My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, I regret that we have been unable to recruit a suitable pædiatrician, and therefore we have not been able to offer further medical aid in this field, although the Vietnamese authorities have been invited to suggest alternatives. We are, however, currently engaged in a number of technical assistance projects in other fields, and the number of Vietnamese students coming to this country is on the increase. Furthermore, the Government of Vietnam has accepted an offer which we made last year of an interest-free loan of £1 million to be spent on British goods and services in connection with a project or projects which are still to be agreed between our two Governments.

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for that reply. Is he aware of the desperate needs of Vietnam, both North and South of the 17th Parallel, for outside help on a purely humanitarian basis, regardless of any political or military considerations? Is he further aware of the acute shortage of hospital and orphanage accommodation, and could our aid be extended on as wide a front as possible, especially in the field of rehabilitation?

My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are, of course, fully aware of the needs to which the noble Lord, Lord Segal, has referred. I would only assure him that we are prepared to consider any kind of request for assistance which may come from the Government of South Vietnam.

My Lords, could the noble Earl say what was the obstacle which confronted the Government in the appointment of a pædiatric doctor?

My Lords, the Government have tried to find somebody who was willing to go there, but such a person has not yet presented himself.

My Lords, may I press this point? Was it a question of remuneration and conditions of service, or the fact that such doctors are just not available?

My Lords, it is in fact that such doctors have not yet come forward to say that they would be willing to go to Vietnam to undertake this particular appointment.

My Lords, is it a question of the conditions—in other words, that if the conditions were better such a doctor could be found?

My Lords, if I may say so with respect, I think that would be slightly hypothetical—

No.

I think it is, because the Government have advertised and canvassed to try to get a pædiatrician to fill this post, and nobody as yet has been prepared to accept it.

My Lords, would the Government consider approaching neighbouring countries, such as Thailand, and also the American authorities now in Vietnam, with a view to some concerted effort towards increased medical aid to Vietnam?

My Lords, the Americans have a unit at this hospital. But I would again assure the noble Lord that we have intimated to the Vietnamese Government that they should put forward any suggestions they may have as to how we can help in this respect. We therefore look forward to hearing what they wish.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, we have been aware of these possibilities for some time, and have naturally considered most carefully the implications for this country's security. The matter will continue to receive close attention.

My Lords, while thanking the noble Marquess for his Answer, may I ask whether it is the fact that Her Majesty's Government, having had difficulty in the past in controlling Soviet agents inside the United Kingdom, will find it doubly difficult to control the infiltration of such agents from abroad? Is it not high time that a passport system was introduced between Ireland and the United Kingdom?

My Lords, the noble Earl has of course drawn the attention of the House to a most important point and one which I can assure him has not been lost on Her Majesty's Government at all. He will realise that this matter involves questions of security, and of course these are confidential matters. I really cannot go into them at the present time. I take the noble Earl's point, and assure him that the matter is being very carefully attended to.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that diplomats in Moscow are subject to very close travel restrictions, and that as a result we impose similar restrictions on Soviet diplomats in London? Is it not probable that if Ireland were to open an Embassy in Moscow their representatives will be subject to similar restrictions, and that the same will apply in Dublin; and would not this solve the noble Earl's problem?

My Lords, I think that is quite likely; but it is not for me to say whether that will be so or not.

My Lords, could the noble Marquess say how a person, of whatever nationality, accredited to an embassy in Dublin would be able to use Irish nationality to come into this country?

My Lords, of course I should not be able to.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Its purpose is to provide for loans to be made to port authorities which, though clearly viable, encounter difficulty over the renewal of their capital debt because of unfavourable market conditions. Under Section 11 of the Harbours Act 1964 ports can already borrow from the Government for capital development purposes, and some £83 million has so far been lent for those purposes. But loans cannot be made under the 1964 Act for re-financing capital debt. The need for such loans has arisen because for many years the earnings of some ports have been too low and they have relied on short-term or fixed-interest borrowing which may have to be renewed when market conditions are unfavourable.

The Government are giving the industry freedom and encouragement to tackle its problems. The threat of nationalisation has been removed and the ports have been encouraged to adopt realistic commercial attitudes so that they can, like other businesses, be self-supporting and competative. Last year the Minister for Transport Industries strengthened the National Ports Council so that they could play a major part in formulating with the port authorities a programme for establishing realistic financial policies, strengthening management, controlling costs, developing realistic charging policies and rationalising facilities.

Progress is being made. The Government do not intend to allow further progress to be jeopardised and hindered by temporary re-financing problems of ports which are clearly viable in the long term. So this Bill will enable loans to be made in such cases. But, as the White Paper explained, the loans will be made on a basis which encourages ports to continue to borrow on the market where they can or, where they do borrow from the Government, to return to the market as soon as possible.

Clause 1 allows the Secretary of State to make loans, for the purpose of assisting debt payment or the repayment of other loans, if the financial prospects of the port authority justify it. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will consult the National Ports Council in all cases. The Council will carry out a detailed analysis of all the authority's forecasts and plans, its proposals for improvements in board and management structures, and its internal procedures. The Council will recommend a loan only if they are satisfied on all these matters and will recommend conditions to be attached to any loan. The loans will normally be on a long-term basis and at interest rates commencing some 2 percentage points above the Government lending rate and rising progressively. So the terms will not be easy ones. The object is to put pressure on the authorities to seek alternative sources of finance where they can. The terms will result in strict financial disciplines and improved profitability, which in turn should strengthen the authorities' ability to return to the money market.

Your Lordships may wish to know that Clause 1 excludes fishery harbours and marine works from assistance under the Bill because they are the responsibility of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. Their exclusion from this Bill is consistent with their exclusion from the Harbours Act 1964. Clause 2 applies for the purposes of the Bill the powers which the National Ports Council already has under the 1964 Act to obtain information to enable it to carry out its functions.

Clause 3 relates to any loans made before the Bill is passed. Such loans were envisaged in the White Paper, and in fact loans have already been made to the tune of just under £5 million to the Clyde Port Authority and about £3½ million to the Forth Ports Authority. They were made by the Secretary of State out of money advanced for the purpose from the Contingencies Fund. Under Clause 3 an equivalent amount will be issued out of the National Loans Fund to the Secretary of State, who will then repay the Contingencies Fund.

Clause 4 sets a limit of £200 million, which can be increased to £300 million with the consent of another place, on the aggregate amount of loans that can be made "after the passing of this Act" for debt repayment purposes under the Bill and for capital development purposes under Section 11 of the Harbours Act 1964. We are thus taking the opportunity of setting a limit which will not only cover the new loans under the Bill but also future loans under the 1964 Act. Clause 4 avoids specifying separate limits for the two types of loan, because estimates of requirements are necessarily broad at this stage.

My Lords, I hope with that explanation I am able to satisfy your Lordships of the purpose of the Bill, and I have no hesitation in commending it to the House. I beg to move.

My Lords, I heartily endorse the principle of this Bill as a rescue operation of a strictly limited kind for port finance to enable the ports to re-finance themselves when necessary. Certainly a surprising number, considering the high quality of their management, had taken to borrowing short in order to re-finance long; no doubt they had been forced to do so, as the last report of the National Ports Council suggests, because with little or no profit in prospect under the threat of nationalisation that was in fact all they could do. This borrowing short to refinance long was perhaps the only hope of the ports at that time while awaiting the protective umbrella of State ownership to be added to the State vetting of their investment plans. So with the purpose of this Bill as an immediate short-term enterprise I, for one, am highly content.

But as its Explanatory Memorandum makes clear, the Bill is intended to give effect to the proposals in the White Paper, Financial Policy for Ports, and this is the first time that your Lordships' House has had an opportunity to consider that publication. While the White Paper addresses itself to the immediate short-term problem in a manner which can be considered adequate, it certainly cannot be considered adequate in all other respects. It is perfectly true, as paragraph 3 of the White Paper states, that the problems of the ports will not be solved by subsidies. But neither will they be solved without assistance enabling them to match their European competitors. It is a full two years since the National Ports Council published a study on the subsidisation of port developments in Europe—notably Rotterdam, Hamburg and elsewhere—but there is nothing in the White Paper, nothing in its pert, confident, anti-lame duck tone, to suggest that the message of the National Ports Council's own study on port subsidisation abroad has been taken to heart; least of all, when—if the Government get their way—we shall be within the Common Market inside of a year. So I take this opportunity to ask whether the Government are willing in the longer term to consider matching the heavy subsidisation of port development on the Continent with something at any rate comparable in this country?

If it is said that the problems of the ports cannot be solved by subsidy, neither can they be solved by private enterprise alone—save perhaps in the North or North-East of Scotland where consortia are already busy thinking up ideas for an oil/natural gas terminal and servicing bases for drilling and production rigs in the North Sea. There is not much of a "come hither" look on the Government's part to attract private investment. As matters stand now, private enterprise gets mighty little welcome when it seeks to undertake an overdue development. An example which comes to mind, in which I must declare an interest, is the proposal to develop Bathside Bay at Harwich. In that case, the promoters have been kept waiting as long as six months on a planning inquiry even though the National Ports Council could not have been more helpful.

Since neither private enterprise nor Government aid is, by itself, the sole answer to port development problems, may we know something of the Government's long-term thinking about collaboration between these two sources of investment? Perish the thought that the Government's thinking should still be permeated with the complacency of the White Paper's second paragraph, which stated that our ports "have been substantially modernised"—which is true—"and equipped with facilities which compare favourably" (I stress the word "favourably") "with those in other countries". Where now, or where yet, are the maritime industrial development areas which the National Ports Council has been advocating since 1965—seven long years ago? Now that the Government have refused to entertain a MIDA as well as a deep-water port at Maplin, are they willing to consider one, let alone to encourage one, on the Medway? And what has happened to the admittedly low-level, part-time inter-departmental study into the industrial/commercial demand for MIDA facilities, which the Government set going last spring in the Department of Trade and Industry? It was to report by Christmas we were told. Now we are nearing Easter. When is it coming?

Finally, there was a disagreeably complacent and superficial note about the opening sentence of the White Paper, and it, alas! sets the tone for much that follows. The White Paper told us that the ports:

"… have been regarded as a service to be made available without adequate regard to costs, profitability or long-term financial health."

The single word "adequate" in that paragraph just saves the Government's bacon. The ports are a service, and every bit as much a service as the railways and the roads. Hundreds of millions are being poured into the roads—and thank goodness!—but the return envisaged is calculated not in terms of financial profitability but in terms of cost/benefit. Many millions are going into other elements of the regional infrastructure without regard to profitability—the new towns are an obvious example—but on cost/benefit calculations. Surely in the long term it is national cost/benefit rather than mere financial profitability which we should look for in port development.

As I said at the beginning, I gladly support the short-term interim measure proposed by this Bill. But after reading the White Paper and fruitlessly questioning the Government from time to time, I can only say that I cross my fingers about the apparent lack of any long-term view; least of all about the development of deep-water facilities and adjacent provision for industrial development for the industry of the future which I believe to be so vital to our economic future. The mood of the White Paper reminds one of that helpless prophecy of doom:

"Sea girt island thou hast been,

Ocean's mistress and her queen.

Now is come a sadder day,

And thou too must be its prey."

I should hope that we could be assured, if not to-day then before long, that the Government's maritime philosophy would be better expressed by that seventeenth century poet, Thomas Campbell, who wrote:

"Ye Mariners of England,

That guard our native seas,

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,

The battle and the breeze.

Your glorious standard launch again

To match another foe."

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for the way in which he introduced this Bill. He was brief but he certainly covered the essentials of the Bill which, like the Transport (Grants) Bill with which we dealt on Tuesday, is a Money Bill and is narrowly drawn to deal with only one aspect of the finances of harbour undertakings. As such, I do not think it is a Bill which lends itself to a wide-ranging debate over the whole of ports development and of Government policy in relation to such development. So I am not going to embark on a discussion of what is left out of the Bill, although, as we know, one can always do that on a Second Reading.

I am not going to talk about the possible inclusion in such a Bill of provision for massive support of the sort given by certain countries to foreign ports which are in competition with ours. But I must say that I agreed very much with some of the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, who preceded me in this debate. Certainly it seemed to me that what he was aiming for was complete nationalisation of the ports. That is the only way of solving the difficulties they are in at the moment, but, clearly, this is not the occasion for a debate on the nationalisation of the ports. I do not think that this is either the time or the place for the sort of speech which one might have made. But because this is a Money Bill it does not mean that it is not deserving of the attention of the House and of a reasonable examination of its provisions.

As both the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, have said, the Bill is drawn to give effect to the White Paper, Financial Policy for Ports, which dealt with the difficulties of some port authorities when they run up against the problem of renewing their capital, or of paying off an overdraft or any borrowing that has time-expired. The noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, from his intimate knowledge of this matter, has told us how much money has in fact been borrowed on a short-term basis at very high rates, and of course these repayments will have to be made within, perhaps, a very short time. In paragraph 10 of the White Paper we read that

"… the loans will normally be long-term ones, for 10 years or more (the periods being subject in all cases to the recommendations of the Council). The Government will, however, be entitled to repayment on demand should the port authority fail to meet the relevant conditions, and the authority will be entitled to repay loans at any time, either from normal market borrowing or from their own accruing internal resources; … the initial rate of interest will be a high one, in the region of 2 percentage points over the Government lending rate and will be increased progressively over the life of the loan".

My Lords, there is nothing in the Bill making any provision, either for the period of any loans, or for the progressive increases on the rate of interest, or the limit of such progression. I take it that this is to be left to the responsible Minister, and is, I suppose, the common form in such matters.

But there are some questions that I must put to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. Can he tell the House whether, if the loan is granted for the ten-year period, there will be the possibility of an extension of that period if the National Ports Council should, during the period, make such a recommendation? Will the noble Lord tell us what is meant by the words in that paragraph of the White Paper:

"and will be increased progressively over the life of the loan."?

There is, my Lords, such a term as arithmetical progression", under which the progression rate is 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and so on; and there is also a geometrical progression with a rate of 2, 4, 8, 16 and so on. Will it be either of those, or will the Minister have the power to decide and to vary in accordance with a recommendation of the National Ports Council? I should very much like an answer to that question when the noble Lord comes to reply, for certainly the Bill does not tell us. It says only that the Secretary of State may make the Authority a loan.

The White Paper also tells us that:

"… the initial rate of interest will be a high one, in the region of 2 percentage points over the Government lending rate …"

My Lords, we have been told that the purpose of the Bill is to help a harbour authority out of the difficulty of repaying its loan capital when it falls due; that is to say, if its circumstances are such that the market has doubts about its liability and the authority is unable to raise the required amount on the market.

My Lords, the first and important requirement of such an authority, when it seeks a Government loan, is to satisfy the National Ports Council that the authority's financial prospects are sound. Having satisfied the Council in that regard, it then gets a Government loan at 2 per cent. over the current Government lending rate and faces the prospect of progressive increases in the interest rate over the life of the loan. Already, it seems to me, such an authority will be only marginally viable, and it also seems to me that what this Bill proposes is designed to tilt the balance against an authority rather than to help it out of its very immediate difficulty. It seems as though, if the authority's head is just above the water of the dock, 2 per cent. plus progressive increases in interest charges will serve only to push it under.

The charge of interest on port revenues is already, in the case of most of them, a very heavy one indeed. I have not been able to check these figures as they were given by an honourable Member in another place, but I understand they come from an official Digest of Port Statistics for 1971. The figures are: in the case of the Mersey Docks and Harbours Board (of unhappy memory), the net interest charge was about one-fifth of its revenue; in the case of the Forth Ports Authority, about one-quarter; and for the Milford Haven Conservancy Board about four-fifths of the revenue had to be devoted to interest charges. I do not know whether any of these authorities will be in the category of those to be dealt with under this Bill, but I imagine that there are very many in this country similarly placed, and to add a further obligatory high interest rate to the charge upon their revenue is, it seems to me, just to pile Pelion on Ossa. It is bound to increase their difficulty. What chance will such authorities have to improve their position to such an extent as to enable them to carry out the purpose of the Bill; namely, to raise money to renew capital on the money market? The Government's lending rate at the moment is 6¼ per cent. Add 2 per cent. to that, and you are about at the peak which we reached when struggling out of our massive balance of payments deficit—and then, on the top of that 8¼ per cent. will be superimposed a progressive increase in interest charges.

I know that the purpose of the Government is to cause a borrowing authority so to conduct its affairs that it will get out as soon as possible from under the intolerable burden of perhaps 9 or 10 per cent. interest to be paid to the Government. But you are not going to give it much of a chance, are you? For what most of such authorities need is sufficient left over from their unavoidable payments out of revenue to enable them to improve chiefly their equipment to such an extent as to convince the market that to lend money to them would be a sound gilt-edged investment. It is all very well to subject such an authority to a stringent financial discipline, but it is certainly a bit thick to subject it to a crippling rate of interest, the only effect of which will be to add further to the number of lame ducks which we have in this country. In this case, the ducks will be lamed by the Government's action under the Bill, and in the long run they might have to be rescued, as Rolls-Royce and the U.C.S. have had to be rescued, by the injection of considerable subsidies from the public purse.

I hope that the mind of the Government is not too firmly fixed on the terms of the loans to be made under the Bill. The exceptionally high rates proposed in the White Paper are not contained in the Bill. The Government have, therefore, some room for manæuvre, a certain degree of flexibility, and they might try a 1 per cent. over the Government lending rate and make the rate of progression, if any, a very low one; and then, in the case that I am now talking about, if the Ports Council sees that the borrowing authority is not really trying to improve its position, steepen the rates in an attempt to bring those responsible to their senses. To do that would be to at least give the authority a chance, and not to discourage it by giving it an impossible task.

