rose to move. That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Clergy Pensions (Amendment) Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent. The most reverend Primate said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name. I do not think I need detain your Lordships for long over this small Measure. Its purpose is fully set out in the Comments and Explanations of the Legislative Committee of the Church Assembly, which are appended to the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament.

rose to move, That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Synodical Government Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent. The most reverend Primate said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name. This Measure is, I think, one of the most important for the Church of England that has come before your Lordships' House since the enabling Act of 1919. That Act set up the National Assembly of the Church of England and gave it considerable powers to deal with Church legislation by Measures which could receive the Royal Assent after the passing of a single Resolution in each of the Houses of Parliament.

My Lords, it is with the greatest diffidence that I follow the most reverend Primate in the debate upon this important Measure. I am a simple member of the Church of England and I have not the present experience of serving on the Church Assembly, though I did that many, many years ago. I simply rise to express the hope that your Lordships will approve this Measure. The fact that I am speaking from this Dispatch Box is simply because it is my duty to do so and not because I detect or wish to detect that there should be the slightest difference of Party in a matter of this kind. I know well how great has been the trouble taken in Convocations and in the Church Assembly and throughout other organs of the Church of England to bring about this reform, and I am certain that all your Lordships are appreciative of the care and thoroughness with which the most reverend Primate has explained it to us.

Speaking personally, a feature in it that I welcome is that it gives increased recognition to the place of the laity in Church government. It always riles me when I hear people speaking as though the Church, whatever Church it may be, consists solely of the ministers ordained in that Church. Surely if you use the word "Church", that must properly include the laymen as well as the ordained ministers, and certainly by this year 1969 we ought to know that the laity have their full and proper functions, as ordained ministers have their full and proper function, and the Church is incomplete unless it includes both. My only fear is that some of those who have greatly interested themselves in this Measure may overrate in their own minds its true importance. This is a matter of machinery. If Parliament approves this Measure, we shall in my judgment, be improving the machinery of the Church, and that is all. It is possible for too much energy to go into the improvement of machinery and for those who are necessarily very busied about it to persuade themselves that they have done more than they actually have done. Here we are revising the machinery of the Church of England; but neither the Church of England nor any other Church can conquer the world simply by the revising of its machinery, but only by a revitalising of its spirit.

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, for appearing to frustrate his attempt, very properly, to give the second address on this Measure but may I ask the most reverend Primate one or two questions, for clarification? I am not a member of his Church, but all of us who are non-members have some responsibility, obviously, for the passing of this Measure. May I ask him, therefore, what is the exact position of the General Synod? Is it the final authority, able to override decisions of all other bodies within the Established Church? Secondly, may I ask him whether the clergy and bishops predominate in what are called the Synods. Finally, am I right in understanding that baptism is the basis of membership of parochial councils; and, if so, does it mean only baptism according to the rites of the Church of England?

My Lords, I gladly answer the noble Lord's questions. The General Synod will be the final authority for those matters concerning the Church which are not subject to Parliamentary decision. Matters still for Parliamentary decision can come to Parliament either in the form of Bills or in the form of Measures requiring a single Resolution in each House. I think I can say that many churchmen desire for the Church a greater freedom to order its own affairs without Parliamentary control, but I am certain that the hope of such greater freedom turns upon a fuller recognised participation of the laity in all Church affairs.

With regard to the noble Lord's second question, I may say that the clergy and the laity in the Synod will be about equal in numbers. As to the third question, the basis of membership of the electoral roll is defined in terms of being baptised and not being a member of a non-Anglican Church; that is to say, a person who was baptised in the proper way anywhere could, I think, be on the electoral roll, so long as he was not identifying himself with the membership of a non-Anglican Church.

My Lords, I am grateful to the most reverend Primate.

My Lords, at a convenient moment after half-past-three my noble friend Lord Winterbottom will be making a Statement on the pay of the Armed Forces.

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.

My Lords, the House knows that the Government have not felt able to support this Bill—nor have we opposed it—at any time during its passage through Parliament, but it would be ungracious, to say the least, if on that account I did not rise on behalf of the Government to echo the tributes which have been paid to my noble friend Lord Silkin at various stages of the Bill, and I am sure other tributes will be paid to him in a little while. That this Bill is now about to reach the Statute Book is due in no small measure to his tenacity and to the persuasive manner in which he j has championed the welfare objectives of j the Bill. I feel also that the noble Lord j will wish to acknowledge the efforts of the sponsors in another place.

I would take this opportunity to reassure the House on two points, lest it be thought that our lack of enthusiasm for the Bill will in any way prejudice the attainment of its aims. First, we are confident that the changes we suggested in the original Bill have resulted in a workable measure. Second, we I shall do our best to see that Clause 1 of the Bill is administered effectively. Between now and the end of the year the Departments will be working on the lairage Order required by Clause 2, on which we shall of course consult with the interests concerned before making the Order. My Lords, as I said on Second Reading of this Bill's predecessor, this country has good reason to be proud of its concern for the wellbeing of animals. The present Bill is a reassuring indication that in our increasingly scientific and technological society this concern is in no way diminished.

My Lords, may I also join with the noble Lord, Lord Hilton, in paying a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for the part he has played in getting this measure to the Statute Book. I think the noble Lord had some doubts about my position in this matter, but my concern has been to try, if possible, to make it as good a Bill as it could be made. The noble Lord introduced a Bill in similar terms in this House last year. After its passage through the Commons, the noble Lord has carried this Bill through this House to a successful conclusion, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hilton, says, to the status of a workable measure. I am sure that we should all like warmly to congratulate him on that achievement.

There is just one point to which I should like to refer before we part with this measure. On Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said that the Bill had two purposes, first to ensure that if ponies are exported it is done in the most satisfactory possible conditions without hardship; and the second purpose is to prohibit the export of ponies other than ponies which are to be used for breeding, riding or exhibition. The way in which the second objective is to be achieved under the Bill is first, by obtaining the endorsement of the Minister, or in Scotland the Secretary of State, to the effect that the pony is intended for breeding, riding or exhibition; and secondly, by imposing a minimum value below which it is not lawful to export ponies.

The point that I want to raise is that the minimum value can be varied by order by the Minister and the Secretary of State acting jointly. As I see it, the purpose of the minimum value, or the only valid purpose, is to ensure that false declarations are not made, and that the ponies which are exported are not exported for another purpose, in particular for slaughter. I think that is the main reason, because it is thought that ponies that are exported for the purpose of slaughter are not humanely handled. Of course, money tends to lose its value, and for that reason it may be necessary for the Minister and the Secretary of State to prescribe different values.

I think I am right in saying that under Section 37 of the Diseases of Animals Act 1950, which prescribes special values for heavy horses and the like, it was 17 or 18 years before the values therein prescribed were altered. But on the other hand, it may prove that these values are too high, either in particular cases, or in all three cases where the values are prescribed, because the relationship must always be to the value of the horses which are slaughtered for human consumption. The main point must be that the minimum value is kept above the value for slaughter for human consumption. It may be for that reason also that the values would have to be varied by order. My purpose in intervening is merely to ask for an assurance from the Government spokesman that the Government will continue to watch this situation and will be prepared to make changes in the values whenever these changes are necessary.

My Lords, may I join the two noble Lords who have spoken in paying my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. I do so because on two occasions in the past I myself have tried to introduce Bills for the protection of animals, and as on each of those occasions I failed I know that it is none too easy a task. The noble Lord has succeded, and therefore I should like to pay my tribute and offer him my congratulations.

My Lords, I had intended, and hoped, that this Bill would go through without a word being said on either side. I think enough has been said, and these tributes that have been paid to me are wholly unnecessary. Nevertheless, I am most grateful for them. I should now like to pay one or two tributes in return. First, I should like to thank Sir Robert Cary who introduced this Bill in another place. The Bill which was introduced was substantially the same as the Bill which earlier had passed through all its stages in this House. Unfortunately, Sir Robert was taken ill. It is alleged that the amount of work that he did on this Bill contributed to his illness. I am not able to say whether this is so, but that is what I understand. The task was nobly taken up by Mr. Burden with a team of colleagues in another place, where they have carried through this Bill with conspicuous success.

I agree with my noble friend that the Government have not been entirely enthusiastic about this Bill; but I should like to pay a tribute to them for the way in which they have dealt with it. In spite of their lack of enthusiasm, they have helped to redraft the Bill and to make it more workable, and I am bound to say that they have done nothing to frustrate the purpose of the Bill, even though, equally, they have done little to help it forward, except for redrafting. I welcome, however, the words of the Minister in another place, that once this Bill was on the Statute Book the Government would do everything they possibly could to make it a success. I think that that is a complete answer to all our doubts.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, and I should like to thank him also for the restraint which he showed during the Committee stage in not pressing any of his Amendments to a Division. For reasons which I then explained, it would have been fatal to the Bill if they had been carried, and he was most gracious in accepting the explanations given to his Amendments, some of which, I imagine, were not wholly convincing to him. However, I thank him for his restraint.

As I understand the 1950 Act, and this Bill when it becomes an Act, it will be for the Minister to consider, both in an upward and in a downward direction, the minimum values which have been inserted in this Bill. Should it turn out that these values are too high, and are therefore preventing legitimate export, it will be the duty of the Minister to reconsider these values in a downward direction; and, of course, vice versa. I have no doubt that any Minister who may be in charge of agriculture at that time will take the necessary steps; certainly his attention will be drawn to the fact, if it should be so, that these values are too high. May I once again thank noble Lords for their expressions of gratitude to me. It is always nice to hear them, but they were quite unnecessary.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Secretary of State pointed out, when the Bill received its Second Reading in another place, that the last major measure of educational reform in Scotland was the Education (Scotland) Act 1945, consolidated in the Act of 1962. Having regard to recent developments in education the Government are satisfied that changes are now essential. The changes in the Bill were discussed in advance with the local authority associations and the main teachers' organisations.

There are three themes in the Bill. First, the Statute is brought into line with recent developments in policy and practice, especially the development of comprehensive education; secondly, obsolete provisions are removed and some existing procedures are simplified; and, finally, greater responsibility is given to education authorities by removing unnecessary requirements for the Secretary of State's approval. I propose to deal with the clauses in two main groups, corresponding to the first two themes. The first is the recognition in educational legislation of recent developments in policy and practice—Clause 1 is a good example of this. The new Section 1(1) repeats the general duty of education authorities to secure adequate and efficient provision of education, but it does so in terms of "school" and "further" education instead of in terms of "primary, secondary and further" education.

