Sitting of 29 July 1985

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

Stud Farms: Rating
Lord Newall: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider their decision to take no action yet in the controversial rating of stud farms while they are regarded by the Treasury as agricultural farms for the purposes of income tax and corporation tax.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, decisions on the treatment of a class of property under taxation law do not provide precedents for its treatment under rating law. As to this particular case, we do not think we should decide whether or not to change the law until the courts have made clear what in fact the law is.
Lord Newall: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer. May I ask him whether he is aware that there are two precedents for the Government intervening—one in 1980 for fish farming and one in 1971 for broiler houses—and that action is needed urgently? May I ask him also whether he is aware that if he does not take action immediately, many small breeders will be put out of business and so damage the horse industry?
Lord Elton: My Lords, if my noble friend is asking me whether I am aware of a precedent for taking a decision before the conclusion of a case, I can say that the Government accepted an amendment to the Local Government Planning and Land (No. 2) Bill—I think this relates to the case of Creswell v. BOC Ltd., to which he referred—but they did so after the Court of Appeal decision was known.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Minister give the House an assurance that when the Government examine this proposition they will not confuse horse de cheval with horse breeding, as the one could very well be industrial and the other overwhelmingly agricultural, as has been recognised by the Treasury?
Lord Elton: My Lords, as I was trying to make clear in my substantive Answer, what the Treasury thinks does not necessarily bear upon what the ratings valuations officer may think.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that horse breeding is not necessarily a rich man's ploy and that under the present rules many urban dwellers and local council tenants could be hit?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I was not aware that many council tenants indulged in bloodstock breeding, but if they do it is important that they should be treated as fairly as everybody else.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, does the Minister consider that it would be more sensible not to consider stud farming apart from the agricultural industry, with which it has much in common? Is not this something which should be being considered by his right honourable friend in his study on local government finance?
Lord Elton: My Lords, it is indeed the case that the basis of local government finance is the subject of a review, on which, as I recently told your Lordships, we hope to publish a consultation document by the end of the year. That is another reason for not prejudging the answer to my noble friend's Question.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that there are some reasons why he should understand my misgivings, when here I am, a member of the public, a member of no political party, but sitting next door to one of the major givers of our laws and hearing that the Government, for all their endeavours, still do not know what the law is?
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the Government knew what the law was in every case, there would be a great deal less business for the major giver of the nation's laws, to whom the noble Lord refers.
Viscount Brookeborough: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his replies. Can he tell me whether there is any indication that his noble friends or his right honourable friends know how many horses there are in the country? Is he aware that the leisure industry is under tremendous verbal support from his colleagues? In this particular case the riding fraternity is one of the fastest growing parts of the leisure industry, but the Government are not doing very much to support it.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think my noble friend will agree that riding stables, livery stables and all other kinds of stables have always been rated. The Question relates to stud farms and the Question is whether stud farming is an agricultural activity, and, if so, whether bloodstock animals are agricultural animals and the buildings in which they are kept are agricultural buildings. That is what the court is considering.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he would agree that it would be' something of a pity if, as a result of some of our more ridiculous laws, people were encouraged to go elsewhere to pursue perfectly legitimate occupations?
Lord Elton: My Lords, it would indeed, but I do not think that what my noble friend has described is necessarily the situation that exists in this country. My noble friend who sat down immediately before my last noble friend suggested, I think, that all equestrian pursuits were subject to the possibility of a new imposition of rates. I was seeking to explain to him that that was nothing new. The only question at issue is whether bloodstock breeding should be subject to rates. I do not think there is a prospect of much business being driven away from this country while the court is considering that question.
Viscount Brookeborough: My Lords, will my noble friend not agree that before they get to the riding schools, which are rated, they have to be bred?
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of St. Marylebone): So have we in the House of Lords, my Lords!
Lord Elton: My Lords, since most of your Lordships will have heard the interjection of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack, which anticipated what I was about to say, I shall not answer that question.
Lord Newall: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Ministry of Agriculture is advising farmers who have had milk quota difficulties in regard to their cows to go into horse breeding? Is it not a dreadful anomaly that now they should be overrated?
Lord Elton: My Lords, my noble friend puts a proposition to which I find it difficult to respond. What we are considering is the status of certain buildings for
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the purposes of rating, by means of which rating they provide funds to the local authority for contributing to local government. I believe I am right in saying that, if these buildings were rated, the difference to the overall income nationally would be about £1 million pounds.
Lord Trevethin and Oaksey: My Lords, in view of the general impression that bloodstock breeding is enormously prosperous, is my noble friend aware that the astronomically priced thoroughbred yearlings to which we racing hacks give such publicity represent only 8 per cent. of the total crop? Is he aware that the vast majority of the remaining 92 per cent. do not make at auction the £8,000 or £9,000 that they cost to produce and put in the ring? Is he aware that this is the reason the thoroughbred breeding industry is unable to bear the unexpected rate burden that has been laid upon it?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am well aware of the sympathy that my noble friend's remarks generate. I would be the last to describe him as a racing hack. The present position is that the courts are deciding whether the law says that buildings that contain bloodstock, and only bloodstock, should be rated. My noble friend is referring to the small man who has a small establishment. That will of course attract a much smaller rate. However, I do not want to prejudice the Government's position prior to the decision of the court.

European Community: Treaty Amendments
2.44 p.m.
Lord Chelwood: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will list the precise treaty amendments proposed by the United Kingdom's Community partners, saying which (if any) they regard as necessary in order to complete the internal market or to achieve greater effectiveness and continuity in political cooperation.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, no precise proposals for treaty amendment have yet been put forward by our partners. Political co-operation is of course a separate matter and does not fall within the European Community treaties.
Lord Chelwood: My Lords, is it not a little odd that no definite amendments have yet been put forward? May I ask my noble friend whether the Government have any time-scale in mind were amendments to be put forward, bearing in mind that 12 Governments would have to approve them and that 12 Parliaments would have to endorse them? Secondly, may I ask my noble friend whether she can say if the Government think it might be necessary to amend the treaty in order to move more towards majority voting, for which the treaties already make substantial provision?
Baroness Young: My Lords, in answer to my noble friend's first question on a timescale for treaty

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amendment, I would refer him to what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in another place—that we must go to the inter-governmental conference and consider what is put before us. On his second point, we have already put forward a number of practical proposals. We are now awaiting concrete proposals from our partners as a basis for discussion at the conference. We shall then consider whether to put forward any further ideas ourselves.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that information. Can she say a word about the Cockfield proposals, which are relevant in this context and which include 60 measures? Is she confident that the timetable for the Cockfield proposals will be adhered to, and that the matter will be completed by the end of the year? Secondly, can she say what effects the development of a freer internal market will have on the British economy, and also on the levels of unemployment in this country?
Baroness Young: My Lords, we have welcomed the commitment to the completion of the Common Market, which is a fundamental objective of the Treaty of Rome and which has consistently been one of our own major objectives in the Community. Indeed, much of the Commission's White Paper accords with our own thinking. The European Council identified, as areas for priority, action on those matters which we had in fact put forward in our own programme of action. They include the removal of technical barriers to free movement of goods within the Community; the creation of a free market in financial services and transport sectors; the full freedom of establishment for the professions and the liberalisation of capital movements. We believe that this will help the economy of Europe and, of course, the economy of our country, and that it could therefore make a contribution to reducing unemployment.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, if there is an absence of the treaty asked for in this Question, can we be assured that as regards the need for military co-operation there is no difficulty whatever? Can the noble Baroness say that there is complete unity in that respect?
Baroness Young: My Lords, we have put forward proposals for political co-operation. On the particular point that the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, raises, which is related to defence, this is of course a concern of the NATO Alliance. We hope that it will be possible to strengthen co-operation in this area in such a way that all partners can participate. The Western European Union may initially be the right vehicle for this.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, will the noble Baroness understand that there is not much value in what is called political co-operation which undertakes various aspects on which there is agreement if there is not complete co-operation in the matter of dealing with aggression if it should emerge?
Baroness Young: Yes, my Lords. The particular point that the noble Lord puts is of course a question that is covered by NATO. The issue that is addressed
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in this Question is one of political co-operation. On that, we have put forward proposals for a binding political co-operation agreement.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, are we correct in understanding that there are no proposals from the British Government which require amendment to the treaty in regard to the completion of the internal market as distinct from politicial co-operation Does not the noble Baroness think that if there are any amendments arising, which the Government may be considering, it might be wise to try to make the existing treaty work first?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the Government take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, has made. We want to see the full implementation of the Community treaties as they are at present. Indeed, we have put forward proposals that could be implemented without treaty amendment.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, will my noble friend agree that, if it is the Government's wish—and I believe that it is the wish of the people of this country—to have the internal market completed according to the plan of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, by 1992, it would not be practicable to try to work within the treaties as they stand without substantial amendment at least to Article 100, unless there is some interinstitutional agreement to cover that particular point?
Baroness Young: My Lords, it is the Government's wish that we should implement very many of the proposals that have been made in the White Paper on the completion of the Common Market My understanding is that some of the proposals would require a treaty amendment.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that we on these Benches have every sympathy with the Government's attempt to deal with the difficult matters necessary in order to complete the internal market?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his remarks.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, can the noble Baroness add to the answer she gave a couple of weeks ago about a small secretariat to further political co-operation? In particular, can she say whether other countries of the Nine have agreed to this or have commented on it?
Baroness Young: My Lords, we put forward proposals at Milan for a binding political co-operation agreement which incorporated a small permanent secretariat and closer co-operation on security These ideas, together with other ideas that were put forward at Milan, will now be discussed among the Ten in the coming months.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that a number of people in the country, including some of those sitting behind her, are not at all anxious for the Government to proceed rapidly in this direction?
Baroness Young: My Lords, that does not surprise me coming from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, but I was asked for the Government's view.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I am sorry to press the noble Baroness further on this, but in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, she said that if certain proposals were to be pursued they would require amendment to the treaty. Would the noble Baroness kindly publish those amendments which she believes would, in that event be necessary?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to make it absolutely plain to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and to others who may be concerned about this, that before any commitments are made the House will have ample opportunity to discuss these matters. The House will recall that we deposited the report of the Dooge Committee in the Library and that it was debated in another place before the Milan meeting. Nor can there be any question of an amendment of the treaties without the consent of Parliament.
Lord Chelwood: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that she would find it very difficult indeed to find any noble Lords (certainly not more than a tiny number) on this side of the House who share the views of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, on this matter?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his intervention. I hope that the majority of those in your Lordships' House, and certainly those who sit on the Government Benches, are interested in a forward look to the European Community and agree that to that end Britain's ideas should be put forward vigorously.

International Fund for Agricultural Development
2.55 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I should like to point out that, as it appears on the Order Paper, there is a printing error in the Question. The word "finding" should read "funding".
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their attitude towards the funding of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Baroness Young: My Lords, as I told the noble Lord on 19th June, we are ready to contribute to the second replenishment of the International Fund for Agricultural Development as soon as the other participants agree. Until agreement is reached on an appropriate governors' resolution, the second replenishment cannot take place.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I was hoping that the noble Baroness would be able to report some progress since 19th June. Can she tell the House what is the present position of negotiations, what part the British Government are taking in those negotiations, and when she hopes complete agreement on the fund will be reached?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I have nothing further to add to the Answer that I gave to the noble Lord on 19th June. The Government are ready to contribute to the second replenishment as soon as it is agreed, and we indicated that we would reach a decision about the possibility of a United Kingdom contribution to the IFAD's special programme for Africa after agreement on replenishment had been reached.
Lord Bauer: My Lords, does the noble Baroness know that in a recent study by US AID the operations of this fund were much criticised as being indiscriminate and lacking in systematic evaluation? If the United States and OPEC reduce their contributions, should we not do likewise? If not, should we not at least reduce our payments to the overlapping organisation, FAO, in which, from the Director-General downwards, hostility to the West is widespread, persistent and shrill?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I was not aware of the piece of research to which my noble friend refers. The Government's position is as I have stated it on this occasion and as I stated it when this same Question was asked previously.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the noble Baroness not agree that, despite some of the failures mentioned by the previous speaker, a suffering humanity must not become a victim of some aspects of maladministration? Is it possible for the House to know whether there has yet been any major agreement between the super powers with regard to this vital issue?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the consideration of this matter is not an issue for the super powers, as the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has suggested. It is in fact a matter of reaching agreement on the sharing of the amount of money between the OECD countries and the OPEC countries. We are still waiting to hear whether the United States is prepared to make its contribution.
Lord Oram: My Lords, has not one of the major messages coming out of Africa these last months been that for too long agriculture in that continent has been neglected by the major donors? Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, has said, is it not the case that IFAD is one of the most effective means of channelling aid to the small peasants of Africa and, indeed, of other continents? Should we therefore not take a positive attitude towards this fund? Would not those many hundreds of thousands of people who are voluntarily contributing to help the situation in Africa be very disturbed if they knew that the major donor governments were playing a game of, "After you, Claud: after you, Cecil", and not making a move because the others will not?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the purpose of IFAD is to mobilise additional resources to help developing countries to introduce, expand or improve their food production systems. For this reason we contributed to the first fund, and we have said that we will contribute to the second replenishment. In fact, it would be quite wrong to say that anyone is playing a game over the

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replenishment, and I believe that all noble Lords would acknowledge that the United States has made a very real aid contribution both to Africa and to other developing countries throughout the world.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, will the noble Baroness reaffirm the view of the Government, which she has stated to this House before, that the inernational fund is one of the most cost-effective of all international organisations, that its administration has been virtually without blemish, that its administrative costs are extraordinarily low, and that it is an organisation which the whole world should support if famine in Africa is to be prevented in the future?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I have made it plain that we are prepared to contribute to the second replenishment, and we are prepared to consider the voluntary fund. We have already given very considerable amounts of money to the relief of the famine in Ethiopia and in the Sudan, and now by way of direct bilateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa.
Lord Bauer: My Lords, does my noble friend recognise that the major causes of famine in Africa are not neglect by the West but the policies of African Governments?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I think we would all accept that the tragic situation in Ethiopia is not helped by a civil war.

The "General Belgrano": Information to Parliament
3 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they now agree that is was unwise not to give fuller information to Parliament regarding the events of lst-2nd May 1982.
Baroness Young: My Lords, the matter to which I assume the noble Lord is referring is discussed in the report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in another place, published on 24th July. It would not be right to anticipate our considered reply to this report, but the House will be aware that the report states that the House of Commons was not misled on the main issue: that the attack on the "General Belgrano" was authorised for legitimate military reasons.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree with the statement that it would have been preferable if Ministers had volunteered a comprehensive statement on those events, including much of the material which has been extracted from them so painfully over the last three years?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am not prepared to comment further than to say that the Government's considered reply will be given to your Lordships' House and to another place at the appropriate time.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether she would agree that this controversy, which to some of us has seemed a bit unrealistic from the beginning, has now lost something of its original freshness, and that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, would be well advised to seek other material with which to interest your Lordships' House?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am delighted to respond to my noble friend's supplementary question. This is in fact the seventeenth occasion that this matter has been raised in your Lordships' House; there have been 12 Parliamentary Questions; two debates, and three other supplementary questions on matters raised by other of my noble friends.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, does the noble Baroness think that attempts by Governments to stop the public finding out what they are up to never lose interest, no matter how long ago the events to which they refer, and that it is fortunate in the extreme for the Government that they can shelter behind the excuse that they will in due course reply to the Select Committee's findings, and thus they do not have to reply to questions in this House?
Baroness Young: My Lords, there is no quest ion at all of my sheltering behind producing a reply later. That is the proper constitutional position with regard to Select Committees of another place. But in case the noble Lord should think that the Government might be concerned, the report makes plain that the House of Commons was not misled on the main issue; that the attack on the "General Belgrano" was authorised for legitimate military reasons and not out of political design.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the statement I quoted in my first supplementary question was taken directly from the words of the majority report signed by her friends in another place, and not from the minority report? Is it not the case that her friends in the other place also agreed that the request by Members in another place and by one or two of us in this House for certain material was perfectly legitimate, and that the Government would have been wiser to give that information rather than to mislead us as they had done in the past?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the answer to the first point of the noble Lord's supplementary question is, yes. The answer to the second point will be considered in our response.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Committee stage of the Transport Bill will be adjourned temporarily at approximately 7 p.m. and that during this adjournment the Lord Chancellor's Salary Order will be taken.

UN Decade for Women: Nairobi Conference
3.4 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, with the leave of the House I should now like to make a Statement on the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women.
The World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women took place in Nairobi from 15th to 27th July. It had a twofold purpose: First, to consider the progress made in advancing the status of women since 1975, together with the obstacles that have impeded such progress; secondly, to draw up strategies for further advance in the period up to the year 2000.
The conference was attended by 158 official national delegations, and by many representatives of the United Nations and other international organisations and of accredited international nongovernmental organisations. All benefited from the excellent arrangements made and the warm hospitality extended by the Kenyan Government and the City of Nairobi.
As announced on 15th March, I led the delegation at the outset of the conference. The deputy leader, Dame Anne Warburton, took over when I left, and I should like to pay tribute to her for her hard work. My noble friend Baroness Gardner of Parkes, United Kingdom representative on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, my noble friend Baroness Platt of Writtle, chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Mrs Mary Clark-Glass, chairman of the Northern Ireland Equal Opportunities Commission, and Mrs Nancy Catchpole, former co-chairman of the Women's National Commission were also members of the delegation. Each of them made a most effective contribution to its work, as did the small number of officials and the two representatives of dependent territories who made up the remainder of the team.
The day before the United Nations Conference started, I attended a Commonwealth Conference on the same theme. At the United Nations Conference itself I delivered a statement in the plenary session and circulated a report on the relevant achievements in this country. Copies of these have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. My noble friend Baroness Platt of Writtle presented a paper to a workshop on Women into New Fields of Work, and the British Council mounted an exhibition showing some British initiatives in this area.
The conference adopted by consensus a document which it named The Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the advancement of Women to the year 2000. Copies will, when available, be placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The achievement of consensus at the United Nations Women's Conference is not only heartening in terms of work for the improvement of the status and opportunities of women everywhere. It also reflects a widespread commitment to constructive co-operation in the United Nations itself as it celebrates its fortieth anniversary.
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The United Kingdom participated actively in the preparation of the final document, both in the preparatory stages and at the conference itself, where we made a positive contribution to the outcome. The document is the culmination of three years' work by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. It outlines the areas in which action is needed to advance the status of women and it points to actions for Governments, groups and individuals in all areas to this end. Our own ideas on areas important to us, such as eduction and employment, are well reflected. We see it as a valuable document containing practical and realistic ideas for progress over the next 15 years. Broad consensus was our aim and we are particularly pleased that it has been possible for so many countries with differing geographical, social, economic and politicial characteristics to agree upon common concerns and priorities for women.
Regrettably, some delegations insisted on the inclusion of statements on general political issues. We did not think these helpful to a specialised document and had strong reservations on some of the views expressed, notably on South Africa. The language was, however, modified during the conference: in particular, no inimical mention of Zionism remained. For this reason and because of the importance we attach to the document on forward-looking strategies as a whole, we joined the final consensus.
A number of resolutions were tabled at the conference but, due to shortage of time, they were not adopted and have been passed to the General Assembly. The United Kingdom introduced a resolution on the importance of collaboration between Governments and non-government organisations in the field of health, and co-sponsored six others.
Non-government organisations from many other countries organised their own meeting, Forum '85, in parallel with the conference from 10th July to 19th July. This involved over 10,000 women, including a large number of representatives from British NGOs. I and others in my delegation visited Forum '85 events. We kept in close touch with British representatives throughout to discuss the progress of the conference and exchange views on the issues under consideration. This followed from the process of consultation in this country which began in October 1982 with a meeting for NGO representatives and which saw the publication and presentation to the Government of 12 reports by NGO working parties on a range of issues of concern. We intend to maintain this dialogue, with particular reference to the forward-looking strategies and their implementation, and another meeting with NGOs is planned later this year. A further United Nations Conference is envisaged for the year 2000. But it is for the General Assembly to consider what follow-up will be appropriate meanwhile.
To conclude, I am glad to be able to report that the United Nations Conference marked a significant achievement for women the world over, in developed and in developing countries. The fact that, despite all the differing political views represented at the conference, consensus among the

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158 countries present was reached, made it also an important event for the United Nations itself.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we welcome the noble Baroness back from her travels and thank her for the Statement on the conference. I hope that she and our other colleagues from this country enjoyed the impressive experience of being with 14,000 other women who had come from over 150 other countries. Can she say what points she made in the statement which she read to the conference? There is no clarification of that, although it may be in the document placed in the Library which we have not yet had the opportunity to read. As the House will recall, the United Nations Decade for Women was launched 10 years ago in Mexico City. The purpose of that was to foster equality, peace and development. Can she say what was the opinion of the conference concerning the success of the decade as a whole, and what is to happen now that the United Nations Decade for Women has come to a close? Would the noble Baroness not agree that there is always a danger, in attaching a finite period to a cause, that when the period has ended, so has the support for the cause? Is there not a slight danger of that happening?
What positive steps will be taken by the Government to ensure continued work to promote the cause of women's equality and welfare? The Copenhagen conference—and that conference took place, I think, five years ago—concluded that while women represent 50 per cent. of the world population, they perform nearly two-thirds of all working hours, receive only one-tenth of the world income and own less than 1 per cent. of world property. According to the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for the Conference, this conclusion remains appropriate.
Was that the conclusion of the present conference? If so, what positive steps were formulated to reverse this absolutely appalling state of affairs so far as women are concerned? I must confess to the House that I do not share the view of the noble Baroness that it was inappropriate to comment on the terrible events in South Africa. Would the noble Baroness give the House some reason why she indicated that a discussion of this matter was inappropriate in this conference? Finally, one commentator said that Nairobi could well prove to be a catalyst for change for, by simply talking to each other more, women have become more aware of the gaps in their lives and more confident of their ability to close these gaps. Would the noble Baroness agree with this assessment of the conference as a catalyst for change, given the very slow progress that has been made thus far?
Baroness Seear: My Lords, we on these Benches would also like to thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement and to thank her for going to Nairobi to lead the delegation. I should also like to take the opportunity of reminding the House of the very great amount that the noble Baroness herself has done, in a previous capacity as well as now, in order that the United Kingdom should show a rather better example in these matters than it had done previously. I am very glad to read that there is to be continuing close co-ordination between the Government and the NGOs in the area of women's affairs, because it is from
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the NGOs that a great many of the ideas for progress in this country and elsewhere come. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, I was somewhat surprised that anybody should be surprised that the question of South Africa was raised having regard to what is going on at the present time—although I am aware that in conferences of this kind there is sometimes an undue tendency to bring in matters which are of great political importance but not always of the most direct relevance.
I look forward very much to seeing the papers which are to be put into the Library because, until we get them, it is difficult, as I am sure the noble Baroness would agree, to gather from this paper exactly what was discussed and to what effect in Nairobi. One recognises that it is difficult at a conference of this kind to get passed anything more than very general resolutions or to get any very clear ideas of the progress that has been made.
Can the noble Baroness tell us, particularly as there were representatives of a large number of developing countries at Nairobi, for it was held, after all. in an African country, whether there was any information about the progress made on some of the questions of the most fundamental importance? For example, I recall attending a conference of this kind, although not a UN conference, in which it was put forward as of the highest importance that women the world over should have access to running water through a tap, an advantage which a great number of women do not share. Has any progress been made on fundamental issues of this kind? Similarly, was there any information about the progress made on the provision, where it is required, for family planning and population control services—a matter which affects quite fundamentally the lives of a very large number of women? Again, what progress has been made in developing countries, and indeed in developed countries, on the training of women for non-traditional jobs so that they can have the opportunity of commanding greater economic resources?
3.15 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to thank both the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for their reception of this Statement and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for her very kind remarks about myself. I have placed in the Library a copy of my Statement, which, of course, covered the three themes of the conference: equality, peace and development. I was able to outline some of the improvements in education and employment for women which have occurred over the past 10 years in this country and to go on to point to some of the things which still need to be put right, and was able to make the point on peace that, although we all wish for peace, the actual discussion of arms negotiations was not a suitable topic for the Nairobi conference.
I was also able to comment on some of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, made about women in developing countries, referring to some aspects of our aid policy which had been of particular help to women and, I think, particularly in regard to water pumps to enable women to get more easily to water supplies and also to some detailed work that we have done on cooking stoves to make it easier for

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women who usually have to carry the wood home. These kinds of practical matters I touched on, as well as family planning.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked how the decade ended. It is a matter of regret that I do not have the final document. It is not yet available but I undertake to put it in the House as soon as it is. I appreciate that it is very difficult to comment on it as we have not got it; but it covers very many of the points which both the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, have raised. It applies both to the developed and the developing countries; and, as I am sure all noble Lords will appreciate, the needs of the two groups of countries are different but in their own ways are equally important.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and the noble Baroness referred to the fact that I said that it was inappropriate to comment on the events in South Africa. I have before now made plain the Government's view on apartheid and on the events in South Africa. We deplore apartheid and we recognise how dreadful are the events in South Africa. Nevertheless, this was a conference that was quite particularly devoted to the needs of women, and I think it was important that their needs and the specific practical matters which come out in the forward-looking strategies, should be reached as a conclusion and that the conference should not be dominated by political issues which, although of great importance, are issues which can be debated in other fora.
I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, said, that we need something which is a catalyst for change. If I may make one personal comment, I led the British delegation to Copenhagen in 1980 and I led the delegation to Nairobi in 1985. One of the facts which struck me quite forcefully in 1985 was that almost every delegation was led by a woman Minister or a woman who had achieved a top position in her country. I thought there were some very impressive people indeed at the conference from all parts of the world, and I felt that was one result of the improvements that women have achieved in their own lives and in their own countries over the course of 10 years.
Of course, there were many other aspects which were very heartening. What I hope the conference and the document will do is to point to practical ways forward for both developed and developing countries and that governments will take note of what has been said.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness two specific questions? It puzzles me that she has stated that two themes of the conference were equality and peace. It is surprising that these issues were not related to South Africa. Were there any delegations of women from South Africa, and what were the objections the British delegation had to the resolution condemning apartheid since it is at least arguable that the subject falls even more heavily on women than on men?
Secondly, could the noble Baroness say, in view of the interest recently shown by this House, whether there was any discussion, particularly about the
16
relationship between governments and NGOs on the question of education regarding female circumcision?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I think I am right in saying that there were some black representatives from South Africa at the Nairobi conference. I do not doubt that apartheid bears very heavily on women and children, as indeed it bears heavily on men in South Africa. We have made our position on South Africa very plain, and one of the important factors about the Nairobi conference was that at the end the forward-looking strategy was agreed by consensus. There have been a number of United Nations conferences which have not ended so well and this, for the United Nations in its fortieth anniversary year, is an advantage.
On the specific points, I should have said earlier how very valuable we found the work of the NGOs to be. Many representatives came from Britain and we sponsored a resolution quite specifically to draw the conference's attention to the important contribution we think non-governmental organisations make in complementing the statutory health services. This received quite a considerable amount of support. It was a matter for regret that the conference ended before there was time to deal with all the resolutions; but it was something to which we attached very great importance, and as I said at the beginning, we will have a further meeting with NGOs, because we want to discuss what happened at the conference and to have their views about this matter.
On the final point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, about female circumcision, I have not yet received the final document and so I am not clear exactly what has been said about this. Therefore I would prefer not to comment at the present time.
Lord Oram: My Lords, since Her Majesty's Government, and indeed previous Labour Governments, have such a good record in support of family planning programmes, including support for the UNFPA and the IPPF, I am glad to hear the noble Baroness say that she included a reference to this subject in her opening Statement: she made the point in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. Can she indicate whether that subject was taken up very fully in the conference and, if so, what the attitude to it was? Was the controversy which has arisen recently in the United States reflected in the proceedings of the conference?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I can confirm that I did refer to the question of family planning in my Statement. It clearly was an issue which came up at the conference. It is, as I realise, an immensely complex and difficult subject. I think it is one which has to be approached with great care and understanding with countries whose backgrounds and traditions are different from our own.
I would like to Say that as we have agreed that we are going to ratify the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, we have made it quite plain that nothing we will do will undermine family life—nor indeed to offer something like abortion on demand, over which anxieties have been expressed. But over the conference as a whole clearly

17
this was a matter of importance to women all over the world, and it was clearly one of the issues which were discussed.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I, too, welcome the Statement that has been made by the noble Baroness this afternoon, with particular reference to equality of opportunity for women, to which we are committed. But of course in order to enable women to take advantage of equality of opportunity, as we all know, it is necessary to provide certain support services such as créche and nursery facilities, and so on. Could the noble Baroness tell us whether the Government would reconsider their attitude towards the draft EEC directive on leave for family purposes, because I understand that we are in fact the only government in Western Europe which has not been prepared to support this directive? If we are taking seriously equality of opportunity for women, this is one of the aspects we should consider. Would the noble Baroness be good enough to answer that point?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, for what she has said about the Statement. She will know the Government's response to that particular draft directive. We in Britain have a higher percentage of women in employment than any other country in Western Europe. In fact the proportion of women who are now getting jobs is slightly higher than the proportion of men. We feel that employment is one area where women have managed to gain; but of course I take the point made by the noble Baroness about the directive.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, could my noble friend say whether serious attention was paid to the increasing denial of educational opportunities to women in countries such as Iran and Pakistan, and whether delegations from those countries were present to explain why women are discriminated against, particularly in higher education?
Baroness Young: My Lords, there were delegations of women from both Pakistan and Iran. I did not myself hear the delegation representative from Iran speak. I regret that some of the points that were made concerned political matters, points against Zionism and the state of Israel; but I take the point my noble friend makes.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I really do not think that the noble Baroness has effectively answered the question I put about the directive. She simply said that she noted my point. Can I press the point and ask the noble Baroness whether the Government will reconsider their position on this rather important question?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that in fact I cannot give her the undertaking she is seeking. What I have said is that I have noted what she says, as indeed I have.

Petition: Transport Bill
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, I wish to present a humble Petition on behalf of several hundred men and women resident in the West Midlands County area, which reads:
"Wherefore your petitioners pray that the Lords Spiritual and Temporal do reject the Transport Bill 1985 on the grounds that it does not meet the needs of women using public passenger transport on the several grounds that are mentioned and written into the Petition".
Petition presented.

Dartmoor Commons Bill
3.30 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time.—(Lord Aberdare.)
Lord Sandford: My Lords, a little over six years ago I had the privilege of introducing the mark 1 version of this Bill to your Lordships' House. It then went to the other place where it was sabotaged by a strange combination including hang-gliders and horseriders. Now that the mark 2 version is before us I should like to take this opportunity, as this is the first substantial piece of legislation leading to the proper management of a large area of common land, to congratulate the Devon County Council and the national park officer in particular on having prepared this legislation, the skill with which they have negotiated it, and their perseverance in bringing it within striking distance of being on the statute book.
Finally, I should like to express the confident hope that it will be of very considerable benefit to both the commoners of Dartmoor and visitors.
Baroness White: My Lords, fortunately this Bill has not engendered the spirit of controversy surrounding the proposal for the nearby Okehampton by-pass. It is generally welcomed, as the noble Lord. Lord Sandford, has said. I think one should briefly draw attention to the fact that an important amendment was agreed in Committee which has now established the position and authority of the Nature Conservancy Council in relation to those parts of the commons which have been notified, or may be notified, as sites of special scientific interest. I understand that the NCC are very happy to have secured this amendment, without which their position in relation to commoners' rights might have been less than satisfactory.
But there is still concern in some quarters that the Bill is not sufficiently forward-looking in the matter of improving the control of stocking and grazing, on which so much of the environmental as well as the agricultural value of common land depends. The Commoners' Council is now to be under an obligation to submit draft regulations to prevent overstocking. These regulations are subject to confirmation by the Secretary of State. The Commoners' Council must consult the national park authority but need not refer

19
to the Nature Conservancy Council. The Secretary of State will, in all probability, consult the Nature Conservancy Council but there is no obligation to do so on the face of the Bill.
The advantages of such consultation are that they bring wider experience, and perhaps greater objectivity, to bear on what can very often be a difficult local situation. I am advised that if consulted the NCC would draw on their experience of grazing levels in the uplands generally, of course taking into account local conditions, including the climatic and soil regimes on Dartmoor. Their objectives would be to relate the carrying capacity of the land to the maintenance and enhancement of the nature conservation interest, as part of the total assessment.
It would be encouraging if the Government would confirm that such advice would be sought whenever relevant regulations are presented for confirmation; and also that arrangements will be made for periodic reviews as required. The Bill mentions fixing the numbers of stock "from time to time". But this could be very loosely interpreted if left entirely to local initiative and interests.
At present, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has indicated, we are indeed fortunate to have as a national park officer Mr. Ian Mercer, who is outstandingly knowledgeable and experienced in conservation matters. But one must have a care for the future. If the Minister is able to give such assurances as I have mentioned they would be very welcome.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, speaking on behalf of the Government, I believe that I can give the noble Baroness the categorical assurance that she is seeking; namely, that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will not confirm any regulations without consulting the Nature Conservancy Council. In regard to periodical reviews, which were the subject of her second question, I am afraid I do not have the answer readily to hand but I shall, if I may, take the opportunity to write to her.
Before we depart from this Bill, perhaps I may say that I agree with my noble friend Lord Sandford that at last we shall have proper management for a large area of common land; and that is a very good thing.
On Question, Bill read a third time, and passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Transport Bill
3.35 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 95 [Grants by the Secretary of State for services in rural areas]:
On Question, Whether Clause 95 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Belstead: In speaking to the Question, Whether Clause 95 shall stand part of the Bill, I shall, if I may, speak to Amendment No. 253H alone. I shall then speak to Amendment No. 253J, which has some consequential amendments.
Amendment No. 253H: After Clause 95, insert the following new clause:
("Grants for establishment, etc., of rural passenger services in Wales and Scotland
.—(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, make in such cases as he thinks fit a grant to any person for the purpose of securing the establishment, continuance or improvement of any public passenger transport service which in the opinion of the Secretary of State is or will be for the benefit of persons residing in any rural area in Wales or Scotland.
(2) In the case of any grant under this section for the purpose of securing the continuance of an existing service—

(a) the service must be one which was established with the assistance of a grant under this section; and

(b) the grant must be for securing its continuance during such period from the time when it was first operated as appears to the Secretary of State to be appropriate in the case of that service.

(3) In the case of any grant under this section for the purpose of securing the improvement of an existing service the improvement in view must be one which appears to the Secretary of State to involve an innovative approach to the use of vehicles, equipment or other facilities in providing the service.
(4) Grants under this section shall be of such amount and subject to such conditions (including conditions requiring their repayment in specified circumstances) as the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine, either generally or in relation to any particular cases or classes of case.".
Amendment No. 253J:After Clause 95, insert the following new clause:
("Transitional rural bus grants
.—(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, make in such cases as he thinks fit a grant to any person in respect of qualifying mileage run at any time during the period of four years beginning with the date on which this section comes into force by vehicles used by that person in operating a service which at the time in question is a service eligible for grant under this section.
(2) A service is eligible for grant under this section at any time when—

(a) it is a service qualifying for fuel duty grant;

(b) it is being operated wholly or partly within a rural area in Great Britain (outside London); and

(c) it meets such other requirements as the Secretary of State thinks fit to impose;

and in subsection (1) above "qualifying mileage" means, in relation to any vehicle, mileage run by that vehicle within any such rural area.
(3) Grants under this section shall be of such amount and subject to such conditions (including conditions requiring their repayment in specified circumstances) as the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine, either generally or in relation to any particular cases or classes of case.").
The amendment to which I have referred will take the place of Clause 95, which I am moving shall not stand part of the Bill; and the second new clause to which I have referred and to which I shall not speak will also form part of where Clause 95 has been, if your Lordships agree that it should be excluded from the Bill.
These two clauses are designed, as I say, to replace Clause 95 with far greater and far more precise definitions, concerning the two grants which we propose to pay towards rural services. I should emphasise that in seeking to replace Clause 95, first

21
with Amendment No. 253H and then with Amendment No. 253J, there is no change of policy. The new clauses will ensure that Parliament enacts provisions which recognisably give the Secretary of State the powers needed to pay the grants intended under Clause 95. But the difficulty is that, as at present drafted, Clause 95 is so general that it gives no indication of how the grants are to be paid. That is why I am seeking to bring forward Amendment No. 253H as part of the replacement of Clause 95.
I shall speak briefly to it. This new clause in Amendment No. 253H will, if your Lordships agree to it, allow my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales to pay the innovation grant which was announced in the White Paper, Buses. The clause does not apply to England for the simple reason that powers already exist which will enable the Development Commission to administer the innovation grant on behalf of the Secretary of State. There are no equivalent bodies in Scotland or Wales which assume responsibility for all rural areas in those countries; hence the need for this new provision to enable my right honourable friends to administer the grant.
The new clause will allow a grant to be paid for the establishment, continuance or improvement of services for the benefit of residents in rural areas. In England up to £1 million a year will be available to the Development Commission. In Wales the figure will be £100,000 a year. In Scotland it will be of the order of £150,000 a year. The purpose of the innovation grant is to encourage new thinking about the old problems of transport for rural communities and to act as a pump primer to get schemes off the ground, perhaps by helping a local group with the purchase of a mini-bus.
The funds involved are of course small compared with the day-to-day revenue support payments by county or regional councils and the grant in no way cuts across the role of these authorities. To have an impact, the lessons learnt from the projects will need to be monitored and applied in other parts of the country. In speaking to this first amendment I am, however, moving that Clause 95 do not stand part of the Bill.
Lord Teviot: I have only a very small point to make about my noble friend's amendment No. 253H, but I support all his other amendments which have to do with the clause. In this Bill, we are dealing with local bus services. We are also dealing with the allocation of extremely limited amounts of money. Therefore I must ask my noble friend whether in subsection (1) the reference to "public passenger transport service" should read "public passenger transport service by road". I hope my noble friend will find favour with this interjection and will regard it as both sensible and helpful to the Bill. If so, I hope he will arrange for the necessary amendment to be made.
Lord Belstead: In reply to my noble friend, I should like to look at the point. If I feel that it is right from a drafting point of view, I shall be only too ready to let my noble friend know so that we can have an amendment brought forward at Report stage. But I should like to look at the point.
Clause 95 disagreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 253H:
[Printed above.]
The noble Lord said: I have spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 253J:
[Printed above.]
The noble Lord said: The second new clause on the Marshalled List, which will fully replace Clause 95, is Amendment No. 253J. This will allow my right honourable friend to pay the transitional rural bus grant for a period of up to four years, and it is this subject to which Clause 95 is mainly devoted. The purpose of the transitional grant is to compensate for the loss of cross-subsidy in the period following deregulation. We recognise that competition will be most intense in urban areas and that this will lead to pressure on operators' costs in those areas—to the benefit of passengers. But this means that cross-subsidy from urban to rural services will be much reduced following deregulation.
However, deregulation itself will compensate for that. It will enable new operators to start services easily. It will be easier for mini-bus and taxi operators to come in. Competitive tendering will also have an impact in rural areas, enabling local authorities to get better value for subsidy. However, I admit that the Government realise that it will take some time for the effects of competition to work through. This is why we are proposing to make available the transitional rural grant for four years starting from 1st April 1986. There will be £20 million available in the first year and this will decrease in even steps to £15 million, £10 million and £5 million over the next three years.
The Department of Transport wrote last March to various interested organisations, explaining in detail how my right honourable friend proposed to administer the grant and inviting comments on his proposed definition of "rural areas". The letter explained that grant would be paid by the department directly to operators in the same way as fuel duty rebate. Services in rural areas which are eligible for fuel duty rebate will also be eligible for rural grant. The department's letter proposed that rural areas should be defined as those outside built-up areas with more than 25,000 people, as defined by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and the Registrar General's Office in Scotland, with grant being paid on all mileage run in those areas.
My right honourable friend has also decided, in the light of the comments received, that it would be right to make one other change to the proposed arrangements for administering this grant. My right honourable friend had previously proposed that all mileage in rural areas should qualify for grant. But some local authorities and others pointed out that this could lead to grant being paid on some inter-urban services which did not actually stop in the rural area through which they ran. My right honourable friend therefore proposes to impose an additional requirement under subsection (2)(c) of the new clause to the effect that to be eligible for grant services should make timetabled stops in rural areas.
3.45 p.m.
If I may speak also to Amendments Nos. 253K, 253L, 253M, 254A, 254B and 265A, these amendments are all consequential on the fact that subsection (2)(a) of this amendment makes eligibility for fuel duty rebate a condition of eligibility for the transitional rural grant.
Amendment No 253K: Clause 96, page 97. line 16, leave out ("In section 92") and insert ("(1) In section 92(1)").
Amendment No. 253L: Page 97, line 17, leave out from ("fuel") to ("In") in line 35 and insert—

("(a) after the words "bus services" there shall be inserted the words "or (as the case may be) to operators of bus services of any description specified for the purposes of this section"; and

(b) after the words "bus service" there shall be inserted the words "or (as the case may be) any bus service of any description so specified".

