present circumstances from this or any other London Administration. For that reason, we shall vote against the amendment.
8.41 p.m.
Mr. Norman Atkinson: Those of us who have been sitting through the debate and who have been able to do our arithmetic and translate speeches into votes can calculate, if we understand correctly what the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has promised to deliver, that the majority will be three in the Division and that therefore the Government will survive.
That takes me on to the speech by the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) and, at the same time, back to the days from which he was quoting. He quoted my right hon. Friend who is now the Leader of the House. In those days, I think that the hon. Member referred to me as "20 per cent. Norm". I can assure him that the same arguments do not apply now. I am arguing not for a 20 per cent. norm now, but for the total abolition of norms. That is the only change that I can detect in our argu-
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ments as they have developed over the years.
I link Oswestry with Down, South in the sense that the money gurus come repeatedly to the House and display this aplomb, this absolute brass neck in the way in which they present arguments which are not supported by a shred of evidence. The monetarists' whole case is unfolded yet again and massive assumptions are made. These economists make their assertion in support of their case without producing any evidence. No other profession in the world could do that and survive.
When the right hon. Member for Down, South reads his speech tomorrow, he will see there contradictions on the question of velocity in the economy and what happens as a result of the rapidity with which money is used and the effect of the rapidity of exchange within the economy and its effect on money supply.
I consider today's announcement about minimum lending rate to be outrageous. An increase in bank rate at this point is an affront, almost deliberate sabotage of what is being done to the economy. It is as though the Government had devoted themselves to devising a method by which they could deliberately increase unemployment and scuttle any hope they have of a successful wage policy. If many of us had been asked to devise a way by which to undermine wage negotiations and a return to full employment, we would have nominated an increase in the interest rate of 2½ per cent. at least. That decision will have a greater effect on inflation than will a hundred Ford-type settlements. That must be in our minds when we appreciate what will happen as a result of a minimum lending rate of 12½ per cent.
I have been challenged by Labour colleagues to substantiate the call for the abolition of the present wage policy. Many hon. Members have referred to the policy as the voluntary-involuntary policy, or the statutory non-statutory policy. I have been asked why Socialists such as myself are opposed to these ideas. I wish to take a few moments to set out my view.
All wage policies in a mixed economy, and certainly in a capitalist economy, are of necessity policies of wage restraint. They cannot be otherwise. There is no way in our kind of economy

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in which we could devise a wage policy by which it is possible for a Government to instruct employers in the private sector to increase the wages they are paying to their employees. Again that cannot be done.
Therefore, in that context there is no transfer of resources. There is no way in which the Ford workers will say "We will stand back to enable somebody else to have a little more". There is no mechanism by which we can transfer resources or move wage levels in our economy. Certainly by such a method one cannot transfer resources from the private to the public sector, particularly into the social services. The present policy by its nature is a policy of wage restraint. If we put upon it a figure of 5 per cent., with an inflation rate of about 8 per cent. this year, we know that even if we allow for the tax allowances in respect of increased margins, thresholds and all the rest of it, it must mean a drop in living standards this year. In these circumstances, the Government should not expect their supporters to argue in favour of such a policy.
In face of an increase in MLR to 12½ per cent., it must be regarded as sabotage to say to workers that their levels must be lowered. That is a lethal argument when the whole of our activities should be directed to the attainment of economic growth. Part of the alternative strategy in seeking to get out of our present difficulties is to go for growth. However, we cannot take that course if restraints are built into the system. Such a policy assists an employer who is hostile to a wage increase.
The phrase "free bargaining" is a misnomer. I have never heard of an employer standing at the factory gate handing out spare wage packets and saying, "Here is a little more. Please take it with you because it might help."
Mr. Litterick: Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason the Government are afraid to go for growth is that they do not have a trade policy to allow them to go for such a policy without the community immediately incurring a devastating penalty?
Mr. Atkinson: My hon. Friend has put the point precisely. In the absence of some restriction on trade and imports,
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my hon. Friend will know that it is not possible to go for growth because the methods which would have to be employed by the Government to obtain it would have to be hived off into additional imports. That would be a contradictory policy.
Let us consider what the Government's policy will mean. The Government are envisaging the start of a permanent wage policy. The longer this continues, we all know that there will be no hope of getting away from the permanent element built into the system as it now stands. On 31st July next year we cannot suddenly escape from the limits of the restraints built into the system. However, we know that there is a General Election in the offing—and what is quite certain is that the Labour Party will not go into it with a manifesto based on a permanent wage policy.
For the British Labour Party, on the basis of the conference decisions, there will be no phase 5 spelt out in our manifesto. There will be no arguments at the next General Election that this party is campaigning on the basis of a further incomes policy. I am certain that that will not be in the manifesto. That is what the discussion is about and why the debate is so important.
What has happened? What are the effects of the present wages policy? What is the distortion? I shall relate the answer to the Ford question a little later. This morning I dug out some overtime figures, which are staggering. I am sorry that my Socialist friends who argue for a permanent wages policy are not here, because I should like them to know that overtime comes into the matter.
Over the post-war years we have had a dominance of incomes policy, a whole succession of incomes policies. That fact has ensured that overtime working is now an integral part of our system in industry. At a time when we have more than 1½ million unemployed, the overtime figures are alarming.
In the week ending 12th August, the latest date for which we have figures produced by the Department of Employment, in manufacturing alone 30 per cent. of the work force worked 8·8 hours overtime each per week. About 1,600,000 workers worked a total of 14 million hours overtime a week in manufacturing alone in August. In July the highest

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weekly figure was 17½ million hours of overtime in manufacturing. All this was because of incomes policies.
One assessment made not by the Department but by the trade unions, in a survey based on 2½ million manual workers in the service industries, is that 18 million hours' overtime a week is worked in those industries. When we put the figures together we see that there is an overwhelming case against what is happening. The whole fabric of our industrial life is now conditioned by the hours of overtime that are available.
If we reduced the hours worked by married women working in full-time jobs as well as the hours of overtime, there would be a revolution in the country. Then we should see exposed the true character of wage rates and the fact that we are a low-wage society.
I now turn to the argument about Ford, which is very interesting. I shall take a 10-year period from July 1968 to October 1978. In July 1968 grade E workers, skilled workers, were receiving the equivalent of 56½p an hour. Their latest rate, up until 21st October this year, was 194·2p an hour. That is the top skilled rate at Ford, the one that is now being argued about.
Over the 10-year period the grade E workers—there are five grades—have gained 21p an hour in advance of the retail price index. They have increased their living standards over that period by 21p. an hour.
It is possible to measure precisely what is happening at Ford. Having had some experience of machine shop techniques, I have had a look at some of the figures. The comparison in metal removal, the weight of metal and everything else is exact.
What has happened to the Ford worker? I have looked at all the figures relating to manufacture of a four-cylinder engine and exactly comparable retail prices from the same source. In 1968 it took a grade E Ford worker—a skilled worker, I remind the House—90 hours to earn enough to pay for his own product in the engine shop. Today, although he has gained on the retail price index by 21p an hour over the 10-year period, he takes 105 hours to earn enough to pay for his own product,
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viewed in exactly equivalent terms. So who has gained as a result of an incomes policy? What is happening to restraint? Does that benefit the customer? Does it benefit the nation? It certainly does not benefit the Ford worker in the purchase of his own product.
What has happened on the railways? We have comparisons there, too, in what a weekly ticket costs in terms of hours to be worked by an engine driver. It takes an engine driver now far longer to earn enough to pay for a weekly ticket—to pay for his own product—than it did 10 years ago. One can go through most of the trades in the country and ask skilled workers particularly, but all workers in all grades, doing a precise exercise, how long it takes a worker today to earn enough to pay for his own product as compared with 10 years ago, and one finds that he has to work longer.
So it is against the interests of the workers and of trade unionists generally to support policies of this sort. These are the reasons why we are opposed to, and have consistently opposed, the introduction of a wages policy of this sort. So, without going into the interesting questions that have been raised about monetary policy, I want to deal with some of the major issues about wages policy and the reasons why we should get rid of it shortly.
I hope that within my remarks there is ample evidence that the case against wage policy is based on fact, that, a long way from being a Socialist proposition, it is against the interest of the workers we on this side of the House claim to represent. That is the contradiction. That is why we say that the sooner the Government come to the conclusion that we have to start practising policies and an alternative strategy, not only on cheap money and a stable pound—these are essential ingredients of the alternative approach—and allow workers responsibly to negotiate against prices that they can agree, whether in the public sector or private industry, the better. Let trade unionists come to grips with the price of their own product. Let them bargain their wages against prices in the way in which they have often claimed the right to do.
Mr. Ron Thomas: My hon. Friend will have noted that the Gracious Speech talks

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about industrial democracy. A number of our colleagues are much in favour of industrial democracy while being at the same time in favour of a statutory incomes policy. Would not he agree that the best piece of industrial democracy for working people is to be able to negotiate their terms and conditions, wages and salaries, of employment?
Mr. Atkinson: Exactly, and not from the position of being board members. We are not advocates of that in this position. Let us talk about industrial democracy as a means of creating a mechanism whereby workers can responsibly bargain, backed by planning agreements, in a fair and equitable agreement with employers across the table, first, on their own wages and, secondly, on the question of the price of their own product. Let all workers become involved in the battle against inflation. In the coalfields, let the National Union of Mineworkers talk about the price of the miners' product in its wage bargaining.
The whole question of subsidy and the rest and of the allocation of resources should be a matter with which trade unions are directly concerned. If they are saying that in some area of industry the bargain that they are about to strike means an increase in the price of their product above the goal set by the Government, we have to talk seriously about a reallocation of resources, subsidy and the rest.
There is I believe a positive alternative strategy which can get us out of the position in which we are placed. Yes, free wage bargaining can get us away from mass unemployment; it can allow us to escape from the grip of some of these falling standards to which I have referred. I believe that there is a comprehensive case in support of a shift from the policy being pursued by the Government.
9.0 p.m.
Mr. James Kilfedder: A great deal of frustration and resentment has been building up in Northern Ireland over one aspect of the Government's pay policy which does not affect either England or Wales but which places Northern Ireland in an inferior position in relation to the rest of the United Kingdom. I refer to the pay parity arrangements. In both
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the public and private sectors trade union negotiators in Northern Ireland agree settlements based on negotiations conducted at national level. The purpose is to ensure that Northern Ireland workers obtain the same wages and conditions as workers elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
The rigidity of the pay policy has broken down that arrangement. There is, naturally, a time lag between agreement being reached in London and the end of negotiations in Northern Ireland. If agreement on pay parity had not been reached before the magic date of 11th July 1975, when the first phase of pay policy was introduced, the Government say that parity in pay is not permitted to the Ulster workers. That is a ridiculous situation and one which I cannot countenance.
Many groups of workers are caught up in this nonsense. The argument that is put forward by the Government to justify the injustice is completely without a vestige of validity. If they were sincere about the special cases which are mentioned in the White Paper they would accept that workers in the water services in Northern Ireland in particular are a special case. Some parts of Ulster have been without water supplies for many weeks because of industrial action by these men who are asking only for equality of treatment with their colleagues in England. It is absolute rubbish to deny them their claim on the grounds put forward by the Secretary of State for the Environment.
Meanwhile, towns and villages in the Province have no water to flush lavatories. Schools are closed and children are denied their school dinners. Mothers are driven to distraction in trying to cope with family work, while farms and factories are placed in an impossible situation. I call on the Government to put an end to the crisis immediately.
Some school teachers in technical colleges have been refused the conditions enjoyed by teachers in England. It is alleged that it would be a breach of pay policy to give teachers in Northern Ireland conditions similar to those which their English colleagues have enjoyed for four years. That argument is a complete distortion of common sense.

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That is not the only unfairness which the Government have visited on the people of Ulster. I shall briefly list some of the others in order to explain to the Government and to others in this House why I shall vote against the Government tonight, unlike the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and the six Unionist Members in his parliamentary group.
Ulster housewives have consistently had to pay more for their basket of groceries than have housewives elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The price of children's clothing and footwear is about 10 per cent. more in Northern Ireland than the average cost of these items in England. Electricity costs are three times higher in the Province than in Britain. Gas is about 10 per cent. or 12 per cent. more mostly in Ulster and coal is more expensive than it is in Great Britain. Ulster people have to meet colossal bills for heating and cooking. It is hard on everyone in the Province, but it is particularly hard on pensioners, especially those living in all-electric dwellings. It is against that catalogue of unfairness that one has to judge the average wage level in Northern Ireland.
According to the Government's figures, family incomes in Ulster is £6 or £7 less than the average for Great Britain. The rate of unemployment in Northern Ireland is more than twice the average rate for the rest of the United Kingdom. The proportion of claims for family income supplement is four and a half times what it is in England. The price of privately built homes in Northern Ireland has soared high above the average for the rest of the country, and ground rents and increasing mortgage repayments place an intolerable burden on young married couples in particular. The number of families on the waiting list for Housing Executive dwellings is disgraceful. The conditions in which so many people have to live in Northern Ireland are appalling.
The total picture that I present to this House tonight is one of social deprivation of a kind which has not been experienced in England since before the war. That war lasted six years. Many people in Great Britain thought that it was endless and morale began to suffer. However, the Provisional IRA has been waging its campaign of terror and hate
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in Northern Ireland for 10 long years. For 10 years the Ulster people, with remarkable tolerance, restraint and patience, have withstood that evil terror despite largely hostile news media and Westminster Governments who have frequently treated the Ulster majority with indifference or contempt. The present Government are no exception.
The Ulster people have had enough of English platitudes and English lectures. They want their rights, and I demand their rights tonight. That means not only a standard of living equal to that in the rest of the United Kingdom—which was promised by a previous Labour Government years ago but has not yet been provided—but full British democracy in Northern Ireland.
What have the Ulster people been offered in the Queen's Speech? They have been offered nothing except a paltry Bill to provide a few extra seats. I am surprised that the right hon. Member for Down, South welcomes the Bill and says that getting those seats has been his and his colleagues' main task since the last General Election. The people of Northern Ireland would say to the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends that that is not their main task. Their main task is to harass the Government, not to keep them in office.
The people of Northern Ireland will find great anger in their hearts tomorrow when they read the result of the Division. There is to be no Stormont Parliament for Northern Ireland people, but Scotland and Wales are to have an Assembly. There is to be no referendum for the Ulster people, but there will be referendums for the people of Scotland and Wales. The Ulster people have been offered a few extra seats in this House. That is a mean offer, when we should have had 21 or 22 seats here. What is offered in the Bill is an insult to the people of Northern Ireland.
I disagree with the right hon. Member for Down, South. The people of Northern Ireland are sick of patronising English politicians lecturing them from Westminster. In the name of the long-suffering and hard-pressed Ulster people I condemn the Government. I regret that the Government cannot be defeated in tonight's Division. That is because the right hon. Member for Down, South and

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his colleagues will ensure that they survive.
9.8 p.m.
Mr. Angus Maude: According to a convention, it falls to me to sum up, as will the Leader of the House, today's debate on the Opposition's economic amendment and the whole debate on the Queen's Speech. I doubt whether the right hon. Gentleman or I will feel able to do that in 25 minutes each. I shall confine myself to a considerable extent to today's debate, although it has been assumed by a number of hon. Members that tonight's Division will involve a judgment on the whole of the Queen's Speech.
At the outset I wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Roberston) on his maiden speech, which I am sure everyone enjoyed. It may be that it did not conform completely to the convention that a maiden speech should be non-controversial. However, it was not dull and we shall look forward with enjoyment to hearing him again.
I should also say at the outset that we welcome the decision of the Liberal Party and the Scottish National Party to vote for the Opposition amendment. We note that the representative of Plaid Cymru, having no doubt consulted his colleagues, has decided that he has no confidence in the intentions of the next Labour Government towards Wales. However, he reckons that he has the present Government so firmly over a barrel that he had better keep them there until he has squeezed the last drop out of them.
We also noted that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), after a deep economic analysis of the present position, came to the conclusion that the important thing was to get his Representation of the People Act as quickly as possible. That seems to be the way in which the decision tonight will be taken.
The Queen's Speech was, as we know, quite deliberately designed to keep the present Government in power with as little trouble as possible, and with the maximum support from the fringe parties. Some of my hon. Friends have begun to feel, Mr. Speaker, that this has become a Celtic fringe party Parliament, because today, with the exception of my right
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hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) and myself, only one English Conservative Member has been called to speak—[Interruption.] My right hon. and learned Friend is a Welshman, so that makes the position worse. We have had a slanging match between various Scottish splinter groups, a wide diversion between two separate Ulster Unionist parties, and, in one way and another, the rights of English Members, at least on the Opposition side, seem to some of us, Mr. Speaker, to be in some peril. It is something that perhaps the usual channels might care to discuss.
As to the Queen's Speech, and the amendment with which we are dealing today, I noticed that in an amusing article in The Guardian one of its political writers said about the Queen's Speech that it was so innocuous that it might almost have been written by the Royal Family. Nevertheless, of one thing we can be certain. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech today was so bad—or, at least, the second half of it—that he must have written it himself. We have heard from the representatives of those parties whom the Queen's Speech was designed to attract. Well, a drib here and a drab there—it all adds up to something, one must suppose, but it cannot be said to be particularly attractive when dealing with the economic problems of this country.
This is the last Session of a Parliament in which the tired remnants of this Labour Government might have been expected to make good their boasts and promises of the past with some constructive policies which might do something about unemployment, about industrial expansion and about the creation of wealth.
It is perhaps appropriate that, at the end of the last Queen's Speech in this Parliament, we should look back at the record of the Government, and at some of the things which the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are now claiming, compared with what they once claimed. It is the Lord President of the Council who is to reply to the debate. We remember that perhaps one of the most impressive things he ever said was when he assured the readers of the Daily Mirror, from the

1319
fastnesses of the Department of Employment, that he had not come here to preside over mass unemployment. Being an honourable man, he honoured his pledge to the letter. He got the hell out of the Department and let the new Secretary of State preside over it.
Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The Lord President does not care, does he? Look at him.
Mr. Maude: It was, of course, a perfectly decent and natural reaction for an honourable man, as we know him to be.
"So are they all, all honourable men."
And women, too, of course. I had forgotten the Secretary of State for Education. The right hon. Lady was also on record, at the time of the October Election in 1974, as saying that there was no indication that there were any more price increases in the pipeline. She did not hang around to preside over the largest bout of price inflation in modern history, either.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the only one who has really stayed put, firmly and doggedly. We know what he said in the election of 1974. He said that the rate of inflation was running at 8·4 per cent. He also said on the same day—though to a different audience:
"I"—
note the "I"—
"have cut the rate of inflation I inherited by half."
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said in her speech last week that the Chancellor had said that the inflation rate was 8·4 per cent. Of course it was not. There are some of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have assumed from that that he knew that it was not. I do not assume that at all. Being the least cynical and suspicious of men, I am perfectly prepared to believe that he genuinely thought that that was the going rate of inflation. After all, he has believed so many extraordinary things in his time that it would not be very surprising if he had believed that. He has gone on—and I said that he was the only one who has stayed firmly put—believing so many things, for example, that the economic miracle was just around the corner.
Perhaps the most familiar cry that echoed around the corridors of Westminster and beyond were the words "I
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think I've got it right this time" 13 or 14 times, each time just before the roof fell in on him again. If he believed that—and I am perfectly prepared to believe that he thought it was so—all we ask of him is that he should not try to have it both ways.
There is one thing that follows inexorably from his belief that the going rate of inflation was 8·4 per cent. in the summer and autumn of 1974. It is that if he claimed to have cut the rate of inflation which he inherited from the Conservative Government by half, he must have been claiming that this success was due to the policies and actions of himself and of the Labour Government. In that case, what followed after October 1974 must also have been due to the policies and actions of himself and the Labour Government. He cannot simultaneously claim that and also claim that everything that happened between 1974 and 1976 was due to the so-called mess that he inherited from the Conservative Government. He either got it right by October 1974 or he did not, and he had better make up his mind which it is. He can say now that he was quite mistaken about the 8·4 per cent. figure, in which case the electorate will no doubt view his claims and figures at the next election with a certain amount of reserve, to put it mildly. Alternatively, he can claim that he was right about the 8·4 per cent. figure. Then he has to admit that everything that happened after that was the fault of himself and his Government.
Indeed, if we were in any doubt about this, the most compelling verdict on the Chancellor's record during all these years—and they seem interminable—was provided by the Prime Minister in a speech at the Labour Party conference at Blackpool in September 1976. Hon. Members should take this to heart. The Prime Minister said:
"Over the last three years, whilst our domestic product has risen by 2 per cent. the increase in our public expenditure—including central and local government—has been 18 per cent. We have bridged the gap by higher taxation, by borrowing from abroad and, worst of all—by printing money."
As a good reference for a Chancellor of the Exchequer over those three years and for the Government who supported him, that could hardly be bettered.
The fact is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has stayed firmly put in the

1321
Treasury introducing Budget after auxiliary Budget with the dogged persistence of a gambler chasing his losses at the table: borrowing and borrowing at ever higher interest rates until finally the management—in this instance the IMF—stepped in and put him in a straitjacket.
The right hon. Gentleman is now torn between his desire to tell the country how responsible he is being now and how successful his policies have been and his desire to convince his fellow Socialists below the Gangway that he cannot wait to go mad again.
In March this year, the right hon. Gentleman said:
"I will offer you proper Socialism when we get a decent majority in the House of Commons to enable us to do it.".
That, in the light of the record of 1974 to 1976, is perhaps not the most attractive prospect for the electors of this country. The theory of the cure by a hair of the dog that bit you has, as far as I know, been embraced only by chronic alcoholics, not by sound, sober, sane citizens.
We had always known, of course, that the gall of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was almost unmatchable. But in the second part of his speech today he excelled himself. The right hon. Gentleman spent a considerable time pointing out what he described as splits and divisions in the Conservative Party and in the Shadow Cabinet. I will deal with those later. He asked what we were going to do, and I will deal with that later. But—for sheer nerve, even by the Chancellor's standards, this was pretty good—in the course of talking about splits in the Conservative Party, not one word did we have about the fact that at the Labour Party conference at Blackpool this year, the policy-making body of the Labour Party threw out, by a two-to-one majority, the pay policy which the Prime Minister had consistently said was essential to the survival of the country and, what was more important to him, perhaps, the survival of the Labour Party at the next General Election. How anyone could imagine that the differences of emphasis on the Opposition side compared with that I cannot imagine, because the Prime Minister was saying that his 5 per cent. pay policy was essential to the Labour Government's policies, if not to their survival.
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We have heard the Labour Party conference's verdict repeated again and again by Labour Members below the Gangway today and, incidentally, by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) in what was a striking and helpful speech. Yet, the Prime Minister, who asked us what we would do, still has not told us what he will do.
I noticed in The Guardian a report by, I think, Mr. Peter Jenkins, that at the Labour Party conference the Prime Minister had been overhead to say to the general secretary of ASTMS:
"I'm worried, Clive, I can't see my way through this one."
I must tell the Prime Minister that we cannot see his way through this one either. If we could, not just see his way through it, but even see the direction of the path which he was trying to take, we might find it easier to support it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, come on."] Oh, yes. The Labour Party and the Labour Front Bench can never grasp the difference between a responsible Conservative Opposition and an irresponsible Labour one.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said in her speech, quite rightly, that we should not try to undermine the pay policy of the Government in the same way as the Prime Minister and his colleagues did their best to undermine the pay policy of the last Conservative Government. But if we are to help him—goodness knows it is important enough for the future of this country that these problems should be solved—we must know what he means and what he is trying to do. That is what we simply do not know.
The Prime Minister apparently has said that 5 per cent. is the limit and that 5 per cent. is all that he is prepared to accept, that no one in any industry or firm should get more, subject to a few points on self-financing productivity agreements and so on.
But does he mean it? It does not look to us as if he can possibly mean it. It does not look to us as if, in the light of the Ford negotiations, the Ford strike, and in the light of settlements which have already been made, 5 per cent. can possibly be what he means. We are entitled to ask him, what figure does he mean?

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I shall not waste the time of the House by asking the Leader of the House to answer these questions, because we know that he never answers any questions in any debate at all.
Mr. Madden rose
Mr. Maude: No, both the Leader of the House and I have cut our time to 25 minutes, so I think that I should not give way.
If the Prime Minister—or the Chancellor or the Lord President—will tell us what they mean by this 5 per cent. figure, how far they are prepared to go, how much flexibility they are prepared to allow in negotiations and settlements, we should find it much easier to be sympathetic with him. But it seems to us that he is saying one thing and proposing to do another and that the left hand will not know what the right hand is doing. With the division below and above the Gangway, that is not uncommon in the Labour Party, but in this case it is a little too serious for that to be left where it is.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) said a number of penetrating things about the difficulties of pay policy. We know only too well—we share our knowledge with the Prime Minister and with right hon. and hon. Members opposite—the troubles of pay policy and the troubles that one gets into with pay policies. My record, I think, is fairly consistent on this one. I have always said that circumstances altered cases. [Laughter.] It is surprising that Labour Members should find that so funny. If they do not believe that circumstances alter cases, there is something seriously wrong with them. It is pretty clear from their behaviour that some of them do not. In other words, they have not noticed that circumstances have changed and that they are standing still.
In 1972 and 1973, during the period in office of the last Conservative Government, in speeches at two consecutive party conferences I supported absolutely the pay policy of the then Conservative Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "The hon. Gentleman would, would not he?"] I was not noted for my slavish adherence to the party line. At the same time, I had always believed that only in the very last resort should any Government resort to a
1324
rigid pay policy. But I believed then—and with hindsight I do not change my opinion—that with a quadrupling of oil prices and a 90 per cent. rise in the cost of world food and raw materials, at that time a pay policy, pause or freeze, was essential.
But I never believed then, and I do not believe now, that it is possible to keep any form of pay control going year after year and hope that it will hold. The anomalies, injustices and the squeezing of differentials which will happen inevitably will make it impossible to hold.
Both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister asked what the Opposition would do. Let me tell the House some of the things that we would do. First, we believe that it is essential immediately to cut the rates of direct taxation so that take-home pay is increased without the necessity to make irresponsible pay claims in order to increase take-home pay. We also believe that it is essential to stop trying to prevent the creation of wealth and to stifle and strangle initiative and enterprise. Unless we get rid of some of the disincentives to effort, employment and investment, we shall never create wealth and the jobs that the country needs.
The Opposition are perfectly clear about pay policy—[Interruption]. We are a darned sight clearer than anyone on the Treasury Bench. There we have a Prime Minister who pins himself to a 5 per cent. norm, average, maximum, minimum or whatever he chooses to call it. Because he has pinned himself to it without adequate thought, he has actually provoked a strike in Ford before negotiations have started. A Conservative Government would never do that.
Our pay policy, which was agreed by all of us, is set forth quite clearly in the publication "The Right Approach to the Economy". We have never varied from it. It is there for all to read on pages 13 to 17 of that document. We believe that there has to be flexibility in pay bargaining.
The Prime Minister asked "If some get more, who is to get less?" as though the answer must inevitably be that everyone gets the same. But that is what negotiation is all about. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire made this point clearly. He said that as a result of the

1325
pay policies of successive Governments, negotiation had become a lost art and that the skills and technique of the trained people who knew how to negotiate and how to arrive at a fair bargain had been lost. He was quite right. The longer that this goes on, the more certain this will become.
Unless this Government can say clearly what this pay policy means—and I ask the Lord President to do this—we must vote against them tonight.
It is clear—and the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) said this—that in the last resort tonight's Division is about whether there should be an election. On this side of the House we have no doubt that it cannot come too soon. We should welcome it. We have no doubt that there is no hope whatsoever for the Labour Party. All my right hon. and hon. Friends would love to have an election as soon as possible.
Government Members are euphoric about the Gallup poll, but they should remember what happened in 1970 when the Labour Party had an 8 per cent. lead and the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) called an election. They should look at the Marplan poll in the West Midlands. Above all, we know why the Government did not have an election in October. It was because Mr. Worcester told the Prime Minister that he could not win.
If the country is to get on the road to recovery it is essential that this tired, fag-end Government go. As soon as Mr. Robert Worcester is ready for an election, so are we.
9.37 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I should like to follow the comments that have been made about the remarkable speech earlier in the debate by my hon Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson). It was a speech of wit, charm and great generosity of spirit. Ever since he made it, all those who heard the speech have paid their tributes to him. I can assure him that those tributes are not formal in any sense.
It was a speech which paid great tribute to his predecessor, John Mackintosh.
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It also showed that we have a new Member of Parliament of strong character and great capacity. Indeed, as I listened to his speech the only criticism that I could find was that it was so good that it might be deduced that part of his victory in Berwick was due to his own qualities and not to the Government's qualities.
Many parts of the discussion have turned on other questions, but I shall seek to confine myself principally to the amendment, which was moved, or nearly moved, at the beginning of the debate. I thought that the amendment was extremely good. I am sorry not to see the leader of the Liberal Party in his place, because I wondered whether he was the author. I wondered whether we could account for the improvement in the literary standard because the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition and her right hon. Friends had decided to adopt the ideas of the leader of the Liberal Party in order to assist in the vote or to seduce him, if that is not a too indelicate word.
It is a great change from the scenes that we saw a few months ago. I remember the effective speech of the Leader of the Opposition when she rebuked the leader of the Liberal Party in strong terms. But the Leader of the Liberal Party is now being elevated at a single leap from his youthful follies to eligible manhood. The right hon. Lady has changed her attitude too. There is now none of this "My young man" stuff. Not at all. She turned such a benign and eager eye on the right hon. Gentleman that she might be the serpent of old Nile herself. Therefore, I am glad to see the alteration in these matters.
I am very happy to give the leader of the Liberal Party a reference. Indeed, I do not see why he should not take a place on the Opposition Front Bench in order to draft these excellent Opposition amendments. I gather there are a few vacancies, and he would certainly be a very great addition.
I should also like to offer some advice to the right hon. Lady. She knows how jealous I am about all these divergences into which she happens to stray. But I think that she should follow more carefully the advice that I sometimes give her. She must be careful not to follow these extravagant charges against the Labour Party and its East European

1327
policies. I do not know where the right hon. Lady gets her information from. I suppose she gets it from the right hon Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Prentice). But I must warn the right hon. Lady about him, because there is a strong rumour abroad that the right hon. Gentleman has not sacrificed or abandoned his revolutionary past at all. He has gone into the ranks of the Conservative Party as a kind of agent provocateur just to see what palpable absurdities he can pass off on the right hon. Lady. All I can say is that it is a theory with a great deal to sustain it. I only wish that we had thought of it earlier.
I should like to give the right hon. Lady a further piece of advice. Indeed, I offered it to her a year ago and if only she had followed it then she would be in a much happier situation today. There is the position of the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) who I see is now trying to pass himself off as an ex-Chief Whip. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has not now been thrown out like the others. I hope that he tendered his resignation in time. I am sorry to have to say it in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "Tell us about the Government's economic policy."] I am trying to fill in the gaps of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) who told us that he would tell us about the divisions in the Conservative Party. I am trying to make good the omissions. Had the right hon. Lady followed my advice of a year ago she would be making it up with the right hon. Gentleman. He is the best of the bunch, even if—to quote Shakespeare again—
"the small choice in rotten apples."
The right hon. Lady really should take my advice on this occasion and try to make a proper reconciliation.
I am happy to assist her further in that respect, because the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon said that the incomes policy of his party was absolutely clear. I am very happy to have the hon. Gentleman's assurance. But it was not absolutely clear at the Conservative Party conference, because I took the precaution of reading the report in that excellent journal, the Spectator, which carried the excellent reports of Mr. Frank Johnson which did not appear in The Daily
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Telegraph day by day because of an industrial dispute. If the House were to allow me to do so I could spend the rest of the evening reading extracts.
Mr. Johnson followed these matters very carefully. He described how the right hon. Member for Sidcup had received a great ovation. Then he talked about the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe). He went on to say that the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East praised the contribution of the right hon. Member for Sidcup and then went on to advocate more or less the opposite. The conference either did not notice this nuance or was not much bothered by it. Well, here in this House we have a great reputation to sustain and we have to look at the nuances.
In order to report this matter faithfully I must look at the report of the following day—and remember this was in a Conservative newspaper written by a most excellent Conservative reporter. Mr. Johnson said that
"although he was no longer in the hall, Mr. Heath's monstrous presence dominated the morning's economic debate. He was the spectre at the Ancient Mariner's wedding, though not having one's library to hand in Brighton one is unable to check the accuracy of the Coleridgean allusion. So perhaps it would be more correct to say that he was the albatross on the wall. Anyway, he was the spanner down the trousers of party unity, all right, that's for sure."
I know that hon. Gentlemen opposite do not like this. I am filling in the gaps about what happened at their conference.
The report goes on:
"The conference draws the line at going on the box and saying that the Labour Government is all right."
That is what the right hon. Member for Sidcup did at the conference. Therefore I thought I would have had special thanks from the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon for having filled in the gaps on these matters which he said he would deal with but which, unfortunately, he did not have time to cover.
I now come to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman—
Mr. James Prior: The right hon. Member should make his own speech.
Mr. Foot: One of the old-fashioned habits that we have on this side of the House is to answer the debate. I see that the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) is sitting on the Back Benches. Has he, too, been thrown out? Why does he not come and face the music? We had to listen to the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East at close quarters. So why does he not come and take his medicine?
Both the House and the country should study with the utmost care not only the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East but the addition to it—or the embroidery—by the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen). Both of them returned to a theme that was not elaborated in the previous Session of this Parliament, but which dominated the House during the early 1970s.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East had not urged any return to the Industrial Relations Act 1971. I am not sure whether that was the case. Certainly from what I heard I thought that he was advocating a return to some form of legislation. The hon. Member for Oswestry was not advocating it in detailed form but he was suggesting that one of the main lines of activity that a Conservative Government would have to follow in some form or another was what he might describe as the reform of trade union law or the trade union situation.
The House and the country should have learned from what happened under the previous Conservative Governments. I should have thought that the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East was the last person to tell the House how these matters should be dealt with. I am certain that the right hon. Member for Lowestoft would much prefer his right hon. and learned Friend not to deal with these topics, because every time he returns to them he makes it much more difficult for a solution to be found.
The hon. Member for Oswestry put his finger on the truth to this extent. Of course we must debate these questions in the House. I fully agree that the trade union movement is not perfect and that there should be debates on these topics. However, anyone who studied the industrial history of this country over the past
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10 or 25 years would begin to appreciate what enormous advances have been achieved by the trade union movement in terms of democracy, intelligent policy and active support for the welfare of the nation. It would be wrong of hon. Members to write that off—[Interruption.] Hon. Members may jeer. That is exactly the spirit that we had from them all through 1971, 1972 and 1973. Do they want to recreate all their follies?
The Conservatives should tell the country clearly, if they want that chapter properly and finally closed, that they will not attempt to return to any such legislative action. That does not mean that we cannot discuss the various aspects. There are many changes and reforms to be carried through in the trade union movement, and the movement will carry them through itself, as it has been willing to do over the past 10 or 20 years.
Anyone who thinks that there has not been great progress in the amalgamation of trade unions does not appreciate the problem. It is a most serious and difficult problem which can be solved only by persuasion and consent within the trade union movement. The same applies to a whole range of other policies. The only response given to most trade union leaders for what they have done in contributing to the welfare of the nation over this period is vilification in the Tory press and an echo of it here in the House of Commons. We heard echoes of it a few minutes ago. I hope, however, that all other hon. Members appreciate that if it had not been for the voluntary association and leadership of many of the heads of the trade union movement, backed by their members—they cannot achieve anything unless they have that backing—we should not have been able to make all these achievements.
Mr. Maude: What achievements?
Mr. Foot: Are Conservative Members interested in bringing down the rate of inflation or not? When I first went to the Department of Employment the rate was running at 15 per cent.—
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Who put it there?
Mr. Foot: The Conservative Government. The people who raised the inflation rate to its 1974 level were those who

1331
were responsible for the conduct of our affairs at that period. When I went to the Department there were forecasts for the year ahead of a rate of inflation of 17 per cent. or 18 per cent. by the autumn and of 20 per cent. to 22 per cent. by the following year. That is what was left for us by the Conservative Party and we had to fight and struggle to persuade people to bring it down.
I notice that the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition does not say these things so raucously as do her right hon. and hon. Friends. Perhaps she understands that the people of this country are seriously interested in bringing down the inflation rate. They know that if we do not succeed in that task we shall not succeed in many of our other aims.
When I hear shouts on the lines of "What achievements have the Labour Government made?", I am minded to ask the right hon. Lady to consider the balance of payments. Is she interested in that aspect? [HON. MEMBERS: "What about our oil?"] Not only our oil should be taken into consideration. Half the record deficit in the balance of payments in 1974 was due to oil considerations and the other half to the incompetence of the Conservative Party. When we came into power in February 1974 not only were we left with a record inflation rate but we inherited a huge deficit on the balance of payments which we had to bring under control. Therefore, it must be said that those, too, are achievements. Furthermore, throughout this period we have laid the basis for advances in many other respects.
Mr. A. G. F. Hall-Davis: What would the figure have been this year if the balance of payments in respect of oil was the same this year as it was in 1974?
Mr. Foot: Of course the balance of payments on oil has made a considerable contribution, but when the Conservatives charge us with having made no achievement I ask them to examine the figures. They will see what a record deficit on the balance of payments was left to us by their Government. The fact that we had to deal with that record rate of inflation made it all the more difficult to deal with the world-wide problem of unemployment.
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I fully acknowledge what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) and I accept his criticisms and also his analysis of the wider problems. When we come back in the next Parliament, with the full majority which I am sure we shall all seek to secure, one of our major aims will be to ensure that we supply all our energies to dealing with unemployment. But, even in the circumstances of the last four years, we have taken a series of steps without which the unemployment figure would be higher. My hon. Friend knows that that is as much the case in Scotland as anywhere else.
At the same time we had to ensure that we held the United Kingdom together and carried through policies which were acceptable in the different parts of the United Kingdom. I do not know whether the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition has learned at last that during this period this House had to take adventurous steps in an effort to hold the United Kingdom together. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is all very well for Conservative Members to jeer. If the right hon. Lady had been in Berwick-upon-Tweed recently she would know that to be true.
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: I went there.
Mr. Foot: I apologise to the right hon. Lady; she was in Berwick. I think that she has paid more visits to Scotland than has any Conservative Leader in modern times. Surely on some of those visits she would have learned that that is what the great majority of Scottish people want to secure.
My view is that in this House of Commons, limited, constrained and difficult though our position has been—and nobody knows better than I do how difficult it has been to get legislation through the House—we have been able to clear up part of the mess left to us by the Conservatives. At the same time we have been able to carry through major reforms and changes designed to hold the United Kingdom together and to enable us to overcome this problem in the future. We look forward with confidence to an election chosen at a date set by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister rather than by Saatchi & Saatchi.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 300, Noes 312.

Division No. 3]

AYES

10.0 p.m.

Adley, Robert

Fox, Marcus

Luce, Richard

Aitken, Jonathan

Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Alison, Michael

Freud, Clement

MacCormick, Iain

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Fry, Peter

McCrindle, Robert

Arnold, Tom

Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

Macfarlane, Neil

Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

MacGregor, John

Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

MacKay, Andrew (Stechford)

Awdry, Daniel

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian (Chesham)

Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

Bain, Mrs Margaret

Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

Baker, Kenneth

Glyn, Dr Alan

McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

Banks, Robert

Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

Madel, David

Beith, A. J.

Goodhart, Philip

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Bell, Ronald

Goodhew, Victor

Marten, Neil

Bendall, Vivian

Goodlad, Alastair

Mates, Michael

Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)

Gorst, John

Mather, Carol

Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)

Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

Maude, Angus

Benyon, W.

Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald

Berry, Hon Anthony

Grant Anthony (Harrow C)

Mawby, Ray

Biffen, John

Gray, Hamish

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Biggs-Davison, John

Grieve, Percy

Mayhew, Patrick

Blaker, Peter

Griffiths, Eldon

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Grimond, Rt Hon J.

Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

Bottomley, Peter

Grist, Ian

Mills, Peter

Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

Grylls, Michael

Miscampbell, Norman

Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Braine, Sir Bernard

Hamilton, Archibald (Epsom & Ewell)

Moate, Roger

Brittan, Leon

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Monro, Hector

Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

Hampson, Dr Keith

Montgomery, Fergus

Brooke, Hon Peter

Hannam, John

Moore, John (Croydon C)

Brotherton, Michael

Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)

More, Jasper (Ludlow)

Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

Morgan, Geraint

Bryan, Sir Paul

Haselhurst, Alan

Morgan-Giles, Roar-Admiral

Buchanan-Smith, Alick

Hastings, Stephen

Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

Buck, Antony

Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

Morrison, Rt Hon Charles (Devizes)

Budgen, Nick

Hawkins, Paul

Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

Bulmer, Esmond

Hayhoe, Barney

Mudd, David

Burden, F. A.

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Neave, Airey

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Henderson, Douglas

Nelson, Anthony

Carlisle, Mark

Heseltine, Michael

Neubert, Michael

Chalker, Mrs Lynda

Hicks, Robert

Newton, Tony

Channon, Paul

Higgins, Terence L.

Normanton, Tom

Churchill, W. S.

Hodgson, Robin

Nott, John

Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

Holland, Philip

Onslow, Cranley

Clark, William (Croydon S)

Hooson, Emlyn

Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Hordern, Peter

Osborn, John

Clegg, Walter

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Page, John (Harrow West)

Cockcroft, John

Howell, David (Guildford)

Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Page, Richard (Workington)

Cope, John

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Paisley, Rev Ian

Cormack, Patrick

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Pardoe, John

Corrie, John

Hurd, Douglas

Parkinson, Cecil

Costain, A. P.

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Pattie, Geoffrey

Crawford, Douglas

Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

Penhaligon, David

Critchley, Julian

James, David

Percival, Ian

Crouch, David

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

Peyton, Rt Hon John

Crowder, F. P.

Jessel, Toby

Pink, R. Bonner

Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Dodsworth, Geoffrey

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Price, David (Eastleigh)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

Prior, Rt Hon James

Drayson, Burnaby

Jopling, Michael

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Raison, Timothy

Durant, Tony

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Rathbone, Tim

Dykes, Hugh

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Kershaw, Anthony

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Kilfedder, James

Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

Elliott, Sir William

Kimball, Marcus

Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)

Emery, Peter

King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

Rhodes James, R.

Ewing, Mrs. Winifred (Moray)

King, Tom (Bridgwater)

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Eyre, Reginald

Kitson, Sir Timothy

Ridley, Hon Nicholas

Fairbairn, Nicholas

Knight, Mrs Jill

Ridsdale, Julian

Fairgrieve, Russell

Knox, David

Rifkind, Malcolm

Farr, John

Lamont, Norman

Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Fell, Anthony

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Finsberg, Geoffrey

Latham, Michael (Melton)

Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

Fisher, Sir Nigel

Lawrence, Ivan

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)

Lawson, Nigel

Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

Fookes, Miss Janet

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Royle, Sir Anthony

Forman, Nigel

Lloyd, Ian

Sainsbury, Tim

Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'l'd)

Loveridge, John

St. John-Stevas, Norman

Scott, Nicholas

Steel, Rt Hon David

Wakeham, John

Scott-Hopkins, James

Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Stewart, Rt Hon Donald

Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

Stewart, Ian (Hitchln)

Wall, Patrick

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Stokes, John

Walters, Dennis

Shepherd, Colin

Stradling Thomas, J.

Warren, Kenneth

Shersby, Michael

Tapsell, Peter

Weatherill, Bernard

Silvester, Fred

Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

Wells, John

Sims, Roger

Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

Welsh, Andrew

Sinclair, Sir George

Tebbit, Norman

Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

Skeet, T. H. H.

Temple-Morris, Peter

Whitney, Raymond

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

Wiggin, Jerry

Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

Smith, Timothy John (Ashfield)

Thompson, George

Winterton, Nicholas

Speed, Keith

Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

Wood, Rt Hon Richard

Spence, John

Townsend, Cyril D.

Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

Trotter, Neville

Younger, Hon George

Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Sproat, Iain

Vaughan, Dr Gerard

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Stainton, Keith

Viggers, Peter

Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and Mr. Michael Roberts.

Stanbrook, Ivor

Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

Stanley, John

NOES

Abse, Leo

Davidson, Arthur

Hooley, Frank

Allaun, Frank

Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

Horam, John

Anderson, Donald

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil

Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Davies, Ifor (Gower)

Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

Armstrong, Ernest

Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

Ashley, Jack

Deakins, Eric

Huckfield, Les

Ashton, Joe

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)

Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Dempsey, James

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Dewar, Donald

Hunter, Adam

Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

Doig, Peter

Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

Bates, Alf

Dormand, J. D.

Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

Bean, R. E.

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood

Duffy, A. E. P.

Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

Dunnet, Jack

Janner, Greville

Bidwell, Sydney

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

Bishop, Rt Hon Edward

Eadie, Alex

Jeger, Mrs Lena

Blenkinsop, Arthur

Edge, Geoff

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Boardman, H.

Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

John, Brynmor

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

English, Michael

Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

Ennals, Rt Hon David

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

Bradley, Tom

Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

Judd, Frank

Broughton, Sir Alfred

Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Evans, John (Newton)

Kelley, Richard

Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

Kerr, Russell

Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)

Faulds, Andrew

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Buchan, Norman

Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

Kinnock, Neil

Buchanan, Richard

Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

Lambie, David

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Flannery, Martin

Lamborn, Harry

Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

Lamond, James

Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

Campbell, Ian

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Leadbitter, Ted

Canavan, Dennis

Ford, Ben

Lee, John

Cant, R. B.

Forrester, John

Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

Carmichael, Neil

Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

Lever, Rt Hon Harold

Carter, Ray

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

Lewis, Arthur (Newham N)

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Cartwright, John

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

Litterick, Tom

Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Clemitson, Ivor

George Bruce

Lomas, Kenneth

Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Loyden, Eddie

Cohen, Stanley

Ginsburg, David

Luard, Evan

Colquhoun, Ms Maureen

Golding, John

Lyon, Alexander (York)

Concannon, Rt Hon John

Gould, Bryan

Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

Conlan, Bernard

Gourlay, Harry

Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

Graham, Ted

McCartney, Hugh

Corbett, Robin

Grant, George (Morpeth)

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Cowans, Harry

Grant, John (Islington C)

McElhone, Frank

Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

Grocott, Bruce

MacFarquhar, Roderick

Craigen, Jim (Maryhill)

Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

McGuire, Michael (Ince)

Crawshaw, Richard

Hardy, Peter

McKay, Alan (Penistone)

Cronin, John

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)

Hart, Rt Hon Judith

Maclennan, Robert

Cryer, Bob

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

Hayman, Mrs Helene

McNamara, Kevin

Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Madden, Max

Dalyell, Tam

Heffer, Eric S.

Magee, Bryan

1336

1337

Mahon, Simon

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Mallalieu, J. P. W.

Reid, George

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Marks, Kenneth

Richardson, Miss Jo

Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)

Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Roberts, Gwilym (Canunock)

Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Robertson, George (Hamilton)

Tierney, Sydney

Maynard. Miss Joan

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Tilley, John

Meacher, Michael

Robertson, Home

Tinn, James

Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

Robinson, Geoffrey

Tomlinson, John

Mikardo, Ian

Roderick, Caerwyn

Tornney, Frank

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Rodgers, George (Chorley)

Torney, Tom

Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton)

Tuck, Raphael

Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

Rooker, J. W.

Urwin, T. W.

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

Roper, John

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

Molloy, William

Rose, Paul B.

Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

Moonman, Eric

Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Rowlands, Ted

Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

Morris, Rt Hon Charles R.

Ryman, John

Ward, Michael

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Sandelson, Neville

Watkins, David

Morton, George

Sedgemore, Brian

Watkinson, John

Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

Selby, Harry

Weetch, Ken

Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

Sever, John

Weitzman, David

Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

Wellbeloved, James

Newens, Stanley

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

White, Frank R. (Bury)

Noble, Mike

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

White, James (Pollok)

Oakes, Gordon

Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

Whitehead, Philip

Ogden, Eric

Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

Whitlock, William

O'Halloran, Michael

Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

Wigley, Dafydd

Orbach, Maurice

Sillars, James

Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Silverman, Julius

Williams, Rt Hon Allan (Swansea W)

Ovenden, John

Skinner, Dennis

Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Smith, Rt Hon John (N Lanarkshire)

Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

Padley, Walter

Snape, Peter

Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

Palmer, Arthur

Spearing, Nigel

Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

Park, George

Sprigs, Leslie

Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

Parker, John

Stallard, A. W.

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Parry, Robert

Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

Woodall, Alec

Pavitt, Laurie

Stoddart, David

Woof, Robert

Pendry, Tom

Stott, Roger

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Perry, Ernest

Strang, Gavin

Young, David (Bolton E)

Phipps, Dr Colin

Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

Prescott, John

Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Price, C. (Lewisham W)

Swain, Thomas

Mr. James Hamilton and Mr. Donald Coleman.

