Sitting of 5 March 1980

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

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what are his proposals to help the fishing industry.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Younger): The Government are fully aware of the industry's current difficulties and are urgently considering the requests that have been made for financial help. We hope to make an announcement shortly.
    Mr. Grimond: Will the Secretary of State be a little more explicit? The industry is becoming progressively more discouraged, more disappointed and more uncertain of its future. The crisis has now been going on for months. It is not only a matter of financial help for the industry. The market for fish has been totally disrupted and the conservation measures are not taking effect. Can the Secretary of State give a definite date on which the fishing industry will know its fate?
    Mr. Younger: I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says, and I agree that there is great difficulty and uncertainly in the industry. As he will know, the ultimate fate, as he puts it, depends upon a satisfactory common fisheries policy being negotiated. That is the principal part of our policy. As I have already said, we shall make an announcement as soon as possible about whether anything can be done in the meantime.
    Mr. Peter Fraser: In view of the meeting of all branches of the fishing industry in Aberdeen on 15 March, will
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    my right hon Friend give some indication before that date whether something will be done in terms of providing temporary aid for the industry? Otherwise, there is real danger that the frustrations and anxieties in the fishing industry will boil over at that public meeting.
    Mr. Younger: I appreciate what my hon. Friend says, and I hope that it will be possible to say something useful about that before the meeting.
    Mr. Maclennan: The Secretary of State was apprised by the industry almost three months ago of the predicament caused by the imports of fish that have disrupted the markets. How can he say this afternoon that the Government are considering the position urgently? Clearly the Government have been lax and slow in coming to the necessary decision not only to restore stability but to provide financial aid to the industry in its hour of need.
    Mr. Younger: As I think the hon. Gentleman will know, it is only just over a fortnight since we received the plans which the industry suggested we should consider. To have considered those plans in this time scale would be pretty quick work.
    Mr. Sproat: Will my hon. Friend accept that with the removal of distant waters, restrictions on catches, the continuing uncertainty about the CFP, and cheap subsidised imports, the economics of the fishing industry have gone totally crazy? Does he accept that, unless he gives financial help to the fishing industry now, there will soon not be a fishing industry to help?
    Mr. Younger: I agree with my hon. Friend that he fishing industry is going through an extremely difficult time. I assure him that the factors that he has mentioned are very much those that we are taking into account in our considerations.
    Mr. Milian: In view of the urgency and concern, will the Secretary of State give a pledge that he will announce positive aid for the industry soon and not wait until the conclusion of negotiations on the CFP, which may never happen? Can aid be given quickly?
    Mr. Younger: I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says. I am not thinking of postponing any announcement until after negotiations on the CFP have taken place. I hope to make a substantial announcement before that time.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This question comes up again, twice.

    Small Businesses
    Mr. Mylesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when next he will meet representatives of small businesses.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Alexander Fletcher): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are including in our future programmes further meetings with individual small business men and further visits to small companies. My hon. Friends at the Department of Industry keep us informed of their regular meetings with small business organisations.
    Mr. Myles: When they meet small business men, will my right hon. and hon. Friends pay particular attention to the employment potential in small businesses and do everything possible to eliminate the disincentives to employment in that sector, especially in rural areas, considering that the fishing industry is a small business?
    Mr. Fletcher: I assure my hon. Friend that the Government have already taken a number of steps to make life more attractive for small businesses and to encourage more people to go into small businesses. We are fully aware of their employment potential.
    Mr. David Steel: Surely the Minister is aware that everything that the Conservative Party said before the election about what it would do for small businesses has been more than negatived by the fact that they have to borrow at the rate of 20 per cent. upwards. Will he and his colleagues at the Departments of Trade and Industry therefore take steps to make cheaper loan facilities available to small businesses?
    Mr. Fletcher: It is as much in the interests of small businesses as of anyone else
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    that the rate of inflation should be reduced. We are aware of the difficulties that interest rates are causing, but we are sure that the banks will consider helping their small business customers in these circumstances.
    Mr. Gregor MacKenzie: Since small firms, particularly in Scotland, in both the manufacturing and the service sectors, have been very hard hit, as the right hon. Gentleman has just said, by interest charges and by VAT increases in the last Budget, is the hon. Gentleman yet in a position to make an announcement about what he proposes to do now that he has decided not to renew the small firms employment subsidy?
    Secondly, will the Under-Secretary take an early opportunity to talk to the CBI's small firms section and suggest that the biggest help that the major companies in this country could give to small firms would be to pay their bills rather more quickly than they do at present?
    Mr. Fletcher: The small firms employment subsidy was the least cost-effective of the special measures, and the resources released by eliminating that subsidy are being put to better use elsewhere. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the larger companies. We are actively encouraging them to respond as much as they can to assist new businesses, and small businesses in particular.
    Mr. Lang: Will my hon. Friend point out to small businesses that the high interest rates that they face are a direct result of the profligate expansion of the money supply and the public sector borrowing requirement pursued by the previous Government in their last two years in office? Will he reassure them of the present Government's commitment to bringing these matters under control, so as to create a climate in which small businesses can prosper?
    Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why the Government's first priority is to reduce the rate of inflation. I say to Opposition Members that in just 10 months we have done much more for small businesses—such as easing employment legislation, reducing the number of forms to be filled in, and creating tax incentives—than the Labour Party did in five years, remembering the

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    increased national insurance contributions and the abolition without warning of the regional employment premium.
    Mr. Eadie: In the search for employment through small businesses, has the hon. Gentleman seen the emigration figures? We are exporting people, rather than technology, when one considers the skills available. Is the Minister aware that we are exporting mining engineers? Does not he think that this is a scandal, bearing in mind the reserves of coal in this country, which are unparalleled in the world?
    Mr. Fletcher: Unfortunately, the coal mining industry is not a small business. Therefore, I think that the point raised by the hon. Gentleman should be raised with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy.

    Unemployed Young Persons
    Mr. David Marshallasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many young people are currently unemployed in Scotland; which percentage of young people this represents; and what actions he intends to take to remedy this situation.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcher: 22,400 young people under 18, representing 12.2 per cent. of the age group, were registered as unemployed in Scotland on 10 January. The Government's first priorities are to reduce the level of inflation and establish a sound and prosperous economy in which industry can expand, creating more jobs for young people and adults alike. In the meantime, we are expanding the youth opportunities programme to provide substantially more places for unemployed young people in 1980–81.
    Mr. Marshall: In many areas, particularly those designated as being in greatest need, youth unemployment is reaching frightening proportions. What specific alternatives to emigration, to joining the Armed Forces for the wrong reasons, or even turning to crime, is the Minister prepared to offer by positive discrimination in setting up programmes to create employment for these young people?
    Mr. Fletcher: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will at least to some extent be glad to know that there is no substantial difference between last year's
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    numbers compared with the numbers that I have just given to the House. We shall not be satisfied until the number of young people unemployed has been considerably reduced. However, I have already told the hon. Gentleman that there will be provision for additional places in the youth opportunities programme—an additional 6,500 places this year compared with the number of places in the previous year.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the Minister aware that his claim of additional provision is nonsensical in my constituency, with the abolition of the employment transfer scheme? Will he at least see that something is done by allowing some flexibility in the 12-month unemployment rule and the STEP?
    Mr. Fletcher: The right hon. Gentleman has, I think, made representations in individual cases. I assure him that individual cases will continue to be looked at with sympathy by my Department.
    Mr. John MacKay: Does my hon. Friend realise that many young people would be better qualified in the labour market if their technical and business studies skills had been developed at school? Will he urge officials in the Scottish Education Department to urge schools to concentrate on those subjects and not on subjects which have little or no value in the labour market?
    Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the greatest disappointments that faces young people today is to leave school and find that they are not properly equipped for work. I shall certainly bear in mind the points that my hon. Friend has raised.
    Mr. Foulkes: Is the Minister aware that more young people will become unemployed if the BBC goes ahead with its disgraceful proposal to scrap the BBC symphony orchestra and virtually to decimate the educational programmes on BBC Scotland? Will the Minister ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to intervene personally with the BBC governors tomorrow to stop this proposal and say to BBC Scotland "Think again"?
    Mr. Fletcher: That matter hardly arises from this question—
    Mr. Foulkes: It does.
    Mr. Fletcher: —but my right hon. Friend and I are fully aware of the difficulties being experienced over these matters and we shall keep them under review.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: Is the Minister aware that the greatest disappointment facing young people today is that they leave school fully equipped to take up employment, but because of the Minister's employment policies cannot get a job? How does the Minister justify the contention that the training opportunities programme is being expanded, bearing in mind that after Question Time today the House will debate the statement by his right hon. Friend that the programme is being contracted? Is the Minister one of the "wets", or one of the "dries"? It is about time that he made up his mind.
    Mr. Fletcher: The youth opportunities programme is being expanded. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to know that, despite the difficult economic situation, school leavers are being absorbed into employment or training at about the normal rate.

    Scottish CBI and Scottish TUC
    Mr. Allan Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he plans next to meet the representatives of the Scottish Confederation of British Industry and the Scottish Trades Union Congress.
    Mr. Younger: I have met representatives of both bodies several times since taking office and have made it clear that I am prepared to meet both bodies at any time they wish.
    Mr. Stewart: Will my right hon. Friend point out to both sides of Scottish industry the need for a proper public appreciation of the role of multinationals in Scotland? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] In particular, will he emphasise that, taken as a whole, multinationals have an excellent record in maintaining and expanding employment in Scotland, despite some of the totally unfounded allegations that were made during the recent debate on the Scottish economy by some of the particularly ignorant hard-line Left-wingers on the Opposition Back Benches?
    Mr. Younger: I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of multinational companies to the Scottish
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    economy. They provide about 100,000 jobs in Scotland and account for about 16 per cent. of our manufacturing output. I should have thought that that was evidence enough of how important they are.
    Mr. James Hamilton: When the right hon. Gentleman meets the CBI and the STUC, will he tell them the number of jobs that will come from America following the visit of his hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for industry? Will he also tell them the situation concerning the Scottish Development Agency, bearing in mind the disgruntlement that prevails in the SDA as a result of the present circumstances? Will he then tell them also that there will be a decided increase in unemployment before the year ends?
    Mr. Younger: I am not sure of the point that the hon. Gentleman was making about the SDA, but I am grateful for his support for my hon. Friend's excellent efforts when he went to America to interest firms in coming to Scotland.
    Mr. James Hamilton: How many jobs?
    Mr. Younger: I am rather surprised at the hon. Gentleman's raising now the matter of the unemployment position. He will recall that during the first three years in office of his Government unemployment rose by immense numbers every year, and from 146,000 in February 1976 to 196,000 two years later. I should have thought that a period of silence from the Labour Party would be appropriate.
    Mr. Sproat: When my right hon. Friend next meets the STUC, will he raise with it the latest directive from the Transport and General Workers Union, which forbids members of that union in haulage firms to cross any picket line even though the haulage companies are not carrying steel or steel products? Is he aware that there have been lay-offs in Scotland over the past few days as a result of that appalling directive? When unemployment in Scotland is so high, is it not especially bad, that further jobs should be put at risk by such union action?
    Mr. Younger: I agree with my hon. Friend that any actions that reduce employment in Scotland should be resisted. I have heard that the alleged instruction on picketing has been sent out. I am glad to tell the House that, thanks to the

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    excellent efforts of the police, everyone who has wished to cross a picket line has been able to do so. The police have done a marvellous job in keeping order in difficult situations.
    Mr. Douglas: When the right hon. Gentleman next meets the two bodies, will he place on the agenda for discussion the implications of the Finniston report on engineering in so far as it concerns Scotland? In addition, will he place on the agenda the future of Scotland's shipbuilding industry, which is in a parlous state? Will he make clear to them the Government's specific views on the scrapand-build policy?
    Mr. Younger: We are already having discussions with all interested parties on the Finniston report. It is a most important report, which should be studied carefully. The shipbuilding industry is having a difficult time, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that it is coping extremely well with an extremely difficult situation. That reflects great credit on all who work in the industry.

    Convention of Scottish Local Authorities
    Mr. George Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next expects to meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.
    Mr. Ancramasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when next he plans to meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): My right hon. Friend is looking forward to addressing the annual conference of the convention at Dumfries on 28 March.
    Mr. RobertsonAs even the political friends of the Conservative Party in local councils in Scotland are finding it difficult to cut services, increase charges and at the same time hold down rates to an acceptable level, will the Secretary of State take the opportunity at the convention conference to confess that it is impossible for local authorities to make savings without large rate increases and that the huge rate increases that will be experienced throughout Scotland are a direct result of Tory policy?
    Mr. Rifkind: What is significant about the rate increases announced so far is that, on average, those in Conservative authorities are far less than those in Labour-controlled ones. For example, only today the Conservative-controlled Dundee district council announced a reduced rate of 2p in the pound for next year.
    Mr. Ancram: My hon. Friend said that most of the unacceptably high rate increases had come from Labour councils. When he meets COSLA, will he take the opportunity to discuss with it ways of placing a ceiling on future rate rises?
    Mr. Rifkind: My right hon. Friend has indicated that he will discuss with the convention whether any new powers are appropriate for the control of expenditure. Lothian regional council has been the one authority to plan for growth. My right hon. Friend has withdrawn his general permission. In future it will be required to submit to the Secretary of State any specific proposal, which will be rigorously examined before consent is considered.
    Mr. David Steel: Will the Secretary of State discuss with the convention a reallocation of the rate support grant formula so that local authorities, such as those on the Borders, do not find themselves having to cut into the muscle of local government services while other authorities are able to cut into some fat?
    Mr. Rifkind: We are having a continuing discussion with the convention on the distribution of the rate support grant formula. Wherever possible we like to meet the views of the convention if it can reach agreement on the proper criteria.
    Mr. Buchan: Is it not shameful to have to confess that some of the Government's friends in local authorities are keeping back rate increases? Does not that merely represent the fact that there are A-level economists in the Cabinet and O-level economists in Tory local authorities? Are they not merely aiding and abetting the Government to smash the social welfare of the Scottish people?
    Mr. Rifkind: The inherent profligacy of the Labour Party was well represented in that question. The hon. Gentleman should recollect that the former Labour

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    leader of the Lothian regional council resigned because he believed that cuts of up to 15 per cent. could be made in its expenditure without affecting existing vital services.
    Mr. Henderson: Does my hon. Friend recognise that for authorities which have been spendthrift in the past it is relatively easy to make significant expenditure cuts, and that for authorities that have been careful with ratepayers' money it is especially difficult to make cuts, although they try hard? Will he ensure that more help is given to careful authorities in future rate support grant settlements?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. He highlights a real problem. For the very reason to which he has drawn attention, about £100 million was switched from the resources element to the needs element in the distribution formula that was applied this year, so that profligate authorities should not benefit from their profligacy.
    Later—
    Mr. John Home Robertson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During Question Time, when we only reached question 13, the Under-Secretary of State linked question 5 with question 30, which happened to have been tabled by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Ancram). I am sure that we all sympathise with Scottish Office Ministers in their lonely vigil, but would you like to express a view on the Minister's ploy to accommodate a tame Tory Back Bencher?
    Mr. Speaker: I should not like to express a personal opinion, but, with regard to the number of questions asked, if hon. Members will look at Hansard tomorrow and see the length of the supplementary questions, they will understand why we could not reach many more questions.

    Education (Assisted Places Scheme)
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has yet reached any conclusions since the publication of the discussion document on assisted places at fee-paying schools.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcher: I shall not be in a position to reach conclusions or to make a statement until I have considered the response to the consultative paper, which I expect to receive up to 31 March.
    Mr. Canavan: What possible justification is there for cutting public expenditure on local authority schools, which cater for more than 95 per cent. of the children of Scotland, while proposing to put £5 million per year of public money into the pockets of a minority of parents who want to buy extra privilege, real or imaginary, by sending their children to private fee-paying selected schools? Would it not be better to spend £5 million of public money to employ an extra 1,000 teachers to improve the education opportunities of children in local authority schools?
    Mr. Fletcher: There is every justification for extending choice in both the State and private sectors of education, especially when the Government scheme will give a choice to lower income families.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: The Minister talks of extending choice. How does he square that expression with the warning given by the Rector of the Grove Academy, Dundee that certain third-year pupils may not be allowed to take the subjects of their choice if staffing cuts go ahead as planned this year?
    Mr. Fletcher: I am most surprised by that remark. Local authorities in Tayside and elsewhere are capable of ensuring that the requirements of school children in Scotland will be adequately met. Incidentally, the funds made available by my right hon. Friend will allow an increase in expenditure per pupil in the coming year.
    Mr. John MacKay: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the assisted places scheme, plus the consultative document on parental choice issued this week, represent a considerable advance in giving parents some control over the school their children attend? When he comes to write the legislation, will he ensure that authorities cannot get round parental wish by dropping the nominal rolls of schools below their realistic level?
    Mr. Fletcher: I take my hon. Friend's point. The silence of the Labour Party reflects its complacency about Scotland's education system and its refusal to make any advance in Scottish education over the previous five years.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: May I make it clear to the Minister once again that

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    when the Labour Party returns to power it will end the assisted places scheme? Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the money for the assisted places scheme is being taken from the normal education budget? How can he justify that action when he is slaughtering education provision throughout every education authority in Scotland?
    Mr. Fletcher: I repeat what I said earlier. We are increasing expenditure per pupil in the public school sector during the coming year. That proves our contention that resources for the assisted places scheme are being provided quite separately.

    Thermal Insulation Grants
    Mr. Norman Hoggasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the future of thermal insulation grants for local authority houses in Scotland.
    Mr. Rifkind: The capital expenditure consents for 1980–81 included in full the sums requested by local authorities for their insulation programmes, and the loan charges on these will rank for housing support grant.
    Individual tenants remain eligible for grant under the Homes Insulation Scheme 1978 if they wish to carry out the work themselves.
    Mr. Hogg: Is the Minister aware that 50 per cent. of council houses have not yet been insulated? Does he agree that that is urgent work if we are to observe the energy conservation programme? If the work is not done, the Government's energy conservation programme will be damaged.
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman appears not to have listened to what I said. I said that local authorities requests have been met in full within the programme. Over 100,000 houses have been dealt with since the scheme began. Nothing that the Government are doing will prevent local authorities from continuing with the scheme at the level that they have requested.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: Will the Minister resist any attempt to reduce the amount of money that might be available for domestic insulation, as it is an essential part of energy policy in Scotland that we
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    improve our energy usage rather than fabricate massive and unnecessary power stations, such as that at Torness? Will the hon. Gentleman, in collaboration with the Department of Energy, take steps to expand existing schemes, rather than contract them as the Department of the Environment seems intent upon doing?
    Mr. Rifkind: I can speak only for the Scottish Office. The emphasis that we place on these issues is reflected in the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Hogg).
    Mr. George Robertson: Will the Minister confirm, in clear, unequivocal terms, that the apparent attempt by the Department of the Environment to make cuts in this vital area will be resisted by the Minister and by his colleagues at the Scottish Office? Does he agree that such action would have severe consequences for the thermal insulation industry and for those families on low incomes who stand to benefit the most from insulation? We deserve a clear statement from the Minister that he will not follow the disastrous path which the Department of the Environment appears to be taking.
    Mr. Rifkind: I can speak only for the Scottish Office. Requests from local authorities for thermal insulation assistance have been met in full for 1980–81.

    Rate Support Grant
    Mr. Cookasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received from Lothian regional council about the effect of the rate support grant settlement on the level of rates.
    Mr. Younger: I have received no written representation from the council, but members of the council whom I met recently expressed opinions on the subject.
    Mr. Cook: Why does not the Secretary of State come clean? Why does he not admit that those members have expressed the opinion that over half of the rate increase in Lothian results from his cash limits? Those cash limits pretend that the rate of inflation is 13 per cent. Another one-third of that rate increase results from his cut in the rate support grant. Does he not agree that less than 10 per cent. relates to new growth? Is it not therefore sheer brass neck on the part of the Secretary of State to threaten

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    to withhold capital borrowing consent from the Lothian region for a rate increase which is almost entirely the result of his own policies?
    Mr. Younger: Those figures do not bear any relation to the facts. I have not yet received official figures from the council, but according to press reports it intends to spend no less than £34 million more than the guidelines suggest. Almost every other authority in Scotland has carefully adhered to those guidelines. If we are discussing opinions, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have taken careful note—as the rest of us have—of the strongly expressed opinions of ratepayers in Lothian. They will be placed in extremely difficult circumstances as a result of that authority's profligacy.
    Mr. Grimond: In answering the local authorities which have made representations about the large increase in rates in Scotland, has the Secretary of State suggested any alteration to the grants system? It does nothing to reward local authorities which have been economical. Does not the Secretary of State agree that it encourages authorities to spend large amounts of money on capital developments of doubtful utility, because the Government pay for most of them?
    Mr. Younger: I agree that there is a problem. We have altered the ratio of the resources to the needs element in the rate support grant this year in order to meet at least part of that problem. That is one of the subjects that I am discussing with COSLA to see whether any improvements can be agreed.
    Mr. Pollock: Will my right hon. Friend invite the Lothian regional council to take a crash course in budgeting from the Grampian regional council? Does my right hon. Friend realise that that council has managed not only to achieve significant cuts in public expenditure but to increase the provision of social services in that area?
    Mr. Younger: I appreciate the remarks of my hon. Friend. However, we might extend his suggestion a little wider. Perhaps Lothian regional council should attend a course run by all the Conservative-controlled authorities in Scotland. It is clear that, on average, those authorities are much better at keeping rates down than are Labour-controlled authorities.
    Mr. Strang: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the punitive action that he has taken against Lothian regional council will make no difference to the level of rates during the coming year? Will he admit that if he stops any capital project in the forthcoming year, the immediate effect will be to harm the local construction industry and add to the large numbers of people who are already unemployed in that industry in the Lothian region?
    Mr. Younger: If I take no action a large number of ratepayers in Edinburgh will have no redress against crippling rate increases. Although I do not have power to alter rate levels that are set by profligate authorities, the action that I propose to take may reduce some of those authorities' expenditure in future years, as a result of limits on their capital expenditure budgets.
    Mr. Ancram: During his inquiries, has my right hon. Friend found evidence of any genuine attempt by the Lothian regional council to make economies or cuts in its staff and administration, or in last year's excessive spending and duplication?
    Mr. Younger: Despite diligent searches I have found no evidence other than the courageous stand made by the former Labour leader of Lothian regional council, Mr. Peter Wilson.
    Mr. Milian: When will the Secretary of State stop dodging his responsibilities? When will he admit that the major reason for these massive and unprecedented rate increases is the Government's rate support grant settlement? The increases apply equally to Tory and Labour-controlled authorities. They affect the Lothian region as well as the Strathclyde and Border regions, where an increase of nearly 40 per cent. has occurred. An increase of 27 per cent. was announced today for the Tayside region. Does the Secretary of State accept that he is directly responsible for those massive increases? When will he admit that?
    Mr. Younger: I was given to understand that the right hon. Gentleman had had problems because the Lothian region failed to reduce its expenditure. I am sure that he will tell me if I am wrong. He cannot get away from the fact that

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    many local authorities—most of them Conservative-controlled—manage to keep their expenditure down, as requested by the Government. Those same authorities were more helpful to the right hon. Gentleman than Labour-controlled authorities were when he was trying to keep expenditure down. I should have thought that he would recognise that.
    Mr. Millan: I had no trouble with the Lothian region. However, even if we leave the Lothian region out of account, the average rate increase in Scotland next year will be more than 30 per cent. That is the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility.
    Mr. Younger: The responsibility for excessive expenditure by local authorities falls clearly upon Labour-controlled authorities. From the right hon. Gentleman's experience he should know that the Lothian region consistently exceeded the guidelines set by the previous Labour Administration. I understood from the Lothian regional council that it had had difficulties with the right hon. Gentleman on this issue.

    Human Tissue Transplants
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will introduce legislation in Scotland to allow hospital authorities to take the kidneys of anyone where clinical death has been established by two doctors, other than those who during their lifetime have contracted out by registering with a central computer that they do not wish their organs taken from their body in the event of their death.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Russell Fairgrieve): I am not persuaded that there is sufficient public support for "opting out" arrangements to justify the very large expenditure that would be needed to set up a computerised register of the wishes of individuals concerning the removal of their organs after death.
    Mr. Dalyell: Given the fact that the hon. Gentleman's ministerial colleagues at the Elephant and Castle have cold feet as a result of a rather doubtful Marplan survey, should not the Scottish Office be bold and provide experimental legislation? Is it not true that as a kidney machine costs £5,000, and as running
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    costs total £14,000, many treatable cases will not receive any help?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: The hon. Gentleman must know that legislation relating to transplants has been on a United Kingdom basis. We do not consider that there is any need for separate legislation in Scotland. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services dug out some figures about 15 months ago on the cost. The capital cost for a computer to retain the necessary information would be £2 million. Setting up a register would cost £3 million, and there would be running costs of £1,500,000.
    Mr. Henderson: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a practical difficulty in that very interesting suggestion? As a result of a recent court decision, the admissibility of evidence stemming from a computer has been very much restricted. Is not that a reason for encouraging a debate on those issues?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: I shall certainly encourage any possibility of a debate.

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. Donald Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to meet representatives of the fishing industry.
    Mr. Younger: I meet representatives of the industry frequently and will continue to do so as the need arises. I certainly expect to meet them before the next meeting of Council of Fisheries Ministers.
    Mr. Stewart: Does the right hon. Gentleman maintain, as he indicated earlier, that under EEC regulations it is impossible to give financial aid to the fishing industry until a common fisheries agreement has been reached? Does he believe that the fishing industry in Scotland was helped in any way by the fact that 13 Conservative Members representing Scottish constituencies went into the Lobby last Wednesday to support the levying of a further £1,500,000 on Scottish fishermen. That occurred only a week after financial aid had been demanded.
    Mr. Younger: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I have not made any statement or decision to the effect that it is impossible to help the fishing industry

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    until the common fisheries policy has been decided. I have been saying that that is the most important thing for the fishing industry. We are giving urgent consideration to the suggestions made by the fishing industry. An announcement will be made shortly.
    Mr. Myles: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the fishing industry needs not only urgent assistance now but control for the future so that our fishermen can fish in free and equal competition with others who fish in the North Sea and the waters around Britain? Will he accept that it is a competitive industry?
    Mr. Younger: I appreciate what my hon. Friend says. Such considerations will be uppermost in our minds when we negotiate a common fisheries policy.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Although the Secretary of State shows no practical sympathy for the fishing industry, will he show sympathy for his own Back Benchers? Does he recall that five weeks ago they were given four weeks in which to produce an answer that would help the fishing industry? Will he accept that they gave their pledge to do so? When will the right hon. Gentleman take action?
    Mr. Younger: I know that the hon. Gentleman feels strongly about the fishing industry, and I share his concern. However, we have so far taken just over a fortnight to consider carefully the proposals from the fishing industry, which is not unreasonable. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the proposals are being considered very sympathetically indeed.
    Mr. Sproat: As the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has established that other Common Market Governments massively subsidise their fishing industries, which results in our markets being flooded with cheap subsidised fish, what action does my right hon. Friend propose to stop that unfair trading by our EEC partners, which is contrary to EEC regulations?
    Mr. Younger: I agree that the level of imports is causing great concern to the industry. As my hon. Friend knows, the industry has made proposals to us, and we are considering them urgently.
    Mr. Russell Johnston: Is the Secretary of State able to tell us any more about the method adopted by the French to give a fuel subsidy to their fishermen?
    Mr. Younger: Not at present, but I understand that in recent days the Germans have considered a similar scheme and are trying to implement it. We are lookirg into that as well.
    Mr. John Home Robertson rose—
    Mr. Speaker: I know that the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) wanted to ask a question about fishing, but he had better ask it about improvement grants.

    Improvement Grants
    Mr. John Home Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what information he has of the recent take-up of improvement grants in Scotland.
    Mr. Rifkind: In 1978 some £7·7 million was paid in grants covering about 6,800 dwellings. For the first half of 1979, the provisional figures are approximately £4·5 million and 3,500 dwellings respectively.
    Mr. Robertson: Does the Minister accept that since council house building in Scotland is virtually coming to a halt it is vital that by means of grants the Government continue to encourage people to improve their homes? Why have a number of local authorities, including those in my constituency, run out of money to pay home improvement grants in the current year? Will he guarantee that that will not happen again?
    Mr. Rifkind: If the hon. Gentleman makes inquiries of his local authorities—
    Mr. Robertson: I did this morning.
    Mr. Rifkind: —he will find that for next year East Lothian is to have £500,000, compared with £380,000 last year, and Berwickshire is to have an allocation of £20,000 more than it asked for.
    Mr. Dempsey: Will the Minister consider removing some of the restrictions on the operation of improvement grants pertaining to the size of the house? Will he accept that young couples are unable to receive improvement grants because

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    their house is not small enough, yet they need another apartment?
    Mr. Rifkind: There are general criteria that are applied to applications for improvement grants. If the hon. Gentleman has a specific example, I shall be happy to consider it to see whether the discretion and criteria should be changed.

    Nurses
    Mr. Adamsasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will take steps to eradicate the shortage of nursing staff in the Argyll and Clyde health board area.
    Mr. Fairgrieve: The recruitment of nursing staff in each area is a matter for the health board. Nationally the number of nurses and the number of those entering training for nursing has been increasing steadily over the past two years.
    Mr. Adams: Is the Minister aware that in the Argyll and Clyde health board area the number of nursing staff in post during the past financial year was 25 per cent. below the Scottish average? It is a matter of life and death. What steps does the Minister intend to take tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock to rectify the problem? Does he accept that the answer that I received from the board that the shortfall in the past financial year was due to a postal strike in Ireland is ludicrously pathetic?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: I repeat—and this also affects the Argyll and Clyde board area—that the recruitment of nurses has been increasing. There is a shortfall of about 61 nurses in that board's area. The hon. Gentleman will know that the board has difficulty in recruiting for its nursing establishment because of competition from the Glasgow area.
    Mr. John MacKay: Does my hon. Friend realise that my constituents are concerned that savings will have to be made in health facilities in Argyll to make up for the massive deficit at Inverclyde Royal infirmary?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: I accept what my hon. Friend says. However, even with the withdrawal of beds from Inverclyde, it is now on the Scottish average of 2·5 beds per thousand.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Does the Minister accept that the increasing shortage
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    of nurses—not merely in that area—is almost entirely due to the total inadequacy of nursing salaries? Will he undertake that that matter will be looked at again, despite the Clegg report, which is a disappointment to nurses? In the light of raging inflation, does the hon. Gentleman accept that nurses' salaries should be looked at continuously?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: Of course I shall consider the matter continuously. However, I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that his question is based on a mistaken impression. Recruitment of nurses has been increasing over the past five years, and particularly during the past two. It has not been decreasing.
    Mr. Myles: Does my hon. Friend agree that the scarcity of nurses reflects greatly on the deplorable way in which the Labour Government dealt with them?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: I accept the second part of my hon. Friend's question, but I repeat that the recruitment of nurses is quite healthy.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Despite representations to increase the funds of the Argyll and Clyde health board to allow it to open up the 72 beds that have not been opened up so far—and I appreciate what the Secretary of State has done—if that is not successful, what are the plans for staff redundancies in the area, including nursing staff?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: There is no question of redundancy among nursing staff. Although the Argyll and Clyde board is having difficulty with an overspend of about £0·9 million this year, that is only 1·7 per cent. of the total budget. We have every hope that it will be under control next year.

    Skilled Tradesmen (Vacancies)
    Mr. Peter Fraserasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many vacancies exist for skilled tradesmen in Scotland.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcher: Vacancies in the craft and similar occupations group notified to employment offices and job-centres in Scotland and remaining unfilled on 30 November 1979 totalled 4,800. That figure does not necessarily include all skilled occupations.
    Mr. Fraser: Does my hon. Friend recognise that those figures demonstrate the dilemma of employment in Scotland? Will he accept that although unemployment is rising there is, nevertheless, a shortage in the skilled sector? In his responsibility for industry and education, will my hon. Friend concentrate on training opportunities for skills and not indulge in make-work schemes as the previous Administration did?
    Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct in saying that we must try to make training schemes much more relevant to the vacancies that exist. The Manpower Services Commission has indicated that unreported vacancies in Scotland may double the number of vacancies reported.
    Dr. Bray: Is the Minister aware that, because of the cuts in the Manpower Services Commission budget, measures to expand, explore and develop the labour market for skilled men in the engineering industry have been turned down in Lanarkshire? Will the hon. Gentleman accept that at a time when there is such a shortage of skilled engineering staff in the expanding electrical, electronic and engineering industries in Scotland, it is deplorable that the activities of the MSC are being cut?
    Mr. Fletcher: I know that there are vacancies because a sufficient number of people are not taking up places in skill-centres and other establishments. I am not aware that people who wish to take up places are being turned away. I should be interested to hear from the hon. Gentleman of any examples of people being turned away from skillcentres.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: Does the Minister agree that one of the causes of skill shortages is geographical immobility? Does he agree also that that problem will be substantially helped by the measures in the Tenants' Rights Etc. (Scotland) Bill?
    Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Scotland has suffered for many years from immobility of its labour force. The Tenants' Rights Etc. (Scotland) Bill will go a long way towards helping to resolve that problem.
    Mr. Lambie: Surely the figures given by the Minister about the shortage of
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    skilled manpower in Scotland make nonsense of the Government's decision to close two skillcentres in Scotland and to stop the go-ahead given to the development of a new skillcentre at Irvine.
    Mr. Fletcher: The figures that I gave related to job vacancies. No decision has been made to close any skillcentres in Scotland.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call one more hon. Member from either side and to allow an extra minute at the end of Question Time.
    Mr. Pollock: Is my hon. Friend aware that there might be many more opportunities for skilled tradesmen if small businesses are allowed to expand? Is he aware also that many of those businesses are worried that they may not be allowed to complete their expansion before the removal of assisted area status, owing to the prolongation of the steel strike? In that case, will he give an undertaking to look sympathetically at any such problems?
    Mr. Fletcher: Yes.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: Is the Minister aware that Scotland suffers not from the immobility of the labour force but from the inability of Scottish Office Ministers? Is the Minister saying that he proposes to close down skillcentres because there are not sufficient applications to take up the places in them? Would it not be much more progressive to advertise more extensively that these places are available and to encourage the 200 unemployed people whom he causes each day to become unemployed to take up these places?
    Mr. Fletcher: It is anticipated that when the Manpower Services Commission has completed its rationalisation of skillcentres in Scotland more places will be made available, not fewer.

    CRIMINAL TRIALS (DELAYS)
    Mr. Ancramasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland how many cases on indictment have taken more than 12 months to come to trial in the last two years.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland (Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn): As at 22 October 1979 there were 15 cases on indictment which had taken more than 12 months to come to trial. However, I am having our records checked and once up-to-date information is available I shall write to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Ancram: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that these statistics are a disgrace to the legal system in Scotland and an unfair imposition on accused persons? Is it not the case that there is provision, in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, to prevent this from happening, and is he not surprised that, apparently, the Labour Party in Scotland is opposing this legislation?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that what he describes as a disgrace has been greatly improved since we came to office in May. My noble and learned Friend and I have done all that we can to overcome the backlog of cases which has been greatly reduced. Clause 14(1) of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill will make a statutory bar to prosecution of persons after 12 months from the date on which they first appear on petition. That is a great and equitable advance, in parallel with the 110-day rule, which is an immemorial feature of our law.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: Since indictments are dependent on arrests being carried out, and in view of the number of outstanding murder inquiries into the deaths of young women, will the Solicitor-General tell us whether he has considered inviting the Scottish crime squad to co-operate with local police forces in the three regions which are currently conducting investigations into these cases?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: We are greatly concerned about the number of recent homicides in Scotland. It is for the Secretary of State, and for the chief constables to deploy their forces as they feel necessary, but I am certain that the police in Scotland will do everything that they can to investigate and clear up these awful crimes.
    Mr. Buchan: In view of the injustice that can occur to people under indictments because of this kind of delay, would
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    it not be more intelligent to use the available money to improve the procedures and organisation of the courts, instead of spending it on expensive fees for advocates, Lord or otherwise?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: As I understand it, those are not alternatives. Scotland can stand-up to any country in the world for the speed with which it brings to trial those whom it acc uses.

    COURT VISITS
    Mr. Canavanasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland how many court visits he has made since he took office.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: Since taking up office as Solicitor-General for Scotland I have made eight official visits to procurators fiscal offices and sheriffs at sheriff courts.
    Mr. Canavan: During his tour of the courts, has the Solicitor-General noticed the public outrage about some lawyers' extortionate fees, especially after the recent Dundee sheriff court decision that the hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) had been guilty of overcharging by £1,300? In view of this bad example set by someone who is now responsible for prosecuting criminals, will the Solicitor-General at least follow Jim's example by publicly admitting that he has been very, very naughty and tell Maggie that he is very sorry?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I think that that question demonstrates, if demonstration is needed, that as a lawyer my tongue is but silver, whereas as a politician the hon. Gentleman's silence is golden.
    Mr. John MacKay: In the light of the press reports today about the forthcoming marriage of Mr. Ginger Forbes, the next time my hon. and learned Friend visits the courts and has discussions with court officials, will he discuss the change of the penal system into a marriage bureau establishment?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I regret that I have no responsibility for either the celibacy or the marriage of Mr. Forbes.

    HUMAN TISSUE ACT 1961
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Solicitor General for Scotland how many prosecutions have been brought in Scotland under the Human Tissue Act 1961.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The Human Tissue Act 1961 contains no criminal provisions. It is therefore not possible for there to be any prosecutions under the Act.
    Mr. Dalyell: As deterioration of the kidneys sets in after 30 minutes, and since doctors by definition, must act in tense circumstances, are they not inhibited by the grey areas of the law? Is not there a case for looking at the whole code of the transplant law? If the Government are worried about public opinion, will they look at next weekend's Sunday Mail, where the public opinion survey will be very different from that of Marplan?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: There are no grey areas in the law. The removal of organs without permission under the Human Tissue Act, or against the wishes of relatives of the deceased, would, of course, be theft. Since the procurators fiscal are responsible for carrying out investigations into sudden or suspicious deaths, in cases where there was any criminal suspicion they could not permit the removal of organs. But in cases such as road accidents, in which they also have a responsibility, as the medical authorities frequently advise them in advance of the possibility, procurators fiscal can ensure in advance that such organs can be released if they may save human lives and if permission is granted.

    BAIL ETC. (SCOTLAND) ACT
    Mr. Dewarasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland whether he will hold discussions with sheriffs in Scotland on the implementation of the Bail Etc. (Scotland) Act.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: Although my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate and I have periodic discussions with sheriffs principal and sheriffs in Scotland on subjects of common interest, we have no plans at present to hold discussions with them on the im-
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    Plementation of the Bail Etc.(Scotland) Act 1980.
    Mr. Dewar: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that there have been certain pronouncements by the shrieval bench in Glasgow that, whatever may be Parliament's intention, money bail has in effect been retained by the Act and will continue to be enforced? In view of that, will the Solicitor-General for Scotland reconsider his plans and talk to the sheriffs to make sure that that is not continued as an everyday occurrence in Scottish courts?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: As the hon. Gentleman will know, it would be constitutionally improper for me to influence the courts in their application of a statute passed by this House. The remedy is simple if any judge at any level misinterprets any Act—appeal to the High Court.
    Mr. Peter Fraser: Nevertheless, will my hon. and learned Friend take the opportunity to make it clear that under the Act money bail is to be imposed only in exceptional circumstances?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: Yes, Sir. That will be so.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: Can the Solicitor-General for Scotland define the exceptional circumstances?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: No, sir.

    LORD JUSTICE GENERAL
    Mr. Pollockasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland when he intends next to meet the Lord Justice General.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I have no immediate plans to meet this, Lord Justice General, but my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate has meetings with him from time to time.
    Mr. Pollock: When my hon. and learned Friend next meets the Lord Justice General, will he take the opportunity to discuss a recent television debate on the provisions of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill before an apparently implacably hostile audience? Does he agree that that was a gross abuse of the BBC's impartiality under its charter?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I think that it is fortunate for justice that the i3BC does not select juries, because I should have thought that it would have to be an extremely packed jury which, on the case presented, could find twice in an hour in favour of someone such as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar).
    Mr. Dewar: Does the Solicitor-General for Scotland accept that the jury referred to was made up of 15 final-year law students from Glasgow university, who were picked at random—at random from among those in that year—and that many of them were members of the Conservative club at the university?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The House will be extremely grateful that lawyers practise the law and that the people decide whether they have made their point.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (AGRICULTURE MINISTERS' MEETING)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the Council of Agriculture Ministers' meeting in Brussels on 3–4 March, at which my right hon. Friend and I represented the United Kingdom. My right hon. Friend is today attending the OECD meeting in Paris. The main items discussed were sheepmeat and the Commission's economy proposals on sugar, milk and beef.
On sheepmeat, the Council considered a draft resolution tabled by the Commission for interim measures to apply from the opening of the French market until 15 July. My right hon. Friend said that for it to be acceptable to the United Kingdom three conditions would have to be met. First, the French Government would have to undertake that they would not reintroduce restrictions on imports in the future. Secondly, Community finance would not be used for intervention during this period. Thirdly, there must be agreement for a fair allocation of the available Community funds between member States.
The French Government did not give an assurance that import restrictions would not be reintroduced. Nor would they accept interim arrangements that did not allow for Community financing of intervention measures.
Eight member States were ready to accept a proposal made by the presidency of the Council that, following the opening of the French frontier, there should be interim Community aid to support farmers' incomes, but with an intervention measures nationally financed. The Irish delegation stated that it did not rule out the principle of Community financing for intervention measures. The French delegation refused to accept the President's proposal.
The President expressed deep regret at this. He said that the French Government's position was a blatant violation of the Treaty and that member countries should not feel able to break the law with impunity. He also said that the Commission, as guardians of the Treaty, had a clear duty to act. Vice-President

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Gundelach accepted that the Commission must carry out its role in this respect, and said that it would do so.
The discussion on sugar centred on the Commission's proposals to reduce the maximum quotas to 10·5 million tonnes and on the allocation of this reduced quota. Wide differences of view were put forward on behalf of member States. We maintained our support for the proposed overall cut in quotas, but made clear our opposition to the proposed basis of allocation. There was no progress towards agreement. The Commission will be making a new proposal before the next Council.
The discussion on milk was mainly concerned with the proposed co-responsibility levies. On the basic levy, a number of delegations, including ourselves, are opposed to further exemptions of the kind proposed by the Commission. Others, however, favour progressive rates of levy with higher charges on more intensive producers.
A number of fundamental objections were also registered against the Commission's supplementary levy.
We made it clear that we are ready to consider additional co-responsibility levies, provided these do not discriminate unfairly against the United Kingdom. The milk proposals will be further discussed in a group of senior officials.
There was a brief discussion on the Commission's proposals for beef. This focused particularly on the proposed suckler cow subsidy. We expressed strong reservations about the proposed limitation of the subsidy to the first 15 cows in the herd.
Finally, the Council had a brief discussion on national aids towards fuel costs of intensive horticulture. My right hon. Friend expressed concern about unfair competition and emphasised the urgent need for an agreed policy for the Community as a whole. The Vice-President accepted that this problem needed attention, and undertook that the Commission would investigate this as quickly as possible.
Mr. Strang: May we assume from the Minister's statement that no progress whatsoever was made on anything at
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the two-day meeting? Will the Government stand absolutely firm in their opposition to the introduction of an expensive sheepmeat regime as a quid pro quo for the ending of the French ban on imports?
As the hon. Gentleman's statement made no mention of butter, can he assure the House that the Government intend to resist the proposal to end the special United Kingdom butter subsidy, which is worth about 13p a pound to our consumers? In this connection, can he tell the House whether his right hon. Friend took the opportunity to comment on the Commission's proposals to resume sales of heavily subsidised butter to the Soviet Union?
Does the Minister agree that the paramount objective in the present price-fixing must be to secure action to tackle the colossal surpluses, particularly of milk and sugar? As the milk sector alone now accounts for one-third of total Community expenditure, will the hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Government will oppose any increase in the common price of milk and will not agree to a package that does not include effective action to tackle this monstrous misuse of taxpayers' money?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I believe that progress was made at this Council. We were involved mainly in discussion of commodities, particularly those in surplus, and also of sheepmeat. I believe that progress was made on sheepmeat and that a sensible interim measure was accepted by eight members of the Community, the French alone standing out against it. It is significant that arising from this Council the President has instructed the Commissioner for Agriculture, in conjunction with his fellow Commissioners, to undertake further legal proceedings against the French Government.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned particular commodities. I agree with him on butter. At the last price fixing we achieved the biggest butter subsidy from the Community that has ever been acheived. We believe that the subsidy not only benefits consumers in Britain but that it is a sensible and useful way of disposing of surpluses within the Community to members of the Community. We shall continue to work to that end.

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On exports to Russia, we have made our position absolutely clear. We are opposed to such exports and will continue to oppose them within the workings of the management committee. On surpluses generally, I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that we shall continue to work towards a better control of surpluses, especially milk surpluses. One of the problems is that even the proposed super levy deals only with the existing surpluses and not with any of the underlying forces that lead towards those surpluses. We believe that what is required in the longer term is a much more fundamental approach.
Mr. Kimball: Is it correct to assume from what my hon. Friend said that the interim arrangements for exporting sheep-meat to France that are now in operation, unsatisfactory though they are, will continue up to 15 July? It therefore becomes increasingly urgent to have a sheepmeat regime operating from 15 July that will help restore lamb prices in this country.
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: It is true that what we discussed in Brussels this week was simply related to interim arrangements up to 15 July to give an opportunity for the French to open the Market—an opportunity that they did not take. It would have given more time to work towards a more satisfactory arrangement. I agree with my hon. Friend that satisfactory permanent arrangements for our sheep producers particularly towards the autumn of this year, matter most of all.
Mr. Donald Stewart: Was there any discussion or agreement on redress for producers for their losses over the period during which sheepmeat was banned from France? Is he aware that the fact that the French would give no assurance that they would not reintroduce a ban means that they intend to continue to break the rules with impunity, and that they will get away with it?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: On the last point, further legal proceedings are under consideration. The point was made by the President of the Council yesterday that no country could continue to get away with it in the way that the French have done so far. On compensation, we welcome the interim proposals. These suggest that a sum of £20 million should
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be available to producers of sheepmeat in the Community. The allocation would be on the basis of production within the Community. As our production amounts to 47 per cent. of the total, this would be of considerable financial benefit to the United Kingdom.
Mr. Geraint Howells: I am the first to admire the Minister's stand in Europe. Does he agree, however, that little progress has been made during the last few months? If a settlement is to be achieved during the next six to eight weeks the Minister will have to make a compromise in Europe. If this happens can he give an assurance that the sheep sector, the dairy sector and the beef sector will not suffer a loss? Can he give an assurance that the guaranteed deficiency payment will be restored in this country and that he will not agree to a sheepmeat regime at any cost?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I think it is understood that there is a certain precedent for this kind of procedure in relation to the annual price fixing in Europe. One goes through a series of meetings over a period in the early spring. It is often later that actual conclusions are reached. I do not think that this is necessarily a bad thing. It gives an opportunity for different countries to express their views on different proposals. It enables solutions to be worked out that could not be achieved simply by one meeting. In that respect, I do not think that progress or procedures this year are different from those in previous years.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the important livestock products that he mentioned. Livestock products are probably more important to agriculture in this country than in most other countries of the Community. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that in these negotiations, as last year, we shall certainly stand up for the interests of our producers.
Mr. Farr: Is my hon. Friend aware that this continual delay by the French in according to the recommendations is very frustrating for fellow members of the European Community? Is there any way in which he can advocate a proposal for a satisfactory solution, possibly by suggesting some form of daily levy to be placed upon the French until they fall into line? Did my hon. Friend have

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discussions about the future of the beef premium scheme. If so, what was the outcome?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: In relation to sheepmeat, I emphasise, as my right hon. Friend and I have done before, that this whole question is not simply a dispute between the United Kingdom Government and the French Government. The French Government are in dispute with the Community as a whole. That is why it is correct for the Commission, with its powers as guardians of the Treaty and as instructed yesterday by the Council of Ministers, to take action against the French Government. That is important in itself.
I agree totally with my hon. Friend. The stage that we have reached is thoroughly frustrating. But it is also significant that during the Council meeting of the last two days, everyone—the Commission and all the other member countries of the EEC—have bent over backwards to put forward proposals of an interim nature that the French, for no good reason, were not prepared to accept. It has been demonstrated beyond peradventure that the French are not prepared to do so. In the attitude that they have taken, they are breaking the law and have lost the sympathy not only of the United Kingdom but of every other country in Europe.
Dr. J. Dickson Mahon: Dees any member State, in principle, object to the Commission's proposal that we should, as a Community, join the international sugar agreement? Will the Minister be more specific about his reference to beet sugar quotas? Are we endorsing the Commission's proposal about beet sugar, which would honour Lome in its proper way?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The international sugar agreement was not discussed. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, it would be our wish that we should join that agreement. We have opposed what has been proposed up to now on beet quotas because of the disproportionate cut that would be imposed on British producers. For example, cuts would be of the order of 24 per cent. in our quotas, whereas for countries such as Denmark, Germany and France the cut would amount to only 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. To the extent that those cuts
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are utterly discriminatory against the United Kingdom, we reject them totally.
I repeat our support for what was agreed in Lome. The commitments under the Lome convention are not simply entered into by the United Kingdom Government; they are entered into by the Community.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Will my hon. Friend be a little careful in seeking to get the French put into the dock over the import of lamb, vital though it is to secure the required objective? For them, this is an essential national interest in the light of the income of farmers in South-West France who produce lamb. Will my hon. Friend also bear in mind that our defences against the import of ultra-heat-treated milk are not sufficiently solid to risk finding ourselves put in the same position as France.
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I must tell my hon. Friend that never at one moment of time have we denied the opportunity of the French Government to help their own producers. Indeed, the original decision of the European Court last September specifically stated that it was open to the French Government, in this situation, to help their producers. What we oppose is the use of Community funds in order to finance intervention in sheepmeat in Europe. To any sensibly-minded individual—we have the support of every other country in the Community except France and Ireland—it does not make sense to introduce a heavy Community-financed intervention regime for a commodity that is not in surplus, where there is a deficiency of demand, and imports from third countries, and in which the direct interest basically belongs to three countries. It is that that we are opposing.
We understand the position of French producers. We have constantly said so. It is wholly open to the French to use their own funds or even to introduce nationally financed intervention if they so choose. It is the total rejection of the French to accept any of these means for which they must stand condemned.
Mr. Jay: For how many months now have the French been defying the law with complete impunity?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Very nearly six months.
Mr. Latham: Following on that point, does my hon. Friend think that if the French continue to defy the law with impunity other nations in Europe should not take the hint and do the same?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The point that my hon. Friend makes was precisely the point made by the President of the Agriculture Council yesterday, and it was in the light of that that he instructed the Commission to take further legal action.
Mr. Torney: Is the Minister aware of the serious consequences for the dairy farmer and the dairy industry of the exemptions in the co-responsibility levy? Since Britain does not contribute anything to the surplus of milk in the EEC, will he or his right hon. Friend ensure that, in the view of the hardships that may result from the agreement of these exemptions, the dairy farmer and the British consumer will be protected both as regards cutting down of herds and as regards prices?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I think it significant that the exemptions to the basic levy that are proposed would exempt only about 5 per cent. of United Kingdom milk deliveries, in contrast to over 30 per cent. of milk deliveries in such countries as Luxembourg and Ireland. We regard that as wholly unacceptable, and we have said so.
Mr. Myles: I congratulate my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend on the hard-line yet constructive attitude that they are taking in Brussels, and urge that they continue with it. But is my hon. Friend even slightly optimistic that this time the Commission will be able to take effective action to persuade—I think that that is the right word—the French to behave in a communautaire fashion?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: After six months I think that it would be a brave person who expressed overwhelming optimism in relation to the present position. But, again, I think that the real significance here is that every effort has been made by the Commission and by individual countries to persuade the French to comply with the law. It has been demonstrated at this week's Council of Ministers that all those efforts of persuasion have totally failed, and now the law must run its course.
Mr. Harry Ewing: I appreciate that the Council had a heavy agenda, but will the Minister take it that some of us are now becoming increasingly concerned about the Council's obvious reluctance to discuss the French Government's proposals to allow their wine industry to discharge its fermentation alcohol into the industrial alcohol market? I plead with the Minister to have this matter discussed and decided at an early date, because BP is anxious to make a major investment decision at Grangemouth, in my constituency.
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: That matter was not discussed at this Council, although my right hon. Friend and I are wholly aware of it. As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is what is proposed in the draft regulation that could be damaging to our ethyl alcohol or synthetic alcohol industry. The proposals have been tabled, they were discussed briefly some time ago, and so far they have been pushed back and back, so at least to that extent we are that much further away from actual proposals even coming into effect. But I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are aware of the problems and we shall make sure that the interests of our synthetic alcohol industry are properly looked after in the negotiations when the time comes.
Mr. Shersby: On what basis does my hon. Friend expect fresh proposals to be made for sugar? Is he aware of the uncertainty that delay is creating in our sugar industry, and will he say when he expects the further proposals to be considered in detail?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: It undoubtedly creates uncertainty. The longer time goes on, the closer we come to the time at which farmers wish to sow their crops, and by the next Council meeting we shall have reached or almost passed that moment. I am therefore wholly aware of the uncertainty. We had expected proposals to be tabled before the end of the meeting yesterday, but in fact they were not. They were delayed till the next meeting. It would appear from the indications that we have from the Commission that it was talking in terms of maintaining for next year the A quota, any cuts that it was making being applied to the B quota. But I emphasise that that was simply an indication that we had.
Mr. Spearing: The Minister said that the Government are opposed to the export of butter to Russia. Will he confirm that they cannot stop it, and that part of our £2,000 million contribution goes to promote this export traffic? Can the Minister say how much is going between now and the end of the year, and what is the subsidy in pounds per tonne?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: On the latter point, what will go between now and the end of the year is obviously totally speculative—
Mr. Spearing: Oh!
Mr. Buchanan-Smith:—and I could not know what it is. The hon. Gentleman is correct in the first part of what he said, in that the actual arrangements and decisions to be taken —this has been repeated from the Dispatch Box on earlier occasions—rest with the management committee. As the hon. Gentleman knows, already as a result of pressure by the United Kingdom Government those procedures have been tightened up so that it is now much easier clearly to identify precisely what is taking place. I assure the hon. Gentleman that both in the management committee and at Council meetings we shall continue our opposition to these sales.
Mr. Marlow: If we do not manage to get a satisfactory resolution to the problems of our budget deficit with Europe by the end of this month, since the nature and requirements of our United Kingdom agriculture are quite different from those of Continental Europe, since the NFU is now coming out against the common agricultural policy, and since the French do not even obey the law, will my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend give serious consideration to a unilateral withdrawal from the common agricultural policy as a means of solving both our budget deficit and many of the problems that we have been discussing this afternoon?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: With respect, not all that my hon. Friend has said is wholly correct. I am not aware that the NFU is against the common agricultural policy, although some views were expressed by individual members at the meeting. Equally, I assure my hon. Friend that in relation to many other member countries of the Community we
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find that we are not fighting a lone battle in the least. As for milk and the co-responsibility levy, very much the same views are expressed by, for example, Denmark and the Netherlands. I remind my hon. Friend also that in terms of sheepmeat we are in a majority of eight against one. Therefore, I must tell him that the conclusions that he draws from the situation that confronts us are by no means necessarily correct.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call those hon. Members who have been rising to ask questions.
Mr. Dalyell: Did we detect in the Minister's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth (Mr. Ewing) that he was somewhat chuffed with himself for pushing back a proposal tabled on ethyl alcohol? If so, his chuffment is misplaced, since BP needs an investment decision and pushing the decision back and back is no good to us.
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: In the first place, we have not pushed back anything, whether by chuffing or by any other means. The Commission itself believes that there is a great deal more work to be done on these proposals before it brings them forward again to the Council of Ministers. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the most foolish kind of chuffing would be to try to discuss half-baked proposals.
Mr. Pollock: I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend upon the strenuous efforts that he is making. Did Mr. Gundelach give any indication of the kind of timetable that he would be prepared to accept in requiring the French to abide by their obligations under the Treaty?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I have to tell the House that in the time since I came to the Dispatch Box at 3.30 pm I have learnt that the Commission has decided today to proceed to implement an interim injunction against France—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and I am advised that this will take from seven to 10 days.
Dr. David Clark: On that very question, does the Minister realise that the

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whole country, apart from the Government Front Bench, now acknowledges that the French Government regard themselves as above the law of the Community, injunction or not? That is the main message. Has not the time now come when the French, as the main beneficiaries of the CAP, must be made to suffer? As a gesture, why do not the British Government withdraw their contribution to the CAP until the French stick to the law of the CAP?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The President of the Council himself described the French attitude as a blatant violation and said that no country should be able to flout the law with impunity. I do not believe that there is a difference among hon. Members on either side of the House about that. I am only surprised that the hon. Gentleman, with his background, should believe that it is right to meet one illegality with another. There are legal processes for dealing with this and, as I said, the Commission has decided to take those legal steps. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not support and welcome that.
Mr. Maclennan: While I am satisfied that the Commission has at last decided to seek to implement the earlier judgment of the Court, may I ask the Minister whether the Government accept that though it is the responsibility of the Commission to initiate the proceedings to protect the Treaty and the responsibility of the Court to deliver the judgment, in the last analysis the enforcement of that judgment lies with the Council of Ministers? Why have the Government and the other seven Governments that are in agreement with the United Kingdom done nothing in six months to give effect to that judgment of September? Does that inaction not bring into disrepute the machinery for law enforcement in the Community?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The hon. Gentleman is wrong to say that nothing has been done. Attempts have been made to resolve this specifically in relation to what I described at the Council meeting. Persuasion having failed, it is now necessary—as the Commission recognises—to take legal action.
Mr. Parry: When will the Minister stop pandering to the British Sugar Corporation and the farmers' lobby on beet
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quotas? The Minister is trying to ride two horses in one race and he must be aware that the BSC have never met quotas in the past. Does the Minister agree that the refinery industry has done its part in shedding 2,000 jobs in recent years, many of them on Merseyside? Will the Minister not ask his right hon. Friend to oppose further expansion by the British Sugar Corporation?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: One of the tragedies of the situation is that this should be seen simply as a beet sugar versus cane sugar lobby. It is not that. Both interests are important. Cane sugar is important, and so is beet. Beet production holds an important position in British agriculture. We believe that there is a place for beet sugar and cane sugar within our sugar refining capacity and we intend to keep a proper balance to the benefit of both.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 21 MARCH
Members successful in the ballot were:

Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson

Mr. Marcus Kimball

Mr David Penhaligon

HUMAN ORGANS (ANONYMITY OF DONORS)
4.5 pm
Mr. John Farr: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for protection of the identity of donors of human organs.
My reason for rising to present this Bill to the House is to respond to a request from one of my constituents whose daughter was recently tragically killed. After her death my constituent and his family underwent what can only be described as persecution by the media in a most improper way during their time of sorrow.
My constituent is Mr. George Morris, who lives at Houghton on the Hill, in Leicestershire—a fairly small community of 300 houses. He has formally complained to the Press Council, as indeed I have complained, about the activities of the media in general and about certain newspapers in particular following the death of his daughter Carol in a motor accident. Mr. Morris' daughter died on

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the night of 28 January and on the 1 o'clock news on 29 January it was reported that a heart transplant operation had taken place at Papworth hospital and that the family of the donor particularly wished to remain anonymous.
Mr. Morris tells me that a leak occurred and within three or four hours the Evening News telephoned requesting information. The Morris' telephone rang continually as one newspaper after another requested information, until 5 pm, when the family took the telephone off the hook.
However, that did not alleviate the position. The newspapers that had been told by telephone that the family were not prepared to comment sent reporters to the door. To add insult to injury, most reporters attempted to obtain additional information and a photograph of the dead girl from the villagers, despite the family's request for anonymity.
Mr. Morris cites particular newspapers, such as the Daily Mail, which behaved especially badly. That newspaper telephoned him and also his next-door neighbour, Mr. Stephen Turnbull, giving the impression that they were friends of the family requesting information. After an inquiry about the donor card the callers admitted that they were from the Daily Mail in London. That is a despicable way of obtaining information.
The Daily Mail sank even lower on the following day. A female reporter waited near Mr. Morris' house from 10 am on 30 January until 6 pm. The reporter, Miss Sally Brompton, canvassed the village from door to door in an attempt to buy a photograph of Mr. Morris' daughter Carol. According to Mr. Morris, Miss Brompton even attempted to persuade a 14-year-old girl to go into her elder sister's bedroom to remove a photograph of Carol. At about 6 pm Miss Brompton left a card with Mr Morris requesting an interview at a later date.
By 10 am on Wednesday 30 January the problems caused to the family by the media had necessitated police protection for Mr. Morris, who lives in Weir Lane. Policemen were posted there and his telephone was made indefinitely ex-directory.
Mr. Morris has asked me to make it clear that very few newspapers acted in a professional manner, but that there were
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two exceptions. Two newspapers possessed photographs of Carol, which the rest of the newspapers were attempting to obtain. One of the newspapers was The Guardian and the other was the local evening newspaper, the Leicester Mercury. Both newspapers, at the request of the family, decided not to publish photographs of Carol.
Mr. Morris alleges that
"the behaviour of the media caused more pain and anguish to my wife and daughter."
The newspaper reporters even had the nerve to challenge Mr. Morris when he wished to leave his house, as if he were a criminal on the run. Mr. Morris said
"If transplants are to continue donor organs are essential. Families will not consent to the use of deceased relatives' organs if the media continue to act in such a disgraceful and unsympathetic way."
If families are to be badgered in this disgraceful and unsympathetic way by the media even when requests for anonymity have been made, the source of organs for transplant will dry up. I agree with Mr. Morris, and though I am in the van of those who believe that 'v. need a free press I believe that the conduct that I have described is evil. We must therefore make it as difficult as possible for such ghouls to gain any clue as to the identity of sorrowing families.
The purpose of the Bill will be, first, to secure absolutely total anonymity at the wish of the donor. I feel that if a donor is public spirited enough to make his organs available for the use of his neighbours his wishes must be respected.
How can we secure this rightful anonymity? There are several ways in which the present system can be strengthened. I have here a copy of a code relating to the removal of organs for transplantation, produced in October last year. As it deals mainly with kidneys and other organs and makes little mention of hearts, and as it deals with the question of anonymity in a cavalier manner, I feel that it is already outdated. I believe that this code of conduct entitled "The removal of cadaveric organs for transplantation" should be strengthened and drafted in much plainer language
For example, paragraph 37 of the October code says, of anonymity:
"The staff of hospitals and organ exchange organisations should always try to maintain the anonymity of the donor and of the recipient".