(2) For subsection (8) of that section there shall be substituted the following subsections—
"(8)").
Amendment No. 253M: Page 98, line 7, leave out ("the regulations") and insert—
("regulations made by the Secretary of State by statutory instrument.
(8A) Any statutory instrument containing regulations made under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament." ").
Amendment No. 254A: Clause 98, page 99, line 9, leave out from beginning to ("and") in line 10.
Amendment No. 254B: Clause 98, page 99, line 13, at end insert—
("(1A) For the purposes of this Part of this Act, a service is a service qualifying for fuel duty grant at any time when fuel used in operating the service falls to be taken into account for the purpose of calculating grant payable to the operator of the service under section 92 of the Finance Act 1965 (grant to operators of bus services towards duty charged on bus fuel.)").
Amendment No. 265A: Clause 121, page 118, line 39, leave out ("95") and insert ("(Grants for establishment, etc., of rural passenger services in Wales and Scotland), (Transitional rural bus grants)")
The main effect of these amendments which I have just mentioned is to delete the new subsection (8)(b) of Section 92 of the Finance Act 1965 which is contained in Clause 96. That provision would have given my right honourable friend power to make regulations to the effect that fuel used on only one part of a service was eligible for rebate. If a particular service was partly eligible for fuel duty rebate, then eligibility for rebate could not sensibly be used as a criterion for eligibility for this new rural grant, since it would be unclear whether a service was or was not eligible for rebate and was or was not eligible for grant.
My right honourable friend decided, however, that he would be very unlikely to wish to use a power to limit eligibility for rebate according to vehicles or manner of operation and the provision could therefore be dropped. The effect is that every service either will or will not be eligible for fuel duty rebate. It therefore becomes possible to make eligibility for rebate a condition of eligiblity for rural grant. I am sorry about the length of that explanation, but that is the thrust of all those consequential amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Monk Bretton Lord Monk Bretton moved Amendment No. 253JA as an amendment to Amendment No. 253J:
Subsection (1), line 2, leave out ("may, with") and insert ("shall, subject to").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 253JA, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 253JB and 253JC.
Amendment No. 253JB: Subsection (1), line 4, leave out from ("run") to ("by") in line 6.
Amendment No. 253JC: Subsection (3), at end insert—
(" (4) In considering what requirements to impose under subsection (2)(c) above, the Secretary of State shall have regard to the need to support, among other services, those which—

(a) are provided solely or mainly for the carriage of passengers resident in rural areas;

(b) in the opinion of the relevant authority are required to meet the needs of the residents of those areas; and

(c) would not otherwise be available at reasonable cost to passengers and to the relevant authority, having regard to the costs incurred by them before the passing of this Act.

(5) Any grant made under this section in respect of a service or services shall continue for a period of not less than four years unless during that period a change in the circumstances affecting the service or services makes it inappropriate so to continue.
(6) In this section "relevant authority" means the Passenger Transport Authority, or non-metropolitan county, regional or islands council for the area.").
These three are all amendments to my noble friend's new clause which he has just moved as Amendment No. 253J. My amendments are supported by the shire counties and also by Rural Voice which comprises, as the Committee will probably know, many rural interests ranging from the National Farmers' Union to the Women's Institute. Your Lordships will also be aware of my concern about the effects of the Bill on rural areas. Also, Clause 95 is really the only safeguard for rural areas which is provided in the Bill. Though no sums of money are mentioned in the Bill, the Government's intention is that £50 million should be made available tapering over four years. I shall not comment on, or discuss now, the adequacy or inadequacy of that £50 million, but comment there has been which indicates that the position is expected to be a very tight one. My purpose on moving these amendments is to try to provide a more efficient—possibly, slightly more generous—safety net than the proposed new Clause 95 as proposed by my noble friend.
My amendments have effect as follows. Amendment No. 253JA strengthens the clause by turning the power of the Secretary of State into a duty—but I hasten to say, a qualified duty—to do what he thinks fit. This brings it into line with the duty that the county council has to provide rural services as it thinks appropriate, as set out in Clause 61 of the Bill. It seems to me fair that the respective obligations of Government and county council should be the same in this matter. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will not cavil unduly at that.
Amendment No. 253JB removes the restriction of the four-year maximum period over which these grants may be paid. But I hasten to say that a less tight restriction is then introduced instead in subsection (5) of Amendment 253JC, which states that these grants shall be paid,
"for a period of not less than four years unless during that period a change in the circumstances affecting the service or services makes it inappropriate … to continue"
the grant. I note here that the Secretary of State will still have power to fall back on subsection (2)(c) of his

25
new clause as set out in Amendment No. 253J, where it says:
"A service is eligible for grant … when—
(c) it meets such other requirements as the Secretary of State thinks fit to impose".
The rest of Amendment No. 253JC is an endeavour to make sure that money is channelled where it is most badly needed. I am afraid that in this respect I shall be found to be turning upside down to a considerable extent the proposals that have been put forward by the Government so far. Subsection (4) of Amendment No. 253JC is intended to ensure that services do not just pass through a rural area but definitely cater for those living there. It would ensure that the residents really need the service before grant becomes available and that the service would be eligible for grant only if, without such grant, it would be available only at an excessive fare and/or excessive local authority subsidy. Finally, it would ensure that the opinion of the relevant local authority is sought.
Money being short, I am greatly concerned that aid is concentrated where the shoe pinches and not wasted elsewhere. I understand that some time back there were consultations about this and the Government had the general premise that they would be distributing these grants to rural areas which could be defined as outside built-up areas with more than 25,000 people. I fear, having also read the original Notes on Clauses, that these proposals are definitely too diffuse. I am left with feelings of great doubt and anxiety about this matter. I think we have established that the effect of the Bill is bound to be patchy. Though indeed it will be advantageous overall, there will be areas of difficulty.
The principal difficulty lies in serving the rural areas. In any particular shire county all we can be certain of at present is that there will be so much cross-subsidy, which I should like to call X, and some scope for economy in the services, which I would call Y—and X minus Y will determine whether the service can be maintained with or without extra subsidy by local authorities, which extra subsidy, if needed, is quite frankly highly unlikely to be available. No algebra can tell us at the moment what X is; and there are also considerable uncertainties about Y. I might almost say that there have been disagreements about Y, but I should prefer to stick to the word "uncertainties". The answers to X and Y are going to be discovered when the Bill comes into operation. All will very definitely come out in the wash at that stage. There will be differences from county to county. I do not think that it is right to gamble and guess about this with vital services in the rural areas, and I therefore want to see the safety net improved by making sure that grant is applied as effectively as possible.
I think that that explains the position. I am sure my noble friend will say that I have turned things upside down very considerably but I feel, nevertheless, that it is vitally necessary to consider the matter in that light. It is what is happening in each county that must be taken into consideration because there is a status quo ante with which we have to deal—the extent to which services have relied upon cross-subsidy up to now. I beg to move.
Earl De La Warr: I very much welcome this amendment moved so well by my noble friend. It seems to me that those of us who have paid attention to the progress of this Bill through both Houses should remember that constantly during the course of debates Ministers have given assurances that there would not be blank spots appearing on D-Day or soon after because there was in existence this roll grant, provisional for four years, which would see that any of these little holes are adequately filled. That is why I am so concerned about what we were told by my noble friend as to the way in which the grant is to be handed out.
Those of us who have studied carefully the departmental letter of 27th March will already have taken this view. If I may read just three small extracts from it perhaps the reason for my concern will be highlighted. Paragraph 3 states:
"Direct payment by the department on simple criteria should minimise paperwork for operators and the public cost of administration".
First of all, I can assure the Committee that it will not minimise the paperwork for operators. But that is not the point; that is not a criterion to be used The criterion is to make sure that this grant is there to fill the gaps should they emerge and when they emerge.
We are told that the grant is going to be administered in the same way as fuel duty rebate, the payment of which is currently being computerised. Thus operators would estimate annually their total mileage eligible for bus grant. In an earlier paragraph the letter says:
"The rate of grant will be about 5 pence per bus mile in the first year".
Five pence per bus mile is, at the very cheapest rate, worth less than one extra passenger. That does not seem to add up in any way to the sort of safeguard that we were told the clause would give us. The fact is that the department has thought up a scheme which gives automatic payments for all mileage run in rural areas provided a stop is involved; so on this basis payment would be virtually indiscriminate.
4 p.m.
On this basis also, many a city-to-city or inner-urban service, provided it stops on the way, will qualify for the grant. Those are just the services that will continue to run and continue to run profitably. Here is an unknown part of this clause, but a not inconsiderable part of it, which will apply to exactly those places where it is not intended to apply.
It is no use making indiscriminate payments in that way. Even though it may mean more work, the payments must be made specific. That is why the amendment is so important for country folk who are worried at this moment as to whether they are going to see their bus coming. Each grant must be made specific, and each grant must deal with the individual needs of a particular place in an area. Grants must be confined to those places where services are likely to be either inadequate or non-existent. I suggest that one of the most important parts of the amendment is where it states that the granting of aid must be based on the most expert local advice. Where would one look for that advice, other than to the traffic departments of the county councils?

27
This amendment perhaps goes as far as it is right to go in legislation in spelling out the framework within which grants should be made. It could go further but it would be wrong to tie the hands of the Secretary of State too tight. But this is the way we would have him go; not in the indiscriminate way which he suggests, which probably counts as the least cost-effective method that I could possibly think of. That is why I strongly support my noble friend's amendment.
Lord Shepherd: The Committee finds itself in the situation that it does not really know what needs to be provided as a consequence of deregulation and the abolition of cost-subsidy. In this situation, £20 million is clearly to be welcomed, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, will not take me too wrong if I say that that sum is peanuts in relation to the syphoning out—as I said on Second Reading—of the element of cross-subsidy which I know exists within the National Bus Company, which operates in the main in the shire counties. The noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton, is clearly concerned with those.
A sum of £20 million is being put in compared with a syphoning out, conservatively, of £120 million in cross-subsidy which provides the socially desirable and uneconomic services alongside the Section 1 grants. Surely we must use that £20 million to the very best advantage. The amendment before the Committee clearly show that that £20 million will be spread very thinly even within the shire county areas. Services which are perhaps profitable and which can stand on their own will, as I understand it, be able to receive a part of that £20 million. That surely cannot be right, if one considers what most of us who understand this situation perceive will be the consequence of the passing of this Bill.
I can understand why the Government have taken this decision. It is because they find difficulty in deciding how to apportion the £20 million between deserving counties. They have therefore agreed to a blanket contribution. That is a very wrong principle to adopt in the present situation.
The amount available is small compared with what I believe will be required, but £20 million is the amount now available. My strong advice to the Government, which is in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton, is that that sum should be used to the very best advantage. The Government may have to find some new machinery for apportioning the £20 million. It is very wrong that that small sum of money should be spread so thinly throughout all the operations within the counties. That way, there will be very little benefit. If the opposite approach is taken, I believe that there might be an element of saving in some of the more difficult areas within the counties.
I recognise the Government's difficulties but I hope that if they cannot accept the noble Lord's amendment, then they will at least try to meet the serious case that is being made. If the butter is small in pack, it is better to use it where it has the greatest advantage rather than spread it so thinly that it means nothing in general. I support the noble Lord.
Lord Grimond: I rise to ask a question that is germane chiefly to the new clause. I am not sure whether this is a suitable moment for raising it. Certain local authorities in Scotland have powers, for instance under the private Bill legislation in Scotland, to provide or assist transport by both road and sea. I take it that their powers to provide or assist ferries, and the bus services which run in connection with those ferries, will not be affected. If one is running a ferry, clearly it is of great assistance if one can be sure there is a bus service to meet it. Secondly, I presume that the money which the noble Lord mentioned, if the services are approved, might be available to them.
Lord Belstead: It may be helpful if I reply at this moment to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton. Before I do so, I will say to the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, in respect of the first point he raised, that the powers of local authorities in Scotland to assist with transport by road and sea will not be affected by this Bill. Indeed, specifically written into the Bill is the power of Scottish local authorities to give subsidies to transport of that kind. I will subsume my answer to the noble Lord's second point in my rather more general response.
This group of amendments would remove the four-year limitation on the payment of the special rural grant which is contained in the new clause. The amendments would require the Secretary of State to pay the grant for not less than four years unless by reason of a change of circumstances it became inappropriate to do so. On that first point, I may say straight out that the White Paper made clear, as the Government have done on many occasions since, that the transitional grant will be available for four years. We have said that it will be available at the rate of £20 million, £15 million, £10 million and £5 million in those four years. That has deliberately been made clear so that operators will have as firm a base as possible on which to plan their services. I give an assurance that there is no question of the grant being available for less than four years.
So far as concerns a longer period of time, I am sorry that after some three weeks in Committee on this Bill I have not persuaded either of my noble friends Lord Monk Bretton or Lord De La Warr that the effects of competition will be that, gradually, keener tender prices and lower operating costs will benefit passengers in the countryside as well as in the towns.
My noble friend Lord Monk Bretton said that that may be, but it will happen in a patchy way. Although I do not agree with him, that is in line with what my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton has said on many occasions during this Committee stage. If my noble friend Lord De La Warr will forgive me for saying so, there was perhaps just a hint in his speech that, at the moment, everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds with the bus services in this country. My noble friend went so far as to say that when this Bill is passed people will be worried as to when the next bus will come along, as though in some way one was absolutely assured of a splendid bus service at the moment in every part of the country. As your Lordships know, despite devoted service from people in the bus industry, that is simply not so.

29
It is because the bus industry has reached a very difficult period in its history that we need some new thought to try to solve some very intractable problems in the industry. What we are dealing with is a grant of £50 million over a period of four years to be paid on top of the subsidies paid by local authorities to the bus companies and the bus undertakings in their areas. The grant is designed to ease the transitional period until improvements in the Bill have had time to work through.
The amendments of my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton would introduce certain factors to which my right honourable friend would have to have regard in considering what additional requirements for eligibility he should impose. Several noble Lords, and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, just now, said that one of the main differences is that under the Government's amendments it will be a blanket payout to bus undertakings in rural areas, provided the mileages are done in rural areas, but here we have selective amendments where local authorities will be the arbiters and will look at certain requirements for eligibility for the grant. The amendments would effectively require my right honourable friend to focus grant only on services which, as I said, the local authorities select.
I must say to my noble friend that, although he has not in any way meant it to be so, this would be very hard on bus operators. The Bill as we have it with the Government's amendments will enable operators to know at the outset which services qualify for grant, and the system for handling applications will be as simple as possible. It will enable operators to decide what services to register and, in some cases, what tenders to submit to their local authorities. However, under the amendments of my noble friend operators would be told, in effect, "There is a grant available, but you have to go to your local authority to seek its support for your application. You might or you might not be eligible for some grant depending on whether the authority backs you up and whether there is any money available". I do not think that that would be much of an encouragement to rural bus services compared with the simple assurance which is contained in the Government's amendments.
At the risk of wearying your Lordships, may I go one step further and point to the individual proposals which my noble friend is making in his amendment and which noble Lords have said are so much better than the simple assurance which is being given by the Government. There are three types of service which my noble friend indentifies in his amendments as being particularly worthy of grant. First, there are those services provided solely or mainly for the carriage of persons resident in rural areas. That is where the shoe pinches, as my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton said. Under the Government's proposals such services will clearly receive grant, but I cannot accept that it would be right to limit grant to services which are only in rural areas. As my noble friend knows very well, there are many services which run partly in towns but then extend out into the countryside. We believe it is very important that grants should be available to maintain that rural mileage and perhaps tempt operators to extend their rural mileage even further. Therefore, with great respect to my noble friend, I
30
think that is one considerable difficulty with the amendments.
In passing, I should like to assure my noble friend that the Government are most anxious, as he is, to ensure that services which do not serve any rural areas are not eligible for grant. Therefore, my right honourable friend has it in mind to impose an additional requirement under subsection (2)(c) of the Government's new clause so that, to be eligible for rural grant, services must make timetable stops in rural areas.
4.15 p.m.
The second type of service which my noble friend has identified as being particularly favourable for grant is where the service has been endorsed by the county council or other relevant local authority as being necessary to meet the needs of residents of rural areas. I admit that we certainly considered whether it would be right for local authorities to have some role in relation to the grant and we decided against it because, as I have indicated, we thought it important that the grant should be available provided operators meet certain criteria which will be clearly specified in advance. Moreover, in reaching a decision to impose an additional condition to the effect that grant will be available only to services which stop in rural areas, my right honourable friend will, by a rather different route, be attempting to target the grant at just those services which local authorities are likely to support.
Finally, my noble friend singles out services which, were it not for the payment of rural grant, would not be available at reasonable cost to passengers or the relevant authority. I shall not go on about that except to ask: who on earth is to decide what "reasonable cost" is to be? If it is the local authority, all I can say is that the local authorities would naturally want as many services as possible in their areas to attract grant and so potentially reduce their need for subsidy. That could be a difficulty. If the computation of reasonable cost has to be worked out by some central agency, then there would be an enormous amount of bureaucracy attached to it.
This is not just a matter of practicalities. My noble friend Lord De La Warr argued that it is wrong to give the transitional grant to operators of profitable services. That was my understanding of what my noble friend said. However, let us consider for a moment what would be the result——
Earl De La Warr: Perhaps my noble friend will give way for a moment. I did not say it was wrong. I said that that was likely to happen, and, by definition, it would be wasting some of this very valuable money.
Lord Belstead: I certainly accept that from my noble friend. If I may flesh out what he said, he had in mind services which came out from an urban area and went to another urban area and were probably profitable for that reason. I think that my noble friend Lord De La Warr is being very hard in two ways. First, as I have tried to show, just because a bus service starts in an urban area, surely we are not going to say to that bus operator, "You cannot have any encouragement to go running in rural areas and extend your rural mileage." But that is what my noble friend is saying.

31
Secondly, if we attempt to restrict the transitional rural grant to services which are either not profitable or would probably not be profitable—which, in practice, would mean those subsidised by a local authority—would what my noble friend said really encourage operators to keep marginal services going? Where the rural grant may just make the difference between continuation or withdrawal, if we say that the rural grant should be only for obviously unprofitable services are we likely to encourage the entrepreneur? I very much doubt it.
I apologise for speaking at some length about the details of these amendments, but they have been put forward as being amendments which are splendid not only in concept but also in detail. With very great respect to my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton, I think they are not.
Lord Shepherd: The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said that if the amendment were passed it would prevent or not encourage the entrepreneur to come into the bus operating field. Does the noble Lord really believe that an entrepreneur will come into the bus operating business with a subsidy that will last for four years but which will give diminishing returns? I do not think that is a very serious point.
Lord Belstead: I disagree fundamentally. The noble Lord has returned to his first principles, but not the Government's. The noble Lord asserts that over a period of time the benefits of competition will not have beneficial effects upon costs nor, indeed, upon the services themselves. I am sorry if the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, thinks that. It is not something that the Government believe.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: I think the Minister's amendment and the amendment that has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton, demonstrate the great confusion about how this rural grant will be handled. My noble friend Lord Shepherd has just made a point about whether someone starting up in business will go into it for a four-year period. When the Minister was speaking earlier he said that operators will know that they are getting a grant, and the formula has been suggested by the Government. But do operators realise that the grant will be roughly 5p per mile? The Minister has not yet accepted the figure given by the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, which shows that the grant would work out at about 5p a mile. That really amounts to one extra passenger, which I can hardly believe is something that will attract people into the industry.
Another point which I think is worth making—and this is where a difficulty comes in which I certainly accept—concerns the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton, when he pointed out that with the cross-subsidy removed something would be needed to give a cushioning effect for that period. To some extent I certainly agree with him. A further point worth considering is that if there was anything that was shown up in the trial areas—and they have been spoken about rather a lot—it was that the one period in which it is perhaps less necessary to have any encouragement to maintain a service is at the very
32
beginning of it. A great many people tend to take a chance at the beginning, though perhaps not the serious operators of whom the noble Lords who have already spoken are thinking. So perhaps the starting point at which this £50 million, spread over a period, should be given should be two years after the beginning of the deregulation, in order to encourage the people who are still in operation to give it another trial. I am absolutely sure—if the belief of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, is right—that competition, if it means anything, means that a great many people will drop out in the course of the experiment.
I do not think that the amendments moved by the Minister will really make a good job of this. I think it will be an accountant's nightmare, even if a very profitable nightmare. I feel that a great deal more thought needs to be given to this. Since this amendment was tabled by the Minister he has already promised us another change in this particular section of the Bill, which I suppose will be put forward by the Report stage, and I think that we may go on and on getting more amendments to amendments. I hope that the Minister will be good enough to consider thinking about this matter much more deeply. This particular section has not been thought through at all.
Lord Belstead: Perhaps I ought just to say, if I may, that of course I shall look carefully at the debate, but I should not want the Committee to be under any misapprehension. I think that there are very great difficulties with my noble friend's amendments. I attempted to deploy them, perhaps, at rather great length, but nevertheless they are very real difficulties, particularly in the three areas where he said that services should be favoured for grants.
The difference between my noble friend's amendments and the Government's of course, is that we are giving an absolute assurance to operators, provided they are running in rural areas, that they can have the grant. Perhaps I may add this comment. It has been said that 5p a mile is "peanuts". We are talking about £50 million over four years, of course; but £20 million—which is for the first year—is roughly 20 per cent. of the total shire county subsidy, and it is a much higher proportion of existing subsidies to rural areas. The fuel duty rebate stands now at 7p to the mile. From the way that operators defend it, clearly they think that it is very well worth having. Therefore, I do not think that this very remarkable sum of £50 million over four years is "peanuts". I think it will make a considerable difference in bridging the period between strict regulation, which we are trying to do away with, and competition, which the Government desire.
Lord Monk Bretton: I am afraid that my noble friend the Minister makes difficulties with my schemes. I have already proposed a good many schemes to solve the problems of rural areas, and so have other noble Lords on both sides of the Committee. Of course, my concept is that the grant really should be used to help with problems that arise over local authority grants in those areas where, as a result of the Bill, the subsidy will rise and where there is no other way of meeting the extra cost which that subsidy provides. The intention of my noble friend is

33
to help operators and to approach the matter in an entirely different way.
Though I quite understand the logic of his approach, I find it extremely difficult to believe that in fact it will provide the safety net that I want to see in those areas where the degree of cross-subsidy is high and the ability to economise turns out to be not so great, so that there is not a disaster and a great hole in fact left in the rural bus services. I cannot really see how the Government can distribute this grant efficiently without taking into account the different results that will occur in the different areas, and I remain very unhappy about the localised problem from one county to another.
My position is a difficult one. I am only too aware of the very great strength of feeling on this issue. It is because of this that I really do not think that it would be proper for me to withdraw this amendment. In fact, I do not know whether I should be allowed to do so. I think I must press the amendment.
4.29 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 253JA) to Amendment No. 253J shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 114; Not-Contents, 115.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Amherst, E.

Grimond, L.

Ardwick, L.

Hampton, L.

Atholl, D.

Hanworth, V.

Aylestone, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Banks, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Heycock, L.

Bernstein, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Beswick, L.

Hughes, L.

Birk, B.

Ilchester, E.

Bottomley, L.

Ingleby, V.

Brockway, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Jacques, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

John-Mackie, L.

Caradon, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Leatherland, L.

Collison, L.

Listowel, E.

Crawshaw of Aintree, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Darwen, L.

Lockwood, B.

David, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

McNair, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Mais, L.

De La Warr, E. [Teller.]

Mayhew, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Milford, L.

Denington, B.

Mishcon, L.

Diamond, L.

Molloy, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Monk Bretton, L. [Teller.]

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Morton of Shuna, L.

Ennals, L.

Mulley, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Nicol, B.

Ezra, L.

Northfield, L.

Falkender, B.

Oram, L.

Falkland, V.

Phillips, B.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Fitt, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Gallacher, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Galpern, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Rochester, L.

Glenamara, L.

Sainsbury, L.

34

Sandford, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Seear, B.

Taylor of Mansfield, L

Sefton of Garston, L.

Teviot, L.

Serota, B.

Tordoff, L.

Shackleton, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Shepherd, L.

Underhill, L.

Shinwell, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L

Simon, V.

Walston, L.

Stallard, L.

White, B.

Stamp, L.

Wigoder, L.

Stedman, B.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Winstanley, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Wise, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B

NOT-CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Kemsley, V.

Ailesbury, M.

Killearn, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Kimball, L.

Aldington, L.

King of Wartnaby, L.

Allerton, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Ampthill, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Arran, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Bauer, L.

Layton, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Beloff, L.

Long, V.

Belstead, L.

Lyell, L.

Bessborough, E.

McFadzean, L.

Boardman, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Mancroft, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Margadale, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Marley, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Massereene and Ferrard. V.

Butterworth, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Caithness, E.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Merrivale, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Milverton, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Molson, L.

Cathcart, E.

Mottistone, L.

Chelwood, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Colville of Culross, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Newall, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Cowley, E.

O'Brien of Lothbury, L.

Cox, B.

Pender, L.

Davidson, V.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

De Freyne, L.

Plummer of St Marylebone.L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Denning, L.

Polwarth, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Porritt, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Dundee, E.

Reay, L.

Eccles, V.

Renwick, L.

Eden of Winton, L.

Rodney, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Romney, E.

Elles, B.

Rugby, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

St. Davids, V.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Elton, L.

Seebohm L.

Fortescue, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Somers, L.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Swansea, L.

Glanusk, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Gowrie, E.

Terrington, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Teynham, L.

Gridley, L.

Tranmire, L.

Grimthorpe, L.

Trumpington, B.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Tryon, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Vivian, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Westbury, L.

Henley, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Hood, V.

Wynford, L.

Hooper, B.

Young of Graffham, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment to the amendment disagreed to accordingly.
4.38 p.m.
[Amendments Nos. 253JB and 253JC not moved.]
On Question, Amendment No. 253J agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 253J):
After Clause 95, insert the following new clause:
"Transitional rural bus grants.
.—(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, the Secretary of State may with the approval of the Treasury, make in such cases as he thinks fit a grant to any person in respect of qualifying mileage run at any time during the period of four years beginning with the date on which this section comes into force by vehicles used by that person in operating a service which at the time in question is service eligible for grant under this section.
(2) A service is eligible for grant under this section at any time when—

(a) it is a service qualifying for fuel duty grant:

(b) it is being operated wholly or partly within a rural area in Great Britain (outside London); and

(c) it meets such other requirements as the Secretary of State thinks fit to impose;

and in subsection (1) above, "qualifying mileage" means, in relation to any vehicle, mileage run by that vehicle within any such rural area.
(3) Grants under this section shall be of such amount and subject to such conditions (including conditions requiring their repayment in specified circumstances) as the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine, either generally or in relation to any particular cases or classes of case.").
Clause 96 [Grants towards duty charged on bus fuel]:
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendments Nos. 253K and 253L:
[Printed earlier: col 23.]
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 253K and 253L are consequential on Amendment No. 253H. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendments (Nos. 253K and 253L):
Page 97, line 16, leave out ("In section 92") and insert ("(1) In section 92(1)").
Page 97, line 17, leave out from ("fuel") to ("In") in line 35 and insert—

("(a) after the words "bus services" there shall be inserted the words "or (as the case may be) to operators of bus services of any description specified for the purposes of this section"; and

(b) after the words "bus service" there shall be inserted the words "or (as the case may be) any bus service of any description so specified".

(2) For subsection (8) of that section there shall be substituted the following subsections—
"(8").
Lord Teviot Lord Teviot moved Amendment No. 253LA:
Page 97, line 39, leave out ("wholly or mainly").
The noble Lord said: This clause introduces an element which will disbenefit a substantial number of bus services. It will limit bus fuel grant to those services on which more than half the places provided on the vehicles are available at all times for casual passengers. However, is it right to do this to every service where 50 per cent. of the seats are reserved for special categories of people? These people may be schoolchildren, workers the disabled and so on, but they are, of course, a part of the general public.
In the Notes on Clauses provided, one sees there is a concern over the possibility that some of these services might conceivably run in places or at times of day when it is highly unlikely that members of the general public would wish to use them. It is possible that this might happen.
On the other hand, there are many cases in which buses, used simply for carrying children to school, have a number of spare seats, though less than 50 per cent., which are available for anyone wishing to make the journey. In this way, the education authority can earn some contribution towards the cost of its statutory duty of carrying the children to school and it can provide a service which would not otherwise be available. It benefits not only from the fares collected but also from the receipt of bus fuel grant in respect of the service.
To maintain a service to the public under the "wholly or mainly" provision, the authority would have to provide two vehicles. In fact, it might well be three vehicles. If, as is common, the authority hires a 53-seater coach it may legally be possible to carry 78 children on it under the three-for-two rule. In that case, 32 of the 53 seats would have to be available for casual passsengers, leaving 21 seats for 31 children. More than 62 children will call for three vehicles, or a loss of public service. Beyond doubt, the public service will be withdrawn, as that would be the least expensive course for the education authority. Education has problems enough at present without such added penalties through the Transport Bill, making transport progressively worse.
I should like to give an example. Think of an isolated village where the children go to the nearest school on the stage bus service. The local authority pays only the cost of term-time bus passes. Then the stage service, being too unprofitable, is withdrawn. The local education authority is bound by law to provide a school bus at a greater cost. There are now 69 children on a 53-seater coach, leaving seven seats available for villagers to get to the town and back. This may be a vital weekly link for 25 and perhaps up to 35 people. The fact that they can travel reduces the cost to the local education authority and leaves more money for education as such.
Should we throw out the double benefit of this system? I hope not. Co-ordinated use of vehicles in this way was very much in the mind of the Conservative Government when it placed on county councils a duty to co-ordinate public transport in the area under the 1972 Local Government Act. That duty has regrettably, but inevitably, had to be sacrificed at the altar of deregulation. Despite this, Ministers have frequently made clear that local authorities will still be expected to do everything possible to co-ordinate transport services. Clause 82 provides for this. So it cannot be right for this Bill to introduce the words "wholly or mainly" in the definition of a bus service. All that it does is to remove fuel tax grant from a whole range of legitimate services.
In relating this amendment to real life, I have used the example of school buses. There are many other examples that I could have given. In particular, I am sure that your Lordships will be concerned at the damaging effect that the new definition will have on services provided for the disabled. The Committee will

37
have noted that the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) and the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, are coupled with mine in favour of the amendment. I could not be more grateful for their coming in with me. In fact, I think that I came in with them. Great minds thought alike. We are concerned with deleting the particular words. As your Lordships will understand, they can explain, to a greater extent even than I can, the unfortunate consequences of this clause as drafted for the disabled people of this country.
The words "wholly or mainly" are mean and unworthy. The Government are all too often ready, they claim, to make exceptional cases, which are of very little consequence—such as 80-seater mini-buses. I hope that, in their apparent zeal to eliminate a minor problem, they will not overlook the damage that will result in a large number of worthy cases if this amendment is not made. I beg to move.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I should like to support the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot. He painted a clear overall picture of what will happen if Clause 96 as it stands is interpreted literally. In particular, he talked about school buses. I should like to concentrate on services run primarily for the disabled because I too believe that the words "wholly or mainly" would mean that these services were no longer eligible for fuel tax rebate. A good example exists in Chesterfield where a private operator, by arrangement with the county council, provides a Dial-a-Ride service for disabled people. Members of the general public can use the service at a premium fare. The services run under a road service licence, and under this Bill it would be a registered local service. At present, its availability to the general public means that fuel tax rebate is paid.
The Minister for Transport, Mrs. Chalker, visited the scheme recently and praised it for its ingenuity and innovation. Fuel tax rebate has undoubtedly played a part in its success. There are a number of other examples that I could give. Leicester city has a similar service. There are others, and it is to be hoped that many more will develop, where bus operators provide a licensed service run primarily but not exclusively for a particular section of the community.
Fuel tax rebate is an important influence in the setting up and continuation of these schemes. But in no way could one suggest that a pre-booked Dial-a-Ride service, fully subscribed by the disabled and those who may accompany them, is wholly or mainly available to the general public. So it does appear that they will not be eligible for rebate if the clause remains as drafted. I really hope that the Minister will say that he can agree to the amendment.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I wonder whether, before the Minister replies, I can add my voice as my name is down to the amendment. I am puzzled by the exclusive character of the words, "wholly or mainly" and I wonder whether they will have any effect, for instance, on the provisions of Clause 82 where there is a duty imposed on local authorities to co-operate with one another so as to secure, in the interests of ratepayers in their areas, the best value for money
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from their expenditure on public transport taken as a whole. It might be the case that these words would countervail or somehow go against that duty, or that if local authorities did make some kind of scheme for co-operation, they would not be able to attract grant under the clause. That would be a great pity. I wonder whether there is any ground for my fear that the words "wholly or mainly" might, in some sense, militate against the spirit, anyway, of Clause 82.
In particular, it has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, that these words could be construed to exclude school services. If so, that would surely be very retrograde. I believe, on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), that those words would, or might, exclude the Dial-a-Ride services. Again, that would be a great pity. If there is anything in either of those two points, I wonder whether the noble Lord the Minister would be good enough to consider the matter and come back with something on Report, or explain the import of these words. I must confess that what worried me, apart from the effect on Dial-a-Ride services, is the impact on Clause 82. If the noble Lord can either satisfy me now or perhaps agree to conversations tomorrow, I would be grateful.
Lord Belstead: This is an important amendment. I have listened carefully to what has been said in the last 10 minutes or so, particularly by my noble friend Lord Teviot, who moved the amendment. I hope that I can go some way towards reassuring my noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) and the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and also show that I believe that the Government need to do some rethinking in regard to the school services.
First, why are the words "wholly or mainly" in the Bill? The current definition of eligibility for fuel duty rebate requires that services should be "available to the general public". I will not conceal from your Lordships that that definition has led to some difficulty. It has meant that services which run primarily for a particular group of passengers hut on which just one seat may in theory be "available to the public might qualify for rebate. These may be services running in places or at times of the day when it is highly unlikely that any members of the general public would wish to use the vehicle, and the addition of "wholly or mainly" to the words "available to the general public" is designed to prevent this sort of anomaly and thus to ensure that fuel duty rebate—which costs a very great deal of money some £120 million a year—should fulfil its proper role: that of a subsidy to operators who run the kind of local services on which the general public rely in order to make necessary day-to-day journeys.
Having said that, as I indicated when I began my remarks, I have some sympathy with the argument which my noble friend Lord Teviot put forward, that, in proposing to tighten the criteria for eligibility in the way and for the reasons that I have described, we are perhaps going too far in relation to schools' services. As my noble friend pointed out, it is the Government's policy in this Bill to bring together schools and public transport in order to provide the best value for money overall, and I accept that Clause 96 as drafted might perhaps impair that objective. It is the point which the

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noble Lord, Lord Henderson, also picked up, and I should like to give an assurance to both my noble friend and the noble Lord that the Government would wish to reconsider this aspect of Clause 96 over the Summer Recess and before we come to the Report stage of the Bill.
However, there is another point which I have to answer, which is the important point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth). She gave the example of a licensed service run primarily, but not only, for disabled people. I should like to assure the noble Baroness that a local service running to a timetable and on which separate fares can be paid would not be disqualified from getting rebate simply because its passengers happened to be elderly or disabled, or because the vehicles happened to be specially equipped to carry them. It is very important that I should say that.
However, perhaps I may go one step farther and remind your Lordships that, although that particular Dial-a-Ride service which the noble Baroness gave as an example, is, as I understand the noble Baroness, a service which is not only for disabled people but also picks up others in the locality, some Dial-a-Ride services are, as the noble Baroness knows much better than I, provided for the carriage of disabled people under mini-bus permits, which we discussed under Clause 61. They have never been eligible for fuel duty rebates and under the Bill they will not be, whether or not the words "wholly or mainly" remain in the Bill.
As your Lordships will remember from the debate on the new clauses moved by my noble friend Lord Teviot under Part I of the Bill, mini-bus permits take operations out of the scope of public service vehicle operator licensing, out of road service licensing and out of registration. However, fuel duty rebate is closely linked to operators' licensing, road service licensing and registration. The amendment which we made to Clause 61 removes the exclusion of Dial-a-Ride from public passenger transport services, and so local authorities will be able to assist Dial-a-Ride financially. I am very glad that we made that amendment to the Bill. However, the Bill will not make a mini-bus permit operation into a local service.
Therefore, in essence, on the disabled and elderly passenger point, when the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), put forward the example of the service, describing it as being licensed and run primarily but not only for the disabled, I repeat that I should like to assure her that a local service running to a registered timetable and on which separate fares can be paid would not be disqualified from getting rebate simply because its passengers happened to be elderly or disabled, or because the vehicles happened to be specially equipped to carry them. What I will not conceal from your Lordships is that the Dial-a-Ride services provided under mini-bus permits have never been eligible for fuel duty rebate and, of course, will not be so eligible under the Bill.
I shall certainly look at the schools' point. I think that my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, most certainly have a point.
Lord Teviot: I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me certain assurances, but I am not very happy
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with his answer. He has said that he will look again at the school transport issue. However, this amendment goes rather wider than that. I might end up by withdrawing the amendment, but all this has happened in the space of a few minutes; we have been only 17 minutes on this very important amendment and it is a large decision to take. A great many amendments will be raised again on Report. The Report stage is rather like a rubbish dump where one goes at weekends with a motor car full of garden refuse and whatever. The best bits are recycled; the rest goes into a destructor. I think that there are some good elements in this amendment which should go forward.
I still maintain that the words "wholly or mainly" are frightful. If my noble friend were to say that he will consider substituting different words for "wholly or mainly", I would be very much happier; but while the words "wholly or mainly" remain in the Bill, I am very reluctant to withdraw the amendment.
After my noble friend dealt with the issue of school education, he mentioned the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), about the Dial-a-Ride service. If the words "wholly or mainly" remain and all the arguments that I put forward in my amendment go unheeded, that service would end up by being withdrawn and the group which the noble Baroness mentioned would be at a disadvantage. I am extremely unhappy about this, and if any noble Lord would like to interrupt me before I sit down, I should be very grateful.
Lord Belstead: Before my noble friend finally decides what to do with this amendment, I should like to reply to him. He undoubtedly has a good point as regards school transport. I have admitted it and have recognised it, and I have promised my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, that over the Recess I shall take the matter away and consider it as sympathetically and indeed as seriously as possible. I think that that goes as far as possible towards being an undertaking.
The noble Baroness gave a specific example of a different kind from the mini-bus permit Dial-a-Ride service, which was a good example. I tried to say that there would probably be no difficulty in a case of that kind, and before the next stage of the Bill I should like to look at the matter very carefully, taking advice from the department, and I promise to consider the specific example that she gave.
However, if my noble friend is saying that there is more to it than that—and we are trying to ensure that £120 million of public money is carefully spent by a Government which my noble friend supports—I must say to him that I cannot help him. There are cases, for instance, where a works bus starts off more or less full from the very first, makes a stop somewhere, with a seat which is said to be available for the general public and, through that device (which operators are perfectly at liberty to make use of as the law stands at present) receives fuel duty rebate.
There are examples of that kind where I believe that the huge sums of public money for fuel duty rebate are not being put to their best use, because fuel duty rebate has always been supposed to be a subsidy to operators who are the kind of local stopping services on which the general public rely to make necessary day-do-day