Price, Willam (Rugby)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

Radice, Giles

Question accordingly negatived.
Main Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal
1338
subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

HEART SURGERY (MERSEYSIDE)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Snape.]
10.20 p.m.
Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: I wish to draw attention tonight to the deplorable, indeed scandalous, state of affairs which now exists on Merseyside for patients waiting for heart surgery.
The region of Merseyside has the longest waiting list of any region for investigatory operations and has the fourth longest waiting list of any region in the country for open heart surgery. There are at the moment 581 patients waiting for investigatory operations, compared with only 24 in the South-East region. There are a further 173 patients awaiting open heart surgery on Merseyside, compared again with only 43 in the South-West region.
But worse—and in many ways much worse—is the length of time that people on Merseyside have to wait for both investigatory and open heart surgery. There are 210 patients on Merseyside who have been waiting for over two years for investigatory operations. A further 125 patients have been waiting for between one and two years. A further 91 patients have waited for between six and 12 months, and 125 have waited for up to six months. For open heart surgery 14 patients have been waiting for over two years for an operation, 23 patients have been waiting for between one and two years, and 38 patients have been waiting for up to 12 months.
These by any standards are extremely long waits. Such a time is an inordinate wait. It imposes considerable strains upon the individual and upon his family, particularly with a complaint such as a heart complaint. No one can adequately describe the psychological and emotional stress imposed upon the spouse, the children and the relatives of an individual who is known to be suffering from a heart complaint and when it is known that he will have an extremely long and excessive wait before he receives either the investigatory or the open heart surgery operation.
But what is totally indefensible is that it is known and accepted by the Minister
1340
that patients on Merseyside die while on the waiting list. Indeed, he confirmed to me in this Chamber before the Summer Recess that 20 patients on the waiting list on Merseyside had died simply and solely because they were not able to get the operation in time. It says very little for the apparently compassionate, caring and civilised society in which we allegedly live that it will allow people on the waiting list to die, not because we lack the knowledge, not because we lack the technology, not because we lack the personnel or the expertise, but simply and solely because we are not prepared to put sufficient funds into this essential service.
Indeed, it is ironic that there are no Opposition Members—except the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party—who could hear today that this in in fact the reality behind their demands for cuts in public expenditure. This is the harsh, sharp reality that lies behind the vociferous and ever-growing demands for cuts in personal taxation, and no one seems to make the connection between cuts in public expenditure, cuts in taxation and people on Merseyside on the waiting list dying for the want of adequate financial resources.
But this is not the case in other regions. It is specific to and peculiar to Merseyside. It is a fact, for instance, that patients in South Hammersmith and in Staffordshire will get investigatory and open heart surgery immediately and that in many other areas of the country the wait will be extremely small—in terms of months. In the Minister's own words in a letter to me earlier this year, they will get the operation "at their convenience". In South Hammersmith even non-urgent operations will be dealt with within six weeks.
There are, therefore, certain questions which need asking. First, why are there more of my patients waiting for open heart and investigatory operations than anywhere else in the country? Why is the wait longest on Merseyside? Why do my constituents have to face a long wait, in agony, under considerable stress and strain? Why are they discriminated against and provided with an inadequate and inferior service as compared with that provided in other parts of the country? The answer is that the region does not have sufficient resources provided nationally to enable it to provide adequate facilities. Most important, this situation arises

1341
because we do not have a truly national Health Service. What we have instead is a series of regional health services in which there are huge discrepancies and enormous anomalies as between areas in the type and quality of service.
Whatever the Minister may say later tonight, he is responsible for this service. I know that the regional health authorities have a managerial responsibility, but it is the Minister who has to come here to answer the debate. It is the Minister who has to answer in this House at Question Time. He has to take the criticism, the rap, for whatever goes wrong in the Health Service, whether in his Department or down at the regions. Given that, why has he not taken the step of applying the normal management function of monitoring the Service and finding out what is happening in the regions?
How can the Minister know that there is a bottleneck on Merseyside and yet, as it happens, spare capacity in Wessex or London, unless and until he collects national statistics on waiting lists and waiting times? I understand why the Minister has always been reluctant to provide this kind of information. Yet, unless the Department and the Minister take the initiative in finding out what is happening in the regions, how the money that is apportioned nationally is allocated and spent, they cannot know whether an effective local service is being provided, whether there is a surplus of resources in one area and a bottleneck in another. They cannot know whether they should be diverting resources from one area to another.
The answer to this is simple. All we need is a simple computer system. A policeman in the street can press a button on his personal radio, have someone punch in the number of a car licence, and obtain within minutes, sometimes seconds, the name, age, occupation, background and any previous criminal convictions of the driver. If that is so, why cannot my constituents, through their doctors and the regional health authority, punch a button on a computer and discover whether there is spare capacity in other parts of the country which should be made available to them? We should have a National Health Service, not a regional health service or a National
1342
Health Service lottery, which is what we have now.
There are many who will say that patients will not want to transfer and to travel. A Dr. Stuart Rubin, a cardiologist at Birmingham—where patients are said to have died while on the waiting list—is quoted as saying that it would be inhuman to send patients on long journeys for surgery. If the patients were given the information, they would make the decision, not the doctors. When they are given the opportunity to travel to London or elsewhere and have an operation at once, rather than spend months on the waiting list they invariably choose to travel. This happened recently with the two ladies from Liverpool who were rescued—it was disgraceful that it had to be the case—by private medical practice from the medical waiting list. It has happened frequently in the past when Merseyside children with congenital heart diseases have travelled the world to get an operation rather than wait on the Merseyside waiting lists and have their condition deteriorate.
The patients should come first. They should be given the information exactly as it applies to their condition and then, in the light of all the facts known to them, they should be the ones to make the decision. What we want to know tonight is what precisely is being done by the Minister to alleviate the terrible situation on Merseyside. When will the waiting list and the waiting time come down to a reasonable level, such as applies in the best region in the country?
We on Merseyside will not be satisfied with a simple answer saying "We shall do our best and try to bring about some amelioration of the present position by diverting more resources." We want no less than the best that is available in any other region. As that happens to be immediate operations, whether open heart or investigatory surgery, we want the same consideration to apply to Merseyside and to my constituents as applies elsewhere.
We also want to know what extra resources are being allocated. What plans has the Minister for transferring patients who wish voluntarily to make the transfer from Merseyside to London? My right hon. Friend knows that consultants in London hospitals have written to me saying that they have the places and that they

1343
are willing and able to take patients from Liverpool. He also knows that people from Liverpool want to travel. What is he doing to facilitate that transfer? How many people have already been transferred, are planned to be transferred and to where?
What provision is being made—this is an important question—for visits by relatives of patients who transfer to London or elsewhere? Will the Department meet the cost of travel of relatives who visit patients? It should. It is its responsibility because of the failure of the NHS to provide proper facilities on Merseyside. If patients have to travel elsewhere to get what is their right, the Department should pick up the Bill for the expenses involved.
I make no criticism of the National Health Service. Those who, like me, believe in the principle of a free medical service at the point of need should be even more vigorous and outspoken in their criticisms of the failings and shortcomings of the Service now. Labour Members expect higher standards from the National Health Service than do Opposition Members. Therefore, we should be far more vigorous and militant in exposing the failings that exist.
The guilding principle is simple. It is that patients—not doctors, nurses, bureaucrats, administrators or ancillary workers—should come first. The Minister must demonstrate tonight by both words and actions that we care about patients and that patients come first.
I shall not stand idly by whilst people in Ormskirk, in Kirkby and on Merseyside die waiting for heart operations. Nor do I expect the Minister to stand by complacently. I expect him now to tell us precisely what steps he is taking to provide a proper, effective and civilised service on Merseyside.
10.33 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Roland Moyle): The subject about which we are talking tonight has aroused much concern over the past few months. I have great sympathy with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk). Indeed, he has demonstrated great zeal on behalf of his constituents and others
1344
on Merseyside and has been supported by a number of his hon. Friends.
I think that the opportunity should be taken to discuss the problems of cardiac services on Merseyside and to mention what is being done to develop and improve them. In passing, I am pleased that my hon. Friend has discovered that there are discrepancies in the level of health provision in different parts of the country. I think that he first gave vent to this discovery in an article in The Daily Telegraph a week or two ago. He asked why this should he so. It is because of 30 years of allocation of resources to the National Health Service on an irrational basis. That is what we have to try to counteract.
The discovery is not entirely new. The phenomenon was noticed in 1968 by Dick Crossman, who devised the unsuccessful Crossman formula as a means of equalisation. It was observed again by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), who set up the resource allocation working party, which reported about two years ago. Since then my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have been labouring hard to use the formula to counteract the discrepancies to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention. Therefore, I welcome him to the club of those of us who have been attempting to redirect resources.
I would counsel my hon. Friend, though, that waiting lists are no yardstick for measuring health discrepancy. Without going into too much precise detail, I put it to him that there are connections between waiting lists and the argument which goes on about the removal of pay beds from NHS, and also between those two about the introduction of common waiting lists. If my hon. Friend turns his mind to those matters, I am sure that in time he will come to the conclusion, as we have done, that the only proper basis on which to redirect resources is to use the RAWP formula, which, translated into English, means using death rates as an indication of illness and working out targets to meet the needs so revealed.
Let me first deal with some of the general matters raised by my hon. Friend. He suggested the national distribution of facilities and instituting a national waiting list for cardiac surgery. It is a

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regional specialty. Admittedly, postgraduate hospitals and other centres in London have traditionally attracted patients, especially those with rare or complex conditions, from all parts of the country. It is no wish of mine to restrict that freedom. But, on the whole, having considered the idea, I do not propose to institute a central clearing scheme, because I think that it would create a lot of major problems.
In general, it is not in the interests of patients to travel long distances for major operations. Obviously, we are in a slightly critical situation in Merseyside and, for that reason, we are tending to infringe that principle. But I do not think that it is a good idea to make it a major and continuing national policy.
Mr. Kilroy-Silk: That is not my right hon. Friend's decision. That is the patient's decision. If the patient decides in the light of all the evidence available to him that he will make that distressing journey, that is his right—not the Minister's or anyone else's.
Mr. Moyle: Indeed, and there is nothing that I can do to stop patients travelling not only to London but to New York or California to get their treatment. But I am saying that I have decided not to assist them by setting up a national clearing house, for reasons which I am about to give.
There is considerable inconvenience to the patient and his family involved in travelling. My hon. Friend more or less admitted that. But, more important, it is very difficult to provide continuity of care when the cardiac condition occurs on Merseyside, the operative treatment is in London, and the post-operative treatment is back on Merseyside. That is a substantial obstacle, and I am advised—and I have no difficulty in accepting the advice—that the best interests of patients are served when they are treated throughout by a medical and surgical team who are working in close co-operation with each other for pre-operational, operational and post-operational care.
There is also the morale of hospital staff to be considered. Many medical and nursing teams in this specialty get great satisfaction from providing an efficient
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service to the populations which their units are intended to serve, and the health authorities should aim to provide the facilities to enable them to give such a service. Similarly, we need to consider the effect on the morale of such a team which builds up an excellent service and then is faced with a seemingly endless stream of urgent cases from other regions. That again might be an effect of a national clearing house.
Then, of course, our resource allocation policies, to which I have alluded already, are directed to achieving an equal distribution of health services among regions, and we want in the longer term to work the other way and, rather than lean on patients to bring them to hospital and specialised services, bring the hospitals and specialised services to the places where the patients live, even though, for historical reasons, that is not the siutation which prevails at the moment.
The introduction of a national waiting list could lead to a state of affairs in which there was little or no incentive to health authorities to fill the existing gaps in the provision of health services within their areas. This would perpetuate the situation which we inherited.
My hon. Friend will know what I mean when I cite the example of the Brook hospital in South-East London, which offered to take heart patients from Merseyside if that hospital were given an extra consultant. Appointing an extra consultant in South-East London is not the way to solve the problem of cardiac waiting lists in Liverpool.
The present arrangements in the Mersey region are that adult cardiac investigatory work involving catheterisation is carried out at Sefton general hospital. Cardiac surgery for adults is performed at Broadgreen hospital. This includes bypass surgery, to replace sections of the coronary arteries and valve replacement surgery. For childen, both cardiothoracic surgery and catheterisations are carried out at the Royal Liverpool children's hospital.
These three units are administered by the area health authority and draw patients from the whole of the Mersey health region. The facilities of these units are also available under an agency arrangement to patients from North Wales.

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My hon. Friend has made clear his concern about the current cardiac waiting lists in Mersey. I share his concern. I do not question his figures. Mersey has the longest waiting list for investigations of any region.
I must repeat the warning that I gave earlier. Comparative figures such as these have to be interpreted with care. They give no indication of the urgency of individual patients' needs for treatment. Nor do they give any clue to why a particular patient has had to wait for a certain length of time. For example, a patient who, in his consultant's opinion, does not require surgery now but may do so in two or three years' time will not necessarily have to wait if the treatment is needed sooner.
Some patients condition might improve during the time that they are on the waiting list. Social factors and family circumstances may also affect the length of time an individual has to wait.
Despite these reservations, I accept that my hon. Friend's figures are so unsatisfactory that action is especially required for the Mersey region. The allocation of resources among individual specialties is essentially something for health authorities to decide. They must, for example, decide between cardiology and neurosurgery and the other specialties. Cardiology is a regional specialty.
One of our main jobs as Ministers is to ensure a fair share-out of NHS resources among the regions. We have given the Merseyside region a growth rate of 2 per cent. in its allocation for 1978–79 because it is a little below its target.
What are the plans and problems of the regional health authority? First, a steady throughput of investigations at Sefton general hospital could not be achieved because of the need for frequent maintenance of the catheterisation equipment. On some occasions equipment failed while investigations were under way, which meant that the work had to be abandoned and repeated at a later date. In order to remedy this situation the regional health authority has authorised expenditure of about £25,000 for the years 1977–78 and 1978–79 to buy new equipment for the cardiology unit at Sefton general hospital. With the exception of one item, the equipment has been delivered and is now in use.
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The second main pressure is the increase in demand for cardiac bypass surgery, which is a difficult and time-consuming procedure. Demand for this operation is still increasing and it is not clear at this stage what level of resources would be needed to cope with this demand.
There are, of course, many competing demands on the resources of the Health Service and the development of specialties such as cardiology is something which has to be settled in consultation with the individual areas in the region. Developments in regional specialties are a call on the region's growth money. More money for them means less money for the areas to finance their own local services. Nevertheless, following a review of specialties completed in June this year, the Merseyside authority has now agreed with the areas on a broad level of development over the next three years.
There have been a number of staffing improvements in cardiac surgery. The region has already begun appointing extra nurses to both Broadgreen hospital and the Royal Liverpool children's hospital and financial provision has been made for a further consultant in cardiothoracic surgery to be appointed from February 1979. The regional health authority is continuing its efforts to fill an existing consultant vacancy and will be readvertising the post later this month. This may entail consultations with the Health Service in Wales.
A small scheme was completed in April this year at Broadgreen hospital to convert existing premises into an emergency operating theatre. There are already two theatres at Broadgreen, but the emergency theatre, which is now in use, allows emergencies to be handled without interruption to the throughput of the other two theatres. It is available for use in the event of one of the other theatres being shut down for any reason.
Looking further ahead, the regional health authority is carrying out feasibility studies into the possibility of transferring medical cardiology from Sefton general and providing both the medical and surgical services at Broadgreen. The authority's view is that this would lead to more efficient working and it is giving priority to this development.

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These measures will improve the region's capacity to meet demands for cardiac surgery, but it will be appreciated that their effect on reducing the current backlog of cases will necessarily be gradual. There is an immediate need to be met. As I mentioned in answer to my hon. Friend's Question on 12th July, I have made arrangements for a number of patients to be referred from Liverpool to cardiac centres in London. As I indicated, I do not regard that as an ideal solution to the problem at all, but it is something that we have had to accept in the circumstances on Merseyside. Thirteen patients have so far been referred to the London National Health Service, and 12 have so far been treated at four National Health Service hospitals in London—eight at the Brompton, two at St. George's and, one each at Guy's and the National heart hospital.
We have looked at whether these arrangements might be extended, but the difficulty is that many hospitals in London also have quite long waiting lists of their own. However, a number have said that they will accept patients from Liverpool in an emergency. My hon. Friend has taken a particular interest in the Brook general hospital, and I mentioned that earlier in my speech.
Another event that attracted a lot of attention and that was quite controversial at the time was the acceptance by the Liverpool area health authority, which I endorsed, of an offer by American Medical (Europe) Ltd. to make two private beds available free of charge for cardiac surgery for patients from Liverpool. I stress "free of charge". Ten patients have had operations under this agreement so far. It has been the subject of some criticism and all I should like to say is that I am not concerned with the motive of the private sector. At the time, my view about the proposal was that the only consideration which really mattered was the welfare of the patients concerned and that I should not stand in the way of anything that offered help with the immediate problem. But, as the problem is only a temporary one, the facility has been sought for only
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a 12-month period and is subject to review after that.
That is a list of the action being taken and to be taken. It also sets out some of the emergency measures. The service about which we are talking is very much at the frontier of modern medicine. It is very difficult to keep the balance right between our investment in this service and what we do for others, but I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that the problems are well recognised and that the health authorities are reacting as quickly as they can to bring about improvements in Liverpool and to bridge the gaps in the short term.
I shall continue to keep closely in touch with the regional health authority and I give my hon. Friend the assurance that I am ready to consider giving any help I can in order to relieve the problems further. I am open to suggestions at any time.
Mr. Kilroy-Silk: My right hon. Friend did not touch upon the other matter about which I asked. Is he able to pay any contribution at all to the relatives of those patients who have been transferred to London, whether to NHS hospitals or private hospitals, because they are involved in considerable expense in coming down to London?
Mr. Moyle: There are the provisions of the supplementary benefits scheme for assisting people who can travel, but people outside that must make their own arrangements. That will obviously affect their decision on whether to go to London or be treated elsewhere.
Mr. Graham Page: Why cannot the consultant who is taking up an appointment in February take up the appointment right away?
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock 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 ten minutes to Eleven o'clock.

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

VARDAR AND MORAVA RIVER PROJECT
Viscount ST. DAVIDS: 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 intend to join in the international aid needed to assist in the plan to canalise and connect the rivers Vardar and Morava and thus give Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania a direct water route from the Danube to the Aegean Sea.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, Britain's aid programme is directed towards the less developed countries and does not therefore extend to Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania. However, the Governments of Greece and Yugoslavia and the United Nations Development Programme, to which the United Kingdom is a major contributor, propose to finance a pre-feasibility study of the project.
Viscount ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that Answer, which is helpful so far as it goes, may I ask whether she would agree that this project, although enormously expensive, would do an amazing amount of good to the map of Europe by providing, for cargo purposes, a new route for the whole of the Upper Danube nations, in fact giving the Danube two mouths, one of them on the Aegean, thus not only liberalising the economies of the Upper Danube countries but helping them somewhat in liberalising their politics, which would also help our friends in Greece and Yugoslavia?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, the House in general will realise that the flow of trade
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has changed lately and is very much more in the direction of the Middle East; this project, if it came off, would of course be very helpful in that direction. It is rather a delicious idea that the Danube should open near Thessaloniki—I like to think of that—but I must warn the noble Viscount that it would be a major and very expensive operation.

BBC BULGARIAN LANGUAGE BROADCASTS
3.10 p.m.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to increase the volume of BBC broadcasts in the Bulgarian language.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, at the present time there are no plans to increase the hours of transmission of the BBC's Bulgarian vernacular service.
Lord BETHELL: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, my Lords. Nevertheless, does he not feel that the BBC's distribution of hours should be carefully and continuously watched and tailored to meet events as they occur throughout the world? Does he not feel, for example, that, in view of recent events in London, BBC broadcasts in the Bulgarian language should perhaps be increased, and that, in view of even more recent events in Iran, broadcasts in Persian should be increased? Will he arrange for the BBC to be given sufficient finance to mount such increased broadcasts?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the noble Lord will recall that paragraph 62 of the White Paper on the United Kingdom's overseas representation provided that all vernacular services should be brought under review. That is being done, the BBC participating in a consultative basis. When that review has been completed—and it will no doubt include all the countries and their vernaculars, as they are called, which the noble Lord

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mentioned—recommendations will be put forward and Ministers will consider them. I cannot, of course, anticipate those recommendations or decisions.
As to the extent of our broadcasting in the Bulgarian language, that is at the rate of one and three quarter hours daily on the BBC's East European Service on short wave. The question whether it should be increased or reduced or remain about the same is, as I said, for the review body which is now meeting.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, while my noble friend is investigating the possibility of more broadcasts in the Bulgarian language, may I ask whether he, having been brought up in the vernacular of a Welsh school, as I was, could ask the BBC to broadcast more often in English that is clear, distinguishable and not plum-nosed?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, coming from Wales, I am always in favour of the best diction in English, especially as practised by my noble friend Lord Davies.
Lord TREFGARNE: Reverting to the main Question, may I ask whether the broadcasts to Bulgaria are audible in that country, or are they jammed so they cannot be heard?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: I have no evidence of jamming, my Lords. I believe they are properly received in that sense. I understand that audibility is fairly good during the day, but less so in the early morning and early evening. However, it is hoped that it will be improved as a result of the BBC's forthcoming new capital investment programme, amounting to about £20 million, which is one of the better results of the CPRS review.

NOISE INSULATION GRANTS: AIRPORTS
3.13 p.m.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have decided how the new noise insulation grant schemes for domestic dwellings around Heathrow and Gatwick Airports are to be financed and, if so, whether the method selected is that of a charge on airlines, or their passengers, or both, similar to the security levy already imposed.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, as was the case in the former noise insulation grants schemes, the new scheme for Heathrow and Gatwick will be financed by the British Airports Authority and will not involve a separate charge on airlines or their passengers.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I am very glad to have that Answer, but does the Minister realise that, following the ominous precedent of the security levy which was a State responsibility, the airlines have been disturbed about where this might lead them? Am I correct in understanding that under no circumstances will any part of this charge fall upon airlines or their passengers?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, at this stage I could not give such a categorical assurance to my noble friend. Discussions are still proceeding as to how the money will be found and used, but I can say that it will not involve a levy as the aviation security fund did.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, can the noble Baroness be a little more explicit? She said in her original Answer that the scheme is to be financed by the British Airports Authority. I believe I am right in saying that the British Airports Authority is at present self-supporting. Therefore, is it not the case that the charges will inevitably fall upon airlines, whose landing fees finance the British Airports Authority?
Baroness STEDMAN: They may do, my Lords, but at the moment I cannot say that they will, because discussions are still going on. The cost of the scheme is about £19 million. It is the responsibility of the British Airports Authority to put the scheme into operation and to meet the cost of it by some means. I would

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think that this might have been a very suitable subject for my noble friend's airline users' committee to discuss with the Airports Authority so as to see how the charges can be applied and to ensure that as little as possible falls upon the consumer.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, since the main income of the British Airports Authority arises from the charges which it imposes upon the airlines, is it not quite inescapable that, if the Government arrange things in this way, the charge will ultimately be collected from the airline passengers through airport charges?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, my understanding is that the most profitable part of the British Airports Authority's undertaking is its duty-free shops, not the revenue from landing charges.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, as the Minister will understand from past experience, I am very wary of discussions that proceed. Is the Minister aware that her original Answer to me is completely at variance with her later replies? Did I not understand her to say that no charge would fall upon the airlines or their passengers in so far as this matter was concerned? Am I not correct in saying that she has gone on to say that she cannot give any guarantee to this effect? Does this mean that the British Airports Authority, either on its own authority or that of the Government, may well determine that this charge will have to come from the airlines and their passengers? Finally, may I say that this is not a matter for the airline users' committee, but for the Government?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, to take the last point first, I should say that I think the British Airports Authority would welcome any recommendations, suggestions or consultations from the airline users' committee, and I would think that this would strengthen the committee's power along the lines which the noble Baroness has been seeking over the past few months. In my original reply I said that the scheme would not involve a separate charge on airlines or their passengers. The levy for airport security is a separate charge on the passengers coming in; it is a separate levy. This
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charge is not to be raised in the same way as the security levy.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think that we are still a little in the dark on this matter. Is it or is it not the case that these funds will come from the internal resources of the BAA, or will it have to raise additional money from the Government or its customers to cover these costs?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the costs will be met by the British Airports Authority. It will be for the Authority to decide how to get the money and from where to take it.
Lord TREFGARNE: In other words, my Lords, have the Government given an undertaking to provide money, or is that not so?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the Government have given an undertaking and approval in relation to the insulation scheme around Gatwick and Heathrow at a cost of £19 million, and the cost is to fall upon the British Airports Authority. Discussions are taking place at the moment between various Government Departments and the British Airports Authority as to how the £19 million which is needed is to be raised. It is a much more generous scheme than the original one which is in operation at present. Under the old scheme, grants could be made for insulation for only two living rooms and two bedrooms, however large or small the house, and grants could be made only to people who were owners before 1st January 1966. If one bought a house in the Gatwick or Heathrow area after that date, one was not entitled to an insulation grant. The new scheme will be applicable to those people who are living in the areas concerned when it comes into operation, so more people will be able to benefit under this scheme than did under the old one, and it will cover insulation costs for two living rooms and all the bedrooms in a house, no matter how many there are.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that it is quite logical that, if air passengers in travelling by air make life hell for people living near airports, they should pay eventually for the damage they do?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I cannot make a governmental Statement upon that point, but my personal view is that those people who cause the pollution, whether it be noise or other pollution, are the people who ought to pay—and not the taxpayers.

PUBLIC HEALTH LABORATORY SERVICE BILL [H.L.]
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to extend the powers conferred by Section 5 (2) (c) of the National Health Service Act 1977 and to amend certain provisions of that Act relating to the Public Health Laboratory Service Board. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

DEPUTY CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be appointed the panel of Lords to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees for this Session:—

Airedale, L.

Alport, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Cathcart, E.

Champion, L.

Derwent, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Hood, V.

Jacques, L.

Listowel, E.

Maybray-King, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Segal, L.

Simon, V.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES COMMITTEE
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider Community proposals, whether in draft or otherwise, to obtain all necessary information about them, and to make reports on those which, in the opinion of the Committee, raise important questions of policy or principle, and on other questions to which the Committee consider that the special attention of the House should be drawn;
That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the Lords following be named of the Committee:—

Ashby, L.

Brimelow, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Cobbold, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Fraser of Tullybelton, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L. (Chairman)

Jacques, L.

Kennet, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Onslow, E.

Plowden, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Sainsbury, L.

Sandford, L.

Seear, B.

Sherfield, L.

Trenchard, V.

Trevelyan, L.

Vickers, B.

Walston, L.

White, B.

Young of Dartington, L.

That the Committee have power to appoint Sub-Committees and appoint their Chairmen, and to refer to such Sub-Committees any of the matters within the terms of reference of the Committee; that two be the quorum of such Sub-Committees;
That the Committee have power to co-opt any Lord for the purpose of serving on a Sub-Committee;
That the Committee and any Sub-Committees have power to adjourn from place to place;
That the Committee have leave to report from time to time;
That the Reports of the Select Committee from time to time shall be printed, notwithstanding any adjournment of the House;
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee or any Sub-Committee from time to time shall, if the Committee think fit, be printed and delivered out;
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the European Communities Committee or any Sub-Committee in the last Session of Parliament be referred to the Committee;
That the Committee or any Subcommittee appointed by them have leave to confer and to meet concurrently with any Committee of the Commons on European Legislation &c. or any Sub-Committee of that Committee for the purpose of deliberating and of examining witnesses: and have leave to agree with the Commons in the appointment of a Chairman for any such meeting; and
That any Lord requested by the Committee on European Legislation &c. of the House of Commons to attend as a witness before them or before any Sub-Committee appointed by them shall have the leave of this House so to attend, if his Lordship thinks fit.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA ACT 1965 (CONTINUATION) ORDER 1978
3.20 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Southern Rhodesia Act 1965 (Continuation) Order 1978, which was laid before this House on 24th October, be approved. I should like in the first place to make clear what exactly it is that the House is now asked to do. The draft order, which is identical to those that have been laid before this House by successive Governments on previous occasions, seeks to renew Section 2 of the Southern Rhodesia Act 1965. That section enables Her Majesty, by Order in Council, to make
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such provision in relation to Southern Rhodesia, or persons or things in any way connected with Southern Rhodesia, as appears necessary or expedient in consequence of any unconstitutional action taken therein, including provisions in relation to the 1961 Constitution; for modifying laws in relation to Southern Rhodesia or persons or things connected with Southern Rhodesia; and for controlling transactions relating to Southern Rhodesia. Your Lordships will note that, although the annual orders renewing Section 2 are often referred to as orders "renewing sanctions", they in fact go much wider than that, and I shall be discussing the other important implications of the section later on.
So far as sanctions are concerned, the Government have a solemn obligation, as a member of the United Nations and as an original signatory of the Charter and a Permanent Member of the Security Council, to comply with mandatory resolutions passed by the Security Council. We are bound in international law to maintain sanctions until there is a return to legality in Rhodesia. This is a treaty obligation, and in a world in which it is not only our duty but also our interest to strengthen the observance of international law, we should not flout it or give any appearance of doing so. Moreover, as the Power which is legally responsible for Rhodesia constitutionally and on the international plane, we have a special duty in relation to that country, both to comply with our United Nations obligations and to seek a settlement. It is important to bear in mind that to act in defiance of United Nations mandatory resolutions relating to sanctions would have the most serious repercussions on our political and economic interests throughout Africa, and possibly in other parts of the Third World. Most particularly, our failure at this point of time to maintain sanctions in force would destroy once and for all our ability to contribute towards a negotiated settlement of the Rhodesia issue.
I shall explain later the reasons why the Government have not been prepared to give support to the transitional administration set up following the signature of the Salisbury agreement of 3rd March. Briefly, the agreement has proved itself to be inadequate as a basis for a settlement. The deteriorating security situation is tragic evidence of this. For us to support

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the present Administration, or indeed to lift sanctions, would not remedy the basic defects of the Salisbury agreement, under which effective power remains in the hands of the minority and there is no guarantee that a genuine transfer of power will ever take place. If we were at this stage to cease to apply sanctions, the régime would undoubtedly draw encouragement from it, but it would not enable them to bring an end to the fighting or, by bringing in the nationalists who are outside the country, to lay the basis for a cease-fire and a satisfactory and lasting solution to the problem. On the contrary, the effect would be to prolong and intensify the war, since the Patriotic Front leaders might not unreasonably take the view that we were siding with Mr. Smith and that there was no point in further negotiations.
It was asserted in another place yesterday that sanctions have been a waste of time or unenforceable. That I believe to be wrong. I accept that the early belief, that sanctions would rapidly compel the illegal régime to accept the authority of the British Government, proved to be unfounded. That was because of the unwillingness of the South African Government, and earlier the Portuguese colonial administration, to comply with them. But that does not mean that they have been totally ineffective. It is clear that since UDI sanctions have had a slow but debilitating effect on Rhodesia, and indeed it is significant that the lifting of sanctions has become one of Mr. Smith's priority aims.
I have already indicated that Section 2 has substantial significance quite apart from the fact that it provides the powers on which some, but not all, domestic sanctions are based. Among other things, Section 2 of the Act gives the Government powers to make new constitutional provision for Rhodesia speedily, by Order in Council—pending, of course, the establishment of a full Independence Constitution, for which the authority of a new Act of Parliament would be required. If, as we hope, we are successful in our efforts to bring about all-party talks and agreement can be reached on a settlement, we shall require to be in a position to act very quickly in setting up a new transitional Administration. If the draft renewal order now before the House were not approved, the power to do that would be
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lost, and its loss would be an impediment to the smooth implementation of an agreed settlement.
Section 2 also provides the statutory authority for humanitarian instruments whose purpose is to relieve the hardship which the unconstitutional position in Rhodesia would otherwise cause to innocent private persons in this country and elsewhere. One such instrument is the Southern Rhodesia (Marriages, Matrimonial Causes and Adoptions) Order, which legalises marriages, divorces and adoptions which have taken place in Rhodesia since 1965. Other useful measures made under the section include the Reserve Bank of Rhodesia Orders 1965 and 1967, which enable the Government to exercise effective stewardship of the external assets of the Bank, so that they are kept intact for the ultimate benefit of the people of Rhodesia as a whole when a settlement is reached.
If we are to fulfil our obligations in relation to Rhodesia it is vital that Section 2 of the Act should be renewed. In brief—and I say "in brief" because there is a very long list of speakers, and no doubt noble Lords will bear this in mind in their speeches, as I shall endeavour to do in mine—the section enables us to discharge our solemn international obligations, deriving from United Nations mandatory resolutions to which we, with our ultimate constitutional responsibility, are bound in a special sense, morally as well as legally. Secondly, Section 2 is linked with our special obligation to make every effort to bring about a peaceful settlement in Rhodesia. Lastly, it is the basis for the humanitarian measures I have mentioned, the loss of which would cause hardship to individuals. The case for renewal of Section 2 is in the Government's view overwhelming. It would be a serious blow to our standing, not only in the Commonwealth but in the United Nations, if we rejected it. Accordingly, I hope that the House will approve the draft order.
My Lords, as a background to our consideration of renewal of the order, we are today also debating the report by Mr. Bingham, Q.C., and Mr. Gray on the supply of oil and oil products to Rhodesia. The Government are deeply indebted to the authors of the report for the scrupulous care which they have

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brought to their task. The report raises many difficult and serious issues.
We should be clear at the outset about the scope and purpose of the report. Its terms of reference required the investigators to establish the facts concerning the supply of oil to Rhodesia and to investigate evidence relating to possible breaches of our sanctions legislation by British nationals or companies subject to British law. They were not asked to consider the political, diplomatic and economic events of the time; although they took the view that the facts set out in their report must be considered against this wider background. It is for noble Lords to set the report in its wider context, to consider its implications and to determine how it should influence our policies in the future.
To assist noble Lords in this task, I propose to relate briefly some of the political and economic factors which had to be faced by past Governments in their framing of policies towards Rhodesia, in particular where these related to oil sanctions. No doubt other noble Lords with great authority in this field who will be speaking in the debate will give their own assessment of these factors, in some cases on the basis of their own personal connections with the events in question.
Oil sanctions were imposed by the then British Government in December 1965, only one month after—despite all our efforts to avert it—Mr. Smith made his illegal declaration of independence, and thus ignored the clear warnings we gave to him in Salisbury of the grave consequences which would result from his act of rebellion against the Crown. It was by no means clear at first that there would be international co-operation in an oil embargo. In particular, Portuguese and South African co-operation was essential if oil sanctions were to be fully applied. It was, however, hoped and believed at the time that the closure of the principal route for the supply of oil to Rhodesia, namely, the Umtali pipeline, could deal a major blow to the Rhodesian economy and bring about an early return to legality. Oil sanctions were imposed by us unilaterally in recognition of our primary responsibility for tackling the Rhodesian problem, and as a means of securing the maximum co-operation of foreign Gov-
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ernments and the compliance of the oil companies. No oil entered Beira in Mozambique after 17th December 1965, and none reach Rhodesia's only refinery after 31st December. "Pirate" tankers bound for Beira were intercepted, first with the authority of the flag States concerned and then of the Security Council resolution of April 1966.
I think it is important to bear in mind that the Government of the time, and, indeed, successive Governments, were confronted with a number of complex factors. Sanctions policy could never be divorced from wider questions of policy towards Rhodesia, or considered in isolation from the Government's other political and economic responsibilities. They had to weigh the implications of every step they took, for the prospects of successful talks with the Rhodesian régime, for our relations with African and other Commonwealth countries and the United Nations, for our own economy, which was often under severe strain during those years, for the protection of our extensive commercial and investment interests built over many years in South Africa, and for the prospects of inducing South Africa to exercise a moderating influence on the régime. Some of our major allies were not keen to implement the existing sanctions, let alone to reinforce them. This was the international climate then. Critics of the effectiveness of our sanctions policies should perhaps bear these factors in mind.
It soon became obvious that sanctions had not stopped oil flowing to Rhodesia. It was clear that the supply came first direct from South Africa and later through Lourenço Marques in Mozambique. The only certain way in which these routes could have been closed was by the use of force, and no Government from 1966 onwards could contemplate that. But it was always hoped that diplomatic pressure and considerations of self-interest would bring the South African and Portugese Governments to reconsider their attitude towards sanctions or to use their political influence on the Rhodesian régime to achieve a settlement.
It was a fundamental consideration from the start—and one which has remained valid to this day—that the risks which economic confrontation with South Africa would entail could not, and should not,

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be borne by Britain alone among Western nations. As my noble friend Lord Caradon made clear to the United Nations in 1969, economic confrontation with South Africa at that time would have done us irreparable economic harm.
My Lords, at the end of 1966 the Government arranged the "Tiger" talks in an attempt to promote a settlement. If the proposals put forward by the Government at those Mediterranean talks, which I, myself, attended, had been accepted by Mr. Smith, there would have been a peaceful and gradual attainment of majority rule in Rhodesia. That opportunity was wantonly thrown overboard by Mr. Smith and his colleagues, as indeed, later on, were the opportunities presented by the "Fearless" talks, and on a number of other occasions. After the failure of the "Tiger" talks, the British Government proposed the resolution which was adopted by the Security Council in December 1966, imposing mandatory sanctions on Rhodesia's major exports and on certain key imports including oil.
The difficulties of making oil sanctions against Rhodesia effective only became fully apparent to the Government in the course of 1967, which Mr. Bingham describes as a year
"dominated by a series of initiatives taken by Her Majesty's Government to make the oil embargo against Rhodesia effective ".
Many schemes were advanced by the Government but reluctantly dismissed as unworkable on one or more of the following grounds. First, the refusal of Portugal and South Africa to apply sanctions left a wide gap in the blockade of Rhodesia. Secondly, economic confrontation with South Africa had, as I have explained, been ruled out. Thirdly, the reluctance of certain Western Governments at that time to put pressure on their oil companies reinforced the Government's not unreasonable unwillingness to act alone. Fourthly, the South African and other overseas subsidiaries of the oil companies in South Africa were not subject to our legal control.
It was generally recognised that the flow of oil through Lourenço Marques was at the heart of the problem. More than once the Government actively considered the possibility of extending the Beira blockade to Lourenço Marques. After close analysis, this was rejected as
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impracticable. Quite apart from the enormous logistical and financial problems, it was in any event clear that South Africa would have allowed alternative supplies of oil to reach Rhodesia through her territory. The American and French Governments of the time were judged most unwilling to agree to any blockade. The alternative course of rationing supplies to Lourenço Marques, which traditionally served also Swaziland, Botswana and the Transvaal as well as Mozambique and Rhodesia, would have been almost impossible to adminster. There seemed, moreover, no possibility of getting cooperation from the oil companies of other countries, which would have been essential for any rationing scheme. All these proposals were rejected as impracticable.
By the end of 1967, the Government was confronted with the economic crisis which followed the devaluation of sterling. The Rhodesian authorities seemed more intransigent than ever. Support in many countries for the maintenance of sanctions seemed to be wavering, and the introduction of new sanctions would certainly have caused difficulties with our partners. In these circumstances, as the Bingham Report records, Ministers decided to defer further consideration of proposals to intensify sanctions unilaterally. The Government turned their attention instead towards the possibility of comprehensive mandatory sanctions under the authority of the United Nations.
It is important to stress, as the report does, that it was only towards the end of 1967 that the Government began to suspect that subsidiaries of the British oil companies were involved in the supply of oil to Rhodesia. The facts concerning the source and precise mechanics of oil supplies to Rhodesia were matters of the greatest secrecy in Lourenço Marques. The Portuguese authorities had indeed alleged the involvement of British oil companies in the trade but they did not provide firm evidence; and, when the allegations were taken up by the Government with the oil companies, they were firmly rejected by them. Towards the end of 1967, however, the Government came to suspect that some of the oil companies' customers might be re-selling oil to Rhodesia. It was at this point that the Commonwealth Secretary of the time decided to meet with

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senior executives of Shell and BP. The course of these meetings and the information which over the months emerged from them are described in the report itself. This of course includes the information about the previous role of Shell Mozambique, a British registered company, and the setting up of the swap arrangements that took it out of the direct line of supply.
It is gratifying to know that my noble friend Lord Thomson of Monifieth will be speaking in this debate, and I am sure that the whole House will be anxious to hear him. Others concerned have already described their part in the events that occurred. As Attorney-General, I myself was at times closely concerned in Rhodesian affairs. My own clear recollection of the Rhodesian story, so far as I was involved in it, is that all my colleagues acted throughout with the essential objective of securing a peaceful and honourable settlement in Rhodesia.
Members of both Houses will make their own judgments on these matters in the light of the debates that are taking place this week and of the Bingham report itself. Parliament will then be able to consider whether or not a further inquiry is called for, and, if so, what form it should take. Some of the salient considerations on these issues were spelt out by my right honourable friend the Attorney-General in another place yesterday, and no doubt noble Lords will have read the report of the debate. The Government will consider the matter with great care in the light of the debate in the two Houses and of the report.
From 1969 until the beginning of the present Administration, there was little change in the oil position except in one important respect, namely, the discontinuance in 1971 of the swap arrangement. The Conservative Government of 1970 to 1974 maintained virtually unchanged all the existing sanctions including the Beira patrol. But, in 1971, according to Mr. Bingham, the swap arrangements came to an end and Shell Mozambique, a British registered company, was re-introduced into the direct line of supply to Rhodesia. I do not wish today to discuss the actions of the oil companies in this connection since it is a matter which has been referred to and is being
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examined by the Director of Public Prosecutions. So far as the knowledge of Government is concerned, the Bingham Report found that the changed situation was not notified to the Government either in 1971 when it occurred, or in 1974 when it apparently came to the attention of oil company executives in London for the first time.
When in 1974 a Labour Government returned to office particular efforts were made—with some succes—to encourage a more determined application of sanctions by our international partners. The number of prosecutions for breaches of our own sanctions orders also increased. In 1976, the Government received information giving fresh cause for concern about the supply of oil to Rhodesia. The Bingham inquiry was set up, and we were anxious that all the facts should be brought to light, however unpalatable some of them might be. The Government gave every assistance to the inquiry. Our action in publishing the Bingham Report virtually in its entirety demonstrates our determination that there should be no cover-up.
Since the Government were put on inquiry in 1976 we have done our utmost to ensure that British oil companies and their subsidiaries are taking no part in the supply of oil to Rhodesia. Last year we made it clear to the British oil companies that they should take firm action to close any loopholes. The Bingham Report traces the efforts which the companies then made to ensure that they and their subsidiaries were no longer directly or indirectly involved in the supply of oil products to Rhodesia, and describes the assurances subsequently given to the Government. Since then, we have taken up urgently with the oil companies further matters, some of which have been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
It is, of course, South Africa that supplies the oil which Rhodesia needs. It can be argued that oil supplies to Rhodesia can only be cut off by cutting off all oil to South Africa. We cannot say that an embargo against South Africa, with its extremely serious international and domestic implications, will never be contemplated. But we should not underestimate those implications, nor the practical difficulty of bringing about quick results, given South Africa's substantial oil stocks

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and her expanding ability to produce oil from her own coal. An embargo could only be contemplated in full agreement with our Western partners and with the wholehearted co-operation of the international community. It could be justified only by a situation of the utmost gravity. At present, it is our earnest hope that the South African Government will recognise that it is in their own interest to follow a path of co-operation with the West in the search for a peaceful solution to the problems of Southern Africa.
As to events in Rhodesia itself, the Government stand, as successive Governments have done, for a settlement that is acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole. Nothing less can possibly bring peace to that country. There is no doubt in my mind that, if Mr. Smith had been more mindful of that fundamental principle, held by successive British Governments, and less intent upon preserving the privileged position of the white minority, that community could by now have been assured of a bright future in a peaceful and independent Zimbabwe.
There has been some criticism of the Government for failing to support the agreement signed in Salisbury on 3rd March setting up the interim Administration. The genesis of that agreement was this: it was launched several months after the publication of the Anglo-American proposals, involving a genuine transfer of power to the majority, which Mr. Smith found unacceptable. The régime persisted in pursuing a settlement to the exclusion of two of the major parties to the fighting. It was a gamble which now seems likely to prove to be a misguided and tragic failure. Once again, Mr. Smith seems to have conceded too little, too late. However, when the Salisbury agreement was signed, we acknowledged that it was a step forward and contained positive elements, though we also made our misgivings clear. We believed—and believe—that, to bring about an end to the fighting, a settlement has to include all the parties. But my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary did say that, faced with a continuation of the fighting, if we were satisfied that power had been transferred to a freely elected Government, genuinely representative of the majority, Parliament
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would be bound to honour the commitment to the Fifth Principle, and to recognise the result.
So it is not the case that we have failed to give the Salisbury agreement a fair chance. The agreement, unhappily, has failed to bring an end to the fighting; the ending of racial discrimination is promised but legislation (which must be passed by the white dominated Parliament under the illegal 1969 constitution) still has to be made; and now Mr. Smith has publicly cast doubt on prospects for elections and independence at the end of the year. Positive change has been all too slow to come.
I wish we could believe with confidence that Mr. Smith and his colleagues were beginning to view the situation more realistically. But his statement in Washington that the Executive Council were now at last prepared to attend an all-party conference without pre-conditions was, then and subsequently, hedged around with qualifications which in effect amounted to pre-conditions. These cast serious doubts on his willingness to negotiate constructively at such a meeting.
We believe that the basic principles of the Anglo-American proposals remain valid: a genuine cease-fire will be achieved only as a result of agreement between all the parties, and agreement between all the parties must be reached on the basis of arrangements that are fair and impartial as between all sides. We believe in, as does the American Government, and we are committed to, the achievement of a settlement by negotiation. We think that the proposals we put to the parties last year were an acceptable and fair package. I am sure that noble Lords share the Government's aim of achieving a settlement which will bring peace and stability to an independent Zimbabwe. We believe that to achieve this the continuation of the powers we have under Section 2 of the Southern Rhodesia Act 1965 is indispensable. I hope therefore that the House will accordingly approve the draft renewal order. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Southern Rhodesia Act 1965 (Continuation) Order 1978, laid before the House on 24th October last, be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.52 p.m.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, the House will have listened with great attention to the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack, who speaks with all the authority of his office; and we are grateful to him for the speech that he has made. I hope, however, that we shall not confine ourselves in the debate this afternoon wholly to sanctions and the Bingham Report because I think that, however important those two things are, more importantly we ought to look at the way ahead in Rhodesia and at what can be done to avert what increasingly looks likely to become a catastrophe.
It must be with a very heavy heart that all of us observe the deteriorating situation, the growing casualty lists and the injudicious things that are said and done which make settlement more difficult and the problem facing any British Government more acute. There is nobody, wherever they sit in this House, who does not recognise that Britain has a special responsibility, though to some extent it has been decided to share it with the United Nations, and the fact is that over the last 13 years of UDI we have had no control over events in Rhodesia itself. But we have a special responsibility because of the country's history, the fact that many of those who live there are British and that those of us who know it know it to be a country not just of great natural beauty but one with a potential unrivalled in that part of Africa, and indeed with an economy far more sophisticated than its neighbours, giving its entire population a much higher standard of life and education. There can be nobody who does not wish to see a peaceful outcome, and what really ought to concern us this afternoon is how best, at this very late stage, we can achieve that.
I have no particular wish to spend a large part of what I have to say in recrimination, but I must say this—and I must say it because it has a bearing on what is happening and what we ought to do. I must say that I do not think the actions of Her Majesty's Government, on the two specific occasions when it might have been possible to reach an agreed settlement, were either wise or helpful; and perhaps in a different forum I would have put it a good deal more trenchantly than that. I think the Government
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bungled the Geneva Conference. Dr. Kissinger managed to get the parties round the table and made it clear to Mr. Smith what he could expect. Indeed, it was and is, in my judgment, wholly due to Dr. Kissinger that Mr. Smith was prepared to reach an internal settlement on the basis of the Five Principles. But the British Government at Geneva backed away from those undertakings, and no objective person could blame Mr. Smith for the breakdown of the talks in Geneva.
Subsequently, when the internal settlement was reached—and here I must, I am afraid, disagree with the noble and learned Lord—the attitude of this country, far from being encouraging was positively discouraging to a settlement which, although it may not have been perfect and it had its defects, could surely have been the basis of an agreement and something upon which we could all have built. I must be frank. It seems to us on this side of the House that the Government's attitude towards Rhodesia and the internal settlement has all along been one-sided. There was, for example, instant condemnation of the Rhodesian raids on Zambia and Mozambique, from which two countries Rhodesia is invaded and blacks and whites alike are murdered. But I have not read of any condemnation of the guerrilla camps themselves, and no representations seem to be made to the Presidents of those countries who allow those camps in their countries.
Is it really very surprising that the internal Government, whose existence is at stake, should be forced, as the guerrilla war intensifies, to attack their enemies at their source? As the Dean of Salisbury said the other day, there was a deafening silence after the shooting down after the Viscount airliner; and the same is true, if I may say so, of the Government's handling of the arms sent to Zambia. Why on earth did not the Government announce their decision to give arms to Zambia immediately after the Kano meeting, when it was in point of fact taken? They delayed the announcement, so that it looked as if it was directly connected with the raids, with the protection of the guerrilla camps—an indication of support for the Patriotic Front against the internal settlement. It seems to confirm the belief among Rhodesians, rightly or wrongly—and

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indeed among others—that the present Government are biased against the internal settlement.
The Government, by never giving one word of encouragement, led Mr. Nkomo, Mr. Mugabe and the Patriotic Front to believe that they had only to wait and events and circumstances would sweep them into power, perhaps with a little help from their friends and with the blessing of the British Government. The absence of any commendation of the remarkable step forward contained in the internal settlement was, in my judgment, disastrous.
Here Mr. Smith had agreed to majority rule; here he had agreed to free elections; here he had agreed to one man, one vote —all those things which over the years we had been pressing him to do and which he had refused to do—and the reaction of Her Majesty's Government seemed to be one of barely concealed disbelief, disapproval and discouragement. Why then should Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe associate themselves with an agreement which did not seem to have the blessing of either the British or the American Government? Somewhat naturally, they took the view that if they held out sooner or later they would find that events had gone their way, which appeared to be what the British Government wanted. I believe this was a cardinal error; and much that has followed flows from that one mistake.
There was no British presence in Salisbury to advise the internal leaders how to proceed and how perhaps to adjust some of their decisions to take account of the other African leaders; and, though much progress has been made, the African leaders of the internal settlement, inexperienced in government, have been far too dilatory in changing the complexion of the Government, in making it appear in style and fact a black majority Government led by moderate and sensible people. Months elapsed before there was any action on the question of racial discrimination or the Land Tenure Act. Even now, neither of those two measures has passed through the Rhodesian Parliament, and the impetus which the British Government could have given died away until we are now faced by an inevitable postponement of the elections, if indeed
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credible elections can be held at this moment. We have not yet had a white referendum, which Mr. Smith promised. That cannot be done until we have had the constitution and the constitution has not yet been published. And we are faced with the lack of success of the internal black leaders in recruiting to their side the guerrillas of Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe.
I would not, of course, blame all this on the Government. That would be neither fair nor would it be right. But it seems fairly clear, at any rate at the outset, that Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe were by no means sufficiently convinced of their electoral popularity to put the matter to the test by associating themselves with the settlement, and they felt that fighting was a more likely way of getting their own ends. It is also true that the interim Government has made its own mistakes. But the fact remains that we are now faced with a situation infinitely graver and more difficult than was the case in March this year. Sad to say, we are where we are, and not where we would want to be.
What, then, do we do and what are the essentials of a settlement? It seems to me that a settlement which is going to stand up to world opinion and world recognition must have the acceptance of the people of Rhodesia, and their acceptance of a constitution and a Government and a leader in a test of public opinion. For that to happen, two things are required: first, a cessation, or at any rate a considerable diminution, of guerrilla activity; and, secondly, the presence of impartial observers at that election. I understand that this is acceptable to Mr. Smith and the African leaders of the internal settlement—though no doubt the modalities would have to be pursued—and are open to discussion. At any rate, they are prepared to come to a conference to discuss it. I do not know whether Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe would be prepared to come to such a conference, though I hope very much that they would.
But one point, at any rate, is clear. The constant reiteration by the Government of the Anglo-American proposals, which, if the Government will forgive me for saying so, seems to be the total sum of their activity over Rhodesia in these last few months, is not likely to prove

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successful or attractive to the parties concerned, though some of the provisions contained in those proposals are both sensible and desirable. I think what is needed is something different. I do not believe that there is any likelihood of an agreement in the full glare of publicity, with the positions taken up beforehand, television interviews at the end of each session and all the rest of it. Nothing is going to be achieved that way, and it may well be that at this particular moment a face to face meeting between the six protagonists would not only be unsuccessful, but would lead to worse confrontation.
I think that there is another way of approaching it. The Western members of the Security Council decided to appoint a contact group, consisting of the ambassadors of their respective countries, to negotiate with the South Africans and with SWAPO to narrow the differences between the two parties and to make proposals for the elections and the eventual independence of Namibia. During that period, at no time did the South Africans ever meet SWAPO, nor would it have been a very profitable meeting, frankly, if they had done so. But what did happen was that by dint of extremely assiduous and ingenious diplomacy—and Sir David Scott, our ambassador, must take great credit for this—the differences were reduced and an agreed package arrived at.
It is true that subsequently things have gone wrong, though I hope not irretrievably so, but skilful, secret and patient diplomacy made that agreement possible. Is there not something here, some experience here, which we could use in the Rhodesian context? Why should not the Security Council appoint a contact group, consisting not just of the Western members of the Security Council as it was in the Namibian situation, but also others from other parts of the world to try to narrow the differences and achieve what we seek, meeting the parties separately, acting as a go-between; honest brokers, without anything to gain but a peaceful solution?
This, I think, should be the prelude to a summit. I accept what the Prime Minister said in another place the other day, that a summit is, so to speak, the last throw. But it would have to be a
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summit of quite a different style, a summit on the Camp David style, at Chequers or Leeds or somewhere, presided over by the Prime Minister himself, for it would be absolutely essential that the Prime Minister was there, since it is his authority which would be needed to get a settlement. This conference would take place with no publicity, no communiqués, no interviews, behind closed walls and doors. I do not know what might come out of it, but there is, I suppose, a chance of success. Time is running out, and drastic remedies are needed for drastic solutions.
Of course, I accept that the Government must decide upon the timing of such a conference. Those of us in Opposition cannot possibly know enough of the situation behind the scenes to make a judgment about that. But the Government really must say something further than a constant reiteration of the Anglo-American proposals. I think that the parties would come to a conference of that kind. But I think that if, at the end of it, it was abundantly plain that there was one individual or one party holding out and making a peaceful settlement with elections impossible, then a situation would be created whereby Britain and America, and indeed the United Nations, would radically have to rethink their attitude to the problem.
So, my Lords, I come to sanctions, but before I do so perhaps I ought to say one word about the Bingham Report. I was asked a Question in January, 1971, which I looked up the other day, about the efficacy of the Beira patrol and I told your Lordships that, as a result of the Beira patrol, no oil was being pumped from Beira to Umtali. Lord Salisbury, my noble friend's father, then asked a supplementary question in which he said:
"My Lords, is it the view of the Government that the Beira patrol is absolutely preventing the Rhodesians from getting all the oil that they want?"
I replied,
"No, my Lords. I do not think it is the view of the Government that the Bera patrol has been successful in preventing oil from reaching Rhodesia ".
The truth of the matter is that nobody supposed that oil and other goods were not getting through to Rhodesia through both Mozambique and South Africa. The

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reason we all knew it was happening was that once the decision was made, and very sensibly made, not to have sanctions against South Africa and Portugal, there was no conceivable way in which an economic blockade could be made effective against Rhodesia. Indeed, visitors coming back from Rhodesia at that time bore witness to the inefficacy of sanctions. For my part, I recollect that when we came to Government in 1970 what we concentrated on, and what my noble friend Lord Home concentrated on, was a solution of the political problem and he lent all his energies in that direction. But that is not to say that we did not accept, though we had voted against it, the mandatory resolution of the Security Council on sanctions, and we continued the arrangements made by the previous Government for their support.
But it is the continuation of the sanctions order against Rhodesia which is concerning the House this afternoon, and I recognise very much the force of the arguments which have been deployed in another place and which, no doubt, will be deployed here. Mr. Smith is prepared, the internal settlement is prepared, to do all those things which over these years we have asked him to do. It is true that not all of them have been accomplished, but that is not entirely his fault. The fact that there is no election is very largely the fault of the guerrillas. Why then, the argument goes, should sanctions be continued when the purpose for which these sanctions were imposed has largely been achieved—and that argument is made stronger by the attitude of the Government in these last few months towards the internal settlement.
I think that these are powerful arguments, but I also believe that there are other considerations than that argument which any British Government and any responsible politician should take into account. If I differ with some of my noble friends—and I am always reluctant to do this—I hope they will accept it from me that I do not do so because I am opposed to a solution on the lines of the internal settlement, or that I have any feeling about the illegality of Mr. Smith's régime, or anything of that kind, but because it seems to me that the other considerations are, at the moment, overriding.
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I think that the test of whether or not the sanctions order should be extended is solely this: whether or not sanctions removal will be more or less likely to make a peaceful settlement attainable. Nobody with any knowledge of the situation believes that the Rhodesian economy is the crucial factor and that sanctions in themselves are critical. I do not think even Mr. Smith would claim that. In the debate in the other place we saw how ineffective sanctions have been. I think that the issue of sanctions is perhaps more symbolic than anything else. If that is so, the judgment of whether or not to continue them must depend upon whether it will further the prospect of a settlement.
When the Labour Government referred the Rhodesian issue to the United Nations, we in my Party opposed it, not just because we believed—and believe—that, as a weapon, economic sanctions are never successful and should not be used, but because we realised that once sanctions were imposed by a mandatory resolution of the Security Council it would, in the nature of things, be extremely difficult to get them removed. Any resolution to abandon sanctions would, of course, have to be agreed by the Security Council and be subject to the veto of its permanent members.
I remember, as my noble friend will remember, that in the period 1970 to 1974 the Conservative Government of the day, as unconvinced about the efficacy of sanctions as all of us are now, had an inquiry made into how sanctions could be removed. That inquiry confirmed the difficulties which we had forecast in the middle 1960s and showed clearly the consequences which would flow, some of which your Lordships have heard this afternoon from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. I think, if I may say so, that it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the consequences to this country of a unilateral breach by Britain of our international obligations. The rule of law and the acceptance of international law by the countries of the world is not without its importance far outside Rhodesia—or the issue of sanctions which we are discussing today. I have no doubt that my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone will have something to say about that later on in the debate.