The new Section 1(2) defines the new term "school education" which is introduced because the division between primary and secondary education has become less important. This distinction of course, is still valid in some contexts—for example teachers' qualifications and salaries—and this is recognised by the preservation of the terms, redefined, in subsection (2) of the clause. The sharp division between primary and secondary education has become less clear-cut, as virtually permanent selection at the age of 12 is disappearing and as subjects like French and mathematics, which used to be regarded as suitable only for secondary education, are now being taught in primary departments. One result of the introduction of the new term is the removal of the restrictive and outmoded provisions of Sections 2 and 3 of the 1962 Act, which require the prescription or approval of individual subjects n the primary or secondary course by means of regulations.

The new Section 1(3) is also important since it gives education authorities a new power to provide facilities for social, cultural and recreative activities for the general public. At present the Statute permits the provision of facilities of this kind only for the use of persons receiving education, which may include groups organised for recreative activities. In future swimming pools and other facilities provided by education authorities can be made available to individual users, and not solely to organised groups.

The new Section 2 reproduces the substance of the present subsection (2) of Section 1. The new Section 3 provides that school education and compulsory further education should be provided free of charge. This proved to be the most controversial part of the Bill in another place. Briefly, what we are proposing is the removal of an anachronistic practice under which a few Scottish authorities charge fees in a few of their schools. We are doing this for two main reasons: to further equality of educational opportunity and to make it possible for the present fee-paying selective secondary schools to be included within a comprehensive system. There can be no equality of opportunity when under methods of selection used at twelve, or even at the age of five, some children are selected to go to the fee-paying schools. Selection at twelve is generally recognised to be both unfair and unreliable. How much unfairer and less reliable is selection at five which gives virtual assurance of a place in the fee-paying secondary department after twelve! Parental choice scarcely enters into the argument since the real choice is made by the school and not by the parent; and the methods of selection used by these schools are of a kind which are being abandoned in our non-fee-paying schools because of their unreliability.

We have made tremendous advances in the introduction of comprehensive secondary education in Scotland. The existence of fee-paying selective schools is obviously incompatible with the comprehensive system. Both Glasgow and Edinburgh, which next year will be the only authorities in Scotland with fee-paying secondary schools, have been asked on several occasions to make proposals for the integration of the fee-paying schools within a comprehensive system. I hope very much that when the Bill becomes law my right honourable friend will be able to consider proposals from the two cities which can be implemented without undue delay. The opposition which met this proposal in another place is even more difficult to understand when it is remembered that fee-paying in authority schools came to an end in England and Wales with the passing of the Education Act 1944. That Act was piloted through the House of Commons by someone who is now a very respected Member of your Lordships' House, the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden.

The new Section 3A converts into a duty the present power to provide a child guidance service. Since every education authority except one now runs such a service or arranges to use the service of a neighbouring authority the new provision does little more than recognise a development which has already taken place.

Clauses 3 and 4 can be considered together since they both deal with educational building and the procedures to be followed by education authorities. The important new provision made here is that the Secretary of State in future will have power to prescribe different standards for different classes of educational establishments. At present the regulations setting out standards for school buildings are framed in terms of new buildings only. The prescription of different standards for different classes of building will ensure that standards can be set realistically for every type of building.

Clause 7 substitutes a new Section 30 for the present Section 30 of the 1962 Act. The new section will enable the Secretary of State to ask an education authority to submit a scheme describing the arrangements for the transfer of pupils from one stage of school education to another instead of, as before, from primary education to secondary education. Education authorities are experimenting with different types of school organisation, and it seems right that the Secretary of State should be able to call for schemes describing the arrangements for transfer from one to another—for example, from a junior high school to a senior high school—as well as transfer from primary to secondary education.

Clause 8 amends Section 33 of the 1962 Act which governs the number of commencing or leaving dates which an education authority may have. At present the Act allows an authority to have two or more dates on which children begin school and two leaving dates, or, with the Secretary of State's approval, three dates on which children who have reached the age of 15 may leave school. In practice most education authorities have two commencing and two leaving dates. The clause provides that there will be in future only two leaving dates for all authorities, and makes it possible in future for any authority, with the Secretary of State's approval, to have only one commencing date and/or one leaving date. No education authority has in fact any present intention of seeking approval for one leaving date, and it is certainly not the Government's intention to impose any such arrangement, but some authorities may wish to experiment with a single commencing date. In framing our new provisions we must take account of the possibility of future development, and experiments will be possible in terms of Clause 8.

Clause 10 substitutes ten new sections for Sections 62 to 66 of the Act of 1962. These deal with the ascertainment of children requiring special education, and of children who have to be reported to local authorities as being unsuitable for any kind of education or training. Under the clause, education authorities are given a power to ascertain handicapped children under the age of five. At present they can act in respect of children between two years and five years, and then only if the parent asks them to do so. But in the case of some handicaps, particularly, deafness, it is essential that children should be identified and appropriate training begun from a very early age. The parent is given a right of appeal against the education authority's decision that his child requires special education, instead of, as at present, only against the medical certificate on which the decision was based. This recognises that, important as the medical evidence is, the decision is essentially an educational one.

Education authorities are given the duty to keep under regular review any case in which it has been decided that a child requires special education. Parents are given a continuing right of appeal which will enable them to appeal to the Secretary of State following a review as well as after an original decision. Authorities are required to obtain the views of parents at each appropriate stage, and they are also required to inform the parent of his right of appeal. By setting out in close detail the procedure to be followed, we hope that the effect of the clause will be to extend to all authorities the best practices which some of them have already adopted.

Clause 15 is a further example of the way the Bill recognises the changes in Scottish education. Section 81 of the 1962 Act deals wholly with the training of teachers and it is outmoded in several ways. The new section gives the Secretary of State power to make regulations with respect to central institutions as well as colleges of education. Colleges of education and central institutions are now in many ways alike. They provide courses of further education of high standard; indeed, both may provide degree courses. Apart from the fees which they receive from their students, almost all their expenditure is met by the Exchequer. They are run by independent boards of governors. The Secretary of State already has powers in regard to the constitutions and duties of colleges of education. The new section will enable him to make regulations dealing with the central institutions. Assurances have been given by the Secretary of State that the existing governing bodies will be consulted before any new regulations are made.

Clause 18 recognises, for the purposes of Section 85 of the 1962 Act, that registration has replaced certification as the mark of a qualified school teacher. The clause limits the protection against dismissal by employing authorities to registered teachers in schools and to registered and certificated teachers in further education centres.

I turn now to the second group of clauses—those which remove obsolete provisions and which simplify some of the procedures under the 1962 Act. Clauses 6 and 12 can be considered together, since they both deal with financial powers. Clause 6 restates the power of education authorities to make payments for the provision of education. Clause 12 restates and simplifies the powers available to the Secretary of State to make grants for educational purposes. As the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum makes clear, it is not expected that the rewording of the relevant sections of the 1962 Act will of themselves add to expenditure either by authorities or by the Government.

Clauses 13, 14 and 17 all repeal sections of the 1962 Act which are no longer necessary. The Highland schools grant, for example, was originally introduced in the early part of the 19th century and is quite inappropriate in modern circumstances. The annual payments are commuted for lump sums. Similarly, the post of the accountant and the annual report of the accountant are no longer necessary in modern conditions. I need hardly say that accounts will continue to be audited, that the collection of financial information by the Education Department will continue, and that the part of it which is useful to education authorities and outside bodies will be published in other reports of the Department.

Clauses 19 and 20 simplify the provisions dealing with the reorganisation of educational endowments. The procedures laid down in the 1962 Act are exceptionally complicated and have proved, in practice, cumbersome and costly. We are simplifying procedure in a number of ways, while at the same time maintaining the esssential safeguards for the interests of the governing bodies of the endowments and for those who benefit from them. Clause 20 provides that the shortened procedure will apply to endowments of an annual value of less than £500, instead of £50 at which it was fixed in 1882. Having regard to the changes in the value of money which have taken place since 1882, this will probably commend itself to your Lordships as being a reasonable change. Clause 19 introduces some changes in the longer procedure for the endowments of higher value. No criticism whatever has been made in any quarter about our proposals, which have the support of the Scottish Committee of the Council on Tribunals.

Clause 23 is also one which is intended to simplify procedure by bringing the Secretary of State's regulation-making power for educational purposes into line with the practice followed under other Acts since the passing of the Statutory Instruments Act 1946. Consultation with interested bodies will take place before regulations are drafted. Clauses 24 to 29 in Part VI of the Bill are supplementary and largely formal provisions, and I do not propose to detain the House by discussing them.

My Lords, I said earlier that I wanted to draw attention to some parts of the Schedules which free education authorities from the necessity to seek the approval of the Secretary of State. One example is in paragraph 9 of Part I of Schedule 2. This paragraph makes it unnecessary for an authority to seek the approval of the Secretary of State before making special arrangements in unusual circumstances for a pupil to receive education elsewhere than at an educational establishment; for example, in a hospital or at home. The amendment to Section 18 in paragraph 11 of the same Schedule removes the need for an authority to seek approval from the Secretary of State before proceeding to erect a safety barrier near the entrance to a school. I am quite certain that your Lordships will accept that the fabric of the State is not likely to collapse by removing the necessity for the Secretary of State's consent to matters of this kind. I am also quite certain that the House will welcome the greater measure of discretion given to authorities by amendments of which these are but two examples.

The Bill, as a whole, is very far from controversial. Nearly all the changes are welcomed by the main interests concerned, and I commend the Bill to the House as a useful reforming measure. My Lords, I beg to move.

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for the careful and clear way in which he has explained the purposes of the Bill to this House. I am bound to say that I agree with him at the outset that, in the main, this Bill is non-controversial, but, as he is well aware, there is one point at least on which there is a strong difference of opinion.

It is entirely right and proper that changes should be made in our educational laws to meet changing circumstances and changing needs, and in so far as this Bill does that we welcome it. Over the years since the war very considerable progress has been made in methods, in school buildings, in educational opportunities, and, perhaps most important, in the extent to which the public are willing to take advantage of those opportunities. The steady rise in the proportion of pupils who stay on beyond the minimum school-leaving age, and of those who are successful in obtaining the qualifications necessary to enable them to continue their formal education or to obtain entry into the professions, is most welcome. The 1967 Report (which is the most recent one in our hands) showed that the numbers in the three upper secondary classes of education authority schools have risen by over 70 per cent, in seven years.