My Lords, although, as I have tried to point out, the Bill has some doubtful aspects, it is essential that some such rescue operation be mounted at this time, and it is certainly not my intention to ask this side of the House to oppose this Bill. But I hope that before this Bill receives its Second Reading we shall have an answer to some of the points that I have put in this connection.

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords, and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Champion, for pressing me on the question of the nature of these loans, because if I had given the impression that there was any lack of flexibility here I think the whole proposal would have been subject to very justifiable criticism. I certainly did not intend to give that impression and I am glad now to confirm that in fact the Bill as drawn, and the proposal as my right honourable friend intends to apply it, point exactly in the opposite direction. There will be full flexibility as to the rate of the loan and the rate of progression in the increase of the interest rates, and there will be flexibility as between one port and another. There is no doubt that to get the figure right in both these respects my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will not act until he has had advice from the National Ports Council, based on the detailed analysis of each port's proposals, plans and so forth, as I set out in my opening speech.

It is necessary to have this flexibility because, on the one hand, this is an operation designed to help the ports over difficulties in re-financing their debts (and these will vary from port to port and from time to time) and to provide them with breathing space in order to increase their earnings and reduce their costs. This will take a different length of time in each particular case, depending upon the existing state of the port's finances and on the development of its future plans. On the other hand, it is our intention—and I am sure that the House will agree with this—to provide an incentive to particular ports to get back into the market for their finance and also at the same time to avoid any adverse market reaction towards the ports generally. In order to balance all these factors this flexibility as to the initial rate, the timing of the programme and so on, is essential. I am grateful to the noble Lord for pressing me on that matter and for giving me the opportunity to make it clear.

I was also grateful to him for not making this an opportunity to embark upon a wide-ranging debate, either about nationalisation in general or the ports industry in general. Both he and my noble friend mentioned European ports. It is the case at the moment that, generally speaking, they do not have the policy we are aiming at: that of producing a viable ports industry. An extensive range of subsidies is available to European ports but there is not at present any general port policy for the European Economic Community. One of the things that we shall have to embark upon if and when we enter Europe is a discussion with our colleagues in that organisation on the formulation of a ports policy. My noble friend mentioned the Bathside Bay scheme in Harwich. I suppose that he was referring to the application by the company of which he is a director. In that particular case I can say that the result of the public inquiry held last August is expected shortly. I am not in a position to say anything else at the moment. My noble friend also mentioned the question of progress with the studies of a MIDA. I do not think he was quite correct in saying that the possibility of a port on the Maplin Sands had been ruled out. We have invited the Port of London Authority to make proposals to us, though not of development on the scale that my noble friend probably had in mind.

My Lords, I am sorry if I did not make myself clear. What I said was that the Government had ruled out a maritime industrial area there for primary industry, and not a port. I wondered whether they would welcome one on the Medway.

My Lords, I am glad to have had that point cleared up. My noble friend also mentioned certain proceedings within the Government. I will not accept any of the epithets he applied to it, but I shall be glad to confirm that it has proceeded according to plan and has now been completed. I hope that I have answered the points raised by noble Lords.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of the Bill is to effect a number of useful reforms in the law regarding the administration of justice in Scotland. The Bill is designed to make it easier to obtain and preserve evidence both before and during litigation, to allow a right of appeal to the House of Lords in certain civil actions where no such right exists at present, to allow appeals from decisions of arbiters on questions of law, and to amend outdated legislation relating to the rate of interest to be allowed on monetary awards by the sheriff court.

The provision concerning the disclosure, recovery and preservation of evidence is contained in Clause 1 of the Bill. At present, the courts will in general make an order concerning the production or inspection of documentary or other evidence only after the closing of the record in any action; that is to say, when the written pleadings of the parties have been finally adjusted. While there are exceptions to this rule, there is, I understand, dissatisfaction with the present law and practice and, in particular, with the courts' powers in this respect. The proposed reform is directed towards making as much relevant information as possible available to the parties to litigation at a sufficiently early stage to enable them to prepare their cases properly and to expedite settlements and trials.

The Bill would extend the powers of the court to order the inspection of property, the recovery of documents before the closing of the record, or indeed, before proceedings have been started, if the circumstances so warrant. Safeguards are incorporated to prevent abuse of the proposed new procedure—for instance, by using it to engage in what is termed a "fishing diligence"; that is, to recover documents in the hope that they will reveal that a party has a case. Parties applying for an order must satisfy the court that the property or document about which an order is sought is relevant to existing proceedings or to proceedings which are likely to be brought. Present rules in relation to confidentiality and privilege of documents, for instance, are of course retained.

Clause 2 of the Bill would remove present restrictions which prevent an appeal being taken to the House of Lords from an interlocutor of the Court of Session granting or refusing a new trial in civil jury cases. The matter is at present governed by Section 6 of the Jury Trials (Scotland) Act 1815, which allows appeals to the Court of Session on a variety of grounds; but the section goes on to provide that the decision of that Court shall not be subject to review by appeal to the House of Lords. The Government feel that it is wrong in principle that appeal to the House of Lords, which is available, generally speaking, over the whole field of civil actions, should be excluded in the case of actions tried by jury, for questions both of liability and quantum can arise in jury trials and a litigant ought not to be deprived of the opportunity of having such questions considered by the highest tribunal, particularly since so many of the cases which come before a jury will have arisen under the Factories Acts and related legislation which ought to apply in the same way throughout the United Kingdom.

The Bill would establish a right of appeal to the House of Lords on the same grounds as those at present available in the case of an appeal to the Inner House of the Court of Session as provided by the 1815 Act. The proposed provision would also confer on the House of Lords the power, at present confined to the Court of Session, simply to reverse a decision of the lower court if they were satisfied that the verdict under review was contrary to the evidence and that they had before them all the evidence that could reasonably be expected to be obtained relevant to the action under consideration.

My Lords, Clause 3 provides that any question of law arising during the course of an arbitration, or after the arbitral award has been made, may be referred by way of a stated case for the opinion of the Court of Session. While accepting that the relative speed and finality of arbitration proceedings should not lightly be discarded, it is the Government's view that where an arbiter has made a patent error in law it should be possible to correct that error on appeal; but in order to preserve so far as possible the present advantages of this method of settling disputes, the provision is expressly confined to questions of law. On questions of fact the arbiter's award is, and would remain, final. Certain Scottish statutory arbitration codes, for instance the code under the Agricultural Holdings Acts, and statutory arbitrations in England, make provision for such appeals. The clause therefore brings Scots law into line with these statutory codes.

Lastly, my Lords, on the question of interest rates, Section 9 of the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Extracts Act 1892 provides that where interest is included in a decree or extract decree, it shall be deemed to be at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum unless otherwise stated. The prescribed rate of 5 per cent. seems no longer suitable as a general rule, and Clause 4 of the Bill would enable the Court of Session to direct that Section 9 of the 1892 Act shall be amended so as to substitute a more appropriate rate of interest than that specified in that Act.

My Lords, we have consulted widely on these proposed provisions and we are satisfied that the Bill will be welcomed by the legal profession in Scotland. Therefore I invite your Lordships to support the proposed measure. I beg to move.

My Lords, I frequently start my remarks when following those of the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, by saying that I am grateful to her for the explanation that she has given. In this case I can say that with the very greatest sincerity. I have read this comparatively short Bill, not in its entirety, but I got quite a long way through it and recognised, with one exception, that there were no particularly difficult words; yet I got to the end of Clause 1 without really knowing what the thing was about. Although the words are simple, when they are strung together (for example, in Clause 1(3) where we have 16 lines and more than 170 words without the intervention of a single period; but with one semicolon) you need to read them through two or three times before you begin to get the hang of the sentence. And when one does not have any legal knowledge to begin with, the task is made still more difficult.

However, my Lords, I must confess that I abandoned reading in detail when I got to Clause 1(4), to the second line, when I saw a word in line 27 of the Bill which is very often used in conversation in Scotland as a substitute for the word "blethers". I do not know how it is pronounced in a legal context but we read in line 27:

"… practice relating to the privilege of witnesses and havers …"

Only the Scots will appreciate that word. I have no doubt that it may not be pronounced in the same way in the context of this Bill, but I do not know how it is pronounced. When I reached that point I recognised that I was completely out of my depth.

I am, therefore, reassured by the statement of the noble Baroness that the Bill is widely welcomed by the legal profession in Scotland. I do not expect to be moving any Amendments at the next stage of the Bill; but I have one doubt about Clause 2 which extends the right of appeal to the House of Lords, in certain cases where it does not exist at the present time, and also the reference to the fact that the House of Lords may alter a decision in relation to the amount of damages. I should like to consider that aspect of the Bill. It may be perfectly sound from a legal point of view that everyone should have the same ultimate right of appeal in Scotland as they would have were they South of the Border. But one recognises the fact that a right of appeal to the House of Lords is a not inexpensive process, and one which has been held sometimes to favour those who are better able to take the risk of art unsuccessful action. I would, for instance, like to be certain that trade unions, who are frequent supporters of litigation in this section, are as happy as the legal profession that a successful case decided in Scotland might be the subject of an appeal to the House of Lords say, on the question of the reduction of damages.

With that slight note of query I am quite happy to be associated with the Second Reading of the Bill; and if I find that others than the legal profession in Scotland are quite happy about the Bill, I shall not regard it as part of my duty to prolong the proceedings on the Committee stage.

My Lords, in spite of the mild criticism of the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, I am sure that your Lordships' House will realise, after the explanation given by the noble Baroness, that the content of the Bill effects improvements in the law of Scotland, and as such should be welcomed. I hope the House will accept this and will give the Bill a Second Reading forthwith.

My Lords, I feel that I should try to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. First, I should like to thank him and also my noble friend Lord Strathclyde for supporting the measure. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, that there are some very interesting words within this Bill, such as a "haver", which after all is one who has or has not and which I should have thought a very literal interpretation. The noble Lord was not quite happy, or perhaps he wondered a little, about Clause 2, regarding an appeal to the House of Lords; and in particular he wondered about it in connection with the question of damages.

My Lords, I understand that there has been considerable criticism in recent years of the absence of the right of appeal to the House of Lords against decisions of the Inner House of the Court of Session granting or refusing a new trial. It is for this reason that this provision is in the Bill. To give one example, in the case of McCallum v. Paterson in 1968–69 two successive jury trials were rendered abortive by successful motions for a new trial, on the ground that the damages awarded by the jury were excessive. I understand that there is recent evidence of a change of approach by Scottish judges towards the question of damages awards, and so it may be that much of the need for the proposed right of appeal to the House of Lords in such cases could he regarded as having been removed. However, it seems right, in view of the previous criticism, that jury trials should not be excluded from the general available right of appeal in civil actions; particularly since many such cases are based on United Kingdom legislation. With that assurance I hope that the House will give this Bill a Second Reading.

On Question, Bill read 2^a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. This is a short but rather complicated measure and it has, I think, an unusual history, in that it was introduced in another place by the previous Administration as Part I of the Employed Persons (Health and Safety) Bill and was in Standing Committee at the time of the Dissolution of Parliament in June, 1970. It has been reintroduced by this Government and is now before your Lordships for the first time, so your Lordships do not have the advantage that Members of the other place have of having seen the Bill before. Perhaps, therefore, it would be helpful if I first gave a brief outline of the origins of the Bill before making some general comments, and then briefly explained the most important clauses.

The appointment of "certifying surgeons" (as appointed factory doctors were then known was first authorised by the Factories Act of 1844, so that the appointed factory doctor service is one of the oldest public health services in the country. The duties of the service have varied from time to time, but for over a hundred years appointed factory doctors have been responsible for medically examining young persons as to fitness for work on taking up employment in factories. As noble Lords will know, appointed factory doctors now have two main functions. The first is to undertake the statutory medical examination of every young person—that is, under the age of 18—entering factory employment, and thereafter to carry out a further examination every year until he reaches 18. The second function is to carry out the statutory examinations required under the Factories Act 1961 and under regulations for persons working in hazardous processes and trades. Although appointed factory doctors are general practitioners appointed by chief inspectors of factories, they work as independent contractors and are paid fees for their examinations by the occupier of the factory. Any factory which has its own works medical officer may have him appointed to carry out examinations under the specific code of regulations which apply to that factory.

The Secretary of State for Employment is advised on industrial health matters by the Industrial Health Advisory Committee. In 1964 a sub-committee of that Committee was set up to look at the appointed factory doctor service. The C.B.I., the T.U.C., the B.M.A., the Society of Occupational Medicine and the Royal College of Physicians were all represented on the sub-committee, together with other bodies interested in industrial medicine. The sub-committee considered the work of appointed factory doctors in the light of the social conditions of to-day. This Bill has its origin in their report. When examinations by the appointed factory doctors started in the last century, and for many years after that, there was no doubt that they did a great deal of good so far as young persons were concerned, for often the appointed factory doctor was the only doctor whom the young person saw. But now that we have the school health service and the National Health Service it seemed to the sub-committee that it was no longer necessary to examine all young persons entering factory employment. It was considered that a selective system of examination should be evolved instead, under which the school health service would identify those school-leavers who were not unconditionally fit for employment, and that they alone should be given further medical supervision. The other main duty of the appointed factory doctor, the periodic examination of persons engaged in hazardous trades and processes, would of course have to continue. The sub-committee recommended that both the selective medical examination of young persons who were not fully fit and the statutory examination of persons engaged in hazardous trades should be undertaken by a small expert group of doctors and that the appointed factory doctor service should be abolished.

The Bill which we now have before us embodies these recommendations of the sub-committee. It also takes them a step further, as a result of further discussion within the sub-committee. It sets up an employment medical advisory service which will have the duty not only of carrying out the functions recommended in the sub-committee's report but also of advising the Secretary of State for Employment, and anyone else who has an interest in the subject, on medical aspects of all employment problems. This means that the appointed factory doctor service will no longer exist, but we are confident that most of the fine traditions of the service will be carried forward into the E.M.A.S. The nucleus of the E.M.A.S., if I may go on calling it so, will be the medical services division of the Department of Employment, which exercises professional control over the work of doctors employed by the Department. These doctors are the former medical inspectors of factories (now known as medical advisers), doctors in industrial rehabilitation units and Government training centres and regional medical consultants. In numbers they represent the equivalent of about 50 full-time doctors.

Having given this brief outline of the origins of the service, I should now like to comment on two matters which have given rise to some concern in connection with this Bill. The first is one which was mentioned by a number of noble Lords during the debate on the reorganisation of the National Health Service on November 29 last year, namely, the relationship between this new service and the National Health Service. We are determined that the service shall work in close co-operation with the National Health Service. The proposals for this service have been worked out in the closest collaboration with the Health Department. It is because of this determination that we are arranging for the joint use of laboratories to encourage co-operation in the field. In addition we have lanned an extensive publicity programme to come into operation once the Bill receives the Royal Assent. Not only will the programme include publicity specifically directed at the medical profession, but to ensure that all doctors in the health service know of the existence of the E.M.A.S. the Health Departments have agreed to send a special letter about the organisation and functions of E.M.A.S. to all doctors in the Health Service. The letter will stress the need for the closest possible co-operation between the new service and the general medical services of this country. If, at some future date, the Government of the day thought it desirable to transfer E.M.A.S. to the Department of Health and Social Security there is nothing in this legislation to preclude such a transfer. At the moment, however, we think it right that the service should remain with the Department of Employment, as the Department responsible for employment matters.

Secondly, there is the question of the relationship between the service and private works medical officers. Is E.M.A.S. the beginning of a comprehensive occupational health service? First let us define our terms. For most people a comprehensive occupational health ser- vice means more doctors in more factories—doctors who, among other duties, will carry out treatment. E.M.A.S. is not, and is not intended to be, such a service. It is intended to be primarily a medical detective service, which will serve as a focus for the development of occupational medicine in this country. It will not provide treatment. To do so would duplicate the work of the National Health Service. We estimate that at present about one-third of the factory population have their own works medical services. To cover the remaining two-thirds would, we estimate, need some 2,000 doctors and cost about £20 million. The doctors are just not available. However, the service will work in the closest co-operation with private works medical officers, and the sub-committee of the industrial health advisory committee, which I have already mentioned, is discussing the best way of ensuring that the State service and the private services work together in harmony. We see the two Services not as competing but as complementing each other.

I should now like to turn to the Bill itself so that your Lordships can see how the recommendations of the sub-committee have been implemented and the scope of those recommendations enlarged. Clause 1 is the most important clause. Subsection (1) sets out the purpose of the Bill, which is to establish and maintain an employment medical advisory service to ensure that the Secretary of State and others concerned with the health of employed persons and persons training for employment can be kept informed of, and adequately advised on, matters of which they ought to take cognisance concerning the safeguarding and improvement of the health of those persons. Under subsection (9) of the same clause, persons training for employment include persons attending industrial rehabilitation courses and the phrase "others concerned with the health of employed persons" is to include organisations of employers or employed persons and associations of such organisations.

This subsection also gives the Secretary of State power to appoint persons to be employment medical advisers. As I have said, there are already the full-time equivalent of some 50 full-time doctors in the Department of Employment, and it is estimated that the equivalent of about another 50 full-time doctors will be required for the operation of the Service together with about 110 supporting nursing, executive, clerical and secretarial staff. At a rough estimate, we think that when the Service is fully operational there will be some 78 fulltime doctors and 42 part-time, but that must be an estimate. Officials of the Department of Employment are at present discussing what should be the exact duties of the nurses, of whom there are expected to be 12, with the Royal College of Nursing.