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If the issue of sanctions is largely symbolic, it must be remembered that sanctions are symbolic to both parties and not just to the internal settlement. They are symbolic to the black African world and to the Third World. They are a test of whether we are serious about a settlement in Rhodesia which is in accordance with the Five Principles to which both Parties in this House have long subscribed. An abandonment of that position before the Five Principles were achieved would, in my view, bring down upon our heads a universal condemnation which would spread far beyond what we are talking about this afternoon. Nor could we, in all honesty, say that the Five Principles have been fulfilled.
As I said to your Lordships earlier, there has not been a test of public opinion; nor has there been a white referendum; nor have the Acts on racial discrimination and land tenure enacted by Parliament been repealed. If we were to say—as some of my noble friends, I think, would—that intentions were good enough, I do not believe that in the light of the history of the last 13 years we would seem to be either convincing or consistent in our policy. Let us make no mistake about it. A repeal of sanctions by this country would bring great hostility upon us and would make it much more difficult, if not impossible, for Britain to act as a mediator or catalyst in the settlement of the problem, for the problem is a political one in the last analysis.
I noticed, for example, that General Peter Walls, for whom I have a great respect, said in Salisbury the other day that there was no military solution; it had to be political. Of course he is quite right. It must be a political solution, and to achieve it Britain has an important role to play. If by our actions now we place ourselves in a position where we cannot play a constructive role, we are not only making a difficult situation more difficult but we are in no sense helping the internal settlement upon which we on this side would like a solution to be built. I think that at this stage the rejection of the order would be harmful, would polarise the two sides, would certainly unite the opposition against the internal Government, might very well escalate the fighting and might perhaps remove the last opportunity that the British
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Government have for constructive mediation. There is one other—
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, this seems to me to be the all-important point and one which I find so difficult to follow. How can one be an arbitrator or a mediator when one is applying a sanction against one of the parties, and only one of the parties, between whom one is purporting to mediate? After all, we in this House are a great tribunal. I am quite certain that our Judicial Committee would upset any arbitration award upon evidence that the arbitrator was exercising unilateral sanctions against one of the parties.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord appreciates that this is a very important debate. I understand that he does, and I am glad about that. I hope the noble Lord will keep down.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: But, my Lords—
Several noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I wonder whether I could have a go. Of course, we have been trying to mediate under those circumstances for the last 13 years—not very successfully. But let us hope very much that we can in the future.
There is one other reason that I must put before your Lordships. I think that this House is in a very particular position. If in another place the whole of the Conservative Party voted against the order, however many of them went into the Lobby that order would not be defeated. That is not the case here. Because of the composition of this House, if the Conservative Party united against the Government the order would undoubtedly be defeated. No doubt that would be the intention of those who would vote against the order, for, knowing them as I do, they would not be likely to vote against the order in the hope that sufficient of their colleagues would abstain so that it would not be defeated. Their intention would be to defeat the order.
I hope the consequences of that action will be considered. We know that the Parliament Act does not apply to orders. We also know—certainly the noble Lord,

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Lord Shackleton, and I know, because we have experienced it—that if the Government so wish they can introduce another order later on, in slightly different terms, in the hope that the House will then pass it. But why should this House pass it a second time if it is their intention now to defeat the order? Why should they change their mind, unless their vote today is just a demonstration? The consequences of that action would be that your Lordships' House, with its distinguished membership on an hereditary and nominated basis, would make the ultimate decision as to whether or not this order should or should not be continued, in the knowledge that last night it was passed by a fairly large majority in another place and that nearly two-thirds of the Conservative Party abstained from voting against it. I think the responsibility for doing that would be heavy upon this House. I disregard the constitutional crisis in the sense that there will be a Lords v. Commons issue and your Lordships' House will be abolished. After all, we know that we are going to be abolished if there is another Labour Government. But I do question—and I ask my noble friends to question—whether in these circumstances the rejection of this order in the way that I have described would be very wise.
I believe that the wider considerations which I have put before your Lordships are of extreme importance to this country and go far beyond the issue of sanctions which we are debating this afternoon. But I confess that I should be tempted to disregard that if I felt that by removing sanctions we should actively take a positive step forward to the solution of the problem. But I do not feel that. I do not think that in themselves sanctions are significant, except symbolically. I believe that the consequences of their removal would lead not only to an intensification of the dispute but would remove Britain's ability to play a useful role.
If I am right, what then constructively can we do to help the morale of the parties to the internal settlement, who feel very ill-used? The fighting has got to be stopped. Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Nkomo have got to be made to understand that they will not succeed in their wish for power unless they make significant compromises, not least that they are
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prepared to take part in free and fair and internationally supervised elections. They must be made to understand that force will not solve the problem, except perhaps in the last resort somebody may inherit a Rhodesia bankrupt, ruined, devastated, without a white or a black population capable of reviving its economy or restoring its prosperity. Neither Mr. Nkomo nor Mr. Mugabe could want that.
Let us have one more attempt: First by my contact group to try to talk some sense into the Patriotic Front, then a summit conference, presided over by the Prime Minister and I hope with Mr. Vance, the Secretary of State at present, in which the Prime Minister must use all his skills. If that conference fails, and if it fails because of the intransigence of those who are not prepared to accept a solution based on the Five Principles, then the West—not just Britain but the West—must rethink its policies, for no party can be allowed to have a veto over a fair settlement.
I do not know what chance of success my proposals have; if there are any better ideas, let us by all means examine them. An Opposition can only make suggestions, but one thing I beg the Government to understand: They cannot continue on the path that they have been pursuing over these last months, expecting that the Anglo-American proposals at this late stage will be acceptable to anybody. It is up to them to take the initiative, and the sands are running out.
4.23 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I should like to start from two premises which I believe to be valid. The first is that the country which up to now has been called Rhodesia, even if re-christened "Zimbabwe", is, like most emergent black African States, in reality a collection of tribes held together during the last century by white leadership or, if you will, by white domination. As elsewhere, it is therefore difficult to imagine that, even if it will not necessarily become totalitarian or communist, it will ever be a democracy in the Western sense of the word.
The second premise is this: we have in any case now reached the point, long regarded by many as inevitable, when the

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remaining 200,000-odd white settlers who have so far held the country together, in spite of their recent successful raids on rebel centres outside the country, will be able to remain only if they agree that, as in Kenya, power should pass, and should be seen to pass, after an agreed interval, from their hands into the hands of the local indigenous population. What exactly will happen then must be left to that population to decide. We may or may not approve, but they must work out their salvation in their own way. There is no long-term alternative.
Some, while accepting the first of my premises, may still reject the second, preferring, in effect, a continuing recourse to arms to preserve white leadership, at any rate for many years ahead. Others will regard recent events as the final and irreversible phase of the retreat from Empire which began, as we all know, over 30 years ago with the independence of India. But in any case the second premise is evidently not yet accepted by the majority of the white settlers, or indeed by their sympathisers in this country. They seem to feel that if sanctions are now lifted unilaterally, which as I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, pointed out would inevitably imply the immediate recognition of the Government based on the internal settlement made last March, the special position of the settlers would be safeguarded, especially perhaps if a new Government were to receive assistance from outside, and notably from the United Kingdom, in their efforts to eliminate any remaining rebels or terrorists.
I think few in this country would reject out of hand any solution based on the application of the internal settlement, provided only that it was likely to end the war and gain general approval. But the real question surely is whether, in default of willingness on the part of the whites to go further towards acceptance of rule by the black majority, such a solution is now practicable, and more particularly, of course, whether a refusal by your Lordships to renew the sanctions order, which as I understand it is the only decision in front of us today, would do anything to bring it about. Unfortunately, the answer to both these questions must inevitably be, "No". For in the first place the willingness of the settlers—and here I think my analysis must differ
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somewhat from that put forward just now by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington—as exemplified in the internal settlement itself, to accept black majority rule is tempered by their proposed retention, as I understand it, for at least 10 years of control over the Civil Service, the armed forces and the police.
I do not want to go on too long, my Lords, but for instance paragraph 5 of the internal settlement lays down that the armed forces must be "free from political interference". And, as I understand it, the whole Administration will in any case come under an executive council consisting of Mr. Smith and his three black colleagues who will take decisions by what is called consensus; in other words, presumably, decisions will have to be concurred in by Mr. Smith. I should have thought it was obvious that under such a régime, although admittedly at the moment it is backed up by a powerful Mashona leader, namely, Bishop Muzorewa, the black Ministers who are going to be installed, duplicating as it were the white ones, will have very little real power and I am afraid will be regarded by most of the educated blacks as what are known as "Uncle Toms".
I could develop further arguments to this effect in an analysis of the internal settlement but I have not the time to do so. All I would assert, therefore, is that, with the best will in the world, it is difficult to see how a settlement based on the present internal settlement can possibly produce stability and result in an enduring peace. Moreover, the proposed large blocking minority of the whites in the proposed new legislative Assembly, however justifiable to some, is obviously unacceptable to the exiled nationalist leaders, who now seem, after all, to control considerable areas of the country, and who—we must face the fact—rightly or wrongly have the sympathy of nearly all the so-called developing nations of the world.
Quite apart from this, the unilateral lifting of sanctions by us, in the absence of any real change of heart in Salisbury or of some agreement with the Patriotic Front, together with the official recognition of the new régime which such a move would necessarily imply, could only be a gesture, as I think Lord Carrington rightly said, without any

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practical result on the outcome of the war. All that this gesture could have by way of practical effect would be to prejudice our relations with the whole of black Africa, including Nigeria, with whom our trade is now extremely important, to say nothing of the whole Commonwealth, to the maintenance of which I believe most noble Lords on my left still attach considerable importance; to place a severe strain on our relations with America, our greatest ally, and to subject us to the perfectly valid accusation of having violated our obligations under the Charter of the United Nations, thus playing into the hands of the Russians and their Cuban friends. Whatever our emotions, my Lords, I cannot think that this would be a very sensible thing to do. Even less sensible, I suggest, would it be for us in this House to reverse a decision taken last night by no less than a three-to-one majority in another place.
My Lords, I do not want to be simply destructive. So what should we do? It would be quite wrong, I think, to sit back and say this is all the fault of Mr. Smith and all we can do is to let nature take its course. After all, Mr. Smith has over recent years made concessions. His enemies might say that he was forced to make them. His friends would say, no doubt, that he thought sincerely that only slow progress towards majority rule was in the real interests of the blacks. The latest concession is apparently the repeal of all laws giving any special privileges to the white minority, though we have still to learn what the real impact of this may be. If we may believe some reports it will only in reality mean more equality for the better off blacks, the remainder remaining unequal by virtue of economic necessity.
Still, as the situation becomes worse, Mr. Smith and his friends may even get around to explaining how they would be prepared to modify the internal settlement so as to bring it, I will not say absolutely into line with the Anglo-American proposals of 1977, but in some way to approximate it to them. At that point we might conceivably have some success in selling this revised scheme, or a modified version of it, to the Patriotic Front, or at long last inducing them, or some of them, to talk about it. It is quite true that the prospect of such a meeting or conference with the Patriotic Front has been put back, if indeed it has not been made
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impossible, by the recent heavy attacks, however justified they may have been on strategic grounds, by the Rhodesian forces on the nucleus of Mr. Nkomo's potential invasion force of Matabeles in Zambia. And we can hardly fail to note that these attacks followed almost immediately on Mr. Smith's declaration in America that he was now prepared to attend such a conference without preconditions.
What, then, are we to make of the immediate future? If the armed struggle goes on, as I think it must, the position of the settlers and their black associates, unrecognised by the international community and still subject to sanctions, can hardly fail, even with some South African support, to get worse over the years. Their small, though no doubt highly efficient, army, now incorporating, I believe, quite a number of very tough mercenaries, may hold the rebels at bay for quite a long time yet, but only at the cost of real and increasing economic distress and social disruption. All this will be intensified by the steadily increasing departure of whites, even now running, as I understand it, at something like one thousand a month. For their part the rebels will continue to operate from bases outside the country, and the Rhodesian forces, though they may carry out raids, can hardly occupy whole areas of Zambia and Mozambique. Besides, there is always the likelihood that before long they may be challenged in the air by fighters coming from Communist countries, and more especially by the deployment of Sams, as they are called, and other antiaircraft weapons, which will presumably make raids no longer practicable. Probably what will happen to start with is the acquisition by the rebels of hardly detectable weapons, which can now be fired by one man and are very effective against low flying aircraft and helicopters. Short of an occupation by the settlers of Zambia, Mozambique and Angola, I fail to see how over the years such deployment could be prevented.
If the war, therefore, goes on and no move to end it by peaceful means succeeds, it seems likely that the existing régime in Salisbury will be eroded to the point at which Mr. Smith will find himself without major black associates, and then I fear there may well be a massive exodus of settlers, some 70,000 of whom, I believe,

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have British passports and might want to come to this country; in other words, at the most under one-tenth of the number of refugees from Algeria accommodated in France when General de Gaulle, the hero, I believe, of many British admirers of Mr. Smith, decided to make peace with the rebels in 1962. We need not, I suppose, shed too many tears over the fate of such refugees if indeed there should be an exodus. They will have had a good life while it lasted, and most of them should be fully capable, as the French refugees in Algeria were, of earning their living. What would be terrible would be the likely effect of this particular solution of the Rhodesian problem on the blacks who had either been in the army or had acted in close co-operation with the whites. Indeed, this is probably the main reason for avoiding such a solution if we possibly can.
So surely, my Lords, what it comes down to is this—and I approach my conclusion: the war will doubtless go on, but after at the most a year or two the probability is that either the settlers will have to call it a day, leaving behind, I am afraid, a country rent by civil war and probably occupied by Cubans and other Communist sympathisers, or they and their black associates will have of their own volition to accept something more like the Anglo-American plan. This in its turn would presumably mean that the whites would have to renounce any blocking minority in the legislative Assembly, in any case possessing, shall we say, 20 and not 28 Members on a separate list, who would not be able to veto any fundamental reforms desired by the majority. For their protection they would, therefore, have, as in Kenya, to rely on suitable provisions in the eventual constitution regarding expropriation and compensation, and they would not, of course, have any control over the army or the police. There would likewise necessarily have to be an interim period, perhaps lasting for a year or more, during which the country, before elections or perhaps before a referendum, would effectively be run by some United Nations nominee, unless, of course, a British subject were preferred.
No doubt such developments would result in a number of settlers leaving, but some might well remain. This really is a settlement worth working and waiting
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for, and I suggest that it is by no means out of the question: it is attainable still. Moreover, the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for what I think he called a "contact group" is very constructive and might well be accepted by the Government. I hope that they will respond to the noble Lord's suggestion. For if we could still not persuade the leaders of the Patriotic Front to come in on such a deal, call off their fighters and submit themselves to some kind of election in a supervised vote, we ought to have no hesitation in recommending its acceptance to the United Nations and in proceeding to lift sanctions together with the grant of substantial aid. That, indeed, would be the moment when, with the goodwill of the international community, we might and should with profit be able to take an independent and constructive line, not too much influenced by Mr. Andrew Young, and I hope that the Government will not exclude it in their forward thinking. Of course, if at the right moment Mr. Smith were to retire and be succeeded by some other white leader of more moderate or progressive views, the prospects of such an outcome would be very much greater.
I certainly would not expect the settlers to agree to such a solution for some time yet. The danger, of course, is that they will never agree, preferring to go on fighting to the end in the hope that something will turn up, or that the world situation will somehow change or be changed to their advantage. In other words, the danger may be that they will hang on until the Cubans arrive on the frontiers with aircraft and tanks, and then make a strong bid for Western, and more especially, American help, on the grounds that they alone are standing up against an obvious Communist drive to dominate not only Zimbabwe but the whole of South Africa. It would, as the French say, be politique du pire, but I would certainly not regard it as impossible.
Those who believe with Mr. Julian Amery, for instance, that we shall one day be forced to help South Africa against attack from the North, no doubt encouraged by the Soviet Union, may sympathise with such a plan, which would admittedly be the logical consequence of an immediate lifting of sanctions, coupled with recognition of and physical support for the Smith régime. I say

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that it would be logical and it would, admittedly, be a policy rather than a gesture, which is something. But I confess that I personally cannot imagine the circumstances in which what would probably end up in all-out war against the so-called black "Front Line" countries, would be supported by the majority of people in this country.
As I see it, however, it is still possible for us to induce Salisbury to come out in favour of what I would call a genuine hand-over of power to blacks, clearly representing a majority in a country, in a system approved by the United Nations or at least by a majority in the international community. That, as we on these Benches at any rate see it, is the best way to prevent Communists, no doubt with Cuban support, from taking over both in Zimbabwe and in the various surrounding States, and I hope and believe that, as a policy, it will in a general way still commend itself to the majority of your Lordships, irrespective of Party affiliations.
4.45 p.m.
The Marquess of SALISBURY: My Lords, I declare an interest in the subject which is being debated. Inevitably on these occasions each year we have to cover much of the same ground as we have covered in the past. However, I shall endeavour to avoid doing so as far as possible because since I have been in the House I have addressed your Lordships on almost every occasion that this particular subject has arisen. The renewal of the sanctions order is bound, inevitably, to produce the same arguments. We have already heard many of them today: we must not rock the boat at the critical moment; we must be careful of our United Nations obligations, and many other similar ones. At the same time I believe that there are now other considerations which somewhat alter the situation and which should affect our thinking but many of them are not directly connected with the situation of Rhodesia. However, one of the international complications that does affect us is that the United Nations has imposed sanctions and to that extent, as members of the organisation, we are party to an international agreement. Apart from that the internal aspect seems to have been very much pushed into the background.
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I wonder why Her Majesty's Government are so anxious to support the Patriotic Front whose aims are admittedly Marxist by nature. Surely that is not consistent with their frequently reiterated demands for agreement to be reached under the Five Principles which have been laid down for so many years. If control did pass to the Patriotic Front, how are we to know that they would carry it out on the basis of majority rule, which is what I understand the Five Principles seek? At present, they would appear to have at the most some 30 per cent. of the electorate in their support. I should be interested to know where, on this point Her Majesty's Government stand and what they now seek to achieve. For, after all, they accepted the Kissinger proposals, as did the Rhodesian Government, and surely that should have been the beginning of the setting up of a democratic Rhodesian State. However, unfortunately they ratted on it, possibly because the so-called Front-Line Presidents objected, although I suspect that they had previously agreed to the terms. So long as Her Majesty's Government continue to go along with these gentlemen they will surely go on asking for more just as they have done over the past year, and that will continue until they have obtained all their demands leading to their control of Rhodesia.
In spite of the rejection of the Kissinger terms, the Rhodesian Government, on the other hand, have gone a long way towards implementing what was agreed. They now have a multiracial Government, they are arranging to hold elections on the basis of one man one vote, and they are taking steps to abolish the Land Apportionment Act. Those actions, in my view at least, meet most of the requirements laid down by the Five Principles.
It could, of course, be said at present that the Fifth Principle—the test of acceptance—has not as yet been met, but presumably your Lordships will feel that if the proposals of the internal settlement were supported in an election, that condition also would have been met. It has been delayed for what have been called technical reasons and I believe that there are certain suspicions that those reasons have been put forward to avoid coming to the point. I do not believe that that is so, because difficulties are involved. We

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might take as an example what has happened in this country. We are due to hold a referendum on devolution to Scotland and Wales. That has had to be delayed until some time next year when a new electoral roll has been introduced so as to ensure that a fair test of opinion is achieved. In Rhodesia there is no such thing as a roll in existence; it has to be created and it is not easy to compile in the jungle and distant areas. Moreover, it is very difficult to compute the number of women and there is no accurate record at present. Also—and perhaps this is equally important—there is the need, in some of the distant areas, to explain to the inhabitants exactly what an election is and how it operates because it is an entirely new concept to those people, and very different from any form of decision-making they have been called upon to make in the past. They have always operated on a consensus basis under the Indaba system.
However, by far the most important problem which Rhodesia has to face today is the question of intimidation, which has been referred to on more than one occasion. By the most brutal methods—including murder, torture, burning alive, the prevention of the growing of crops in order to disrupt local authority, the prevention of such essential steps as the dipping of cattle against disease and of spraying against Bilharzia, and by closing the schools through intimidating the children who attend them—they have made life in the tribal areas hazardous in the extreme. Her Majesty's Government's allies—the terrorists of the Patriotic Front—are doing this and doing all in their power to disrupt life in Rhodesia. Clearly, their object is to make the operations of the interim Government as difficult as possible and to prevent the holding of elections, which they know they would lose.
In the meantime, if life is to continue on any reasonable basis, certain things need doing, and need doing quickly. Law and order must be re-established throughout the country before, in my view at least, it is even possible to consider holding elections. An effective Administration must also be maintained so as to enable the 6 million-plus people who live in Rhodesia to be fed and to find employment. These are difficult objectives for
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them to achieve, but I do not think that they have a chance of achieving them unless they are able to retain a certain number of the white population, who would have to take part in the administration so that effective armed forces could be retained, an efficient Administration kept in operation and, equally important, so that adequate food could be produced to feed those large numbers of mouths.
However, the internal situation in Rhodesia cannot be dealt with in isolation. I should like to say a few words about the operation of sanctions, which have already been mentioned this evening. On many occasions in this House—not least tonight —we have been told that we have international obligations to maintain sanctions. It now appears that we have broken them throughout the period during which they have been in operation by allowing the supply of oil. If I understood the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor correctly, two reasons have now been given for this. One is that we could not effectively stop them, and the second is that it would have been embarrassing for us to have quarrelled with the Republic of South Africa. But, if that is so, I find it very hard to understand why we still have obligations to maintain sanctions.
Let us also consider the position of other countries. At the moment Rhodesia is full of French and Japanese cars. Zambia is taking as much food as she can transport over the Victoria Falls railway bridge, and has been doing so for years. The Soviet Republic has bought chrome from Rhodesia and has sold some of it to the United States. Surely both those countries have broken sanctions.
In the case of chrome, when Russia asked too much money of the United States, quite unilaterally the United States Congress authorised the official breaking of sanctions through the passing of the Byrd Amendment. As late as July this year, Congress has decided that:
"The Government of the United States shall not enforce sanctions against Rhodesia after 31st December 1978 provided that the President determines"
certain things. The point surely is that once again Congress has instructed the President that he may break sanctions if he so wishes, or if certain requirements are met, without any reference whatever to the

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United Nations. Under those circumstances it seems to me that the argument that we should continue with sanctions, or even support them, falls to the ground. There have been too many loopholes and the gaps are too wide.
Why then are we retaining sanctions? The argument that has been advanced today—once again—is that they will bring the Rhodesian Administration to the conference table. I find this hard to sustain after 12 years; we have heard it every year. We are still waiting for this result. If we agree to continue with sanctions tonight, I wonder how many more years we shall be hearing it in the future.
Therefore, we must look for other reasons why sanctions are being retained. They seem to be somewhat disconnected with the situation within Rhodesia. Possibly one is the internal politics in the United States, where the negro vote plays a large part. Trade with Nigeria has already been mentioned this evening, but if the article published in last Saturday's edition of the Daily Telegraph is to be believed, this is no longer a valid argument. Perhaps a more important problem is the inability of the United States to undertake another foreign operation after its lamentable failure in Vietnam. Therefore, it is necessary for the United States to avoid confrontation with Russia in Africa. Surely Russia will take this as a confession of weakness, which indeed it is, and so will the Front-Line Presidents and the Patriotic Front. Therefore, they will continue to press for more and more concessions from us in the West. So I would suggest to your Lordships that sanctions are counter-productive to the effecting of a settlement.
In this context we must also examine the Russian aims in Africa. I believe that they have two. First, they wish to have the ability to deny the West supplies of essential raw materials, or at least they wish to so increase the price that it reaches an unacceptable level. Secondly, they wish to control the trade routes of the West round Africa. In order to achieve this, it is immaterial at this stage whether chaos develops in the area or whether Southern Africa as a whole falls within the Soviet sphere of influence. Rhodesia is now the first step in this operation; South Africa is the ultimate prize. Therefore,
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sanctions against Rhodesia are essentially a pawn in the struggle between East and West. As Lieutenant-General Daniel Graham, former head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, writing in the Washington Post on 18th May, said:
"The essence of the situation in Rhodesia today is this: A coalition of black Rhodesian moderates and the white Rhodesian minority are confronting a coalition of Marxist black terrorists supported by the Soviet Union and, incredible as it may seem, the United States and Great Britain! This situation is made even more grotesque by the atrocities committed against defenseless black tribesmen by the US-UK supported side in the struggle for control of Rhodesia."
Meanwhile, the impact of sanctions on Rhodesia seems to have fallen to a secondary position. But let us note that, as has been mentioned already, the principal suffers are the blacks, who I think the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said in his opening speech sanctions were intended to help. If Her Majesty's Government's present policy is pursued they must surely face a very bleak future indeed, for without support from the West the whites will leave. It is better from their point of view to leave with a whole skin for them and their families even if they leave all their assets behind than to face murder in Rhodesia. For the unfortunate blacks this alternative does not exist.
Finally, I would say that there are two possible courses facing us in our dealings with Rhodesia. The first is to support the internal settlement. In turn, this has the support at the moment of the majority of both blacks and whites. It provides for democratic government. It will enable the whites to stay, and this is essential for economic survival, at least for the present. The alternative is to back the Patriotic Front, as Her Majesty's Government appear to be doing now, which would be a minority Government, perhaps under the influence of Russia, and would attract all the consequences I have mentioned this evening. Also it is likely to lead to an open-ended financial commitment for the British taxpayer on a massive scale for the foreseeable future. Of the two alternatives I prefer the former, and therefore, my Lords, I shall vote against the order this evening.
5.2 p.m.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, I deeply regret the compression, I under-

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stand by some agreement between the Front Benches, into one half of a day and a night, of three totally separate matters. There are 46 would-be speakers, all of whom have a right to and should be heard. In consideration, therefore, of others and to reduce my own natural tendency towards the garrulous, I shall, for the first time since I joined your Lordships' House, read what I have to say and I shall resist any temptation, I give warning, to be drawn into argument.
May I begin with Bingham, the report we have here. On this I shall not detain the House for long but should like to state my own position very clearly. I was not personally, or departmentally, closely involved in the period up to my resignation from the Government in March 1968. First, because the DEA had only very limited interests. I seem only to have been drawn in when it was necessary to read the riot act to Mr. Berkin of Shell, which Mr. Bingham finds I did more than successfully—which is my normal habit in such matters. Secondly, because, as Foreign Secretary, it was again only of limited concern since it was the major responsibility of the Commonwealth Relations Department, which had not then been amalgamated into the one external affairs department. In any case, it was, as my colleagues of that time will know, very much a No. 10 spectacular from the beginning.
I did of course share and accept my part as Deputy to the Prime Minister and as First Secretary of State in the collective responsibility of the Cabinet for all the actions taken by the Cabinet during that period. I still accept that responsibility for the policy decisions that were made during my period, whatever the hindsight judgment, ten or 13 years later, may be made by others who did not carry responsibility then.
Therefore, I do not propose today—and I wish to make it quite clear—nor will I at any other time respond to any call to disclose whether I agreed or disagreed with my then colleagues on any particular issue affecting Rhodesia during that period. To do so, in my view, would destroy the whole basis of British Cabinet constitutional government; and it was indeed, may I remind the House, breaches of that principal, as I thought them to be, that were part of my reasons (stated
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at the time) for resigning from the Government of 1968. I did not, as I said endorse or approve the way it was being run and this was one of the examples I gave.
I hope noble Lords will allow me to say that I regard as both distasteful and unseemly the present engagement of some of my ex-colleagues in debating among themselves who knew what, who misled whom, and who failed to understand which issue. For the reasons I gave earlier none of us then in office could claim ignorance on the position, and so far as I am concerned that applies right up to the time that I left the Government in March 1968. I should be most surprised to learn—and I am choosing my words carefully—that the position changed in any material respect after that. I would therefore, if he will permit me, like most firmly to say that I place myself unreservedly alongside the assertions already made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth.
I would also deplore—and will strongly oppose—any proposal to publish Cabinet or Cabinet Committee papers relating to that time. In my view this is precisely the kind of case and the area that the 30 years rule, as I believe it now is, is made to cover, and in my view should be persisted in. The demand for such action, the publication of Cabinet and Cabinet Committee papers on a matter affecting defence and foreign policy, I regard as an insidious, a sinister, and a malicious attempt to create a precedent which would make Cabinet Government, as we have known it for centuries, impossible in this country. I think it is our duty, if I may suggest it to my colleagues, to sustain the Government in opposition to any demand that they should publish.
That is all I propose to say on Bingham, save this one thing: unsupported as we were at the time by other countries who persisted in trading in vital strategic areas with Rhodesia, and faced with the consequent responsibility to decide about the blockade of the entire coast of Southern Africa, all our decisions had to be at all times a choice between courses of greater or lesser difficulty and unattractiveness. There was nothing else open to us. We made our decisions, my Lords, at the time as we were guided, and in my view we must stand up for them.

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I turn to the Rhodesian internal political situation, the second of the three matters we are discussing, and I shall try to be equally brief but, again, to do so will mean assertion replacing argument. It is my view that the propositions agreed upon by Mr. Smith, Bishop Muzorewa, the Reverend Sithole and Chief and Senator Chirau, and on which the interim Government have been formed, accord sufficiently completely with the principles laid down by the Governments of 1964 to 1970—of which I was a Member for the major part of the time—for us to accept them and, in accepting them, to encourage the interim Government to proceed to the free elections which alone will answer, as the noble Marquess said, the Fifth Principle.
I assert that I am as sure as I can be of anything that had such an agreement been available, and entered into at the time of the "Tiger" and "Fearless" talks, or during any other of the talks and meetings with Mr. Smith, they would have been accepted by the Government of which I was a Member and would have been recommended to Parliament and the country. Other Members of that Government are in this House; other Members must answer to themselves, if not to the House, for what they think would have happened, but I feel I know enough about it to be very assertive indeed.
That Mr. Smith delayed for so long does not make me feel any better about him, but neither by the same token does it make me feel any worse about an agreement I wish we had got before or any less glad to have it now. I merely regret—I wish the noble Marquess, with whom I am delighted to be engaged in an exercise on this, would say this himself more often—that so much suffering and misery has been caused to so many black and white Rhodesians largely as a consequence of Mr. Smith's equivocation and delay.
That, however, does not in my view justify the present Government, the Secretary of State or the American Administration and Mr. Andrew Young in continuing to impose or connive at further murder and suffering by themselves in their turn procrastinating and delaying acceptance of the internal agreement. In my view, for what it is worth, we should already have given and most
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certainly should now give support to the maximum of our ability to the interim Government of Rhodesia which that internal agreement brought into being. That, again, is why I and other noble Lords have sought in correspondence, and have unceasingly requested interviews, to urge on the Secretary of State that the members of the interim Government, including Mr. Smith, should be allowed to enter this country—should even be invited to enter this country—for discussions and to put their case. I believe the Secretary of State, if it is indeed he who is responsible—I enter that caveat for specific reasons—has accepted a very heavy burden by not arranging for that to happen.
Let me make it quite clear if it needs to be made clear: I understand and endorse what so many Members of this House, particularly in the Labour Party, feel about the past behaviour of Mr. Smith. What I find impossible to understand, on the other hand, is their equivocal attitude to the behaviour of Mr. Nkomo. I distinguish between Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe because at least I can respect as consistent and clear the position of the latter, while condemning it all the more forcibly because I understand it. In the case of Mr. Nkomo, I feel a totally different reaction. He comes frequently to this country—invited, fêted, almost suffocated by the attention and admiration lavished on him by Liberal and Labour opinion. When I have seen him at a Government reception for Commonwealth Prime Ministers, for example, and watched the throng around him like flies around a honeypot, I have been unable to get out of my mind the fact that, however he is thought of here, this man is no less a leader of murderers and thugs in Rhodesia and one who has refused to submit himself to the discipline of democratic action inside Rhodesia.
I cannot, with all the best will in the world, understand how the Secretary of State justifies admitting this man and making no difficulties about him coming while refusing to do the same for the interim Government, which is at least seeking peacefully the transition of Rhodesia from the illegal régime that has existed to a democratically chosen constitutional Government. I have yet to learn how that attitude can be squared

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with social democracy, with liberalism or with any recognisable radical stand.
That brings me, naturally enough, to the issue of sanctions, which is the third of the three items before the House today. It is arguable with hindsight whether the 1964 Government should in fact have hastened into a policy of sanctions as they did, having rejected force. It is arguable equally with hindsight whether, when calling on the United Nations collectively to impose sanctions, we should not also to have sought to place the dispute in their hands. It is certainly arguable—and most certainly was indeed argued—that when other nations failed to deliver their pledged vote on the imposition of sanctions, we should then have insisted that the United Nations take the responsibility from us, since they were preventing it being carried out, and they alone could assume that responsibility.
However, I have no doubt—I repeat this again—that had we achieved the agreement I have referred to in those earlier negotiations that were held, and had the steps which have now been taken been taken then, we should most certainly have proposed to the United Nations that sanctions should be withdrawn and support give to the interim Government which would have emerged then, as now, in its steps towards free elections.
I can see no reason at all why we should take a different view today from that which we and the whole House would gladly have taken then. If sanctions were no more than a gesture and as irrelevant as has been said from the two main Opposition Front Benches today, then, by definition, the case for keeping them must be as weak as they say is the case for getting rid of them. But they are not so irrelevant, nor am I persuaded that anybody making that charge believes it. They are not so irrelevant either to the morale of the black and white Rhodesians whose willingness to face frightful risks for peace is essential, nor are they irrelevant to their economic and military ability to do so. In no other way until after the removal of sanctions and the according of that support can free elections be organised.
That is why, despite the arguments so far put to the contrary, despite the admitted consequential risks, and despite the distance that it puts between me and
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some of my friends on the Government Benches, it is still my firm view—taken perhaps from a very different position than that of the noble Marquess—that we should immediately, as the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, and I sought to argue to the House a short while ago, proceed to propose to the United Nations the raising of sanctions and supporting the interim Government. Furthermore, while doing so we should notify them that because of the lateness of the hour so far as the sustenance and achievement of a democratically elected, free multiracial Government is concerned, and because of the urgency of the situation, we are, from whatever is the very earliest convenient date, withdrawing sanctions ourselves and proceeding to accord all assistance and all support to the interim Government (the Bishop, the Reverend Sithole, Mr. Chirau, and Mr. Smith) in their early moves to organise and to be able to hold free elections. That is why I humbly recommend to the House that we should tonight vote in any Division to end sanctions.
5.22 p.m.
Lord THOMSON of MONIFIETH: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord George-Brown for the personal remarks he has just made. As he has said, this is a debate that deals both with the future of Rhodesian policy and with the past. I should have preferred to follow him and speak about the future of Rhodesia, gloomy and foreboding though it is, but the House will understand if in my case I concentrate my remarks almost entirely upon the past and upon the issues raised about oil sanctions in the Bingham report—in particular the issues raised concerning my own period of office as Commonwealth Secretary. I think that Mr. Bingham and his colleague Mr. Gray have produced an impressive report, searching in its analysis, balanced and judicious in its conclusions. I believe that it deals with most of the major anxieties that have been raised about the conduct of oil sanctions policy since UDI.
On a purely personal aspect of the report, I am glad that it makes it clear in Annex 2 that the full records of my own talks with the oil companies in February 1968 and again in February 1969 were sent to the offices of the Ministers

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most directly concerned. I hope that this will dispose once and for all of the improbable proposition that as one of the newer Members of the Cabinet at the time I was conducting some private Rhodesian policy of my own with the oil companies. I noticed that in the other place yesterday the Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr. David Steel, continued to ask what collective discussion there was following my meeting in 1968 when it was decided to take action to stop British oil reaching Rhodesia from Lourenço Marques. Therefore, I should like to make it clear that, when it was discovered that British oil was being diverted into Rhodesia at Lourenço Marques, this fact was reported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to the main Overseas Policy Committee of the Cabinet under the Prime Minister's chairmanship. It was accepted that the oil companies were acting in good faith at that time when they denied responsibility for this. It was agreed that fresh efforts should be made diplomatically with the French to try to get a more comprehensive international arrangement. Therefore, the main lines of our policy in the face of the very real dilemmas put before us by the oil situation (to which I shall come) were decided collectively at the highest level, and it was these main lines which determined the shape of policy for some time afterwards, including the issue which flowed from that; namely, the attitude towards the so-called swap arrangements to which I shall come in a few moments.
However, the real question is not about my own personal position in this matter. The real question on which I think there is legitimate concern, and legitimate room for differences of opinion about the past, is whether successive Governments from 1966 until the Bingham inquiry was set up in 1976, acted wisely or unwisely, prudently or negligently over the difficult issues raised by the Rhodesian oil sanctions. I can speak only of the period of the Wilson Government of 1966 to 1970. I share the distaste of my noble friend Lord George-Brown for the fact that there seems to be an argument going on as to who was there at the time decisions were taken, who has the responsibility for them, and who said what, when.
For my part, although I have had to defend myself against some of these criticisms, I take the view that the Govern-
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ment's record during that period was a creditable and honourable one. We gave the highest priority throughout to Rhodesian policy and to bringing about a principled and peaceful settlement. I remain firmly of the view that, in the circumstances of the time, we struck the best balance possible between conflicting considerations such as Governments have to face all the time—in this case the desire to make sanctions work as a means of bringing about a peaceful settlement and, on the other hand, the necessity of avoiding economic confrontation with South Africa. We did everything in our power to make sanctions work as widely as possible. When we found that British oil was being diverted into Rhodesia, we stopped that diversion. We tried our best to get other Governments to do the same with their own national oil companies, and in our attitude to our companies the Government as a whole, I believe, acted in the best interests of the British economy and the continued pursuit of a peaceful settlement.
I am bound to say that the Bingham report makes it clear that no subsequent Government up until the closing of the Mozambique frontier in 1976 has been able to say as much as I have just said. The report makes it plain that between 1970 and 1976, whatever the reasons, the arrangements which the Government of which I was a part made to stop British oil being diverted into Rhodesia fell into disuse. From 1968 to 1970 at least, no British oil went knowingly into Rhodesia. At least British oil companies observed British sanctions. It is said, curiously enough, both by the oil companies on the one side and by their critics on the other, that this does not really matter because of the swap arrangements to which I shall come. All I wish to say at this point is that, in a long time in public life, I have not managed to become so sophisticated that I think we can disregard the letter of the law because of differences of view about the practicability of implementing the spirit of the law.
I want to turn to, and deal in some detail with, the so-called swap arrangements which have understandably attracted so much attention and concern—and I well understand the concern. The first point to bear in mind in trying to arrive at a fair judgment about this infinitely

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complex issue is that an elaborate network of exchange arrangements is part of normal international oil traffic. When I was European Commissioner in Brussels and Community Governments stood helpless in the face of the total Arab oil boycott of Holland, it was the oil companies with their swap arrangements which swiftly kept the Netherlands supplied when national Governments appeared powerless. I mention this because I think it important to record as the starting point for making a judgment that the swap was not invented as a sinister device of big business to bust sanctions. It is in fact a normal part of the apparently seamless web of international oil trade which made the analysis of Mr. Bingham and his colleagues so difficult and makes the reading of it such a complex matter for all of us.
According to the records described in the Bingham Report, the particular swap arrangement that we are concerned with here was entered into by the oil companies probably in February 1968—certainly at the beginning of that year; perhaps a little earlier than February 1968—at the time when the Government arranged, as I have mentioned, for the stopping of any further diversion of British oil from Lourenço Marques into Rhodesia by insisting that all British oil delivered to Lourenço Marques should be shipped directly into the Republic of South Africa. But I think the first confirmation of it to Ministers that is recorded was at the meeting over which I presided in February 1969.
Yesterday, the Leader of the Liberal Party in another place professed himself puzzled about that February 1969 meeting. He noted that I had become Minister without Portfolio, and speculated that this meant that the Government had downgraded consideration of sanctions. I should like to reassure him about that matter. Sanctions continued to be the responsibility of the new combined Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and were therefore dealt with at a high level within the Administration, as they always had been. At that time I was personally completely outside that Department because the Commonwealth Office, of which I had been head, had been merged with the Foreign Office; and the simple explanation of what happened there was
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that I was simply deputising for the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Michael Stewart, who I think was away at the time, and because I had had a past involvement in these matters, I suppose, I was asked to take the chair.
Consequently—and this is why I have laboured this—this meeting remained a most important meeting at a high level. Therefore, it is deeply disturbing to hear Sir Harold Wilson in another place state that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office record of this meeting, which was sent to him, was never seen by him. Given the fact that he saw the record of the earlier talks a year before, in February, 1968; given the fact that he himself, as Prime Minister, generated the very important correspondence between our offices of March 15th, to which he referred in the debate in another place; and given the importance of the consideration by the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee of the Cabinet that I have already mentioned, the record of this particular meeting certainly ought to have been regarded as a most important paper. Sir Harold Wilson suggests that I may not have realised the implications of what was said in that record. I think the record itself, which is published in the Bingham Report, shows that I was in no doubt about its importance. To the best of my recollection—it is a frightfully difficult matter, I find, to recollect accurately after 10 years, but to the best of my recollection—I looked on the swap as it was described to me at that meeting as something outside our control but as a repugnant necessity; and so, I gather from his speech on Tuesday, did Mr. Michael Stewart, with whose characteristically straight-forward account of these matters I wholly agree.
The swap was an arrangement between two South African companies operating under South African law. It was outside the British legal jurisdiction, and we had no power to stop it. What we did have power to do was to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on the French Government to try to persuade them to stop the flow of French oil into Rhodesia, and internationalise the matter more fairly. This we did on a number of occasions and in a number of ways, but it had no effect. In the oil companies' view the justification for the exchange agreement was the fear of sequestration of their South African subsidiaries if they failed

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to fulfil their contractual obligations under South African law; and that undoubtedly affected our attitude to the swap when we became aware of it. It may be said now—indeed, it has been said, so I deal with the point—that we were wrong to be influenced by these views of the oil companies in view of the fact that today all swap arrangements are apparently at an end and yet no action has overtly been taken in South Africa against British oil companies.
Mr. Bingham himself deals with this point on pages 160 and 161 of his report, and sums up—and I quote him:
"We would not ourselves conclude that the companies consciously exaggerated the risks of confrontation;"
that is, with the South African Government.
In any case, the Government of the day had to determine their attitude in 1969, and I am not at all sure that the circumstances in 1978, on which so many people are basing their judgments, in fact have very much relevance. I think one of the lessons of this whole episode is how dangerous it is to judge the political issues of one period by the standards of another a decade later.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to interrupt him before he leaves the point about the French supplies and the swap arrangements? Does he not think it a surprising reflection of the different attitudes as between France and this country that none of this has been criticised in the French Press; that there have been no discussions in their Parliament; and that I am told by the French Embassy that they have no knowledge that they are in any way asking Totale or any of the French companies to explain why, under exactly the same sanctions, they continued and have not questioned them?
Lord THOMSON of MONIFIETH: Yes, my Lords, I think it is an interesting point on which it is worth meditating. I think we have to remember that we in this country have a special degree of responsibility for the Rhodesian problem which does not apply to other countries, even those close to us. Nevertheless, I am inclined to feel that we have a degree of masochism in these matters that we might do better to look at a little more
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closely. What I wanted to argue on my main theme is that the South African Government today is in a significantly different situation from that in which it was in 1968. It now faces the Namibian crisis and its own internal, mounting crisis, and it is very much in the international front line to a degree it was not back in 1968. In 1968 they might well have carried out their takeover threats; and I am bound to say—and I say it with the utmost consideration after having gone over this in my own mind again and again during the last few months—that even with hindsight I cannot believe that the Government would have been right to risk the loss of these major British assets for no practical purpose so far as making oil sanctions more effective was concerned. I think what the critics of the swap arrangement have to face today—that is, if they are concerned with seeking more effective sanctions results and not merely with striking emotional political attitudes—is that if there had been no swap it would not have reduced by a barrel the flow of oil into Rhodesia. The gap left by stopping British oil going into Rhodesia, from being diverted into Rhodesia from Lourenço Marques, would have been quickly taken up with South African and Portuguese support by other companies. All that would have happened is that major British economic interests would have been put in jeopardy for, I repeat, absolutely no results at all in terms of reducing the flow of oil to Rhodesia.
The proof of that—and the proof is there before our eyes—is that Rhodesia continued to get her oil after the Mozambique border was closed, and everyone knows that she will continue to do so now that the last vestiges of BP's swap arrangement with SASOL have apparently vanished, only a few weeks ago. The truth is that short of an international blockade of South Africa there was no chance of depriving Rhodesia of her supplies, and there is no chance of depriving Rhodesia of her oil supplies. Such a blockade was inconceivable for Britain in 1968 for the reasons that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has given in his opening speech; and even if we had sought such a course we would never have gained the necessary international support. That was the reality then, and it remains the

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reality today. As King Canute discovered a number of centuries ago, as a political leader it is always better to accept reality when you come across it, however disagreeable and upsetting it may be.
But I would say to noble Lords opposite who are tempted to vote against the sanctions order tonight that it does not follow that, because oil sanctions cannot be made to bite, therefore sanctions as a whole are an ineffective humbug and do not have a role to play. That was not true in 1968, and, although circumstances are sadly different in 1978, it is not true today, either. That is why I support the Government in seeking the renewal of the sanctions order tonight. The period 1967–68 was the period when the Government had to come to terms with the fact that sanctions could not bring a swift end to the rebellion by bringing a halt to the Rhodesian economy. Force had been ruled out from the beginning; and, as I have said, a blockade of South Africa and Portugal was not possible.
The only alternatives—and critics have to face up to what the alternatives were—were either to give up trying to end the rebellion or to go for what became known as the long haul: that was, applying sanctions with all their obvious leakages, including oil, and facing Rhodesia with the choice between long-term economic stagnation and political isolation or a peaceful transition to majority rule. The Rhodesian tragedy that we are debating tonight is that Mr. Smith's intransigence, until it was too late to prevent bloodshed, prevented the Rhodesian whites from enjoying the peaceful alternative that for a long time successive Governments in Britain by their patience with sanctions kept open to them. Both the Wilson Government of 1960 to 1970 (in which I took some part in these efforts with my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor) and the subsequent Government when the noble Lord, Lord Home, was Foreign Secretary, came very close on separate occasions to producing a Rhodesian settlement in which the continuing pressure of sanctions was undoubtedly part of the situation. On each occasion Mr. Smith flunked facing up to majority rule; and so the violence has mounted as we had prophesied that it
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would. Sanctions, for all their unavoidable inadequacy contributed decisively to these two near misses by the Wilson Government and by Lord Home. The ironical thing is that if either had succeeded —either that of Mr. Wilson or that of Lord Home—sanctions would have been acclaimed nation-wide and world-wide as an instrument of peaceful change; and the Government of the day which achieved the settlement would have had a major political triumph instead of facing grave and, I believe, unjust accusations made against them of condoning sanctions busting.
Some of these accusations arise, understandably, out of the feeling that because something is secret in Government or in business, it must also be sinister. It is quite true that much of the detail of what was taking place remained secret for reasons of confidentiality, of diplomatic exchanges between Governments or of commercial contracts between companies, especially as we were in a state of economic warfare with Rhodesia. Perhaps, by contemporary standards of open government, that was a reprehensible position; but I am old-fashioned enough to believe that these considerations remain a necessary limitation on the freedom of information. Be that as it may, on the great public issues involved which are the proper concern of Parliament and the Press there was certainly no secrecy. There was certainly no secrecy, as has been said, about the fact that Rhodesia was getting oil. That was highly visible. In fact, it was flaunted on our television screens on various programmes and reported back by every visitor who went to Rhodesia at that time. Nor was there anything secret about the refusal of Portugal and South Africa to co-operate in applying sanctions. I find that I first reported this to Parliament as far back as February, 1966. Nor did the Government make any secret of their developing awareness of the inadequacy of sanctions or the limitations that were imposed on the British policy. I used the same words to the House of Commons on 11th November, 1967, as I had used to the Commonwealth leaders during that winter. I said that our policy was summed up as no sell out to UDI; no use of force to end UDI; and, thirdly, that:
"We [the Government] are not prepared to embark on an economic confrontation with South Africa".