The more school education can not only be regarded as a single continuing process but made a single continuing process, the better. We welcome the proposed changes in the wording of the Acts in their recognition of this objective, although it is fair to add that changes in the wording of Acts of Parliament, certainly those that do not impose definite requirements, do not in themselves achieve very much. In fact, the physical distinction between primary and secondary education will remain for the majority of pupils, and the problems and difficulties of ensuring continuity are bound to remain in large measure under the present system. That is a constant challenge.

Secondly, we welcome the recognition given in the Bill to the desirability of education authorities—and I quote the words used by the Secretary of State on the Second Reading of the Bill—having:

"greater freedom and greater responsibility in the detailed running of the education system".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 21/1/69, col. 275.]

Her Majesty's inspectors are there to ensure by their counsel that standards are not only maintained but raised, but it is right that each education authority should judge for itself the needs of the community which it serves. Here again, so far as the subjects to he taught in schools are concerned, the Bill merely recognises that this is a matter for the education authorities to decide since, as was said in another place, for a number of years it has not been the practice of the Department, despite what is said in the Acts, to require the approval of curricula.

I should like, however, to ask the noble Lord to explain the significance of one change that is made twice over in the Bill. Both Clause 2, which deals with the functions of education authorities, and Clause 3, which deals with premises and equipment of educational establishments, give the Secretary of State power to prescribe by regulations not only standards, as at present, but "general requirements". The power to prescribe general requirements could be used to circumscribe very considerably the freedom and responsibility of education authorities. I hope the noble Lord, in replying to the debate, will have something to say about this change.

The functions of education authorities and the premises they provide are of course closely interrelated. I am glad that a duty is now placed on education authorities to secure for their pupils adequate provision—not necessarily by making it themselves—for social, cultural and recreative activities, and for physical education and training. I am sorry that the Bill does not lay on them explicitly a duty to secure such provision for all their pupils, but I recognise that we cannot expect to do that overnight: we have to proceed gradually. It also gives them power, as distinct from a duty, to secure such provision for people in their area other than their pupils.

This leads me to ask a question about the actual provision of such facilities by education authorities. Plans for the provision of premises have to be approved by the Secretary of State not only to maintain standards but to control expenditure. Strict limits of expenditure used to be (and I think still are) laid down in relation to the number of pupils, at any rate, where new buildings are concerned, and can be exceeded only on very good grounds, such as the difficulty of the site or the level of building costs in remote areas. Where ii is a question of providing optional facilities, such as a swimming bath or a stage for theatrical productions, I should Ike to ask how a proposal will be judged if the proposed facilities are to be made available for other schools as well as for youth clubs, or even for the community at large. Plainly it would he irrational to judge them in relation only to the number of pupils to be accommodated in the school itself. It may well be possible to accommodate within the financial limits a small pool in which swimming can be taught, but it is unlikely to be possible to include one for more general use. Some may doubt whether we should even be contemplating such expenditure at the present time of financial stringency. But the chance to legislate occurs but rarely, and it is right to look forward to better times in the future.

There is one facility of an educational nature, though part social, which might be more widely provided by education authorities, in my view. Senior pupils often have difficulty in finding anywhere to study at home. They may be living in cramped and crowded condition. Yet the school, and even the school library, may close its doors firmly at 4 p.m. The provision of somewhere on the school premises where those who wish could do their homework would often be a very valuable facility. It might even be appreciated by some teachers, too.

My Lords, I welcome the new sections which are to take the place of those in the 1962 Act dealing with the allocation of pupils to special education and the rights of appeal of parents where an education authority decides that a child should or should not have special education, or that the child is unsuitable even for special education. There are not a great many appeals of this kind to the Secretary of State each year: the 1967 Report says that there were 32 in that year. Each of them, however, is a matter of deep concern and anxiety to the parents and of great importance to the future of the individual child. It is right, therefore, that careful provision, dovetailed with the Social Work (Scotland) Act should be made, and I personally very much welcome these changes.

There are one or two detailed points in the remainder of the Bill which I should like to ask the Minister to elucidate, but that can wait for the Committee stage. Endowments are always a prickly subject, and tedious for Ministers, I remember. I am glad to know that these provisions represent an improvement, as I believe they do. As to school-leaving dates, I would only comment that it has always seemed to me highly illogical that two or three school-leaving dates should be laid down for pupils, but that a teacher can go at any time in the middle of a session—and, indeed, sometimes must do so. This is an old story of mine, and as the years pass no improvement, or very little improvement, seems to be made in the position. With regard to regulations for central institutions, perhaps we can refer to this question again on Committee stage.

My Lords, the one matter in the Bill on which there is likely to be a conflict of view is the removal of the power of education authorities to charge fees in their own schools. We on this side regard this as a major blemish on an otherwise acceptable Bill. It may surprise noble Lords who belong to England and Wales to learn that there are still some education authority schools in Scotland—public schools, as we call them there—at which fees are charged, for, as the noble Lord said, since the 1944 Act local education authorities in England and Wales have had no power to charge fees in their own schools. It would not surprise noble Lords, though, to find that there are differences between education in Scotland and that in England, and I do not think anybody would seek to bring the two systems exactly into line. In Scotland, circumstances are different. According to a reply given to a Parliamentary Question in another place on November 13, 1968, less than 2 per cent. of school pupils in Scotland are educated in independent schools, and a further 2·2 per cent. in grant-aided schools.

Even after a number of education authorities have come into line with the wishes of the Secretary of State to integrate their fee-paying schools with the comprehensive system, there are still eight secondary schools—five in Glasgow and three in Edinburgh (one for boys, one for girls and one co-educational)—belonging to the Corporations and run by the education authorities, at which fees are paid. There are about 6,000 places in these schools. The fees range from about £14 to £44 a year. There are also some primary schools at which fees are still being charged, some forming part of or associated with secondary schools, whether fee-paying or not, but I believe that these are also going to be discontinued. Out of these 6.000 places, according to the Joint Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Millan, some 380 are provided free. The total of fees which will be paid next year is about £200,000 at these schools. If fees ceased to be payable, this amount would fall on the public purse—part rates, part rate-support grant —and would be augmented by the cost of books and stationery, which at present is met by parents in these schools; say, £250,000 in all. My Lords, I thought it right to tell the House what we are actually talking about in this regard.

In 1967, all education authorities were required to submit schemes for the reorganisation of secondary schooling, in accordance with Circular 600, on comprehensive lines. The Secretary of State wanted fee-paying schools to be fitted into the comprehensive system. He also wanted fee-paying to be discontinued in local authority schools but he had no power to require discontinuance. What he had power to do, and has done. was to withhold approval from the reorganisation schemes submitted by Edinburgh and Glasgow; and I understand from what the noble Lord said that he has done it in regard to several schemes which were put up by them. Some education authorities have already decided to discontinue fee-paying: the noble Lord's own city of Dundee, and Paisley, Renfrewshire and Fyfe. I recognise also that the Educational Institute for Scotland is in favour of abolishing fee-paying in education authority schools. No doubt the Corporations of Edinburgh and Glasgow took their views into consideration—they could hardly do less; nor should they do more; for the responsibility is theirs. The fact remains that the Corporations of Edinburgh and Glasgow decided not to accede to the Secretary of State's request, as they are perfectly entitled to do. We therefore have the provision in the Bill designed to compel them to abandon fee-paying by the end of the next school year, 1969–70.

The first and most obvious point is that whatever he the pros and cons of the argument on merit, this is a most peculiar time to be adding quite unnecessarily to public expenditure. The only defence on this is the housemaid's: that it is only a little one—only a little more than 1 per cent. of total public expenditure on education in Scotland. That has never in my view been a respectable argument. The Government have time and time again put it forward on different issues and by doing so have stimulated others to do likewise, thereby greatly aggravating our national difficulties. One cannot argue that our difficulties are marginal and that by only, say, 3 per cent. more effort, or whatever it is, we should be on top of them and at the same time add absolutely gratuitously to public expenditure in this way. Though some may think this provision is desirable, nobody can pretend that it is necessary.

There is no complaint about the merit of the schools. Indeed, their offence is that they are too good, that too many parents would like to send their children there. The noble Lord said that it is not the parents who exercise the choice. The trouble is that too many parents exercise the choice, and then the school has no option but to select the pupils. Admittedly, this appears to conflict with the uniform system which is designed, in theory, to give education authority schools throughout the land equality of opportunity. In practice, the system will do nothing of the sort. Pupils in one education authority area will still be better off than pupils in another education authority area. Pupils in one education authority school will still be better off than those in another school in the same area. Schools with a high reputation will attract good teachers and these teachers will become better teachers in congenial and stimulating surroundings.

My Lords, I do not intend to argue the case for retaining fee-paying schools fully at this stage; I can do that on Committee. But I should like to indicate the kind of questions we have in mind. The object of any educational system must be to provide as equal opportunity as possible but to give the greatest number of pupils the best possible education. We do not believe that it is right to carry the conception of equality of opportunity in education to impracticable extremes. Since the quality of schools depends primarily on the quality of the teachers and of the pupils, there will always be differences in the opportunities available to individual pupils at different schools and in different areas. Is it then right to seek to change the character of schools of proven reputation and achievement in the name of equality of opportunity? Is it right to seek to make such changes in defiance of a decision of the elected majorities in the cities concerned and regardless of the wishes of the parents in the schools? Is it right for a Party long committed to the destruction of fee-paying schools to force through this change in the last few months o the life of a Parliament—the proposed date for the abolition of fee-paying is August, 1970—and to do so against the opinion of the political opponents who have committed themselves in another place to reverse their decision in the next Parliament? Should schools which have lasted for centuries be altered without general agreement and by the unilateral decision of an ephemeral Party majority? Of these schools, Glasgow High School and the Royal High School at Edinburgh are among the oldest schools in the United Kingdom.