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I do not believe that that goes far enough today. I should like to see a fresh code drawn up. Furthermore—here I pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, who was kind enough to see me yesterday about the Bill—if reference were made to such a code in the Health Services Bill, which is now going through the House, I believe that it would give it a bit more punch, even though it would still be voluntary.
I should like to make two other suggestions. First, again in order to assist anonymity, could not all the cards of those who wish to remin anonymous have the word "anonymous" printed diagonally in large type across the top? Secondly, in these days when organs of all types are so pressingly needed, could not we have a single donor card for all organs, which would greatly simplify the system?
I have been lucky enough to secure all-party support for the Bill. Reference has been made to the Human Tissue Act 1961, the actions of certain coroners, and so on. That Act clearly lays down that coroners have the right to require consultation before organs are secured. However, I understand that most organs are obtained after telephone consultation with the coroner, which I believe is a proper and correct procedure, which does not take up very much time.
Question put and agreed to
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Farr, Mr. Greville Janner, Mr. Tony Marlow, Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. R. A. McCrindle, Mr. Tam Dalyell, and Mr. Michael Hamilton.

HUMAN ORGANS (ANONYMITY OF DONORS)
  HUMAN ORGANS (ANONYMITY OF DONORS)
  Mr. John Farr accordingly presented a Bill to provide for protection of the identity of donors of human organs: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 14 March and to be printed. [Bill 160].
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [12TH ALLOTTED DAY]—considered.

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES
Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
4.13 pm
Mr. Eric G. Varley: I beg to move,
That this House deplores the repeated cut-backs in the budget of the Manpower Services Commission and expenditure on job support measures which are damaging their effectiveness at a time when Her Majesty's Government's economic and industrial policies are causing large scale redundancies and a dramatic increase in unemployment; and further calls upon the Government to pursue a constructive manpower policy which will support industrial development and provide training and help for the unemployed.
This debate takes place against the most sombre economic background that this country has known for many years. Throughout the developed world, Governments are facing recession or inflation, or both. At the beginning of this debate, I draw attention to these adverse world conditions, not because I believe that they offer any excuse for the damaging policies which the Government are pursuing, but because they strengthen the indictment against the Government in the context of a debate such as this. If the world and national economies were buoyant, the Government might have some justification for pursuing an economic experiment which everyone knows is at best a high-risk gamble. But to pursue such an experiment when the odds against it are so high, and when the Government are staking all that we have, is irresponsible in the extreme, because none of us thinks that it will work.
If ever there was a time for the Government to act to soften at home the impact of hazardous conditions overseas, the time is now. But, instead of doing that, the Government are pursuing policies that will make a bleak situation even worse. That is not just some partisan statement from a member of the

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Opposition. It is a carefully phrased analysis from the Department of Employment itself. Those are the words of an economic analysis which was published in January this year in the Employment Gazette, which is described on its title page as
"the official journal of the Department of Employment".
Indeed, I must give it that credit, because the title page also states:
"Brief extracts from the articles may be used (in a non-advertising context) provided the source is acknowledged".
I am prepared to acknowledge the source of that independent analysis. Page 45 states:
"Economic forecasts, both private and official, point to a recession in 1980. The main factors expected to contribute to the recession are thought to be depressed world trade coupled with a lack of United Kingdom competitiveness and the short term effects of tighter monetary and fiscal policies, with an associated fall in investment and stockbuilding".
Therefore, the Government are ready to accept and share their responsibility for the crisis. Certainly the Secretary of State's Department is prepared to take responsibility for it.
That confession is no more than we have the right to expect, because, far from taking steps to alleviate our problems, every industrial and economic measure taken by the Government in the past 10 months has been an attack on investment and jobs. I shall not go through the whole list, but they are all attacks on investment and jobs. For example, the minimum lending rate first went up to 14 per cent. and then to 17 per cent. We should remember what the Prime Minister said as Leader of the Opposition. When speaking from this Dispatch Box just over a year ago, when the minimum lending rate went up briefly to 14 per cent., she said:
"an increase in interest rates to 14 per cent. is a potential disaster for home buyers … and the small business who are having to pay the price".—[Official Report, 8 February 1979; Vol. 962, c. 550.]
A direct consequence of the 17 per cent. MLR is the high exchange rate of the pound sterling which is damaging our overseas competitiveness and those companies which export a large proportion of their goods. The quite reckless removing of all exchange controls will produce a
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direct incentive to export jobs. The public expenditure cuts on local authorities will have a catastrophic effect on essential employment. Very often, those who undertake the jobs are low-paid workers.
There have also been cuts in local authority housing expenditure and a 15 per cent. mortgage rate, both of which are having a devastating impact on employment in the building industry, which is one of the hardest hit industries of all. The crude impact of the unreal cash limits on the British Steel Corporation has not only caused that unnecessary strike but has imposed 52,000 job losses in some of the hardest hit areas of the country.
The two-year break-even scale for British Shipbuilders has also precipitated thousands of redundancies in areas of chronically high unemployment. The axe which the Secretary of State for Industry has taken to regional policy has removed incentives and job opportunities from areas of high unemployment. There has also been a contraction in the job creation activities of the National Enterprise Board. There has been the ending of industry support schemes, and the removal from many areas of the right to qualify for aid under section 7 of the Industry Act 1972. That is a far from complete list showing how active and zealous the Government are in destroying jobs and job opportunities.
Mr. Nicholas Scott: How much responsibility does the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) think that the Labour Government bear for ensuring that the country entered a world recession with double the number of unemployed that they inherited when they took office in 1974?
Mr. Varley: I know that that is the type of question that Government Members will ask me and I am prepared to face up to the issue. In every month in the last 12 months of the Labour Government, unemployment dropped. In the next 12 months the Secretary of State will not be able to claim a similar record. It is more likely that there will be an increase in unemployment in each of the next 12 months. I shall return to that issue.
I have no doubt that the Secretary of State for Employment has spoken up in

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the Cabinet against many of the Government's acts of industrial butchery. We all know that his is a minority voice in the Cabinet. We know that the Prime Minister thinks that he is the wettest of the wet. He counts for so little in the Cabinet that the Prime Minister can afford to insult and humiliate him on television in front of millions of people. The Secretary of State for Employment is taking rearguard action to prevent his Employment Bill from being turned into a bludgeon against the unions. The Bill is bad enough as it is. We have made our views known in Committee. We believe that the Bill will lead to a deterioration in industrial relations. I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman does not really believe in it because in every speech that he makes about it he makes qualifying comments.
Mr. Eric S. Heller: I thought the same until I heard the speech by the Secretary of State for Employment on Monday at a Parliamentary Press Gallery lunch. It appears that the right hon. Gentleman is a wet hawk—but basically a hawk.
Mr. Varley: It is incredible that in her first 10 months in government the Prime Minister could do what she did to the Secretary of State for Employment on television. I leave it at that. I am sure that some Government Members are upset, disgruntled and angry about it.
Sir Anthony Meyer: What is the attitude of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) towards desirable trade union reforms? Will he urge Mr. Len Murray to reiterate the guidelines on picketing?
Mr. Varley: I could answer those questions fully, but that would prolong my speech. Our views were made known on 17 December during the Second Reading of the Employment Bill. We believe that voluntary action, provided that it is carried out to the letter and the spirit, is much better than the legislative nit-picking favoured by the Government. That is another matter. I am sure that if the Employment Bill ever emerges from Committee we shall discuss that.
The Secretary of State is fighting to prevent his Employment Bill from being turned into an instrument in which he does not believe. In all his speeches he
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says that the law cannot solve the problem alone and that other action is necessary. In Committee, Labour Members had to protect him. On one occasion we had to vote with him against an extremist from his own Back Benches who is not in the Chamber today. We are not there to vote with the right hon. Gentleman against the extremists in Cabinet meetings. At No. 10 Downing Street the right hon. Gentleman is on his own. He is finding it impossible to fight the battle on two fronts. He tries to fight a sturdy and defensive battle against a union-bashing Prime Minister, abetted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he retreats in disorder on the second front—the jobs front.
It is extraordinary and almost incredible that after 10 months in office the Secretary of State for Employment has done nothing to promote employment. In 10 months he has not taken a single measure to create or protect jobs. I expect that when the Secretary of State moves the Government's amendment he will make great play of the rate of unemployment when the Labour Government were in office. That is fair enough. He and the Prime Minister are always referring to that even though page 47 of the Employment Gazette states:
"Unemployment in Great Britain fell gradually from late 1977 until September 1979."
The Labour Government's employment measures cut the potential number of unemployed by many hunderds of thousands. The Employment Gazette states:
"The rise in unemployment has tended to be reduced by the special employment and training measures."
The Labour Government's measures cut unemployment in the two years 1977 to 1979.
The Government have been in office for nearly a year. They cannot blame rising unemployment on Labour policies. The Chief Secretary admitted that he is adding 300,000 to the number who are out of work. The Government have a big majority. It is about time that they used it to fight unemployment. After all, that was the promise that the Secretary of State made before the election. In an interview published in the magazine jobs Weekly he said:
"We would certainly set out to bring about a reduction in the numbers of unemployed".

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The Secretary of State has broken that promise. Instead of bringing about a reduction in the numbers of unemployed, he has repeatedly attacked the measures to protect and create jobs. That is what he has done in his attacks on the Manpower Services Commission and other bodies.
Mr. John Browne: The difference in philosophy is that we try not merely to create jobs but to create profitable jobs. That is in the national interest and is the key to the problem. It is relatively easy to create jobs by spending money. However, profitable jobs are necessary to enable the nation to survive. That is the Government's difficulty.
Mr. Varley: About two years ago the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said that we should examine ways of saving and protecting all types of job. Is the hon. Member saying that shipbuilding jobs should not be protected or created? The popular view in the Conservative Party is that shipbuilding jobs should be destroyed.
Mr. Browne: I do not hold with that view.
Mr. Varley: The hon. Member is one of the more civilised members of his party. Does he believe that the shipbuilding industry should receive taxpayers' assistance in the next two years?
Mr. Browne: I do not say that jobs should be destroyed. I say that Government subsidies for jobs should be run down and that businesses should be made to create profitable jobs in an open market. The taxpayer has to pay for those subsidies and we must reduce taxes.
Mr. Varley: If the hon. Gentleman would be specific and would tell me what jobs should not be protected, I could meet his argument. Is he saying that jobs in the shipbuilding industry should not be protected. Is he saying that jobs in the motor industry—such as those at British Leyland—should not be protected? If he would tell me which jobs he wishes to get rid of because they are not profitable, I would take his argument seriously.
Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: Perhaps the jobs referred to by the hon.
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Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) are the 726 jobs which, I heard an hour ago, are to be lost at the Hygena factory in my constituency. That follows several thousand other jobs that have been lost in the past few weeks at Massey-Ferguson, and at Ward and Goldstone. Given the intolerably high level of unemployment on Merseyside, does my right hon. Friend agree that those are the sort of jobs that should be protected?
Mr. Varley: I am sure that the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) will take my hon. Friend's remarks into account. We hear glib statements from Conservative Members about so-called "real jobs"—that is the term used by the Prime Minister from time to time—but no one knows what that term means. When Opposition Members mention specific jobs in industries such as textiles, footwear, clothing or shipbuilding, Conservative Members say "Oh no, we do not mean those jobs". They are never specific.
Every informed observer knows that unemployment will rise over the next 12 months. The National Institute for Economic and Social Research, the London Business School, the Department's own forecast and the Treasury model all point to rising unemployment. Indeed, the Employment Gazette states:
"The expected upturn in the unemployment trend is now underway."
That trend is underway at a time when the Secretary of State is leaving the unemployed more unprotected than they have been for many years.
Some Conservative Members may decry those unemployment measures but, as I have pointed out, the Secretary of State's Department knows that among those most affected by the axe that the Treasury has taken to the employment measures are school leavers, the unskilled, older workers and the ethnic minorities. It is difficult to decide which group will be the hardest hit. One of the most devastating prospects facing Britain is the huge and continuing increase in the number of long-term unemployed—those who have been out of work for 12 months or more.
The Manpower Services Commission estimates that in a couple of years there will be 500,000 long-term unemployed. Their number will remain at a high level

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even if the total number of unemployed begins to drop in about two years. There is a terrible degradation attached to being unemployed for a long period.
One of the long-term unemployed told the interviewers in the survey published in the Employment Gazette in February:
"You can't plan ahead, so you just live day-to-day … It's not just the money. Work gives you something to do. I'm just wasting away."
That sums up the general attitude of the long-term unemployed. It is one sort of humiliation that they suffer. Another humiliation is that suffered by school leavers who are unable to find employment. Bright-eyed youngsters go out into the world and find that it has nothing to offer them.
The Secretary of State, when he spoke from the Opposition Dispatch Box, made great play about unemployment among school leavers. At that time I was sitting on the Government Benches and I thought that his statements were very effective. After nearly a year of Conservative government, the Secretary of State has done nothing to help the school leavers who were his special concern when in opposition. What has happened to his concern for them?
The Manpower Services Commission, in its corporate plan, says that youth unemployment may rise disproportionately. It suggests that unemployment figures for school leavers may double in 12 months. Even the modest increase in the youth opportunities programme is totally inadequate in the present circumstances. Despite that, the Secretary of State's budget is to be cut.
The Government are cutting training provision at a time when technological change means that workers, and potential workers, must learn new skills.
Mr. Scott: I find it difficult to reconcile the right hon. Gentleman's remarks with the facts. The youth opportunities programme has been expanded by 20 per cent.
Mr. Varley: It has been expanded on the figures that were originally announced in the House. However, in these new circumstances, when unemployment will, on official and conservative estimates, rise to 1·8 million by this time next year, and perhaps even higher, and youth unemployment will probably double over
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the next 12 months, the youth opportunities programme is not sufficient to meet that demand. That is why the programme should be expanded further. There is no doubt that the budget will be cut. I shall give the figures to the House in a moment.
The question of training facilities has always sparked off the Secretary of State, and he was very eloquent on the subject when in opposition. He was forthright on the issue a year ago when he said:
"I don't think we do anything like enough training. We're certainly not doing enough training for the jobs of tomorrow and the skills of tomorrow."
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. James Prior): Hear, hear. That is quite right.
Mr. Varley: One would never believe that the right hon. Gentleman who made that statement and has just said "Hear, hear" is the very same person who, when he has the power and the authority to take action, is actually reducing the training budget.
The right hon. Gentleman has picked out the skillcentres and the rehabilitation centres for his special targets. The most recent annual report of the Supplementary Benefits Commission states:
"The majority of the long-term unemployed are unskilled and their prospects are therefore very poor."
The Secretary of State has done absolutely nothing to improve employment prospects. We have not yet seen an end to the cuts. The right hon. Gentleman keeps hacking away virtually month after month at the essential programmes for employment and training opportunities. Last June, in the full flush of election victory, he said that he would make his contribution to the savings in public expenditure. He made a cut of £170 million in the employment programme, including £42 million off the special temporary employment programme, £25 million off the youth opportunities programme and £22 million off the training opportunities scheme—and that was for 1979–80. In December, he told the House that there will be a cut of £160 million in planned expenditure for the Manpower Services Commission in 1980–81, that 10,000 fewer people a year will benefit from the TOPS scheme, that nine skill-centres and 11 skillcentre annexes will close in February—and he announced

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further cuts for the next three financial years—and the small firms employment subsidy is to be ended. That from a man who said that there were about 500,000 small businesses in Britain and if each of them employed one extra person it would go a long way to solving the unemployment problem. There is a reduction in the effectiveness of the job release scheme because the qualifying age has been raised from 62 years to 64 years. That is an attack not only on the changes that have been made in the job release scheme and on those about to retire or near retiring age, but on the young jobless who would take their place from the unemployment register.
We have had three instalments of cuts. Who knows where the axe will be brandished again in the Budget which is just three weeks away to this very day? Who knows what will happen when the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes along on Budget day and decides that others, including the Secretary of State for Employment, have to contribute further cuts in training and manpower policies? Without any doubt, we know what kind of a Budget it will be. It is likely to be so unpopular that the Government are smuggling in the Southend, East by-election two weeks before the Budget is announced. One can bet that, if there were anything to hope for in the Budget, the by-election would be held after, not before, the Budget. Every elector in Southend, East should be asking "What are the Government trying to hide from me?" I hope that the Labour candidate in the Southend, East by-election is saying that, too.
This continuing attack on unemployment comes from a party which had the cheek to fight the election on the slogan "Labour is not working." The pictures of queues of Saatchi and Saatchi hangers-on, who were pretending that they wanted to work for a living, are now being replaced by the real thing. Pictures taken today outside the employment exchanges would be pictures of the real unemployed, not those who masqueraded as unemployed at that time.
It is sad, but true, that the Government are teaching a whole generation what Toryism is all about. The situation was starkly stated this week in an article by
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Mr. Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph when he said:
"Little would be gained this time if the market economy were to win a short new lease of life, only at the price of building up a whole fresh generation of working-class grievances and resentments."
That is exactly what is happening.
Therefore, we urge the Secretary of State for Employment to go in and fight. He certainly has nothing to lose. The Prime Minister, in that famous television interview, said that no Minister should be sacked for making one mistake. The mistake that the Secretary of State is making is that he is fighting the wrong cause. If he were to fight the cause for the unemployed, he would get support not only in the House but in the country. The right hon. Gentleman should be fighting for a realistic programme of training to help the unemployed and for the budget of the Manpower Services Commission, which would allow it to plan a balanced programme for years ahead, instead of this continual chop and change. I hope that if the right hon. Gentleman cannot get some of those cuts restored, he can at least tell us that he has been able to protect the MSC's programmes for the years ahead and that we shall not have another dose of cuts when the Chancellor delivers his Budget in three weeks' time.
We urge the Secretary of State to go into the Cabinet and fight for the unemployed and show the people that at least one Conservative cares about the unemployed. If the right hon. Gentleman does that, he will get the support not only of the trade unions but of the whole House, and he will get the full backing of the Opposition. In order to give him the courage to do that, I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the motion.
4.44 pm
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. James Prior): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'welcomes the Government's concentration of resources on the priority tasks within the Manpower Services Commission programmes and its continued commitment to training for our industrial needs; believes that the best way to help the unemployed is to create soundly based jobs; and recognises that restraint on public expenditure is an important element in Her Majesty's Government's policy to achieve this end'.

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We waited with bated breath to hear the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) put forward his policies for curing the unemployment problem. When he was asked whether he had forgotten about the previous Government's record, he quickly skated over that question. However, we did not hear what the Government of whom he hopes to be a member in future and of whom he was a member in the past would have done which was not the same as they did before, namely, to try to spend their way out of unemployment. They tried that in the years 1975 and 1976, only to be brought up sharp by the IMF. After that, for a period of two years, things were improving because public expenditure was kept under control. Then again, at the end of 1978–79, there were increases in public expenditure and that brought us back to the same old situation again.
The right hon. Gentleman has a very short memory. It is apparently so short that he does not remember that he it was who gave the British Steel Corporation the remit to break even in 1979–80—a target which it has not kept. Whilst the right hon. Gentleman may sympathise with what he considers to be my isolation in the Cabinet, he has perhaps forgotten the time when he was isolated—when he was a hawk, not a dove—because he wanted to get rid of Chrysler. He wanted Chrysler to be chucked out at that time, but he was overridden by the Cabinet. He did not resign. If I am overridden in the same way, I shall resign. It has not happened to me yet.
Mr. Varley: We might keep the right hon. Gentleman to that claim. There are two points that I should like to make, and I do not want to detain the House too long. The right hon. Gentleman must not continually perpetuate the falsehood of the British Steel Corporation's target. The Labour Government gave the BSC sustained public support to reach a break-even point. We did not fix a rigid financial break-even period. As regards Chrysler, the right hon. Gentleman will recall that I moved the rescue from the Government Dispatch Box, but he voted against it.
Mr. Prior: As I recall, the right hon. Gentleman was overridden over Chrysler by none other a character than Lord Lever. I do not think that he recovered
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his nerve from that moment on. Perhaps a period in opposition will do him a bit of good. It does not seem to have had much effect on him yet, because he is still harking back to the policies which achieved such drastic and terrible results in unemployment for the nation during the Labour Government's five years in office.
Listening to the right hon. Gentleman, one would think that the Labour Government had not been responsible for more than doubling unemployment in their five years—up by 692,000—and that he had had no responsibility for the long-term unemployed—up by 163 per cent., rising to more than a third of a million.
The right hon. Gentleman had a lot to say about youth unemployment. In 1974, youth unemployment was 100,000. By January 1979, it was 240,000. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman had not got a very good case to put forward.
Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Prior: Not at the moment. I should like to get into my speech beyond the first stage before giving way again.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield appears not to have taken account of the statement by the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett), that the laws of arithmetic do not change with a change of Government. The right hon. Gentleman would do well to remember that.
The previous Labour Government spent a great deal of money. As I have said before, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer had to admit that that policy would not succeed. Yet they started that process all over again in 1978–79. Not only that, they left us with an expansion in public expenditure in real terms of 2 per cent. which was in no way supported by any increase in production. They also left us with a number of postdated cheques—perhaps we had better call them post-election dated cheques—to the extent of around £3 billion, £2 billion on the Clegg awards and £1 billion for increased Civil Service and other public sector pay.
Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would prefer to say something about the future, instead of raking over old history. What would he

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say today to the 726 people in my constituency who have been made redundant at Hygena Ltd? What hope is he able to offer to them that they will find alternative employment quickly? Will he also tell them what jobs he will create for them?
Mr. Prior: The hon. Gentleman has already asked his right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield that question. He got no answer, except that there would be more public expenditure. It is that sort of attitude which has got Britain into trouble and which the hon. Gentleman knows will never get the country out of its problems.
Mr. Kilroy-Silk rose—
Mr. Prior: No, I shall not give way again.
Mr. Kilroy-Silk rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
Mr. Prior: No, I am not giving way again.
Mr. Kilroy-Silk: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hesitate to raise a point, but several hundred of my constituents have lost their livelihoods to-day—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he knows perfectly well that that is in no sense a point of order. It was a good try.
Mr. Prior: If the hon. Gentleman has a little patience, I shall deal with that point a little later in my speech. I recognise that all these matters are extremely serious for those people who are unemployed.
I do not believe that any Labour Member has any reason to doubt my sincerity or the sincerity of Conservative Members in view of the record of the previous Labour Government over five years. If I may complete part of that record, during the five years of Labour government there was a fall in output in manufacturing industry averaging 0·7 per cent. a year. Unemployment rose by 125 per cent. and unit labour costs increased markedly.
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In the CBI document "The Budget 1980" which has just been published, the CBI says that the January and October industrial trends show the highest proportion ever recorded of price competitiveness being a major restraint on new export orders. It says:
"This reflects a large rise in our unit labour costs in manufacturing which since the fourth quarter of 1976 has risen by over 60 per cent. relative to our main overseas competitors. Rather less than half of this reflects the rise in the effective exchange rate … Over a third represents pay in the United Kingdom rising by more than OECD average, and the remainder reflects mainly slow growth in our productivity relative to our main overseas competitors, and the imposition of the National Insurance Surcharge."
It is clear that all through the years of Labour Government our competitive position deteriorated, our manufacturing position went down, and we were left with the rest of the equation, which is, of course, higher unemployment.
If Labour Members look at the relative figures of the decline in employment in the various trade cycles of the last few years, they will see that between the 1966 peak in economic activity and the 1968 trough unemployment increased by 280,000. Between 1969 and 1972 it increased by 380,000, and between 1973 and 1977 it increased by 900,000. The economic policies that we pursued in the 1970s did not work for Britain. Trying to spend our way out of our problems did not work. If that is the remedy that the Opposition are suggesting we should be trying today, it shows that they never learnt a lesson. Unemployment would get considerably worse than it is today.
The answer to the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) is that, although we have to undergo, as the right hon. Member for Chesterfield pointed out, a difficult period when world unemployment is rising as a result of the slow-down in world trade, we shall be doing no service to his constituents who are without a job simply by spending our way out of unemployment again. We have to go through a rough period. I know that that is no consolation to the people in his constituency who are unemployed, but nor was it any consolation to them when they were unemployed under the previous Labour Government. Perhaps he will make that point to them, and show them that it is right that we should be seeking a longer-term answer

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to our problems, recognising that the way in which we tried in the mid and late 1970s to solve the problems was no answer.
Mr. Robert Parry: Is the Minister aware that at Tillotson on Merseyside, in the ship repairing industry and in the Meccano company, dozens of young apprentices who are three-quarters of the way through their training have now been thrown on the scrap heap? What will happen to those young people?
Mr. Prior: I realise the serious problems in Merseyside, but I give the same answer to the hon. Member as I would give to anyone else. I do not believe that we shall cure our unemployment problems until we cure inflation, and we shall not cure inflation by spending more money. The conquering of inflation is perhaps by far the most important problem with which we have to deal. Unless and until we beat inflation, job prospects in Britain are bound to remain poor. That is the message that the Government believe must go out from the House today. We should be joined in that message by the Opposition. Combating inflation is, and will remain, the top priority of the Government.
The defeat of inflation will be easier if wage increases are kept under better control. Similarly, the more of the strain that we take on pay, the less will the strain be taken on unemployment and on the reliance on monetary policy. Everything depends on getting down the rate of inflation.
Mr. Denzil Davies: The Secretary of State said that it is important to keep down wage settlements in order to cure inflation. As I understand, the policy of his Government is that wage increases do not create inflation, provided that the monetary controls are tight enough. Is he now saying that monetary controls are not sufficient to control inflation?
Mr. Prior: I am glad to be able to make the point again that if the money supply is controlled, and if some people get wage increases over and above what has been earned, or what the money supply can afford, it is bound to lead either make the point again that, if the money supply being put under strain, and then
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there is the tendency to push up the demand for the money supply to go up to take up the increased wages that have been granted. So one has to say that if one can keep wage increases down, the pressures that that puts on unemployment are not so great, and the pressures that are put on Governments to increase the money supply and defeat their own policies are the lesser.
I see the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) grinning at me. I believe that I am now putting forward a view that he would support, and that is a most unusual thing for me to do.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Before the right hon. Gentleman gets too excited, let me say that I was indeed grinning, but not for the reason that he thought.
Mr. Prior: That is a great disappointment to me. I thought that for the first time in my parliamentary career the right hon. Gentleman was about to agree with me—but there we are.
Mr. Harold Walker: The point that the right hon. Gentleman has put to the House is very important, and we should be quite clear about it. Are we to understand that what he is saying is that the sanction and the pressure—the sanction against inflationary wage settlements and the pressure to keep them down—will be the threat of increased unemployment as a consequence?
Mr. Prior: The right hon. Gentleman was in the Department of Employment for a number of years. It is no wonder that he made such a mess of it. If he does not understand those factors, he would not know anything. It is a fact of life that under his Government the Chancellor of the Exchequer sought to control the money supply, and in so far as he was successful in controlling it and that wages were then not contained within that money supply, it led to higher unemployment. If the right hon. Gentleman does not know that, I am glad to have been able to give him that lesson this afternoon.
As regards the de-industrialisation that is going on, the truth of the matter is that, in many respects, if we had maintained our share of world markets or even our production for the home markets and export markets, we would be in a far

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stronger employment position than we are today. For example, the right hon. Member for Chesterfield mentioned shipbuilding. In 1965 the United Kingdom produced 1·281 million tons of ships, which was 10·9 per cent. of world output. In 1979 we produced 692,000 tons, which was 4·9 per cent. of world output. In 1965 we produced 1·722 million cars, but by 1979 we produced 1·07 million. Over the same period, France increased its car production from 1·4 million to 3·2 million, Germany increased its production from 2·7 million to 3·9 million, and Japan increased its production from 0·7 million to 6·2 million. In 1965 we produced 27·4 million tonnes of steel, 6 per cent. of world output; in 1979 we produced 21·6 million tonnes, 3 per cent. of world output.
So our industrial base has been declining. It was declining for all of that period from 1965 to 1979–14 years, for 10 of which we had a Labour Government, so I think that they must take a very considerable responsibility for the de-industrialisation of Britain during that period.
However, that is a measure of the problem that we now face. The situation is still getting worse and, as we know, our productivity and our ability to sell in competitive markets is still declining, as I have already pointed out.
I should have thought that it is simply no good thinking that the Government would help unemployed people simply by throwing money at the problem. This has been the approach and it has clearly failed. It does not tackle the deep causes of the problem. It is treating the symptoms and not the disease itself. Such an approach only makes the problem even worse in the long run. Jobs cannot be sustained in the long term by more and more Government spending and more and more Government borrowing.
It is a bogus argument to say that every single item of spending by the Department of Employment or the Manpower Services Commission should have been sacrosanct because of the economic outlook. To say that is to say that the mix of policies and programmes at May 1979 was ideal, that they were perfect, that there was no waste and that there was not an ounce of fat. I believe it is wholly defensible that these spending pro-
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grammes should have made a significant contribution to the overall reductions in Government spending.
Opposition Members must appreciate that it is no help at all to the unemployed and those seeking new skills unless public spending is kept within the resources available and is spent in the most effective and efficient way. We have to get value for money. I do not believe that in the last three or four years, in the budget of my Department, we have been getting value for money.
Mr. John Grant: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with Dr. Friedman or not?
Mr. Prior: I do not think that that has much to do with my Department at present.
All the experience of the last few years suggests to me that one cannot spend one's way out of unemployment. The experience of the previous Labour Government must confirm that view very strongly indeed, because had they been able to do so no doubt they would have done so.
I have a quotation from the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). On 4 February 1977 he said:
"In present circumstances we must rely for jobs and higher living standards on increasing investment and on increasing our share of both domestic and foreign markets. If instead we tried to stimulate demand by printing money to give away at home, then we would run slap up against the problems which nearly knocked us off our feet last year. We would simply suck in more imports and increase our balance of payments deficit. And we would increase the gap between what the Government spends and gets in revenue, to a size which we would not finance without raising interest rates to a level which choked off our industrial revival. So the only result would be to get deeper into the red, to send the pound plummeting and prices and unemployment rocketing."
When I am asked by the hon. Gentleman whether I am a Friedmanite, I might fling it back in his face.
Dr. Jeremy Bray: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Prior: No. I have given way a tremendous amount and I have a lot to say. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I should like to get on.
We accept absolutely the role which the Government can play in alleviating the

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worst problems of unemployment and easing the necessary process of change. The Government believe in the need to devote a part of their limited resources to those two objectives. In doing so, the Government are seeing, first, that money for aid and assistance is concentrated on those areas and those groups hit hardest by unemployment, and secondly, that the money spent on training and retraining is concentrated on the skills needed today and tomorrow and not on yesterday's skills or on simply training for store, as it were.
Therefore, I begin by reaffirming the importance that the Government attach to the MSC and to what it is doing. It was, after all, a Conservative Government who set it up in the first place. It has advantages in that it contains TUC and CBI members and other members, and as such the operation of manpower programmes and managing those programmes lies in an organisation that is separate from the Department. I have had a number of meetings with the MSC, and I have personally assured its members of the importance that I attach to their existence and the programmes that they operate.
Let us look at the record. Between 1974 and 1979, the expenditure of the commission had been increased threefold in real terms, and its staff had increased from 19,000 on 1 January 1975 to 25,900 on 1 January 1979. Following this rapid expansion on all fronts, there was certainly a need for a period of consultation and assessment of priorities. Resources are now focused more sharply on activities of the commission which are of particular value to economic recovery or which help particularly vulnerable groups amongst the unemployed, such as young people and disabled people.
We have accepted reductions, and there has been a reduction in planned expenditure on Manpower Services Commission programmes of £110 million this year and of £160 million to £170 million for next year and beyond. There was a 3 per cent. fall in the staff level last summer. Over the next two years there will be a further fall in the number of staff employed of 12·8 per cent., representing a reduction of about 3,400 staff and a saving of another £20 million.
The effect of these cuts will be to produce a slimmer and fitter service with
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employment and training services more closely geared to the areas where they can make the most effective contribution. The commission will play a vital part both in assisting economic recovery and in helping particular groups. I believe that that is the right role for it.
I turn to the special employment measures for which the commission and my Department are responsible. I do not understand what the right hon. Member for Chesterfield means when he talks about the Government not helping the young unemployed. We have made additional resources available for the coming year for the youth opportunities programme. It will be expanded by 25 per cent. in 1980–81 following an expansion of 30 per cent. this year. That will provide sufficient opportunities for young people who are not able to find jobs to have training or work experience courses to improve their employment prospects, and enable us to meet the undertaking to offer places to unemployed school leavers and young people who are unemployed for 12 months.
We have agreed to maintain Community Industry. We are maintaining the special temporary employment programme for long-term unemployed at 12,000 to 14,000 places, although we have concentrated that programme on special development areas, development areas and designated inner city areas. As a result many more of the long-term unemployed are filling the places. The number on the special programme coming from the long-term unemployed has increased from 40 per cent. a year ago to over 70 per cent. It is still rising. It is being used now for the first time for the purpose for which it was set up.
We have discontinued the small firms employment subsidy. It would have cost an additional £15 million this coming year. The estimate of the maximum number of jobs that it would have produced was 3,000. There are much better ways in which we can help small firms by spending £15 million than in that manner. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take those words into account when he comes to his Budget.
We shall retain both the temporary short-time working compensation scheme and the job release scheme. I am sorry that we cannot do more for the job.

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release scheme this year. However, it is somewhat hypocritical of the Opposiition to tell me that it is scandalous that we have put back the age to 64 years for eligibility for job release when they in government had reduced it, six weeks be-for the general election, to 62 years. Again, we have picked up the bill. We do nothing but pick up their bills.
Mr. Harold Walker: How did we know that there was to be an election?
Mr. Prior: Those in the previous Labour Government knew that there had to be an election by October unless they changed the quinquennial legislation. I would not have put that past the previous Prime Minister. The Labour Government, in their last year in office, were determined to try to win another period of office by spending money that the country had not earned, spending money that they had not obtained by taxes and spending money that would have increased the public sector borrowing requirement by £5,000 million. I wonder what would have happened. If the right hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett) had been Chief Secretary what would have happened immediately after the election? I think that we would have seen many cuts.
We believe that there is an important role for the training opportunities programme, which provides training for adults who are unemployed or changing jobs. However, it needs to be much more closely directed towards our future industrial needs. Over the past five years the Manpower Services Commission has been asked to chase ambitious targets. The targets have always been concerned with trying to train more people. The emphasis has been on expansion, especially on clerical and commercial training. In 1977 that accounted for 36 per cent. of all the training opportunities scheme completions. There is nothing to be gained from continuous expansion if courses are substantially under-occupied, if trainees do not find jobs using the skills that they have acquired, or if training provided at public expense displaces what employers would otherwise provide for themselves.
Under the new Manpower Services Commission plan there will be about 60,000 adults per year trained under
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TOPS compared with 70,000 in recent years. The main reduction will be in commercial and clerical courses, which will be reduced by about 8,000 completions to 12,000 to 13,000. Training in the main engineering and craft occupations will be maintained. There will be an expansion of training for technicians and computer-related occupations. I do not think that we have gone far enough. It is not part of the Government's job to spend valuable money and resources on training those who could be trained by industry when at the same time we are not gearing the training requirement to the needs of tomorrow, which should be our approach. Although we are swinging the balance of training, we still have some way to go.
In computer occupations there will be a rapid expansion from 2,000 completions in 1978–79 to over 4,000 in 1980–81, including 2,300 programmers, 500 analysts and 200 engineers. The purpose of these changes is to shift the balance of training towards areas where it can make the maximum contribution to our industrial growth and for the trainees.
The proposals to rationalise the skill-centre network are designed not to reduce the overall capacity of the skillcentre provision but to make better use of that capacity. The aim is to produce a better utilised and more cost-effective training provision that is more in line with demand from industry. Some skillcentres and annexes will be closed where performance is poor or where there is local over-provision. In some instances new centres will be opened where they will be better used. Some of the centres and annexes listed by the MSC for possible closure are now being operated at only about half their capacity and/or place only 50 per cent. of trainees in their training trades. In other words, there are some centres that are only half full and only half the trainees that they turn out get a job.
That cannot be a good use of public money in any circumstances. If we had all the money in the world, it still would not be a good use of public money. As we do not have all the money in the world, we must concentrate on training to provide skills in areas which demand will build up when the economy does—I am certain that it will improve—so

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that they are available for the jobs that will be created when the economy expands.
Mr. Heifer: Some of those who are now training as apprentices in areas such as Merseyside are losing their jobs because there is no future for them. Cannot the Government use public money to ensure that the youth that is being thrown out of work and not completing apprenticeships is not lost to us? Many valuable skills are being lost.
Mr. Prior: I am aware that the hon. Gentleman has a particular argument that he has raised already with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. We should try to help in the situation that he has described. That would be sensible. My hon. Friend talks to the MSC about these matters. If apprentices were thrown out halfway through their apprenticeships, we would try in any way that we could to find the finance to keep them going in their apprenticeships. We do not have too many skilled people. However, it is not true that we are so short of skilled people. Many years of incomes policy have compressed differentials to such an extent that skilled people no longer think it worth while to pursue their skills.
Mr. David Penhaligon rose—
Mr. Prior: The MSC is also currently undertaking a fundamental review of the industrial training arrangements established under the 1973 Act. I welcome this review that will report to me at the end of July. There is much scope for improvement on the cost effectiveness of the present arrangements and for devising a more flexible and responsive system to meet the rapidly changing skill needs of the 1980s. I suspect that in the next parliamentary Session we shall need some type of training Bill. We need carefully to consider our whole training programme. A tremendous amount of money is being put into training by the Government, by industry training boards and by industrial concerns. Nevertheless, we now have higher unemployment, and lower productivity. We have spent a lot of money on training. What has happened to it? I therefore intend to look at training seriously. We are not getting good value for money at the moment. We have not achieved the right movement of young people from schools into training.
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Trade unions can do much to help. Some trade unions continue to run outdated apprenticeship courses. One must begin an apprenticeship when one is below a certain age. It is also difficult to get into a union after a certain age. All those factors should be examined in a spirit of co-operation if we are to make any progress.
No one knows better than a Secretary of State for Employment that it is important to provide jobs. We must consider the cost of high unemployment in terms of the family and of society. The creation of new jobs must be given priority as old industries are run down and new technologies grow. We must also bear in mind competition from new trading nations, the current world recession and the fact that the pound is strong. It helps no one to pretend that some cosmetic scheme, temporary palliative or Government sleight of hand will aid those seeking a job.
Soundly based jobs are the product of a strong and vigorous economy. They are the only true and honest offer that we should make to the unemployed. Greater emphasis on industry and the creation of wealth means a switch of resources from part of the public sector. It is no good planning for a 2 per cent. growth in public services—as the previous Labour Government did—if the growth is simply not there.
It is therefore right that as Secretary of State I should make a major contribution to the restraint of public expenditure as well as to everything else. I am satisfied that we have done our fair share towards that common purpose. We have preserved a greater efficiency and concentration of effort on those who need our help now, together with a developing programme that will secure our training needs for the future.
We have heard nothing from the Opposition today that would in any way inspire confidence that they knew what to do about unemployment. There are many difficult decisions ahead. We shall have months and perhaps years of work on employment matters. However, if we are reasonable and if we stick to our course, we can build a far more successful economic system during the next two or three years than we have known for years. I commend the amendment to the House.
5.25 pm
Mr. Denzil Davies: The Secretary of State devoted much of his speech to economic issues. I am tempted to follow that course. However, I shall not take up all his points now, but rather wait until the Budget is debated. He tried to give the impression that the increase in unemployment—which will continue for at least the next 18 months—was somehow caused by overspending by the previous Labour Government. Most of the present unemployment is, and will be, caused by this Government's monetarist policies.
This Government have deliberately put up the rate of inflation. Some would argue that they have increased the rate of inflation by at least 8 per cent. Inflation will reach almost 20 per cent. during the next few months. Although we have an inflation rate of 20 per cent., the Government have a monetary target of 9 per cent. As a result, interest rates are high. One must consider the effect on industry. There have been cuts in public expenditure. There is, therefore, no growth in the public sector. That is why there will be an increase in unemployment. The Government did not have to incur those inflationary increases. They could have kept inflation to 12 per cent. or 13 per cent. That is the underlying rate. They could have had a monetary target that was consistent with that rate. Interest rates would have been much lower than 17 per cent., if the inflation rate had been lower. The level of employment could then have been preserved.
It is not necessary to print money. We need sensible policies on public expenditure and sensible monetary policies. One criticism of this Government is that they have even given monetarism a bad name. If the Secretary of State had attended Professor Friedman's seminar he would have noted that even he did not agree with the 4 per cent. increase in inflation caused by the last Budget.
The right hon. Gentleman proposes to close some skillcentres, including one in my constituency of Llanelli. He said that he thought that private industry should utilise its resources by training personnel. However, private industry will be under terrible pressure during the next few years. Profits are falling. Industry will have no money to provide training facilities. Industry is under pressure. It can hardly
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finance its stocks or present operations, yet he suggests that it should take on the additional burden of training. However, the Government will cut resources. They will not undertake the training of industrial personnel either. He proposes to close skillcentres all over the country at a time of high unemployment.
Llanelli lies on the edge of an area in which the steel industry is important. It is indirectly affected by closures in that industry. Nevertheless, the Government propose to close our skillcentre. I shall make three brief points which I put to the right hon. Gentleman when he kindly received a deputation. I shall give reasons as to why the Llanelli skillcentre should be exempted from the cuts. Valid arguments can be made for retaining the other skillcentres, but I wish to concentrate on Llanelli skillcentre.
First, that skillcentre does not affect only my constituency. It is the only skill-centre in South-West Wales. If the right hon. Gentleman consults his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, he will tell him that about 30 per cent. of that skillcentre's intake comes from the constituency of Pembroke. The Secretary of State for Wales represents that constituency. I told him that I would raise this issue today. If our skillcentre closes, will the Secretary of State for Wales blame the MSC? That centre is being closed as a result of cuts in public expenditure. The responsibility for that lies with the Secretary of State for Employment, the Secretary of State for Wales and with the whole Cabinet. The MSC is not responsible. It is only doing its best to operate within the cuts and restraints laid down.
I hope that the people of Pembrokeshire and of the whole of South-West Wales will recognise where responsibility lies. It lies with the Government. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the nearest skillcentre to the east of Llanelli is at Port Talbot. That is a long way from most of South-West Wales. It will be impossible for people to travel and find accommodation there. They therefore cannot be trained at that skillcentre. We are not discussing a skillcentre that covers only one constituency. Llanelli skill-centre cover at least six constituencies. It is the only skillcentre in industrial South-West Wales.

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Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman said that he wished to help small businesses. Most skillcentres, certainly in Llanelli, help small businesses more than large businesses. Small businesses need assistance but do not have money. They will have even less money with the increased interest rates that the Government are subjecting them to. Small businesses need the assistance of skill-centres more than large businesses, because they do not have the resources and facilities for training. Small industries cannot provide money for training, especially in Wales.
In Wales, as in other parts of the country, we need to foster indigenous small industries. The economy of South Wales would then not be hit so hard by the ravages of world or Tory recession or whatever economic crisis arises. It should have the resources to withstand a recession, and it is therefore necessary to establish indigenous industries.
It is more difficult to do that if skillcentres are closed and the chances for training diminished. If the Government are concerned to foster small businesses, why close skillcentres?
Thirdly, the steel industry in South Wales is facing at least 12,000 redundancies. There are 6,000 redundancies in Port Talbot, where the next skill-centre is located, a further 10,000 or 12,000 in the coal industry and a further 10,000 at least in ancillary industries. Perhaps 50,000 will be unemployed in South Wales by the end of the year. How does it make sense to close a skill-centre which would help to train some of those people to enable them to find alternative employment?
The Port Talbot skill-centre will be, faced with 6,000 redundancies, which it will find difficulty in coping with. Why close the Llanelli skill-centre, which could take some of those people and train our own people at the same time?
It is inconceivable that any Government, even this Government, should want to close a training centre in an area where jobs will be lost on such a large scale.
Finally, the Government's policies are incomprehensible to most people, especially in South Wales. They cannot understand why the Government pursue policies which increase unemployment. It is incredible that, on top of those
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policies, they plan to close skillcentres such as the one in Llanelli and deprive future generations of employment opportunities, if ever the British and world economies pick up.
5.32 pm
Mr. Nicholas Scott: Much of the speech of the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) concerned his constituency, and I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow him there.
I should like to devote most of my brief remarks to constructive comments. However, it is necessary to respond to the speech of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley). The crocodile tears that he shed about the prevailing levels of unemployment and the increase in the past month took a fair amount of swallowing. The right hon. Gentleman was a member of a Cabinet which presided over a period in which unemployment more than doubled. He chided my right hon. Friend about one mistake. A comparison of unemployment figures when the Labour Government took office with what they were when they left shows that 68,000 tragic mistakes must rest at their door.
The right hon. Gentleman appeared to take pride in the fact that in the last few months of that Administration, levels of unemployment were coming down. Many of us pointed out at the time what the Labour Government were doing. They were hoovering the pavements in preparation for a general election and trying to get people off unemployment rolls. Despite all those efforts, unemployment was still double what they inherited.
The country should never tire of hearing that every Labour Government since the war have left office with unemployment higher than when they took over.
I also believe that the Labour Government are guilty of cruel deceptions on those who suffered unemployment when they were in office. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Treasury Ministers proclaimed their strategies. They planned to create 1 million new jobs in manufacturing industry as a result. Between the time when they announced that strategy and when they left office I do not know what the decline was, but the number of manufacturing jobs did not increase.

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The Labour Government failed to live up to their promises even in regard to the precise subject that we are debating today. On 15 March 1978, the then Secretary of State for Employment made an announcement about special employment measures. He said:
"The current special employment measures are now providing in total some 320,000 jobs or training places and this figure should he raised by these new measures to over 400,000 by March 1979."—[Official Report, 15 March 1978; Vol. 946 c. 442.]
On 4 April 1979, my right hon. Friend who is now Secretary of State for Scotland tabled a question for written answer, which was answered by the then Under-Secretary of State for Employment. He wanted to know the estimated number of people who were being assisted by the various special employment and training measures. The answer is that, in March 1979, instead of increasing from 320,000 to 400,000, the number had dropped to 253,000.
Labour Members ignore their miserable record by tabling this critical motion.
Turning to more constructive remarks, we face a bleak outlook on the world front. We are entering a world recession when we are poorly equipped to help our people. We need to re-assess our priorities in equipment services and training. I am delighted that, within the constraints imposed by the Manpower Services Commission and the Department of Employment, it has been possible to increase in successive years the proposals for spending under the youth opportunities programme. STEP is at least being maintained. Community industry is being improved and expanded, although it is a modest programme but an important one in certain areas of the country.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend is right in saying that it is a responsibility not simply of the Government. Trade unions and employers also have a responsibility to see that we develop and improve our training, to try to ensure that when the recession ends we are better equipped to give our people a share of the world's expanded wealth.
It is not a general economic debate, but, if Mr. Rees-Mogg will allow me, I wish to divert momentarily to economic
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matters. I am not an economist, but 1 should like to say a brief word.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is addressing his remarks to me and not to Mr. Rees-Mogg.
Mr. Scott: Perhaps you, too, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will look on me kindly as I make these few ill-informed remarks on ecomonic matters.
We have very high interest rates and an over-valued currency. I believe that we have the worst attitude for productivity bargaining since the end of the Second World War. We have deflated demand and high wage settlements are being negotiated in the public and private sector. All that must bode ill for future patterns of employment.
I recognise and welcome the Government's determination to make the conquering of inflation their first priority. I do not wish the Government to divert from that primary aim. However, even Mr. Maurice Green, who is a monetarist and a former editor of The Daily Telegraph, has expressed the view that the Government might just be making their commitment to a speedy reduction of the public sector borrowing requirement too much of a totem pole. At a time when the natural tendency is for the tax product to fall and for expenditure on unemployment benefits to rise, one could be in danger of driving the economy down in a spiral. In the short term it might be better to take a more relaxed view of the level of the public sector borrowing requirement, accepting the longterm aim but not trying to do too much too quickly on that front.
One of the reasons why I am a Tory is that I believe that political and social judgments should sometimes override purely economic judgments. There must be a time when the social, economic and inflationary costs of unemployment have to be weighed against the costs that they impose upon our society. It is worth reminding ourselves that unemployment is of itself inflationary. We are paying people good money to produce no goods and services. I am not questioning the Government's fundamental strategy, but I think that on all these matters we must accept that a balance must be drawn in social, economic and political judgments.

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Some Labour Members have been nodding very sagely in agreement with my comments, but I must point out to them that the trade unions must bear a substantial responsibility for the unemployment levels at present. If the unions continue to insist on wage settlements at a level of 20 per cent. or thereabouts when we are actually producing fewer goods, the inevitable result will be an increase in unemployment. The trade unions must accept their share of responsibility—one cannot put the blame on the Government.
In the document "The Right Approach to the Economy" and in the Conservative manifesto, the Conservative Party said that it was thinking about bringing together employers, trade unions and the Government on something like the West German pattern to try to get a common view about the level of wage settlements which would be acceptable to the economy in the forthcoming 12 months. I hope that this idea has not been buried under Friedman-ite layers and I hope that at some point we shall bring it back into circulation. I am sure that the Government have some sort of responsibility to influence the level of wage settlements in the economy, and to restrict the irresponsibility of trade unions in pushing for settlements which cannot possibly be afforded and which will inevitably take away the jobs of others in the long run.
I turn to the particular impact of unemployment on young people. The general prospects for unemployment are bad enough, but young people suffer disproportionately. They have done so in the past and are likely to do so in the immediate future. This is because employers have a loyalty to their own work force and when they run down their requirements for labour they do so by means of wastage which means stopping the recruitment of young people. Also, many employers have unfavourable attitudes towards the employment of young people because of what they read about the behaviour of the young in the media. It must be true that our educational system has failed to fit many of our young people for working in our industrial and commercial system.
Furthermore, young people face increased competition, particularly in a time of recession, from women coming on to the job market. Young people are in particular competition with women and in
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a recession more and more women want to go out to work. Therefore, the young are likely to suffer still more in the immediate future in the employment market.
The Department of Employment is still waiting for considered responses to its booklet "A Better Start in Working Life". I very much hope that there will be positive responses to the proposals which are put forward in that document. Some people query the special importance of youth unemployment. They say that it is much worse to lose one's job when one is 50 and has little chance of getting another. However, if we allow a substantial chunk of a generation of young people to grow up with no experience of working for a living, we will be sowing dragons' teeth for social unrest in the future.
I put two specific suggestions to my right hon. Friend. The first is outside his specific responsibility. The second is very much part of his responsibility, although it impinges on another Government Department. In the Conservative manifesto and in many of the speeches made by all of us during the election campaign, we paid particular attention to the needs of small firms and the contribution that they could make to getting the economy moving again and coping with unemployment. It has been pointed out that we have 1½ million small firms and that there are 1½ million people unemployed. If each small firm took on one person we could solve the unemployment problem overnight. That is a way of illustrating the contribution that small firms could make.
We all know how hard small firms have been hit, particularly by the level of interest rates. We all know how difficult it must be to launch a new enterprise in present circumstances. Is there not something to be said for launching some form of scheme which would be analogous to the export credit guarantee scheme whereby small firms could insure themselves and get a guarantee against losses? This would be a real encouragement for the launching of new enterprises. I hope that my right hon. Friend will do something to encourage that idea in the Department of Industry and the Treasury.
My second specific suggestion concerns the 19 million houses in this country, 75 per cent. of which lack even basic insulation—
Mr. Ted Leadbitter: The hon. Member has suggested that the Government should do something along the lines of the ECGD scheme to help small firms. Does he not remember that this Government stopped the small firms subsidy scheme which the previous Labour Government introduced? What is the point of substituting a new scheme for one that the Labour Government operated? Perhaps he should ask his right hon. Friend why the Government withdrew our scheme?
Mr. Scott: Of all the special measures for subsidising employment, the small firms subsidy scheme was the least efficient. If trimmings have to take place I would much prefer the expansion of the youth opportunities programme at the expense of the small firms subsidy scheme which was the least efficient.
I return to the point about insulation. The United States has, as part of its energy saving programme, a scheme for recruiting young people to insulate and weatherise buildings in the public sector. These young people are properly trained so that they can go into private industry and help to insulate private homes. That scheme has been remarkably successful and about 1 million jobs have been created as a result. I urge my right lion. Friend to do what he can to launch a similar scheme in this country. Perhaps we could specifically recruit young people for this purpose. Obviously they would need skilled supervision, but there are plenty of unemployed people in the construction industry who could provide that.
At the moment we have the benefits of North Sea oil; we are an energy-rich country. That gives us a breathing space and I would like to see us use that time to ensure that all homes in this country are properly insulated so that when we are short of energy again we will know that our homes, factories and offices are properly insulated. I am sure that there is scope here for a really imaginative scheme, involving young people, which would bring great benefits to our country in the long term.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) was a member of the Brandt commission which has recently reported. Whatever we think about employment patterns in this country, and the need for training to fit British industry
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better for the future, we must look at what is happening in the developing world. As the developing world begins to industrialise, that will alter the whole context in which this country has to earn its living and provide a living for its people.
What the Brandt Commission says about those changes will have a profound effect on all our plans for the future. I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend's commitment to a new Bill. I hope that in looking to the future pattern of employment and our future training needs we shall bear in mind the future international context in which our employment and training policies will have to be developed.
5.50 pm
Mr. Stan Thorne: The debate began with a few exchanges across the Dispatch Boxes which appeared to be at a personal level and did nothing to assist us in addressing ourselves to the problem of unemployment and training.
I do not know when the Government propose to cease reminding everyone of the errors made by the previous Government, but it will be only a short time before the public generally see through what they are saying and recognise it to be an inept admission that they have no solutions to our problems.
Last week we had a major debate which was really about how we make a capitalist society work more efficiently and less painfully, with shorter slumps and, if possible, some booms—even short booms, but preferably long booms. The present level of unemployment is clearly a product of a fairly long slump, the bottom of which we have not reached.
In the media and elsewhere the unemployed come in for a great deal of stick, for various reasons. They are sometimes described as scroungers and layabouts. The House has the responsibility to nail that lie firmly. I want to do it particularly in regard to the problem of the Preston travel-to-work area. When the last count was taken, on 14 February, there were 5,363 registered unemployed. Also registered on the same day was the number of vacancies—591.
On top of the 5,363 unemployed came the Courtaulds workers who were prepared to register. The first 850 clocked in on 15 February. Since then there have

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been 230, 400 and 120. The figure is still being added to, and the manager of the local employment exchange estimates that by the end of March it will total about 7,000. Those people are not layabouts or scroungers. They have been deprived of their job by the unplanned, chaotic system of economics that the Secretary of State for Industry describes as market forces. The failure to plan industry based upon the community's needs across the board, with instead an emphasis on private profit, means that we face periods of unemployment.
I do not excuse the last Labour Government, and I did not do so during their period in office, for some of their decisions that contributed to the increased unemployment. Today we are looking at some of the same problems, resulting from the same sort of decisions by the present Government.
Because of the high level of unemployment, questions about retraining inevitably arise. Instead of there being a major input into retraining, we face the threats of cuts. Previous speakers have already spoken about the closure of skillcentres. We hear a great deal about the shift in manpower needs that faces us if we are to have the right sort of growth in the economy and industry over the next five to 10 years. Clearly, for electronics, microchips and many other activities, there must be shifts in the training given in colleges of further education, universities and elsewhere. What preparations have Governments made over the past 20 or 30 years for the shift that will be required, given the development of new technology? We must admit that little has been done.
It is time to take a quick look at the way to overcome the difficulties, the omissions of past periods. Many of the workers coming out of Courtaulds at Preston, the textile industry generally, including A. S. Orr's mill in Bamber Bridge, and various other types of industry in which there is diminishing productivity, require substantial retraining. In further education colleges one would hope to see an increasing demand by some workers for basic O-level and A-level studies as adult students. In polytechnics and other colleges one would want to see a demand for sandwich courses, short courses of a trade character, year-long
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courses in one specialism or another. In other words, we should expect a major increase in demand in our education institutions because of the need not for building trade workers to chase nonexistent building trade jobs, but for workers to retrain in order to take up different employment. But we are not prepared for that. On the contrary, we face the sort of cutbacks that will make it impossible to respond to that increased demand.
For example, Liverpool polytechnic, of which I am a governor, faces a cut of £1·8 million. That will mean that the polytechnic will have to cut back on certain courses when it should be expanding. Because a fair amount of informative material has come to us from the North-East London polytechnic, most hon. Members will be aware that it faces a £2·5 million cut in its course provisions. All the growth has been eliminated from the forward planning of the Preston polytechnic. Despite all the growth that we would seek to include in course development to meet the Courtaulds redundancies, and demands from elsewhere having been eliminated, the present Government have indirectly imposed a further cut of about £400,000, alongside the other cuts that impinge on the whole question of unemployment and retraining.
The other side of the coin, some Conservative Members might suggest, is that the leader of the Conservative-controlled council in Preston has been able to boast, with great aplomb, that no rate increase is proposed in Preston in the future year. I understand that the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester), now sitting on the Government Front Bench, recently went to Preston to add his congratulations to the cause. What is not given a great deal of publicity, and it has a direct effect on employment levels in the area, is the fact that the same council underspent by approximately £800,000 in housing during the previous financial year. If it had spent that money on relieving the situation for the 2,500 on the priority housing list in Preston, we might have been able to take up some of the slack that exists in respect of construction workers. That did not happen. The cuts that have taken place in recent months, as an act of deliberate policy by the Government, have had the effect of increasing the level of unemployment. That has to be made clear.

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In terms of local authority resources and employment Preston is not unique in needing an extension of local transport facilities. Road and pavement conditions in Preston leave a lot to be desired. Street lighting needs to be improved. The welfare services provided in the Preston area by the Lancashire County Council need to be improved.
The absence of play areas in some of the city centre's concentrated housing is pathetic in terms of the problems it gives to parents and children. There is also an absence of certain amenities for the elderly and the disabled. All these are local services which, in the present situation, should be extended. They should be growth areas. They should be providing potential jobs for many young people coming out of further education. There is nothing in the claim being made by the leader of the Conservative council in Preston to be proud of. He is literally saying that £4 million reserves can now be switched to the present economic situation. But this has been achieved at the expense of poor services. If there is a Labour victory in the May elections, the new council will have the job of improving services by increasing the rate.
What has happened is a form of asset stripping at local level. The present Government are well qualified in asset stripping. This was shown by the British Aerospace Bill and other measures that have been debated in the House. Against this background, one can recognise the gulf that exists between Labour and Conservative policies in the provision of health services to the local community. Conservatives are clearly anxious to promote private medicine and not to put resources into the National Health Service. I could name one or two constituents who have written to me saying that they have been waiting for an important operation for 18 months and are still unable to get a hospital bed. If either of them, or both, could find £400 or £500 to see a consultant, their admission to a private bed would permit that operation to take place without further delay. That sort of absence of concentration of forces into the National Health Service has its effect in terms of job opportunities.
In education, much has been said over the last few years by the previous and the
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present Government about the shortfall and the diminishing demand due to the lower birth rate which means that not all the trained teachers available are required. This is a completely retrogressive approach to the problem. We should be taking every opportunity, with the increased number of qualified teachers, to improve educational facilities, for example, by reducing class sizes. That matter has been discussed for years. Very little has been done. It would be another method of reducing unemployment.
The Government often argue that this is a matter of public expenditure. It is said "We cannot afford it" and "We do not produce enough". It is astounding to me that the Government should talk about not producing enough when 2 million people are idle and unable to pursue productive activities. This is not an accident. It is a question of deciding what we in the House are supposed to be doing on behalf of the people. What plans are we trying to prepare that will give people the sort of life that they deserve? A job is at the root of the matter.
There was an exchange between the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and the Secretary of State for Employment earlier in the debate. It was one of the nice little exchanges about whether one is for or against Sigmund Freud or Milton Friedman, I forget which. The argument seemed to promote in the mind of the Secretary of State the idea that "You cannot buy your way out of unemployment." That seems to suggest that the Conservative Party have completely rejected Milton Keynes' general theory on employment—[HON. MEMBERS: "Maynard Keynes".] That comes from the fact that when I drive down to London from Liverpool I travel through Milton Keynes. I am reminded, on those occasions, that the town is named after the economist, as far as I am aware. That is why it sticks in my mind. I accept the correction. John Maynard Keynes said—his views remain of value—that if the private sector in the economy is failing to invest in order to promote employment, it is the responsibility of the Government to provide public investment in order to do the job. I cannot see anything in our present situation that denies the validity of that premise.