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Again and again during the following year I told the House of Commons that the consequences of our not being prepared to blockade Southern Africa meant that there was "no short cut to 100 per cent. effectiveness with sanctions." Along with other Ministers we spelt out the alternatives I have mentioned of using sanctions to face Rhodesia with the longer-term choice of stagnation or peace. No concerned Member of Parliament in either House, no Commonwealth leader, could have been other than conscious of the overall reality and changes that had been imposed on British policy. In fact, looking over Hansard for the period 1966 to 1970 the remarkable thing is how seldom Parliamentary Questions about oil were asked. Before politicians in another place become too self-righteous about the reticence of Government they might well ask themselves whether they did not have a greater grasp on the realities ten years ago than they appear to have now.
My Lords, Ministers of successive Governments over the period of 1966 to 1976 are now being accused of hypocrisy, of deceit and of betrayal of our friends in Africa. I quote some of the typical charges made in the Press and in Parliament. I must say that I genuinely do not see any need for any of the Governments concerned to accept these charges. Despite the inability to make international oil sanctions work, Britain has done more than any other country to produce the heaviest practicable pressure from sanctions—as indeed it was our duty to do. I recall Harold Wilson remarking with impatience at one Commonwealth Heads of Government conference that if the length of the speeches were to be related to the effectiveness of the sanctions efforts of some of the countries making the speeches, it would considerably shorten the proceedings.
Successive Governments have, in fact, done their best in the face of the limitations imposed on them by South Africa's non-co-operation to use sanctions to offer Rhodesia a peaceful path to majority rule. Sanctions, for all their problems and despite the mounting violence, still have, in my view, a part to play in influencing the Rhodesian régime, on the one hand, to come to the negotiating table and in persuading the Africans outside Rhodesia to retain faith in Britian
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and the West, on the other. That is why I hope that the sanctions policy which has been pursued since 1965 by both Labour and Conservative Governments will be sustained tonight for the critical months that lie ahead. Indeed, I might say that over the whole decade if ever there was an inappropriate moment to abandon the sanctions policy this is it.
I apologise for speaking longer than I normally would; but you will perhaps appreciate that this is a matter in which I have been very much in the centre and I now conclude by asking whether, in the light of the Bingham Report and the debates in both Houses of Parliament, any further inquiry is really necessary and in the national interest. I know that in asking this question I lay myself open to the accusation of self-interest. All that I can say is that I willingly gave evidence to the Bingham Commission and am equally ready to help to the best of my recollection any other inquiry if it is decided to hold one. I have nothing to hide, nothing to fear, from any further inquiry that is held or from any formal publication of papers which may be decided. Indeed, in some ways it might be of help personally. But, surely, the important matter is whether a further inquiry will do our country any good at home or abroad.
It seems to have become a standard reflex action these days to deal with problems by setting up an inquiry and then to establish a further tribunal to investigate the original inquiry; and so on ad infinitum. This is in danger of becoming a national neurosis—a turning away from reality and the problems of the present by endless recriminations about imaginary conspiracies in the past. In this case the Government have set up a thorough investigation. They have immediately published its results in full. They have sent its findings to the appropriate prosecuting authorities. As my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has said, nobody can seriously accuse the Government of a cover-up in this case. Would it not be now much better for Britain to let the inquest into the past rest there and to concentrate our energies and efforts, as we ought to be doing whole-mindedly in this debate, on facing the future in Rhodesia and trying to avert the final catastrophe that may be so near?
5.49 p.m.
Lord GARNER: My Lords, I feel honoured at being sandwiched between two of my former political masters this evening and, as two Secretaries of State went before me and one comes after me, I suppose it was a double-decker sandwich. I am sure that the House would wish me to say to my noble friend Lord Thomson of Monifieth how much we have been looking forward to his statement and how much we appreciate his full, frank and forthright discourse this evening. Speaking for myself, as will appear from some of the remarks which will follow, I would strongly support his concluding remarks that the inquest ought to be concluded.
I want to say only a few brief words and to limit myself to some comments about the origin of sanctions in the hope of putting into perspective some of the things which appear in the report and in what I fear is almost the near-hysterical reaction in some of the media, and sometimes perhaps in the other place, about the conclusions of that report. When sanctions were first initiated—and this was done with the agreement of all Parties at the time—there was never any thought that they were going to bring Rhodesia to her knees and destroy the economy of the country. This was not the intention. The aim was a psychological one. It was psychological, not economic warfare in which we were engaging; and certainly there was the hope that it was supported by very solid opinion in Rhodesia itself, and that the effect of our combined actions would be to bring a change of heart in Rhodesia quite quickly. As we know, alas! this did not happen. We were totally wrong about that.
Early in 1966 it was clear that there was going to be no swift change, and so sanctions imperceptibly changed into what was then known as "the long haul". The objective was slightly different: it was to effect the economy of Rhodesia to such an extent that it was hoped that Mr. Smith would be brought to the negotiating table and would make concessions. As Lord Thomson of Monifieth said, this almost succeeded on a number of occasions. But of course it was always known, as has already been made clear in this debate, that South Africa and Portugal would not apply sanctions and would continue to send some supplies. It was not, therefore, a question of whether supplies would be
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sent; it was solely a question of how much would be sent.
Right at the beginning the South African Government gave us to understand that supplies would be limited to what they called "normal"—that is to say, supplies based on those sent in previous years—and that took place. As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made clear when he was speaking, the oil sanction was effective in the early months. The pipeline was closed; no crude went through Beira. The refinery has ceased to operate. The only oil that reached Rhodesia—and is still reaching Rhodesia—did so through circuitous and more expensive and less convenient routes.
As the Bingham Report itself made clear, it was not until 1970—five years after UDI—that Rhodesia was receiving greater quantities than she received in oil before the occurrence of UDI. In any case, as other speakers have affirmed, oil was only a part of the sanctions. It was an extremely important part but not all. Other sanctions were extremely effective, particularly the sanction on the export of tobacco. Rhodesia has had a continuing and acute problem of foreign exchange which undoubtedly has been one of the major factors in inducing a slow change of mind.
Before I come to the present, there is one other aspect that I should like to mention. It is not on the report itself, but some of the comments that have been made on it. These I must confess I find gravely disturbing. Relations between Ministers and officials are a subtle matter. They are based on frankness and complete confidence between them. In my own experience they can be highly rewarding and they are a most important feature of the machinery of Government. I am appalled by the way that civil servants have been bandied about in recent discussions in the media and indeed in the other place. Some of them have been mentioned by name but, what is even worse, some of them have been accused by a blanket, anonymous accusation with no evidence at all and therefore no possibility of refuting the charges. Some of these accusations have been made under privilege by eminent people.
The innuendoes are that they indulged in collusion with the régime and that they

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concealed information from the Ministers. This is totally unfair to individuals. I believe it to be untrue in practice and highly damaging to the conduct of public business in the future. From 1962 until early 1968 I was Permanent Undersecretary at the Commonwealth Relations Office. I was responsible—and I accept the responsibility—for the conduct of members of the staff. Of course we misled Ministers. I am bound to say that, my Lords, because I can see at least half a dozen of them in front of me at this moment. We were human; we made mistakes. Often our advice was bad and turned out not to be fulfilled in practice. Of course that happened. But we never did it deliberately. I can state quite categorically to my certain knowledge that, in the Commonwealth Relations Office, the accusations of connivance with the régime or of any concealment from Ministers arc totally untrue.
Now, I come to today. We are presented with a tragic picture in which none of us can take particular pride or comfort. It has been questioned—and this was the burden of what the noble Lords, Lord Carrington, Lord George-Brown, and others had to say—whether the Government have shown sufficient bigness of mind, flexibility and imaginativeness in their dealings in recent months. Personally, I was very attracted by the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, about a contact group, possibly leading to a Chequers meeting. I was certainly very encouraged to read the Prime Minister's intervention in another place to say that this was something that he would certainly consider. I hope that we can build on that.
There is one area in which I think that the Government have failed. Though I understand the difficulties, I find it very hard to understand why no means have been found of establishing any British presence at all in Rhodesia itself in recent months. There is so much there to be done. We need to know exactly what is going on. A high level diplomat could at least report what the situation is so that we keep in touch with changes. Perhaps he could keep in touch with the various parties concerned and conceivably talk to them and influence the course of events. It seems to me a major card that we are
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throwing away from our hand in not having anybody there at all.
Whether or not the Government's actions bend impartiality in favour of the militants and against internal settlement—and from time to time they certainly give me that appearance—I have no doubt that the rejection of the order this evening would tilt the bias quite unjustifiably and wrongly far too much the other way. I recognise the importance of the internal settlement and the tremendous step this involves for the white régime. I cannot in my heart find that the events since March have really justified one in putting full confidence in that internal settlement alone. A vote against the continuation of the order would be tantamount to a vote of confidence in Smith and would destroy Britain's credibility and effectiveness with her friends and allies. The only hope for Rhodesia is that Smith could cease to prevaricate as he has done so successfully over so many years and accept in deeds as well as in words the realities of majority rule. If this order is rejected, I fear that that day may be postponed. So with no lightness of heart, and in the hope that this is the last time that we shall be asked to do it, I support the continuance of the order.
5.59 p.m.
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, I am glad that my noble friend Lord Garner has stressed the importance of continuing confidence between Ministers of the day in whatever Government they served and the continuing civil servant. It is the essence of the political situation in our country that this should continue, and he has said it and said it well so I need not repeat it. It would be for the convenience of the House if I divide what I have to say into two parts—both I hope will be short. The first relates to the actions of oil companies and Governments in the context of Bingham. Then I will say something about the present Government's policies in Rhodesia and their relevance to this order.
In relation to the activities of the oil companies, I think I must make one matter clear: it is a matter of which Mr. Heath spoke yesterday in another place. He made it quite clear that Ministers in the Conservative Government in

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1970 had no information about, and therefore did not know of, the discussions of the previous Administration over oil companies and sanction breaking. I do not make that statement in any sense of comparison with what might be done by the Government before or in any sense of self-righteousness, but because words such as "deceit", "guilt", and "betrayal" have been bandied about, and they simply do not apply either to the Conservative Government or to the Socialist Government before them. I should like to say immediately how much I agreed with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson about the realities of politics during all this difficult period. As the House expected, I am sure that everybody, including myself, found his statement of his own position totally authentic.
I suppose a hypothetical question could be asked: Ought Ministers in the Conservative Government to have initiated probes to try and discover possible sanction breaking? The facts of life were these, my Lords, and they have been stated in one way or another this afternoon. South Africa had been deliberately omitted from the United Nations resolution which applied sanctions to Rhodesia. There was a host of companies, national and international, trading perfectly legally with South Africa and the consumption of a wide range of commodities and goods by South Africa was very large while the consumption of the same goods by Rhodesia was very small. If I take, for example, oil, it was a tiny fraction—something under 6 per cent., I should think—of that consumed by South Africa and, as my noble friend Lord Carrington said and as the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, has repeated, everybody recognised that some goods surplus to South Africa's requirements would seep through into Rhodesia. That was the reality of the situation; and to identify and pinpoint such leaks out of South Africa into Rhodesia would have entailed detailed investigation into the books of many companies, both national and international.
The critics, I am bound to say, have proceeded as though nothing was done either by the Socialist Government or ours. They seem not to have recalled that a committee was set up which sat, if my recollection is right, about twice a
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month in the Commonwealth Relations Office—a committee on which were representatives from all the Commonwealth countries, including those of Africa. Each fortnight they examined the situation about sanctions and considered whether any sanctions ought to be tightened up or not. Never once, in my recollection, and I doubt if it is in the recollection of anybody else, did they come forward and make any criticism at all of the oil situation. It was not once, I think, debated by them at all. Then again, there was the United Nations body which, from time to time, if there were suspected breaches of sanctions, had these cases referred to them. I do not remember a single case in which they ever brought home anything to anybody. So things were done to try and keep control of the sanctions situation.
Lately, the critics have had a field day; but, given the South Africa gap, what would they have done? Would they have included South Africa in sanctions, against every economic interest of Britain? Of course, they would not have done. Would they have removed the frigates from Beira and thus left any enterprising Greek owner of a tanker to pour oil straight through the pipeline and into the refinery at Umtali and therefore straight down the throat of Rhodesian industry? Of course they would not have done that. Or, because some supplies were leaking through, would they have lifted sanctions altogether, thus breaching a treaty signed with the United Nations by Her Majesty's Government and thus bringing down on the neck of Britain all the Third World and every African country, removing at the same time, as has been said, any incentive to Mr. Smith to come to any settlement at all? I agree with the two noble Lords, Lord Garner and Lord Thomson, that although sanctions were not decisive, they did prevent economic growth in Rhodesia and they had some, if not much, bargaining value.
I believe the critics are now jobbing backwards with 10 years of hindsight. I believe that at that time they would have done exactly what was done by the noble Lord and by the Conservative Government which followed the Socialist Administration. They would have tried to make the best of a frustrating and difficult job. They would have set out, as we all did, to

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try to end sanctions concurrently with a constitutional settlement of the Rhodesian problem.
So, should there be an inquiry? My opinion is that it would be Bingham over again. I do not know what the Prime Minister will decide, but I have three fairly strong points of view on this. The rule that Governments should not be told of the Cabinet discussions of their predecessors should be maintained. except in the most exceptional circumstances where the Ministers of one Government agree that the facts should be told to another. Except, too, in the most exceptional and critical case, Cabinet minutes should not become public property before the 30 years are up and I hope in this case they will not be made public property.
I feel this even more strongly. No tribunal should be asked to pass judgment on policy decisions—as, for example, whether sanctions should be put on, kept on, or taken off. Such decisions can only be made in the circumstances of the day by Ministers who have taken into account, first, the British interest—which so many seem to ignore—and, secondly, every international factor bearing on the British interest. The ultimate decision in such cases will very often turn on a very nice balance of considerations, which cannot possibly be judged long after the time. There are only two judges of policy: one is the electorate and one is the historian—and both can sometimes be wrong.
I turn shortly to the Business of the House: Should Parliament end sanctions on Rhodesia now? That is what we are talking about. There is one consideration at the core of this matter. Britain can only bring Rhodesia back into a legal relationship with the Crown by an Act of Parliament passed by both Houses. Britain can only gain independence for Rhodesia by using that Act, when it is passed, as the authority to go to the United Nations and say that sanctions should be lifted. We should never take our eye off those two things: they are the very guts of the matter, if we are to do what we want to do for Rhodesia, in Rhodesia's interests. The key, therefore, to the future which all of us wish to open for Rhodesia is a political settlement endorsed by
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Parliament. The lifting of sanctions alone would not achieve those objectives.
In a political settlement, it is common ground that we should all like to see all representative Rhodesians taking part in and being partners of the settlement. So why are we in trouble? The answer must be, I am afraid, that the British Government failed to take advantage of the setting up of a provisional Government of black and white Africans in Salisbury, who were pledged to a policy of pursuing the Six Principles, to end racial discrimination and to establish a Parliament resting its authority on majority rule. The Government failed to recognise that that was a revolutionary change of which any Government ought to have taken advantage. If, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor implied, the Government gave it a welcome, it was just about as warm as a block of ice.
It is the failure at that time—I agree with my noble friend Lord Carrington—to help that provisional Government to establish a timetable for constitutional change, for multiracial legislation and for the staging of elections which has led us into our trouble now, and has, I am afraid, meant that that provisional Government, that coalition of black and white for the first time, has not been able to carry conviction in Rhodesia itself. Instead, the Government kept on selling, hawking around, an Anglo-American plan which found favour, let us face it, with no one. The result has been no encouragement at all to the black and white coalition, no movement in the situation, and that has had direct consequences for it has given to Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe a virtual veto on all progress towards a multiracial Rhodesia. Nothing has happened for months.
I made a proposal in July—the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, recalled it just now—that a time limit should have been given to Mr. Nkomo to come into the settlement. Three long months have been lost and nothing has been done. No progress in the processes of democracy, primitive democracy, could be made, because Mr. Nkomo has held the veto. The way to change this situation is to get the provisional settlement, the act of legal recognition and the international recognition by going ahead now urgently with the following proposals, one made by

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Mr. Francis Pym in the House of Commons for a Camp David summit, and another made today by my noble friend Lord Carrington, who would like to see a Camp David summit preceded by a contact group on the pattern of Namibia. I believe that one more thing should be done. It should have been done long ago, but it ought to be done even now. A Minister of Cabinet rank should be sent to Salisbury, to help the provisional Government put into effect the plans to which they have pledged themselves to agree, which conform with the Six Principles.
Why, if I feel so strongly, am I not going to vote that sanctions should be removed today? It is partly—and the importance of this cannot be underrated—because of the international consequences of which my noble friend Lord Carrington spoke, which could be much more serious than some believe. But I do not do it for another reason. A long time ago in the House of Commons, when there was a large Liberal majority, there was a proposal to give independence to the Transvaal. The Liberal Benches were much as your Lordships' Benches are now, in the sense that there was a huge majority which could have granted that independence. We have a huge majority on the Conservative Benches which could insist that sanctions are dropped. But I remember Sir Winston Churchill at that time turning to the Liberal majority and saying "We can give to the Transvaal independence from our Party, but we can also give it independence from England." I want the Government to give Rhodesia independence from England, and only they can do it now. We cannot do it, and if we did remove sanctions that would not have the constitutional results which I and so many others want to see. But I must say to the Government—
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, may I intervene? I am most grateful. If it was decided at the end of this debate to refer this matter back to the House of Commons and it then came round again, would that not give the Government an opportunity to consider these very constructive suggestions made by my noble friends Lord Carrington and Lord Home, as well as by senior statesmen in the other
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place? Would it not give them time to say that they are sincere in trying to get a peaceful settlement along these lines?
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, I think that when my noble friend Lord Carrington spoke earlier he gave the right advice on this. If your Lordships now vote against sanctions, you are not going to drop that vote if it comes back again tomorrow or the next day. I would rather take up again the suggestion that I made in July, which was not followed then but which I hope will be followed now, that a Minister of Cabinet rank should go out to Salisbury, sit with the provisional Government and get the timetable complete for the constitutional reform, for the multiracial legislation and for the elections.
That would be an inducement, at any rate, for Mr. Nkomo to come in, and if he did not do so within a reasonable time, such as the end of March—I am not talking about a year; I am not talking about November next when this order comes up again—and if the objective is still being frustrated, then the British Government should go to the United Nations, as the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, said, put the situation before them and say that the provisional Government in Salisbury has fulfilled all the conditions for which successive Governments have asked, and that they therefore require the dropping of sanctions. But not today, my Lords. I want to give this Government one more chance, a few more months. As I have put it in Sir Winston Churchill's words on a rather different situation—and no historical parallel is exact—will the Government please now begin with urgency to try to get the political settlement off to a new start, for they alone can make this the gift from England.
6.18 p.m.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, with 37 speakers still to come, if behoves one not merely on grounds of humanity but on grounds of all common sense to be exceptionally brief. I doubt whether anything new will be said in this debate, after the number of exceptionally responsible speeches that we have already heard. My contribution can be brief and I do not think that it is of any special significance or importance. I speak with some little knowledge and involvement in the Rhodesian affair, but I speak now as an

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entirely private person. What I want to say is that I believe that what has happened in Rhodesia to date, since the internal settlement was evolved, has been tragic in the extreme. I believe that a golden opportunity has been lost. I do not attribute any malign intention to anyone who has lost it. I think the reason why it has been lost is the simple one that has already been referred to, that we lack reliable information.
The Government have acted on the basis of information that they believed to be accurate. Others have acted on the basis of information that they believed to be accurate. My view is that a great deal too much importance has been assigned to certain reports and rumours, and particularly reports and rumours arising from people who have an ulterior motive in passing them around, about the strength of the guerrillas. Only today, a letter in The Times referred to the fact that the Bishop has the support of only 5 per cent. of the people of Rhodesia. If you analyse that statement, it means that he is enjoying the support of something like half a million people; that is, half a million people who are apparently identified as his supporters. That is a very considerable degree of support.
The information we need and the intelligence we need emphasises, and brings into relief, what has already been said, that we ought to have in Rhodesia a mission capable of transmitting back information that would be at least sufficiently reliable on which to arrive at valid judgments. The absence of that mission has been responsible for much that has happened. The internal settlement has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, as an outstanding achievement. I go further and say that the internal settlement was a near miracle. If anyone, in the days when I was visiting Rhodesia, had said that people seemingly representative of the great majority of Africans in Rhodesia and Mr. Smith would have come together in concord to establish a common policy, nobody would have believed it to be a possibility.
That we have not opened our arms widely and enthusiastically to this settlement is due to a number of pure misunderstandings. I do not blame the Foreign Secretary or any individual.
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This is a tragic affair and it is a tragedy which, if it is possible, should be repaired. What we have to decide today is what course is least likely to lead to disaster. I wholly endorse the wise recommendations made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel. I believe that to vote against this order would be a grievous mistake.
May I say that nobody can be particularly positive on this matter. Some years ago, if I may be a little egotistical, I read a History of the Arts Council which referred briefly to my own chairmanship and which said that on one occasion I had said of myself that I was frequently wrong but never in doubt. This, if I may say so, is an occasion when I may well be wrong, and I am in grave doubt. It is possible to hold another view, but it would be a grievous mistake and I think that the results that it would bring would be counterproductive in relation to what it is hoped to achieve.
Whatever motivation I may have had in relation to Rhodesia, it has always been simply to try to procure a peaceful settlement for all the peoples of Rhodesia. What is it that we seek? We do not seek to have a Rhodesia which is totally black. We do not seek a Rhodesia in which white domination, white dictation takes place. We seek a multiracial Rhodesia in which there is a proper representation of the white presence, consistent with the numbers concerned and consistent with the contribution that they have made. That is the solution which we seek. If that solution can still be achieved, it will be a boon and a blessing. It will not be achieved, I think, by making the Africans today conscious of the fact that we are taking a step that will be seen as simply naked support for Mr. Smith.
I do not wish to discuss Mr. Smith or to criticise him. I have said in the past that I think that Mr. Smith is not the villain that many people believe, and that in the light of history he may emerge in a more respectable role. But that does not mean that I believe in his policies, or that I think he has proceeded with wisdom, or that one can forget that it was Mr. Smith who declared UDI. This is something one must always have in mind. If today we were to vote against sanctions,

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there is no doubt that in Africa at this moment a great number of Rhodesian Africans would believe that we were showing support for Mr. Smith which they would not regard as justified.
May I say that I found myself almost wholly in agreement with what was said by my noble friend Lord George-Brown. I did not find myself in agreement with him in relation to the question of sanctions, because I think that there are factors which he has overlooked. One factor is that it was Mr. Smith who declared the cancellation of the election. One must not forget this. It is bound to have aroused suspicion, and that suspicion needs to be allayed. It will not be allayed if we vote against sanctions today. We must remember this also. To whom would we be sending the supplies if sanctions were raised? Let us suppose that it was possible to send armaments. To whom would they be sent in the present situation of the Rhodesian Government? They would be sent solely to Mr. Smith and his supporters. Is that likely to improve the prospects of achieving a settlement? I think not.
May I conclude—and I hope that I have kept my pledge of brevity—by saying this and this alone. There is still a chance that the internal settlement could be saved. I do not think that it hangs by a string, but it hangs by a very slender cord. The internal settlement could be saved if we proceed to give the appropriate support to the internal settlement, try to obtain accurate and reliable information on the situation in Rhodesia and give a word of encouragement to those people in Rhodesia who have to bear the brunt of the horrors that are now being perpetrated. That is the decision which we are required to make today. It is a decision as to whether we are going to send a message of support and encouragement to all Rhodesians, or whether we are going to send a message of support and encouragement only to the white element in Rhodesia, a message which undoubtedly will jeopardise and impair the prospect of a future settlement.
6.24 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, my primary duty at this moment is to be as brief as possible. Perhaps I can shorten
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what I have to say if I say that I disagree with everything which my noble friend Lord George-Brown has said. First, I should not oppose an inquiry into the subject matter of the Bingham Report. It raised very serious issues. To some extent it is perhaps only fair to those who have been Ministers in appropriate Departments under different Administrations and who, therefore, are assumed to know about things to have an opportunity to have allegations inquired into. However, that is a matter for the Government and for Parliament. Or, if there is to be an inquiry, what form should it take? If there is to be an inquiry, I am sure that Parliament would be well advised to take into account the different considerations for and against the different forms of inquiry adumbrated in the other place last night by my right honourable friend the Attorney General. I agree with his objections to a tribunal under the Act, because when I was at the Bar I took part in some of those tribunals and I never knew one which ended without a general feeling among some people—not always unjustified—that they had not been fairly treated. There were some very short ones. There was one about a fire engine which got lost in Scotland. Under the Act, the tribunal found the fire engine and that was satisfactory. I am speaking, however, about the major tribunals.
May I come next to a point on which there has been a certain amount of mis-understanding about sanctions. I never believed that oil sanctions would be effective. Nor did I ever lead anybody to think that I thought so. I remember that in one of the late Mr. Crossman's diaries he purports to record a committee meeting of the Cabinet on sanctions. In his view, the then Prime Minister was being very optimistic about oil sanctions. Mr. Crossman then observed that the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General, who usually supported the Prime Minister, sat there in embarrassed silence. I do not recollect, and I do not think that my noble and learned friend who sits on the Woolsack recollects that we were embarrassed in any way. However, I could never see how, so long as South Africa got all the oil she wanted, Rhodesia would not get all the oil that she wanted.
I was to some extent fortified in this view, because when I went out originally

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to try to dissuade Mr. Smith from making an illegal Declaration of Independence, whenever I asked him, "What have you got to gain by this? You are the legal Government of Rhodesia; all the power is in your own hands. With a change of Constitution you would not have any more power. Her Majesty, quite rightly, constitutionally acts in relation to Rhodesia not on the advice of her United Kingdom Ministers but on the advice of her Rhodesian Ministers. So what on earth have you got to gain by it?" Mr. Smith always said the same thing—which was a general habit of his, I found. He always said—because I asked him more than once —"It's the awful uncertainty about independence which is preventing us from getting money for capital development, and I have been promised"—he did not say by whom he had been promised, but I could not doubt that it was South Africa—"that if I make a Declaration of Independence and our Government is still there after six months, I can then have all the money that I want for capital development, and everything else, except troops". As I say, Mr. Smith said that more than once. It seemed to me to be obvious that if she were backed by South Africa, Rhodesia must always, of course, have all the oil that she wanted.
The other part of the misunderstanding, judging from the articles which I have read in the national Press and also from what I have heard on television, relates to the general assumption that the only sanction which mattered was oil. But this was never so at all. It was not the import sanctions which really mattered. It was the export sanctions which mattered. Rhodesia, like our country, is one which has to export in order to live—in order to import—and her two major exports are tobacco and chrome ore, and to a very much lesser extent, of course, meat and a little sugar; and if they could not have exported their tobacco and their chrome ore they would not have had the money to buy the petrol.
At first sanctions seemed to be going at least sufficiently well to enable one to hope that they would lead Mr. Smith to think it wise to come back to legality. I think I myself reported to the House more than a year after the imposition of sanctions that they had only been able to sell about one-third of their first year's
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tobacco crop, the rest having to be stored in enormous warehouses which had to be built to hold it, Mr. Smith's Government telling the farmers that they must not grow as much tobacco next year because there was no point in growing tobacco which they could not sell. Also, the factories in which they used to assemble motor cars from kits were all closed and the men were dismissed because they had used up all the kits and they could not get any others.
Undoubtedly the business sectors in Rhodesia were increasingly telling Mr. Smith that the future would be very difficult indeed if he would not make his peace with Britain and come back to legality. Of course afterwards, as events showed, the main difficulties of this were, first, that the American Government went on buying their chrome, saying that it was indispensable to their arms industry, otherwise they would have to rely on Russia, which would be an absurd position. Also, as time went on the Rhodesian authorities found that if they sent their tobacco to South Africa it would be disposed of under false certificates of origin as South African tobacco. I do not believe that any British tobacco company ever bought any of it at all but, unhappily, many other countries did.
On the main question that we have to decide as to the resolution I could say a good deal. I am afraid I must dissent from the view of my noble friend Lord George-Brown, that if we simply back up the internal settlement and do virtually nothing else, that is the only solution. I have had some very long experience of Mr. Smith, not only in Rhodesia but also when he was in London. I gravely doubt whether there will ever be black majority rule in Rhodesia during Mr. Smith's time there. After all, at the moment he has a complete veto among the Four, who must all conform to any decision. Nobody suggests that anybody else controls the armed forces. He has not even produced a draft of the constitution. It does not look as though for at least ten years there will be real majority rule, and while he is always in favour of decreasing racial discrimination he has never actually done so. But my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and indeed others, have already spoken strongly as to the reason why we should support the

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order that we are asked to approve, and as the legal side is going to be dealt with by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, who will deal with it so much better than I should, I propose to say no more except that I have the greatest sympathy with the views which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, expressed looking to the future as to the sort of diplomatic steps which really ought to be taken and, if I may say so respectfully, I agree with everything he said about that.
6.34 p.m.
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, after a fairly long experience of political life, I have come to the conclusion that economic sanctions are not an effective political weapon; they are a mixture of hypocrisy and cowardice and I do not believe that for a Christian nation they are a worthy expedient to adopt. If we take the aim of sanctions, it is to lower the standard of living of the people of the country and to create unemployment. That must mean that those who suffer are the poorest sections of the community. Sanctions are not used against Soviet Russia or South Africa, Soviet Russia because she is too strong and South Africa for the reason that the noble Lord, Lord Caradon, is reported to have said to the United Nations on 1st December 1965 that a trade boycott of South Africa would create extensive unemployment in Great Britain and would cost us £300 million a year on our balance of payments.
I was not surprised, and I cannot think that anybody was surprised, by what was contained in the Bingham Report. All of us in political life knew at that time that when we had sanctions against Rhodesia without a blockade against South Africa they would be quite ineffective and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, explained, they had to cut down their tobacco crop but they had to replace it by the production of maize to export to Zambia. That is the position in Rhodesia at the present time.
I do not want to take up too much time on the past. The position is now radically changed. The internal agreement of 3rd March, made a completely different picture. At the beginning of sanctions, I remember Mr. Harold Wilson (as he then was) saying in the House of Commons on 23rd November 1965:
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"The position here, however, is that as soon as the people of Rhodesia are prepared to return to constitutional paths, as soon as the Governor feels that there is an opportunity of, perhaps, forming a government among those who will act in a constitutional manner, we would want to deal with those people, without any recrimination or any rancour about the past ".—[Official Report (Commons) 23/11/65; col. 258.)
On 3rd March the opportunity was provided but the Government spurned that settlement. I do not think anybody in this House has analysed how the settlement is constituted at the present time. After all, Bishop Muzorewa was the first Shona bishop in Rhodesia. He was from 1971 to 1974 the chairman of the ANC and after 1974 he was the president of ANC. He is a commanding figure who in the past has helped the youth movement in Rhodesia. Chief Chirau has been the President of the Council of Chiefs from 1973 to 1978 and he is the leader of the ZUPA Party. Mr. Sithole has been—and still is—the president of ZANU and has been a leading figure in Rhodesia. These men carry weight; they are responsible people, but unfortunately the internal settlement with that Government has been spurned by the British Government.
The sanctions are therefore being directed not against Mr. Smith's Government but against a multiracial Government that is preparatory to a transitional Government which should follow the elections, and it seems to me that some greater support ought to have been given by the present Foreign Secretary to that transitional Government. What he has done, of course, has been to describe Mr. Nkomo as the leader of his people. Now, Mr. Nkomo could command at the most 14 per cent. of the population—the Matabele. That is all. He must be a minority leader. Of course the effect of that description by Dr. Owen of Mr. Nkomo as being the leader of his people has gravely displeased Mr. Mugabe, who claims that he is the leader of the majority, and it also runs counter to Bishop Muzorewa who, within Rhodesia, is regarded as the leader of the Shona population. When it is suggested by my noble friend that a Minister should go out, I do pray that the Minister sent out is not the Foreign Secretary. I cannot but think that his reception would be anything but warm there.
Meanwhile, what I think the House is forgetting in discussing all the legalities

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about sanctions is that murder, rape and torture are going on all the time and the position is getting graver every day. I feel that the first object of all of us in Parliament should be to get those elections for the transitional Government in train as quickly as possible. I believe that to be a greater priority than the very wise suggestions of my noble friend Lord Carrington and others. Camp David may have come off —summitry, yes, but first you have got to get those elections. On that hangs, I believe, the whole strength of the internal settlement. I wish I could believe that Dr. Owen the Foreign Secretary now has the opportunity, the ability, to display initiative in this matter. I fear he has so antagonised the Shona and the Matabele who are inside Rhodesia that he cannot do very much on the election. That is my view.
Cannot we use our influence, though? Some who know my background may be rather surprised at this suggestion, but I should have thought we could have gone to our Western partners in Europe and asked for their help in organising the policing and supervision of elections. The reason why you cannot have elections now is because there is so much intimidation that you cannot get the elections going. Therefore, somebody has got to provide policing to secure absence of fear when they give their vote, with all the difficulties, which I appreciate, about the roll.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNE-SIDE: My Lords, if my noble friend will allow me to intervene for one moment, would he think it a good idea to see if Mr Malcolm Macdonald could go out and look after the work necessary for the election?
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, I am sure that would be excellent, but I really think it probably wants some greater strength than even Mr. Malcolm Macdonald with all his wisdom, possesses. I believe that this is a matter where the French, the Germans and the Italians, the whole of the Community, can help in securing a peaceful atmosphere just for the election of the transitional Government.
Of course, to send sophisticated weapons to neighbouring countries already provided with weapons from the Soviet bloc is really nothing else but a very foolhardy
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action and is not likely to help our consultation with our Western allies. They realise it is in the interests of Western Europe that Russian and Cuban infiltration into Africa be stopped. Therefore, I fear that is again another mistake made by the present Foreign Secretary. I do believe that the logical outcome of what was said by Sir Harold Wilson when sanctions were first put on is that we should now suspend sanctions for six months so that elections can take place. For that reason, I shall vote against the order tonight.
6.45 p.m.
The LORD BISHOP of WINCHESTER: My Lords, I should like to take up the point the noble Lord has just made referring to the danger of Russian infiltration. We are all very much aware that this is one of the hideous features with which we are faced at the present time and which so enormously complicates and makes harder the decisions we take and the actions that follow them. But I think we must not lose our nerve at this moment and panic; we must try to remind ourselves that the threat of international communism in Africa is not the cause of disaffection but it feeds on disaffection. That has almost always and in every part of Africa been the order of events. It is frustrated people who reach for the more violent methods of redressing their ills. It is people who have been left by their friends, who disagree with the policies they are pursuing, who look elsewhere for other friends. It is those who cannot find their old masters and colleagues to build railways for them who look elsewhere for the railway builders. One has seen this steady encroachment going on as a kind of terrible tragic unfolding —and I speak as one who has lived for some time, as many other noble Lords have, in parts of Africa and visited many others.
This is true even at the personal level as well. I hold no brief at all for Mr. Mugabe's irresponsible control, or possibly, even worse, his responsibility for atrocities that have been committed; but Mr. Mugabe was an emergent leader of an African cause trying to get Africans to have greater self-respect and to learn how to stand up for themselves and take matters into their own hands. At that time he was a devout Catholic. I am told

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he still is, but I should not like to vouch for that. He was imprisoned for 12 years without trial. He has emerged as the very embittered man that undoubtedly he is today. This is the way in which we make would-be Communists. We must not always assume that they have travelled to the ultimate point of no return down that road. They can often be won back if they find that they are treated with respect and that people also respect the new power that they have gained.
So I believe that not a withdrawal of relations but an inclusion of even the most awkward people is absolutely necessary if we are to have any success in a new settlement in Rhodesia. It has got to be one in which the combatants are drawn together. It is going to be a peace settlement because there is a war on; it is quite futile to think you can get some other people together and leave out the major combatants in a war and arrive at a peace settlement. It is going to be extremely hard, but this is precisely where the difficulty of our task lies, and it lies in no other hands. We must have the courage and the determination and the decisiveness now to take up this issue and do this long patient diplomacy, but that diplomacy must not omit either Nkomo or Mugabe.
I recall very well being in East Africa at the time of the Kapenguria trial when Mr. Jomo Kenyatta was on trial. I can remember very well how almost all of us—and I include myself—wrote him off as a convinced Marxist, and yet somehow, after the horrors of Mau Mau, he took over the leadership. Very grudgingly maybe in some cases, all of us credited him with that and we have been thankful for the firmness with which Kenya has developed and for the miracle that after his death it did not fall into the chaos that many people predicted. That is the sort of thing that can happen to a person who at the present moment may look like the hopeless case of somebody sucked into the Marxist machine. We must not lose faith or hope over such people.
I should like to return to the question of the internal settlement which has been in the forefront of our minds and so many of the speeches of noble Lords. Ought Britain to have backed the internal settlement? It sounded very promising
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when the Salisbury Agreement was signed on 3rd March last, but its promise has not been kept. It was heralded as offering the principle of one man, one vote, and had that been substantiated it would have represented a very striking shift from Mr. Smith's former position. But it soon became clear that the Salisbury Agreement was not going to guarantee that unimpeded progress to majority rule that has always been the first of the Five Principles—or the Six Principles—which successive British Governments have required as the basis of any settlement.
Under the proposed constitution there would effectively be two voters' rolls, because although all voters may vote for the 72 black seats, only whites can vote for the 20 white seats, and only candidates appointed by the Rhodesian Front can be nominated for the remaining eight white seats. Even allowing for a reasonable built-in protection of minority rights—for which we have always said we must ask—the reservation of 28 per cent. of the seats to represent less than 5 per cent. of the electorate is a far cry from one man, one vote. However, more was to be discovered as the meaning of the constitution emerged.
Mr. George Smith, the chairman of the Constitutional Drafting Committee, revealed that there was to be a senate with power to amend any Bill, other than financial, or to delay it for 180 days. Of the 30 members of that senate 10 are to be black, voted from the House of Assembly members; 10 are to be white, elected by the 28 white members; and 10 will be chiefs—that is, paid civil servants elected by the Council of Chiefs.
Finally, Mr. Smith's recent statement that the very principle of holding an election would be subject to a white referendum was quite contrary to the original terms of the agreement of 3rd March. Within a short time it was being widely reported that the terms of the agreement gave no confidence to the majority of the Africans, both in the towns and in the tribal trust lands. That is partly because the terms of the internal settlement leave virtually untouched the web of emergency legislation under which the security forces operate, including what Sir Robert Tredgold has called the profoundly shocking Indemnity and Compensation Act.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, would the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester give way for a moment? He has said that this agreement was widely disapproved of by the Africans, both in the towns and in the countryside. Has he counted them? How does he know? Is this just another of these bland assertions which have been coming forth from bodies like the World Council of Churches?
The Lord Bishop of WINCHESTER: My Lords, it is very difficult to get information from Rhodesia because only those who are in contact with people operating in all the various areas, and can bring together the evidence from that web of contacts, are in a position to know the full facts. Most people are so isolated in a particular area that even the better-informed find it very difficult to know what is going on elsewhere. Therefore, presumably the Government of Rhodesia are in a very good position to know the facts in general. So, also, are such organisations as what remains of the missions. One of the most numerous of those missions is the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholics have missions —with both white and black priests—in almost all the areas of Rhodesia. They are in a position to know what people are saying in the townships and in the countryside, and they obviously have a network for co-ordinating the information that comes to them along those lines. I do not think that even now anyone could accuse the Roman Catholic Church of being a victim of Marxist propaganda. However, what I have just said is the evidence that has come and it is based mainly on rather carefully sorted evidence produced by Roman Catholic organisations. Obviously their information, like every other bit of information that comes from Rhodesia, is open to an element of doubt and noble Lords must make up their own minds about what they feel they can and cannot believe.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred to the total lack of progress towards the elections and the feebleness of the land reform, and with respect I am not sure that I wholly agree that this dilatoriness can be laid at the door of our Government's lack of enthusiasm for the settlement in the first place. So much integrity could have been proved by
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pursing any one of the promised reforms that it would surely have been worth forwarding the due processes, in the face of any difficulty, had there been a wholehearted will to do so.
The maintaining of sanctions is a symbol of our seriousness, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said, without which we cannot hope to exercise any influence upon the negotiation of a more effective settlement. But something else is just as necessary for us. We must recover a genuine bipartisanship here and in another place, with regard to the part that this nation should play and the policy for which it stands. That bipartisanship has been allowed to collapse in recent months, and it must at all costs be restored however deeply individual persons may feel one way or the other over the issue of the internal settlement. Mr. Smith will certainly not agree to terms suggested or supported by a Labour Government if he is given cause to believe that there is any chance of negotiating on different lines if he can hold out until the next British Election.
I have no doubt that the two Parties are a great deal more disposed to think alike than the Brighton Conference, for example, might have led anyone to believe. For anyone with eyes to see must know that the United Kingdom now has a good deal more trade with black Africa than with white, and also that the Nigerian Government have funds deposited in this country such as no British Government will wish to lose. But I wish to appeal to something more than our self-interest. The welfare of all the citizens of Rhodesia is still our responsibility. If we repudiate UDI then we are still, ourselves, ultimately answerable for the wellbeing of those citizens—black and white—and for that skilled and patient diplomacy that must prepare the way for new and more inclusive negotiations.
The world certainly expects us to keep in step over sanctions. But the world is looking to us for a less easy intervention and a more determined initiative than that. With 100 victims dying in this war daily, and a young and promising nation falling into anarchy, it is morally indefensible to weaken the stance we must take by appearing to deal with these issues on Party lines.
Lord CHESHAM: My Lords, I did not want to interrupt the right reverend Prelate during his speech, but he said that Mr. Mugabe had been in prison without trial for 12 years. Could he say in what country and by whom he was put in prison for 12 years without trial?
The Lord Bishop of WINCHESTER: My Lords, I am informed that he was kept in detention in Rhodesia and spent a good deal of that time in prison. By the time he was released he had been there for 12 years.
Lord CHESHAM: My Lords, from that it follows that in view of his recent activities he must have been inside well before UDI?
The Lord Bishop of WINCHESTER: My Lords, I think that that is the case.
6.59 p.m.
Lord BUXTON of ALSA: My Lords, I shall be brief but I want to refer particularly to the impression on the subjects of this country. There has been little reference, if any, to public opinion. However, working in the media and television as I have for 20 years, one develops a sensitivity and instinct about what people are feeling. All that I want to say about Bingham is that most of the British public are frankly becoming bored with the subject of sanctions busting and Bingham and they are in danger of becoming a sort of in-house diversion for politicians and professionals. Naturally journalists in the Press, radio and television love the whiff of a scandal and continue to respond. But the issue is largely a yawn to the ordinary man and woman in the street. Therefore, for the benefit of the nation, I simply want to say that it is my hope that there will be no further inquiry or inquiries and no further actions by the DPP, and that that aspect of this matter will gradually die. Of those who are interested among the public, the majority of people in this country are clearly against sanctions and I believe want to support the internal settlement. Indeed, why would they not? The average person, like myself, would never have believed that he would live to see a British Foreign Secretary openly
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sceptical about an attempt by Africans and Europeans to get together and form a Government. Surely at any time in history, as several noble Lords have said today, this would have been regarded by the whole nation as a miraculous achievement worthy of universal acclaim.
On Tuesday the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State spoke of the need for compromise by the various parties, but in the eye of the public he remains obstinate and obviously prejudiced himself. Surely the art of politics is to remain flexible and open-minded while holding to the final objective and being determined to get there in the end by one way or another. Because the settlement does not apparently meet every iron condition in the Government's blue-print, the Government obsessively deny it any encouragement and refer, apparently with open relish, to what the Foreign Secretary calls "widespread hostility in Rhodesia to the settlement". Has he forgotten that two-thirds of the British people are openly hostile and do not support his Government here? If the criterion is always to be unanimous support and unanimity among all the parties, there would surely be no Governments in the world at all. Of course, the election date will slip so long as the British Government and others refuse to encourage confidence and the will to pull together.
Why do this Government refuse to encourage the internal settlement? Everyone I speak to in this country wants to know why. Without proper information the only plausible conclusion that I can think of is that undertakings or commitments have already been given to Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe. If so, it is time we are told what those promises were. In the old days when Dr. Owen and Mr. Young were hobnobbing together in Africa with the national front leaders it. is even understandable to me that some assurances were given. But they should be disclosed so that we can all know where we stand. Through obstinacy and inflexibility and an apparent refusal to consider any solution but the Government's own blueprints and options, we are rapidly approaching an era of chaos and bloodshed, and could live to see the day when the Russians might have an unbroken line of hegemony from Moscow

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to Capetown. Mercifully, the Government, with positively stunning inconsistency, have decided to back the Shah. But once he goes, all the Kremlin has to do is to subvert Kenya, and with a Marxist dictator in Mozambique and not inconceivably in Zimbabwe as well as things are going, the way to the Cape is open, with only South Africa left to dismantle.
Ordinary people in the country, including myself, sometimes wonder how we are supposed to explain to our children and grandchildren that Great Britain is now apparently aligned with Marxist guerrillas and terrorists, Cubans and Russians in opposition to a free alliance of Africans and Europeans. Most people are starting to become anxious. If things reach such a pass that our fellow citizens in Rhodesia—black and white—suffer disaster, humiliation and perhaps exodus or even massacre, then the Government should remember that the British people are not all Left-wing and indifferent and have not all lost their traditional British instincts for kinship. If that happens, there will be a surge of revulsion, shame and consequently anger and bias, and in my view obstinacy will have been the cause of it. But I am an optimist and there may still be hope. As has been suggested by noble Lords—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Carrington—the Prime Minister could convene a summit, playing his last card, as he called it, provided that he could see some prospect of success. My instinct is that if he delays there may soon be no opportunity of playing this card at all, and therefore it is fatal to wait.
However, the Prime Minister must not be fettered by rigid attitudes. That is vital. It is therefore clear to me that there are two prerequisites to the success of such an initiative and it is these which could enable the Prime Minister to perceive the degree of hope that he requires. First, so paranoic has everyone become about Mr. Smith himself as an individual, that his personal involvement is now clouding and confusing the main issues. I believe that the only swift way through the mounting crisis is for Mr. Smith possibly to hand over to one of his colleagues in the internal settlement and opt out himself. In the interests of all his fellow citizens I believe that he might conceivably do that in exchange for a commitment on sanctions, and one day the world may acclaim his statesmanship in doing so.
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But the other equally important prerequisite, if a new initiative is to have any prospects of success, is that all those attending must be free of bias and known prejudices, and have no commitments—moral or practical—to third parties. Therefore, it would be hopeless if Dr. Owen attended and I would urge him to opt out as well. I am sure that he and the Prime Minister will not allow personal considerations to overwhelm them when the very lives and safety of millions of citizens in Africa—black and white—are poised precariously on a knife-edge.
I do not intend to vote against the renewal of sanctions because the issue at this stage does not have sufficient relevance to the absolute urgency of the situation, which is rapidly worsening. To remove sanctions might conceivably get too many people off the hook from evolving immediately a fresh settlement. Incidentally, I sometimes ask myself what is so distasteful to the Government about "internal". In all history it was surely "external" settlements that were usually regarded as abhorrent. To maintain sanctions for the time being only might give the Prime Minister one more card to play in the vital initiative, which I pray he will take before it is too late.
7.7 p.m.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, first I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his introduction to this debate. As he is not in his place, I should like this to put on record the graceful introduction which he made to this debate; it is always a pleasure to hear him. In this long debate I shall be—as I hope I usually am—brief. First, I turn to a comment made in the other place during the debate on Rhodesia on Tuesday, 7th November. One Member of Parliament described the Government's decision to impose sanctions on Rhodesia unilaterally in 1965, as a "grotesque decision". I thought that it was a pretty fair description in view of the terrific power of South Africa at that time. When we look at the balance of power in Southern Africa in those years, and after reading the Bingham Report which underlines this, it seemed to me that the chances of success were very slim for imposing sanctions. It was not a quarter of a million white rebels in Rhodesia whom we were taking on, but South Africa itself—one of the

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most powerful, reactionary countries in the world. To me it looked then as though we were engaging in a grossly uneven contest with that country, that the imposition of sanctions was doomed to failure and that we could be left after such an operation crying over spilt oil and even spilt blood.
However, before noble Lords jump to conclusions from my remarks, let me state quite clearly that although it may have been a grotesque decision in 1965, I believe that it would be an even more grotesque decision for the Government today, in 1978, to lift sanctions against Rhodesia. After 13 years the international climate for progress in human rights issues has changed enormously. The continuing relentless attack on apartheid in the United Nations has brought some understanding about the evils of racial discrimination. One can even see the beginning of the end of apartheid.
I shall repeat what I said in a debate we had on Southern Africa; I believe that apartheid is much more dangerous than Communism. In fact, I deplore this phobia about Communism and this continual use of the ridiculous word "Marxism" in political issues today. It really has become ridiculous. I do not know what it means. If there are places, as in Rhodesia and in South Africa, where racial discrimination is rife, then we should look into the reasons for this and not simply say, "This is due to Marxism. This is due to Communism." It is utterly illiterate to do this.
In Rhodesia a national struggle is going on between racial groups, but it is presented as a struggle between two equals: the Rhodesian whites and the African blacks. We must never forget—and let us remind ourselves—that Rhodesia has a quarter of a million whites, Europeans, and 6¼ million black Africans. Over the years this fact does not seem to have been turned over in our minds and digested at all—certainly not in this country.
Reading the Bingham Report, I began to feel less condemnatory about our role in 1965 and about the criticisms which we have heard in recent days of the civil servants who took part in effecting sanctions at that time, the Government
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Ministers who have been criticised, and even the British oil companies. Therefore, I was particularly heartened to hear my noble friend Lord Thomson, who made a spirited speech. He did not have to defend himself. He got up and spoke the truth and made a spirited defence of what went on at that time. I have always regarded moral indignation by itself leading only to condemnation as the most tranquilising thing in political argument. One feels that one has done something terrific, but one has not done a thing; one has simply made oneself feel better. It makes one ignore the difficulties and, as I say, still feel good.
There are always difficulties resulting from taking measures; there are no magic results from, for example, imposing restrictions on oil companies. This has far-reaching effects. It may be good in some instances, but it still may have a rather troubling effect. For instance, it was said of the British oil companies mentioned in the Bingham Report that there was a great cover up about imposing sanctions. But let us suppose that they had not done anything to cover up, or had tried to do what the Government wanted them to do. Sometimes by imposing sanctions these oil companies did not hurt people in Rhodesia—the people they wanted to hurt—but hurt an unemployed man in the Midlands, let us say, who suffers from this in an indirect way.
I wish that I could feel hopeful about Ian Smith's efforts. He has not shown any real insight over the years into the whole philosophy of racial discrimination. Rhodesia is still a really racist State, whatever anybody says. I wish I could feel confidence in him. There is one aspect of the Rhodesian scene which is unclear to me. Where, for instance, are the younger freedom fighters? The younger men, the lieutenants, of the black leaders? Somehow we do not hear of any younger men who are helping them. Surely there are some that will follow the front line black Rhodesians. I am not unaware of the guerrillas and the fighting but, as I say, in any fighting for freedom there are atrocities. We seem to forget the history about these matters.
I should like to say a word about Dr. David Owen, our Foreign Secretary. Despite the fact that he has had some criticism levelled at him—I think a great

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deal of it unjustified—I like his plain speaking, his realism. He is one of the first Foreign Secretaries who has spoken really clearly and with great realism about the problems of Africa. We have always been rather genteel about Rhodesia and Southern Africa and about the things that go on there; so I, for one, really commend him. He may occasionally make mistakes —who does not?—or, rather, not mistakes but he can occasionally say something which upsets somebody; but he is absolutely on the right lines. We have to continue now to involve the whole international community in this fight for freedom in Southern Africa, and in Rhodesia in particular.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FER-RARD: My Lords, might I inform the noble Baroness, before she sits down, that she appears to be unaware that the transitional Government in Rhodesia have abolished apartheid and racial discrimination between black and white. I quite agree that between the various tribes it is another matter.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, if the noble Viscount thinks that, it is as though he has just been born. Anybody who has looked into the situation in Rhodesia and can accept what Mr. Ian Smith says at its face value is not living in this world.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FER-RARD: My Lords, the noble Baroness apparently has not been reading the literature.
7.20 p.m.
Lord SAINT OSWALD: My Lords, I shall follow the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, in only one respect, and that is to question strongly something which I understood her to say, namely, that there is no true equality in Rhodesia. Rhodesia, from what I have seen of it, is unlike any other African country in that it is a country in which black and white respect and regard each other as native Africans of that country, and that will make the possibility of democracy in Zimbabwe.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, if the noble Lord will look at the statistics, in particular at what is spent on education
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for the 6,250,000 black Africans compared with what is spent for about 250,000 white Rhodesians, he will understand why I said that.
Lord SAINT OSWALD: I understand that, my Lords, as I understand the statistics, and I shall be answering some of them. I am talking about self-respect and mutual respect, and that is what will make the possibility of Zimbabwe; and I must tell the noble Baroness and the House what we all know, namely, that Zimbabwe will come into being under black rule. So much is certain and so much is accepted. Today's issue is whether Zimbabwe is to be born through an orderly constitutional process or out of bloodshed and invasion from without. The question is as stark as that. These two alternatives hold out, on the one hand, the valid hope of creating a pattern state for the whole of Africa and, on the other, a near certainty of creating yet another cruel tyranny directed by and dependent on an alien imperial Power, Soviet Russia.
We should be happy indeed that on 3rd March of this year the constitutional process was set in motion. Since then any reference to "the Smith Government" has been a reference to past history. There exists no such Government today. Indeed, what we are now invited to attack, defend or ignore is a Transitional Government formed of black and white Africans, created and pledged to establish unquestioned black rule in a new Zimbabwe. It is already misleading to refer to or think of Mr. Ian Smith as the Prime Minister of this Transitional Government; it is a coalition Government of four Parties, three black and one white, and four leaders, three black and one white.
Is it conceivable, I ask, that sanctions would have been approved or even proposed against such a Government 13 years ago? The objective which the whole of this Government has set itself, without reservation, hidden clauses or escape clauses, is black rule in Zimbabwe, the chosen name which will inevitably and rightly replace the name of Rhodesia as a sovereign and independent country. Anyone who attacks this Government with words or weapons is attacking and perhaps imperilling the peaceful achievement of black rule. They are reinforcing the