We may be told that these are not the only questions to ask. We shall debate on Committee whether they are the most fundamental and important ones. Fashions in educational thought change. In matters of this kind which deeply concern the communities involved, is it not right rather to trust the instincts and aspirations of those communities? We on this side will always look with grave suspicion on uniformity, especially if it is imposed by Government. We believe that choice arid diversity are of the very essence of freedom and that in the interests of freedom it is worth while accepting some anomalies. I do not advise my noble friends to oppose the Bill, even though it contains this very serious flaw; but I give the noble Lord notice that we shall press him very strongly in the next stage of the Bill in what we regard as the unwarrantable interference with the decisions of those concerned, the locally-elected councils, as to where lie the best interests of these great cities.

My Lords, I was able to get a copy of the Bill on Thursday because I happened to be in the House; and it is only in unusual circumstances that I have been enabled to be present here to-day. I have addressed myself to the Bill as best I can, although I have had no access to the 1962 Act. I have been able to skim through much of the proceedings on the Bill in another place and I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, was possibly drawing the long bow when he said that the Bill was non-controversial—as the closing parts of the speech of my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn will have made him aware.

My Lords, the noble Lord does me an injustice. What I said was that the Bill was largely non-controversial.

My Lords, I did not hear the word "largely". I was surprised when my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn used the words "in the main," because in my view the Bill is, on the very point at which my noble friend closed his speech, extremely controversial. But before proceeding further, I feel in duty bound to complain in no uncertain terms from the Back Benches about the manner in which the Bill has been brought to Second Reading in this House. For the Record, may I say that it was available, as I have said, in the Printed Paper Office on the morning of Thursday, June 12. Demands for papers presumably went out on that day, and would reach Peers in Scotland on Friday or Saturday, making it quite impossible for them to receive copies of the Bill before to-day. Indeed, as the notice of the debate was given only as a sort of warning notice with the Minutes of the June 10 (which were in the Printed Paper Office on the 11th), it was only on the 12th that it was down in the Paper for Second Reading to-day; although the note on the Minutes of the 10th was an indication.

My Lords, would my noble friend remind the Minister also that this is the week of the Royal Highland Show, which is of great importance and interest to many Members of this House?

My Lords, I had it in mind to mention it to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I sometimes wonder whether he would not rather like to be there himself. But there is Scottish business on Thursday. I must confess that I had it in mind to skim over the Royal Show, because I was going to inquire why this Bill could not have been put down for Second Reading on Thursday, after the other Scottish Bill which is on the Paper. That would have enabled some of the Peers who would like to attend the Royal Highland Show also to come here on the Thursday. But my point is rather different; namely, that, Royal Show or not, they could not have attended the Second Reading of this Bill to-day. For that reason I feel it proper to make this protest.

We must remember that to the uncharitable it might appear that to-day's situation was part of a plan to snub your Lordships' House in general, and Scottish Peers in particular. It certainly shows lack of consideration for the rights of Scottish Peers. I wish the Bill could have been down for debate on Thursday. The Government are fortunate in having the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, to speak for them, but he will need all his eminent debating powers, all his wits and all his wit, to get away with this one in the way in which he generally manages to do. It is not as if the usual channels were not warned, and I feel that I should be failing in my duty to the Whips' Office and to the several Scottish Peers who would have liked to be here to take part in this debate, and with whom I spoke on Thursday, if I did not make my protest.

I now turn to the Bill, my Lords. I shall be brief, because, as both the previous speakers have pointed out, we shall, we hope, have ample time to discuss it in Committee. In my view it is a bad Bill because of one blemish, to which reference has already been made, and despite some of the very good things in it—for example, Clause 10 to which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, referred. The Bill is, in terms of its main purpose, another step in the Socialist plan to turn the nation into a nest of termites. The abolition of the old Scottish practice by which local authorities have the right to charge fees is directed towards the negation of the right of parents to choose, within their means, the type of education for their children. It is a levelling down and not a levelling up. The doctrine seems to me to be that because fee-paying schools are widely and freely acknowledged to be excellent, and many people would like more pupils to go to schools like them, therefore they are undesirable and a divisive influence in the life of the nation.

My Lords, the differences between myself and the policy outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, in this matter are quite irreconcilable and I feel certain that we may look forward to a good many Second Reading speeches during the Committee proceedings, particularly in relation to Clause 1. I hope that the problem of the closed shop for teachers will be gone over in Committee in discussions on Clause 18. I believe that the complications and the cost of transport alone are sufficient to make comprehensive schools as planned undesirable, certainly in the larger cities. I am not altogether happy about the provision for religious education, though I gather from the debates in another place that the Church of Scotland seems satisfied. As has been said, the Committee stage will be of real importance, and it it is to be regretted that arrangements have precluded any more Peers from Scotland from taking part in this Second Reading debate. This is one more instance of the unwisdom of putting down Scottish business on a Monday.

My Lords, may I intrude to speak for a moment in support of what my noble friends have said in relation to the fee-paying schools? I hope that in his reply the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, will deal further with that flatter and tell us more fully what results are anticipated. I thought it was a little "easy-oasy"—if I may put it that way without meaning to be impertinent—merely to say that it was to further equality of educational opportunity. That seems to indicate, at least to me, that the Government and the noble Lord are well aware that the education provided by the fee-paying schools is better than that obtained elsewhere. In those circumstances one would imagine that the better course to take would be to try to raise the standard of education in the other schools to that of the fee-paying schools.

So far as I know, and I am dealing with Glasgow alone, the schools which will be concerned in relation to this matter are the High School, which I have heard it claimed was founded even before, or at least about the same time as, Eton; the Alan Glen, The Hillhead High School and, I believe, the High School for Girls. I do not know which is the fifth one, but those are four of them. Over the years these schools, and others like them, have been turning out men and women of the highest academic distinction and character who, through their efforts and ability, have risen to the highest positions in the professions, in trade and in industry, and indeed in every walk of life, to the great benefit of our country. The High School has given two Prime Ministers to the United Kingdom so far during this century and there may be others to follow.

With their traditions of service and their proud records, are such schools merely to be faded out in favour of a completely untried system? These fee-paying schools have proved that in general they turn out men and women who, at the very least, are of consistently high quality and the best types of citizens. I hope that the Government have plans which allow these schools to continue their good work, not only for the benefit of Glasgow but for the benefit of young people who attend them from the surrounding counties of Dunbarton, Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and Lanark. They come from even further afield than that; I remember that in my younger days boys travelled from Bute to attend the High School at Glasgow. These are not local schools at all. In large measure they may be said to provide for the whole of the South-West of Scotland. I lope, therefore, that the noble Lord will explain more fully the intentions of the Government regarding the future of these schools. My noble friend indicated that, from his point of view, it was somewhat improvident to turn down a contribution of some £255,000 in fees towards the education provided and a further £25,000 for the cost of books and other material which is presently paid by the parents of the pupils. I hope that the noble Lord may persuade his right honourable friend to give up this idea and to allow these schools, which have given such great service to our country, to continue the good work which they have carried on over the centuries.

My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like now to repeat a Statement that is being made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence in another place on pay of the Armed Forces. The Statement is as follows:

"On the 30th May, 1968, the Government announced that they had asked the National Board for Prices and Incomes to undertake a thoroughgoing review of the pay of the Armed Forces. This review was to examine the feasibility of evaluating Service jobs and comparing them with those in civil life by methods which would reduce to the minimum the necessity for subjective judgment and also to examine the basic structure of Service pay and allowances. The Government have now considered the Board's Report. They are grateful for the thoroughness with which the Board have carried out their task.

"For the short term the Government accept the recommended increase in pay to take effect from 1st April, 1969, together with other immediate changes in emoluments recommended by the Board.

"The Government accept in broad principle the Board's long-term proposals as a basis for a new structure of Forces' pay, along lines which would make it possible to establish a clear relationship between the emoluments of Servicemen and their civilian counterparts. As the Board recognises, however, much work still needs to be done in order to establish, following the re- port, suitable levels of reward for individual Service ranks, branches and trades; to determine appropriate charges for accommodation and rations; to construct a new pay code which will ensure a square deal for the Serviceman while assisting the Services to overcome current recruiting problems; and to enable the cost and other implications of implementing the new structure to be precisely assessed.

"In addition there are a number of detailed recommendations in the Board's Report the implications of which require careful study which must take some time in certain cases. It will be our intention, however, to complete this process, so far as the practical difficulties and the sheer size of the task permit, by next April. Work has already begun.

"The Government accept the Board's proposal for the regular review of Forces' Pay thereafter.

"They also note the views of the Board on Service pensions. This subject is being studied separately, and it will necessarily be some time before the results can be published. A major factor lies in the need to clarify the relationship between Service pensions (together with other occupational pensions) and the Government's earnings-related pensions scheme announced in Cmnd. 3883."

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for repeating this Statement, but I must confess that I find it a little difficult to follow without knowing the Prices and Incomes Board's recommendations, and the Statement does not help us there. In the Statement, reference is made to the current recruiting problems with which the Services are faced. These problems are very great—indeed almost catastrophic. I hope that what the Government are now proposing to do on pay will help to solve these problems, but I feel that the damage which has been done to Service morale and recruiting under their Administration goes far deeper than mere questions of pay. Having got that off my chest in an easy-oasy sort of way, I should like to ask the noble Lord two simple questions. The first is: what is the recommended increase back-dated to April 1 of this year? Secondly, how does that increase compare with the increase which would have been applicable under the Grigg formula?

My Lords, I am sure that the House will welcome the comparison which has been made by the Prices and incomes Board between the civilian and military occupations. This is important, but only, I suggest, as an aid in decision-making. It is much more important that the Services, which are charged with the defence of the nation, should be able to offer sufficiently attractive pay and conditions to ensure that the Armed Forces are kept up to strength. May I therefore put this question to the Minister? Will he confirm that the Government are not subordinating this aspect of defence policy to the Prices and Incomes Board and that the final decision on what is to be paid lies with the Government?

My Lords, I have every sympathy with the noble Earl's comment that the Statement lacks detailed information. Perhaps I may refer him and other noble Lords to the Board's Report. The various elements are mentioned in paragraph 168, on page 45, and paragraph 276, on page 73, of the Report, which I believe the noble Earl has received. The proposals are for an increase of 3½ per cent. on pay, additional pay and marriage allowance, back-dated to April 1, 1969, to be treated as a global sum of about £14 million; and secondly, for increases of pay for Service doctors and dentists, based on an average salary of £4,000 per annum for those not living in official quarters, the increase to be treated as part of the global sum. In practical terms, this means just under a 4 per cent. increase on basic pay for Servicemen and a much higher figure—approximately 14 per cent.—for doctors and dentists.