The service will be organised in eight regions with a regional employment medical adviser at the head of the team of E.M.A.s at each region. The regional boundaries will be the same as those of the Department's regional organisation. The field organisation has been worked out on the basis of the distribution of industry, the location of Government training centres and industrial rehabilitation units and the spread of the estimated work load.

My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to interrupt? Did he say that the boundaries would coincide with the existing boundaries of his own Department's services? Is there no question of their coinciding with the regional boundaries which will be set up in the National Health Service under the Consultative Document?

My Lords, we have to work with what we have, and this seems to be the best way of organising it at the present time. The full-time advisers will be based on the main centres of industry and population. The less industrialised parts of the country will be covered by part-time advisers. Within this general structure it is proposed that there should be substantial groups of full-time advisers in the major conurbations, that is, Central London, Birmingham and Glasgow. This will allow the development of a degree of specialisation among those advisers which will be of considerable benefit to the Service as a whole.

Subsection (2) of Clause 1 gives the Secretary of State power to commission research and provide laboratories for the purposes of the employment medical advisory service. For the most part the employment medical advisory service will carry out its own investigations into problems connected with its work. But there will also be cases where the best course would be to commission some outside body to investigate a particular problem. As for the laboratories which E.M.A.s will require, the Medical Services Division of the Department of Employment, which is to be incorporated in the E.M.A.s, already has its own laboratory, which will undertake many of the tests for the London and South-Eastern area and act as a central reference laboratory. Other routine work for the E.M.A.s will be carried out in national health laboratories which have been designated for the purpose. We attach the highest importance to these arrangements. They will encourage close working between the E.M.A.s and the National Health Service. That is essential if the service is not to develop in isolation from the main stream of medicine.

While we are on the subject of laboratories, I should mention the Industrial Hygiene Laboratory of the Factory Inspectorate, which carries out environmental tests such as dust counts and is the biggest in Europe. The E.M.A. will be working closely with the Factory Inspectorate, so that medical findings can be related to environmental conditions. Also, there are five university-affiliated occupational hygiene laboratories which undertake both environmental and biological tests. As the industrial hygiene laboratory of the Factory Inspectorate does not undertake routine testing of environment, we see an increased role for university-affiliated laboratories in providing this service for occupiers. So far as biological tests are concerned, the Department will not seek to interfere with private arrangements between occupiers and university-affiliated laboratories. University laboratories have said that they were "greatly reassured" by a discussion between their representatives and officials of the Department of Employment. The powers of the employment medical advisers are set out in subsection (5) of Schedule 1 to the Bill. Noble Lords may have noticed that employment medical advisers will not have all the powers which are given to Factory Inspectors since the Employment Medical Advisory Service, as it names implies, is an advisory service and E.M.A.s should have only those powers which they need to enable it to carry out its statutory duties under the Factories Act.

Subsection (6) of Clause 1 gives statutory backing to the new arrangements which I have already briefly mentioned about the follow-up of young persons who will be identified as in need of further medical supervision by the school health service. The school health service already identifies from records, or by means of interview or examination, school leavers who are not unconditionally fit for all types of employment, and they notify the careers officers of the youth employment service of each of these school leavers by means of a standard form, Y.9, which simply gives in lay terms the restrictions laid down on his employment—for instance, that he must not work at heights or carry heavy weights. In future the school health service will send this standard form not only to the careers officers but to the E.M.A. and to the family doctor. In this way there will for the first time be a direct link between the school health service, the employment medical advisory service and the youth employment service. It is hoped that this form will be completed by the school health service at the beginning of the young person's last year at school. Then it will be possible for the careers officer and the E.M.A. to consult together during the whole process of advising these pupils and placing them in employment. The subsection also empowers the E.M.A. to ask the school health service for such other information relating to a young person's medical history as he may reasonably require for the efficient performance of his functions, but forbids him to disclose such information otherwise than for the efficient performance of his functions, for instance, to the career officers. If disclosure is wanted for any other purpose, for instance to a prospective employer, the consent of the young person must be obtained.

Clause 2 abolishes the position of appointed factory doctor and makes various consequential amendments to the Factories Act. The most important of these is that in subsection (3). Under a number of codes of regulations the chief inspector of factories is at present authorised to approve medical practitioners other than appointed factory doc- tors who may carry out statutory medical examinations for the purposes of the Factories Act and regulations made under it. This subsection enables similar powers to be given to the chief employment medical adviser and his deputy or deputies so that they can authorise works medical officers to carry out these examinations.

Clause 3 looks long and complicated but in essence it is quite simple. Under the Factories Act, medical inspectors are empowered to carry out medical examinations. We shall no longer have medical inspectors and so employment medical advisers must have the power to carry out medical examinations if they think them necessary since an E.M.A. may go into a factory where work not covered by regulations is carried on and where he thinks it advisable to examine some of the workers concerned. The clause is directed towards the occupier and requires the occupier to permit the medical examination of his worker. The workers themselves are free to refuse examination, and there is nothing in the Bill which can force them to be medically examined.

Clause 4 carries into effect the recommendations of the I.H.A.C. sub-committee that a doctor should no longer have the power to suspend a worker when he considers that his work is adversely affecting his health. While the sub-committee considered that the power of suspension was necessary, they thought that it should not be the responsibility of a doctor, since his function is to give medical advice, not to take action in pursuance of that advice. They therefore recommended that, in cases where the E.M.A. came to the conclusion that continued employment in a particular process of a worker whom he had medically examined was inadvisable, he should not have power to suspend the worker but should formally advise the employer and the worker in writing of his conclusion. On receipt of such a notice it will no longer be lawful for the factory occupier to employ the person concerned.

Noble Lords may wonder why this clause deals only with women and young persons employed in any process involving the use of lead compound. The explanation is that all the powers of suspension except one are contained in Regulations or Orders made under the Factories Act and will be dealt with by amendment to the Regulations. The reference to suspension in respect of women and young persons employed in lead compounds, however, is in Section 75(2) of the Factories Act and it has to be dealt with by amending the Act. I should add that the change in the procedure for suspension under the Factories Act will not result in any change in the practical effect; it merely removes the responsibility for suspension from the doctor.

Clause 5 requires the occupier of a factory who engages a young person to notify the careers officer within seven days after he takes a young person into employment. The careers officer will then be able to check these notifications from the factory occupier with the form Y9 which he has received from the school health service and in appropriate cases he can discuss with the E.M.A. whether the notified employment is suitable for the young person. This formal system of notification applies only to factory employment, but the E.M.A. will be willing to advise on the medical aspects of any employment problem. Clause 6 deals with the revised arrangements for payment by occupiers of fees for the statutory medical examination carried out under Regulations. In the past, these have been paid to the appointed factory doctor. In future, the occupier will pay them to the Secretary of State. These I think are the vital clauses of the Bill now before us and I hope that, with that explanation, noble Lords will be willing to accept this Bill. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

My Lords, we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, who gave a characteristically thorough and detailed explanation of the Bill, and if I do not follow him in many of the points he has made it is simply because nothing more needs to be said. Certain aspects, some of which raise difficulties, he explained clearly and I shall concentrate on those areas where we still see difficulties. First of all, I think it would be right to pay a tribute to the work that has been done in the past by appointed factory doctors whose services will now he discontinued by the Bill. Many of them have served the employees and the firms very well and we should acknowledge that service. None the less, these new proposals, as indeed the noble Lord himself said, form part of a Bill which, after very thorough discussion, was introduced by the previous Government. Although for the most part it does not raise controversial issues, and therefore we certainly welcome it, there are some important issues, and there are some difficulties. Furthermore, it provides an opportunity to discuss some of the wider matters of industrial health. Such criticisms as I have to make of the Bill are for the most part concerned with detail, and some of them relate to certain changes which the Government have made in comparison to our Bill, which, though small, are not insignificant.

I am bound to say that I still much regret that the Government have not seen fit to include what in some ways was the more important part of our original Bill on the subject of safety. It is quite startling—and I am sure that noble Lords who are interested in this subject will agree—how complacent we all seem to be about the heavy loss, the suffering, indeed the death, that still arise in British industry. Our original Bill made some important provisions, which were strongly backed by the British Safety Council, by the Trades Union Congress and the trade union movement generally, for a proper involvement of workers in this area through worker representation on safety committees.

I would have wished to go into this theme at some length, for we attach great importance to it, were it not for the fact that in another place, only a month ago, a Second Reading was given to the Employed Persons (Safety) Bill which had been introduced by Mr. Hattersley. The importance of this measure, which deals with the particular area I am touching on, is such that I hope very much that the Government will give a fair wind to it, notwithstanding—and this is the answer which I think we may be given—that the Robens Committee are dealing with this subject and will be reporting in due course. I admit that the Government have a logical argument here; but looking at the practice in legislation, looking at the pressure we always have on our timetable, and even bearing in mind that Robens may be reporting this summer, the fact is that it may be two, three, or even more years before we have a comprehensive measure. Meanwhile, more people will be killed and injured; more family life will be disrupted, and great suffering caused to individuals. If the passing of Mr. Hattersley's Bill saves only one life it would be worth while. In my view, it could do a great deal more.

Furthermore, I would say this to the noble Lord. The Robens argument is not entirely valid, because the Robens Committee were set up by the previous Government and notwithstanding that, we decided to press on, not only with a Bill such as that before us to-day—and we are grateful to the Government for proceeding with this matter; they may have been a little tardy, but I am not going to complain about that—but, at the same time, with another matter to which we attach great importance. The noble Lord cannot give us a definite assurance on this, since the Bill I am referring to is not before us. I had indeed even thought of incorporating in it some of the provisions of the old Bill, on the subject of safety and workers' representation, even at the price of delaying a measure which we welcome; but I hope the Government will be willing to give it a fair wind if that Bill comes up to us. A great deal, of course, depends on progress on Committee stage in another place. Although in a sense I am getting dangerously near to being out of order, and certainly in another place I should be out of order, this matter ties in importantly with the Bill now before us, and indeed with our attitude towards this Bill.

Let me comment briefly on some of the provisions of the Bill. As I say, we welcome the proposals, even though they create some awkward interfaces between the medical services which the best firms themselves have and indeed—as was implicit in the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Reigate—the organisation of the National Health Service. I do not doubt that the noble Lord will have something to say on that, and I hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, may be able to comment on it. But the specific points which I should like to draw to the noble Lord's attention, and to which we are likely to return on Committee, are the following. First of all, I am bound to say that the penalties for breach of some of the provisions of the Factories Act, particularly the penalty for obstructing a medical officer in his capacity as an inspector, are inadequate. A penalty of £20 is really absurd to-day. If it was right at the time of the 1961 Act (I do not think it was, and I think perhaps I might admit that my colleagues in a previous Government would express regret that they had not done something about it), it certainly is out of date now by reason of the advance of inflation. It may be argued that this Bill is not the right one for amending the provisions of the Factories Act. It is a self-contained reform. I am glad that the Government have continued with the Bill, despite the rough edges and anomalies which are inevitably created by this sort of measure, and I hope they will be sympathetic when we come to arguing the question of penalties.

There is another point which concerns us and which we should like the noble Lord to answer. As the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum reveals, the Government propose to spend, in real terms, something like 30 per cent. less on this new service than we had originally intended. According to the Memorandum it is going to be £850,000, instead of the £1 million which we proposed two years ago. This is a cut, in real terms, of about one-third. Linked with this there is a proposal to have a smaller number of doctors. Admittedly there is a proposal to provide some additional nursing staff, and having seen nursing staff in industry I would not want to criticise this. I may have missed what the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said the nursing staff are going to do. He said that the Government would be having talks with the relevant nursing authority, but surely it would have been reasonable for the Government to decide this before they adopted this solution. Perhaps we can be given some more information on this point, and on the particular ultilisation of nursing staff.

I think we are all inclined—the Government and the rest of us—to underestimate the real size of the need. Some of us remember that when the National Health Service was introduced the view of the cost was grossly out of relation to the reality, and I remember Aneurin Bevan pointing out that none of us knew just how great the needs were. What is proposed now is an important development, but perhaps I may give one example of the kind of situation which makes me wonder whether the numbers are right (I am referring to the numbers of qualified personnel, including doctors) and whether it is right to be saving money. We see reported to-day in the Guardian that work on motorway box girder bridges throughout the country may be halted while checks are made of the risks of lead poisoning. Merely taking into account the number of box girder bridges where people will be working makes one wonder whether the 100 in full-time equivalent will in fact be adequate to monitor and carry out the tests. I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on this situation in his reply.

My Lords, these doctors will carry heavy responsibilities, and we certainly wish them all luck; and we wish the new head of the service good fortune. But I suspect that they will have to devote quite a bit of time to further training. This is not a reflection on them: it is the pattern throughout all industry for managers, and certainly for the medical profession, where more and more time is being spent on refresher training on new hazards. Indeed, one hopes they would have the time to learn something about the problems of industrial management and the trade unions. So I make as powerful a plea as I can to the Minister to think again whether the amount of money proposed is enough. I hope that it may be possible to review this and if the numbers are not adequate that at an early stage the necessary recruitment will be done.

There are other matters which some of my noble friends will be raising but I want to deal with a subject which is close to my heart; and in this matter I would draw attention to the views of the British Medical Association and other bodies who have expressed fears that the introduction of this new service will have certain deleterious effects. I do not myself necessarily wish to give credence to these fears, but it will be helpful to have assurances. Anxiety has particularly been expressed that the creation of E.M.A.S.— the employment medical advisory service—under the Ministry of Labour may make more difficult the development of proper occupational health provision. There is a fear that what is proposed here will perpetuate another point that has been made; that is, the isolation of the person valuable to limited occupational health services from the mainstream of medicine. I do not necessarily go along with these criticisms, but they need to be met and therefore I should like to say a few words about occupational health.

My Lords, quite a high proportion of industry has some form of medical service backing, although the quality and extent of it vary a great deal. The best firms have developed it to an extent where it provides not only valuable service to the employees but also valuable help to management. In one way or another such industrial health schemes, paid for by the firm, in my experience pay for themselves; and perhaps I may speak briefly on this matter from my own experience. I make no apologies for referring to my experience when I was on the Board and concerned with personnel management of the John Lewis Partnership, although I may say that I have no connection with that organisation to-day and therefore do not declare an interest.

Partly from principle and partly from the fact that there were no equity outside shareholders, the John Lewis Partnership did not shrink from spending money in fields where they thought it was important to the happiness of the workers, but the important thing is that I am quite sure that the spending of money on medical health added to the profitability of the business. Indeed, I myself found good medical backing essential to good personnel management. Each branch had its own medical sister; the smaller ones were visited regularly, and there was at least one first-class senior doctor (and sometimes two) who was fully integrated and working in the personnel department yet at the same time retained full professional independence. I found that a large number of individual personnel problems at all levels—at management or shop floor level, and including industrial work as well as department stores—had some medical angle. Sometimes it was of a psychological kind, and even when there was no pathological condition the advice of the medical side was absolutely invaluable in particular cases because of the additional communication that it supplied, the fact that the medical and personnel side met regularly, and in some cases daily. While the medical side were strictly enjoined to preserve proper medical confidence, they were always able to give good advice, aided by a certain detachment from direct management responsibility.

So often when an individual's work falls off it is not due just to wickedness but is due to some specific reason, and sometimes the medical side can provide a clue. The falling-off might be due to health reasons; it might possibly be due to the development of some serious and slow-acting chronic condition; it might be due to family reasons. But at least the consultations provide management with the essential information and the worker with an opportunity of protection, provided that there is strict control in management. Another important point that we always had in mind was that people should not be sacked for medical reasons that were not true; nobody should be sacked without a doctor's certifying a true medical reason. This has some bearing on the Industrial Relations Act. Sometimes medical treatment was called for; sometimes it was an extra period of leave; sometimes even a bonus; sometimes a "rocket"—all sorts of things.

May I make this point to the noble Lord? I realise that he was not dealing with an occupational health service, but he slightly implied that an occupational health service, as understood by some people, involved treatment. It will be the minor treatment that it is proper to give on the spot for a minor ailment. But the important thing is the close cooperation that will be possible with the National Health Service. It can be of assistance to the general practitioner, as well as reducing some of the time that is wasted through people having to queue up for some relatively minor ailment. I regard this as a very important field of development. Furthermore, doctors and sisters were able not merely to judge whether there was any "lead-swinging"; they were very often able to judge that a person ought not to be at work at all when he or she was still struggling to stay there. This brings me to another point in the Bill to which we may want to return at a later stage. Some firms have very good sick pay schemes; they pay full rates and take into account bonus and overtime earnings. But there are not many such firms. We may want to look to see whether the existing provisions for compensation for time off are adequate.

I have stressed that such a medical service should not in any way replace the National Health Service; it will be complementary to it. I apologise to the House for taking up time on this aspect, but I have been wanting to say this in this House for a very long time, because in my experience it is a matter of the greatest importance. In some ways I would say that we could press on further within the Government service, and I am bound to say that the Civil Service gets some very fine doctors. It was one of the areas in which, had I remained in office, I was intending to bring more pressure. Indeed, my last act as a Minister was to write a Minute on this point. Some of the causes célebres I had to deal with as a Minister arose from decisions which had been taken many years before. If the right medical advice had been available at the time, it would have avoided endless trouble for particular individuals. In industry, there is, for example, the problem of girls' having illegitimate babies—the sort of case that can be picked up quickly by the medical side and help given. I appreciate that there could be a danger of a degree of duplication, and therefore it would need to be tied in very closely; this again brings in the question of boundaries and correlation with the National Health Service.