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present invasion of Rhodesia, bent upon destruction and dictatorship. They are in direct and deliberate collision with true black independence for Zimbabwe. That is the considered and stated view of the men who represent the vast majority of present Rhodesians, only a tiny element of whom are white but all of whom love their country and strive for a free and prosperous multiracial future.
It would be an over-dramatisation to suggest that the outcome is in the hands of this House or in those of another place during the debates of these last three days. It would be an evasive under-statement to say that we could not affect the outcome for either good or ill. The sadness lies in the fact that some thinking people in this country have been quietly induced to believe that a wave of killing and eventual defeat by bloodshed is inevitable. I believe the opposite, both from visiting Rhodesia and from speaking and corresponding with Rhodesians, black and white.
There are those who belittle the achievements of 3rd March and there exist some superficial but excusable reasons for with-holding confidence. It has not ended the war. Rather, has it intensified it. That could be foreseen because the terrorist forces besetting Rhodesia's frontiers are directed by men who want power for themselves and they know it will not be placed in their hands willingly, by electoral means, by a people well acquainted with their savage acts and methods. For that very reason, when the opportunity for universal suffrage was promised to the people of Rhodesia for the first time, as it was by the agreement of the 3rd March, those whose goal was and remains a totalitarian Zimbabwe found themselves forced to increase their effort of conquest, which meant increasing their savagery, and that was reflected by increased intimidation within the frontiers in some areas where they operate.
To deduce from that that a lifting of sanctions would further intensify the present conflict, as one opinion states, hardening the obstinacy of the embattled whites in their ultimately hopeless task, seems to me to be patent and self-contradictory nonsense. The so far embattled whites, if that means those who insisted on the preservation of white supremacy, have already come to terms with the new
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era of black rule. Some may have done so reluctantly, including Mr. Smith himself, but the decision is made and is irreversible. Those who have not come to terms and refuse to do so will go. Most will stay, and many who have left will return if the peaceful settlement envisaged can be achieved. They will remain and return no longer as rulers but as a minority, on their merits in terms of usefulness to the country, continuing to serve the nation they have known so long, but under black majority rule instead of white minority rule. That is the end to which all British Governments have worked and it was the purpose of sanctions after UDI.
None of us in this Chamber will have any say in the election of Zimbabwe's future individual leaders; we shall have even less of a vote than in our own national elections. Still, if the Foreign Secretary of this country feels qualified to refer to one boastful mass murderer and proclaimed Marxist as "the father of his people", I take leave to express admiration for another and very different Zimbabwian. I have had occasion to meet the Reverend Ndabaning Sithole several times in the past year and I have seen how simply and unforcedly he impresses all who meet him in an unprejudiced mood, myself only one among them. One white Rhodesian said to me recently, "He thinks like a Prime Minister, he feels like a Prime Minister and he acts like a Prime Minister". I have come to recognise a man with certain rare and natural gifts, a man who declares confidently but without ranting, who is articulate, who has humour—anyone who has read his short but charming book which was written in prison will be conscious of that—and he has an innate quality of quiet authority. I have thought of him as one whose commands I would accept with confidence in his judgment. There are others, and the Zimbabwians will choose from among them all, if they are allowed. The choice will not be made by Dr. Owen and Mr. Young, unless they are literally prepared to let force determine the future of this small deserving people and their beautiful land.
In the circumstances, there is a very real peril that Mr. Joshua Nkomo and Mr. Robert Mugabe will enter the country from two sides and fight out a murderous war between the Matabele and the Shona. Let it be emphasised again that neither

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of them is being excluded from the peaceful solution. Quite the reverse. To be pedantically exact, no fewer than six separate invitations to Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe have been transmitted urging them to join the Transitional Government: on the 6th March from Mr. Smith; on the 8th March from Mr. Sithole; on the 26th April from the Executive Council as a whole; on the 1st August from the Joint Ministers of Foreign Affairs; on the 12th October from Bishop Muzorewa; and on the 12th October from Chief Chirau. What more could be done by the Transitional Government?
When the Reverend Sithole came to visit the European Parliament in Luxembourg in July one of the points he made was:
"We have continually invited Joshua Nkomo to join us in our decisions, and he has repeatedly made it plain that he will only do so on one non-negotiable condition—that he must be boss! As we are trying to create, for the first time in history, a democratic Zimbabwe, based on universal suffrage, that does not seem to us a very practical way of setting about it!"
When I spoke to Mr. Sithole last week in London, I asked him whether Mr. Nkomo's attitude had softened since then. He replied "It has hardened".
A week or two ago on British television, together with millions of other watchers, I witnessed Mr. Nkomo, his face contorted with rage, shout:
"The solution must be by force!"
Then he said:
"Let me repeat that: the solution must be by force!"
My Lords, even so I am not suggesting that we accept those as his final, destructive words. Politicians the world over are given to striking attitudes which they later abandon, and African politicians strike attitudes as readily and as rowdily as most. I was reproached the other night for not taking into account the example of Jomo Kenyatta as a comparable figure to the Nkomo of today, but who became a recognised and respected leader and statesman. Frankly, I doubt whether the two are truly comparable. Jomo Kenyatta in his militant days was a radical intellectual of flamboyant stamp, who made speeches approving of Mau Mau, but I remember no evidence that he ordered atrocities or boasted of them in the manner that Mr. Nkomo boasted recently of the shooting down of a civilian aircraft and the massacre of the helpless survivors of
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that crash. If we put ourselves in the place of the Rhodesians, black and white, we must appreciate how this incident, and innumerable others, have set their minds against giving any authority over their lives to this man.
I have had described to me by black and white Rhodesians the methods of the terrorists—not simply killing and raping, but cutting off ears, legs, arms, breasts and other parts of the living human anatomy, tearing off lips and noses with pliers, burning innocent people in their huts, and shooting any who seek to escape the consuming blaze. Notwithstanding, let us maximise optimism, make the effort to dare to hope that this leopard will expunge his spots, cleanse the blood from his claws. At present there is no kind of indication that he is so prepared—there is every evidence that he is not. Where, then, is the strength of argument that he should have the prescriptive right to rule absolutely, which he at present demands, which is the only result he is ready to accept, and which some, geographically far removed from the problem and its consequences, are incomprehensibly ready to concede him, assisting his seizure of absolute power, as dictator designate, self-designate?
It is no joy to affirm that some of the chief mischief in this dangerous state of affairs has been created by two men who, as holders of their offices, should know better and act with truer, more responsible judgment. I am referring to Dr. David Owen, of whom I was once a thoughtful and considered admirer, and Mr. Andrew Young, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. The evil that these men are doing now may proverbially live long after them, and it is no less grave because against the experience of history it will count as almost frivolous folly.
These two sibling statesmen are treating the whole of Southern Africa as if it were their own personal trampoline—2 million square miles set aside for their highly publicised antics. Upon this trampoline they bounce, cavort, somersault and pirouette before the eyes of a bewildered world; bewildered by what—by two peculiarities: that with regard to Rhodesia they favour the men of violence in preference to the men of peaceful approach, and they seek to draw Soviet Russia into Southern African affairs,

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instead of using their skills to keep Russia at a distance for the sake of Africa. It is hard to believe that vanity does not play a harmful, perhaps an unwitting, part in their policies. The internal settlement is a rival to the Anglo-American plan. It is not their plan—therefore it must be mocked and obstructed. If this be not so, I seek in vain some other comprehensible grounds for this attitude. It can hardly be thought that handing nations over to Marxist rule will produce social justice; and the only grounds that I can find are negative grounds, due to disbelief in the present aims or success of the Executive Council. Those I can find fall into more than one category, and all are misconceived or outdated.
First, I was myself increasingly dismayed after the 3rd March to observe no tangible signs of eliminating racial discrimination—in this I am in agreement with the noble Baroness—promised in the Agreement; and the announcement of the long-delayed measures was not made until October, at a time when, by coincidence, Mr. Smith was in the United States, and it was therefore less evident that they bore, as in fact they did, the imprimatur of the white population.
I do not know how many noble Lords have followed as closely as I have the disappointing, and until lately negligible, progress of the Quenet Report and recommendations on electoral law, land reform, social facilities, and education. The Commission was set up within Rhodesia in August 1975, consisting of five black Rhodesians and six white Rhodesians, chaired by Sir Vincent Quenet, a former High Court judge, to investigate ways of removing racial discrimination. The report and recommendations were published on the 14th June 1976.
This report was not referred to in any way by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia, mentioned by the Foreign Secretary this week, either in its statement of 20th October last, or in its document prepared as a background for these debates, and entitled Rhodesia after the Internal Settlement. This is a sadly sceptical and slanted document which completely discounts the good faith and the visible effects of the internal settlement.
The key heading is:
"The majority of the African population now regard the Salisbury Agreement as fraudulent and worthless."
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Any statement so sweeping as that must be suspect in itself, and is contradicted by the Reverend Sithole, Bishop Muzorewa and Chief Chirau, the three most prominent African leaders within the country, who estimate that 85 per cent. of the population back them. The document bears the date of 1978, but no other indication of when it was prepared or predetermined. The kindest interpretation of its errors is that the whole submission is simply of out of date, and so is the Foreign Secretary.
The recommendations of the Quenet Report were all subsumed by the promises of the Salisbury Agreement last March. These, late though it may seem, are now being implemented, and although, as has been accurately stated, the requisite laws have not yet been passed, I have it on witness from individual Rhodesians—Mr. Sithole included—that the authorities are already putting them into practice. Black Rhodesians are physically taking up ownership and residence in areas formerly denied to them. Hospitals are now open to all races; schools are now open to all races. All are equal. Racial discrimination in Rhodesia is effectively at an end.
Another anxiety has clearly been caused by the predicted postponement of elections beyond the 31st December; but this has not yet been decided, and Mr. Smith neither possessed, nor claimed, the power to decide it on his own. He could give no more than a personal forecast of the prospects as he saw them—which is all he did—and unless there is very recent news from the Executive Council as a whole, there is still no decision, at least no decision made public. Should there be a postponement, it will not be, as the sceptics assert, because the intention was never there, but mainly because, in the consideration of the black and white leaders of the Transitional Government, the invasion of terrorists has increased to such an extent, encouraged from outside, that fair and free elections cannot be held on the appointed and hoped-for date. Both Nkomo and Mugabe have stated that ballot stations will be attacked by their forces. It is in the interest of everyone except the enemies of the Transitional Government that these elections should be held as soon as possible.
A further disturbing factor, though not seemingly so regarded by everyone, was

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the manner in which Mr. Smith monopolised the limelight during the time that he and the Reverend Sithole were in the United States. It seemed wise and proper to me that Mr. Sithole should have been treated as the main figure and spokesman from the hour they landed together on American soil. He was the man on his way in: Mr. Smith, on his own recognition, was the man on his way out. When I put this to Mr. Sithole last week he said, "Ah!, but Mr. Smith has been a rebel for so long that he was bound to be more newsworthy". Then he grinned and added, "Next time I go I shall not be taking him with me!".
The fourth, and in a sense the most frightening as well as obvious, factor which affects the credibility and authority of the Transitional Government is the increased activity and ferocity of the terrorist forces invading from Zambia and Mozambique, with consequent bloodshed and intimidation. This, depressingly, threatens and could delay the date of elections; but there is more hopeful news to set against it. General Peter Walls, the Commander-in-Chief, has announced within the last few days that 2,000 former terrorists are now volunteers with the Security Forces. These are not merely warriors who dropped out of the battle: they have changed sides in order to defend their country instead of attacking it. They have done this because of their faith in the Transitional Government and its objectives. If this trend continues, as in logic it should, then the internal settlement will be accelerated, whatever the help or hindrance from this country.
My contention is that the discontinuing of sanctions will help and hearten, and for this reason they should be discontinued. I am aware that some of my most valued friends, with whom I am normally in the closest political harmony, make a different judgment. I am bound to respect their judgment: I am not bound to concur. They speak of such a decision as "escalating the conflict." I believe (and so do the black leaders of the Transitional Government, despite the clumsy canard put out yesterday, now formally rebutted by all three) that the maintenance of sanctions is prolonging the conflict, with all its attendant ills—death, torture, hunger, disease and wholesale unemployment. For instance, the removal of sanctions would create 250,000 jobs for
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black Africans. Under different circumstances, this prospect would cause general joy in your Lordships' House; and I do not consider that circumstances should eclipse it now. Above all, I believe that the purpose of sanctions has lapsed with the formal acceptance of black majority rule.
I repeat, in ending, what I said at the beginning. Is it conceivable to the Government—and this is not a rhetorical question; I expect an answer—that sanctions could have been brought in 13 years ago if such a Government, with such a programme, had been in power? This is far less than what the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, stated. The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, in his speech, stated that if such a Government had existed at the time of the conferences on "Tiger" and "Fearless" sanctions would have been removed. All I am asking is that noble Lords opposite tell me whether they believe that, with such a Government, sanctions would ever have been imposed. I believe that if they answer truthfully they will say "No"—and, because of the totally changed conditions, many of us tonight will say "No" to sanctions in the Lobby.
7.44 p.m.
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords, I hope not to delay the House too long, but as a former Commonwealth Secretary until I left the Government and the Commonwealth Office in August 1967, I should like to give my recollections of the situation at that time. In those months of 1966–67 it was obvious and, I think, well known that the sanctions order had not stopped or in fact materially affected the supply of oil to Rhodesia. The Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference of 1966, probably the most difficult conference ever, and the special sanctions committees time and time again raised the problem of oil supplies and the question of sanctions-busting generally. Those were tough and extremely difficult meetings which, if I may say so, were handled with great skill and extreme patience by the Prime Minister of the day.
It was thought that most of the oil at that time was reaching Rhodesia from South Africa through Beitbridge and from Lourenço Marques, but what was certainly not known was that the source of some of that oil was British. I certainly

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did not know; and I am sure that in 1966 and early 1967 the Prime Minister did not know, nor did any of the officials of the Commonwealth Office. However, Bingham has produced the facts. British oil, in one way or another, was getting into Rhodesia; but it did not become known to the British Government until, as my noble friend Lord Thomson has said, many months later. Not the only breaks in the sanctions wall concerned oil. I can recall meetings at which France, the United States and some of our Commonwealth countries were castigated very severely for breaking sanctions; so it was not in fact oil only.
I should like to make one or two general observations about my short period of responsibility after UDI. I certainly had a very genuine hope—and I think it was shared by all my Parliamentary colleagues in all Parties—that an agreement could be reached with the régime on constitutional changes which would end the illegality and bring independence to Rhodesia based upon the Five Principles laid down previously by the noble Lord, Lord Home. I was either too inexperienced or too naive, for my two visits to Mr. Smith in Salisbury and the time I spent on HMS "Tiger" led to precisely nothing except, perhaps—and I speak for myself—a better and deeper knowledge of the man who spoke for and represented the Rhodesian régime, Mr. Smith.
Not having spoken on the Rhodesian problem at all since I left office, I should like first, if I may, to pay tribute to Sir Humphrey Gibbs, the Queen's Governor of Rhodesia for nine years, four of those after UDI. I had the privilege and honour of being Sir Humphrey's guest on my visits to Salisbury. Both the Governor and Lady Gibbs were subject to very many indignities at the hands of Mr. Smith and his Rhodesian Front colleagues, and this is sometimes forgotten. He had his telephone cut off; his official car was removed from him; there were troops at the gates and in the grounds of Government House—the Queen's Government House—and then, of course, there was a "stooge" Governor appointed by Mr. Smith to replace him. During the whole of those years the Governor, Sir Humphrey, showed great courage and a very high sense of duty and loyalty to Britain and to the Crown.
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At that time, of course, Mr. Nkomo and the Reverend Sithole were in prison, and a former white Prime Minister of Rhodesia was under house arrest. I asked Mr. Smith if I might visit Mr. Nkomo and the Reverend Sithole, but I was refused permission. However, on request I was permitted to visit one of the stipendiary chiefs who were alleged to support Mr. Smith. I visited that chief at his village after lunch on a Sunday afternoon. The memory remains very vivid, because I saw the chief but I doubt very much whether he saw me. Perhaps if I had visited him before lunch it would have been rather different. In fact, the proverbial fiddler's bitch had little on the chief that I saw in the village on that Sunday afternoon.
The "Tiger" talks were hopeful. At least, I thought they were. They were treated very seriously by both sides. There was a great deal of discussion of constitutional detail with a view to returning the legality and subsequent independence; and we even got down to details with Mr. Smith of discussing the names of who might function during a transitional period. The talks went on for many hours over the days that we were aboard the frigate, between the Prime Minister, the present Lord Chancellor and myself on the one side and Mr. Smith and Mr. Howman on the other, for what we thought was something worthwhile being done. Again, Sir Humphrey Gibbs was present the whole time. At the end the working document was signed by both parties and if the outline had been accepted by Mr. Smith and his colleagues then majority rule and independence would have come to Rhodesia in the fullness of time; or, as Sir Harold Wilson has said, by the calendar rather than the clock.
The "Tiger" proposals were rejected in Salisbury. I have always held the view that had they then been accepted, perhaps they might not have been quite so acceptable to some of my Cabinet colleagues at home. But that situation was never tested. The proposals were not to be. I have wondered since how much Mr. Smith must have regretted it. I am sure, if he had accepted it, that the Prime Minister, with his great skill would have been able to carry it through Parliament. But, unfortunately, after every attempt by any Minister of a

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solution of the Rhodesian problem within a matter of a few days we have had a speech from Mr. Smith in which he has said something rather like, "Never in my lifetime …" or "Never in a hundred years …". That is the sort of declaration that has put us back to square one under both Governments from time to time.
Today we have the war in Rhodesia—and war it is! No one condones the murder of innocent white and black people by the guerrillas; and it is not going to solve anything. On the other hand, the bombing deep into Zambia by the Rhodesian air force will not solve anything either. The Vietnam war proved the complete uselessness of aerial superiority alone. We do not know, when we talk about the future of Rhodesia, who exactly represents Rhodesia as a whole or whether Bishop Muzorewa, the Reverend Sithole, Mr. Nkomo or Mr. Mugabe represents the whole of the black Rhodesians. It is equally difficult, in my view, to know if Mr. Smith still represents the white Rhodesians.
I like to recall that on the first anniversary of the declaration of UDI in 1966 over 3,000 white Rhodesians queued up outside the gates of Government House to sign the Governor's Book—after 12 months of UDI. So, in my view, to end sanctions now would be a great mistake. I am fearful, if we do so and start the restoration of the Rhodesian economy with a somewhat shaky transitional Government in office—and believe me, it is shaky; it was only a matter of days ago that Mr. Smith's three colleagues knew that Mr. Smith had declared that 31st December was off. We understand that now they are discussing that.
Lord SAINT OSWALD: My Lords, if the transitional Government is as shaky as the noble Lord says, how does he suppose that they had the courage, all four of the Executive Council, to be in the United States of America across the Atlantic at one time leaving their seats empty with the enemy on their frontier?
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords, the reason why I think it is shaky is simply because, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out in his speech, the constitution itself is shaky. It is not a constitution which gives black majority rule in time.
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The whites are still under Mr. Smith. It is a "Mr. Smith's Government". But it is certainly a move forward.
So, my Lords, as I have said, in my view it would be a grave mistake to end sanctions because I am afraid that if we did so and rebuilt the Rhodesian economy, then again within a short while we should have one of these stock declarations: "Never in my life … Never in a hundred years …". I fear that if sanctions go, only guns will remain.
On 11th November, almost exactly 13 years ago to the day, with his illegal Declaration of Independence Mr. Smith and his Rhodesian Front colleagues did their country a great disservice. There is no doubt of the euphoria at the time and in the early years, but it is a very different story now—and not one that anyone is very happy about. In my view, the best hope for a peaceful settlement in Rhodesia is for Mr. Smith to retire from the scene now. Then let the British Government, whose responsibility it is, take the initiative: first, perhaps, by replacing a Queen's Governor in Government House in Salisbury instead of Mr. Dupont—and who would stop us?—and then proceed rather along the lines the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, suggested; I call it a round table conference, composed of black leaders, representatives of the coloured populations and whoever the whites want as their representative and a replacement for what I hope at the time would be a retired Mr. Smith. Elections to follow as soon as possible. Sanctions could be withdrawn immediately the conference felt it safe to do so. Should some of the leaders—and this is a possibility—refuse to attend such a conference, I think that the British Government should go ahead with the conference with the Queen's Governor in Government House and a British presence in Salisbury. I believe and hope that stability would return in the end and a multiracial Rhodesia emerge.
7.58 p.m.
Lord GREENHILL of HARROW: My Lords, there are many in this House who have played a more prominent part in the affairs of Rhodesia than I; but, in fact, in one way or another, I have been officially engaged in Rhodesian matters for nearly 13 years. I thought therefore that your Lordships would expect me to speak and I will be as brief as I can. I want to

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say, first, why I shall vote for a continuation of sanctions; I want to speak briefly about the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and I want also to refer to the Bingham Report.
Perhaps I could take the Bingham Report first. This, I meant to say a good deal about; but the ground has been so adequately covered that I am going to truncate my remarks about the report. But I am anxious to take part in this discussion for the same reasons as the noble Lord, Lord Garner, and that is because allegations and innuendos have been made about officials. I should like to record, as he has, how much I resent and repudiate those allegations.
If I may return to my own part in these affairs, from 1965 until 1973 I held senior posts in the Foreign Office. After 1973 I was appointed by a Conservative Government—and the appointment was renewed by a Labour Government—as the Government director of British Petroleum. Therefore Rhodesia has never been far from my mind over this period. In 1976 I was asked by the then Foreign Secretary—who is now the Prime Minister—to visit Rhodesia shortly for some exploratory talks with Mr. Smith, who I had met several times when I was in Government.
While I was at the Foreign Office, it was my duty with others to offer advice to Ministers of both the Labour and Conservative Administrations, four different Foreign Secretaries and many other Ministers. Happily most of these Ministers are in a position to explain their policies and to recount their knowledge of events, either in this House or in another place, and I will not attempt to perform their task for them. I may add that, unlike these Ministers, I have not had the opportunity or the advantage of consulting past papers and therefore speak solely on the basis of recollection. But my recollection confirms the sequence of events which have been recounted by Mr. Michael Stewart, the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, and other leading Members of the Administration from 1965 to 1968; but particularly I confirm from my own recollections what Mr. Michael Stewart said in another place and what the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, has said here.
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It goes without saying that I accept responsibility for the advice which I gave while I was an official, advice which was sometimes taken and sometimes not taken. As your Lordships know well, this advice may be given orally or in writing. Recollection of it can sometimes be checked by consulting the documents; at other times reliance must be put on fallible memories. The advice that I gave in writing is in the official archives. All the time I believe that in the Foreign Office we all acted constitutionally and in accordance with established convention. On the matter of Rhodesia, I cannot recall being in serious conflict with Ministers of either Party. But just as important as a recollection of the facts is a recollection of the circumstances and atmosphere in which decisions now so freely criticised had once to be taken.
I am very glad that the Secretary of State, Dr. Owen, in his very fair opening speech in another place, reminded us of the passage in the preface of the report —which is worth repeating—where Mr. Bingham and Mr. Gray have said:
"We have not attempted, in telling the story which follows, to relate it … to contemporaneous political, diplomatic and economic events … Any judgment upon this story does … require close attention to the context in which it occurred, and such contemporaneous events are an important part of that context."
Today's debate, taken in conjunction with what was said in another place, covers the ground very fully and removes many of the doubts which have been sincerely—and sometimes not sincerely—expressed in the Press and in various other places. If you add together the remarks of Mr. Michael Stewart—so characteristically frank and honest—the account which the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, gave of his stewardship, the remarks of Mr. Heath in another place, and what the noble Lords, Lord Home of the Hirsel and Lord George-Brown, have said, it shows clearly that Ministers were well aware of the problems, that they acted in good faith, that they were not the dupes of officials, they were not the dupes of big business. They were well aware of the constraints which were put upon them and they were well aware of what the situation was.
Some people have affected an extraordinary ignorance at this late stage of what was happening and what was

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known to be happening throughout the period which we are discussing. I was astounded to hear the Member of Parliament for Taunton (who has very great experience in these matters) claiming ignorance of what was going on in Rhodesia at the disputed time. I feel that if people in this country examine what has been said and carefully check the statements which have been made by responsible Ministers, they will come to the conclusion that the country was well served by those who held responsible positions and that they sincerely tried to carry out a policy in the best interests of this country.
I was not invited to give evidence to the Bingham inquiry, and of course if there were a further inquiry I should hope to play some part in it. As a by-product of the controversy on Bingham, I should like to try out once again a favourite hobby horse of my own. Mr. Heath very rightly pointed out in another place that one of the consequences which may flow from an attempt to publish all the papers on this matter is that Ministers and civil servants will start to keep their own records or avoid keeping records in order to protect themselves from witch hunts and post-mortems. This is especially so when one reads of the very vindictive personal attacks which have been made in another place about individual civil servants. I have mentioned that point before.
I should like the following suggestion to be drawn to the attention of Sir Duncan Wilson who is leading a group which are looking into the question of public records. It is this. In the Foreign Office and other departments a confidential running historical record should be kept of events as they occur. This record can reflect the circumstances of the time, the views of the participants and the circumstances which compelled this course or another course. These records should be kept by professional historians of an independent frame of mind, not committed to either Party. If we had had such an account of Rhodesian affairs since 1965 all this grubbing about that has been going on over the past months would have been largely unnecessary because we would have had an account which would have put the situation in its own context. That is a serious suggestion. I hope
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those considering this problem of public records will give that suggestion the attention it deserves.
There was one other point which was not dealt with in the Bingham Report and which affects me personally. It has been the subject of comment in the Press, periodicals and in another place yesterday. That is regarding the role of Government directors in British Petroleum. The situation there, to which I should like to draw attention, is that the Government directors have, as everybody knows, certain powers of veto; but they also have to perform the role of a normal non-executive director of the company. As such, they have responsibilities not only to the British Government but to the other shareholders.
When I went to BP in 1973 I knew what the situation was—or I thought I did—about oil getting to Rhodesia. It is an extraordinary thing, but it shows the attention which was being given to these matters. From the period of 1973 to 1976 the question of sanctions was not mentioned by the Government to me or to my other Government director colleagues, and although I was in close contact with Whitehall, as I was required to be, this matter was not drawn, in any way, to the attention of the Government directors and the matter was not discussed at the BP board.
As soon as the question of sanctions became active following, first, the publication of the oil conspiracy but, later and more importantly, the publication of the Haslemere Papers, the Government directors took the appropriate action—the action one would expect them to take —with the board, and the minutes of the board were made available to Mr. Bingham. So I do not think there can be any justification for feeling that the Government directors in any way neglected their duty during this period.
To come to the question of the renewal of the sanctions order, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor explained extremely lucidly the obligations which are laid on this country to carry out the treaty which qualified them for membership of the United Nations. Any failure to renew sanctions would, in my view, have a significance and a political impact which, until today's debate, has not been sufficiently emphasised. It was not made much of in another place and,

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in my opinion, it has not been sufficiently underlined in the comments which have been made in the Press. Such unilateral action by Her Majesty's Government would, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor explained, be a clear breach of the solemn treaty we have signed as a condition of membership; and under Chapter 7 of the Charter we are obliged to carry out the decisions of the Security Council. Not to do so would be an abrogation of a solemn treaty commitment—all the more important, as has been pointed out, because we are members of the Security Council. It would be illegal and it would attract worldwide hostility, which would be very damaging at the moment and would definitely obstruct progress towards an agreement.
Nor, in my opinion, would there be any compensating advantages in Rhodesia itself. I believe that the really hurtful consequences of sanctions on Rhodesia are, first, the denial of investment and, secondly, the denial of international recognition. Removal of sanctions by a refusal to pass the order now would not remove these impediments. There would be no recognition and no investment; but of course it has been argued, and argued here this afternoon, that it would be of immense symbolic importance to Mr. Smith and his internal settlement and would strengthen his hand in negotiating with the Patriotic Front. I suggest that this encouragement to the internal settlement can just as easily be given by a change in attitude by Her Majesty's Government as by taking the illegal action of unilaterally abrogating a mandatory resolution. I shall therefore vote for the continuation of the sanctions.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington—I listened very carefully to what he said—made some very interesting suggestions. He was very critical of the Secretary of State's handling of recent events, and I listened very carefully to that. I believe his criticism was well based, and my instinct tells me that the general feeling in the country is to the effect that it is well based and that mistakes have been made. But, in criticising Dr. Owen, I should like particularly to pay a tribute to him for the fact that since 1974 he has been the first Labour Foreign Secretary who really faced up to tackling the problem of Rhodesia. I
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believe that two very valuable years were lost between 1974 and 1976 when the Rhodesian problem was put on one side and not fully faced. So I think that Dr. Owen deserves our gratitude and he deserves credit for really tackling the problem. The fact that he has made mistakes, or that people feel he has, is another matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, suggested that there should be a contact group followed by a Camp David-type summit. I think this is a suggestion which commends itself very generally. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, commended it, and the Prime Minister's reaction in another place was evidently favourable. I have some doubts about the contact group and whether its composition would permit it to get very far. I would not be against having a summit that failed, so long as it led to a further summit. I think the Rhodesian leaders are in an emotional state where a summit now, even if it did not reach agreement, would have the immense effect of bringing the facts home to them and showing the dangers of where their present courses are leading them. I do not think one need be too careful about trying to make up one's mind as to the right time to hold a summit. I would rather, as I say, have a summit that failed than keep on preparing the way for one that never came off.
People seem to speak about "Camp David-type diplomacy" as if it were a new invention. In fact, it is going back to the original sort of diplomacy—pre-television diplomacy. Mr. Carter did not invent it, but he gave a very vivid demonstration of how, in a very sensitive area such as the Arab-Israeli question, secret diplomacy could be made to work if people accept the discipline of it. I very much favour the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, with the small amendments that I have suggested. I therefore hope that the Government will consider that this in a non-Party way and that the fact that the suggestion has come from the other side of the House will not in any way diminish the attention that is given to it, because manifestly it needs some dramatic action. I believe that the Prime Minister has the qualities which would give a summit-type meeting a very good chance of success.
8.20 p.m.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, I am not in any way qualified to comment on the findings of the Bingham Report. I would merely say that I very much hope that the final words of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, when he said that we should look to the future rather than rake over the embers of the past, will be taken account of.
When the interim Government was formed, I did not feel it right to express the reservations which I personally felt about the circumstances in which it was likely to operate. I hoped that all the parties to it would combine in good faith to find a multiracial solution to Rhodesia's problems within the parameters of contemporary Africa and in accordance with British policy. As I reported to your Lordships after my visits to Salisbury last year, I had been assured by responsible Ministers in Mr. Smith's Government that it would be possible in a matter of weeks to organise elections. After the Kissinger negotiations, Mr. Smith had said that, initially, the intensification of the civil war—for that is what it is—would be inevitable. It was reasonable then to assume that, in agreeing to majority rule by 31st December 1978, Mr. Smith and his colleagues were not only acting in good faith but, whatever might be the hold of his black colleagues over their guerrillas, he, Mr. Smith, could carry out his side of the undertaking.
Since March of this year, there seems to have been evidence that Mr. Smith and the African nationalists in the Executive Council are talking different political languages. The dismissal of Mr. Hove had, for me, sinister undertones. It seems to me incredible that, even today, Bishop Muzorewa's book, is apparently banned in Rhodesia. The dismantling of discriminatory legislation has been dilatory in the extreme. Although I know that my noble friend Lord Saint Oswald has an intimate knowledge of this, the fact of the matter is that no legislation to end discrimination has so far passed through the Rhodesian Parliament.
The certainty of the postponement of the elections and of majority rule beyond 31st December has the most serious
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implications. It means that, to the African mind, Mr. Smith, already distrusted by most of the blacks in Rhodesia, will be suspected of planning to go back on his promise under the internal settlement to accept majority rule in any form remotely consistent with the expectations of the Africans. This will have the effect of undermining the reputation of the moderate leaders, and will play into the hands of the extremists of the Patriotic Front. To Africans, Mr. Smith's visit to America, and the success of the Rhodesian operations in Zambia, could, they may suspect, give the whites a feeling that to stave off the grant of majority rule for a few more months might save them from ever having to accept it at all.
If the United Kingdom were to fail to renew sanctions, the suspicions of the Africans—and they are widespread and deeply held—would be dangerously fuelled. I do not think that Mr. Sithole's threat of the outbreak of urban violence, if the elections are not held by the end of this year, is an idle one. I have been in Salisbury during a period when there were serious troubles in the townships. I think that today a repetition of those would stretch the security forces beyond breaking point, and then the long-forecast bloodbath would be on.
So far as Great Britain is concerned, to end sanctions unilaterally would be seen all over Africa and further afield as meaning that we are supporting, as I think my noble friend Lord Carrington said, not the interim Government but Mr. Smith and his white collaborators. It would extinguish any chance we would have at a later stage of this fast-moving tragedy, of influencing for the better the evolution of events in Rhodesia. It would not be of any immediate advantage to the economy of Rhodesia, and I am certain that it would encourage the hardliners of the Rhodesian Front to redouble their efforts to sabotage the process of majority rule. Confidence in the black members of the interim Government would be still further undermined, since the mass of the Africans would conclude that they were being fooled by a conspiracy between Britain and the Rhodesian Front to cheat them out of their just aspirations, and the Soviet Union would be handed a major propaganda weapon against us and against Rhodesia, which they would use ruthlessly.

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There has recently been some suggestion that the British Government should take on an open-ended commitment to supervise a return by Rhodesia to legality. In my mind, nothing could be more dangerous. I thought that the speech of my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel gave conclusive reasons why sanctions should be renewed, but there was one point on which I disagreed with him. He suggested that a Minister should go to Rhodesia to advise the interim Government on the development of their policies. In a very small way, one has had experience of being in that kind of position on terms very much more favourable to this country, and in a very much more tranquil situation in Rhodesia. If any Minister is to go out from this country to try to take control of, or influence effectively, the situation out there, then he must be supported by military forces, and I do not think for one moment that it is within the bounds of possibility that that should be done.
My personal view—and I may, of course, be wrong—is that the situation in Rhodesia has passed beyond the point where a settlement is possible by negotiation at an all-party conference, whether it be at Chequers or anywhere else, or by any unilateral initiative of this country. In my view, the only hope is for an international operation under the United Nations, backed by sufficient forces to get the situation in Rhodesia under control.
When I last addressed your Lordships on this subject, I suggested that as a preliminary to a settlement Mashonaland and Matabeleland should be divided, based on Salisbury and Bulawayo respectively. I pointed out that, from the point of view of population, resources—both industrial and agricultural potentiality—communications and size, such a partition was perfectly feasible. I do not think we should forget that, in trying to solve the problems of not dissimilar situations in the past, and in other parts of the world, partition has always been something that we have fallen back on. Circumstances have not always been very happy, I quite agree, but let us not forget that in India, in Ireland and in Cyprus partition has been a fact, while in Nigeria it could have prevented a terrible civil war.
Yesterday, Chief Kyisa, the senior, the ablest and the most politically experienced
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chief in Rhodesia, resigned from the interim Government, and called on Mr. Nkomo to return to Zimbabwe. I regard this event as extremely significant. I do not believe that Mr. Nkomo, who is not renowned for his political courage, will return to Zimbabwe unless he is assured that he has a firm base in Matabeleland from which to operate or that, if he returns to a Rhodesia that is Shona controlled, he will ever have any chance of achieving his aspirations.
Noble Lords should not forget that the reason for the delay in completing the constitution is the struggle between the Matabele on the one side and the Shona on the other for political control in the future Rhodesian Parliament. I believe that since the situation in Rhodesia has become so entangled with the personal aspirations of leading African nationalists and with rival tribal aspirations and mutual fears, the first step towards a solution is to simplify that situation by partition. It may be that for Mr. Nkomo, and perhaps for one or other of the Shona leaders, half a loaf will be better than none.
I hope that, if the partition of Rhodesia is taken as a preliminary to a constitutional conference in the presence of a United Nations force, and with international supervision of a subsequent election, it may be possible later to find some means of bringing the two parts of Rhodesia together. I realise that the reaction in Rhodesia to my original speech was one of rejection by Africans but not so much, I think, by Europeans. That was, I feel, predictably the "gut" reaction. I am equally sure that the partition of Rhodesia, either temporarily or permanently, is inevitable and that it is the only solution now.
My noble friend Lord Carrington suggested that the processes of diplomacy employed in Namibia should be tried in Rhodesia, and that suggestion has been supported by many speakers, including those with great experience of diplomacy like the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill. Incidentally, if I may say so, the tribute paid by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to Sir David Scott, who has great experience of Rhodesia as well as of South Africa as a whole, was very well deserved in relation to his work in Namibia. I believe that my noble friend Lord Carrington was right in his proposal. I would

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only urge on the Government that one of the themes which such negotiations might include is the possibility of partition.
So far as the present problem ahead of us in the later hours of this debate, the vote on sanctions, is concerned, I have given my views, as I have on many occasions in the past, as to why I personally intend to vote for sanctions. I very sincerely hope that this House will not defeat the order, because I believe that by doing so it will make a terrible error of judgment.
8.33 p.m.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, it is always interesting and worth while to listen to the constructive contribution which is always made by the noble Lord who has just spoken and who is so knowledgeable. Having been there when the negotiations took place, I am quite convinced that every honest effort was made, both on the "Tiger" and on the "Fearless", to get an answer to the problem of a modus vivendi, or a way of living with Mr. Smith.
I have looked up the Daily Telegraph for Tuesday, 22nd October 1968 at the time when we were out of Gibraltar on the "Fearless". The heading of the leading article was "Smith at the Limit". The article read:
"M.P.s, when they debate Rhodesia today, can be excused if they find themselves in a state of utter confusion about the whole subject. At one time, last Wednesday to be precise, it looked as if Mr. Ian Smith was prepared to accept the Fearless' package if the provision in it for appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, for a period of not less than 15 years after independence, was dropped. Comparison between the terms of the British proposals made on board 'Fearless' and Mr. Wilson's statement in the Commons on Tuesday strongly suggests that the British Government might have been prepared to do this, in return for what really mattered. That was, and is, the provision that enough Africans should be directly elected as to be able to block amendments to the constitution which would be against their interests. If this held, then, by the normal processes of education and material advancement, the theory was that African majority rule could be expected in a period variously estimated at from 7 to 20 years. On Wednesday Mr. Smith"—
and I remember this—
"said there was no objection to the blocking vote provisions. In statements since then he has not only rejected them but also other provisions such as investigation by a Royal Commission and a broad-based interim Government. In his public
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statements at least, (and it must be remembered that his official comment will reach London only after today's Cabinet meeting in Salisbury), Mr. Smith now appears to have gone out of his way to pick over the whole 'Fearless' applecart. If Mr. Smith accepted 'Fearless' with only the Privy Council dropped and with other less important modifications, Mr. Wilson would be under savage attack from Labour M.P.s for having 'sold out'. He would not have done any such thing but that would not have prevented the attacks. Now it looks as if they are going to be deprived by Mr. Smith of even that satisfaction. It should be made clear in Parliament today"—
this was in 1968 when we were in the throes of the Rhodesian problem—
"that, if Mr. Smith and his Cabinet reject the main voting provisions in 'Fearless', there is nothing more to come. There is a limit to what Parliament will accept, and it has been reached".
I found this individual—he was being praised as a great Prime Minister in a contradictory speech, because later on he was denigrated—one of the most difficult people, and I had the pleasure of talking to him for a number of hours, man to man. There was nothing in his mind about any move towards freedom for the Africans for one hundred or more years. The man was not prepared to move in that direction.
Noble Lords who sit in their places tonight and who do not go into the Lobbies to indicate that they are prepared to continue sanctions—I hope for the last time—may be helping to fan a blaze not only in Rhodesia but in the whole of black Africa. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, said, the black and white division is a much bigger problem now than uttering the "buzz" word "Marxism" for every problem that one finds in the world. To get rid of a problem by uttering, in completely non-philosophical terms, "This is Marxism" is a mere "buzz" that smells of McCarthyism in America at its worst. We have to go deeper than that, and we can do it.
I regret to say that I am old enough to remember World War I and the "tiger" of France. His famous epigram was,
"A drop of oil is worth a drop of blood".
This is one of the problems which faces us today. The rising tide of human knowledge, the advantages of instantaneous information and the speed of sound and travel get rid of that pompous demand for utter secrecy. We are dealing with a better informed white and black public all over the world because of television and the mass media—I do not like

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the word—than we have ever had in history. Whether that information is accurate is another issue; whether it is blurred by propaganda is another issue. The fact is that the pompous request that you should have continuous secrecy about the documentation dealing with problems should be eradicated. There are occasions when secrecy in Government and over official papers is needed. The trouble with the world today is that there is too much secrecy and too little confidence in the people who put Members of Parliament in their seats.
Some people say that Mr. Smith was loyal to Great Britain. So were millions of blacks; they were loyal to Great Britain. In Burmah, they gave their blood and their treasure, fighting for what? For what they believed. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said—and it was splurged around the world in headlines—that we were fighting for the four freedoms; freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear; and when the noble Lord, Lord Saint Oswald, spoke about there being no racial discrimination he could never have read the Pearce Report.
I am going to cut my speech down; I wish it was not necessary for me to do so but your Lordships do not want to be talked at. I suggest that you should read the Pearce Report in order to see whether there was any racial discrimination in Rhodesia. It is utter rubbish to say that Smith is moving black Africa towards democracy. We were offered four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear and at the Labour Conference I added the fifth and most important freedom of all—freedom from contempt. That is what black Africa, the yellow races and everybody else want. That fifth freedom comes before the other freedoms, excluding freedom from want.
What are we doing about it? A quarter of a million people are living on the fat of Zimbabwe's land and we are going through a period in history which reminds me that, if people would read Deutscher's famous book on Ironies of History, they would see what happens when man fails to understand his duty to his fellow men. We have had it in England; the Scots Lords tipped the peasants and
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crofters off their land and treated them as cruelly centuries ago as they are being treated today. We Welsh were pushed up into the hills. We could put up with the suffering; we could live on next to nothing in those days but in black Africa, despite the "Tiger" and all the other talks, there is no honest intention to move quickly towards freedom from contempt for the Rhodesian black man.
Smith has failed in America and when tonight we go into the Lobbies to vote on sanctions, those who do not do so are being disloyal to this country and may help to set the spark of civil war between black and white from the Cape to the Atlas Mountains. Those of you who know America partially, as I do, will know what can happen in the ghettos of America if black people there are dragged into this and are used, possibly by the Communists, to spread the black and white dissension. Noble Lords have come down like noble vagabonds from their moorlands, their mountains and their lovely woods with their autumn leaves which are so glorious to look at; those political vagabonds have come here and I guarantee that not five of them have read that report, and yet they comment on it. I ask of those noble Lords who tonight vote against sanctions being maintained: what do they want? Do they think it will help Smith? Do they really believe they are not being disloyal? Does the noble Lord want me to give way?
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, when the noble Lord asks the question as to what noble Lords want to achieve when they go into the Lobby against the reimposition of the sanctions order this evening, I think we should like to hear a satisfactory account of the stewardship of Her Majesty's Government which justifies the reimposition of sanctions at this time and not necessarily to hide behind the international obligations to reimpose those sanctions. That is what we should like to hear.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I have done my homework and it is marked from cover to cover, but I should be here for hours if I were to use all this material. There is the Walker statement which is a statement in regard to breaking the oil agreement. I do not want to quote from

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it or from Ministers who are mixed up with it, but I should like to add one thing. I believe in the honesty of Mr. Heath when he said that he knew nothing about it. I certainly believe that the man with greater integrity than any other noble Lord in this House—the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel—is as honest as anybody can be in his attitude. I will add to that, whether noble Lords like it or not, that Wilson in his intentions was as honest as anybody else on the "Tiger" and on the "Fearless", and it is time that some people who have got into power sometimes paid a tribute to a man. There is nothing worse than man's ingratitude to man.
Since I am being asked this question I would suggest that noble Lords should spend £3 and do their homework. They can get a complete analysis—a review of the Bingham Report by a lawyer called Andrew Phillips. It can be obtained from 9 Poland Street. That will save me quoting masses of material and boring your Lordships, but I will say this. This report teaches us lessons, and one of the lessons from the sanctions story is the ambivalent loyalty of trans-national firms. We have entered a period of economic history when there are trans-national firms. Some noble Lords are smiling but it is a move towards a financial fascism that is delicate and dangerous. Trans-national firms are now more powerful than Parliaments.
I do not know the answer to this and neither does anybody else at the moment. The withholding of important information and who was responsible for it is something that should have been discussed. This debate should have been spread over two days. It is not fair to noble Lords who have done their homework to have to rush through their speeches. This House is meant to take its time and to add a grain of common sense to the mad world in which we are now living. We cannot do it if we are rushed like this.
If noble Lords will turn to the report they will find that the inquiry was held in secret and the names of witnesses were withheld from the report where they so requested. There is no question about the probity of the inquiry and I congratulate the men who so quickly put it together, with one secretary, one oil man and two lawyers. It was a rapid piece of work but further on it is plain that evidence was
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not given on oath. I am glad that the learned scholar, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, is answering at the end of this debate because this is one of the most difficult reports for any layman to understand. It is not indexed, the chapters are not clearly divided and it has not been clearly defined what all the acronyms mean. It has been rushed before your Lordships 'House and now there is an appeal by Members for a half-baked throwing away of this report because they think that two days' debate in another place and one day's in this House has covered that report. I am on the side of the Prime Minister, who told the House of Commons that he is prepared to look at this matter from another angle.
I have spoken for 16 minutes; one more minute will be enough. It is regrettable that I must curtail all the nice things that I wanted to say about this, but in a way this debate has reminded me of the Welshman trying to explain to an American not, as we usually do, what rugby is but cricket. This is how he tried to explain cricket:
"You have two sides, Boyo: one out in the field and one in. Each man that is in, goes out to go in, and when he is out he comes in and the next man goes in until he is out. When they are all out the side that is out comes in, and then the side that has been in goes out and gets those who are coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When both sides have been in and out, including the not outs, that is the end of the game".
That is how this debate has finished. Ninety per cent. of the people who have spoken today have not read the Report. I am glad I kept my word—17 minutes. I will hope that noble Lords on both sides of the House who had meant to abstain or vote against will consider that the whole of Africa will be wanting to know what has happened in this debate and that we are fighting for the black man, for freedom from contempt.
8.50 p.m.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, you will not expect me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies, in everything that he has said in his speech, but I would agree with him that what we are endeavouring to do this evening is to give our consideration to the situation in Africa and to the black people and white people there particularly. Therefore, I do not disagree with the noble Lord that that is where we

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should bend our energies and thoughts. But there are, of course, as the noble Lord will quite understand, differing views on how we should deal with the situation. I would like to say this: I think it would be correct to say to your Lordships that any of us who speak in this debate on Rhodesia should do so constructively, without emotion, not descending to personalities, and I shall hope to do just that. There is much I should have liked to say, but there is a great deal I propose to cut out of my speech because it has been said by other noble Lords who have spoken before me.
I should like to say this, and it is a matter which I have never raised before in speaking in your Lordships' House. I do not know whether I happen to be, though I believe I am, the only Member of your Lordships' House, one of quite a few, who for over 30 years overseas gave effect, as one of your servants, to the colonial policies of your Parliaments. I would particularly emphasise that the policy which emanated from your Parliaments fired those of us entrusted with the responsibility with a high sense of our calling and duty which in all humility we endeavoured to perform. And, though Rhodesia was never a colony in the colonial sense—it had its own Parliament —and I never served in Rhodesia, I am nevertheless convinced that those feelings, that high purpose, that sense of responsibility which I have endeavoured to describe to you and which emanated from here, spilled over from Britain into Rhodesia and remain with Rhodesia to the present day. I am utterly convinced of that. I would ask that in any future dealings with Rhodesia at the present time Her Majesty's Government would give consideration to that point.
My Lords, let me give you an example of what I mean from my own experience. Today there are in Rhodesia people who are prepared to fight and die for what they believe. It was from this same colonial experience, in this same spirit of high endeavour—and I desire no reflected glory for myself or for others in what I now conceive it my duty to say in this dabete on Rhodesia—that men and women in a federation and a colony where I served overseas, when that colony and federation was overrun by war, conceived it to be their duty to remain among those they
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had served. They suffered torture, starvation and death, as indeed I suffered torture. I can only say that that sort of spirit remains in Rhodesia and will remain there and has to be taken account of in dealing with Rhodesian problems. That spirit fired the minds of overseas whites wherever they happened to be, and I emphasise that, when we were all incarcerated in the circumstances I have described, we had businessmen in that country who had carried out their duties under private enterprise, which has become a dirty word, and who were prepared to suffer as we did.
I sincerely desire peace in Rhodesia and I can only hope that from now on in any future negotiations Her Majesty's Government will take countenance of that spirit which undoubtedly exists. I plead for an understanding on this point. I am tired of the accusations in a class sense about overseas exploiters. They get us nowhere in our consideration of the now critical Rhodesian problem. We have our own economic problems in industry, if we want an example of this; there has been this kind of class warfare and the charge of "them" and "us" which has almost bankrupted our nation and brought us down on our knees in an economic sense. If we persist in that attitude in the problems which exist and which we must try to overcome in Rhodesia, that country will go down in flames which will spread far beyond the confines of that country.
Another point which I ask Her Majesty's Government to bear in mind in any future negotiations they may have with Rhodesia is one I make from my own experience of terrorist operations in Malaysia, a country to which I returned after recuperating in this country in the circumstances which I described. The point I make is that when you have ideological arguments about race, colour and any future Government, you do not succeed in your goal unless you have the population behind you. As 75 per cent. of the security forces serving in Rhodesia are black and they are prepared to fight the black people of the Patriotic Front, I must assume that they are behind the past policies of Mr. Smith and the present policies of the interim settlement. It does seem to me that Her Majesty's Government must accept that.
However, is there not and has there not been a great dislike of Mr. Smith, which in

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certain parts of the political spectrum would seem to have come very near to hatred? He is charged with moving too slowly towards the position of one man, one vote, which I understand, but, in the present situation where a number of the principles have already been accepted, can we not be a little humble, can we not exercise a little humility? Would it not be a fair charge to lay against Britain in regard to the bestowal of self-government on Uganda, for example, or on Nigeria, where a civil war followed, that, in granting independence to those countries, where thousands have died and where in many cases death was due to violence, Britain has betrayed a trust towards the indigenous people for whom she was responsible. Therefore, when Her Majesty's Government use the argument that has been adduced that the interim settlement of 3rd March 1978 was agreed belatedly in Rhodesia—that apparently seems to be the view in certain circles—I conceive that to be a completely wrong assumption.
Look at what happened in Nigeria and look at the present situation in Uganda. Can we not say that in those cases Britain was premature in the action she took? So far as I know, the facts are that Her Majesty's Government have at no stage given any encouragement to the interim settlement or any advice or help, even in cases where the signatories to that arrangement—namely, Bishop Muzorewa. the Reverend Sithole and Mr. Smith—although entitled, as I understand the position, to express individual opinions, are required before any decision of importance is made to submit views in each case to an Executive Council. It is the Executive Council that makes the decisions, not the signatories.
As I understand it, the Foreign Secretary expressed a view in another place on 7th November that the establishment of this interim settlement was responsible for the increase of violence and the deterioration of the situation within Rhodesia since its establishment. That is an assumption that I cannot understand. It is what I would have expected to happen. I should have thought that it was not an argument against the establishment of the interim settlement per se, and that the explanation was that Mr. Nkomo of the Patriotic Front, although invited, as I understand it, to join in the settlement had refused to do so. Mr. Nkomo
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dislikes the interim settlement and has stepped up his attack upon it accordingly and, as far as I know, he has publicly pronounced that he intends to attack the ballot boxes.
There is a similar situation as regards the postponement of elections beyond the end of December. There is a deep suspicion of the interim settlement by Her Majesty's Government on this matter and mistrust of the credibility of Bishop Muzorewa, the Reverend Sithole and Mr. Smith. Yet, it is Mr. Nkomo of the Patriotic Front who has vowed, as I have already explained, that he will attack the ballot boxes with his guerrilla forces. I have seen no denial of that statement by Mr. Nkomo, or any indication of Her Majesty's Government's attitude to the situation.
So far, I have from my own experience covered some of the prejudices, attitudes and wrong assumptions which seem to me to have been adduced by Her Majesty's Government in their dealings with the Rhodesian problem. I consider that we, as the Opposition, are entitled to draw attention to those facts as we see them in the hope that Her Majesty's Government will perhaps listen and read some of the speeches that have been made and at least give the matters which have been raised by your Lordships and to which I have referred some consideration in any further dealings with the Rhodesian authorities.
In the face of all that I have said I now come to the present situation. We are asked to give the authority necessary for the reimposition of the sanctions order. As this is the fourteenth time that this has been requested of us, are we not entitled to ask Her Majesty's Government to give us a satisfactory account of how they have endeavoured so far to seek a solution of the Rhodesian issue? I must say that in my humble opinion and with all humility I am not satisfied that your Lordships—and I speak for myself—have received anything like a satisfactory account in this regard as a justification for the reimposition of the Rhodesian sanctions order.
So far as I can see, we have had no explanation from Her Majesty's Government about how they see the present situation and what they intend to do to meet and overcome the critical situation

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between this country, Rhodesia and various parts of Africa. I must say that I, for one, am not prepared to accept the argument that Her Majesty's Government can hide behind the justification that sanctions must continue solely because they are mandatory and therefore there is an international obligation that they should continue. However, I emphasise that I shall listen with great care to what my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone has to say on this point in the very difficult brief which lies in his most able hands when, at the end of the debate, he sums up for the opposition. I shall also listen with care to what the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, has to say on the subject. However, at present, all my inclinations are to go into the Lobby to vote against the continuation of the Rhodesian order.
9.6 p.m.
Lord BALLANTRAE: My Lords, I am a rather sensitive animal, and I was rather hurt when the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, pointed his long Celtic finger at me over the Celtic shoulder and past the Celtic ear of the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, and spoke about "vagabond Lords coming down from the Lowlands"! I am the first to admit that my qualifications to intervene in this debate are very few. I have never been to Rhodesia, but nor have 99.999 per cent. of the people on whose behalf decisions have been taken, are being taken and will be taken. Most of us have not been to Rhodesia. Therefore, I feel that I have a right to speak up for those people who, like me, do not know it. We are worried about some of the decisions: some of them seem to us not to be compatible with common sense; some seem to us not to be compatible with honour; and some seem to us to have been taken—and are being taken—for reasons of expediency rather than for any more worthy reason.
Although I do not know Rhodesia, I have seen similar situations in the past:—notably 20 years ago in Algeria, where there was a French population like the white Rhodesian population, the difference being that they had been there for 130 to 140 years instead of 50 years; where the rebels, the insurgents, the "freedom-fighters", whatever you call them, were being sup-
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ported over the frontiers of Morocco and Tunisia. The French were also involved in trouble for following the policy of "hot pursuit" which is now so familiar to us. However, that was a different situation, because those who were seeking independence for Algeria were a far more coherent nation than the very mixed number of tribes seeking independence in the country with which we are now concerned.
I also remember some 15 years ago having as my guest at luncheon, Sir Muhammed Zafrullah Khan, a very distinguished Pakistani statesman. We were talking about Africa and its problems. He said that we must regard Rhodesia as a special case, that we had not been very fortunate in all declarations of independence in Africa, and that we must look at Rhodesia as a possible ideal multiracial State. He said, "Take your time—but do not take too long". We took too long. The blame is not ours; the blame rests largely on those who live there; but I remember that very enlightened Pakistani statesman regarding Rhodesia, as we should, as a very special case.
Looking back over what is now a horribly long life, I see once again a situation which has become worse and worse because people have taken up situations and positions from which they have refused to budge. The situation in Rhodesia is an absolutely classic example of that. Whatever noble Lords may think of the intransigence, the foolishness, the pigheadedness of Mr. Smith, whom I have never met—at least I accord him the courtesy of calling him "Mr. Smith" (why do we have to insult him by calling him Smith, as if his name was Hitler?)—of all the actors in this tragedy which is being enacted in front of us, the one character who has really budged of late is Mr. Smith; and a fat lot of thanks or encouragement we have given him before, during or after that move.
I know that this point has been made before, so I shall repeat it in only one sentence. I am ashamed that people like Mr. Nkomo—and I call him "Mr."—and Mr. Mugabe receive the red carpet treatment, but that all that Mr. Smith gets is a guarantee of arrest as soon as he sets foot in this country. I think that it is disgraceful.