I cannot say precisely what the position would have been if Grigg had continued to apply. When the Prices and Incomes Board were first requested to bring the Armed Forces' pay under their general supervision, they came to the conclusion that the Grigg formula was not an ideal instrument and that something better must be produced. So I am not able at this moment to say what the Forces would have got compared with this, if the simple Grigg formula had continued.

Turning to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Byers, I think that everyone has substantial sympathy with his comment. The Prices and Incomes Board are not dictating a pay policy to the Government; they are simply advising. As the noble Lord rightly says, the key need is to improve recruitment, and I am certain that this factor will be borne in mind by my right honourable friend when the final negotiations on the actual detailed implementation of these proposals take place.

My Lords, may I remind the noble Lord that if any alteration is proposed in the structure of pay of the Forces, it will not only have to be related to the so-called peacetime conditions but also made applicable to active service. In these circumstances, has the noble Lord realised that there are big differences between conditions in civil life and life in the Forces?

My Lords, the noble Viscount is quite right. This is a most important factor in the calculations, and I would commend to him this extremely interesting Report. There is this element known as the X factor, which represents the sacrifices a Serviceman has to make in entering a military career. I think that the noble Viscount will find this argued in an interesting way in this document, in an attempt to bring to the public and to the Serviceman the relationship between what he earns in the Services and what he might earn in civilian life, with proper compensation for the additional risk s he has to bear as a serving soldier.

My Lords, the noble Lord kindly credited me with having read the Report, but I must confess that I have not yet done so. Could he help me with regard to the Grigg formula? He has calculated the overall increase back-dated to April 1 of this year which is being granted as being one of 4 per cent, for other ranks. My arithmetic is as follows. Grigg would have permitted a 10·1 per cent. increase for other ranks last year. In fact 7 per cent. was granted. The Index of Industrial Earnings has risen by 4·3 per cent. between April 1 of last year and January 1 of this year. That means, therefore, that other ranks would be lagging 7·4 per cent. behind. I understand that 4 per cent. is being granted and therefore, according to my ready reckoner, there is still a lag of about 3½ per cent. Am I wrong in that reasoning or am I right?

My Lords, I wish that I could answer with precision the noble Lord's arithmetic. Like him-self, I have had this document at somewhat short notice and have not yet done all my sums. The basic idea is that by April next year we hope to have a sufficiently accurate job evaluation to be able to decide what a Serviceman's job is worth in civilian terms and to be able to add to that the X factor, the compensation for the loss of individual choice, which is a necessary element of military life. I hope that during negotiations the X factor will be placed sufficiently high to ensure that recruiting is adequate.

My Lords, that is very interesting, and I am much obliged to the noble Lord. But would the other ranks be better off or worse off if Grigg had been implemented?

My Lords, there is not a simple answer to this question. Under these proposals the unmarried soldier will be a great deal better off. We believe that the married soldier will also be better off. But this will come out when the final negotiations are completed, by April, 1970.

My Lords, I apologise for not having put my name down on the list of speakers. I would not have joined in this debate, especially as an Englishman in a Scottish debate, had it not been for some remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, in his opening speech upon which I felt some comment was required. He spoke of equal opportunity for all, and quoted comprehensive education as giving that opportunity. I think it is time that we opened our eyes to the fact that that is not the answer. I doubt whether it would be the answer even if all children were alike and had exactly the same talents. But that is not so. Children are as widely different as are adults.

Your Lordships recently had a most interesting debate, initiated by my noble friend Lord Aberdare, on the needs of specially gifted children. I was unable to be here for the debate, but I read it with the greatest interest. One point that came up which it is important to consider in connection with the matter that I am now raising is that gifted children fall into two main classes: there are those who are generally gifted more than the average throughout all their work, and there are those who are particularly gifted in one subject. The first of these will have no opportunity in comprehensive education that other children do not have, and, speaking as one who has spent a good deal of his life in teaching, I may say that the result will be that the pace of the more gifted will be brought down to the pace of the less gifted. That inevitably happens when you have a class of children. As for those who are specially gifted in one particular subject, their lot will probably be a better one, because they will perhaps have individual teaching in their one subject. It is no use trying to pretend that everybody has the same talents. Those who have greater talents are, I think, worthy of a better education.

The noble Lord spoke of abolishing fee-paying schools. If one wants a better thing it is not unusual in most walks of life to pay for it. If one wants more comfortable travel one pays extra to go first-class; and if one wants to stay in a comfortable hotel instead of a pension, one pays more for it. So it is that throughout life one pays more for better quality. Therefore I do not think that the principle of fee-paying and non-fee-paying schools is an extraordinary one. One must presume that at the fee-paying schools one gets better teaching. Let us not close our eyes to the fact that more intelligent children must have better teaching if their gifts are to come to fruition. That is an unquestionable fact to anybody who has ever taught in schools.

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he thinks that the only gifted children are the children of parents who can afford to send them to a fee-paying school?

Certainly not. Gifted children come from all walks of life.

Then how do we provide for them?

I can only think that those who have very little money, but have gifted children, may receive some aid from the State.

My Lords, I do not intend to enter very deeply into the last exchange of cross talk, because the way in which it has developed shows how difficult it is to form opinions which can be borne out by fact on matters of this kind. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, spoke about the difficulties of providing in a comprehensive school for children who are gifted in every way rather than having one special gift, and I think he used the words, "You cannot do this in classrooms". But one of the points made, I think by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde (it was certainly made by one noble Lord who spoke before the noble Lord, Lord Somers) was that the demand for admission to the fee-paying schools is much greater than the capacity of those schools, and it must follow that some of the largest classes that we have are in fee-paying schools. So the difficulty of affording particular attention to the specially gifted all-round child is as great in the fee-paying school as it is in the comprehensive school.

I hope that no one has mistaken my remarks about the desire for creating more equal opportunities in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Somers, appears to have done, by thinking that I was suggesting that in doing so we shall confer on children equal ability. Of course children are not equal when they go into school, any more than they are equal when they come out of school, or any more than they become equal as adults. But what we want to make certain is that every child will have the best opportunity of making the greatest use of such talents and abilities as he may have.

I do not propose to spend any time in furthering the argument about fee-paying, because I envisaged in my opening re- marks—and although we used slightly different terms, I think we arrived at precisely the same conclusion—that, outside fee-paying, the measure was one about which we should probably find ourselves in general agreement. This is essentially a subject upon which people hold very strong views, and no matter how long we may talk about it we are unlikely to change those views. It is therefore obviously a matter for discussion on an Amendment, if it should be put forward, in Committee; and I propose at the moment to leave the subject there.

I should like to say, however, that I am grateful for the general welcome that has been given to the Bill. This was done particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in his usual careful and generous way. But the noble Lord asked some questions, and I think that, outside of the argument on fee-paying, he will probably find the answers reasonably satisfactory. His first question was about the use of the expression "general requirement" in Clauses 1 and 3. The new subsection (2) in Clause 1 reproduces the wording of Section 1(2) of the 1962 Act, which already includes the phrase "general requirements". The words have been added in Section 19(1), as set out in Clause 3, to increase the freedom available to authorities to build within a framework of "general requirements" instead of in accordance with specific standards. For example, there may be a general requirement to provide adequate playing fields, without the prescription of areas in precise detail.

The second point upon which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, asked a question was the provision of premises for school buildings where these could not properly be related to the number of pupils for determining what would be a fair cost. Education authorities are already encouraged to consult with 'town councils and, where appropriate, with other education authorities, over the joint use (to take the example quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn), of a swimming pool, which may be provided in a school but made available to the community. We have heard so often the argument that to provide a swimming pool of sufficient standards really to give school children proper training has obliged education authorities to provide something which was being wasted to some extent if its use was confined to the school. Sometimes even a little increase in the standards would make the pool generally acceptable to the community as a whole. This we wish to encourage as being an economy where perhaps one pool of full standard would be sufficient for a community, instead of having two pools. In such a case, where a larger pool was provided than would have been the case if it had been for the exclusive use of the school, the cost limit of the school would be increased to cover the larger sized pool. This arrangement has the advantage of rationalising the needs of the community, and providing the best result with the minimum of total expenditure. Needless to say, in existing circumstances, in particular, all such proposals are very carefully considered.

I wish to make one small point on Lord Drumalbyn's reference to fees. I must compliment him on his addition of the various sums. It was not surprising that, as an accountant, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, also found that at the end of the day it added up to £250,000. I cannot similarly compliment the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, on his division, because it is not, as he stated, a little more than 1 per cent. It might have been a slip of the tongue. In fact it is less than one-eighth of 1 per cent., because the total expenditure is some £200 million, and £250,000, as I think he already appreciates, is a great deal less than 1 per cent. I mention that in passing because it does not in any way invalidate the argument which he is putting forward. You either accept the argument as a whole, or you reject in whole, and the mistake of seven-eighths of 1 per cent. does not make any difference one way or the other.

I will come to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, later, because his main points were really not on the merits of the Bill, apart from his agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, on the subject of fee-paying. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in eulogising the contribution of the fee-paying schools—and I would not wish to disagree with him in any way in what he said—asked whether they are to be faded out in favour of an untried system. The schools are not going to be destroyed. Change in schools is not something which is new. Practically all schools change from time to time, and although I cannot claim to be an authority on the subject, I will accept as being true the information which I have been given that Eton no longer, for instance, caters for the children of the poor. It is to be expected that schools like Glasgow High will retain their tradition in the new scheme of things.

Comprehensive secondary establishments, although comparatively new, are in fact well tried in particular areas, and as an example of what can be done in Glasgow, schools like Cranhill and Knightswood have already acquired a very high reputation. While I am not attempting to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that his arguments are wrong (because I think I should be wasting my time), I ask him to accept that I do not agree with him that this would mean the destruction of these schools, or of their high reputation.

My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me if I intervene for one moment? The point I had in mind was that Glasgow High School, and other fee-paying schools, serve a much wider community than I understand is intended for the comprehensive school. I understood that the comprehensive school dealt merely with the locality in which it was situated, whereas Glasgow High School caters for a very much wider area than that.