41
journeys. I beg my noble friend to think for a moment as to whether he has a point or two on this amendment, as indeed he has, and whether the Government have a point or two as well.
5 p.m.
Lord Teviot: I feel much happier with what my noble friend has said, apart from this last statement. My noble friend refers to this odd works service which might go out early in the morning, and keeps seats for odd members of the public and therefore claims fuel duty rebate. That is something he has to look at, and to look at the whole wider issue.
I should have thought that going out at 5.30 in the morning the situation he instances is very unlikely. Let us say a service going to a mine, or a factory, or to cover shift work, is most unlikely to find such a person, and therefore qualify this service for rebate. However, I have been in consultation with various people and well-known operators, and in their areas sometimes those services are used. That is why I came back. I dislike these words "wholly or mainly". However, I am reassured by my noble friend's extra statement.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: Would the Minister also give a little thought to some of the rural areas that I know reasonably well in the West of Scotland? I take the point that a works bus is really a moral abuse, if not a legal abuse, with having a couple of seats vacant. But it happens in school buses. I know parts of the Clyde coast which are fairly sparsely populated. There may be a valley with children going down to school, and there is a small town and there may be only half a dozen genuinely empty seats on the bus—maybe different people taking them every day.
I would say that that was not an abuse of a school bus. It is a reasonable way to use a school bus. In fact it would be the height of folly in the rain if a bus went past with vacant seats when someone was waiting in the hope that a friend would pass in a car, or a friendly van driven would give him, or her, a lift. I can see the dilemma, that morally it would be wrong and legally it may be right, but there must be some flexibility somewhere.
Lord Belstead: I hoped that I had given an assurance that we would look further at the difficulties which may arise for operators of school services should they be deterred from carrying members of the general public by the loss of entitlement to fuel duty rebate. The noble Lord is helpfully underlining the need for me to look at that as sympathetically as possible, and that I undertake to do.
Lord Teviot: Unless any of your Lordships object to this amendment being withdrawn I shall withdraw it, but if any noble Lords objects I shall not shun away from it, I shall go ahead with it. Assurances have been given. When one talks about £120 million I agree that there might be some abuse; but it is £120 million over the whole, and if there is any abuse of it I would say it is very small. This is an area at which we have to look.
If some of your Lordships feel that this amendment has not been dealt with and disagree when the Lord Chairman calls for it to be withdrawn, I shall go ahead.
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We have a lot to do today in one way or another, and in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 253 M:
[Printed earlier: col 23.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 253M):
Page 98, line 7, leave out ("the regulations") and insert—
("regulations made by the Secretary of State by statutory instrument.
(8A) Any statutory instrument containing regulations made under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament." ").
Clause 96, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 97 [Unregistered and unreliable local services: reduction of fuel duty grant]:
[Amendment No. 254 not moved.]
Lord Teviot Lord Teviot moved Amendment No. 254ZA:
Leave out Clause 97 and insert the following new Clause—
("97.—(1) Where any person has without reasonable excuse—

(a) operated a local service in contravention of section 6 of this Act; or

(b) failed to operate or has operated unreliably any local service which is registered under that section;

he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a local service has Tailed to operate or has operated unreliably if the operator of the service has failed to a significant extent to operate it in accordance with the particulars of the service registered under section 6 of this Act.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 254ZA. This is a very different subject. Reliability of service is a fundamental of public transport. Indeed it is recognised that the public look for reliability before all else. Therefore, when an operator has registered a local bus service it is important in a deregulated situation that he should operate it reliably. If he fails to do so, it is essential that there should be sanctions which can be taken against him.
This was recognised in the Buses White Paper and in subsequent consultation documents. However, until the Bill was published there was no indication that the sanction would be the withholding of bus fuel grant. If ever a punishment failed to fit the crime, this is it. It is ironic when the road traffic law review set up by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has just published a consultation document on making the punishment fit the crime.
Let us examine certain possibilities. First, if an operator decides to run a local service and does not register it in accordance with Clause 6, the punishment of Clause 97 will apply. Twenty per cent. of his fuel bus grant will be withheld. As in these circumstances he will not be eligible for fuel bus grant, he will be penalised by 20 per cent. of nothing, which remains nothing. There is an offence, but no penalty.
Next may I take the case of an operator who runs, let us say, four bus services on rural routes. During the three months in question his entitlement to bus fuel grant is £4,000. This operator proves unreliable in

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respect of one of these routes, and the commissioner makes a determination to that effect. In consequence this man is penalised to the extent of £800.
At the other extreme, an operating company with a fleet of 500 vehicles providing a mix of local services on 55 separate routes is also unreliable in respect of just one of these routes. Its offence is not greater than in the previous example but in this case the penalty unavoidably imposed under Clause 97 as drafted may be £60,000 compared with £800 in my previous example.
Is there justice in this clause? I submit that the answer is self-evident. The penalty is unsuitable and is liable to be unjust. It is for this reason that I have proposed a new form for Clause 97 which reverts to the Government's original plans that an illegal or unreliable operation of bus services shall be liable to a fine on summary conviction.
It is necessary to recognise the variation in the level of failure that may occur, as may be deduced from the three examples one has given. Therefore, the maximum fine must be a deterrent against each offence, each unreliable service or illegal operation. It is for this reason that I have fixed on level four out of five on the standard scale, which is currently at £1,000. On this basis I have no doubt that the punishment can be made fully appropriate to the crime. Common justice demands an amendment of this nature. It gives effect to the Government's own intentions, and I urge your Lordships to make this necessary amendment to this Bill. I am sorry it I have made it sound very much like the kindergarten school and I have read it out to that effect; but it is an important amendment, and I ask your Lordships to take this into account. I beg to move.
Lord Shepherd: Like the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, I fully support the Government in the intentions that they have in this clause. Clearly, if an operator has registered and the public are relying upon that operator to perform according to the registration, then if there is unreliability, there needs to be some degree of sanction. I wonder whether the proposal that is in Clause 97 is the right way to go about it and whether we may have a more difficult situation in regard to that operator because of the way in which he could be penalised.
I think that the first thing to be said in regard to subsection (1)(a) is that I would not have thought an operator under that particular subsection would ever be justified in receiving a fuel rebate. Because he was not a registered service, I cannot see how he could ever have got a fuel rebate. So we are really considering subsection (1)(b)—that is, failing to operate a service reliably. It is then for the traffic commissioner to consider and make a determination. Perhaps I may here read the words of subsection (4):
"Where a determination has been made under subsection (1) above with respect to a local service there shall become due to the Secretary of State from the operator of the service an amount equal to twenty per cent. of the amount paid to him under section 92 of the Finance Act 1965 (grants to operators of bus services towards duty charged on bus fuel) in respect of all services"—
and that is the phrase that I want to come back to—
"operated during the period of three months ending with the day on which the traffic commissioner made his determination".
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Unreliability can arise for a number of reasons. It can arise because of the poor quality of maintenance and then of course the operator is very much held to be responsible. But there are cases when reliability is affected by outside elements in the field of maintenance, say, from the failure of manufacturers to supply particular pieces of equipment. You can have unreliability because you have difficulties with your staff. You can have disputes, you can have long-running disputes, and these can affect reliability. And, as I know from my earlier experience with the National Bus Company some seven years ago, we had serious difficulties on reliability because of staff shortage. Again, that is subject to the question of remuneration.
However, if there is unreliability the traffic commissioners will have to take a judgment so that they would then impose penalties. Subsection (4) is mandatory, it seems to me. There is no option, no discretion for the traffic commissioner. All he can do in this case is to require the repayment of all fuel duty that that operator has received on all services. It could be an independent operator, it could be an NBC operator who has many services, but it is an operator who is being unreliable on only one service or only one of the particular areas of operation.
The operator may be guilty in one small aspect but the penalty will be over all his operations. That could be a very significant figure, quite out of tune, it may be, in terms of the seriousness of the unreliability. But I wonder whether Ministers have considered what would be the consequences to a small, independent operator with the clause as it now is. He may be called upon to repay three months' fuel duty that he has received on all his services, for one small failure. Repayment of that could well destroy his cash flow, his cash position and his ability to continue operating, to continue to be a viable commercial business.
Is that what the Government want? Surely it is not in the interests of the passengers of that operator that because of one failure the livelihood of all those within the company or of the owner of the company should be put in jeopardy. That should not put in doubt the services that are provided to the passengers. I think that these are very draconian powers and too rigid an imposition. We could have a debate on how far I would go with the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, in terms of the penalties set out in his amendment. Frankly, I happen to prefer—certainly in the very first instance, in terms of unreliablity—a slap over the knuckles, shall I say, rather than a kick somewhere else, which could be more dangerous in terms of the survival of the organisation.
5.15 p.m.
I do not like the clause as now drafted. I think that it is too draconian; I think that it would go against what our passengers will be relying upon. As I have said, the penalty envisaged here could be of very considerable import and could remove the viability and the cash position of the operator. I hope that the Government will have another look at this particular clause. I am entirely with the Government that there should be sanctions; but I think that these particular sanctions are far too draconian and I believe that in the

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end they will not do what the Government have in mind. This, as they have repeatedly said, is that an operator should be able to continue in business and that we should not do anything here that would drive a business out of the market. I ask the Government to look at this clause again, but I say to the noble Lord that as a matter of principle I support him.
I think that the clause as it is now is a bad clause because it is a mandatory imposition, with no discretion for the traffic commissioners. I support the noble Lord in principle but I ask the Government to have another look at this particular clause.
Lord Belstead: Perhaps I may first of all address myself to the main thrust of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Teviot, which, as it is printed—although the debate has gone wider—is an amendment to change the sanction for running a service not as registered, to change the sanction which is in the Bill at the moment in Clause 97, which would be a clawback of 20 per cent. of fuel duty rebate for the previous three months, to a maximum fine at level 4, currently £1,000.
I shall not conceal from my noble friend that we considered carefully whether to make non-compliance with registration a criminal offence. I must admit we decided not to because, as I think your Lordships will agree, it is odd (although I would not go so far as to say unprecedented) to make a failure by a trader to provide something a criminal offence. It is much more usual for such a failure to be a breach of contract actionable in the civil courts. Secondly, we concluded that it was better to keep the supervision of those within the bus licensing system within the ambit of the traffic commissioners, whose knowledge of the bus industry and its workings are unrivalled and for whom I know all operators have a great respect.
Those are basically the reasons, I think, why we went down this particular road and did not go for the criminal sanction. My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, spoke more widely. Indeed, I found what they said of considerable interest and I should like to look at it with some care, because we must make absolutely sure that we have got it right. There is clearly common ground between both noble Lords and the Government that we need to take running unregistered very seriously indeed. I remember that when this Bill was just beginning the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, with his great experience of the industry, said to me that he felt that the whole safety aspect of the Bill—and by that the noble Lord was referring to operator licensing—was an enormously important area.
I think the question of sticking to registration is also going to be enormously important. It is important in order to ensure fair competition on equal terms between operators. What about the operator who perhaps will not wait to register but will just dive in and grab a bit of the market because he thinks he sees the chance to make a quick profit? What about the local authorities who have their responsibilities under the Bill and want to know exactly whether registered operators are going to run as registered? And what about the passengers who need to know with some confidence that what is registered is in fact going to
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run? We all agree that running as registered is very important—does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
Lord Shepherd: I just had a slight fear. Was the noble Lord saying that if an operator was not registered, which I think would be a very serious matter, there would be the possibility that there could be fuel duty rebate? I find it very difficult to believe that.
Lord Belstead: I do not think I said anything like that at all: indeed I do not think I was referring to fuel duty at all——
Lord Shepherd: The penalty is there.
Lord Belstead: I am sorry: what I was saying to the noble Lord was that it would be a very serious matter, I thought, if an operator failed to operate according to the particulars he had registered. I cited the example of the operator who might jump the gun on the periods of notice for introducing services or variations, simply because he thought he might be able to make a very quick profit and would disregard the requirements of registration. That is what I was saying, I think therefore we all agree that the whole issue of registration, although it is supposed to be a very simple and straightforward system under the Bill, is none the less important.
May I go on very briefly to say that Clause 25, to which your Lordships will remember we agreed what now seems a very long time ago, provides a powerful sanction in that the traffic commissioner can say to the irresponsible operator, "I will attach a condition to your licence which could even prohibit you from running a local service of a specific description, or indeed all local services in the ultimate".
That is a very powerful sanction against the type of irresponsible operation we are all determined to prevent, but it might not be effective in every case. A very large operator might be indifferent to the loss of the right to run on a single route, particularly if the route was one which the large operator had in any case been neglecting. The traffic commissioner no doubt would be very reluctant to prevent a large operator from running all local services because of the major disruption it might cause to the travelling public.
We have also had in mind the possible ease of an operator whose unreliability lay in failure to give adequate notice of withdrawal from a route. He would probably be completely unconcerned if a condition were attached to his licence to prevent him operating on that route in the future. In such cases, I suggest to your Lordships that the obligation to repay a proportion of fuel duty rebate would be a more powerful and effective sanction, and it may be more appropriate. It would provide greater flexibility and effectiveness in dealing with unregistered and unreliable operation. For those reasons it would provide an additional deterrent to the sort of behaviour which, as I said, we are all determined to prevent.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, says. "But the unfairness of it is that the whole thing is absolutely automatic and may crucify someone." May I just point out to him that the sanction will apply only to an

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operator who runs unreliably (and I quote) "to a significant extent" and "without reasonable excuse". That will ensure that the sanction does not bite unfairly on an operator who, for example, did not keep to his timetable for one day because of bad weather or something of that kind. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, gave some examples.
I must leave it to my noble friend Lord Teviot to do what he wishes with regard to this amendment but, if I may, I will look very carefully at the points which he and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, have made on the amendment. However, I would come back to the first principle, which is that it would be odd to say in this Bill that a bus operator who fails to provide something should be subject to the criminal law. I am not a lawyer but the advice I have been given is that it is much more usual for a failure of that sort to be considered a breach of contract, actionable in a civil court.
In Clause 97 we have decided to go down the road of saying that if attaching a condition to an operator's licence under Clause 25 is not really going to hurt the operator it will be possible to have the additional sanction, saying: "Very well, 20 per cent. of your fuel duty rebate from the previous three months shall be forfeited."
Although I will certainly look very carefully to see whether we have got this right, in the light of what both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, have said, I suggest to your Lordships that it is necessary to have an additional sanction, for the reasons I have tried to give, and that although it may be a stringent one it is necessary in the cause of seeing that registered services run as registered.
Lord Teviot: I am grateful to my noble friend and I hope the Committee will forgive me if I make a very short re-run of what my noble friend has said, in slow motion, to make sure that I have understood absolutely clearly what has been said. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, quoted a case in which sometimes unfortunate things may happen with regard to spare parts and all kinds of unforeseen mishaps. That one might accept. Also, a fine of such high proportions could have an effect on the operator's cash-flow and he may not be able to continue to operate. That is not really a very likely thing to happen but it could happen, and it is something that has to be thought of.
Turning now to what my noble friend has said, he looked at the amendment and he mentioned Level 4. That level was chosen because I think it was felt that a strict fine was really better than the 20 per cent. The Bus and Coach Council as well as other operators prefer this. I should have liked my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross to have been sitting behind me at this moment, as he was 10 minutes ago. I could have asked his opinion, and I would have felt much happier as to how I might proceed now. I think we are all agreed that we have to deal with the question of unreliable services. My noble friend spoke to Clause 25, which deals with unreliability "with reasonable excuse". One point I did not deal with when moving the amendment is the fact that one deals with the difference between the smaller operator and the larger operator.
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My noble friend has said that he is prepared to take this back and look at it, and I should be very grateful if he would do that. I do not know whether he listened to me—I agree it is probably very difficult to listen to me—but I gave him various examples. If he is able to look sympathetically at the case of the larger person, who could really have almost everything taken away, I am quite sure the traffic commissioner is impartial and that would not be the case.
I do not believe Clause 97 is satisfactory at the moment, and if my noble friend will agree to do something about it, I might see reason to beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Otherwise I am afraid I shall have to come out with a big stick—not that I really wish to have to do that, but on this occasion I think I may have to. Perhaps my noble friend could reassure me on that point.
Lord Belstead: I said that I would look with care at what had been said in this debate, because I would be very foolish if I did not when both my noble friend Lord Teviot, who has experience at first hand of the bus industry, and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, who in a different way has unrivalled firsthand experience, have both been giving their advice. But I have to say to my noble friend Lord Teviot that he has picked on the one point where, I am sorry, there is no "give" from the Government's point of view. It is precisely the large bus operator who may not care very much about having a condition attached to his licence by the traffic commissioner for running unreliably. That is because the large operator will say, "It really does not matter to me if a condition is attached that I may not run a particular local service, because I have a hundred other local services". It was precisely with that in mind that we looked around for what would be the right sanction in the cause of good order in running registered services, and decided that the thing to do was to require forfeiture of fuel duty rebate.
May I also say to my noble friend that, if he thinks that he is on good ground in dividing the Committee on this amendment in the cause of large operators, he ought to look at tax law. For instance, in the current Finance Bill there is a provision that where a person substantially under-states his value added tax liability he will be subject to a penalty equal to 30 per cent. of the tax which would have been lost had the understatement not been discovered. The same provisions apply where a person claims and receives from Her Majesty's Customs and Excise a repayment of the tax to which he is not entitled. Those provisions are very similar to Clause 97. They are penalties exacted, not by a criminal court, but within the tax system; and the percentage is laid down in the statute. The effect of using the percentage figure is to grade the amount paid according to the size of the operation which, of course, would not be the case with fines on the standard scale, which is the whole reason for the amendment by my noble friend.
I am sorry to come out against my noble friend in these concluding moments of this amendment. But he has not got his amendment right—at least I do not think he has.
Lord Teviot: I am terribly sorry but I have been advised by people who feel strongly about it to move

49
this amendment. It is the operators who want it. I shall have to press this, if I find a Teller; otherwise, this amendment will be negatived. But the operators have gone very carefully into this. The feeling of the operators is that this is the clear and just way of dealing with this matter. I know that the noble Lord will look at it, but I feel that on this occasion one has to press it. I have made comments about what happens at Report stage; the matter will go drifting on an on. On this, however, I shall stick.
5.35 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 254ZA) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 80; Not-Contents, 138.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Listowel, E.

Barnett, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Lockwood, B.

Beswick, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Birk, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Bostom of Faversham, L

Milford, L.

Bottomley, L.

Mishcon, L.

Brockway, L.

Morton of Shuna, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Mulley, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Caradon, L.

Nicol, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Northfield, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Collison, L.

Oram, L.

David, B.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Parry, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Peart, L.

De La Warr, E.

Phillips, B.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Denington, B.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Ennals, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Serota, B.

Falkender, B.

Shackleton, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Shepherd, L.

Gallacher, L.

Shinwell, L.

Galpern, L.

Stallard, L.

Glenamara, L.

Stamp, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Heycock, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hughes, L.

Teviot, L. [Teller.]

Irving of Dartford, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Jacques, L.

Underhill, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Kearton, L.

White, B.

Kirkhill, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Leatherland, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Aldington, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Allerton, L.

Broxbourne, L.

Ampthill, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Arran, E.

Butterworth, L.

Atholl, D.

Caithness, E.

Bauer, L.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Beloff, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Belstead, L.

Cathcart, E.

Bessborough, E.

Chelmer, L.

Boardman, L.

Chelwood, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Coleraine, L.

50

Colville of Culross, V.

Layton, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Loch, L.

Cowley, E.

Long, V.

Cox, B.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Craigavon, V.

Lyell, L.

Craigmyle, L.

McFadzean, L.

Croham, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Mancroft, L.

Davidson, V.

Margadale, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Marley, L.

Denning, L.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Digby, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Dilhorne, V.

Melville, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Merrivale, L.

Dulverton, L.

Milverton, L.

Dundee, E.

Molson, L.

Eccles, V.

Mottistone, L.

Eden of Winton, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Elibank, L.

Munster, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne. L.

Elles, B.

Newall, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Nugent of Guildford, L

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Orkney, E.

Elton, L.

Pender, L.

Faithfull, B.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Plummer of St Marylebone, L.

Fortescue, E.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Polwarth, L.

Gainford, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Reay, L.

Glanusk, L.

Rodney, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Romney, E.

Gowrie, E.

Rugby, L.

Gray, L.

Russell of Liverpool, L

Gray of Contin, L.

St. Davids, V.

Gridley, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Grimthorpe, L.

Seebohm L.

Hailsham of Saint

Shannon, E.

Marylebone, L.

Sharples, B.

Halsbury, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Soames, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Somers, L.

Henley, L.

Swansea, L.

Hood, V.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Hooper, B.

Teynham, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Tranmire, L.

Jessel, L.

Trumpington, B.

Kaberry of Adel, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Kemsley, V.

Vivian, L.

Killearn, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Kimball, L.

Wise, L.

King of Wartnaby, L.

Wynford, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Young, B.

Kitchener, E.

Young of Graffham, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Ypres, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Zouche of Haryngworth. L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.43 p.m.
Clause 97 agreed to.
Clause 98 [Interpretation of Part V and supplementary provisions]:
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 254A:
[Printed earlier: col. 23.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 254A):
Page 99, line 9, leave out from beginning to ("and") in line 10.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 254B:
[Printed earlier: col. 23.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 254B):
Page 99, line 13, at end insert—
("(1A) For the purposes of this Part of this Act, a service is a service qualifying for fuel duty grant at any time when fuel used in operating the service falls to be taken into account for the purpose of calculating grant payable to the operator of the service under section 92 of the Finance Act 1965 (grant to operators of bus service towards duty charged on bus fuel).")
Clause 98, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Tordoff Lord Tordoff moved Amendment No. 254BA:
After Clause 98, insert the following new clause:
(" Provision of transport for pupils.
Where a non-metropolitan county council in exercise of the powers and duties conferred upon it under section 61 of this Act secures the provision of public passenger transport services which cater either solely or in part for the carriage of certain school or college pupils whose costs of travel would otherwise be met in whole or in part by payments under section 55(2) of the Education Act 1944, the duty inferred upon it as an Education Authority to contribute towards or meet the expense of travel whether under that section or otherwise shall be deemed to have been fulfilled.")
The noble Lord said: This is a brief and very much a probing amendment, but it is an important point. In Clause 82(2) of the Bill, there is a duty laid down whereby county councils must take into account together their public transport services and school services. It is a fiduciary duty and means that the two elements cannot be worked in isolation. As under the Bill the primary duty that remains with county councils is related to seeking subsidised services by tender, it now means that there is a standard approach which follows whether there is a school contract bus or a local bus. As in many cases, particularly in rural areas, it will be either the same vehicle or indeed the same journey that carries out both functions, it is important that the two are worked hand in hand.
A number of county councils either have brought together, or are at the moment engaged in bringing together, these functions across departmental barriers. Nevertheless, there is a problem in as much as expenditure on school transport is conducted under the powers conferred upon the county council as a local education authority. In practice, the ability to meet the costs of travel for certain pupils—that is, over two or three miles—is met to a large extent by actually hiring buses and taxis. The other main element is the acquisition of scholars' season tickets on normal bus services.
In future under this Bill, it will be cumbersome if distinctions have constantly to be made as to whether a journey is primarily for school-children or otherwise, when it is obtained by means of tender. This amendment aims to ensure that when services are secured under the duties imposed in this Bill, it will automatically mean that the county council has discharged its responsibilities with regard to the Education Act. This will considerably assist the activities of the county council, which would otherwise have to turn to two committees or set up joint working arrangements at member level to deal with what should be a very simple and direct approach. This
52
amendment would simply ensure that the county council could operate wearing its most appropriate hat. The effect of Clause 82 of this Bill and this amendment will be, we believe, to eliminate these problems in future to the benefit of county councils, rural school children and other rural bus users. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: All I can say is that I am worried about this amendment. The subject to which the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, is referring is very important indeed. There is nothing between the Government and the noble Lord and his noble friends, but we need to make sure that we have got it right. If the noble Lord will forgive my saying so, I do not think that the amendment achieves that; in fact, the wording is a little obscure. What really worries me is that Clause 82 is intended to further the process of encouraging authorities to see that general public transport and school transport together are not compartmentalised, but can get together for the benefit of not only school transport but the public in general.
If the noble Lord will forgive me, I am afraid that I was a little preoccupied. My Marshalled List has disappeared somewhere. As your Lordships know, if you lose your Marshalled List in the middle of a Committee stage it is almost like losing your method of transport, and perhaps I did not attend to what the noble Lord was saying as closely as I should have done. This is an important matter. I feel that we are covering it in Clause 82, but if the noble Lord would like to come back to me and say that I am not correct in that, I shall, of course, look at the matter very carefully.
Lord Tordoff: I am always prepared to listen to what the noble Lord the Minister has to say on matters which are as technical as this, and I am sure that his advice is better than mine. At least, it is on the spot, whereas mine is not. It seems to me that the problem here is the duty under the Education Act which is not properly dealt with under Clause 82. It is the unresolved conflict between Clause 82 and the position in Section 55(2) of the Education Act 1944 that my amendment seeks to tidy up; in other words, the proposal is to absolve the county council under certain conditions from the provisions of these two conflicting Acts.
I can see from the original wording of Clause 82 that it is the intention to paper over this crack. I am advised that Clause 82 does not, in fact, succeed in doing so, unless there is some reference to the earlier Act. It seems to me that perhaps the wise course would be for me to allow the Minister to go away and read what was said at an earlier moment, and perhaps come back at the next stage of the Bill and tell us what he thinks.
Lord Belstead: I may not be on to a good point here, but so far as school transport is concerned I think the noble Lord may be disregarding what is written specifically into Clause 61. If the noble Lord would like to look at that aspect of it, I shall be very glad to look at the aspects which the noble Lord has put forward in moving the amendment and in speaking again just now.
Lord Tordoff: We can play a kind of bingo here, throwing numbers at each other, but I think that would be unwise. I think we should both go away and look at what the other has said. I shall look at Clause 61 and take advice. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 99 to 101 agreed to.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove moved Amendment No. 254C:
After Clause 101, insert the following new clause:
("Fair and sustained competition in the provision of local bus services.
. Any operator providing a service or services registered under section 6 of this Act, or any person engaged in carrying on any activities in connection with such service or services, shall be subject to the provisions of the Fair Trading Act 1973, the Restrictive Trades Practices Act 1976 and the Competition Act 1980.").
The noble Lord said: This is a probing amendment to ask the Minister for some reassurances. It arises out of a meeting which a number of noble Lords had with some operators, mainly independent operators, who were rather concerned that "fair and sustained competition in the provision of local bus services" left them at some risk. The Secretary of State for Industry and the Office of Fair Trading do not have powers to stop an alleged anti-competitive practice pending investigation by the office of Fair Trading to establish whether the practice is anti-competitive. It is therefore felt essential that any person providing local bus services who has made an anti-competitive reference to the Office of Fair Trading should have interim protection by civil law until the alleged wrong has been subject to the judgment of the Office of Fair Trading.
Counsel's advice has been taken by these operators. It has been strongly suggested that if, in the Bill, the Government were to underwrite their intention that competition should be "fair and sustained", as suggested by the new clause, no person would be in any doubt or would be persuaded in applying for interim protection. If the Minister were to accept this amendment, there would be subsequent amendments. If the noble Lord has read the speech at Second Reading of his noble friend Lady Elliot, he will accept that as well as the question of protection during the period of waiting for a decision from the Office of Fair Trading there is also the question of the time taken for the decision by the Office of Fair Trading. The whole investigation could last at least a year. This amendment and subsequent amendments which would be moved at Report if the Minister agreed with this amendment would clear up that matter and make it a two-month period instead of the long sustained period it is now.
The Minister was himself seeking advice just now. I hope he will give fair consideration to this amendment and will satisfy me, the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, and other Members of the Committee.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: I should like to support this amendment on the subject of which, as the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, has said, I spoke quite strongly on Second Reading. This applies particularly to rural areas in Scotland, and the independent bus companies that are engaged in providing excellent
54
services for the rural areas are deeply concerned about it. They are not disputing the fact that the Office of Fair Trading should be allowed to investigate or decide any controversial matter but that the methods would take a very long time. It is suggested that it could take up to six months on receipt of a complaint to establish whether there was a prima facie case. If a case is established and a full investigation made, it may take up to one year. All that would be absolutely disastrous. Obviously one wants bus services that operate efficiently and quickly. If you are going to have to go through that kind of long argument and discussion, it could be disastrous.
I hope that the Minister will look at the matter and see whether it is possible to have some method by which the inquiry to the Office of Fair Trading, or whatever is proposed—that is the one favoured—could be done quite quickly and fairly without all this terrible delay.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, and my noble friend Baroness Elliot for giving me the opportunity to explain the Government's policy on competition legislation in the context of the bus industry after deregulation. The main point to make is that we envisage the bus industry, like the broad range of British industry, operating in future within the framework of the competition legislation. Our intention in this Bill, as noble Lords will know, is to introduce competition and market forces into the bus industry, where they have had insufficient influence for too long. It follows that the competition legislation which applies elsewhere should apply here.
Already the Bill contains two clauses reflecting our policy of bringing the bus industry into line with competition law generally. Clause 100 concerns monopoly references to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. It removes most of the industry from the scope of Section 11 of the Competition Act 1980. Sections 11 provides for the Secretary of State to make special efficiency reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in respect of bodies which have some special position in relation to market forces, and may need an extra spur to efficiency. That may be true of the regulated bus industry; but in future competition will provide its own strong pressures for efficiency, so only nationalised undertakings in the bus industry—in the same way as all other nationalised undertakings—will be subject to Section 11.
Clause 100 provides for the bus industry to be subject to normal monopoly references under the Fair Trading Act 1973. This means that the Director General of Fair Trading, as well as the Secretary of State as at present, can refer apparent monopolies to the MMC for investigation.
6 p.m.
Clause 101 concerns restrictive trading agreements. It ends the present very substantial exemption of the bus industry from the provisions of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1976. That exemption may have been appropriate when the industry was subject to quantity licensing controls and retraints on competition, but it woud be quite inconsistent with the policy of competition represented by this Bill.

55
In other respects competition legislation already largely applies to the bus industry. An example is the law on anti-competitive practices, embodied in the Competition Act 1980. Under this Act it is open to anybody to complain to the Director General of Fair Trading if they believe, for example, that a competitor is charging way below the economic price with a view, not to more vigorous competition but simply to driving others out of business unfairly. The DGFT can investigate and seek undertakings to remedy any practice he finds anti-competitive. If no undertakings are given the DGFT can refer serious cases to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. If the MMC makes an adverse finding, the matter can be remedied either by undertakings given to the Secretary of State or by statutory orders.
Only in January of this year there was a case involving an anti-competitive practice in the bus industry. In the face of new competition the operator of a commuter coach service had been offering free travel, and a complaint was made to the Office of Fair Trading, who held discussions with the operator concerned. As a result, this predatory pricing was ended. I think the encouraging thing about this case was just how quickly the Office of Fair Trading could act. Results were produced in a matter of days, as a result of intial investigations. It is by no means always necessary for full-scale formal inquiries, though the powers are there if needed.
I cannot accept that the procedures are cumbersome. I have already given an example of how the Office of Fair Trading can respond quickly and effectively. It should also be remembered that compared with other industries the bus industry is not difficult to enter. Even if an operator were tempted to try to put a competitor out of business, he might not only have to reckon with the competition legislation but a little reflection would show him that others could quickly come in. I repeat that the competition legislation already applies to a very wide range of industries, and I am not persuaded that it is appropriate that the bus industry should be excluded or treated specially so far as those procedures are concerned.
I should mention also the law on mergers in the Fair Trading Act 1973, to which the amendment also makes reference. This already applies to the bus industry and will continue to do so. Thus the Secretary of State is able to refer a merger to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission if it meets the size or market share criteria, and taking into account the advice of the Director General of Fair Trading. In the light of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report, undertakings can be sought or orders made to prevent or remedy the adverse effects of a merger, or the merger can even be prevented. Again, mergers in the bus industry are to be subject to the same legislation as mergers in industry in general.
As I have said, our intention is to introduce the usual forces of the market into this industry, and to reinforce that intention simply by ensuring that the future of the bus industry, like that of British industry generally, operates within a framework of the competition legislation. If the industry is to be removed from the special position of quantity controls and is to have competition introduced, then I submit
56
that it is only logical that the legislation relevant to competition should also be applied. I should be hard put to justify anything else.
I suggest therefore that the purpose of the amendment has already been achieved in Clauses 100 and 101 and by the general application of the Fair Trading Act and the Competition Act, which already apply to the industry. I hope that I have satisfied the Committee that those provisions can and do work extremely quickly when they are needed to do so.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: I am grateful to the Minister for that comprehensive reply. As this is a subject of some complexity, I am sure he will accept that both myself and, I imagine, the noble Baroness, Lady Elliott of Harwood, will wish to study his response with some care. I thank the noble Lord for his reply and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 102 agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Constitution, powers and proceedings of the Transport Tribunal]:
Viscount Colville of Culross Viscount Colville of Culross moved Amendment No. 255:
[Printed 8/7/85; col. 110.]
The noble Viscount said: I know that the Committee has not come here primarily to discuss the proceedings for the Transport Tribunal. Nevertheless, it is an important tribunal; and, since its constitution and procedures and being rewritten in this schedule, this subject is worthy of a moment of consideration.
Amendment No. 255 relates to paragraph 12 of Schedule 4 and the help which the Secretary of State, usually through counsel whom he instructs, may in future give to the tribunal. In the schedule to the 1962 Act this provision is spelt out in very brief terms and is slightly expanded in this Bill. The proceedings before the tribunal are not exactly like those before most tribunals. It is an appellate tribunal of some substance because it is equated with the High Court in a previous paragraph in the schedule. Broadly speaking, the powers and procedures of the High Court apply to the tribunal and so it is a senior judicial tribunal.
The appeals which come before the tribunal arise from the decisions—at any rate in some cases—of the traffic commissioners. It does not by any means follow that there is any other party in the tribunal other than the appellant. He may be appealing against a decision by the traffic commissioner that has been reduced to writing, and all he has to do is try to persuade the tribunal that the commissioner got it all wrong. There is nobody there to support the traffic commissioner. He does not appear and is not represented. If there is any understanding required of the reasons why the commissioner came to a certain decision, then the tribunal does not know of them unless such reasons appear on the piece of paper which the commissioner has provided.
Equally, there may appear in a case before the tribunal a substantial point of law of wide application to a large number of hearings concerning bus licence issues. On such occasions also, the matter can be

57
argued one-sidedly only before the tribunal unless the Secretary of State briefs counsel to put another point of view or what the Secretary of State believes to be the correct point of view.
I can see that in the schedule as it stands the law is repeated and that:
"The Secretary of State shall give to the tribunal such assistance as the tribunal may reasonably require".
I ask my noble friend Lord Brabazon to go further than that, and to say to what extent the Secretary of State is prepared positively to help. I am not wedded to the words of my amendment but I am wedded to the substance behind them. I suggest to the Committee that there will be cases where the Secretary of State should take an active part in the sort of circumstances where, in the past, he has not. I have given some examples to my noble friend and will not be tedious by repeating them to the Committee this evening. Nevertheless, it is evident that a number of important points have arisen, and that it must have been known to the tribunal that they were going to arise, and yet those matters were not argued out before the tribunal at all.
If anybody pays any regard to the system of licensing, to the withdrawal of licences in improper cases, and to similar aspects—and from listening to my noble friends on the Front Bench this afternoon, I understand that they do mind—then the Secretary of State must be prepared to play a proper part in the proceedings before the tribunal. One cannot look at what was said in Hansard when one is appearing in court. But if one is about to appear before the tribunal, or if the tribunal itself knows that a difficult case is coming before it, then it is possible to study Hansard to learn what the Government have promised by way of supporting the tribunal with arguments and information. One can study Hansard to discover what promises the Government have made on behalf of the Secretary of State in this regard.
I therefore ask my noble friend Lord Brabazon to say more about how he envisages the Secretary of State coming to help on occasions—and they will not always occur—when large and important issues are before the tribunal and where, if nobody appears for the other side, the case will be argued only by the appellant. I hope that my noble friend can go some way to helping with this matter because, although it is a narrow point, it could involve large matters of principle and issues of general importance.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My noble friend has done the Committee a service in drawing attention to the importance of the matters that may come before the Transport Tribunal; importance not only for the persons involved—all appeals are important for the appellants—but in a wider context. Its decisions, like those of any court, can make law—in the sense of interpreting the words of a statute—perhaps not always as its framers had themselves in mind. It is relevant that the point to which my noble friend alluded—that of the nature of good repute—comes from an EEC Directive. He has also done well to draw our attention to the fact that there are scarcely ever two parties to an appeal to the tribunal—only the appellant.
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I hope that I convince my noble friend that his amendment is unnecessary, because paragraph 12 of the schedule obliges the Secretary of State to assist the tribunal, as he mentioned, and to provide them with information, and entitles him to appear before them. It may interest your Lordships to know that in a very recent case the tribunal asked the Department of Transport to instruct a barrister to appear before them as amicus curiae in order to ensure that the issues at stake were fully explored, and the department readily agreed. The question was whether the holder of a goods vehicle operator's licence could comply with his obligations under the Transport Act 1968 if his vehicles were driven by so called self-employed drivers.
The Committee will remember that one of the main reasons why this Bill transfers PSV operators' licensing appeals from the Secretary of State to the tribunal is to distance them from policy and political considerations. For that reason, I am somewhat reluctant to edge them back in that directon.
One answer to the difficulties which my noble friend has placed before us is for the traffic commissioners to take the utmost care in the drafting of their decision documents to ensure that all the reasons which moved them are before the tribunal, and for the instruction of an amicus curiae when a major legal matter is at stake. I have listened to what my noble friend said and I will, of course, look most carefully at it again in Hansard. In the meantime, I hope that I have satisfied my noble friend at least part of the way.
Viscount Colville of Culross: I am obliged to my noble friend. It all depends on how the Secretary of State is prepared to work the duties imposed upon him under paragraph 12(1). If he is ready to look with interest at the cases coming before the tribunal and makes sure that he does instruct an amicus curiae where an important issue—perhaps an issue of law—is to be raised, then all is well. I am glad to hear that there was a recent case when he did so. I gave my noble friend an example earlier of when an equally important point of interpretation arose where he evidently did not do so.
Therefore, I suggest that the lines of communication between the tribunal, or whoever is to sit on the tribunal, and the Secretary of State should be strengthened so that there can be a mutual awareness of the cases where an issue of this sort is likely to arise. If my noble friend can arrange that, then the wording in the schedule as it now stands will be perfectly adequate. If, as a result of his considerations, my noble friend can devise an improved machinery for that purpose, I shall be perfectly satisfied. In the meantime, I beg to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Schedule 4 shall be the fourth schedule to the Bill?
Viscount Colville of Culross: One of the difficulties in keeping noble Lords waiting to move their amendments is that they read the whole schedule! May I ask my noble friend, without expecting him to reply today, to refer to paragraph 9(2) which reads:
"The tribunal may not on any such appeal take into consideration any circumstances which did not exist at the time of the determination which is the subject of the appeal."