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The noble Lord, Lord Gridley, raised the matter of terrorists. Terrorists are terrorists, even if we put them between inverted commas and call them "freedom-fighters". Their technique is the same the world over, wherever I have seen them in action. They terrorise, not the occupying power or the Government, but the defenceless and the uncommitted. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, was thinking of Malaya, where terrorists went on to plantations, and tortured Chinese foremen who had failed to persuade their people to subscribe to terrorist funds. That is a pattern which we have seen all over the world, and the pattern that we now see in Rhodesia is exactly the same.
A word that has cropped up a great deal lately in this context is "realistic". I once heard a solider say that we must be "realistic" when he was suggesting that the solution to our then problem was to surrender, and I have never forgotten it. I do not like the word "realistic"; but if we are to be "realistic", let us try to see all the options that are open to us. I saw the letter which was published in The Times two weeks ago from the noble Lord, Lord Boyd, who was sitting here but who has now gone—he must have realised that I was about to speak! He summed up the whole situation as well as possible.
Therefore, as I draw to an end, let me repeat that for all his faults and for all his intransigence, Mr. Smith has made the first move; and for him it is a very big move. We tend to forget to remind ourselves of the atmosphere in which the ordinary white Rhodesian was brought up; it was a world totally divorced from the one we know. To him it seemed to be lastingand permanent; if you like, paternalistic, but not oppressive. The Rhodesians were slow to realise that the world had changed, and was changing at a kaleidoscopic rate. Let us aim from that and try to understand the sad predicament in which they now find themselves. It is up to us to help break the log-jam, and Mr. Smith has made the first move.
I listened with attention and admiration to the speeches made by the noble Lords, Lord Home of the Hirsel, Lord Aylestone and to my former pupil, who does me great credit, Lord Carrington—I taught him French. His French is very good. I have listened with great attention to all
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the speeches. I came here with my mind not made up and fairly open, and yet I know the arguments that have appealed least to me are those which smack to me of expediency. My mood now, after having heard two-thirds of the debate—at least I hope it is two thirds—
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONE: We are not half way yet.
Lord BALLANTRAE:—is, Fiat Justitia, Ruat Coelum (let justice prevail, though the heavens fall); and I find that my head, as well as my heart, is going to propel me into the Lobby which will vote against the renewal of sanctions.
9.15 p.m.
Lord BLAKE: My Lords, I think that there are really three issues before us today: the Bingham Report; the whole constitutional position of this House; and of course the main question of the renewal of the sanctions order against Rhodesia. I shall be very brief on all of them. I have read the Bingham Report. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, made widespread accusations all round the House that nobody had read it at all. I have, but I do not propose to speak at any length about it.
It was quite clear that the oil companies were in an intolerably difficult position because of the conflict of law between South Africa and Britain. It is clear that Her Majesty's Government were aware of the transactions—the French swap in particular—which would have caused a fearful row if they had been revealed at the time, and for that reason the Government decided not to reveal them, and I think they showed good sense in pursuing that policy. The other point which becomes abundantly clear is that none of the sanctions-breaking, if there was breaking, made the slightest difference whatever to supplies.
A little publicised item in the Bingham Report is that in 1970 the Esso Company offered to Rhodesia to supply 100 per cent. of all their future requirements at a very heavily discounted price on the price they were then paying, but the Rhodesian Government preferred to stick to their old suppliers. Is it worth having all this re-examined by an inquiry under the Tribunals

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Act or by a Select Committee of Parliament? I am against either of those courses. It would be a total waste of time, and I hope that the matter will be dropped from now onwards.
I come to the constitutional question next: that is, the question whether your Lordships really have the constitutional moral right to vote against the sanctions order. In my view we have. I do not think that there can be any question here of opposing a Government that has a popular mandate for anything. This Government have no mandate stemming from 1974 for the continuation of sanctions in circumstances which are very different from those under which sanctions orders have operated during the last three years. It is a very different situation now. It seems to me that your Lordships have the power under the Parliament Act and we are entitled to do this, and we should exercise our judgment freely in that way.
Perhaps I could advert to what my noble friend Lord Carrington said in his opening speech, that the House of Lords is threatened with abolition anyway by the Labour Government if they win the next Election so we cannot lose in any way by exercising our powers. What is more, we shall be doing something which, in the country at large, would be very popular.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I ask him whether he will say a word about our international obligations under the United Nations?
Lord BLAKE: My Lords, I was coming to that later, if I may. On the sanctions order I should like to say straight away that I intend to vote against its renewal. I hope it will be defeated. When one looks at the Government's approach to Rhodesia one wonders what on earth they have been up to. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, made a good point when he said that they hate Mr. Ian Smith. That is probably true. Mr. Smith, whom I have met several times, has a capacity for devious procrastination which is extremely irritating. I would freely concede that. But since Dr. Kissinger's demarche in 1976, and later developments which have led to the
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internal settlement on 3rd March this year, he cannot go back. I do not think that he can get out of this. I realise that many noble Lords are suspicious of him, and perhaps in the past their suspicions have been justified, but I do not think he can get out of it now.
The internal settlement promises to fulfil all the Six Principles which have been the basis of our policies since 1965. The one that is going to be found difficult to fulfil is the fifth principle; that is, acceptability of the settlement to the people of Rhodesia as a whole. But this is just the one that the Patriotic Front is determined to make impossible because it can be done only by an election. As I said, the entire situation has changed since your Lordships last considered the sanctions order. We are in a new world, but the Government are still paralysed in the rigidities of the past.
This is what the Prime Minister, the great grandfather of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, wrote over 100 years ago to the then Viceroy of India:
"The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcasses of dead policies. When a mast falls overboard, you do not try to save a rope here and a spar there, in memory of their former utility; you cut away the hamper altogether. And it should be the same with a policy. But it is not so. We cling to the shred of an old policy after it has been torn to pieces and to the shadow of the shred after the rag itself has been torn away"
The rag has long been torn away, but the Government cling to the pathetic wreckage of a ruined ship. What purpose is now served by sanctions? Perhaps they have been futile all along, so it does not matter whether or not they are lifted, but the Government can scarcely use that argument for their continuation.
In my view, sanctions still have an effect. As noble Lords have said, oil may have been an exception, but some of the other sanctions are having an effect and I believe the effect they are having, in so far as they are having any at all, is helping the Patriotic Front and damaging the internal settlement. In effect, the Foreign Secretary's impartiality is really partiality; it is a decision, perhaps not in theory or in intention but in practice, to support the Patriotic Front against the internal settlement.
Since the Kissinger proposals, the British Government have dithered, and

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since the events of 3rd March they have, if possible, dithered even more. I cannot see what sanctions are now intended to do. Are they intended to bring the interim Government to the conference table? They have said they will attend. Are they intended to persuade them to fulfil the Six Principles? They have said they will do so and, as I said, the only one they have not fulfilled, or cannot easily fulfil, is the one which the continuation of sanctions makes it impossible for them to fulfil because it supports the guerrilla forces. When I look at the Government today—and, I am bound to say, to some degree when I look at the Opposition Front Bench as well—I am reminded of Sir Winston Churchill's words in another place in November 1936:
"So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years—precious, perhaps vital … for the locusts to eat".
I entirely disagree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester when he said he thought foreign policy must be bipartisan. I believe there are occasions when it cannot be, and this is one of them, and I feel it right that your Lordships' House should be divided on this matter.
I am sure we shall hear a great deal of argument later of a very learned nature about the legal situation and our international obligations. I am afraid I am not persuaded that we cannot refuse to renew sanctions. I might point out that the American Government were faced with this problem; there was the Byrd Amendment in 1971 which, when carried in Congress, enabled the Americans to purchase chrome from Rhodesia. That must have been in breach of international sanctions, the United Nations and all the rest, yet they did it.
The noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Home of the Hirsel, both urged the Government to encourage the internal settlement and the interim Government. What sort of encouragement is it to continue sanctions? It will get a very hollow laugh in Salisbury. The one effective encouragement we can give is to remove sanctions, and I shall vote against the order even if the vote does not take place until 3 o'clock in the morning.
9.25 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, in view of the time I propose to read only the headings of my intended speech, and I hope that your Lordships will be able to fill in the sequences. First, I refer to the Bingham Report. I was the first person to raise in Parliament the issue of oil sanction-breaking by a Question which I put in this House in March 1968. Sir Harold Wilson said yesterday in another place that the reply to my Question had been "arranged". It hid the fact that the British oil companies were supplying Rhodesia with oil. For a decade now the British public, and even Ministers, have been denied knowledge of that fact. A public inquiry is therefore necessary, with Cabinet papers, not so much to expose individuals, or to punish them, but to end the system whereby successive Governments do not know what is happening in a major issue of foreign policy.
Now I turn to sanctions. The lifting of sanctions is being advocated in this House on the grounds of the internal settlement. The internal settlement has quite clearly failed. According to Mr. Garfield Todd, ex-Prime Minister resident there, it has not the majority support of the people in Rhodesia. Its council, and the members of its executive, are now hopelessly divided. They are even mobilising private armies. The proposals to end racial discrimination and the withdrawal of the Land Tenure Act remain paper schemes. The military conscription of the African population is being resisted and hundreds of Africans will refuse to enrol. The whites in Rhodesia still control the Civil Service and the armed forces. The internal settlement is dead.
Lastly, I refer to the question of moving towards a settlement in Zimbabwe. The solution must be political, not military. I suggest that the United Nations Secretary-General should be asked to initiate discussions with all the persons involved. This should be followed by a summit conference representing all the parties. There should be a United Nations peacekeeping force to supervise free elections and the conditions for it, headed by Canada or India, with strong African contingents. Finally, only a settlement on these lines can prevent a racial war, which would be disastrous to the whole of Southern Africa.
9.29 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I do not intend to follow in detail what the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has just said, except to say that there is one curious feature of the debate. In one way the two sides are divided; that is, in their general attitude to sanctions. We voted against them in 1965 and in 1968. We have never liked them. We believe that they can be justified only as a form of economic warfare—a kind of conspiracy of some countries against others. They tend to harm the imposer more than those upon whom they are imposed, and they remind me rather of an aunt who used to preface chastisement to me with the saying, "It hurts me more than it hurts you". In 1965 sanctions seemed to me to be an expression of national impotence. I have always doubted the claim of any country to exercise sovereignty over another if it has not been able to defend that country over which it claims to exercise sovereignty; and where we have not been able to defend even our own rights in that country, as in Rhodesia, that is even more so. The other side of this debate is the general aim, which I believe is shared by everyone in this House, that there should be a peaceful solution to the Rhodesian problem without bloodshed, without war.
I would have voted against the continuance of sanctions had it not been for the two opening speeches, the first by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, the Lord Chancellor, and the second by my noble friend and Leader Lord Carrington. But I was totally convinced that it would be a mistake to try to end sanctions tonight by voting against this Motion for the reasons that the Lord Chancellor gave. One very striking one was that in doing this we would be going beyond, as I understood it, the limits of sanctions; that our action would have other effects on the humanitarian side, and the like. Secondly, I accepted the argument that the unilateral ending of sanctions would be misunderstood and resented, not only in the United Nations but in the Commonwealth, and would make the achievement of a peaceful solution even more difficult than ever. As my noble friend said, the test is whether or not the removal of sanctions would make a settlement easier to attain. Then, of course, thirdly, there is the fact that voting against the Motion would not have the
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desired effect in itself—a fact which I am bound to say I had not realised until this debate. To end sanctions it would need, as I understand it, an Act of Parliament plus the acceptance by the United Nations of a proposal that they should be ended, and that is a process which would be open to veto by any side.
Both my noble friend Lord Carrington and my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel, in their brilliant and most convincing speeches, outlined the steps that should be taken—and I intend to make my speech entirely looking forward, and not looking back. Personally, I regard the inquest into the supply of oil as entirely sterile. I agree very much with the proposals made to send a Minister of Cabinet rank to Salisbury; for the formation of a multinational contact group, although the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, cast some doubt on that; and, finally, for a Camp David type of summit. I hope that the Government will accept all these proposals, and will act on them as a matter of urgency. May I stress the need for speed? And in this connection may I ask this. Should not immediate steps be taken to ensure that Messrs. Nkomo and Mugabe understand the true reason for the renewal of sanctions and of the intention to end them as soon as elections have taken place?
Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe should be left in no doubt that the intention to hold elections in the next six months has the full support of Her Majesty's Government. I say this because I suspect that Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe will be delighted at the renewal of sanctions, with the prospect it holds out of further weakening Rhodesia—if I may put it rather crudely, of weakening their prey. They should be left in no doubt that the sanctions are being continued primarily for the purpose of giving tangible effect to the Six Principles as expressed in whatever agreed plan emerges from the discussions to be held; they should be left in no doubt that none of the contenders for power can expect any support from this country unless they attend the discussions and honestly and sincerely seek to reach agreement; they should be left in no doubt, equally, that Her Majesty's Government are determined that there shall be a peaceful solution and that whatever arrangements may be made to

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re-settle or absorb the Rhodesian emigres to neighbouring countries who form the regular armies of Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe, the intention must be a peaceful solution and no more fighting.
My noble friend and Leader urged us not to underestimate the effect of Parliament not renewing sanctions. I certainly would not underestimate that. But should we not be starting now to accustom Members of the Commonwealth and the United Nations to the idea of the Rhodesian Government returning to legality? It is a concept that has almost faded away and it is time now to start accustoming them to the imminence, as we hope, of that idea being realised. Let us prepare them for the eventuality that we shall carry, and carry speedily, legislation to give effect to that return. Let us get them to realise as soon as that is done that the Security Council should revoke as a matter of urgency the resolution imposing mandatory sanctions—and when I say that the Security Council should do that, they should be invited to do so without delay; and I hope that they will do it.
My Lords, I believe that every one of your Lordships supports my noble friend's proposal for a conference followed by a summit meeting. He mentioned the possibility of one contender for power standing out against a solution agreed by the others. He said that if that happened the United Nations would have to rethink that position. May I humbly suggest to my noble friend that it might be much too late to start rethinking then? Must not the rethinking, the contingency planning, start now?—otherwise the participant who stood out against the agreement would be likely almost immediately to resort to force when he judged that he had the arms and the trained forces that he needed. It seems to me that plans must be made for armed support to be afforded to the others who had agreed to the settlement.
My Lords, finally, I would draw attention to the high proportion of black Rhodesians in the army and the police and also, I believe, the growing proportion in the Civil Service. Doubt has been cast on the sincerity of Mr. Smith to carry out his intentions. I ask this question: Is not this high and growing proportion, in itself, a guarantee that Mr. Smith will
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be held to his intentions even if he felt inclined to go back on them? The stronger the black African element in the Rhodesian forces, the more difficult it would be for Mr. Smith to go back on his present intentions.
My Lords, the aim of us all is to reach a peaceful solution of the Rhodesian problem. I have been convinced that that aim is more likely to be achieved if we do not reject this order tonight; but I hope it will not be long before we pass an Instrument to end sanctions—and that without dissent.
9.40 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I must state that I speak entirely for myself, but I speak for what I believe in. I am only sad that there are many noble Lords in the Chamber tonight whom I regard as my friends and who I know will disagree with me. However, I also believe that the responsibility of the decision that we make tonight should not be a Party one. It should be a free vote just as it should have been a free vote in another place last night, particularly in view of the fact that many thousands of lives are at stake as well as the prosperity of this country and probably others as well.
The choice that we have tonight to retain or lift sanctions is not an easy one. It is controversial and packed full of emotion. Would that I could make a speech like that of the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown. I thought he put the situation extremely explicitly. At the risk of being told that I am being repetitive, I am still going to look briefly at one or two salient facts. There is something which I have learned in your Lordships' House in the short time that I have been here; that is, that if one wants to get anything done one has to be persistent, and go on nagging. Sometimes water does wear through a stone.
In the past nine months there have been dramatic changes. The three internal black leaders with Mr. Smith have formed a transitional Government which the so-called self-titled "Patriotic Front" refuses to join. As has been repeated several times today, this internal settlement, instead of being warmly welcomed by the Government, has, if anything, produced

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the reverse effect. It followed very closely both Dr. Kissinger's proposals and the principles that the Government laid down in 1964. However, for some reason there has been no encouragement from the Government which seemed to be beholden to Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe and the Front-Line Presidents. As a result, fighting has escalated, and more and more innocent Rhodesians, black and white, are being killed.
One of the objects of the transitional Government to my way of thinking is to try to convince the terrorists that majority rule can be achieved through the ballot box peacefully and not by force. One of the major stumbling blocks over this object is no doubt that many guerrillas think that today they have the backing of the United States, Britain or Russia. They also fear that, if they support the internal settlement now and by chance—God forbid that it should happen!—Mr. Nkomo or Mr. Mugabe should win by force, the reprisals on them would be too terrible to contemplate.
The transitional Government have agreed to full majority rule, solid guarantees for minorities and the abolition of racial discrimination. So all the concessions that were originally requested by the Government have been made. The three black leaders in the transitional Government will have to stand for election, but not Mr. Nkomo or Mr. Mugabe because they want to win by force. They have demanded unconditional surrender. So who on this subject of sanctions has suffered most? The black Rhodesians, my Lords. Poverty and unemployment has been aggravated because of the Rhodesian Government having to spend so much money on security forces to protect Rhodesians of all races from the most atrocious brutality of the Patriotic Front. Yet now we send arms to Zambia because Mr. Kaunda says he cannot protect himself. Yet he says that they will not fall into terrorist hands. I am sure that his intentions are honourable. That I do not doubt; but I doubt his ability to carry out these intentions because he would not have the guerrilla camps in his country in the first place. The original object of sanctions has gone. They did not work and now all they do is harm. If sanctions were to be lifted, the Rhodesian economy would improve,
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thus greatly assisting the lot of both blacks and whites and this would greatly facilitate the forthcoming majority rule elections.
So, my Lords, I ask: Why cannot we grasp the nettle in the same way as did the United States Senate and House of Representatives in August of this year, provided Mr. Smith carries out his part of the bargain, and then raise sanctions in December as the Americans have suggested? They agreed to that without referring to the United Nations for authority, purely in bilateral terms. This issue was very eloquently explained by my noble friend Lord Salisbury. Dr. Kissinger's proposals were agreed by Mr. Smith in November 1976. Alas! Dr. Kissinger has gone and we have President Carter and Mr. Andy Young. Perhaps it is unfortunate that Mr. Nkomo seems to be one of Mr. Young's most favourite politicians.
So here we have perhaps another reason for the continuance of sanctions: the Third World. But without being derogatory to the Third World—what is it? It is a conglomoration of a very large number of very unproportionately represented votes at the United Nations. And so I go on: only a stable Rhodesia will enable Botswana, Zambia, Zaire and Malawi to remain oriented to the West, because, should Rhodesia become Marxist, these other countries will follow suit in the recognised domino pattern, and after that, my Lords, you all know what the next target will be; it will be South Africa.
In this desperate situation where time is rapidly running out, one cannot blame Rhodesians for leaving their country. They feel they have been let down by their friends while simultaneously being attacked by their enemies. We must remember that the European is the life blood of Rhodesia, for without him the sophisticated economy will collapse. I think that even Governments in the Western World realise this; yet they do very little about it. But they do something. They stigmatise the white Rhodesian; they harass him; they belittle all that he has achieved and, by doing this, they leave Rhodesia to bleed to death unnecessarily.
It is indeed tragic that this Government appear to condone that attitude. They, with the Americans, want a conference

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between the transitional Government and the terrorists—a conference which, in my opinion, has little chance of success since the minimum demand of the terrorists is unconditional surrender and anybody who thinks that the terrorists can be weaned away from the Communists is living in Cloud-Cuckoo land. We only have to look at Vietnam as an example. It seems that the advocates of a round-table conference only see a solution to the Rhodesia problem in a Marxist victory. The Government claim sovereign power over Rhodesia, but seem loath to exercise it. Do we really want to see Rhodesia reduced to the same chaos and shambles as Mozambique and Angola?
Lord SAINSBURY: What is it now?
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: The original reason for sanctions has gone, so why do we still want them—to please the Russans? The Third World? The Nigerians? The Americans? I am convinced of one thing tonight; that Her Majesty's Government were privy to the Kissinger proposals of 1976 and that Mr. Smith was told then that, if he took the necessary steps to put these proposals into effect, the sanctions would be lifted. So to continue sanctions is, to say the least, in my opinion, highly dishonourable. Lawyers may call it "renéging", but I and the man in the street call it welshing—and to continue with sanctions will cost even more money—
A noble Lord: It is racialism, not welshing.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: The blood that is shed in the future will, when the history of this very unhappy area is written, rest fairly and squarely on the shoulders of those of us who are responsible. If I have made one Member of your Lordships' House come into the Lobby with me tonight, I shall at least rest easier in my mind and I shall have a clear conscience.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!
9.50 p.m.
The Earl of LYTTON: My Lords, it is an honour for me to speak immediately after the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, whose great-grandfather was, I think,
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Colonial Secretary when the great Kimberley diamond mine was opened up, and I thought that his speech had a diamond-like sparkle. At any rate, I agreed with much of what he said. I note that I am to be followed by one whom I regard as the quercus robur, the old oak, in this matter of the defence of the interests of Rhodesia, the noble Lord, Lord Barnby.
I was asked to attend this debate and to take part by black official representatives of the Foreign Department of the interim Rhodesian Government. Black men asked me to come here, and I wish to make a small protest that we have confused a debate on matters of life and death for Rhodesia with a historical post-mortem on sanctions busting, and that a great strain is placed on some of us to keep going. I have taken more than my usual ration of poison in order to stand up here, and I hope that I shall be able to complete and get home. The poison is one of those of which doctors approve which comes from the foxglove, so that your Lordships will know what is wrong.
The point which I wish to make, practically the only point, is that we have wickedly delayed recognition. We recognise all kinds of Governments and people that we do not like. There is Gaddafi of Libya, who got rid of King Idris illegally. There was Nasser, who got rid of Neguib illegally. There is Nimeri of the Sudan; I do not know how many illegal coups he succeeded. There was Obote of Uganda, who got rid of the Kabaka illegally, and was himself illegally got rid of by Amin. There is Siyad Barreh of Somalia, who reached his position by an illegal coup. There is Boumedienne of Algeria, who got rid of a really authentic African nationalist in Ben Bella. There is Oba-sanjo of Nigeria, with a welter of coups. There is Acheampong of Ghana, who got rid of Nkrumah, who was himself illegal. Then there is Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia who reached his position in a welter of blood and is wholly illegal.
All these people we have recognised, and why do we recognise them? I think it is because once people have established an authority it is a moral duty to recognise them, however unpleasant they are, so long as they are in effective control. The illegal Smith régime, the least of the illegalities in a continent that has seen a welter of illegalities and coups, has not been

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recognised and it is lack of recognition that is at fault. If you do not recognise the legal authority, you do not recognise his right to punish a single malefactor. No man who commits rape, burglary, murder or assault of any kind can, in our view, be punished legally by an authority in Rhodesia. It is that lack of recognition which seems to me to make us patrons of lawlessness, which is going from bad to worse. It makes it impossible—perhaps I am wrong—for us to invite Mr. Smith to this country. He cannot come. He would be put under arrest and prosecuted, and that is a great handicap.
Those are the reasons why I propose to go into the Lobby in opposition to the renewal of sanctions. Sanctions are merely the instrument. It is the lack of recognition which is, to my mind, morally wrong. When I say "morally wrong", I hope that I do not adopt a "holier than thou" attitude. I recognise absolutely that those who differ from me are not sinners, but for me it would be morally wrong not to oppose sanctions. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, made the very good and eloquent point that it is a symbol. It is a symbol of pride, integrity, good faith and international obligations on the part of this country. I want to counter that symbolic attitude by saying that it is a symbol to the Africans, who have asked me to come here tonight and speak on their behalf. It is a symbol for them.
I do not quite know how to say it, but I should like to carry noble Lords' minds back to an experience of mine—which, at first sight, seems irrelevant—50 years ago. I was in a position in Africa, miles from anywhere, where, among other things, I had to do what was possible for those who were ill. I carried about a hundredweight of Epsom salts for people over 40 and another hundredweight of tobacco for those whose agitations were soothed by chewing. I gave intravenous, intramuscular injections to people with malaria, and I sewed up people who were wounded.
I had no training whatever in these matters. However, a baby was brought to me one day, a baby who was thought by its mother and by the African dresser to be dying, and I was asked what I could do. I had no idea what was wrong with the creature. I had no authority to do
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anything. The African beside me said, in a sort of whisper, "I think that a drop of your brandy might do it good". I had the brandy; he had not. I had the authority to give it; he had not. I gave it a drop of brandy, and its unfortunate mother, standing at its feet, thought that it was not very happy with the result. She bowed her head, put its little feet against her forehead and prayed. My Lords, it was not my brandy, but the baby did get well again. That is a symbol, and that drop is what I should like now. Let us drop sanctions. It is only a symbol, but let us do it.
9.58 p.m.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, in following the noble Earl, I should like to thank him for his gracious reference to myself. Impressed though I was by his speech, may I emphasise a question which has always appeared to me to be perplexing; namely, what is the justification for our recognition of newly installed, wrongly installed Governments in foreign countries? Often it seems to me to be a matter of hypocrisy. I have had the privilege of being a Member of your Lordships' House for nearly 50 years. I recall many contentious subjects which have bedevilled the judgment of the House, but I cannot think of one which compares with the present bankruptcy of statesmanship on the part of both political Parties, one which has required the presentation on 12 consecutive occasions—or is it more?—of one order. I cannot believe that there can be a precedent for that.
I opposed the first order, and I have spoken 12 or 14 times against it since then. I have given all my reasons for doing so, and tonight I do not propose to speak for long. But I opposed the first order because having been in Government service in two world wars, in economic warfare, I was then confident that it would not succeed in the object stated. Passing this order tonight will not produce a political settlement in Rhodesia. I am sad that I find myself in disagreement with my noble Leader, whose usual leadership stimulates us so greatly and certainly generates our admiration. I will not give much tongue tonight. The speech made by the noble Marquess satisfied me that it covered the ground for good reasons why this order should be rejected. I accept it in its entirety. For myself,

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the situation at the moment is crystal clear—a cabal embracing the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Russia to destroy Rhodesia.
That is not a pleasant prospect. Rhodesia is a fair land, changed from savagery to a modern industrialised State by our country, by our compatriots in an earlier day. To destroy Rhodesia would be to transfer it into another Marxist State North of the South African Republic. The present cost of terrorists, in training and in arming and maintaining them, is great. That does not come out of the air; it is not paid for by Africans. Russia is the menace in this case and it should be resisted at every point. He who pays the piper calls the tune. It is Russia and it is a menace to our and to other Western interests in Africa. Opposition to it should be No. I priority. Rhodesia remains British territory. Any foreign pressure against British interests should be resisted and this transcends any foreign agency. For their policy, their inaction, shame on the Socialist Government! I shall certainly vote against this order.
10.3 p.m.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, each one of us as we enter this House swears an oath or affirms to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. The initial imposition of sanctions on Rhodesia was made because that oath or a similar oath was broken by the then Prime Minister, his colleagues and the armed forces.
A Noble Lord: And George Washington.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord who is to wind up on the other side of the House if he will define for us what is today the legal and constitutional position of those who claim power—Ian Smith and those under him—so far as the breaking of that oath is concerned?
I have been visiting Rhodesia since the year 1951. My visits ceased in 1967. They ceased because I was served a notice as a prohibited immigrant by the Ian Smith régime. I should also like the noble and learned Lord who is to wind up the debate to define for me what my position is now,
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as a British citizen, as a Member of Her Majesty's Parliament, as having taken an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty, if I try to visit that country.
In those days I was trying to assist the British Government to defend the authority of the Crown by writing, by talking, by broadcasting. I have not been told why I am a prohibited immigrant, but I assume it is because of those activities in defence of Her Majesty's authority in Rhodesia. As we have to deal with two subjects tonight which all of us dislike, I should like to make a very brief comment on the Bingham Report in that connection because part of what I was doing in those days relates directly to the Bingham Report. I recall in 1968 and 1969 going to the United Nations to talk, particularly to Algerians and other French-speaking Africans, in an attempt to persuade them to use their influence on the French Government to stop sanctions breaking, and every time I approached them I was told: "Look at your own oil companies". These were the reports—I had no means of checking them—which I made to Ministers and to officials on my return to this country.
It has been said that we should not go into the past. I believe that we should in order to learn for the present and the future. We should consider in particular—and this is what makes me so angry about the sanctions breaking of those days by British companies—that at the same time that British companies were deliberately breaking sanctions, imposed by this country and the United Nations, this country and the Government of this country were asking the infant State of Zambia, only 13 months old at the time of UDI, to try to impose sanctions after she had been left completely tied into the economy of Rhodesia. This not only was draining the lifeblood of the new State, it was also endangering, in my view, both the position and possibly the life of its President, Kenneth Kaunda. I believe that this is a dishonourable chapter in British history.
In a previous speech I made some mention of the activities of multinational companies and suggested that some of their activities were above the law, but they knew how to get round the law and ignore Governments. One noble Lord from the other side shouted "Rot".

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Bingham substantiates everything that I said. But I do not hold those companies responsible because that is what one expects. However, I think that there is a deeper lesson to be learnt from Bingham and that is that, however many members of previous Administrations of both Parties may say, "We did not know", that is not the charge: the charge is, "You did not ask". In our democratic system surely the first principle of our whole parliamentary and governmental system is that responsibility only stops at the top, and if there were sanction breaking companies in this country—as we now know there were—it is the responsibility of the Government and of Government Ministers to find that out.
The second subject that we must discuss tonight—and I wish that there were more time to do so—is the present situation in Rhodesia and the sanctions order. When sanctions were first imposed and when the act of treason was first made in 1965, the British Government—any British Government—had three alternatives: they could ignore the treason; they could send military forces in to destroy the rebellion; or they could find some other means, in this case economic sanctions, to try to bring that rebellion to an end. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, with reference to his opening speech, that I should like him to consider whether, if it had been a black régime ruling Rhodesia in 1965 that had rebelled against the authority of the Crown—a black régime consisting of only a quarter of a million people—he would have been so sure that it would have been wrong to send in troops in order to destroy that rebellion. This treason has been neither purged nor renounced. I am asking noble Lords tonight to ask themselves before they vote whether it is now to be condoned, because if the sanctions order is revoked then that action is condoning treason against the authority of the Monarch.
We have heard a great deal about the transitional Government. Nobody defending the transitional Government has explained to us how we can be expected to recognise that it is a genuine multiracial Government when within a few weeks of its formation one of its members was summarily dismissed without any reference to the other members of the
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Executive Council. Only yesterday another member—and on this occasion voluntarily—resigned. The so-called transitional Government is made up of people who have lost their political way. It is only a year or two ago since Joshua Nkomo was the darling of the British political establishment and the Reverend Sithole and Bishop Muzorewa were the dangerous terrorists. Bishop Muzorewa was cursed and spat upon at a Conservative conference. How is it that they have changed? Surely noble Lords who know Rhodesia recognise that Joshua Nkomo has never, throughout the history of his life, been a natural supporter of violence. He has been driven into this position by the intransigence that has been shown to him. Only a few weeks ago he was discussing with Mr. Smith; two years ago he was negotiating with Mr. Smith because he had obtained no compromise there. As so many other leaders of the British Empire, finding the constitutional means of advance closed, he had to turn to violence.
I was in the United States when the visit of Ian Smith and his colleagues took place, and I heard his sudden change of mind at the Press conference; he said that he would go to a new conference convened by the British and American Governments. Immediately I said, "Listen to the news from Central Africa, something is going to happen", and something did happen simultaneously with that change of mind. As he spoke, the raids had begun on Zambia. As my noble friend Lord Aylestone said so eloquently, this is the characteristic of Ian Smith and has been the character of Ian Smith as long as those of us on both sides of the House have known him in political life.
Let me make one final appeal, particularly to noble Lords opposite. I know that many noble Lords, like myself, have received warm hospitality in Rhodesia, in black and white homes. I am talking now particularly about the white homes; I am talking about the white community. I want to suggest that it would be a disservice to the white community of Rhodesia to remove sanctions at this moment. It would be a dis-service because it would encourage in particular the "wild men" of the Rhodesian Front—and many of our joint friends have been calling them the "wild men" for many years now—

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to believe that they could still get out of passing over power to majority rule. Just think of Kenya and Zambia where, tragically, a good racial situation has been damaged by the raids only this past week. Think also that the safety and place of those white families in the future of Rhodesia depends upon them coming to the same kind of acceptance: that they are a minority in the political world; that they can still gain recognition and status in the economic, professional and social world and, indeed, in the political world, because we only have to look at Zambia and Tanzania to see how a non-racial society is different from a multiracial society. A non-racial society does not recognise the colour of the skin as any qualification for political power or political influence.
Finally, during this debate many constructive suggestions have been made which I believe are well worth the Government considering. But the first must surely be to renounce the treason that took place 13 years ago, to return to legality and to dissolve the illegal parliament. My advice to Ian Smith would be to take his retirement now; that would be the greatest service that he could ever perform for his country. I pay great tribute to those who have, and who still are, attempting to build the bridges between the colours and the races in Rhodesia. It would be a disservice to them to remove sanctions at this moment and to refuel the fires of racialism which have torn that country for so long.
So, as we, from this long distance, send our message to the peoples, black, white and coloured of Rhodesia, of Zimbabwe, let us send them the message that we will encourage every attempt to work together without consideration of colour, to abolish all colour bars, all colour prejudice; that we will support the very noble efforts of our present Foreign Secretary, David Owen, who has spent day and night in looking for a solution to this problem. As a House our message to the people of Rhodesia should be, "You have friends. You have friends in David Owen and Cyrus Vance. You have friends in the Organisation of African Unity; you have friends in the United Nations. If you want to keep those friends, then you must follow the way of the 20th century, which is to forget the differences in skin colours".
10.21
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, once more we reach the sorry occurrence of the annual renewal of sanctions, but this year the situation has been radically changed, as has been stated over and over again. Now of the Five Principles agreed by all the Parties, which seem to be what the sanctions are all about, only the election remains. It is hardly surprising that elections have taken longer to organise than had been hoped, under the difficulties that have been faced both administratively and from the Russian backed terrorists, but I believe the will is there now, at last.
If the desire of this country and the world is the fulfilment of the Five Principles, then surely the prime and only aim of this Government is to ensure the earliest carrying out of those free elections in that country. We know this is just what the Patriotic Front is determined to oppose, and yet our Foreign Secretary has virtually given them a veto on the terms of an election. Were the Front to be persuaded to attend a conference and agree elections even on their own terms they have made it clear that they would not accept any result if it is not in their favour. That is why they want control of the interim forces. Now we have to witness the spectacle of the Government actually giving aid in money and arms to defend the terrorists in Zambia against air attacks, and thereby giving them also moral encouragement to intensify their pillage.
It is utterly abhorrent and unacceptable to the British public that British arms should be supplied to protect Marxist terrorist camps, as was reported—if the report is true—on 28th October. There is little this country could do more to encourage the terrorists or to hinder the transitional Government from getting on with their preparations for the free and successful elections to which we pay lip-service.
The time is long overdue for the Government to recognise the internal settlement and the transitional Government, and to contribute to the continued progress towards majority rule. There will be enormous political and practical problems that demand tolerance on timing. But, as the Reverend Sithole said, the transitional Government is no sham; but it does need help and not hindrance from

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this country. Unfortunately the influence of the three black leaders on our Foreign Secretary, as compared with that of Nkomo, is, or seems to be, in direct proportion to the violence which they are prepared to use. Surely they should be fostered, encouraged and helped in every way. They are, as the noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, said, all men of calibre, of experience and with a welcome degree of moderation. Indeed our Foreign Secretary only after much pressure, met the peaceful black leaders on their London visits, and of course he will not meet or talk to the de facto Prime Minister or even allow him into this country, while out goes the red carpet for the terrorist leader. Seldom can a Foreign Secretary of this country have inspired by his behaviour such distrust and disrespect throughout the world in his handling of such a matter.
The British Government must now state firmly that we not only want to see fair and free elections but that we will give aid to see them prepared and carried out. The terrorists must be told firmly that their way to success is through the ballot box and that, as terrorists, they must now be treated and considered like any other terrorist group in the world. After all, if they represent the black majority, as they claim, they can have no fear of not gaining power by the ballot box. Personally, I see no difference whatever between the Patriotic Front and the IRA, who equally want power by force and not by the ballot.
By concentrating on the elections we will soon see who in the world wants an elected Government in Rhodesia and who simply wants an unelected Marxist one at whatever cost to life, not to mention democracy or the long-term strategic effect on the West. Which do the British Government want? Their behaviour might well lead one to ask. We must now offer any aid in any form to help the interim Government prepare for and hold their elections, and the team should be headed by someone who is both experienced and trusted by the world so that the elections are not only fairly run but are seen to be so by the world. To lead this team there is of course only one man who would have the confidence both of the Rhodesians and of the world, who could do the job and be above rational criticism.
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Coupled with this aid to hold the elections, we should withdraw sanctions. That would stop what is now felt to be active encouragement to the terrorists, and withdrawal would in time I believe actually discourage the latter. Of course, there might be an increase in violence for a time, but the genuine and quickening approach to free elections, which we could help, would put right on our side. The continuance of sanctions after majority rule has been conceded, as it has now been, is threatening massive and long-lasting African unemployment, and not only in Rhodesia. This is the time when we should make our own decision to end sanctions, regardless of the demands of a volatile and verbose United Nations—a time when we should help the preparations and lead up to elections. What an uproar there would be if we dared take our own decision, but what grudging respect we might earn!
Let us indeed send our teams to Salisbury and give Nkomo one chance to join in the elections. If he refuses to co-operate, as seems highly probable, we must then set up the stage for elections regardless of the terrorists. The one thing we must not do is allow the Patriotic Front to drag out the agony for yet another year of attrition, for in no way will I personally fail to oppose a sanctions order in 12 months' time.
10.29 p.m.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, I think this is the fourteenth time that I have spoken on a wretched order of this kind. When the first order was introduced I voted against it, and I did so for three reasons. First, I considered it immoral. Sanctions have never succeeded at any time. When we put sanctions on Italy over the Abyssinian war they were a complete failure. The trouble with sanctions is that when you try to destroy the trade of a country, that hurts the poor people far more than the wealthy. One reason why I was against sanctions in this case was that I knew they would hurt the Africans more than the other people. Another reason was that I considered sanctions to be quite idiotic. One would have to be almost a congenital idiot to impose sanctions on Rhodesia when there are South Africa and Portugal to consider. It was obvious that South Africa and Portugal would

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support Rhodesia. I do not propose to speak on the Bingham Report because I have not read it, but apart from that, it was obvious that sanctions could never succeed.
My third reason for voting against the order was that I was informed by an international lawyer that it was illegal, because Rhodesia was not an external threat to any other country. As I quoted at the time, Dean Acheson, a former American Secretary of State, claimed that it was quite illegal, and one or two international lawyers also claimed that the imposition of sanctions by the United Nations at Britain's request was illegal.
When Mr. Smith accepted the Kissinger proposals embracing the Five Principles the Foreign Office—at least for a few days—appeared to accept that and to agree. But why, as the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said, did the Foreign Office rat on that? We have not heard the reason for that, and I should be very keen to hear it. As has been said, it was a real tragedy that Her Majesty's Government did not support the transitional Government which Mr. Smith set up on 3rd March when he pledged majority rule. If they had supported that, we would not be where we are now. Support then would probably have saved thousands of lives and hundreds of tortures. That was an absolute tragedy, and the lack of statesmanship really appals me.
With regard to Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe, we have heard my noble friend Lord Saint Oswald say that Mr. Smith had asked them 14 times to join in the transitional Government and to take their chance at the elections when they come. There has been some criticism that the elections at the end of the year may be put off, but one cannot fight an election when one is fighting a war. It is quite impracticable; and Mr. Nkomo has said that he will try to destroy the ballot boxes.
There is another aspect of the matter which I do not understand. The Foreign Secretary, Dr. Owen, has conceded that the 3rd March agreement satisfies all the principles laid down by the British Government since 1964. Therefore, why does he still seem determined to foist on Rhodesia Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe? Does he really want the rule of the gun
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to triumph? Although I cannot believe it, he would appear, at least to the ordinary person, to be working in the interests of Russia. It is an extraordinary attitude, and I should like to know why he appears to be working in the interests of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, we hear much about democracy and people being elected, but Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe have never been elected to lead the people whom they claim to lead. They are completely self-appointed. They do not have a majority in Rhodesia. I have relations by marriage in Rhodesia, as well as friends there, and I have some slight knowledge of the situation through them. I am afraid there is no doubt that Her Majesty's Government, by their refusal to back the transitional Government, are responsible for much loss of life, both black and white. That will go down in the history books. For instance, what excuses do they have? We hear that if we back the transitional Government it will annoy other African States. I have been in Africa two or three times, and I have seen some of these States. With few exceptions they are brutal dictatorships, and in my opinion they exploit their people to a preposterous degree. After all, many prosperous former colonies have been turned into lands of corruption and extreme poverty—and this in spite of continuing injections of Western aid. Rhodesia has had no aid, but the standard of the African people in Rhodesia is far higher than that in any of these independent republic States of Africa.
We are told that to do so will annoy Nigeria. We get very little oil from Nigeria now—1½ per cent., I think—and the corruption, bad government and mismanagement in Nigeria is a well-known fact. I have some friends, relations by marriage, who went to Ghana for over a year to try to grow rice. They had to come back; and they have told me that the conditions there are appalling. In the northern part of the country all the people are starving, and dead bodies are to be seen everywhere. This situation is quite unnecessary; it is a very prosperous country. It has raw materials and it is a very fertile country, but the corruption and the mismanagement by the ruling junta is something absolutely terrifying.
What are the Government frightened of over this matter? Are they frightened

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of Russia? If you are frightened of a bully, then the bully will win. The sooner you stand up to a bully the better. I should like to hear what it is the Government are frightened of. I do not want to appear rude, but we have had two or three rather slick speeches, I think, to the effect that we ought to vote for the order. We are also told that if we were to vote against the order the black Rhodesians in Africa would think it was only done to help the whites. That is not my information from a number of people out there and from those relatives by marriage about whom I was speaking. I am told that the average African in Rhodesia would be overjoyed because sanctions have caused a certain amount of unemployment. I am told that the average African out there is very loyal to the transitional Government.
My Lords, I think I have spoken long enough. I can think of only one reason why the British Government are so slow to back the transitional Government and are all the time favouring Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe. The only reason I can think of—it may be an unjust reason; I do not know—is one of pique and personal hatred. Some other politicians, I think, have shown a bit of pique today. But there must be some personal hatred here; otherwise I cannot understand the matter.
Before I end, my Lords, I should like to say that I will vote against the order, and one of the reasons is that in the last few years I have become so sick of the double standards, the cant and the hypocrisy that exist. We have had in Africa the genocide of whole races; we have had—and I have mentioned this before—the slaughter of the Watutsi, the slaughter of the southern tribes in the Sudan, tens of thousands of them; and not a word of protest from anyone at all. This has been going on all the time.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, the noble Viscount has just made an accusation which embraces, I suppose, the whole of us on these Benches, that not a word has been spoken in criticism of the massacres in Africa. I would draw his attention to the fact that those of us who write regularly about Africa have been constantly criticising the massacres—not just in the countries he has referred to but particularly in Uganda and other parts of
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the African continent and other parts of the world. It is totally unfair to say that not a word of criticism has been spoken. The criticism is against the genocide, against the brutality; it is not against any particular kind of people or ideology that perpetrated it.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, the noble Lord may have been criticising it, but it has not appeared in the British Press, as far as I am aware. If it appeared it must have been in small print. Anything about Rhodesia is in headlines. I will sit down; but I am quite sure that when history comes to be written Mr. Smith will be long remembered for trying to keep the flag of civilisation and decency flying in Africa for black and white when his detractors will have sunk into utter oblivion. He may be obstinate, as many of us are, but on the whole I think he has been very badly treated by the present Government, and I think by several Governments. As I have said, I will vote against the order.
10.43 p.m.
Lord HALE: My Lords, if the noble Viscount who has just spoken is in doubt about the law in this situation, he can go into the Library and read the decision of the Privy Council in July 1968 upon this matter. It was really a historic decision because it was a very strong court of five Law Lords. Lord Reid (the late Lord Reid, unfortunately) delivered a monumental judgment of great wisdom. It was brought from the Rhodesian courts in the friendliest fashion, but Mr. Smith decided not to be represented. Mr. Smith had no doubt had legal advice about accepting the judgment of the Privy Council because he intended to pursue a course upon which he was already ready to embark. It is quite true to say that the noble Viscount may find in the one dissenting judgment of Lord Justice Pearce some points which still give me concern; because Lord Justice Pearce dealt with the law of necessity and one wonders how long one can go on laying claim to the residual rule of a country when under the law of necessity judgments are delivered in the courts uninfluenced by us. The law, such as it is, is being administered well or badly with no possible interference from us. We cannot interfere; we cannot do anything.