I think industry ought to pay for a good part of it, but certainly I hope that such a service would come under the general direction of the National Health Service. The time lost in this area of industrial ill-health is vastly greater, as the noble Lord knows, than anything lost through strikes. I am bound to say that progress in this field would have been infinitely more valuable than the Government's wretched Industrial Relations Act. Fifty to a hundred times the amount of time lost through strikes is lost through ill-health in industry. It is interesting to see from the report of the Office of Health Economics the extent to which this problem also relates to management. Of those never sick, 96 per cent. said that they enjoyed their jobs, while only 46 per cent. of those frequently sick did so; 18 per cent. of those frequently sick said that they disliked their jobs, and only 2 per cent. Of those who were never sick disliked their jobs. This, therefore, is an important issue for management.

It would be tempting to go into the work of people like Herzberg in this field, but I will refrain. I do not, of course, expect the Government to announce a national occupational health service today (and I appreciate that the previous Government decided to go ahead with this small but important measure, and I appreciate that it will call for extra medical services), but I hope very much that they will indicate that the steps they have taken will not preclude the development in due course of a national occupational health service of the kind which is being increasingly recognised as necessary. My Lords, I am sorry to have taken so long, but this Bill is of interest. We certainly hope to see it on the Statute Book, but it is likely that at the Committee stage we shall want to move some Amendments, and I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to them.

My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for the extremely clear way in which he has explained the purpose of this Bill. I should like also to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for the very interesting way he has spoken about a great deal in the Bill. He said a number of things which I might have said not quite so well and concisely; so I shall be able to cut down my remarks to your Lordships quite considerably, which is probably an advantage. Before I begin to comment on the Bill I wish to join the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in paying tribute to the work of the factory doctors for the very valuable work they have done in the past.

When I read this Bill I was rather disappointed in it, because I was hoping that it might contain something which would lead to the foundation of a comprehensive national occupational health and hygiene service. What I mean by that is I think probably accepted by everybody. Roughly it can be divided into two parts. The service should begin in the supervision of the work environment and study of the effect on health, at the same time—and this is what is done now very well—making an assessment of the individual's fitness to perform certain work without harm to himself or to others. On the supposition that that is accepted, it seems to me rather surprising that the present Bill should set up a service to work under the Department of Employment and Productivity, even though only for the time being, rather than as part of the National Health Service.

I was very pleased indeed to hear that contacts are going to be very close between the two services, but one would have liked to see this become part of the National Health Service. In that event it would be far easier to exchange information about disabled people, sick people and the like than is possible with two separate services. But it is of great advantage that the reports of the school health service will be available to the youth employment service so that they will know what kind of work a disabled person can do and something about his past history. I think that will be very encouraging, and I am pleased to see it. But are we waiting, then, for the reorganisation of the National Health Service before bringing in occupational health? I quite realise that this is not a question for the Department for which the noble Lord is responsible, but I wonder whether he could give me an answer to it, because I have talked to your Lordships on more than one occasion about the existence in various Government Departments of little health services which exist by themselves. One thought when the National Health Service first came into being in 1948 that it would mean that those services would be gradually absorbed, but I do not think they have been.

In commenting on the 50 new doctors, I should like to inquire, with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, whether they are going to be given special training—that is, these more or less full-time doctors—before they start their work. I should also like to ask, with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, what is going to become of the nurses. What are they really for? Are they going to work by themselves, or are they going to work with the doctors? I wonder whether the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, could say a word about it. What I am not quite sure about—and what I heard a moment or two ago did not make it any clearer—is whether this occupational service will be done on an industry basis, as I should think it surely must, and not on a regional basis. One must get similarity between the services available for the various industries. There may be a difference between the regions, and the various industries there would get a different service.

There are two further points to which I should like to refer. One is post-graduate training. Three universities have departments of occupational medicine and three others use their departments of social medicine for that—and there I thought of the University of Dundee for I saw in The Times to-day that they are engaged in work on a disease called "farmer's lung". I am sure that that is where the occupational health service can become a great preventive factor in medicine, although not for a vast number of people; but it can control a certain number of diseases, and I am thinking particularly of the processes which can lead to cancer. I saw a rather sad thing in a report the other day: 39 new cases of cancer of the scrotum have been notified during the past 12 months. This form of cancer is almost entirely caused in the beginning by contact with hot oil from mule spin-flings. It is a form of cancer which should not occur at all now, and one can say that there were 39 totally unnecessary cancers. One hopes that when this service gets going there will be very tight control on processes that can lead to cancer.

There are just two further points. I see that the C.E.M.A. can carry out surveys. I take it that the employers cannot appeal against paying the costs of the surveys, and that if a medical officer considers that a survey is necessary he will be able to decide when and where the tests are to be carried out. Perhaps the noble Lord could just make that quite clear. Finally, I think that one or two of the sections or clauses of the Treaty of Rome refer to the importance of preventives occupational medical services. One finds that in some of the European countries they have occupational health services. They are not the same as we have, but they do have services which contain factors from which we could learn, and it might be worth while finding out what are the first-class points in the foreign services and adopting them into our own service. Apart from those few words, I am very pleased indeed o support the Second Reading of this Bill.

My Lords, I too am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for his clear exposition of this Bill, and especially for his going into the previous history of what one might call, in the widest sense, industrial medicine, which I had not fully understood on reading the Bill. I understand that in this instance considerable consultation has taken place with the medical profession, both by this Government and by the previous Government, who were planning a Bill of this kind. I understand that, on the whole, the profession is satisfied that the provisions are for the good of the health of the individual in industry.

Having said that, I should like to comment briefly on three matters. In the first place, I would ask the noble Lord, in his reply, to say something about the reaction of the medical profession to the question of confidentiality. I am a little worried, and a little surprised, about Clause 1(6) where it says:

"It shall he the duty of every local education authority … to furnish, on the application of an employment medical adviser, such particulars of the school medical record … as the adviser may reasonably require …"

The subsection goes on to say that the adviser may only use the particulars for his own purposes, and that they may not be disclosed to anyone else without the consent of the person concerned. I am a little worried about this, as we are with all aspects of confidentiality at the present time, when records can be so easily kept, maintained and discovered by computer methods, and so on.

All kinds of things may happen to people in infancy, in adolescence, and so forth, which should not follow them for the rest of their lives. I am not merely thinking of delinquency which, after all, is a phase which some young people go through and come out of perfectly well; I am thinking of the kind of person whose doctor once found a murmur in his heart, which probably long ago has been proved to be quite an innocent murmur but which is nevertheless in his records for all time. A quick look through the record would disclose this. Perhaps an entry may be found, "query epilepsy" where the child has had some little attack that nobody quite understands. Is he starting epilepsy? The doctor writes, "query epilepsy", and it is on the child's records for the rest of his life. It can have two ill effects. I have already stated one; that is, that it may influence people where it should really have been washed out long ago. The other is that the more we know that our records may be looked at by other people, the less shall we put down in them. You hesitate to make quite rude remarks about patients—which I have put on their notes from time to time—if you think that they will be made available to all kinds of other people.

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord, who is on a very interesting point? I must say that, as one who has been a personnel manager, I would never have expected to see medical records, and would regard it as quite wrong to do so. That is why I hope that the professional standards of the doctors involved will safeguard them.

Yes, my Lords. I fully understand that, and I fully understand that my own records will be sent to another doctor if I move away to another district: but that other doctor to whom they will be sent will be a person of my own choice, whose sole business it will be to look after me and my interests. But there is nothing in the Bill to say that the records shall be sent only by permission of the person concerned. It is stated that they cannot be shown to anybody else without permission, but they can be, and must be, supplied if the employment medical advisory doctor asks for them. It may be that I am making too much of this, and I am quite prepared to hear that people think I am, but it seems to me that the Government might look again at the wording. If it were simply stated that the employment medical advisory doctor may request the school medical service to furnish a report on aspects which might influence the employment of a person, that would be a safer form of wording than just asking for the whole of the records to be passed on. That is my first point on which I should like a little clarification, and I should like Her Majesty's Government to think a little more about the wording of that part of the Bill.

Secondly, I should like to add my little praise and compliment to many of the appointed factory doctors of the past, and to inquire whether any kind of compensation will be offered to them for the loss of their jobs. I believe that many of them act only in a comparatively small, part-time capacity and no doubt their loss of income will not be too serious. But others have given a considerable amount of time to the factory service, and I wonder whether the Government have it in mind to provide some kind of compensation for them. My third point, which has been adequately covered by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, concerned what we really need to aim at; that is, a proper national occupational health service closely combined with, and in fact part of, the National Health Service.

My Lords, I should like to extend a general welcome to this Bill, but I regret that it has been divorced from the more comprehensive Bill on general health and safety measures which was presented by the last Government. My welcome goes only so far, because there are quite a number of matters about which we shall want further explanation before this Bill finally passes through your Lordships' House. I hope that the Government will not present any difficulties about getting on the Statute Book Mr. Hattersley's Private Bill, which comprises the second part of the Bill which the last Government proposed and which has now had its Second Reading. May I say at the outset that, if I do not get the 6.20 p.m. train from Kings Cross to York, I shall be very late in getting home, so I hope that I shall be acquitted of any discourtesy if I leave before the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, winds up.

I listened with very great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said about the additional doctors who will be appointed to this service. He said that, including the present 50 doctors under the Factories Act, this Bill will bring the number of full-time doctors up to only 78, with 42 part-time doctors. The Bill gives the impression that there will be at least 50 additional doctors appointed. Of course there will be additional doctors, but the difference between part-time and full-time is very material indeed.

I was also very interested in the noble Lord's definition of the regions. I completely share the approach of my noble friend Lord Shackleton on this matter. If we want properly to safeguard the health of the workers in the type of structure which trade unions and others are bringing about, then this service should definitely be linked up with the National Health Service as a whole. One could see complications when the noble Lord said that the eight regions would coincide with those of the Department of Employment, and not with those of the National Health Service.

He spoke about the close relationship which there will be between the advisory service and the Health Service. It is only in London and the North-East that the present factory inspectorate has its own laboratories, and it appears that the rest of the country will he sharing laboratories with the National Health Service. This appears to be a weakness in the Bill because, according to Clause 1, the main function of the service is to inform and advise the Secretary of State on matters concerning the safeguarding and improvement of the health of employed persons. That clause also enables the Secretary of State to

"… investigate or assist in the investigation of problems arising in connection with any such matters … and … to maintain … laboratories and other services".

When I heard the noble Lord speak in the way he did I recalled how, in the past, when we have tried to interpret various Acts of Parliament, we found escape clauses which did not represent exactly what we thought.

My noble friend Lord Shackleton pointed out that there is a reduction of some 30 per cent. in what we suggested previously, bringing the figure down to £850,000. Offset against that, it is expected that there will be £100,000 coming by way of receipts. That therefore reduces the Government expenditure to a figure of £750,000, which is a quarter of a million less than we had visualised. If one takes into consideration what should be involved by reason of this Bill, one very definitely queries the financial approach of the Government in this matter.

Will this amount be sufficient for the important lines of investigation into pollution and into the other matters that are industrial hazards? For instance, my noble friend Lord Shackleton referred to the box girder bridge trouble that they have down in Bristol at the present moment, at Avonmouth. The union has had to take out an injunction before the Bristol magistrates to prevent any further work taking place on these box bridges until proper breathing apparatus is provided and there are proper means of ventilation. One would have thought that, bearing in mind the development that we were hoping to see, this was the type of thing into which the service itself would have been conducting researches and investigations, through its laboratories and in other ways.

It is mentioned that 110 nurses and secretarial staff will be appointed. I think we are entitled to a little further explanation as to the type and nature of the duties which these secretaries and additional staff are going to perform, because the usefulness of this scheme in itself, in my submission, rests upon additional research taking place into many of the hazards that there are in connection with our industrial life at the present moment. The Schedules to the Bill define certain types of additional developments, as it were, which are covered by the terms of the Bill. I make just two suggestions that may already be covered—and I am subject to correction here. I wonder whether railway shops could be brought within the purview of the Bill. One understands how difficult it is to get the Factories Acts to operate in so far as railway shops are concerned. Some little changes have taken place in recent years with which I am not fully acquainted, but I think that such places as railway shops should be covered. I know there is not so much lead poisoning to-day, with diesel engines, as compared with the days when we had the old steam engines; but in the paint shops and elsewhere there is still the difficulty of lead poisoning, which is covered by these provisions. I would also ask whether lorry drivers will come within the purview of this particular service, because the fumes and so on are very injurious indeed to health.

As to the argument that we should await the issue of the Report of Lord Robens on safety and health at work, I hope that this Bill will not be used to delay the implementation of anything that that Report may ultimately recommend.

One knows that the question of these occupational health services has been very seriously considered, and it is not a matter about which one can expect a Report quickly; but I sincerely hope that this Bill will not in any way jeopardise any recommendations that might be made in that Report. Then there is the question of expenses for employees who have to attend for medical examination. The Bill says that

"travelling or subsistence allowances or such compensation for loss of earnings"

will be paid. What might that loss of earnings be? One can understand that the travelling and subsistence allowances may be in accordance with the appropriate scales, but I hope the Government will be a little more forthright in telling us exactly what the payment for "loss of earnings" will be. Will it be base rates, or will it be the gross earnings for the time the person is away on these duties? There is a big difference here, and it is a difference which can arouse quite a lot of controversy in this particular matter.

My Lords, the last point I want to make—and it is an extremely difficult one, I accept at once—is that the Bill lays down a fine of £20 for anyone obstructing an inspector. This is all linked up so very carefully and closely with the Factories Act; and in the other place, when efforts were made to bring more reality to this question of a fine on anyone who obstructs an inspector in this direction, all kinds of excuses were made. I thought it was deplorable when I read that the Minister of State in another place said:

"In the Fire Precautions Act, the fine for obstructing an inspector is £50; in the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Bill, which is currently before the House, the fine for obstructing a water bailiff is £100; in the Agriculture (Safety, Health and Welfare Provisions) Act 1956 it will be £100".

My Lords, surely it is not in accordance with your Lordships' desire that a man who is catching salmon or trout and who obstructs a water bailiff should be liable to a fine of £100, and yet in the case of anyone who obstructs the operation of these provisions where a person is seeking such medical attention as is necessary the fine is limited to £20. Surely, in this day and age this House will not agree to that. I suggest that there will be some Amendments coming along here.

If I may digress for just a moment, I remember a case many years ago in which a signalman on the railway, working on a Sunday night—his box closed at 12.30 a.m. and opened again at 3 a.m.—booked off and took the opportunity to go into a plantation and steal a pheasant. He got a pheasant. He was up before "the beaks", and he was sentenced to six months. He appealed, and of course the sentence was quashed. At that selfsame court a few months later, before the same set of magistrates, a farmer was charged with adulterating milk and was fined £2. Here we have a £20 fine for obstructing something intended to prevent a real danger to health, and yet for netting salmon the fine is £100. I see that in the Committee stage in the other place £75 was mentioned so far as a pheasant is concerned. I am certain that justice will be done in this House, and that this anomaly will be corrected. I am certain that we shall have a good deal to say about that point.

I generally welcome the provisions of the Bill. My only regret is that it does not go as far as I should like, but I think it is a step in the right direction. We must pay more attention to the health of people engaged in industry. We all know of the great number of days lost through injuries to workpeople incurred in industrial conditions, many of which are probably inherent, and it is necessary that research should take place to obviate them. We have only to compare public reaction to the (shall I call it?) slaughter consequent upon industrial injuries and compare it with the public outcry and excitement associated with a national disaster such as a main-line railway accident. Surely, in 1972 it is time that we approached this matter on different lines. I generally welcome this Bill.

My Lords, like all speakers before me I give this Bill a welcome, albeit qualified, as the intervention which I made earlier will show and as I hope to show later in my speech. It seems to me that the Bill can be described as a good little Bill, a nice little Bill but not a very revolutionary Bill. It reshuffles some duties and reinforces some powers—and I agree with the noble Lord that the penalties are probably inadequate. It gives a new name for an old service. The only snag I find is that it is introduced (I say this with great respect to my noble friend) by the wrong Minister. I should have preferred to see the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, introducing this Bill and seeing to it that the Secretary of State, who is not named in the Bill, is the Secretary of State for the Social Services. For the last 22 years the question of occupational health service has been a bee in my bonnet. The bee is quite long in the tooth now, and I have already allowed it out for a flight round your Lordships' House on a previous occasion. You must forgive me if this elderly bee has another run for its money this afternoon.

Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that the Dale Committee on the industrial health service reported 21 years and one month ago and the Report was warmly welcomed in all quarters. If I may, I will quote from that Report. It said:

"For the most beneficial development of the National Health Service, public health services and industrial health services must be co-ordinated."

Twenty-one years and one month later, absolutely nothing has happened except for the setting up in 1954 of the Industrial Health Advisory Committee, referred to by my noble friend, and this little Bill, which I think the doctors would describe as a placebo to keep us quiet for a little time. My noble friend said that there is going to be co-operation, collaboration and co-ordination—I think those were the words he used—with the National Health Services. My Lords, these are three blessed Whitehall words to cover a multitude of sins or nothing at all.

What is really important is the ultimate Ministerial responsibility. The achievement so far is not what the Dale Report asked for. We all know that to-day we do not have an occupational health service; we do not have—and shall not have, as a result of this Bill—a framework, or even a skeleton of one. We do not have the Ministerial backing. In another place the Bill was described as "a focus for the development of occupational medicine". This, like those other words, is a fine phrase which can mean anything or nothing. I think it is a piece of jargon at this stage. But I must make my position clear. No one can expect a nation-wide occupational health service to come about overnight, or even in the course of a generation. We do not have the resources; it will be a long time before we have them. To some extent an occupational health service, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and other speakers have said, has happened of itself and it will grow of itself.