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I recognise that it is a question of values. The present Government are not interested in promoting public expenditure in that way. They are interested in finding some way of making private production and private enterprise work in a way that will avoid the problems of slumps. That has been the problem of capitalist society and remains the problem of capitalist society throughout the world. Reliance upon market forces has proved an utter failure. When shall we accept that and begin the process of planning our economy?
There were those of us who hoped—I was one—that after 1974 the Labour Government would begin that process. It could be said that in aerospace and shipbuilding and in one or two other ways they began, in a fumbling way, to control some productive activities. But very little change has in fact taken place. In my view, there can be no expectation, unless another major company such as Rolls-Royce suffers some sort of hiccup, that the present Government will seek to promote public enterprise.
I end on this note, recognising that other hon. Members want to speak in the debate. Until we are prepared to face the necessity for public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange and the planning of our resources to meet people's needs, we shall continue to have periods when unemployment wavers between I million and 3 million. So far as I can see, until this Government are removed from office to make way for those who can plan the economy, we shall continue to face our present difficulties.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that there are at least 15 hon. Members hoping to speak. It is easy for hon. Members to forget how long they are speaking when they are on their feet, but I remember.
6.11 pm
Mr. Warren Hawksley: I shall do my best to be brief in what I regard as an important debate. Basically, the subject under debate can be divided into two parts. First, there is the argument about whether one accepts the need for public expenditure cuts at all. The second question is whether the cuts which have to be made are damaging particu-
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larly to employment and training opportunities.
On the first question—whether public expenditure cuts are necessary—I wholeheartedly support the Government's policy and recognise the need for such cuts. I think it right to remind people that we are honouring an election pledge given only last May, when we stated that we would have to look at everything, the only exceptions being defence and our police forces. Those were the only two exemptions from consideration for possible cuts that we made at the time of the election.
I have a highly marginal constituency. I do not believe that the support which I received last May, and which many of us on these Benches received in such constituencies, was support for an easy option. The easy option was not what the electorate was expecting. The public have had enough of Governments prepared to answer any problem by the injections of cash. The electorate wants no more of the idea that we should throw money at problems. It believes it to be important that we should act responsibly. The electorate sees public money as its money, not the Government's money, and it accepts that we must act in the spheres covered by the present debate. It realises that in the long term the only solution to our present high level of unemployment is a sound and strong economy. It recognises that as a nation we must live within our means.
In accepting the need for public expenditure cuts, people look for reassurance—the reassurance that the sacrifices that they are making in agreeing to public expenditure cuts shall not be in vain. Too often in the past they have been asked to make sacrifices which have been in vain.
It is therefore essential that the Government maintain their course and allow nothing to divert them from it. We must have no U-turns. There must be no truck with those who advocate the well-tried and failed policies of the past—prices and incomes policies, for example—or with those who would like us, for short-term benefit, to go down the road with import controls. I believe that only when an assurance is given by the Government that they will hold steadfastly to the policies which they have started will the public accept the need for public expenditure cuts.

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I suspect that, in attacking the Government's cuts in the field of employment and training opportunities, the Opposition imagine that they have found a weakness in the Government's stategy, believing that they can attack the Government more easily here than on some of the other cuts which are being made. That is not true.
I turn now to the question of the cuts which affect employment potential and opportunities for training. It is not the cuts which I criticise. I am critical of the way in which the Government's agency, the Manpower Services Commission, implements those decisions. In this context, there are three specific ways in which my constituency is affected and which are relevant to the debate.
I refer, first, to skillcentres. I have a skillcentre in my constituency, and it is proposed that it be closed. I believe it to be folly to close a skillcentre in a new town which has unemployment 50 per cent. above the national average and a new town corporation which is having to advertise in South Africa and Rhodesia for skilled workers of the type which incoming industries need and which at the moment are available from the skillcentres.
As a supporter of the Government's cuts, I shall, no doubt, be reminded by the Opposition that one ought to be somewhat careful about advocating local needs if one does not show an alternative. I feel obliged, therefore, to suggest to the Manpower Services Commission where a sum at least equivalent to that which it hopes to save by the closure of skillcentres in the West Midlands can be saved.
It is not necessary to seek far for that saving, because within the West Midlands, when announcing the closure of the Telford skillcentre, the MSC announced in the same breath the opening of a new skillcentre at Redditch, also in the West Midlands and also in a new town. Incidentally, it is an area with unemployment at only half the level of Telford.
The Manpower Services Commission wishes to open the new skillcentre because—this is the impression I have—it is an experimental design. The commission wishes to use it for little experiments to find out about the construction
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of skillcentres for the future, and it appears to be a pet scheme of the regional manager.
I believe that decision to be wrong. I have spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller), who has confirmed that he, too, has been an opponent of the new skill-centre at Redditich, because it is too expensive and for another reason, too—and that is that it is in the wrong place. It is being built some three miles from the further education establishment.
On the other hand, we in Telford are told that, as well as the arguments on the economic front, one of the reasons why our skillcentre should be closed is that it, too, is in the wrong place. It is about three miles from the further education establishment. We are told that it is too far away and that is one of the reasons why it should be closed.
I should add that the site was chosen by the MSC itself, although it was in fact more distant from the further education establishment than the site suggested by the Telford development corporation, which was the owner of the land originally.
We now find ourselves involved in the internal politics of the Manpower Services Commission. At the time of the planning of the skillcentre, the Telford area was under the control of the Welsh MSC area, but we now find that we are under Birmingham and Birmingham feels that it is in the wrong place. I am concerned lest my electors suffer because of the internal politics of the MSC. In my view, it should keep open the skillcentre at Telford and not open the Redditch skillcentre.
I turn now to the youth opportunities programme, which also is administered by the MSC. This is causing me concern. In the Telford area at present some 536 young persons are on work experience schemes. That is a reasonable number. What is more worrying is the number of vacancies available on further work experience schemes. We have 459 unfilled vacancies at a time of very high unemployment and I have deliberately asked employers, educationists and others involved why those vacancies exist.
I believe that the reason is attributable to the education system. Many unemployed young people are not going for

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the jobs which are available under the work experience scheme because the education system has not prepared them for their possibly having to accept a job which is not their first choice. We all hear of people who wish to be brain surgeons and Concorde pilots and who will look for nothing else. If the education system pushes people in a particular direction there is a danger that those who are unemployed will not be sufficiently flexible to accept those jobs which are not their first choice.
Some employers are also refusing to take some prospective workers. Why is that? In many cases the reason is the way some people turn up for interviews and the way in which they present themselves. That can lead an employer to decide that an applicant is not someone who they consider would benefit from the work experience scheme. Our schools must play a greater part in preparing youngsters to fill existing vacancies such as we have in Shropshire and in Telford.
The Government recently announced the expansion of employment opportunities for young people and I hope that they will ensure that better use is made of the vacancies which exist in the work experience schemes.
I think that we should also comment on and discuss the STEP projects which have been withdrawn from certain areas. We have lost such a scheme in Telford where we have a higher level of unemployment than many areas which are still eligible for STEP projects. I support the idea of concentrating help where it is most needed and I believe that Government resources should be concentrated—perhaps on a smaller scale—on those areas that need most assistance. The Government should question whether the present method is the best one or whether they might not introduce some more flexibility so that STEP projects operate in those areas where employment is at its highest and where the need is greatest.
I am happy with the Government's proposals for expenditure. I accept that cuts are a necessary evil, but I believe that they will result in a much stronger economic climate which will be of benefit to all. However, I believe that the Government could and should bring pressure to bear on the MSC. Firstly, in the West Midlands, I think that the MSC should look again at its proposals for skillcentres.
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Secondly, it should ensure that its resources in that area are used to the best advantage. I hope also that it will not be long before we can persuade educationists that they have a bigger part to play in preparing young people in our schools for their future work.
6.23 pm
Mr. Giles Radice: The Secretary of State devoted most of his speech to attacking the last Labour Government. He did not tell the House what he will do about unemployment, though he did warn us, as did the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we were in for a rough period. The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley) is clearly in favour of all public expenditure cuts except where they affect his own constituency. He also appears to be worried about the rough times to come.
We are in a rapidly deteriorating situation. That is partly because of the number of people coming on to the labour market. We are experiencing the peak of the 1960s baby boom, fewer people are retiring and there is the increasing participation of women at work. It is true, as the Secretary of State said, that we have the problems of increased oil prices and a world recession but the Secretary of State might also have said that we are one of the few countries in the West that has a reduction in output. He might have said further that that reduction was due partly to the policies of the Government.
The hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) made a brave and candid criticism of Government policies. I fear that his speech will not earn him the promotion that he deserves, but it was a notable speech which made an impression on the House.
I can understand why Conservative Members are not keen on unemployment forecasts. The much despised National Institute of Economic and Social Research—despised by the Government since they have cut down the amount of money for that organisation—has forecast that in the fourth quarter of 1981 unemployment will be 1·84 million. The forecast of the much favoured London Business School says that by the fourth quarter of 1981 unemployment will stand at 1·93 million. The CBI does not forecast for 1981 but says that by the fourth

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quarter of 1980 unemployment will stand at 1·7 million, and the OECD agrees with that forecast.
The Manpower Services Commission says that by the end of 1981 over 2 million people will be unemployed. Everybody agrees that we are in for a rough time.
Those are merely the overall figures. If we look at the regional figures we see the phenomenon that, as unemployment rises, the gap between the regions widens. The situation is becoming extremely critical in areas such as the North and in other development areas where redundancies and further unemployment are experienced almost every day.
The budget of the Manpower Services Commission and the Government's measures are the principal subject of this debate. The Chief Secretary said that the MSC was the creation of a Conservative Government. When the Conservatives were doing their last U-turn they acceded to the requests of the trade unions and the employers that there should be a strong MSC. However, the major expansion of the MSC and its work in employment and training came about under the last Labour Government.
By looking at the public expenditure figures we can see that in 1974–75 expenditure on employment services were running at £86 million. By the time Labour left office it had doubled to £167 million. In 1974–75 the money spent on training was £138 million and by the time Labour left office expenditure was running at £374 million. Much of that expenditure was counter-cyclical—that is, when there was a downturn in the economy and even when there were cuts in public expenditure during 1976 there were no cutbacks in the MSC budget. On the contrary, there was expansion.
What have we seen since the Conservatives came to power at a time when as the Secretary of State admits the situation is becoming worse? We have seen not only a cutback in planned expenditure but also the prospect of real cuts from 1980–81. The overall figures show that firstly in 1979–80 the MSC budget was cut by £109 million. In 1980–81 the cut in planned expenditure is £160 million and cuts of the same order are planned for subsequent years. On top of
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that there is the requirement to reduce staff costs by 13 per cent. That will mean a saving of a further £20 million.
Sir Richard O'Brien announced to the Select Committee on Employment that further cuts of £30 million would be required in 1980–81 and in subsequent years. Those considerable cuts will clearly have a major impact on MSC programmes, as Sir Richard O'Brien admitted when he was a witness before the Select Committee. He said that the cuts would have adverse effects for employers, individuals and the economy as a whole.
If we look at the MSC programmes—the Secretary of State skated over them—it is clear that there will be substantial damage. The occupational guidance scheme is being wound up. The special employment and needs scheme for the long-term unemployed is to go and the Professional and Executive Register is under threat. Some programmes will be damaged. The disablement services will be weakened. An unemployment rehabilitation centre is to go in Felling in the North.
The employment transfer scheme has been weakened, in that it has been cut back from 16,000 moves a year to 11,000. STEP will not be expanded. The plans were that it should cater for 36,000 longterm unemployed, but it will now cater for only 12,000, which represents only 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. of the total number of unemployed. It should be remembered that the number of longterm unemployed is estimated to rise to about 500,000. That is the impact on STEP.
I am pleased that the jobcentres will be modernised, but staff cutbacks will mean that at least 100,000 fewer places—that is the MSC estimate—will be available by 1980–81.
Training is the seed corn of our industrial future. Yet the grants to the training boards have been cut back. That will have a big impact on training. TOPS will be maintained, but there will be a fall of 10,000 completions, from 70.000 to 60,000 a year. In addition, there will be the closure of skillcentres, which many of my hon. Friends have already mentioned. We do not quite know exactly whether 10 skillcentres will be closed and 12 annexes, but clearly such closures have been imposed by Government cuts. Mr. Reid, who is the Director of Manpower

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Intelligence, said as much to the Committee. Those closures would not have taken place had it not been for the cuts imposed by the Government. They are not related to local needs. It is particularly bad to be closing skillcentres, such as Maryport and Darlington, in areas of high unemployment, where one needs such skills if one is to get out of the situation that the North presently faces.
I have not mentioned the additional cuts in other Government schemes, such as changes in the job release scheme, and the ending of the small firms employment subsidy. All those will have an impact.
The cutbacks in employment schemes and training are extremely short-sighted. They are not the fault of the MSC. They are the fault of the Government. Employment schemes are cost-effective, and they are very small beer in terms of public expenditure. We are talking about a sum of £300 million for training and £160 million for employment schemes. That is not large public expenditure. Employment schemes now cover about 400,000 people, which means that 200,000 people are kept off the unemployment register. Therefore, such schemes are very effective.
Indeed, most other countries operate exactly the same kind of schemes. A number of surveys show that most of our Western industrial rivals operate the same kind of schemes. We have a long way to go in respect of training. We are far behind West Germany, our main European industrial competitor, whose training schemes are far greater than ours.
If one adds the cuts in the MSC budget to other Government policies which have affected the level of unemployment, one will appreciate the seriousness of the situation. There is the high level of sterling, high interest rates and what my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) has called "punk monetarism", which has increased inflation as a result of the rise in VAT, so much so that it has had a major effect on wage negotiations throughout the current round. There are cuts in public spending, cuts in aid to industry and cuts in regional assistance. All of those directly contribute to increasing unemployment.
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I hope that this debate will encourage the Secretary of State to go into the Cabinet and fight for changes in the Government's policies about which I have been talking, otherwise I am afraid that the Secretary of State for Employment—whom I much admire—will go down in history as a Secretary of State for Unemployment.
6.34 p.m.
Mr. David Penhaligon: Any hon. Member who came to today's debate hoping that a marvellous and magical solution was to be produced to the nation's tragic unemployment problems will have been disappointed. I suspect that my speech will not particularly encourage such hon. Members. The simple truth is that hardly any hon. Member now believes that he has a solution to the country's unemployment problem.
I should like to attack one major point that was made by the Secretary of State. He referred to the improvement that took place in employment during the last two years of the previous Government. That point has been made scores of times. It is constantly said that improvement took place because the IMF came in and because pubilc expenditure cuts were enforced. That is true, but that is not the reason why the major improvement took place. It took place because, all of a sudden, British industry became substantially more competitive when the value of the pound against other world currencies fell straight through the floor.
I can remember the time when hon. Members walked up and down the Corridor and read on the telex that the value of the pound was going down and down. That provided an edge for our industry which lasted for about two years. In addition, the then Government's pay policy was having some effect. That may well have been their best period. Therefore, in terms of jobs, we had the double advantage of a collapsing pound against the foreign markets—I know that a collapsing pound causes other problems—and a pay policy. As a result, British industry was more competitive against its rivals, and not suprisingly we gained some jobs.
I emphasise that point because, as an engineer who spent all his time in industry before being elected to Parliament, I must

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tell the House that the vast bulk of employment within Britain is now aimed at producing products which, by and large, are no better or worse than a whole range of other products that are made throughout the industrial word. The mass of people are employed in manufacturing such goods as motor cars, washing machines and home consumer goods. Britain makes quite good products. There is nothing particularly wrong with them. They are not necessarily a great deal better than what is produced abroad, even though they are not a great deal worse. Therefore, whether or not we are competitive has more effect on the trend of unemployment in Britain than has any other factor, including public expenditure Cuts.
Mr. Richard Needham: Is the hon. Gentleman therefore saying that one of the unforeseen advantages of the Lib-Lab pact was a collapsing pound?
Mr. Penhaligon: No, the pound collapsed before we started, and we managed to make the best of it afterwards.
However, we are now in a new situation. We have a pound which in my view is valued ludicrously high on the world markets, and we have pay claims and settlements which, if hon. Members are worried about the long-term future of Britain, can only lead one to the point of near despair. That is the horrible truth.
There is an answer with regard to pay policy. Such a policy may not be easy, but the Government should have one. It is ludicrous to carry on, watching British industry collapse around our ears, without a pay policy. Yet the Government will not have one. There are two reasons for the high value of the pound. The first, which falls outside the Government's control—although it should be helping the economy rather than hindering it—is that the pound is now a petro-currency. People who are looking for a currency in which to invest their money can see that Britain has oil. They think "Here is an industrial country which is self-sufficient in fuel. That must be a reasonable place to put our money.". I suspect that a shift will take place in the value of the pound against other cur-
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rencies for at least the next 15 or 20 years because of that fact. I am not suggesting that the Government should give away the oil to bring the exchange rate down, but that is a fact.
The second reason, which is clearly the result of Government action, is that their pursuit of money supply policy has landed us in the peculiar situation of having a petro-currency, which is not their fault, while at the same time offering quite astronomical interest rates to overseas investors, as a result of which money is pouring into Britain. It is not being invested in factories, mines and industry generally. It is pouring in to take advantage of short-term interest rates. That is because of the money supply, which is under Government control. They could do something about it. I see little prospect of an improvement until the Government abandon their money supply policy and introduce a pay policy or, at least, persuade the British people that it is in their interests to accept lower pay settlements.
Predicting unemployment figures resembles playing darts—at least the way I play. One throws at the board and hits a number. However, everybody agrees that unemployment will increase. I should not be surprised if, in a little over 12 months, we were discussing over 2 million unemployed.
The long-term prospects are worse. Our productivity is appalling. There are no signs of change in industry's attitude towards productivity. The attitude against productivity increases has hardened. A large element in the economy now argues in favour of import controls. In reality, such controls will make low productivity exist for all time. I could be persuaded that some import controls are neccessary if we achieved good productivity in the different sectors of our industry. However, import controls are no solution when productivity is so abysmally low.
We can expect investment to be low under a Government who favour high interest rates. For at least 15 years we have experienced miserable levels of investment. How do the Government intend to infuse some of the income from North Sea oil into industry?
When asked what we should do with the receipts from North Sea oil in the next 20 or 25 years, most people agree

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that we should use it to create high investment and a good, strong industrial economy. How will that be achieved? It seems that the only advantage that Britain has over its competitors is that it is self-sufficient in oil. However, the Government are following OPEC's oil price increases to the nearest half dollar. As a result the advantage of North Sea oil is denied to British industry. Oil is bringing in a great deal of money. How can we transfer that money from the Government to industry? The Government should use some of it to improve our industrial base.
Perhaps we could invest some of that money in the microchip. The microchip is on its way. It will destroy jobs. What worries me is that we face a totally imported industrial revolution. I see no signs of the extra jobs created by that development being established in Britain. The only prospect is that jobs will be lost as a result of that development and none of the new jobs will come to Britain. We are at a point of near despair because of the unemployment prospects in Britain.
The Government talk of 250,000 or 300,000 placements under their youth employment programme. I support that programme. I do not know exactly how many people leave school each year but it cannot be more than 1 million. We are talking about one-third of the children leaving school spending at least six months involved in the Government's youth employment programme. The Government should keep that scheme since they have nothing else to offer, but it is not the long-term answer to youth unemployment.
The Secretary of State was cynical about the way in which the early retirement scheme was changed just before the last election. I understand that cynicism. However, I was disappointed that the age limit of 62 will not be retained. The Government claim that their scheme is good value for money. They say that paying a person to retire early for only one year provides one job for one year and that that is good value. I cannot understand why it is not also good value to pay a person for three years so that another person can take a job for three years. I am disappointed that the scheme is to go because it was a small wedge in the retirement age anomaly that annoys so many men.
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My party can claim to have negotiated the small firms employment subsidy with the last Government. The Government now say that it costs too much and that there are other ways of helping small businesses. I wish that the Government would outline their alternative plans for helping small businesses. Many employers in my constituency believe that the subsidy was of considerable help.
The Government have ensured that local rates will rise substantially. Public expenditure cuts have not necessarily occurred but rates have increased. There is talk of charging for planning permission and the Government have put interest rates through the roof. Under present Government policies there is probably little likelihood of small businessmen taking on new employees in the next few months, with or without a Government subsidy. Small businesses are an important part of our economy and yet the Government are dedicated to destroying them.
Apprenticeships are a problem in my constituency. One of my constituents was apprenticed for four years and has completed two and a half years. That young man was made redundant because his company went broke. He is continuing with his studies at a local technical college while trying to renew his apprenticeship somewhere else. Everybody speaks highly of him. His reward for attending technical college one day a week is that he loses one day a week of his miserable unemployment pay. If he stopped his part-time education and went on the dole full-time he would receive more unemployment pay. That cannot be sensible or rational.
Closing down skillcentres must be bad. Britain does not have an excess of skill. Closing down skillcentres, whether in the Wrekin or anywhere else, must be bad. The day that Britain has enough skill will be when the revolution has come and gone and all our problems will have been solved. Skillcentres do not cost much money. I ask the Minister to reconsider closing them.
I agree that there should be an investigation, or legislation, to sort out training in employment. The present position is chaotic. The situation is worse than the Minister claims it to be. In the last five or six years there has been a major drop in in-company training and apprenticeships. A great deal of money is spent on

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training. Clearly we are not achieving the required results. I was glad to hear what the Minister had to say, but, we shall not be supporting the Government in the Lobby tonight.
6.50 pm
Mr. Robert Rhodes James: I am always glad to follow the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon). I have to be careful in my remarks, especially after what the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) said about me earlier in the debate, thereby banging another nail into my coffin.
After my election to the House three years ago, I remember vividly that I was a guest of the Liberal Party in the Dining Room. I was enjoying myself when I heard a rich, plummy Tory voice saying "That fellow has been here only 10 minutes, and there he is dining with the Liberals". Therefore, I repudiate totally everything that has been said by the hon. Member for Truro and the right hon. Member for Chesterfield.
Whether we like it or not, we are all the victims, or the results, of our own experiences. It was my personal experience of poverty in India, when I was a child, that led to my concern about the problems of development. It was my unwilling and unwitting experience of the events of 1940 which led to my belief in a strong defence strategy for Britain. On others, their experiences of the depression and the poverty before and between the wars, and the miseries of the immediate post-war period, have had a comparably profound impact. One of the reasons why I have never had, and never will have, any quarrel with the Labour movement is that having witnessed that misery, I understand how the people felt.
There are dangers in allowing such experiences and attitudes to affect one's position in life. Circumstances change, and anyone in public life who remains adamant in his attitudes can become a political liability. That rule applies to political parties as well as to individuals. None the less, we arc the products of our backgrounds and experiences.
It is in debates such as this that those experiences and backgrounds become of particular importance. We are not talking about economic theory, or Friedmanism or monetarism. We are talking
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about people, and about the dilemma which afflicts too many of our fellow citizens in Britain and, regrettably, even more overseas.
It is now apparently the conventional wisdom in the Conservative Party to look back in anger or sorrow—or both—at the performance of the Macmillan Government. We are told that the turning point in our fortunes occurred when the entire Treasury team was forced to resign, and we embarked on a period of reckless, prodigality which has brought us to our present predicament. Some of my hon. Friends go back even further, and blame Winston Churchill and Walter Monckton for surrendering to the trade unions. I venture to take serious and grievous issue with that interpretation of the post-war history.
I referred earlier to one's position in politics being affected by one's experiences and the circumstances of one's life. Mr. Macmillan's political attitudes were dominated by his experience of the Great War and by his experience of representing a desperately poor Northern constituency with very high unemployment. A similar experience occurred to Duff Cooper, who subsequently wrote:
"In Oldham I had a glimpse of the condition of the people and had realised that a man's head must be as wrong as his heart who denied the need of social reform."
That was in the 1920s, the period of what the economists called "the intractable million" of unemployed—which the economists troubled about—in the declining industries, especially in the North of England, Scotland and Wales.
But it was not only those areas that suffered. I remember, as a small child in London, the wan faces of suffering children, obviously stunted by malnutrition. I came from a well-to-do professional family, and I was shocked. When I returned to England in 1944 the position had improved slightly, but it was still bad. It has improved ever since. Although it may be contrary to the conventional wisdom on this side, I must say that this country is an infinitely better one since 1945. I pay tribute to the Labour Party and the trade union movement which contributed to that improvement.
As a child in the immediate post-war period I wondered whether we were going to have a major revolution in Britain.

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Perhaps, in that awful period, we exaggerated the perils and difficulties. The fact that we did not have a revolution is due to the vision and the sensitivity of a number of people. High on that list I put the names of Harold Macmillan, Lord Butler, and the late lain Macleod.
One does not have to be poor to understand the suffering brought about by poverty. One does not have to be unemployed to understand, or have the imagination to realise, what suffering that causes. As soon as the Conservative Party ceases to have the imagination to understand those things it will cease to have any relevance in this nation.
If one looks back on the position in 1951—which many hon. Members will remember—there were controls, coupons, rationing, low incomes and little hope. If one looks at the position in 1964, at the end of the so-called "13 wasted years", one finds that the transformation was incredible in almost every respect. During those years the population had risen by more than 4 million, but there were only 319,000 unemployed. I say "only", but even that was 319,000 too many. None the less, given the context of that position, it was a remarkable achievement. I could go through the other achievements of the Government at that time, but that was the most remarkable.
The real significance of that Government and what they tried to do was less that inflation was virtually nil—2 per cent.—that interest rates had risen to the terrible height of 6 per cent., that income tax was very low and that industry was flourishing, and more that there was a sensible and helpful industrial relations position based on the determination of that Government to do all in their power to maintain full employment. They were not talking about economic theories but about our society, our country, and the need to maintain as full employment as possible as a social and political imperative. I believe that they were absolutely right to do so.
I see a clear connection between the combination of low taxes, low interest rates, increased investment in education —there was an enormous increase in further and higher education between 1955 and 1964—active encouragement to house building and to industry, and that very low rate of unemployment and underemployment. I believe that there was
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more to it than that. I do not believe that one can talk about economics in absolute isolation from those who are the victims or the beneficiaries of economic policies.
As I said, Mr. Macmillan was haunted by the memories of the 1920s, just as my father was haunted by his memories of the early 1900s. Those memories dominated him to the end of his life. John Boyd Orr wrote of the 1920s:
"A ruling class living on dividends, masses of people on the dole, and a Government trying to maintain an uneasy status quo, is a picture which fills thinking people with despair."
Mr. Macmillan rebelled against what he called "Casino capitalism", and he denounced laissez-faire and the hard-faced "industrials" of the Tory Party in the 1920s representing lush Southern constituencies—the sort of person Stanley Baldwin described as one who, after flicking his cigar ash over his roses to keep off the greenfly, considered that he had done a good day's work. That was the kind of person Mr. Macmillan was fighting, and such people are not defunct now.
In my view, what Mr. Macmillan did and tried to do, and others with him, represented a glittering and noble chapter in the history of the Conservative Party. I am determined, so long as I am a Member of the House, to ensure that the Conservative Party never walks the path that some people wished it to walk in the 1920s and 1930s.
What I find astounding about contemporary politics is that there is a general acceptance of a level of unemployment which is literally and totally unacceptable. No doubt the figures are exaggerated, no doubt the black economy is rampant, and no doubt there are cheats and scroungers and people who are work-shy. So what is new? The fact remains that there is a level of unemployment in this nation which is absolutely unacceptable in a decent socity. Although the Government are rightly a free enterprise and non-interventionist Administration, they must recognise that their actions, or inactions, have a profound effect upon business confidence, investment and employment.
As the hon. Members for Truro and Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice) and the

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right hon. Member for Chesterfield pointed out, an excessively strong pound affects the exporter, particularly the small exporter. High interest rates affect everyone, but particularly the small businessman, the self-employed, the home buyer and the construction industry. I give those as examples.
A virtual doubling of VAT is bound to affect the rate of inflation and, consequently, wage demands. I was astounded to hear the Secretary of State for Trade on Monday say that the virtual doubling of VAT had no effect what-soever on the rate of inflation. If he had said that the increase in VAT, combined with cuts in income tax, meant that those increases would not have quite as large an effect as they might otherwise have done, that would have been a different thing. But to say that it had no impact whatsoever was somewhat excessive. What any Government do or do not do about energy prices, tax changes and the rating system is bound to have some impact upon the level of employment. From this reality there is no escape. This has nothing whatever to do with economic theory. It has everything to do with common sense and a vision of what our society should be. It has everything to do with people, particularly young people.
In repudiating the fashionable denunciations of the period between 1951 and 1964, I invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to look again at the lessons of that period. I think they will find that the villains were not those of that time but those who came immediately afterwards. If Ministers wish to have a theme and a text, which I suggest they might need, I suggest this one:
"There is only one thing which I feel is worth giving one's strength to, and that is the binding together of all classes of our people in an effort to make life in this country better in every sense of the word. That is the main end and object of my life in politics."
That was Stanley Baldwin in 1925.
It would indeed be tragic if it were said of this Government and of this Conservative Party, as Mr. Macmillan said of a former one:
"The Conservative Party has no clear policy on immediate problems; it has no clear goal towards which it feels itself to be striving. It has too many 'open questions' and too many closed minds."
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I fully accept and applaud the general strategy of the Government. People who voted for economic realism should not complain if that is what they are getting. I believe that we shall eventually win the battle against inflation, but I ask: what happens in the meanwhile? How can such a battle be truly said to have been won if the dismal shadows of unemployment and under-employment still darken our nation and our society?
7.5 pm
Mr. Ian Campbell: I am pleased to follow such a thoughtful speech by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James). I think that in one phrase he summed up the whole generality of the debate when he said that we are talking about people.
I make no apology for relating my remarks to a straight constituency interest, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies). My constituency interest is in skillcentres. There is one in Dumbarton which is on the danger list of closures. It might be said that that centre, opened in the late 1960s, should have been named not just Dumbarton, but Dunbartonshire, or even Dunbartonshire and Argyllshire, to give a better impression of the area that it serves.
When I raised the subject of this proposed closure with the Minister with responsibility for industry at the Scottish Office, he replied:
"Dumbarton is part of the network of five skillcentres which serves the whole of the Glasgow conurbation, including Clydebank."
With respect, I suggest that Dumbarton, situated at the edge of the conurbation—perhaps one of the reasons for its possible demise—serves the Western Highlands also and should not be considered simply in the context of the Glasgow scene.
The remark about Clydebank is interesting. Dumbarton and Clydebank have always had strong ties. In fact, one of the Dunbartonshire parliamentary constituencies used to be Dumbarton Burghs, which were the two towns Dumbarton and Clydebank, well represented for a number of years by David Kirkwood—a well-known Clydeside rebel.
From an employment point of view, there has always been a flow of labour from and to the Vale of Leven, Dumbarton and Clydebank. Whilst we in

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Dumbarton and the Vale of Leven suffered the trauma of the loss of our basic industries some time ago, we know what has been happening to Clydebank in recent times. Closures have affected the work force in that area and in the surrounding areas.
The Government recognised that problem, and at the end of last year they set up a working party on employment in the Clydebank area. That body represented all Government agencies involved in industry. In paragraph 5.11 of its report, it states:
"MSC should build up a bank of employment vacancies to meet the needs of redundant Singer personnel and others, and should make known to employers the skills becoming available. MSC should also review the availability of training places for skills in demand, perhaps establishing temporary training places in vacant premises in Clydebank and recruiting redundant skilled workers as instructors."
Yet the Manpower Services Commission is talking of closing the Dumbarton skillcentre, which is only 10 miles from Clydebank. I cannot understand the logic of such a decision.
The Minister, in his letter to me, also said:
"A new skilicentre will be opening in Rutherglen in 1983."
That is not much of a sop to the unemployed in Dumbarton, the Vale of Leven, Clydebank and the surrounding area. My information is that the construction of this centre has not yet started. Looking at the map, Rutherglen does not seem very far from Clydebank and Dumbarton, but it is situated at the other side of Glasgow. Its geographical location makes it difficult for trainees to get there because of transport problems.
On a recent visit to the Dumbarton skilicentre, I was pleased to find that redundant workers from Clydebank—ex-Singer and ex-Goodyear personnel—were undergoing training. We should concentrate on building up the skilicentre to cater for the needs of the area.
When a delegation saw the Secretary of State for Employment recently he explained—he repeated this in general terms today—that the take-up of places at Dumbarton was not very high. I investigated and found that instructions were issued from the top of the MSC in Scotland to the effect that an area of this skilicentre should be reserved for training
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mechanics for domestic appliance repairs. It is virtually impossible to recruit an instructor in this skill. The MSC has also been asked to set out an area for training instrument mechanics. However, we know about the problems in the North-East of training instrument mechanics. Instructors are not available. The statistics on all those matters can be way out of line with reality.
Another point that was made to the delegation was that the building housing the skillcentre is substandard. I have seen better buildings, and I have worked in better buildings, but the conditions are good, and they have been improved by the workers undergoing training. It is the quality of the training that matters, and that is the criterion that should be applied. Although the Government are now talking of closing the centre, they have recently spent thousands of pounds on new offices. That does not seem to add up.
Another point that was made in the statistics was that of the placing of trainees after completion of training. However, many people who take courses are often offered and accept employment before the course is completed. Who would not take up the chance of employment if he had the opportunity? The statistics do not include those who have undergone only part of the training.
One of the other uses to which skill-centres are put is in-service training. Not only small businesses take up that opportunity. In my area one of the largest modern firms uses the skillcentre for in-training facilities. If the Government are looking for some reason to attract industry—we are all fighting to attract industry—this is a carrot that can be dangled in front of an in-coming industrialist.
If anything, more training facilities should be made available—a point that has been underlined by many hon. Members today. In some ways it is sad that I am arguing about the need to retain Dumbarton skillcentre. I know that, if one centre is saved, another might have to go. An expansion of the facilities is required, even though that might mean a radical rethink of subjects which are offered for training and retraining.
The centres carry out valuable work in helping the unemployed to face up to the

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future of our troubled industrial world, by providing an incentive to train and to retrain. If a person has skills he can always use them.
Dumbarton skillcentre is the only skill-centre in the whole of the Glasgow conurbation on the north bank of the Clyde—on the edge of the hinterland of the Western Highlands. It should be retained. I hope that the committee that will look into the question will take to heart some of my remarks, and that my right hon. and hon. Friends will use their powers to secure that Dumbarton skillcentre is retained to meet the needs of that area of Scotland.
7.15 pm
Mr. Richard Needham: Perhaps the House will forgive me if I follow in the footsteps of the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Campbell) and refer briefly to constituency problems. They have a bearing on the Government's policy and economic strategy—a strategy that desperately needs to show that the Government understand and care about the problems of the unemployed. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) put that point eloquently, and he showed the vital tradition within the Tory Party. I believe that many hon. Members come to the House in that tradition and with those beliefs.
I shall deal first with the pigmeat industry that is suffering decline—not structural or self-inflicted decline—because of the damage inflicted on it by the Labour Government. The failure to devalue the green pound has been the death knell of the bacon industry in Britain. During the last five years the industry has managed to achieve only £200 gross profit per pig compared with £350 for Danish pigs.
The amount of time that Labour Members have spent in areas where Labour votes are at risk is impressive compared with areas such as my constituency where the only thing at risk is the deposit of the Labour candidate.
The number of people employed in the pigmeat industry in my constituency has decreased from 2,000 five years ago to less than 450 today. That decrease in employment has had a fundamental effect on the population in a small rural town. It
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has brought with it many problems. I should like briefly to mention two of them.
The first problem is urging men and women to get out of the industry when they lose their jobs and to find new jobs quickly. Many of those people suffer a sense of loss and fear. Men and women who have worked for a particular employer for 30 or 40 years often cannot bring themselves to look for another job. They are, of course, cushioned by redundancy payments, but those payments do not last for long, and often they represent the only opportunity for many of them to get together a capital sum to put aside for difficult times ahead.
I ask the Minister to ensure that the Department of Employment encourages these people—particularly older men in their late forties and fifties who will find trouble anyway—to find other employment before they spend the money. I am sure that this problem is not confined to rural areas or to my constituency. I have spoken to many people at the Department and in jobcentres. They find that there are real difficulties in persuading people who may have received such an amount of money for the first time, and who think that they should have some time off before they go back to work, to find other employment. However, it is more difficult if they leave it for too long. Of 100 people who were made redundant in a pigmeat processing factory in my constituency last year, 30 still have not found work. Most of those 30 people have only just begun to look for work.
This is an area that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department—who are no longer present—would be advised to look at. They should ensure that the Department of Employment solves the problem. I cannot in any way criticise their efforts. They have set up a jobcentre in the factory itself. That is something that I am sure that they do throughout the length and breadth of Britain. But out of the 400 people who have lost their jobs, only 100 have gone along for interview, and within a week or so they will be out of the factory altogether.
Again, what needs to be done is to explain to people who are suffering this sense of fear, worry and anxiety that there are opportunities for them in areas such

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as mine. We are in that lucky position. At present, in my particular little town there are 237 vacancies and 250 unemployed.
Mr. Nick Budgen: Will my hon. Friend explain how it is that, if so many people are so frightened, they do not go immediately to the jobcentre which they know is available? Does not this illustrate that perhaps they are not as frightened as he is suggesting, and that it may be that, horrifying though unemployment undoubtedly is, it is a little less of a horrifying experience that it was in the 'thirties, which is the period to which the Opposition refer so often?
Mr. Needham: I am afraid that I cannot agree with my hon. Friend about that. As I said—perhaps before my hon. Friend came into the Chamber—when someone who has spent 30 or 40 years in his place of employment finds that his job has gone, he suffers a sense of trauma and shock. That does not mean that he goes away just in order to spend money. It means that the money he may get is a fall-back, but it does not mean that he is any less wanting to find a new job or is any less capable of having a new job. If the argument is that he is better off now than he would have been in the 'thirties, so I should hope. The last thing that we wish to do is to go back to that time. What needs to be done by the job-centres and the Department of Employment is to make sure that, instead of this sense of trauma and shock, there is flair and a rewarding future to which to look forward.
As I was saying, why is it that in Calne there are 234 vacancies for 250 unemployed? There must be a mismatch somewhere. It is this mismatch which brings me on to the question of training.
Mr. Bob Dunn: Will my hon. Friend explain a contradiction that seems to be emerging? I represent a constituency which has a very low unemployment figure and a very great number of highly skilled jobs that are going begging because there is not the talent locally to fill them. We have recently bussed down 150 unemployed skilled people from Merseyside to Dartford. They were shown the jobs and promised housing. They were given an undertaking that they would have a take-home pay in
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excess of £100 per week. Yet today not one of those 150 persons has applied for a job at the factory in Dartford.
Hearing my hon. Friend's remarks about the problems in Caine, I was conscious that a very small community in a rural setting has enormous problems, but it seems to me that one of the problems that we have as a country is that our unemployed work force is not mobile and is not prepared to go where the jobs are. I accept that it is tremendously difficult to leave a place where one has been all one's life and go elsewhere. But there are jobs in the South-East that can be taken if people are prepared to go for them.
Mr. Needham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. It goes to the roots of my point. I accept that because people find it difficult to move, they have doubts and worries. They may have relatives there, brothers, sisters, mothers and uncles, and so on, in work. It is not easy to tear up one's roots. However, the point I am trying to make to the Government is that this is something that needs to be looked at.
We know that the Ford motor company is desperately trying to introduce a second shift to produce Fiestas to obviate the need for them to be imported from Spain, yet it finds that it cannot get people to work on the second shift. One of the reasons may be—certainly in a small area such as mine—that people have to travel many miles to the skillcentre. In my area it happens to be in Swindon. People in rural areas must find it very difficult to get to the skillcentres. Understandably, public transport services are not what they were. Even though transport may be available, possibly it is at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
Skills that we know are desperately needed in parts of Britain must be provided for out of the people who are losing their jobs in old and dying industries.
I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to consider a vital point. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is not present. He has never read anything that I have written. There is little chance of his reading what I am about to say, but it is a vital point if we are to get the new industries that we require. In the 1930s, when old industries died, new industries came about.

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The automotive industry grew from very small beginnings, from employing hundreds to employing thousands and, in the end, millions. It grew in the East and West Midlands because it had the opportunity to create new factories and new jobs on new sites. This is one of the problems that concerns me particularly in the part of the world from which I come.
I am very glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has returned to the Chamber to listen to what I am saying. The most important point is that we do not in any way restrict the ability of new companies to get going in areas of potential growth. What is bothering to me is that at present county councils, hiding behind the cash limit, arc saying that it is completely impossible for them to provide the infrastructure, the services, or to bring forward within their structure plans sufficient industrial land to make sure that industrial growth keeps up with the pace of demand.
In the last three years the price of industrial land in Swindon has trebled. In the last year, in Chippenham it has doubled. Throughout that area, where there is real potential for growth, growth will not happen if it is not made clear to councils that they have to bring forward land where land is needed, and the infrastructure of schools and other facilities which will make the area prosper.
As I have said, it is an area which, because of its communications and its history of decent labour relations, has an opportunity to get going. I am very bothered that, for these two reasons, the mismatch in skills and our inability to take people who have lost their job in one industry and train them into new industry, coupled with our failure to make sure that entrepreneurs can get going, we shall lose that opportunity. If we are not careful, we shall end up with the worst of all worlds. There is no point in cutting public expenditure if the only result is that the money that we save ends up being invested in unproductive land at very high cost because sufficient land is not available. We shall also end up with increasing unemployment in some areas, which we cannot take up as we were able to do in the thirties because we
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do not have the fluidity of planning that we ought to have.
There are, therefore, these artificial constraints, and it must be vital to the Government that they are removed. I appreciate that my right hon. and hon. Friends understand the magnitude of these problems. I welcome the interest and understanding that they have shown. However, unless we on the Government Benches show care for and understanding of the problems of unemployment, together with a flexible ability to make sure that we get jobs where jobs are needed, the future of the present Government will not be rosy.
7.30 pm
Miss Betty Boothroyd: Over the years Governments of both parties have tended to regard the West Midlands as one of the more prosperous areas of the United Kingdom. I am not here to dispute that. There was a degree of prosperity in the Black Country towns, largely because of the smaller manufacturing companies. We were once very prosperous. We made everything from nuts and bolts to submarine engines. However, there have been new dramatic increases in unemployment. Indeed, there have been such increases in the past few weeks. They have taken place in my constituency and they illustrate vividly that no Government can any longer ignore the de-industrialisation that is taking place in communities that were once considered to be reasonably prosperous.
I make no apology for referring especially to my constituency. Obviously it is the area that I know best. Its situation relates very much to the issues that we are debating. We have all seen the figures which appear in the unemployment registers. In May 1979 the figures published for my constituency indicated that there were 3,400 registered unemployed—far too high a number. The figures for February indicated that over 4,100 were registered as unemployed. That means that more than two workers each day, seven days a week, have lost their jobs since the Government came to power.
Mr. Bob Dunn: What about vacancies?
Miss Boothroyd: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman refers to vacancies. I checked with the local office and learned that today there are 306 vacancies. What

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is not yet recorded is the high unemployment that is coming through because of closures that have been announced in recent weeks. On Friday I went to my constituency. I was faced with 1,500 workers from Patent Shaft who were faced with a closure. There were banner headlines about 1,500 workers in one firm being faced with a closure. Two weeks earlier, and only a mile down the road, over 600 workers in another firm were in the same position. On Saturday morning at my surgery I was told that 70 workers faced the closure of another firm. That means that more than 2,000 people are threatened with unemployment in addition to those who are already unemployed.
This afternoon workers from yet another firm in my constituency who are faced with a closure have been waiting to see me. They have been waiting for four hours. I know what their message will be. They will tell me that their firm will be closed. No doubt there are others that will follow suit. These people may register only as statistics to the Secretary of State and his Department. However, when I talked to my constituents on Saturday morning I saw registered on many faces a good deal of despair.
I was asked a number of questions. These people need to know what is to become of them and what is to be their future. They want to know what the future holds for them and their families in such an area. These are not all mature, middle-aged men and women who are able happily to accept redundancy payments. These are fairly young people with families. Many of them are skilled, but probably more of them are semiskilled. They asked many questions. They talked to me about the dual standards which they believe are being operated by the Government.
In her recent Airey Neave memorial lecture the Prime Minister said:
"The British economy was people at work—their efforts and their attitudes. Success will be achieved only in so far as people related the rewards they received to efforts they made."
It is an articulate and beautiful expression, but a statement far removed from the grim realities of the Black Country. The reality is that many people will not receive any rewards, no matter how great an effort they make. They know that at present no mechanism exists
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whereby they may use their efforts to gain rewards. In recent weeks too many of them have had the traumatic experience of being told that they are no longer wanted. They see little future because of the restraint on public expenditure, be cause of restrictions, and because of the Government's attitude towards the job opportunities programme. Most of all, they recognise that there is the lack of a cohesive industrial strategy.
The Secretary of State will be aware that this week I have made written representations to him about my constituency. My people ask questions that need answering. What future have they? What facilities will the right hon. Gentleman make available for other productive work? This afternoon I have heard many Conservative Members saying that they want productive work. I join them. I want it too. What facilities will the right hon. Gentleman make available to ensure that my people get productive work? What measures will he institute to equip skilled and semi-skilled workers for other productive jobs?
In what way is the right hon. Gentle man prepared to help my people, who are now deprived of wage packets in an area that is rapidly and week by week becoming a ghost town? The $64,000 question is: what are the Government prepared to do to enable people in my area, and many others like them, to find other jobs and to seek the rewards for their efforts to which the Prime Minister so glibly refers? I hope that I shall have the answer tonight from the right hon. Gentleman. My people in Wednesbury, Tipton and West Bromwich need to know. We need to know when unemployment is rising as a direct result of Government intervention in the balance of the economy.
That is what it is. In a modern in dustrial society there is no such thing as non-Government intervention in industry. The Government must first take steps to ensure that resources are available to reverse the decline and to ensure that a comprehensive industrial strategy is ready to meet the challenges when we have passed through this recession. It is because that strategy has not emerged—I do not see it emerging—that I, too, share the despair of those to whom I spoke at the weekend and the despair of those whom I shall see later tonight

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and who are waiting to tell me of their fate.
The Government cannot be indifferent to the hardships that they are causing as a result of implementing their harsh policies. In the midst of redundancies I am told about the closure of a skillcentre. Other hon. Members have spoken about skillcentres and I shall not labour the argument. I am faced with the possible closure of the Dudley skillcentre. Every week unemployment is increasing in that area. The closure of the centre is the daftest thing that I have ever heard. We shall give the Government some stick on that one.
Instead of encouraging and helping workers to seek their rewards, in the words of the Prime Minister, the Government seem to be waging industrial warfare with deliberate and callous indifference to the welfare of the victims, the future of Britain as a whole and the future of proud industrial areas such as mine.
We hear much of the Government's industrial guru. Professor Milton Friedman speaks with glee of the way in which Japan and West Germany rebuilt their industries after the war. Do the Government expect the British people to suffer hardships approaching those suffered elsewhere as a result of war before anything is done to remedy the cost in human misery caused by the policies that they are pursuing?
Mr. Bob Dunn: Will the hon. Lady let me have the Hansard references to similar speeches that she made when the Labour Government were doubling unemployment.
Miss Boothroyd: I have made many speeches both inside and outside the House on the question of unemployment. I consider employment to be basic to a civilised nation and to the families who live in it.
Mr. John Golding: Perhaps my hon. Friend remembers making a similar speech to me in West Bromwich when I was in charge of this problem. She took a firm stand on behalf of the people of West Bromwich on that occasion.
Miss Boothroyd: I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks.
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I do not deny that if the Labour Party had been returned it would have had to come to terms with the economic situation. However, the Labour Party understands industry and those involved in it. I criticise and attack the Government because they have failed to respond to our needs. Since the Conservative Party came into office, its policies and actions have shown neither concern for the future of Britain as an industrial nation, nor compassion for those who work in our industries.
7.40 pm
Mr. Alan Haselhurst: I shall not follow the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Needham) nor shall I take up the remarks of the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Miss Boothroyd). I do not wish to make a constituency point. I shall do the reverse. The constituency of Saffron Walden would readily divest itself of the opportunity to create the 60,000 jobs which would result from the building of the third London airport. I can therefore speak with a degree of objectivity.
The essential point is that unemployment is rising. It will become a serious problem. Several forecasts have been made. I shall not indulge in any forecasting. However, it worries me that my 14-month-old son, who has just learnt to walk, totters across to our bookcase and unerringly picks out a paperback that was published a few years ago called "Prospects for Employment". He is obviously subconsciously worried about unemployment. Unemployment may become a long-term problem in Britain.
Conservative Members in particular should accept that unemployment will create serious problems. Some Opposition Members are almost looking forward to using unemployment as a political stick with which to beat us. They look forward to the time when the unemployment figures will have gone beyond those that they achieved. They wish to gain some satisfaction from political debate about unemployment. In one sense, unemployment must rise if we are to achieve the levels of productivity necessary to enable us to compete effectively with the rest of the world. Some industries will decline.
As Professor Stonier reminded us, we should accept that microprocessors and

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robots will take over the majority of work in industry. We must create an economy that will provide opportunities for those who are displaced. We must not stand in the way of progress if we wish to have a healthy economy. We must find a balance between the protection of jobs in certain industries and free market growth. New jobs and new technology should be allowed to come into existence.
The Opposition have put down a motion that refers to a "constructive manpower policy". That is a staggering piece of effrontery. When a party is in opposition it usually has more scope for using its imagination. One might have expected the Opposition to change their thinking during the past 10 months. One might have expected to see that reflected in the speech of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley). However, he was a little short of ideas. He managed the extraordinary physical feat of speaking for 31 minutes with his tongue in his cheek.
There is an obvious need for a balance. The Labour Party can be fairly accused of relying too much on the protection of existing jobs. We have heard that again today. The measures that the previous Labour Government introduced showed too much regard for protecting jobs. They did not give sufficient thought to the need to change the pace in industry in order to create new jobs. Some of my hon. Friends have expressed fears that the present Government may try to do things a little too quickly in order to make up for a lack of movement in the past. We must try to get the balance right.
As several of my hon. Friends have said, we must recognise that in some parts of the country vacancies go begging. In other parts of the country the figures for unemployment are horrifying. I accept and share the worry of all those who have spoken about the grim social and moral effects that unemployment may bring. I am fortunate in my constituency. Many companies in my constituency are successful. They have jobs on offer. However, they face other constraints. Last week I visited several companies in my constituency. They told me that they could expand but that they were not sure whether the economic climate was right. To take on more people and more machinery would involve risk. If they
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moved to a new site they feared that they might become too large and that they would be unable to manage as successfully. They fear to run into the problems in industrial relations that seem to bedevil the larger companies. Successful companies are thus held back, although they have the potential to expand. So the Government should not pump money only into providing skillcentres, through economic policies, they should create a climate in which people can overcome any inhibitions which they feel about the expansion of their businesses.
Training should be considered as a tool in itself. Our industrial society is of necessity changing. There should be greater reliance on training. That is a vital complement to this Government's economic and industrial policies. We should make training a way of life both for employers and for those who are starting out on their life of employment. People should not expect to retain the same skill throughout their lives. We must ensure a greater amount of training. People will do more than one job in the course of their lifetime. Training does not involve only the training of skills. I am reminded of the Newsom report that was published many years ago. That report was entitled "Half Our Future". Half of our future is tied up with young people who have not necessarily achieved the maximum at school. However, they will also provide half of our future work force. Jobs must be provided. Not everyone is capable of achieving the highest technical skills. They must be shown a way of gaining satisfaction in some type of work. Satisfaction can be gained if both employer and employee have the right attitude.
We should consider some of the new schemes that have been developed by companies and voluntary bodies and by an amalgamation of the two. Those schemes should be considered particularly in areas of high unemployment. I have seen schemes in which a group therapy has operated. That group therapy is an essential factor when re-establishing the motivation of those who have left school at the earliest possible moment. They suddenly discover that they do not have much to offer an employer. Those training schemes help young people to regain their self-respect. Over a decent length of time—a better length than is offered

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by some of the programmes under the youth opportunities programme—they offer young people a chance to sample various types of work. That allows them to realise that more than one possibility exists.
There are people to counsel them and advise them on what is in their best interests. We should look at such schemes as exemplified by the YMCA's "Training for Life" scheme, which is concentrated predominantly in the North-West.
We also have to ask the question, training by whom? I do not accept that skillcentres and other ideas developed under the Labour Government are the only means to train people. If motivated, many small employers can do that well. Some of those employers may only become involved in training when linked with the group training schemes that exist in certain parts of the country. The best and perhaps most cost-effective training is provided by an employer on the job. We need to harness many more employers to the training exercise.
I hope that we will give full weight to enterprise workshops, especially in areas of high endemic unemployment. That people have a function to perform is as important as having the training to perform it.
I hope that we shall consider the various training schemes up and down the country to see whether they can form the basis of a new training programme, which could form the substance of the Bill that my right hon. Friend said was in prospect.
As PPS to another Minister, I have to be careful, but I believe that it is a pity that many of the schemes are effective only for people of 16 years of age and over. I believe that it is wrong to consider that training does not begin until the age of 16. The House will understand if I do not pursue that point.
I appeal to my right hon. Friend and to the Government to adopt a wholly new attitude to training on the part of employers, unions, educationists, the Government and, dare one hope, the Opposition. We need a new approach if we are to modernise and make relevant our training system to the needs of not just very bright kids but those who will
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make up a substantial part of the future labour force. Without that, I fear that scores of families will be scarred by the menace of unemployment, which may have a profound and disturbing effect on British politics and British social life for a generation or more.
7.52 pm
Mr. Guy Barnett: I listened with close interest to the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst), who no doubt knows that many of his ideas on training are being tried out in inner city partnerships, two of which I was closely associated with. I entirely agree that there is enormous opportunity for experiment in training, particularly for young people.
Appalling dangers are liable to arise from youth unemployment. The current chairman of the Manpower Services Commission said some time ago:
"there is a danger of making unemployable out of the young unemployed."
The House and the Government should take that matter seriously, as did the previous Government.
Every young person who leaves school should enter some form of training, job or other occupation. The consequences of allowing young people, at the end of their school education, to become unemployed are too horrifying to contemplate. The cost to society in terms of social conditions and the development of petty crime and worse are great. We should concentrate our attention here.
I am glad to see the Secretary of State in his place. I listened with interest to the economic part of his speech. He appeared to be saying that there are two ways to run an economic policy. The first is what the Conservative Government are doing and the other is for a Government to spend their way out of unemployment. He implied that the second option was followed by our Government and by previous Labour Governments.
I was a Junior Minister in the previous Labour Government, and I never noticed that we were spending our way out of unemployment. The right hon. Gentleman quoted my right hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett) when he was Chief Secretary, but I and other Ministers in spending Departments found it difficult to get all the money

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that we wanted for the purposes that we wanted. There was a great deal of financial restraint.
I recall two Chancellors of the Exchequer, both Conservative, who tried to spend their way out of unemployment—the late Reginald Maudling in 1963–64 and Lord Barber in 1973–74. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman was referring to an argument within the Conservative Party and was not thinking seriously of how to deal with a developing evil in our economy.
There are many ways in which we could tackle unemployment. As has been said, it is not right and proper to refer to policies which will be the concern of the Budget. We should leave those considerations for later.
I also wish to concentrate on rising unemployment. Few areas of Government expenditure are more relevant and deserving of priority than expenditure by the Manpower Services Commission.
Year by year an increasing number of people enter the labour force. As every economic commentator knows, the economy has poor growth prospects for some years to come. We should also recall the unknown consequences that we shall experience from microprocessor technology and its effect on unemployment, changes in employment requirements and job specifications. For all those reasons, the Manpower Services Commission is enormously important.
I also listened with interest to the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Needham) when he talked of the trauma that people experience through losing jobs, particularly those who have spent two, three or more decades in the same job. I know about that only too well from experience in my constituency.
Hon. Members may have read an extremely interesting paper published by PEP some years ago entitled "Whatever Happened to the Workers of Woolwich?". I was reminded of that study on the closure of AEI-GEC, which threw 5,000 people out of work, many of them highly skilled. It caused appalling traumas. Many highly skilled people seemed unwilling or unable to find similarly skilled employment elsewhere.
The Employment Service Division of the Manpower Services Commission plays a crucial role in placement. The study
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pointed favourably to the work done by the Department of Employment, before the Manpower Services Commission was set up, in trying to assist people to find alternative employment.
Unquestionably, we have to face the difficult problem of adaptation when new jobs are found. The Training Services Division will have a vital role to play. The importance of skillcentres has already been emphasised. I profoundly regret that the Deptford skillcentre, which has been argued about and which has experienced delay after delay—last month the matter was yet again thrown to the melting pot—has been so late in opening. As a consequence we have a temporary skill-centre in Kidbrooke which is providing the training needs. I have made it quite clear that it is my view that that should not close until the Deptford skillcentre is opened. The irony of this is that the very land on which the Kidbrooke skill-centre is situated is desperately needed for new factories in order to provide more jobs for our area. I hope that fast progress will be made with the development and staffing of a new skillcentre which is desperately needed in this area of high unemployment where there will be a considerable need for training. The skillcentre will serve an important part of the Dockland designated area where one hopes that the developments taking place will provide a wider range of jobs, and that there will be increasing demand for people with certain skills.
There is no doubt that the Manpower Services Commission has a vitally important part to play in the light of social and other tensions which could develop in society if unemployment is allowed to grow. In view of the technological changes in our society there is no question about the importance of the Manpower Services Commission, especially as we expect increased unemployment figures to result from the policies being pursued by this Government, and from other factors at work in the economy.
Therefore, it seems to be total madness for the Government to cut the budget of the Manpower Services Commission to such a degree. Of course the Secretary of State is entitled to argue—and the chairman of the Manpower Services Commission would echo this point—that not everything the Commission does is perfect. It has expanded very quickly, and

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rightly so in my view, in the light of growing unemployment. But that is not a reason for cutting back on the budget of the MSC. It is a reason for examining what the Commission is doing and developing its work in those areas where the priorities lie.
I wish to draw attention to one particular area. Perhaps when the Minister winds up the debate he will deal with this. One interesting development which has resulted from the work of the Manpower Services Commission is the development of courses in colleges of further education. I have visited a number of these colleges in the Inner London education area recently. Those courses have had the, effect of giving colleges of further education a career orientation which they had lacked before. The contact between the MSC and these colleges has been nothing but fruitful. The co-operation between the MSC and the colleges and the demands that the Commission has made have been important. Various sorts of courses have been designed to introduce people to the job market and to develop certain skills and knowledge that will be required to fulfil the jobs that are becoming available. I would be interested to know what the Government or the Commission itself can say about such developments which seem to summarise the importance of contact between the educational and training systems in this country.
There is one other small point I wish to make. I welcome what the Secretary of State said about a major review being undertaken by the Commission into industrial training. This is vitally important. There must be a fundamental reappraisal of the whole area of industrial training. I have drawn attention before to the massive difference between expenditure on those who go on to higher education and those who have to suffer the meanness characterised by the Government's cuts in the skillcentre area of further education, training and post-school education available to the least fortunate members of society.
I hope that one of the things we shall do as a consequence of the industrial training Bill is to raise the status of industrial training in this country to ensure that the less fortunate youngsters who leave school are given proper
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attention, and that there is expenditure on them. This will enable them not merely to find a good job, but to obtain basic educational training which will enable them to adapt to new jobs throughout their working lives in view of the technical changes taking place.
I find it incredible that this Government, knowing all the points that have been raised in the debate today, should decide to reduce the global sum made available to the Commission. I believe that the Commission's budget should be maintained and, possibly, increased. I accept absolutely that the Commission must be continually responsive to changing needs. The programmes already undertaken need to be adapted in the light of experience.
8.7 pm
Mr. John Butcher: In the course of the debate today we have ranged over all the aspects of Government economic policy in addition to the specific matter that is under discussion—the use of training resources and their relevance to the increase in the unemployment figures.
I cannot help but comment on some of the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) who described the Government's policy as "a high risk gamble". I would have thought that the gamble of the highest risk was the sell-out to increased public expenditure—the increased proportion of our resources being dedicated to the public sector. That route is effectively closed to us. There is no room for manoeuvre there. That road will lead us to hyper-inflation.
All this may be put in context by quoting just one figure—that of £8 billion. That is the cost of servicing the public debts in this country. At present our education service costs £8½ billion. That means that we spend as much on servicing the public debt as we do on making one of the biggest provisions for the social wage.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield made some remarks about "industrial butchery". I wonder whether it is an offence in the House to take the name of another hon. Member in vain. Industrial butchery has indeed taken place in the Midlands over the past 10 years. I refer specifically to the policy of deliberately

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tempting and motivating industry to leave the West Midlands at a cost of 112,000 jobs. That is asset stripping on a major scale. It is a policy that weakens the industrial heartland of this country and in no way strengthens areas such as Merseyside and Glasgow, where many of these industries have gone.
The most classic example of this sort of lunacy was that of the Triumph TR7. It was deliberately taken from its natural home in Coventry and reassembled for a few blighted years on Merseyside only to fail and be brought back to its natural home, by which time that division of British Leyland had been seriously weakened. Now it has been shipped to another track leaving behind another closed plant. That is asset stripping. That is the lunacy of the politics of intervention. It is right that the Government should turn their back on such folly. I wonder whether there are still some Labour Members who would encourage us to continue building penny-farthing bicycles in the North simply because it was socially desirable to do so. That is the kind of thing that we must no longer welcome.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) made some enigmatic comments in which he expressed some views that are very tempting, particularly to anyone who is an aficionado of editorials in The Guardian. I hope that I repeat my hon. Friend's words faith-fully. I wrote them down at the time. My hon. Friend said that he detected what he felt to be the worst attitude to productivity bargaining that he had seen for some time. I wonder whether that is so.
Our evidence must be anecdotal, or gleaned from the press, but I think that attitudes are changing. I recently talked to a group of American business men who invest heavily in this country. I heard from them that there was a sea change, a noticeable change taking place in attitudes on the shop floor. It may be clouded by the present emergencies in the steel industry, but I believe that at long last people are realising that, to use a good old Yorkshire expression, one does not get "owt for nowt". We may well see wages rising by about 14 per cent. by the end of this calendar year, rather than the more spectacular examples of 20 per cent. and 25 per cent. that we have
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seen in certain sections of the public sector.
My hon. Friend also said that sometimes our political and social judgments had to override our economic judgments. That may often be the dilemma that we must face, but one should add to such a statement "at the cost of continuing inflation". One buys the liberty to make political and social judgments at the expense of economic judgments. The truth is that we get that liberty by allowing prices continually to rise, allowing an invisible and insidious tax to be maintained on the rest of the community.
My hon. Friend also argued for the short-term relaxation of monetary restraints. I doubt whether there is any hon. Member who would not now accept that to do that is simply to give unemployment another kick two years later onto a higher plateau. The evil returns, but in a much more grisly form. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James), for whom I have great respect, put forward a humane and intelligent exposition of his brand of Conservatism. I share his objectives, but I differ with him on the means of achieving them. He rightly pointed out that our policies as parties and individuals were coloured by our experiences.
Nations have a fear of inflation or unemployment, depending on their experience. We rightly remember with fear the 1926–31 crises. The Labour party has in its blood the memory of the fall of Ramsay MacDonald in 1931. Unemployment is the bogy of this country. In Germany people remember the lessons of the Weimar Republic and how hyperinflation led to massive unemployment, hyper-inflation being the start of all their evils, eventually resulting in Adolf Hitler.
What I am saying is that the unemployment is harmful—a waste, socially undesirable—but hyper-inflation kills. It kills the fabric of a society. If we are to graft on an increase in employment later in the life of the present Government, we must first squeeze the worst aspect of our inflationary trends out of the system. We are fortunate or unfortunate, depending on how one looks at it, in that we and our parents have never had to cope with the days when one took a barrelful of money to buy the equivalent of a packet of 20 cigarettes. That is what happened in Germany in the 1930s.