My Lords, I said that I did not think I could convert the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. But I will look into that point, because I have a suspicion that if that is his main objective I may yet find him on my side, although I would also go on to say that if he finds I can satisfy him on that point, he will find other points of objection without any difficulty.

Now I come to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, on the subject of the discussion taking place today, so soon after the publication of the Bill. I am in complete agreement with him about the undesirability of having Scottish business on a Monday. I think, looking back, it is at least four years since any one was able to lay the charge at my door that I have permitted Scottish business to come up on a Monday. Having regard to the difficulties which the Whips have from time to time, I think noble Lords must accept that I have got away reasonably well with looking after the interests of Scottish Peers. At this time of the year we must have regard to the job of the Whips in getting the business of the House through. I must point out that in fact this business was arranged not for to-day, but for to-morrow, and was altered, not at the request of Scottish Peers—although Scottish Peers may want to be associated with it—but because so many people wanted to discuss Rhodesia to-morrow. It was decided that there was not enough time to deal with Rhodesia and Scottish education.

We have to live with things as they are. If the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, has to wait another four years before he has occasion to complain about Monday business, I think he will be pretty lucky. In fact, if I may use Lord Strathclyde's excellent term, it would mean that the Chief Whips are acting in an exceedingly "easy-oasy" fashion with Scottish business. Dealing with the interjection of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, during Lord Ferrier's complaint about the Highland Show, as I understand it that Show starts to-morrow. By having the business to-day, those noble Lords who want to attend can get the night sleeper up to-night, have a full day's business in Edinburgh to-morrow, and at the end of the day say, "Wasn't it very good of the Whips to advance the business by 24 hours, so that we can be in Edinburgh to-day instead of London".

Finally, my Lords, this is the kind of Bill where the most important stage is Committee. In deciding whether the Second Reading should be taken either to-day or to-morrow, so soon after the introduction of the Bill, I wanted to make certain that there was a reasonable interval between Second Reading and Committee, so that noble Lords would have a proper opportunity of studying the detail of the Bill for the purpose of tabling Amendments. I do not think noble Lords will have any cause to criticise the interval between now and the Committee stage of the Bill. In a difficult time-table I think the Whips have been exceedingly helpful to us in this matter, and I will accept in due course that we may throw a number of Second Reading speeches on the Committee stage.

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I must say that I do not agree with him at all on the point he made about the Highland Show. One Peer, whose opinion I was Partly voicing, pointed out that it was impossible for him to get back to Scotland on Friday, come down again on Sunday night, and then go back again on Monday night to get to the Show. It was for that reason that I asked the noble Lord a question, which he did not answer, which was: would it not have been much better to have the business on Thursday?

Yes, my Lords, if we were arranging the Business of the House to suit one particular Peer. But it would have shortened by four days the period between Second Reading and Committee stage, and I should have thought that that was a very high price to pay for the convenience of one individual Member of your Lordships' House.

My Lords, it would have enabled Scottish Peers to see the Bill. And may I assure the noble Lord that, if I am here in four years time and Scottish Business appears on a Monday, I shall again protest.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It has two main purposes. The first is financial, and it is to increase the Commonwealth Development Corporation's borrowing powers so that it can continue to assist economic development in large numbers of developing countries. The second purpose is to remove the present limitations on the countries in which the Corporation can operate. It will then be able, with the prior approval of my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development, to invest in countries whether they are in the Commonwealth or not.

Noble Lords will know that the Commonwealth Development Corporation is one of Britain's success stories; and very welcome it is in these days. The late Sir Andrew Cohen, whom many noble Lords will remember and who was I think one of our great men, told the 1968 Estimates Committee on Overseas Aid that the C.D.C. is as efficient a form of aid as exists in this country or in the world—a view which I know the World Bank also holds. The Estimates Committee reported:

"This is high praise indeed, but your Committee believe it to be well founded."

The C.D.C. works as a commercial organisation. It is non-profit-making, but it is expected to pay its way, taking it year by year. In other words, it combines the best of several different worlds. It is idealistic in that it can take a very long view of the development needs of a country, which a commercial organisation could not do. On the other hand, it is run by businessmen on strictly commercial lines, so that its projects have to be not only imaginative and forward looking, but also soundly conceived, thoroughly appraised and efficiently managed. Where the C.D.C. operates it has a multiplier effect because it attracts other investors. It is associated with territorial and European Governments, with the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, leading banks, commercial firms and companies from all over the Commonwealth and from outside.

But, just as important, my Lords, in its particular projects it operates with local people, local businessmen, local entrepreneurs; and it brings with it managerial talent and therefore plays a serious and important role in training local people to take increased responsibilities at managerial as well as other levels. May I give the House just one example, out of thousands, of one of the C.D.C.'s projects? There is in Kenya a tea-growing project, financed in collaboration with the International Development Association, which involves 30,000 peasant farmers and will soon involve 60,000. It is a tremendous and growing success.

I thought it proper to set the stage, as it were, against which the House could consider the provisions of the Bill. They are simple and straightforward and were not amended in another place, either in Committee stage or on Third Reading. Clause 1 is, as I said, the financial clause. The C.D.C. is at present empowered to borrow so that it has at any time not more than £150 million outstanding. That means that the £150 million limit will be reached when its total borrowings, less its repayments of capital, reach £150 million. Clause 1 of the Bill seeks to increase the £150 million to £225 million; and I should like to stress that this is sufficient for a further five to seven years. Clause 1 also makes provision for the limit to be further raised when necessary to £260 million; and that will be sufficient for a total of about 10 years.

Within the current overall limit of £150 million the C.D.C. has power to borrow from the Government so as to have not more than £130 million outstanding; and this limit will probably be reached early next year. The Bill also seeks to raise this limit to £205 million and to make provision for it to be further raised to £240 million when necessary. I think that this is clear and I hope that noble Lords will be able to approve the provisions.

Clause 2 deals with the extension of the Corporation's area of operations. At the moment it can invest in British dependent territories and any Commonwealth country which has gained its independence since 1948. This Bill will widen these powers particularly to countries, for example, like Sudan or Ethiopia, which are close to countries in which the C.D.C. is already operating and which offer the same kind of conditions, where the Corporation's regional officers can use their local expertise. But I want to stress that this does not mean that the Corporation will cease to be Commonwealth-orientated, or that a large proportion of its resources will be devoted to foreign countries. On the contrary, the Corporation remains the Commonwealth Development Corporation. But Britain rightly wishes to play a part in the world-wide effort being made to assist the developing countries, and it does this through the C.D.C. as well as in many other ways.

Where unavoidable poverty and ignorance exist it is in the best interests of the whole world to pool our knowledge and our resources towards rooting out those causes of unrest and ill-health. Neither we nor other Western countries are playing our full part in giving to developing countries all the assistance that we might. Nevertheless, it is a necessary part of our international obligations, and it is at the same time a form of enlightened self-interest. We believe that the C.D.C. should be able to invest in countries outside the Commonwealth, subject always to my right honourable friend's prior approval.

An important new factor that we should recognise is that donor countries no longer think in terms of giving only to their former colonies. I might add that countries receiving aid are very keen to notice and to diversify the sources from which the aid comes. We very much welcome the aid given to Commonwealth countries by, for example, the United States, Western Germany and others, and it seems right for the United Kingdom to operate more widely. May I give the House an example from my own personal experience of the sort of detailed aid which is becoming rapidly more commonplace? When I was Director of the African Educational Trust I received very generous donations of £70,000, £40,000 and £20,000 from Scandinavian countries, particularly Sweden. This was to give technical and university education to African students from Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth countries in the United Kingdom. The students then returned to their own countries where they used their skills and knowledge to reconstruct and to develop the countries' economies. It was splendidly generous of the Scandinavian countries to give us those donations, and this is the climate in which international aid is now being given. So, my Lords, it seems right to widen the C.D.C.'s horizons when other forms of British aid are going to foreign countries as well as to Commonwealth countries.

I am sure the House would not like me to introduce this Bill without congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Howick of Glendale, on the great progress that the C.D.C. has made under his splendid leadership and, if I may say so, all those associated with the C.D.C.—its chairman, its Board, its able general manager, Sir William Rendell, and all his staff, at home and overseas. They deserve our praise for building up what is a unique and highly efficient agent of development. Equally, no mention should be made of this subject without paying a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Reith, and to Sir Nutcombe Hume, who played their magnificient parts in earlier days.

This Bill does not provide for extra sources of development. As my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development pointed out in another place, money lent by the Government to the C.D.C. must come out of the total sums provided for in the aid programme each year. It is a modest, but important and wholly productive Bill, and I hope that it will receive the approval of the whole House. I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill.

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for having explained the purposes of this Bill so clearly, and at the outset I should like to say how much we appreciate the work which she herself did for the Africa Education Trust, on which I think she should be congratulated. I venture to say that this is a good Bill. We do not often say that from this side of the House, but we give this Bill our full support. I am glad, too, that since the debates in another place the Commonwealth Development Corporation's Annual Report and Accounts has now come out. I am sorry that there has been some delay, and of course certain criticisms were made in another place that it has taken so long to print. Indeed, I think the full Report is still not out.

I know that all of us on this side of the House would like to join with the noble Baroness in paying a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Howick. I am sorry that he is not here to-day to hear our tributes to him and to the members of the Board and staff of the Corporation, which has done twenty years of remarkable work and, in my view, a very good job in many parts of the world. I agreed with the Estimates Committee when they concluded last year that this great public Corporation had fully justified the trust placed in it.

We must all greatly regret the death of the late Sir Andrew Cohen. Certainly his death is a serious loss to the work of overseas development. I am sure that what he said about the Corporation, which the noble Baroness quoted—about providing more efficient aid to developing countries than any other country in the world—is absolutely true. The Corporation is performing an immensely important role in helping these developing countries to help themselves. I believe the Corporation goes about its work in a businesslike manner, spreading its investments over a wide range of products, such as transportation, housing, finance, capital for the development of agriculture, ranching, mining and basic manufacturing.

In regard to the provisions of the Bill, it seems to me that the extension of the borrowing powers of the Corporation is eminently sensible and the provision should be adequate for the next five to seven years. I notice that it is always open to the Corporation to ask for more capital if it can justify the need, and I would stress what seems to me to be absolutely true (and I would emphasise it for those who have some doubts), that this type of development aid not only has no adverse effect on our balance of payments but in fact has the very reverse effect.