I would go further and say that there are few firms of any size, standing or repute who do not provide such a service. Why? They do not do it for any other reason than the fact that it is beneficial and profitable—which for me is the best of all reasons, saving the remarks of the noble Lord who seems to think that if you did not have equity shareholders you could not have an industrial health service. I was brought up in a firm which had elaborate occupational facilities. For this reason I wish to see these extended.

My Lords, the noble Lord has misinterpreted what I said. I merely pointed out that it is easier to spend money freely on employees if all the money goes to them anyway. I am not attacking the equity principle, nor would I agree that there is anything approaching an occupational health service in most firms.

My Lords, I said most firms "of any size". I realise the difficulties for small firms; but I will willingly withdraw anything that I have said to which the noble Lord takes exception. I only know that in a firm entirely owned by equity shareholders we pursued an occupational health service a very long way. Meanwhile, the E.M.A.S. is all we have. My only complaint is not that it is itself inadequate or inefficient, but that it will never develop further when it is in the hands of the wrong Department.

I studied all the debates in another place, and when the matter was raised there an assurance was given (which my noble friend repeated to-day) that nothing in this Bill prejudices the issue of what arrangements might be most appropriate in the long run for occupational medicine. Then, in a most illuminating passage, we were told that these matters were fully discussed with the Minister concerned. I should have liked to be a fly on the wall during those conversations and to know why the Department of Health has been defeated in taking the responsibility for this Bill—because I am sure that it would like to have it. Is there any reason why responsibility cannot be transferred? It is not a very large part of the Department of Employment and Productivity, and it would be very simple to integrate it into the Department of Health and Social Services at the present time. I would point out that my interruption during the speech of my noble friend was illustrative of this.

There are, I think, 13 or 14 Regional Boards in this country. There are to be 8 under the Department of Employment and Productivity. I have a feeling that the boundaries are not going to be coincident at any stage. We have never been given a good reason why responsibility should not be transferred forthwith. I suppose we shall be told that it must wait until the reorganisation of the National Health Service is complete; but I must remind your Lordships that that reorganisation has been in train for eight years and we have still another two years to go before the necessary Bill is passed. No doubt we shall then be told that the moment is not ripe and that we ought to give the National Health Service time to settle down.

The fact is, my Lords, that under the Consultative Document, and under the Act which will ensue, the National Health Service is going to be revolutionised. If we are to have a revolution we might as well go the whole hog. If your Lordships will look at the Consultative Document you will realise that it is going to set up area health authorities—which is a revolutionary concept, far more revolutionary than anything contained in that rather conservative Act of 1948. We may disagree—some of us do—about the duties and composition of the area health authorities and some of the consequences which may flow from their being set up. Most will accept it in principle as a new concept. The area health authority assumes responsibility for all public health, all general medical services, all hospital services—but not occupational health. This one curious little empire in St. James's Square survives intact; I wish I could find out why. To go back to the area health authorities, I would remind my noble friend that the National Health Service is at the moment the largest single employer in the country. In many of the areas the health authority will be one of the biggest employers. It will have this vast range of health services, but it will not have anything to do with occupational services.

My Lords, if I may digress for a moment, before I heard the lucid speech of my noble friend I thought it might be as well if I found out more about this Bill which does not tell one what it contains in the way of functions and duties. So I furnished myself—not for the first time—with a brief from the Conservative Central Office which I found cogent, lucid and helpful. It sets out the ten main duties to be undertaken by the E.M.A.S. Seven of those already exist; one is a follow-up to the school health service, and there are two apparently new ones, so far as I can ascertain. The first is liaison with general practitioners, hospital staff, works medical officers and others interested in occupational medicine. The other is medical advice to general practitioners in connection with their patients' work. Those two functions, my Lords, are part of the National Health Service, and this makes it the more mysterious to me why the new area Health Authorities are not to have this extra function tacked on to them. It may be that, for some reason about which my noble friend will tell us, it is not the right moment. I might point out that the Department is being examined, I think by McKinsey, the efficiency experts, to see what its duties should be under the new set-up. I should have thought this the right moment to make a categorical declaration that on the appointed day the duties will be taken over by the Department of Health and Social Security. We cannot afford any longer the fragmentation of medical resources which, unfortunately, is implied in this Bill.

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, I find myself in the most unusual position of being able to say that I entirely agree with everything he has said. I got a little confused when he embarked on something about equity shares, which I did not realise was relevant to this debate. I am glad that he and I are not enthusiastic about the Bill. Indeed, I regard it as a puny measure quite unfitted to be related to the most important subject which we are discussing; namely, the health of the workers of this country. I regard it as an emasculated version of the Bill which the former Government introduced and it impresses me only because of what is omitted.

My Lords, to-night I shall deal particularly with the provisions which were included in the last Bill, designed to decrease the number of accidents in industry. Other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, have talked about safety in industry, and I should like to remind the House that we have had years of propaganda by organisations concerned with accident prevention. Yet this Bill, which purports to be a preventive measure, fails even to provide for safety committees representative of the workers and management. I have always felt that only the workers and management can discuss the details of preventive machinery and defective organisation in their own factories.

Other figures have been quoted, but I want to put on record again that why I consider it a failure not to include safety in the Bill may be judged by the fact that in 1970—these are the latest figures we have—the number of fatal accidents was 556 and the number of notified nonfatal accidents was 304,595. Unhappily, many accidents which are legally notifiable are not notified. It is common for a doctor to have a patient come into the surgery or to have to treat the victim of an accident, and, when he asks whether the accident has been notified, for the patient to say, "No, I cannot be bothered." The only encouraging feature in this ugly picture is the existence of the good employer; and indeed the good employer does exist. In my opinion the factory inspector is gravely inadequate but the best firms set a standard which is unsurpassed in any other country. Therefore, the objective should be to exercise control over the bad employers. It is among the people who run the factory, or manage the mine, or control chemical reactions that we find the guilty men.

I am not speaking simply from academic knowledge. For many years I was the Member of Parliament for an industrial constituency in the North and the factories and the work carried on there are absolutely familiar to me. I should like to draw to the attention of noble Lords from Wales an article which appeared last week in the Western Mail, in which it was stated:

"Accidents in work which result in absence from work happen at the rate of two every working minute, and many of them can result in a claim for injury or disablement benefit."

Investigations by the Consumer Campaign, one of those organisations which devotes itself to investigating these matters, show that getting your entitlement can cause more or as much distress as the accident. Yet, my Lords, the Industrial Injuries Fund amounts to £350 million. We are still dragging our feet over our treatment of these people, for the most part inarticulate, who are injured in our factories. I am glad to see that a noble Lord who hails from Wales is listening to me, for the problem is particularly acute in Wales which has the highest rate for industrial accidents and disease of any region in the country.

This indifference, which other noble Lords have mentioned and which I am stressing, is reflected in this Bill for which we have waited, and which entirely ignores these matters. It does not mention the question of safety or accidents. That inclines me to think that there are those in authority who have the, "I'm all right, Jack", approach. They think, "It cannot happen to me"; and indeed it cannot happen to them. We go on, as one noble Lord has said. Twenty years ago we had a specific Statement on this question and parliamentarians believed then that a measure would soon be introduced. But here we are to-day, my Lords, with this miserable little Bill dealing with this very important subject, and we get no further. What excuse is given? Yes, my Lords, an excuse is given. It is that we must wait for yet one more report, although the shelves in the offices of various organisations up and down the country are crammed with reports on the studies and recommendations on the subject which have been made over the years.

One of the latest and, in my opinion, one of the most important, comes from the researchers at the National Institute of Industrial Psychology and consists of an in depth study of more than 2,000 accidents. This very important Report describes the situation in which accidents are the result of the way work is carried out and the lack of communication between employers and workers. Who will read it? Unfortunately, few people, apart from those concerned in management, will read this important piece of research. They are interested only in keeping on the right side of the law. They will leave the problem of safety at work and the prevention of accidents to some hard-pressed juniors who have little time or inclination to read such reports; and so no doubt to save face this will be introduced into the factory and perhaps put on a shelf where it will collect dust. This apathy concerning the safety of the workers is responsible for the high incidence of accidents—apathy, lack of interest by those who are there on the spot and who should be showing more interest. Yet the penalty for this callous disregard for those in their employment is entirely inadequate: the maximum fine for criminal negligence is only £300. We have heard tonight of the inadequate fines: but that is the maximum for criminal negligence, for risking the life and health—permanent health—of a worker in one's factory.

In this House we have over the years had some interesting debates, generally on Unstarred Questions, regarding industrial accidents and diseases. I remember a most interesting debate, initiated by my noble friend Lord Taylor, on deafness in factories. In the constituency in which I worked, workers came to see me on Friday nights, some of them men of 40 or 45, who could not hear me when I spoke to them in a normal voice. I had to shout at them. I would say, "You should not be deaf at your age", and the answer I received was often to the effect, "Oh, my father went deaf too, and he was employed in the same factory." There was this sort of fatalism. Premature deafness is a serious disability—

Hear, hear!

—about which most employers are entirely indifferent. I think we should all be glad, and particularly the noble Lord who said, "Hear, hear!", to learn that Mr. Justice Ashworth last week ruled that an employer was responsible for a worker's deafness because that deafness arose out of the man's employment. At last we have heard a voice of authority on the subject. This ruling, I am glad to say, will alert the bad firm more effectively than a hundred debates in Parliament, for the only way to get some employers to protect their workmen is to inflict a penalty which will seriously reduce their profits.

From the Bill I see that economies are to be effected. In this puny little measure they have decided to reduce the number of doctors overall and to introduce 12 nurses—although people disagree about this number. I feel that the medical profession will be very shocked to hear that nurses are to be a substitute for doctors. I am not at all shocked by the substitution of nurses for doctors. If it is necessary to economise in doctors, I would give a few hundred capable nurses a course in industrial medicine and hygiene and let them invade our dirty, inefficiently-run factories, and allow the knowledge, experience and social conscience of these splendid women full rein. The noble Lord talked about training. We already know that under the Bill the doctor in a factory is not there to give treatment. It will be quite possible to teach these conscientious women the kind of things that they should know when they go into these factories. Perhaps we might have a revolutionary change.

It has been said again and again—it was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Reigate; and indeed I find it very difficult to understand—that although the Bill is concerned with the health of workers, its provisions are going to be administered by the Department of Employment rather than by the Department of Health and Social Security which possesses a wealth of knowledge and expertise. When I listened to the noble Lord who opened the debate talking about the extra laboratories and facilities which would have to be established in the administration of this Bill, I was astonished. My Lords, they are all there. What a gross waste of public money it is to transfer the provisions of this Bill away from the Health Service to a Service attached to the Department of Employment. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, said about this: what Ministerial or Civil Service brain could sit round a table and suggest such stupidity? If we have a vast National Health Service which is the admiration of the world, to set up another Service and administer it by another Department and expect them to build more laboratories to serve it, is sheer stupidity. It was as long ago as 1961 that the Medical Services Review Committee recommended, as the noble Lord said, a comprehensive occupational Health Service as an integral part of the National Health Service. It is not a question of our debating this only to-day: this has been discussed ad nauseam over the years in committee room after committee room.

My final word about this Bill is this. My fear is that by passing this miserable little Bill and putting it on the Statute Book we are giving those people who are dragging their feet another excuse to prevent the bringing in of a comprehensive medical health service in this country which is what the country urgently needs.

My Lords, it has been a pleasure to listen to this debate. I have enjoyed every speech that I have listened to: they have been very authoritative. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, that I agree with everything he said because I know of his experience in this area. Like other noble Lords and the noble Baroness who has just spoken, I welcome the Bill and I like the use of the word "placebo" which has been applied to it, because nothing very much happens when a placebo is used during clinical trials. Nevertheless we shall welcome the Bill and I hope that during the Committee stage this House will work to improve it and to give it some "spikes". Like the noble Lords, Lord Amulree and Lord Platt, who spoke with great authority and professional knowledge, I can omit a number of points from my speech which therefore need not be too long. That will please your Lordships' House.

I hope that we shall not talk all the time about Europe or the Common Market. We had certain commitments particularly in relation to the International Labour Organisation, long before the Common Market, and we were pioneers in industrial and trade union legislation. When I worked as a Minister in the 1964 Parliament, I had first-hand experience of the Industrial Injuries Act and of diseases such as pneumoconiosis, asbestosis and the new types of diseases afflicting workers due to the rapid development of modern technology. It was my duty to go all over the country in connection with these health matters and I visited the marvellous pneumoconiosis centre at Euston. Here, may I pay a tribute to those doctors who have given such devoted service in relation to diseases of the lung.

We have regulations for the factory, but we have to remember that sometimes hazards arise in the kitchen. The housewife is often forgotten. Let me give an illustration to your Lordships. When I was a Minister we had a case of a housewife who died after eight months' exposure to asbestos. Asbestosis is a killer. Her husband was a docker; he had been shifting asbestos in the docks. Her only contact with asbestos was that she had regularly to clean his clothes, his trousers and turn-ups, and that girl died within 18 months from cancer and asbestosis. In other words, there is a job of work to be done here and these hazards have to be watched by the new Factory Inspectorate.

We should push home to the public, and remember it ourselves when we are talking about strikes, that for every day lost through strikes 10 days are lost through industrial injury diseases. For every day lost by strikes, a hundred days are lost through illness. Consequently, as my noble friend Lord Shackleton and the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, indicated, there is an economic credit in forthright progressive firms seeing that they have first-class occupational therapy and first-class doctors working in their factories, because even from the acquisitive point of view there is a return. This Bill—and it was very difficult to get this measure: I do not know why—grew out of a report by a sub-committee of the industrial health advisory committee. This sub-committee was established in November, 1964—you see we are a long way off and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.

The sub-committee's terms of reference were to review the appointed factory doctor service and to make recommendations. I will not bore the House by reading masses of the recommendations, because the House is well informed, but it will not hurt to recap a little. They said that the factory doctor service needed polishing. It is true that the medical examinations of young persons are to be looked at to save wastage on the use of doctors. There was also the matter of the medical examination of adults and the duties, organisations and powers of a reform service—we have had some of that in this Bill. The extension of arrangements to premises other than those covered by the Factory Acts were also included in the terms of reference. There was a summary of about 32 recommendations at the end of that sub-committee's report. They had five sittings to produce this report. I wish the Bill that the Labour Government introduced in another place before the Election had had a run for its money and had been brought into effect, because, as my noble friend Lady Summerskill mentioned, it covered the safety aspects.

I want to ask a question about the laboratories. I was delighted that two noble Lords referred to them. There is no natural boundary for the setting up of these laboratories. Some committee should be established to see that money is not wasted by the Department of Employment, building monstrosities that look like match boxes with glass and steel around them, and setting up expensive instrumentation. I know something about the equipment in laboratories because I have an interest in very expensive equipment in laboratories that make pharmaceuticals and drugs. Some of these instruments, and some of these modern machines—and there is a brand new one for measuring the micrograms of lead in human blood—are expensive.

I suggest that we have a good look at this aspect before we talk of building new laboratories. We should support our universities and give them a good sum of money to expand their present buildings and use the material that they have. I am sure that the Government, over a period of time, could save many millions of pounds by using services that are already there and improving them by way of Government grants; and those benefits could be brought into the occupational service. I should like to make an appeal here. I hope that when the Government look into the centres where they are going to establish the laboratories they will have a "double take". I hope that Wales will have one. I notice that Stoke-on-Trent again is left out. There is a first-class university and a first-class hospital there, with marvellous services. The Potteries area is an island of industry in a sea of agriculture. It has steel and coal, and there are many of the industrial diseases in which the medical profession are interested.

There is another point of paramount importance. My noble friend Lord Popplewell pointed out the paucity of the number of doctors in this field; but this work requires a particular kind of training. My noble friend Lady Phillips was saying yesterday that everybody is always looking into the teaching profession and suggesting changes. It is a fact that the gamut of modern medicine is so great—even the electronic engineer comes in now, with the radioactive isotopes that are used in the operating theatre—that an expert in one area may not be expert in another. I will not name the specialist because he would be ashamed, but I knew a dermatological specialist who failed to diagnose measles in his own child. In other words, he became so specialised. This can happen to a man who has dedicated his life—and it is not a laughing matter; it shows the necessity for a first-class general practitioner who is still at the base of the pyramid of medicine. He should be brought in to co-operate fully and be made to know what is going on in his area in factories and elsewhere. I speak as a person who has a "Guinness record" so far as the Houses of Parliament are concerned. I introduced the biggest Private Bill in the history of Parliament—and I am not saying this; it was said in a report on Private Bills which is extant. I introduced a Bill in the other place on the Gowers Report on safety in industry. It started lots of other Bills, although many people did not acknowledge it, and to-day we should be taking a broader canvas than this little Bill.

I should now like to bring out what I think is a point worthy of note. There are some places where healthy conditions for the eating of food are impossible. A collier has to eat his food sometimes stripped, sometimes naked and sometimes sitting in water and in dust and dirt. There is no beautiful white napery for a miner, or those working on haulage or at the coal face. They have to eat where they are. There are no facilities for human needs, no lavatory accommodation; you cannot have that in a mine. No matter what safety measures or what health measures you introduce, there are certain industries in which it is impossible to introduce complete health measures, and one of them is the industry where the man is cutting coal at the coal face.