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My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke of the value for money that we now require from the Manpower Services Commission. I am delighted to confirm that that is precisely what is being achieved in the Midlands, and in Coventry in particular. On training opportunities scheme courses in the Midlands area, we are to have a 10 per cent. cut next year compared with the performance this year, but the number of completed courses will be about the same in 1980–81 as in 1979–80. Therefore, we are having a better use of resources, a more rational distribution of the funds available to the commission.
In response to Government guidance, the MSC has selected for cuts those courses with the least successful placing results. It has reduced training for the semi-skilled where vacancies are limited, and has reduced training on the clerical, commercial and non-specific management courses. It has increased training in computing courses.
It was estimated that in Coventry last year £531,480 would be needed for TOPS courses in institutions sponsored by the local education authority. The actual expenditure was £406,374. I am delighted to report that the estimated expenditure for 1980–81 is £400,853, and roughly the same number of places will be made available.
There are other examples of the rationalisation that my right hon. Friend has asked for. There was poor support in the Coventry area for retail trade courses. They have therefore been cut. In the hotel housekeeping course two of the 16 places were taken up. Therefore, the local office has moved that provision to Stratford-on-Avon. The hotel receptionists course has been rationalised and centred on Coventry to serve the broad area. An export managers' course has been changed to export sales, where the need of local industry is greatest. There has been an increase in the provision for computer studies.
I turn to youth opportunities. Here I share the deep feelings of hon. Members on both sides of the House. We must not allow youngsters to lose the work habit. They must remain job-fit. The hon. Member for Coventry, North-East
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(Mr. Park), who is present, will have seen the magnificent example of how Coventry is tackling this matter in a facility now called "Top Shop", which was opened by Sir Richard O'Brien, the MSC chairman, on Monday. I am delighted that that endeavour has received all-party support. It shows that the city that I am proud to represent is prepared to stand on its own feet, to use its resources and the collective interest of our citizens to produce our own solutions. On youth opportunities generally in Coventry, we were programmed for 4,500 starts last year. We managed 3,000, and we shall continue at that level in the coming year.
I welcome my right hon. Friend's comments about the growth of training in computer skills. Having been weaned in that industry and having spent almost a decade in it, I should like to say that silicon chips, microprocessors, telematics—call them what one may—do not mean massive redundancies and massive leisure. They simply mean a new industry. They are a totally new arm in our economic weaponry.
We should perhaps one day have a debate to set a proper national tone for discussing the problem rationally, without the sort of fears that are being deliberately encouraged by certain members of the trade unions, who can probably use that fear as a bargaining counter when technology is about to be introduced in their area.
I cannot accept the terms of the Opposition motion, because it does not take cognisance of a number of simple home truths. First, public expenditure of itself suffers from its own law of diminishing returns. We cannot spend our way into fuller employment. The price of supplying one extra training place, paid for out of taxation, may be the loss of a job in the productive private sector elsewhere. Therefore, we are shifting around the deckchairs on the "Titanic". The Government must hold fast to their economic strategy. We have no alternatives. Everything else has been tried.
The Opposition motion is cynical. It implies that increased expenditure on training will somehow make all our economic problems go away. That is a cruel deception, particularly for the unemployed, be they young or old.
8.20 pm
Mr. John Golding: It is not only the Prime Minister who regards the present Department of Employment as a disaster area. We shall debate on another occasion the cuts in the provision for health and safety, the worsening of industrial relations, the cuts in ACAS and the so-called Employment Bill. The difference between the previous Labour Government and this Government can be seen by contrasting this Government's so-called Employment Bill, designed to cut down the rights of workers and Labour's Employment Subsidies Act which set out specifically to make it possible for the Government to maintain and increase employment.
We should not kid ourselves. The Department of Employment does not determine the level of employment. That is done by the Treasury. What the Department of Employment can and should do is to help reduce and alleviate the unemployment that arises from so many causes. They are causes beyond the control of Departments of Employment. They include, under this Government, an artificially high pound, high interest rates and the cuts in Government expenditure. When the Labour Party was in office, we in the Department of Employment set out always to alleviate the effect of unemployment and to reduce its impact on particular groups. That is why we introduced subsidies which helped to create and save employment. Examples were the temporary employment subsidy, the small firms employment subsidy and the short-time working compensation scheme—a scheme which we intended to make permanent.
As an alternative to unemployment, we established the job creation scheme which was later developed into the youth opportunities programme and the special temporary employment programme. When job creation started, it was treated with derision. When we came to wind it up, in favour of the youth opportunities programme and the special temporary employment programme, it had won the hearts of all those concerned with it—all those who have the job of tackling unemployment.
I was shocked to hear the Secretary of State say last month
"Up to about a year ago, many of these schemes were not very productive. They in-
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chided the counting of lamp-posts or picking up wood from the seashore".
[Official Report, 14 February 1980; Vol. 978, c. 1764].
This shows clearly that the Secretary of State had not been well briefed. He was speaking off the cuff. He did not know what he was talking about in relation to those schemes. I was shocked because there never was a scheme simply to count lamp posts. The Secretary of State can ask his Parliamentary Private Secretary to consult the civil servants in the box at this moment to establish whether that statement is true.
There were schemes in Liverpool and Knowsley which were introduced as a result of local government reorganisation in 1974. Those were schemes to establish what street furniture existed. What was required was the establishment of the type of lamp post and street lighting that existed. That information was required because time is wasted when faults are reported in street lighting and people go along with the wrong spares to repair the lights. That classification work was a useful job.
The Secretary of State did not refer in detail to the Sunderland scheme to which I assume he was referring. That scheme—the seaweed scheme—was also useful. The day it started, the press and television descended on the beaches and spent a few minutes there while the lads started work. The matter was written up as something to be written off. When the press had gone, a very good scheme was continued. Youngsters who had experienced difficulty getting work performed several jobs. They tidied the beaches. They repaired culverts. They did a marvellous job. They were granted day release to be trained in a number of different skills.
That job creation scheme, like most of the others was a very good scheme. The Secretary of State was more generous in his attitude towards job creation when he sat where my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) is sitting than he now is. I can recall that at a moment when I was sitting where he now sits the Secretary of State said that there were bound, in job creation, from time to time, to be some mistakes or disasters but that as the scheme depended on voluntary effort, one had to overlook

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these matters. His recent remarks were insulting to the organisers of the schemes in Knowsley and Liverpool and in Sunderland. His words were insulting to the youngsters involved.
Job creation, the youth opportunities programme and the special temporary employment programme have been very successful. In addition, the Labour Government introduced the job release scheme, which was suggested to me one Saturday night in the Halmerend club in my constituency. A man put to me a simple proposition saying "John, isn't it daft for us old 'uns to be working when we are tired and worn out and youngsters desperately wanting work have to draw the dole. Wouldn't it make more sense for us to receive the money paid out in unemployment pay, let the youngsters work and let us retire."
I have always accepted the logic of that argument. I cannot understand why the Government have undermined the scheme. We worked hard as a Government to alleviate unemployment. We did not succeed equally with each group. That is why hon. Members like my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Miss Boothroyd) were critical of those of us who worked in the Department of Employment. We did not succeed with each and every group. We had to accord priorities.
I remember asking the Manpower Services Commission whether it could expand the special temporary employment programme to help further in tackling the problem of long-term unemployment. The commission had to say that it was so stretched to meet the tasks which we had set it in solving school leaver unemployment that it could not do so at that time.
I have no doubt that had we stayed in office we should have further expanded the special employment and training measures. Never did we have difficulty in getting cash from the Chancellor of the Exchequer either for dealing with unemployment and training or for dealing with any of the associated social problems. Our problem, having got the cash from the Treasury—the hon. Member for Coventry, South-West (Mr. Butcher) referred to this—was to mobilise the Manpower Services Commission and the Department actually to spend it.
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Our Labour Prime Minister took the hardest line of all in demanding that we cope with both youth and long-term unemployment. I think that the difference is that whereas my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) was urged by the Labour Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer to do everything possible to alleviate unemployment, the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) has to go into the Cabinet and fight for every crumb.
It is well known that the right hon. Gentleman was beaten in the Cabinet over the job release scheme. He has been beaten in the Cabinet on all the employment measures. It is a great pity that the discussion which has been going on in the past few weeks has been about his arguments with the Prime Minister over industrial relations rather than the defeats which he has suffered in the Cabinet on measures for the alleviation of unemployment.
I sympathise with the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester), the Under-Secretary of State now on the Front Bench. Whereas I had the job of going from town to town urging civic leaders, employers and trade unionists to pick up from the table money which the Government had put there to help deal with the problem of unemployment, the hon. Gentleman now has the job of going to towns to echo the words of his right hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) that things will be better in 10 years' time. Someone who left school at 16, 17 or 18 does not want to wait until he is 26, 27 or 28 to have a chance. The Under-Secretary has an unenviable job, backed as he is by a Secretary of State who does not know how to fight a Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister who do not want to give money.
What should the Secretary of State be fighting for? First, I mention the extension of the job release scheme. It is a disgrace that the Government have disappointed so many men of 61 and 62 who were looking forward to putting their feet up and letting the young ones get on with the work. I repeat that it is absolute nonsense to have old men, tired men, men who have worked hard all their lives, carrying on doing their hard graft when there are younger men desperately wanting work but unable to get it and to

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whom we are having to pay unemployment benefit. The logic of the job release scheme is inescapable.
Second, the Secretary of State should be tackling the problem of unemployment among the young. The Manpower Services Commission has forecast that for school leavers alone—never mind the other young—there will be a doubling of unemployment by next Spring. It strikes me that the Manpower Services Commission does not know how it will cope with that state of affairs. There are at present 250,000 young people under the age of 20 unemployed. This is also a disgrace, and the Secretary of State ought to be trying to cope with it.
The Goverment must give special attention also to the problem of long-term unemployment. Our Labour Prime Minister always pressed his Department of Employment to tackle this. It is a problem that the Manpower Services Commission never really wanted to tackle for itself. Yet now—I must try to get the figure right—almost half of all unemployed people aged 50 or over have been unemployed for more than a year.
Long-term unemployment is a total disaster.
All the psychological studies have shown that people can put up with unemployment that lasts for a fortnight, three weeks, a month or six weeks but once unemployment lasts for a year total demoralisation sets in. Yet this Government have been cutting away at the measures provided by the previous Labour Government to deal with long term unemployment. Their cuts have included an attack on the special temporary employment programme. The Manpower Services Commission expects the total of the long-term unemployed to reach 500,000 by 1982 and to remain at a high level even after that. The Government must tackle long-term unemployment.
Many hon. Members have said that the Government must also tackle the problem of industrial training. The Under-Secretary of State today replied to a question about the money to be spent on training. In 1978–79 expenditure on training was £304·9 million. In 1983–84 it is to be £278·2 million. That is a dramatic drop in the amount to be devoted to training by the Government. How on earth can the
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Government recommend employers and trade unions—bearing in mind the TOPS review of 1978 and the MSC programme for action—training in skills—to take training seriously when such massive cuts are to be made in the money to be allocated to training?
The cuts will be borne not only in clerical training. We have heard talk of training for the less able and in that context one of the worst actions of the Government has been to cut out training for the semi-skilled young as well as to introduce a cutback in other forms of training for the semi-skilled. These cuts in training programmes are difficult to justify.
The quicker we get a change of Ministers in the Department of Employment the better. We are getting the worst of all worlds at the moment, where Ministers appear not to have the strength to deal with unemployment and where there is so much confusion surrounding the Employment Bill that the country is befogged. I shall vote with enthusiasm tonight for the proposition of my right hon. Friends who I very much wish were in Government.
8.38 pm
Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: To hear the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, Mr. Golding, one might have thought that the policies of the last Labour Government had been an unqualified success and that they had achieved the regeneration of British industry that they claimed as their objective. The policies that he seems to think were so successful were makeshift and put together hurriedly to cover the total failure of that policy of regeneration.
It is surprising that in the course of his speech the hon. Gentleman never once referred to the fact that unemployment in this country—standing at 5·2 per cent.—is lower than the average figure for the whole of Western Europe. If that figure means anything it means that the problems that this country faces are not caused by the policies of the Government. Those problems are faced by the whole Western world at a time of recession.
For the Opposition to try to make capital out of a subject such as unemployment in the kind of attacks we have heard in the debate does them no honour.

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It makes one realise how cynical they are in pursuing what they think are the advantages of unemployment to the drooping performance of their party. I say that with considerable strength. I would add that some Labour Members have talked about the MSC as if it was a blameless organisation which could solve all our problems if only it was given unlimited money. They may be interested to learn that some industrialists I know of consider it to be administratively top heavy, trying to do too many jobs and grossly over-staffed. Therefore, I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement this afternoon that there is to be a 12 per cent. cut in its administrative staff, because that suggests that a keen look is being taken at the effectiveness of the Commission and how it is discharging the duties which it handles.
One of the most serious problems which has confronted our nation for the past decade, if no longer, has been the continuing shrinkage in the manufacturing base of our industry. To some extent, it is that shrinkage which lies at the root of the failure of our performance as an industrial country. I think that I am right in saying that, whereas in 1961 about 36 per cent. of our work force was employed in manufacturing, in 1975 that figure had dropped to about 30 per cent. In fact, at least 1 million people have left manufacturing. At a time when one is talking about rebuilding the prosperity of our nation, as my party and Government are, it is clear that the maintenance of the manufacturing base, even at its present shrunken size, must be of the keenest concern to all Government supporters.
Of course, a strong manufacturing industry not only means providing goods for the home market but producing goods for export. It means more jobs. It means that we are rebuilding our nation's prosperity on a strong foundation. Therefore, we must hang on to the manufacturing base of our industry at its present size. We must recognise that as our nation, like the other countries in Western Europe, goes into this period of deepening recession, we must ensure that our manufacturing industries are able to survive whatever heavy weather lies ahead, so that the base is unimpaired when the
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upturn in world trade comes, as it inevitably will, in order that we are given the chance of taking full advantage of that new prosperity.
I cite just one industry to illustrate my remarks—the aerospace industry, in which I have worked. It is a fact that that is a high risk industry, yet it is an industry which is often in the forefront of technology. I believe that the Government must consider the possibility of awarding contracts to that industry to enable it to undertake research and development on such things as blind landing control, flight controls and even airframe research, without which that industry will not be able to remain a viable entity. Without that, it will either become a subcontractor to the American or French industries or it will wither completely.
Yet, I remind my hon. Friend the Minister that before nationalisation—and what a blow that was—the British aerospace industry was double the size of the whole of the aerospace industry in Western Europe, and Hawker Siddeley alone was bigger than Boeing. That is the proud history of which that industry can boast. Therefore, its continuance is a matter of great concern.
It is impossible for our nation to go through a recession without casualties. The idea that a Government, by spending money, can prevent casualties, is unrealistic and, in a period of high inflation, totally out of the question. Some companies will die. Perhaps we shall experience the death of whole industries. One of the weaknesses of the policies of too many Governments since the war has been to prop up the traditional industries without recognising that those industries have fulfilled their usefulness and that the future depends upon new companies, new technologies and new ideas.
The shipbuilding industry is in a parlous state. British Shipbuilders recognise that the traditional industry will not be around in the future. The industry will be much contracted. It will survive and that will be a major achievement.
I am probably the only participant in this debate who represents a constituency which has no unemployment problem. My local jobcentre informs me that local unemployment fell by 18 in February.

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The total of 941 is the lowest for February since 1975. The jobcentre bulletin states:
"Jobs notified to the jobcentre during the month totalled 462 of which 323 were filled. Both figures are about 150 more than for the corresponding period last year. There was also a rise in the number of vacancies unfilled (300) at the end of the period although this is still less than last year's figure of 338. Trainees are urgently needed for many skilled engineering occupations, and immediate allocation to our skillcentres is now possible in several of the engineering trade courses."
Why are there vacancies at that skill-centre? Berkshire is fortunate to be in the "silicon valley" of the United Kingdom. Most of the major electronic companies can be found in or around the county. Most of those companies were set up in the last decade as a result of the initiative, ability and hard work of private individuals who recognised future needs and invested to meet them. Our small county now benefits from that private enterprise.
I asked the jobcentre why the vacancies exist. I was told that there are two reasons. The first is that obtaining a skill in the skillcentre does not necessarily mean that one earns a higher wage than in an unskilled job. There is not much inducement. Secondly, I was told that the lowest age that one can enter a skillcentre is 19. Why should someone of 17 or 18 not have the same opportunity? Why should we fix the limit at 19 when we know that the old concepts of apprenticeships are old-fashioned and have been forgotten in most of Western Europe? Let us train our young people as soon as possible to do the jobs that they will be asked to do, whether or not they have had four years' indentures.
Mr. Bob Dunn: Does my hon. Friend support reducing the school leaving age from 16 to 15 to allow boys and girls to spend a year in training or on academic pursuits in technical colleges instead of starting their indentures at 16 and finishing at 21? Is my hon. Friend aware that many engineering employees believe that the prospect of spending five years from 16 rather than 15 is a deterrent to young people taking up an engineering apprenticeship?
Mr. McNair-Wilson: My hon. Friend is leading me along a road which I had not intended to travel. If I may leave my
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remarks as I said them, I shall not be saying something that, on reflection, might wish that I had not said.
I turn to the regional character of unemployment. I have said already that the unemployment position in my area is not causing concern. However, I have listened to many speeches today, and have heard of the sad position obtaining in so many North Country constituencies. There is a way to match the need for skills in the South-West with the unemployment in the North, which has not so far commended itself to any Government.
We should recognise that one of the obstacles to the mobility of labour—which may well become more common than hitherto has been the case—is the enormous expense of a family pulling up its roots and moving from the North to the South.
A figure of not much less than £4,000 is the sort of sum that such a move could cost. There is also the problem of finding a house when a family reaches the South.
Some hon. Members have said that because the Budget is so close we cannot discuss tax affairs. I feel no such inhibition. Is there no way in which the Inland Revenue could recognise the value of moving an unemployed person from the North to the South by giving the company that wishes to employ that person some incentive to produce the money to cover the cost of moving that person and his family?
My last point also relates to the assistance that the Exchequer could give to help solve the unemployment problem. I understand that the Canadians have introduced what they describe as employment tax credits, which are provided to companies to take unemployed people on their payroll. Is it not possible for us to do the same, and encourage companies to take on more labour than they may immediately require, if it provides them with some form of tax relief?
By the same token, have the Government considered the tax holidays which are used in Eire and in Canada to encourage new companies into areas where they wish to see employment, and where conditions are such that the company may have a certain lack of confidence unless there is enough inducement?
8.53 pm
Mr. Derek Foster: I am glad that I have sat through most of the debate, because I have been able to listen to one or two sensitive speeches made by Conservative Members about the problems of unemployment. I must confess that I had begun to think that most Conservative Members, both in the House and outside, thought of all of the unemployed as feckless and work-shy scroungers who needed to be harassed and hounded into non-existent vacancies. Indeed, some hon. Members talked about the vacancies that occur in their parts of the country.
It is not my job to talk in general terms about the Government's economic strategy. I believe that it is completely misconstrued and that it will fail. They are in a dilemma because, in their own words, we arc faced with three years of unprecendented austerity, and it could be 10 years before the Government's policies begin to pay off.
This bright new world of jobs and small businesses, and this bright new world of a climate made favourable for enterprise to flourish may be a long-term solution to the problems that we face. But the Government have not got that kind of time scale. They admit that unemployment will increase. Indeed, it is widely predicted that unemployment will reach 2 million within the foreseeable future. We know that youth unemployment is likely to double within the next 12 to 18 months.
The question for the Government is not whether their long-term strategy will work but what they will do about the problem of unemployment in the short term. It will not go away. Are they prepared to abandon the increasing numbers of longterm unemployed to the scrap heap? Are they saying that there are no measures that they will consider because all measures will make the problem worse? Those terms have been used in the debate. It is said that all the propositions put forward by Opposition Members will make things worse because they will involve increasing public expenditure. Surely Conservative Members realise that they have little choice but to increase public expenditure to help the unemployed.
The Government have told us in previous debates how important the social
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security Vote is—it amounts to about 30 per cent. of public expenditure—how it must be reduced, and how they would like to reduce it by cutting down unemployment benefit in real terms. The Government have a dilemma. The question that they must face is: what are they prepared to do about the long-term unemployed in the short term?
I should like to refer to the youth opportunities programme. I worked in the education service when that programme was first launched. I had partial responsibility for the careers service in an area of very high youth unemployment—Sunderland. The careers service had for many years been demoralised because, when young people came to see careers officers, they had to say "As much as we should like to direct you to a worthwhile career, even though you may have three or four 0-levels and in any other part of the country you would be getting a job tomorrow—indeed, employers would be crying out for young people of your quality—we cannot offer you anything."
When the youth opportunities programme was launched, there was new heart in the careers service because some real counselling could be given by professional careers officers. They could give new hope to young people and to their parents in areas such as mine.
When young people have no prospects of employment, they quickly switch off from their school programmes. There is a grave disincentive to work when young people know that they face a prolonged period of unemployment when they leave school.
I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), because he did a great deal to ensure that the youth opportunities programme was well founded. But it is not good enough for the Government to say that the youth opportunities programme is to be expanded. They have chosen to expand it in the cheapest possible way—by increasing the aspect of work experience on employers' premises where the content of training is often highly suspect. That is a very cheap way of getting a large number of young people into the programme. I am not denigrating that, because it is much better than nothing.
When the youth opportunities programme was launched, we began to speak

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about a new transition from school to work. We began to speak about a work-based education service. Those concepts were exciting to the people who were working in the education and training services. We realised that every year about 300,000 young people left school and were either unemployed, or had no industrial training. We were excited by the prospects of being able to bring forward programmes. We co-operated. The further education service, the careers service, the training service agency, and industry and the voluntary agencies cooperated extraordinarily well, because the money was available—provided by the Manpower Services Commission. We treated the programme as though it were a new transition from school to work, and we treated it as though it were a work-based education service. An im-important backwash upon the further education curriculum and the school curriculum began to emerge.
Those were exciting developments in educating and training the less able. Now this new exciting concept is being diluted. We are being offered merely a numbers game, of getting the largest number of people into the programme. I implore the Secretary of State to re-embrace the fundamental objectives that were put in train by the Labour Government.
Mr. Leadbitter: My hon. Friend and I, both representing Northern constituencies, have a positive interest in education. Since he has developed the point, will he take into account an experience that shows fundamentally our nonsensical approach to the problems of young people?
A young man in my constituency with one A-level and two O-levels was waiting to achieve his third O-level later in the year so that he could qualify in the next academic year for a major award in a university. To fill in that time he was given a second year course in the arts subjects in which he was interested, and he proceeded to go to college on that basis. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] I shall come to the point. Will my hon. Friend bear in mind what happened to that young man? His mother was on social security, and he was told that he could not receive social security benefit. The State found it better to make him
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totally unemployed—thus depriving him of his course—and to pay him more money to be idle.
Mr. Foster: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. We could repeat that instance time and again. It is a tragedy that in his area and mine the opportunities for able and young people are so few and far between. It is tragic that we cannot offer the opportunities to our young people that their skill and qualities deserve.
The Government cannot long delay the time when they bring in an opportunities scheme for adults that parallels the youth opportunities scheme. The question that challenges them is how to use the resources in the training and education institutions to offer some hope to those people who will now face prolonged periods on the unemployment register, with all the demoralisation and humiliation that it involves. Why will they not respond positively and act as a catalyst in bringing together industry, local authorities and the voluntary organisations to develop an opportunities programme that will enable many under-35s to develop the skills, adaptability and flexibility that will be necessary if we are to avail ourselves of the opportunities of the 1980s?
The local authorities, industry and voluntary organisations are ready and willing to respond to just that kind of opportunity. The Government will be paying out a lot of money for benefits anyway. Does not it make a great deal of sense, especially in areas of very high unemployment, such as my own and throughout the whole of the North-East, to make a response like this and to be able to use that money positively? Instead of paying out money for people to do nothing at all, we should pay it to enable people to acquire skills and adaptability which will be readily used.
Surely the Government cannot long delay the time when they consider all manner of work sharing schemes. We know that throughout the Common Market there will be a long-term problem of unemployment. Whatever the policies adopted by Conservative Members, that problem will not go away, particularly among the under-35s and under-25s. We have heard a great deal about unemployment among young people, and rightly

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have we heard about it, but there is dreadful unemployment among the under-35s and the under-25s, particularly in the North-East and the other development areas.
What will the Government do about that? What kind of response will they make to that sort of long-term problem? If the microchip revolution is to come about, as we all believe it will, what response will the Government make to it?
Surely the time cannot be long delayed when the Government must actively consider an earlier retirement age, a comprehensive education and training programme for the whole of the 16-to-19 age group, and paid educational leave for the vast majority of working people, especially those who have left school at the earliest opportunity and who have had no further education or training.
These are the programmes to which the Government must sooner or later turn their minds. It is no good pretending that we can go through the next four or five years ignoring the problem of long-term unemployment. It is there. Unless the Government make a positive response to it, they will encourage social disturbance of the most frightening proportions. In the North-East particularly, we are beginning to see that happening because people there are so demoralised. They are beginning to say "What on earth are this Government about?" Having suffered for 40 or 50 years, as people have done in those areas, we are now having to look back to the thirties in the kind of disturbance, distress and demoralisation that the present Government are engendering.
I wish that Conservative Members would come to the North-East and hear some of the things being said there and witness the disillusionment of people who know that the present Government's policies are not likely to work. Indeed, Conservative Members have said so themselves. Why do not they come to the North-East and offer us some incentive to respond positively?
The crowning insult was offered only recently, when the Secretary of State for Industry refused to restore special development area status to my constituency. In an area in which 15 people are chasing
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every vacancy, we find that almost impossible to understand and accept.
Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Sixteen minutes.
Mr. Foster: There is very much more than could be said, but I have spoken long enough—
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Too long.
Mr. Foster: I shall now give an opportunity—
Mr. Keith Best: The hon. Gentleman has been on his feet for 16 minutes. He has prevented other hon. Members from making contributions to highlight other areas of unemployment, such as Wales. [Interruption.] I am surprised that he is trying to intervene from a sedentary position—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): Order. Is the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Best) intervening to pose a question, or is he making a speech?
Mr. Best: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the principal problems with which we are confronted are the regional areas where unemployment is twice the national average, such as Wales? In my constituency there is 12 per cent. unemployment. Will the hon. Gentleman address his remarks to some of the problems in such areas, which require critical and urgent Government attention?
Mr. Foster: I had finished, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Best) for allowing me to address myself to some of the areas that he has mentioned. I come from just such an area, where the unemployment rate is 9·2 per cent. In that area that has been the historical figure.
Some Conservative Members have talked about regional policy. They have claimed that it has been damaging to certain areas. When regional policy was first given a great boost, there was great congestion in the Midlands and in the South. It made great sense in economic and social terms to divert some of the jobs from those areas to areas such as mine.
Mr. Budgen: Is the hon. Gentleman pleased with what is now happening in

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the West Midlands, where the policies that he is advocating, and which presumably he would have supported in the past, would have led to much unemployment?
Mr. Foster: I do not accept that the regional policy of the past 15 years has been the cause of unemployment in areas such as the West Midlands. Some jobs have been diverted to areas such as mine. However, there has been a great loss of jobs in areas such as the West Midlands that would have been lost in any event. It is certain that not all of them would have come to areas such as the one that I represent.
9.12 pm
Mr. Harold Walker: Notwithstanding that recent little spat, I think that on the whole we have had a good debate. It has been marked by some splendid speeches. It has been an agreeable debate—at least it was until now. In the course of the day we have learnt about the new academic guru and economist Professor Milton Keynes. He is truly a man for all seasons.
I am glad to see the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) in his place. I hope that he will not consider it patronising if I pay tribute to what I consider was a totally honest speech of great courage. It was the most persuasively argued speech that I have heard in the House for a long time. I am sure that those who heard it will agree with me.
"It is crazy that with almost 1½ million people unemployed, key sectors of our economy are losing output because of a shortage of skilled manpower. People must be trained in a spirit of optimism, secure in the knowledge that they are gaining the right skills and are being educated to participation in the changes, not to be overwhelmed by them."
Those are not my words, although I totally endorse every one of them. They are the words of the Secretary of State for Employment in March 1979.
A few weeks later the right hon. Gentleman publicly declared that a key factor in his party's approach was:
"to retrain those people whose skills are no longer needed".
On 20 April, when speaking to the electors, the good folk of Radcliffe, in Lancashire, the right hon. Gentleman said:
"We shall encourage the retraining of those whose skills are no longer required."
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It was in the same speech that he said:
"We have no intention of cutting off job subsidies."
However, five weeks after taking office he chopped £170 million from the special employment measures.
We heard nothing today from the right hon. Gentleman to encourage the "spirit of optimism" to which he was referring about a year ago. There was not a crumb of comfort for the unemployed. The women and girls who are now to be denied retraining facilities and the large number of school leavers who will be looking for jobs and training will find no hope in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. Instead, we had a long tirade of abuse directed at the record of previous Governments. It is curious that all the historical reminiscences that so often fill the speeches of those on the Government Front Bench ignore the history and performance of previous Tory Governments.
The Government have very selective memories. The belligerent, aggressive, hectoring and blustering performance of the Secretary of State may have been intended to help the flagging spirits and sagging morale of his party. It was hardly constructive or helpful. He shed little comfort and even less light. I accept that unemployment was high when we were in government. Unemployment was intolerably and unacceptably high. [Interruption.] We always accepted that.
I did not know that the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark)—who is now barking—had acquired a lot of experience on this subject during debates in the Chamber. He should have the courtesy to listen. However, there is one difference between this Government and the previous Labour Government. We tried to do something about unemployment. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins) is a squawking hen. He has not attended most of the debate. He should listen now. Perhaps he will learn something. We are entitled to protest. The Government are trying to dismantle some of those things that we tried to implement in order to help industry and the unemployed.
For the sake of the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman), I shall establish my credentials. I have experience of being unemployed. I am the father of a 17-year-old lassie. She has

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just started work under a work experience scheme in a hospital for the mentally subnormal. Having left school she had spent 12 months unemployed.
I shall structure my speech along the lines of that of the Secretary of State, but I shall not take as long. Just before the election, unemployment had been following a downward path. It had been falling at an accelerating rate. For nine months before the election unemployment had fallen in each of the seven-monthly sets of figures. Unemployment is now rising both faster and further. The most pessimistic forecasts suggest a figure in excess of 2 million by the end of the year. Whichever forecast one chooses to accept, we are likely to face the worst unemployment since the war. Despite the Government's remarks, much of that increase will have been due to Government action. Even more of that unemployment will have been caused by Government inaction.
The Government have shown a shortsighted failure to recognise immediate needs. In July last year the Manpower Services Commission started to ring an alarm bell. On 24 July, in a press notice, it said:
"Unemployment inflicts heavy costs on the community. There is the direct cost to the State of unemployment and other benefits to unemployed workers and their dependants. There is the cost which arises because of the value of production forgone and the contributions to taxes not paid by unemployed people. And there is the cost in terms of deprivation to individuals and their families, which can be very substantial. All these must be taken into account in evaluating the cost of manpower services."
Some of those costs cannot be quantified. Some of them can. When I was in the Department of Employment we used to calculate the cost to public funds of making unemployed a worker who is unlikely to get another job quickly. We calculated that it cost £7,000 to £8,000 per annum. In questioning the cost of employment support measures and the cost of helping an individual to follow a satisfying, useful and fulfilling job, we should not overlook the cost of not doing so. If we must choose between subsidising unemployment and subsidising employment, we should subsidise employment.
I shall return to the opening theme of this debate. Last Thursday we debated the Government's economic policy. We
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are probably discussing one of the most important effects of that policy today. The Government say that their main objective is to gain control of inflation. Inflation has nearly doubled since the Conservative Party took office. The Government believe that by restricting an employer's ability to pay an inflationary pay increase, pay demands will be disciplined. The Secretary of State told us that this afternoon. The belief appears to be that, if that results in firms going out of business, the trade unions will have learnt the hard way that excessive pay demands can only lead to unemployment for their members.
Mr. Budgen: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Walker: Whether collective bargaining works in the way assumed is by the way, although I seriously doubt that it does.
Mr. Budgen: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Walker: What matters is that, contrary to widespread assumption, the Government have a pay policy, but one in which inflationary settlements are intended to be punished by unemployment.
Mr. Budgen: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Walker: No, I have already curtailed my speech.
I am not now talking of effects. I am talking of the Government's intentions. If the Government intend high unemployment to be the disciplinary instrument in collective bargaining, it follows that special measures to offset or mitigate that unemployment must be counter to their economic policy. Anything that diminishes the impact of unemployment—for example, the short-time working compensation scheme—must be regarded for this Government as a deflection of one of the purposes of monetarism.
The Government's policy has wider effects on unemployment, as was shown in last week's debate and as my right hon. Friend demonstrated this afternoon. Absurdly high interest rates not only choke off money which might otherwise be borrowed to pay wage increases. They also deter investment that will create jobs.

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They cripple the ability of employers to pay for inputs of materials and parts to keep going until the customer finally pays. They make it impossible for small firms to begin and they drive existing small firms to the wall. These same absurdly high interest rates drive the sterling exchange rate up, acting as a tax on exports and a subsidy on imports. It all hits employment. It all creates unemployment.
Apparently the last consideration in the Government's strategy is the plight of the worker who has been forced on to the dole by monetarism, cuts in public expenditure or chopping aid to industries such as steel.
It is against that background of the Government's economic strategy that we must judge their attitude to the special employment measures. Measures such as community industry, designed to help disadvantaged youngsters those who will go under in the open labour market, are cut by this Government from 7,000 to 6,000 places. Job release to help the older worker into early retirement and create vacancies for younger people is cut by this Government to the tune of £40 million.
Mr. Scott: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Walker: No I will not. The Minister—
Mr. Scott: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Speaker: Order. It appears that the right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
Mr. Walker: I have given up quite a bit of my time. If there is anything incorrect in what I am putting to the House, doubtless the Minister will deal with it.
The small firms employment subsidy, which is currently sustaining 55,000 jobs and which offers help for a group of employers and their workers, which one would have thought would attract special sympathy from this Government, has been consigned to the dustbin. The special temporary employment programme, aimed at helping the long-term unemployed, has been severely cut back from our target of 35,000 places to 12,000 to 14,000 for the current year. That is pathetically
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inadequate when compared with the 330,000 adults who have been unemployed for more than a year. Those cuts reflect the Government's cynical indifference to the plight of the unemployed.
Mr. Scott: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Walker: No, I will not.
May I turn now to the—
Mr. Scott: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understood that, even if one was an Opposition Front Bench spokesman, reading a speech was not within the rules of this House.
Mr. Walker: You will judge, Mr. Speaker, the extent to which that is a point of order. I did not seek to intervene in speeches by Conservative Members. I have given up a considerable amount of my time. The more that hon. Gentlemen interrupt me, the more I shall be compelled to make inroads into the time available for the Minister.
Mr. Speaker: Order. May I remind the House that we also have the winding-up speech. I suggest that both speeches be accorded a reasonable hearing.
Mr. Walker: I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I can look after myself.
I turn now to training. There is a widespread recognition, indeed a universal acceptance, that the regeneration of British industry calls for improved productivity, increased efficiency, and a labour force that can meet the demands of rapidly changing technology. [Interruption.] I really cannot understand what I have said that so antagonised hon. Members.
I think that there is no less an understanding that our workers must be prepared to switch from older industries, which are, in many cases, in an obvious state of decline, to those industries that are more attuned to modern markets so that we might reasonably expect to have a future as an industrial nation. I agree with the Secretary of State that we must reverse the decline in our manufacturing industry. This will clearly require skilled craftsmen and trained technicians. It will require more of the kind of labour that is already in short supply—acutely so in some cases, such as instrument technicians. This labour can be produced only by training and education.

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Yet, at this time in our history, when training and retraining are needed as never before and are crucial to our success as an industrial nation, this Government decide that resources and support for training should be slashed. So far, a total of £190 million has been chopped from the Manpower Services Commission budget and there has been a cut of 3,400 in its staff. That is the most severe cut that has been inflicted on any Government Department. That will cripple the Commission in its function and severely diminish its services and the help that it gives to industry and to the unemployed. The axe is now hanging over 20 skillcentres, some of them in areas where the steel industry is threatened with massive closures, such as South Wales. My own skillcentre in Doncaster which serves Scunthorpe where 5,000 jobs are threatened, is another which is at risk.
The TOPS training programme is to be cut from almost 100,000 places in 1978 to—
Sir William Clark rose—
Mr. Walker: With respect to the hon. Member who is a pleasant enough fellow, he has not been present during our proceedings, so I shall not give way to him.
The Government are cutting the number of TOPS training places from nearly 100,000 in 1978 to 60,000 a year in the years ahead.
The industrial training boards, which must plan years ahead, have had to cut back their programmes and plans, and they do not know now from one year to another what plans they might confidently prepare.
Sir William Clark rose—
Mr. Walker: No I shall not give way.
The Manpower Services Commission has repeatedly expressed its concern to the Secretary of State and tried to impress upon him the seriousness of the situation. A wide area of the Commission's employment and training activities will be reduced to a lower level at a time when unemployment is rising sharply, combined with an acceleration in technological and industrial changes. Also this is happening at a time when there is a growing working population, with large
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numbers of young people and women entering the labour market.
The cuts will undermine the consolidation and the development of the Commission's successful work in recent years in developing an active and comprehensive manpower policy and service. The cuts will mean a retrenchment plan for the Commission, a reduction in its comprehensive capability to meet the employment and training needs of workers in the economy and a reduction in the range and scale of the Commission's activities in the early 1980s.
The Secretary of State tried hard to minimise the damage that he is doing. Let me tell the House what the Commission itself has said. It claims that services to employers, individuals and the economy will be at a lower level than the Commission believes to be necessary. In the Commission's corporate plan submitted to the Select Committee, it said:
"This Corporate Plan therefore sets out not only what the Commission should do over the next four years, but must also perforce propose what steps the Commission should take to meet the Government's requirements with least damage to its overall strategy."
Sir William Clark: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Walker: I shall not. I have little time, and the Under-Secretary of State wishes to reply.
I noted with interest what the Secretary of State said about the review of the 1973 Act. We shall look with interest at what he proposes. I hope that he will not do what is widely rumoured, which is either to weaken or to go so far as to chop the industrial training boards. When we last debated these matters we made it absolutely clear that we opposed the ceiling on the levy of 1 per cent., the extended exemption of small firms, and the question of Government acceptance of responsibility for the board's administrative costs. We felt that that was a dilution of the 1964 Act, the principles of which I fully support. Had the Act been applied more rigorously it might have been much more effective. It is a pity that the right hon. Gentleman did not lift the veil a little higher.
Sir William Clark rose—
Mr. Walker: I want to leave the Under-Secretary as much time as possible.

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Doubtless the Under-Secretary will give way to the hon. Gentleman to let him make his point.
I want to suggest what I hope the House will regard as a positive approach, or the way in which our thoughts should be turning. First, we should recognise that each recession in the post-war period has tended to leave in its wake a higher plateau of unemployment than preceded it. It is almost as though our economy, and perhaps the economies of other highly industrialised countries, have acquired an inherent tendency to inbuilt unemployment. If nothing changed I seriously doubt—I speak only for myself on this matter—whether growth alone, even if we were capable of achieving the high and fast growth that would be necessary, would enable us to get unemployment back to the levels of, say, the mid-1960s.
We must have growth, based on a strong manufacturing sector, which requires higher productivity and improved efficiency. Those in turn call for trained, skilled manpower and womanpower. But there must be something more, not least because of the impact of technological change. We must start looking more seriously at how the total volume of work is distributed. MY hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster) talked about the need to examine the concept of work sharing. We need to examine such matters as the duration of the working week, the extent of overtime, the age of entry into the labour market, the period to be spent at school and in training, and the age of retirement. We should consider the extent to which we help the disadvantaged and disabled, the less competent, who must be encouraged into satisfying, fulfilling work.
I commend a document sent to me by the managing director of Tesco, one of the biggest retail companies in the country. It says:
"The Company believe that there has to be a fundamental change in the attitude towards work, to the notion that there is something sacrosanct about the duration of the working week, about the length of annual holidays, about retirement ages."
That is absolutely true. It also says:
"It is essential that in the years immediately ahead sufficient resources are made available to retrain people not only in the skills needed to handle the new generation of high tech-
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nology equipment, but also for a new generation of work itself."
We must look at how we train and how much of the working life must be spent in such activities. Unhappily, far from being concerned with such matters, far from giving any indication that such thoughts entered his mind, the Secretary of State was concerned today only to brazen out his indefensible retreat from his responsibility towards the unemployed and those who will be seeking jobs in the future.
The right hon. Gentleman's speech showed little recognition of the harm that his policies will do to the needs of industry and the economy. Instead, he seemed to confirm what many of us fear—that the present Government are cruelly indifferent to the needs and hopes of the unemployed. That is why we shall vote for our motion.
9.35 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Jim Lester): I understand that this occasion is known in my Department as on-the-job training. I agree with the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) that we have had a thoughtful, genuine and good-tempered debate. That situation rapidly changed when he began to speak.
We have ranged widely over some of our most immediate and serious problems. Many helpful ideas and suggestions have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Ministers share the real concern of hon. Members who have spoken about the problems of unemployment, not only threatened, but already here. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) who spoke with considerable understanding and concern of the background of the Tory Party and its thinking over the long period before the war.
There have also been speeches by hon. Members more recently affected by unemployment, including my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Needham), whose situation I know well, the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) and other hon. Members representing the North-East, the North-West and Wales. These are all areas well known to Ministers in my Department. We spend a considerable time visiting

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those areas and seeing, on the ground, the problems that are faced.
I question the thinking of Opposition Members, especially the right hon. Member for Doncaster. They have tried to establish that our policies and actions would appear to be what they are not. I can understand this approach. Those hon. Members must forgive me if I take a few moments, even at the risk of repeating some of the remarks of my right hon. Friend, to set clearly before the House the key facts of the situation.
First, our unemployment situation, serious as it is, is not unique. Other countries in Europe—Belgium, Italy, France and Ireland—have much higher unemployment rates. The rates of unemployment that we currently face have not been caused by the policies of this Government in the few months that we have been in power. We are changing a policy. It is true that the employment and training programmes have not remained exempt from reductions in public expenditure. It is also true, however, that we have been careful not to affect essential functions. We have taken into account the expansion of past and projected levels of expenditure and staff.
Expenditure rose from £215 million in 1974–75 to £617 million last year and was projected to rise to £800 million in 1980–81. In June last year we announced a reduction of £110 million in the 1979–80 programme. Even so, planned expenditure is higher in real terms this year than last. It is £631 million against £617 million. While STEP was reduced, YOP has been considerably expanded and recruitment of craft and technician trainees has not been affected. We have paid special regard to the situation of the disabled.
We have asked for a reduction of £160 million in MSC expenditure in 1980–81. Even so, planned expenditure will be higher at £640 million in real terms this year. In terms of staffing, the 3 per cent. savings required this year have been applied to the MSC as to other bodies employing civil servants. Even so, there were 400 more staff in post on 1 January 1980 than on 1 January 1979.
That is not to say that our intention to effect real economies is not serious. We are determined to keep the use of
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resources in this area within bounds. But it must be clear by now that we are proceeding with care. To suggest that we-are cutting savagely into existing services is a serious misrepresentation. We have heard a good deal in recent weeks, and naturally today, about the consequences that may be expected to follow the current proposals to rationalise the skillcentre network. The right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley) and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Campbell) have spoken in defence of their areas.
I well understand that in any locality a single skillcentre, however inefficiently it may function, is an important asset whose future will arouse strong feelings. That is why the proposals have been the subject of such extensive consultations, and why my right hon. Friend and I have spent so much time in meeting and corresponding with those most concerned.
It must be recognised nevertheless that the present proposals are largely based on two reviews which were carried out independently of specific public expenditure requirements, and the first was started under the Labour Government. The proposals are not designed to reduce the capacity of the network or to deny any opportunity to anyone requiring training. Indeed, to the extent that provision is better sited and more fully used, it will be possible for slightly more skill training to be provided and to lead to more efficient service at less cost.
I promise that the points which hon. Members have made in the debate will be passed to the Manpower Services Commission, and I am assured that even if all the skillcentres suggested for closure were to close, which is hardly likely, there will still be more places in the network than there are trainees who require them. It is sad but true that empty places help nobody, and the number of places in some areas far exceeds any conceivable projection of their use. Training needs to be moved where skill training fills vacancies and in itself creates more employment.
Having spelt out the facts, I return to the thinking of some hon. Members, which, as I said, puzzles me. When I consider the terms of the motion which has been examined today, I see that it is

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based upon an assumption that there is, or should be, some direct link between the level of unemployment and the resources devoted to employment and training programmes. At first sight, this might seem obvious, but how does it stand up to closer examination?
If it is argued that programmes should be expanded because they help to reduce the impact of unemployment, we have some sympathy with that approach, as my right hon. Friend's statement on 14 February made clear. In particular, the youth opportunities programme is being expanded by some 25 per cent. against the background of the projected rise in young people's unemployment. The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) asked for the figures for school leavers. I have been trying to get them for him, but I shall see that they are sent to him tomorrow.
Two points must, however, be made. First, we do not believe that it is right, even if it were possible, to attempt to deal with unemployment generally in this way. After all, the numbers of those unemployed conceal substantial flows between jobs, and the vast majority of those registered as unemployed at any one time have no need of special measures. There are 8 million job changes a year, and, even with the problems of the long-term unemployed, people flow on and off the register. Our approach has been to concentrate help on those who need it most.
Second, by no means all, or even the greater part, of our spending on employment and training programmes is of this kind. It is about normal work, helping people to prepare for and obtain work, and making the labour market operate more efficiently.
The Labour Government promoted an increase in Manpower Services Commission spending in three years of 35 per cent.—£468 million to £631 million—while the level of unemployment remained about the same—1·39 million in January 1977 and 1·4 million in January 1980. The Manpower Services Commission special employment measures admittedly increased in impact by nearly 60,000 over this period, but that explains only part of the increase. What about the rest of the increase in resources devoted to employment and training measures? Is it argued that the operation of the labour market
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was improved out of all recognition just by increasing the budget?
Let us look at this problem of skill shortages. This has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) and by others. Reason rebels at the paradox of work—important and rewarding work—which is available at a time of widespread unemployment and yet is not done because people with the necessary skills cannot be found to fill the vacancies. Has the money which has been poured out resolved this problem? It has not.
It is true that there are some indications that the situation is now easier than it was in the past two or three years, but difficulty in filling vacancies in some skilled occupations, notably in engineering and those associated with new technology, is a cause for serious concern. But it is due to other reasons—pay policies, compressed differentials, demarcation, mobility and so on.
We should all be concerned about the wider and deeper defects in our arrangements for training people and helping them to find suitable employment. We have a system which is rigid, hidebound by tradition and custom and far too slow to respond to the change and challenge of the future.
As a nation, we devote too great a share of our resources to apprentice training, much as one has valued it in the past, restricted as it is to particular levels of skill at an early age in a limited number of occupational areas. Is this a sensible approach to our present needs, to say nothing of our rapidly changing future? The skill needs of traditional craft operations change with technological developments. Even when they do not, can we honestly claim that those skills can be acquired only by three to four years of time serving? Can we not see that the modular approach supported by the EITB is the way forward? One commends the maiden speech of Lord Scanlon in the other place on this subject. Does it make sense that entry to so many skilled jobs is barred to those who have not been through this specific form of training?
Labour Members have raised the question of skillcentres and skillcentre trainees and yet the acceptance of these trainees is a serious problem when they

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have been through our skillcentre network. What about areas—many of them already central to our economy as well as to the challenges of the future—in information technology and microprocessor applications? They have so far failed to command their proper share of resources even though this Government have increased support to industry.
There can be no doubt that technological change will dominate the 1980s and that our economic fortunes will depend vitally upon how well and rapidly we can respond. Some current problems have recently been analysed in the Finniston report on the engineering profession. That report makes clear that we need to change deep entrenched cultural attitudes if we are to have any chance of meeting the challenges to come. The Opposition have a big part to play in that process.
At this stage we cannot know what the needs will be in five to 10 years or where the difficulties will be greatest. But we can be sure that for just that reason an effective response will depend on an approach which is flexible rather than on one that is frozen in the traditions of the nineteenth century or even earlier.
I wish to put one point beyond any doubt. It is not only our economic performance that is at risk. When we consider the rigidities of our current systems, we must have always in mind the effect that they have on the individual. Not only does the present apprentice system obstruct adequate provision for current skill needs; it also crucially tends to deprive many working men and women of the opportunity to develop their abilities to the full and thus lead satisfying working lives. This is not a theoretical point. I am regularly brought into contact with individual cases of people whose training or subsequent employment has been hampered by outdated approaches to training and recruitment.
That we are still faced with problems of such size and difficulty indicates beyond doubt that attempts to buy our way out of trouble have not provided the solution. That is why we need to suggest that progress must be made. I am encouraged by the impetus that some training boards have given to modernising the system. They have been encouraged in that by the Manpower Services
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Commission, particularly through the training for skills programme.
The TOPS programme provides an outstanding example of what can be achieved in adult retraining, particularly by the pioneering of rapid and economical training for skilled work. These specific and important developments have not depended directly upon the massive injections of cash that have been devoted in part to financing volume increases in less vital MSC programmes such as clerical and commercial training.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the important part that preparatory courses play in programmes for those who lack the literacy and numeracy that are so essential? Will my hon. Friend ensure that such courses are not curtailed?
Mr. Lester: I can assure my hon. Friend that we bear that in mind. I shall deal with the issue later in my speech.
Nor are these the only hopeful aspects of the situation. If I have dwelt on these problems at some length, it is to show that they have not been solved by lavish spending in the past and to underline how essential it is to stimulate drastic discussion and action for the future centred on the real issues rather than on debating points about money. I see a number of initiatives coming together which could transform our approach to training and preparation for employment.
For once in my political lifetime all the strands seem to be coming together on the same time scale at this most challenging time—the start of the 1980s. A fundamental rethink of this whole area is currently under way.
First, the industrial training arrangements operating on the basis of the Employment and Training Act 1973 are being reviewed by the MSC. We think that this review is timely and essential, and I welcome what my right hon. Friend suggested as to the possibility of a Bill covering this area being presented in the next Session. Secondly we shall have the conclusions from consultations about vocational preparation for young people in employment based on our reissue of "A Better Start to Working Life".
The pilot programme of unified vocational preparation, which was launched in 1979 to develop and test

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various forms of provision to help young people who enter employment without training opportunities is acknowledged in most cases to be very successful. "A Better Start to Working Life" drew upon the unified vocational preparation experience. and proposed a larger and more structured system. While these proposals have some doubtful features, there is much that deserves serious consideration, and it is certain that we cannot afford to neglect the potential of these young people who face a future where changing job requirements will place a premium on adaptability. Many of my hon. Friends spoke movingly about that.
We also have experience of the youth opportunities programme in considering this whole area. I am sure that the success of good work experience schemes, combined with off-the-job training, has proved to employers what decent training and a little patience can do to improve a young person's attitude to work. As with UVP, the youth opportunities programme has brought to many employers the realisation that one gets more out of this exercise than one puts in.
The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster) criticised the work experience part of this programme. Yet it has been incredibly successful in placing young people in work. More than 70 per cent. of young people who go through the work experience programme end up with a job, and more than 50 per cent. of them end up with a job with the employer who has been training them. We take the hon. Gentleman's remarks about training very seriously. We are looking carefully to ensure that that part of the programme entails training as well as some off-the-job work. Therefore, we take on board the suggestions which the hon. Gentleman made. We are always looking for improvement in the systems that we operate within the overall budget.
The third strand in what is happening is the report of Sir Monty Finniston's committee of inquiry into the engineering profession, which examines clearly the reasons why industry is not always able to achieve the necessary engineering excellence on which our past has depended and on which our future depends even more.
Miss Boothroyd: Rather than read from his brief, will the hon. Gentleman
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attempt to answer the questions which Labour Members have put to him, and in particular will he respond to the question that I put to him about my own area?
Mr. Lester: Labour Members asked for a constructive response to what we were doing about training. Training is the essential issue about which we are all concerned, and that is the basis of my speech.
The committee of inquiry devotes a good deal of constructive attention to training, and the Government are looking very carefully at its recommendations.
Fourthly, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science has a group which is reviewing the educational provision for 16-to 18year-olds. I am sure that that will be welcomed in all parts of the House. That review is considering the inter-relationship of education and the training agencies. In short, it is conerned with the education end of the link between school and work—the first steps on the ladder of employment. If there is a change in training in a modular form, one hopes that in future vocational training in schools will help young people straight into skillcentres and other forms of training, which will take them much more satisfactorily into profitable and sensible work.
Other factors affect unemployment. Some are deep-seated and have continued for generations. It is time to move in a new direction. Hon. Members have mentioned regional imbalance. We cannot in 300 days deal with problems that have developed over 30 years. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry has reviewed regional imbalance with the aim of concentrating more aid in the needy areas. Hon. Members stressed the importance of mobility. The problem is increasingly difficult to understand. As jobs become available on the South Coast, it is more difficult to persuade people with the necessary skills to move from the North-East, for example. I accept that we must deal with the housing and schools problems in various areas. We have taken steps in the Housing Bill by providing for short-holds, leasing and by trying to make it easier for people to move.
The hon. Member for Truro said that he was a practising engineer and he asked

609
about the three "Ps"—petro-currency, pay claims, and productivity. Speeches have been made in the House about those problems for years. The difficulty is in achieving co-operation between employers and trade unions.
Hon. Members have talked about lack of investment. We can achieve investment only when a return can be gained from an investment. Only when it pays people to invest in manfacturing industry will people invest in it. Perhaps even the trade unions will then consider investing their funds in our manufacturing industry. Profits are essential for a productive industry.
I have been asked why factories are closing. Sometimes factories must close because of product design, poor quality or lack of sales appeal. The Daily Mail conducted a survey in south London involving a young couple who furnished their house by shopping locally in Godalming. They bought according to good design and acceptable price. Fewer than 15 per cent. of the goods that they bought were produced in our factories. That is the seriousness of the problem.
Changes in technology also cause problems. The hon. Member for Preston, South talked about Courtaulds and the planned economy. How can one plan an economy on the basis of yarns which once were used to produce tyres but which are no longer needed? Our policy of stimulating the private sector to create
and redirect resources from the public sector should be supported.
I turn to the question of training and its importance. I know from contacts with those directly involved on training boards, the youth lobbies, employers and trade unions and even from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Employment, that the time is ripe to assess the real value of the right training and the contribution that that can make to the sensible progress which is essential to our future. It is encouraging that, in spite of the motion, Labour Members and those closely involved in training and bringing young people into work are working on the same basis in this vital matter.
Government alone cannot solve the problems, even if money were no object. I illustrated that earlier. What is needed is ideas, not cash, clear priorities and the collective will to move with change instead of always lagging behind. We stand prepared to use our authority and resources to pursue a policy for the future, stimulating training for the skills of tomorrow, removing bottlenecks and working towards an expanding economy and falling unemployment. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the amendment.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 260, Noes 311.

Division No. 216]

AYES

[10 pm

Abse, Leo

Cant, R. B.

Dormand, Jack

Adams, Allen

Carmichael, Neil

Douglas, Dick

Allaun, Frank

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Alton, David

Cartwright, John

Dubs, Alfred

Anderson, Donald

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Duffy, A. E. P.

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest

Cohen, Stanley

Dunnett, Jack

Ashton, Joe

Coleman, Donald

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

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

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Eadie, Alex

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Conlan, Bernard

Eastham, Ken

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Cowans, Harry

Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

Crowther, J. S.

Ellis, Raymond (NE Derbyshire)

Beith, A. J.

Cryer, Bob

Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

Cunliffe, Lawrence

English, Michael

Bidwell, Sydney

Cunningham, George (Islington S)

Ennals, Rt Hon David

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)

Evans, loan (Aberdare)

Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)

Dalyell, Tam

Evans, John (Newton)

Bradley, Tom

Davidson, Arthur

Ewing, Harry

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Faulds, Andrew

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Davies, Ifor (Gower)

Field, Frank

Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)

Fitch, Alan

Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)

Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)

Fitt, Gerard

Buchan, Norman

Deakins, Eric

Flannery, Martin

Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)

Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

Dempsey, James

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Campbell, Ian

Dewar, Donald

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Dixon, Donald

Forrester, John

Canavan, Dennis

Dobson, Frank

Foster, Derek

Foulkes, George

McElhone, Frank

Ryman, John

Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)

McGuireMichael (Ince)

Sandelson, Neville

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Sever, John

Freud, Clement

McKelvey, William

Sheerman, Barry

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)

Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

Maclennan, Robert

Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)

George, Bruce

McMahon, Andrew

Short, Mrs Renée

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)

Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

Ginsburg, David

McNally, Thomas

Silkin, Rt Hon S.C. (Dulwich)

Golding, John

McWilliam, John

Silverman, Julius

Gourlay, Harry

Magee, Bryan

Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

Grant, George (Morpeth)

Marks, Kenneth

Snape, Peter

Grant, John (Islington C)

Marshall, David (Gl'sgow, Shettles'n)

Soley, Clive

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

Spearing, Nigel

Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

Spriggs, Leslie

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Martin, Michael (GI'gow Springb rn)

Stallard, A. W.