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Mr. Smith, with a calculating shrewdness—to put it at its mildest—managed immediately after that decision to induce the resignation of the Lord Chief Justice of Rhodesia, a man appointed in the name of Her Majesty, a man who made an appeal in the name of Her Majesty and a man of great ability. He managed to force the resignation of the Governor, Sir Humphrey Gibbs. He got through a resolution to Her Majesty complaining bitterly that the British Government had deprived Rhodesians of their Queen, and so on.
I listened to the charming speech of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. It was a delightful, peaceful speech in which he put a case I was thinking myself of putting. I could not have put it so well and might have done so with less enthusiasm. I have no doubt at all that Sir Harold Wilson had become aware in that 12 months of the legal and the practical difficulties of enforcing sanctions, of the impossibility of going on very effectively with that course, of the diminishing legal authority which would exist and of the fact that Mr. Smith was really establishing a de facto Government which could not be interfered with and which was rapidly assuming most of the powers of a government de jure. That was no easy position. I am quite certain he made a desperate effort to secure peace on the basis of the Five Principles and that that effort culminated in the "Tiger" talks.
I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, with great attention and agreed with nearly all of it. I am sorry to disappoint my friends. I do not agree that any useful purpose can be served by any prolongation. I am sure the sensible course is to pass this piece of paper, though it does not carry very much authority. The arguments have been advanced over and over again. There is no need for me to repeat them. They have been put forward by much abler speakers. The difficulty I have with Lord Carrington's speech is his assumption that one can rely on anything Mr. Smith says. This was taken up later—rather surprisingly, in a sense—by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, who rarely has anything critical to say of anybody. He almost gave an impersonation of Mr. Smith negotiating; it was rather an impressive spectacle.
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My noble friend Lord Aylestone spoke with some passion of the way he was treated in the preliminary interviews before the "Tiger" talks, interviews in which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack took part. He said that after he had negotiated for some time he was astounded to receive that very morning an aide mémoire provided by Mr. Smith which virtually repudiated everything up to then and wanted to start again. He said he was astounded. So I turned up the record issued by the Rhodesian Government of the diplomatic negotiations up to the conclusion of the "Tiger" meeting. Everyone knows what happened on the "Tiger". I believe it is said that Mr. Wilson was being told by some of his own Back-Benchers that he was being too generous and going too far. It was said—it is all here—that it was only at the end after the document had been prepared that Mr. Smith announced he would have to go back and consult. Mr. Wilson said that he had virtually plenipotentiary powers; he had come to get an agreement and he had thought they had agreed the night before. "No", said Mr. Smith; he would have to go back. "Stay and discuss a little further", said Mr. Wilson. Mr. Smith said that he must go back. I think this was on the Friday, or possibly on the Saturday. On Monday, came an elaborate statement that they wanted different constitutional proposals and that the terms were fully rejected.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said at the time—as one would expect, he has played a statesmanlike part all the time—and I think he said today, or certainly I have heard him say it quite recently, that the rejection of the "Tiger" proposals was a great mistake and, furthermore, UDI was a great mistake. I do not know what the motives were, but Mr. Smith had already got immense power and immense authority.
We went through the same process right up to the "Fearless", and again we were within reach of agreement; and with the change of Government came the noble Lord, Lord Home, who of course speaks with quite exceptional authority, and I daresay Mr. Smith may have been a little more polite to him. He did achieve something that looked like an agreement. But that really ended in the Pearce

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Commission and the report that there was no African support for the proposals.
I think I can, without wearying the House, refer to what was said by Mr. Bowden, as he then was—who, taking it by and large, is the most responsible person I have ever known who has held the office of Chief Whip. According to this publication, Mr. Bowden indicated that on his return to Britain he was almost sure to be asked whether he had seen Nkomo and Sithole. He asked whether it would be possible to see them. Mr. Smith said he thought it would be completely wrong for Mr. Bowden to see persons of that type. Then Mr. Bowden asked about political detainees who were prepared to give an assurance that they would act constitutionally and would only engage in peaceful political activities. The Prime Minister told him that they could all be released if they gave the right undertaking, and that rehabilitation teams were at work.
So I regret some of the things that Mr. Nkomo has said recently. I rather regret the way he has been paraded around as a necessary successor. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, made some observations about this from which I do not dissent. But how long can we go on? It is not merely that Rhodesia is facing a catastrophe. It is the whole of Southern Africa that is facing a catastrophe. We have heard of arms going straight from Government stores in the Midlands to Jersey and being transported on to Rhodesia. We have heard of sophisticated weapons, supplied to Jordan on the strongest undertakings that they would never be disposed of to any other country, being sent to Rhodesia. There has been a good deal of skulduggery and there is a great deal more.
If one noble Lord opposite complains of not seeing rich Africans, he can see them in the Champs-Elysées and in the châteaux of France, where the Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic, in legitimate succession to Napoleon, has retired after celebrating his coronation in a depopulated and poor country. We have now been told that a vast area of Central Africa, Zaire and the Congo, has been set aside as a protected area for a concern which claims to have produced an essential weapon for the destruction of satellites. My noble friend talked about
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Canada, and we are now being told of the Space Research Company, a highly reputable company manufacturing space research weapons, which has organised branches in Antigua and Barbados, ultimately shipping goods by devious routes to South Africa and supplying the very latest sophisticated weapons that they have produced. These things are happening. There is a good deal of tragedy and a good deal of doubt.
So I would say that the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Lord, Lord Home, having been put forward, then, if it is believed that Mr. Smith can be persuaded to agree—and it is ridiculous to talk of removing him or not having him in the committee; he is a Prime Minister of 20-odd years' standing, whether we like him or not—let them be tried. The sands of time are running out. Let us realise that all these years are not doing anything to enable us to carry out our pledges and that the only way in which that can now be done is by successful negotiations. There is no other way. We are an impoverished nation. We are no longer a great Power. We cannot go on, year after year, spending this money. The issue really will have to go to the United Nations, because we have no interest in the physical resources, or in the Government, or in the continuation of the Government. We have merely something to enable us to carry out our pledges to the African people, if we can. Before I came here today, I heard that the Chief of the Matabele has resigned his office. He has said that Mr. Nkomo is the rightful heir to the chieftaincy of the tribe.
It is a matter for the judgment of people. If Mr. Smith's promises can be relied upon, if he will accept a mission of inspection, if he will make welcome distinguished people—not necessarily all allied to one Party—to find out what the position really is, if he will consider proposals and give some guarantees that are reliable for their performance, then by all means let it be done; by all means let us stop this discussion, which is certainly not helping any African. Finally, Mr. Nkomo has perhaps said some silly things recently. I remember (I have said this before) that for years and years he was imprisoned by Mr. Smith. Mr. Sithole was imprisoned by Mr. Smith, and while he was in prison, after the

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Privy Council provisions, new charges were brought against him. He was sentenced to another six years' imprisonment on a charge of smuggling out letters threatening to murder that would not have been believed anywhere. At this time of night I regret having taken more time than I intended. I do not often speak. I put down my name with reluctance. I put it down because I thought that I had something to say, and I hope that some people will feel that I have said it.
11.3 p.m.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, it is getting late and I shall be brief. I am sorry to say that although I have tried for many years to be as helpful as I can to my old department, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on this occasion I have to differ from them and from a number of my noble friends on both sides of the House, for whose wisdom I have the deepest respect. The time has come to recognise that there is a new situation in Rhodesia and that the sanctions voted 12 years ago are inappropriate. They are out of date; they are one-sided, and they are damaging to British interests.
We have a multiracial, multi-Party Government in Rhodesia aiming to hold elections by universal suffrage. Was not that what we wanted to get? That is what we have got. They are making such progress as they can. Our objective has been attained, so what do we hope to get from sanctions? I cannot distil from any of the speeches made by my noble friends on either side of the House any practical programme of progress which the continuation of sanctions would offer. It is not surprising that it is difficult for the interim Government to hold elections in December. They are drafting a constitution. They have to draw up constituencies and make electoral registers. Look at the trouble we had about getting ready for the European elections. Do noble Lords suppose that we could have done it in the time, with a guerrilla war going on? It is out of the question. We are being very unreasonable to these people. I think we have to make some allowances for them.
We have heard it said that one object of sanctions would be to keep up the pressure. That is an awfully slick sort of thing to say. Who are we keeping the pressure on? We do not want Mr. Smith to go back on
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what he has done. I do not hold much brief for Mr. Smith, but I think he has shown extraordinary courage in the present situation and really very considerable consistency, which I respect. The people we want to put the pressure on are the people who are holding out against holding elections soon; but that is not Mr. Smith, it is not the Rhodesian Government, it is not even the Rhodesian people. It is Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Mugabe, both of whom are resident abroad. They have done their best to make elections impossible, and Nkomo has said that he is only interested in force. They have Russian arms and money, they want power, and they want power on their own terms.
So why are we on their side? The effect of sanctions is to put us on the side of Mugabe and Nkomo, and I cannot see any reason for our being on their side. Not only do we keep the sanctions on Rhodesia and on the interim Government which is trying to make the sort of settlement we want, but we have given arms to Zambia free of charge; and recently, during the Recess, we have given a £10 million interest-free loan to Mozambique, where Mr. Mugabe is based. None of this makes much sense to me if we really want to settle Rhodesia. It seems to me that our policy has gone rigid. Our policies sometimes do go rigid, but this is not one of the occasions when that ought to be allowed to happen. We have a changing situation and our present policy seems to me to be completely cockeyed. I just hope that the noble Lord Goronwy-Roberts, who is always so constructive in this House, will tell is exactly what is going to happen.
I look around and I have listened carefully to everything that has been said: I cannot see that any serious person can hope for any other settlement to eventuate. There is a settlement there. Why do we want to break it up? For goodness' sake, make use of it! I do not see any chance of another one, for it is a most difficult thing to bring about. We could hold a conference but I do not suppose it would produce another settlement. My noble friend Lord Carrington made some very ingenious suggestions about a group of foreign Powers being asked to send representatives to help, but this would I fear only delay matters. I think the sands are running out in Rhodesia; I do not think we have all

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that amount of time. You could not get the group together and have a meeting in less than six or eight months. We cannot wait six or eight months; we have got to get on with it.
I come now to Nkomo and Mugabe, because I quite see it would be very desirable that all parties should be represented in the internal settlement if it is possible. I have mentioned Nkomo already, and he does not seem to want to come in except with force. I recall that Mugabe's guerrillas are the people who have been killing hospital nurses, missionaries, doctors, anybody they can lay their hands on, as well as an enormous number of black Africans. I think that to try and bring those people in on their terms—and their terms are that their guerrillas should help to maintain order in Rhodesia—is really a most unpractical suggestion; I really do not think that as practical people we ought to lend ourselves to that sort of idea. I think Mr. Smith is right to turn it down.
There is another reason why we should be unwise to do that, and that is that they are both under Marxist influence and are receiving Russian arms and money. I do not think those are the sort of people you want to get into a democratic Government. I was at Yalta and I have served in Poland and Hungary, and I have seen what happens when the Communists get into a Government; they eliminate everybody else. You do not want to put the cuckoo in the nest and see everybody else chucked out. It is a silly thing to do. The idea is abominable. Please do not think I am just going back 30 years. Look what has happened in Aden. The Communists there succeeded in getting control. Anybody who had any influence before is in concentration camps run by East Germans. These are not the people who are going to promote human rights or democracy; they are not like that. It is absurd. We must be practical about these people.
If Europeans are eliminated from Rhodesia—and that would certainly be the effect of putting the cuckoos in the nest—then in a short time you would get the same situation as you have in Ethiopia, in Mozambique, in Angola. And what will happen then? The economy of Rhodesia will fall to bits. And what can they do?
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They will go to the Russians and the Cubans. Do we want that to happen, my Lords? We should not treat our own countrymen in Rhodesia so very badly, and certainly not risk a Marxist régime in Rhodesia.
I think it is time to stop being purist about this and to aim to make the best of the settlement which is there. It may not be perfect; I do not stand up to say it is perfect. But look at all the other régimes. There is hardly a régime in the whole of Africa which is not either Marxist and destructive of human rights, or else it is dictatorial. There are hardly any which have a multi-party multiracial aspect. So I think we should give Mr. Smith and Bishop Muzorewa and their colleagues credit for what they have done and see what we can make of it. I would say that the Salisbury Government looks like being one of the better ones if we lend it a helping hand. So I offer your Lordships a constructive programme; I do really try to be constructive. First, I think we should cut sanctions. The United Nations would have to follow: the United States are going to do it anyway. So let us cut sanctions; it is our duty here tonight to do this thing and vote them down.
The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack made some very important points about the legal consequences. He said that sanctions were mandatory and that we would be condemned by the United Nations. Well, are we in the position that we cannot alter this policy? The implication of the Lord Chancellor's remark would be that we are at the mercy of the Russian veto on this. If the Russians tell us we cannot change our policy, then we cannot change it. That does not make sense to me. I suggest that a much more practical way would be to send a note to the United Nations, or ask our delegate to make a speech and say, "Thank you very much. We asked you to impose sanctions. They have not been very effective. There have been many difficulties about applying them. Many countries have broken them. We have even had difficulties ourselves. But thank you very much. We now have a multi-racial multi-party Government preparing elections in Rhodesia. We hope it will be a success. We are going to try to see what can be done about it. We are now taking off sanctions, and we really need not trouble all you gentlemen any more".

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If they want to condemn us they have to pass a resolution, and we have got the veto.
Many of my colleagues whom I respect very much have said, "But we shall have trouble with the Africans". That is a task for diplomacy. Over the years there have been countless occasions when I have had to go to the Government to which I have been accredited and tell them that we are going to do something which they would regard as abominable. The good diplomat does such things and puts the arguments in such a way that they are least likely to cause trouble. That is what our diplomats in Africa are for and, thank God! the Berrill Report did not remove them.
Therefore, I suggest that we vote sanctions out tonight. I think that we ought to give de facto recognition to the Government in Salisbury. That Government is no worse than a great many Governments which we have recognised, to which we have sent diplomats and with which we have active diplomatic relations. In this case I think we should have de facto or interim or provisional relations—let the Government invent a formula. They will find some way of doing what ought to be done. We ought to have an ambassador or a chargé d'affaires, but anyway a very practical and good diplomat on the spot who can keep our Government properly informed —because at present they are obviously out of touch with what is happening—and, on occasions, when he has built up suitable friendships and contacts, he can exercise a little influence. We do not have much influence there at present; we shall not have much for some time. It is high time that we filled this lacuna and got on with it.
So, we should aim to speed up the elections as much as possible. Let them all face the ballot box. If Mugabe and Nkomo do not come and face the ballot box, that is their funeral; and if others support them and say that we are non-democratic, then I think that the boot is on the other foot. We should promote any settlement that will work.
It is high time that Mr. Smith and his colleagues were invited to this country. They have been to America; let them come here too. Some of us wrote to the Foreign Secretary about this, but he
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rejected the idea. I still think that it is a good idea and I happen to know that Mr. Smith would be willing to come, provided, of course, that our Government gave him immunity. We could not invite him and have him arrested; we certainly could not allow that to happen. By all means let us have Nkomo and Mugabe too, if your Lordships so wish, but do not let them hold matters up. This discussion must move forward before the sands finally run out.
I must say a few more words about Rhodesia, because everybody seems to me to be talking as if Rhodesia were in a little case by itself. It is not to be regarded in that way. It is a very vital part of Southern Africa. Southern Africa is very important both to NATO and to this country. There is a drastic change taking place in the balance of power. We ignore it at our peril and not nearly enough is said about it. The Russians now have bases on both sides of Africa and I believe that they are going to get them in the Cape Verde Islands. They control the entrances to the Red Sea. They have Iran under pressure from Marxist régimes on both sides. If they come to control the Persian Gulf as well it will be very serious.
It is most important that there should be some sort of a settlement in South Africa whereby we shall not see the Russians established in Simonstown. The Russians move in wherever we move out. If ever there was a case of criminal treachery to the interests of this country it was when the British Government took our fleet out of Simonstown. So, we want a sensible solution in Southern Africa, and I believe that for that purpose the settlement in Rhodesia will be extremely influential. If, with democratic processes, there is established in Rhodesia a good multiracial, multi-Party Government, I believe that it will be an enormous encouragement to the liberals in South Africa. I do not believe that their cause is completely lost. On the other hand, if we so handle things that the situation in Rhodesia breaks up in disorder, with the murder and departure of all our countrymen, what will the South Africans say? They will become much more extreme. I foresee that we shall have to support some sort of a white presence in South Africa because our strategic interests and those of NATO make it absolutely necessary. For goodness sake let us

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prepare this by taking a long-term view in Rhodesia. The Romans used to say, "Perspice finem", which translated reads, "Look always to the ends where you are going".
11.21 p.m.
Lord CHESHAM: My Lords, it is thirty-second wicket down! It leaves little new to say, if anything. Nevertheless, I shall say it, although frankly I do not think that it will take me very long. I think it is a thousand pities that on this very, very important issue there should be such a clear line of Party division and cleavage. The only exception I have heard to this is what the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, said early in his speech—I see that he has now gone—namely, his criticism of the Prime Minister at the time of UDI. I thought that that was quite extraordinary when one recollects that the Prime Minister's name was Harold Wilson. However, it is his privilege to say that.
Apart from that, it seems to me that the Party opposite finds it difficult, almost to the point of impossibility, to see or find—or if they do find it, to admit it—that anything good, right, helpful or progressive can come out of Rhodesia, whatever it may be. I recall that, in the course of answering quite a number of Starred Questions on the subject of Rhodesia during the summer, the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts—who I see has also gone—has never been able to bring himself to call the country Rhodesia and has frequently called it Zimbabwe, which I believe is what it would have been called once majority rule had been established. Whether or not this prejudice is the cause or effect of Government policy that seems to me to be as barren as it is naive and as ill-founded as it is ill-judged, I do not know, but I do not think that it very much matters.
What I resent is the continual representation of the white population of Rhodesia as largely over-privileged people with a gin and tonic in one hand and a jambok in the other and who live at the expense of the ground-down Africans. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, said he has known the country fairly well since 1950-something; I can cap that because
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I have known it fairly well since 1934, which is possibly even before some of your Lordships were born—not many perhaps, but some. It is not like that. If only you get away from the political circles of Salisbury—which is a place that few people do get away from—and go out among the ordinary working people, either black or white, you will find that they actually work very well together and with a mutual respect. The white population of Rhodesia is not composed of over-privileged people, but of very honest, straightforward working people: artisans, if you like, members of trade unions and so on, such as it ill-becomes members of the Labour Party to attack.
I used the word "naïve" and I use it again. I shall not continue. Many speakers have referred to Bingham and sanctions busting, but I find it utterly extraordinary that successive Governments did not know what almost everybody else knew and which, if one took enough trouble, one could probably see. All the fuss and "hoo-ha" (if that is a Parliamentary word) about Shell and BP at the moment, when there are so many other companies from almost dozens of other countries who have been doing exactly the same for so long, I can only think must be a very convenient smokescreen to cover up the ineptitude of policy handling in other ways.
If you can believe yesterday's explanation of what I would regard as incredible ignorance, you would believe anything. You might even believe the Foreign Secretary's assurance about arms to Zambia being used for defence of the country. I think it is fairly well known—at least I thought it was—that Mr. Nkomo's army is considerably bigger than that of Zambia. If anyone can fool me that these arms will go for the defence of a country which contains a very much bigger army than your own and which is liable to be attacked because of its very presence where it has really no business to be, then I think anybody could fool anybody about anything.
I come to my last point, and it is the one about which I feel most strongly. It has inevitably been touched on before. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester touched on it lightly, and the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, touched on it, and my noble friend Lord Salisbury

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also mentioned it but with regard to the future, and that is the actual effect of sanctions. It is true that in 12 years, rather than 12 months or 12 weeks, sanctions have had a considerable effect on the Rhodesian economy, and I am sure this must please many people. It pleases, I have no doubt, plenty of busy little politicians in the United Nations comfortably interfering from the security of that body with other people's lives. It will please people such as Marxists, and it will please people such as those of impossibly prejudiced opinion whose views have been formulated on the biased reports of others who, if they have any knowledge of Rhodesia at all, have never gained it outside the political circles of Salisbury I have mentioned. But in no sense, or in any way, can the effect of sanctions as applied in the past, or sanctions to be applied in the future, please the great mass of the people in Rhodesia; and here I especially mean the Africans. I do not especially mean the African politicians but the mass of good, decent, honest, ordinary African people whose only wish is to live at peace in an improving environment based on improving standards.
My Lords, whether you like it or you do not—and I do not expect noble Lords opposite to like it, and I do not expect the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, in particular to like it—the standards of the African people did, to my personal knowledge, perceptibly improve in the first seven years, and maybe more than that, after UDI. This was there to see for those who had eyes to see. But in no way did those standards improve to the extent that they would have improved without the sanctions; those sanctions which have done so much to hold back progress and development in Rhodesia to the enormous detriment of its African population. That is what I feel most strongly about, and I feel it so strongly that I have the intention to vote against the order.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that African education has particuarly suffered owing to sanctions?
Lord CHESHAM: So far as I am aware, my Lords, I would agree.
11.30 p.m.
Lord BOLTON: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I have taken part in many debates on this most worrying subject. It would be wearying, indeed pointless, to run through an appraisal of a subject on which most in this House and many in another place are agreed on the ideal, though not on the method, of how we tackle it, so I will not waste the time of the House. However, I am equally sure that most of the people of this country and many other countries feel the time has come, indeed is overdue, when we should stand up and be counted. My noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel, quoting Winston Churchill in a parallel situation, said—and I hope he will excuse me if I am slightly misquoting him: "Let not this House agree, but let England agree".
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, my noble friend is misquoting so much that I really must ask him not to quote again. What I said was that the Benches on one side in the Commons at that time could have given independence to the Transvaal from the Party; the point was, of course, that it could be given from England and not from the Party.
Lord BOLTON: I am obliged to my noble friend for correcting me. In any event, I would follow that by saying that England would, if faced with this question now, say, "England does agree", and England must agree now. Indeed, they would also say that England must agree before a handful of very gallant men, women and children succumb, through sheer lack of support, to the might of Russia and Cuba, who must be laughing their heads off between courses of caviary. The set-up of the present de facto Government and the existing interim settlement, in the setting up of which I played some small part, must be quickly reinforced; it may be fragile and it may have weaknesses—I acknowledge all of them—but it is the only hope for Rhodesia, and if we are honest and are prepared to stand up and be counted, we must support it.
What concerns me deeply as an Englishman is the way in which the word "politician" has become not the noun it used to be but an adjective, and almost a dirty one. There are people in this country and in other countries who will open their newspapers in a few hours' time and will

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read the reports of this debate. For my part, I should like them to read that I voted according to my conscience and did not say "tut tut" and abstain. Winston Churchill had another saying, one he used frequently, namely, "Action this day". I would not feel able to leave your Lordships' House with pride unless I voted regardless of annoyance to certain friends for whom I feel great respect and affection, and accordingly I will vote in the Lobby against the renewal of this sanctions order.
11.34 p.m.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, it is late and I shall try to be brief. We are considering a sad story a story of decisions taken in haste and regretted at leisure. We should have realised at the start that once we gave independence to Zambia and Malawi, it was impossible for any Government of Southern Rhodesia to accept less. We should have realised that we lacked military power. After all, we had tried military intervention in this part of the world; it had taken us three years and we employed half a million men at a time when we had the ports and movement was not nearly so difficult. There was the absurd idea that we could have intervened there. I think that Russia also realised her impotence when it came to intervening on behalf of Lumumba in the Congo. Modern armies cannot be supported thousands of miles away. The logistics just do not allow of it; they are too thirsty. Russian intervention in Zambia is a story to scare children; it is perfectly impossible.
Next, we ought to have realised that we lacked the power to impose sanctions. When we found our failure we went to the United Nations and asked for mandatory sanctions. In doing so we were asking for something which was grossly illegal, Contrary to the Charter, we were asking the Security Council to intervene in an internal dispute and to impose our imperial will on a colony. It was right outside the Charter. On this issue 13 years ago I voted with the Tory Party, and I remember this point being put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, far more ably and eloquently than I am able to do. We have got into this trouble because we demanded illegality and got involved in it. We
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should not have encouraged the flouting of the limitations of the Charter to serve our temporary convenience. We are reaping the consequences.
When it came to sanctions, everybody cheated. There was not an African country that did not trade with Rhodesia. Russia traded with Rhodesia. She obtained chrome which she mixed with her own and sold to the Americans until the Americans got sick of it and started buying crhome direct and, without regard to the United Nations, passed an Act to enable them to do so. The result worked out rather satisfactorily all round. Rhodesia prospered. What effect sanctions had forced her to diversify her industries. She had peace and prosperity for many years. We maintained a ship at Beira. I do not think that it cost us all that much more than it would to maintain it anywhere else. Our oil men, and others, to whom we should be most grateful, shielded us from suffering unduly from our own folly. And so the situation went on. Statesmanship should have found an opportunity to regularise it, and a settlement could have been obtained which would have been far more beneficial to the blacks than the civil war into which we thrust them.
Then came the Portuguese collapse, Marxist revolution, and terrorists coming across the frontier to disturb the Rhodesian peace. Astonishingly, Her Majesty's Government seemed to rejoice. Then Dr. Kissinger persuaded Mr. Smith to accept our famous Six Principles, and later Mr. Smith obtained an internal settlement on these lines. Her Majesty's Government offered no help and much obstruction. We backed the Patriotic Front—an odd name for a movement based, armed and trained abroad to murder its own compatriots; but it is a name which Her Majesty's Government never fail to use. Children were kidnapped, missionaries were murdered, a plane was shot down, and the survivors were murdered. Her Majesty's Government offered no objection. Dr. Owen did not seem to think that this kind of thing in any way excused a certain reluctance on the part of the Rhodesian Government to confer with the assassins or to invite them to join the Government. But when Mr. Smith hits back Dr. Owen announces that the Patriotic Front will not be bombed into agreement. It has all been such a case of double values.

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I do not know whether any of your Lordships ever read the Andy Capp cartoon. There is one in which Andy Capp is lying on a settee asleep with his feet on his wife's lap, and a visitor is sitting perched on the edge of a stool. Florrie observes: "'E's 'orrible. Of course 'e's 'orrible; but 'e's fair—'e's 'orrible to everybody". That is the trouble with Dr. Owen: he lacks Andy's redeeming virtue; he just is not fair. As an arbitrator or conciliator he has made himself hopelessly unacceptable. That is the difficulty we are facing.
As I have said, it has been a tale of decisions taken in haste and regretted at leisure. We shall learn our lessons. I think one lesson is that the Foreign Office is not the job for a young man. It does not require zest and enthusiasm; it requires patience and experience. That great master of this art, Prince Talleyrand, introducing his staff to a successor on one occasion, said: "You will find them careful, conscientious and industrious, but you will not find them zealous. Zeal is always discouraged in this office." On another occasion he observed, "No letter should be written today if it can be postponed till tomorrow, or posted today if it can be postponed till the day after. I have often earned the gratitude of my imperial master when I was able to tell him some days later that the orders he had given had not yet been executed."
Taking an example of that, the first thing that Dr. Owen did was to jump in where angels had feared to tread and order the Bingham Report. Why? What was the point of inquiring here? Everybody knew that Rhodesia had been getting oil, and everybody knew that that oil originated in the companies which brought the oil. Everybody knew that it went through Lourenço Marques. I certainly did. I saw the trucks in Lourenço Marques: they were all clearly marked. Everybody knew perfectly well what was happening. I do not say that I knew the precise book entries which covered it, but the subsequence of the company oil going to Rhodesia was known to everybody. I raised it time and again in another place, when I complained about the Biera blockade. What could an inquiry do except what it has done—embarrass a lot of Ministers in two Parties who were doing their best to serve their
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country and, far worse, grossly embarrass our country in its international relations? I really feel that a man with more experience and in less of a hurry would have known better than to institute this fatuous inquiry; and at least I hope that we shall decide not to do anything further about it.
Further, I would say that the Foreign Secretary ought not to be a travelling man. It is our Foreign Secretary's duty to take decisions. In this he differs from the American Secretary of State. In America, decisions come from the President with Congressional consent. With us, if the Foreign Secretary makes a decision it is very difficult for the Cabinet to repudiate it. Decisions should be made here and considered by Cabinet before they are announced or before they become effective. Negotiations should be the job of ambassadors. Switzerland, that wisest of countries, has an admirable law. It has a law that its Foreign Secretary must never leave the country. I wish we had the same. I think Kano is a very good example of that. I cannot believe that the Kano agreements would ever have got through Cabinet if they had been brought before Cabinet, with the number of contradictions and the silliness involved. There was this supply of arms with this lack of consideration of what it would do, and even without consideration of the risks. After all, Smith controlled the air here. Why he did not intercept the planes, order them into Salisbury, bring them before a prize court and condemn them for carrying contraband of war, I do not know. If he had, we would have got what we thoroughly deserved. As it is, we simply put this at his mercy. I think it is worth noting that while Kaunda was engaged on a soft touch in Kano, Mr. Nkomo went to Moscow, where, I am told, he got a rather rough answer and the Russians said they were not supplying arms for the Rhodesians to take over at their leisure.
I think that another thing we should learn is that our Foreign Secretary should keep away from the United Nations. We have always had the difficulty of ambassadors becoming involved in the interests of courts to which they were accredited and beginning to wonder which side they were on. This is a mild difficulty compared to a Minister who begins to fall in love with the United

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Nations. When you get the case of this splendid young man who understands the Third World, he begins to be in deep difficulty as to whether he is playing up to his image or representing our interests. Mr. John Silkin of Brussels suffers from none of these difficulties.
The third thing—and this is perhaps a Labour Party point—is that a Foreign Secretary should be at the end and not at the beginning of his career. Otherwise, his career interests will be very apt to conflict with the national interest. Dr. Owen was thrust forward by appointment; but if he is to be the boy who gets the salmon when the boat comes in, he must get and keep the support of the great soft centre, the bleeding heart, of the Labour Party. Failure to do this destroyed Michael Stewart who was a very good Foreign Secretary. This bleeding heart cares for high principles, peace, internationalism, the fellowship of man; but it does not think much of British interests—they tend to be imperialist, capitalist, selfish, nationalist; and nationalists have a bad name if they are not black.
When Owen, the other day, mentioned that he felt the Shah served British interests better then an oil and water combination of Tudeh Communists and fundamentalist mullahs, he got into bad trouble. He did not like it at all. What is going to be his position when we get to South African sanctions? Not only have we £5 billions of investment and much trade, but South Africa shares with Russia a near monopoly of a number of metals on which our steel, chemical and electrical industries depend completely. If he commits that folly there would be only one of two alternatives: either go into mass unemployment or rely on our company men to outsmart our friends in cheating the sanctions.
What should we do now? We are faced with a bipartisan policy, and a bipartisan policy is always desperately difficult to get rid of. It is a very dangerous thing. A bipartisan policy only holds together when it is cemented by a common disaster for which neither Party dare admit responsibility. That is our situation with regard to Rhodesia. I believe that, not necessarily the Foreign Secretary, but the great majority of the Government who
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place British interests first would be extremely thankful if somebody would rid them of these sanctions without their having to take the responsibility. I believe also that the Conservative Party would not be unrelieved if somebody would take the responsibility of getting rid of it all—and that is what we have got an opportunity of doing tonight. If we rid ourselves of sanctions we can arbitrate and mediate. We cannot do so while we are imposing sanctions. Nobody can be an arbitrator; nobody can be a mediator who is committed to impose sanctions on one of the two people between whom he is arbitrating. Our position in being able to arbitrate depends absolutely on our getting rid of these sanctions.
If we reject them tonight—as I profoundly hope we shall—the Government may come back in a week or so with another order. However, if they do so they will have to persuade us to accept it the second time. They can only do that by offering us something. The noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, suggested that we should have a resident Minister in Salisbury and that we should provide technical assistance to enable the Government to get on with their proposals with regard to elections, et cetera. If we reject sanctions and the Government come back, we can ask for that. If we have rejected sanctions, they probably will have to give it to us. But if we do not reject sanctions, if they do not have to come back to us, then we can get nothing. On every view, therefore, it seems to me that a vote against this order is right tonight. There is no doubt that the great mass of the British people are with us. Polls have showed a massive majority against sanctions. This is perhaps—and it may be—the most important vote that we shall ever have to cast. I urge your Lordships to cast it for England.
11.52 p.m.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, I cannot hope to compete with the savaging of a Labour Foreign Secretary by a member of his own Party. They always do it rather more effectively than the Tories. If the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, had been Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I suspect that we should not be in the same muddle that we are in now. He has always shown a more constructive

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appreciation of the diplomatic situation and a healthier regard for the real affairs of this world. He is also more sensitive and he has greater historical knowledge than the present incumbent. Above all, he would not have shown the unjustified optimism that appears in Government speeches on Rhodesia or uttered the Panglossian and Micawberish bleats about the Anglo-American proposals which come from Dr. Owen.
Optimism even appeared when the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor spoke this afternoon when he said that one of the main points of this order was to legalise marriage and adoption in Rhodesia. This optimism is totally unjustified. Already, the Rhodesian bath is gradually filling with blood. We cannot yet lounge in it but the taps are turned full on. Russian-armed terrorists, South African-armed Rhodesians and private armies of all complexions are shooting at each other with gay abandon. Most revel in atrocities. For free votes Mugabe cares not a fig; Nkomo chuckles smugly at a shot-down civilian airliner and the consequent massacre of its surviving passengers. Some 100,000 children are abducted—and the Government did not deny this figure. Are these liberal democratic tendencies?
Mr. Smith, who is not an Olympic gold medalist for democracy—in fact he would be an Olympic gold medallist in the "too little and too late" stakes—has perhaps realised (and I say only "perhaps") that the previous plans and desires of the settler community can no longer profitably be continued. These desires, I think it is accepted by most of your Lordships, have been the main cause of the present impasse. Oh for the interim Government if it had been available in 1965! The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, demonstrated that absolutely correctly.
The Kremlin mouths sanctimonious slogans for African freedom, hypocrisy is shown by Bingham, oil companies break the law and Ministers know it, and a Birmingham merchant is fined eighty quid for importing wrought iron copper-ware from Rhodesia! Deep pessimism is the order of the day. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester asked in an intervention who had accused the Roman Church of being infiltrated by
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Marxism. The answer is the Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in last night's Reith Lecture. Freedom and democracy are strangers in Africa. Is the General who commands in Nigeria, where they shoot criminals as a Sunday afternoon carnival treat, any less or more of a democrat than Ian Smith? Both came to power by coup d'état—one by bogus legislation and the other by Askaris. Is Kaunda, who has just rigged his country's constitution so that no one can stand against him, the successor of Demosthenes and Bright?
From this black despair, one has to make up one's mind—my Lords, I say "mind" and not gut feeling—tonight on the basis of self-interest. Is self-interest best supported by adopting the interim settlement? All of us on this side seem to agree with that proposition. Does lifting sanctions provide the best support? This is where we begin to differ. I think so. The interim Government is a second best. The best is unattainable. It is a Government half-attuned to our values. A Government of Mugabe and Nkomo would be a Government alien to those values. It would be a Government of savages—and not of the "noble savages" of Rousseau. I use that word advisedly. I and other speakers have detailed some of those savageries. I made by maiden speech seven years ago on this subject. The noble Baroness, Lady Llewelyn-Davies, spoke for the then Opposition, and noted with distaste that Joshua Nkomo and the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole were in prison. The contrast to that in the present position is revealing: one tries to talk, the other guns. The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, demonstrated the fawning on the terrorist and the shunning of the talker.
I have listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Home. It is difficult for me to think of two men whom I respect more. So far they have failed to stop my voting against the Motion. Perhaps I would have been more inclined if they had used the plea to vote for the Motion, but pleas for abstention are hard to follow. I shall, of course, listen carefully to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, whom I certainly respect as much as the others. I put against that what has been said by the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Home, and what the

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noble Lords, Lord George-Brown and Lord Blake, and the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said. I also know—I checked with him before I said this—that a great and good liberal Colonial Secretary (and I use the word in its proper sense and not in its petty sense as applied to Mr. David Steel and his colleagues) who voted against the Uganda Asians Act on Second Reading is going to vote against this Motion: I refer to the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton.
My Lords, Pliny said: "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi"—"Out of Africa always something new". I suggest that this aphorism should be changed to: "Ex Africa semper eadem excepto in Rhodesia"—"Out of Africa always the same except in Rhodesia." The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, checked this Latin with me, because I asked him before making this speech. The second best is the interim settlement, and that must be preferred to the tyranny, corruption and incompetence of the rest of Africa. That second best, my Lords, as best as I can judge, is best helped by defeating this Motion.
11.59 p.m.
Lord CARADON: My Lords, the night before last I was in Harvard University, and I read in the newspapers that the fate of Africa was likely to be decided in this House this evening. I therefore came to the conclusion that education might be more necessary on this side of the Atlantic than the other, and I have come here in all haste to take some part in the deliberations of your Lordships' noble House. I do so because I have had some part, a minor role no doubt, in difficult matters of Rhodesia and Southern Africa over a number of years.
I do not forget that, when I was at the United Nations some 15 years ago with the rank of ambassador, I resigned from my position because the Conservative Government at that time refused to admit African leaders into consultation about the future of Rhodesia. I remember that occasion now. I remember, too, when I went back to the United Nations later, having to return to this House where the decision had been taken some years ago to rescind the sanctions order. It was necessary, so I was told, to come back in
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order to take my part in the debate so as to get the order re-established.
Over many years in the United Nations —and I am glad to give my testimony accordingly—on the encouragement and on the specific instruction of my Government, I had the task of doing everything I possibly could in order to ensure that sanctions were fully applied and carried the widest possible support. Among the achievements of my delegation when I was at the United Nations, maybe the chief achievement of all was to obtain a comprehensive and unanimous vote in 1968—it is not an easy thing to get a unanimous vote on Rhodesia—to impose the full sanctions, after a series of previous resolutions had been passed. I subsequently had an opportunity of attending United Nations conferences, first in Maputo and then in Lagos, called on the future of Southern Africa, where I had an opportunity of realising that the overwhelming support in the world, not only in Africa but in Asia and in the Commonwealth—wherever you look—is for the policy which we have been consistently pursuing under the directions of the Party which I serve.
So I go back over those recollections when I speak to your Lordships this evening, for a few minutes only at this late hour, with three thoughts in my mind. First, I would speak about our obligations to Africa; then, perhaps, a word on our obligations to the international community, but, most of all, on our obligations to ourselves. I felt as I listened to this debate, and as I listened to part of the debate last night in the other place, that there really is not an adequate understanding of the urgency, the danger, which is upon us. We talk as if we can make decisions and alter events when already the war is joined in Rhodesia; when a race war in Africa has already begun.
We talk in a casual manner as if we are speaking of Rhodesia alone. It is not Rhodesia alone. Rhodesia is an early episode in the race war of Africa, and it will be worse than a race war, because it will be a race war with a cold war. I would earnestly put it to this House that when you get both together there can be nothing more serious in the world than a war in Africa between white and black, with the West supporting one side and the East another. I shudder to

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think of the repercussions in this country and in the United States, too, of a long-drawn-out war, which would not be a war between armies. It would be a war of so-called terrorism and repression.
We worry about the Middle East. I spent a great deal of my time in it, and I have recently come back from visiting there. I have also been in Central Africa. I believe that the dangers of a race war in the world, already begun, are so great that much of what we have said this afternoon is irrelevant and inadequate.
So the first obligation is to Africa, and I say with the utmost sincerity that if we in this House tonight were to say that sanctions should be removed, if we were to give encouragement to Ian Smith, who has led his country over a period of decades right through the processes of terrorism—yes, his own terrorism—to a state of open warfare and who has thrown away opportunity after opportunity, and if we were to come down on his side tonight and to say that this House and this country are willing to support a faction which has forfeited all respect in Africa and in the world, then I believe that it would be a declaration of our joining in a civil war. Therefore I believe that we have an obligation to Africa.
Also we have some obligation to the international community. Nobody doubts the legal position. Sometimes you forget that when you enter the United Nations you make one solemn obligation only: that under Article 25 of the Charter of the United Nations, every country that enters the United Nations swears that it will carry out the mandatory calls of the Security Council. South Africa is required to do so. South Africa has refused to pay any attention to its international obligations. We have no reason to be grateful to South Africa. South Africa has created the situation which we now strive to tackle. South Africa has created a world situation which is of the utmost danger, and I think that we have been too considerate to South Africa. We are afraid even to speak to her in strong terms. I think the time is soon coming when we shall have to say to South Africa, "Either you carry out your international obligations and show yourself a worthy member of the international community, or you, too, will suffer the condemnation and the ostracism of the world." I believe that when it has
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been said it may not be necessary to go to the length of carrying it out. Once it is clear that you mean it and that you intend to carry it out, then I believe that the result may be adequate.
I should also like to say that the sort of sneering references which we had from the noble Earl who spoke just now are fairly common these days. I heard them yesterday in the other place. We hear them in this House. I think it will be very serious if, in this country particularly, we reach the stage when we seek to destroy the principal instrument of international authority—when we propose, by our sneering references, to remove the hope of the world for a peaceful settlement where other means have failed.
I think that it is necessary for some restraint to be shown in the references which are made to the international community. Sometimes I think that we are listening—perhaps I can say this at my age—to old men who, familiar with a bygone age of national power, are unable to adjust themselves and to become familiar with a different age in which what is necessary is not power and force but international agreement and international co-operation. It will be a great pity if we in this House reach the stage where we can assume even the references by the noble Leader opposite, whom I greatly respect, who said in passing, I think I am right in remembering, that we cannot expect the United Nations to be able to do anything; we cannot expect United Nations' sanctions to have any effect. If that is the kind of attitude we are going to take in our Parliament, then I believe that before the United Nations had been able to be used as an instrument of peace we should have been seeking to destroy its effectiveness. I think that we must consider our obligation to the international community, but I intend to speak more about our obligation to ourselves.
It is necessary surely that we should take a lead in international affairs. It is not a question of exercising force but of taking a lead and, with the greatest respect, speaking to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, I should like to say that I was filled with admiration for the fact that would turn his speech today not to abuse and criticism but to a constructive advance, and I should like to put a suggestion to him which I believe may fit

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in with what he has in mind. I expect he is aware that last week there was a meeting of an organisation known as the Commonwealth Committee on Southern Africa. I wonder whether he is aware of the decisions of that body, usually unanimously taken, because I believe it might well be that where we are looking for a new initiative, that initiative might well be that of the Commonwealth. There you would get Members of the Security Council, including Canada, and there you would also get the African representation. I think in a matter of this kind the Commonwealth can have a vital role to play and I believe it might well fit in with the search for an independent body which could speak with authority to all those concerned and make progress towards an eventual conference and a conclusion.
So I would suggest that we might go back now to the United Nations, not on the defensive, not to exercise our veto, but with a practical proposal. Why not go to the United Nations now and put forward a proposal, and I suggest that it might be under the six heads. The initiative might be British. We have an original obligation, so I suggest that the initiative to go to the United Nations might well be ours and I believe we should do so with the full support and understanding of the Commonwealth group, which should be drawn from all sections of the Commonwealth. We should seek international approval. I should like to emphasise that it must be international because if we are going to try to deal with this matter by scoring off East against West and turning the race war into a cold war, that is not the way to proceed. We have agreement for the 1968 resolution, where we had the Russians, the Africans, the Asians and everyone else agreeing to act together. That is the way to proceed; not to attempt to deal with it by scoring off the other side.
Therefore, I think we should conclude our six points if we had the British initiative, the Commonwealth association, the international approval, and certainly there must be an impartial transition. There is no other way than an impartial and independent transition. Certainly also there must be free elections under United Nations supervision and with a United Nations force to ensure that these objects can be satisfactorily carried out. I believe these suggestions of the six
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proposals are not out of line with what has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. We have very little time left and I believe it is right that we should take the initiative and deal with it on an international basis, and that we should be prepared to go East and West and also North and South in order to get a new initiative which is likely to break the deadlock and to bring the matter forward to a satisfactory conclusion.
12.15 a.m.
Viscount CALDECOTE: My Lords, I would like to apologise to the House for not having been here throughout this debate; I did listen to the opening speeches with great care and attention, particularly to the speech of my noble Leader Lord Carrington. I must also declare an interest according to our normal practice, because I have in Rhodesia business interests and also many, many friends.
There are two aspects of this debate, the Bingham Report about the past and the continuation of sanctions about the future. I do not propose to discuss the Bingham Report about the past, because to my mind the situation is far too serious to spend time on the past, allocating blame and crying over spilt milk. I want to concentrate, constructively I hope, on the future, on how to prevent more blood being spilled in a now literally pointless fight. That is what matters, surely, above all else. For now I believe there is little time left to avert disaster. But we should not underestimate the progress that has been made in 1978; above all, the acceptance by Mr. Smith of rapid progress towards majority rule and the agreement to form the transitional government. I do not agree at all with the noble Lord, Lord Caradon, who has just spoken so persuasively and with such authority, that we should speak scathingly of Mr. Smith. He has over many years borne a heavy burden with courage and fortitude, in the interests of his country as he sees it.
Shortly after the transitional Government agreement earlier this year we had a debate in your Lordships' House, and at that time I said, "We need to do our utmost to persuade the United Nations to deter external interventions which could easily wreck the election". In the event nothing at all has been done to

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prevent that external interference, and we now see that the progress towards free and fair elections is being interfered with. Indeed, not only have we done nothing about removing that interference; I believe the way the British Government have handled the situation has encouraged the guerrillas to go on fighting in the belief that ultimately, if they go on long enough and make life difficult enough for the transitional Government, Rhodesia will fall into their hands like a ripe plum.
Now we have to face the grim fact that by this time next year—probably a good deal sooner—we shall know whether the new Zimbabwe is to be the first genuinely non-racial African State with its black and white citizens working together to rebuild their country and their economy, or whether the new Zimbabwe is to become another base for international Communism like Angola; whether its industry and economy will be largely destroyed through conflict and neglect, as has happened in neighbouring Zambia. Which way Zimbabwe will go will be determined in the next few months, and it will be determined in large measure by the actions and the pressures and the influences that we in Britain bring to bear. There is no avoiding that responsibility. We have always had a responsibility for Rhodesia, in my view, however much we may have tried to hand it over to others. And it is no easy task.
As I understand the situation, there are two crucial steps in front of us. First, there is the need to have a referendum among the present white electorate on the new constitution when that constitution has been published. It is, therefore, urgently necessary that that constitution should be completed at the earliest possible moment so that the referendum can be carried out. It is urgently necessary that the referendum be carried out with the least possible delay. It seems to me that the importance of that step, the referendum, has been greatly underestimated; we very seldom hear it mentioned. It will mark the end of a very long road, particularly for Mr. Ian Smith, and I will return to his position in a moment. Secondly, elections need to be held in conditions which are free and fair.
How should British influence be brought to bear on those two problems, the next two steps, to encourage progress along
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the road we want it to go? First, I believe that we should offer all possible help to the transitional Government on completing the new constitution and preparing for the referendum and elections. We have great experience in such matters, as other noble Lords have mentioned. I ask Her Majesty's Government what help we have offered to the transitional Government to assist them along that road and, if we have not offered them help, why have we not done so? Surely we are all agreed that the referendum and free and fair elections are essential steps towards the formation of a non-racial Zimbabwe. I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply will answer those questions frankly.
After the referendum, which I hope and believe will accept the new constitution—if it does not we can forget the future of Zimbabwe—I believe that there will be a very great and exciting opportunity to make real progress and to remove obstacles in the way of free and fair elections. As I understand it, the main obstacle at present is the continued fighting to which the absence of Mr. Nkomo in the transitional Government greatly contributes. However, I believe that there are many people who are involved in this long struggle who are desperately looking for a face-saving way to get themselves out of untenable situations. Among them is Mr. Ian Smith himself who, as I have said, has borne a heavy burden with courage and fortitude for many years. There is Dr. Kaunda and perhaps many other Front-Line Presidents whose countries are being destroyed and damaged by the Rhodesian conflict. There is Dr. Owen and his colleagues who I believe genuinely want a solution, but they are prisoners of their past mistakes and their anti-Smith vendetta. There is Mr. Nkomo with his rigid antipathy to the transitional Government, especially to Mr. Smith himself.
It seems very likely that the new constitution, if accepted by the referendum, will be accepted. If it is, then surely there would be a good chance that Mr. Smith with the right kind of encouragement and help from us, might be persuaded to resign and retire from his arduous task. On many occasions he has said that he wants to resign and retire to his farm as soon as he feels that his work is done.

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In that event, surely we should encourage him to do so. If we could do that and it led to a great diminution in the fighting we should have conditions under which free elections were much more likely to take place, and the acceptance of the new constitution by the white population in Rhodesia would set the seal on that.
If Mr. Smith retired it would greatly improve the chance of attracting Mr. Nkomo to come into the transitional Government, of getting support from surrounding countries to stop the fighting and of holding free and fair elections. There would then surely be no shred of case for continuing sanctions. As I understand the opening speech of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, it would be possible at that stage to rescind the sanctions order by Order in Council, even if we passed the Southern Rhodesia Act (Continuation) Order today.
It seems to me that in those circumstances we ought to take the opportunity of proceeding along the lines that I have suggested and encourage Mr. Smith to retire, and thus make progress in that way. If your Lordships believe that that is the kind of way we should go, then I believe that to defeat the Southern Rhodesia Act (Continuation) Order tonight would be merely a diversion from the real problems of Rhodesia. Therefore, on balance, I shall not vote against the order. It is no easy decision for someone who has great affection for Rhodesia, who often goes there and who has many friends there. So what does someone in that position do? Does he just abstain or does he vote for the order? I have come to the conclusion that on balance—and I find this a most difficult decision—it is better to vote for something rather than to abstain. Therefore, for those reasons I propose to vote for the re-establishment of the Southern Rhodesia Order. However, I am doing so because I believe that to defeat the order tonight would be a diversion.
I submit that by far the best chance of reaching a solution to these difficult problems is for Her Majesty's Government, first, to give positive support to the referendum and the new constitution; secondly, to encourage Mr. Smith to retire and to give him and all his Rhodesian colleagues a free pardon, as has often been
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done for other African rebels; thirdly, to promise to give full support to the removal of sanctions when the new constitution has been accepted, and to make one great effort to get Mr. Nkomo into the transitional Government, because I believe that that gives the best chance of carrying out elections without the distractions of guerrilla fighting.
I realise that that kind of procedure will be criticised because it will be said that I am suggesting that sanctions should be lifted before African opinion has been tested. That, of course, is correct. But I can see no way of removing the impasse—the vicious circle—into which we have got ourselves other than by adopting the kind of suggestions that I have made. For if Mr. Smith remains, there is no chance of getting Mr. Nkomo into the transitional Government. Without his support, fighting will continue and elections will virtually be impossible.
Therefore, in the interests of all the suffering peoples of Rhodesia, let us bury our hatchets, forget personal vendettas and our amour propre; let us stand no longer on legal niceties nor on our dignities, for the stakes are far too high. Let us use our influence in a practical, pragmatic way at this very critical stage, because if we do not, and if we hesitate now, the chance will be lost and the only outcome can be more bloodshed and more chaos for which we, in this country, will bear a very heavy responsibility.
12.27 a.m.
Lord WALSTON: My Lords, I have rarely listened to so many wise and statesmanlike speeches from noble Lords on all sides of the House. But I must also say that I cannot remember ever having listened to so many speeches so full of arrant nonsense and muddled thinking as I have heard during various times this evening. I am sorely tempted to attempt to refute some of the arguments, or so-called arguments, that we have heard. I shall not do so, not only because the hour is late but also because—and I do not like to say this but I think it should be said—I think that those who have made such speeches are so surrounded by prejudice and ignorance that even if I were to speak with the tongues of serpents—which I certainly cannot—it would make no impact on them whatever.