However, there is one point on which I should be grateful for some comments by the noble Baroness. I have given her notice of this. I refer to the criticism of the Overseas Development Institute regarding the C.D.C.'s financing in relation to the ceiling of aid expenditure. I gather that advances to the Corporation count as part of the aid ceiling but that repayments to the Treasury are not deducted. This is quite a complicated accounting point, but it seems to me that the effect of the present procedure appears to exaggerate Britain's aid expenditure and that this effect will be increased as the C.D.C.'s operations expand, as recommended by the Estimates Committee and approved by the Minister. I think this may be justifiable criticism. It does not make much sense to count a grant for an overseas Government to buy, say, buses in this country as aid and yet to exclude the investment which a private company may make in building a factory overseas in partnership with local interests. I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to say something about that point.

The C.D.C. certainly operates successful ventures, and there is no doubt that it is stimulating a demand for British exports. It seems generally agreed that the most pressing need in most developing countries now is investment in a large number of smaller enterprises. I do not think the noble Baroness mentioned this point. This is the way to broaden the base of a country's economy, to stimulate real growth and to get wider participation in it by the people of the developing countries. I am sure that is the right approach.

With regard to the second provision in the Bill, the extension of the Corporation's operations to the whole of the Commonwealth and also to foreign countries, this was much debated both on Second Reading and in Standing Committee "D" in another place. I was glad to see that the Minister said the Corporation would be cautious in not venturing into too many new territories. If we pass this Bill the Corporation will be able to operate in any part of the Commonwealth, and in this way I believe that the spirit of Parliament's intention must continue to be that it operates in countries which are in an early stage of their economic development and where this is also in line with an essential British interest.

I agree that there are certain cases in which regional development seems to be desirable, and these might well include not only territories within the Commonwealth but also those which were formerly part of it, like the Sudan and the Cameroons. There seems, too, to be a good case for operating in a country such as Ethiopia, because of its proximity to Kenya, Uganda and even Tanzania, where the Corporation has been well established. In regard to a country like Tanzania, which has shown, to put it mildly, some hostility towards us, I am glad to note that in countries which have broken off relations with us or have become our declared enemies, loans have been frozen, even if some technical aid and training has still to go on.

There is also the question of whether the C.D.C. should go into India and Pakistan. That is a big question, and I should be glad if, before we finish our debate, the noble Baroness would say something about it. I hope she will agree that this must be a matter of commercial judgment. I agree with the Government that there seems to be no need to change the name of the Corporation, although perhaps it might now more appropriately be called the Overseas Development Corporation. But the present organisation certainly has an aura of success around it which is good. However, there might be some difficulty if it were to operate under its present name in certain countries. I do not want to exaggerate the danger, but it has been suggested that perhaps a formula could be found whereby the Corporation must operate in other countries, maybe through an appropriately named subsidiary. I do not know whether the noble Baroness will have anything to say on that point.

Finally, I think we have a considerable job to do in selling the whole concept of such aid to those in this country who may criticise it on the grounds that our own home needs are so considerable that we cannot afford it. Of course, it is said that the economic situation in this country is not at present exactly encouraging. But I am glad that in another place the Parliamentary Secretary agreed that it was essential to get the need for such aid across to those critics. I am glad that the Minister has said that there is no question of reversing our policy in respect of multilateral aid, and that the proportion of our aid programme which is dispersed through multilateral agencies has increased over the last five years from 8 per cent. to 15 per cent. I think we should welcome this increase.

I also give the Bill a warm welcome and express the hope that with the increased funds now made available the Corporation will be able to continue the good work of helping developing countries, not only in the Commonwealth but also a few outside it, although I would not wish members of the Commonwealth to suffer from the extension of aid to other countries; and I do not think the Government want this either. Therefore, in general I certainly commend the Bill to your Lordships.

My Lords, may I apologise in advance, in case I have to leave this debate before it comes to an end, but I have a long-standing and important engagement at which I have to represent your Lordships against another place in some non-Parliamentary activities for which I must not be too late. I hope I shall be able to remain to the end, not solely out of courtesy but out of interest also.

In company with the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, and I am sure in company with all your Lordships, I welcome this Bill warmly. It sets out to do two things, both of which are admirable. In the first place, it increases the amount of money which the Commonwealth Development Corporation will have at its disposal, and there can be nothing but praise for that. I certainly would share, or echo, the point the noble Earl made about some of the accounting procedures, which have always seemed to me not only less than generous to the Corporation but less than reasonable in enabling it to carry out its good work. But I will not pursue that point further.

The part I should like to dwell on for a short time is Clause 2 of the Bill, which seems to me not only extremely important and valuable in itself but something which opens up a wide and exciting vista of the future along lines which are entirely commendable. I have for a long time felt that overseas aid, or the aid—shall we say?—to developing countries, should in our own minds and to a large extent in our own actions be divided into three sections. First of all, there is the aid which is needed for what has now come to be called the infrastructure, the aid which is essential for any developing country if it is to reach something approaching the levels of those countries already developed, but which will not give dividends in the accepted sense of the word, the results of which cannot be expressed in a balance sheet and distribution to the shareholders. I refer to such things as transport, communications, schools and hospitals.

For that type of aid, which is very necessary indeed, there can be no question, if we are honest, of our accepting or acquiring or exacting any form of return. Possibly eventually, in the long distant future, we might hope to get paid back the original capital; but to think of this in terms of an investment, a loan on which the borrowing country—already lamentably poor, which is the reason we are giving the money—has to pay 5 per cent., 6½ per cent., or even 2½ per cent., interest, to my mind not only does not make sense but defeats the very purpose of the operation. Therefore, that type of aid, I believe, should be given as a free gift, by ourselves if we can afford it, by other rich countries, and above all internationally if it can be managed. I will not dwell on that matter because that is not the subject of the Bill.

The second form of aid is that of technical assistance, not requiring any large amounts of money, not even vast amounts of manpower, but a certain number of highly selected people, men and women of different skills. There is no need to elaborate the importance of that. Again it is not the subject of this Bill. We then come to the third form of assistance, and that is to provide both capital and technical expertise for operations which eventually will become profit-making and the objective of which is to earn a profit, whether it is for building a fertiliser factory, or, as the noble Baroness gave as one example, making a tea plantation in Kenya, or setting up and operating hotels to meet the needs of tourism, or any other form of commercial enterprise—all things which will add to the wellbeing of the country in which they are carried out, things which are in essence commercial undertakings and which should be started only if they have prospects of paying what business investors would call a fair return on capital, a dividend, if not during the immediate years at any rate in the foreseeable and not too distant future.

The obstacles which are holding up that type of investment in many developing countries are, in the first place, lack of know-how, lack of financiers who know how to raise the money, lack of the technical people who know about, for example, building and running an hotel. A second obstacle is a general ignorance of how to start a business on this scale in a country which has never known such a thing. And there is the fear of the outside investors—and it is largely from the outside investor that capital for this type of thing must in the first place come—of investing in a new, unknown country with, at any rate to their minds, political instability. There is the uncertainty among these investors as to what the future will hold for them, the uncertainty about the people they have to deal with, the local population, both in labour and in management. All these things hold them back; and if they are not unduly held back and are eventually persuaded to go into the venture, they will do so only if the return on capital is more rapid and more substantial than it would be if they were investing in a safer and better known part of the world. That, of course, is exactly the opposite to what we want. Those of us who are interested in the development of under-developed countries do not want them to have to pay a higher dividend and thereby increase their costs in competition with the already developed parts of the world, simply to meet the higher risk and uncertainty and to attract the normal private investor.

That is where the C.D.C. has played an enormously important role, first in the Colonies, then, by the wisdom of the then Government, by extension to the Commonwealth, and now by the wisdom of the present Government by extension to other under-developed countries. The Corporation effects, as it were, broadly a marriage between outside finance and internal finance and local knowledge. It brings them together, in the first place, by providing its own capital. By degrees, it withdraws, eventually leaving those industries and operations entirely to private enterprise, from both outside and inside. That is the right line on which these things should be managed.

Where I disagree with the noble Earl is when he expressed the hope that the Government—I think, probably rightly, the Minister will have to give his approval for this form of investment in foreign countries—would be, cautious. Caution has a variety of interpretations. We do not want the Government to be rash. I should never expect the Commonwealth Development Corporation to be rash in its investment, in any case. I sincerely hope that the Minister will encourage development of this type and will not be a dead hand holding the Corporation back but a hand pushing it forward increasingly to extend the scope, so that it departs from the limits of the old Empire and the present Commonwealth into the much wider boundaries of the developing world as a whole. It is not only because I believe it to be good in general that this should be done; it is not wholly because I believe it to be good economically for this country, but it is also, as the noble Baroness and the noble Earl have said, because future efforts in these areas, whether they be in Africa, in South-East Asia, in Latin America or in any other part of the world, must be more and more directed towards regional development and not be limited by the existing narrow national boundaries.

It is perfectly understandable that all countries, and particularly the newly emerged countries, should have a great national pride. We should encourage them to have that. But what we cannot encourage them to do, and what the world and they cannot afford, is that there should be economic balkanisation where each small area has its own small development scheme, its steel plant, its overseas airline and so on. These things must be done regionally, and the regional aspect of development must not be based on the fortuitous acquisition of an empire in the nineteenth century but on to-day's regional economic needs. For those reasons I gladly welcome this Bill, and I hope that it is only the beginning of a much wider movement towards the provision of capital for this type of enterprise on a regional basis. That can only do good to all those we wish to do good to.

My Lords, I want to follow the noble Baroness and the two noble Lords in welcoming this Bill and commending it to everyone, including the outside public whom Lord Bessborough wants us to educate. I agree with him that that education is most necessary. The misunderstandings about this which is called aid are prodigious. I sometimes wonder whether we ought not to get rid of the word altogether. I believe that it has now become a completely misleading term in one sense of the word, because, as my noble friend Lord Walston has pointed out, this has not only become global, regional and national, but finally must be a complete two-way passage in which we are depending for our future on recovering not in tangible returns, not by way of dividends, loan repayments and so on, but in fuller accomplishments.