Hazards are also growing in farming. The modern young farmer also needs a knowledge of engineering; he is using sharp and keen tools. It will be necessary to bring in country general practitioners and town general practitioners about every quinquennium for a sabbatical together with the occupational therapists, and doctors to have a two months' course at a university to keep up with the new acids, the new combines, the new machines and tools that enter into modern technology. I think some things like this could be introduced. The nation would not be wasting money in letting our general practitioners and other medical people attend these symposia. As a layman although I am not always able to follow the medical terms that are used in discussions, I have had the privilege of listening to symposia, and I have never seen a more keen audience than masses of highly qualified specialists and consultants when they are at these general symposia. Money spent by the Government, rather than by private firms, to encourage this kind of thing over a quinquennial period would be money well spent.

Now, having spoken for nearly ten minutes, I will make my last point. It was sad—I do not know whether Private Eye has been mentioned in the House of Lords before or not—that it was Private Eve who drew the attention of the world to the dumping of cyanide and factory waste. This is a side of this Bill for which the factory doctorate and others should have some responsibility. I can think of nothing more socially irresponsible than factory owners, whoever they are, dumping up and down Britain tons and tons of cyanide and other materials which poison and can destroy life. The fines for doing that should be very heavy indeed. During the Committee stage of the Bill in another place one of the doctors there said that Dr. Faulkner-Hudson, the medical officer of the Imperial Smelting Corporation at the Avonmouth works, made recommendations, but he is quoted as saying that they were not taken up for political, administrative and economic reasons. I do not know what authority that gentleman has to say that, but I hope to goodness that factory inspectors will use their powers when things like this happen and will ensure that a court order is applied for so that during the period of investigation the factory can be shut down. We must give this provision "teeth" for it to be really effective.

I was delighted to hear what was said on the question of noise. All of us now suffer with decibels. When my granddaughter puts the radio on I nearly suffer deafness myself with the modern sounds we get on this machine; it is put on every morning when she gets up. This is the price we are paying for modern technology. A last point. It makes me sad when I think the medical profession made a huge mistake in the Willink Report, which years ago I studied deeply. They limited the number of students going to universities. My noble friend Lady Summerskill, herself a doctor, was nodding her head on this point, and I was glad to see it. Many more doctors are needed. The Health Service is being undermined. Hardworking general practitioners are only human-beings and if they have masses of patients their work cannot be done. More people should be allowed to get into the universities; the doors must be opened. In this way we could double the number of people in the medical profession. I am sure that the talent and love of the job are available if people were given the opportunity to qualify. If we want to make a success of this, the small number of doctors can be increased—and it will take at least ten years to get a good doctor out of this system in which we live—only by opening the doors of the universities and the hospitals to enable more young men—

And women!

I thank my noble friend—and women, who are devoted, to go into this profession. My Lords, with those moderately brief remarks I welcome the Bill; and, of course, I always welcome the excellent way in which that hard-working Minister opposite brings his case to this House.

My Lords, I am very grateful for the noble Lord's last compliment. I feel a bit like a placebo myself now at the Box. The Bill has been welcomed—I am not certain I could say, "with open arms". It has been regarded as too small and not perhaps comprehensive enough. I think it is generally the case that Governments are accused by the Opposition, when the Opposition basically agrees with what they are doing, of not going far enough. So I do not feel unduly depressed by the reception of this Bill. I shall deal with what my noble friend and others said about a much wider conception than this Bill is designed to engender. But may I first of all deal with some of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. I quite understand his regretting that Part II of the Employed Persons (Health and Safety) Bill was not included. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, associated himself with this. But to judge by some of the speeches we have heard to-day, certainly that of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, if it had been included I think we should have been accused of going not nearly far enough in that particular direction.

The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, asked me what the Government's attitude was, and I think I cannot do better than quote what my right honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary said in another place. He said:

"The Government are favourably inclined to the underlying objectives of the Bill, but, as I have stressed, they have considerable reservations about the wisdom of introducing its provisions at this time. However, this is a Private Member's Measure and it is up to the House to decide how to treat it"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons; 4/2/72, col. 883.]

And the House gave it a Second Reading. I do not think I should go further than that because I think exactly the same applies in your Lordships' House. The noble Lord went on to draw to the attention of the House what he described as the startlingly high rate of industrial injuries. He said that it might be two or three or more years before Robens comes into operation. We expect to receive the Robens Report in the summer. As the House will be aware, the noble Lord's Committee have said that the passage of this Bill will in no way interfere with the recommendations that they expect to make and that they regard it as a constructive measure.

The next point the noble Lord made was in regard to the penalty for obstruct- tion—and here again the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, referred to this. He said that the penalty of £20 in the Bill was absurd. The point here is that the penalty for obstruction, in paragraph 4 of Schedule 1, is the same as that which applies to obstruction of the factory inspector, and as the Schedule contains a quotation from the Factories Act it is not possible to alter it. It would be awkward, to say the least, to have a much larger penalty in respect of obstructing a medical adviser than in respect of obstructing a factory inspector, say, in the same factory. The two services are so closely linked together that it seems only reasonable that the penalties should be the same. I might mention that the penalty in the case of an occupier causing an obstruction to a medical adviser, or for that matter a factory inspector, is at present £60; and that is not altered in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, then went on to speak of the cost of the Bill, which he said was £850,000 instead of £1 million. One of the reasons for this is the introduction of the selective system of examining young persons. If I remember aright, the original Bill represented a continuation of the system of examining all young persons entering factories. There is also a saving involved on the laboratory side through better co-operation, which is being arranged; I shall come back to that point in a moment or two.

Then he asked me what the nurses whom it was proposed to employ would do; and the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, also posed this question. I may say that we are not consulting the Royal College of Nursing because we do not know what the nurses should do; we are consulting them in order that we may pool our ideas on this and get the best possible use of the nurses, and the best possible arrangements. What they will be doing is interviewing and assessing young persons identified by the school health service as requiring medical attention; assisting in medical examinations and subsequent supervision; assisting in the periodic examination of workers exposed to toxic and other hazards; advising on the employment problems of disabled persons; assisting in the undertaking of surveys among occupational groups. And, after training, selected nurses may be asked to scrutinise X-rays and to carry out tests as part of survey projects so that the X-rays may be compared with the international standards. They will also be required to participate in professional activities and to keep abreast of current occupational health trends. They may have to travel, and to visit factories and other places of employment. It looks to me as though they are going to be very fully employed. I mention these points merely to show that this is something that has not escaped attention.

The noble Lord asked whether the numbers we are proposing to have in the service are right and whether they will be adequate to carry out the tests. It is not intended, of course, that they will carry out all the examinations on hazardous occupations. In parts of the country—indeed, perhaps in all parts of the country—it is possible to authorise works medical officers to carry out those particular examinations. It is not proposed to delegate other functions to works medical officers.

As to whether the numbers are right, this really goes into the whole concept of what the service is supposed to be doing, and I think one has to be pretty clear about this. I described it earlier as a detective service. The employment medical advisers will have the responsibility of examining young persons and carrying out the periodical examinations at intervals which vary from two weeks to fourteen months, according to the nature of the processes carried on in the factory. They will be doing that in hazardous occupations. They will also be going into factories where they have good reason to think that there is a danger to health, or that health is being adversely affected; but most of their time is likely to be taken up with the detection work. I think one can conceive of this work best by regarding is as a function which is being carried out by a fairly small group of experts, closely linked throughout the country: finding out where the hazards lie, trying to anticipate casualties, trying to anticipate the possibility of people being affected by those hazards, both in the sphere of the environment and in the sphere of the individual. This will be a painstaking piece of investigation carried out in close co-operation with laboratories to try to improve the general health and to try also to anticipate where dangers may arise and to take the necessary precautions to prevent them.

My Lords, this will be one of the major functions here, and I would say to my noble friend Lord Reigate, who advocates that this should all he brought within the purview of the National Health Service (and this point was mentioned also by the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell), that this is something which has been closely associated with the Factory Inspectorate; it is something which is specialised in that direction. What the noble Lord is asking us to do is to carry out something of a surgical operation and to separate this service altogether from the Factory Inspectorate and bring it into the National Health Service. It is separate, but that is not to say that there will not be the closest possible links. There will be links with the family doctor. Indeed, under the Factories Act at the moment it is necessary for the family doctor to notify the medical service of the Department of Employment of adverse effects on the health of a particular patient which lead the family doctor to suppose that there is something wrong in the factory. This already happens and this close link will be maintained.

There is also a link with the social service side of the Department of Health and Social Security—through the national industrial injuries insurance. If a claim for an industrial disease there is successful, the notification of that claim goes not only to the National Health Service but also to the Department of Employment. This is a closely integrated business and it will be possible to build up data in this way, with the experience of the employment medical advisers, throughout the country. They will each have their own regional teams. In the three places that I mentioned—London, Birmingham and Glasgow—there will be a nucleus of experts who will be able to co-ordinate this work and to give expert advice throughout the country; and at the centre there will be the laboratory, which will be used as a reference laboratory for the service as a whole. Whatever the powers given by the Bill, it is not intended to use those powers to build a large number of new laboratories all over the country for this service. This central laboratory already exists. Apart from that, it is the intention that the National Health Service laboratories shall be used for the normal routine tests, and where the National Health Service is not able to carry out a particular form of test then no doubt it will make use of the universities as well. Also, of course, the universities can be used by individual "factory occupiers", to use the term in the Bill, in order to follow up particular lines of inquiry.

So, my Lords, it seems to me that when we are dealing with the whole question of health in factories and environment in factories, the combination of the Factory Inspectorate and the medical advisers makes a good partnership. It is a partnership which it is better, at any rate at this stage, not to break up; it is better not to take the Employment Medical Advisory Service away, at any rate at this stage, and integrate it with the National Health Service, which is itself at the present time being reorganised.

I was asked a great many questions but I do not want to detain your Lordships too long. Perhaps I may deal with just a few more of them. I was asked about the training of the E.M.A.S. It is of course intended to start with a nucleus of the medical advisers (of whom there are 21) of the medical services branch of the Department of Employment, and then to recruit doctors with higher qualifications or previous practical industrial medical experience, or who hold special qualifications in industrial health or public health. Once they are recruited they will probably serve alongside regional medical advisers and will be attached to the medical advisers so that they can obtain planned experience of their work. There will be courses, academic refresher courses, and they will also be provided with the chief medical adviser's notes of guidance. So there will be a body of people who start with skill and aptitude and will then become specialists in their own range.

The noble Lord, Lord Reigate, referred to the fears expressed by the B.M.A. about these developments and wondered whether it would make it more difficult to develop a proper occupational health service, which, as he said, might take a generation to develop. I think I can give an absolute assurance about that. There is nothing in this Bill or in the organisa- tion it is proposed to set up that would preclude the integration of the service at a later date with the National Health Service if that was considered to be the right thing to do. I think the most that would be required would be a transfer of functions order, nothing else.

The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, asked whether the service should be organised on an industry and not on a regional basis. To some extent, of course, industries tend to concentrate in certain regions. But I think the one does not preclude the other. Although for administrative reasons the service must be organised on a geographical basis, I do not think there is any contradiction there. The noble Lord asked about surveys and who would pay. They would be paid for by the Department of Employment. He asked about the Treaty of Rome. Some recommendations have been made already under the Treaty of Rome, but recommendations are forms with which each member country should conform according to its own habits and legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Platt, asked about confidentiality. This is an important matter and it is one which has been given considerable study. I should like to say a little more about it than I said in my opening speech and to explain what Clause 1(6) intends to do. Under Section 118(9) of the Factories Act the appointed factory doctor has a right to obtain from the local education authorities particulars of the school medical record of a young person, and such other information relating to the medical history of a young person as he may require to assist him effectively to carry out his duties. So that right already exists. The present right is absolutely necessary if this job is going to be done properly.

It is not expected that the medical adviser will need to have recourse to his right because it is expected that there will be the closest co-operation between the school medical service and the medical adviser, in the interests of the child. If the medical adviser receives form Y9 (which gives a list of the kind of things that particular young person ought not to be allowed to do) and if he wants further information on that score before or after seeing the person and examining him, then he can have recourse to the medical history in the school records. This does not seem to be unreasonable, and I should not myself have thought that professional men would put in their records anything that could reflect badly on the child or adversely affect his future, the more so since there will be this close personal connection between the school medical officer and the medical adviser. I do not think that the noble Lord need worry on that score.

The noble Lord, Lord Platt, then asked whether there would be any compensation offered to appointed factory doctors. Appointed factory doctors do not work under a contract of service, so there is no right to compensation. They are not employed by the Department, but they receive fees from factory occupiers. Most of them of course—indeed, the greater majority of them—are part-time. So it has been decided that this is not a suitable occasion on which to pay compensation. It is not really appropriate where remuneration is by fees.

I have detained your Lordships quite long enough, and any further points can well be dealt with at Committee stage. I hope that as this Bill works out, when it becomes an Act, it will belie the epithet that the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, attached to it; that it is a puny measure. I do not believe it is; I think it is a robust measure, even though a small one, and I hope that your Lordships will now give it a Second Reading.

My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Air Navigation (Noise Certification) (Amendment) Order 1972, laid before the House on February 17, be approved. I shall speak very briefly to the terms of this Amendment Order. It is the intention, subject to approval, that the Order should come into effect on April 1, 1972, the date on which the Civil Aviation Authority assume their major functions. The Order is purely a procedural one; it does not involve any transfer of responsibility for policy on noise certification of aircraft; that remains with the Secretary of State. It provides, by amendment of the Air Navigation (Noise Certification) Order 1970, for the transfer from the Department to the Civil Aviation Authority of the executive function of certifying aircraft for noise purposes and of ensuring that the conditions relating to certification are complied with. The Authority will, of course, by virtue of their former Air Registration Board component, possess all the expertise necessary for this task. This Order tidies up the original Order by substituting the words "Secretary of State" for the words "Board of Trade" in those provisions which relate to the making of regulations, and it increases the penalties for failure to comply with the provisions of the Order, to bring them into line with the penalties for breaches of Airworthiness Regulations. I beg to move.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in switching from the one subject to the other. I cannot quite follow the reason why he adopted such a different tempo. Is he suggesting that this is less important than the previous business? If so, I am not at all sure that he is right. However, I do accept that in the main this is consequential legislation to the legislation which established the Civil Aviation Authority. The opportunity has been taken to increase the penalties for this form of pollution. What the noble Lord has not done is to satisfy the doubts that were expressed in another place and and have been expressed elsewhere as to whether the increases in the penalties are adequate in the circumstances now prevailing. I can well understand that there ought to be some correlation between the penalties for breach of the noise certification regulations and those for breach of other airworthiness regulations; but since that correlation was originally established there has been a significant change in the public attitude to noise and to pollution generally. Against the background of that change I am, myself, not convinced that the present penalties are adequate, and I should like the noble Lord to explain why it was not possible to meet the very reasonable criticisms that were made and do something, or at least undertake to do something in the future, about the increase of penalties.

My Lords, the noble Lord will recollect that the really major penalty involved in this case is the power to prevent the aeroplane from taking off at all, which is in paragraph 10 of the Air Navigation (Noise Certification) Order. That is the major penalty, and for that reason it was not thought that it was necessary to do more than we have done in the present Order. It is always a question of judgment as to what the right penalty should be, but these penalties are really in line with the penalties that are imposed in the various legislation that is at present extant, and there does not seem to be any real reason to increase the penalties on this score.

My Lords, the noble Lord said "in line with other penalties provided for by other legislation". Will he give me an example of the sort of other legislation he has in mind? Is he referring to legislation connected with airworthiness, or is he referring to regulations connected with pollution? May I ask him a particular question? There will be a new Bill, I understand, in the next week or two relating to pollution, and there will be penalties in that Bill. Can he really say that the amounts provided for in this Order are in line with the other anti-pollution legislation?

My Lords, the penalties are increased quite substantially in this Article.

My Lords, that is not the question I asked.

My Lords, they go up from £10 to £50, and from £20 to £100, as related to penalties in the original Order, and this is the kind of increase that we have seen recently in legislation. I cannot give it chapter and verse, but I am sure that the noble Lord's own recollection will bear out that this is the kind of increase in penalties that we have made—with the one exception, of course, of oil pollution, which is a totally different matter. The noble Lord perhaps wishes to interrupt me again, because of course he cannot make another speech.

My Lords, I am not asking even for chapter and verse; I am asking for the book. In which Act connected with anti-pollution are the penalties in line with these? They are really out of line with current thinking.

My Lords, what I said—and I hope I conveyed this—was that it was in line with the current level. We have been operating penalties at about this kind of level. That is what I am saying. An increase as provided here from £10 to £50 and £20 to £100 is at the sort of level that we have seen in legislation that we have been passing in the last year or two. It seems to me that this is perfectly reasonable. I know that some noble Lords have in mind the kind of special penalty that arose in connection with oil pollution, but that is really a quite different subject altogether. Oil pollution can cause a very great deal of damage. We are here dealing with two things: first of all, with the failure to have a certificate, and, secondly, with a contravention of that certificate. If you are not able to produce the certificate, it is not in any way in the same class of offence as oil pollution. As to the contravention, the main penalty, as I said before, is the restriction on the aircraft from taking off if it is not complying with the terms that are laid down in respect of that particular aircraft in the Air Navigation (Noise Certification) Order. I think that really the noble Lord is reasonably satisfied with this.

My Lords, let me just say I should have been had it not been for the last sentence.

rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether in view of the strong views expressed in both Houses of Parliament in favour of retaining H.M.S. "Eagle" in maintained, or even in unmaintained reserve, they will now not send this aircraft carrier to the scrapyard. The noble Lord said: My Lords, when my noble friend Lord Carrington became Minister of Defence in his early days he said:

"First, we are remedying a real weakness in our naval forces which would have resulted in the 1970s from the policy of the previous Government to phase out the aircraft carriers before providing the necessary alternative weapons."