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Steel, Rt Hon David

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Maxton, John

Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

Haynes, Frank

Maynard, Miss Joan

Stoddart, David

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Meacher, Michael

Stott, Roger

Heffer, Eric S.

Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

Strang, Gavin

Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)

Mikardo, Ian

Straw, Jack

Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

Home Robertson, John

Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

Homewood, William

Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Hooley, Frank

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, ltchen)

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Horam, John

Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)

Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)

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

Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)

Huckfield, Les

Morton, George

Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

Hudson Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed

Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

Tilley, John

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Newens, Stanley

Tinn, James

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Torney, Tom

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Ogden, Eric

Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

Janner, Hon Greville

O'Halloran, Michael

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

O'NeillMartin

Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

John, Brynmor

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)

Johnson, Walter (Derby South)

Palmer, Arthur

Watkins, David

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Park, George

Wellbeloved, James

Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)

Parker, John

Welsh, Michael

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

Parry, Robert

White, Frank R. (Bury & Radcliffe)

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Pavitt, Laurie

White, James (Glasgow, Pollock)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Pendry, Tom

Whitehead, Phillip

Kerr, Russell

Penhallgon, David

Whitlock, Williiam

Kilfedder, James A.

Powell Raymond (Ogmore)

Wigley, Dafydd

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Prescott, John

Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

Kinnock, Neil

Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

Williiams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Lambie, David

Race, Reg

Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)

Lamborn, Harry

Radice, Giles

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)

Lamond, James

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)

Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)

Leadbitter, Ted

Richardson, Jo

Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

Leighton, Ronald

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Winnick, David

Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Woodall, Alec

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)

Woolmer, Kenneth

Litherland, Robert

Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Robertson, George

Young, David (Bolton East)

Lyon, Alexander (York)

Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)

Rodgers, Rt Hon William

TELLERS FOR THE AYES

Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

Rooker, J. W.

Mr. Hugh McCartney and

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

Mr. Ted Graham.

NOES

Adley, Robert

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Cadbury, Jocelyn

Aitken, Jonathan

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Carlisle, John (Luton West)

Alexander, Richard

Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Bowden, Andrew

Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)

Ancram, Michael

Boyson, Dr Rhodes

Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

Arnold, Tom

Bralne, Sir Bernard

Channon, Paul

Aspinwall, Jack

Bright, Graham

Chapman, Sydney

Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

Brinton, Tim

Churchill, W. S.

Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

Brittan, Leon

Clark, Hon. Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)

Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

Brooke, Hon Peter

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

Brotherton, Michael

Clegg, Sir Walter

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Brown, Michael (Brlgg & Sc'thorpe)

Cockeram, Eric

Bell, Sir Ronald

Browne, John (Winchester)

Colvin, Michael

Bendall, Vivian

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Cope, John

Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)

Bryan, Sir Paul

Cormack, Patrick

Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

Buchanan-Smith, Hon Alick

Corrie, John

Best, Keith

Budgen, Nick

Costain, A. P.

Bevan, David Gliroy

Bulmer, Esmond

Critchley, Julian

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Burden, F. A.

Crouch, David

Biggs-Davison, John

Butcher, John

Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

Blackburn, John

Butler, Hon Adam

Dickens, Geoffrey

612

613

Dorrell, Stephen

Knight, Mrs Jill

Raison, Timothy

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Knox, David

Rathbone, Tim

Dover, Denshore

Lamont, Norman

Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Lang, Ian

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Dunlop, John

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Renton, Tim

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Latham, Michael

Rhodes James, Robert

Durant, Tony

Lawrence, Ivan

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Dykes, Hugh

Lawson, Nigel

Ridsdale, Julian

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Lee, John

Rifkind, Malcolm

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Eggar, Timothy

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

Elliott, Sir William

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Eyre, Reginald

Lloyd, Ian (Havant & Waterloo)

Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)

Fairbairn, Nicholas

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Rossi, Hugh

Fairgrieve, Russell

Loveridge, John

Rost, Peter

Faith, Mrs Sheila

Luce, Richard

Royle, Sir Anthony

Farr, John

Lyell, Nicholas

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Fell, Anthony

McCrindle, Robert

St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Macfarlane, Neil

Scott, Nicholas

Finsberg, Geoffrey

MacGregor, John

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Fisher, Sir Nigel

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)

McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Fookes, Miss Janet

Madel, David

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

Forman, Nigel

Major, John

Shersby, Michael

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Marland, Paul

Silvester, Fred

Fox, Marcus

Marlow, Tony

Sims, Roger

Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Skeet, T. H. H.

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Marten, Neil (Banbury)

Speed, Keith

Fry, Peter

Mates, Michael

Speller, Tony

Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

Mather, Carol

Spence, John

Gardiner, George (Relgate)

Maude, Rt Hon Angus

Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)

Mawby, Ray

Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Sproat, lain

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Squire, Robin

Glyn, Dr Alan

Mayhew, Patrick

Stainton, Keith

Goodhart, Philip

Mellor, David

Stanley, John

Goodhew, Victor

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Steen, Anthony

Goodlad, Alastair

Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

Stevens, Martin

Gorst, John

Mills, lain (Meriden)

Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

Gow, lan

Mills, Peter (West Devon)

Stokes, John

Gower, Sir Raymond

Miscampbell, Norman

Stradling Thomas, J.

Gray, Hamish

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Tapsell, Peter

Greenway, Harry

Moate, Roger

Taylor, Robert (Croyden NW)

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)

Molyneaux, James

Tebblt, Norman

Griffths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Monro, Hector

Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

Grish, lan

Montgomery, Fergus

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

Grylls, Michael

Moore, John

Thompson, Donald

Gummer, John Selwyn

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&Ew'll)

Morgan, Geraint

Thorne, Neil (llford South)

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Morris, Michael (Northampton. Sth)

Thornton, Malcolm

Hampson, Dr Keith

Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Hannam, John

Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)

Haselhurst, Alan

Mudd, David

Trippier, David

Hastings, Stephen

Murphy, Christopher

Trotter, Neville

Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

Myles, David

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Hawkins, Paul

Neale, Gerrard

Vaughan, Dr Gerard

Hawksley, Warren

Needham, Richard

Viggers, Peter

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Nelson, Anthony

Waddington, David

Heddle, John

Neubert, Michael

Wakeham, John

Henderson, Barry

Newton, Tony

Waldegrave, Hon William

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Normanton, Tom

Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

Hicks, Robert

Nott, Rt Hon John

Wall, Patrick

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

Osborn, John

Waller, Gary

Holland, Philip (Carlton)

Page, John (Harrow, West)

Walters, Dennis

Hooson, Tom

Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham

Warren, Kenneth

Hordern, Peter

Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)

Watson, John

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Parkinson, Cecil

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)

Parris, Matthew

Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nege)

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Patten, Christopher (Bath)

Wheeler, John

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Patten, John (Oxford)

Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Pattle, Geoffrey

Whitney, Raymond

Hurd, Hon Douglas

Pawsey, James

Wickenden, Keith

Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

Percival, Sir lan

Wiggin, Jerry

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Peyton, Rt Hon John

Wilkinson, John

Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

Pink, R. Bonner

Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Pollock, Alexander

Winterton, Nicholas

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Porter, George

Wolfson, Mark

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Younger, Rt Hon George

Kershaw, Anthony

Price, David (Eastleigh)

Kimball, Marcus

Prior, Rt Hon James

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

King, Rt Hon Tom

Proctor, K. Harvey

Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

Kltson, Sir Timothy

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Mr. Anthony Berry.

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 32 (Questions on Amendments), and agreed to.
Mr. SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to, pursuant to Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply).
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the Government's concentration of resources on the priority tasks within the Manpower Services Commission programmes and its continued commitment to
616
training for our industrial needs; believes that the best way to help the unemployed is to create soundly based jobs; and recognises that restraint on public expenditure is an important element in Her Majesty's Government's policy to achieve this end.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the Slaughter of Animals (Scotland) Bill [Lords] and the Reserve Forces Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. MacGregor.]

SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]
Order for Second Reading read.
10.15 pm
The Solicitor-General for Scotland (Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This measure consolidates a number of enactments relating to the slaughter of animals in slaughterhouses and knackers' yards in Scotland. The corresponding provisions as regards England and Wales have already been consolidated in 1958 and again in 1974.
The report of the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills is to the effect that the Bill is pure consolidation and there is no point to which the attention of Parliament should be drawn.
I commend the Bill to the House as a useful measure which re-enacts in a readily accessible and clearly set out form a considerable number of provisions from six separate and, for the most part, heavily amended statutes. I am confident that it will be useful to all those involved in Scotland in the administration and control of the slaughter of animals.
10.17 pm
Mr. Harry Ewing: After deep and careful thought, I should tell the Solicitor-General for Scotland that the Opposition do not intend to divide the House on this measure. We thought, as an Opposition, that we should place on record the view that there is no more suitable Government than the present Government to consolidate legislation dealing with knackers' yard; and there is no more suitable Minister than the present Solicitor-General for Scotland to introduce consolidation legislation dealing with knackers' yards.
Without any reservation whatsoever, the Opposition give this consolidation measure a welcome.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. MacGregor.]
Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

RESERVE FORCES BILL [Lords]
Considered in Committee.
[Mr. RICHARD CRAWSHAW in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 143 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

RESERVE FORCES BILL [Lords]
  Clause 144

    ASSISTANCE IN DESERTION
    10.19 pm
    The Solicitor-General (Sir Ian Percival): I beg to move amendment No. 1 in page 69, line 7, leave out
    'in Northern Ireland or elsewhere'.
    The Second Deputy Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 2 and 4.
    The Solicitor-General: The amendment, together with Government amendments Nos. 2 and 4, corrects an oversight in respect of the application of subsections (2) and (7) of section 28 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and section 289B of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975, which increase the relevant maximum fine which may be imposed in Great Britain on summary conviction, and provide that such maximum may be changed by order of the Secretary of State on a change in the value of money. The amendment merely restates existing law. It makes no change in the law. I shall be happy to give the Committee any detail on the amendment that it might wish to have, but for the moment I content myself with these remarks.
    Mr. Peter Archer: To preserve the sense of occasion set by the Scottish Bill just dealt with, I hasten to assure the Solicitor-General that I do not expect that the Committee will be avid for any further detailed information. The

    619
    Opposition take the view that we may deal with the other amendments quickly.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment made: No. 2, in page 69, line 8, leave out £'50' and insert 'the statutory maximum'.—[The Solicitor-General.]
    The Solicitor-General: I beg to move amendment No. 3 in page 69, line 13, after 'elsewhere', insert 'in the United Kingdom'.
    This is a drafting amendment to clarify the effect of the word "elsewhere".
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment made: No. 4, in page 69, line 15, at end insert—
    '(2) In subsection (1) above "the statutory maximum", in relation to a fine on summary conviction, means—

    (a) in England and Wales, the prescribed sum within the meaning of section 28 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 (at the passing of this Act £1,000);

    (b) in Scotland, the prescribed sum within the meaning of section 289B of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 (at the passing of this Act £1,000); and

    (c) in Northern Ireland, £50.'—[The Solicitor-General.]

    Clause 144, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 145 to 158 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Schedules 1 to 10 agreed to.
    Bill reported, with amendments; as amended, considered.
    Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

CONSULAR FEES BILL
Ordered,
That, in respect of the Consular Fees Bill, notices of Amendments new Clauses and new Schedules to be moved in Committee may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a second time.—[Mr. MacGregor.]

POLICE NEGOTIATING BOARD BILL [Lords]
Ordered,
That, in respect of the Police Negotiating Board Bill [Lords], notices of Amendments, new Clauses and new Schedules to be moved in Committee may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a second time.—[Mr. MacGregor.]

HORSERACE TOTALISATOR BOARD
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. MacGregor.]
10.23 pm
Mr. Bruce George: I am delighted at long last to be able to bring the subject of the tote to the Floor of this House. We all know how difficult it is to obtain an Adjournment debate. It involves a combination of chance four days a week and Mr. Speaker's personal choice on the fifth day. Certain comparisons can be made between that and the way in which the tote has been operating. I hope that I shall not be admonished for taking that comparison too far.
As regards the tote, the element of chance and equity has been undermined by the number of occasions on which the personal whim of the chairman of the tote has intervened. It has also been undermined when employees—and we are told that they are low-level employees—doctor the dividends. That was first revealed in The Sporting Life in July of last year. The chairman subsequently called it the "Carlisle cock-up". An inquiry was wrung out of the tote and the Home Office. The findings of Mr. Aglionby, a recorder, spoke of the "misplaced enthusiasm" of tote staff.
He said:
"The opportunity existed therefore, for this procedure to he abused by the staff of Tote Credit Limited. It was abused … Advantage was taken … to transmit to the pool further bets which bore no relation to the bets received from the clients and which were intended to reduce artificially the dividend.
However, we are told that nothing illegal took place. The Home Secretary

621
made a speech yesterday in which he said:
"But since all the necessary action has now been taken, the matter should be regarded as closed."
He may regard it as closed. However, although this stink may not have entered the nostrils of those specially invited racing establishment figures at yesterday's tote lunch, it will linger for a long time in the noses of punters. They have been swindled out of their rightful winnings. The chairman, like some wounded animal, has lashed out at those who dare to criticise him. The Sporting Life is held to be in the pocket of the bookies. I am said to be one of those "Left wingers." Some members of my constituency party will be delighted to hear that. When I questioned Mr. Wyatt about his famous 50-1 bet on Troy, he accused me of "petty sniping" and of conduct unbecoming a Member of Parliament. There are many others that I would look to as models of behaviour, before the chairman of the tote. If everyone to the left of him is a Left winger I share that distinction, along with the vast majority of the adult population of the United Kingdom. In his speech yesterday the chairman called my probing an "offensive and irrelevant attack."
My probing is not intended as a general criticism of the staff. To say that would be grossly misleading.
I have spoken to many of the staff. All of them I spoke to have contacted me and are continuing to do so. They do not reckon that I am undermining them or questioning their integrity. It is not Lord Wigg, The Sporting Life or I who is "creating an unpleasant atmosphere." Apparently we, "the perpetrators", are said to be mean-spirited as well as absurd.
I shall ask the Minister the questions that remain unanswered. First, why has no one at Tote House, except possibly the tea boy, taken any responsibility for the after-time bets scandal?
Second, why does Mr. Wyatt compare the practice of his predecessor, who ensured that all off-course bets were included in pools, with a system that he inaugurated which included bets only with decisions taken after the results were known?
Third, was Mr. Wyatt guilty of defrauding off-course bookmakers when he
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personally raised the win dividend over Marquis de Sade at Royal Ascot 1976 from 41p to 47p? Was that not a clear breach of section 14(3) of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act?
Fourth, is it right, in a nationalised industry, for the board and senior executives to have credit accounts with their own organisation when junior employees are not allowed to bet in cash? Surely that undesirable practice might understandably lead to public suspicions.
Will the Minister make inquiries and ascertain whether it is true that a board member put £500 on his own horse with Tote Credit Ltd? If that is true, who instructed the control room at Tote House not to do anything with the money and not to hedge it over the course? That shortened the starting price for the horse and, indeed, it won. Over £1,000 was won from the tote.
Fifth, did Mr. Wyatt obtain odds of 50-1 from the tote against the Derby winner Troy nine months before the race? The best price quoted elsewhere amounted to considerably less.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: Surely the hon. Gentleman must know, if he follows racing at all, that at the time one could get any price one liked on Troy. He had just been beaten and was way out. One could ring up and get any price one liked.
Mr. George: Others argue quite differently.
Sixth, why is the tote management so frightened of its employees communicating with the press? A directive has gone out threatening dire consequences to anyone who does.
Seventh, why has "misplaced enthusiasm" been accepted as an excuse for fraud in a nationalised industry when elsewhere those responsible would have been in court?
Eighth, why have the views of the Law Officers of the Crown not yet been obtained to ascertain whether they believe that a breach of statutory requirements on common law occurred?
Ninth, last week the Prime Minister referred to so-called social security scroungers, and said that fraud was fraud wherever it occurred and that it should all be treated in exactly the same way. Why should the tote be allowed to defraud punters? Does partial restitution expiate that guilt?

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Tenth, why have not all the 4,355 races between 1 September 1978 and 16 July 1979 been audited to ascertain where fraud took place, instead of only the sample of 16 per cent. of dual forecasts and 23 per cent. of win pools, as chosen by Deloittes, the accountants? The public has been swindled by a public body, and even if it was a minute occurrence, as the chairman alleges, surely the public, especially those swindled, have a right to know.
Eleventh, how much was the managing director of Tote Credit, Jeff Wells, paid when he resigned last month? If he resigns, is he entitled to redundancy payment, or what was his recompense?
Twelfth, does the Minister believe that the management of the tote has been conducted to the standard expected in public life?
Thirteenth—and this a very important question—did the chairman receive a copy of Mr. Aglionby's report? If so, does that mean that evidence given in confidence to the recorder was made available to the chairman? I understand that in a written answer to Lord Wigg, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department said that the chairman did receive a report. That is serious if it is true. It means that evidence that was given by tote employees is available or has been made available to the chairman. That, I suggest, is something that the chairman should not have seen. If it is true, I should like to know whose responsibility it was that the report, with confidential information, was divulged to the chairman? It has been thrown in my face many times when I have called for the report to be published that the evidence was given in confidence. If that principle of confidentiality has been breached, it is a serious matter.
The next question that I wish to ask relates to the infamous events at Royal Ascot in 1976. Is it true that the documentation relating to Royal Ascot is no longer available? I have been told, and I should like to have it authenticated by the Minister, that documents have been shredded so that evidence relating to the number of dividends doctored personally would not come out. I understand that that documentation was not signed by the control room manager, Mr. Dickie King, who ought to have signed it.
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The racing public, I believe, owe a debt of gratitude to The Sporting Life and to John McCrinick for the revelations. Although they may not put Mr. McCrinick at the ton of the chairman of the tote's popularity book, those revelations earned from his peers the title of campaigning journalist of the year. One could speculate how long these malpractices would have continued had they not been revealed in July of last year.
If the chairman defends himself by saying, as he has done, that private bookies have their crooked staff, I should like to tell him that I expect higher things from a public body. We are told that the tote makes a profit. If one looks at its position and the number of betting shops that it has, one sees that those profits are not exceptionally high. To seek high profits as the justification for what went on is quite unsatisfactory.
I do not want to draw the comparison too far, but my mind returns to those sycophantic journalists surrounding President Nixon, who justified what he had done by saying that he was very successful in his foreign policies. The chairman may or may not have been the most successful tote chairman, but the wrongdoings going on within his organisation should have been known to him. He should be full-time, not part-time. If there were wrongdoings, it was the responsibility of the chairman, the board and senior executives to find out long before they did. We are told that ignorance is bliss, but in a court of law it is no defence to plead ignorance of the law.
Reading the speech that the chairman delivered yesterday, I could not help remembering something that I was told by one of the tote employees. It was clear from that that what the chairman has been saying, including what he said yesterday, is not entirely spot-on in terms of its truth.
I restate my demand that the chairman should be sacked, although the likelihood of that has receded now that he has the full confidence of the Home Secretary. Public confidence will not be restored until he goes. Organisations damaged by scandal rarely recover public confidence without major changes at the top. This episode may be closed in the Home Office's view, but for others this sordid saga awaits a proper, honourable and final outcome.
10.36 pm
Sir Timothy Kitson: We are all grateful to the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) for raising this matter, but one must be careful not to exaggerate.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is probably unwise for the members of any organisation to bet with it. It happens within bookmakers' organisations, as it apparently happens with the tote. I think that this is mistaken. I do not think that directors of Ladbroke's or Hill's should bet with their company; they should bet outside. It would be much better if members of the tote were to do that as well.
We all know that if we ring up a friendly bookmaker and ask him about a price in a race he may give us half a point or a point better if he owns the firm. He is not working against his shareholders; he is working only against himself. The chairman of a large organisation can get that if he rings up his ante-post clerk and asks "What price can you give me on Troy or Hawaiian Sound?" I backed Hawaiian Sound at 66-1 for the Derby, and Mr. Woodrow Wyatt got only 50-1 on his horse; his won and mine came second. I think on reflection that it would probably be better if people did not bet with their own organisations against their own shareholders, or against the tote.
A great deal of explanation has been produced by the report. I am basically satisfied with many of the points that are made.
Mr. Walter Johnson: In newspaper contests of any sort—whether predicting the result of a race or whatever—the staff of the newspaper concerned are forbidden to enter. I think that the point here is the same. We should try to emphasise to the chairman of the tote that there should be no participation by him, senior members of the board or members of the staff, and that their betting facilities should be withdrawn. I think that that would be the right way to deal with the matter.
Sir T. Kitson: I agree, and I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House agree. That would eliminate any criticism that can develop from the remarks of the hon. Member for Walsall, South.
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However, we have been assured that what happened cannot happen again, and we are all gratified by that. It is wrong to juggle with dividends. We should not complain on behalf of our constituents when the tote raises dividends, although I believe that it works against bookmakers who are licensed to bet at tote odds.
I should like to make one point. I have looked carefully at the legislation on the tote. I cannot see any suggestion that dividends can be altered. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell), who was the Minister responsible for sport, knows, as I believe I know, that nowhere in that legislation is it suggested that dividends can be altered. It does say that deductions can be altered. The tote is entitled to deduct its take from the pool, but the punter has to be advised what that deduction is. There is no way, at any stage of a race meeting, in which that deduction can be altered. To say that it can be altered is wrong. I am pleased that we are now told that it cannot happen again.
The punter is entitled to know, as with football pools, what the proprietor deducts, what the taxman takes and what remains in the pool to split. It is exactly the same with the tote. People betting on the tote must know what is the deduction in tax and what are the deductions in takes for the charges of the tote. Those figures should not be altered. People are also entitled to know, and do know, that the percentages on first and placed horses are set out clearly. Those figures should not be altered. It would be interesting to know whether it is possible. Any loophole should be stopped.
10.42 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Timothy Raison): Before replying to the arguments and the allegations of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) on the subject of the Horserace Totalisator Board, I should like to say a word about the constitutional position of the tote and the responsibilities that the relevant legislation imposes on the Home Secretary.
The tote board is constituted under the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963, although it has existed in one form or another since the Racecourse Betting Control Board came into existence in

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1928. The board has a statutory monopoly of pool betting on horse-racing on approved horse-racecourses and also has authority to act as a bookmaker. It is free to regulate its own business within the requirements of the law such as are contained in section 14 of the 1963 Act.
The responsibilities of the Home Secretary in relation to the tote are of a limited nature. The chairman and members of the tote board are all appointed by the Home Secretary, but my right hon. Friend has no responsibility for the employment of the board's staff. That is all I shall say of the statutory position.
I shall now turn to the matters raised and the inquiry by Mr. Francis Aglionby, a recorder of the Crown court, on the tote board's procedures for the inclusion in its on-course pools of bets made off the course. This inquiry, as the House knows, was commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary at the request of the chairman of the tote board following allegations last July about the transmission of off-course bets to the on-course pools. In announcing the setting up of the inquiry, my right hon. Friend gave an assurance that the findings would be published. The findings were, indeed, published on 4 February in a reply to a written question by the hon. Member for Walsall, South.
Since the 12 paragraphs of the findings have been published in this way, in the Official Report, I do not propose to recite them all here. Regrettably, Mr Aglionby found that an improper practice of omitting losing money which normally would have been transmitted before the race had, on some occasions, been adopted.
Some employees of Tote Credit Limited transmitted to the pool bets which bore no relation to the bets received from clients, and this was done for the purpose of artificially reducing the dividend. Fifteen out of 697 forecast pools examined by the tote board's auditors were certainly affected in this way. Mr. Aglionby also found that the procedure by which bets laid off by outside bookmakers for inclusion in the pool were transmitted to the course was abused on some occasions. The abuse occurred because not all losing bets were put into the pool. Six out of 995 win pools examined were affected in this way.
It is a matter for great concern that these events should have taken place, and
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my right hon Friend would not for one moment wish to minimise their seriousness. It is also right to point out that the serious malpractices which occurred did not, so Mr. Aglionby found, arise out of a desire for personal financial gain and that no individual in the tote benefited.
Moreover, Mr. Aglionby found that the chairman and members of the tote board, the chief executive and other senior officials were ignorant of the abuses which took place. It has been suggested that, if the board did not know of these abuses, it should have done. It is not, however, surprising that the board was unaware of the abuses, since most of the small number of dividends which Mr. Aglionby found to have been improperly reduced by a significant amount were not, on the face of it, lower than would have been expected. The malpractices occurred on a small scale and over a limited period. The transmission of bets before September 1977 was conducted properly.
What the board did, immediately the abuses came to light, was to alter its procedures. Mr. Aglionby examined the new procedures and was satisfied that they were entirely fair. Following the publication of Mr. Aglionby's findings, the board took appropriate action as regards the staff concerned. The managing director of Tote Credit Limited, who was suspended, has subsequently resigned and the junior staff involved have been reprimanded. The tote has emphasised to staff that engaging in transmission or attempted transmission after the "off" is an offence for which they can be dismissed. The board also published full particulars of the occasions on which Mr. Aglionby found that tote dividends had been improperly reduced, and announced that it would be prepared to make good the losses of any persons who could prove that they had these winning bets.
There have been suggestions that, in addition to publishing Mr. Aglionby's findings, my right hon. Friend should publish the entire report, or even that he should publish all or some of the evidence given to the inquiry. Those who have urged this course on my right hon. Friend, however, fail to recognise that persons giving evidence to the inquiry were assured that what they said would be treated in confidence. I understand

629
that Mr. Aglionby decided to give this assurance so that all those whom he interviewed would feel entirely free to tell him all they know of these unfortunate occurrences. If that assurance had not been given, Mr. Aglionby might not have had the benefit of all the evidence which was given.
Mr. Walter Johnson: The hon Gentleman must be aware that the staff of the tote board have been advised that they should make no comment to the press or anybody. They have been told that if they do so they are under the penalty of dismissal. That is absolutely ridiculous in this day and age and something should be done about it. Otherwise, there will always be the suggestion that there is a cover-up.
Mr. Raison: I was coming to that point. However, it must be a matter for the management of the tote itself rather than for my right hon. Friend.
In his statement to this House on 4 February, my right hon. Friend explained that Mr. Aglionby had had the benefit of a special audit carried out by Messrs. Deloitte, Haskins and Sells. This audit was a very extensive operation lasting four months, and the sampling procedure was specifically designed to bring to light instances of improper reduction of the dividend as a result of the inclusion of off-course money. There is no reason to think that the audit conducted by Deloitte has not succeeded in identifying all the cases in which the dividend was improperly reduced by any significant amount.
A good deal of publicity has been given to the fact that the chairman of the tote raised one of the tote's dividends at Ascot in June 1976. That was mentioned in the House. He did this in exceptional circumstances, when the favourite had been withdrawn from the race and at a time when the tote was operating a system of variable deductions from its win pools. These were deductions to cover the board's expenses and liability to pay duty and levy. The variations were made according to various formulae which were different for the different pools with the general objective of making the tote's prices compare favourably with starting prices. This system was subsequently discussed, as the House knows, by the Select Committee on
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Nationalised Industries, and in May 1977 the tote changed the system so that there is now a flat-rate deduction from all win pools. Moreover the chairman has assured my right hon. Friend that at no time since June 1976 has he or any other member of the board ever altered any other dividend, nor will they ever do this in the future.
It has been suggested that some action should be taken against the tote board. It has been suggested this evening that my right hon. Friend should dismiss the chairman or that the board should be charged with conspiracy. I think we need to keep a sense of proportion here.
The inquiry found that a very small number of dividends had been improperly reduced. The board was unaware of this at the time that it occurred, but when the irregularities came to light last July, and before the inquiry was set up, it changed the procedure so as to make it impossible for the malpractices to recur. It has since taken appropriate action in regard to the staff concerned. It has invited claims from punters who, if they do not obtain satisfaction from the tote, may have their claims referred to the editor of The Sporting Life or to Tattersalls, whose decision is final. I see no basis here for my right hon. Friend to take any action whatever against the tote board.
Equally, I see no grounds for instituting any further inquiries. As I have already explained, the sampling methods used in the special audit were such as to bring to light all cases in which dividends were significantly affected by off-course money. Absolutely no evidence has been produced of any other irregularities. Indeed, almost the only new development since the publication of Mr. Aglionby's findings has been the disclosure, to which I have already referred, that at Royal Ascot in 1976 the chairman of the tote increased a dividend.
In the remaining few minutes I shall try to answer some of the specific points which the hon. Gentleman listed. He asked whether it is right in a nationalised industry for the board and senior executives to have credit accounts with their own organisation, when junior employees are not allowed to bet in cash. That was a point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Sir T. Kitson) referred. It is true that members

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of the board may bet with the tote, and such bets are treated in precisely the same way as bets from the public. The board sees advantage in being able to test the tote's services in this way, and my right hon. Friend does not think he would be justified in initiating action designed to alter the board's practice in this respect.
I was asked whether Mr. Wyatt obtained 50-1 against the Derby winner Troy nine months before the race from the tote, when the best price quoted elsewhere was 25-1. I understand that this bet was placed at a date when no ante-post lists had been published. These odds were available from the tote at that time to any member of the public who asked for a bet on Troy. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the press, and I have tried to answer that.
I was also asked why "misplaced enthusiasm" has been accepted as an excuse for fraud in a nationalised industry while elsewhere those responsible would be in court.
The Metropolitan Police discussed the matter with officers of the tote after the seting up of the inquiry was announced, and the conclusion was reached that, on the information available, there were not sufficient grounds for a police investigation. The Metropolitan Police have been informed of Mr Aglionby's findings.
I was asked why all the 4,355 races between September 1 1978 and July 16
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last year have not been audited to ascertain where fraud took place, instead of the 16 per cent. of dual forecasts and 23 per cent. of win pools as sampled by Deloitte. The answer is that the audit was a very extensive operation lasting four months, and the sampling procedure was specifically designed to bring to light instances of improper reduction of the dividend as a result of the inclusion of off-course money. Further auditing of the pools would not be justified.
I was asked how much Tote Credit's managing director, Jeff Wells, was paid when he resigned last month. That is a tote staff matter about which my right hon. Friend has no details and no responsibility. I was asked whether the management of the tote has been conducted to the standard expected in public life. Mr. Aglionhy found that the chairman and members of the tote board, the chief executive and other senior officials were ignorant of the various abuses, and my right hon. Friend has not felt called upon to take any action as regards the board—
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 seven minutes to Eleven o'clock.

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Preamble
The House met at a quarter-past two of the clock:The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle.

LORD COGGAN
The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Frederick Donald Coggan, lately Archbishop of Canterbury, having been created Baron Coggan, of Canterbury and of Sissinghurst in the County of Kent—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Astor of Hever and the Lord Holderness.
LORD SIEFF OF BRIMPTON
The Honourable Sir Marcus Joseph Sieff, Knight, O.B.E., having been created Baron Sieff of Brimpton, of Brimpton in the Royal County of Berkshire—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Elliot of Harwood and the Lord Byers.

M.23: EXTENSION PROPOSALS
2.44 p.m.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans exist for the extension of the M.23 from Gatwick into London.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, the M.23 motorway from Gatwick to Hooley in Surrey was completed in 1975. Following a joint study by officials of the Departments of Transport and of the Environment, the Greater London Council and Surrey County Council, the last Government announced in September 1978 that it had been decided not to proceed with the proposed extension of the M.23 from Hooley to Mitcham. A draft scheme and orders to revoke the
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existing statutory authority for the motorway North of Hooley were published in November 1978. The objections and representations received in response to these are now being considered. Consultations have also taken place with local authorities on the remaining recommendations in the joint study report. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport is reviewing all the many complex issues involved, with a view to making a further announcement shortly.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that rather lengthy Answer, which I should like to read, may I ask whether he can assure the House that, whatever happens, there will be a reserved line on the map for the future;and will he accept that there is a great urgency, not only for Gatwick but for the whole of the South of England to be served by the extension of this road into the centre of London?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I cannot give a guarantee that there will be a reserved line. When my right honourable friend makes his decision known, the plan of what he is going to do will be the line for the future.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the existence of reserved lines and the threat of a possible motorway construction causes a blight affecting property values in the area, and that many people in the vicinity of the proposed M.23 motorway extension have been thereby prevented from selling their houses, except at ridiculously low prices, for many years? In these matters certainty is what is required, and therefore once the department has considered the representations that have been made they should put an end to all schemes for the indefinite future.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Yes, my Lords. I have every sympathy with what the noble Lord has said, and I know it is a matter very close to his heart. We do want to get on with this;we do want to announce the line and proceed from there. We are proceeding as fast as we can. There are palliatives for people who are near the line. It is not very satisfactory. I agree that these delays do take place.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that this road starts no less than 15 miles from the centre of London;this compares with five miles from the M.1 and M.3. This really is a disastrous situation for a major airport.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Yes, my Lords. This is all part of the oint study which has been reported on. We are now considering how best to remedy the matter and get the traffic flowing with the least possible worry and trouble to people who have housing interests.

BRITISH STEEL CORPORATION LOSSES
2.47 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what has been the cost to the British taxpayer of the losses of the British Steel Corporation in each of the last five years.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Viscount Trenchard): My Lords, the British Steel Corporation's trading results since the financial year 1974–75 have been as follows: 1974–75 £73 million profit;1975–76 £255 million loss: 1976-77 £95 million loss;1977–78 £443 million loss;1978–79 £309 million loss.
In their interim statement for the half year ending 30th September 1979, BSC recorded further losses of £145.6 million and expected losses in the second half of the current financial year to exceed those in the first half. Over the period as a whole the Government have provided BSC with some £3,800 million to finance both expenditure on capital account and the revenue deficits.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, while thanking the noble Viscount for that reply, is it not a fact that in the last five years each tax-paying family in the land has provided £190 towards subsidising BSC? Does not this make it all the more urgent
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that we should get a settlement and increase productivity, so that it no longer needs three men to produce a ton of steel in this country whereas it takes one man to do the same in the most competitive countries like Japan and the USA?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. The figure he quotes is approximately correct. As high as £200 has been mentioned as the cost to the average family over the period. The productivity statistics which my noble friend quoted, are perhaps those compared with the most efficient countries like Japan and the USA;but the productivity is nowhere near in line with major European countries either.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I put this to the Minister: While we all know that the Conservative Party's heart bleeds for the taxpayer, we have never heard any sympathy for the thousands of men who are now put out of work. In fact they have a new euphemism for unemployment;they call it redundancies. The latest word is "wastage".
Several noble Lords: Speech!
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, it is not a speech: it is a question. What does the Minister think about comparing those two matters?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, as regards the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, I think that my right honourable friend in the other place and I in this place have on many occasions, since the unfortunate strike took place, not only asked that the whole House should support the earliest possible end to the strike, but have pointed out that, if we had extra money which we could raise from the taxpayer for this purpose, or if we felt it desirable to siphon it from other more desirable purposes, it would not be a kindness to the average worker in the British Steel Corporation. In view of the equipment which they now have it is an absolute necessity, for the continued employment of those who remain in British Steel, that the industry becomes competitive without delay rather than avoiding the issue any longer.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, can my noble friend give us any news as

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regards the EEC saying two days ago that it might be able to help to provide a solution to the strike?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I have up to date information on the subject. I would remind the House that on 13th February I gave details of the very large amounts of money, under all the European schemes, which this country has obtained to help alleviate the problems of steel closures. There is a proposed possible new scheme which would come under new social measures from the Social Fund which might provide in the first year of operation £20 million. My right honourable friend and co-Minister was in Brussels yesterday to explore the degree to which that extra money would be forthcoming and would be able to help in the re-adaptation, and the measures necessary to try to soften the blow of the loss of steel jobs. It is not money which can in any way help as regards the British Steel Corporation's finances and what it can afford in its pay offer.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that investment in new plant and equipment necessary for the competitive state of the British industry inevitably leads to fewer jobs for the same quantity of production? Does he agree that that is also experienced by our competitors abroad, but that most of them, unfortunately, have been able to tackle their difficult problems of redundancy sooner and more realistically than we have done in this country? Moreover, will my noble friend confirm, in relation to what the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, said, that, if we had started sooner, most, if not all, of the redundancies might have been voluntary rather than compulsory and associated with large payments?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I think that if we had moved more determinately sooner, in accordance with the targets set by the Secretary of State for Industry in the previous Administration, it is indeed possible that our share of a depressed world market for steel products might be higher by now and more jobs might be able to be retained.
Lord ROCHESTER: My Lords, does it not follow that the primary responsibility for solving this problem rests with ourselves and not with the EEC?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, that is absolutely correct, and I hope that both the size of the figures and the purpose of the fund which has been much reported in the media, will make clear that the noble Lord is completely correct.
Lord PEART: My Lords, will the noble Viscount bear in mind that when noble Lords talk about our competitors in Europe, many of those competitors have subsidised coal, and indeed, are subsidised considerably? We are not comparing like with like.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, the question of the subsidies for coking coal in European countries has been well examined and I have explained it in this House on a previous occasion. Those subsidies do not in any way remove the overall truth that we are simply not competitive and that that is the major reason for the problem.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, will my noble friend indicate what amount of the large total figure which he gave represents payment to compensate for the operating deficit of the industry, and what proportion that amount is of the total earnings of the industry for that period?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I cannot give the detailed figures for which my noble friend has asked, but I shall let him have them.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, would the noble Viscount he good enough to explain this conundrum: He has told the House that the Government want the industry to become more competitive, which means, of course, increased production;but at the same time he tells us that we have depressed markets. In view of the Government's policy, will he be good enough to tell us what is to happen to the steel which is to be produced as a result of the improvement in our competitiveness? Is it the case that we eat it, or do we drop it into the Atlantic?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, the noble Lord asked precisely the same question on a previous occasion and I shall give him, as far as I can remember it precisely the same answer. There is no question but that an improvement in productivity—one must say an overdue

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improvement in productivity at this time—will result (indeed British Steel's plan does result) in fewer people being employed in order to meet the market. But, as soon as British Steel becomes competitive the chances of increasing its share of the world steel market, where we have lost our share, become immediately real, and from then on I would very much hope that the plant which British Steel proposes keeping in operation will enable more people to be taken on again. There is also the fact that the market has been depressed.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many people will share the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, for those who will be made redundant;and for that same reason will he make certain that no part of the £460 million allocated as redundancy compensation for those unfortunate people, is frittered away by using it as bribe money to call off the strike?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, the Government have been consistently firm about the figures concerned, and for 1980–81 the cash limit of £450 million, which includes both capital and redundancy payments, will be used for those purposes and for no others.
Lord MISHCON: My Lords, as the original Question dealt with the cost to the taxpayer, will the noble Viscount tell the House the cost to the taxpayer of what is now fast becoming the longest stoppage post-war;and will he indicate when the Government will have the courage and the decency to intervene in order to stop what is something completely damaging to the whole of our industry?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, the noble Lord assumes that the cost of the present strike, which is undoubtedly bound to be very real at the moment to the British Steel Corporation, will be borne by the taxpayers. It is the Government's view that the extra costs of the strike at the current time will merely result in a need for British Steel to take the same actions as any other private corporation, and to ensure that the extra costs are met by a reduction of stocks, by (if necessary) disposal of assets, and—I hope not, but if necessary—by the loss of even more
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jobs. Therefore, I hope the House will join in asking that without delay the two parties should get together and resolve this dispute in the way which is perfectly possible, bearing in mind the amount of money that has been put into this industry.

WILD CREATURES AND PLANTS BILL: HARE COURSING
3.1 p.m.
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now expedite the reintroduction into Parliament of the Conservation of Wild Creatures and Wild Plants (Amendment) Bill and whether they will include in it a clause to abolish live hare coursing in Northern Ireland.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, when my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale asked the leave of the House to withdraw his Bill on 21st June 1979, I said that the Government were willing to take cognizance of his proposed legislation. Regretfully, our Wildlife and Countryside Bill, which would have taken account of his proposals, has had to be postponed because of pressure on parliamentary time. However, it remains the Government's intention to introduce that Bill, in its entirety, as soon as parliamentary time permits. We have no intention of introducing legislation to abolish hare coursing either in Great Britain or Northern Ireland.
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for his reply, do I take it that he indicates that Her Majesty's Government do not intend to honour the undertaking given by the previous Administration, which stated that it was their firm intention to abolish hare coursing in Northern Ireland? Will the noble Lord also be good enough to report on the progress made by the working group set up in 1978 to make recommendations on wildlife protection —whose report was originally hoped to have been ready by Easter 1979? Furthermore, is the noble Lord aware of the revolt and disgust felt by many of the

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population in Northern Ireland at this barbaric, so-called sport, which I myself went to view before first raising it in your Lordships' House?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I should point out to the noble Lord that it is in no way this Government's task to honour the last Government's promises. On the noble Lord's point about the working group on animal and bird conservation, when published the Government's Bill will show that we have gone a long way towards meeting all the points that are necessary, including the European Community regulations. On the noble Lord's point about legislation prohibiting hare coursing, we are aware that there are groups and individuals in Northern Ireland who object to hare coursing, but, as the Select Committee pointed out, to pass Bills is not necessarily the best way to prevent cruelty. The Select Committee suggested that a code of practice for hare coursing might be better.
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the population of hares in Northern Ireland has declined drastically? If he thinks that legislation is not the way to deal with this, can he possibly make another suggestion?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, there has been a fair amount of experience of legislation over a number of years, and although it is very easy to express sympathy for the hare, it is exceedingly difficult to protect an animal which is the natural quarry of dogs. I believe that to regulate coursing is probably an easier way out of this problem.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, when the noble Lord said that it was no part of the present Government's purpose to honour the promises of the previous Administration, can he say whether that is a universal rule that is to be applied, whatever the quality or nature of the promise may be?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, no. I am happy to tell the noble and learned Lord that where the last Government had good intentions, we shall honour them;where we think they had bad intentions, we shall not honour them.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I had kippers for breakfast? On a rather more serious point, will he agree that the object of conservation is to achieve a balance between land use—the status and species of animals and plants—and the legitimate needs of man, and to maintain that balance? In this context, will he further agree that hares are currently in balance and, therefore, do not need the protection of conservation legislation. Furthermore, can he also say when the Government's planned discussion document on the Countryside Bill is due to be published?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I am happy to know that the noble Lord had a good breakfast. I thank him for his remarks, with which I totally agree. On his last question, about a discussion document, we shall produce our paper very shortly.
Lord BLEASE: My Lords, will the Minister agree that the present legislation for the protection and welfare of animals in Northern Ireland, such as the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876—which is over 100 years old—is sadly out-of-date and completely inadequate? Will he also not agree that there is an urgent need for a progressive review and revision of this legislation?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I was not particularly aware of what the noble Lord has just said, but I shall take note of it and pass it to my right honourable friends concerned.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, is it not more unusual than usual for someone asking a supplementary question from one of the Front Benches to read the supplementary question?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, happily, that is not a question for me to answer.

EDUCATION: ASSISTE PLACES SCHEME
3.7 p.m.
Viscount SIMON: 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 from what fund it is proposed to finance the assisted places scheme contained in Clause 17 of the Education (No. 2) Bill now before Parliament if that Bill becomes law.
The MINISTER of STATE DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Baroness Young): My Lords, the Government intend to finance the assisted places scheme from funds which Parliament will be invited to vote in the usual way.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Baroness for that reply. But if it is to be funded from funds which Parliament will later vote, surely if Parliament elected not to vote those funds, the funds would be available for other purposes, would they not?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, on this particular point the Treasury allowed for additional expenditure on this scheme because it was a commitment in the party manifesto.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that this is a new policy being adopted by noble Lords opposite?—because the great Winston Churchill said that no party should be held to anything "stuck in a manifesto." Since when was that "stuck in the manifesto?"
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I will tell the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, that in fact we agreed the principle of this scheme in 1975, when unfortunately his Government decided to phase out the direct grant scheme. It was included in our manifesto;we included it in the Queen's Speech;and we are legislating upon it.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, as the Minister has said, and we know, that the Treasury is making more money available for this particular scheme, is she taking into account what was said by several of her noble friends—including the noble Lord, Lord Butler, in the Second Reading debate—that the money would be better used in helping to transport children to school?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I have read with great interest everything that has been said in the debate on the Second Reading of this Bill, and no doubt we shall have plenty of opportunity to debate it further in the Committee proceedings next week.

BUSINESS
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, I understand that, in view of the number of speakers on the main debate today, the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, has decided not to ask his Unstarred Question at the end of today's business. I thought that it might be for the convenience of the House to know this now. I know that your Lordships' will be grateful to the noble Lord for the consideration that he has shown in this, not only to your Lordships but also to the servants of the House.

HOME AND CIVIL DEFENCE
3.10 p.m.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH rose to call attention to lack of adequate home and civil defence;and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships will remember that on 12th December last we had a short debate on reserves. Many of your Lordships taking part in that debate expressed a desire to have a longer debate on the subject of home and civil defence, including the noble Lords, Lord Peart and Lord Inglewood. Like Caesar's Gaul the matter we are discussing this afternoon can be divided into three parts. First, the reason for home and civil defence;secondly, home defence;and thirdly, civil defence. The latter two, to my mind, are like Belloc's Marmoset and Man; intimately linked. However, before we get to those main subjects——
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, might we possibly ask those who regulate the amplification equipment to increase volume because we are most anxious to hear this introductory speech in a very important debate. It would be easier if we could have a little more volume so that we can hear it with pleasure and ease.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, being deaf, I was not aware of the fact that I was not speaking loudly enough. Let us first get out of the way that body of opinion, small but somewhat vociferous at times, that would welcome a Russian dominated world;like that foreign politician from that State which is the uncertain cork in the Baltic bottle whose only defence policy would be to have a tape recorder saying in Russian that he would surrender;or like that far Left Member of another place who told me that he would abolish all defence services and the police, to be replaced by a workers' militia. If they had their way then they would make us a vast East European State or, at best, a Finland. To my mind we would be surrendering our so-called Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity. Faith and hope in the future of our people and our country—and of course charity is said to begin at home anyway. I would rather go along with the advice that General Eisenhower gave us in 1945 when he was made a citizen of London. He said, "Don't sell your liberty for mere existence".
Now to get on with the subject in hand. The West could have defeated Russia in the 1950s, got by in the 1960s, and perhaps the time could have been expanded a bit by the differences between China and Russia, but that era has now gone. Witness last year's Cuba crisis. I think most people missed the political signicance of that episode. The Russians, by not allowing President Carter a bone to save his face, gave notice to the world that she would henceforth do as she liked because her military might was now superior to that of the West. That was reinforced by the Soviet 1st Deputy Minister of Defence who reminded a member of the United States Armed Forces Committee last year:
"…the Soviet Union has superiority over the United States, and henceforth the USA will be threatened".
The weapons to defend us in the 1980s should have been building in the 1960s. The NATO weapons acquisition systems take at least 15 years to develop. And we all know what we did in the 1960s. I remind your Lordships of the P.1154;the TSR 2;15 Regular Army battalions, and the Territorial Army as a home defence force abolished. The noble Lord,
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Lord Orr-Ewing, has said before in this House that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. I think bad men did something.
Now let us take a quick look at the comparison of the intermediate range delivery systems in Europe. Russia has, I am told, 130 SS.20 missile launchers. The SS.20 is the world's most advanced intermediate range missile;three independently targeted warheads. I do not say anything else but that they can reach us now. She has 60 plus TU.26 Backfire bombers;450 older missile launchers and 350 older long-range bombers, against NATO's 56 Vulcan bombers and 365 F.1-11 strike aircraft. When it comes to shorter range the advantage is even greater on the side of the Warsaw Pact. In the past three years we have heard—and I am talking now about the members of the All-Party Defence Study Group—from our top military leaders, particularly sea and air, that this country can now be attacked from the West as well as from the East.
It is estimated that as a major NATO base we could expect up to 400 Soviet air sorties in the first 24 hours of a confrontation. As the main reinforcement staging platform that could well be a possibility. Personally I see the weak flanks going first and so isolating Western Europe, leaving it to wither on the vine. In that context I would remind those of your Lordships who attended that particular meeting of the talk that was given to us by the ex-commander of NATO Forces North.
If that is the case, and it could be, then let us ask ourselves what we have got to defend the homeland. I am tempted to reply to that by an expression that doubtless is still as current in the armed forces as it was in my day, but I leave it to your Lordships' imagination or perhaps memory to know what the answer would be. Let me start with the Senior Service. I shall leave details to those more versed than I to dot the i's and cross the t's. From the little I know, it seems that our few frigates, minesweepers, fishery protection vessels, are completely inadequate to meet the task. A few years ago the Government were about to abolish conventional submarines. I went to my son-in-law, who happens to be a nuclear submariner. He pointed out to me that

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we could not use nuclear submarines in the Channel or the North Sea because they need too much water. Therefore, nuclear submarines are no use in home defence, and home defence includes oil rigs inter alia. Thank goodness that particular decision was reversed!
I ask the Government, are they satisfied that we have adequate home defence from a naval point of view? Convoy protection. Compare the number of Russian submarines with those that Hitler had which nearly brought us to our knees. Following on that, what reserves of food, raw materials, have we stored away for an emergency? I do not ask for secrets;I just ask for assurance.
What about air defence of the homeland? What we have and what we have coming along I am informed is very good—that it is the top of the pops—but surely it is inadequate. How much of what we have and what we have coming along is committed to NATO? Are the Government satisfied with the number of aircraft based in this country that could be used for home defence? Are they satisfied with the supply of trained pilots, not only for now but in an emergency? This question of course applies to all the services;trained men in the naval dockyards and the industries that support them—shipbuilding, the aircraft and tank production industries, the lot: they are all part of home defence.
In the defence of this country the main element must be anti-aircraft and antiballistic missile systems, and I refer your Lordships to the remarks I made about the SS.20. Some noble Lords will remember that at the beginning of the last war there was quite a military scandal because a large number of the new antiaircraft guns arriving for the defence of London were found to have their breach blocks missing. I have a horrid feeling that the modern equivalent for the defence of, say, London or Birmingham have more than their breach blocks missing. A further question in relation to air defences is: are we satisfied that we have enough of the RAF Regiment to defend our aerodromes? And when we consider that our aerodromes are to be the staging platform for reinforcements to NATO, perhaps that should be taken into account.
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Before dealing with our forces on land for home defence, I would point out what I consider to have been a number of wrong assumptions that have put us in the position we are in today, wrong assumptions made by our political leaders and their advisers over the past 20 years. The first and most important was the assumption that we would have the nuclear umbrella from the United States for all time. That started the rot—the abolition of national service, the Territorial Army and civil defence—and it had a lot to do with the trip-wire theory. The second assumption was that Russia was arming only for self-defence. Only last month I was talking to the father of an undergraduate doing war studies at one of our universities and he told me that that is still what is being taught. I should have thought that Afghanistan was only the last of a long line of incidents to disprove that assumption.
The third wrong assumption—I maintain it was—is that the Home Office planners have assumed that there would be three weeks' warning of war. It is my opinion that that is wrong. I do not think there would be more than four days' warning, and if, as some people say, the Russians are planning for an attack from a standing start, which I would do if I were a Russian general, four hours might be more like it. The fourth wrong assumption is that it was thought that the last two wars would be over by Christmas. In September 1939 I was serving in what was then the North-West of India and I made myself a darned nuisance to all and sundry trying to get back to Europe because I thought I would miss the party. How wrong I was! There are ominous signs that our planners are still suffering from that same mental aberration—the idea of a short war;otherwise, how can one explain the lack of spare parts and trained manpower in all the Services?
The fifth wrong assumption, following from the previous one of a short war, is that there is no need for industrial and general mobilisation plans and the necessary training centres. Sixthly, it is assumed that nuclear war would involve mass suicide and that nobody could hope to win. Again, I believe that to be wrong. Soviet nuclear weapons are extremely accurate, which, incidentally, is why the Americans would he well

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advised to move their ICBMs out of their silos. Civil defence precautions can reduce civilian casualties by 30 per cent. according to our figures, although the Swiss say 80 per cent. and the Russians also say 80 per cent.
The seventh assumption is that Britain could not be invaded. But she can be attacked from all sides, and surely you can expect enemy agents to be here among our own fifth column even before the first attack. Do you expect, for example, the IRA to cease their machinations the day the balloon goes up? It is assumed, eighthly—and this is the last wrong assumption to my mind—that Britain's only role is to reinforce NATO, and all our plans are based on that. Wrong again. I maintain we shall not have time for the Army of the Rhine, badly deployed, to reach their forward positions or for the TA.2 to reinforce their Regulars, and therefore Britain's primary role must now be to survive as NATO's forward base.
That brings me to home defence proper, namely men on the ground. We need men on the ground to defend vital points, to control panic, evacuation, looting, to guard against infiltrators, parachutists and the one hundred and one things we all remember being done by Captain Main-waring and his arch-enemy the air raid warden in the last war. Perhaps I may be permitted to reminisce slightly just to illustrate the point. In 1944 I was operating with the Italian partisans on the western flank of the Appenines. A couple of us and a handful of Italians had made the railway unworkable by destroying the main tunnel and bridges in the Val di Taro;then we put the road through La Cisa Pass out of order;and then we turned to the coast road between Genoa and La Spezia, which was very hilly. The allied air forces kept the German convoys off during the day and by our night attacks, with an ample use of "crows feet ", sten guns, hand grenades and so on, we put that road out of action. Mind you, that turned to our personal disadvantage, because the Germans were then forced to use escorted sea barge convoys during the night, and one of those interrupted one of our attempts to get some ex-prisoners of war away. Our MTB, just coming in, was met by a Brock's display, some of which was directed at where they thought we
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were and we had a very steep climb up the cliff. My "ward ", if that is the right word to use, at the time was the late father-in-law of my noble and gallant friend Lord Carver. The point I am trying to make is that if a couple of us and a handful of guerrillas could do that in an area where there was supposed to be a Volksdeutsche division as well as the fascist militia, think what could be done in large areas of Scotland, the North of England, Wales, the moors and the South-West. Really to think that we could get away with having nothing on the ground in those sort of cases is, I believe, nonsense. We have no reserves, no Dad's Army. Why?—because we abolished first national service, then the Territorial Army, then the civil defence;and I should like to finish my speech by discussing those three subjects.
First, I shall deal with national service. There has been much ill-informed mythology put out about national service. It does not have to be all square-bashing;it can be for the one hundred and one reserves we need in civil defence and the social services, and for specialists of all types. When I was a regular soldier in Malaya in 1948, almost 60 per cent. of my company were national servicemen. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, who tried to question the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, on this subject earlier in another debate, that we well knew what to do with them. What we regulars in those days did not like about national service was having to send our best NCOs and our best junior officers off to train them, because it made it harder to keep up the standards of our own units. But that was a selfish attitude, and I plead guilty to having taken it at that time.
In 1966 I was coming across Salisbury Plain on my way to your Lordships' House. I was running short of petrol, and I went into a filling station. The petrol pump attendant looked at me, and said, "You're Major Clifford, aren't you? "I murmured something about having been so some time ago, and he said, I did my national service in your company in Malaya. You know, we grumbled a lot at the time, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I've two boys growing up now, and I'm scared stiff about what is going to happen to them now we've no national service". I

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maintain that reintroduction of some modified national service would solve the problems raised in our debate on 12th December, and many others, too—not least some of the social problems.
I turn now to the Territorial Army. The Territorial Army, as we used to have it, was perhaps in need of some reform. What organisation invented by man is not from time to time? But I should like to put it on record, because there has been much nastiness uttered on this subject, that when I commanded a Territorial Army battalion from 1957 to 1960 all my senior officers and NCOs had had war service, and all the junior ones had done national service, and when we went to annual camp our numbers were not far short of the numbers of certain regular units now going off to do their four months' stint in Northern Ireland. With the aftermath of national service reserve training we could have mobilised up to strength like that. Therefore, I believe that the massacre of the Territorial Army in 1967 was inexcusable, to say the least.
One of the advantages of the TA in those days was that we had a large number of drill halls. This was especially true in the rural areas. My battalion had 16 spread all over the place, and there were three other major units and a host of minor ones. Now the TA.3 unit of which I am honorary colonel, has three, 70 miles apart, and two of them are shared. They have now all been turned into bingo halls, or pulled down, or converted, much to the disadvantage of home defence in terms of places for civil defence training, mobilisation, and a hundred and one other things, particularly in rural areas.
When, in the Napoleonic Wars, the French Admiral Tate sailed up the Bristol Channel, he saw as he came along the North coast of Cornwall and Devon the local yeomanry and militia blocking any possible landing place. He then turned North to South Wales, where his landing party were obliterated by the local yeomanry, commanded by a then Member of your Lordships' House. Those who do not learn the lessons of history are compelled to repeat their mistakes. That is another quotation.
But the great thing about the TA when
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we had it was its integration with civil defence. One year in four was a civil defence training year. There were special training camps built for the purpose. The one that my unit attended was at Millom, in Cumberland. All aspects were covered, including rescue from bomb-damaged buildings, fire fighting, radiac instrument training—the lot. Three years later in 1962, when I was a deputy brigade commander, we had a nationwide civil defence exercise, which I co-ordinated. There was a simulated nuclear bomb attack on Bristol and Plymouth. In that exercise we had at the headquarters all the top liaison officers of all those connected with home and civil defence: the police—and what use we made of the special constables;the auxiliary fire services—remember the "green godesses";the WVS;the Red Cross;the St. John Ambulance;the local government services;as well as the trained civil defence organisation and the Territorial Army. In those days all the senior officers of those services had generally graduated at the Civil Defence Staff College at Sunningdale.
In 1967 we as good as abolished the TA. The TAVR.3, the home defence element which was left, was reduced in my county—and it is not one of the smallest in this country—to a cadre of eight men. Remember, my Lords, TAVR.2 was allocated to reinforce NATO.
In 1968 we abolished civil defence, and Sunningdale was turned into a staff college for civil servants—the only national growth industry of recent years. The police Civil Defence College at Fallowfield is now a prison.
That brings me to the last section, civil defence. There have always been in this country a number of people who have refused to lie down under the stupidities of their masters. One such was a small civil defence unit in Plymouth. It refused to give up, it kept on, on its own, with no support, and it formed the basis of what we now have in Devon, under my chairmanship—a 1,000-member strong unit called the Devon Emergency Volunteers. Many other counties have started their own bodies, and—as your Lordships will know if you have read the Press—some places are concerned about this matter and have started their own local organisations. What we want the Government

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to do is to give a lead, to co-ordinate an umbrella organisation, to encourage a body of volunteer men and women ready to assist their fellows in any emergency, including the worst.
In recent years we have, as I see it, been bedevilled by sectional interests. The generals, told to make cuts, took it out on the TA. The Police Federation took it out on the specials. The firefighters took it out on the AFS;and one has only to think of the last "winter of discontent ", to remember when NUPE gave such kicks in the teeth to bodies like the Red Cross, the St. John's Ambulance and the WRVS.
Therefore the prerequisite for an effective civil defence organisation is that it must be a grass-roots community effort, based on the parish in the country and the ward in the cities. Mind you, my Lords, something like that has a spin-off for those in the regular services. I remember in the desert during the war when we used to listen to the news on our wireless sets. I had a cockney at my squadron headquarters. London had been bombed again, and I asked him whether he was unduly worried. He said: "Oh, not much, sir. You see, old Jeff so-and-so, who is the warden, is a great friend of the family. My uncle Fred is a firewatcher. So if anything happens to my family, first they'd look after them, and second they'd let me know". I think that that shows one of the points that should always be borne in mind about having a civil defence organisation.
The great upsurge in public demand for an adequate civil defence organisation has been mirrored by several Press articles recently. Four such articles by Peter Evans in The Times (in which my organisation got quite a write-up) were followed by a leader headed, "A lethal failure of duty "—Government, please note.
The Daily Telegraph of 4th February had a long leader headed, "Self-Defence ", and commencing:
" A nationwide organisation for civil defence is essential to the security of the realm".
It went on to say that every Chinese child knows the way to the air-raid shelter, and pointed out later the efforts made in Sweden and Switzerland—neutral countries who do a damned sight more than we do. I would have added Norway, where every male between the age of
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16 and 60 has a niche in his country's emergency defence. For example, no new house can be built without its built-in air-raid shelter—its wine cellar, or whatever you like. The Daily Telegraph ended its article by saying:
" The time is ripe for the whole of Britain to follow the example of the Devonians".
As chairman of the aforementioned Devonians, I hereby offer the Government the results of our experiences and our mistakes, so that we can perhaps now get a countrywide organisation.
I would add one more thing about the volunteers. They must be controlled by the volunteers;your permanent advisers must be just that. My last job as a regular soldier was as a training major to a TA battallion, and I was just that. My CO was a local bank manager, and that was also helpful. That is how a civil defence organisation should be run. Memories are long, my Lords. What happened in 1968 is that, because the civil defence organisation was controlled by the Government, it was abolished. The other parts of home and civil defence, because they were independent—the Red Cross, the St. John Ambulance—were able to continue. Only last month I met a man who had been the head of the Hampstead area of the old civil defence. He told me how, when its abolition was announced in 1968, grown men just sat down and wept. So you must be careful. If you are going to resuscitate—and, please God!, do—a civil defence organisation, do not put it under the control of either the Government or local govern-ment. Let the volunteers provide the advisers, because they are afraid that you have only to get a change of government, local or national, and they will be abolished.
Finally, the Home Office should no longer delay the publication of its pamphlet Protect and Survive. It should be rewritten it should be updated it should include something to do with the recent terrific increase in chemical and biological warfare by the Russians;and, for the rural areas, you should re-issue the sectional part to do with the farmers. The argument that it should not be issued because it would cause panic does not hold water. Anyway, it is much better to have a panic buying of, say, tinned food now than to have a panic buying of tinned food too late.