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That probably means that the tribunal "shall" not on any such appeal take into consideration, and so on. The law reports proliferate with cases where lawyers have argued to the highest courts in the land about whether or not "may" means "shall". I see that the noble Lord the Deputy Chairman of Committees is laughing; he knows about that as well as I do. The pattern of drafting in this schedule is that where the powers are permissive the word "may" is used and where the powers are mandatory the word "shall" is used. My noble friend will see in paragraph 14(3) that:
"An appeal shall not be brought except in conformity with such rules."
and so on. To avoid considerable time being wasted in the courts on the interpretation of the word "may" in paragraph 9(2), why do not the Government say "shall" and put it beyond peradventure?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I should certainly like to take this away and look carefully at it. I yield to no one in my lack of knowledge on the difference between "may" and "shall" in legal terms. We shall definitely look at this and come back later.
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove moved Amendment No. 255ZA:
After Clause 102, insert the following new clause:
("Railway Closure Inquiries
.—In section 56 of the 1962 Act (the Transport Consultative Committees)—

(a) for subsection (4)(a) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—

"(a) which has been the subject of representations made to the Committee by or on behalf of any local authority or undertakers or from any other person affected by those services or facilities, or";

(b) in subsection (7) the word "passenger" shall be omitted;

(c) in that subsection after the words "appropriate Area Committee" there shall be inserted the following—

"and every local authority in whose area station or any line affected by the proposed closure is situated";

(d) for subsections (8) to (11) there shall be substituted the following subsections—

"(8) Where a notice has been published under the last foregoing subsection any local authority or undertaker or any other person likely to be affected by the proposed closure may within the period specified in the notice lodge with the appropriate Area Committee an objection in writing; and where such an objection is lodged the Committee shall forthwith inform the Minister and the Board concerned and the Minister shall cause a local inquiry to be held by such person as he may appoint provided that, if the objection is made by a person other than such a local authority or undertakers, the Minister may dispense with such an inquiry if he is satisfied that in the special circumstances of the case the holding of such an inquiry is unnecessary.
(9) Regulations may be made for the purpose of carrying this section into effect.
(10) Subsections (2) to (5) of section 290 of the Local Government Act 1933 (evidence and costs at local inquiries) shall apply in relation to an inquiry caused to be held by the Minister under subsection (8) of this section as they apply in relation to an inquiry caused to be held by a department under subsection (1) of the said section 290, with the substitution for the references to a department of reference to the Minister.
(11) After considering the report of the person who held the inquiry, the Minister may consent to the proposed closure provided that after considering—

(a) the role of the railway in the local community and economy;

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(b) the national and local government policies for transport;

(c) the interdependence of lines within networks, both regional and national;

(d) the recent financial performance of the station or line, or any part of the line including revenue the line may generate in other parts of the rail system;

(e) freight and passenger traffic; and

(f) the general economic, social and environmental consequences which would result from closure,

he is satisfied that the proposed closure is essential; and immediately after consent to the closure has been given, the Minister shall publish, in the manner specified in subsection (7) of this section, a notice stating that consent has been given."
(e) subsection (13) shall be omitted.").
The noble Lord said: It may seem strange that we should table an amendment suggesting procedure if a railway closure is not satisfactory since this is, after all, basically a bus Bill. However, railway closures have serious implications for the local highway system and other forms of transport within an area as well as for the local economy, employment, industry and tourism. Closure also has other environmental effects. In addition, there may be direct financial implications for the passenger transport authority in any of these areas arising out of the closure by virtue of the system of sector accounting operated by British Rail and its impact on Section 20 grant agreements, which, of course, are a very important part of local transport.
Withdrawal of services on a line can cause certain overheads to be thrown on to other services within the area. That can mean a great deal of money and a great deal of rearrangement of grant and the alteration of services by a local authority or by a PTE. Examples of such situations have arisen in a number of places. The most recent is in Yorkshire, where the Settle to Carlisle closure could easily set in motion a sequence of events with knock-on effects leading to the services supported by the PTE in the area between, say, Leeds and Keighley becoming unviable. The West Yorkshire PTE, as the body responsible for these services, and the PTA, as its financial guarantor, have a legitimate and special interest in any closure proposals which could have serious knock-on effects in these areas. Therefore, the amendment recognised explicitly the right of local authorities to lodge objections to closure proposals and obliges the Secretary of State to hold an inquiry if such objections are lodged by such local authorities.
6.15 p.m.
There is another point that makes it very important in a Bill such as this that the type of procedure for a rail closure is changed or certainly looked at. I accept that we want something which is perhaps not as exhaustive as the Sizewell inquiry but something that is between the existing TUCC inquiry and a much more detailed one, particularly, and only if, a local authority in the area specifically asks for it.
The point that raises this issue sharply, apart from the cost effect on passenger transport authorities and local authorities, is this question of the bus substitution service, which, I understand, may be subject to TUCC procedures. I am not absolutely clear about this, and perhaps the Minister can advise us. In Clauses 103 to 109 the Bill makes provision for the British Railways Board, when required to do so as a condition of approval of a railway closure, to secure

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the provision of a substitute bus service which shall be operated, in effect, as a part of the railway network. These services would be subject to various safeguards not applied to other bus services; but in the amendment they would come under the proposed public inquiry system.
The Bill does not make clear whether, if British Rail should wish to initiate such a replacement bus service, it would then be able to withdraw the equivalent rail service without the need for the TUCC procedure to be invoked. It should be made absolutely clear in the Bill that that is the case if British Rail decide to replace a service. There has been a great deal of public dissatisfaction expressed across the board, not on party lines, with replacement bus services. Many of them although promised to be run for two years were reduced to a year or six months. Therefore, there is a belief that in many instances, particularly when large sums of money are involved with local authorities where there are planning considertions, or industrial land use planning consideration or industrial problems something with a little more teeth than the TUCC is necessary. The amendment is an attempt to provide that. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness: As the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, said, this amendment deals with the general statutory procedure which applies to rail closure proposals by the British Railways Board and/or London Regional Transport.
If it were the Government's intention to amend existing statutory closure procedure covering rail passenger services, I do not believe that it would be appropriate to attempt to do so in this Bill. I have to say to the noble Lord that in any case we should wish to resist the changes proposed in these amendments. In the first place they propose that all rail closure proposals—and a point which I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, made clear to the Committee is that it affects both freight and passenger services—should be subject to the same statutory procedure. The existing procedure covers only those closure proposals which relate to passenger services and in our view there would be no justification for extending the scope of the procedure to freight services.
The railways' freight sector has a commercial remit and must manage its operations accordingly. The Government are firmly of the opinion that it would be quite inappropriate to restrict the ability of the Board to make commercial decisions about the size of the network to be used by the sector in order to compete fairly with other forms of freight transport. I am sure that we all agree that, in spite of some very notable successes in the freight world, such as Speedlink and Speedlink Distribution, the freight sector has had its problems, not least in the last year. Do we really want to burden that side of British Rail with another morass of problems which really belong to the management board?
Secondly, the amendments seek to establish a fresh procedure in place of the existing procedure. Let me just recapitulate on the existing procedure. British Rail or London Regional Transport are required to give notice of their intention to close a passenger service, setting out what alternative services they anticipate
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would be available. Any user of any service affected by the proposal or anybody representing such users may submit written objections to the relevant Transport Users' Consultative Committee. If objections are submitted, the decision on whether or not closure may take place rests with the Secretary of State. The Transport Users' Consultative Committee reports to the Secretary of State on any hardship that it believes the closure may cause. It may, and usually does, hold a public hearing on the hardship aspects of the case before reporting to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then considers the case for proposing closure, the Transport Users' Consultative Committee's report and any other representations which are put to him. In reaching his decision he is required by statute to have regard to any matter which for the time being appears to him to be relevant, including social and economic considerations.
We believe that this is a system which has worked well in the past, and with due respect I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, offered good grounds for wanting to change it now. The amendments propose to do away with the Transport Users' Consultative Committee report on hardship and suggest that a public inquiry should be held to consider a proposal, with a report to the Secretary of State. The suggestion that a public inquiry might be more appropriate than the TUCC hearings which are provided for in the present legislation is not a new one. It is a suggestion that the government have carefully considered, but we are not persuaded by any of the arguments which have been advanced that we should alter the long standing procedures which have been approved by Parliament for dealing with closure cases.
Finally, the amendments propose that the Secretary of State shall consider a specified set of criteria in reaching a decision on a closure proposal, and that having examined the proposal against those criteria the Secretary of State should grant consent to closure only where he is satisfied that the closure proposal is essential. The Government have made it clear on many occasions that it is not their intention that British Rail should embark on a programme of major route closures, but it is open to the board to bring forward a closure proposal where it believes that retention of the service no longer offers value for money.
Under provisions in this Bill, the board may include a proposal to secure provision of a bus substitution service in place of the rail services where it thinks this may be appropriate. May I just remind the Committee that that bus substitution service has a chance of getting subsidy and grant, and furthermore that it is a protected bus service which can only be removed after extensive consideration? It is much more realistic for the Secretary of State to reach a decision on the merits of the case and in so doing be required, as he is under the present legislation, to have regard to all relevant factors, than for his decision-making to be as lightly circumscribed as the amendment proposes.
The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, mentioned the effect on local services. I had expected him to mention the Strathclyde area that he knows so well, where the Strathclyde PTE are very concerned about local services and the services to Ayr. May I remind him

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that it was the Secretary of State who provided 75 per cent. of the cost of the new rolling stock for the Ayr Glasgow line, which has been electrified and which will be ready six months ahead of schedule? In addition, the Secretary of State is assisting generally with the refurbishment of rolling stock on the Glasgow suburban rail network and has recently told Strathclyde, in response to a rail review that it carried out, that he would be prepared to give further capital assistance, including provision for new diesel rolling stock on the Glasgow-Barrhead-Kilmarnock route.
These clauses that we are discussing are not a licence for the British Railways Board to close lines. This is not something which the Government want. It is an example of the Government's confidence in local railways that the Secretary of State has provided so much money, and we think that they have got a very good future after bus deregulation.
To sum up, this amendment proposes a radical revision of existing statutory procedures covering proposals by the British Railways Board or London Regional Transport to withdraw passenger services from lines or stations. A major element of the revision would be the extension to all rail closure proposals of the public inquiry system. The Government have considered this idea and they are not persuaded that the existing statutory procedures approved by Parliament in 1962 and 1968 should be amended in this way.
I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment. I know that he will probably want to reconsider it and come back to it on Report, and if he does so, we should be very willing to deal with it then. Perhaps I may just remind him and his advisers that subsection (11), which is referred to in subsection (d), was repealed in 1968, and that Section 290 of the Local Government Act 1933 was repealed and replaced by Section 250 of the Local Government Act 1972.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: I am grateful to the Minister for these corrections. I am somewhat disappointed that the Minister took this politically. The question of the Scottish lines and the Ayr line was not intended to be political. If one wants to be political, then the only political thing I can say is that one knows where the end of that line from Glasgow goes and perhaps the Secretary of State had a special reason for putting it down there.
I think there is a general feeling that it may have been easier in the early days of fairly small branch line closures and that there was a good case for local Transport Users' Consultative Committees to look at them. We are now reaching a stage at which, when rail closures come, they are fairly important ones, such as the Carlisle Circle Line, or the Inter-City line between Leeds and Sheffield, which is reckoned to have cost the local passenger transport authority about £400,000. There is also the Glasgow-Kilmacolm line down to Paisley—where certainly the local authority, because of considerable pressure, managed to get a rather wider inquiry held than would have been obtained from a Transport Users Consultative Committee. I am not objecting or saying that the Transport Users' Consultative Committees do not do a good job. They
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do a very good job but they are greatly restricted. First of all, the people are part-time and therefore there can never be a very long investigation when there are TUCC people involved. They are only allowed to deal with hardship for the area. There is no one who is able to question the costs of British Rail. There is no one able to discuss questions with British Rail or to cross-examine it on their infrastructure costs and the costs which will be thrown on other users and on other lines. One of the suspicions we had was that when British Rail managed to get a line closed all the expenses that there were, for instance, in the terminal which was used by that line were then scattered all round the other lines making them less viable. These were questions that could have been asked had there been the possibility of cross-questioning British Rail.
I am merely suggesting in this amendment—and the Minister has already pointed out a couple of flaws in it—that there is a dissatisfaction with the procedure of Transport Users' Consultative Committees, and therefore the public are asking for more. Certain local authorities will perhaps incur greater expenses if some of these lines are closed without them being able to say anything about it and they will not then be able to have any other course of appeal except through the Transport Users' Consultative Committees. That is quite inadequate. I think the Minister will ultimately come round to believing that it is inadequate and that some other method will need to be used to air the matter more widely.
Perhaps the amendment goes too far. Perhaps the amendment is too radical. But certainly something will be done, if not now then at some time in the future. I accept the fact that perhaps it would be more appropriate in another kind of Bill. However, this was certainly an opportunity to raise the matter today. Having raised it and heard the Minister's reply, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1093 [Railways Board's road passenger transport services]:
6.30 p.m.
Viscount Ingleby Viscount Ingleby moved Amendment No. 255A:
Page 101, line 20, at end insert—
("(1A) In exercising this power the Railways Board shall ensure that the facilities and arrangements of any such service make provision for the needs of passengers who are elderly or disabled.").
The noble Viscount said: I beg to move the amendment standing in my name and in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, and the noble Lord. Lord Ennals. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, for bringing me up to date on rail closures in Yorkshire. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that where any railway service is discontinued, either on a permanent or a temporary basis, provision is made for the needs of elderly and disabled people.
As an example, there may be a railway service which is used by disabled people in wheelchairs for the purpose of getting to work, going to see their friends or doing their shopping. At the moment they can travel by train, either in a seat which has been specially removed for them or in the guard's van—although I

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recommend this more in the summer than in the winter. If the service is discontinued, disabled people in their wheelchairs cannot use the normal kind of bus. It would be necessary for the railways board, when it is providing a substitute bus service, to provide either a bus with a tail lift or perhaps just a mini-bus adapted to take wheelchairs.
British Rail has a very good record in relation to caring for disabled people. I speak with some experience because I am a regular traveller between King's Cross and Yorkshire, sometimes in a seat specially removed and sometimes in the guard's van. In 1982, British Rail took a policy decision that all new services' facilities and rolling stock should make provision for disabled people. Surely the same principle should apply to a substitute bus service. I think that it would be only making statutory a policy which British Rail is already following. It seems to me to be important that so far as reasonable and practicable the substitute bus service should not be less accessible to the elderly and disabled than was the railway service. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: I find it entirely understandable that the noble Viscount should seek to ensure that facilities and arrangements for any road service which British Rail substitutes either temporarily or permanently for a rail service should make provision for the needs of passengers who are elderly or disabled. But this amendment, which seeks to ensure that any bus substitution service must make provision for any needs of passengers who are elderly or disabled, goes well beyond what is required of British Railways for the rail passenger network, and indeed beyond what the Bill requires for bus operators generally.
I think we ought to bear in mind that the bus substitution services, as they are called, will be run as an integral part of British Rail's passenger network. In other respects the bus service will be identical to bus services run by private operators or with subsidy from local authorities, none of which has the specific duty which this amendment seeks to impose.
Perhaps I may turn aside for a second and remind the Committee that as a result of some quite detailed and lengthy debates on this Bill the Government have made a number of amendments designed to encourage better provision on bus services for people who are elderly or disabled—and quite right, too. We have agreed that there should be increased training for bus drivers so that they can respond better to the needs of elderly and disabled passengers on buses and we have said that we shall alter the drivers' regulations.
We have agreed that we should bring in construction and use regulations which will mean better bus design for new vehicles. And to ensure that operators with older buses which will not be caught by the construction and use regulations are attended to, we have said that there will be a code of practice. We have accepted for the first time the need for a statutory advisory body on transport for disabled people which will be able to provide expert advice and guidance to operators—British Rail and bus operators alike—on all fields of public transport provision.
Those are all new measures which have not been promised or undertaken before but which have been put into this Bill, not least because of skilful debating
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pressure which has been exerted by those in your Lordships' Chamber who know so much about this subject. Of course all these measures will apply to bus substitution services, running in place of rail services, in just the same way as they were going to have to apply to other bus services. However, I come to the "but". The "but" is that we, the Government, felt that we had to say, and say repeatedly, that in our view statutory requirements on individual operators of the kind that this amendment seeks to impose on British Rail do not offer the best means of encouraging better provision for elderly or disabled people, however important we feel that aim is; and I agree that it is a most important aim.
The noble Viscount was most generous in what he said about British Rail services, particularly from his home area down here to London. I think we can rely on British Rail, when going out to tender for the provision of bus substitution services, to seek to ensure that the vehicles used generally incorporate those relatively inexpensive modifications which, as the Committee has emphasised in earlier debates, are very important in making public transport accessible to people who are not so agile. Of course the construction and use regulations and the code of practice will help both for new and for old buses.
However, the words of this amendment really could be interpreted as going far beyond that and requiring British Rail to ensure that all the vehicles should have certain specific adaptations but unspecified in this amendment. I know that this is a point of difference. I beg the Committee to bear in mind that if one goes too far down this road there is a very real danger that a requirement which could be interpreted as imposing absolute standards on the British Railways Board could make its task of providing substitute bus services more difficult and could in consequence lead to a reduction in the availability of services; and that is not what any of us would wish.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I should like to support this amendment very warmly, though I am a much less frequent rail traveller than my noble friend, so I cannot speak with his knowledge and experience. I also know that British Rail has been very good in improving facilities for disabled travellers and it has done some excellent things for people to whom mobility is vital. I appreciate the Minister's points about changes to bus services. However, here we are talking about routes on which people have been able to travel because they have been going by rail and on which I think I am right in saying it will not in fact be guaranteed by the Minister's amendments that they will be able to travel when there is a substitute bus service.
I know it will be expensive in some cases to adapt these vehicles. I do not say that all buses should be adapted so that wheelchairs can be on them. Some of the modifications will be the smaller ones about which we have been talking in earlier debates. When one thinks in terms of the losses incurred on subsidised railway lines, quite often the cost of producing a suitable replacement bus will be relatively small.
I should like to leave the question of the disabled for a moment and turn to another aspect. A growing source of revenue to British Rail, particularly in tourist

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areas, arises from the fares of passengers who take bicycles with them. Yet cyclists are also very worried. You can no more get a bicycle than a wheelchair (apart from a folding bicycle) on to a bus unless it is a specially adapted vehicle. There are fears of great confusion, particularly among tourists, both British and foreign, as to whether they can make long-distance trips involving changes of mode—the train, a replacement bus and the train again—and take their cycles with them. According to the British Railways Board's paper on bus substitution—I refer to Section 4 of its memo to the cycling liaison group—it appears that the justifiction for the provision of specially adapted vehicles would depend on there being a "known and consistent demand" for cycle carriage. Apparently, the same would apply in the case of wheelchair-bound passengers. But it is not at all clear how this demand could be established. I wonder whether the Minister can help in regard to that.
Quite a number of people who normally travel on trains would not be able to use ordinary buses. We are not just talking about wheelchair-users or cyclists but also, in the words of the British Rail memo, people with
"non-folding perambulators, groups of musical instruments and other exceptionally bulky articles".
Surely, the whole point of a replacement bus service is that people who have been able to travel a certain route should not be deprived of that facility. It cannot be right that certain of those travellers will no longer be able to enjoy the same facility. I hope, therefore, that the Minister may be able to think again and say something more encouraging about the amendment.
Lord Ennals: I should like to support strongly those who have spoken in favour of the amendment. In doing so, I shall be brief. I wish to say, however, that I recognise fully the extent to which the Government have moved in other parts of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, referred to some of the steps that have been taken. I believe that he recognises that these result partly from pressure and partly from natural goodwill, but that however they resulted, they were achieved. I do not believe the fact that achievements have been made in other parts of the Bill can be used, by any stretch of the imagination, as an excuse for not passing through one other step in this direction.
As I have stated on previous amendments, this is not a Bill (although, who knows what the future will bring?) that the Government presumably expect to change in the course of the next few years. When we have an opportunity like this, it seems to me perfectly proper that we should not simply be looking to see that nothing is worse as a result of it, but that we should be looking to see that things are better as a result of it.
There can be no doubt that as a consequence of there being more elderly people there are more disabled people. It should not be forgotten, although this does not apply to the wheelchair brigade, who so nobly put forward the case, not for themselves but for others, that the vast majority of disabled people are also elderly. It is age that often has led to their disability. This will be increasingly so in our society. If we are looking at the world five or ten years from now, the needs of disabled people will be substantially greater.
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The Minister was saying that there is a danger in going too far down this road. I believe that there is a danger that if we do not go much further down this road an increasing proportion of our society will lose their mobility.
A mobility allowance is really not much use if there is not the transport to enable that mobility allowance to be used and to force people into taxis and other forms of special provision. While welcoming all that the Government have done so far, I do not believe that what is proposed goes too far. The case for bus substitution services is very powerful. I put my name to the amendment, and I take no credit for its drafting. However, I support it strongly. The wording is, in my view, exactly right—not simply to "take note of" but to,
"ensure that the facilities and arrangements of any such service make provision of the needs of passengers who are elderly and disabled".
I hope that your Lordships, some of whom may be extremely fit and not disabled and who are not confined to wheelchairs, as most of those who have moved the amendment are, will give some thought to those whose ability to travel is very much less than that of the bulk of society and, indeed, the bulk of the Members of your Lordships' Committee. I commend the amendment strongly.
6.45 p.m.
Baroness Stedman: One of the factors most appreciated by wheelchair people is British Rail's willingness to accommodate them on trains. This has opened a completely new world to many people who have been confined to wheelchairs and not able to get about. British Rail has given much publicity to the help it gives the wheelchair people and, indeed, to cyclists who wish to take their cycles with them. These services have been used, and they are very much appreciated by those who have had the opportunity to use them. I am concerned about what happens to a person like the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, who is travelling from London to Yorkshire at the weekend when engineering works mean that the train stops and passengers have to proceed by bus. What happens to the noble Viscount in his wheelchair if he cannot get on to the bus? Is he stranded a few stations from home? Surely, there is an obligation upon British Rail, if it stops services for whatever reason, to ensure that the transport provided can take those people that it has contracted to carry from A to B.
I accept that the Government may feel that they are putting a heavier burden on to British Rail than perhaps on to the other bus operators. I am sure, however, that it is unacceptable that people should lose the facility to travel from A to B when the cost to British Rail of providing these services would be quite infinitesimal in comparison with the whole of its budget. I support the amendment.
Baroness Lane-Fox: I would not wish in any way to under-rate the obvious concern of the movers of the amendment for the interests of elderly and disabled passengers. I must say that I was not aware, looking at the amendment, that we should also be including musical instruments and bicycles. I am surprised, however, at the suggestion of the movers of the

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amendment that there should be introduced into the Bill this responsibility upon British Rail when the Bill really is about buses. It seems to me that this must be a subject for the national advisory body set up to improve and look after all transport for disabled people. After all, British Rail has a very great ally for this section of passengers in the person of its adviser on travel for disabled people, Mr. Bill Buchanan, who is himself in a wheelchair. Will my noble friend the Minister consider that communication and negotiation through this method would be better suited to achieve the ends described in the amendment? I appeal to the movers of the amendment to withdraw it in the belief that those concerned will gain from the method that I propose.
Lord Swinfen: I, too, should like to support the amendment. From its wording, I do not believe that it would be necessary for the buses that we have mentioned to be altered to suit wheelchairs. We should remember that when people in wheelchairs are travelling there are often people accompanying them who are themselves disabled in one way or another, or infirm. It is absolutely essential that British Rail makes certain that it has enough staff on hand to help disabled people at all the stations at which the bus services will be calling. From what I have seen in the engineering works, I believe that this situation can be overcome quite often through physical help rather than alteration to the buses. I am rather deaf myself, and I sometimes wear a hearing aid. I wonder whether provision could be made for those who are deaf and who do not hear the announcement of alterations due to engineering works. I wonder whether this could be considered within the amendment.
Lord Belstead: Perhaps I may briefly reply to what has been said in this debate. First, I ought to say that if, in looking at a rail closure proposal, my right honourable friend finds that the hardship which disabled and elderly people would face as a result of substitution by a bus service suggests that the substituted service should make special provision for the disabled and the elderly in that particular case, it would be open to him to make it a condition of his consent to closure that the bus service should make provision for elderly and disabled people.
I am simply putting that forward as a piece of information which I think we ought to bear in mind in considering this amendment. Indeed, to pick up the point which has been made by your Lordships, if my right honourable friend felt that on a particularly important tourist line it was very important to make special provision for cyclists, it might be that in that particular tourist area he would feel that he could do the same in that respect. That is the first point.
Secondly, in reply perhaps I could say that the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, was very generous in recognising changes which have been made to this legislation both by my right honourable friend in another place and as a result of debates on the Bill in your Lordships' House. The noble Lord, as I expected him to, said that we should carry on with the good work. I went down that particular road in my opening remarks because we now have a situation where, so far as new buses will be concerned, as an undertaking, the construction and
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use regulations will provide for the needs of elderly and disabled people. Where old buses are concerned we shall have a code of practice to direct the operators of those vehicles to introduce the sort of modifications which your Lordships have so often in these debates said are very important—just as important as making brand new provision in a new bus.
As a result of the amendment which was put down on the Marshalled List by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox and other noble Lords, the statutory advisory body will ensure with an eagle eye that this trend is properly followed. My noble friend Lady Lane-Fox asked me specifically whether the Government felt that communication with British Rail, particularly through their advisor, Mr Buchanan, was the way to go about improving British Rail's bus substitution services. My answer is: Yes. I say that because, with respect to my noble friend Lord Swinfen, the wording makes it clear that a bus operator must make the facilities and arrangements for any service providing for the needs of passengers who are elderly or disabled. If a bus operator does not have that sort of bus, then he cannot possibly provide any service for British Rail. I believe that there is a difficulty there. I really do.
Your Lordships may not know this, but I believe that tomorrow there will be another meeting between the Government and those who are arguing detailed and important amendments on matters for elderly and disabled passengers in this Bill. If we do not divide on this amendment this evening, as I hope we shall not, perhaps we can return to this particular subject at the meeting tomorrow.
However, it would be wrong of me if I did not warn your Lordships that there is a difficulty here in trying to put an absolutely rigid responsibility upon the shoulders of individual operators. I hope that your Lordships will not think that in saying that I am disregarding the needs of the elderly and the disabled. I believe that the changes which we are making to this Bill show that the Government are indeed concerned in that respect.
Lord Winstanley: Before we leave this matter, may I say that I listened with great care to what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said and that I accept many of the comments he made about the burdens which we could be placing on the operators. Briefly, I should like to draw the noble Lord's attention to one aspect of this amendment in so far as it deals with the responsibility of the Railways Board with regard to bus services which replace railway services when there is a temporary interruption of the rail service. That is a special case and it is one that has already arisen. It is my impression—and I think that there are noble Lords present who will know this from their own personal experience—that during the temporary closure of Crewe station for engineering and other purposes, passengers going from Manchester to Crewe now alight at Sandbach and go from Sandbach to Crewe by bus. I am informed that British Rail have taken the most active steps to make sure that they can provide transport from Sandbach to Crewe by buses or by alternative transport.
If they can do it in that instance, surely they can do it in others. I am not talking about other services; I am

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talking about the practice of British Rail, which is generally understood, whereby they have made the most excellent arrangements for the disabled and for those in wheelchairs. Over many years people have come to rely upon them. If such people travel by train and suddenly the journey is interrupted and they are transported part of the way by bus, it seems reasonable to me that British Rail should do what I believe they are now doing in relation to Crewe station, and this amendment would require them so to do.
Lord Teviot: I do not wish to disregard travelling arrangements between Sandbach and Crewe, but I should like to say a few words as an individual and not as someone representing a particular organisation; I should like to speak as another noble Lord talking about transport. Transport is essential to the disabled. It gets them out of the house, and therefore they should be well looked after. We are not in dispute about that. The Government and the Opposition agree on that absolutely.
We are talking about the railways, and in my experience pressures on the timetables of the railways are not so desperate as they are in relation to buses, which must have a realistic schedule. I live on a very busy route and I have never seen a disabled person on a platform not being well looked after by the staff. I suppose that there could be the odd case when a person is let down, but I have yet to see it. If there were such a case, it would be a local matter and I am sure that a letter or telephone call would deal with it.
If schedules are to be laid down for replacing rail closures—and this affects the disabled element—they should be realistic so that drivers can keep to time. Equally, they should not be pushed too much so that people are left stewing at stops, with the result that they do not want to travel on that service. I agree with everything that has been said on this amendment and I do not think that we should divide on it.
Lord Belstead: I think that I must reply to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, on the Liberal Benches. It must be said that it is simply not practicable to ensure that temporary bus subsitution is always suitable for elderly and disabled people, which would be one of the effects of this amendment. The arrangements for Crewe were planned well in advance. Some temporary substitutions may have to take place at very short notice.
Viscount Ingleby: I intend to withdraw the amendment but, first, with great respect to the noble Lord the Minister, I should like to say that I do not think the amendment specifies absolute standards. It says "make provision for". As regards the disabled, one matter on which we can all be agreed is that we cannot specify absolute standards. What is necessary in one place may not be necessary in another. What is reasonable and practicable must always be taken into account.
I feel that a general duty on British Rail to do the best they possibly can to see that the substitute services are not less accessible to the disabled than was the railway, is helpful. It is something which British Rail themselves would be ready to take on board. Having
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said that, I appreciate what the Minister is trying to do. I look forward to meeting him tomorrow morning, when perhaps we shall be able to continue this discussion further. I should like to thank all those who have supported me, and I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
Clause 103 agreed to.
Lord Denham: I think we have probably reached the stage where we should adjourn for the moment. In moving that the Committee do now adjourn, I think it would be useful if I said that we shall not revert to the Committee stage of the Transport Bill before eight o'clock. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it was agreed through the usual channels that the Lord Chancellor's Salary Order should be taken during the dinner hour this evening. Since then the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, has tabled an amendment and almost 20 of your Lordships have indicated a wish to speak. If we were to complete the business within an hour noble Lords speaking in the debate would have to limit themselves to an average of about three minutes each. I realise that this would be an unrealistic limit, but I am sure that it would be the wish of the House that we should conclude this debate as quickly as possible. I would therefore ask noble Lords who are taking part to try to speak as briefly as possible.

Lord Chancellor's Salary Order 1985
7.2 p.m.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Arts (The Earl of Gowrie)The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Arts (The Earl of Gowrie) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 18th July be approved. [30th Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion before the House. I feel the stern eyes of the Chief Whip upon me, and I shall try to set a good example in respect of brevity. I am of course also well aware that the interest focused on this order goes somewhat wider than the issue of the salary of my noble and learned friend. I therefore will also seek to cover the issues raised by the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Plowden. However, first I should like to consider briefly the question of this particular order before us.
Two years ago, in 1983, the Government accepted the Top Salaries Review Body's new recommendation that the Lord Chancellor should be paid a little more than the Lord Chief Justice. This was in recognition of his position as the head of the Judiciary. As well as being a member of the Government my noble and learned friend is also the head of the Judiciary. The Government proposed that the Lord Chancellor

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should be paid £2,000 more than the Lord Chief Justice. This principle was accepted by both Houses of Parliament.
The arrangements set up in 1983 mean that a new order is needed to change the Lord Chancellor's salary whenever the pay of the Lord Chief Justice is changed. The £2,000 differential agreed in 1983 was maintained last year. Indeed it was vigorously supported by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, as Leader of the Opposition. I look forward to a ringing endorsement of Lord Cledwyn's position by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, tonight.
This year's order therefore provides for the Lord Chancellor to be paid an annual salary of £71,500 from 31st July this year until 28th February 1986; and the annual salary of £77,000 thereafter. The two stages of this recommendation reflect the Government's proposals for a staged award for the Lord Chief Justice. As the House will be aware, my noble and learned friend is not proposing to take his increase in terms of salary, but that does not alter our view that the agreed uprating is wholly right.
The award to the Lord Chief Justice occurs, of course, in the context of the Top Salaries Review Body's wider recommendations for the most senior civil servants, members of the armed forces and the Judiciary. This year, as well as recommending pay levels, the review body also carried out a review of salary structures. It commissioned the firm of Hay-MSL, management consultants, to report on the pay of senior civil servants and of members of the armed forces. The Office of Manpower Economics carried out on the review body's behalf a survey of earnings at the Bar and of private sector jobs with levels of responsibility roughly equivalent to those of senior civil servants and members of the armed forces.
The review body reached its conclusions on the basis of this objective professional advice, on the basis of the evidence that it collected on issues concerning recruitment, retention and morale, and I think on the need to be able to offer a reasonable career structure, in terns of salary, so as to achieve an adequate supply of people of the right quality to fill the top posts in the public service. It recommended a widening of differentials between the senior members of these groups and it recommended substantial salary increases for some.
But I must remind the House that these recommendations still leave the levels of pay very well below the salary levels of people with roughly comparable responsibilities in the private sector. And some of your Lordships may also have read in last Friday's Daily Telegraph that the public servants have suffered a dramatic real cut in salary over the past 50 years, ranging from 50 to 200 per cent., depending on the job. This over a period of time when the country as a whole has become substantially better off.
The new salary structures and levels recommended by the review body would increase the pay bill in a full year by 12·2 per cent. for senior civil servants, 17·6 per cent. for senior members of the armed forces, and 16·3 per cent. for the Judiciary; and that is an overall increase, taking the three groups, of some 15 per cent.
The Government accept fully the view of the review body that it is most important that the public service
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in this country should offer a career pay structure which will attract and retain people of the high quality which the service requires. We have also taken note of the review body's warning that in the medium term there is a serious risk of losing a number of our best public servants. Paragraph 47 of its report indicates its fears on this.
The Government therefore agree to the review body recommendations in principle. But we have ail along been aware that there is no easy way of awarding increases, particularly substantial increases, of the kind recommended, to top earners in the public sector. We therefore concluded that the implementation of the increases should be phased within the next year. Most of those concerned will receive only half the recommended increase, subject to a minimum of 5 per cent., from 1st July, and the balance from 1st March 1986.
It is therefore untrue that we have been insensitive on this issue. Our refusal to carry out the Top Salaries Review Body's most earnest recommendations in full is an indication of this. However, to disregard the evidence, the conclusions and the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body report altogether surely cannot be right. There can be no point whatsoever in maintaining review bodies of this kind if their objective recommendations are persistently and consistently ignored.
Noble Lords will also have heard, as I am sure we shall hear further this evening, the argument that this is not the time for such an increase. As I have said, no time is really suitable. We have been criticised, not least by our own supporters, and it may indeed be that we ourselves should have spent more time preparing our announcement. Yet previous Administrations have not baulked at awarding much larger increases, notably one of no less than 35 per cent. under the previous Labour Administration in 1978, the present increase being far more modest, as I have said, averaging some 15 per cent.
So, while I hear these criticisms about presentation from our own supporters, I must say that I find them wholly bogus when they come from the Opposition. The Opposition has not been slow in criticising the Government on grounds of morale in the public service and, as well as accepting these recommendations, my right honourable friend the Chancellor, for instance, has said in terms that he wants to make progress on wider and longer-term pay agreements for all grades of the Civil Service following the Megaw Report.
Some comparisons have been made in respect of the difficulties going on in respect of teacher's pay. On this, I should like to make two quick points. First, we have undertaken to make more resources available for teachers so long as an acceptable agreement can be reached on their duties and on their career structures. There seems, unfortunately, now to be little prospect of reaching such an agreement to be implemented and financed this year. But following this, and secondly, if an acceptable agreement can be reached by October of this year we will still make the additional resources available for 1986–87. The Top Salaries Review Body recommendations have looked at recruitment and performance issues. The teachers are still, I am sorry to say, refusing to do so.
Another comparison which has been drawn in respect of this review report is with the treatment of doctors and nurses. Here I would remind your Lordships that we acted in response to other review body reports. We have fully implemented the recommendations of the doctors and dentists' review body. We are staging the increases recommended by the review body for nursing staff, and they will receive the balance of their recommended pay awards on 1st February, 1986. We also accepted the recommendations of both these review bodies for new salary structure and levels precisely as we now have in respect of the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body.
We must recruit and retain people of quality to fill these posts. The existing office holders are of the highest quality, as I am sure all your Lordships will bear witness; but we have to ensure as well the quality of their successors by incentive and example. High responsibilities must be accompanied by adequate rewards. Postponing any decision does not ever make it any easier, and in this case it would simply perpetuate the problems so wisely highlighted by the Top Salaries Review Body themselves. I would only add before I sit down that my noble and learned friend's salary, for his position both within the Government and as head of the Judiciary, is a wholly deserved and appropriate one and this has been agreed by all sides of your Lordships' House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 18th July be approved. [30th Report from the Joint Committee.]—[The Earl of Gowrie.]
7.15 p.m.
Lord Barnett Lord Barnett rose to move, as an amendment to the above Motion, at end to insert:
"but that this House regrets Her Majety's Government's insensitive implementation of the 22nd Report of the Review Body on Top Salaries (Cmnd. 9525) in the context of their policy towards public services pay generally."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I suppose that in one sense I am a little disappointed that the noble Earl has not accepted the amendment, which is such a reasonable one. However, I should say at once that it is not the convention, as I understand it, to oppose an increase in salary for the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and it will be noted that I do not so recommend. In any event, the noble and learned Lord the Chancellor is a man for whom I am sure all of us have the utmost regard, admiration and respect; and as we know, and have just heard again, he is not even taking the present salary level.
But of course, as happened in another place, the debate is not on the Lord Chancellor's salary but on the report known as the Plowden Report. Therefore I took the unusual step of reading it; and, judging from some of the criticisms in another place, that did not apply widely. Having read it, I make it quite clear that I am not asking your Lordships to reject it, although, as I trust will be clear from what I hope will be my brief remarks, I do not agree with every word in it.
I propose, if I may, to deal primarily with the Civil Service pay proposals rather than with those for the forces or the Judiciary; and, as I have indicated, I ask
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your Lordships to regret the Government's insensitivity in the context of their policy to public service pay generally. The case for setting up an independent committee to review top salaries is a very considerable one, with which I personally would not disagree. Certainly I would not propose, having agreed that there should be such an independent review, that one should reject it or amend it substantially today. That is certainly not my argument and not the argument that I wish to deploy. But, equally, one would need to have what might be called a "bunker mentality", an insensitivity if not an imperviousness to outside public opinion, simply to accept and implement substantial increases in top salaries, expecting such decisions to have no impact on the morale of others elsewhere in the public sector at considerable lower levels of salary.
For my part, I have long believed that the salary levels in the public sector, and not least their inflexibility, have created great problems especially for a sensible interchange between public and private sectors, including the professions—something which is managed much better in other deomocratic societies. However, as the Plowden Committee says, in paragraph 67, the salaries in the public services generally are well below those in the private sector; and it goes on to produce figures to attempt to prove just that.
I do not believe that comparisons can easily be made. Indeed, Plowden himself and the committee, in paragraph 65, concede that there is only a limited role for comparisons. The committee says in paragraph 57 that comparisons cannot be used in a mechanistic way. I would go further. If one were to accept simple comparisons, whether international or with the private sector, one could not exclude a comparison with the teachers and others. Indeed, the intensity of sustained pressure and strain in the private sector I personally accept as being considerable on those at executive levels elsewhere to produce good results, to produce profits or to have success rewarded and failure treated in the appropriate way.
I recognise that. But we also have to recognise that there are considerable strains nowadays in the public services as well—and not least among many teachers. We have to recognise all that and recognise at the same time, therefore, that a simple comparison on pay levels is not good enough. Indeed, as I have said, that is the view of the Plowden Committee.
On the other hand, there is an argument that I have heard expressed and read which is on what might be called a high moral plane. It is the argument that the duty and privilege of serving the community should be enough: pay should not be something that enters into it.
So far as the Judiciary is concerned, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor himself, addressing the Common Law Bar Association in London as recently as 3rd July, said:
"the real crown of a legal career, for the absence of which money alone cannot compensate …".
Those were his words about how he regarded judicial work. He went on to say that judicial work was a privilege, a pleasure and a duty, and was one of the highest forms of public service.
So far as the Civil Service is concerned, there was a letter in The Times on 23rd July which some of your Lordships may have read. It was from Sir William Hayter. He said:
"Are present-day public servants only there for the money? Do none of them think the job worth doing for itself, provided of course that the pay is adequate to sustain life? I don't believe it. Mrs. Thatcher must be wrong."
I do not often defend the Prime Minister, but I think she is right. It is of course true that money is not everything, although the argument is usually made by those who have enough of it. It is not unimportant to a man, whether he be a young man or an older man, who has a young wife and young children and a career to think of, and who can be at least as happy if not happier and as well motivated in the private sector, to think in terms of the remuneration, and we should not condemn him for so doing.
In my view, Plowden got it right when he said in paragraph 54—and I think it is worth quoting to your Lordships:
"We must say, with all the qualifications that can be made, that the picture we have formed is a highly disturbing one. Morale in the civil service, if not commitment and motivation, appears to be at an exceptionally low ebb".
He went on:
"we also find unmistakable signs of a widespread sense of disenchantment and restlessness within the service. As we have indicated, this has not yet translated itself into a retention problem of any great magnitude. The warning signs are there, however, especially in relation to some specialist groups and the more able young civil servants who will be needed to man the senior open structure in future years."
Anybody who has spoken to civil servants recently will confirm that that view is an accurate one. But it has as much to do with the Prime Minister and what has been described as her "praise through gritted teeth" as it has to do with levels of pay. All in all, the real case for Plowden, in my view, is the case for it on the grounds of recruitment and retention: and although Plowden did not find a great deal of evidence, the board did point out in paragraph 48, in quoting the Civil Service Commissioners (and I refer to it now):
" 'nowadays, a smaller proportion of the most able graduates than in the past regard the civil service as an attractive form of employment'."
If that is true, that is certainly very sad indeed, and it is clearly becoming a very serious problem. It is likely to become even more serious and, in my view, one of the better reasons for accepting the recommendations.
But it cannot stop there. Far from what Plowden says, and indeed from what the noble Earl said, about the need to reward top-salaried posts, the plain fact is that one has to think about the morale of the lower and middle ranks of the Civil Service, too. In my view it would be very foolish of us to assume that the morale of the lower and middle ranks will have been sufficiently raised simply because they can look forward in perhaps 30 or 40 years' time to a substantial increase in their salaries. In my experience most of the young people at good executive levels are not too worried about 30 or 40 years' time: they are very much worried about now, and the immediate few years ahead.
Some have argued—the noble Earl referred to this—and some have argued in another place certainly, that the timing is wrong. In my view that is not the argument. The timing is wrong, but not wrong
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full stop. It is wrong, as I have said in the amendment, in relation to the Government's total pay policy—or, rather, their non-policy. That is the real problem; because all Governments have to have a policy for pay, if not a pay policy. I do not want to enter into the kind of "yah-boo" politics the noble Earl seems to delight in about what this or that Government did in the past. The plain fact is, as he must know—and it is no use his looking quite so innocent because the noble Earl is not that innocent—that when the last Labour Government increased pay for top salaries it was in the context of a pay policy. It was not a successful one, I willingly concede; but it was an attempt; and the noble Earl attempted to mock both the Alliance and my right honourable friend Roy Hattersley for attempting to suggest that there should be a policy for public sector pay.
I do not think anybody needs to apologise for that because the alternative is what we have now. As the noble Earl knows—and the noble Earl should not mutter like that: he can reply again later—the plain fact is that when this Government came into office they said that their policy was one of free collective bargaining. But in the public sector there is no such thing as free collective bargaining, so the Government have deservedly got into trouble over their public sector policy on pay. On the one hand, they are prepared to find the money to finance top salaries, but for everyone else they bring cash limits into disrepute by using them as a form of public sector pay policy. That is what has been done; that is the noble Earl's policy; and that is why he told us again today that the Top Salaries Review Board's recommendation will be implemented in two stages this year but that the teachers can have something in 1986–87 if they are good about it. That was his policy and that is his policy for public sector pay.
I appreciate that this is not the time to discuss pay policy generally, but I believe it is time to discuss the insensitive way the Government have proposed to implement the report before us, regardless of its consequences at this time on the pay of other public servants. It highlights the lack of a coherent Government policy for pay in the public services. It has led them into their present difficulties, and I believe the least we can do today, as the amendment says, is to regret the Government's insensitive handling of the whole issue. I beg so to move
Moved, as an amendment to the above Motion, at end to insert "but that this House regrets Her Majesty's Government's insensitive implementation of the 22nd Report of the Review Body on Top Salaries (Cmnd. 9525) in the context of their policy towards public services pay generally."—(Lord Barnett.)
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Airedale): The original Question was that the draft order laid before the House be approved, since when an amendment has been moved in the terms set out on the Order Paper. The Question I therefore now have to put is, That the amendment be agreed to?
7.28 p.m.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, I am rising in support of the amendment and drawing your Lordships'