The problem I am discussing, and seeking to draw to your Lordships' attention, is the gap; the gap which must exist if aircraft carriers are to be phased out in the early 1970s and there is no substitute weapon and no substitute ship until the late 1970s. It is my submission that in the last 18 months since that statement was made this gap has certainly not narrowed.

My Lords, I should like to add briefly to what my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing has been putting before you in his Question. We are really coming towards the end of what has been a long battle of over 10 years. Mr. Healey is reported as having said in another place during the past week, that the carrier Lobby was getting going again. What is happening is that the anti-carrier Lobby is at last getting its way. The anti-carrier Lobby has been in operation since the late 'fifties and it has done very well. Among other things, it captured Mr. Healey and with him the entire last Administration. Their argument some six years ago, when I saw fit to leave the Navy at my own request in protest at there policies, was that the carriers could be replaced by island bases across the Indian Ocean. It did not require much in the way of imagination to see that that was not going to be a starter. It was going to be most unlikely that that solution would come about; and this, in the event, was the case. In fact, all the principles on which the "anti-carrier lobby" based their premises were themselves proved to be wrong within two or three years of their being declared.

The point, my Lords, is this: why do we need a carrier? The Government—as when we last debated this point I had cause to mention—recognise that we need carriers. They are keeping the "Ark" in being. We need carriers even if we forget any possibility that we may require to deploy our fighting forces around the world to help keep the peace in areas beyond that covered by NATO. Even if we forget that, even if we assume that during the course of the next ten years there will never be cause for the deployment of forces, we have a need for sea-based air power in our own back-yard. If your Lordships look at the Statement on the Defence Estimates, you will see that it says on page 2 that the Soviet Union has 1,400 inter-continental ballistic missiles as well as some 700 medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. This is clearly a threat which cannot be ignored and which, it is not hard to see, is posed at the land bases of NATO. Surely the sea-based air power which is needed in order to make sea power credible can be the only solution with that sort of power ranged against us.

Your Lordships may say that this is a world of cloud-cuckoo land; that people will not go swopping ballistic missiles and the like. But warfare and defence planning are all a business of providing a credible force which can be deployed against any potential enemy so that he may be deterred from attacking you. That is what it is all about: and there is really no point in anybody having ballistic missiles if you do not believe that. What we require is enough strength to be able to stand on our own feet with such allies as we can acquire. Our allies in NATO suffer in the main from the same shortcomings as we do; that is, their air bases can all be likely targets for the potential opposition. As to our American allies, I hope that we can rely on them. I hope that we will see them supporting us, through thick and thin, as time goes on. However, things change. Who would have thought, even two years ago, that one would have heard of an American President going to China in the early months of this year? We know that the SALT discussions are going on, and we wish them well; but the occasion could well arise when commitments were entered into to which we and the rest of NATO would not be a party and in which we could not necessarily be sure of the support that we have had in past years. Therefore, to rely on our one sea base for aircraft is surely a very narrow and limited insurance policy.

As my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing made so very clear, as we have this expensive, well-built, almost entirely modern ship at our disposal, surely it is crazy to get rid of it when for a relatively small sum of money we could keep it going until we were sure of its replacement. This is the nub of the argument. Your Lordships will have seen recently in the Press that the "Ark Royal", the one carrier which is to be retained, was in difficulties in the approaches to New York in a gale of wind. This may have been something that was "blown up" by the Press, but it was surely an awful warning to us that this sort of thing can happen; and it is possible that our one carrier could be out of action through no foreseen cause, such as a refit, for which possibly alternative arrangements might be made, though I am doubtful of them. It could well be that our one carrier could be out of action because of some unforeseen disaster. It really is a case of having all one's eggs in one basket. Therefore, it is surely wise to keep at least one other hull which can be used as a possible alternative.

I fully appreciate the arguments that my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence has put, to the effect that, unless one is sure one needs it, it is probably not worth converting the "Eagle" for operating Phantom aircraft so that she can be a true alternative replacement for the "Ark Royal". Though the sums of money involved, measured against the total Defence bill, are still quite small, one can see that this is getting a little much. But this is not necessary if we are not going to need the ship; and, as to the rather gloomy note in the White Paper which suggests that the through-deck cruiser will not be with us until the end of this decade and which casts grave doubts upon the Harrier being able to be operated from it. it could well be that in (shall we say?) two years' time this particular problem will have been overcome and the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Defence will be reasonably certain that he is going to have an operational replacement for the "Ark Royal" in a reasonable length of time. But at this moment of time, if one is to believe what is said in the White Paper, that is not the case. So surely it is reasonable to retain this carrier for at least two years—review her, position annually, if you like—and to do so on the basis that the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Defence himself suggested when he said:

"We could have kept 'Eagle' in reserve, as she now is, with some refitting …".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/2/71; col. 491.]

That, surely, is the solution until we can be sure of a replacement.

The noble Lord went on to say:

"… this would have locked up 350 to 400 men, the equivalent of a ship's company of one and a half frigates."

As a statement of fact, of course, that is true; but it is not really fair to compare the 350 to 400 men with one and a half frigate crews. As my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing said, the sort of people required to maintain an aircraft carrier are not the same in every detail as one and a half frigate crews. In fact, I would suggest to the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Defence that there is a very good case, if only he and his advisers had the will to do it, for seeing how this ship could be maintained in some other way. It is quite easy to see that it could be done by naval ratings, in which case I would suggest that the comparison should not be with one and a half frigate crews but with so much of a percentage of the people in the schools and the barracks who are doing their shore-time, anyhow.

The ship could be used for a certain amount of training. It would not be the first time that that had been done. But however it is used, I should like to suggest that comparing the sort of people who keep a carrier of that sort in a maintained state with the people in operational small ships gives a misguidance to your Lordships, and that is not really fair. If it has to be a case of comparison with seagoing ships, if it has to be a case of sacrificing seagoing ships, it would possibly be better to sacrifice, and deliberately, "Tiger" or "Blake", both of which are most unfortunate experimental hybrids of ships which do not really provide the sort of support to the Fleet which everybody hoped that they would. They are likely to be much more the type of ship which we can do without during this interim period until we can be sure that we have the capability to provide a credible seagoing unit wherever we wish and whenever we wish.

We are left, in fact, with the problem of asking that my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence and his advisers give consideration to changing their minds. I know that it is very hard to do this, because one gets committed. That is why we are in this trouble: the previous Government got themselves committed. My Lords, I earnestly urge that this be seen as some means of bridging a two-year gap—it may be it will be only a one-year gap, though personally I think it would be more like a three-year gap—of having the will to do it, and of devoting the great intellect which is available for this purpose to the business of solving the problem rather than of finding ways to avoid meeting it.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, merits our congratulations for his zeal, persistence and enthusiasm; although I find very little merit in his objective. It is only a couple of weeks since we had our debate on Defence and the noble Lord raised this matter in the course of his very interesting speech. Why he has raised it again in the form of a Question, and in a very limited form, I fail to understand. We are not having a debate on whether we should build carriers or not build carriers, as apparently the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, appears to think; we are not having a debate of carriers versus anti-carriers. We are merely having a discussion, so far as I can understand it—and certainly we ought to be having a discussion—on the limited point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing. And what is that?

My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to ask him whether in fact I did not concentrate most of what I had to say on this single point of the retention of "Eagle", which is the substance of my noble friend's Question.

My Lords, with respect, it appeared to me that the noble Lord raised the general question of the carrier policy. However, I let that pass for the moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, speaking with what appeared to me to be some confusion, referred to the gap and to whether we could close the gap; and at the same time he asked that "Eagle" should be retained and reserved for a period of time. I could have understood it if he had gone out full throttle for the retention of the carrier, for its recommissioning, so that it might be of some value, but to place "Eagle" in reserve, with the volume of manpower that would be absorbed, with the expenditure that would be entailed, all for the purpose of having a carrier, uncommissioned and maintained in reserve for no immediate use or no use in the foreseeable future, appears to me to be quite unwise—and I am putting it very mildly.

It appears to me that at some time we ought to have a debate on carrier policy; that we ought to consider the carrier policy in the context of strategic defence. What is it we want in the way of defence? What do we envisage in the future? What do we envisage as regards the possibility of another conflict? Would it be a war in the oceans or a war on land, or a combination of both? What kind of weapons do we require in either context? We ought to have a debate on that and—if I may say so with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, because he criticised the previous Administration—we ought to have regard to the opinions of our advisers. I should not be at all surprised if the present Government seek to ascertain the views of their naval advisers, the Lords of the Admiralty, the First Lord, the Second Lord and the rest of them—and quite properly. That is precisely what the previous Administration did, and what previous Administrations, the Administrations which preceded the last Administration, sought to do. It was done in my time when I was Minister of Defence.

It is not the politicians who decide these matters. They base their decisions and come to their conclusions on the basis of the advice rendered them by experts. That is the appropriate thing to do in the circumstances. What are we faced with now? It is whether we should spend a couple of millions or so in order to prevent the carrier "Eagle" from being sent to the scrap yard. I am bound to say that it appears to me to be very largely emotional. It never occurred to me that Lord Orr-Ewing, who was a colleague of mine in the other place for several years, was an emotional character. I never suspected anything emotional or sentimental in his observations; but this does appear to me to be a matter of sentiment—to retain something for sentimental reasons. What use "Eagle" is going to be to the United Kingdom in the context of the future of our country I really fail to comprehend. Therefore I am bound to say (and I hope that by so saying I shall not find myself in difficulties with my Party) that I am on the side of the Government in this matter.

There is only one qualification I wish to make. The noble Lord the Secretary of State for Defence, in the course of the debate that we had recently, said that he was not opposed to the carrier policy. I do not go so far as that. My view is that the carrier policy must be set aside. What is much more important—and the noble Lord the Minister of Defence himself said this—is that instead of retaining the carrier "Eagle" it would be far better to concentrate on five frigates which would cost precisely the same amount. I should prefer frigates, or at any rate a smaller type of vessel, adequately armed with modem missiles in order to meet an emergency should it arise. I hope that it may never arise. That is the kind of policy which I should be inclined to support in the context of defence; and I believe that defence is necessary in the kind of world in which we now live and in which we are likely to live for some time yet. So I beg the Secretary of State for Defence to reject the suggestion made by the noble Lords, Lord Orr-Ewing and Lord Mottistone, and to say, "We are very sorry about this carrier. It has been a very fine vessel. It has rendered excellent service. But we see no use for it in the future and we intend to concentrate on the kind of vessels which, in our judgment, are likely to be more adequate for our purpose."

My Lords, I repeat that it seems to me that there might be a purpose in having a debate on some future occasion, even a mini-debate, the kind of Wednesday debate that has been envisaged, in which we could discuss the general question of strategy. What is it we want? Is it sea power we require? Is it more ground troops for conventional purposes? Or more air power? Or increased nuclear strength? What is it that we want? Is it a combination of all these things? That is the kind of debate we might have, and in the course of it the arguments adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, would be appropriate. I may not agree with them, but they would be appropriate in the circumstances. But, for the moment, it seems to me that no value is likely to accrue to anybody concerned: to the Board of Admiralty, the Ministry of Defence, the United Kingdom Government, or even the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and his friends of the Navy League, if the Navy League still exists, or the relic of the old Navy League. I recall a period, way back in the First World War, when we heard the slogan, "We want eight and we won't wait". It was eight Dreadnoughts, although what use they were going to be in the context of that war I failed to see. So I prefer to support the Government in this connection, and hope that the Minister will say unyieldingly, "I will not agree to retain something which, in my judgment, is no longer of any value or likely to be of any value in the future."

My Lords, it is indeed an unexpected pleasure to be allowed to follow such a distinguished former Minister as the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, particularly in view of his once enthusiastic support, I think I might almost say, for keeping ships and a maintained Reserve. I believe that he had as many as three or four times more ships so kept in his day as there are now. One grows older and one gets wiser, perhaps, or one thinks one does. And perhaps one gets a little more bored. I feel that I can detect a slight vibration of patient resignation from my own Front Bench and it seems to be emanating from my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence who says—I do not pretend to quote him—that he thinks he has heard already everything that there is to be said about H.M.S. "Eagle". I imagine, a little fantastically perhaps, that a nail might make something of the same remark when listening to the boring repetition and the repetitive noises of the hammer. None the less, it is the hammer that gets the point driven home, and a lttle repetition, provided that it is sound repetition, is not always a bad thing. However, it is not necessary, or even wise, for me to repeat too much.

My Lords, I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, or my noble friend Lord Mottistone—I am not qualified to do that for both noble Lords are experts, although in this connection my noble friend Lord Mottistone is the expert on my side from the professional point of view—and ask the question: why do we need carriers? The question to which I would address myself is: why do we need to scrap this carrier? It is not quite the same thing and not quite the sane argument but it leads to the same conclusion; and, after all, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, it is the object of Lord Orr-Ewing's Question.

My Lords, it is a question of some urgency. This is not an academic debate being carried out in a vacuum. "Eagle" has already been paid off and is actually awaiting removal to the scrapyard. The White Paper says that this ship will be scrapped. All my noble friend's Question does—it may be quite a large question—is to ask whether the Government will reconsider, and not send the ship to the scrapyard but maintain her or, at any rate, keep her in reserve. There are three lines of argument for scrapping H.M.S. "Eagle". They may reasonably be stated as follows: want of men; want of money, and want of usefulness. A comparison has been made by both my noble friends, and here I make the smallest possible tap with my little hammer of repetition in this connection—a comparison between one and a half frigates and one aircraft carrier. Both my noble friends have cast doubts on this comparison. I should be ready to accept it as true if I thought that one and a half frigates were likely to be sent to sea with a crew of dockyard mateys. Here I am being deliberately repetitive but in a somewhat different form. Bluejackets, sailors, man and fight a man o' war. A man o' war is designed, built, fitted, rigged, armoured, victualled, repaired and re-fitted by civilians. Why, then, is it necessary to have bluejackets to perform the single, and comparatively simple, function of maintaining a ship which is lying at anchor?

The other comparison which I think neither of my noble friends has mentioned or has criticised in depth—although I am not sure about this—is the comparison between five frigates and one aircraft carrier; that is to say, the choice that has to be made, or it is alleged has to be made, between five frigates with the Fleet or one aircraft carrier in reserve, and potentially with the Fleet. I will accept this comparison as just if I can get a definite, categorical answer from the Secretary of State to a question. My question is this: Is this a true choice? Will there in fact be in the Fleet, in service with the Fleet, at some predictable point between now and the end of the 1970s five frigates whose existence will make it impossible to re-commission H.M.S. "Eagle"? If the argument of the comparison between the five frigates and one aircraft carrier has value, the answer to that question must be, "Yes". If the answer is, "I do not know"— and I am certain that no one can—then that comparison is, in my opinion, a highly dubious one.

The next question, I think I said, was one of money. I am not going to say too much about money, except that probably £1½ million a year would be a better investment than £25 million on the Upper Clyde. But the Ministry, represented in this case by my noble friend the Secretary of State, must cut their coats according to their cloth. Naturally, they have to do the best they can with the money they are given. This is not true of Governments. Governments decide the allocation of the "cloth". We might well bear that in mind. Secretaries of State, Ministers of State, may say, "We cannot do better than this because we cannot get the money out of the Treasury." But unless it is the Treasury that gives the orders to the Government, Secretaries of State cannot say that, because they are part of the Government who decide how the money shall be allocated. I think it may be well to bear that in mind.

On the question of usefulness, one of the great arguments revolves round this question of whether this ship is ever again likely to be useful. The key quotation on which I fix here is from my noble friend the Secretary of State in the recent Defence debate when he said this, looking to the future—I think the future pluperfect, if I may use that phrase:

"Had we brought 'Eagle' out of reserve in the 'seventies her operational capability would be no better than it is to-day. In particular, the Sea Vixens would not be a proper match for the threat which we must expect to confront us. They are old aircraft, even now."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/2/72; col. 491.]

That appears, on the face of it, manifestly true; in fact so true that we might accept it without a second thought. But I think we should look at it a little more closely. It speaks of the Sea Vixen (and by implication the ship herself) as not being

"a proper match for the threat which we must expect to confront us."

But what is the threat? Presumably the threat is not the same thing as an attack. Clearly, the NATO forces in Europe are not able to match a full-scale attack by Soviet Russia. Do we then think them useless, or are they matching the threat? We like to think—and I believe we are right—that they are.

Now war is one thing, of course; the threat of war is quite another; and the purpose of all the forces of war in peace is not necessarily to be ready to fight, but to discourage attack. Broadly speaking, there are two ways of doing this. One is to be strong to make a would-be attacker think it not worth while, and the other is to be weak enough to make an attack quite unnecessary because you can get what you want without fighting. A defence policy I take it, must be something between these two.

The question might then reasonably be asked: how can a more or less obsolete aircraft carrier fit into that pattern? We might also ask—at least it would be helpful to do so at this point—what would another major war be like, and with what weapons would it be fought? These are questions which can never be answered in full; nobody has ever been able to answer it; nobody with any sense would. One thing which is quite certain so far as Great Britain is concerned is that the war would be—not might be—fought in part by the Merchant Navy and by the ships of the Royal Navy that protect them.