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I am sorry I have gone on for so long but I would say, finally, that unless you release training equipment soonest we shall not be able to get our volunteers trained in time—and I hope that the Home Office has not "flogged "the lot. I would say just this: please remember that civil defence is essential to our overall defence strategy. Other countries have recognised it;it is time we did. I beg to move for Papers.
3.44 p.m.
Lord MACKIE , of BENSHIE: My Lords, I am sure the whole House will be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for enabling us to debate this matter, which is vital to our national survival. I must warn your Lordships that I am going to bring down the average speaking time considerably, and that I am not going to speak for very long. I want to make only one point. The noble Lord, Lord Clifford, thought that might deal with the air defence of this country. I must say that my experience of 40 years ago in Wellingtons and Lancasters hardly qualifies me for speaking on this matter at the present day, especially when down on the enormous list of speakers we have field marshals and generals with recent staff experience. But I should like to say (perhaps in slight disagreement with the noble Lord) that in our party and from these Benches we have always placed our trust in NATO, in combination with our allies, in the best and most economical use of our resources together with our allies;and that we are pleased (not delighted, perhaps, but certainly pleased) that members of NATO have agreed to up their spending by a real 3 per cent. I think that is an important step, and it is one which we may well need to take further;but there is no question or shadow of doubt in our minds at all but that the core of our defence must lie in our association with NATO.
However, defence is indivisible, and I should like to talk for a very short time on civil defence. As I understand it from the Adjournment Debate in another place, we are at the present moment spending £22 million a year on keeping civil defence in cold storage. I think we must re-examine this, as the Government are doing, and I understand that they have promised the result of their review
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some time after the Easter Recess. We look forward to that eagerly;but such is the interest in the subject throughout the country at the present time that I hope the Minister will give us at least part of the answer in his reply to this debate today.
My Lords, I was recently in China with the parliamentary delegation led by the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, and there we had an interview lasting some two hours with the No. 5 man in that enormous nation, a Vice-Premier. He was talking about China's attitude to the Russian threat. He said, "Of course we would be beaten, overcome, in a nuclear war, but we could lose 100 million people, 200 million people, 300 million people "—and he repeated these horrifying figures up to 500 million people—" but we would still survive". The point of this story is that his determination was enormously convincing;and it was quite obvious that they were taking immense precautions in civil defence, and that the whole people were trained or at least informed. Today, our people are not informed. People are in entire ignorance of what they might do in case of a nuclear attack.
If the great deterrent is to deter—and the whole purpose of defence now must be to stop war—then we need to be credible. All I want to ask the Minister is: Does he really think that the £22 million spent on keeping civil defence in cold storage is enough? I do not think it is enough to make us credible, and I think that we must do more if the rest of our efforts are to bear the fruit we want, which is, of course, to stop war and keep us safe.
3.49 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): My Lords, this debate is being held at a time when the reality of the threat to the Western Alliance is uppermost in our minds, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for initiating a debate on matters which require the attention of Parliament. Indeed, this debate has attracted as speakers a long list of your Lordships who have first-hand experience of the many matters which fall within the scope of the noble Lord's

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Motion today—speakers who include the next speaker, my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, who will be speaking for the first time in this House. I must say that chairmanship of Ways and Means ought to qualify someone admirably for finding methods of solving the intractable problems of civil defence. I and, I know, all noble Lords will be looking forward to hearing the noble Lord for the first time.
I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for wording his Motion in the way he has. Because the noble Lords, Lord Mackie of Benshie and Lord Clifford, with their first-hand knowledge of military matters have made the interesting speeches that they have, I intend, if your Lordships will allow me, to concentrate on the civil defence aspects;but I say that recognising fully that these form a part of the defence strategy. This is not a defence debate but it is right (is it not?) that we should remember the need for the fullest credibility in the United Kingdom's determination to defend itself.
Our defence strategy is based firmly on our membership of NATO and our deterrent philosophy requires us to be able to respond to aggression at any level. We deploy forces in Germany as part of our contribution to the conventional forward defence of NATO territory;we provide the majority of the ready naval forces in the Eastern Atlantic;we contribute nuclear forces to the alliance and we have strategic nuclear forces in the shape of our Polaris submarines. We must be ready to use any or all of these forces, conventional and nuclear, to resist aggression. But, in addition, one of the essential military tasks is home defence, which can perhaps more accurately be described as the defence of the United Kingdom.
Those words involve our national sovereignty. They also recognise the very important factor that this country in time of war would be the main base for the reinforcing of NATO. Defence of the United Kingdom includes, as the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, has said, among other things, intercepting air attacks, guarding key points against sabotage and reinforcing the forces of the NATO Alliance. But home defence also involves our will to survive when under attack and our ability
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to recover thereafter. Thus, in addition to the whole range of conventional and nuclear military capability, we have got to have a commitment to civil defence.
So, early last summer, the Government authorised a thorough-going study which was held in November at the Home Defence College at Easingwold, in Yorkshire. Before then, on behalf of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, I had visited the college to see at first-hand the work which the principal, Air-Marshal Sir Leslie Mayor, and his dedicated staff have been doing there for over seven years. Civil defence, above all, is about people: their functions in the event of attack, their morale and their survival. I should like to pay tribute to the manner in which Sir Leslie and the staff of the college have shown to all those who go to the college that civil defence planning is an effective preparation for dealing with the aftermath of nuclear attack.
The November study at Easingwold has formed an integral part of the wide-ranging review of home defence which the Home Secretary has instituted. This review involves virtually all departments of Government. If I may pick up one of the points which the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, made, I should like to give him the assurance that this review is reexamining the planning assumptions upon which our home defence ought to be based;and, in doing so, it is taking serious account of the possibilities of conventional air attack on this country. Also, the speed with which an international crisis could deepen would have major implications far across the whole spectrum of home defence for both local and central Government, for all the public utilities and essential services, and for the peace-time emergency services, the police, fire and ambulance. All these considerations are forming part of this review.
But the Government must keep a close eye on expenditure and ensure that any improvements to the existing arrangements will be fully cost-effective. The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, had every right to point out that the present annual home defence expenditure of £22 million in real terms is not high. In fact, in real terms it is three times less than home defence expenditure in 1968 when civil defence was put on a care-and-maintenance basis. But there is no doubt that the

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money being spent on civil defence at the moment is being used to considerable effect. The United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation is at a high state of readiness;there is provision for wartime government and broadcasting;essential training is taking place;we maintain strategic stocks of food, medical supplies and special equipment;and the Government continue to provide 75 per cent. of the cost of approved expenditure on local authority planning. We shall ensure that the cost of additional policy options is thoroughly examined in this review so that the public can see what it is we need to do and what, as a country, as taxpayers, we are willing to see spent in this area.
The noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, spoke about the value of the voluntary effort and, particularly, of the value of the work of the Territorial Army. Many noble Lords will know from personal experience how absolutely crucial is voluntary service in time of war. I think we would all agree that it is remarkable that the voluntary spirit continues to contribute so greatly to civil defence in time of peace. In addition to the activities and the dedication of our reserve forces, there is the efficient and unobtrusive way in which members of the Royal Observer Corps go about their duties. Some 10,000 members of the ROC constitute the field force of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation. They are all part-time volunteers with the exception of some 70 full-time officers. I have had the opportunity to meet their commanding officer, Air Commodore Howe, and I have seen something of the valuable work which the ROC do. As I said in reply to a Question by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing last week, the radiac equipment of the ROC has been maintained in good working condition. The men and women of the ROC stand ready to provide an essential warning of patterns and levels of radiation fall-out following a nuclear attack.
Less well-known are the body of volunteer scientific advisers who train for their designated wartime roles at county, regional and sub-regional headquarters —men of considerable qualifications and commitments who give of their time and
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effort voluntarily and unsparingly. Then there are those voluntary organisations which make their considerable contribution at local level—and at national level as well—to civil defence preparation: the British Red Cross Society, the St. John Ambulance Association and Brigade and the Women's Royal Voluntary Service. I realise that many people regret the absence now of the Auxiliary Fire Service and the Civil Defence Corps which were disbanded in 1968.
I should like to make it crystal clear that the Government are anxious to see greater encouragement for volunteers and our present review is paying particular attention to this. But I think that we may find that the key to this lies in locally-organised effort. The noble Lord, Lord Clifford, presides over a body of truly county status—which he spoke about with pride—the Devon Emergency Volunteers. I know that they have been in regular touch with the local authority and they have played their part in informing local communities in Devon of the protective measures which might usefully be taken should war threaten. They have also given valuable help in times of severe weather and flooding.
Other counties are also active in the same cause and undoubtedly possess citizens with similar experience and personal qualities, and the way the Government are thinking at the moment is to urge local authorities to tap the voluntary effort within their areas, so that civil defence planning can be more effective at community level. In speaking, incidentally, of voluntary effort, I am not forgetting the work of the National Voluntary Civil Aid Services of which H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh is patron. This, too, is a voluntary body, which I am sure your Lordships will agree commends itself to the local authorities in the discharge of their planning responsibilities under the 1974 regulations.
My Lords, I am absolutely certain in my own mind that we all respond best when we know the facts of a situation. One way in which the Government believe that this can be achieved is by publishing the booklet which is called Protect and Survive. There is nothing secret about this publication, but what has happened is that only about 2,250 copies have been

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printed in the past and most are distributed for training and planning purposes. Until now, the plan has been to print and distribute a copy for every household in times of crisis. Now the Government have decided to update the booklet and put it on sale at about the time my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announces the outcome of the civil defence review, which he hopes will be soon after the Easter Recess.
In 1978—just two years ago—two Conservative MPs, Mr. Banks, the Member for Harrogate, and Mr. Hodgson who was at that time a Member in another place, published a pamphlet which was called:Britain's Home Defence Gamble. It was an important contribution, because the authors methodically put the case for home defence, examined the policy and then made recommendations for the future. In our review we are taking a close look at all the points to which Robert Banks and Robin Hodgson particularly drew attention—and not least their call for more effective co-ordinating machinery.
As to that, let us not underestimate the work of the emergency planning teams of the GLC and the county councils, nor the work of the county emergency planning officers. I hope, if I may say so, that your Lordships who have experience of voluntary organisations will tell the House of how you see the co-ordination at county level working out in practice: but may I end by saying a word about two services which are crucial to civil defence.
The first of those two services is the police who have standing plans for its role in war and those plans are reviewed regularly. Each home defence region has one of its chief constables designated as regional police commander who is in regular contact with the local authorities and other bodies who have home defence responsibilities: and training, both locally and at the Home Defence College, form part of police training for duties in time of war.
In all this, the role of the Voluntary Special Constabulary is of the greatest importance. In an emergency, the Special Constabulary would be a vital addition to the forces with which they have worked and trained, and this is a contributory
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reason why the Police Advisory Board has recently set up a working party—as I was able to tell my noble friend Lora Inglewood recently—in order to try to look into the ways of how to reverse the reduction in numbers of the Special Constabulary which has occurred in recent years.
The other service is the Fire Service. Forty years ago, firemen played a wartime role which will never be forgotten. If called upon again, the peacetime manpower of brigades would be augmented by the enrolment as soon as possible into full-time service of as many part-time retained men as possible. There arc about 3,850 fire appliances in use throughout the country and these would be reinforced by the 1,000 "green godesses "and other equipment held in store which has been refurbished and brought into a state of readiness for emergency use.
My Lords, I hope that I have spoken with some realism to the House this afternoon. The expenditure implications of some aspects of our review are potentially very serious, and it is going to be for Parliament and for the country to decide what additional responsibilities we are going to be able to shoulder. If ever there was an area of public policy which involves us all, it is surely home defence. That is why we have decided to publish Protect and Survive; that is why we shall be coming to Parliament with the outcome of our review. That is why I welcome this debate today——
Lord DUNCAN-SANDYS: My Lords, would the Minister, before he sits down, refer to the provision of air raid shelters, which he has not mentioned?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I can certainly do so. I was hoping that I might be free to do so when I wind up, if the noble Lord will forgive me. If the noble Lord will not be here at such a late hour, may I say very briefly that the provision of shelter accommodation—which I know is an absolutely vital question—forms part of my right honourable friend's review. Meanwhile, going on within the Home Office—and it has been going on for some time—is a most urgent study of how it may be possible to advise the public that they can have easily-provided family shelters against

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nuclear fall-out. That is the work which is going on at the moment. Meanwhile, after Easter I hope that I shall be in a position, along with my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, to be reporting to the public on shelter accommodation in a rather wider ambit.
4.7 p.m.
Lord MURTON of LINDISFARNE: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Belstead for the very kind remarks which he made regarding myself during part of his speech. I must confess that, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems to me that it was a mistake by the Government in 1968 when they decided to put home defence on to a care-and-maintenance basis. In this respect, my Lords, I would in the short time that I shall detain you refer only to home defence in its civil defence aspect. We were told in effect at that time that money spent on civil defence was in the nature of an insurance premium;and that it was the Government's duty to balance the size of the premium against the risks involved. The risks were supposed to have lessened and therefore the premium would be reduced—and indeed so it was.
Domestic economic pressure obviously played some part in that decision, although there was a general belief at that time in the military concept of a strategic stalemate. A situation was envisaged in which an assault by one power upon another would risk certain political, military and economic destruction in a retaliatory attack. This was the concept, I understand, of "Mutually Assured Destruction "—MAD for short—and if I may suggest it, mad in fact in execution should that ever have occurred.
Before that crucial decision in 1968, civil defence had been recognised as an active as well as an integral part of national defence strategy. It had the role of limiting damage to the home base. Its purpose was to minimise human casualties;to ensure the survival of government and the machinery of government;to maintain law and order and to save some of our industrial capacity from total destruction. The change of Government in 1970 brought no significant difference in attitude or belief, and I mention this in order to be entirely impartial in any criticism that I make and to keep myself nut of controversy on this occasion.
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Signs of some heightening of international tension, mainly as a result of the Russian incursion into Afghanistan, have brought the question of home defence again into sharp focus. Many of us are becoming apprehensive about the low level of preparedness. In this connection, I am reassured by what my noble friend Lord Belstead has said this afternoon. However, it must be conceded that there are two schools of thought on this subject. There is one main group which holds the belief that strategic nuclear weapons will never be used. Allied to that group is another school which considers that the chances of mutual devastation are too great to be risked. Again, there are those who believe that if nuclear weapons were used all home defence, whatever its size, would be useless. There are also others who believe that to embark now on a comprehensive programme of building shelters for protection and of building up civil defence would cause an enemy to believe that a pre-emptive missile strike might be contemplated by us and our allies, and that the enemy of the time might react accordingly.
The other school of thought requires that something more positive should now be done. I belong to that persuasion, and indeed I would suggest that although we talk principally of nuclear destruction and the use of missiles with nuclear warheads, we should not forget it is quite possible that in the event of hostilities there could be heavy conventional strikes, using what we used to call "conventional means of delivery".
A first-class United Kingdom warning and monitoring system exists, and the Royal Observer Corps is still very much in being. What is not so clear is the state of readiness and efficiency of the home defence chain of command, comprising regions, sub-regions, local authority district and other councils. I was myself a controller-designate in the early 1960s, after I had reached the age limit for recall to the Territorial Army Reserve of officers. I should doubt very much whether the state of readiness now, overall, is as good as it was nearly 20 years ago—certainly not, it would appear, in some of the lower echelons in the chain of command.
There was an excellent programme on ITV on the 28th February last in Thames Report entitled "The Bomb". The

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deputy leader of a certain London borough was interviewed in the course of that programme. When asked how many of the borough staff were engaged on home defence planning he replied "One". When asked how much the borough spent on home defence preparation last year, he said between £250 and £300. In answer to a further question, he stated that in his borough people were more interested in social security and new roads than in any bomb. He personally was for peace: exactly—but at what price? I suggest, my Lords, that the price would be too high to contemplate.
What we do know is that the annual national expenditure on home defence is only some £32.9 million out-turn, including £13 million for the stock-piling of food. The estimate of expenditure for the coming year is £22.9 million. This brings me to an important point. There is a lack of conscious public awareness of the dangers, not only by the general public but also apparently among some of their elected representatives at local government level: and for that there is little excuse. There has been very little publicity. Notable exceptions are recent articles in The Times, the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph, as the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, has already mentioned—and of course that ITV programme which I have mentioned. All drew attention to the present shortcomings of our home defence organisation. The TV programme did prove a point. A representative sample of people, when asked to stop and think seriously about the nuclear threat, expressed some unease, somewhat naturally, and over 40 per cent. admitted, on thought, to the view that there could well be a nuclear war some day.
Is it right, therefore, to keep people in ignorance unless and until the threat escalates towards reality?—and pray God it never will! Education, instruction and advice should be undertaken now to prevent the possibility of panic and confusion later. An unprepared and uninstructed population is peculiarly susceptible to a war of nerves. We, as a resolute ally of the United States of America, have given agreement in principle to the siting in Britain of American-built and American-manned cruise missiles. This knowledge, coupled with the fact that the United Kingdom, as the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said, in an international crisis will
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be the main base for NATO reinforcements of men and materials from the North American continent, would not be lost on an enemy's strategic thinking.
There must be no appeasement in the face of threatening postures by an enemy. We should be equipped to call his bluff, even to the acceptance that there may be strategic bombing of our ports and airfields in the event of war, whether it be conventional or a nuclear strike. That acceptance only becomes feasible if the morale of the civil population remains reasonably high, and that can only be ensured if the people know that there is a fully-manned, well-trained and confident home defence corps behind them. At its most terrible, a nuclear attack on Britain could be in the order of 200 megatons, which is equal to 13,000 bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima. Even so, it has been estimated that 60 per cent. of the population would survive in the worst-hit zone and up to 95 per cent. in areas least affected.
To some, thoughts of such casualties hardly bear contemplation;but if no precautions to protect the population are taken at all, the overall casualty figure could be 80 per cent. It is calculated that the precautions now advocated by the Home Office, on the basis of family units staying put in their own homes, would reduce the casualty figure overall to 40 per cent. But the significant fact is the belief that if we had properly constructed bombproof shelters, the casualty figures would fall to 20 per cent. The Swiss have decided on such a policy and so have the Swedes. Even the Russians have tackled the problem and, moreover, they spend over £500 million annually on civil defence.
Why should we not reactivate a national volunteer force on home defence? I personally regret the demise of the old Territorial Army. Whether as complete units of reinforcement in the field or as disciplined units in the United Kingdom land force, they were invaluable in time of war. Had they existed now they could have formed a ready source of disciplined manpower for home defence. I naturally acknowledge the spirit and skills of the new Territorial Army volunteers, but they are destined, surely, for an immediate active role as part of the Regular Army. Surely the spirit still exists to serve one's

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country? Cannot our young men and women be encouraged to give up some of their leisure time? We need a home defence corps, an auxiliary fire service, more special constabulary and all the ancillary services.
We must increase our preparedness and we must bear in mind three important considerations. First, if adequate and efficient home defence exists at a moment of crisis, the effect might well result in courageous rather than appeasing political decisions. Secondly, such protection of the civil population as can be achieved is fully justified on political as well as on humanitarian grounds. Thirdly, no Government have the moral right to dismiss any measures which could result in the saving of millions of innocent human beings from extinction.
Mr. Stewart Tendler, in an article in The Times newspaper, quotes George Santavana:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".
My Lords, we have been more than fortunate in two World Wars this century, Let us forget not the lessons which we have learned, at such a cost, in our two victories.
4.21 p.m.
Lord NOEL-BAKER: My Lords, it falls to me congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Murton, on his maiden speech. I am still fairly new. I feel very junior in this august assembly. I still retain a vivid memory of the nervous anguish which a maiden speech can cause. The noble Lord, Lord Murton, has shown no evidence of such nervous anguish. He has notably succeeded in making a very powerful case. I offer him my congratulations and the congratulations of the House. I hope that we shall often hear him in debate in days to come.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for his Motion and I pay tribute, with high respect, to the generous and patriotic motives that made him move it. But I hope he will forgive me if my sympathy ends there. I want to argue in language which some will think waspish. But with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, and to the Minister who has spoken, I want to argue that no measure
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of civil defence, in any war which we can realistically expect to have, will save a single life, and that to nurse a hope of safety from civil defence is to indulge a self-deceiving, futile and dangerous illusion—self-deceiving and futile because, as I said, civil defence will not save our lives;dangerous because it diverts attention from the only policy that gives us any genuine hope. It makes the public think that there will be safety where no safety is. It obscures the fact that the only way to avert disaster is to avert the war, and to abolish those offensive weapons without which aggressions cannot be begun.
Of course, I admit that in theory we can have, as the noble Lord, Lord Murton, has argued, a conventional war or a limited nuclear war in which few low yield weapons would be used. In such a case, civil defence might serve a purpose, I admit. But I believe that those two suppositions are unrealistic in a high degree. If we have a war, I believe that it will be the war which the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, in his famous article in The Times, has predicted. It will be the war of which the late Lord Mountbatten spoke in his speech at Strasbourg. It will be the war which the Home Office, in their manuals of civil defence 20 years ago and now, have warned us will take place.
Twenty years ago, the manuals told us that quite small bombs used on the harbours of our ports might put the ports entirely out of action. They would vaporise 100 million tons of water and blanket the entire area of the port;our sea communications would be cut and our seaborne imports would not come. Defeat might loom. But the manuals also warned us that the main attack on Britain would be made by much larger bombs, by 10 megaton bombs, bombs with a yield of 10 million tons of TNT, and they told us what such bombs would do. They said that in an area 20 miles across everything would be totally destroyed by blast and fire. They said that the area covered by the fall-out would be much greater still. The late Lord Blackett, Patrick Blackett of King's College, estimated that the area would extend 230 miles downwind and 50 miles across at its widest point. He said that 10, 12 or 15 such bombs would put us out of any war.

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I add another judgment, which will carry weight in your Lordships' House. In 1965, two years after he had signed the test ban treaty in Moscow, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, the Lord Chancellor, said in another place:
"Perhaps in a nuclear war some people in America might survive—I do not know. Perhaps some people in Russia might survive—I do not know. But one thing I do know. No one in these islands will survive."
The case against civil defence does not depend alone on judgments such as these, or on the words of great authorities who have said that the whole human race will perish. It rests, also, on our long-sustained and large-scale experience of trying to create a credible system of civil defence. Twenty years ago, we spent a lot of money. NATO had 9 million men in its civil defence forces. But the most memorable experience was in the United States. They spent much more money than we did. They had a very able federal administrator, Mr. Petersen. Mr. Petersen organised exercises on a local, a regional and a national scale. Everybody took part. Even President Eisenhower and his staff flew in a helicopter to an emergency headquarters outside their capital.
Mr. Petersen made the United States very nuclear-minded. The Governor of California never travelled anywhere without his iron rations in his car. He was ready for a sudden nuclear attack. A Christian priest advised his flock that it would be no sin to kill a neighbour, if the neighbour sought to force an entry into his family shelter. The city of Las Vegas raised an armed force of 5,000 men to repel invading Californians, if they should seek to flee from a nuclear attack. The history of American experience is told in Mr. Petersen's annual reports. In 1954, after his exercise, he said there would be 22 million casualties, of whom 7 million would be dead. In 1956 he said that the dead would number 56 million, and in 1957 he said—I quote his words:
"If the whole 170 million Americans had air raid shelters, at least 50 per cent. of them would die in a sudden enemy attack".
He added:
"In the last analysis, there is no such thing as a nation being prepared for thermo-nuclear war".
With those words he buried the great experiment of the United States in civil
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defence. He buried what we were doing in Europe. It ended in failure and oblivion—no, not oblivion.
Noble Lords have recalled it this afternoon and I recall, with a sense of outrage, that our Home Office manuals used to say that civil defence would save millions of lives. I have a sense of outrage that the Home Office is now distributing to every citizen a picture pamphlet with the title "Protect and Survive". I am deeply shocked by the obscene gentility with which they seek to prevent the public from knowing the true facts. They have felt obliged to send a circular to town councillors and mayors which tells them that a bomb would leave so many dead that the corpses must be shovelled into a common grave;religious rites, last wishes and bequests, identification of the bodies would be impossible. They say that that circular is sent only to those who have a need to know and that no other copies are available. With respect, I believe that every citizen has a need to know. I believe he has a right to know that a nuclear holocaust will be a shambles in which every observance of respect for death will be impossible. I think such manuals and pamphlets would be assessed at their true value if people could come to understand what a nuclear bomb is really like.
I speak with feeling. I read for many years the books about the subject. I knew the estimates and the forecasts of the experts but I had no true inkling of what a bomb was like until I went to see Hiroshima, to visit the Peace Museum, to see the photographs of the disaster, to hear the tapes, to talk with survivors—dozens of them who were present in the city when the bomb exploded—to stand on the anniversary day of that explosion beside the cenotaph with the vast concourse of the present citizens and to relive the sequence of terrible events that happened now three and a half decades ago.
I want to try, with the indulgence of the House, and greatly daring, to make your Lordships relive what I relived in Hiroshima beside the cenotaph. I want to make your Lordships feel as though the sequence of events were happening to your Lordships now.
Hiroshima, 6th August 1945, 8.15 a.m., a perfect summer day: gentle breezes,

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sunshine, a blue sky. A blue sky is for happiness in Japan. The streets are full of people: people going to work, people going to shop, people—smaller people—going to school. The air raid siren sounds but no one runs, no one goes to shelter. There is only a single aircraft in this enemy raid. The aircraft steers a course across the city. Above the centre, something falls. It falls and falls-20 seconds, 30 seconds, 40—and then there is a sudden searing flash of blinding light, hotter and brighter than a thousand suns. Those who are looking at it have their eyes burned in their sockets. They will never look on men or things again.
In the street below other people are walking—a lady as beautiful as she is elegant, a businessman in charge of great affairs, a clever student, the leader of his class, a little girl, laughing as she runs. They are in the street, walking. Then suddenly they are not there. The lovely lady, the business man, the brilliant student, the scampering little girl have vanished, utterly consumed in the furnace of the flash. There are no ashes, even on the pavement—nothing but their black shadows on the stones.
Then comes the blast. For two kilometres in all directions every building, every structure is levelled to the ground. The people inside are buried in the ruins of their homes. Lorries, vans, men and women, babies, prams, are picked up and hurled, like bullets, 100 metres through the air. The blast piles its victims in huge heaps on the corners of the street—heaps seven, eight layers of corpses deep. I know a man and a woman who looked for seven days for their little grandson. When they found him. one layer below the top, he was still breathing but all the doctors in Hiroshima could not save his life.
Then the fireball touches the earth. Conflagrations spring up in every quarter. Swept by tornado winds, they rush together in a single firestorm. Tens of thousands more, trapped by walls of flame that leap higher than the highest tower in the town, swiftly, or in longer agony, are burned to death. And everything goes black. The mushroom cloud rises to the very vault of heaven. It carries with it many thousand tons of poison, there to fall out. The fall-out
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comes down again. It covers everything in Hiroshima not already rendered lethal and so those who have escaped the flash, the river, the blast, the fire, will die within a shorter or a longer time.
My Lords, the first atom bomb weighed two kilogrammes—less than 5 lbs. It was a little larger than a cricket ball. It killed 140,000 people on that August day. In 1978 more than 2,000 died in Hiroshima of its long-delayed effects. Today there are very many young adults who were only embryos in their mothers' wombs when the bombs exploded. They have leukaemia and shortly they will die. Babies are being born with tiny heads—and that first atom bomb was what the science editor of The Times called "A nuclear midget". We should be attacked with bombs a thousand times as powerful as that.
Against such a danger civil defence offers us no help, but there is a policy that does. In his speech on Afghanistan the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary spoke of the interdependence of all nations. If the peoples will come to understand their common interest in survival;if they will make their governments abolish war, as they are pledged to do;if they will abolish the offensive weapons without which aggression cannot be begun, as they are pledged to do, then science, no longer the prostitute of war, will make a world in which the youth of every nation will find it glorious to he alive.
4.43 p.m.
Earl CATHCART: My Lords, we must all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for the opportunity that he has given us this afternoon to debate this important and rather neglected subject. I should like to add my congratulations on the constructive and effective maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne and I should like to say also at the start that as the noble Lord. Lord Noel-Baker, will soon see, I am unable to follow the distinguished and sincere speech which he has just made, except to try to take a more positive line, because I think that fine words and fine sentiments are insufficient to protect and give us confidence against the possible aggression of a nation that is clearly on the march.

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We all wait with great interest to hear the results of the Government's review of the state of civil defence in this country. Although it will cover a wide range of related problems and the need to reactivate our civil defence preparations, the most important aspect, I believe, will be to what extent the general public should now become involved in these preparations and plans. It is to that aspect that I wish to confine what I hope will be a short speech this afternoon.
As my noble friend the Minister, Lord Belstead, has said there is now in this country without any doubt widespread awareness and anxiety about Russian military preparations and the threat that these provide, and that anxiety has been heightened by the Soviet military aggression in Afghanistan. Many men and women of all ages throughout the country would welcome the opportunity to volunteer and commit themselves to play some part in strengthening our civil defence preparedness, whether for the protection of themselves and their families in their own homes or for the protection of the community as a whole.
Mr. Frank Allaun, a Member of the other place, and chairman of Labour Action for Peace, wrote recently to the Daily Telegraph and said that he disagreed that the Civil Defence Corps should be revived because there was no possible civil defence against nuclear weapons and because to reactivate civil defence would frighten people into supporting a war. That is very much the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker has just put forward. I regard that as the advice of despair, with which I cannot agree. Not everybody will be within the area of total destruction, even if it is a 20-mile radius from the ground zero of the nuclear strikes. Not everybody will be savagely affected by radiation and blast even if they are within 200 miles of the ground zero of the missile. Adequate civil defence precautions will not only improve the survival rate and reduce unnecessary casualties but will also establish a basis for recovery from the resulting chaos—and I do not underrate that chaos. I know it is just as awful as the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, described, but it will not be total. There will be people who will be able to survive and recover and that is what this debate is all about.
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Furthermore, as my noble friend the Minister and my noble friend Lord Murton pointed out, it is by no means certain that if war occurred Russia would resort to nuclear attack. She posseses a powerful capacity to bombard British cities with conventional explosives, using her S.S. 20 missiles and the supersonic backfire bombers. A civil defence organisation would be just as vital in that case as with an all-out nuclear attack.
In mentioning Mr. Allaun's letter I must say that I agree with his final sentence when he says that the best defence against a war is to prevent that war from ever happening, although I very much doubt whether we would agree on the best way to achieve that. We all realise how dreadful war is and we share exactly the views of the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, recognising in particular how dreadful and devastating nuclear war would he. But to do nothing and to leave ourselves completely unprotected, would in my opinion, be an act of total irresponsibility. I believe that it is the urgent duty of the Government to revive and strengthen our civil defence preparations, not only for our national security but because it enhances the credibility and deterrence of our national defence posture.
It is ironical that Sweden and Switzerland, both traditionally neutral countries, have considerably better and more thorough civil defence preparations than we have. Indeed in Switzerland those people not required for military service, for conscription, are compelled to serve in civil defence. A Swiss Civil Protection Service official, commenting recently on Britain's civil defence preparations, said:
"We cannot afford to be as slipshod about our survival as you are in Britain".
Our present policy seems to be to maintain a small nucleus of Home Office planning staff with a total strength of, I believe, 125 throughout the country, who, with an ever-declining budget, keep the broad plans alive. Presumably with this policy we would wait until war is imminent and peace has collapsed before this very small nucleus began to impart their knowledge and skills, in pamphlets and by other methods, to the civilian population, at the very moment when people will he too anxious and harassed to digest it. There are so many skills and different tasks and techniques involved in a sound

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civil defence preparation that the sooner the public are informed and involved the better. Volunteers would be forthcoming, of all ages, both sexes;of that I have absolutely no doubt. It if is decided not to revive the Civil Defence Corps then these volunteers could be channelled into the many existing full-time and voluntary organisations, the police, the Fire Service, the Red Cross, WRVS, St. John's Ambulance Brigade and so on. To co-ordinate all this activity the county emergency planning officers who now exist will need to have their staff increased, albeit with suitable voluntary workers, in order to provide a chain of communication for planning and training right down to each community throughout the country.
Therefore, my Lords, in conclusion, I wish to say that I strongly support a revived and strengthened civil defence organisation with full public voluntary participation: first of all, because it is the Government's urgent duty to do so now. People not only want this but want to know about it and want to take some part in it themselves. It is a form of deterrence without any sabre rattling, without implying any threat to anybody;and, finally, because it is an essential part of our national security for the Government to take action now, before it is too late.
4.52 p.m.
Lord HUNT: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh has done us a useful service by putting down this Motion. I hope it will also prove to have been timely, because we know that the Home Secretary is to make a Statement on Government intentions after Easter, and we must all hope that our discussions this afternoon will not be too late to be taken into account, despite the fact that no doubt that Statement is in an advanced state of readiness.
My Lords, I totally agree with everything that has been said, in the other place on 20th February, in Lord OrrEwing's Starred Question on 27th February, and so far during this debate, about the dangers to which all too evidently we are now exposed, and about the urgency of taking appropriate steps to remedy the neglect in our civil and home defence preparation. In such a long list of speakers I have no intention of taking your Lord-
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ships' time with any particular measures, and I will be limiting my few remarks to civil defence.
Everyone in your Lordships' House holds my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker in the highest respect for his lifelong work for peace. No one would dissent from his proposition that the way to defend ourselves is to prevent the holocaust, the catastrophe which we are discussing, falling upon us. But he knows as well as we do that we are living in an imperfect world, in a very dangerous world, and that it would be against all nature not to do anything. All life depends upon there being hope, but hope that nothing is going to happen is just not good enough. We have to hope that we can survive: otherwise there would be very little point in continuing to live.
It is against that background, and against my agreement in principle that we have got to do something, that I was very glad to learn from the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, that the report in The Times on the 22nd February is apparently correct in forecasting that the Government are not contemplating a period of compulsory adult service for civil defence or home defence training. That is the proposal of the National Association for Service to the Realm, who are calling for a year's national service at age 18. I think that is misguided, and, to hammer the point home, I think they are indulging in muddled thinking. In a handout that no doubt many of your Lordships have had they write of a real need for some form of national service for school-leavers as a reinforcement to our standing army and as a backup to civil defence service in case of need. They go on to say:
"We therefore propose that there should be a period of national service of one year for all young men at 18 years of age".
Who are these young men, school-leavers of 18 years of age? They belong to a very small minority of the young people of this nation, most of whom are continuing in private education as a kind of insurance policy paid for by their parents. They are a tiny minority of the school-leavers in this country.
My Lords, I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, that there is something to be said for repeated annual periods of training of a few weeks' duration, not

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limited, of course, to the 18 to 19-year-olds but for older people as well, on the Swiss model to which he referred;but I believe that 12 months would be far too long, far too costly and far too disruptive of our economy. I also fear that, while there would be a willing response from some young men and women, there would also be many other young people of both sexes who would be, to put it mildly, very reluctant conscripts.
Without the actuality of a national emergency there would also soon be boredom;and boredom and reluctance is not a very sound recipe for the defence of the Realm. I recall the effect of the compulsory military service which persisted into the 'fifties. The call-up at 18 created a gap of three years after leaving school at 15 which was very unsatisfactory and unsettling for employers and young employees alike. I speak with some knowledge about this, because it was the serious effects of this gap and the hope to do something about it which moved the Duke of Edinburgh to launch his award scheme for boys between 15 and 18, in February 1956. Need I add, particularly directing my remarks to Lord Belstead, that, as we are constantly reminded, politics is the art of the possible I wonder, can it realistically be asserted that there would at this time be the requisite measure of public consent across party lines for a general call-up of adult citizens?
On the other hand, my Lords, there is, in my view, a strong case for creating a professional national cadre as a framework for expansion into a civil defence corps and for appealing for volunteers to man it. We have heard of Lord Clifford's initiative in Devon, and I have no doubt whatever that there would be a very ready response throughout the land, everywhere, and that it would be filled by highly motivated people of high quality and between them having the necessary qualifications. In fact the nucleus is, surely, already there in what is known as civil aid.
The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, referred to other measures which must be taken, the initiative to be taken by local authorities. I would say this to my noble friend Lord Clifford, that local authorities alone can make the masterplans for civil defence at a local level. They alone can coordinate the actions of the police. the fire services and the medical and ambu-
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lance services. There is, of course, everything to be said for encouraging the appropriate voluntary organisations—and we have heard several mentioned this afternoon—to make their own plans and to undertake training for such tasks as the statutory authorities invite them to undertake in a war emergency. Citizens Advice Bureaux—which have not been mentioned this afternoon—will undoubtedly have a very important role in counselling citizens on what steps they might be taking now in preparation for conventional and nuclear war, and what they should and can do if such a calamity were to occur. But I hope that I have not wasted your Lordships' time because, from Mr. Leon Brittan's Statement in the other place on 20th February, and from what we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, it would seem certain that all these matters will be adequately dealt with by the Home Secretary in his Statement.
I turn to another matter which I hope your Lordships will not regard as irrelevant to the theme of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. I should like to talk briefly about a matter which was touched on—and I should like belatedly to congratulate him on a splendid maiden speech—by the noble Lord, Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, and which I regard as a prerequisite to a national readiness to face up to the consequences of a war. In The Times of 22nd February Peter Hennessy wrote:
"a new spirit favourable to serious civil defence preparation in the United Kingdom is abroad in Whitehall".
I am referring to something rather wider than what one might call the "spirit of self-protection "in and around your Lordships' House and the Palace of Westminster. I am referring to the need to generate to a degree far greater than appears to be the case at present, a new spirit in our nation of self-respect, confidence, belief in our kind of democracy;a spirit of community and national pride. a spirit of unity and purpose. Those seem to me to be the elements which should inform, inspire and fortify an effective home defence. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Murton, was thinking very much along those lines in his splendid speech.
In the debate of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London on 21st November last year, I proposed that, as

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one measure which might contribute towards that very desirable end, there should be a limited commitment on the part of all young people before—and I repeat "before "—attaining adult status, to continue beyond 16 with a programme of further education, with the theme of training for citizenship. The main feature would be some involvement in service to their own communities. It would, therefore, be neighbourhood based. It would be framed in terms of hours, or perhaps weeks, spread and staggered over two years after leaving school until their eighteenth birthday. It could be fitted into day release and block release schemes as well as being done in their spare time. It would be so arranged as not to interfere with jobs, further or higher education or technical training. It would not involve displacement from the places where young people live and, hopefully, work. It would therefore cost very much less than any form of call-up, however short. It might very well be operated by the social services. I should be grateful if the Minister could find a moment, when replying to the debate, to make some comment on that suggestion which, as far as I am concerned, I have been making for some time past.
Perhaps the most important point to make about this type of service is that it would not be merely in preparation for an emergency which we all hope might never occur: it is for real. It is meeting actual, visible, pressing needs, both for individual people and for the neighbourhood locally, which are not yet met, despite community service orders made by the courts, and despite the volunteer effort that is taking, place. It offers, in my humble opinion, the best chance of changing attitudes and of creating that new spirit in our nation. Without that spirit I doubt that we would have an effective defence against our enemies in war.
I should like to make one final point and it is probably the most important of all. In 1940 Churchill's stirring words evoked a response from the whole nation:
"We shall fight in the streets, we shall fight in the fields …we shall never surrender".
It was not only those brave and defiant words, it was the man, the calibre and the stature of the person who spoke them, who drew us together in defence of the
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Realm. If ever such a calamity as we have been discussing this afternoon were to befall us, I can only pray that we should again be blessed with that type and calibre of leadership which would unite and inspire this nation.
5.6 p.m.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, I feel sure that all your Lordships would wish to share in the gratitude that I should like to express to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for raising this important matter. I should also like to add my own congratulations on the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Murton of Lindisfarne—and I hope, as a mere Scot, that I have pronounced his name correctly.
The debate has in the main centred around a nuclear attack on Britain: either nuclear bombs or some nuclear missile. As the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, has said, it is a terrible prospect, but it must be envisaged. In such an attack the points of delivery will be from land, sea and air. The points of acceptance will he confined not to military targets but to industrial and civil centres. The holocaust of the strategic bomb will be such as to make the destruction of Hamburg and the destruction of Dresden look like candlelight compared to an arc lamp. Millions will die.
As regards civil defence protection, up to now I think that the population of this country has been very largely ignorant, uninstructed and apathetic. In 1968 civil defence was put into cold storage and only now is energy beginning to be shown, but it is still in the early stage. The same money has been expended on civil defence for the last five years. I understand that there are 125 civil servants now engaged in civil defence.
My fear is that we shall do too little, too late. In saying that, my mind goes back to 1938 and the pathetic digging of trenches in St. James's Park. I believe that the only real civil defence lies in our power to retaliate. The power of offence means a realisation by intending aggressors that aggression will be swiftly followed by delivery of sufficient destructive power to devastate their cities and their industries. The West may never achieve parity with the Soviet forces, but, no matter, for I do not believe that parity is as important as

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sufficiency. Provided we have sufficient power to retaliate we need not worry very much about parity. After all, it does not much matter;it is rather an academic question. If you are incinerated by an enormous atomic bomb at 10,000 degrees centigrade or by a lesser bomb at 7,000 degrees centigrade, you are incinerated just the same. Therefore, I say that sufficiency and not parity should be our aim.
In sufficiency lies our true civil defence. Thank goodness the West is now taking emergency measures. I believe that there are to be 110 sites in this country and in the rest of Western Europe;that Polaris is to be brought up to date;and that various other measures are to be taken. However, for two reasons I cannot entirely regret the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. My first reason is that it needed some dramatic world event to bring home to our people the very real danger we face from powerful, ruthless Russian forces. My second reason for not entirely regretting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is that, knowing our determination to achieve sufficiency and looking at the world reaction to the Russian invasion of that country, it may be—and perhaps I am being optimistic—that Russia will adopt a new mood of approach to detente and enter into real negotiations for arms limitation.
Time is not on our side;nor is it on the side of the Russians. By the mid-1980s countries of the Third World may well be in the nuclear field. Unless the world is hell-bent on self-destruction, sooner or later we must stop this crazy build-up of nuclear forces in the world. For the reasons I have given, I hope that the wicked Soviet aggression in Afghanistan will throw up some benefits for ourselves and for the free world.
I come to my final words, and if they are at all sentimental I do not apologise because they are factual. I have grandchildren, as do many noble Lords, and some younger noble Lords have children still growing up. We do not want our children to grow up under the shadow of nuclear peril, where the sunlight of their lives could in a moment be turned into the darkness of oblivian. I believe that if their voices could be heard, Russian parents would not feel differently. It must be our duty to ensure that that does not happen.
5.14 p.m.
Lord SHIN WELL: My Lords, I follow the eloquent, sincere, but for me somewhat familiar speech that we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, who, probably for good reason, has absented himself from the Chamber. No doubt the noble Lord will use the occasion tomorrow morning, when he receives the Official Report, to read what I am about to say. Let us suppose that as a result of the warnings, admonitions and horrific expectations, if one can call them expectations, which were embodied in his speech, noble Lords, decided that from now on we should abandon any notion of civil defence;that not a penny more should be spent on it. Let us ask ourselves what the consequences would be. Would Mr. Brezhnev, having heard our decision, send a polite note, with love and kisses thanking the noble Lord and all and sundry for such a concession? Would he resolve immediately without further ado or negotiation from any quarter—to vacate Afghanistan? From such knowledge as has come to me from time to time and which no doubt other Members of our Lordships' House have acquired, it would seem that the vast, comprehensive and communal civil defence machine of the Soviet Union could be most effective in the event of a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union from any quarter. One has only to say what I have just said and reflect upon it for a moment or two—no longer would be necessary—to realise what utter nonsense it is.
In this matter of civil defence one cannot ignore the general question of national and Western defence. They are closely related and interlocked;the one would be useless without the other. Indeed, for some years now I have been a member of a body described, according to protocol, as the All-Party House of Lords Study Defence Group. For what it is worth, I happen to be the chairman. With all our might and with the aid of many military experts we have been studying this question. Behind me is the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, who has illuminated our proceedings on more than one occasion. As a result of pressure that I, personally, have exercised, even Russia agreed to send a representative to our deliberations, and we have heard from many others from all parts of the world.

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What has been our purpose? It was a very simple one. It was to create an interest in the subject of national defence. That is precisely what we have to do, because of the circumstances that surround us as regards civil defence. We must direct our attention to what happens if and when we become involved in a nuclear or a conventional war. When I refer to "conventional "I have in mind the possibility of the use of tactical nuclear weapons—not formidable nuclear weapons —with limited range, with the possibility of invasion of this country with paratroopers capable of using such weapons.
If we are faced with a situation of that kind what do we do? Some weeks ago, as a result of some questions asked from this Bench, one of my colleagues—I need not mention his name—suggested that we have to accept either suicide or surrender because of the formidable and overwhelming military strength of the Soviet Union. Suicide or surrender! If I may be allowed to express a preference, I will have neither. I have no desire to commit suicide. My passing will come in due course. There is nothing to worry about in that;it happens to other people. As for surrender, it is not in my vocabulary, and I hope it is not in the vocabulary of Members of your Lordships' House.
The atmosphere that seems to overshadow the proceedings this afternoon is reminiscent of what happened in 1938 and 1939. Then the question that confronted us all was whether we were to have peace or to be involved in another war. There can be no doubt;there was division in certain quarters. Some even went to the length of being prepared to accept Mr. Hitler and company;in other words, to surrender rather than he involved in another conflagration. Reminding ourselves of what happened in the First World War, that was a war into which we ought not to have entered, and would not have entered if our diplomats had been less deceptive. That war ended with bankruptcy. Let us not forget that.
It was a vital issue that concerned us. What did we do? Not from one side of the political fence alone but from both sides. I remember it well. The late Arthur Henderson and the late Leopold Amery both said, almost with one voice, "Speak up for England. Act for Eng-
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land." They might have said for Britain;that would have suited me better at the time, and still would. That is what they said. The nation responded because the nation did not want to surrender. They are a peculiar kind of people in this country;they do not like to surrender. It is true that we have muddled through many times, and despite blemishes and all the rest of it we have somehow kept our heads above water. We have endured struggles and sacrifices and all the rest of it, and have gone through wars that perhaps we should not have entered;but nevertheless we went right through the mill. But the word "surrender "is not in our vocabulary, and because of that we had to make preparations for defence.
There has been some suggestion this afternoon about the kind of activity that we would ask our people to accept in the event of a nuclear war. It would be a mistake to forecast. It usually is. Certainly, I am not prepared to forecast what kind of war we are going to have in the future. What I say is that I do not want another war in the future;nor do I believe does any Member of your Lordships' House. In that respect we are as pacific as my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker. We do not want another war. We have had enough. We want to be at peace with our neighbours, whoever they are.
But how do we promote and produce peace? By sitting round a table in conference with potential aggressors, and deciding to reduce some of our arms? By indulging in limitation of nuclear and conventional arms? Or by making speeches of a pacific character? It is not realistic. It does not make sense, for the simple reason that we are not certain what our potential enemies intend to do. I wish we knew. Did we know they were going to invade Afghanistan recently? Were even the Government informed on the subject? I doubt it. It came in the nature of a surprise. There you are They could as easily step from East Germany into West Germany. It is just across the street. Their tanks could just roll across the street and take possession of West Germany. Of course that sort of thing can be done. In other words, the threat of another conflagration exists. I regret and deplore it. I wish it were

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otherwise, and so do we all, but it is there. What do we do about it?
I have no desire to emulate some of the previous speakers, except to congratulate them on their speeches;my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh;the noble Lord, Lord Murton;and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, whose speech was admirable to me because of the sentiments he expressed, which coincide with my views about the future civilised society where people are neighbourly, where we get rid of vandalism, terrorism, hooliganism, and all those blemishes that are inflicted on society. Therefore, I am almost going to come to a conclusion. Forgive the preliminary, the preface, but I thought it necessary because I want my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker to read it in the morning. It might console him. I have only heard that speech 50 times. From the beginning of the First World War I had to listen to it. That is one of the worst features of being in the same party, but you have just got to put up with it.
Now let us deal with the subject. What is to be done about civil defence. First, we have to understand that we require funds. It cannot be done without them. Twenty two million pounds is a mere bagatelle. It is not enough. Here I should like to interpose this question: Who was responsible for limiting the activities of civil defence in 1968? They have got the idea that it was a Labour Government. I was never informed, although I was chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party at the time and one expected to be informed of the Government's intentions. Indeed, I had entered into an arrangement with my noble friend Lord Aylestone—he is absent;I am not complaining about that—who happened to be President of the Council and Leader of the House, that I should be informed of the Government's intentions, so that could inform members of the party and keep them under control in cases like that. But I was not informed, and I should not be surprised to find that my noble friend Lord Peart was not actually informed that the Government intended to cut down on civil defence. In any event, even if we had been informed the public was not informed, and they should have been, and that brings me to the real point;that the public must be well and
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truly informed—apart from matters of security of course—on every aspect of civil defence.
Let us consider what we want. I do not want a regimented civil defence, and in that respect I agree with my noble friend Lord Hunt. I want a voluntary defence organisation, and when one speaks of an "organisation "one almost means regimentation, but noble Lords will understand what I mean. I want every industrial firm in the country, be it of note or minor character, to make whatever preparations are thought advisable, having taken advice on the subject, to protect its industry, its property and its work people in the event of attack. Next, I want a vast army of volunteers, and in this connection I applaud my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh for what he has done in the County of Devon, and what has been done there can be done in Wiltshire, Hampshire and in other counties. The number of people who have volunteered in comparatively small, but that number can be enlarged in many directions.
We also want a policy. We might get the money but not have a policy. One noble Lord referred to air raid shelters, and 1 believe that a question about air raid shelters was asked of the noble Lord, Lord l3elstead, by the noble Lord, Lord Duncan-Sandys. I take it we shall not indulge in what happened in the last war;we do not want air raid shelters of that kind. No doubt they were effective at times, but they would be absolutely useless in the event of a nuclear war and even in the event of a conventional war such as we might anticipate.
What kind of defence can we create? The first and best kind of civil defence is public opinion. We want to make the people of this country understand that, while we are anxious to avoid another conflict and will do everything possible to prevent one, if it occurs they must be able to assist in their own defence. That is the first essential. They must be advised and provided with the necessary facilities, whatever they may be—the organisation and equipment should be there with protective clothing against fall-out and all the things that occur to one who has given any study, however limited, to the subject—so that all the essentials are available. But the public

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must be fully informed on the subject. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that there are very few Members of your Lordships' House who are fully acquainted with what even the Government have done on the subject, who have read any documents about it and who—I say this with respect—have read any of the articles in The Times on the subject;and tint is saying something, not reading the articles in The Times, even in its new form, however abbreviated.
So we have to be thoroughly informed, and I want to be better informed. I would go so far as to say that probably the noble Lord, Lord Be'stead, would be glad to be better informed. Perhaps he did not like my saying that, but I meant it with respect. There I leave that aspect of the subject, except to say it was essential that we should have this debate and understand what we are up against. It is essential we should understand that the public should be thoroughly informed, just as it is essential, from all I have said, that our potential aggressors, our possible enemies, should understand that, whatever happens, we are going to defend ourselves adequately, not only with weapons—that is generally agreed—but also in the field of civil defence.
It is said by some of my friends, and they are still my friends, who take a pacifist view—a view which I reject, not that I dislike the sentiment but I think it is impractical and unrealistic—" you cannot provide adequate civil defence". It may be that many people will not survive and that many will suffer from bombs falling or from fall-out or from bacteriological and chemical weapons, if they are used, against us. All that could happen. But we can make the effort, a concerted and national effort, along with our allies, to defend ourselves and protect our people as best we can. That is what this debate is about. If we can succeed as a result of this debate, as we have had some success on the subject of defence in our Defence Group—creating interest and conveying our views to the people outside, and relying on our experts to become even more active and modern in their views, adapting themselves to new situations as they emerge—then this debate will have been well worth while.
But for heaven's sake, however pleasant it is to listen to eloquent speeches, fully
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adorned with sentiment, and however lovely they sound, like the flowers in the spring—while that is all very fine and large, I am getting too old for that kind of thing. I respond to what the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, said when speaking of the future. What does a nuclear war matter to me? I am sure they will delay it until after I am gone;I am sure my friend President Brezhnev will not indulge in that kind of tactic as long as I am alive. But what about my grandchildren, and I have 12 of them, and my great-grandchildren, of whom I have 11—and what about yours? For the future, as well as for ourselves, we must have adequate defence, and that is the purpose of this debate.
5.37 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh upon initiating this debate. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne on his very fine maiden speech. I feel some what of a sandwich speaking immediately after a former Secretary of State for Defence and having in front of me a former Chief of Defence Staff. They are rather expert and I am just an amateur.
I have said in your Lordships' House on several occasions that the strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest link, and I think that the weakest link we have at the moment in our defence strategy is home and civil defence. On several occasions in the last few months I have slightly stirred up Her Majesty's Government about this, usually through my noble friend Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, and he has always tried to pass the buck to my noble friend Lord Belstead, who has it in his lap this afternoon. If there appears to be a lack of communication between the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office, there should not be, and I was glad to hear my noble friend confirm that that was not the case.
Noble Lords who went to last week's Defence Group's seminar will remember that we had four distinguished speakers, and the one thing they were all in complete agreement about was that the defence strategy of the West was synonymous and one with foreign policy, and likewise I maintain that home and civil defence is an integral part of our overall defence policy.