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attention to the fact that what we are discussing is a Government order, a Government Motion. We are not discussing everything that lies behind it. We are discussing the exercise by the Government of their political judgment on a whole series of difficult issues. It is for the board itself to make its recommendations on the basis of its narrow remit—a very narrow remit, which deals only with a small top section of the salaried community. It is for them to make their views known. It is for the Government to take those views into account in the wider context of top salaries, middle salaries and lower salaries, in the wider context of their own policy on pay, and the recent applications of that policy and the effect of it on any consequential wage claims, either within the Civil Service or outside it. Above all, they should take into account the social consequences of the exercise of their political judgment.
The Government expressed this very well two years ago, at a time when we had a reference to another event. But two years ago when the Government decided not—I repeat "not"—to implement a TSRB report, the same Minister who moved the Motion recently in the other place said
"We have still to make our own political judgment about an issue sensitive in its economic and social consequences… I reiterate that we have to make our personal and political judgment on this issue It is redolent with economic implications far greater than the actual sums involved." [Official Report, Commons 19/7/83; col. 271.]
That is precisely the present position.
What have the Government decided to do? They have decided, as has been already reported, to implement the recommendations in two stages but within one fiscal year, providing for increases averaging 15 per cent. overall. It is in the exercise of their political judgment in reaching that decision that we on these Benches criticise the Government. I shall leave others to refer to the armed forces' top salaries which, incidentally, rise by the highest percentage of all. But I want to discuss very shortly the Judiciary and the Civil Service top salaries.
So far as the Judiciary is concerned, I am bound to make a comment on this because I first came across this argument 20 years ago, when it was put to me officially that unless we gave a very substantial increase to the judges one would not be able to recruit suitable counsel for the bench. I did not believe it then. I went out and spoke to many friends at the Bar. I received exactly the same answer from every one of them: "Please offer me a judgeship on the present remuneration; I will gladly take it."
But your Lordships do not have to rely on my evidence. There is the evidence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, who spoke on this matter very recently—and I am delighted that he will speak to us again today. There is also the evidence of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor who spoke on this matter in the early part of this month. He said that in his view this argument was false. That is the view of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor as reported in the Daily Telegraph; and I share that view. So far as the Judiciary is concerned, there are really no grounds—on recruitment or retention or morale—for the enormous increase suggested.
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I turn next to the Civil Service. The report says a number things about the Civil Service. One thing that it mentioned which has not come out very clearly is that at present there are more suitable candidates for top jobs than there are vacancies. Of course, there may be anxieties in the future, and it is certainly true that some of the best talent at the lower levels is being attracted to the City. Nobody can blame them for that, having regard to the kind of salaries that are on offer by merchant banks and the others who have the Government to thank for their enormous turnover, and their enormous profits which they are making, which enable them to pay enormous salaries and to attract young people from the Civil Service into their pay. Nobody should be surprised about that.
But the short answer to all that is that we are not discussing lower pay at the moment; we are discussing only the top levels. It is absolutely true, as has already been said, that morale in the Civil Service is lower than it should be. I have reason to be in contact with the Civil Service and know this very well. It is not surprising when one considers the continual denigration and sniping on behalf of the Government which has taken place the whole time. I have not heard a single occasion when, even from the Front Bench opposite, a Minister has risen to defend a civil servant under attack—against all our conventions—by a Member of your Lordships' House, when he knows full well that the civil servant cannot defend himself and relies on his Ministers to do so. I have felt from time to time that I have been a lone voice speaking in this respect.
We know that what is of some importance is pay levels. But what is of overwhelming importance is the interest in the job; the regard in which it is held; the importance of the job, and issues of that kind. Job satisfaction, I suppose, would come first. Every Cabinet Minister knows that very well from first-hand personal experience, because every Cabinet Minister is, and always has been, happy to work with his permanent secretary, to give his permanent secretary the orders, to accept responsibility for the department, to get the "sack" if everything goes wrong (not the permanent secretary, but the Minister) and of course the permanent secretary always has been paid a good deal more than the Minister. But the Minister is satisfied that that situation should continue because of the absorbing interest in the job. That is far more important in terms of the question of morale than the salary itself. I am looking at the Bishop's Bench. Indeed, if morale depended on the level of salaries alone, the level of morale on those Benches would be extremely low.
The Government have therefore been quite free to exercise their political judgment and it is that which we are criticising. Consider, my Lords, what they have done. They have driven a coach and horses through their own policy of 3 per cent. or thereabouts, and so made the position of their loyal Tory supporters, especially in another place, virtually intolerable. All your Lordships sitting on the other side who have been in the other House will know the problems facing a Member of Parliament in his own constituency when he has to support the difficult policies of the party of the Government of the day to which he belongs.

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Latterly every Tory Member of Parliament will have received delegations from teachers, from worried parents and so on. All the time he will have to explain that the Government's policy is right; that we should go for low increases; that it will work out in the long run, and so on. Then the Government come along and drive a coach and horses straight through everything and cut the ground from under his very feet. This has made immensely more difficult any prospect of settling the teachers' dispute which is causing disruption not only at schools but in the home as well.
The Government have turned a blind eye to the repercussive effects on other levels in the Civil Service and elsewhere. At the same time that they have removed the protection of wages council from those who receive the least pay, with a view to allowing that level of pay to fall even lower, they have decided to give large, absolute, increases to those at the very top. At the same time as they are proposing to end earnings-related pensions for the many on the ground that the economy could not possibly support, in due course, the burden of all these pensions, they are substantially increasing the earnings-related indexed pensions for the few. We must not forget that every salary increase brings with it a pensions increase, whether or not that salary is taken.
In short, in our view on these Benches, the Government have acted in a way which every right-minded person will condemn as grossly unfair and wholly irresponsible and, by giving large benefits to those in least need, will exacerbate even further the divisions in our society. Your Lordships will bear witness, I am sure, to what I myself have found: that the most regular comment made in recent days about this issue is that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.
We cannot vote against the original Motion, but it is wholly proper in the terms of our conventions to vote for the amendment. The Government in that way will get their order, plus the criticism that they richly deserve. Condemnation has been universal and the amendment is indeed in very moderate terms compared with the withering comments of the first leader of The Times recently. I hope that this amendment will get support from all sides.
7.40 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells: My Lords, I am rather surprised to be called so early, because I put my name down rather late and I had hoped to hear what other noble Lords were going to say before I spoke. However, I begin with the difficulty of being a Bishop, as has already been said, and the fact that, as a correspondent in The Times said 10 days ago—so it has been bruited abroad for any who cares to read it—Church of England diocesan Bishops earn £13,070. I had forgotten about the £70.
We on these Benches tend to think of that as rather a lot of money. It is nearly twice what an incumbent receives and I, for one, feel rather uneasy about how large that differential is from the men in the front line; though of course to a mediaeval Prince Bishop it would have been an absurdly small differential. But small or large as the differential and the total sums involved may be, they are of course chickenfeed to the sums that we are talking about; in particular of
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course to the six-figure sums earned in the private sector to which these new Plowden recommendations are attempting rather more to relate.
Of course, it may be said that because of the size of Bishops' stipends there is an element of jealousy about my speaking on this subject; I hope that I am not jealous about this. Actually I do not quite know how I would manage with a very large income, though my wife says that she would be quite happy. I think there is also an element of naivety about it. We on these Benches are naïve on these matters. I can appreciate that.
But the first point that I want to make is that I do not believe—this has already been referred to, but it needs to be repeated, because it has been very widely said in the country—that these three groups of people embarked on their careers to make money. There are other places where people go to make money. They embarked on their careers to be servants. Of course the field-marshal's baton might be in that knapsack, but basically they wanted to be servants of the Crown—that is, the armed services, the Judiciary and indeed civil servants. They are civil, I emphasise, servants; they include, we must remember, doctors and dentists. As we know now since the war, if a young man wants to make money he does not go into any of these three callings. What about when a young man gets older? Obviously, here the Plowden recommendations are very relevant. Are good men being lost because of the call of the private sector? The review body's recommendations imply that it thinks this is so. I realise what a very complex question this is, and the review body has obviously gone into it very carefully.
On the other hand, I purposely spoke to representatives of these three groups of people in the last two days, because of this debate. Their answers were astonishingly similar. The men concerned were a 48-year old general, a 55-year old judge and a 47-year old assistant secretary; and I summarise their comments, because they could not be looked at in isolation as they said such similar things. First, "It is, of course, a lovely bonus out of the blue". That was very human of them. Secondly, "It is extremely embarrassing, because no one can pretend we are poor". Thirdly, "We would have been perfectly happy with 6 or 7 per cent". "After all", said the general to me, "that is the best part of £3,000 at my grade". Fourthly, "Dreadful timing".
Of course I understand the comment of the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, that no timing is the right timing. But there is this enormous unease in the country at the particular time that has been chosen, not least on the eve of the holidays. Incidentally, all three men to whom I talked are staunch supporters of the Conservative Party.
I believe that it would be a very real sign of greatness for the Government, even at this stage, to think again, and to spread out the increase in such a way that there would probably still be a better differential—I can see that this is perhaps necessary—but that it does not happen so quickly. I feel that the restraint that is being called for again and again by the Government—and how right it is that they should call for restraint—has been thrown to the winds, that the value of good example has gone, and that the opportunity has been missed to say, "This is the recommendation of the

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report, but we do not believe that we ought to do it in this kind of way". I appreciate that there have been some reductions, but they ought to have been seen to be greater.
I expect your Lordships noticed what Bob Geldof—rich man that he is; a person on many people's lips since the Live Aid concert—said when asked why he was doing all this from his Rolls-Royce world. He just put his head down in that shy way of his and said, "Shame". I feel that there is a widespread sense of shame at the present decision of the Government, and I urge people in this House, my friends and other noble Lords, at the very least to support the amendment, so that many thousands of ordinary people up and down this land can say, "That was a good taste to leave in the mouth before the Recess. This was the human way of dealing with this problem, when none of these three categories of people is crying out for more money".
7.48 p.m.
Viscount Eccles: My Lords, as your Lordships have anticipated, I rise to oppose the amendment. If it is right to raise top salaries, it is right to do it now. In my long life in this House and in another place, how often have I seen wise decisions put off for political reasons, opportunities lost and by delay and dither great damage done to the public interest. I think it right to accept the review body's recommendation, because exceptional talent is very unequally distributed.
I know that the party opposite do not like that fact of life. They would like to undo nature's work—no streaming in the schools, swingeing taxation on the rich and the abolition of your Lordships' House. But experience has shown me that levelling down pays very poor dividends. Even the Russians have found that out. Every year they pay their experts more in comparison with their workers. The world over, men and women with exceptional talents are becoming in shorter supply. That must be so because knowledge and skills become more and more specialised and complicated.
It does not matter where you look, whether it is at tennis players, doctors, foreign exchange dealers. All the top performers are commanding larger salaries; and, incidentially, most of those salaries are internationally rated. That is a movement which no Government can reverse. If for the good and human reasons which the right reverend Prelate has just given us, you say, "We won't do it", the consequences very soon catch up with you. Of course it excites envy, and those who feel this kind of envy often disguise their jealousy by exhorting us to work for love, not for money. I hope I shall always be on the side of the angels. The trouble is that there are precious few angels. Most men work for money, looking over their shoulders to see if anyone in a similar job is getting more than they are. That is the stock-in-trade of the trade union movement. If comparability is right for wage earners, it must be right for top managers too.
This matter is urgent. We have left it very late to introduce an effective modern salary structure for the public services. The number of civil servants has contracted, and that means that for top posts there are
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still a lot of people anxious to get the jobs that are going—not so many as there were—but it is the younger ones and the expert ones whom we have to think about. The review body argues convincingly for such a structure, and so does Sir Keith Joseph in his negotiations with the teachers. Sensible teachers welcome higher pay for outstanding merit; but not of course the Opposition or the unions. They have always campaigned for equal pay for unequal work. What a handicap that has been to all our policies for expansion.
A new salary scale for top people in the public services is urgent, and so it is for the teachers. To put if off for political reasons, however inconvenient the moment—and I recognise that—would be cowardly and wrong. Every one of your Lordships knows that men and women of exceptional talent can only grow scarcer and scarcer. Therefore, let us do what we can as soon as we can to put that matter right. I hope that my noble friends will all vote against this amendment.
7.52 p.m.
Lord Bancroft: My Lords, I rise with some diffidence and a heavy cold. My diffidence is because of my Whitehall past and I shall be brief because my audibility is in question. I want to make three points. Let me preface them by saying that I am in no way a beneficiary of the Review Body's report.
My first point is about presentation. I am critical—in some ways very critical—of this Government's attitude towards the public service, particularly the non-uniformed public service. Too many Ministers have given the impression that those who staff it are second raters doing a trivial and second rate job. So they have resolutely stoked the predictable fires of resentment and envy when just such a report as this comes out: a report which says explicitly in paragraph 12 that,
"although fundamental differences remain between life in the public service and in the private sector, there is a growing convergence in management terms between the requirements placed on senior civil servants and senior executives elsewhere".
So in the past few days we have seen needlessly zealous criticism from a number of quarters. In this connection, I must refer especially to the organ of the press which used to thunder in its leading articles but can now manage only a peevish eructation—and that is on its better days.
On this occasion, however, I should be less than fair not to congratulate the Government on their boldness in accepting most of the report's recommendations. This I do unreservedly and in full measure. Even so, I believe that the Government's decision on this extremely closely argued and thoughtful report could have been presented better: if only to stress, for example, the final "net of tax" rewards. For public servants, I remind your Lordships, their colleagues in the Inland Revenue operate PAYE with the smooth relentlessness of the basilisk. There are no little nooks or crannies.
Of course the timing was wrong. As has been conceded already, it always is. And I will tell your Lordships why. It is because successive Governments since the war, whatever the incomes policy or absence of incomes policy of the day, have constantly sought one Holy Grail; that is, compliance by example. It

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deserves all the solemn emphasis of capitals. So they have held back public service pay to set an example to the rest of the community, and it has never worked. Thus, in the mild words of paragraph 44 of the report,
"it can only serve to compound 'catching up' problems".
In less mild words, there is a galvanic explosion once or twice every decade, when need, desperation and a touch of courage are exceptionally combined in the Government of the day. And, my Lords, make no mistake about it, sooner or later the same is bound to happen lower down in all the public services. At the bitter end of the day the market will see to that. But long before then I hope that pay determination systems of some kind will be in place.
My second point is about the merits of the report itself. As I have already said, it seems to me—and I speak respectfully—to reflect enormous credit on its authors. So far as the Civil Service is concerned, the review body undertook a major review—the first for a number of years. This has resulted in what they themselves describe as "radically new arrangements". These were explicity not made in an "economic vacuum". The members of the review body, if one looks at the list, are not innocents abroad. This is a field where there are no certainties, only anxieties. Nonetheless, I doubt whether many people in their senses would quarrel with the report's methodology. You can pluck figures from the air, intuitively and blindly; you can obediently comply with a cash limit laid down by the Treasury and its Ministers, some of whom would have great difficulty in managing a system for the pay of an organ grinder's monkey, who your Lordships will remember, gets peanuts; or you can hark back to historic pay levels which would land you in deep and very expensive trouble. Or you can do what the review body has done; that is, undertake a professional study in depth, using comparators, consultants and, most of all, based on those two, judgment, aiming off at the end of the day—and quite rightly—with a very hefty discount.
The review body looked at a wide range of evidence and factors. I quote from paragraph 140:
"We have looked at a wide range of evidence: on recruitment and retention; on morale and motivation; on external comparisons; on differentials; and on economic factors".
"We have aimed to set salary levels that in our opinion are adequate, no more and no less".
The report goes on to say,
"the range of posts with which we have to deal includes, by any reasonable standard, some of the most onerous in the country".
In essence—I do beg your Lordships to believe me when I say that this cannot be emphasised too much—the review body has pulled out the concertina or, in the jargon, it has remedied the compression of differentials. This is given room and flexibility for merit to be rewarded.
I ask your Lordships to remember that the senior ranks of the Civil Service have been reduced, and almost certainly rightly reduced, by some 20 per cent. over the last six years. So it is proper and necessary that to some extent highly efficient people now have to look for their rewards of esteem and money not by promotion but in their existing grade.
My third point is very brief. I am old-fashioned—perhaps very old-fashioned—in my view
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of the public services across their whole range. I would be alarmed if I thought that this report of itself was ushering in a new mercenary age, even if the word "mercenary" is used in the best and ironic sense of Houseman's Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries. As the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, stressed, and as the report recognises in paragraphs 54 and 55,
"Morale in the civil service … appears to be at an exceptionally low ebb. The reasons for this state of affairs are no doubt complex. It would be facile to attribute them simply to problems of pay".
Let us not throw the collegiate mantle of the public service carelessly aside. Once gone, the mantle will not easily be retrieved. I do not believe that the report's recommendations do that, but I do believe that they go quite far enough for the foreseeable future.
Lastly, I pay tribute to my former colleagues at all levels for their steadfastness and efficiency under fire. I respectfully repeat to them and to the House my own words, that civil servants,
"must neither sit on their backsides wingeing with self-pity nor rush to the barricades in their own self-interest. To do so violates the whole ideal of public service. They must be efficient, articulate, unleaky, good at public relations and slow to anger. Above all, they must remember that they are there to serve".
I support the review body's report, which is a model of a pay determination system for the levels with which it deals. Other systems not too unlike it are needed for the other levels of the public service. Whatever the systems they should be underpinned, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, suggested in an earlier debate, by a renunciation of the strike weapon in exchange for binding arbitration—itself subject to a parliamentary override.
Despite the supple ingenuity of the wording of the amendment, my support for the review body's report extends on this occasion to the Government also.
8.2 p.m.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, I cannot hope to emulate the skill and elegance of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, nor open my remarks with a zeugma or oxymoron (I cannot remember which)—but since the noble Lord was head of the Civil Service and I served with him when I was the Minister responsible, I must say that he produced the kind of speech of eloquence and conviction that I would have expected from him.
I should first like to comment that I welcome and support the Plowden Report. I admire the courage of the Prime Minister in implementing it, despite the barrage of misguided press comment and what I could almost call the hysteria of some Tory Members of Parliament on seeing their constituents being at odds with them. Having made those complimentary remarks, I shall not have a further complimentary remark to make about the Government.
I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, in his analysis of the situation. For noble Lords who want to consider in detail what the issues are, I recommend that they read the report produced by some brilliant and fair-minded men such as the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, Sir David Orr, and my noble friend Lord Lever. That report was the natural consequence of the Megaw Report, which I believe your Lordships, including the right reverend Prelate, should also read.

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The Megaw Report dates where the trouble started; the breach of practice by Government in dealings over the damaging 1981 pay dispute, when the Government, out of sheer obstinacy, refused to arrive at a reasonable agreement in an argument that was all about one half of 1 per cent. The Government therefore abolished the Civil Service Department and with it the noble Lord, Lord Soames. As we know, the noble Lord personally was not abolished but his ministerial role was destroyed.
That was a failure of the Government—and previous Governments have not been free from blame—in regard to the breach of agreements with the public service unions. But there has been nothing equal to the violence of the action taken by this Government. I would like to draw the attention of the House, as other noble Lords have done, to the observation made in the Plowden Report that civil servants are almost inclined to think that they are regarded as parasitic. Any Minister who has had to deal with public servants will know how high-minded and devoted most of them are, and what marvellous service they give to Ministers.
I seek to intervene very briefly, not only because I have had some responsibility for them as the first Minister of the Civil Service Department but also as a pay fixer in industry. I have operated at a salary which I will not go into, but having missed out on every pension and salary in the past, and having been an impoverished Member of Parliament, I must say that I thought it was an amusing figure but one that was still acceptable to me personally and to my wife.
It is fundamental that what is proposed in this report is recognised as being not the ultimate but a compromise. The suggestions and proposals which are argued so forcefully by Plowden make clear that the committee thinks that the figures given are the least that should be paid. Their comparisons with industry if anything understate what the nature of the proposals are. The report gives a median figure for chief executives of companies with turnovers of more than £1,150 million as £100,000 a year. They give the upper quartile as £130,000. We know that the figures of top chairmen and chief executives in industry may be more than £200,000 a year. What is now proposed for top civil servants is only one-third of what some people are being paid—not all of them employed by big companies.
I should like to ask noble Lords, and particularly the right reverend Prelate, to consider what they think is the right figure. That is the difficult question to decide. Should the payment be the same as that of Members of Parliament? They have not done badly. In fact they have done rather better than when the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and I were both in the Commons. Incidentally, I for one should like to see the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor receive his increase, even if he chooses not to take it, since he was one of the few Members of Parliament in those days who advocated a decent salary to be paid to Members of Parliament. Those Members who now criticise his increase might bear that in mind.
What is the right figure? Is it one-third of the top rates in industry? It is true that many people go into the public service because they feel a commitment to
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serve. There are advantages. They deal with people many of whom are of high intellect and high integrity. However, what is a young man to do if he is given the opportunity, if he has a wife and family, to move higher up the financial scale? That is an awkward dilemma. Many people feel that they have an obligation to their families not just because—and this is part of the dilemma—they want lots of money, but because they want to do the best by their family and use the qualities they have been given.
If we lived in a socialist world, or even in a world motivated by Christianity, we could consider this whole issue in a different way; but we live—and I say this to my noble friends—in a world that is a capitalist world and an international capitalist world. It is vital that we should face this issue. Of course, the reduction in taxation rates for the top earners introduced by this Government was a mistake, and certainly that ought to be dealt with. There should be higher taxation.
I should like to see the Government show a greater tenderness towards public servants. The Government are inclining now to use every opportunity to praise them, but great damage has been done by the past actions of the present Government. For that reason I support the amendment.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, may I first say a word about the Judiciary? In 1979 many of the judges were aggrieved. The younger judges were disappointed. They could not provide properly for the education of their children, their holidays, and the like. They did not threaten to resign, but there was a sense of grievance throughout the Judiciary at that time. The Top Salaries Review Body recommended substantial increases, which I am glad to say the Government of that day implemented. The judges were reasonably satisfied, and that was added to when the tax benefits were given early in this Government.
Now what is the position? This is what was said about the Civil Service in the report:
"It seems to us to be indisputable that the rewards available to senior civil servants are well below those available at senior levels in the private sector".
Based on that comparison with the private sector, and saying that there is difficulty in recruitment, or might be, and in retaining civil servants, the Government have proposed for the head of the Civil Service a sum of £75,000 which comes into force next March. From that, right down the scale, from permanent undersecretaries downwards, there are to be corresponding increases. That is the basis of the argument; that the top civil servants should get that increased pay in order to retain them and keep their services.
We then come to the rest of the report, concerning the judges and the armed forces. Let me first deal with the judges. In my experience the judges today do not feel that they are underpaid. If asked about an increase I feel that they would say, "We ought not to have more than the teachers. It looks altogether wrong for the judges to have a 15 per cent. or 16 per cent. increase when the teachers are getting only 5 per cent". That is the public reaction, and I am sure that it would be the reaction of many of our judges because they are, your Lordships must remember, reasonably well paid.
In my opinion there is no difficulty about recruitment. Any top barrister, even at the highest

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level and even quite recently, if invited to be a judge would accept because of the honour, the integrity, the public service and the independence which that post entails. There is no difficulty about recruitment for the higher Judiciary; nor indeed for the circuit judges. There are now more circuit judges and not enough barristers to fill the places, but there it is. The argument about recruitment and retention does not apply to the Judiciary.
Equally, I believe that it does not apply to our Admirals of the Fleet, and so on. The real reason behind their increases is that if the head of the Civil Service gets £75,000 surely the Lord Chief Justice of England ought to get it. The answer is, yes, and surely the Admiral of the Fleet and the Field-Marshals should also get the same, and not less than, the head of the Civil Service. I agree. Once the Government start with the head of the Civil Service getting £75,000, the whole thing goes on. The other two sectors are put forward and all the people down the line have increases, too. That is the inevitable consequence of the recommendation of the Top Salaries Review Body to increase the salaries for top civil servants.
I am not saying that the report is wrong. That body was only comparing those three sectors between themselves and not with the rest of the population. The Government ought not to look just at those three sectors. I should say, of course, that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor received his extra £2,000 because he must go above the Lord Chief Justice. That is all very well, but the Government ought not to look simply at those three sectors. The Government should look at this matter in regard to the population as a whole.
Some of my family are in the teaching profession. Just think what their salaries are! The teaching profession has men of the highest calibre and intelligence—equal in intelligence to the top civil servants, and the like; but what do they get? What do the people of this country think about that? What about my friends among the Bishops? They ought to get more, but will not. But they deserve it on the basis used by the Government. The trouble with the Government in implementing this recommendation is that they ought to have looked at the country as a whole and what the people of this country think and wish. As I said, if the judges were asked they would say, "We ought not have more than the teachers, who get only 5 per cent. We ought not to have more than them. That is not right. The Government ought to have regard to all the teachers".
That is why I support the amendment. To implement the recommendation of the Top Salaries Review Body at this time and in this way is insensitive to the demands and expectations of the rest of the community. The Government should consider the whole of the country. In doing more than justice to top civil servants they are doing less than justice to the rest of our people. I support the amendment.
8.17 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, in asking your Lordships to vote against the amendment I begin by expressing a regret, which I am sure is widely shared in this House, that we are not to have the benefit of the views of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden, himself, although I can
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understand why he might not wish to intervene in a debate of this kind.
His absence, if I may say so, has to some extent been made up for by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, because so far he has been the only speaker who has looked as a whole at the report we are discussing and which the Government are implementing. It is true that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, claimed credit for having read it, but his use of it was somewhat selective. The report begins—and this is a very important point—by recognising that the Civil Service as a whole is in the process of rapid change in the nature of its work and in the obligations which it now has to undertake—what is usually called the transfer to a more managerial outlook—and this has to be taken into account when one considers its remuneration, both at the levels we are discussing today and lower down.
It will also have been noted that all this business about taking into account the economic situation as a whole, the difficulty and the sensitivity about the public response, was considered, weighed and dealt with in the report itself. It is the report which says that Government will always be tempted not to act on recommendations of this kind and that it is desirable that Government should resist this temptation.
It has been said in the course of this debate—and I wish to confine myself to the Civil Service—that such anxieties as there are do not relate to the current holders of top posts or to those who are likely to succeed them and who would also be beneficiaries of this report, but to those who are lower down. The anxieties about both retention and recruitment are lower down in the Civil Service. However, I remind noble Lords—and, again, this is in the report—that this is not intended as a final determination of the method by which Civil Service salaries in general should be determined. As we know, consideration is being given to a new set of arrangements which will no doubt incorporate some form of independent evaluation, if it is not precisely in the form which once existed. Therefore, civil servants, not those covered by this report but those who hope to attain to the ranks that are covered by it, are being asked to rely in the future on the fact that their remuneration will be properly set by comparisons with the outside world, by the needs of recruitment and by the demands of efficiency.
How do we encourage them to believe this promise if the first thing that the Government do when they deal with their seniors is to reject a report which carries the weight and the authority of this one? To reject the recommendations of the report will surely be to damage the confidence of the public service in general, and not to enhance that confidence.
It is also said that other groups in the population whose remuneration eventually comes from the public purse might be excited by it so as to feel that they were even more hard done by than they already believe they are, and in this regard particular reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, for instance, to the teachers. However, I would point out that he was unfair to my noble friend Lord Gowrie in at least one respect. The reason why the remuneration of the teachers can now only be considered for a year hence is because of the obstacles which the unions offered to

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a settlement this year on the terms which had been available, in which it was proposed that money would be found for a greater increase if they would agree to consider career structure and duties. The only reason why it cannot come this year is because that agreement has not so far been reached. So even in this respect it seems to me that the argument regarding the teachers tends to fall to the ground.
The speech which may possibly most have moved noble Lords to consider voting for this amendment may have been the speech of the right reverend Prelate, who seems to have discovered feelings of shame or possible shame and embarrassment among prospective beneficiaries. It is nice to know that people are public spirited enough to worry about this kind of thing; but that does not necessarily mean that their views should be taken into account if there are other considerations to balance them.
Furthermore, a great deal of fuss, bother and commotion about this award, which has led to the appearance of this amendment on our Order Paper, have come from honourable Members in another place. I fear that they must be devoid of the sense of shame to which the right reverend Prelate refers, since they are the only people in the country who, without either pay determination or collective bargaining, fix their own remuneration and have insisted upon massive increases in both that remuneration and the perquisites which they enjoy; and they now feel able to denounce them when other public servants are offered what an independent body believes is necessary. One might add that the problems of recruitment and retention of people hardly arise in respect of membership of the House of Commons, as any noble Lords who have contact with their Party headquarters will be delighted to confirm.
I suggest that this amendment is ill taken, and that, having accepted the idea of a Top Salaries Review Body and having observed the way in which they have gone around seeking information—and in spite of what has been said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, they have taken evidence on the position in respect of the Judiciary as well as of the armed services—it is our duty to accept that this is the mechanism that we have and that whatever its possible electoral repercussions, it is the business of any Government that has self-respect to stand by the machinery which they, like their predecessors, have regarded as appropriate.
8.26 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has referred to the fuss, bother and commotion that has gone on over this business. I would suggest that this is not simply because it is rather fun discussing other people's salaries but because it points to wider and deeper implications in society. I accept the point which has been made earlier that this is neither the time nor the place to discuss incomes policy in general, but this matter must surely relate to it and to how we organise ourselves in British society at the present time.
I suppose that in a society which was Christian in its deepest sense we should have the kind of
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determination of wages and salaries which said "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need". Noble Lords may ignore the source of that quotation.
Of course it would be naïve and simplistic to suppose that we could move towards a society of that kind without great difficulty and effort, but I think that to go to the other extreme and simply argue about salaries solely in terms of whether people deserve them or not and to ignore the moral dimension lands us in a very dangerous situation indeed. I have been very glad to hear tonight of people who are worried about the increases which have been afforded to them in the society which we have now, because I think that this gives a sign of hope, and long may it last.
The Prime Minister, speaking in another place, said:
"There is an understanding that successive governments have accepted, that their recommendations would not be modified unless there were clear and compelling reasons to do so".
I believe that there are clear and compelling reasons to modify recommendations such as this one and that they are all around us in British society today. We live in a society in which there are more than 4 million unemployed; it is a society of great poverty, and a society of very low wages for many people. We have been reminded many times tonight of the teachers' dispute, but that is only one of the problems which face us. The argument against implementing these increases in the way it is being done is that it increases social divisiveness.
I read the report—not I must confess in the detail I should have liked to—and I found it clear and compelling in the arguments which it uses. These are arguments about comparability with the private sector and about recruitment and retention in all these three sectors of society which were under review, and my noble friend Lord Diamond has already dealt with this. Surely the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, is right when he says that this was only looking at one part of the picture and that it is the duty of Government to look at the wider picture and see how this affects society as a whole. I believe that this is why people are so deeply disturbed about the way this announcement had been made. Naturally, the review body did not look at fairness, at the effect on other sections of society. That was missing.
I found that one of the most disturbing things that I have heard, although I do not know how much weight to give to it, has been the matter of the leaked reports that there was no real discussion or dissension about this in Cabinet meeting. I found that very disturbing because surely an issue of this kind should have been hotly and fiercely debated because of the impact which it was bound to have and because of the moral issues that it raises.
Tonight there have been many references to high salaries in the private sector of industry and indeed overseas. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, have pointed this out and pointed out that we are moving into an international world in which skills have to be marketable internationally. There is another side to this which they did not point out. That is that in a shrinking world the search for equity is also going on and it will go on with increasing intensity in the years ahead. One can also see that on all sides.