Who, then, is the enemy of the merchant fleet? For fifty years now it has been the same—the submarine, which has brought us within an ace of defeat in two world wars. The submarine has changed out of all recognition: it is nuclear powered and can stay under water for great lengths of time, and it is faster. Anti-aircraft techniques represented by the Nimrod, and so on, have, we hope, caught up with those developments. But, of course, ships have changed as well, and if there were a war in seven to eight years' time our life's blood—by that I mean oil—would be coming to us halfway round the world in 300,000 ton tankers. A ship of that size is probably worth the expenditure of a very great deal of money to sink it, not necessarily by a nuclear bomb, because by that time you can probably get it with one iron bomb, at least if you know where it is. How do you know where it is? You have "spy in the sky"—a spy satellite, A nuclear submarine can travel under water at three times the speed of a surface ship and sink it in any ocean of the world. Therefore the first thing on the outbreak of war would be to shoot down the spy satellite. But we are not talking about that at the moment. What we are talking about is what is now the key word in all defensive thinking and that is "surveillance": knowing what the enemy is up to. There are two classic examples in connection with this word, both American. One is of non-surveillance and the other is of surveillance. The classic example of non-surveillance was the failure to observe the Japanese fleet approaching Pearl Harbour, and the classic example of surveillance preventing warfare was Cuba. By seeing what the Russian fleet was up to, the American President was able to send out a fleet and stop it.

My Lords, I ask again: what is the threat? This time I ask it with a different significance. There are various ways of finding out what the threat is. A "spy in the sky" is not open to us, but one way is to send an aircraft carrier, this mobile air base, which can range the oceans and cover a vast field quietly and perform its functions in peace. We are apt to think of the usefulness of men-o'-war and all the forces of war as being confined to war itself; but they are not. The primary object of all forces is to prevent war, and as has been said on a number of occasions by a very distinguished admiral (Admiral Morgan-Giles has been known to say this in print), bombs or torpedoes can fight wars but airplanes can prevent them, and the means by which they can prevent them is surveillance. That is the kind of service for which an aircraft carrier can be useful and for which it might reasonably be kept in reserve, ready to be brought up, not as the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell seemed to think my noble friend Lord Mottistone was proposing, as a kind of sentimental trophy to hang flags on on Trafalgar Day but an activable, recommissionable ship which can be brought out as the threat develops and can also be brought out if necessary if or when the "Ark Royal" goes aground in New York Harbour.

It is unquestionable that this particular ship, quite apart from the carrier and anti-carrier lobbies, has a useful function to perform, and no one can say with any certainty that it cannot do it. I concede that it would not be able to fight in a major war, because I do not believe there would be a place for aircraft carriers. That is not a reason for getting rid of it. Sitting on the highest point in Cyprus there is a radar station—of course there are plenty of them but this is particularly conspicuous. It looks like a golf ball, tee-ed up ready to be hit. It can "see" Turkey to the upper end of the Red Sea; anybody can work out how far it can see if one knows the height of Mount Olympus. It can see from Asia Minor almost to the Eastern end of Crete. That golf ball can be knocked off with one iron bomb. Do we therefore say that it is useless or that it is a waste of money to keep it there? Certainly not. This is a peacetime operation of surveillance, and the fact that it would be instantly blown to bits on the outbreak of war is absolutely no reason for scrapping it now. I submit there is no reason whatever for scrapping H.M.S. "Eagle".

Better reasons must be found, and I am not convinced that the reasons that have been put forward that we cannot afford it and that we have not the men and that the ship is not very useful any way make out a case for her to be scrapped. In a few years time, probably at this side of the end of the 1970s, what operational requirements will there be for a ship of this kind? I am not postulating war, but still peace—and the answer is that we do not know. What will the threat be then? We do not know. What will the manpower position be? We do not know. What will the financial position be then?—we do not know but we hope it will be better than it is now. Some noble Lords may be familiar with the book entitled The Riddle of the Sands, which is one of my favourite books. The hero of that book, a man called Davis, had a yacht called "Dulcibella" cruising in the Baltic; and he had a mania for throwing overboard everything that he did not want. He had a new cooking-stove because the old one was not good enough, and when his friend bought him a new stove, the old one went straight "into the drink". He felt the toothpaste was no good; he did not want it, so overboard it went.

I do not think we ought to expect our Ministry of Defence to operate on this principle simply because we do not have any particular use for something at this minute. We hope—we certainly do not know—that we are not going to need it next year or the year after. But it cannot be right to throw it away. Nor can I believe that that is necessary. I believe that my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing was right in paraphrasing a not particularly unfamiliar statement where he said, "If there's a will there's a way". My Lords, I believe that there must be a way, and it has to be found.

My Lords, after what we have heard so far I do not want to be accused of playing the same tune, albeit on a slightly younger fiddle; but we are resurrecting the ghost of a battle which was fought and is over. This was a battle that was fought with considerable intensity and emotion a long time ago and, despite the boiling over of numerous cauldrons of Naval blood, was lost. I do not believe in last-ditch stands when there is not much hope of winning. The battle that was fought had no winners; it had only losers. There was a big gap, as my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing has said, which was left and which needs to be filled.

If our Naval commitments were limited to the North Sea, the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean, as some people might prefer, there would be little cause for concern, and we might claim that our Navy was modestly but adequately equipped for this day and age. But, my Lords, we have far wider commitments, and for reasons of history, and an expansionist international policy, which I wholeheartedly support, we must play our role in far-flung places. Here is the gap, and after the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I should like to take this further. I accept the claims that our ships can be provided with adequate air cover when within 650 miles of land. But I am concerned about their defence against air and missile attack when further out to sea or away from the comforting shores of Western Europe. It is here that the fixed-wing carrier played its most important role.

In the debate on the Defence Estimates my noble friend Lord Carrington said:

"Our plan has been to reprovide for the capability of aircraft carriers in other ways—as indeed was reflected to some extent in the proposals of the previous Government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/2/72; col. 489.]

This to me is the "crunch" point. If adequate provision has been made or can be made, or, preferably, has already been made, then I do not support my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing. If it has not, then I have a tendency, although reluctantly, to share his views.

I should like to elaborate a little, but I do so with some caution since, naturally, I do not have other than published facts, and I am conscious of the dangers of drawing the wrong conclusions without them. My Lords, if the Queen's ships are at sea in an ocean war, do they have adequate defence at the present time? I know that with the new through-deck cruisers and missile systems we shall be protected in the future, but the question is, what is the position now. We have to recognise the power of the Warsaw Pact systems. Their Cosmos satellite (to which my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery referred) for detection, coupled with missiles such as Kangaroo, S.S.N., Whisky/Longbin, plus the launching systems of Blinder, Cresta and W.E.2, and so on, are very advanced. These apparently far outrange what we have. We must recognise, too, the need for our aircraft to be able to deliver our missiles at a range of over 650 miles out at sea, and this is not possible without long-range fuel tanks on Buccaneer, which means that it could carry only either air-to-air or air-to-surface missiles.

My noble friend Lord Carrington has, I know, heard all the arguments and can understand them far better than I can. My real concern is whether, if we pursue an independent foreign policy, we can claim to have a fully independent Navy at the present time. If not, we should recognise this—and by this I mean that either we have a fully independent Navy or we do not. If we do not, then perhaps we can agree openly to rely upon our good friends the French, or our equally good friends the Americans. There is this major defence gap and I am not sure how it is being filled at the present time. It is a danger against which keeping "Eagle" in reserve could be regarded as an insurance policy if that insurance could not be adequately provided by our allies.

The carrier battle is lost, and the role of the carrier has been replaced by a new policy. I hope that we can satisfy ourselves that that policy is adequate. To keep a carrier in reserve is expensive. It may be only £10 million over ten years, but it is still £10 million; and it is akin to keeping a wasting asset. But there is a gap which must be recognised and must be filled. If it cannot be filled by any other means, let us keep "Eagle" in reserve. If it can be filled, then may we know how? Finally, may I urge as rapid building as possible of the through-deck cruisers and the development of adequate missile systems. I know, my Lords, that my noble friend Lord Carrington will continue to look upon the Royal Navy with the kindly benevolence and realism which he has always shown since his time as First Lord.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing for asking this Question. I only hope that the support which the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has given me for the line that I am going to take will not damn me for ever in what, strangely enough, the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, seemed to think was his sentimental eye. My noble friend and I have had a good deal to do with the subject of aircraft carriers over the years, and I know that there is one thing that both he and I—and, I imagine, everybody in the House—agreed on; that is, the importance of the Royal Navy and of its need to be able to defend itself. As I explained in our debate on February 22 I have been listening to arguments about the future of aircraft carriers in general, and H.M.S. "Eagle" in particular, for a good many years now. My noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery took me to task for having said that there was nothing new to hear about this. If I may say so, in passing, I should like to congratulate my noble friend on daring to speak in a debate which has been exclusively, or nearly exclusively, the territory of ex-Naval officers. In some of his observations I detected something of the tone of his formidable forbear, the noble and gallant Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Cork and Orrery, who was equipped with an exceedingly powerful and aggressive armament of which those who had to answer him in this House used to be very frightened.

My Lords, I hope my noble friend does not think I intended to take him to task. I wished to do no such thing; I was expressing sympathy.

My Lords, I have not quite finished with that point. My noble friend was expressing sympathy because I had said that I had heard nothing new about "Eagle" and did not think there was anything new to be said. I must regretfully say that, having heard the speeches this afternoon, I must honestly say that I still hold to that view. I have heard it all before; but I have seldom heard it more elegantly expressed than I have this evening, and, in particular, by my noble friend Lord Selsdon, who made a notable contribution to this short debate.

As I promised, I have studied carefully everything that was said by noble Lords on the occasion of the Defence debate two weeks ago, and in the corresponding debate in another place. I have also listened attentively to the speeches that have been made this evening. I appreciate—and I think your Lordships know this—the strength of feeling which exists in this House and elsewhere on this subject. Of course I recognise the sincerity of the views of those who wish to see the retention in some form or another of H.M.S. "Eagle". As I said on another occasion, as former First Lord of the Admiralty who devoted a great deal of time and effort in the early 1960s trying to retain a carrier force, I hope that your Lordships will also accept in return my real regret that, in my view, "Eagle" can no longer be kept in commission. I have now nothing new to say, and I must in all modesty say, having reread what I said the other day, that I found what I said then was exceedingly convincing.

It is always a sad occasion when a ship reaches the end of her life, and the more so when her passing is felt in some respects to mark the passing of an era. I think, too, that the general position on fixed-wing carriers for the Royal Navy is fairly well understood in the House. If I may for just one moment be allowed to trespass on the House's indulgence—though I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that this is not the object of the Question—the late Government in the 1960s came to the conclusion that Britain could not afford the enormous cost of embarking on a new generation of aircraft carriers and that the existing ships should be phased out—first of all they decided in the middle of the 'seventies, 1976 or so, and then subsequently they advanced the date to 1972. This would have left a serious gap in the capability of the Fleet; and when we came to power in 1970 we reviewed the position and we decided that, while our resources would certainly not permit the construction of a new series of carriers, two steps should be taken to reduce this gap. The first was that the strike capability of surface ships should be improved by introducing as soon as possible a surface launched anti-ship guided missile system, the EXOCET. The second was that "Ark Royal" should be retained until the late 1970s to cover the period while the new ships and weapons were coming into service.

My Lords, the limitations of a single aircraft carrier are obvious, and my noble friend has raised them. But we must, I think, regard "Ark Royal" as a contribution to NATO naval forces as a whole; and so far as possible her deployment and refits will be co-ordinated with our allies. The Government therefore considered whether the life of the second carrier, H.M.S. "Eagle", could not also be extended to provide a second carrier for part of the time and to ensure the availability of one aircraft carrier while "Ark Royal" was undergoing refits. After a very thorough and careful study of the problem we came to the conclusion that, for the reasons which have been mentioned, manpower reasons and financial reasons, it was not practicable to run "Eagle" on after 1972. We made that decision known publicly more than 18 months ago and I must say that I thought it had generally been accepted. Our view then was that, even if manpower could have been provided for her, the cost would have been prohibitive. She would have needed a major refit if she was to operate Phantoms—and this really would have been the only sensible course, in spite of what my noble friends say, in the 1970s—special adaptation would have been needed, and that would have brought the cost of her refit to between £25 million and £30 million. Not only that, but aircraft and manpower would also have had to be found for her; and, as some of my noble friends have mentioned, 1,400 men would have been required for the ship's company, which is the equivalent of about five frigates' companies.

My noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery asked whether I could say to him that if "Eagle" were kept in commission there would not consequently have been five frigates. What I am saying to him is that if the manpower situation remains as it is now it would have been necessary to pay off five frigates, or something comparable, in the "teeth" section of the Navy. It was a question of priorities on which I and my advisers had to make a decision.

We judged that the period of useful life left for "Eagle" before the entry into service of the new cruisers (the first of which is due in 1978) and the other naval weapons—EXOCET, Sea Dart, new torpedoes and new helicopters—would not have been long enough to make this expense worth while. In answer to my noble friend Lord Selsdon, I would say that if I had a lot more money I would not, I think, seek to keep H.M.S. "Eagle" in commission; what I would seek to do is to speed up the entry into service of those new weapons, because I think that that is the right thing to do in the present circumstances.

My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to intervene? I should be most grateful if in dealing with our reply he would bear in mind that not one single person in this debate or in the earlier debate suggested that "Eagle" should be kept simultaneously in commission with "Ark Royal". We merely said that the complement of "Ark Royal" should on occasions be shifted to "Eagle" if an accident arose.

My Lords, with great respect to my noble friend, there has been a great deal of talk about keeping "Eagle" in full commission, and I think it only right on an occasion like this to deal with the whole subject of H.M.S. "Eagle" once and for all, so that if any of my noble friends are unconvinced by what I say, they may at least know the case which the Government are putting forward.

On the question of full commission, the Government's views on this matter remain unchanged, and nothing that I have heard in the debates on this subject since 1970 has led me to believe that I was wrong. I regret it, but one must be realistic about these matters. Defence planning is a matter of priorities. Within the sort of defence budget which is likely to be available, and bearing in mind the need to bring into service new ships and new weapons, we simply cannot afford to keep "Eagle" in commission as an operational carrier. The Fleet which we shall be building up this decade will I think be effective in both ships and weapons.

My Lords, it has been suggested that if we cannot keep "Eagle" in commission we should keep her in reserve. I believe that the arguments against that also are conclusive. The main item in the cost of maintaining the ship in reserve would be an initial refit of some six months costing between £2 million and £4 million, and similar refits every three or four years if the ship was kept in reserve for some long period. The complement of some 350 to 400 men—and I am advised that it would be very difficult to use civilians for this purpose because, among other things, the ship would have to be taken to sea every so often to see that everything is all right—would be the equivalent of one and a half to two frigates, on the same basis as the five frigates which my noble friend was talking about, and would cost something over £750.000 a year. In addition, there would be support costs ashore and further resources would be needed to maintain a reserve complement of Sea Vixen aircraft, since, as I have said, "Eagle" is not adapted to operate Phantoms. This would involve buying additional engines, additional spares and keeping a squadron of Sea Vixens operational ashore ready for work-up at sea. It would be difficult to keep the ageing Sea Vixens operational for very much longer. And I do not think I share the view of my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery that it is right that the Royal Navy should possess, and should ask sailors and airmen in the Royal Navy to fly, obsolescent and obsolete aircraft in the face of opposition with modern equipment. At best we should have an aircraft with declining effectiveness in the environment of the 1970s. Even in the most favourable circumstances, the period needed to bring the ship forward from maintained reserve and make her fully operational would be something in the region of four and a half months. So, in the event of an accident, it would take four and a half months to bring her out of maintained reserve. To have incurred these costs and penalties simply to cover two short refits of the "Ark Royal" would not seem to me to be in any way cost effective.

There is of course a problem—and I do not deny it—when "Ark Royal" is being refitted; but, as I have indicated, her availability will so far as possible be phased in with that of other NATO carriers. And, of course, while she is being refitted her aircraft when disembarked will be able to operate from shore bases. The "Eagle", on the other hand, could not replace "Ark Royal's" Phantom capability and would fall far short of being an effective substitute, even if the Sea Vixens could be run on.

My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to intervene? Would it not be right to consider the possibility that the replacement will not be ready in time, and that therefore, though perhaps now the ship should not be refitted and brought up to a Phantom capability, if things do not work out right in, say, two years' time it might be the only solution, if we are to provide something in the next fifteen years?

My Lords, I think I am right in saying, although I say it in a rather hesitant way because one gets a great deal of technical advice, that when I last inquired about this particular point I was told that unless a ship was refitted or kept in reserve in some way she would deteriorate in such a short time that she really would not be of any further use. Therefore it would be necessary to spend a good deal of money now in order to save the ship at all. If I am wrong about that I will publicly apologise, and anyway I will write to my noble friend.

I was saying, my Lords, that I think the premium for all this is quite simply too high, and the value of the insurance would be greatly reduced by the notice which would be required to bring the ship back into commission. Therefore I must tell your Lordships with great regret—and it is genuine regret—that our plans for Eagle must remain unchanged. But in saying this I should perhaps make it clear that the ship is not now on her way to the scrapyard. She will be towed to Devonport dockyard later this year when certain of her equipment will be earmarked to support the "Ark Royal". At the appropriate time, probably not before the end of 1973, a decision will be taken as to when she should be disposed of for scrap. Although the process of removing stores and equipment from her, which was mentioned by my noble friend, will continue, for the time being she may not be very far removed from what my noble friend Lord Mottistone has suggested: a ship in what he described as "unmaintained reserve". My Lords, if circumstances should change between now and the end of 1973 we could of course look at the matter again; but for reasons which I have explained to your Lordships this evening I really do not see how we could have come to any other decision.

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Eccles, I beg to introduce a Bill to establish the National Library for the United Kingdom under the control and management of a new board, and incorporating the Library of the British Museum; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.