It is difficult to get this over. It is profoundly difficult to get it over, in view of the fact that we find the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Leslie O'Brien, saying, within the last month, that the great change for the worse has been the huge increase in Government expenditure abroad, mainly on aid to less-developed countries and for defence. I must say that if my bank manager could not distinguish between spending on defence and the total of long-term investment which is called "aid", then I would not trust him with my overdraft. This is manifestly a complete and absolute misunderstanding of what we are trying to achieve, and in fact what we are achieving in the wider world of development.

As the noble Lord, Lord Walston, has pointed out, what we are talking about to-day is a neat, tidy, reassuring balance sheet which demonstrates what one can do under strict and enlightened business management, and the results that can be achieved. This is extremely encouraging, and I hope, as does Lord Walston, that the small Bill we are discussing to-day, and indeed the small amount we are talking about to-day, will eventually become something much bigger: in fact overseas resources development on a significant scale such as we have not yet achieved.

The problem is first, how we are in fact to produce this two-way passage, the sense that what we are giving now will eventually bring back rich rewards, but, more importantly, that if we do not do it there will not be anything there: we shall not have the resources to maintain our own standard of life; we shall not be able to maintain ourselves as an industrial nation. One of the things we always forget when we talk about developing countries as though they were our pensioners, our orphans or something like that—when people treat this as putting a penny in the blind man's tin—is what in fact it means in terms of the future. The Paley Report to President Eisenhower made it quite clear that before 1975 that great self-sufficient country the United States (as at school we were always told it was, from the crust of which you could extract anything for ever), will be dependent on the countries we call "underdeveloped" for over 50 per cent. of her industrial resources; that is to say, the raw materials of the American standard of living. This seems to me to be the only way of looking at this problem, in the terms of the kind of things which, for some benighted reason, people will not understand.

I am absolutely sure that my motivations are entirely set towards seeing that people in the world are better taken care of; but a pre-condition of that is the development of natural resources and, above all, the investment in human resources, making it possible for people to fulfil their hopes and expectations and the hopes and expectations which we must have if we are quite selfishly to maintain our own standard of life. I find it appalling that one can go around, as we still do, and as the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, has stressed, finding people who do not comprehend that this is not only putting a penny in the blind man's tin. While we can demonstrate clearly with C.D.C.—a tidy business management—we must also be able to see that the total investment, the continuing investment, the great expanded investment that we must have abroad is in fact going to pay off, not in terms that anyone without our human sympathy can understand, but in terms of the ultimate and better interests of this country.

I remember that last year, when my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development was announcing the increased contribution in respect of UNICEF from £400,000 a year to £500,000, everybody cheered. My right honourable friend, quite properly, as an honest man, said in effect, "Do not cheer too much, it is not as big as that; because what we are in fact doing by increasing the amount to £500,000 is to bring into this country from UNICEF over £1 million of trade a year". By apparently giving alms we are being big-hearted, but we are also doing a good bit of business, thank you very much.

The point I want to make is this. While we are gratified to see clearly in C.D.C. what we can do with a tidy, or what the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, would have called an "easy-oasy", operation, do not let us ever lose sight of the fact that what we are doing in a much wider and bigger way—and we must do it on a much wider and a much bigger way—will produce benefits of which we shall be beneficiaries.

My Lords, I do not in any way oppose this Bill, and I support fully all that has been said of the admirable work of C.D.C. I would not dare to comment upon the interesting review of the need for world overseas aid which the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, has just given to your Lordships, but this Bill is important constitutionally and from a Parliamentary point of view I think is questionable in one aspect. For the first time ever, moneys which finally arc provided by the taxpayer for the C.D.C. can be spent anywhere and everywhere in the world, subject not to prior Parliamentary approval, but only to the Minister, at his discretion, giving approval to the C.D.C.

Three times in her speech the noble Baroness made the positive assertion that the Minister would have to approve. If the noble Baroness reads the Bill, she will see that it says, "The Minister may give directions…" In fact, it is entirely at the discretion of the Minister whether or not he requires the Corporation to obtain his approval, and I think that perhaps the noble Baroness, when she replies, should clarify that particular position because there is a contradiction between what the noble Baroness told your Lordships and what appears in the Explanatory Memorandum of the Bill.

At present the activities of the C.D.C. are limited to the areas defined in the third paragraph of the Explanatory Memorandum. As the Memorandum says:

"The new extension will enable its resources to be deployed more quickly."

To me that is Civil Service jargon for saying that more money can be spent more quickly, and anywhere in the world. I do not object to that; but there is nothing in the Bill that says Parliament should have knowledge if the Minister approves the policy of the C.D.C.'s extending beyond its particular areas as at present defined. There is nothing to say that the Minister has to agree if the C.D.C. proposes, let us say, to build hostels in northern China, or to install central heating in Alaska. I grant that no Minister would agree to such proposals, and I am quite sure that no good, well-run C.D.C. would ever propose such a thing; but in these days we sometimes doubt the sanity, and we often doubt the wisdom, of those in authority, whoever they may be.

I hope that at a later stage the Government will agree to one of two courses. The first is that they should themselves introduce an Amendment to Clause 2 requiring the positive approval of the Minister to the extension to new territories beyond those at present authorised, and that he should inform Parliament of his approval of such extension. Alternatively, if the Government will not look favourably on that (I am a very trusting person. to all Governments) I should be satisfied if I could receive an assurance that in practice the Minister will do two things: first, always call for approval if there is going to be an extension beyond the existing limits; and, secondly, undertake to inform Parliament when he has given that approval. I repeat, I do not oppose the Bill, but in the interests of the supremacy of the Legislature over the Executive I ask that my suggestions be considered.

My Lords, we have had an extremely interesting debate, and I have been very gratified at the welcome which the Bill has had from all parts of the House. I think that this kind of debate brings out the best of your Lordships' House, which has shown a great deal of understanding of the operations of the C.D.C. If I may take the points of the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, first, I very much regret the delay in the printing of the Bill, but, as your Lordships know, that was due to circumstances beyond our actual control. We do indeed intend the C.D.C. aid to apply to countries in the early stages of development, as the noble Earl said. Turning to the question of India and Pakistan, I would say that it is true that the Estimates Committee recommended an extension to those countries; but, of course, that is a vast area, the sums of money in which we deal are very small, and as the noble Earl said, it would have to be a matter for commercial judgment. I think that for the present, or even the foreseeable future, there is little likelihood of the C.D.C. ranging as far as that.

As to keeping the name of the Commonwealth Development Corporation, think everybody would be loath to change the name. It carries with it a great deal of good will, it is known everywhere, and it is appropriate that we should keep it. Nevertheless, it is possible that, if it should be necessary, we could set up another organisation subsidiary to it, with a different kind of name, if that seemed appropriate. There is nothing in the Bill which would prevent my right honourable friend from doing that.

I should like to thank the noble Earl for his welcome to the Bill, and turn to the rather difficult accounting question which my noble friend Lord Walston also raised. It is really a question of the way we give our accounts to the Development Assistance Committee. The advances to the Corporation are counted gross against the aid programme; the same is true of all other aid lending. That is because the Budget of this country has to provide gross for both the advances to C.D.C. and other loans. But as my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development made clear, he intends to make available both net and gross figures, because both are significant in their own particular way. The figures we claim as aid internationally are net of capital repayments, but not net of interest. I hope that explanation has managed to clear up some of the complications.

I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Walston has had to go, because I read in The Times that to-day is his birthday, and I think your Lordships would have liked me to give him your best wishes. I will just answer one interesting point he made, and that was about the different types of aid; what was hard and what was soft. I think it is right that we should understand that C.D.C. aid is not as hard as commercial aid, but it is not as soft as the other kind of aid which the Ministry of Overseas Development gives. It is in between. Although non-profit-making, it does have to pay, year taken beside another year. That is the difference I will bring my right honourable friend's attention to the noble Lord's recommendations about not being too cautious.

One or two noble Lords, while welcoming the extension of the areas of operation, made reference to Cameroon. This is a particularly good example, because Cameroon was a United Kingdom trusteeship territory. When it got its independence, part of that country joined the French Cameroon and therefore became for us a foreign country, although it was eminently suitable for the type of aid which C.D.C. gives, and indeed already had a certain amount of investment in it. Under the terms of this Bill we shall be able to raise the investment. So that is a particularly good illustration.

My noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder made one of his characteristically global, practical, and compassionate speeches, and I was particularly glad that he referred to the remarks by the Governor of the Bank of England. Those remarks were in fact very ably dealt with, in a letter to The Times of May 27, by the Director of the Overseas Development Institute. I think it is very important that noble Lords realise that many benefits flow to this country as a result of the aid programme, particularly—and this is important—in the shape of increased exports, as indeed the noble Earl mentioned. Much of the aid programme money, of course, does not leave this country, because it is in the form of British goods, and much of it returns in a relatively short period. Unlike my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder, my bank manager does not allow me to have an overdraft, but if I had one I should rather agree with the view expressed by the noble Lord. I should say that it is the opinion of my right honourable friend that if there were no aid programme at all the United Kingdom's balance of trade would suffer losses through changes in other donors' aid, and through the inability of some developing, countries to pay debt service or to allow repatriation of capital and dividend. So I think it is a good thing that that point should have been raised in our debate to-day.

The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, raised some rather complicated points, and I think it might be better, if he wishes to raise them at Committee stage, if I dealt with them more fully then. I think we could give him the assurance for which he asked. I cannot of course commit myself in advance in regard to Amendments, but the points he raised were important and, for myself, I do not feel any anxiety about our being able to reassure him. If he will leave the matter like that for the moment, I shall be grateful.

May I repeat how very glad I am that the Bill has had such a welcome from all parts of the House? My noble friend Lord Blackett, who, I think, has not yet made his maiden speech in your Lordships' House, gave a very remarkable lecture, the Gandhi Memorial Lecture in Nairobi early last year. He pointed out that in a developing country capital is always in short supply and that the rate of growth in the economy of the country depends on how much capital is available and how well it is used. He went on to say something profoundly interesting and, I think, relevant. He said:

"It might be argued that main drainage, water supply and good housing may have done more for the health of people living to-day than all the wonderful achievements of modern curative medicine".

My Lords, it is precisely those things with which the C.D.C. is concerned, and where its activities lie. Electricity in Dominica, fertilisers in Trinidad, land development in Malaya, development finance in Kenya, sugar production in Tanzania, water and electricity in Malawi—the list is endless: and noble Lords know it. For that reason I am very glad that they have given such welcome to the Bill to-day.