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If one were simply to take the argument that one looks at the private sector and the high salaries which are paid there, or perhaps to the United States of America, there would be nothing to prevent us going rapidly, as rapidly as possible, in that direction. It has to be balanced by other considerations, too. That is why I believe that when we come to a moment like this and a debate of this kind, we are forced again and again to consider the long-running search for some kind of an incomes policy, and the argument that it has been tried and failed will never do.
When one looks at the discussions on the problems in the public sector, the public service, one sees that on the other side of the coin is what is happening in private industry. Part of the problem really lies there and in the very high salaries which are paid in private industry. If it is the view that Government can in no way influence these, I do not believe it. I think there are ways of influencing the level of salaries which are paid in private industry, too.
I came to the Manchester area during the winter of discontent. I am sure that all of us who went through that have memories indelibly etched in our minds. I believe that it was the then Government's decision to implement the review recommendations in the way that was done then which contributed substantially, though not of course wholly, to the deep bitterness which emerged at that time and the sense of unfairness in a society in which people were being asked to tighten their belts. It is sometimes argued that the man in the street is not influenced by the level of top salaries but simply looks at the man who is the next up the ladder. I do not believe that that is true either, and surveys have constantly disproved this.
This noble Earl the Minister told us that high responsibility must be accompanied by adequate rewards. Well, I agree to some extent but when one looks at other sections in our society—and teachers and nurses have been mentioned—what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. High responsibility and adequate rewards should not be implemented simply at the neglect of such other factors as fairness and an avoidance of social divisiveness in our society.
I believe that this amendment will be a signal that many Members of this House on both sides, belonging to all parties or to no party at all, are conscious of the problems which this whole issue raises in our society at the present time, and I would ask your Lordships to vote for it substantially tonight.
8.33 p.m.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, I want to take up and develop a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, and, if only in deference to a request from the Government Front Bench, to confine myself to one single and simple point. I hope it is a positive point. It is the way in which this report illustrates the need for and the justification of comparability in the process of income determination; the need for fairness and for people to observe a fair relativity between their incomes and those of others, and the justification of Government intervention where necessary in the interests of securing that fairness.
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Necessarily I shall have to leave aside in this particular instance the question of the application of the report. However, what the acceptance of the report has made abundantly clear is that the Government themselves accept the principle of comparability. They do not reject the whole idea of comparability. The issue is: where is comparability to apply and how is it to be applied? I welcome very much what the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said in the sense that he was emphasising that comparability cannot be confined to one group, whether it be wage earners or top salary earners.
What I certainly found distasteful and offensive, as did so many people, and as has been referred to this afternoon, was the way in which, while withdrawing protection from the lowest paid covered by wages councils—in the operation of which comparability is of enormous, indeed, central importance—the Government find it possible to accept the recommendations of the review body, which is no more and no less than the top peoples' wages council. There is reason for public reaction against this. I argue that special arrangements can be justified in both cases—in relation to salaries of senior civil servants, members of the Judiciary and the armed forces, and also in the case of low paid earners themselves.
I accept that we cannot have formal comparability arrangements right across the industrial spectrum. However, there can be and there should be agreement on areas where the machinery for settling wages and salaries and conditions should include comparability and methods of establishing it. It should be possible for us collectively to identify the areas where this is right. Clearly we would all put into those areas policemen, firemen, the National Health Service and other essential services, all to be discussed and agreed. In those cases, as in this one which we are discussing today, the people in the groups concerned ought to be taken out of the situation where the only response they can make is to seek employment elsewhere or to take industrial action to try to secure what they believe is their due.
The central aim of this should be to avoid people being driven into situations where they use the strike weapon in desperation and, as the right reverend Prelate has emphasised, because they feel they are being unfairly treated by the rest of us, by the rest of society. This is totally different from trying to take away, as has been suggested in one quarter, the right to strike. In a free society no Government can take away that right of free men and free women ultimately to say, "I shall not work in conditions and for wages which I have not agreed with my employer". That is to be a hallmark of a free society. Nor indeed would I have had a union purport to bargain that basic right away.
Both the Government and the unions should seek a means of ensuring that working people are not driven by a sense of unfairness to use the strike weapon. As the right reverend Prelate has reminded us, that is precisely what happened in the winter of 1978. with their feelings of frustration, anger and resentment of what they saw as unfair treatment.
Perhaps I may address one comment to my noble friend Lord Barnett. I certainly do not share his view that the pay policy which preceded that appalling

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winter was unsuccessful. That was a pay policy which reduced the level of inflation from 28 per cent. in the summer of 1975 to little more than 8 per cent. in the summer of 1978. That was not a failure and I believe we have nothing to apologise for on that score. Perhaps my noble friend and I can pursue that matter in discussions in peace and quiet a little later on.
The heart of this report is the recognition that, for some groups, comparability arrangements are the best and indeed the only way of setting their incomes, and the need for fair treatment is not, I submit, confined to admirals, to judges or to senior civil servants.
8.40 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, it is almost inevitable in following the noble Lord, Lord Murray, that your Lordships should be invited to consider the right to strike in the context of the Civil Service, a matter that was touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft. With your Lordships' permission, I do not propose to pursue that subject tonight. The Motion is concerned with the Judiciary. It is the reasoned amendment that carries in the question of the Civil Service and the armed forces. As to civil servants, noble Lords have already referred to Paragraph 47 of Volume 1 about the drain from the Civil Service to the City—the outflow, as it is referred to—and to Paragraph 54 about morale being at a low ebb. It is not on the aspect of civil servants or the armed forces that I would wish to speak to your Lordships tonight, but upon the Judiciary, and only in this context to make some sort of contribution. To be fair to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, he did not address himself to this subject but rather to the Civil Service aspect.
As to the Judiciary, with respect to the right reverend Prelates who have spoken, alas, the Bar, of which I am a member, as my noble friend Lord Eccles was swift to suggest, is not moved by the same divine mission that inspires those who enter Holy Orders, and we provide the material from which the Judiciary is appointed. It is, I know, unfortunate; but it is, I am afraid, a fact of life. Nor do we all at the Bar share exactly the same political sentiments as expressed by the right reverend Prelates tonight, in particular on the basis that teachers and judges should be, so to speak, provided with the same sauce as if they were geese and ganders. However, in all this, although I support the Motion on the Order Paper, which is concerned with the Lord Chancellor's salary, and I oppose the reasoned amendment, in accordance with the traditions of your Lordships' House, I am advised that I have to declare an interest, which I do, as a recorder of the Crown Court. Under the pay structure, one hopes—I do not know whether it is right, but I am advised—that there could be a daily increment for 20 days of each year from which I should benefit.
A noble Lord: Shame!
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the point has been made, but it needs stressing—I am dealing only with the Judiciary and not the other aspects, especially those to which the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, referred—that it is the Lord Chancellor's salary that stands at the apex of this pyramid of the pay structure for the Judiciary. So, if it is requisite to increase the
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salary in a lower tier, while maintaining the broad differentials, its is inevitable that the Lord Chancellor's salary in terms of maximum entitlement (irrespective of what he takes) should be increased. The lower tier which gives rise for concern—and, my Lords, it does give rise for most serious concern—is, in this context, a circuit judge. If your Lordships would be good enough sometime to look at paragraph 135 of Volume 1 of the report, you will see at once that the report recognises, in terms, that this,
"provides the starting point for consideration of other judicial salaries".
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, whatever may have been his experiences 20 years ago, and in regard to his references in particular to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, and, curiously enough, and with the greatest respect, in answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, with whom I do presume to cross swords on this issue, I would say this. If you look at paragraph 82 of Volume 2 of the report, you will find that what both have said is totally refuted. Paragraph 82 states.
"We have considered a great deal of evidence about the appropriate relative position for Circuit Judges. Circuit Judges themselves feel strongly that they should move up in the structure… Our attention has been drawn to the Lord Chancellor's concern about the current shortfall of Circuit Judges".
There, in black and white, is what the Lord Chancellor is supposed to have said. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, says otherwise. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, says otherwise. But the report says that this is what the Lord Chancellor's concern was.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will forgive me. I understood clearly—the noble and learned Lord will correct me if I am wrong—that what was said was that there are not enough members of the Bar to fill the posts of circuit judge. He did not say that there was a shortage of circuit judges by virtue of the fact that they were not receiving sufficient pay.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am grateful, as always, to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I think that, on this occasion, when he reads Hansard he will see that I have not misquoted or misunderstood either what the noble and learned Lord said or what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, said. I was making notes of their speeches. I hope that on this occasion, I shall be right. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, for his most courteous intervention. But the matter does not end there. You have the Lord Chancellor's concern about the current shortfall of circuit judges. Then if you go to paragraph 165 of the same volume, you find this:
"The Lord Chancellor on the other hand believes that some improvement in the position of the Circuit Judge relative to the High Court Judge is justifiable",
and so on and so forth. Then he refers to,
"current difficulties in the recruitment of Circuit Judges".
This is the antithesis. I am sure that if noble Lords read Hansard they will see that this is the antithesis of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has been saying and what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has been saying. The higher echelons of the Judiciary do not suffer from these difficulties. Those are the

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findings of the report. It is the circuit bench where the immutable laws of economics have started to have their erosive incidence.
The charge in the reasoned amendment—I want to meet the charge—of want of sensitivity is wholly misplaced. Considerations which affect public service pay generally, such as doctors, nurses, dentists and teachers, have nothing whatever to do with requisite increments to ensure that high standards are maintained throughout the whole of the Judiciary. In this the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, along the lines of comparables is not to the point because he is not comparing like with like. The reasoned amendment chooses to ignore this essential point and affords no viable constructive alternative to the order, an order which warrants your Lordships' support.
I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, with very great care. The whole reasoning of his speech supported the Motion but the noble Lord—and this is his privilege—thinks that the Government have acted in an insensitive fashion in the past and therefore he intends to support the amendment. That is his privilege, but I would suggest that the reasoning of his speech was wholly supportive of the Motion.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, I did not use the word "insensitive" as my main point. The treatment of the public service over a number of years has produced the present loss of morale which calls for these pay increases.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord and I take his point. According to the report, there is a loss of morale. I take the point, but that was in the past. If morale has been lost, then we must build it up. I found myself able to accept, as far as I could note it, the whole of the reasoning of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. It is because of something that has happened in the past that the noble Lord intends to support the reasoned amendment.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, the noble Lord should read the amendment. It says:
"in the context of their policy towards public services pay generally".
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, and of course I accept his invitation. It reads:
"but that this House regrets Her Majesty's Government's insensitive implementation of the 22nd Report of the Review Body on Top Salaries… in the context of their policy towards public services pay generally".
With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I have read it and I had read it before, but I cannot see that it is relevant or makes any sense. What is the use of criticising a requisite action of the Government in order to give effect to a situation which seems to be all but common ground—it is not totally common ground—because something in the past gives one cause for criticism?
When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, dealt with the matter he did not suggest that the report was wrong, and again took the point that it was insensitive. Does it not come down to the fact that any
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Administration worth its salt is obliged to take note of the situation and is obliged to introduce this order if we wish to preserve our pride in what we treasure—the system of justice? I am speaking only about the Judiciary. We must be prepared to dip into our pockets if needs must be, and the only appropriate time—and a point has been made on this—in which to implement the recommendations of a report such as this is as soon as possible and when each House of Parliament is in Session.
It is not understood why, on any objective consideration, the Government should have had to run the gauntlet in the other place or indeed in your Lordships' House in the Lobbies tonight. I suppose it is reasonable that the occasion should be used as a sort of political stalking horse for criticism of the Government, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, "on the exercise of political judgment". However, as regards the Judiciary's concern, that is of scant relevance to the need to ensure that throughout the whole Judiciary, and in particular throughout the circuit judges, judges of appropriate calibre and qualification be recruited from the Bar.
8.55 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I address your Lordships tonight as a member of an endangered species: a review body chairman in retirement. Time has not dealt kindly with some of my old colleagues, and I could only wish that Lord Kindersley and Lord Boyle were here to support what I have to say.
I want to begin by reminding your Lordships of the situation that was established very shortly before the general election of 1970. The Goverment of the day, unwisely in their own interests as it proved, repudiated recommendations of the review body. It was clearly understood that no such action would ever be taken except in the most exceptional circumstances, which did not then in fact prevail.
What followed? Lord Kindersley and the review body resigned en bloc. The system collapsed into a vacuum, populated by mutinous doctors and dentists. The party then in opposition, and now in power, pledged itself that if it was returned it would reinstate the review body, and gave solemn undertakings that it would never again allow a situation to develop in which it did not accept its findings.
That party was returned to power and began to implement its pledges. But then it ran into a snag. The situation was a hot potato, the chair was a hot seat. No one would take on the job. It was at this point that Sir Keith Joseph asked me to go and see him and asked me whether I would be prepared to volunteer for the job. I told him that I was rather dubious about being the right person for it, that my experience in industry had been executive rather than judicial, and that I felt sure he could do better. He agreed that he could, but said that the number one of his choice would not take it. He was quite charmingly frank about it, and we made great friends on that basis. Accordingly, on the basis of trying to be helpful I agreed that I would go ahead and do what I could to restore the situation.
Later on, I suppose, like Jeeves, I gave some satisfaction, because I was put in charge of the nurses and midwives, then the 10 professions supplementary to medicine, and then the speech therapists. At one

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time, in 1974–75, I had the entire salary structures of the medical professions and the National Health Service under my hands and was enabled to put a more or less rational structure upon the whole thing.
Why do we have review bodies at all? Essentially, they are an assurance that people over-involved emotionally, ethically and loyally with their employers, possessing ethical objections to any kind of strike action and therefore very little industrial muscle, will not be exploited and underpaid through motives of political expediency. That is the basis for the whole thing. A number of remarks that have been made in the course of this debate suggest to me that that is not really understood by those who are involved in the controversies here. As we have been told, it is never the right moment to raise salaries. Expediency always wants to procrastinate. It has been said so many times that it is not the right moment to do this now; that the moment is ill-chosen. Who does the choosing? Is it the Government? No: it is the review body which does the choosing. It alone decides when it will review a particular aspect of the client states over which it presides.
The whole essence of the system is to liberate them from all those considerations of a political character which would take advantage of the fact that it is never the right moment. For the review bodies it is always the right moment. To depart from that by one jot or tittle would raise a hornets' nest around the ears of those who want to see the system modified.
The right reverend Prelate said that surely the review bodies ought to have more regard to what is fair to other people generally. However, they are not required to do that. They are asked to be fair to those on top salaries—to doctors and to dentists, and to the armed forces of the Crown—and to fight their corner for them against politicians who would not want to see the fight take place. It is absolutely essential to get that clear.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, would the noble Earl agree that that is precisely why I said that it was the task of Governments to set the decisions of a review body into the overall national context?
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, if they started doing that I can only say that the chairman of the review body would have no honourable alternative except to resign, following the example of Lord Kindersley. The Government would then go back to square one and into the mess from which I did my best to help extract us 15 years ago.
I come to an important point. There are two kinds of review which can be made. One is the annual review which takes account of things like inflation and the making of relative adjustments, or possibly correcting errors of fact reported in previous reviews, and so on. But from time to time it is necessary to make what in the present report is called a fundamental review. That does not happen every year. It is concerned with such things as correcting creeping slippage between the members of a profession in the public sector and what is going on in the private sector. It may be concerned with a reconstruction of the salary structure and a reallocation of responsibilities.
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That is not done every year. Quite long inervals can elapse between one fundamental review and another, and I think it might be helpful to the House if the noble Earl could tell us when he replies how long it is since the last fundamental review was done. The review body gave notice last year that it would do a fundamental review this year because the 16 per cent. which appears to be sticking out like a sore thumb, if I may mix my metaphors, in the minds of many people is a mixture of more factors than one. There would be the annual component of it plus x years' adjustments on the fundamental basis. If you think of it as 16 per cent. minus whatever would have been given if there had not been a fundamental review, and then spread that over the number of years since the last fundamental review, it may be that the figure would not look so big as people think.
The Opposition at the moment are pressing the Government to do precisely what got them into so much trouble 15 years ago. I do not understand what their amendment means. What is an "insensitive implementation"? What do the words "insensitive implementation" mean? Do they mean that the implementation ought not to have been made? In that case back we go to the troubles of 1970.
Or does it mean that there is a sensitive and insensitive way of making an implementation? I just do not understand that. You either implement something or you do not. If you do not you are in great trouble; if you implement it, you are right. Or does it have some third meaning? Does it mean that the Government's exposition of their reasons for accepting the review body's report was insufficiently detailed, or insufficiently explanatory, or whatever it may be?
For my part I cannot make head or tail of the amendment. What I can say is that if the effect of it, if it was passed, was to influence the Government in any way to alter the attitude they have taken to the review body, then back we should go to 1970 again, with resignations, mutinous client states, and somebody having to be brought in from outside to clear up the bits and pieces, as I was.
Thank goodness the Prime Minister has stuck to her guns and proved that a word can be a bond, which it has been. Apart from that one mistake by the Government in power in 1970, all Governments have been loyal to the undertaking that they would not tamper with the review body's findings. Yes, one can live with a situation in which they say, "We accept them, but we must phase them for various reasons involved in forward planning, and so on, but we will implement them next year in part, and in this year in part". That is fair enough. Clearly if there is a statutory pay pause the review body must take account of it. We cannot advise the Government to do what is against the law. But I always made the point of publishing what we would have awarded as a recommendation if there was not a pay pause and gave the Government a reminder that it was carried forward into the future and would have to be met in due course.
You need not be envious of the Lord Chancellor's pay rise. During the 20 years over the turn of the century when my grandfather sat on the Woolsack off and on—mostly on, but occasionally off—the salary of the Lord Chancellor was £10,000 a year. Index that to today and it ought to be £300,000 a year. But if you

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wanted to give him the indexed take-home pay it would have to be £450,000 a year. In fact we are underpaying him by a factor of four, whether he accepts it or not,
I said do not envy the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. What is envy? There is an interesting sociologist in the University of Frankfurt called Helmuth Schoeck, Professor of Sociology. He regards it as the impotent malice of whoever suffers from an irreversible disadvantage in life, and implacable accordingly. One of his obiter dicta—and it is an interesting book that he wrote on envy—is that "equalitarian" societies are envy-ridden and backward in all forms of initiative which, by reforming something, would give someone a marginal advantage over someone else. "You shan't have what I haven't got". That is the dog in the manger attitude of the envious. It is the profile of our society to a T for getting more and more equalitarianism.
Yes, I must wind up. I am sorry, my Lords, I was carried away. May I say that the simplest example of a non-equalitarian society is an athletic championship of some kind or other? It excites no envy. We are not trying to say that all athletes are equal. On the contrary, we are finding the best athlete who is not equal. Nobody envies Navratilova because she earned six million dollars in prizes in the year in which she won the American Open. I think we ought to try to have a less equalitarian society, less envy, malice and all uncharitableness. I oppose the amendment.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, I wonder if he would tell me if I was correct in thinking that he was asserting that it was sensible for Government to surrender their fundamental responsibilities to bodies such as the Top Salaries Review Body?
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I am sorry, but I cannot hear what the noble and learned Lord is saying.
9.8 p.m.
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, I have been wondering why so many of us have had this extremely adverse reaction to the implementation of the Top Salaries Review Board Report. I think that all of us had the feeling which has been expressed by a number of noble Lords of, "Goodness! At this moment, with the teachers and all the rest!" Then one began to ponder not only what has been said many times already, whether there is ever a right moment; but one began to ponder whether this over-reaction (which I believe it to be) is yet another manifestation of our failure to understand what was done to the economy and the British structure and the British public service heads throughout the '60s and '70s under all Governments
During those years—and they have left us a backlog of problems—all governments applied prices and incomes policies and they attempted to arrest the symptoms of inflation while failing, as we know, actually to arrest inflation. During those years, the trade unions in both the public and private sectors continued, by and large (and in some cases they did better than that), to ensure that wages kept up with inflation. Accelerating inflation during these years
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eroded top salaries while restraints were placed upon them.
We talked about those with broad backs bearing a greater proportion of the load. At one stage, I think in the second half of the 1970s, we pegged all increases on salaries above £8,500 and, during those years, with inflation more often over 10 per cent. than under it, it needs little imagination to see what was done to differentials.
During these years, we did immense damage to other aspects of the economy which are not being debated tonight but which have produced a shortage of resources for so many of the desirable things that Government would like to spend money on at the present time. But in this respect, those policies produced the brain drain, they produced compression of salaries in the public sector and the private sector. By 1980, when I was at the Department of Industry—and I have forgotten which particular grades they were; but due to the detail of the system—there was actually a situation where I think an assistant secretary was earning more than a deputy secretary. There was no room for any differential; no room left! And the review body brings this out very clearly.
Before going on, I would say at this point to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that therefore I do not think that this is a question of the top going up and all others going up. The problem which the review body sets out so clearly is that there is no differential and that differentials must be restored. In the private sector, since 1979, differentials to a large extent have been restored. To a high degree, the brain drain is at an end and there has even been a reverse brain drain. But this has not happened in the public sector.
The market does affect top people in the public sector. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that there is an immense commitment to service among top civil servants, generals and judges—and other noble Lords have spoken of that. But when, in the Civil Service, you have levels, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, pointed out, a small fraction of the equivalent in the private sector, you are straining the situation far too much. And this has come about because of the long years of build-up of backlog. I had personal experience as late as 1982 of very highly talented young civil servants, of one particular "Bernard" (whose "Humphrey" regarded him as a potential "Humphrey" of the future) who left because, as a married man, he was offered without seeking it a salary three times what he was earning at the level of principal. We cannot allow this to go on, and we cannot say on any side of the House that we regard the public sector as extremely important and the people in it as extremely important and not make sure that we have the most able people trying to get to the top of it.
Of course, not everybody wants money equally and, of course, good judges and good generals will say that they did not ask for it—they are responsible people. They would also say that they did not need it! But that is not to say that justice should not be done and that part of this backlog should not be put right. I agree with various noble Lords who have said that we must think and think again about systems for other grades in the public sector. I have only to say that many people have thought and few have delivered; but I am sure

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that those who are advocating that we should have more system in relation to salaries in the public sector would agree that the same formula cannot apply to all sorts of different sectors and all sorts of different levels; and that the top-people aspect, because of the years of backlog that I have described, is in a dangerous situation, as the report makes very clear, and that we can brook no delay in putting it right. Therefore, I support the report and the Government and oppose the amendment.
9.12 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, I would first say to the noble Earl that I do not speak in any malice or envy, but I do speak in some anger and I am going to use this opportunity in three minutes to say why I intervene in this debate. This decision of the Government to accept the proposals—and this is what we are talking about, and not necessrily the report—on the top people's salaries is, in my judgment, against the problem of the teachers, both cynical and philistine. If we look at the recipients—the armed forces, the Judiciary and the Civil Service—it reveals very clearly the low regard with which this Government holds education and health.
The argument that these people, these top people—and I think we all have met these top people—will defect to the private sector is certainly equally relevant to the teachers, particularly if they are teaching maths, science or technology. We have had no opportunity to debate even the White Paper or to speak on their plight at all. In May, an article in the Observer entitled "Our Crumbling Schools" stated:
"The morale in these particular schools is often quite high, but nevertheless in the past 18 months specialists in maths, in English, in physics and in computer sciences have left for better pay in industry".
Therefore, my Lords, we assume that the Government have accepted this argument.
Why have they selected only this one implementation which they are taking tonight? I would only remind your Lordships that if we lose the educators, we will not need to bother about the fact that we want top people in the Judiciary, in the Civil Service or in the armed forces. They will not be around.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Hanson: My Lords, I rise briefly at this late stage to place the emphasis on the important principles that have surfaced during the course of the debate. As I understand it, the essence of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, is insensitive implementation: not really whether or not the increases are worthy. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, went into that in detail.
The argument is about a small number of people. Is there any real dispute among us that these relatively few people are crucial to the wellbeing of our country, whether in the field of public administration, the armed forces, the Judiciary or wherever it may be? And is there any dispute between us that these few people carry the most enormous burdens? As in industry, we must be diligent to identify those relatively few individuals and, having found them, to ensure that they are paid their proper worth.
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I believe that the distinguished group who form the review body have done a thorough and workmanlike job. We have heard much argument that if a Lord Chancellor, an admiral or a permanent secretary shall thus be rewarded, so in turn shall everyone else down the ladder in those professions. Why should this be? Why is this kind of thinking so lodged in our national attitudes? Why should everyone expect rises commensurate with the crucial few?
The Government are accused of insensitivity and poor timing, but it is not the Government who are insensitive: it is the fact that so many people have allowed themselves to come to believe and to demand that everyone should have automatic increases. I see no reason why in these professions, as in industry, reward should not relate very closely to performance. I see no reason for restricting mobility. If the job does not suit, the opportunity to move on exists. It is this performance aspect of the review which has been submerged in all this huffing and puffing over the issue.
As to the timing of the decision, I believe the arguments have no substance. Personally, I am a grasper of nettles. So long as these matters have to be examined and pronounced upon by Governments, I believe that the Government are right to place proper emphasis on recognition of and reward for outstanding merit, and to relate it to performance. Pay the going rate for the job, my Lords. We must count ourselves fortunate that, once again, the Government have been prepared to state the principles clearly and to stand their ground. I strongly oppose the amendment.
9.21 p.m.
Lord Seebohm: My Lords, I shall be very brief. I have in fact torn up my prepared speech, but there are one or two points I feel I must make. I have read the report with great care. I rather wonder whether everyone else who has spoken has done so. I find it logical, soundly argued, and the conclusions convincing. I believe that while comparisons are odious—as they say in the report—one has to compare permanent secretaries' salaries with something. In my view, the difference between public sector and private sector salaries has become altogether too large to be tolerable. The crucial question is the extent of the discount of the public sector which one needs to have in order to ensure that there is not too great an incentive to leave, or not go into, the Civil Service, which must attract people of the highest calibre.
Not only have I read the report with care but I have done some researches of my own. I am convinced that any greater differential between the two sectors would be highly dangerous for the future. I took at random half-a-dozen company reports which I have received in the last two or three months with regard to some small investments I have. I found that the chief executives, on the whole, received not only well over £100,000—the smallest one was £88,000, the average was well over £100,000—but four out of the six had had increases this year of over 25 per cent. So if we do not do something about the public sector issue they will get even further behind very quickly.
So far as I am concerned, the whole question is therefore whether the method and timing of the implementation was right or wrong. I must say that I

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am very disturbed at the policy that has now crept in in the country' which is called "unright" time. I believe that the more one delays taking justifiable action, the more difficult it becomes to put it right. I must therefore oppose the amendment.
9.23 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I too shall be brief. Like the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, I am glad to say that I have read the report and would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Plowden, and his colleagues for producing it.
In looking at the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, I found that I was fascinated by it. I have yet to see a critical amendment on an important occasion like this in such very gentle terms. I can only believe that the noble Lord must be remembering the 35 per cent. award made in 1978 by a Government in which he was a Cabinet Minister and the reception which he received from the Conservative Opposition of the day, which did not oppose him. His conscience may be pricking him and that is why he gives us such a very gentle reproof today.
The fact is that the TSRB reports are always difficult for every Government whenever they receive one. My noble friend Lord Halsbury recounted his experience—which some of us may remember; many may have forgotten—of the dramatic event that occurs if a Government of the day do not accept the TSRB report and a new TSRB has to be found. This was a fascinating reminder of the practical problems behind this particular Motion we have in front of us now.
Some noble Lords opposite, who will vote for the amendment, were most ingenious in finding some reason for voting against the Motion. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has already been referred to. The noble Lord said that he accepted the report but he still found a reason for saying that he will vote against the Government. The position of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, was not dissimilar. But noble Lords opposite know perfectly well that come the day when they get back into government—I hope it is a long way off—they will get a TSRB report and they will accept it. There is nothing else to do. They will hope that the Opposition of the day will be kinder to them than this Opposition has been to this Government. We all know that.
The fact is that Governments cannot manage without a Top Salaries Review Body to deal with the logistics of top salaries related to commerce and industry and, indeed, related to the international market with which we are all connected today. Noble Lords know that they will be standing on their heads in voting against the Government tonight. But this amendment, gentle though it is, would be damaging to the Government's reputation. It should therefore be rejected resoundingly. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, told us that the Government have made a bad political judgment. The Governments's action in implementing this TSRB award may be bad politics, but it is good government and it should be supported.
9.26 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, may I say first that on these Benches we have no quarrel with the findings of
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the review body itself? Indeed, I should like to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Plowden, and to his colleagues, who over the years have discharged their unenviable task admirably. Morever, for my part, I understand and even sympathise with a key recommendation in the report that, in the case of senior civil servants in particular, the present pay framework should be recast to take more account of performance and to provide more flexibility for the development of managerial needs. But all that, I suggest, is peripheral to this debate.
Until 10 days ago, it could reasonably be claimed that the Government had a rough and ready pay policy for the public services. As I understood it, it was because the control of inflation was paramount. Where the Government were directly or indirectly the paymaster, increases should be kept as nearly as possible to 3 per cent. per anum. But now that they have agreed to much higher increases for our most highly paid public servants—already among the chief beneficiaries of earlier tax concessions, as has been said earlier in the debate—how can they reasonably expect the claims of teachers, of local government employees and of the general body of civil servants to be held back?
In making their recommendations, the Top Salaries Review Body took into account the factors of recruitment, retention, motivation and morale. Consider, my Lords, the question of morale. Paragraph 55 of the report of the review body states:
"It is felt… that the civil service has declined in public… esteem, and it is seen by many as offering a markedly less worthwhile career than hitherto."
But that observation was not made about the higher echelons alone. It applies to the Civil Service as a whole. Since the Government withdrew unilaterally from the agreed procedures for determining pay five years ago, rates of pay for civil servants have increased by about 25 per cent., or less than half the rate of increase for white collar staff generally. Moreover, pay outside the service is currently rising at an annual rate which is approximately three times as high as that projected for the Civil Service this year. No wonder morale is low!
Or take the factor of motivation. I think there is much truth in the saying,
"Man does not live by bread alone, except when there is no bread."
In other words, it is those who are less well-off who are most motivated by the need for monetary incentives in order merely to subsist. In contrast, in my experience, as people move up the promotion ladder they are motivated increasingly by factors such as responsibility, achievement and the recognition of achievement. Yet it is precisely people at the very top whom the Government have now singled out for special treatment in terms of monetary reward.
As for recruitment and retention, there are no indications of many permanent secretaries, generals or judges leaving their posts, or of difficulty being experienced in replacing them when they do go On the other hand it is not surprising to hear a report of disaffection in the Civil Service among people at the lower levels of assistant secretaries and senior principal, who this year to the best of my knowledge are to receive increases of less than 5 per cent.

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As my noble friend Lord Diamond said earlier, we on these Benches support the amendment that was moved earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. I was sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, found the amendment difficult to understand. I suggest that that was because he failed to pay sufficient attention to the last clause—that is to say, our regret about the implementation of this policy in the context of the Government's policy towards public services pay generally. Indeed, if there is a fault in the amendment it may be that it should have referred to the absence of any such policy at all.
I was sorry that from the Labour Benches, with the honourable exception, if I may so so, of the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, I did not get any clear idea as to how the Labour Party might solve this very complex problem of pay determination in the public services. For our part we do not think that that is good enough. It is always easier to define a problem than it is to prescribe a solution. Therefore, from these Benches, let me at least offer a few positive suggestions.
First, we believe there is an urgent need to establish agreed long-term arrangements for pay determination that extend much further than those required to cater merely for the Civil Service. The aim should be, after consultation between the Government and representatives of employers, trade unions and other relevant interests, to obtain the widest possible understanding and acceptance of the overall increase in incomes which at periodic intervals the country can afford. These arrangements would thus apply to both public and private sectors of the economy. I cannot for the life of me see what the Government have to lose by embarking on this potentially open and educative process when there is a forum available for the purpose in the shape of the National Economic Development Council.
Next, surely all past experience shows that when matters relating to the pay of a particular group are considered in isolation—for example, in the examination undertaken now some years ago by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, in the case of teachers—attention is concentrated on the problem from the viewpoint of the group concerned rather than from that of others affected by it. It surely follows that there is need to establish procedures for pay determination which apply to people in the public services generally.
Lastly on this point, in the event of negotiations in any service resulting in failure to agree, provision should be made despite the attendant difficulties for settlement of the dispute by a single independent standing commission. Only thus, in my view, can
108
public servants be expected to acquire the confidence to give the necessary prior indication or undertaking that the findings of the commission will be observed. Such an undertaking should be matched by a corresponding commitment on the part of the Government, withdrawal by the Government being possible only after the passing of a positive resolution to that effect by both Houses of Parliament.
I know that a potential criticism of that idea is that settlements of that kind would be inflationary. Such criticism stems from a failure to differentiate sufficiently between arbitration and conciliation. The intention here would not be to bring the parties closer together, nor to split the difference between them. The aim would rather be at reaching a decision which would generally be regarded as reasonable because it would be made by a body whose members were acknowledged to be independent.
The alternative—and noble Lords opposite must face it—is for the community to suffer continuing disruption such as that inflicted upon it this year by teachers, last year in the payment of pensions, and earlier by civil servants and health service workers perceiving themselves to be unfairly treated. I am sorry that the Chief Whip should be looking impatient, but I propose to finish my speech.
Our proposals are put forward in a constructive spirit and as evidence of a willingness on our part to offer a positive contribution to the solution of this intractable problem. As the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, well knows, it involves jobs just as much as pay. It is surely reasonable to suggest, in turn, that the Government do not possess a monopoly of wisdom in these matters.
In their report for 1984, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service offered their advice and help in dealing both with the criteria to be adopted and the procedures to be followed in case of disagreement in determining pay in a non-trading part of the sector. Why do the Government not take advantage of the experience in this field of Sir Pat Lowry, the chairman of ACAS, for whom I, for one, hold a very high regard?
We on these Benches are not seeking to resist the implementation of the Lord Chancellor's Salary Order 1985 but are strongly of the opinion that it would be salutary if the House of Lords, in supporting the amendment before your Lordships, serve notice on the Government in general and on the Prime Minister in particular that there is a need for them to keep in closer touch with the millions of ordinary people they govern and who desire to be treated fairly.
9.38 p.m.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, it is my sense that your Lordships wish to take a view of this matter. I must say that I live in some fear of a massive vote in favour of reducing my own salary, which is no princely sum——
Noble Lords: Oh!
The Earl of Gowrie:——if I were to delay your Lordships for any length of time. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, made a marvellously characteristic Liberal speech. He said that he had no quarrel with the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Board but was supposed to have a quarrel with the Government, and so he had to think of something to quarrel with the Government about. Apart from that, this was a first-class and fascinating debate. Although I acknowledge a little prejudice, I thought that the tail-end batsmen all scored about 100 not out.
I should like to correct one statement that was made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. It is quite untrue to say that the Cabinet did not discuss this matter. The Cabinet were obviously extremely concerned about it. If your Lordships disagree with the decision and wish for a whipping boy, then I hope that I can appear in that role because——
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, on a point of personal explanation, did the noble Lord the Minister hear me when I said that I did not understand that the Cabinet had agonised over this? It was not simply a matter of discussing it.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, perhaps on a subsequent occasion I will analyse the word "agony" with the right reverend Prelate. It was an extremely difficult decision, as it always would be.
I was saying that if the House wishes for a whipping boy from the Cabinet in respect of this decision, I hope that your Lordships will choose me because, as Minister for the Civil Service, I would have been in a virtually impossible position had these recommendations not been adopted.
I wish simply briefly to correct one or two assumptions that have been made by those speakers in this admirable debate who have not shared the Government's view. They are the speakers who thought that the real difficulty behind this decision was that it was taken in isolation from the deserving claims of other groups in the public sector. That simply is not the case. As I said in my opening remarks, the Government took into account the fact that within the public sector the Government had adopted the review recommendations for dentists, doctors and nurses. I wholly agree that unfettered free collective bargaining is a difficult phenomenon in public sector pay, and that is precisely why it is so important to take into account, and to adopt as far as possible, the recommendations of these objective review bodies.
The other group in the public sector frequently cited during this debate was the teachers. Again, I do not
110
think the point in respect of the teachers could have been answered better than by my noble friend Lord Beloff. The dispute between the employers and the teachers is not fundamentally a pay issue. The Government have made it quite clear that they would like to pay the teachers well, but the argument is about the assessment of performance of teachers and the terms and conditions of their pay structure. As an ex-teacher, I still hope that this so important group in society will see the wisdom and virtue of assessment, as nearly all of us do.
The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, also gave the game away when she said that specialists in maths and science were leaving the teaching professions for industry. It is not the Government who do not wish to pay differentials to maths and science teachers within the teaching profession; it is the National Union of Teachers, and others, who are resisting this move.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, I thought made, if I may respectfully say this to him. the best case against the Government, as one might expect from someone of his experience. Nevertheless, he did not give us sufficient credit for taking into account the very fact of the recommendations by other pay bodies when we decided to accept the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden. The noble and learned Lord spoke about his experience of judges as not necessarily being desirous or anxious about pay increases, but that was certainly not the view of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden, and his body. Paragraph 82 of the report states:
"Circuit judges themselves feel strongly that they should move up in the structure, away from Magistrates and closer to the High Court Judge."
A number of other speakers mentioned the wages councils, with which I have been intimately concerned during my time in Government. The issue there is not one of low pay; it is fundamentally an issue of employment among young people, most of whom live at home and most of whom do not have full adult responsibility in respect of expenditure. This country pays people entering employment far more than our competitor countries, and as a result there are considerable difficulties in finding sufficient work for young people.
The noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, who is quite famous for the degree of acidity in his disagreements with the present Government, made the case that I feel so strongly about in respect of the Civil Service wonderfully well. He reminded your Lordships, as I seek to do, that it is very easy for people who are paying the standard rates of tax not to realise what 60 per cent. levels of tax do to take-home pay. It is not only workers—as if all of us were not workers—who consider take-home pay. All salaried people do so. I would remind your Lordships that pay of £50,000 a year, which sounds a lot of money, is in fact only about £20,000 a year in net terms.
Noble Lords: Oh!
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I think it would be well for the Opposition Benches to remember that these recommendations were not made by the Government. The people who made the recommendations, which the Government have accepted, were

111
not motivated by greed; they are not people who believe that there is one law for the rich and one for the poor; they are not people who have no morality or no sense of shame. They are men and women who have worked hard to take soundings of opinion, to look facts in the face and of course to consider the wider implications of what they recommend. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who was a former Leader of your Lordships' House and who was Minister for the Civil Service in a Labour Government, the report was produced by, "brilliant and fair-minded men".
In my view most of the ills of British society—and I say this specifically to the right reverend Prelate—come not from unfairness nor greed nor injustice. Most of our difficulties stem, as my noble friend Lord Hanson has so eloquently said, from procrastination, from taking short-term political decisions to our longer term political and economic detriment. We cannot continually put off difficult decisions which objective and wholly unpolitical analyses suggest are needed. We have had to have the courage of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden's, convictions. Let us not vitiate the mark and work of responsible and fair-minded men by supporting this amendment tonight.
9.46 p.m.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, I must say to the noble Earl that I do understand that what the 60 per cent. rate of tax does to top pay hurts; but of course if those in the public sector at a lower level on the salaries scale who have been spoken about in this debate received percentage increases of the same level as those granted by the Top Salaries Review Body they still would not be above the 30 per cent. tax rate. We are talking about unfairness; that is the case that has been made by all those who have spoken in favour of the amendment, and it is something that the noble Earl simply does not seem to understand.
We have had a most interesting debate and perhaps I may say to those noble Lords who have spoken in favour of Plowden that they should have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, when he spoke of the very moderate amendment which I have moved. They could very well support that amendment and support the Plowden report in the same way as my noble friend Lord Shackleton is doing this evening. It is a quite simple matter, because what both the right reverend Prelates have said in this debate is that what the Government have to do is what Plowden cannot do. Plowden has to consider top salaries; the Government have to consider something much wider and much more important than just that.
The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, asked me a question—I am sorry if he could not understand it. I do not know at what time of the night he was reading the question, but I used to find it extremely difficult to read briefs late at night. He asked me the question, "What is insensitive implementation?" I shall tell him. Insensitive implementation of the Plowden report is when a Government totally ignore what they are doing to the rest of the public sector. That is what this amendment is about. It is a very moderate amendment, as I have said. It simply regrets what the Government are doing.
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During the course of this debate it was said by, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, that voting for this amendment would damage the Government's reputation. What a terrible thing for your Lordships to do! Yet they really should not be frightened of doing that because, after all, the Government have been doing it themselves for a very long time. Therefore they really should not worry about that. What they should worry about rather more are the points made, in my view very well indeed, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, and it was interesting that the noble Earl took them up. I naturally have great sympathy for the views of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, being a Mancunian. Not only do I have sympathy because of that, but also because he was right.
What they said was that it is true, as I think the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, said earlier on, that high responsibility should have high reward. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, who talked about the fact that performance should be rewarded. But permanent secretaries are to be rewarded with large increases, regardless of their performances. If one is talking about performances, one really should be thinking of the performances of nurses, teachers and others in the public sector who are very low paid. That is what the amendment is all about.
I think it is worth repeating what the right reverend Prelate and the noble and learned Lord said. It was that the Government should not only take account of the Plowden Report on top salaries and the three groups concerned, but that they should also take account of the feelings and views of people out in the country who are equally concerned for those at all levels of salary—at very much lower levels. That is why I urge noble Lords to vote for this amendment. In so doing, they will not be doing any harm; they will be helping the country and indeed, I hope, helping the Government to rule rather better than they have been doing.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Ampthill): My Lords, the original Question was, that the draft order laid before the House be approved, since when an amendment has been moved in the terms set out on the Order Paper. The Question is, that this amendment be agreed to.
9.51 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 140; Not-Contents, 136.

DIVISION NO. 3

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Banks, L.

Amherst, E.

Barnett, L.