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So it was very gratifying to hear what my noble friend Lord Belstead said about Easingwold.
I propose to be very brief and to talk about subversion, fifth column, quislings—call them what you will. I assume that in the event of some form of war there will be subversives and there will also be saboteurs, and if they succeed, all our efforts in home and civil defence would largely prove unsuccessful. In fact, they might even prove absolutely useless, as well as disastrous. So where is the threat? The threat, alas! is in certain key positions in certain unions which are occupied by Soviet-orientated persons;and I assure noble Lords opposite —many of whom I call my friends—that I am not union bashing, But the reds are not just under the bed, they arc everywhere, although very often well camouflaged.
Perhaps the situation was more serious a few years ago, and paradoxically it may be better, because of late several "moles "have come above ground and so we now know who they are. The Communist Party of Great Britain has 30,000 card-carrying members, but I wonder how many are hiding under different labels. I have no idea. My only hope is that MI5 knows, first, how many there are, and, secondly, who they are.
In 1946–34 years ago—I went to a political meeting in Norwich, at which the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, was speaking. I asked him whether the Tory Party was aware of how many Communists there were in the Labour Party in Parliament at that time. His answer was that he hoped that the Labour Party knew. My comment on that, 34 years later, is that I think the Labour Party arc much more aware. I also hope and believe that they have the strength and the will to fight this infiltration, because in the case of the right honourable Roy Mason and Mr. Sea -gill, and in Mr. Neville Sandelson we have prime examples of what I—and I hope the Labour Party—consider to be great danger. Furthermore, we have our own homegrown revolutionary organ'sations, and they will be, if they are not already, assisted by international ten rist groups, such as the IRA.
Should the Soviet Union attack—whether the attack is nuclear or conventional—if home and civil defence is to
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function adequately, I think it must realise that sabotage is probably one of its main enemies. We have the docks, water, food, electricity, gas, oil, broadcasting, newspapers, post and telecommunications, and transport. By the failure of even only one of these we could be paralysed, and as a result perhaps even defeated—I did not say "surrender ", I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell.
We must not forget that quotation of Lenin—and 1 dislike quoting it because it has been quoted previously in your Lordships' Chamber, though not I think for about four years now:
"We must resort to all forms of stratagems, manoeuvres, and illegal methods, to evasions and subterfuges, so as to get into the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on within them Communist work at all costs".
I need say no more, my Lords.
If the newspapers are printed at the time of a crisis, but cannot be read because they are not distributed, it is no good. If the Prime Minister wants to go on television to announce that there is a crisis in the nation, or that we are at war, it is no good if she is blacked out by technicians;if we have no electricity. The permutations of sabotage are endless. Do not let us forget that Hitler wrote Mein Kampf many years before he put what it said into operation. While that was going on very few of us paid much attention, and we nearly came to disaster.
The Russians' intentions have been known for years and years. Will we ever learn? The answer to that is I think, Yes, but we do not have too much time left. I do not think that the Russians want to have a war;they do so well without having one. So I hope that my noble friend Lord Belstead will agree with me that my fears of subversion and sabotage are real and justified, and without telling the enemy, will he please confirm that Her Majesty's Government have the necessary counter-measures in order to take these matters in hand? Home and civil defence are of prime importance to us both in peace and in war, and should war come, they will be our last bastion to make certain not only that we win, but that we survive.
5.45 p.m.
Lord CARVER: My Lords, having in a previous debate in your Lordships' House

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described the lack of adequate civil defence as little short of scandalous, it is natural that I should welcome the fact that my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh has launched this debate. I welcome also the words that he has chosen;he has carefully mentioned both home and civil defence. Like other speakers, I should like to congratulate the maiden speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, and in particular upon the clarity with which he spoke about this problem, because I think that we need a little clarity. That clarity is being obscured at the moment by, as I understand it, the Government referring to what we used to refer to as civil defence as home defence, and by what the forces used to think of as home defence now being, for good reasons, described as the defence of the United Kingdom base. The Ministry of Defence adopted that term because there was a tendency—which has to a certain extent been reflected in this House—to think that defence of the United Kingdom is somehow different from the defence of Western Europe. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, said, that is not so. It was important from the point of view of this country that neither the people in this country nor our allies should think that we regard the defence of the United Kingdom as not being part of the defence of the NATO area of Western Europe.
The reasons why the Motion is correct in saying that the preparations for home and civil defence are not adequate go back to certain military concepts, some of which were held not very long ago, and some of which are still held. The first is what I would call the bird sanctuary concept, and that is that, because we have a so-called independent nuclear strategic striking force of our own, we are by that preserved from a direct attack on this country. There were those who used to think that, although a war would have started somewhere else, we would have been preserved against conventional and nuclear attack, and that as the credibilty of the conventional aspect grew thinner and thinner, it was reserved;and it is still believed by some people that even though a war was taking place in a NATO area of Western Europe, in which nuclear weapons were being used, somehow or other our possession of an independent force of our own would preserve us from such an
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attack. I think that it would appear, perhaps appropriately, in view of his long connection with the Royal Air Force, that the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, is a bird sanctuary man.
One of the other reasons was largely given by the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker. It is that if a thermo-nuclear attack on this country, with a comparatively small number of weapons—and I think that the noble Lord was absolutely correct in saying that it would be somewhere between 10 and 20—was intended to be an attack in order to wipe out the country, it would wipe it out. I agree that the picture that the noble Lord painted of what the country would be like under an attack of, say, up to 20 thermo-nuclear weapons was not exaggerated.
It was thought that if the first reason deterrent to a nuclear attack—had failed, an attack was bound to be so totally devastating that it was not worthwhile doing anything, and the policy that we did nothing, or very little, was generally adopted. I accept that in the event of a thermo-nuclear attack on this country, designed to knock this country out, no civil defence organisation—that is to say, that element of the civil defence organisation (which would be a very small one) which would survive such an attack—could really achieve much, if anything, worthwhile. However, I accept that individuals and communities, if fortunate enough not to be in the area directly affected by the explosion or by its fall-out, could do things to help themselves survive;but they could not do a very great deal. But what we really must face is the possibility of lesser damage than that as has already been mentioned, either conventional or nuclear.
Curiously enough, our own NATO policies of flexible response (or, a rather more recent development, what they call controlled response) envisage, after all, the delivery of nuclear attacks on the other side which are themselves limited. The responses range from the somewhat unrealistic one, in my view, of just firing off once as a demonstration, to show that you would be prepared to fire off others, to what has very nearly become, I think rather dangerously, a counter-force strategy confined to Europe itself;that means that all we would be doing is attacking military targets, and in particular

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the enemy's nuclear weapons delivery system. It has always seemed to me curious that people do not think about the fact that the other side might do exactly the same, and I do not believe, in those circumstances, that this country would necessarily be exempt from it. So I believe it is quite possible to envisage a lesser damage to this country by either a conventional or a nuclear attack that would not represent the total holocaust which, I absolutely agree, would come from a thermo-nuclear attack on this country designed to knock this country out.
So, if we have a war policy and a defence policy, and if we are prepared for war, we must be prepared to meet the consequences of war if our deterrents are credible—and, after all, this country has been, remains, and will in the future be a base for long-range offensive weapons systems. At the moment they are aircraft, both United Kingdom and United States, and submarines, and in future they are going to include cruise missiles;and, if we are the base for long-range offensive weapons systems, we must expect those bases to be attacked.
So much for what the problem is. Now for what we should do about it. I accept what I think is the Government's view (I am not quite sure whether it is the Government's view, but I think it is) that it would probably be rather fruitless at the moment to work up a great propaganda campaign, to hand out a lot of pamphlets and to get everybody designing their own little shelters in their cellars, and then for nothing else to happen. I think the pamphlets would get lost and the shelters would fall down, and get mice;and I do not believe that is the right answer. I think the Government are probably correct in reserving that sort of action until they really think that the need is about to arise;but when that need does arise it is essential that the resources, both human and material, should be ready in reserve to be brought out very quickly. My concern, and I think the concern of most of your Lordships, is that we do not believe those resources, either material or human, exist to the extent that they should, in spite of excellent organisations such as the Royal Observer Corps.
I think that the right answer is to base it on the local authorities' emergency organisation, of which we have heard a certain
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amount. Some counties are very much better than others in this respect. Devon has been quoted, and Nottinghamshire was quoted in The Times today. There are some local authorities, particularly those which are subjected to natural disasters, which have a very good organisation in this field. There are many local authorities, particularly those in large towns and conurbations, who have absolutely none at all as far as I know. A combination of the local authorities' emergency organisation —an efficient one—with the police, fire and ambulance services, and with the volunteer organisations (and I would entirely agree that they should all work together) could, I believe, provide the reserve of resources for which the regional emergency organisations which already exist and are practised, although the Government keep very quite about them, provide the framework that is required. We did some theoretical exercises on this when I was Commander-in-Chief, United Kingdom Land Forces designate involved in all the emergency planning, and we found, particularly in urban areas, that local authorities have a very large number of employees who are employed on things like meals on wheels, and all the rest of it, but who are available in an emergency to do other things if they are trained to do so and if people realise what they can do. Then, that framework can be supported by the armed forces in an emergency if they are available to do so and are not doing something else. That is all I have to say on civil defence.
Let me turn briefly to home defence. As I see it, whereas the job of civil defence is to deal with what happens if hostile bodies, human or material, land in this country, the job of home defence is seeing that those hostile bodies do not, or that, if they do, the numbers of them are limited. There is no defence at all, and I do not suggest that this country should try and erect one, against a ballistic missile nuclear attack on this country;it would be a terrible waste of time and money to try to erect one. Where there should be a greater and a more efficient defence, to my mind, is in the local defence of targets which are connected with military targets, particularly those connected or linked to the offensive weapons systems bases in this country. I myself have doubts as to whether adding more air defence aircraft to the Royal Air Force is the right answer here. I may be

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wrong, but I believe that what is needed is a greater degree of effort put into the local defence of surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down both the launching platform and, particularly, the actual warhead itself. But I am absolutely certain that it is necessary to put more effort into passive defence of things like airfield shelters, the control and reporting systems, and anything to do with the whole weapons system of this country. I think that the whole problem of whether you should provide shelters for the population is a very much more difficult one, particularly given the sort of buildings that we have today. The problem, of course, is that the Royal Air Force themselves prefer to spend what money they get on aircraft and on flying.
As to the threat which is mentioned occasionally of airborne attack and amphibious attack, to my mind it is not worth spending a second talking about that. I do not believe it is practical in military terms for the Warsaw Pact countries to attempt to land men from boats or from aircraft in this country unless the air forces and the navies of NATO have been reduced to the extent of almost total defeat, and I do not believe in putting military effort into things which are required only if everything else is lost. As to the threat of sabotage, I have mentioned before in a previous debate in your Lordships' House, on 12th December, my doubts about whether the general reserve battalions, the Territorial Army, are really an effective way of dealing with this;and my concern is that the right answer is that those services, those installations, which are both essential to the national effort, military and civilian, and vulnerable, must have their own internal security organisation, which should be reinforced by a volunteer organisation which can join them in an emergency. That, I believe, is the right answer, rather than standing soldiers around the outside.
The noble Lord the Minister of State for Defence has had some correspondence with me on this subject, but I am still not totally convinced. I welcome the fact that the Government are having a review, and I hope that when that review is over the questions of civil defence and home defence, or the defence of the United Kingdom base, are dealt with together and tied in with our NATO strategy. For that reason, I am rather disturbed to
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think that the noble Lord the Minister of State for Defence is not here, and that it does not appear that he is going to be here.
6 p.m.
Viscount BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carver, who has just sat down has done this debate a service because while so many speeches have been concerned with civil defence he simply brought us back into the wider picture which is, I am sure, the one that we wish to consider tonight. Talking of civil defence, I should like to add my tribute to my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne because I agreed almost entirely with every word he said. I think we should be pleased, also, with the information that my noble friend Lord Belstead has given us about the review;but I am bound to say that I have still a good many doubts (which I have had for the last 40 years) that the terms of reference for the review may not be widely enough drawn and the review body may not be properly constituted in order to get a complete answer which is worth while having. We are talking now in this debate in an atmosphere showing more interest in civil defence and the wider problem of home defence than I can remember for a very long time. That is why I hope that the Government will take every opportunity to take advantage of it and will not stop short of measures which could safely be taken.
Perhaps I may be pardoned for going back quite a long way by reminding noble Lords that when civil defence was first organised, it was organised under the shadow of the influence of the Peace Pledge Union and, therefore, was kept deliberately a considerable way from the rest of our defence efforts for fear that the civilian citizens might be pained at the idea of being too closely associated with the horrid soldiers.
I was for three-and-a-half years concerned with the Home Guard which was part of the home forces in the last war. During that period, we worked (as it was our duty to work) very closely with civil defence and we came away with certain lessons. My next experience of the subject was on the Opposition Front Bench when the Civil Defence Bill came in in 1948. I spoke on it. I then said something which I knew to be correct;that that Bill was not

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intended to alter the structure of civil defence or to take advantage of any lessons which might have been learned, but simply to give statutory authority in peacetime for the civil defence organisation. I then spent about 20 years on the civil defence committee of my own county council, during which I witnessed the disintegration, or virtual disintegration, of the Home Guard.
Before going any further, I should like to come back to something which the noble Lord, Lord Carver, said about the three kinds of threats, because there is no use in talking about dealing with threats unless we are certain what they are. If I may be excused for repeating them, they seemed to be: the threat from airborne missiles whether nuclear or otherwise;then the threat of invasion by landing armed forces by sea or by air;and, lastly, something touched on by my noble friend Lord Kimberley, the noble Lord, Lord Carver, and others, warfare of the mind—subversion, sabotage, propaganda and the rest.
We have talked about civil defence so much tonight that I am certainly not going to take your Lordships' time by saying very much more. All I would say is that any suggestions—and I may have misunderstood my noble friend Lord 13elstead when he spoke about this—that the people will volunteer for civil defence which can be organised without any official organisation, does not seem to me to be likely to work out. I am not concerned whether the organisation is set up by the Government or by local authorities;but it will have to he there. If it is there, people will join it. If they are told what to do, they will do that. They will not need to be paid. All that they will want, at the present high price of petrol, is their mileage allowance. I base my experience on a conversation with a friend of mine in my own village—which I think fairly represents England as a whole—that there will be no difficulty in getting the right people to volunteer and to take a lot of trouble about it. But some organisation there will have to be.
As the noble Lord, Lord Carver said, we can leave invasion alone by saying that it would only occur if we lost command of the air. Enough has been said by others about subversion and hostile propaganda and things of that sort to
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make it unnecessary to say much more, except for one point. Unlike the other forms of threat, that threat is going on all the time, and there is no use pretending that it is not. But in 1945 the arts of propaganda and so forth were largely in their infancy compared with what they are now. The third thing is that the more people there arc involved in some way or other with home defence or civil defence (call it what you like) the less risk there is of enemy propaganda taking root and the more prospect there is of those in authority receiving information about what is going on at the proper time. That may come out later in this debate if my noble friend Lord Inglewood speaks, as I think he will, about Special Constables.
That brings me to the point that I tried to make earlier about the terms of reference of the review being wide enough. Whatever the threat may be against us, it is quite certain that the aggressor will have unity of command and, therefore, it is important that we should have unity of command in handling our defence affairs over here. I doubt very much whether we have that. We had it in the last war because we had not only the War Cabinet but also a body called the Home Defence Executive. That was a body that I saw a great deal of. Few people knew about it, but it was in the charge of a very wise and distinguished civil servant, Sir Findlater Stewart. It had as its task to keep the various departments—and there were a great many of them concerned with home defence—in step, to resolve their difficulties and their objections to each other and to see that any point which could not be resolved at that level went to the Cabinet. I know from first hand how many difficulties were avoided in the war by having that body there.
I am certain, equally, that these difficulties will arise and that sectional interests (as they were called by an earlier speaker in the debate) will come up and will prevent agreement being reached and will cause patchwork solutions instead of proper solutions. I suggest as strongly as possible that what I am saying should receive attention. If your Lordships doubt what I am saying, I think that you have only to look at the rather sordid incident which led to the collapse of the T.AVR III which, if I understood it rightly, was caused by the Defence

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Ministry, on the one hand, and the Home Office, on the other, playing a game of departmental "Old Maid "in trying to avoid the cost landing on their Estimates. That would not have happened if there had been a home defence executive in existence.
My Lords, those are some of the points that I wish to make. In case anybody might think that a body like the Home Defence Executive would not have enough to do, I put down one or two points which may be dealt with later by my noble friend Lord Belstead or others in the review—or may not. First, is the operational boundary of responsibility right as it stands now between the Home Office and the Defence Ministry? Next, the local authorities. The whole shape of local authorities has changed a great deal since the last war. The district councils have much more authority. As someone in this debate has mentioned, there is a difference in performance between some counties like Devonshire and Wiltshire and other counties. What control is being exercised at the centre to make quite sure that a minimum level of efficiency is going to be maintained? After all, we have heard of local authorities revolting against Government policy on comprehensive schools. Why should they not do it again?
Then, if I may be forgiven, I hope that someone will be looking at the task which the Home Guard performed in the last war. If they do, that will bring them to the question, which plagued those who tried to keep the Home Guard and civil defence in step, as to whether it was wrong for the civil defence to carry arms and what happened when the same individual in scattered parts of the country had to decide whether at the moment that a spy appeared he was a civil defence chap unarmed, or a Home Guard chap with arms.
Lastly, may I again repeat that I hope that an objective view will be taken about sabotage. Those are some of the things which seem to me from my own experience will need attention. I very much hope that the Government will do this;but the task of whether they do so or not and implementing them belongs to a generation much younger than mine.
6.12 p.m.
Lord WESTBURY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for inaugurating this debate. I should also like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Murton on his excellent maiden speech. A Department of Health and Social Security study on the Health Service in war had a course at the Home Defence College at Easingwold, in Yorkshire, in March 1979. In their study report they advised that first aid posts should be set up and manned by St. John and Red Cross personnel, all over the United Kingdom, because of these two organisations' considerable knowledge and practical experience in nursing and first aid. Also it was thought that they could both play a very important role in organising crash courses in first aid to increase the number of those able to provide first aid, home nursing and elementary hygiene.
It went on to say that St. John and the Red Cross need to know the extent to which their resources will be required, following the declaration of war or a nuclear attack. This is now one year ago and still nobody in St. John or the Red Cross has the faintest idea of what is to be done and what way it is to be done.
The local authorities employ an emergency planning officer, whose name describes his job. It is up to him to inform the local voluntary organisations of their role in the event of war or an emergency, so that they can start training and be prepared and efficient when war is declared. This means training all our personnel now in the roles they are required to do. I suggest that a definite order and full instructions must come from Her Majesty's Government to the county local authorities and be passed on by the emergency planning officer, to inform the voluntary organisations of their role in an emergency.
Speaking from the St. John point of view, we have roughly 85,000 volunteers in the United Kingdom, all trained in first aid. Surely some use could be made of them in an emergency. But nothing yet has filtered down from Her Majesty's Government as to what it is. I am convinced—and I think that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, agrees with me —that at this stage Her Majesty's Government should concentrate on the efficiency of what they have in the form of the

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voluntary organisations, such as the Red Cross, St. John Ambulance and the WRVS. They must not form a new Civil Defence Corps, but should encourage the use of our existing assets, to train for the emergency. They must be told exactly what is needed of them. This must be done very clearly. After all, in St. John's case they have the expertise of a great many high class doctors and surgeons and also trained personnel. Not only in St. John Ambulance—by them I mean the uniformed branch—but so many have already received first aid training by the St. John Association in industry, British Rail, the Coal Board and many other big organisations. This cannot be done without Government financial aid and extra accommodation for training. For example, there are many territorial drill halls lying idle, owing to the cut-down of the Territorial Army, which could be used.
The final thing that Her Majesty's Government have to make their minds up about is whether the voluntary organisations are going to become a reserved occupation in the event of war thereby the personnel remaining with St. John and the Red Cross throughout hostilities, as opposed to what happened at the outbreak of war in 1939, when all able-bodied Red Cross or St. John personnel went straight to the armed forces, especially the medical services, who badly needed their experience. The time is now right to act and to give authoritative instructions and form a policy, so that we in voluntary organisations are prepared for an emergency and can do the job given to us efficiently and effectively.
6.16 p.m.
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, perhaps I owe an apology to the House in advance because I am sure that your Lordships must by now be tired of hearing me talking about Northern Ireland problems and the security situation there. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, will forgive me if perhaps I put a slightly different slant on this situation. The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, made reference to AVR III. I had the unpleasant task of having to preside over the disbandment of an AVR III unit. Prior to that, ironically, I trained the members in what action to take in the event of nuclear attack. Also, even more ironically in
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view of what has happened in the past 10 years, I trained them in how to deal with crowd control and riot situations. But there it was, AVR III folded up. For me it was a matter for great regret because our unit anyway had started to go extremely well.
The different slant to which I referred is that I think perhaps Northern Ireland is the most vulnerable area of the United Kingdom so far as home defence is concerned. Your Lordships may remember that in 1915–16 the cry was "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity I am afraid that there are still those in Ireland who would take that view. In the unfortunate event of an international crisis blowing up—whether of NATO proportions or resulting from the situation in Afghanistan—it could well be that regular troops would have to be withdrawn from Northern Ireland. Even if that did not occur, to be realistic about it I cannot envisage that regular troops will be able to be maintained indefinitely in Northern Ireland at their present strength.
That is not for a moment to suggest—want to emphasise this—that I am advocating a withdrawal. Far from it, I think it would be disastrous if there were even an intimation of withdrawal. But looking 10, 15 or 20 years ahead, I cannot see regular troops being kept at their present strength in Northern Ireland. Therefore, what I am saying is that we Ulstermen have to aim at becoming self-sufficient so far as security is concerned. In this respect, I am delighted to be able to say that my information is that the police and the Army are now working together better and more effectively than they ever have done since the emergency arose, and I hope that satisfactory relationship continues to develop.
The ceiling of establishment of the RUC has been increased, and in this respect I only hope that there is sufficient capacity for training the additional recruits as they come in, as indeed I hope they will. But here, as with the Ulster Defence Regiment, I think it is necessary to place emphasis on trying to recruit more and more junior to middle management. In the case of the Ulster Defence Regiment. I envisage the area between sergeant through warrant officer to junior officer, because, in my experience, enthusiasm and loyalty has never been difficult to generate and

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sustain, provided that the quality of leadership is right;and it is in this "centurion "area that the leadership has most effect on the men. So, whereas I know it has been done in the past, I suggest that further attention should be given in the future to trying to recruit middle management for both the RUC and the UDR.
I welcome the fact that the bounty for the UDR has been increased so as to bring it roughly into line with that of the TAVR, and I think this will do much to offset the financial loss that was suffered by many members in the past when they gave up normal working hours for training or for camp. It is very nearly seven years ago since I was kicked out of the UDR because I became political, after a fashion;but I tried to keep in touch with the local units and I am told that one of the things that would help them most would be to have more back-up vehicles for conveying personnel, in other words, a sort of transit minibus type of vehicle, because it seems that if a vehicle develops a fault it goes into the workshops for a considerable time and there has to be a sort of ferry service, which reduces the mobility of the unit in question. In this context, of course, mobility is of the essence.
Another thing that I think could be of use in the security situation in Northern Ireland and should be concentrated on in the event of Regular Army strength having to be reduced, is to develop further expertise in "seal and search "operations. Some of them have been very successful, but the most important thing here is that the search should be carried out with the utmost courtesy and discretion—no matter what sort of lout owns the house you are searching, call him "Sir ", and positively avoid causing any damage. But, having said that, I admit that one cannot win, because I am afraid there are people who will deliberately smash a door or something like that after the search has been completed, and then ring up the Press and complain that the security forces have done the damage.
Finally, if your house is on fire, my Lords, you do not stand back with your hands in your pockets and say, "I am not a fireman. Who is going to pay me if I take steps to put out this fire? "No, you get a bucket of water and a fire extinguisher and you do what you can to put the fire
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out. The same applies in Northern Ireland. Our house has been on fire for 10 or 11 years now, and any able-bodied man or woman who can help to put out that fire ought to get on with it and join the part-time security forces. I would do it myself were I medically fit so to do.
6.25 p.m.
Baroness PIKE: My Lords, I, too, should like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for initiating this debate. I want to speak wholly about the vital contribution of the voluntary organisations, and particularly of the national voluntary organisations;in this, I want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Westbury.
I speak as the chairman of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service and in that capacity I want to pay my own particular tribute to the work of St. John and the Red Cross, because their unique work in this field is really quite outstanding. We work in very close co-operation and, while we are not in the medical field, we very often perform the very vital back-up and administrative services which enable them to do their excellent job.
This evening, however, I can only speak for the Women's Royal Voluntary Service. We are an all-purpose emergency service and in the context of a civil defence debate it really is valuable to look at our pattern of organisation because, as noble Lords will know, we were handed in 1938 as the Women's Royal Voluntary Service for Civil Defence and our whole organisation and the whole pattern of our development has been geared to the emergencies, first of all, of wartime and then to the extension of our services in peacetime to being an all-purpose emergency service.
In this context, our role is to provide shelter, food, clothing and administrative and back-up services. These are vital things: the shelters, the rest-centres, evacuation centres and so on. Clothing, of course, is vital, because in times of stress and emergency very often it is only a glanket to cover somebody. Food, emergency feeding and the administration of the whole back-up services are essential in any emergency. As in 1939, I think we have a really vital part to play in civil defence, should it ever happen that we need once more to look to wartime emergencies.

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We are a unique service in so far as we are wholly supported by a Government grant. I am the statutory chairman and I am wholly accountable to the Home Office and to the Treasury. That, I think, is one of the most valuable things because it does mean that we really get very good value for money;it is a very good discipline on all of us. I am not interfered with in any way;I am not coerced in any way;I have complete freedom and yet I am able to have, as my service, a national network which is locally based. I believe this is tremendously important, and I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I talk in some detail about our organisation, because I think it can be relevant to a pattern of civil defence.
We have 19 areas, and Scotland and Wales headquarters. That means I have 21 points, and if I were to go out now after having spoken here, I could within an hour raise, as it were, the whole of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service—or perhaps within even less than an hour. I do not think that even I could take more than 30 minutes to make 21 phone calls and just say, "Red Alert "to the person concerned, although she might be out for a drink and I might have to make more than one phone call;and so I would allow myself an hour in which to do it. I could in doing that, before this debate finishes, alert substantially something over 300,000 active workers;that is the strength of the organisation at the present time. In fact, in an emergency we would have a larger number, but at the present time we have some 300,000 active workers in the country. Every day there are something like 100,000 active men and women. We are locally based and locally organised, right down to village level. We are a supportive service, which means that we are organised to work across boundaries, providing back-up and replacement teams wherever they are needed. At headquarters, I have filed in my office the contingency emergency plans of every county, every district and every local area. I also have filed the contingency plans of the local authorities, where we are written into them. Unfortunately, we are not written into all the local authority contingency plans.
Who are these people, whom I say I can go out and raise at an hour's notice? I expect that you would call them the mum's and dad's army. We have a lot
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of young people, but I must admit that "young "to us is young middle-aged, because it is the middle-thirties and middle-forties whom we mostly regard as our young leadership—the people who have the time to give to voluntary service in the community. We have 10,000 men who are full members of the WRVS, and there must be at least three times more than that number—a good 30,000 to 40,000 men—who are working with us, many of them in key positions. In theory and I stress "in theory "—all our members are trained in basic emergency service. I say in theory, because this is a voluntary organisation and some do and some do not. But I think that I can put my hand on my heart and say that at least 180,000 of them are trained in basic emergency service. We are also written into the syllabus of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme and there are many youth organisations who come along to us and take emergency training.
I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for appearing to boast about what we have, but it is really important. We have on call 24,236 team leaders—because of our accountability to the Home Office, we are very keen on getting numbers exactly accurate and would not say 24,000 or 25,000—who are on call out at any time. We have 482 emergency service instructors, we have 450 emergency service organisers and we have 200 area, county and metropolitan district organisers who are responsible for emergency service, which means that we have over 1,100 key people who are responsible for emergency service.
We also have 262 people who have attended the Easingwold defence college and we were lucky enough in March 1978, to start a course of our own. We started negotiations in 1977, to see whether we could have a wholly WRVS course. It took us until March, 1978, and we have now managed to have three of those, with 50 on each course. We are having another two this year and we should like more. That is a three-day course with 50 people on each course. So that we now have 150 people who have been on that three-day course.
That is our basic organisational structure of people who are ready and able to respond to any emergency call, and that is the structure that we can provide to meet the challenge of the survival of the civilian

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population. But the importance of it—and this is why I stress the figures—is that these are really all-purpose people. Their main experience is not just gained in the occasional theoretical exercise. Exercises are extremely valuable, but, on the whole, they are fairly artificial and the experience one gains can be, to some extent, superficial.
The people that I have talked about, and the 300,000 active workers, are all working in the community all the time and their emergency work is an integral part of their everyday community voluntary service. That means that in times of flood, fire and severe weather, when there are no communications or no transport or no electricity, the emergency service special training comes into operation. The WRVS, and their husbands as well, all hate the soya boiler, but when you have severe weather, flood or fire and there is no other means of cooking, the soya boiler is particularly important, especially if the husbands come along and put a bottle of red wine in the stew to make it a little more palatable. This is part of their everyday work.
If you are talking out meals on wheels, you learn a great deal about your community, about the ordinary natural hazards and about the weak spots. We also get our day-to-day experience from accidents of all kinds, some large and some small, just like the Red Cross and St. John. Some are accidents which happen in the home, such as a small fire. Nevertheless, they help our people to have the practice in clothing, emergency feeding and information, which is so important. The reception and resettlement of refugees is, again, a wonderful exercise—if one wants to put it in that way—in rest centres, resettlement and clothing.
Camps and shows are a wonderful exercise as well. In London, we feed all the participants in the Lord Mayor's Show in the very short time of 30 or 40 minutes, when the procession is halted. We run the information desks at Wimbledon and this, again, is good training for information in the case of rest centres. Very often we also have to feed the police, the armed services and the firemen when they are out of their jobs. So we can say that we have a framework within which people can get practical training in emergencies,
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and yet, at the same time, can be making a practical contribution to the community as a whole.
There is also the other aspect of protection. Many Members of this House will have known and loved Lady Swan-borough, whom we knew better as Stella Reading, and she was a very far-sighted woman. In 1956 during the anxieties about the nuclear bomb and the troubles that we were then facing, she introduced something which she called One in Five, because she wanted one in five of the population to know about nuclear warfare, to know about some of the things that you could do to protect your home and some of the things that you could do to help in survival. So we started the scheme of One in Five.
It is still going, though not as well as it did in the early days, and the original-aim of meeting one in five of the population has fallen a long way short. However, between 1956 and 1973 we gave this very full, comprehensive talk—it is substantially Protect and Survive, the Home Office pamphlet—to 1,702,256 people. Then, in 1973, interest was beginning to wane and people did not any longer much want to know, so the figures began to drop. Therefore, between 1974 and 1979, which is the last year for which I have figures, we had only 28,118. Strangely enough 1979 was the best year since 1975.
Why I say that it was the best year is because this talk is given only to organisations and groups of people who ask for it. We do not go out and, as it were, tout for custom. If people want it, we go out and give it to them. Interest is beginning to increase again. I am glad to say that in Devonshire they are now asking for it, and I am hoping that some of the 500 One in Five speakers that we have can go along and help there. But between 1956 and 1980, this talk, along with an envelope containing all the pamphlets—which people can keep by their bedside, but which, I am afraid, usually goes by the recipe book in the kitchen—about what you can do to protect your home in the case of nuclear attack, has been given to 1 million people. That is not enough and we are hoping, now that interest is reviving, that we can perhaps give it to more people.
That brings me to how we could be more effective. One of the problems is the attitude of the general public. The

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general public did not want to know about nuclear warfare. They did not want to know how to protect themselves. So it is very difficult, in those circumstances, to keep up the enthusiasm and the energy of the volunteers. They come in with tremendous enthusiasm to cope with emergencies, but after a year or two the enthusiasm begins to wane and interest begins to go.
One of our other problems has been the attitude of the emergency planning officers. I have been interested to note that where the plans were the weakest, in recent times some of the loudest noises have come from the planning officers. I do not criticise them for that;I sympathise with them. Where the plans have been weak, this has not usually been the fault of the planning officer;very often it has been the fault of his council. They have not given him the support or the help that he needed. Now he is taking this opportunity to make himself known. But the weakest very often shout the loudest.
Any emergency service should be part of a contingency plan. The emergency planning officer should know the voluntary services in his district and their strengths and their weaknesses. I know only too well how very often a place that was strong two years ago suddenly, for no apparent reason, becomes dead or weak. People have moved away, or have lost interest, or have gone on to something else. However, they should have them as part of their contingency plans. We should have more exercises to help us to cooperate with other voluntary organisations and other people in the field. It is all very well having our own contingency plans, doing our own emergencies and being keen, but the key to it all is cooperation with all the other people in the field. This can be developed only if we have proper exercises.
One of the most important things is that the Home Defence College should be strengthened and enabled to take on more courses. As I have said, we could treble the numbers going there if only they could accommodate us. There is no doubt that when the leadership has been to Easingwold, it has done a marvellous job in smartening them up and increasing their enthusiasm. So in addition to any statutory obligation on the
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part of the local authority to file contingency emergency plans, there should be a statutory requirement that voluntary organisations are written into that plan. I think also that there should be a statutory obligation to hold a full-scale exercise at least once a year to test out the reality of the contribution, in particular the contribution of the voluntary organisation. As I have said, I think that the Home Defence College should be enlarged and strengthened.
I think that the great danger is complacency. We are in a period of tension now, and interest is rising. One hopes that this period will go;then, in two or three years' time, people may well sink hack into complacency. So we must have something similar to what the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgman, spoke about —perhaps some civil defence executive to stimulate interest and standards. There is nothing like being made to keep up to a standard to keep people on their toes, and enthusiastic. One of the great difficulties, when you have got your plans and when you have done your training, is if nobody tests it against any other standard.
I do not want there to be a revival of the Civil Defence Corps as it was in the old days but I do believe that the best way to organise our civil defence and our emergency services is on the county and metropolitan district basis that we have at the present time. I believe that in this way we shall get the local interest and the highest standards. But I am a little worried that if we just leave it like that —if we just leave it to the emergency planning officers, however good they are—we shall not get the support of the services across the county and local boundaries which are so important;I do not believe that we shall keep up the standards and the enthusiasm.
If it is left to the county councils and to the metropolitan councils, I believe that after a time enthusiasm will wane and that they will be left again in the doldrums. Therefore, I hope that the Government will look at the best of what we have and build upon it. In that way, we can not only build up a realistic civil defence force but we can also give to people the impetus and the opportunity that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spoke about of working in the community.

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I should like to end by stressing that we should not train ourselves only for emergencies in time of war or disaster. Let us use that training for the everyday emergencies of need and disadvantage that we find in the community. If people are working in the community, it teaches them the weaknesses, the strengths, the good spots and the bad spots in their own community. It teaches them a little bit more responsibility by knowing their own community. It teaches them to know the teams, the people with whom they are working, and I think it strengthens the whole fabric of our life.
6.46 p.m.
Lord RENTON: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will agree with me when I say that my noble friend Lady Pike has done a great service by telling us in great detail of the work of the WRVS, work which we greatly admire under her distinguished chairmanship. think she came very close indeed to saying —and I hope that she will not mind my pointing this out—that in addition to the work which traditionally has fallen upon the WRVS they should also take on the work which used to be done by the civil defence organisation. She seemed to me to come very close indeed to that. I shall be coming back to the part to be played by volunteers, but before I go any further I, too, should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne upon his maiden speech. I am delighted that he made it on this occasion, bearing in mind his very distinguished service as an officer in the Territorial Army.
I, like other noble Lords, wish to concentrate on civil defence because it seems to me that this first duty of every Government, which is to defend the people against danger, has been largely neglected since 1968 when the civil defence organisation and activities became a mere paper exercise. My noble friend the Minister of State has told us about the warning and monitoring organisation, the daily work of the police and fire services and the contribution made by the voluntary bodies, but I think that even my noble friend Lady Pike would agree that their coverage is not always complete. They do not go into every village. They are better in some towns and cities than in others. As for
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the NCVAS, of which my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh and I are both vice-presidents, it applies with even greater force to them. So when we are thinking about the part to be played by the voluntary bodies we must be realistic and realise that, when it comes to rebuilding an effective organisation, it may not be quite enough just to rely upon the existing voluntary bodies co-operating with the local authorities, which I believe, in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Carver, is the best way to reorganise the effort that needs to be made.
The last time, it so happens, that our civil defence organisation was improved and strengthened and much more money provided for it, in real terms, was in the early 1960s, when the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, was Home Secretary. I was the Minister of State in charge of civil defence and occupied, although I was in another place, the position that my noble friend Lord Belstead occupies today. I must say that I did not envy my noble friend today when he described to your Lordships the present position, although I do admire the way in which he made bricks without straw.
We had, in the early 1960s, when Lord Butler managed to get this extra money for the purpose, a fairly elaborate organisation. Rightly or wrongly, and on the scientific evidence which we had, we considered that we would have given effective protection against fall-out, and some protection against burns and blast on the periphery of each nuclear explosion. Therefore, the question of whether life was completely wiped out in this country would have depended upon the number of nuclear explosions and their pattern. Obviously, if the whole country was honeycombed there would be no hope for anybody, but it is not necessary to make that assumption, and indeed as soon as one makes an assumption of something less dreadful happening then one must have a civil defence organisation.
Also, the organisation that we had would have given almost as good protection against heavy air bombardment of a conventional kind as was provided by ARP towards the end of the last war. It is rather sad, looking back and comparing things then with those of today, but in the early 1960s representatives from the Governments of our NATO allies used

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to come to the United Kingdom to study what we were doing about civil defence, to see what they could learn from us—and they went away in admiration. In fact, a lot of the civil defence that has been put into force in Europe in the years since then was based upon what we had done.
I reckon (and this is only an exercise of judgment, guesswork, if you like, on my part) that it would take at least a year, starting now, to establish a really effective civil defence organisation of the kind which we had before, or of any reasonable kind. I think a year;others may have a more optimistic outlook. But this question of the time that it would take is very important indeed because as the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, pointed out, the Home Office plans in recent years have been based upon the remarkable assumption that all necessary preparations could be made during a period of—the noble Lord said—three weeks of international tension before we were attacked. Well, God help us if something happens in the next three weeks!
It is an absurd assumption, of course. That goes without saying. It is absurd partly because wars generally start somewhat suddenly and unexpectedly, but also because a few weeks would be nothing like enough to create the necessary organisation. Therefore, I hope that when we are told the outcome of the Home Office review we shall find that it specifies the risks which we should prepare to meet, because that is vital to the timing of the rebuilding of the organisation.
Although it is not the only risk, or the most probable one, the one which has been discussed by your Lordships who have spoken in this debate today is the risk of full-scale nuclear bombing—the holocaust. I do believe that, however sincerely people of pacifist or Left-Wing inclination feel about that matter, and in spite of the concession that I make that a real honeycombing of this country would leave us with no hope, we really should try to agree among ourselves—all of us—that there are other things besides the holocaust which we should consider as a risk. They have mostly been mentioned;therefore. I need mention them only very quickly.
One is just one or two nuclear explosions like a Hiroshima and a Nagasaki towards
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the end of what until then had been a conventional war;possibly explosions caused by the country which looked like losing the war and fearing that it was going to lose it, and thinking that one or two bombs might settle the matter, with not much retaliation. That is another possibility.
Then there is one possibility which has not been mentioned so far in this debate. It is that there might be a third world war carried out mainly with conventional weapons but becoming nuclear only on the great continental mass of Asia and Europe and not dropping directly on this country, but with fall-out drifting from the Continent to our shores. If we had done nothing to protect our people against that possibility they would have every right to resent our inactivity.
Then there is the possibility that no nuclear weapons would ever be used. After all, there was no gas used in the last World War and it may well be that both sides would fear to use nuclear weapons and therefore we should be justified in preparing—which is rarely a sound justification in military terms—in the next war to face the risks of the last war. But I concede that if that were to happen the bombing that we had in the last war would be considered not as bad as the bombing that we should get in the next war, because even conventional weapons have increased in size and power of destruction. Therefore, if some people say that civil defence is a waste of effort in full-scale nuclear attack they should in humanity concede, as the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, did, that we could and should protect our people against the other risks, as so many other countries have done.
The question is, what should we do? Here I come to a point which I think has given rise to controversy in this debate. Everyone agrees that we should use volunteers;everyone agrees that the local authorities will have to provide the basic organisation. Where I have detected a note of disagreement in some of the speeches concerns the exact relationship that there should be between the local authorities and the volunteers. I think there are three possibi ities. One is that we should have, as we did before something like the old type of Civil Defence Corps, whether the expanded WRVS or whatever

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it may be, closely linked with the local authorities, and indeed the local authorities responsible for the recruiting, the training and the organisation of the volunteers. That is one possibility.
Another possibility which the NCVAS favour is that the volunteers should be left to run their own show. I do not think that my noble friend Lady Pike was saying that but it is a point of view. Then there is a compromise between those two ways, and it is the compromise that I think most of your Lordships who have spoken would seem to favour;that is to let the local authorities use and guide and help the volunteers, but we then have to come to the situation that we do not want overlapping of effort between different kinds of voluntary societies. My noble friend Lady Pike referred to the WRVS as an "all-purpose body". We have deep respect for her, but I do not think that it is one. I have never thought of it as such. I have never heard of the WRVS being concerned greatly with first aid and light rescue work. I have never heard of them being concerned with radio communications, the use of radiac instruments and so on.
Baroness PIKE: My Lords, if I may intervene, I did not mean to give that impression. We are concerned with all the emergency services within the work that the WRVS does, and I did go on to define that we did the shelter, the food, the clothing and the administrative work and the back-up.
Lord RENTON: My Lords, I am grateful for that clarification and I am sure the true position is as my noble friend has stated it. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said that we want a vast army of volunteers. I think that is a slight contradiction in terms, expressed in that way. We assume that the opportunities given, the needs of the moment, the building on existing societies, will produce a lot of volunteers, but each of the volunteers must have a specific job or jobs to do, and only the local authorities can ensure that that happens. Therefore, we get back to this proposition, that whatever the degree of independence of each of the voluntary bodies may be, there has still to be some kind of direction and that direction has got to come from the
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local authorities. There is a tremendous lot to be done to provide an effective civil defence organisation. It will, I believe, take a year or so to achieve. But it must be done, and the sooner the better.
7.2 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, must be pleased, I am sure, by the immense interest in the House to which the subject he has proposed has given rise. It has given us additionally the pleasure of hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, who, if I may say so, made an exemplary maiden speech, and we shall look forward to hearing from him soon and often.
My Lords, it would take at least half an hour to summarise all the different proposals that have been made: whatever else the Home Secretary may say, I am sure he will not be critical of any deficiency in ideas put forward tonight. I propose to confine myself entirely to civil defence in relation to a nuclear war. Here one is, of course, in the hands of experts. It was the scientists who made the bomb and it is the scientific advisers who understand it. I should have thought that it would be difficult to find one of higher qualification to express an opinion than the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, whom I understand to be abroad, who was, after all, the chief scientific adviser to Combined Operations at SHAEF throughout the war, and for many years chief scientific adviser to our Ministry of Defence and then chief scientific adviser to our Government.
In November of last year he made a speech in the United States, extracts from which were subsequently published in The Times. In the course of that he said:
"As our own White Paper on Defence put it as long ago as 1957, there were then no means of protecting the population against the consequences of a nuclear war. There are none today when the scale of attack that could he envisaged may be a hundred times greater than it was in the 1950s.
"There is no dispute about this fact. Yet today we read that nuclear deterrents based on mutually assured destruction ' might, none the less, break down because the accuracy with which nuclear warheads could now be delivered has improved so much that a so-called counterforce policy is possible, that both the Russians and the Americans either already, or soon, will haw it in

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their power to deliver a first-strike' in order to destroy military targets such as fixed missile bases.
"But it is still inevitable that, were military installations rather than cities to become the objectives of military attacks, millions, even tens of millions, of civilians would be killed, whatever the proportion of missile sites, airfields, armament plants, ports and so on that would be destroyed".
Then he gives the technical basis of that.
Then he says:
"Nor was I ever able to see any military reality in what is now referred to as theatre or tactical nuclear warfare;that is to say, of field warfare in which nuclear weapons—however modernised, are used. The analyses and studies which lead to this conclusion have never been controverted. There are no vast deserts in Europe, no endless open plains, on which to turn war games in which nuclear weapons are used into a reality.
"The distances between villages are no greater than the radius of effect of low yield weapons of a few kilotons;between towns and cities, say a megaton. And a single one megaton bomb could erase the heart of any great city—say Birmingham —and kill instantly a third of its citizens. It has been calculated that a one megaton strike over Washington would lay waste not only to the White House and the Pentagon, but Capitol Hill and almost every Government building….
"The declared purpose of SALT 2 is to establish a measure of nuclear equivalents between the two sides, but at a level which, were the present state of mutual deterrence ever to break down, would be well above the threshold needed to devastate utterly, and without hope of repair, all the cities, even most of the small towns of both the North American and Euroasiatic continents, with hundreds of millions killed in a flash, and with vast numbers of those who were not so lucky then dying of the effects of radiation.
"These are not extravagent statements. They are spelled out in several recent official American reports which record the results of detached scientific analyses of what would happen at different levels of nuclear exchange. Similar conclusions were drawn from corresponding and even more detailed studies that were carried out in Britain about 20 years ago".
My Lords, I thought the House ought to be reminded that that is the advice of that chief scientific adviser.
If I may ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, a question of which I have given him notice, it is this. How far was what purported to be the views of the Home Office in this matter published in the Sunday Times of 17th February, accurate? What the article said in part was this:
"The Home Office planners envisage that a nuclear attack on Britain would be in the order of 200 megatons, the equivalent of about 13,000 bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima. The blast from a single five-megaton H-bomb detonated about one mile above Trafalgar Square, for example, would completely devastate a circle of three and a half miles radius, kill everyone within a radius of one and three quarter miles and 60 per cent. of the people living two and half miles away.
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"Most structures within a circle bounded by Hackney, Greenwich, Fulham and Willesden, would collapse and houses as far away as Bushey in Hertfordshire would be damaged. About 1 million people would be killed immediately and many more would die later from delayed effects. Houses and cars would burst into flames and human skin would be charred and blistered as far as 15 miles from the bomb".
My Lords, that is one bomb. I have thought carefully about what Lord Renton said. I would not think that either of the big nuclear powers, whichever presses the button, would do it in a half-hearted way;obviously they would want to make a go of it. I should like to know whether that is an accurate account of Home Office thinking.
This morning I received in the post a leaflet which has on it a picture of an atom mushroom and it offers me an air-raid shelter, field shelter mark II, costing some £1,400. I am not clear how many people it is designed for because it occupies a space of only 7 ft. 8 ins. by 9 ft. 6 ins. When you think of all the food, water and lavatories and things which have to be included, it does not seem very large. That is obviously only for the well-to-do. It provides one with advice. It says:
"If outdoors when attack is imminent, go to the nearest building or lie flat in a ditch, covering exposed skin of head and hands. Do not look at the flash, lasting perhaps twenty seconds. Await the blast before moving indoors. There will he time after the attack to inspect for damage".
It is rather reminiscent of the original version of Protect and Survive, which, I think, recommended blotting paper! What happens if one is outside? As I understand it, the siren will give only 10 minutes' notice. The pamphlet deals with the fireball and it says:
"Any fires should be dealt with, so a garden syringe with buckets of water or sand should be available".
I suppose that all of those items are to go into the shelter.
There is another man whose views your Lordships ought to bear in mind. He is not a chief scientific adviser;he is a soldier. I do not wish to disparage any other military observations which have been made from any other quarter, but he was an outstanding man. I am referring to the late Lord Mountbatten of Burma. In May last year he made a speech in Strasbourg on the occasion of a prize-giving ceremony, and he also dealt,

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in part, with the question of a military confrontation. He said:
"And here lies the greatest danger of all. A military confrontation between the nuclear powers could entail the horrifying risk of nuclear warfare. The Western powers and the USSR started by producing and stockpiling nuclear weapons as a deterrent to general war. The idea seemed simple enough. Because of the enormous amount of destruction that could be wreaked by a single nuclear explosion, the idea was that both sides in what we still see as an East-West conflict would be deterred from taking any aggressive action which might endanger the vital interests of the other.
"It was not long, however, before smaller nuclear weapons of various designs were produced and deployed for use in what was assumed to be a tactical or theatre war. The belief was that were hostilities ever to break out in Western Europe, such weapons could be used in field warfare without triggering an all-out nuclear exchange leading to the final holocaust.
"I have never found this idea credible. I have never been able to accept the reasons for the belief that any class of nuclear weapons can be categorised in terms of their tactical or strategic purposes.
Your Lordships will notice that as regards that point he agrees with the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman. He goes on:
"Then in 1943 I became Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia, and saw death and destruction on an even greater scale. But that was all conventional warfare and, horrible as it was, we all felt we had a fighting ' chance of survival. In the event of a nuclear war there will be no chances, there will be no survivors—all will be obliterated.
"I am not asserting this without having deeply thought about the matter. When I was Chief of the British Defence Staff I made my views known. I have heard the arguments against this view but I have never found them convincing. So I repeat in all sincerity as a military man I can see no use for any nuclear weapons which would not end in escalation, with consequences that no one can conceive.
"And nuclear devastation is not science fiction —it is a matter of fact. Thirty-four years ago "—
he then refers to what happened at Hiroshima, and goes on:
"But that is not the end of the story. We remember the tens of thousands who were killed instantly or worse still those who suffered a slow painful death from the effect of the burns—we forget that many are still dying horribly from the delayed effects of radiation. To this knowledge must be added the fact that we now have missiles a thousand times as dreadful;I repeat, a thousand times as terrible.
"One or two nuclear strikes on this great city of Strasbourg with what today would be regarded as relatively low yield weapons would utterly destroy all that we see around us and immediately kill probably half its population. Imagine what the picture would be if larger nuclear strikes were to be levelled against not just Strasbourg but ten
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other cities in, say, a 200 mile radius. Or even worse, imagine what the picture would be if there was an unrestrained exchange of nuclear weapons —and this is the most appalling risk of all since, as I have already said, I cannot imagine a situation in which nuclear weapons would be used as battlefield weapons without the conflagration spreading.
"Could we not take steps to make sure that these things never come about? A new war can hardly fail to involve the all-out use of nuclear weapons. Such a war would not drag on for years. It could all he over in a matter of days.
"And when it is all over what will the world be like? Our fine great buildings, our homes will exist no more. The thousands of years it took to develop our civilisation will have been in vain. Our works of art will be lost. Radio, television, newspapers will disappear. There will be no means of transport. There will be no hospitals. No help can be expected for the few mutilated survivors in any town to be sent from a neighbouring town—there will be no neighbouring towns left, no neighbours, there will be no help, there will be no hope
That speech unaccountably has not been reported in any national British newspaper, but as it coincides so very closely with what the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, our chief scientific adviser, also said on the same subject, I would only express the hope that the Home Secretary, when hearing all the views put forward tonight, will take those views into account as well.
7.17 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for initiating this debate today. I also thank him for mentioning the City of Plymouth, which I think has done splendid work in this regard. I should also like to thank my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, especially for the way that he has sat through the whole of the debate, which does not always happen with maiden speakers, and also for what he has said.
During the last war my father built an air raid shelter under a hill in our garden. It is still in good "nick". He built it for the evacuees because he did not think that there would be enough room for them in the houses. Having done that, he lived in London himself and. regrettably, he was killed by a blast from a bomb in London.
I should like to say something practical —because we seem to have heard about a great many matters today—in regard in particular to Wiltshire. The Wiltshire

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County Council has an excellent Emergency Planning Officer, and full attention has been given to the Civil Defence (Planning Regulations) 1974—No. 70. In 1969 all the local councils in Wiltshire met at chairman and clerk level. They were told their responsibilities and what nuclear war could do to the country. They were asked to decide for themselves whether civil defence should be taken seriously, and, if so, there were two requirements. First, they agreed that the officers of the council should regard civil defence planning as a normal part of their duties;and secondly, that an informed and co-operative public was essential.
The councils, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Belstead will be pleased to hear, have put in more money, more time and more effort than required by the Government. They did so because they thought that it was essential to keep up the standard: there was no point in working so hard if the subject would have no meaning because they did not have the facilities, money and equipment. I am glad to say that the public in Wiltshire responded well and now over 2,000 people, throughout the length and breadth of the county, have attended eight or more of the 12 studies which have been offered. They understand the dangers of nuclear attack and they go home to their villages and advise their neighbours what to do. There is also an excellent printed directory of their names and addresses, and if possible their telephone numbers, so that these people can be contacted at any time they are needed. There are also evening classes for the public, and the local authority officers study their responsibilities, which involve a close tie-up—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will be pleased to hear this—with the public at community level.
However, it is felt by the county council and myself that it is essential for the Government to give a lead. There should be a master concept as to how civil defence can be undertaken. I regret to say that there is at present no strategy, no theory and no concept. Therefore, all those engaged in civil defence are in difficulty. I understand that the Society of County Emergency Planning Officers has failed, despite all efforts, to reach any sort of agreement. Therefore, civil defence is at the moment undefined, muddled and totally uncoordinated.
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My noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve who, unfortunately, has almost lost her voice, has asked me to put forward one point on her behalf. Apparently the Red Cross and St. John's Ambulance come under the area health authority, which is responsible for the preparation of the Health Service in the event of nuclear war and other disasters. The circular is HDC(77)1 and HC(77)1 They have no idea what will happen because the local health authority has not told them whether they will man—as they believe they will—first aid posts and work in collecting stations. No indication has been given of how many of these posts there are or where they could be located nationwide. I gather that there is to be a Red Cross conference or seminar at Easingwold in May. I believe that it is the second one that has been held there. They would be very grateful if they could he given some indication of plans for the future, particularly as they want to hold exercises, which is now very difficult.
With regard to Wiltshire, they would very much like to have more radio instruments, better communications, and premises that will give protection to essential services. I should like to see an organisation like the Civil Contingencies Unit—known as the CCU—under someone like Mr. Robert Wade-Gery who is the Cabinet's chief contingency planner. That unit was founded to deal with civil emergencies. I hope that my noble friend will agree that civil defence also needs a contingency planner, and someone who can co-ordinate all these willing people in the various counties. I should like more co-ordination for that very good organisation, the Royal Observer Corps.
The noble Lord who spoke from the Liberal Benches mentioned the question of China. As far back as 1961, when I was in China, I was able to see the rabbit warrens which are literally under Peking and other cities. Even then they contained food and were lit, but the people will not stay there for long. Roads are being built out so that they can take the population into the countryside. That may not be so easy to do here, but I think that we should take more interest in having some of these shelters.
I gather from an article published in the Sunday Times on 17th February this year, on emergency arrangements, that 44 Home

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Office circulars have been issued, six of which are restricted. I should like to know whether any of the others have been issued, to whom they have been issued, and what use can be made of them by the general public or by the officers from the county councils who are running the emergency services. I was very glad that my noble friend mentioned the publication, Britain's Gamble on Civil Defence, because those two young Members of Parliament did excellent work and it is a very helpful document.
I understand that it would be possible to neutralise Britain through threats of nuclear chemical or conventional bombs or missiles, which would enable the Soviet Union to advance on a major step towards global domination. We must be prepared to prevent this, together with the other side about which I shall not speak today.
I turn to what the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, said. There is a more hopeful side to his argument. I admire the noble Lord because I have heard his speeches for the past 20 years, and he always sticks very strongly to his views. In the report of the United Nations Secretary-General published in 1967 it is said that a one megaton explosion over a city of approximately 1 million persons would result in 270,000 people being killed by blast and heat;90,000 being killed by radiation;90,000 being injured, but 710,000 being uninjured. It is those people about whom we must think and ensure that they are equipped—I should, of course, like all the people to be equipped, because we cannot say who will or who will not be injured—to deal with those who are injured. That is the only way in which we shall be able to save lives.
I hope that what I have said today shows the need for action. I am quite sure that if my noble friend gives a lead, the general public would be willing to co-operate. My noble friend Lord Renton said that he thought it would take a year. Locally, it is estimated that it would take 10 years to get any really safe civil defence action.
I end by asking the Minister two questions. I gather that the Bexley Bunker being made by the GLC at a cost of £77,000, is to be an underground fall-out shelter. Are any other such shelters being
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built? I also gather that some shelters exist in London which should be looked after by the Property Services Agency. Are they being cared for, and can my noble friend say who will be allowed to use them?—because I remember only too well that in the last war we were told that no one could go into the underground for safety reasons, but, of course, nobody could keep people out. I worked in them so I know of the thousands who went down to the Underground every night. I should like to know what these shelters will be used for, and, if possible, perhaps the Minister can tell me tonight.
7.27 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I rise to address you in particular on how this question of civil defence affects rural areas. It appears to me that it does not particularly matter whether we have nuclear or conventional assaults on our major urban areas as to what happens there. I feel very deeply that we must realise that the future of our country lies in its children. Prior to the last war we had a great mass evacuation of children, and I hope that in any immediate threat of future war we shall be able to do something to take away from these danger areas, where the mass of our industry is, the children who will have to reconstruct the future of this country.
Tonight, I should like to draw attention to the fact that there is a total lack of knowledge throughout the country areas of what will happen as regards civil defence during the run-up to another war. It is to the rural areas that people will send their children. We do not know where they will go; we do not know who is to be evacuated or how they will be evacuated. Are we quite satisfied that plans are being laid by voluntary or other services on how this evacuation is to take place? I am appalled at times to realise what a lack of communication there is between what one might call the "deep" planning and the individual person and family on the ground. I would be more than surprised, if you went into any rural area which would have to receive a mass of evacuees, if you could find anyone who could tell you where they were going; whether they had been consulted; whether they knew about it; or whether there were any plans for it. It is difficult to convey to people who have not got their feet

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actually on the ground in these areas which might receive mass evacuation what is going to happen.
It is quite easy to convey to the public in a highly populated rural area what might happen if somebody dropped a nuclear bomb on the place. It is easy to conceive, from all the things that have been said, the mass of destruction which could be done by fire and blast throughout an area. This can be understood, but what are we going to do about the basic population of young people who are in these areas? They must be moved because they are the basis on which we are going to build our future society. If we do not move them, we are in a situation where we shall be without any youth at all to build up a future society.
We read and we hear that county councils and everybody else have been given guidelines on to which these plans have been built up. The councils at the moment are so involved in matters which are of a more immediate importance that it appears to me that the long-term planning—and I am not sure that it is all that longterm—is being forgotten. If you come down in detail, have the Government really worked out how they are going to do a mass evacuation, where it starts, or where people are going to go?
Prior to the last war we were not a multiracial society; we are now. Could they tell us where, in a multiracial society, you are going to put people? Is the day-to-day life which they expect going to be carried on in some border county of Wales? It is a most difficult subject, and one about which one has not heard that there has been any thought at all. Further, it is surprising that one has never heard how a mass evacuation of young people is going to take place. Are British Rail in a position to move them, because at the same time that they are called upon to do mass evacuations they will also be mobilising reserve forces and helping to move forces over to Europe. It would be interesting to know at some timewhether the rolling stock of British Rail is now at the same level as it was prior to the last war. My information is that they would not have the rolling stock.
While one cannot envisage what is going to happen, have they enough locomotives to be brought into use to move
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a mass of children from great, sprawling suburban areas? Have we enough communications to move all the people, the food, and everything else required when these mass evacuations take place? I am worried about all these matters because basically one comes down to the situation that a war is fought, and won, on the ability to break the resistance of the population, and one of the ways of doing it is to destroy any hope of the future. And, as I said earlier, the future is in our children.
I should also be interested to know whether anybody has ever been into any of these small country villages and asked whether they have even been approached as to how many evacuee children could be introduced. I doubt whether anybody ever has. The information is most readily available if required. I would say that it would be easy to get it, because one of the organisations you would go to to ask what accommodation was available would be the Women's Institute. They know everything and everybody, and exactly how many people anybody could take. They could also tell you a lot more things.
I feel that a plan for people to assemble and collect children from places where the railway has put them, or where the buses have put them down, is absolutely essential. Do voluntary organisations such as the women's voluntary services know these things? Are they organised? Have things been conveyed to them? If they have, they have escaped me entirely. I have contacts with a number of people in rural areas and I have never heard anything of it.
What really worries me is the total lack of information about what is going on, and who is doing what, getting down to the person actually living on the ground. If you are to save young people who are now in the towns it is essential that people on the ground should know now exactly what is expected of them and what they have to do, where their supplies and their food will come from, and everything else connected with a sudden and unexpected influx. You would find that the mass of people who live in this country would be only too willing and anxious to help. There is a tremendous feeling of national pride and willingness to survive and help, particularly when it comes to looking to our future with the

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young. I hope the Government are giving great thought to the detailed planning that is required, and that they will stimulate councils to make much greater efforts to convey to everybody what the future dangers are.
7.41 p.m.
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships at this late hour for any great length of time, but I want to touch on two aspects of the subject which has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, and the House is grateful to him for having raised it. The first is purely the defence aspect and the second is the social aspect of defence in this country today.
In regard to defence, I will follow the example of my noble friend Lord Shin-well and take a brief glance at the history of the present century, because history repeats itself, and historians will really marvel at the speed with which the decline of this country and the disintegration of the British Empire took place;and because, as Sir Winston Churchill once said,
"The purpose of recriminating about the immediate past is to ensure better action in the present".
We have had in this century three decades of decline: first, the opening decade, known as the Edwardian era;secondly, the 'thirties, which I call the decade of deflation;and thirdly, the 'seventies, which I call the decade of inflation. I have lived through all of them, two of them in Parliament: and the similarity between them is frightening. The result of the first decade was the First World War, and the result of the second was the Second World War. In both we were very nearly defeated. We were saved twice by the skin of our teeth because we threw up, in the nick of time and at the right moment, the only two men of authentic genius in our public life this century, Lloyd George and Churchill. They rank with Cromwell and Chatham;and they are not easily come by. It is difficult to believe it now, but in 1920 the British Empire was at its zenith;it had never been so large and never been so powerful, and that is only 60 years ago. Not only the Dominions and India and large parts of Africa. but the whole of the Middle East and South East Asia, were under British protection,
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and often under British rule. Alone we stood up to Ataturk in 1922 and stopped a Turkish invasion of Europe. At the beginning of the 1920s the world felt safe, and it was largely under our protection.
Then, in 1922, we threw out Lloyd George, because he was said to be a dynamic force;and opted for tranquility. For a while we got it, and slept peacefully and happily under Mr. Baldwin. While we were doing that, we allowed Germany to re-arm, in defiance of the Treaties of Versailles and Locarno, to send troops into the Rhineland and to seize Austria. When we woke up in 1936 we did not like what we saw in Europe, the Middle East or in the Far East. What happened? Did we re-arm? Not a bit of it. Mr. Baldwin came down to the House of Commons and apologised for having misled us about German re-armament in the air;and at Munich we fled thankfully from the world stage, only to find ourselves grappling with mortal peril two years later. Why? As so often happens, Shakespeare has given the answer:
"That England, being empty of defence, Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood".
Again, after the Second World War, we stood up for about four years. The then Government were pretty tough. Attlee, Ernest Bevin, Ancurin Bevan, Stafford Cripps and my noble friend Lord Shinwell did not flinch from the Berlin airlift;they signed the NATO Treaty and, if I am not wrong—he is not here to contradict me, thank goodness!—my noble friend Lord Shinwell, as Minister of Defence, brought compulsory national Service to an end with great reluctance and many misgivings. I think he would admit that if he were here;I will ask him afterwards.
What happened next? Back to sleep we went again, under the influence of inflation, dishing out paper money to everybody right, left and centre which we had not earned but which was in the early stages a drug. We withdrew the British Naval presence from the Persian Gulf and cleared out of Aden and the Gulf States. I felt it was a great mistake, and said so, at the time. Secondly, when the French—and it was the French who did it—brought forward the Pleven plan for a European Defence Community, which would have been a very good thing today if it existed, it was smashed to pieces

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in half-an-hour at a press conference in Rome by Eden, and with it the whole concept of Western European political union. That has gone now. There is no hope of getting it back in the measurable future;but it is an awful pity that it happened, because there is no co-ordinated European defence force which could be used in the event of an attack on the West by conventional forces.
Meanwhile, the Russian build-up continued. We were kept in the dark about that and successive Ministers of Defence told us nothing about it. Now their policy is, I think, pretty clear: they will take what they can, without serious risk, anywhere in the world with the overwhelming superiority they have built up in conventional forces;and they have done, as I said to your Lordships the other day, pretty well up-to-date. Look at what they did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. There was no credible defence in either of those countries, but the invasion was brutal, swift and absolute. They did it, and we could do nothing about it. Did they do it in Yugoslavia? No. Why did they not do it in Yugoslavia?—because Tito had, not nuclear weapons, but a regular army of 3 million troops, as he has today, constantly on the watch, and constantly on guard. Therefore, the Russians would not take that on.
I think that we are very fortunate in having the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, as Foreign Secretary at the present time because I believe that in Afghanistan the Russians may have bitten off a bit more than they can chew. It is not certain yet, but I think it is a very good move on our part to provide them with an escape hatch if they do think they have bitten off more than they can chew. I think that we are also fortunate in having Mr. Pym as Secretary of State for Defence, because by agreeing to deploy cruise missiles in Britain, and bring our Polaris force up-to-date, he has ensured that, with the United States of America, we can at least match the Russian nuclear strength. But relying upon the nuclear deterrent for a credible defence to the extent that we are now doing is taking a terrible risk, because I do not believe —for cogent reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, in what I can only describe as a hilarious speech—that the Russians have any
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intention of using nuclear weapons unless they are used against them;and further, I believe that they do not think that they will ever be used against them.
So far as home and civil defence against an attack with conventional weapons goes, it is for all practical purposes in this country at present not only inadequate, but almost non-existent;and so it will be;unless and until we restore compulsory national service, we cannot have either proper home defence or proper civil defence.
Let us suppose that tonight there was an air raid on one of our great cities with conventional, heavy, high explosive bombs. What would we all do? We would not know what the hell to do. There was a television programme the other day which turned into a search for an air raid warden ill a small town in England. Somebody knew his name, but nobody knew his telephone number;and at the end of the film he had not yet been found. That is the measure of our defence against conventional air attack today;and itis not good enough. I do not think that we have too much time, because I believe that in our present defenceless condition the temptation to the Russians to attack us is very great. The least we can do is to set up a register, without which we cannot hope to achieve any quick expansion of our conventional armed forces to meet an emergency. If President Carter can do it, surely we can do it.
In conclusion, I turn to the social aspect of the defence which we are discussing tonight. We are now in the last stage of the second industrial revolution, with a transition for Britain from heavy industrial production to modern technical production, demanding invention and engineering skill. We have both;and I am not unduly worried about the future of the engineering industry in this country. I was greatly encouraged by the remarkable maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, last week about this. I think that the engineering industry has a great future before it, as have many other highly technical industries. But the shipbuilding industry will not recover;the textile industry will not recover;and, as we all know, the steel industry must be cut, and is being cut, by at least 50 per cent.