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Therefore, instead I shall do no more than very briefly try to suggest to your Lordships some of the areas where I believe there is agreement on all sides of the House and from those of all shades of opinion. First, we must all agree that Rhodesia today is, if not actually embroiled in civil war, on the brink of it. Secondly, we are all agreed that the United Kingdom today, even less than in 1965, is in no position to intervene with any armed force in order to prevent the bloodshed which is taking place and which will accelerate as the weeks and the months go by.
Thirdly, I am certain we all agree that our overriding objective is to bring that bloodshed to an end; to do what we can to ensure that in Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe (what does it matter what it is called?) in the years ahead, not that Mr. Smith will be able to retire to his farm or be Prime Minister, not that Bishop Muzorewa will hold the reins of power, not that Mr. Nkomo will become the President or, whatever it may be, but that the ordinary people of Rhodesia are able to cultivate their land, to bring up their children, to look forward to a future which is peaceful and has opportunity without the fear of being caught in the crossfire of the security forces, the guerrilla forces, the freedom fighters, the terrorists—it does not matter what they are called when you are shot by them. That is what we all want.
How can we achieve that, given the fact that we cannot use our own force, or introduce force from other people? Surely there can be only one hope, albeit a slender one, and that is that there should be talks; that the conflicting sides should be brought together in an attempt to reach some solution other than the solution which is imposed by firepower. Whether one agrees with the steps that have been taken by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary or not, that has been what he has been attempting to do.
It has been suggested here that he has shown favour to Nkomo and Mugabe and he has spurned the others. I do not think that that is right. He has spoken to them. He has not always laid out the red carpet for them. I myself have talked with Nkomo sitting in the public lounge at a fogbound Heathrow Airport; and no VIP lounge for him at that time. I thought myself it was rather unwise. Now he is
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treated as an important character, as indeed he is, and so is Mr. Mugabe, and so is Mr. Sithole and Bishop Muzorewa, who have both recently been here. There is no favouritism there.
When it comes to Mr. Smith, surely that is a very different kettle of fish. After all, we must not forget that Mr. Smith is in rebellion not against the Government, not against the Labour Party, but against Her Majesty, against the Queen, to whom he swore an oath of loyalty. He has done nothing to retract that rebellion; he is still in a state of rebellion. Surely, my Lords, and particularly your Lordships on the Opposition Benches who yield to no one in your loyalty to the Crown or in your belief in the sanctity of an oath, you cannot seriously suggest that that man should be invited, while still in a state of rebellion, while having uttered no word of retraction, to come to this country and be treated as an honoured head of State. We are not so bound by protocol that we do not talk to him. We have had many talks with him, but I think we have gone quite far enough in that.
We are today discussing sanctions. That is the issue on which we have to vote. Where we have to make up our minds—having, I hope, agreed that talks are the only way in which there is the slightest chance, however remote, that this problem can be solved without further bloodshed—is on whether it is more likely that we can achieve talks by abandoning sanctions tonight or by maintaining them. Your Lordships have heard arguments. I cannot add to them. All I can say is that to my mind logic makes it abundantly clear that if we were to remove sanctions tonight that would be looked upon, whether rightly or wrongly, by Nkomo and Mugabe, and by many others too, as an abandonment of any hope of a peaceful settlement; of support for a régime they do not believe is right for their country. It will force them into believing that the only hope to achieve their aims is by firepower, and their only allies in that will be the Soviet Union, Cuba—all those terrible bogeymen of whom we have heard so much.
Therefore, whatever one's attitude towards the history of this sorry affair, and whatever one's feelings about people individually, I can see no other conclusion that can be drawn but that the removal

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of sanctions would exacerbate the war, increase the slaughter and increase the risk of more Soviet domination in that part of Africa. The maintenance of sanctions will at least provide a slender hope that talks could take place and that peace might come to that unhappy land.
12.37 a.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, at this late hour I shall be as brief as possible, and perhaps I should apologise for speaking at all. In 1968, Tories in both Houses voted against United Nations mandatory sanctions. I believe we did so correctly because we felt that Rhodesia was the responsibility of the United Kingdom and that that responsibility should not be passed to the United Nations; we felt that otherwise it would make it very much more difficult to lift sanctions when it was desirable to do so. I am afraid our warnings then are being proved to be only too true.
Each year ever since we, in all parts of the House, have supported sanctions. Each November the same arguments are put forward: "Please continue them for one more year. Please give them a chance". I submit that the position has radically changed since we debated the subject a year ago. I have, rather reluctantly, supported sanctions in the 10 years that have elapsed because I have thought it would help persuade Mr. Ian Smith to accept the six salient conditions which successive Governments have demanded. Last March Mr. Smith accepted them and agreed to multiracial government, majority rule, with solid guarantees for minorities; and, after all, we all believe in guarantees for minorities whether they be in Northern Ireland or Rhodesia. I feel, therefore, that there is now a different situation and that I must therefore on this occasion vote for the lifting of sanctions.
It is said persuasively by great statesmen in your Lordships' House that if we vote against sanctions and defeat the Government tonight we shall be breaking United Nations law and a mandatory resolution. But there are many first-class Powers, also members of the Security Council, such as France, which have found no difficulty whatever in breaking sanctions year after year. One
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need only go to South Africa or East Africa and see the number of cars there; one sees every sort of product that France and Germany produce. They have never felt inhibited in breaking sanctions or United Nations rules. Indeed, there have been times when a committee of the United Nations has voted solidly that we should hand Gibraltar over to Franco Spain. I am glad to say that we took absolutely no notice of that resolution either.
Many Peers may not have received a letter from the Foreign Office in Rhodesia. I fear that a number of copies did not arrive here and I have asked the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, to look into this; only very few have got through. The letter points out that the United States of America passed a resolution in both its Houses. The letter states:
"it is pertinent to recall that the United States Senate and House of Representatives agreed to a joint motion on 11 August 1978, declaring the sanctions should be abandoned after 31 December 1978, provided that the President was satisfied over Rhodesia's willingness to negotiate in good faith and to hold fair and free elections".
The point here is that both Chambers of Congress did not say that they would make representations to the United Nations to lift sanctions. They made no reference to this at all. They merely said that the United States Congress would make this judgment and would act bilaterally. So are we going to be more obligated to the United Nations than was the United States Congress? I believe that we should set that point aside and that we should do what we believe is in the interests of a peaceful settlement in Rhodesia.
My noble friends Lord Home of the Hirsel and Lord Carrington, and others, have made constructive suggestions as to what action should be taken in preparation for elections and for a stable and peaceful Government in Rhodesia. Many of us in all parts of the House feel that Her Majesty's Government are giving too much support to the guerrilla forces led by Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Nkomo, and that during what has become a civil war—and a desperate and disastrous one—no aid and only little comfort is being given to the interim Government.
I should like to suggest that the Government should seriously consider some of the constructive suggestions that have

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been put forward by my noble friends Lord Home and Lord Carrington, and others. Would it not be worth while now, within the next few days, to send a Minister of Cabinet rank to Salisbury? This was proposed by Lord Home and was also touched upon by Mr. Francis Pym in another place. Would it not be worth while to take up the proposal that we form a contact team as was sent to bring about such a satisfactory settlement—or, at any rate, a very promising settlement—in Namibia? Would it not be worth while to think about a Camp David-type conference led by the British Prime Minister? That was proposed by, I think, Lord Home, and Lord Carrington as well. Why should we not lend parliamentary draftsmen to help the interim Government to draft the constitution? Why should we not assist them to draft laws concerning racial equality and land ownership?
If they are dragging their feet, perhaps it is because they do not have the expertise. Probably they have no more expertise in Rhodesia than some of our county councils would have if they were asked in a few months, when a civil war was on their hands, to make drafts of such vast importance. So could we not help them in this respect? Would not all these actions help the morale of those in the interim Government who are dedicated to a peaceful and satisfactory multi-racial settlement in that poor country? It would certainly improve their morale at a time when they are badly in need of help.
If those of us who believe that sanctions should be lifted defeat the Government tonight—as I hope we shall—we shall be giving Her Majesty's Government and the Commons, in the classic words which I have heard so many times in your Lordships' House, time to think again. The Government have brought the order forward rather belatedly, but there is still time. We have until midnight on 14th November or 15th November. Remember, my Lords, that we passed all stages of the Bill on Rhodesian sanctions through both Houses in a single day on 15th November 1968. So there is certainly time to bring this back. In the meantime, the Government could think about the constructive proposals put forward by people of great wisdom in this House and in another place as well.
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If they agree to do this, perhaps when the order comes back to this House many of us will think again about voting against it and think that it would be wiser in the long-term interests to let it through.
The Government have constructive alternatives before them. They have some possible solutions. I want to ask them to think most carefully about these solutions. I hope that many of us will give them those five or six days to carry out this thinking by voting later tonight against the continuation of sanctions.
12.45 a.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, although it is so early in the morning I will, for the sake of reasonable brevity, confine my remarks to the question of sanctions only. I must tell your Lordships straight away that, from listening to this debate, I have reached the opposite conclusions to the conclusions reached by my noble friend who has just sat down, although I in fact agree with many of the points that he made. In deciding how to vote tonight, I am bound to ask myself the same question as my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition asked himself. I paraphrase it in this way: Would the unilateral removal of sanctions by the United Kingdom now improve or weaken the prospect of an independent Rhodesia in which black and white can live and work together in peace? I think that is what we are talking about.
I can answer that question only in the light of certain beliefs. I think, first of all, that successive Conservative and Labour Governments have been right to lay down and stick to principles with which Rhodesia must comply before her Government is recognised again. The fact that their adoption in other African countries has usually meant one man one vote once only does not alter my view. It is no bad thing, my Lords, to launch a ship on an even keel. Secondly, although no country in Africa can be described as a Parliamentary democracy (I think that in spite of what the Foreign Secretary said about Basutoland, on which I am not an expert)—and precious few countries elsewhere in the world can, for that matter —Kenya has demonstrated that a non-racial society can flourish, albeit with greatly changed standards, even after a rebellion in which some 25,000 Africans

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and close on 100 Europeans were slaughtered by Mau Mau, headed by the man who became President. Perhaps there is some hope in that.
Following on from that, although I think Kenya serves as the best example of what Rhodesia could achieve, I think Rhodesia has several much greater advantages. The country is comparatively free from inter-tribal conflict in comparison with Kenya, although there is no love lost at all, as many noble Lords know, between the Shona and the Matabele. Rhodesia is rich in natural resources; and as well as having a competent Civil Service, well trained over many years, since virtual independence in 1923 she has had many African graduates in politics and the professions. These, I think, are great advantages.
Next, the tests of public opinion through a referendum for the white people followed by a general election must now, unhappily, take place in dangerous and unfavourable conditions. But provided there is an honest intention to make the election as free and fair as possible, surely we must accept the result of these tests. I think the longer these essential tests of public opinion are delayed, the less free, and therefore the less fair, are they likely to be. I remark in passing here that we have been given no good reasons by the transitional Government for the delay in holding these tests of public opinion, and this concerns me greatly. To this end, my Lords, everything possible must still be done, I feel, to persuade Mr. Nkomo and, if possible, Mr. Mugabe (though I think that is a slender hope) to play their part in electing a constitutional Government. Such persuasion can no longer be matched, though, by the Government's ambivalent and even hostile attitude to an internal settlement. Therefore, it surely follows that the transitional Government deserves and should have our full support and encouragement, though not our recognition.
Surely, too, we should follow up the suggestion made by a number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel, and send to Salisbury a senior representative, of Cabinet rank, to represent the British Government's view there. As a small gesture, could we not relax some of the quite unnecessary
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restrictions on Rhodesians wishing to visit the United Kingdom? I think that would be very well received in Rhodesia. Immediately it is clear that Rhodesia has taken all steps to comply with the Five Principles and acted to repeal all the discriminatory laws—and here, again, delays are worrying and unexplained—what then? Of course, United Nations sanctions should then be removed at once. But are there adequate contingency plans to give that lovely country of Rhodesia a rapid, major boost to restore her weakened economy and to rebuild the damaged fabric of her education, health and other services? We have not been told much about these plans. I should appreciate it very much if when the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, comes to reply he will reassure us that such plans exist and that Britain is prepared to lead such a rescue operation, calling for the support from all right-minded countries.
Finally, under this heading, I believe that Mr. Francis Pym's excellent suggestion of a Rhodesia Camp David-type meeting should be urgently followed up with no delay whatsoever. The noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, recommended to the House that nothing would be lost by a little old-fashioned diplomacy. For my part, I could not agree more. But the Prime Minister's comment when intervening in Mr. Pym's speech in the other place, that neither side is yet willing to make the necessary compromises—and I think those were his exact words—begs the whole question. There were no compromises of any significance at all before the Camp David meeting between President Sadat and Mr. Begin; and who seriously thought that Mr. Begin would agree to the withdrawal of all the Israeli settlements from the Sinai as a result of those discussions and that he would get the blessing of his Cabinet? I doubt whether any noble Lord can put his hand on his heart and say that he was expecting that result. So perhaps there is some real hope in such a meeting.
So much for my general thoughts. My question was whether sanctions still have a part to play in helping Rhodesia to find a way out of her tragic dilemma. Those who advocate ending sanctions seem to use two quite different arguments. First, they say—some of them—that sanctions are ineffective because they have been so widely broken and they are therefore

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simply a farce. Secondly—sometimes in the same speech—one hears that sanctions are damaging Rhodesia's economy and weakening her ability to defend herself against her enemies within and without. In words I take from The Times last week, even a "moron in a hurry" can see how contradictory those two arguments are. The Smith régime was never in any doubt that sanctions would follow a declaration of UDI; but they believed that they could live with them. Mr. Smith told me so in 1964, just before the UDI declaration, when I tried in a very small way to reinforce a Conservative Government's warnings of the dire and dangerous consequences of declaring independence unilaterally.
What would be the effect of removing sanctions now? I think it could only be a unilateral decision were we to do so. It would certainly be flouting international law. In my view, it would provide very little relief for the Rhodesian economy. I see no chance of any other country following suit. It would inevitably hurt our economy more than it could help Rhodesia's. Why?—because of the reaction in so many other countries. In Nigeria, for example, what would the reaction be? In many countries which have raw materials of immense value to our economy the reaction could be very serious indeed. That is my view. It would mean abandoning our rôle as mediator in the search for a political solution—and the only satisfactory solution is a political one.
Such an empty gesture as a unilateral abandonment of sanctions could create a false impression that a Conservative Government would follow a radically different policy from that of the present Government. I have no reason to believe that to be the case, although there would no doubt be important changes of emphasis after the blunders which I feel, and other noble Lords on this side feel, have been made since March.
Mr. Smith must bear the major responsibility for the present state of affairs in Rhodesia. It has always been a case of too little, too late, too often. But I am in no doubt that he cares passionately about the future of his country and its people, black and white, and that he may be the best or the only man capable of leading Rhodesia out of the wilderness.
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Here I differ from my noble friend Lord Caldecote, who knows Rhodesia and probably Mr. Smith much better than I do; but that is my view. If we now believe that Mr. Smith is talking and acting in good faith—and if we do not, who can we trust instead?—we must strengthen and not weaken his position and that of Mr. Sithole, Bishop Muzorewa and Chief Chirau.
Unlike some of my noble friends, I believe firmly that keeping sanctions on until the transitional Government have carried out their obligations and promises is one way of strengthening their hand, though we can hardly be expected to be thanked for doing it. I add to that that many noble Lords, during this extraordinarily interesting debate have suggested other ways in which the hands of the transitional Government can be strengthened. I beg the noble Lord who is replying for the Government to tell us quite clearly that the Government have an open mind about the suggestions that have been made, will consider them favourably and do their utmost to take some of the excellent advice that has been offered.
These are some of my conclusions after listening to the collective wisdom of noble Lords in this debate. These are some of the reasons why I say with absolute conviction that we would make a great mistake today to say more than that we will use all our influence between now and the spring to help in setting up a constitutional Government in Salisbury that we can recognise. Until that supreme effort has been made here—especially by the Government—and there in Rhodesia by the transitional Government, I am convinced that sanctions should go on. So, as I do not like abstaining, and though I am highly critical of the Government's handling of this problem since last March, I feel bound to vote for the order. I am sure that in doing so I will not be alone on this side of the House.
12.57 a.m.
Lord PLANT: My Lords, I too shall support the continuation of sanctions. It has been adequately explained why the whole world is expecting us to record an affirmative vote. There has been no western support for the internal settlement.

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It may be that history will say this was an error; but we have to accept that non-recognition has meant failure for the internal settlement as we now know it. Joshua Nkomo is a friend of mine. He was leader of the powerful railway workers' union and a great friend of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. He was the original nationalist. He certainly was not self-appointed. He was gaoled for a number of years. While in gaol, he asked Bishop Muzorewa to continue the fight for liberation.
Nkomo is from the Matabele tribe. They are warriors, dominant, forceful leaders; but only 30 per cent. of the black population are from that tribe. The other three leaders are Mashonas. They are farmers, peace-loving, easy-going, but they form 70 per cent. of the population. The 1CFTU had a representative, Bill Lawrence, in Rhodesia, helping and guiding the trade union movement for eight years. But Ian Smith made this task impossible; he had to leave. We had hopes that the trade union movement could be welded into a uniting force for freedom, democracy and peace. It did not happen. It is regrettable that the trade union movement is in Rhodesia now split not only on a tribal basis, but also between the various Zimbabwe leaders. It is therefore weakened and divided and is not at present the dominant uniting force we hoped for at one time.
In November 1976, in Geneva, Ivor Richard tried for six weeks to achieve an understanding between the four Zimbabwe leaders and Ian Smith. History will show how near he was to succeeding. He had secured the confidence of all participants. I had the opportunity, as a member of the ILO Governing Body then meeting in Geneva, to meet the four leaders. Joshua Nkomo had the real smell of leadership. The ILO, at that Governing Body meeting, amended its regulations so that technical help could be given to the emerging controlling interests in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, no agreement has been reached and this help can now only be given to the freedom fighters recognised by the OAU.
We are now at the crossroads. Not renewing sanctions will do nothing to concentrate Ian Smith's mind towards peace. His resignation, in my view, is now
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needed. What are we then to do? Men sometimes change when brought face to face with awful and blinding truths. It may require an extra dimension of faith to win men from their present fixed positions and frozen attitudes. There are African precedents for something quite unexpected to happen in Rhodesia. There has been reformation: Kenyatta changed from a leader of Mau Mau to a statesman whose generous attitude induced many whites to stay. There is the reconciliation with the Ibos, the ending of 13 years of civil war in the Sudan, and the astonishing reconciliation of General Nimeri with Sadique Mahdi.
We stand for a full transfer of power to majority rule, based on free and fair elections. We take no sides in the leadership dispute: only the people of Zimbabwe should decide this. We want to see the war and suffering ended. We must do what we think is right for the 6½ million Rhodesians. The firmer our stand on these issues and the firmer our refusal to be drawn into any deals in the course of diplomatic complexities, the more other African States—notably Nigeria, which has a key role to play—will join in the same stand.
I underline the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Caradon. In spite of what the leaders may say in public, the terrible prospects of unending war which neither side can win without so much bloodshed as to leave a country in chaos to inherit is giving them second thoughts in private. The Rhodesian security forces realise they cannot keep fighting to preserve white supremacy, nor indeed the transitional Government. Is this why the leaders are now gathering private armies? The younger generation in Rhodesia increasingly feel they are fighting to gain a majority rule government—the best chance for a stable and democratic Zimbabwe. I think a British resident Commissioner with expert observers is urgently needed in Salisbury. I think, too, that we might consider asking the ICFTU to take a more active role again in Rhodesia.
Profound changes are going on in Rhodesia. The man in the street wants to know how the vicious circle of fear and control, bitterness and struggle for power can be broken. Actions of extraordinary faith and courage are taking

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place. A white farmer was recently killed by guerrillas while leading a major move for reconciliation through meetings with local people and with the guerrillas in his area. It was spreading. His widow, I am glad to say, is continuing the fight. There is a solvent at work—an ever-growing nucleus of blacks and whites are learning to trust each other and work together. If Britain can take some risks in order to bind up the wounds and set the people free, there will be many inside the country who will immediately join in this task.
1.5 a.m.
Lord COLERAINE: My Lords, this has been, in many ways, a most extraordinary debate. I think it is the first debate that I have attended at which there have been 46 speakers, and not one has withdrawn. That is an indication of the sincerity with which the views expressed on either side have been held. It is extraordinary in another way. I think that I have been present at every debate on the sanctions order and I have spoken in most, and in this one the argument seems to have been blown apart. In every debate until now we have been told that sanctions were beginning to bite; if they were not biting this year they would be biting next year. But, today, we have been told that sanctions were never intended to bite. We knew all the time that oil was going in. We knew all the time that we had to consider our interests in South Africa. We knew all the time that we could not afford to go in for a full-blooded policy of sanctions and that, again, is something new.
But what is perhaps most extraordinary of all, to my mind, is the fact that on this side of the House, at any rate, there is a general opinion that the Government have totally mishandled the opportunity that was offered to them in March of last year. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said that the chance that was given to the Government, and which they threw away, was a near miracle which he could never have anticipated. I think that each of our Front Bench speakers has said more or less the same thing. Yet at the end of it all, we are invited to go on as if nothing had happened and to retain sanctions.
My noble friend Lord Home said that by their attitude towards the internal settlement the Government had made
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themselves a virtual hostage to Nkomo and Mugabe, and I think that is true. But he then went on to say that of course until we get a return to legality there is nothing we can do about it. I wonder whether my noble friend has ever considered how many Governments he had to deal with, whether as Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary, which began as illegal régimes. I would say, at a rough guess, that two Scandinavian Governments and Belgium are the only three that did not begin as illegal régimes. And do we have to go on harping year after year, decade after decade, century after century, on the illegality of this particular régime?
I should like to ask my noble friend another question. Has it ever occurred to him that he himself was Prime Minister of an illegal régime. The revolution of 1688 may have been glorious, but it was certainly illegal. But somehow he managed to swallow that. This attitude that we have, to go on for ever and ever denouncing Rhodesia as an illegal régime, is something that we must get out of our systems. And then my noble friend said—I am sorry to pin everything on him—that we cannot do anything without the United Nations: this has to be done, that has to be done, and that cannot be done unless it is an illegal régime. That assumes—the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made the same assumption, I think—first that there is such a thing as international law, that it is comparable to municipal law, and that that international law is embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. That simply cannot be true.
I suppose there is nobody in this House or, indeed, in the other place, apart from my noble friend, if I may so still call him, Lord Gladwyn, who has had a bigger part than I to play in the formation of the United Nations. His was at the official level, and therefore more effective, while mine was at the ministerial level—and representative. But my enthusiasm for the United Nations was very great, and anyone who has read Lord Gladwyn's memoirs will know that he recommended me as Secretary General of the United Nations, simply because of my enthusiasm for it and my interest in it. However, in those days the United Nations consisted of 50 members. Today it consists, I think, of 147. The difference, the 100, is more or less the Organisation for African

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Unity, plus a few Asian countries of which, I am afraid, I do not know the locality. To pretend that a body politically so inexperienced as the United Nations today can lay down international law for politically mature people like ourselves seems to me to be asking a little too much.
Older Members of the House, at any rate, will remember a man called Gilbert Murray, especially Members sitting on the Liberal Benches, because he was a very distinguished Liberal. I knew him well, and I dare say that others did. I was looking at a book about him over the weekend. He wrote a letter to Hugh Cecil in which he said this:
"Justice is often very difficult to define and the just line of policy impossible to discover. Still, psychologically it makes an enormous difference to people whether they feel they are getting fair or unfair treatment".
Just let us think of that phrase in relation to Rhodesia and the United Nations.
"Of course",
Gilbert Murray goes on,
"it would be impossible to give every nation, or perhaps any nation, what it chooses to consider its just deserts, but I think people are often calmed down, if not actually satisfied, by what they feel to be an attempt at justice; e.g. if they are not allowed to state their case they get wild with rage;".
Has Rhodesia ever been allowed to state its case to the United Nations, my Lords? Or should they be allowed to state it before a reasonably impartial tribunal? If so, then they may lose it. They may grumble, but they will not feel positively murderous; and I do not see how anybody, surveying the world scene over the past 15 years or longer, can expect the Rhodesians to pay any attention to the United Nations as a fair court of law, and I can see no reason whatever why we ourselves should do so.
My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing read what the American Senate and Congress said about policy towards Rhodesia—not a word about the United Nations. They are going to pursue that policy. Why are we so afraid of the United Nations? Why are we so afraid of Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Nkomo? Is it because we want them to fight the battles for us so that we shall not have to intervene? Is not the fair and honest thing to reject this order tonight and, as has
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been suggested by more than one speaker, if within the next week the Government come forward with some constructive suggestion to implement the internal settlement we can reconsider the position. But if not, I for my part would say unhesitatingly that we ought to reject the order tonight, and reject it when it is presented again.
1.17 a.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, we on the Liberal Benches would wish to join with noble Lords in all parts of the House who have expressed the fervent, if somewhat optimistic, hope that this may be the last occasion upon which we shall have to discuss this order. Nevertheless, we take the view that it would be wholly inappropriate at this stage to lift sanctions. It would be quite wrong to make a dramatic gesture in favour of a régime that is still in rebellion against the Crown, that is quite clearly still dominated by Mr. Ian Smith, that is quite clearly still not proceeding to fulfil the Six Principles that we have all regarded as essential and that is still proceeding in far too grudging and belated a manner to set up any form of multiracial society. We believe, too, that to make that gesture at this time could have nothing but disastrous results upon our relations with the whole of the African continent.
The only other observation I want to make about this aspect of the matter is that in recent years your Lordships' House has, I think throughout the country, acquired a very great reputation for the responsibility with which it approaches public affairs. I cannot help wondering whether it would materially increase that reputation if on this issue we were to take a decisive step against a majority of very nearly 200 in the elected Chamber, and whether indeed it would materially enhance our reputation for responsibility if we, in your Lordships' House, were to be the first to advocate the unilateral abrogation of our international legal obligations.
I could wish—and I hope there will be no caustic comments of "Hear, hear"—to sit down at this stage but I cannot do so because, inextricably intermingled with this debate, there has been a debate on a matter which we on these Benches regard as being of the greatest possible importance, and that is the debate on the

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Bingham Report. We believe that that raises issues of the accountability of Government, of the integrity of successive Governments, of the role of the Civil Service; indeed, it raises also long-term considerations as to whether economic sanctions can ever be an effective weapon in the international armoury of peacekeeping. Therefore, with some hesitation, I feel obliged just for a moment or two to tread into the minefield that surrounds me. The mines, of course, are those many of your Lordships who have occupied positions of the greatest distinction in Labour or Conservative Governments since 1965, or have been civil servants of equal distinction during that time.
It is comforting to learn from the lips of every one of those who have spoken this evening that there appears to be no need for any further inquiry into any of the activities of the last 13 years, and one is no doubt supported in that view by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Paget, has added his voice, too, in that direction. Nevertheless, we believe that there are matters. We believe that the Attorney-General was right when he said the other day that nothing must be swept under the carpet. We believe it would have been a good start perhaps to not sweeping anything under the carpet if we had been able to have, at the instance of either the Government or the Conservative Opposition, a wholly separate debate on the Bingham Report, not mixed up and confused with the other matter that we are discussing this evening.
As to the issues that are raised, I have read, as have most of your Lordships, I know, the Bingham Report and a great deal of the published material that has emerged in the course of the last few weeks. It is no time now for detailed analysis of what they contain, nor would I wish for one moment to claim Parliamentary privilege in order to attack by name people who are in no position to reply. I accept, too, there are grave difficulties in the sanctions position, with South Africa and its own internal laws and the position of Portugal in relation to Mozambique. But certain questions want answering, do they not? It is no part of my task to suggest the answers, but to suggest that we must have a full investigation to discover the answers.
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There are very clear indications in Bingham that before UDI the oil companies may have been in collusion with Ian Smith in order to assure him that when UDI was declared, even if sanctions were imposed, ways round could be found. That is a matter that requires investigation. The question arises whether, before they imposed sanctions, the British Government went to the oil companies, went to Shell, went to BP, which has a majority Government shareholding and two Government directors on the board, and invited them to help. Were sanctions going to be effective; how could they be made effective? Or did the British Government know in 1965, right from the beginning, that they were merely going through rather empty motions?
The fact that emerges beyond any dispute from the Bingham Report is that from 1965 to 1978 Rhodesia got as much oil as they wanted, and got it from Shell and from BP, either directly or indirectly. There was a very small falling off just after 1965 but so small as to be negligible. I say they got it either directly or indirectly because there was, of course, the swap about which we have heard a good deal. The swap on the face of it was a straightforward fraudulent device which appears to have served only one purpose, and that was to enable Ministers to say with a completely straight face that no British oil was reaching Rhodesia. That appears to have been the only importance of the swap. I noticed with great interest that the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, in the course of his frank, and, if I may say so, fascinating observations, said that such swaps are a normal part of the international oil trade. They are not when they are documented in the way that this one was documented. If it is suggested that they were normal transactions in this case, why was it that no Minister came forward and explained to the British public that the swap was going on and it was, of course, something that was in no way unusual—it was entirely legitimate and above board?
In that situation, where the oil was in fact getting to Rhodesia, there are only two possible alternatives: either Governments knew, or Governments did not know. If Governments knew, then what were they doing making the statements they did to the people of this

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country? Why was it that in December 1966 it was said:
"Our present sanctions are having a considerable effect";
in October 1967:
"Her Majesty's Government have imposed sanctions in a way that has had much greater effect than had been generally accepted";
in June 1968:
"that sanctions have had serious effects is now perfectly clear";
in 1973 with a Conservative Government:
"On sanctions this country is fulfilling its complete obligations under the United Nations instructions";
in September 1976:
"The competent United Kingdom authorities are satisfied that there is no evidence of sanction-breaking by any British companies or individuals";
and as recently as February 1977:
"So far as the British oil companies are concerned, Her Majesty's Government have, in the past, received firm assurances that they are observing sanctions"?
I frequently receive firm assurances from my own professional clients that they are entirely innocent. It is a very naive jury that has ever taken them at their face value. That, therefore, is the first problem. If Governments knew, why have they been misleading the public of this country?
The alternative is that it may be that Governments did not know. That may be an alternative, but it is no answer. If they did not know, why did they not know? What was British intelligence doing over these 12 or 13 years, if that be true? What happened to the British Consul in Lourenço Marques, who must have been making reports as to what was going on? Whom did those reports reach? Why did they not get to the Cabinet? What happened at the embassy in South Africa where we know from the Bingham Report that in early 1968 the head of Shell (South Africa), Mr. Walker, gave a full account of what was happening? Was that not sent on to the British Government? Indeed, we know today, having had the advantage of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, that some information was certainly coming through, and he was supported by what Mr. Michael Stewart said the other day in the other place. If that information came through, as no doubt it did, how does it come about once again that those
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statements were made and that the people of this country were being misled in that way?
There are other matters, but I have no time to explore them at this stage. I am not surprised that the Front Bench of the Conservative Party is getting a trifle restless. There was the Beira blockade that cost £200 million of the taxpayers' money and was certainly a farce and must have been known to be a farce while it was being imposed. There is the rôle—and I choose my words with some care here—of the Civil Service. I heard what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Garner, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill. There are indications in the Bingham Report that all was not well. There arc indications of some links of an unusual nature between the civil servants and the oil companies. I am not seeking to pass judgment, but I am suggesting that there is material that should be inquired into.
There is the further situation that should surely be inquired into as to the relationship between the Civil Service and the incoming Government in 1970. I accept entirely the convention to which the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, referred. But are we really to stretch that constitutional convention into saying that if civil servants are aware that there is a criminal conspiracy to contravene the law taking place under one Government, their obligation is to keep entirely silent when a new Government takes office? These are all matters that we, on these Benches, believe ought properly to be inquired into. We do not seek to pass judgment. We seek to ask for an inquiry, but not for a criminal investigation. A criminal investigation will result in a few minnows being put in a dock for events that are 10 or 12 years stale and who may have committed actions with the connivance of those who will never appear in the dock.
We suggest that the proper way in which to deal with this matter is by a proper judicial tribunal of inquiry which really will get down to see what was happening in those last 13 years and which we believe, despite what has been said by many noble Lords today in this debate —because of the importance of the issues involved—must have access to the Cabinet papers. The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, said that to do that would be to

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bring Cabinet Government into disrepute. If I may respectfully say so, what brings Cabinet Government into disrepute is disreputable Cabinet Government.
That is all I desire to say on this occasion. I would hope that your Lordships will agree to continue the sanctions order tonight by a very, very substantial majority, and I would also hope that many of your Lordships in all parts of the House will join with my friends on these Benches in demanding the fullest possible inquiry into activities over sanctions in the last 13 years, not because we want to see a general muck-raking expedition, but because we believe that there are valuable lessons that should be learned for the future.
1.32 a.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONE: My Lords, I mean no discourtesy to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, when I say that I wish to confine myself solely to the question before the House. No doubt the matters which he discussed in the greater part of his speech are important. We, in this House, have many opportunities to discuss such matters. We have serious decisions to take in the immediate future, and I want to discuss them and them alone.
The Government have come before the House asking for a further year for Section 2 of the Act of 1965. The question is whether we should ultimately say "Content" or "Not Content" to that Motion, and, with respect, that is the only question that we have to consider. It is not the work of the House in a deliberative function; it is something we have to do or refrain from doing; and we shall be judged, not by the sincerity of our motives or by the wisdom of our words, but by the consequences of our acts, be they good or bad. It is upon the consequences of the two alternative courses that I want to concentrate in the few minutes during which I shall detain your Lordships before the Division.
The debate is held against an admittedly sombre background. Blood is being shed in Rhodesia, and, as more than one noble Lord has reminded us, Rhodesia is only part of Southern Africa. Great Powers are in danger of being involved. In the end humanity must make up its mind whether power grows out of the barrel of
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a gun or whether it is to be pursued by a different doctrine and a different philosophy: that it is based on reconciliation, reason and argument.
I approach, first, the problem of law. It has been expounded by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, but, with respect to my noble friend Lord Blake, I do not think that it requires too much learning to see what the issue is. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has told us what the issue is. The sanctions were imposed at the request of this country. The noble Lord, Lord Paget, reminded me that I had spoken against it. I did speak against it. I spoke against it because I thought that it would place us at the mercy of the Soviet veto, and so it has, but it was introduced by the Government of this country. Mandatory sanctions were imposed and, under the Charter of the United Nations, they can only be removed in the circumstances which have already been described.
I do not think it requires a very acute legal brain to say that treaties are not "scraps of paper", or that people should keep their promises. The Charter of the United Nations is a promise solemnly entered into by all the founder members and by anyone who subscribes to it. It is a promise entered into by this country, and the proposition which my noble friends are putting before the House when one after the other has got up and said he is going to vote against the Motion is that we should solemnly break a promise made in the most serious of circumstances.
I do not share at all the unmitigated and apparently unqualified admiration of the way the United Nations works expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Caradon. I think it is at times pathetic, and often disappointing; occasionally disreputable. But if we were to withhold from the Government what they are asking for tonight we should not be taking sanctions off, because we cannot do that; we should be withholding from the Government the power and the right to enforce something which it is our duty to perform. I must say—I frankly say—I was shocked when one noble Lord after another got up and pooh-poohed all this and said, perhaps, "This is only a lawyer's point. It is an argument of expediency. It is something which other

623
people have done, so why shouldn't we do it too?" I frankly say that I was about seven when I was told that this country had gone to war because treaties were not "scraps of paper", and I wholly disagreed with my noble friend Lord Coleraine when he said that the question is whether there is such a thing as international law, or whether the Charter of the United Nations forms part of it.
The solemn keeping of promised obligations is something which transcends law and is at the basis of civilised life. It transcends Rhodesia. It is at the very root of the philosophy of the West, and very largely the whole future of mankind may depend upon the question whether nations that claim to be civilised nations and exponents of the law of Christianity as well as the law of nations should keep a solemn obligation solemnly entered into in public.
Lord COLERAINE: My Lords, would my noble and learned friend allow me to intervene? I accept his strictures, but does he really argue that the cause of law is advanced by relying on what is patently a sham? Is peace advanced by relying on what is patently a sham, or does he think that the United Nations has a reality which transcends all these "minor" points of the future of the world?
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, if I have time, and I am conscious that I am trespassing on the time of the House, I shall at a later stage in my remarks say something on that too. But there has been no serious challenge to the propositions first that the Government are asking for the power to discharge their international obligations on behalf of this country and, secondly, that if we were to refuse that power we should not only be condoning but compelling a breach of promise by the United Kingdom—the United Kingdom which has hitherto gone on record as believing that the plighted word is something which should be kept. The last thing I wanted to do was to pass stricture on my noble friend, but I thought his failure to disentangle the important issue of principle, which is a moral issue, from the confusion of this debate was a serious failure on his part to see what the real question
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which we have to decide will be and what the consequences of it would be if we were to yield to his argument.
That brings me to the political consequences of what we are being asked to do. My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing gave what I thought was a proper tribute to the constructive suggestions made at the outset of the debate by my noble friend Lord Carrington and, at a later stage, by my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel. He also referred, and so may I, to the additions and improvements on them which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, whose experience of diplomatic affairs is surely something one must take seriously, as one must the noble Lord, Lord Garner, who also held the post of Permanent Secretary.
Those suggestions might as well be forgotten, in my opinion, if we were to reject the Motion tonight. They would be absolutely useless because if there is one thing which is absolutely certain it is that not one of them could be carried out without the goodwill of countries outside our own, without the goodwill of moderate Africans, shaken by the Bingham Report, without the goodwill of the Commonwealth outside Africa and without the goodwill of the United States. We certainly will not get much goodwill from the Communist bloc. Without that goodwill, which would be lost, in my judgment—I must tell my noble friends that it is my considered judgment—and if this country were allowed to stand alone in breach of her international obligations, any constructive influence we might hope to have on the Rhodesian situation would be lost and would not be recovered before the situation had deteriorated beyond our control. And when noble Lords, whose sincerity I do not for a moment doubt, ask us seriously to take that risk in this House and to place this country alone, and without a shred of legal justification for what we were doing—in such a way that the political consequence would be that any influence on others we might hope to possess would be torn to shreds and would disappear forever—it seems to me that they should think twice before casting a vote against this Motion.
My next point is perhaps an argument of expediency, and I say that as a present to the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, who spoke from the Cross Benches. We

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cannot overlook the possibility of retaliation, retaliation not of course from the United Nations Security Council, although I think Lord Hankey was wrong in thinking that our veto would be available to use in such circumstances; he has not read the Charter recently. I am not particularly worried about that. Bilateral or unilateral retaliation would be a certainty. How serious it would be I cannot judge and perhaps noble Lords who know more about these things than I do can judge it better for themselves. But I do not think that it can be disregarded. If we were to make peace as a result of what is proposed, if we were to enhance our prospects of making power grow out of reconciliation and reason, rather than out of the barrels of guns, then we might have to face the prospect of retaliation with a good conscience. But what kind of men and women would we be if, having first isolated this country and rendered it impotent, we then laid her naked to the frenzy and folly of our enemies? Is that the kind of argument from expediency that we ought to reject?
My noble friend Lord Blake quoted from the admired ancestor of my noble friend Lord Salisbury. At any rate, there was one thing which that great Prime Minister knew—and that was that foreign policy ought to be based on national interest; and I cannot believe that those who so despise the argument from retaliation are really wise or are in the true tradition to the Party to which I belong.
There is also the question of the position of this House. Obviously, it is of far less importance than the matters that I have been discussing up to this moment. However, I ask noble Lords whether we are being wholly responsible if, after the other place by a substantial majority—I think about 200—has voted in one direction, we should try to take an executive action, withholding from the Government power to pursue their policy in another? I do not deny that we have the legal power. I do not even deny that in certain circumstances we might have the constitutional right and duty to do it. However, in the circumstances which I have sought to portray, in an action which will isolate this country, in my judgment, and render it impotent in the dispute which we are to discuss, and which will break international law, is this House
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going to try to override the considered judgment of another place?
The least of all the arguments that I think we ought to consider is the possibility that the Government will have another thought about this policy. They will re-lay the order in a slightly modified form to conform with the statutory law of this country, and we should then be in exactly the same position as we are now, except that we shall have been humiliated as a result of the action of those who voted against the order in the first place.
My noble friend Lord Carrington has led the Opposition in this House, commanding a substantial majority, ever since I returned to it and have been on this side of the House. I think I can honestly say—and it is no idle compliment that I pay him—that it is very largely due to his wisdom, restraint and, to my mind, almost infallible judgment, that in a very difficult period of time this House, so far from losing its influence, has actually gained it. It has gained it among all sections of the community. I believe that we should be forfeiting almost all our gains if we were to take the course which was recommended by those of my noble friends from whom I happen to differ.
Having said that, I must come back to the question posed to me by my noble friend Lord Coleraine and which I promised to answer if I had time. I shall try to answer it very shortly. It must not be thought, because I have said what I have said, that I am without criticism of Mr. Smith, or of the Government, or of other parties to this discussion. We should not forget that in 1965 every responsible Conservative statesman I know of—from the noble Marquess's revered and much beloved father on the right, to people like Mr. Nicholas Scott on the left—begged of Mr. Smith not to take UDI. We did that for the reason, among others, that when he got into trouble he would make it almost impossible for us to help him, although we should wish to do so. He got into trouble because he was working against the grain of history, and now he abuses us because we find it difficult to help him as much as we should like. I also opposed—and I have already referred to it—the appeal to the United Nations. I doubted, as the noble Lord,

627
Lord Paget, reminded us, whether it was within the true purposes of the Charter. But I doubted the wisdom of it far more because it put us at the mercy of the Soviet veto. That was done, and I do not approve of it.
My Lords, I also think, as I believe do all my noble friends on this side of the House, that when Mr. Smith, under one pressure or another, came to see that majority rule was inevitable and made the internal settlement, the Government should have smiled upon it and encouraged it. I would not have blamed them, in the light of some things that had been said, if they had said to him, "We must see the colour of your money first. We are not going to take any paper money; we want actual performance". But I think they should have smiled on it, and I regret that they did not. I also feel, and feel with a passion which I shall try to restrain, that the two so-called freedom fighters have made themselves the lackeys and the stooges of Marxist imperialism, and have become the apostles of the doctrine which I hate most in the world, which is that power arises out of the barrel of a gun. I think, therefore, that they have been too much indulged by the Government.
But, my Lords, that does not alter my judgment about the question which we have to decide now; and the question we have to decide now is: What is going to be the consequence of our vote? I beg my noble friends, with whatever preconceptions they may have entered this Chamber, not to take the advice of those who say that they should vote against this Motion.
1.52 a.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord has reminded us, the question for decision tonight is indeed whether or not to approve the order continuing for a further period Section 2 of the 1965 Act. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has set out very fully the purpose of the order and the arguments for its approval. We have had an exhaustive, if not exhausting, debate, following on an equally detailed discussion in the other place, and I do not think it would assist the House if I were to retread any of the arguments and
628
counter-arguments which have been so ably put forward on both sides throughout the night.
On only one point of argument would I respond to, in this particular, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. He suggested that my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary had been silent following the shooting down of the Rhodesian Viscount aircraft on 3rd September. In fact, my right honourable friend said in a speech to the Royal Commonwealth Society on 6th September that this was—and I quote—
"a horrible and tragic accident which had shocked and numbed us all".
He went on to call for,
"clear-cut orders to go out from the leaders on all sides that they will not tolerate incidents involving the loss of life of innocent civilians, and that if there are such incidents those responsible will be brought to book".
Lord MORRIS: An "accident", my Lords?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: "Incidents", my Lords.
Several noble Lords: Ah!
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I should speak more distinctly, and the noble Lord should listen more acutely. I will therefore confine myself to stating the Government's position on a number of salient points.
I do not propose to go into any detail on the Bingham Report. I have listened very carefully to what the spokesman for the Liberal Party had to say about this. I will simply remind the House that my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in the other place has set out the Government's attitude with absolute clarity. The Government will decide how to proceed further on the basis of this report after full consideration of our debates in Parliament. That will be done; and we may expect an announcement in a matter of days. I only want to add one point on this aspect of the matter, namely the report. I hope that noble Lords will not only study the report itself fully but will also consider very carefully the statement of my right honourable friend in another place and, in particular, what

629
he had to say—and this was echoed in this debate this evening—about the need to understand the immense complexity of the factors which influenced successive Governments during this period.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, as well as my noble friend Lord Thomson, who spoke with such power and authority on this matter, have all emphasised this point. It is of extreme importance. Otherwise, we might find ourselves being starved of recruits for responsible positions in office, for ministerial and Civil Service office. Unless there is this understanding, this undertaking, that the whole circumstances surrounding decisions at the top will be taken into account, then we may be leading ourselves into great and continuing difficulties as a democracy. My right honourable friend also said that after studying all the relevant papers he is convinced that this was a situation in which honest and honourable men exercised their best judgment in an incredibly difficult situation and one of continuing difficulty and very often, indeed, of uncertainty as to the facts. Knowing my right honourable friend as I do, as a man of total integrity, his view is worth bearing in mind as we move on to any further consideration of the Bingham Report.
I now turn to the order itself. It must be considered against the background of the situation as it now is in Rhodesia and Southern Africa. Rhodesia now faces a critical situation, with deaths running at an annual rate of 5,000, with violence constantly escalating, including the shooting down of a civil aircraft and the massacre of passengers; with raids into Mozambique and Zambia; with an increasing exodus from Rhodesia and an ominous emergence of private armies—the precursor throughout history of the chaotic break-up of societies and nations.
This is the situation eight months after the signing of the Salisbury Agreement, to which noble Lords, in too many cases, have urged us to accord official recognition. The plain fact is that, even now, no one can credibly point to any real advance towards the reforms which the interim Government was supposed to introduce. As the right reverend Prelate
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the Bishop of Winchester reminded the House, its promise has not been kept. He and others doubt if there is now, or was ever, the will to keep such promises.
The interim Government has no alibi for its failure—its failure to act on its own statements. It is very fond of ascribing its failures of will and policy to the fault of the British Government. I find it intolerable that an illegal régime in rebellion against the Crown should attempt to settle the responsibility for its own actions on the British Government. The British Government were scrupulous not to condemn out of hand the Salisbury agreement, despite the immense pressures on them to do so. We waited for results; we did what the noble and learned Lord doubted that we had done. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister put it with simple force, "The proof of the pudding", he said, "will be in the eating". My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary in other words put the same point months ago, very soon after the signature of the agreement in Salisbury. From this Box I used the phrase that, so far as I could see, Mr. Smith had taken a gigantic step forward. To quite a number of people here and abroad that phrase was seen to be an injudicious exaggeration. I said it deliberately.
The noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, who is more used to these things than I am, described it as a revolutionary step forward. He is a better judge of revolutions than a mere social democrat like myself. I entirely agree with him. Of course it was a revolution; I said so and we said so. Then we waited and there was no pudding, or very little. Instead of a march forward to practical action, following these words, all we have had is tactical footwork and the typical Smith technique which my noble friend Lord Aylestone described so well: one move forward and then almost immediately a move back.
In particular, the Salisbury agreement has failed to stop the fighting. This was the great reason for it. There has been an increase in violence. It has not started to grapple with the vital question of rehabilitating and absorbing the nationalist forces. Its so-called cease-fire programme has led to the formation of private armies. It has increased conscription rather on the analogy of the ill-fated move in Ireland in 1918, the

631
consequences of which we are still to experience. It has extended martial law to over half the country. Some detainees were released, but many have since been detained again: one move forward, another back. The elimination of racial discrimination is still only a promise with no legislation passed. As for the reform of land tenure—perhaps the most sensitive element in the discontent of the African population—little if anything has been done.
Finally, the need to create a climate for free and fair elections has hardly been met by banning the Zimbabwe Times and tightening the censorship. And so it has gone on; one could give further instances of announcements not followed by acts. As we know, "hope deferred maketh the heart sick". When one talks to black Africans—especially Africans from Rhodesia—this is what one sees in every one of them—this feeling of despair; and despair often leads to desperation and to violent action.
I am reminded that the hour is late and I will therefore truncate my remarks as much as I possibly can. I hope that every noble Lord will be absolutely clear in his mind about the consequences of the vote that he casts tonight. We have been privileged to hear my noble friend Lord Caradon who, at great inconvenience and considerable material sacrifice, has come here specially to speak to us from North America. We are very grateful to him. I hope that the House will not only have listened to him, but will pay attention to what he said. The consequences of an adverse vote tonight may well be incalculable in Rhodesia, in Africa and internationally.
Somebody asked whether I would give a few facts about trade, the point of expediency which a country is entitled to consider. I agree with the noble Lord that the first priority in foreign policy is national interest, and national interest pursued with a view to international co-operation with other countries for the general good. It is a fact that since 1965 the countries of Africa have come together in a very powerful organisation—the Organisation for African Unity—as well they might, and they are watching what we are doing. They are watching with a view to retaliation, economically as well, possibly, as in other ways.
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As to the economic issue, I have a few figures here—I will not detain the House unduly but I promised to give one or two figures. In 1976 United Kingdom exports to black Africa amounted to £1,328 million and United Kingdom imports from those countries amounted to £1,058 million—a favourable balance to us of about £270 million in 1976. In 1977, United Kingdom exports to Nigeria alone were almost as much as our total exports to the whole of black Africa in the previous year. They amounted to £1,068 million, and our imports from that country were only £213 million—a very big balance in our favour. So these are very considerable economic considerations, and it is no good expressing an emotional view of this matter and walking through a certain Lobby without bearing in mind that kind of consideration. Others have been eloquently put by other Members of this House.
The failure to renew this order might momentarily encourage Mr. Smith, but the euphoria would be short-lived in Salisbury. Who else would it encourage? More than anybody, it would encourage the men of violence; because take away sanctions, and what have you left?—armed conflict only. This is the alternative, the substitute for war. Vote it down, and you enthrone once more war as the only means of settling disputes of this kind; and millions of black Rhodesians and Africans who are very friendly towards this country, and who hope very much that we shall take the right turning tonight, would then feel there is no way forward, except by violent action; that the men of blood are after all right and that the white man will not listen to anything except force.
That is one of the implicit consequences of an adverse vote on this matter tonight, and it is no good saying—I say this to my noble friend (if I may call him that) Lord Orr-Ewing—that the House could reject this order tonight and then somebody else would clear up the mess and bring back another order in another few days. You cannot take those risks, not with a tight Parliamentary timetable such as we have. Moreover, the damage would have been done; the signal to the men of violence would have been made clear and loud. They would have got the message, and it would have been a

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unilateral act, as we have just heard. No other country is even debating the possibility of abandoning in this way its obligations under the Charter. This is the only country and the only Assembly to be considering such a course of action—not France, not Germany or Italy, and certainly nobody in the Commonwealth. We would be alone in the international community; we would be alone in the European Community. We would be out of step with our partners and allies in NATO and in Europe, and we would be
alone in the Commonwealth—white and coloured—because they are unanimous that we should stick to our bonded word to the world authority, and that means that we take the right decision tonight on this order.
2.10 a.m.
On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 166; Not-Contents, 65.

CONTENTS

Adrian, L.

Gardiner, L.

Northfield, L.

Airedale, L.

Garner, L.

Ogmore, L.

Allen of Fallowfield, L.

Gifford, L.

Oram, L.

Alport, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Pargiter, L.

Amherst, E.

Glenamara, L.

Parry, L.

Ampthill, L.

Goodman, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Ardwick, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Phillips, B.

Astor, V.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Avebury, L.

Gosford, E.

Plant, L.

Aylestone, L.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Bacon, B.

Greenhill of Harrow, L.

Raglan, L.

Balogh, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Banks, L.

Gregson, L.

Rhodes, L.

Barrington, V.

Hale, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hampton, L.

Roberthall, L.

Bessborough, E.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Beswick, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Roll of Ipsden, L.

Birk, B.

Henderson, L.

Rugby, L.

Blease, L.

Heycock, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Bowden, L.

Hirshfield, L.

St. Davids, V.

Boyle of Handsworth, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Seear, B.

Briggs, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Brimelow, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Segal, L.

Brockway, L.

Hughes, L.

Serota, B.

Brown, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Shackleton, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Jacobson, L.

Shepherd, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Jacques, L.

Simon, V.

Buxton of Alsa, L.

Janner, L.

Snow, L.

Caldecote, V.

Kaldor, L.

Soper, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Kennet, L.

Stedman, B.

Caradon, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Carver, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Stone, L.

Castle, L.

Leatherland, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Chelwood, L.

Lee of Asheridge, B.

Tanlaw, L.

Chitnis, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Collison, L.

Leonard, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Listowel, E.

Thurlow, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Trevelyan, L.

Cudlipp, L.

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

Wall, L.

Darwen, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

David, B.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Walston, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Lockwood, B.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

London, Bp.

Weidenfeld, L.

de Clifford, L.

Longford, E.

Wells-Pestell, L.

De La Warr, E.

Lothian, M.

Whaddon, L.

Denington, B.

Lovell-Davis, L.

White, B.

Diamond, L.

McCarthy, L.

Wigg, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

McCluskey, L.

Wigoder, L.

Dormer, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Willis, L.

Dowding, L.

McNair, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Eccles, V.

Melchett, L.

Winchester, Bp.

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

Milner of Leeds, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Morris, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Fisher of Camden, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Foot, L.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Noel-Baker, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aldenham, L.

Dundee, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Effingham, E.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Ballantrae, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Porritt, L.

Barnby, L.

Forester, L.

Reay, L.

Bathurst, E.

Gainford, L.

Saint Oswald, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

George-Brown, L.

Salisbury, M. [Teller.]

Biddulph, L.

Gridley, L.

Savile, L.

Birkenhead, E.

Halsbury, E.

Scarborough, E.

Blake, L.

Hankey, L.

Sidmouth, V.

Bledisloe, V.

Hayter, L.

Slim, V.

Bolton, L.

Kimberley, E.

Stamp, L.

Bourne, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Kinnoull, E.

Strathspey, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Sudeley, L.

Burton, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Swinfen, L.

Chesham, L. [Teller.]

Lloyd, L.

Torpichen, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Lytton, E.

Tranmire, L.

Cobham, V.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Tryon, L.

Coleraine, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Verulam, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Moyne, L.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Cross, V.

Nunburnholme, L.

Yarborough, E.

De L'Isle, V.

Onslow, E.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Motion agreed to accordingly.

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and (pursuant to the Resolutions made of the 26th of July last) pro forma, read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.
  FRAULEIN WALESKI: IDENTITY CARD ENTRY
  FRAULEIN WALESKI: IDENTITY CARD ENTRY
  IMMIGRATION: APPELLATE AUTHORITIES' RECOMMENDATIONS
  IMMIGRATION: APPELLATE AUTHORITIES' RECOMMENDATIONS
  EEC CITIZENS: ENTRY INTO UNITED KINGDOM
  EEC CITIZENS: ENTRY INTO UNITED KINGDOM
  VIETNAMESE REFUGEES: RESETTLEMENT COSTS
  VIETNAMESE REFUGEES: RESETTLEMENT COSTS
  METROPOLITAN POLICE DISTRICT: ARREST STATISTICS
  METROPOLITAN POLICE DISTRICT: ARREST STATISTICS