Ardwick, L.

Bath and Wells, Bp.

Avebury, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Aylestone, L.

Bernstein, L.

113

Birk, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

McNair, L.

Bottomley, L.

Mais, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Manchester, Bp.

Brocket, L.

Mayhew, L.

Brockway, L.

Meston, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Mishcon, L.

Buckmaster, V.

Molloy, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Molson, L.

Caradon, L.

Monkswell, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Morton of Shuna, L.

Chandos V.

Mountgarret, V.

Chichester, Bp.

Mulley, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Collison, L.

Crawshaw of Aintree, L.

Nicol, B.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Ogmore, L.

Darwen, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

David, B. [Teller]

Oram, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Parry, L.

Denington, B.

Phillips, B.

Denning, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Diamond, L.

Plant, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller]

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Elystan-Morgan, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Ennals, L.

Rea, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Ezra, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Rochester, L.

Falkender, B.

Rugby, L.

Falkland, V.

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Seear, B.

Gallacher, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Galpern, L.

Serata, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Shackleton, L.

Glenamara, L.

Shepherd, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Shinwell, L.

Greenway, L.

Silkin of Dulwich, L.

Gregson, L.

Simon, V.

Grey, E.

Stallard, L.

Hacking, L.

Stamp, L.

Hampton, L.

Stedman, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Heycock, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hooson, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Hughes, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Tordoff, L.

Jacques, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Underhill, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Kagan, L.

Walston, L.

Kaldor, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Whaddon, L.

Kirkhill, L.

White, B.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E

Wigoder, L.

Listowel, E.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Winstanley, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Lockwood, B.

Young of Dartington, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aldington, L.

Bessborough, E.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Allerton, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Ampthill, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Arran, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Atholl, D.

Broxbourne, L.

Bancroft, L.

Caithness, E.

Barber, L.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Beaverbrook, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Bellwin, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Beloff, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Belstead, L.

Carnock, L.

114

Cathcart, E.

King of Wartnaby, L.

Chelmer, L.

Kitchener, E.

Chelwood, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Coleraine, L.

Layton, L.

Colwyn, L.

Loch, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Long, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Cowley, E.

Lyell, L.

Craigavon, V.

McFadzean, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Crathorne, L.

Mancroft, L.

Croft, L.

Margadale, L.

Cross, V.

Marley, L.

Davidson, V.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

De La Warr, E.

Massereene and Ferrard. V.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Matthews, L.

Digby, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon L.

Dormer, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Melville, V.

Dulverton, L.

Mottistone, L.

Eccles, V.

Mountevans, L.

Eden of Winton, L.

Munster, E.

Elibank, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Newall, L.

Elles, B.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Pender, L.

Elton, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Faithfull, B.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Ferrers, E.

Polwarth, L.

Fortescue, E.

Reay, L.

Gainford, L.

Reigate, L.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Rodney, L.

Glanusk, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Glenarthur, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Gowrie, E.

Seebohm, L.

Gray, L.

Shannon, E.

Gray of Contin, L.

Sharples, B.

Gridley, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Grimthorpe, L.

Stockton, E.

Halsbury, E.

Swinfen, L.

Hanson, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Teviot, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Tranmire, L.

Henley, L.

Trenchard, V.

Hood, V.

Trumpington, B.

Hooper, B.

Tryon, L.

Howe, E.

Ullswater, V.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Inchcape, E.

Vivian, L.

Ironside, L.

Westbury, L.

Jessel, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Kaberry of Adel, L.

Wynford, L.

Kemsley, V.

Young, B.

Killearn, L.

Young of Graffham, L.

Kimball, L.

Ypres, E.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
On Question, Motion, as amended, agreed to
10.3 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, in view of that firm expression by the House in an important Division on a matter of great public interest, may we have the assurance of the noble Viscount the Leader of the House that he will convey to his right honourable friend the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the Cabinet the views of the House on this matter, and that he will do so as soon as possible and, if possible, also make a Statement to the House before we rise on Wednesday?
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, on the first point your Lordships' House has expressed its view. Of course I take note of that. Naturally I shall report that view to my colleagues and to the Prime Minister. I do not quite see what purpose there would be in any Statement from me because, after all, this House has passed the order and expressed a view, as is its proper position and as it should do. That is what it did. I have noted that position and I shall report it to my colleagues. I should have thought that that was the sum total of my responsibilities to this House, and that I shall most certainly do.

Transport Bill
10.5 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 104 [Bus substitution services and bus service conditions]:
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 256:
Page 103, line 36, leave out ("in the Executive's area of any bus substitution service") and insert ("of any bus substitution service between places in the Executive's area of between such places and places outside that area but within the permitted distance for the purposes of section 10(1)(ii) of the 1968 Act as it applies to that Executive (that is to say, twenty-five miles from the nearest point on the boundary of that area).").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 256, and at the same time speak to Amendments 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262 and 263.
Amendment No. 257: Clause 105, page 104, line 41, at end insert—
("(4A) Where the proposed withdrawal of service relates to a service or part of a service which is subsidised by the Passenger Transport Executive for any passenger transport area under any agreement made with the Railways Board by virtue of section 104(3) of this Act, the Board shall not publish a notice with respect to the proposed withdrawal under subsection (1) above without the consent of the Executive to its publication.
(4B) If in any such case the Board publish such a notice before obtaining that consent, the notice shall be of no effect unless before the end of the period fixed by the notice for objecting to the revocation or variation of the relevant bus service condition either—

(a) the Executive have informed the Board in writing that they consent to the publication; or

(b) the Secretary of State, on an application made for the purpose by the Board (whether before or after the publication of the notice) and after offering the Executive what the Secretary of State considers a reasonable opportunity to make any representations, has directed that the notice shall have effect notwithstanding that the Executive have not consented to its publication.").

Amendment No. 258: page 104, line 42, after ("Where") insert ("in the case of any proposed withdrawal of service subsection (4A) above does not apply but").
Amendment No. 259: page 104, line 43, leave out ("of service").
Amendment No. 260: Clause 106, page 105, line 22, leave out from beginning to ("lodge") in line 25 and insert ("Where, in the case of any withdrawal of service to which section 105(4A) or (5) of this Act applies, notice of the withdrawal has been published under subsection (1) of that section, the Executive concerned may, within the period specified in the notice for objecting to the withdrawal").
Amendment No. 261: page 105, line 27, at end insert—
("The fact that the Executive concerned gave their consent to the publication of the notice shall not affect their right under this subsection to oppose the withdrawal of service.").
Amendment No. 262: page 105, line 30, at end insert—
("(8) References above in this section to a notice published under section 105(1) of this Act do not include a notice which under subsection (4B) of that section is of no effect.").
Amendment No. 263: page 108, line 38, leave out ("section") and insert ("sections 104 to").
These are all technical amendments. Taken together they ensure that PTEs have the same powers to support bus substitution services inside their areas and outside them as they have under existing legislation.
Lord Shepherd: I intervene only because there is so much noise. Could the noble Earl do it again, and with a little caution in terms of speed?
The Earl of Caithness: I am glad to see that the Labour Benches are now empty and so I shall continue. I shall start from the beginning. These are all technical amendments. Taken together they ensure that PTEs have the same powers to support bus substitution services inside their areas and outside them as they have under existing legislation to support rail services, and that the arrangements covering the PTEs' role in relation to proposals to withdraw bus substitution services in their areas and within 25 miles of their areas is parallel to that which applies to rail services. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 104, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 105 [Notice of withdrawal of bus substitution services]:
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendments Nos. 257 to 259:
[Printed above.]
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendments Nos. 257, 258 and 259. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 105, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 106 [Objections to withdrawal of bus substitution service]:
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendments Nos. 260 to 262:
[Printed above.]
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendments Nos. 260, 261 and 262.I spoke to these earlier. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 106, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 107 agreed to.
Clause 108 [Supplementary and consequential provisions]:
Lord Tordoff Lord Tordoff moved Amendment No. 262A:
Page 108, line 8, leave out ("to consider the charges made for any bus substitution service, or").
The noble Lord said: How good it is to get back to regulars, and to have the lights down for the normal sort of transport debate. I beg to move Amendment No. 262A, and it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak to 263A at the same time.
Amendment No. 263A: Page 108, line 41, at end insert—
("(12) In section 56(5) of the Transport Act 1962 the words "to consider the charges made for any service or facility or" and "or reduction" and in section 40(6) of the London Regional Transport Act 1984 the words "the charges made for any service or facility or" and "or reduction" shall be omitted.").
At present the Central Transport Consultative Committee, the Transport Users' Consultative Committee and the London Regional Passengers' Committee are statutorily prevented from considering issues relating to fares, charges, and reductions in British Rail services. During the debate last year on the London Regional Transport Bill the Government gave a commitment to remove these restrictions in the first appropriate Bill, declaring that the London Regional Transport Bill was not appropriate since it related only to London and that the change would have national application.
The relevant comments were given by Mrs. Chalker, the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, in another place. In relation to fares and charges she said on 13th December 1983, at cols. 929 and 930 of Hansard:
"Fares were mentioned by several honourable Members. The role of the new consumer body in relation to fares is important. At present consumer bodies dealing with transport—the Central Transport Consultative Committee, the area transport users' consultative committees, and, in London, the LTPC—all have fares and charges specifically excluded from their statutory remit. In December last year the Government published a document called: The Nationalised Industry Consumer Councils: A Strategy for Reform".
She went on at some length indicating that although she was seized of the need for the sort of changes which are contained in this amendment today, that was not the time to do it. She also said at that time that she was glad to say that the chairman of British Rail, the then Mr Bob Reid, now Sir Bob Reid, had agreed that his board would consult the Central Transport Consultative Committee in advance of any new legislation.
It seems from what I hear that this system is not working, and, without going into further long quotes from what the honourable lady said, I think it is correct to say that the Government have not seen fit to include clauses in this Transport Bill, and it is clear that it had been intended to include the relevant powers in a wider nationalised industries Bill intended for the next Session of Parliament. It is certainly wrong for me to anticipate the Queen's Speech, and I am sure that it is also wrong for the Government to anticipate the Queen's Speech; but we understand that this Bill has been deferred and that both the LRPC and the CTCC feel strongly that the opportunity should not be missed, while this Bill is passing through Parliament, to include suitable clauses in it.
I am informed that former arrangements have not worked well, especially in relation to British Rail. In the very recent past British Rail decided to increase longer-distance savers' fares, for instance, from 7th July. No formal or informal discussions took place with either committee, and the details only emerged as a result of a press meeting. On service reductions, the CTCC produced an amendment setting out the reasons why the present arrangements should be
118
ended (which I can offer to the Minister at a later stage if he wishes), but it follows that if the statutory exclusion relating to fares and charges for air services is removed then it should be removed relating to the bus substitution services referred to in Sections 103 to 109. The second part of the proposed amendment, therefore, covers the appropriate change to Clause 108(6). With that slightly complicated and, I hope, not too lengthy explanation, I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness: As we suspected, these amendments are designed to fulfil what the noble Lord thought was the commitment made by the Government in another place during the passage of the LRT Bill in 1983–84 to amend legislation to give the transport consumer bodies a statutory role in relation both to fares and to reductions in BR services. While I would be very quick to reassure the Committee that it remains our firm intention to fulfil that commitment, these amendments do not, and I believe that there are good reasons why they are inappropriate. Our commitment was to establish a role on "the structure and relativities of fares". These amendments give the consumer bodies a statutory role which would enable them to comment on fare levels. That is something that was not our intention.
In setting objectives for the Railways Board in 1983 and for LRT in 1984, we made clear that responsibility for determining fare levels was a matter for the boards of those industries. We do not want to include on the statute book any provisions which cloud the responsibility that BR and LRT have to determine fare levels, or which open the way to direct ministerial intervention in the matter of fares or service levels. These are, quite properly, management decisions for the board within the framework of objectives set by the Government. To extend the scope of the consumer bodies' remit in this way would require a rather different and much more substantial set of amendments than these simple deletions of the existing statutory exclusions.
The Bill is primarily about bus services, and, as we know, it is already a very long and complex Bill. I hope that the Committee will agree that it would be wrong for extra ideas of this kind to be included. I believe that there is a limit to the number of policy areas, however worthy, which we can include, even policy areas which are linked in some way to provisions already in the Bill. I should add that in practice the existing statutory exclusions are not preventing the transport consumer bodies from making a contribution either in the matter of fares or in the matter of BR service levels.
In practice, the TUCCs, which I referred to earlier, and the LRPC already comment on BR service reductions, and both BR and LRT have agreed to consult with the TUCCs informally before implementing fares increases. So this already takes place at the moment. Indeed, I know that in drawing up their new simplified fares structure British Rail drew on recommendations and advice from the consumer bodies. So, while I repeat that it is our intention to regularise these informal arrangements, I do not feel that the need to do so is so urgent as to justify Government amendments to this Bill at this stage. I trust your Lordships will agree that we should await a more appropriate legislative opportunity.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: The question really is when that is going to come. This is the second time we have been fobbed off with a statement like that. The first was on the London Regional Transport Bill last year, and now it is on the Transport Bill this year. Assuming that we have a transport Bill every year, presumably we shall be fobbed off again next year if the Government are not bringing forward a wider nationalised industries Bill.
I shall have to read what the noble Earl has said, but some points appear to be in complete contradiction to the information I have been given by some of these consultative committees. Indeed, at one point it seeemed to contradict what the honourable lady Mrs. Lynda Chalker said in another place in reply to my honourable friend the Member for Bermondsey. We seem to be continually being fobbed off in this matter, and I must say this is an area of considerable concern to people whose duty to the public is to represent their views, particularly in relation to British Rail. The fact that this is a buses Bill does not preclude us from dealing with certain matters relating to British Rail where those matters overlap. Nevertheless, it is just after quarter past 10, and I will go away and read what has been said. I cannot help feeling that this is something we must certainly come back to at Report stage. Having said that, I beg your Lordships' leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 262B:
Page 108, line 25, leave out (" "or" (in the third place where it occurs) ") and insert (" "and to the Bus Company" ")
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 262B and at the same time to speak to Amendment No. 275ZA.
Amendment No. 275ZA: Schedule 7, page 151, line 11, column 3, leave out (" "or" (in the third place where it occurs) ") and insert (" "and to the Bus Company" ")
These are amendments designed simply to correct technical imperfections. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 263:
[Printed earlier: col. 116.]
The noble Earl said: I beg to move this amendment. I spoke to it with Amendment No. 256.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 263):
Page 108, line 38, leave out ("section") and insert ("sections 104 to").
[Amendment No. 263A not moved.]
Clause 108, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 109 agreed to.
Clause 110 [Application of sections 52 and 56 of the 1981 Act]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 264:
Page 109, line 21, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
(" (a) applications for the registration of services under section 6 of this Act and for the variation of such registrations;")
The noble Lord said: This is a minor tidying up amendment, designed to ensure that the registration system works smoothly. Clause 110 confers a power on the Secretary of State to prescribe fees to be charged by the traffic commissioners for registrations and variations. The amendment relates this power to applications for registrations and variations. The fees therefore must be enclosed with the application or the application is not proceeded with. The traffic area officers will therefore not have to spend valuable time chasing late papers and collecting debts. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 110, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 111 and 112 agreed to.
Lord Teviot Lord Teviot moved Amendment No. 264ZA:
After Clause 112, insert the following new clause:a
("Timing of re-organisations.
. It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State so to exercise the powers conferred upon him by this Act as to procure that—

(a) all directions required to be given under section 48(5) of this Act shall have been given and compliance therewith secured in so far as they relate to the promotion of sustained and fair competition both between companies which are part of the National Bus Company or former companies of the National Bus Company and between any such companies and other persons engaged in providing bus services or in carrying on any activities carried on in connection with providing bus services;

(b) a scheme under section 58(7) and an order under section 59(5) of this Act shall have come into force in relation to every Passenger Transport Executive;

(c) for every council operating a bus undertaking within the meaning of section 62(2) of this Act, the council or (as the case may be) each of the councils shall have formed (whether alone or jointly with any other council operating a bus undertaking) one or more companies pursuant to section 63 of this Act and there shall have been approved and come into force—

(i) a scheme within the meaning of section 64 of this Act; or

(ii) an order within the meaning of section 65 of this Act; or

(iii) a scheme within the meaning of section 64 of this Act and an Order within the meaning of section 65 of this Act where the Council's bus undertaking forms part of a joint undertaking and separate activities are carried on by the council within the meaning of section 64(2) of this Act;

not later than 31st May 1986.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 264ZA. It will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that this amendment is similar to the very first amendment which was debated in the Committee and which was proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. As before, I have had the benefit of studying the report and the reply given by my noble friend Lord Belstead. Having done this, I remain concerned that in order to meet the Government's own requirements of fair competition it is necessary that basic structural reforms in the public sector should first have taken place. However, I do not know that this amendment seeks to delay the introduction of deregulation; rather it sets a date by which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will have taken the necessary steps to implement his own policy. It is his policy; and he cannot have it both ways.
It is a major objective of this Bill to permit free and fair competition between bus operators. It is the Government who have decided that a reorganisation of the public sector is necessary to ensure that

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competition is fair. My right honourable friend has stressed that these changes need to have taken place before deregulation can be effective. Indeed, the White Paper on Buses specifically states:
"The Secretary of State has also concluded that fair competition can only be achieved on deregulation if the separation of district councils and PTE bus operators from their parent authority and their incorporation into companies and the reorganisation of NBC companies to compete fairly, has been completed.
I do not know whether your Lordships would like me to read that again——
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Teviot: That sounds very indigestible, but that is what my right honourable friend has said. The Transport Bill enacts this provision which is fundamental to the fairness of competition.
We have now reached the amendments to Schedule 5, tabled by my noble friend Lord Belstead. One looks forward to many words of wisdom on that. Because of those amendments, when we consider the Bill at Report stage the date of 31st May 1986 which is written into my amendment may itself require to be amended. However, in this Committee, it is the principle upon which we must decide. For the moment let me say that I chose 31st May 1986 as the appropriate date for the completion of the necessary action by the Secretary of State because this, in the Bill as drafted, is the last day before registration of services will begin. One is not necessarily wedded to this particular date although it seems to be an appropriate one. However, as the Bill is to be amended by the Government we shall have to think again. Therefore, I ask your Lordships to accept this amendment, on the understanding that it may be appropriate to amend the effective date at a later stage.
At this very late stage, on the sixth day of debate, various noble Lords have spoken quite a lot. If they wish to sally forth I shall be delighted to hear them, and I am sure that my noble friend will answer. I beg to move.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My noble friend has explained with great clarity that if the Bill is to work we must have an early date by which NBC subsidiaries are in the form in which they will be competing fairly after deregulation, and by which the PTE and municipal undertakings will have been transferred to companies. I think I should try to deal first with the difficulties I see in my noble friend's suggestion that we should include a particular date, 31st May, in the Bill, although my noble friend said he was not absolutely wedded to that date. I shall then turn to the points which he made about the relationship between his amendment and the transitional provision of Schedule 5.
As my noble friend has pointed out, we debated some weeks ago now a very similar amendment to Clause 1, and no doubt later on this evening we shall be debating further the issue of the dates. As we said then, we do not think that we could amend the Bill in the way suggested here. The Government have made clear that they intend to ensure that NBC's local companies will be competing fairly with each other and with other operators by deregulation day. They have also made clear that they fully intend by the same
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date to approve the schemes which will establish public transport companies.
But I must ask your Lordships whether it would be practical to put a deadline in the Bill by which all this must be completed. What, for example, would its effect be if an unforeseen problem arose in one particular case, so that a transfer from one municipal undertaking could not quite be effected? It might genuinely be impossible to comply properly with the amendment. I do not think that we should accept that the transfer should in those circumstances be hurriedly completed in order to comply with the amendment.
I must also say that the deadline of 31st May suggested by my noble friend would not be practical. A good deal of progress must of course be made by then. In the case of NBC my right honourable friend will have received disposal proposals from the company within three months of coming into force, which include a statement of how their main objective and duties under new Clause 48 are to be implemented. As for the directions which may be given by the Secretary of State under Clause 48(5), this is very much a reserve power which may never be used, but must, if it is to make any sense, be available to the Secretary of State throughout the disposal period. In the case of PTE and municipal undertakings, there will no doubt be some need for discussion with authorities about the issues raised by their proposals, if the transfer is to work properly, I do not believe it is realistic to expect all this work to be completed by May; nor do I think it necessary. as I shall try to explain.
As regards the way in which these "reorganisations" would interact with the transition to deregulation, I think it would be wrong of us to accept that the difficulties are too great. I fully accept that these public sector operators will need to have a sound estimate of their future structure and costs as a company if they are to participate fully and—just as important—fairly in the tendering process. But the Government do not accept that every detail of the reorganisations has to be complete in order for them to do so.
In the case of NBC, as I have said, the company will have submitted its disposal programme within three months of that clause coming into force and will have substantially completed restructuring in preparation for deregulation; and in the case of PTE and municipal undertakings, the Government have made clear that they will require the schemes to transfer properties, rights and liabilities to their companies to be submitted by 1st March. We shall be consulting authorities shortly on draft advice to help them do that job. So it is not as if these undertakings will have nothing to go on. In practice, they will have firm proposals for the shape of their companies as soon as March, and that will be an adequate basis for them to prepare tenders and registrations.
In short, I think the business of reorganisation is bound to be interlocked with the transition. We should have very odd proposals for restructuring if it were not. I think the proposed timetable put forward by the Government is the best practical solution, and, therefore, I hope that my noble friend will think again before pressing his amendment.
Lord Shepherd: I am not entirely wedded to the amendment that has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot. But I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, what he means by the "disposal programme" of the NBC companies. My understanding is that the NBC companies will remain within the National Bus Company, that they will be competing with each other—but certainly not in the time-scale that we are now discussing—and that there will be a disposal programme into the private sector. What did the noble Lord mean by a disposal programme?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: Under Clause 47(3) they will have to have submitted a disposal programme. But that does not mean to say that they will actually have to have disposed of the separate companies. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, pointed out, they will be expected to compete fairly one with another and to operate as if they were apart, even if they are not.
10.30 p.m.
Lord Shepherd: So what the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, said in terms of the disposal programme is not exactly appropriate to the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, moved. The noble Lord is quite right. Under the relevant clause the companies shall be free and able to compete with each other and with all other organisations.
I have a touch of anxiety about the date of the Bill. I think that the usefulness of the amendment is that the noble Lord speaking for the Government cannot say "Yea" or "Nay" in regard to this. Yet later on, no doubt, they will be very firm in terms of deregulation. This amendment is crucial to deregulation and to fair trading between all the various public organisations once they are set free under the Bill. The Minister is not able to give a specific date as to when that could be achieved, yet I have no doubt that later on he will be very specific in terms of the date for deregulation. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, that I think I understand the Government's anxiety and difficulty in either accepting the amendment or being critical of it. What we ought to do—I hope the noble Lord will agree—having listened very carefully to what the noble Lord the Minister has had to say, is to see how we can use it on the major debate which is bound to arise under Schedule 5. I do not know whether the noble Lord will agree with that, but that seems to me the best procedure.
Lord Sandford: Perhaps I may endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has just said. The question of dates and whether we have them in the Bill and how firm they are is a topic better discussed when we come to Schedule 5.
Lord Teviot: I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. When we come to Schedule 5 I might come in on one or two points, but it will not be with conviction.
My noble friend Lord Brabazon answered the amendment very clearly. I was not quite sure which algebraic equation it was. I did not get very far on that subject, only as far as the Common Entrance. However, the comments he made will be studied. The Bus and Coach Council working party have watched the proceedings before your Lordships and they felt
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that this was a very worthwhile amendment. My noble friend has given his views and when we come back to this on Report we shall have three days to consider a great many points. An immense number of improvements have to be made to the Bill. One thing about the Bill is that many noble Lords have expressed all sorts of opinions. I do not think that anyone has tried to undermine the Bill. We have tried to make a great success of it. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 113 [Transfer schemes]:
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 264A:
[Printed 18/7/85; col. 978.]
The noble Earl said: I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 211CN. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 264A):
Page 111, line 12, leave out ("and") and insert ("or").
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 264B:
[Printed 18/7/85; col. 935.]
The noble Earl said: This amendment is consequential on Amendment No. 185A. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 264B):
Page 111, line 15, leave out ("a") and insert ("the whole or any").
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendments Nos. 264C to 264F:
[Printed 18/7/85; col. 987.]
The noble Earl said: These amendments are consequential upon Amendment No. 211CN, to which I have already spoken. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendments (Nos. 264C to 264F):
Page 111, line 17, at beginning insert ("(or partly in one way and partly in the other)")
Page 111, line 19, at end insert ("(including in particular, but without prejudice to the generality of that, provision with respect to the consideration to be provided by the transferee for any transfer under the scheme)")
Page 111, line 20, leave out ("subsection (4) below") and insert ("the following provisions of this section")
Page 111, line 34, at end insert—
("(5) The Secretary of State may by order make modifications in Schedule 4 for the purposes of its application to transfers under section 50(4), 58(7), 60(10) or 64(7) of this Act.")
Clause 113, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 114 to 119 agreed to.
Clause 120 [General interpretation]:
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 264G:
[Printed 18/7/85; col. 978.]
The noble Earl said: I spoke to this amendment together with Amendment No. 211 CM. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 264GJ:
Page 117, line 12, at end insert—
(" "securities", in relation to a body corporate, means any shares, stock, debentures, debenture stock, and any other security of a similar nature, of the body corporate;").
Clause 120, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 121 [Expenses and receipts]:
[Amendment No. 265 not moved.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 265A:
[Printed earlier: col. 23.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment was spoken to with Amendment No. 253H. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 265A):
Page 118, line 39, leave out ("95") and insert ("(Grants for establishment, etc., of rural passenger services in Wales and Scotland), (Transitional rural bus grants)").
Clause 121, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 122 [Transitional provisions, savings, amendments, repeals and revocation]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 266:
Page 119, line 16, after ("Act") insert ("(which include certain provisions which are already spent)").
The noble Lord said: This is a technical amendment which recognises that Schedule 7 includes some repeals—that in Amendment No. 279 is one—which are not strictly consequential on anything in this Bill but which are of provisions which are already spent; Amendment No. 279 being consequential on the Metropolitan Traffic Area (Transfer of Functions) Order 1984. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 122, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Transitional provisions and savings]:
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 266A:
Page 137, line 38, leave out ("30") and insert ("27").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 266A and will speak also to Amendments Nos. 267A, 268ZA, 268ZB, 268ZC, 268ZD, 268B, 268C and 281.
Amendment No. 267A: Page 138, line 1, leave out sub-paragraph (1).
Amendment No. 268ZA: Page 139, line 24, leave out ("9") and insert ("9C").
Amendment No. 268ZB: Page 139, line 27, leave out from beginning to ("and") in line 30 and insert—

(" "relevant authority", in relation to a local service, means any Passenger Transport Executive or county, regional or islands council within whose area there will be a stopping place for the service;

"road service licence" has the same meaning as in the 1981 Act;").

Amendment No. 268ZC: Page 139, line 32, at end insert—
("(2) Section 118(3) of this Act shall not apply to any regulations made under paragraphs 7 to 9B below.
(3) For the purposes of paragaph 8 below, a local service is improved if, but only if, there is any increase in—

(a) the frequency of the service;

126

(b) the length of its route;

(c) the number of stopping places for the service; or

(d) the number of passengers which can be carried by the service taken as a whole.".

Amendment No. 268ZD: Page 139, line 33, leave out paragraphs 7, 8, 9 and insert—
("7.—(1) Where an application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service falls within one of the Cases mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) below—

(a) the traffic commissioner to whom the application is made shall register those particulars;

(b) they shall be deemed to have been registered with him under section 6 of this Act; and

(c) the period of notice (mentioned in section 6) in relation to that registration shall be deemed to have expired.

(2) The Cases are—
CASE A
Where—

(a) the application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service is received by the traffic commissioner at any time before 1st March 1986; and

(b) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

CASE B
Where—

(a) the application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service is received by the traffic commissioner at any time after the grant of the licence mentioned in paragraph (b) below but before 17th August 1986;

(b) a road service licence has been granted for that service at any time after 28th February 1986; and

(c) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

CASE C
Where—

(a) the application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service is received by the traffic commissioner at any time during the period beginning with 1st March 1986 and ending with 16th August 1986;

(b) the particulars of the service are the same as those of a trial area service; and

(c) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

In this Case "trial area service" means a local service provided in a trial area (as defined by section 38 of the 1981 Act) and in respect of which the requirements of section 40 of that Act (duty to publish particulars of services in trial areas) have been satisfied.
CASE D
Where—

(a) the application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service is received by the traffic commissioner at any time during the period beginning with 1st March 1986 and ending with 27th September 1986;

(b) the application is supported in writing, in accordance with sub-paragraph (3) below, by an authority responsible for expenditure on public passenger transport services (as defined for Part V of this Act by section 82(7)); and

(c) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

(3) An authority of the kind mentioned in paragraph (b) of Case D shall give their support to an application in accordance with this sub-paragraph if, but only if, the local service in question is one—

(a) which the operator has contracted with that authority to operate under an agreement providing for service subsidies; or

(b) for the provision of which that authority have issued an invitation to tender under section 83 of this Act and for which the person applying for registration of the particulars of the service has submitted a tender to provide the service without subsidy.

Variation and cancellation of registrations during transitional period
8.—(1) Where the prescribed particulars of a local service have been registered with a traffic commissioner under paragraph 7 above and an application is made to him for the variation or cancellation of the registration, he shall vary or (as the case may be) cancel the registration if he is satisfied that the application falls within one of the Cases mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) below.
(2) The Cases are—
CASE 1
Where—

(a) the application is made by the operator of the service to which the registration relates;

(b) the application is received by the traffic commissioner at any time before 1st March 1986; and

(c) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

CASE 2
Where—

(a) the application is made by the operator of the service to which the registration relates;

(b) the application is received by the traffic commissioner at any time during the period beginning with 1st March 1986 and ending with 30th June 1986;

(c) the application is supported in writing, in accordance with sub-paragraph (3) below, by each relevant authority; and

(d) in the case of an application for variation, a service operated in accordance with the particulars as proposed to be varied would not amount to a service improved by comparison with a service operated in accordance with the particulars as registered.

Where a relevant authority have refused to support the application but the traffic commissioner is of the opinion that no such authority acting reasonably would have refused to support it he may, at the request of the applicant, proceed as if paragraph (c) of this Case were omitted.
CASE 3
Where the application—

(a) is for the variation of the registered particulars;

(b) is made by the operator of the service to which the registration relates;

(c) is received by the traffic commissioner at any time during the period beginning with 1st March 1986 and ending with 27th September 1986; and

(d) is supported in writing, in accordance with sub-paragraph (4) below, by each relevant authority.

(3) Where a relevant authority are asked by the operator of a local service to provide written support, in accordance with this sub-paragraph, for an application for the variation or cancellation of the registration of the prescribed particulars of the service, the authority shall do so if, but only if, they are satisfied—

(a) that any demand which would have been met by a service operated in accordance with the registered particulars would be met—

(i) by a service operated in accordance with the particulars as proposed to be varied; or

(ii) by another service the particulars of which have been registered under paragraph 7 above; or

(b) that there has been a change of circumstances—

(i) which seriously impairs the ability of the operator of the service to operate it in accordance with the registered particulars; and

(ii) which could not reasonably have been foreseen by him.

(4) Where a relevant authority are asked by the operator of a local service to provide written support, in accordance with this sub-paragraph, for an application for the variation of the registration of the prescribed particulars of the service, the authority may do so if they are satisfied—

(a) that a variation of the particulars of the service is desirable in the interests of producing a pattern of service which is
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better suited to meeting the public transport requirements of their area; and

(b) where a service operated in accordance with the particulars as proposed to be varied would amount to a service improved by comparison with a service operated in accordance with the particulars as registered, that any demand met by the improvement to the service could not be met by any other local service if the improvement were not made.

Duty to notify relevant authorities of applications for registrations etc.
9.—(1) Any person making an application which falls within one of the Cases mentioned in paragraph 7 above shall—

(a) notify each relevant authority of the application and of the particulars to be registered; and

(b) furnish each such authority with such further information as may be specified.

(2) Any person making an application which falls within one of the Cases mentioned in paragraph 8 above shall—

(a) notify each relevant authority of the application and, in the case of an application for the variation of registered particulars, of the variation to be registered; and

(b) furnish each such authority with such further information as may be specified.

Publication of information by traffic commissioner
9A.—(1) Each traffic commissioner shall publish—

(a) the particulars of local services registered with him in response to applications falling within any of the Cases mentioned in paragraphs 7 and 8 above; and

(b) details of any such registrations which are cancelled in response to applications falling within any of the Cases mentioned in paragraph 8 above.

(2) The particulars registered with a traffic commissioner in response to applications falling within Case A in paragraph 7 above, or Case 1 in paragraph 8 above, shall be published—

(a) separately from the other particulars which he is required to publish by sub-paragraph (1) above; and

(b) before 1st April 1986.

(3) Where a traffic commissioner is required by sub-paragraph (1) above to publish any particulars of a local service, he shall send those particulars to any Passenger Transport Executive, district council in England and Wales or county, regional or islands council in whose area lies any part of the route of the service.
School buses
9B.—(1) For the purpose of ensuring that in the school year beginning in 1986 satisfactory provision can be made for transporting those pupils for whom a local education authority (or, in Scotland, an education authority) are under a duty to provide transport, the Secretary of State may by regulations make provision (including provision modifying this Schedule) for enabling approved local services to be operated during the transitional period without road service licences.
(2) In this paragraph "approved", in relation to a local service, means approved by the traffic commissioner for the traffic area in which the service is to be provided.
Continuation of existing road service licences
9C. A road service licence (other than one for a service with one or more stopping places in London) which is in force when this Act is passed but which would otherwise expire before 27th September 1986 shall, unless previously revoked, continue in force to the end of that day.").
Amendment No. 268B: Page 141, line 34, leave out paragraph 12.
Amendment No. 268C: Page 143, line 12, leave out ("30th") and insert ("27th").
Amendment No. 281: Clause 123, page 119, line 22, after ("section") insert ("and paragraph 9C of Schedule 5 to this Act").
These amendments are all consequential. I hope that many of your Lordships will have seen the revised note on this schedule which has been in the Printed

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Paper Office, explaining in detail how these amendments will change the transitional provisions in Schedule 5. Amendments Nos. 266A, 267A and 268C will adjust slightly the dates for the end of the transitional period, from 30th September to 27th September, so that it will fall at the end of the week rather than on a weekday. We received many representations suggesting that such would be more convenient for the public and for the industry, and the amendments are in response to them.
The main change we are seeking to make, by Amendments Nos. 268A, 268ZA, 268ZB, 268ZCand 268ZD, is to drop from Schedule 5 the provisions requiring the notification of services in the transitional period. Under those provisions operators would have been required to notify passenger transport executives and county councils early in 1986 of the services they intended to register, to run on deregulation. Notification was intended to inform PTEs and county councils, at the earliest point, of operators' commercial networks so that the authorities could start planning their subsidised services in time for all the services—both commercial and noncommercial—to be running from the end of September 1986.
However, notification did not carry with it the commitment from operators that they would in fact operate the services notified during the transitional period. We received many representations from local authorities and others that the information they would receive under the notification procedure would not have been sufficiently reliable to be a basis for their planning. So instead of notification, what our amendments do is to require operators to register their commercial services by the end of February 1986. That will then give authorities firm information about the services which will be operated on deregulation and it will allow a period of some six to seven months for authorities to organise the tendering for the noncommercial services they wish to secure in addition to the commercial ones.
Of course, this will commit operators long in advance of deregulation day at the end of September. Such a long commitment could cause some difficulties; adustments may be needed, circumstances may change. For that reason new paragraph 8 in Amendment No. 2682D, contains provisions which allow operators to withdraw or vary their registrations during the transitional period. I should stress, however, that this only allows a limited degree of flexibility to operators to cancel or reduce the level of service registrations where there are special circumstances to justify it: notably where there has been a change of circumstance which the operator could not have reasonably foreseen or where demand will still be met by the operator's own service or another service. That will allow for withdrawal where a number of operators have registered duplicating services. In all but one instance, to be found at the top of page 15 of the Marshalled List, variations would be subject to the approval of the relevant local authority—that is, the PTE, county, regional or islands council. It also enables authorities to negotiate changes with operators to produce a better pattern of services where this would not adversely affect other registered commercial services.
That is the meat of the amendments. Perhaps I may just add that your Lordships will wish to note that Amendment No. 268ZD honours the commitment I gave to the Committee in an earlier sitting by requiring operators who apply for a registration, or a variation or cancellation of a registration, also to notify directly each relevant authority of the details and to give those same authorities such further information as may be specified. In addition, new paragraph 9A will also require the traffic commissioner to publish registrations (and variations and cancellations) and to send the particulars to the appropriate local authorities.
The purpose of new paragraph 9B is to allow some flexibility for the traffic commissioner, responding to a local difficulty, to allow services to operate without road service licences before deregulation day for the purpose of ensuring satisfactory provision for transporting pupils to school in the school year beginning 1986. This provision honours a commitment which my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary gave in another place to consider the question of school services.
I think that that covers the main issues which are set out in these amendments. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation of these complex amendments and I am grateful to him for notifying me on Friday of the revised Notes on Clauses which referred to them so that I was able to see them when I arrived earlier today.
But this is further evidence, if it were needed, that the Government are deeply dissatisfied with the Bill, deeply dissatisfied with the ability of the Bill to carry out their objectives and deeply uncertain about whether the Bill will, in fact, achieve those objectives.
This has been a history of shifting goalposts. Earlier we had substantial changes proposed by the Government about bus stations. Substantial changes were proposed on concessionary fares. As a result of a debate on pensions, where the Government Front Bench was almost alone in its defence of the provisions of the Bill, the Government were forced to avoid a Division by virtually promising a recommital into Committee unless agreement could be reached with insurance companies about the continuation of the pension rights of those working on the buses. Now, finally, we have substantial changes to a most important element of the Bill—the transition of deregulation.
10.45 p.m.
It is true that what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, says is quite correct. At the first meeting of the Committee he promised that these amendments would be put forward and in three or four sentences he gave an outline of what they would contain. It is also true that the amendments were tabled on 17th July. I do not want to take a point of procedure, but those of us who have to do this as amateurs, without being paid for our work and having to do it in addition to our existing responsibilities, find it impossible to put together complex amendments such as this to the existing schedule when we only receive (or I only received) the Notes on Clauses which seek to explain it