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Whatever monetary policy we pursue—whether one is a Friedmanite, a Galbraithite, or any other "ite "—and whether we have confrontation, or, as I hope, consensus in British industry, there is no hope of escape for this country from heavy unemployment during the next two or three critical years. We cannot avoid it. As Dr. Kissinger constantly reminds us, the next two or three years are going to be critical for the West. What are we to do about it? I listened, or rather, I did not listen to all of it, but I read carefully the debate on education last week in your Lordships' House, and I was impressed by the fact that every speech, without exception, highlighted the problem of the 16 and 17 year old school-leavers. Far too many of them, even the most gifted, are being sent to the labour exchanges, and what then?—frustration, the streets, a feeling of hopelessness, leading in many cases to drugs and drink, and finally to prison. That is the future that we are offering to far too many of our young people in this country today. We owe it to them to give them a good training in the modern world, as well as discipline and a sense of purpose, so thatcomradeship and a feeling of security will replace fear and hatred.
We must never forget Freud's greatest discovery: that there are two basic instincts in us all—the life instinct, and the instinct of aggression and self-destruction —continually at war with each other.
"I bow to the reproach of my fellow men",
Freud said,
"that I have no consolation to offer them;for at bottom this is what they all demand—the frenzied revolutionary, as passionately as the most pious believer."
Then, in a prophetic flash, he wrote:
"Men have brought their powers "—
and this was long before the invention of the atomic bomb—
"of subduing the forces of nature to such a pitch that by using them they could now destroy each other to the last man,"
adding, characteristically, that from this arose a great part of their current unrest, dejection, and mood of apprehension.
We must face the fact that for the last 10 years the death instinct seems to have been winning. Look at television, any night you like. Look at the violence, look at the hatred on the faces of the
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rioting crowds in Tehran, or on the faces of some—not all—of those in picket lines, and even on occasions on the faces of some football hooligans. Why do they do this? —because they have no other purpose in life.
The last time that I advocated compulsory national service—and I was the only Member of Parliament at that time to do so—was in January, 1938, and for that I was denounced by the Home Secretary as a "jitterbug". In a remarkable speech at Chelsea he said,
"These timid panic-mongers are doing the greatest harm";
and he blamed us for holding up a five-year plan worked out by Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Chamberlain and—God save us!—Daladier, which he said would lead us immediately to a golden age. Four days after that pronouncement the German tanks thundered into Prague—and that was the end of the golden age. So, if anyone calls me a "jitterbug "after this debate, I can only reply, "Tell that to the Marines, if we've got any left".
My Lords, I am sorry if I have spoken a little violently, but I feel that, in a way, this is a touchstone;because I think it is the final test of our will to survive. We had a will to survive in 1917 and 1918;we had a will to survive in 1940—and we did, just. But this time we must show it, not after war breaks out but before it begins, because a Third World War will be the end of us.
8 p.m.
The EARL of CORK and ORRERY: My Lords, I hope that I may be forgiven by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and others if, in the interests of time-saving at this rather late hour, I do not comment in any detail on any preceding speech—not even, in fact, upon that highly-congratulation-worthy maiden speech (if I may so put it) of my noble and patient friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne. I want instead, if I may, to ask a question, and it is this: How fiercely self-defensive are we, the British? Or, rather more to the point, how fiercely self-defensive do other people think we are? I suggest it is high time we faced the fact that the answer to this question will be pretty rude. So disinclined do we appear to be to defend ourselves that it is very hard to see how an ill-disposed foreigner could experience so

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much as a nervous tremor at the thought of provoking us. "Those British ", I can hear him say, "a pretty dim lot if you are asking me. Of course they can find soldiers and sailors and airmen to play with NATO;but at home, why, they will be a push-over! "
Is this possible? Is it true that we have lost the will to defend ourselves? I think it may be partly true, and, what is much more important, I think it certainly looks true to other people. I suggest a couple of reasons why this has happened. The first of these reasons is the Welfare State. Children grow up in the belief that they are entitled as of right to be looked after in sickness and in health, in work or voluntary idleness, from the cradle to the grave, by other people, and that the prime business of Governments is to raise their standard of living—a notion in which every Government heartily encourages them. This belief in the duty of other people to look after us has gone far beyond the ordinary principles of national insurance. It has divided us into two classes, givers and takers, and the takers are scroungers, lead-swingers, and exceedingly expensive hypochondriacs.
In saying this, my Lords, I do not "knock "the Welfare State;it is a treasure and a wonder. But we deceive ourselves if we think that it can be paid for by money alone. There is another price;namely, a certain sapping of the moral fibre of the nation. That price may be worth paying;I do not say that it is or that it is not, but it is high, and it is paid when people look on the State or the Government as a universal provider—an attitude most properly condemned by the Prime Minister herself. As soon as you have decided that the responsibility for something belongs to somebody else you naturally wash your hands of it: and if the Government do nothing about it, either (if it is the Government which is in question) then clearly nothing will be done. Nobody cares;the will is gone. So, of my two causes of the loss of will to defend ourselves, the first is the Welfare State.
The second, my Lords, is socialism It is a familiar ploy of the party opposite to refer to policies other than its own as "divisive ", and this may in some cases be so;but that word lies strangely in the mouth of the only party we know, or have
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ever known, that is itself divisive in character, in intention and even in name. It stands for organised labour, which, however worthy and important, is certainly a minority in the nation. It is in fact the trade unions in politics. And remember, my Lords, that the unions have as their decision-making instrument the card vote, which, relying as it does on thousands, even millions, of votes that have not been cast, including many that would certainly have been cast the other way if they had been cast at all, is not only not democratic hut might have been invented expressly in order to make a democratic decision impossible. A little less claim to democratic virtues on the part of the Labour Party and a great deal less on the part of the trade unions would not be unbecoming.
Now, my Lords, the end of undemocratic processes is either oligarchy or anarchy, and the end of divisiveness is division. Given a party informed by both these principles governing a country that is already a Welfare State, that country is likely to become divided, demoralised and enfeebled. Small wonder if we have, as a result of all this, lost our will to defend ourselves. But, fortunately, to describe the country as being already a Welfare State is to exaggerate. Much of the nation's life-blood still runs through arteries which are not Government-controlled. Many vital services are in the hands of private persons or are run by volunteers, from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution to the magistrates' courts. Thus, the canker of selfish dependence on others has not worked right through the nation, and there is still a nucleus—indeed, much more than a nucleus—of the young and of the not so young to whom the word "service ", whether rewarded or unrewarded, is a word of honour—and by "service "
mean service not to any particular section of the community, however important or deserving, but to the nation as a whole.
Civil defence is such a service, and we now have, I believe, the leadership necessary to make it a reality. It has been pointed out already, and before, that in our attitude to civil defence we are, in one respect at least, unique, because we base our attitude to it, generally speaking, on the proposition that defence against nuclear attack is impossible, so we should

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not try. This argument is not only erroneous but also highly dangerous, and it is dangerous not only because it condemns in principle multitudes of people to needless suffering and death, which it does, but also because it ignores, as my noble friend Lord Renton has pointed out, all other possible forms of disaster.
The nuclear deterrent has in fact worked successfully for some 30 years, and I myself am optimistic enough to believe that it may well work for ever. But it does not work only in favour of the innocent: it works also as an umbrella under which a determined aggressor can expand. We know well enough by now by what means the Soviets expand: infiltration, subversion, the spurious cry for help from within the victim country, the military occupation lasting until the so-called threat to peace has been removed, which means for ever;and the whole process is carried out under the protecting shield of the threat of nuclear war. That process can be used against us. Indeed, in its earlier stages it is already being used against us, as my noble friend Lord Kimberley has pointed out. Strategically speaking, this country, Great Britain, is the key to the defence of Western Europe. Neutralise it and Russia could roll up all the rest, largely from behind.
I therefore suggest, my Lords, that we should stop talking about civil defence and home defence and find, perhaps, some other single word of a less pacific-sounding kind. Internal defence might do, perhaps, which has the advantage of not implying a rigid line of division between civil defence and home defence. Some say that civil defence is defence, anyway, and therefore should he under the Ministry of Defence and not the Home Office. I doubt whether the requirement is quite as simple, in fact, as that. But whatever the solution may be, let us forget the dangerous notion that the only danger we have to fear from a possible aggressor is nuclear.
It may well be that the proper objects of defence are not fully identified by the terms of the Motion, which refers to home defence and civil defence. "Home defence "suggests rifles and bayonets and anti-aircraft guns, while "civil defence "suggests air-raid precautions, maintenance of essential supplies and services, fire
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brigades, the auxiliary fire service, the civil defence corps and so on—all brought up to date, of course. But infiltration and subversion, these make calls upon the Intelligence and counter-espionage services (with all the electronic and other ramifications that they now dispose), advanced anti-subversion and counter-insurgency measures and techniques, close co-operation between the special branches of the civil and Service police forces and a whole host of interdependent and interlocking agencies.
Above all, and most urgently of all, we need a resurgence of the defensive spirit that I referred to earlier. That, in turn, calls for public education and a Government dedicated to the safety of the nation before all else. I see no reason to despair. The spirit may have been seduced and tampered with, but it is still there. It is innate in the genius of our people and does not die. We have the right and necessary Government, at last. We have determined county councils like those of Nottinghamshire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Devonshire, and dedicated pioneering organisations like the Devon Emergency Volunteers, with whom we can share such patriots and leaders as the noble Lord, Colonel Clifford of Chudleigh —on whom be peace!
8.11 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, the very large number of noble Lords who wanted to take part in this debate shows the great width of interest—and I do not think it just in this House—in the subject which is increasing across the country. It does great credit to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for introducing this subject which follows the debate we had on 12th December on the reserve forces. As the hour is late I intend to speak on one subject only, a subject mentioned by the Minister in his speech, that of the police role which he described as "crucial". I spoke on 12th December on this same subject but, as there was no Home Office Minister on the Front Bench at that time, I fear that there may be now some repetition. I cannot see opposite many noble Lords who could have heard the speech before and who therefore may find it a boring repetition;but I shall try to vary the words even if the points and the questions will, in the end, be the same. But this will be the

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first time that the Minister has heard them;I have warned him and I look forward to his reply.
No one who saw Belgium's collapse in the spring of 1940 will ever forget the confusion and misery, and I can remember the point striking me then of how much could have been spared if only there had been better preparation and better training. That has been the theme of a number of speeches here this evening.
The Minister referred to the police role as crucial, but he did not tell us much about it. He spoke of standing plans for the police role in war and how each region has a chief constable nominated as commander of any special operation;but he did not tell us from where he would find the men.
In this country, we have no police reserve;we are not organised that way. To whom is the commander to be responsible? That is important. Where is the chain of command? Normally, a chief constable is wholly responsible for the operational employment of his force. But private armies hardly fit in with war conditions. I would like to know exactly how these police operations fit in with the army's operations. Referring again to the police reserves;every force has some form of task force or SPG, but they are on a small scale in this country. We have nothing to compare with the Continental forces which are organised on an entirely different basis. Northern Ireland may be an exception. I speak under correction for I do not know. It is possible to collect men for occasional duties such as Rhodesia. for example, or for a particular demonstration;hut, even so, wide areas are left painfully weak and the police presence is very thin. I do not see how one can continue over long periods to draw men from their normal territories. This plays into the hands of thieves.
We once had in this country something called the First Police Reserve. It has been run down to nothing since the war. I remember being told not long ago in correspondence (with, I think, the noble Lord himself) that the First Police Reserve is deemed "obsolete". I wonder what that means. We know that it is run down, we know that it is no longer in existence, hut why are we told that it is obsolete? Is the noble Lord happy that we should
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now have no police reserve in the country? If not, what plans have the Government for creating one? I cannot see it as very difficult to create a reserve, but it would mean a big change in police traditions.
The Minister went on to speak of the Special Constabulary. I think he called them a vital addition to the regular Police Service. He mentioned the inquiry which was recently set up into recruiting. The need for such an inquiry shows how very run down this part of the Police Service is. At this point I must say again, as I have said many times, that I have no personal interest to declare. We have heard from officers of the Territorial Army, from the WRVS and from St. John Ambulance and others about their service;but, to dispel any doubts, I may say that I have never been a special constable. 1 tried more than once but I was always turned down.
The blame for this low strength now lies at several doors, not least at that of the Home Office. The WRVS, I am told, has a strength of 300,000 while the Special Constabulary has a strength of 17,000—and dropping every day. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, over the last few years—and I am sure that he never wanted to mislead the House—was all too ready to say how the recommendations of the working party which reported in 1976 gave the Special Constabulary a new start. In fact, they have done nothing but slip back, because those recommendations were most unattractive to a volunteer element.
I am sorry to say that the record of the regular police in their relations with their special constables—the poor training opportunities they have given and the reluctance they have shown to give any interesting duty—is, on the whole, very bad;and true leadership, as the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, mentioned, has not been present on the scale it should have been.
My noble friend Lord Belstead also said that the British people respond best when they know the facts. That is a true statement. But how few of us know anything at all about policing. Lawyers know a certain side of it, as do certain social workers, but most of us know little or nothing. We have in this House scores of noble Lords who have

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served in the Army and in the other armed forces. They know about the organisation, regimental duty and staff work;but, to the best of my belief, we have no Member of this House who has served as a regular police officer. If some policing duty is very confidential, most of it is not. If the Government and the police want more support from the public for the police, they must see that more people know more about what they are up to.
I read in a newspaper not long ago remarks by a very senior police officer in this country taken from a recent speech. I hope that this is not out of context. He referred to the police in this country, in contrast to that in most of the Continental countries, as a "people's police "and said, in effect, that long may they remain so. I thought it rather unhappy wording. One is reminded of people's courts and other things associated with the Eastern bloc; but we can all see what he meant. But I do not think any police is a true people's police so long as it looks on itself as an imperium in imperio —which it is the tendency of all police forces to do;living in a private world and tending sometimes to hold even their friends at arm's length. How do we get over this? If 50 members of your Lordships' House called on the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, over the course of a week and asked whether they could be given elementary facilities so that they could learn something about police duties and what a police constable's job is about, there would be every kind of excuse put forward about calls on the overstrained manpower—which would not be true—and I would not be surprised if the Home Office fell down in a swoon!
Joking apart, we must be serious about every side of civil defence, and many established conventions may have to go. No one is in a better position than the police, with their example to us all of loyalty and training, to give the lead that we want in the counties and to instil confidence and purpose in what we are doing. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, would agree with me there.
My Lords, those who have read the Evening News this evening will have noticed the vile headlines on the front page
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running down the Metropolitan Police CID. The corruption in the Metropolitan Police CID is a sorry business and I do not want to belittle it. But tonight I want to think of their good points and achievements, and to look forward with confidence to regular police, the Special Constabulary and the public working ever more closely together, and not just in war. Much of the success of this country in the past has been due to the co-operation between professionals and volunteers. I think that co-operation is as important today as ever it was.
8.22 p.m.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, we face the awful spectacle of the largest offensive military machine the world has ever seen supporting a declared policy of world political domination and specifically designed to fight and win a world war using all weapons in all parts of the world. The Soviets preach the inevitability of the war and maintain an economy capable of rapid transition to war. Little wonder they have a very highly developed civil defence system, and all their citizens are trained and equipped to face nuclear attack and not to be deterred by the thought of it. Many other countries have highly developed civil and home defence plans and shelter systems: Sweden, France, Norway and others, and particularly Switzerland.
By comparison, in the United Kingdom since the disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps in 1968 and until recently, the Home Office has required little more than the designation of officers for wartime duties and the earmarking of certain premises, and guidance has fallen far short of that warranted by the threat. Consequently, there is no awareness by the authorities or the public, and no standing instructions regarding buildings, survival, and so on. Yet civil defence—which would have to be organised very quickly in threat of war—presents an enormously complex problem with most difficult decisions to be taken. There will be little time and few resources, and possibly a shortage of communications, to inform and reach the public in emergency. yet at the moment the local authorities say that there is no clear definition of civil defence. The very word means different things to different authorities.

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There is no common base for planning and no declared strategy for the protection of the population. There are a number of areas of concern. Basic assumptions have been dealt with by the Minister. First, the low profile of information to the public mitigates against planning. Next, there is a wide disparity between different local authority plans and preparedness. There is little co-ordination between Government departments and public utilities. There is inadequate Government financial support for encouraging local defence planning. The merger of the civil defence grant with the general rate grant may harm civil defence in some authorities.
What must be done, my Lords? Perhaps a home defence committee under a Minister should co-ordinate home defence planning and strengthen Government commitment to civil defence. We have heard about the review of planning assumptions;a review of information policy to arouse public awareness is required, and perhaps the establishment of a Home Office and local authority research cell to improve the effectiveness of plans and avoid duplication. There should be the establishment of machinery for co-ordinating planning at regional level to increase liaison between departments and utilities;to increase support to involve community levels in defence plans;to complete arrangements for subregion premises and staffing and other headquarters;to improve home defence communications networks;to issue guidance to industry on their role in home defence;and to ensure that there is no reduction in expenditure for civil defence for local authorities. Perhaps the November conference has dealt with some of these, and the words of the Minister were certainly encouraging.
One must also ask: What is the present supply and modernisation of anti-nuclear defence equipment from dosimeters to fire engines? To what extent would any units of the Territorial Army or other force be available and even partially trained to help in emergency? Should there not be a trained voluntary body of potential leaders to instruct in emergency on survival skills after attack? What would he the result of the electro-magnetic pulse high altitude bomb? And what alternative means of communications would be used with almost all the medium
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wave wireless disabled? Could the coal, ironstone and old lead mines be used as shelters?
We then come to another aspect of defence, the Territorial Army and the Air Force reserves. Probably all the Territorial Army units will be fully tied up on the NATO front within days of the threat, leaving few, if any, units at home. The few regular air squadrons will also be there and will be tied up, if not shot up, within days of the conflict. The country will then be exposed to the rather obvious threat of a large-scale airborne landing from the East, to remove the United Kingdom at an early stage from being the forward base for the United States.
Is there therefore not a need for an improved scale of reserves to provide a home defence reserve when the present TA has gone to do their job in NATO? Such units could certainly be raised in the North of England where recruiting is good. In addition, with the regular Air Force gone to NATO, there will be the crying need of an auxiliary air force armed with adequate but not necessarily the most sophisticated aircraft. Any sign of an auxiliary air force is just exactly what we have not got. Yet, to increase the air reserve, train pilots and obtain planes, takes years, not days. Should we not therefore have a reserve of trained pilots and aircraft for this role as the TA plays its part on the ground.?
There is always the strong counter-argument that reserve pilots could not remain trained to handle modern aircraft, and that the ageing aircraft would be shot out of the sky;also reserve aerodrome costs would be too high. As regards pilots, those who leave the RAF do not forget all their training;and the Americans and Australians successfully bring back pilots for two or three weeks each year for intensive flying, as we used to do in the days of the Meteor and the Vampire.
A few more Hawk trainers readily convertible to war planes could provide the hardware. They may not he the most sophisticated aircraft, but in the confusion of war some would survive, and they are faster and better than many contemporary aircraft in use, for example the Alpha jet. Regarding airfields and aids, it used to be standard to fly without all the new sophisticated aids, and the ability to get

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home without the aids may have produced better pilots. The Russians operate from ill-prepared airfields with few aids and accept odd losses;so should we, especially as in war most of the electronic aids would soon be nullified by EMP.
Thus reserve fields would not need expensive aid equipment, and anyhow in peacetime TAC AN would allow reserve airfields to use aids from existing nearby prime airfields, and reserve pilots could operate in reasonable weather down to about 500 feet.
This is trespassing on the field of management of the RAF. But it does seem to me that a new look could be taken at the possibility of creating an active home defence air reserve. But despite the offensive posture and talk of the Soviets and their belief in their ability to fight and win a nuclear war, one cannot seriously credit that they would willingly risk the nuclear response, however dispersed their population and industry in the threat of war.
However, the deterrence of the West is only viable if they believe it will be used;and the sight of an unprotected and undispersed civil population in. the West must encourage the Kremlin hawks "to argue that the West would not in fact dare to respond to conventional aggression with nuclear weapons. Each successful venture has encouraged another until Afghanistan;and one has seen the remarkable picture of the Russians finding themselves bogged down by a resentful population and international sanctions.
There are three ways of dealing with the Russian aggression: to surrender;to fight a third world war;or to oppose by non-military means. That is, of course, what is being done. Sanctions will have some effect and shortage of grain may make the Soviets dig into their war reserves and thereby affect their civil defence plan. But, to my mind, two outstanding features predominate. The Olympic Games are the great psychological political and publicity triumph of the decade for Moscow. For years, Russian tourists have been shown the site. It is the climax of respectability. Just as Hitler needed the Games to build up German morale in 1936, so will the Games boost the morale of the Soviet people.
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To lose them now would be a major propaganda defeat. The Russian people, having been told little of the truth about Afghanistan, will demand to know why they are being ostracised by the West. More than any other factor, this must influence the Russians to pull out of Afghanistan.
But what happens next? We hope the BBC will not report the Games;but the athletes tell the politicians to go play their games, but they are going to Moscow. If they do that, Moscow can only deduce that, whatever the politicians say, the young people of the West do not really much mind about Afghanistan and that soon the West will forget. After a decent interval, perhaps, they can try Turkey or Yugoslavia. I hope that these athletes who value their trip to Moscow above the maintenance of the Free World will not blame the politicians if they have to be called on in a year or two to defend their way of life by a call to arms, having failed to contribute to freedom by peaceful action this year.
Remember last time? It was the Oxford Union debaters who said they would not fight for King and country, who encouraged Hitler;and those boys ended up fighting and dying. This time it will be the Olympic athletes who arc condoning aggression and encouraging the Soviets thereby. They should consider very carefully the heavy responsibility that lies upon their shoulders in deciding to go to Moscow.
The other major lesson of Afghanistan is one that the Russians are learning. Great popular resistance to occupation has surely contributed to their apparent desire to find a face-saving formula for pulling out. They must be made to learn that, should they succeed in their stated aim of world domination (and Hitler, Napoleon and many others made the fatal mistake of believing that they could do so) they would meet with two factors—first, permanent and preplanned resistance and ungovernability that would sap their strength, as many occupying powers have found to their cost. Secondly, their troops, having seen the fruits of capitalism, would demand rights and consumer goods back home, which would destroy the grip of Communism.
The Soviets must realise that even if they won a war the results would destroy

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their own political system and gain them nothing. Victory, even if gained, must be shown, if possible, for many reasons to be unacceptably unattractive. These factors can contribute to civil defence and to the military deterrence, in ensuring that the latter will never have to be used. The Bear has reached into Afghanistan for honey and had its paw stung. It must be made to realise that to put its paw into the West, even if it succeeds in doing so, will not only get it stung, but get it caught in a debilitating and fatal trap.
8.39 p.m.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, I have listened to the whole of this debate and am the more grateful as it has developed for the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, opened the gate into a field in which such profitable tillage has been provided by speaker after speaker. I have had the opportunity of relishing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Murton, for which I sincerely thank him and I am much tempted to dilate or to comment upon some of the remarks made in previous speeches. As the hour is late, I shall do nothing of the sort, but with some trepidation will recall the House, if I may, to that which lies behind this debate. It is the question as to what human beings do under the threat of armed violence and in particular of what we now know as war. That is what we are endeavouring to talk about;it is the defence against that particular adversity with which we are concerned.
I believe that in the various reactions to this question it would be totally improper entirely to ignore the pacifist position. Therefore, with some trepidation, as I say, I would seek to attract your Lordships' attention to a way of approaching the question of defence which hitherto has not been included in any previous speech but one in which I believe earnestly and which, perhaps without great hopes of conversion, I would venture to share with those of you who care to listen to it now.
The pacifist position, the pacifist case, is that warfare is an extraordinarily and peculiarly dangerous activity of the human species—one which is not shared by any other species. A swarm of locusts will eat almost anything except another swarm of locusts. It is the human species which has committed itself to the
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internecine and suicidal strife, the various aspects of which we have been discussing this afternoon. We are all impressed and oppressed by the severity of that test and of the mortal danger of that activity.
The pacifist believes there is no justification for the exercise of armed violence and that it is entirely wrong. It cannot be baptised: there is no such thing as a just war. It cannot be domesticated: an international committee the other week broke up in some confusion because their remit was the question as to what are objectionable weapons, as disticnt from those which are more kindly. There is no such thing as the limitation of war and it has, I believe, a terminal consequence now, in that it produces a situation that is irremediable, irreversible and totally dangerous.
I admit frankly that this is a belief that I hold and it is shared by many others, including His Holiness of Rome, who not long ago in Ireland pronounced with no reservations at all: Thou shalt not kill". I regard it and so does the pacifist case, as something which is intimately connected with the possession and the use of weapons—in fact, the possession of weapons, which marvellously concentrates the mind of those who possess them in exactly the same way that the sentence of death is supposed so to do. In other words, we believe as pacifists that there is a practical answer which will prevent the access of warfare and prevent the various remedial and "ambulance "methods which have been so widely ventilated in your Lordships' House this afternoon.
If you think of a cliff as the cliff of war, some kind of fence at the top of that cliff will enable those who venture near to disaster to refrain from committing themselves—and then to yell as they are half-way down: "What can we do now? "—which is a fairly vapid comment. It is, I suppose, perfectly reasonable to think in certain circumstances that if you have not got a fence at the top of the cliff it is only right and proper that you should have some sort of ambulance at the bottom. Therefore, in principle, if some people are afflicted with the scourge of war it is only right and proper that those who care for their welfare and those who escape from the kind of dolours that afflict them should endeavour so to aid

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them to the extent that is possible. But this is not the prior consideration.
I believe that the prior consideration is to prevent the outbreak of that war, and that can only be done by the active refusal to take part in it and the application of all the means of government to reduce to nonentities those who otherwise would be capable of inflicting harm on others by the taking away of the weapons or the non-provision of the armaments. I have said that, and I realise how antipathetic many of you will be to it. I would claim it as a faith, but I would also invite your Lordships to believe that nowadays that faith is reinforced as probably never before. It is reinforced in the very nature of the weapons which we now possess.
I am sure that your Lordships listened with great care to what my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner read out of the consequences, the terminal consequences, of nuclear warfare. I believe that they are totally frightening, and I do not share the belief that some people rather vapidly seem to me to possess, that it would be acceptable to see millions of people destroyed, if some remnant were able to carry on after the cataclysm. But I readily agree that it cannot be argued that a future war will necessarily begin with a nuclear explosion.
What I am sure about is that one of the characteristics of modern war is that it is intimately linked with deception. It was none other than Winston Churchill himself, who said that in wartime lying is an indispensable ally. He was not being unduly unkind to ordinary people, who would wish to bestow upon their activities in warfare the same kind of behaviour as they are characteristically known to pursue in civil occasions. There is nothing that any pacifist should say which would, in any way, denigrate the sublime courage, the heroism and the self-sacrifice of those who go to war.
What, however, does appear is that the practice of war progressively erodes any moral principle, and that the catastrophe of war is that the possession of the weapons by which you wage it is increasingly the means whereby you deceive the enemy, particularly when, as in this House this afternoon, we have been busy nominating
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him in the USSR. I believe, therefore, that there is evidence now to support a faith which I have held ever since the early days of Dick Sheppard. I think I was number three in his peace army. We had a Brigadier-General Crozier and one or two other people. We were rather short of infantry, but we were fairly strong in the junior soldiery, the junior lieutenants and so on.
But over the years, I have been increasingly convinced that, whereas a great deal of the argument this afternoon has been about "What do you do when a war comes? ", the real point of this debate should be, "Is there a practical method whereby you can avoid this catastrophe? "I believe that, whereas multilateral disarmament may take too long, and is generally ineffective, and unilateral disarmament of one weapon may make it more likely that other weapons will be used in its place, there is a dynamic which belongs to the refusal to take part in war, not as an escapist policy, but so that you may contribute to other forms of social intercourse and behaviour. I declare it, I hope with modesty, but with complete conviction.
I shall not sit down without making one further comment, and your Lordships will not object to it in as much as I wear the collar that I do. I wish that some of my friends on the episcopal Bench could support me in this. It is that we are bidden as Christians to lift up the Cross. We are not told to brandish it. I hope no noble Lord will think that in what I say now I am flaunting the Cross, but I find it completely incompatible with the teaching and spirit of the Jesus whom I profess to serve, to believe that you can reconcile even what is called conventional warfare with what we now look forward to in these days of Lent, and come at last to Good Friday and the foot of the Cross.
I know that this is an ambition. It is more, I believe, than a pious aspiration. I declare it, not in the sense that it is likely to be acceptable as a programme. I have learned that over the years. But I believe that a testimony of the pacifist position should be included in any discussion as to what we are to do in the future.
Arthur Koestler said that we are in grave danger of putting an end to our

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human species altogether. Some people regard Koestler as a polymath;others regard him as someone who has been educated above his intelligence, but I think you disagree with him at your peril. I remember what Arthur Koestler said about this flaw in human nature, the flaw of violence—apparently, incurable violence;the flaw which has, in the past, put an end to the sabre-tooth tiger and the mammoth. I believe that we have little time left in order not only to devise an improved way of containing this evil of war and providing what remedial processes are available to us, but to recognise that in this revolutionary age we need an entirely new concept of where power lies. I believe that that power does not lie in the gun, however justly some people may believe that they ought to use it. I believe that, finally, it must reside in the way of the Cross.
8.46 p.m.
The Marquess of AILSA: My Lords, I very much welcome this debate which has been initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. I echo his sentiments, that our arrangements for both civil and home defence are totally inadequate. I would go further and say that they are virtually non-existent. Many years ago I was rather soundly rebuked in this House for suggesting that there was a need for home defence. Since that time it has become more and more apparent to me that this need exists.
Not far from where I live there is a very large international airport. So far as I am aware, the nearest security forces are at least three hours' journey away and it would not be difficult for an enemy to take control of that airport. While I do not suggest that any home or local defence arrangements would necessarily be able to prevent this from happening, I feel certain that they could, at least, delay the exploitation until such time as the security forces could react.
I remember hearing a story that a Norwegian friend of mine told me. After the Germans had occupied Oslo and were making their way north, they were delayed for a great many hours at one of the passes because the Norwegian local defence force had come out and occupied that pass. They stopped the Germans for, I think, something like
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36 hours, so they bought time for the rest of us.
I should like to turn briefly to civil defence, because it has become apparent that in this sphere little or nothing has been done for a great many years. It appears that fright has been taken, because of the large numbers of casualties that could arise from a nuclear attack. The attitude seems to be, "As we shall all be dead, why worry about the living?". While, undoubtedly, there will be tremendous numbers of casualties;there will, equally, be large numbers of people who survive and, having survived, will want to live.
There are a number of basic do's and don'ts about survival under nuclear bombardment. Most of them are fairly simple. Surely it is possible to let people know these, so that they can at least take precautions to look after themselves. I strongly urge that the Government encourage the setting-up of local voluntary organisations, for the very purpose of spreading the word about what to do and how to defend yourself, so that when the time comes people are prepared. I suggest that these organisations should be basic and simple—nothing very highfalutin' or high-powered—using very much their local resources. But they could, if the need arose, look after those in their own localities, using what they had—because I doubt whether anything else would get to them until it was too late.
I turn to a possible suggestion about the use of the general reserve. I think that your Lordships know that this reserve is made up of all those who have served in the armed forces up to a certain age. So far as I am aware, if that reserve force is called into being what I would describe as a general post takes place. People start moving from one end of the country to another to report to their bases. Signals have to go to Catterick, the Engineers somewhere else and the Gunners somewhere else. Why can these people not report somewhere near their own locality where they are readily available to be made up into units for home and civil defence? These are trained men. Should this situation arise, the one thing we shall need will be trained men. Whatever happens, I should like to urge the Government to think seriously about encouraging the setting up of more

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voluntary organisations for the purpose of both civil and home defence so that we may be able to defend ourselves should this country ever be attacked.
Before I sit down I should like to pay a tribute to the members of the Royal Observer Corps. As has already been mentioned, these persons have served for many years, virtually unsung and virtually unrewarded. Their task is to warn us of a nuclear attack and to monitor it when it comes. If we do not know how to look after ourselves when it happens, they will have been wasting their time.
8.52 p.m.
Lord HENLEY: My Lords, I wish to speak only on one very small matter, and I hope that I shall not detain your Lordships for more than a minute or so. I want to ask the Government about the pamphlet called Protect and Survive. We all know that it has been rather hard to get hold of in the past. My noble friend Lord Belstead insists that it is not secret and I am sure he is right about that, but it has been rather difficult to get hold of. I rang the Home Office to ask them about it and they told me I could not have a copy. They said that there was a copy in the Library of this House, and eventually I found a photostat copy there. But no matter;the Government now say that they will issue it, which is a change.
Having said that they will issue it, I want to ask the Government whether they are going to do anything further. Are they going to push it? There is no point in just making it available in HMSO bookshops where one can buy it at a price. If it is to have any effect at all, it needs to be pushed down people's throats. The point about civil defence is that everyone must know about it. They must all know that they can hide under the kitchen table with tins of baked beans on top to prevent atomic fall-out getting through to them.
I do not know whether any noble Lords ever travel on the Underground. If they do, they will have noticed that there are posters indicating which parts of London will be affected by flooding, should the Thames burst its banks. I am sure that this is a very unlikely eventuality, just as I am sure that a nuclear
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war is very unlikely. But it shows that the local authority—in this case I presume the GLC—is making some effort to tell people that it is unsafe to live in Pimlico because it is going to be flooded;and no doubt Wapping, Deptford and places like that are equally unsafe. Similarly, if noble Lords ever go into City of Westminster libraries they will come across a document called City of Westminster: If Westminster is Flooded. There is a picture on the front of it of the Houses of Parliament, with water all around it and lots of flooded cars. It tells you roughly what to do and what the warning systems are. So far as I can make out, you do just the opposite of what you do in a nuclear attack. You go upstairs rather than downstairs, and you also turn off the gas and take upstairs your elderly, disabled and infirm. So another local authority, the City of Westminster, is also making some effort to tell us roughly what to do, although it has not sent out this document to all ratepayers. At least, I have never received a copy. However, they have made it available in the libraries.
All I want to ask the Government is whether they will do much the same with Protect and Survive. Will they be prepared to put it in the libraries and to make it freely available? Will they put advertisements in the Underground and elsewhere telling people that such a document is available, so that we can all find out how to build our bomb proof shelters, and so on?
8.55 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I should like very much to thank my noble friend, if I may so describe him, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh for introducing this most timely and interesting debate. I must apologise to my noble friend Lord Belstead and to my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne for missing their speeches. Indeed, I must apologise to your Lordships for not having been here at the opening of the debate. I hope, however, that I can make some fairly short contribution to the debate, as the hour is late.
Perhaps I should start by saying that I had the doubtful privilege of visiting Hiroshima about six months after the one bomb had been dropped upon it. To this

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moment I have always remembered the extraordinary effect that that one bomb had, so in my subsequent remarks I hope that your Lordships will not feel that I am not to a certain extent aware of what might happen. It is very sad indeed that one cannot go all the way with the noble Lord, Lord Soper, in his spendidly Christian approach to the problems, but the fact is that the Soviets are not Christians. If they were, perhaps the world would be a different place;with the threat of nuclear warfare, it would make it much easier. But the fact is that we really must take what we believe to be the right precautions.
I personally believe that the Government have not been so stupid, backward and cheese-paring as some people might think. Until quite recently—it is difficult to put a time upon it—the threat was containable;it was not something for which one had to take extra precautions. But I really do believe that the Soviets are getting more and more dangerous, almost day by day, and that there is always the threat that they may get carried away by their own enthusiasm, since they have such immense resources for both conventional and nuclear warfare. Therefore, it is terribly important that we should take what might be called reasonable precautions against some sort of attack which might be thrust upon us at a time when we least expect it.
I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Carver, when he said that the total nuclear attack on these islands would be something from which so little would survive that very little could be organised. I will come back to that point in a minute. I believe also that there are other sorts of attack which may take place. For one thing, there is chemical warfare, not just nuclear warfare. There are conventional threats of warfare. I agree also with the noble Lord, Lord Carver, that these islands would be extremely difficult to invade, whether by sea or by air, and that it is probably most unlikely that that would be the particular threat. However, there are all sorts of other methods of blackmail available to a potential enemy which must not be discounted.
I do not want to dwell for too long on the various methods by which we could be threatened or hit. However, I think it would not be sensible to rule out a limited nuclear attack;nor do I think it would be
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sensible to rule out—to me this is the crux of the matter—a situation in which some people will survive, whatever form of attack it is, but nobody will know who they are or, indeed, where they are. For example, I come from the Isle of Wight. If the wind happens to be from the North and a large nuclear bomb is dropped on Southampton, we are wiped out with Southampton, while Winchester, let us say, survives—or maybe it is Basingstoke. If, on the other hand, the prevailing winds are blowing it may be that South of the Down, where I happen to live, we would survive.
The point is that there will be some survivors and it seems to me that, with the threat having increased to the extent that it has over the years—and there is no sign of the Soviets slackening their progress in the development of weapons—it is important that we should have some sort of provision for those who are going to survive. We cannot organise it very thoroughly in advance because we do not know who they will be. So we have to have a basic system, and I should have thought that the system which exists in nucleus, of a local emergency set-up centred on the local authorities, is an admirable basis from which to start. I should have thought that was particularly important as a co-ordinating function, and indeed that is what it is for. However, what it needs is something to co-ordinate and that, to my mind, is lacking.
In the first instance, whatever happens and wherever these people arc, they will need to have a disciplined and trained root corps of people around which to centre themselves, and I find it very distressing to discover that whereas in 1914 in my little island, which then had a population of about 50,000 or 60,000, there were 2,000 territorial soldiers, and whereas in 1939 there were something like 800 territorial soldiers, today we have just had a recruiting campaign to build our one platoon up from 25 soldiers to 50. It is ludicrous, my Lords;and really we need some other stronger basic force of people who in peace-time are taught the rudiments of discipline and trained to take charge in emergencies.
It does not really matter what the emergencies are;it is the ability to lend themselves to this sort of task if and when it comes about. There are literally hundreds, indeed thousands, of people

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who are ready to join. The voluntary spirit is very strong in this country and it has not been tapped to a proper extent. There is an ample supply of people who would join the Territorial Army and indeed make themselves available for other purposes. It is terribly important that we should have this stronger nucleus to fall back on when and if the disaster was to come about.
We shall not only need soldiers, my Lords, we shall need specialists and, coming as I do from a coastal area, we shall need a great deal of assistance from people who go to sea;and there is room for an extension of the Royal Naval Reserve in that area. But above everything else there is a need to co-ordinate the people with special knowledge, whether it be underwater divers or mountaineers in that part of the world, or whatever, who need to have some idea of what will be required of them, if they are around.
In addition to that, people of the appropriate type will need to know what resources there are—where, for instance petrol is stored, so that if the disasters happen on one side of the hill they will know where they can go to on the other side of the hill, and vice versa. So there needs to be a co-ordination of knowledge, a co-ordination of specialised effort and a backbone of disciplined, trained people. To my mind those are the things of which we have not got nearly enough in this country.
Finally, we come to the point of whether the people should be given some sort of clue as to what to do. It was my privilege in the 1950s to serve on the NATO staff in Malta and there, with the assistance of an American naval officer and with the approval of our admiral, we produced little cards which told all the service people and their families and dependants above the age of eleven (which was the age at which we struck it) what to do. We gave each of them a card which said, "If you are at home"—do this; "if you are out in the streets" —do that; "if you are on duty"—do something else. It told them where to go and what to do and who to get into touch with.
I am not suggesting for one minute that we need to distribute cards like that to our population today because the
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immediate threat is nothing like great enough for it. Nor indeed was it in Malta in 1950;we were most unlikely as a target. But it did have an immense advantage. One should not forget that these young women who were the wives of the sailors were all away from home, so they felt rather more cut off than they would have done in the United Kingdom. But we subsequently discovered that being given these cards had a most tremendously beneficial effect on their morale. They were fully conscious of the fact that somebody had done something to give them a fighting chance to survive if a disaster occurred. Looking back on the 1950s, the poor old Russians would have been out of their tiny heads to have bothered to drop a bomb on Malta. There were many more important places to drop the few bombs they had. But the point of it was that it was something which made people feel that there was an organisation and that something was going to happen. That is very important.
So there is a great deal to be done. I would hesitate now to address these next remarks to my noble friend. So long as he is in his post, I have no shadow of doubt that he is more than capable of handling what I am talking about. But I do wonder whether the time has come to take the responsibility for civil defence away from the Home Office. It seems to me that it was the obvious Ministry to have this task back in 1938—which is rather a long time ago, my Lords—but since then there have been all sorts of changes, and one of them has been in some respects a greater degree of organisation by local authorities.
It seems to me that the civil department which should be handling this co-ordinating task in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence—and I must confess that I am a little distressed that the Government did not see fit to have our noble friend for the Ministry of Defence to speak in this debate, because I think there is a strong element of defence working together with the civil arm—would more appropriately be the Department of the Environment, because I believe that the co-ordinating function must be pushed down as low as it possibly can be. I do not believe that the Home Office, on the excuse no doubt that they have some sort of control over the police, are really the ones to do the job.

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It seems to me that one of the reasons—though I did in a sense forgive them for not having operated more swiftly—why they are perhaps even more backward than they need be is because I think the Home Office's heart is not in this, though I am sure my noble friend's is. I wonder whether, when he comes to reply, he could comment on that point? I hope very much that so long as his Ministry has this task it will give great care to introducing some of the ideas which noble Lords from all sides of the House have suggested as being matters of considerably greater urgency than I think has hitherto been given to them.
9.9 p.m.
Lord PEART: My Lords, we have had a very long debate and a very good debate, and I am glad it has not been a debate on party lines. I was tempted to reply to one noble Lord, but he is not now in the Chamber. I see the noble Earl, Lord Cork, is here now. I was going to say that patriotism is not the monopoly of one party. I was very proud to be in a Cabinet where we had more serving officers at that period than any other Cabinet had had in the history of this country. I was very proud that I was a gunner. We have listened to speeches representing various trends of opinion.
Inevitably we have had, quite rightly, a speech from a sincere Christian, the noble Lord, Lord Soper, which I think was echoed by my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker. I heard that speech once before, but I think it is a good speech and I think he should go on saying it. I mean it sincerely. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Shinwell who rather criticised it. After all, it is a point of view. Sometimes when I read what could happen to our country if we had to have massive evacuation and an attack very soon I shudder to think what would happen. So I believe it is right and proper that that point of view should be expressed, and indeed Lord Gardiner, in reading out solid parts of Solly Zuckerman's article, and indeed the speech made by Lord Mountbatten in Europe, shows that there is concern about this, and that is right.
I want to get involved at the very end of my speech in the sphere of foreign policy, because most noble Lords have not really stuck entirely to their brief in the sense of speaking of civil defence. I
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think that probably is right in a debate of this kind. We have had a variety of speeches which I think have been very fine. I enjoyed so much Bob Boothby's speech. But, above all, we owe a great debt to Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. I was delighted to hear what he does, what a fantastic life he lives in his area and what he does for the community, which is to his great credit. Above all, it is to his great credit as a good patriot that he stimulated this debate. It is important that we should examine our defence and our civil defence. Before I go on to what I want to say, may I, above all, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Murton, on his maiden speech. What a lovely title: Lord Murton of Lindisfarne. He is from my area and I am from his area, and I am very proud of him. He was shackled a lot in the other place when I was there because he sat in the Chair. Now he has freedom, and I hope he will use it as well as he has done today in his maiden speech. It was a fine speech and we all pay him tribute.
Now we come to some of the main arguments that we have to consider. When we were talking about atomic energy immediately after the war an amendment was put down to the Address in reply to a King's Speech (as it was then);it was an attempt by a group of young officers who had just come out of the Army and Navy to move an amendment which would have altered British policy;in other words, the desire to create an international organisation to control nuclear power. I only wish that had been accomplished. Then emerged the famous Baruch Plan. I think if we had had control of nuclear power through an international organisation we would not have had the situation we have today.
There was a debate the other week in the other House. I think it was a very good debate, and the Minister of State there did outline policy. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, in his own able way has already given the House considerable information and has outlined policy. No doubt he will intervene again and reply.
Another matter that emerged from the debate in another place—and it has been emphasised over and over again in this House—is what do other countries do for their defence? I gather that we are informed—and this certainly emerged from the debate in the other place—that Russia

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has a sophisticated civil defence organisation and shelter programme. That disturbs me. I believe that we should have the very best and that is why it is urgent that we take action.
I should like to take up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. I believe that the £22 million is inadequate. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, will press his colleagues and the Treasury to give more financial aid in order to improve our civil defence organisation. It is an urgent matter: it is part of the defence of the realm. I know that we have a policy which provides a system for warning and monitoring nuclear fall-out. There are plans also for an administrative and governmental organisation to be run from 24 sub-regional headquarters. I understand also that Cabinet Ministers would leave London and move to those headquarters.
For the community, we have had the pamphlet Protect and Survive which asks the public to take precautions. It is not enough for only a few to have that pamphlet. I am not saying that it is an answer to the nuclear bomb or how we should survive if nuclear war occurred, but at least it is an attempt to give information. Let us hope that more of those pamphlets can be distributed. Many noble Lords may find it inadequate and I was rather worried about it. But what can we do? I would only ask noble Lords to read it.
There is another excellent Home Office booklet,Nuclear Weapons. I think that that booklet is more suitable for the technician. Indeed, one must have a knowledge of higher mathematics to be able to understand it, but it is a very good document which all noble Lords should read carefully. It will enable them also to appreciate how important it is that we should now have adequate defence. The public, too, will be advised on what steps should be taken for protection in their own homes and what stocks of food and materials they should get in for a two-week period. Advice will be given on television and radio, and in the Press, and in the booklet which I have mentioned, Protect and Survive, which will be distributed to as many homes as possible. If a decision is taken in time I understand that the present plan allows only 72 hours for all of this to happen. Protect and Survive relies on the simpler expedient
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of advising its readers to live under the kitchen table, or something similar, suitably protected by mattresses. If ever we really face an atom bomb and nuclear warfare, I doubt whether that will be adequate.
However, I believe that the pamphlet should be distributed because it is important that people should understand what is happening. There should be discussion about this matter throughout the country and that in the end should generate the need for effective civil defence throughout the country. It is a major operation and I believe that we must proceed very quickly. After all, just imagine what would happen to the people who live in high rise flats in our large cities if a bomb were dropped? Imagine the chaos that would ensue and the difficulties of evacuation. All those matters are problems for the departments. I do not go as far as the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, and say that civil defence should be taken out of the hands of the Home Office and given to another department. I believe that the Home Office can cope with it and that it is their job. Therefore, I cannot agree with the noble Lord on that matter.
However, we must ensure that our underground structures are suitable and see how existing ones can be adapted to provide shelter from nuclear and conventional attacks. Again, there are problems as regards food stocks. When I was the Minister for Agriculture I used to be on a defence committee concerned with this matter. It is an important part of defence. We should also know what is to happen in the European Community as regards its surplus stocks which we could probably use in this country or store in case of emergency. That might be one way of getting rid of the many surpluses which have been created because of the Common Agricultural Policy. I am not condemning them for it.
We also need to examine more carefully the co-ordination of the police and fire services, the military and the departments at local levels. I was glad that the Minister of State for the Home Office stressed that there has now been a revival in public interest and an increase in the number of letters received from the general public expressing concern about defence. I understand that because of that situation the Home Secretary has speeded up arrangements.

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In other words, we shall maintain the United Kingdom warning and monitoring organisation at a high level of efficiency and readiness;we shall maintain an increased stockpile of food;grants will be given to local authorities to help pay the cost of the emergency planning teams which are maintained by the county councils and the GLC to produce, in consultation with the district councils and other public bodies, the detailed plans required under the Civil Defence Planning Regulations 1974. Again, this will affect important areas, such as emergency feeding and the care of the homeless, expenditure on emergency communications networks and on small planning teams in certain Government departments.
I understand that the review embraces the whole spectrum of home defence and involves practically all Whitehall departments. Considering the threat and the assumptions that we must make of the probability of attack, the nature of such an attack, and the likely warning period, we must give the public information. We must be frank with the public. We must be certain about the roles of the police, the fire services and the ambulance services, and about how we must, as I have said, maintain essential food and water supplies. We must be certain how our hospital services and essential industrial production, which must continue, will cope. We must be certain how coal, gas, oil and electricity supplies will cope during an incident. Then there is the question of our inland transport, and the use of shipping and aircraft for carrying essential supplies. These are all-important, especially to our dispersal policy. A survey of buildings must be made, which I mentioned earlier. Above all, this must be done quickly.
I turn to a point which I hope will please some of my noble friends who take a different point of view from mine. I am not a pacifist, but I believe that we must think in terms of trying to overcome the arms race. That is why I have always believed in SALT 1, SALT 2 and SALT 3, if it ever comes about. I remember participating in a defence debate in this House some time ago. I believe that we must still probe and test the Russians and others;if we can, we must come to the table to discuss these major issues.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has had an outstanding success over Rhodesia;
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he has removed a sore point which, after all, is important from the point of view of defence. I believe that he should persevere still further, even it' it may involve having to meet the Russians. I think that that would be the right approach. After all, it is an approach which is not only for us. It would be for our NATO allies and the United States. I shall not say that we should condone what the Russians have done in Afghanistan. But I believe it is important that the major powers should still meet and discuss a strategic arms limit, which we have mentioned, and the balanced force reductions which are needed. I am sure that many noble Lords and I have heard their speeches in this House on this very question—will approve of what I have said.
If we do that, it does not mean that we should not spend more money on defence. I believe that we must spend money on defence. I am not a pacifist. I believe that we must have adequate defence arrangement. Of that I am quite certain. With all due respect to my friends who are pacifists—and I admire their idealism —the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, was quite right when he read Solly Zuckerman's remarkable article. I do not know whether noble Lords have read it, but it frightened me a little. However, despite the article by Solly Zuckerman, who is a very distinguished defence scientist and a Member of this House, I believe that we must have defence. It is in that spirit that I welcome what the Government are doing and, as I and the Liberal Party have advocated today in this debate, I hope that they will continue to give more money.
9.25 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Peart, for the speech he has just made. As a senior Minister in the previous Government over a period of many years the noble Lord knows what needs to be done in this field. It was the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, in his remarks during this debate who said that it was essential in his view that your Lordships' House should have this debate. Indeed, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for the debate, which has been important for civil defence planning in this country. I should like to give an assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt,

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who specifically asked me the question, that the Government will be better placed to reach conclusions on the varied and complex aspects of the review that they are conducting because of the debate which has been held in your Lordships' House today.
I was particularly interested in the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye. As a former Air Minister the noble Lord's view of the effectiveness of the deterrent was to me particularly interesting, and your Lordships who listened to my noble friend may have noticed that although he called for a stop to nuclear build-up, he was careful to affirm the need for deterrence through the nuclear capability of the Western Alliance while that need remains.
It was the noble Lord, Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, in his splendid maiden speech who, in essence, said that civil defence and the defence of our country are indissolubly linked;that civil defence preparedness is essential if our nuclear deterrent is to be credible. It is in that context that this debate of the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, is being held today. Four noble Lords particularly—my noble friend Lord Renton, and the noble Lords, Lord Murton, Lord Carver and Lord Mottistone—spoke of the possibilities of limited damage being done by what the noble Lord, Lord Carver, explained he would call the equivalent of our policy of flexible response;in other words, a conventional attack upon this country, for whatever reason.
The use of aircraft and missiles armed with non-nuclear devices against selected targets cannot of course be discounted. But many of the measures taken in the context of nuclear war would be of equal relevance to a war which began with conventional weapons. None the less, may I just repeat what 1 tried to say to your Lordships at the beginning of this debate;namely, that our review includes a most serious look at the possibilities of conventional air attack upon this country. If I may add a word about nuclear attack, it is of course true that present plans assume a period of warning running into weeks of possible nuclear attack. Those are the present assumptions that we have. We are reviewing our plans in the light of new assumptions of perhaps less time of political warning.
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It is also possible that the Warsaw Pact, as I am sure many of your Lordships know better than I, might be able to launch a military attack against NATO with only a few days' warning. Such an attack, I am advised, could not be launched with only a few hours' notice. However, the only defence against a pre-emptive missile attack, of which we would have only minutes tactical warning, is our second strike capability, such as Polaris, to deter it. It is that which brings me to say that of course when the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, says that therefore the threat of a conflagration exists, the noble Lord is absolutely right.
I realise that those grim facts are not palatable to the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker. I respect the noble Lord's sincerity and, if I may say so, very much admire the way he speaks;but although I take to heart his graphic description of nuclear holocaust, I have to say I do not agree with his conclusion, for the inevitable conclusion from the noble Lord's speech was that we should do nothing to defend ourselves. I am profoundly thankful that that has never been the way of the British people, and I feel that the noble Lord ignores wholly that effective civil defence is a necessary contribution to deterrence against nuclear attack.
If nuclear attack occurred, as my noble friend Lord Cathcart said, that would not wipe out the nation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, asked me whether the Home Office accepted the views which were put forward in The Times article of 17th February of this year, which referred to numbers of people who would be killed in a single five-megaton H-bomb explosion both from blast and fallout. The answer of course is, yes, so far as blast is concerned. The article appeared to be based on the official handbook called Nuclear Weapons, and was substantially correct, but the article assumed that no precautions had been taken. Even rudimentary protection from fall-out, such as sheltering in undamaged or lightly damaged houses, would reduce tremendously radiation casualties;and I therefore return to what some noble Lords have said today, which is that casualties can be kept down by proper civil defence plans. Whether the balance of our protection measures is right is under urgent review, but I have to say that our plans do not include the philo-

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sophy of the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker.
I will try to answer some of the questions which noble Lords have asked. My noble friend Lord Kimberley referred to the threat from saboteurs. We recognise that it is one of our most important tasks in transition to war and in wartime to protect certain vital installations, in particular those which are essential for the United Kingdom to be able to maintain an effective defence. I cannot of course go into details in what is a sensitive area, but my noble friend can be assured that this task is afforded a high priority by the armed forces, the police and the security services, and our arrangements are kept under careful review.
The noble Lords, Lord Duncan-Sandys and Lord Peart, both brought up the question of shelter policy. Soon people will be able to buy copies of Protect and Survive—which, I would say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, is being revised before being published—and will be able to consider the measures which can be taken in the home to improve their protection against radioactive fall-out.
My noble friend Lord Henley asked how the pamphlet was to be put on sale. The answer is that our plan is to put it on sale for a reasonably modest price after Easter;but, should war threaten, this material could be rapidly promulgated through the media so that everyone then could complete their preparations, whether or not they had bought the pamphlet.
We are urgently considering ways in which a family could purchase or construct at reasonable cost simple forms of fall-out shelter affording greater degrees of protection than the crisis measures in Protect and Survive. Therefore, my reply to the remarks of my noble friend Lady Vickers towards the end of her speech, is that we are also giving thought to the extremely difficult question of the provision of public fall-out shelters;but as your Lordships would expect me to say once again, the cost in that respect has to be looked at very carefully.
My noble friend asked me about a shelter which is costing in the region of £10,000. This is at the design stage and is part of the work of the Home Office working group on a range of structures which would afford greater family protection than the advice in Protect and Survive. The question of using the underground
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shelter in London will be examined as part of our more general study of future shelter policy.
All of your Lordships, in one way or another, have said that the civil defence organisation must contain a strong voluntary element. May I record again the tribute which I tried to pay at the outset of the debate to the many thousands of public-spirited people who perform voluntary duties. My noble friend Lady Pike spoke of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service getting value for money from the Home Office. I must say that I was delighted to have such a kindly friend on the benches on which I sit pay a tribute of that kind, because of course the truth of the matter is that the boot is on the other foot: we in Government get, and the populous throughout the country gets, value for money from the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, as well as from the British Red Cross and St. John Ambulance, because to some extent Government grant aids those two organisations, too;and we realise their worth.
I realise that your Lordships are anxious that we should not fail to take advantage of the efforts of those voluntary organisations which are specifically interested in civil defence work. In this respect I assure my noble friend Lady Pike, and the noble Lord, Lord Westbury, who spoke in particular on behalf of St. John Ambulance, that the Government will take serious account of the suggestions they made in their speeches. But, please, let us bear in mind views which were expressed, I think I can claim, by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, and by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who both said that it is the local authorities who can, and should, prepare plans for civil defence in their areas. This is the sort of middle way which my noble friend Lord Renton said was one of three ways in which local co-ordination can be worked out.
I particularly say this to the House, not just because the 1974 Civil Defence Planning Regulations make it a statutory function of local authorities to plan for civil defence, but also because there must be a co-ordination of the emergency services and civil defence organisations at local level. As things stand therefore this falls at the moment to the local authorities, with advice given in numerous circulars from the Home Office, all of which, incidentally, are in the Library of your

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Lordships' House. It may, or may not, be that additional machinery is needed, but I give an assurance this evening that we should not fail to study carefully how all this effort may be more effectively integrated into the nation's plans.
I was asked by my noble friend Lord Inglewood in his speech about the position of the police. The Regional Police Commander in time of war will report to the Regional Commissioner, who will be a Minister. When my noble friend asks me—as he has every right to do—where will the extra police come from in time of war, may I first make the point that the total police establishment in this country today is at an all-time high. There has never before been so many full-time regular police in this country;and this is something of which I believe we can be proud.
So far as a reserve is concerned, the Special Constabulary are not, of course, a reserve. They are volunteers under the operational command of their chief constable, but as I sought to make clear, in time of emergency, the Special Constabulary would be a vital additon to the forces with which they have worked and trained in pevious years. This is the reason why I attach the very greatest importance to the working party which has been set up by the Police Advisory Board (of which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is chairman), which is looking into the ways of trying to reverse the recent downward trend in numbers in the Special Constabulary, to which my noble friend quite rightly drew attention.
I wonder whether your Lordships will forgive me if I answer no more questions, not just because of the time but for another reason. The review being conducted by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is the first review of civil defence for many years. My noble friend Lord Bridgeman expressed the view that the review might not be wide enough. It deals with all the activities of all Government departments connected with civil defence;and I hope that my noble friend will not think I am being slipshod if I say that it was put in much better form than I could possibly put it by my honourable friend Mr. Britton, the Minister of State at the Home Office, in columns 625 to 626 in Hansard of 20th February 1980 —the scope of the review. The review
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therefore covers the many additional points which I am asking I may leave unanswered this evening. I am thinking, for instance, of several points which my noble friend Lady Vickers made;of the most interesting speech which my noble friend Lord de Clifford made about evacuation policy, which of course is being taken most seriously into account in the review we are undertaking;the many practical points which my noble friend Lord Gisborough made;and the point which both my noble friends Lord Mottistone and Lord Bridgeman made on departmental responsibility.
Just upon that question, before I finish, may I say (because I am working in a department with other people, officials, who have been working very hard over a period of many years) that I should like to make three quick points. The question which my noble friends raised on this is an important one. I think, however, it is arguable that the Home Office is the relevant department, if, for no other reason, because in my right honourable friend's department we have certain responsibilities for the police and the fire services;we have traditionally been closely involved in broad questions of national security;and there is, I do ask your Lordships to accept, certainly no lack of engagement or commitment to the work on the part of those who are working in the Home Office.
The review therefore covers these many additional points, and when my right honourable friend comes to report to Parliament he will set his report in the context of public expenditure;and it will then be for Parliament, and indeed ultimately for the approval of the country, to decide what level of public expenditure in this area the nation can bear. What is certain is that the Government are fully committed to reviewing the present plans for civil and home defence, and in that review, my Lords, the views expressed in your Lordships' House today will most certainly be taken very carefully into account.
Lord NOEL-BAKER: My Lords, before the noble Lord the Minister sits down, may I thank him for what he was good enough to say and may I ask him to consider that the programme I proposed was not to do nothing? I have never been a unilateral disarmer, but in my lifetime I have seen the possibility that

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multilateral disarmament could succeed. It could have succeeded in 1924 if British and French militarists had not destroyed the Geneva protocol. It could have succeeded in 1932 if they had not destroyed proposals by the President of the United States for drastic world disarmament by land, sea and air. The programme which I propose is not, if I may say it with respect, to do nothing: on the contrary, it is that the Government, in the person of the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary, should use their utmost influence and power to work in the United Nations, with that genius which the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary has shown in relation to Rhodesia, for a negotiated world treaty by which we shall deprive the Russians and all other possible enemies of the offensive weapons by which they could attack us. That is the only realistic programme of national defence in the world of nuclear stocks, which amount now to more than I million Hiroshima bombs. May I ask the noble Lord that tomorrow morning, when he is relaxed, he read again the speech by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner and consider whether what he has told us tonight about action for civil defence does not fail to face all the basic, realistic facts of the present world situation?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord for misinterpreting the speech he made to the House, and I repeat that apology. But the issue surely is whether one conducts one's foreign policy from a position of strength or from a position of weakness. I have to say to this House that this Government follow the previous administration in doing our very best to follow our foreign policy from a position of a firm defence and civil defence policy.
9.46p.m.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate this afternoon, and also to say how honoured I am that the noble Lord, Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, has chosen this debate on which to make his maiden speech. I made some notes, but your Lordships will be pleased to know that I am not going to say anything else. Your Lordships have covered so much ground that I think the number of pantechnicons that would be needed to transport the
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Papers necessary to cover that ground—if I did not ask what I am about to ask now—would be beyond the resources of this country. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS AIR SERVICES (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons endorsed with the certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911;read 1a, and to be printed.
  NATIONAL DEBT: MANAGEMENT AND EXPENSES
  NATIONAL DEBT: MANAGEMENT AND EXPENSES
  NORTH SEA RESCUE VESSELS: SOBRIETY
  NORTH SEA RESCUE VESSELS: SOBRIETY
  PUBLIC ORDER ACT 1936: SECTION 5 APPLICATION
  PUBLIC ORDER ACT 1936: SECTION 5 APPLICATION
  BNFL: FUEL CARRIERS
  BNFL: FUEL CARRIERS