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just a few hours before the debate actually takes place. Under those circumstances it is procedurally impossible for this Committee to act as a revising Chamber, as it ought to.
I turn now to the content of the amendments and the proposals which the Government have made. I say at once that I accept that the amendments are made in good faith, that they are intended to respond to pressure which the Government have received, and that they are intended in particular to make good undertakings which were given in another place to honourable and right honourable friends. Yet I must seriously question whether the complex, Byzantine series of amendments that we have now, with four different cases affecting the time at which registration must be made and three different cases illustrating the variety of ways in which amendments may be varied or cancelled, in fact achieve the objectives of the Government.
As the noble Lord stated a few minutes ago, the idea is that the operators shall be required to register their proposed services by 28th February in order that the traffic commissioner and the local authority will have adequate time to consider them and to consider what is required of the tendering procedure between the end of February and the end of September. It is a laudable intention. But what assurance is there in fact that operators will be able or willing to register their services in the way in which it is proposed? In the first place, it will be extremely difficult for the PTEs, the district councils and the ex-National Bus Company operations to get their act together by the end of February. After all, the new PTAs have not actually been formed yet. All this is referred to in Clause 58.
There are huge procedural changes taking place with the formation of initial companies, the disposal of the operations of the existing municipal services, and so on. All these activities are taking place in the period between Royal Assent, to be given at the beginning of November, and the end of February, when registration is supposed to take place. That is for those who would like to register their services and yet, as I say, will find it difficult to do so. I cannot help thinking that there are a number of operators who will seek every loophole that they can find in these amendments and in this schedule so as not to register their services until the very last minute.
Let us take Cases B, C and D which are provided for in the new paragraph 7 of the schedule. The key is that these cases apply to those operators who do not have a road service licence before the 1st March. What is to prevent an operator from surrendering or giving notice of surrendering his road service licence and applying on the 1st March or afterwards for a new road service licence which is slightly different? He then becomes eligible under one or other of the cases subsequent to Case A to avoid registration until something like the middle of August, and all the time which is to be gained by the authorities and by the traffic commissioner will actually be lost. There are too many loopholes in the amendments as they are now. I suspect that they will have to be negotiated and amended again at Report stage if there is not to be a tremendous rush at the end of the transition period.
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Let us look at the provisions on variation. What is interesting about this is the role—to which the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, referred a few minutes ago—of the responsibilities of local authorities at new paragraph 8(4). The schedule refers to the fact that it is desirable that there should be a pattern of service better suited to meeting the public transport requirements of the area. This is exactly the kind of condition that we were trying to put into the Bill at Clause 107 and which was rejected out of hand by the Government.
All the time, those who have been seeking to amend the Bill have been seeking to improve the coordination between local authorities and the public transport operators. I shall not say we have been reviled but we certainly have been treated with the minimum of courtesy and consideration when we have tabled amendments of that kind, and it has been claimed that we have been obstructing the purposes of the Bill. Yet, when we come to the last minute of the last day of the Committee stage, here are the Government putting in exactly that kind of amendment.
We were told on the first day of the Committee by the noble Lord himelf about the period for calm consideration, the initial period after the end of the transition period. That indeed was in the schedule as it was originally presented to your Lordships' Chamber and brought from another place. That initial period has disappeared from the face of the Bill. All that we have in its place is a statement in the Notes on Clauses that regulations will be brought under Clause 6 to ensure that there is this gap after 27th September during which no new registrations will be allowed. Why has it been taken off the face of the Bill? If it was so important for the noble Lord to refer to it on the first day of Committee, what has happened to it now?
Throughout this Bill, with very considerable patience and very considerable difficulty, in view of the shifting nature of the Bill, we have been seeking to do three things: we have been seeking to secure realistic timetables for the Bill; we have been seeking to secure adequate co-operation between local authorities and the operators; and we have been seeking to protect all the parties concerned, the operators, the local authorities, above all, the passengers, but also the Government, from the very high risks involved in leaping forward in several directions at once.
We shall not be moving the series of amendments which are down in our names this evening, partly because of the hour and partly because we think that they will require very much greater consideration at a later stage. However, the basis on which the thinking behind these amendments rests is still sound. It is necessary that one should allow the new companies which will have to be created to be formed first before the registration process starts. It is necessary that there should be adequate provision for the units to be formed from the National Bus Company.
I hesitate to make the point because it has been made so often before and so often misunderstood but it is necessary that consideration should be given to the school year. The important point in relation to the school year is not that the routes should be known at

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the beginning of the first term of the school year; it is that they should be known when parents are making their choices of schools, which is more like Easter time rather than at the end of September. By the end of September they have already chosen the schools to which they are going to send their children at five or 11, and changes in the availability of bus services will be enormously disruptive at that time.
It is for those reasons that we think that a delay of six months, which is the content of our amendments, is right for this schedule. The reason is because we think it will be a protection for passengers and operators and, above all, a protection for Government from the risk they are running.
I have said that I am not going to move these amendments and I have explained why it is that those of us who are trying to act responsibly as a revising Chamber have had difficulties. I would ask the noble Lord directly not just whether he would consider a full discussion at Report stage, because he cannot avoid that, but also whether he would consider recommitting this part of the Bill, Schedule 5, to the Committee procedure at the time we go into Report. I believe that I could give the undertaking that we, on our side, would not do anything that would unnecessarily delay the legislation. We believe that the Committee procedure is the proper one for consideration. We believe that an agreement by the Government to recommit now would achieve widespread recognition and gratitude and would improve the quality of the debate in your Lordships' Committee.
Lord Shepherd: My noble friend Lord McIntosh spoke in regard to Amendment No. 267ZA and said that it was not his intention to move it. I have an amendment before that. It was always open to me to move it. I should like to address a few remarks to the Deputy Leader of your Lordships' House, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. I believe that the leadership of your Lordships' House has a duty to the House, whether it is sitting as the House as a whole or in Committee. It is not there solely to get Government legislation through.
Here we are, at five minutes to 11, at a critical part of the Bill. This has nothing to do with politics or whether or not we agree with the principle of the Bill. There is not much between us in terms of whether the Bill, if implemented, contains within it the noble Lord's amendment, my amendment or my noble friend's amendment. All that is at issue is a matter of six months. But that is crucial in terms of the administration and the implementation of all the things within the Bill and what is required to be done.
Here we are, with the House of Commons already up, and following a debate lasting three hours on matters that have nothing to do with the Transport Bill—matters that I would suggest to the Deputy Leader of the House, if I could have his attention for a moment, it was never conceived (was it?) would take place during breaks in a Committee stage of a Bill. We had breaks in Committee stage in the early days, when your Lordships' House was relatively small, in order that Ministers and those who were participating could have a break. It was never then conceived that major legislation would be taken during that period.
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What has happened today is, I believe, a gross development of an understanding of how we should use this particular break. I think that it was an abuse. Yet here we are, three hours later, due to the break, having to take a crucial schedule to the Bill. If we had a Division, I do not know whether we could get a satisfactory result. I wonder whether the Deputy Leader—I address this specifically to him on those terms—would be willing to respond to the suggestion made by my noble friend. It was a suggestion that was not in any way seeking to create difficulty for the Government, but rather to enable us to debate the matter. The proposal was that Schedule 5 should be recommitted so that when we come back there can be free and frank discussion.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, as Deputy Leader of the House, will feel that it would be in the interests of the Committee and the House itself that this very important subject should be debated at a different time and at a different period. I know that the Minister will be under pressure. I use that phrase quite deliberately because he is the Minister in charge of the Bill. But he is also Deputy Leader of the House. He is acting as the Leader of the House. I hope he will think that this is a matter which, in the interests of this Committee as a revising Chamber, ought to be recommitted and reconsidered with, as my noble friend has said, a full understanding that there will be no undue delay when we take it in October. At least this crucial part of the Bill could be well and truly considered and perhaps at the end of the day we may have found a better solution than that which is now in the Bill.
11 p.m.
Lord Sandford: I would not want to join the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, in criticising my noble friend on the Front Bench for showing all the flexibility that is represented in the changes made to Schedule 5. I think that we want all the flexibility that we can wring out of the Government in a Bill of this kind, especially in Schedule 5, and I welcome the flexibility that we have obtained so far.
My noble friend on the Front Bench chided my noble friend Lord Teviot when he was moving his amendment just now for putting in firm dates. Now the Government propose amendments spattered all over with dates. Of course, in the end we must have dates, but at this stage I would suggest that they are all extremely tentative and that is the way that they should be considered, not excluding D-Day itself.
These changes with which we are now faced were effected on 17th June, and the purpose of the changes has been revealed to us only today in the Notes on Clauses, particularly in paragraph 3 of the Notes on Clauses where the thinking behind them is set out. By no stretch of the imagination does that allow for an informed debate; even if we were starting at three o'clock in the afternoon we would not be able to have an informed debate because there has been no opportunity to ascertain from those concerned what the effect of these changes upon them is apprehended to be.

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The concerns so far expressed about the Bill, and the transitional stages in particular, to which my noble friend and his colleagues have responded, are based upon problems that are apprehended as people peer into the unknown and try to guess what is in store. However, I submit to the Committee that they are nothing as compared to the concerns yet to be expressed which will be based upon problems actually encountered.
Therefore, those two reasons—the fact that we cannot possibly have an informed debate now, even if we were all prepared to go on until breakfast-time, coupled with the fact that the problems which will affect the choice of programme and dates have yet to emerge—lead me very strongly to support the suggestion that when we return in October Schedule 5 must be recommitted. I hope that my noble friend will agree to that. If he does not, I am afraid that I have to say that I shall certainly be prepared to move such a Motion. However, I hope that he will agree because the case for recommitting Schedule 5 is absolutely unanswerable.
Lord Belstead: Before I deal with the procedural points which the noble Lords, Lord Shepherd and Lord McIntosh, and now my noble friend Lord Sandford have put to me, perhaps I may say a few words about the merits of the case, because although the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, was good enough to say that he would not move what I imagine is Amendment No. 267ZA, the noble Lord naturally and helpfully, if I may say so, briefly referred to the case for Amendment No. 267ZA. Equally briefly, if your Lordships will forgive me, I should like to say a few words about the merits of the case.
I firmly believe that the very worst thing that we could do would be to drag out the period before deregulation any longer than is absolutely necessary. I do not believe operators want to wait a minute longer than necessary to run their new commercial services, or to hear the results of their tenders, with staff and customers uncertain of the future. No one would pretend that this is going to be an easy period of transition. It is not going to be. So let us with a sensible timespan at least make it as brief as possible.
The provisions in Schedule 5 which I have brought forward today were arrived at after a consultation exercise which the Department of Transport conducted last autumn, and after further representations received since the publication of the Bill we have brought forward this group of amendments. From the correspondence we have received it is evident that many of the initial fears about the timing have been calmed as people have become familiar with the new way in which they will be operating, have had more opportunity to discuss options and methods with each other, and have begun planning and putting into effect the necessary changes.
The message from the counties is not that the process is unachievable. On the contary, it is now clear that some counties are hoping to get on with tendering even faster than the Bill would require. The only difficulty that has been brought certainly to my attention is that the PTEs have in some cases suggested that there could be difficulty in meeting the deadline
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for tendering by the end of September so far as they are concerned.
I accept, in recalling that to your Lordships, that the task for tendering in the PTE areas is going to be great, but the PTEs are large organisations, as many of your Lordships know better that I do. They are not without expertise or staff. Indeed they have large staffs. It is not a question for them of starting up completely new organisations, nor are we asking them to tackle an activity with which they are not already familiar.
That is really all I want to say about the merits of trying, as the Government amendments do, to keep the transitional period as brief as is reasonable, and why I feel that Amendment No. 267, if it had been moved, was one that the Government would have had to resist.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I want to come back on the question of consultation and the agreement of the counties. I do not have the papers in front of me but I distinctly recall a memorandum from the Association of County Councils saying that it wanted a delay of at least three months. I know that the non-shire counties, the metropolitan consortium of non-shire counties, support a delay of approximately six months. I know that this is true also of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the PTEs group. I wonder whether the noble Lord and we are talking to the same people. I should be grateful to have further evidence of the opinions the noble Lord has had expressed to the Department of Transport.
Lord Sandford: Perhaps I may make it clear that although some fears may have been calmed—it would be surprising if that was not the case—it would be totally wrong to give the Committee the impression that the Association of District Councils and the 50 councils which run bus companies are remotely satisfied with the programme that is set before them at the moment.
That is not the case. They are very concerned. As for their being asked to do no more than they normally have to do, it is unheard of for local authorities to have to form a Companies Act company. They have never been asked to do it before in their lives. It is a totally new exercise.
Lord Shepherd: I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, can help us in this respect. Assume that the Committee accepts all the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, moves to Schedule 5. Would he then, recognising what I said earlier and what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has said, agree that Schedule 5 could be recommitted when we come back in October? My understanding is that we have at least three full days for consideration on Report.
Your Lordships' House is a House which always honours its agreements. Certainly in this Committee stage we have never failed to reach an agreed point, despite the hour. This is a very crucial matter. What would the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, do if we were to allow his amendments to be moved en bloc without any further debate, on the basis that, if we were to move that this part of the Bill be recommitted, we should do it with the greatest sense of responsiblity, certainly not in the sort of way that goes on in another

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place; but acting in the general manner in which your Lordships' House conducts its business? If the noble Lord would respond in that way, I think we should make a great deal of progress, not only on Schedule 5 but on the remaining part of the Bill.
Lord Belstead: I think that now I have been invited by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for the second time to turn from the merits of the case to the procedure and I will do so—and that does not mean that I have not listened to what my noble friend Lord Sandford has said. I would say to my noble friend in passing that I said that the message from the counties was that the process will be unachievable; I did not say it was the message from the districts; although my knowledge of and admiration for district councils in this country leads me to believe that they will be able to meet their deadlines if and when this Bill passes into law.
Let me now turn to the question of procedure. I should first like to offer your Lordships an apology from myself in that the letter which was sent on Friday giving detailed notes on the new amendments obviously was not picked up by noble Lords until this morning. I am sorry that I was not able to get it off sooner. I am afraid that it is my fault. I would gently say that the amendments were put down on 17th July so that they have been on the Marshalled List for 12 days—very nearly a fortnight—and that has been some period of time. That was done, I admit, at the urging of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and he had every right to urge me; but I like to think that I responded.
So far as the procedure for today is concerned at the very late hour at which we are debating this very important part of the Bill, with a bit still to go, I have to say that that was agreed through the usual channels under the circumstances in which we find ourselves today. May I add to that, that when it is suggested to me, as it has been in the last quarter-hour or so, that the Government on this Bill have been very inflexible, it might interest noble Lords to know that if one takes commitments to accept in principle or to bring forward amendments at Report, or other undertakings or promises, we have over 60 changes of one kind or another which have been mooted, suggested or promised during the time that this Bill has been going through its Committee stage in this House. So I like to think that the Government have not been entirely immovable while this Bill—and it is a complicated and difficult Bill—has been going through.
That brings me to the final point. Noble Lords are saying that because the Bill is a complicated Bill, because this part of the Bill is particularly complicated—and it is the case, I agree, that this long series of amendments by the Government, although they have been down for 12 days, are amendments which noble Lords would wish to look at again in detail—it will be necessary to recommit Schedule 5. My noble friend the Leader of the House and I agreed very readily when we were talking about the pensions issue because we felt that there was a very special reason there in the sense that we had to report back to your Lordships' House. The agreement, if I remember rightly, on that occasion—and the suggestion was put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd—was that if, when we reported back to your Lordships' House, the House felt that the report was not satisfactory, then
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an undertaking would be given that the House would recommit. We said, "Yes, that will be the case." In this particular case, however, we are not reporting back to your Lordships' House on Schedule 5. I am sorry, but I have come forward with amendments which are not a departure from the policy which was originally in Schedule 5. Indeed, perhaps I may just point out to your Lordships that the amendments on the Marshalled List in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Shepherd, Lord McIntosh and Lord Carmichael, which I believe the noble Lords are thinking of not moving but which nevertheless are on the Marshalled List and still might be moved, are not directed at the amendments which I have brought forward this evening, giving a somewhat different structure to a time period. They are aimed at one thing and one thing only, and that is to extend the timetable for bringing into effect the provisions of the transitional arrangements for this Bill. I am sorry: I am not giving way to my noble friend. That is all the amendments are aimed at doing. If your Lordships really think that I am going to agree to a recommitment on the grounds that noble Lords opposite want to delay the effect of this Bill coming into force until 1987, your Lordships can think again.
11.15 p.m.
Lord Teviot: My noble friend said, after I had got up to interrupt him, that he is not going to recommit these clauses. Every good reason has been put forward before, and other amendments have not been moved. Finally, we have reached this point. We have got to discuss this very thing and, quite frankly, all the arguments have been given. I do feel that these amendments to Schedule 5 should be recommitted in October. My noble friend mentioned that these amendments had been before us since 17th July: but it is rather different, because one puts down amendments for the Government and one expects the Government to respond within 48 hours. They have civil servants, whereas all other organisations have to go back out into the shires and so on. In 1986 we shall be celebrating the 900 years of Domesday: the first survey of this country and a most important document not only for this country but for the whole world. That may not be quite so important as doing this; but the amendments were brought forward on the 17th July and now we are at the 29th. I think that my noble friend is asking really rather a lot and I believe that in this atmosphere we should ask for a slightly longer time to consider them.
Lord Shepherd: May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, one very simple question? I can understand his position; but will he explain to the Committee why he cannot meet the request? The question was submitted that these amendments to Schedule 5 be recommitted—taking into account what has always been the understanding within your Lordships' Chamber, that there must be agreement that we are not seeking to frustrate or to delay. Why is it that the noble Lord cannot meet us?—recognising that we are in this situation, not because of the noble Lord. Lord Belstead, but because of the Government's managers. Whatever he may say about it having been "agreed through the usual channels", we have had a long delay today because of the way the Government managers

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have organised their business. That is where we are now.
Our case is that this is not the time at this Committee stage for taking this important part of the Bill. Will the noble Lord say why he cannot make this small concession, knowing that this Committee does respect agreements and understandings?
Lord Mottistone: Before my noble friend replies—and I have not had a chance to speak yet—may I say that to begin with I was sympathetic to the thought of recommittal, but I am not sure that this is right and I think a great deal is being demanded. A great deal was made of the fact that the Notes on Clauses came out only last weekend. It is only very recently that we have had Notes on Clauses. I have been through Bills on which this very thing has happened, and I have been through Bills when in opposition on which this very thing has happened, and we have grumbled like mad. Admittedly, we have not had what has just taken place in this Chamber and which has added to the time. But before now I have been arguing until after midnight about this sort of thing, and I think we are making a great issue of it.
Producing the Notes on Clauses is making us "soft". The amendments have been down since 17th July. If you wanted comment from people, there was time for them to come back with comment. There have been 12 days. I often have comments from the people who advise me only about four days after a Government amendment has gone down. I think we we are making too much of a meal of this.
On the question as to whether it should be recommitted, it seems to me slightly wrong that we should accept the Government amendments and then have a Committee stage on part of a Bill that has already been amended in Committee. It may be technically correct—I do not know—but it seems to me that it is perfectly normal for amendments to be taken in this way and then for people to come back at Report stage. We are trying to make a special thing of something that in many cases in the past has been just like this: it has been just as frustrating, we have been just as late. I remember noble Lords opposite—and sometimes those on this side, too—"trundling" on so that we were talking at this time of night. In this case we have had a debate on another matter in the middle. I think we are making a mountain out of a molehill. We ought to stick to the procedure as we have it. Let us get on with the Bill now and stop talking about procedure.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Mottistone for what he has said. If we are concerned about the Notes on Clauses, I have already given a personal apology that the revised Note on Clauses was notified to noble Lords only very recently. But, of course, the revised amendments have been on the Marshalled List for some 12 days. My noble friend Lord Mottistone is quite justified in saying that it is only in fairly recent years that we started having Notes on Clauses. They are very necessary, and no one is more glad than I am that we have them. But for it to be thrown back in my teeth that the revised Notes on
140
Clauses having only been sent out a very short time ago is a ground for recommitting a Bill is, I think, a little hard.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, nonetheless puts a more substantive point to me. The noble Lord asks: under the circumstances in which we find ourselves this evening, why am I disagreeing to recommitment? I am afraid it is tedious repetition, but, for the record, it is for this reason. The Government have put down amendments to Schedule 5 which your Lordships have enabled me to move this evening, starting with Amendment No. 266A and the associated amendments. Although they are lengthy amendments, all that they actually do is to make improvements to the way in which what we call the transitional period (which is the beginning of next year up to deregulation day, which will be 28th September 1986) will work in practice.
Your Lordships have suggested that there are deep questions which might be asked of me concerning the Government amendments. But the truth of the matter is that the Marshalled List is silent so far as any deep questions are concerned. The only amendments that have been put down—literally, the only amendments—are an amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and an amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, and of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, both of them having basically the same effect (the second amendment is a little more refined) which is simply to extend the transitional period into 1987. Noble Lords will not mind my saying—because it is the give-and-take of politics—that the Government do not agree with that. I think we can in all friendliness agree to differ there. We can probably battle out our differences either in debate across the Floor or in the Division Lobbies, but it is not a ground for recommitment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I have no wish to detain the Committee, and I certainly do not want to go over procedural arguments again. If the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, will read my speech he will recognise, I think, that I referred to the Government's flexibility, and I referred to the Government's good intentions in some of these amendments. What I said was that the result was unsatisfactory; and I still believe that to be the case.
It is true that the amendments we have put down so far have been only about timing. There are other grave matters about this schedule; and, accepting what the noble Lord says about recommittal and not seeking to argue it any further, I think he should know that there will be substantial and constructive amendments to Schedule 5 at Report stage. We shall feel under no obligation to restrain the time that we take in debating them and in making sure that your Lordships' House performs its responsibilities.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Shepherd Lord Shepherd had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 267:
Page 137, line 38, leave out ("30th September 1986") and insert ("31st March 1987").
The noble Lord said: In the light of what my noble friend has said, I shall not move this amendment.
[Amendment No. 267 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 267ZA not moved.]
Lord BeIstead Lord BeIstead moved Amendment No. 267A:
[Printed earlier: col. 1250.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 267A):
Page 138, line 1, leave out sub-paragraph (1).
[Amendment No. 268 not moved.]
Lord BeIstead Lord BeIstead moved Amendments Nos. 268ZA, 268ZB, 268ZC and 268ZD:
[Printed earlier: cols. 125 to 128.]
The noble Lord said: These amendments are all consequential on Amendment No. 266A. I beg to move.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Abordare): I have to point out that, if Amendment No. 268ZD is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 268A.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendments (Nos. 268ZA, 268ZB, 268ZC and 268ZD):
Page 139, line 24, leave out ("9") and insert ("9C")
Page 139, line 27, leave out from beginning to ("and") in line 30 and insert—

(" "relevant authority", in relation to a local service, means any Passenger Transport Executive or county, regional or islands council within whose area there will be a stopping place for the service;

"road service licence" has the same meaning as in the 1981 Act;")

Page 139, line 32, at end insert—
("(2) Section 118(3) of this Act shall not apply to any regulations made under paragraphs 7 to 9B below.
(3) For the purposes of paragraph 8 below, a local service is improved if, but only if, there is any increase in—

(a) the frequency of the service;

(b) the length of its route;

(c) the number of stopping places for the service; or

(d) the number of passengers which can be carried by the service taken as a whole.")

Page 139, line 33, leave out paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 and insert—
("7.—(1) Where an application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service falls within one of the Cases mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) below—

(a) the traffic commissioner to whom the application is made shall register those particulars;

(b) they shall be deemed to have been registered with him under section 6 of this Act; and

(c) the period of notice (mentioned in section 6) in relation to that registration shall be deemed to have expired.

(2) The Cases are—
CASE A
Where

(a) the application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service is received by the traffic commissioner at any time before 1st March 1986; and

(b) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

CASE B
Where—

(a) the application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service is received by the traffic commissioner at any time after the grant of the licence mentioned in paragraph (b) below but before 17th August 1986;

(b) a road service licence has been granted for that service at any time after 28th February 1986; and

(c) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

CASE C
Where—

(a) the application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service is received by the traffic commissioner at any time during the period beginning with 1st March 1986 and ending with 16th August 1986;

(b) the particulars of the service are the same as those of a trial area service; and

(c) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

In this Case "trial area service" means a local service provided in a trial area (as defined by section 38 of the 1981 Act) and in respect of which the requirements of section 40 of that Act (duty to publish particulars of services in trial areas) have been satisfied.
CASE D
Where—

(a) the application for registration of the prescribed particulars of a local service is received by the traffic commissioner at any time during the period beginning with 1st March 1986 and ending with 27th September 1986;

(b) the application is supported in writing, in accordance with sub-paragraph (3) below, by an authority responsible for expenditure on public passenger transport services (as defined for Part V of this Act by section 82(7)); and

(c) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

(3) An authority of the kind mentioned in paragraph (b) of Case D shall give their support to an application in accordance with this sub-paragraph if, but only if, the local service in question is one—

(a) which the operator has contracted with that authority to operate under an agreement providing for service subsidies; or

(b) for the provision of which that authority have issued an invitation to tender under section 83 of this Act and for which the person applying for registration of the particulars of the service has submitted a tender to provide the service without subsidy.

Variation and cancellation of registrations during transitional period
8.—(1) Where the prescribed particulars of a local service have been registered with a traffic commissioner under paragraph 7 above and an application is made to him for the variation or cancellation of the registration, he shall vary or (as the case may be) cancel the registration if he is satisfied that the application falls within one of the Cases mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) below.
(2) The Cases are—
CASE 1
Where—

(a) the application is made by the operator of the service to which the registration relates;

(b) the application is received by the traffic commissioner at any time before 1st March 1986; and

(c) the prescribed requirements are satisfied in relation to the application.

CASE 2
Where—

(a) the application is made by the operator of the service to which the registration relates;

(b) the application is received by the traffic commissioner at any time during the period beginning with 1st March 1986 and ending with 30th June 1986;

(c) the application is supported in writing, in accordance with sub-paragraph (3) below, by each relevant authority: and

143

(d) in the case of an application for variation, a service operated in accordance with the particulars as proposed to be varied would not amount to a service improved by comparison with a service operated in accordance with the particulars as registered.

Where a relevant authority have refused to support the application but the traffic commissioner is of the opinion that no such authority acting reasonably would have refused to support it he may, at the request of the applicant, proceed as if paragraph (c) of this Case were omitted.
CASE 3
Where the application—

(a) is for the variation of the registered particulars;

(b)is made by the operator of the service to which the registration relates;

(c) is received by the traffic commissioner at any time during the period beginning with 1st March 1986 and ending with 27th September 1986; and

(d) is supported in writing, in accordance with sub-paragraph (4) below, by each relevant authority.

(3) Where a relevant authority are asked by the operator of a local service to provide written support, in accordance with this sub-paragraph, for an application for the variation or cancellation of the registration of the prescribed particulars of the service, the authority shall do so if, but only if, they are satisfied—

(a) that any demand which would have been met by a service operated in accordance with the registered particulars would be met—

(i) by a service operated in accordance with the particulars as proposed to be varied; or

(ii) by another service the particulars of which have been registered under paragraph 7 above; or

(b) that there has been a change of circumstances—

(i) which seriously impairs the ability of the operator of the service to operate it in accordance with the registered particulars; and

(iii) which could not reasonably have been foreseen by him.

(4) Where a relevant authority are asked by the operator of a local service to provide written support, in accordance with this sub-paragraph, for an application for the variation of the registration of the prescribed particulars of the service, the authority may do so if they are satisfied—

(a) that a variation of the particulars of the service is desirable in the interests of producing a pattern of service which is better suited to meeting the public transport requirements of their area; and

(b) where a service operated in accordance with the particulars as proposed to be varied would amount to a service improved by comparison with a service operated in accordance with the particulars as registered, that any demand met by the improvement to the service could not be met by any other local service if the improvement were not made.

Duty to notify relevant authorities of applications for registrations etc.
9.—(1) Any person making an application which falls within one of the Cases mentioned in paragraph 7 above shall—

(a) notify each relevant authority of the application and of the particulars to be registered; and

(b) furnish each such authority with such further information as may be specified.

(2) Any person making an application which falls within one of the Cases mentioned in paragraph 8 above shall—

(a) notify each relevant authority of the application and, in the case of an application for the variation of registered particulars, of the variation to be registered; and

(b) furnish each such authority with such further information as may be specified.

Publication of information by traffic commissioner
9 A.—(1) Each traffic commissioner shall publish—

(a) the particulars of local services registered with him in
144
response to applications falling within any of the Cases mentioned in paragraphs 7 and 8 above; and

(b) details of any such registrations which are cancelled in response to applications falling within any of the Cases mentioned in paragraph 8 above.

(2) The particulars registered with a traffic commissioner in response to applications falling within Case A in paragraph 7 above, or Case 1 in paragraph 8 above, shall be published—

(a) separately from the other particulars which he is required to publish by sub-paragraph (1) above; and

(b) before 1st April 1986.

(3) Where a traffic commissioner is required by sub-paragraph (1) above to publish any particulars of a local service, he shall send those particulars to any Passenger Transport Executive, district council in England and Wales or county, regional or islands council in whose area lies any part of the route of the service.
School buses
9B.—(1) For the purpose of ensuring that in the school year beginning in 1986 satisfactory provision can be made for transporting those pupils for whom a local education authority (or, in Scotland, an education authority) are under a duty to provide transport, the Secretary of State may by regulations make provision (including provision modifying this Schedule) for enabling approved local services to be operated during the transitional period without road service licences.
(2) In this paragraph "approved", in relation to a local service, means approved by the traffic commissioner for the traffic area in which the service is to be provided.
Continuation of existing road service licences
9C. A road service licence (other than one for a service with one or more stopping places in London) which is in force when this Act is passed but which would otherwise expire before 27th September 1986 shall, unless previously revoked, continue in force to the end of that day.").
[Amendments Nos. 268ZE to 268ZT and No. 268A not moved.]
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 268B:
[Printed earlier: col. 128.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment is consequential on Amendment No. 266A. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 268B):
Page 141, line 34, leave out paragraph 12.
[Amendments Nos. 268BA and 268BB not moved.]
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 268C:
[Printed earlier: col. 128.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment, again, is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 268C):
Page 143, line 12, leave out ("30th") and insert ("27th").
[Amendments Nos. 268D to 268F not moved.]
On Question, Whether Schedule 5, as amended, shall be the fifth schedule to the Bill?
Lord Sandford: Before we leave this matter, I beg my noble friend on the Front Bench to be careful with this schedule. This may be an excellent Bill by the time we have finished with it, but I have considerable misgivings at the moment. It could be wrecked by asking all those concerned—the National Bus

145
Company, the PTEs, the counties, the municipal bus companies and the district councils—to try to operate it before they are ready. They are all engaged in the most complex, difficult and novel tasks and it would be folly not to get right the transitional stages in Schedule 5.
Lord Belstead: All I would say to my noble friend Lord Sandford is that he may care to glance at Clause 85 and he will see that there is some flexibility included in that clause.
Lord Teviot: I am afraid that I cannot let my noble friend get off the hook. I agree absolutely with what my noble friend Lord Sandford said and will say not very much more. Between now and Report stage, I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will get around to thinking very much harder about this Bill, which seems very unsatisfactory at this moment and all quarters of the public are deeply concerned about it. The Government say that this will be the best thing, with competition and all sorts of other things. This is the last comment in this Committee and between now and October we have a realistic time for people to think again very hard indeed, even about the amendments to this schedule.
11.30 p.m.
Lord Belstead: In all friendliness to my noble friend, that really will not do. Whether or not we agree with the Government's steps in Amendment 266A and associated amendments—and your Lordships have agreed to those amendments—they set out what I believe is a series of sensible transitional steps to take bus operations through from the beginning of 1986 to deregulation day in 1986.
If my noble friend Lord Teviot had stood up and said, on the Question that the schedule stand part, "There are five or six things I don't like in those steps, and these are what they are; but the time is late and we shall come back to it all at Report stage", I would have understood. The truth of the matter is that my noble friend has no criticisms of Schedule 5—none at all. That is why a criticism of the kind that my noble friend has just delivered himself of will not do, because my noble friend is saying to me that I am to go away and rethink—and that after I have moved a series of detailed amendments of which my noble friend has no detailed criticisms. I hope that my noble friend will be the one who will go away and do some hard thinking before Report.
Lord Teviot: If my noble friend is absolutely right I shall buy him a very large drink. At this stage I can usefully make no further comment.
Schedule 5, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Minor and consequential amendments]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 269:
Page 145, line 38, at end insert—
("The Road Traffic Act 1930
2A. In section 101 of the Road Traffic Act 1930 (power of local authorities to run public service vehicles), paragraph (a) of subsection (2) (exclusion of power to run such a vehicle as a contract carriage) shall be omitted.")
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 273, 274 and 275.
Amendment No. 273: Schedule 7, page 150, line 6, at end insert—

("20 & 21 Geo. 5. c.43

The Road Traffic Act 1930.

In section 101(2), paragraph (a).

In section 121(1 A), tie words "contract carriages".").

Amendment No. 274: Page 150, line 9, at end insert—

("8 & 9 Eliz. 2. c. 16.

The Road Traffic Act 1960.

So much of Schedule 17 as amends section 121 of the Road Traffic Act 1930.").

Amendment No. 275: Page 151, line 9, column 3, at end insert—
("Section 36.").
These amendments revoke the provisions in Part V of the Road Traffic Acts 1930 and 1960 and in Part III of the Transport Act 1968 which might still prevent local authorities running contract carriage services outside their districts. Since, as far as we know, most if not all the authorities with bus undertakings have made use of the procedure under Section 36 of the 1968 Act to enable themselves to run contract carriage services outside their districts, the main effect of these amendments will simply be to tidy up the statute book. I beg to move
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 269ZA:
Page 145, line 38, at end insert—
("The Transport Charges &c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1954
Section 1 of the Transport Charges &c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1954 shall cease to have effect.").
The noble Lord said: I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 273A.
Amendment No. 273A: Schedule 7, page 150, line 6, at end insert—

("2 & 3 Eliz. 2 c. 64.

The Transport Charges &c. Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1954.

Section 1. In section 12, in subsection (1), the words from "including" to "Act" and subsection (2).

In section 13(1), the words "public service vehicles, road service licences and ".").

These are technical amendments. Section 1 of the Transport Charges &c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1954 brought fares charged by bus companies set up under Private Acts of Parliament under the sole control of the traffic commissioners. With the abolition of road service licensing and the ending of all control over fares that provision is no longer required, and hence we have brought forward these amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 269ZB:
Page 146, line 1, at end insert—
(" . In section 10(1)(xiii) of the 1968 Act (power of Passenger Transport Executive to charge for services, etc.), after the word "Act" there shall be inserted the words "and section (Travel concessions on services provided by Passenger Transport Executives) of the Transport Act 1985 (travel concessions on services provided by Passenger Transport Executives)".
. In section 15(2) of that Act (approval of Passenger Transport Authority required for alterations by Executive in general level of charges and for reduction or waiver of charges by Executive), for the words " 138(1) of this Act" there shall be substituted the words "(Travel concessions on services provided by Passenger Transport Executives) of the Transport Act 1985 (travel concessions on services provided by Passenger Transport Executives)".")
The noble Lord said: This amendment was spoken to with Amendment No. 253F. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 269ZC:
Page 146, line 2, leave out ("the 1968") and insert ("that").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 269A not moved.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 269AA:
Page 146, Une 14, column 1, leave out ("charges and licences").
The noble Lord said: This technical amendment brings up to date the sidenote referring to the Transport Tribunal in the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1971. The tribunal no longer deals with charges and will not be dealing solely with licences. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 269B and 269C not moved.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 270:
[Printed 16/7/85; col. 678.]
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 160. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 270):
Page 148, line 4, at end insert—
("(2A) In section 9 (power to prohibit driving of unfit public service vehicles), in subsection (8), after the word "examiner", in the second place where it occurs, there shall be inserted the words "or certifying officer" and for the words "by a certifying officer and" there shall be substituted—

"(a) in the case of a refusal by a public service vehicle examiner, by a certifying officer, and

(b) in the case of a refusal by a certifying officer, by another certifying officer;

and".").
[Amendment No. 270A not moved.]
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 271:
Page 148, line 27, at end insert—
("(7A) In section 79 (vehicles excluded from regulation as private hire vehicles), for the words "or 42(1)" there shall be substituted the words "or (4)".").
The noble Earl said: This amendment serves to meet an undertaking given in another place to put beyond doubt that vehicles used in car sharing and social car schemes are not subject to private hire-car vehicle legislation. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 272:
Page 149, line 30, leave out ("Without prejudice to") and insert ("Notwithstanding").
The noble Earl said: This is a technical amendment which is necessary to express correctly the relationship between the provisions in Section 10(3) of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 and the provisions of paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 to that Act. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 7 [Repeals]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No.273:
[Printed earlier: col. 146.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment was spoken to with Amendment No. 269. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 273):
Page 150, fine 6, at end insert—

("20 & 21 Geo. 5. c. 43.

The Road Traffic Act 1930.

In section 101(2), paragraph (a).

In section 121(1A), the words "contract carriages".").

Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No.273A:
[Printed earlier: col. 146.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment was spoken to with Amendment No. 269ZA. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 273A):
Page 150, line 6, at end insert—

("2 & 3 Eliz. 2. c. 64.

The Transport Charges &c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1954.

Section 1. In section 12, in subsection (1), the words from "including" to "Act" and subsection (2).

In section 13(1). the words "public service vehicles, road service licences and".")

Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No.274:
[Printed earlier: col. 146.]
The noble Lord said: This is a consequential amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 274):
Page 150, line 9, at end insert—

("8 & 9 Eliz. 2. c. 16.

The Road Traffic Act 1960.

So much of Schedule 17 as amends section 121 of the Road Traffic Act 1930.").

Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 274A:
Page 150, line 15, at end insert—
("In section 56, subsection (4)(a), in subsection (7) the word "passenger", subsections (8) to (11) and subsection (13).").
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I must protest at this amendment being not moved—it is sheer poetry!
[Amendment No. 274A not moved.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No.275:
[Printed earlier: col. 146.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment was spoken to with Amendment No. 269.I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 275):
Page 151, line 9, column 3, at end insert—
("Section 36.").
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 275ZA:
[Printed earlier: col. 119.]
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 262B. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 275ZA):
Page 151, line 11, column 3, leave out (" "or" (in the third place where it occurs)") and insert (" "and to the Bus Company" ").
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No.275A:
Page 152, line 10, after ("paragraphs 1") insert (" (a) to (d) and (f)")
The noble Earl said: This is a technical amendment and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, in his poetic mood, will approve of it. It reinstates Section 9(5) of the Transport Act 1968 for Scotland. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 275 B not moved.]
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendments Nos. 276, 277, 278 and 279:
Page 152, column 3, leave out line 23 and insert—
("In section 1, in subsection (3) the word "II" and in subsection (5) the words "section 2".")
Page 152, leave out lines 27 and 28.
Page 152, line 43, column 3, at end insert—
("In section 53(1), the word "the" before the words "traffic commissioners".")
Page 153, line 8, column 3, leave out ("and paragraph (d); and") and insert—
(", paragraph (d) and in paragraph (h) the words "or, as the case may be, the commissioner of police of the metropolis; and")
The noble Lord said: These are all technical amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 280:
Page 153, leave out line 11.
The noble Lord said: This, too, is a technical amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 123 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 281:
[Printed earlier: col. 128.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 281):
Page 119, line 22, after ("section") insert ("and paragraph 9C of Schedule 5 to this Act").
Clause 123, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Lord Chancellor's Salary Order 1985: Division Figures
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, the figures announced for the Division on the amendment to the Motion to approve the Lord Chancellor's Salary Order 1985 were wrong. The numbers should be corrected as follows: Contents, 140; Not-Contents, 135.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes before midnight.

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE POLICE: JURISDICTION
  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE POLICE: JURISDICTION
  VAT BAD DEBT RELIEF
  VAT BAD DEBT RELIEF
  EC REGULATIONS: GOVERNMENT POLICY ON REPEALS
  EC REGULATIONS: GOVERNMENT POLICY ON REPEALS
  VERIFIED NUCLEAR FREEZE
  VERIFIED NUCLEAR FREEZE
  GLC CAMPAIGN AGAINST ABOLITION: COST
  GLC CAMPAIGN AGAINST ABOLITION: COST
  ENTERPRISE UNIT STAFF: EC SERVICE
  ENTERPRISE UNIT STAFF: EC SERVICE
  PALACE OF WESTMINSTER: "PROFESSIONAL LOBBYISTS"
  PALACE OF WESTMINSTER: "PROFESSIONAL LOBBYISTS"